Executive Vice Chancellor › Academic Affairs
University of Nebraska-Lincoln • 208 ADMS • Lincoln, NE 68588-0106 • 402-472-3751 • ankerson@unl.edu
Katherine Ankerson has served as Executive Vice Chancellor since January 2022. An award-winning author and leader in design education, Ankerson served as dean of the College of Architecture from 2016 to 2022. She was previously a professor and head of interior architecture and product design at Kansas State University and served as a professor and associate dean at Nebraska from 1996 to 2011.
A strong proponent of design education, Ankerson advocates for interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary engagement, the value of design and making, and embracing new technologies in addition to strengthening traditional design tools.
Ankerson’s philosophy is that design education must prepare global design citizens who take leadership to foster synergy, embrace successful collaboration and recognize interconnectedness, with an awareness of the responsibility of individual and collective actions in personal, social and environmental arenas.
She is an award-winning author, and as lead of the 20th Anniversary Nuckolls Lighting Grant, she worked with nine other educators in architecture, engineering and interior design representing four major universities to initiate and produce the award-winning web-based resource Lighting Across the [Design] Curriculum. Ankerson just completed a three-year term of elected presidential leadership with the North American organization Interior Design Educators Council. She is a CIDA site visitor and the education member of the Nuckolls Lighting Fund board of directors.
Ankerson also held academic positions at Radford University and Washington State University after spending many years as a practicing architect and designer. She received her bachelor of science in architecture and bachelor of architecture from Washington State. She also earned a master’s degree in architecture from Washington State.