Professor Sheila Amin Gutiérrez de Piñeres, currently serving as interim dean of libraries and associate provost at UT Dallas, has been named an American Council on Education (ACE) Fellow.

Piñeres will focus on an issue of concern to UT Dallas while spending the 2010-2011 academic year working with a college or university president and other senior officers at a host institution.  She is one of 46 candidates selected for the program.

The ACE program combines retreats, interactive learning opportunities, campus visits and placement at another higher education institution to condense years of on-the-job experience and skills development into a single semester or year. 

She will be included in the highest level of decision making while participating in administrative activities and learning about an issue  that benefits UT Dallas.

“This is an exciting element of my professional development,” said Pineres, who is an economics professor in the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences where she heads the school’s program in Public Policy and Political Economy. “I’ve been at UT Dallas since 1996 and have seen this university go through many changes.”

“As an ACE Fellow I will have the opportunity to learn how other universities plan, implement and operate,” she said. “This is consistent with my administrative career – take advantage of opportunities to learn. I’ve been fortunate that Provost Hobson Wildenthal has afforded me many opportunities to learn.”

In January, Wildenthal, executive vice president and provost at UT Dallas, appointed Piñeres to serve as interim dean of libraries while a University committee conducts a national search for a new dean.

“Dr. Pineres has demonstrated time and again her passion for helping students achieve even beyond their dreams, and has selflessly volunteered again and again to help her university solve problems and improve performance,” Wildenthal said. “She thus has demonstrated in full measure the key attitudes and capabilities required of an effective university administrator.”

ACE President Molly Corbett Broad announced the selections  on Tuesday in Washington, D.C. Of the nearly 1,700 participants in the first 45 years of the program, more than 300 have become chief executive officers and more than 1,100 have become provosts, vice presidents or deans.

Piñeres received her doctorate in economics at Duke University in 1992 and specializes in Latin American development and trade. She has written or co-authored numerous scholarly journal articles in developmental economics. In 2008 she wrote Guns, Drugs, and Development in Colombia with Kevin M. Curtin and EPPS professor Jennifer Holmes.

She is currently associate provost. From 2006 to 2008 she served as associate provost for enrollment services. From 2002-2005 she was associate dean for undergraduate education. She is on the board of the North Texas Chapter of the Fulbright Association, and a member of the Dallas Committee on Foreign Relations.