About Academic Affairs

At Cal Lutheran, the provost is responsible for academic affairs across the College of Arts and Sciences, School of Management, Graduate Schools of Education and Psychology, Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, and the School for Professional and Continuing Studies. The office also leads institutional accreditation, and academic support services including the library, information technology, global education, and sponsored research.

A licensed clinical psychologist, Dr. Neilson holds bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in psychology from Pepperdine University. Before moving into academic administration, she taught coursework in Psychology at Cal Lutheran for more than a decade and served as Associate Provost for Graduate and Adult Programs. Her early research career included work at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute in the Clinical Research Center for Schizophrenia.