About the Office of the Provost

Dr. Jennifer Greer has served as acting vice provost and dean liaison since September 2023. In this role, she works with UK’s 19 deans and 16 colleges on strategic initiatives and serves as the liaison between other offices and units and the academic enterprise. Dr. Greer joined UK in 2019 as dean of the College of Communication and Information, where she grew enrollment, improved retention and graduation rates and secured two major capital projects. Prior to coming to UK, Dr. Greer, a former journalist, held administrative roles as an associate provost, interim dean, acting dean, department chair and graduate director at the University of Alabama and the University of Nevada. 

Dr. Justin “Jay” Miller began his role as acting director of UK Online Education in March 2022. He provides oversight to the operations of UK Online Education, which has as its primary roles the support and guidance of online course and program development, consultation and training, quality assurance review of online courses and partnership with campus resources that support faculty. Dr. Miller also serves as the dean of the College of Social Work, the Dorothy A. Miller Research Professor in Social Work Education and director of the Self-Care Lab.

Dr. Kenney is an internationally prominent historian and researcher who began serving as dean of The Graduate School in 2023. In his role, he also serves as associate provost for graduate and professional education.

Dr. Kenney previously held the position of associate dean for graduate education and for the social and historical sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences at Indiana University (IU) in Bloomington, Indiana. In this role, he had oversight of graduate degrees, students, departments and programs, developed and implemented a plan for $2 million in new funds to improve graduate funding, reorganized the college’s graduate office to promote recruitment and retention of graduate students from underrepresented groups and created a mentoring program to pair newly-hired faculty with senior mentors outside their department.

Before serving as an associate dean at IU, Dr. Kenney was the chair of the Department of International Studies at IU. Between 2011 and 2020, he also served as director for the Polish Studies Center, Russian and East European Institute and the Collins Living-Learning Center.

As the associate provost for internationalization, Dr. Sue Roberts is the university's senior international officer or SIO. She oversees the UK International Center, including Education Abroad, International Student and Scholar Services, International Partnerships and Research, the Global Health Initiative, International Recruitment, and International Health, Safety and Security. Her campus-wide role includes enhancing global learning, international research, working with each of UK’s colleges on initiatives related to global engagement and chairing the International Advisory Council. She also is professor of geography. In her 30 years at UK, Dr. Roberts has held a number of roles including department chair, director of the international studies program and associate dean for internationalization in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Matthew E. Sanger began his role as senior executive director in November 2022. He provides executive leadership on behalf of the provost to maximize relationships with university leadership, stakeholders, donors, alumni and others, both internally and externally. He works to align activities with university leadership partners in the president’s cabinet. He develops and operationalizes change management processes to achieve strategic project requirements as defined by the provost and other project stakeholders, including managing and directing interdisciplinary teams to meet objectives and goals. He coordinates daily operations of the Office of the Provost and provides leadership in the development and implementation of integrated business, operational, financial, facility and administrative programs, structures and policies. Prior to joining the Office of the Provost, he served as the executive director and chief of staff in the UK College of Medicine; director of administration and corporate affairs within the Office of the Executive Vice President for Health Affairs; and executive director for business operations for Beyond Blue Corporation. Sanger has been with the university since November 2012 and has more than 30 years of leadership experience in higher education and business administration.

Dr. Lisa Tannock began her role as associate provost for faculty advancement in July 2023 after serving as vice dean for faculty affairs and development in the College of Medicine, where she served as the lead for virtually all issues related to faculty, in a college with more than 1,200 faculty of diverse disciplines and backgrounds including physicians, scientists and educators. She has been a tenured full professor since 2015 with a lengthy list of peer-reviewed publications, grants and an outstanding record of academic mentoring and advising to her credit. In addition to her ongoing administrative duties, she has continued an active and funded research lab as well as her clinical practice in endocrinology. She also previously held other senior administrative positions with the Department of Internal Medicine, which included faculty recruitment, development and retention for a unit with more than 300 faculty.

Dr. Brandi Frisby began her role as associate provost for academic affairs in May 2024. In this role, she will focus on academic oversight, institutional effectiveness and accreditation, aligning with the UK strategic plan, the UK-PURPOSE.

Dr. Frisby has previously served as acting dean of the College of Communication and Information (CI), as well as senior associate dean and associate dean for student success. She was instrumental in CI’s efforts to stimulate transdisciplinary partnerships across campus to serve a variety of students, to promote career readiness for UK graduates and to engage both faculty and students in meaningful research.

 Dr. Frisby is also an accomplished researcher, having been named in the top 1% of communication studies researchers and the top 1% of communication studies prolific researchers by the Journal of Communication Education, with more than 80 journal articles published. She also serves on the editorial review boards of several communication journals.