Dr. Kerstin M. Soderlund

As the associate dean for student and external affairs, Dr. Kerstin Soderlund oversees the Jepson School's admission process, coordinates community-based learning experiences, collaborates with community partners, and coordinates the internship process for Jepson students. In 2023, the University's Bonner Center for Civic Engagement presented her with its Contribution to the Institution Award for her efforts to promote mutually beneficial collaboration between faculty, students, and community partners. 

Before joining the Jepson faculty in 2009, she served as the dean of students at Longwood University, where she coordinated the delivery of leadership development initiatives, helped create and direct an interdisciplinary leadership studies minor and developed a co-curricular leadership program. She has also supervised volunteer and service-learning programs, fraternity and sorority life, multicultural affairs, and disability services, and has coordinated institutional responses to psychological emergencies and other crises.

Prior to serving as dean at Longwood, she served as the director of leadership and new student programs and co-directed the Civic Leadership Institute, a program funded by the American Democracy Project.

Dr. Soderlund served as the co-chair for the 2007 National Leadership Symposium, which was sponsored by the National Clearinghouse for Leadership Programs. She has facilitated workshops for the Darden Executive Institute at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business and has presented sessions at both regional and national conferences for the National Association for Student Personnel Administrators, the American College Personnel Association, the National Association for Campus Activities and the National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition.