Dr. Courtney Meehan is the Interim Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and a Professor of Anthropology at Washington State University. Dr. Meehan has served in various additional leadership positions, including as Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences from 2018-2024. She is a first-generation college student and alum, awarded her M.A. in 1999 and Ph.D. in 2005 from Washington State University’s Department of Anthropology.
As Interim Dean, she leads the College of Arts and Sciences’ 19 departments and programs, and 18 research centers and institutes across six campuses. She is dedicated to the educational, research, and service mission of the College, which provides over 50 percent of the educational instruction for the system and is a leader in WSU’s research, scholarship, and creative arts enterprise.
Dr. Meehan is a biological and cultural anthropologist, specializing in maternal-infant health and human milk composition. Her research has investigated how cannabis and COVID-19 effects human milk composition and how the environment and human behavior influence the human milk microbiome and milk immune factors. She has conducted longitudinal research in the Central African Republic, Ethiopia, and the United States, and studies on global variation in human milk composition around the world.
