Justin Wright Reappointed Trinity Graduate Dean

Professor of Biology Justin Wright has been appointed to a new term as Dean of Graduate Education for Trinity College of Arts & Sciences by Dean Gary Bennett.  

“Justin has distinguished himself as a transformative leader and mentor whose contributions to graduate education at Duke have been both personal and systemic,” Bennett said in announcing Wright’s reappointment. “Since his initial appointment in 2022, he has combined strategic vision with day-to-day engagement to elevate the culture of mentorship across Duke’s largest academic unit. With calm and steady leadership, he has balanced structural constraints with an unwavering focus on the needs and dignity of students.”  

As graduate dean, Wright works closely with directors of graduate studies in departments across Trinity’s three divisions, offering support on issues from budget strategy to curriculum planning while fostering candid, solutions-focused conversations on mentorship, funding and program sustainability.  

Through the creation of the Mentorship Assessment Fellows Program, Wright brought together faculty and students from six departments for a year-long collaboration that helped generate department-specific tools and norms for assessing the quality of mentorship. This work is being scaled across the college and has positioned Trinity as a national leader in evidence-based graduate mentorship.  

Wright, who joined Duke in 2003, is a community and ecosystem ecologist whose research focuses on the causes and consequences of patterns of biological diversity across the planet. Prior to being named graduate dean, Wright served as the Director of Graduate Studies for the University Program in Ecology and as a member of the university’s Academic Council. He also served as Associate Chair for Ecology, Evolutionary and Organismal Biology in the Department of Biology from 2017 to 2020. 

"Serving as the Dean of Graduate Education for Trinity College has been a wonderful opportunity to ensure that our graduate students are well-supported and are receiving training that is intentionally designed to provide a world-class learning experience regardless of what path has brought them to Duke or where they will head after their time here," Wright said. "I look forward to continuing to work across the divisions to facilitate and share the innovative practices that will put Duke at the cutting edge of graduate education."

Wright begins his new term as Graduate Dean on July 1.