Terry Fulmer, a nationally known expert in geriatrics, has been appointed dean of the Bouvé College of Health Sciences at Northeastern University, Provost Stephen W. Director announced. An accomplished scholar who was elected to the Institute of Medicine in 2010, Fulmer most recently was the Erline Perkins McGriff Professor and Dean of the College of Nursing at New York University. She will join Northeastern on Oct. 1.

“I am very excited to have Terry Fulmer join the University,” said Provost Director. “She is a true scholar with exceptional leadership capabilities, as indicated by her many accomplishments at NYU. She is also someone with a clear vision, who will build on the outstanding progress that Bouvé has made to date.”

Fulmer was named the founding dean of the College of Nursing at NYU in 2005, and has held a faculty appointment there since 1995. She also served as co-director of the John A. Hartford Foundation Institute for Geriatric Nursing, and co-director of the Consortium of New York Geriatric Education Centers at NYU. She is an adjunct professor of medicine at the NYU School of Medicine.

“Bouvé is a vibrant and innovative interdisciplinary health science college, and I am very honored to have been chosen as dean,” said Fulmer. “Health-care reform, with a keen emphasis on quality and safety for the public, requires that we work together in new and creative ways. Bouvé can lead the country, given its breadth and depth of talent and the palpable enthusiasm at the college.”

During her tenure at NYU, the Division of Nursing was elevated to the College of Nursing. The college improved the quality of its students, faculty and research programs and also experienced a dramatic increase in external recognition and fundraising.

Fulmer has also held academic positions at Boston College, Yale University, Columbia University and the Harvard Medical School Division on Aging. She has been a fellow at both the American Academy of Nursing and the New York Academy of Medicine, and was the first nurse to serve as the president of the Gerontological Society of America. She earned a master’s degree in nursing and a PhD in Higher Education Administration from Boston College. She received her bachelor of science from Skidmore College.

“As dean of Bouvé, Terry Fulmer will combine her vision, passion and energy to take the college to new heights,” said President Joseph E. Aoun. “Her appointment will also strengthen our signature focus on health — a major theme of Northeastern’s teaching and research.”

Fulmer will succeed Stephen Zoloth, the founding dean of the Bouvé College of Health Sciences. Under Zoloth’s leadership for more than 10 years, Bouvé achieved new levels of excellence, including a broad range of new undergraduate and graduate offerings and vastly expanded research programs.

The Bouvé College of Health Sciences is a center of excellence in health education, research and service. The college offers nine undergraduate and 29 graduate programs with an interdisciplinary emphasis that reflects today’s integrated approach to health care.