A Bermudian academic has broken new ground after she was elected Dean of Faculty at one of America’s most prestigious universities.

Born in New York and raised in Bermuda, Eve De Rosa will take up the post at Ivy League Cornell University in New York in July – the first woman and first Black person to hold the post.

The university’s Dean of Faculty role is to inform the faculty about campus matters, tackle constituent concerns and represent faculty interests to the Board of Trustees, university administration, employees, students and graduates.

Dr De Rosa, who attended Bermuda High School for Girls, will leave her post as the Dean’s Fellow for Racial and Social Justice for the College of Human Ecology at the Ivy League university to take up the post.

She told the Cornell Daily Sun newspaper: “The College of Human Ecology had the first tenured woman at Cornell. They had the first tenured African American woman at Cornell, and now they have the first African American woman Dean of Faculty.

“There’s something that really makes me feel honoured that I’d be representing the college in that way.

“I would love to bring more discourse into the senate, allowing more perspectives to come in front of the senate so that there’s more of a conversation rather than a presentation.”

Dr DeRosa is the daughter of Bermudian Cyril DeRosa and his wife Barbara, who divide their time between the US and Bermuda.

Dr DeRosa attended Bermuda High School for Girls before getting her first degree from Vassar College and earning a PhD in experimental psychology at Harvard University. Before joining Cornell in 2013, she was an associate professor of psychology at the University of Toronto and previously did post-doctoral research at Stanford University.

Dr De Rosa added she had enjoyed her previous post at Cornell and had made a difference.

She said: “I was able to create an initiative that brings faculty to Cornell whose scholarship promotes social justice.

“I hope to broaden this initiative across the university.”