Dr. Ryan Harrod

Dean of Academic Affairs and Chief Academic Officer, Garrett College, Maryland

Ryan Harrod is currently the Dean of Academic Affairs and Chief Academic Officer (CAO) at Garrett College in McHenry, Maryland.

Ryan earned his Bachelor's of Science degree in Psychology from the University of Utah. He holds a Master of Arts degree in Anthropology from the University of Idaho, where he specialized in bioarchaeology. He earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree (Ph.D.) from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), focusing on the bioarchaeology of social control in pre-contact Puebloan society.

Ryan worked as an instructor at the College of Southern Nevada before accepting a position with the Nevada State Historic Preservation Office as an Archaeological Technician. In this final year of his doctoral work, Ryan served as the Barrick Fellow in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Ryan accepted a tenure-track faculty position at University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) in 2013. He worked for 9 years at UAA where he was promoted to Associate Professor and served as chair of the Department of Anthropology. He also served as co-advisor to the Alpha Phi Omega fraternity.

Ryan became Garrett College's Dean of Academic Affairs a) in July 2021. His work in academia has long focused on assessing student learning, and his current goals are to expand articulation agreements with four-year institutions to benefit rural students. Ryan Harrod and his wife, Stephanie, who is an attorney, reside in Morgantown with son Kael and daughter Amara.