Jen Moon, Vice Provost for Professional-Track Faculty

Jen Moon is the Vice Provost for Professional-Track Faculty and a Professor of Instruction in BIO and the Molecular Biosciences department in the College of Natural Sciences. She earned her Ph.D. in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology from Indiana University-Bloomington studying regulated gene expression in plants and completed her postdoctoral work in the same field at The University of Texas at Austin in 2007.  She began teaching full time at UT in 2007.

Dr. Moon has taught 13 different courses over the years, but these days regularly teaches Honors Genetics for first year undergraduates. Dr. Moon has won several teaching awards such as the Regents Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award, the President’s Associates Teaching Excellence Award, Natural Science Council Faculty Service Award, and College of Natural Science Teaching Excellence Award, and served as the 2020-2021 chair of the Provost’s Teaching Fellows. She is an inaugural member of the University’s Distinguished Service Academy and was inducted into the UT System Academy of Distinguished Teachers.

Prior to becoming Vice Provost, Dr. Moon served as the inaugural Assistant Dean for Professional-Track Faculty in the College of Natural Sciences (2015-2022) where she led efforts to standardize and create policies and guidelines for CNS Professional-Track Faculty pertaining to teaching workload, providing equitable salaries, resource allocation, and promotion guidance. She established the CNS Professional-Track Faculty Committee with elected representatives from departments, and formed subcommittees to create ProTrack Faculty exit surveys, reports on best practices, and host community-building socials. In 2022, Dr. Moon began a two-year term as chair of UT Austin’s Faculty Council where she continued to work on faculty focused issues.