Ron Mangun, professor in the departments of Psychology and Neurology and director of the Center for Mind and Brain, has agreed to serve as interim dean of the Division of Social Sciences, effective August 1, 2008. His appointment is subject to approval by the Board of Regents.

"A respected faculty member and administrator, Professor Mangun has the experience and skills to ably fill the position of Interim Dean while the national search to fill the position on a permanent basis continues," Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef said in making the announcement earlier this week.

Mangun joined the faculty at UC Davis in 1992 and served as head of the Perception and Cognition Area in the Department of Psychology from 1996 to 1999. In 1999, he left Davis for Duke University to take the position of director of Duke's Center for Cognitive Neuroscience.

He returned to UC Davis in 2002 to establish the Center for Mind and Brain. The center is an interdisciplinary research and training unit dedicated to understanding the nature of the human mind, and how it arises from the biology of the brain.

Mangun studies how our brains help us understand the world around us, especially how we can pay attention to some events, thoughts or actions while ignoring irrelevant information. His laboratory uses tools including behavioral studies, recordings of electrical activity in the brain through electrodes placed on the scalp, and functional magnetic resonance imaging to identify areas of the brain involved in various attention-related processes.