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Who is David Pantalone? NSS Dean Reflects on His First Year

May 22, 2026

As David Pantalone completes his first year as dean of Lehman’s School of Natural and Social Sciences (NSS), he is also marking a major scholarly milestone: surpassing 10,000 citations. A clinical psychologist, HIV researcher, and educator, Pantalone sees the number as an imperfect, but meaningful measure of a career built through collaboration with students, trainees, and colleagues—and an indication that his research has impact. The achievement comes as Pantalone settles into a role that shifts his focus to helping create the conditions for faculty and students in NSS to excel in their own research. Here, he reflects on his first year as dean, his priorities, and the kind of collaborative, community-engaged academic culture he hopes to build. (The Q&A has been edited for length.)

Looking back on your first year as NSS dean, what has been most energizing about the role?

I love learning new things, meeting new people, and solving new-to-me problems. I was an associate dean for five years before arriving at Lehman, and that role was very rewarding, but more internally oriented. As NSS dean, I have a dual focus—supporting the School internally while also representing NSS across campus, throughout CUNY, and with legislators, external partners, and donors. It has been invigorating to have those additional elements as part of my job.

What priorities have emerged for the School, and where do you see the greatest opportunities to support faculty, staff, and students?

This is already a place with outstanding teaching and a formidable commitment to do right by our students. I am grateful to be surrounded by creative and dedicated staff and faculty who do so much with limited resources. My goal is to recognize and support the folks doing the heavy lifting, and find ways to improve our research infrastructure, expand undergraduate research opportunities, and hopefully bring on more staff and faculty so that those fundamentals of academic life are bolstered.

Research is one area I will focus on a lot—primarily, removing barriers and paving the way for NSS faculty and students to pursue the research that most excites them. We have started surveying students and faculty about their research needs, and my goal is to use that information to prioritize initiatives next academic year and beyond.

Your own scholarship has been deeply collaborative and applied. How does that shape the kind of culture you want to build in NSS?

I want the faculty in NSS to have professionally and personally vibrant scholarly careers. We spend a lot of time talking to each other about our students, courses, and curricular plans, but our scholarly work lives tend to be quite separate. We need to create spaces where interdisciplinary connections can be identified and then recognize and reward them institutionally. The key is bringing people together to share their interests and their work and then letting the magic happen.

How do you hope NSS can deepen its engagement with the Bronx?

We already have longstanding relationships with the Botanical Garden and Montefiore/Albert Einstein College of Medicine, among other Bronx institutions, and I want to strengthen and expand those connections. I have also been talking with colleagues across campus about how Lehman can help enhance STEM education for Bronx K–12 students. And, aside from collaborations among academic institutions, there is so much that Bronx residents might be interested to learn about the science at work in our lives and neighborhoods, and so much that our faculty and students can learn from Bronx residents about their interests and needs.

What makes you excited to come to work each day—and what is your focus as you head into your second year?

It is really important to me to be surrounded by amazing people—and Lehman has no shortage of such folks. Every day, I am inspired by colleagues, chairs, faculty, and students who are all deeply committed to making the best possible educational experience, creating new knowledge, and to making themselves, and the world, a better, happier place.

Right now, I am laser-focused on learning to be the best possible NSS dean. I think that means (1) knowing the policies and rules as well as the people who wrote them; (2) knowing the budget as well as the finance folks; and (3) knowing the people and structures on campus so that I can identify the best path for addressing some of those new-to-me problems. All year, my joke has been that I am “0/3 but working on it.” And I promise to keep working on it in the years ahead.