Contact Information:
Office: MSRB III 1266
Mailing: DUMC Box 103855
As Associate Dean for Research Training, Dr. Sullivan oversees the Office of Biomedical Graduate Education. She provides leadership and broad strategic vision for all areas related to research training for biomedical Ph.D. students in the School of Medicine. With OBGE, she develops and implements new initiatives to enhance the quality and efficacy of the Ph.D. training mission, including development of best practices in core curriculum development, evaluation and assessment, and student progress tracking. She also oversees School of Medicine Ph.D. student admissions and recruitment and coordinates efforts to enhance students’ wellness, career, and professional development. Her duties include serving as a liaison to the Graduate School, directors of graduate studies, program directors, affiliated faculty, and trainees.
Dr. Sullivan obtained her undergraduate degree in Biology, Chemistry, and Classics from Western Maryland College and earned her Ph.D. in Human Genetics from the University of Maryland at Baltimore. She completed postdoctoral training at the MRC Human Genetics Unit (Edinburgh, UK) and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies (La Jolla, CA). She was recruited to Duke in 2005 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology. In 2023, she was named a James B. Duke Distinguished Professor. Her lab studies mechanisms of human genome stability in normal and disease states, with a focus on the genomics and epigenetics of the centromere, functional characterization of alpha satellite variation, and genome engineering of human artificial chromosomes and chromosome rearrangements.