- 513-745-3354
- Hailstones Hall, Room 200
- ML HAL-200.B
Amy Overman, PhD
Dean, College of Professional Sciences and Professor of Psychology
Dr. Amy A. Overman is a recognized and dynamic leader in higher education who is passionate about improving human lives and equipping students and professionals to serve as ethical leaders and effective advocates. She has a collaborative leadership style, building shared vision while enhancing College operations and guiding innovations that benefit students, colleagues, and the community. Dr. Overman is committed to supporting student, staff, and faculty belongingness, equity, retention, and professional development and to deepening community partnerships.
Since beginning at Xavier in 2024, Dr. Overman has led numerous initiatives that have expanded opportunities for the institution, including the creation of new undergraduate academic programs in Speech, Language, and Communicative Behavior; Non-profit Management; and Health Science and Wellness. The College is also preparing to launch new graduate programs in Social Work (MSW) and Speech Language Pathology (MS). In partnership with colleagues, she also re-envisioned Xavier’s online Leadership Studies EdD and Montessori MEd. Dr. Overman has also been an active partner with fellow academic deans and Strategic Enrollment Management to support student recruitment and retention, and with Advancement and Government Relations to pursue funding for academic and clinical programs. Additionally, she collaborates with numerous divisions across the University to advance institutional priorities.
In 2025, Dr. Overman was named Special Advisor to the Provost for Health Initiatives, and in this additional role she coordinates the integration of all health-related curricular programs to provide a unified Xavier Health brand and identity across the Colleges of Professional Sciences; Arts and Sciences; Business; Nursing; and the proposed new College of Osteopathic Medicine. In this role Dr. Overman leads strategic planning efforts that align academic vision and drive implementation of interprofessional education and interdisciplinary research, and promote cross-college collaboration, establishing a cohesive framework to strengthen and sustain the Xavier Health initiative.
Dr. Overman is also an accomplished cognitive neuroscientist and tenured faculty member in the School of Psychology. Her primary research focuses on brain mechanisms of episodic memory in older and younger adults, including how people form and retrieve memory associations between items and contextual details, and how these processes differ between age groups. She uses behavioral, eye tracking, and neuroimaging (fMRI) methodologies to investigate these questions. She actively conducts research in collaboration with colleagues and students at Xavier and other universities, and her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health continuously since 2016 as well as by the National Science Foundation.
Dr. Overman embraces a teacher-scholar-mentor identity and has been a staunch advocate for incorporating evidence-informed practices in higher education, such as transparent teaching, metacognitive development, and high-impact experiences. Her peer-reviewed publications in the field emphasize both the discovery of new knowledge about theoretical mechanisms and the application of theory to real-world factors that can improve memory and cognition.
Before coming to Xavier, Dr. Overman was a Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Elon University. In her 17 years at Elon, she served in an array of leadership positions, including as Elon’s Chief Research Officer in the role of Assistant Provost for Scholarship and Creative Activity. In this role, Dr. Overman held management and budget responsibility for Office of Sponsored Programs, internal funding for faculty scholarship, and start-up funds for new faculty. She also oversaw research compliance and managed research risk, including responsibility for the IRB & the IACUC. She led a significant expansion of the university’s research enterprise, with outcomes that included a doubling of Elon’s external funding proposal submissions, and Elon’s designation among Research Colleges and Universities in the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. She also envisioned and led student-focused external grant initiatives that aligned with institutional strategic goals and promoted student retention.
Dr. Overman also previously served as Assistant Dean in the College of Arts and Sciences at Elon, and as Associate Director of Elon’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning. During her time in North Carolina, she co-founded and served as State Chair of the North Carolina American Council on Education (ACE) Women’s Network, which advances and supports women in higher education careers. A unifying theme across all of these experiences is her strong belief in the exceptional value of higher education environments that integrate teaching, research, and practice, and do so through the cultivation of meaningful personal relationships.
- 513-745-3354
- Hailstones Hall, Room 200
- ML HAL-200.B
Dr. Amy A. Overman is a recognized and dynamic leader in higher education who is passionate about improving human lives and equipping students and professionals to serve as ethical leaders and effective advocates. She has a collaborative leadership style, building shared vision while enhancing College operations and guiding innovations that benefit students, colleagues, and the community. Dr. Overman is committed to supporting student, staff, and faculty belongingness, equity, retention, and professional development and to deepening community partnerships.
Since beginning at Xavier in 2024, Dr. Overman has led numerous initiatives that have expanded opportunities for the institution, including the creation of new undergraduate academic programs in Speech, Language, and Communicative Behavior; Non-profit Management; and Health Science and Wellness. The College is also preparing to launch new graduate programs in Social Work (MSW) and Speech Language Pathology (MS). In partnership with colleagues, she also re-envisioned Xavier’s online Leadership Studies EdD and Montessori MEd. Dr. Overman has also been an active partner with fellow academic deans and Strategic Enrollment Management to support student recruitment and retention, and with Advancement and Government Relations to pursue funding for academic and clinical programs. Additionally, she collaborates with numerous divisions across the University to advance institutional priorities.
In 2025, Dr. Overman was named Special Advisor to the Provost for Health Initiatives, and in this additional role she coordinates the integration of all health-related curricular programs to provide a unified Xavier Health brand and identity across the Colleges of Professional Sciences; Arts and Sciences; Business; Nursing; and the proposed new College of Osteopathic Medicine. In this role Dr. Overman leads strategic planning efforts that align academic vision and drive implementation of interprofessional education and interdisciplinary research, and promote cross-college collaboration, establishing a cohesive framework to strengthen and sustain the Xavier Health initiative.
Dr. Overman is also an accomplished cognitive neuroscientist and tenured faculty member in the School of Psychology. Her primary research focuses on brain mechanisms of episodic memory in older and younger adults, including how people form and retrieve memory associations between items and contextual details, and how these processes differ between age groups. She uses behavioral, eye tracking, and neuroimaging (fMRI) methodologies to investigate these questions. She actively conducts research in collaboration with colleagues and students at Xavier and other universities, and her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health continuously since 2016 as well as by the National Science Foundation.
Dr. Overman embraces a teacher-scholar-mentor identity and has been a staunch advocate for incorporating evidence-informed practices in higher education, such as transparent teaching, metacognitive development, and high-impact experiences. Her peer-reviewed publications in the field emphasize both the discovery of new knowledge about theoretical mechanisms and the application of theory to real-world factors that can improve memory and cognition.
Before coming to Xavier, Dr. Overman was a Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Elon University. In her 17 years at Elon, she served in an array of leadership positions, including as Elon’s Chief Research Officer in the role of Assistant Provost for Scholarship and Creative Activity. In this role, Dr. Overman held management and budget responsibility for Office of Sponsored Programs, internal funding for faculty scholarship, and start-up funds for new faculty. She also oversaw research compliance and managed research risk, including responsibility for the IRB & the IACUC. She led a significant expansion of the university’s research enterprise, with outcomes that included a doubling of Elon’s external funding proposal submissions, and Elon’s designation among Research Colleges and Universities in the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. She also envisioned and led student-focused external grant initiatives that aligned with institutional strategic goals and promoted student retention.
Dr. Overman also previously served as Assistant Dean in the College of Arts and Sciences at Elon, and as Associate Director of Elon’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning. During her time in North Carolina, she co-founded and served as State Chair of the North Carolina American Council on Education (ACE) Women’s Network, which advances and supports women in higher education careers. A unifying theme across all of these experiences is her strong belief in the exceptional value of higher education environments that integrate teaching, research, and practice, and do so through the cultivation of meaningful personal relationships.
First Year at Xavier
2024