Marlene Moore, PhD was elected to the University of Western States board in 2019. Dr. Moore earned her PhD in human anatomy from Baylor College of Medicine. After a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Oregon Health Sciences Center in endocrinology, she joined the biology faculty at University of Portland. In addition to teaching human anatomy and physiology in both the undergraduate and graduate programs for more than twenty years, she was chair of the science division and assistant to the dean for science development. In 1996, Dr. Moore was appointed dean of the college of arts and sciences. In 2010, she accepted a position at Willamette University, where she was dean of the college of liberal arts and vice president of academic affairs until 2016. While serving as a campus administrator, she worked with the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU), as an accreditation evaluator, chair of evaluation teams, and workshop facilitator before being elected to its board of commissioners in 2016. From 2017 – 2018, she served as interim president of the NWCCU while assisting with the search for the next president.
Dr. Moore lives in Oregon with her husband Zia Yamayee (emeritus professor and former dean of the schools of engineering at both Gonzaga and University of Portland) and is delighted that her son and his family have recently returned to Oregon after living in southern California for several years.