About the Provost
Laura Lowe Furge began as provost of Muhlenberg College on June 1, 2021. As provost, Dr. Furge collaborates with faculty and staff on all matters related to the curriculum and academic program. Academic and administrative offices reporting to the provost’s office include the School of Graduate and Continuing Education, Global Education, Digital Learning, the Trexler Library, the Academic Resource Center, the Registrar’ Office, the Institution for Religious and Cultural Understanding, the Center for Ethics, the Institute of Public Opinion, the Faculty Center for Teaching, undergraduate research, and all academic departments and programs.
Prior to joining the faculty at Muhlenberg, Dr. Furge was a faculty member for 22 years at Kalamazoo College, Michigan, where she served in various leadership roles including interim provost and associate provost. In her administrative roles she oversaw the launch of a Howard Hughes Medical Institute grant to support diversity and inclusivity initiatives on campus and a Mellon grant for invigorating experiential education among other responsibilities. Working with groups across campus, she participated in assessment activities including generation of new institutional learning outcomes, assessment protocols, and interim reporting to the institution’s accreditation body, the Higher Learning Commission.
Dr. Furge holds a B.A. in Biochemistry from Oberlin College and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Vanderbilt University. She was also a post-doctoral fellow with Nobel Laureate Stanley Cohen. With over 25 peer-reviewed publications in areas of toxicology, drug metabolism and cell-signaling as well as in biochemistry education, Dr. Furge has been an active scholar and trained over 35 undergraduate research assistants including many from under-represented groups. Many of her research assistants have received national awards and nearly all have completed (or are completing) advanced degrees in biomedical research or medicine.
Within national biochemistry education circles, Dr. Furge served on the editorial board for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education as a special feature editor for the Innovative Lab Series. She was also a judge at the undergraduate poster session of the annual national meeting of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Her experiences in the broader biochemistry community have lead to numerous invitations to speak about biochemistry education and readiness for careers at primarily undergraduate institutions.
Dr. Furge currently serves on the steering committee for the Great Lakes Drug Metabolism and Disposition Discussion Group and on the executive committee for the South Carolina IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE) network.
Dr. Furge also holds appointment, with tenure, as Professor of Chemistry at Muhlenberg College.
