Kathleen LeBesco

About

Dr. Katie LeBesco, Associate Vice President for Strategic Initiatives and Professor of Communication and Media Arts, serves as a member of the President’s Cabinet.

She has taken on various roles at MMC over 25+ years. Dr. LeBesco has served as Interim Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty, as well as Interim Vice President for Student Success and Engagement; she has also provided interim leadership to the Office of Institutional Advancement. Previously, Dr. LeBesco served as Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. She has co-chaired two strategic plans, led the Presidential Task Force to Restart MMC in the early months of the COVID pandemic, and co-chairs the President’s Council on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion.

Dr. LeBesco joined the MMC faculty in the department of Communication Arts in 1998, served as department chair, and was named Distinguished Chair. She was awarded the Teaching Excellence Award by the faculty, and named Outstanding Faculty by several graduating classes.

Dr. LeBesco’s books include Eating in US National Parks: Cosmopolitan Taste and Food Tourism (Routledge, 2024), The Bloomsbury Handbook of Food and Popular Culture (Bloomsbury, 2017), Culinary Capital (Berg Press, 2012), Edible Ideologies: Representing Food and Meaning (SUNY Press, 2008), Revolting Bodies? The Struggle to Redefine Fat Identity (UMass Press, 2004), The Drag King Anthology (Harrington Park Press, 2003), and Bodies Out of Bounds: Fatness and Transgression (UCalifornia Press, 2001). In addition, Dr. LeBesco has authored dozens of scholarly journal articles and book chapters in edited collections.

Dr. LeBesco earned a Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, as well as B.A. and M.A. degrees in Communication and Rhetoric from The State University of New York at Albany.