A professor with appointments in three UCLA departments will serve as the 2027-28 chair of the Academic Senate.

Catherine Sugar, who will begin her term as chair Sept. 1, 2027, was elected as 2026-27 vice chair of the Academic Senate, said Senate secretary Frances Olsen in a May 4 announcement. Sugar is a professor of biostatistics in the Fielding School of Public Health, a professor of statistics in the School of Letters and Science and a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences in the David Geffen School of Medicine.

“I am honored, excited, and very much humbled to have been elected to this new Senate leadership role and will do my best to serve the entire UCLA community,” Sugar said in an emailed statement.

Sugar will succeed Tim Groeling, a professor of communication, who will serve as the Senate’s 2026-27 chair. Groeling previously served on the ASUCLA Communications Board – which oversees UCLA Student Media, including the Daily Bruin.

Groeling will succeed Megan McEvoy – a microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics professor who will serve as the Senate’s immediate past-chair – on Sept. 1.

The Academic Senate is an association of UCLA faculty that serve an advisory role in the management of the university. The Senate manages degree and enrollment requirements, proposes new academic programs and advises school administrators on personnel decisions.

The Senate also elected new at-large members of its Executive Board, as well as members of the committee on committees – which nominates and selects the Senate’s chair and vice chair, who are then approved by the Legislative Assembly. The election was conducted through an online ballot from April 14 to 28.

Sugar, a Pomona College and Stanford University alumnus, researches clustering and data analysis, which she applies to areas including HIV/AIDs, mental health and dentistry, according to her School of Public Health website biography. She has developed a data-oriented method to define and analyze health state models, according to her website.

“I get to use math to try to improve people’s health,” Sugar said in an emailed statement. “My collaborations with faculty across campus from many different fields has given me insight into the many challenges facing researchers in the current environment.”

Sugar said in the statement that she has taught a range of courses, from introductory statistics to seminars for doctoral students.

“One of the great joys of being a statistician is that everyone has data and it has been wonderful to see all the different ways in which students have used the material they have learned in my courses,” she said.

Sugar previously served as the chair of the UCLA Undergraduate Council – which makes policy for UCLA undergraduate students – and is currently the chair of the UC Systemwide Educational Policy Committee, which considers the creation and dissolution of schools, programs and majors across the University. She also serves as the director of the Semel Institute Biostatistics Core, which helps faculty secure funding and analyze data accurately for their research projects.

Sugar also previously served as the Senate’s Public Health Faculty Executive Committee chair, where she said she helped develop and implement the undergraduate public health major.

“I care deeply about students’ experiences at UCLA and the many challenges they face and will bring that experience to bear as part of the Divisional Senate leadership trio,” she said in the emailed statement.

Sugar also previously worked in the department of Information and Operations Management at the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business.

“There are a multitude of challenges facing UCLA – and the world of higher education more broadly – ranging from financial pressures, to intellectual and cultural divisions, to the rapid emergence of new technologies which are impacting the ways we think about knowledge, learning and work,” Sugar said in an emailed statement. “However, there are also enormous opportunities for innovation and advancement. UCLA has an important leadership role to play in this moment, and I am honored and humbled to have been entrusted with helping to guide our campus over the next three years.”