Duke University Names Heather Mechler Director of Institutional Research

Heather Mechler, the director of institutional analytics at the University of New Mexico, has been named associate vice provost and director of institutional research at Duke University, said Executive Vice Provost Mohamed Noor. She will begin the position Aug. 1.

Mechler will oversee the collection of historical and comparative data about academic and campus life trends and analyze the data to advise Duke senior leadership and academic units on strategic issues affecting student, faculty and staff members.

She succeeds David Jamieson-Drake, who is moving to part-time status after serving in the Office of Institutional Research since 1983.

“We have all benefitted tremendously from David’s leadership, and we are very excited now for the opportunity to benefit from Heather’s insights as we navigate a range of challenges to and opportunities around higher education,” said Noor.

The Office of Institutional Research is the keeper of an array of essential data points related to Duke’s academic mission, from the demographics of the undergraduate student population to the speed with which graduate students earn their degrees. The data and its analysis have been essential to university planning around issues from financial aid to shifts in student majors over the decades.

Most recently, the office played key roles in the work of the Racial Equity Advisory Council and helped develop and assess two campus culture surveys at Duke since 2021.

At the University of New Mexico, Mechler’s background in data analysis and storytelling helped leadership in making data-informed decisions. She collaborated with departments across the university to identify research needs and worked with them to design studies and present the translated findings from complex data sets in a clear and understandable manner.

Mechler joined New Mexico’s Office of Institutional Analytics in 2013 and became director of the office in 2016. Previously, she was a faculty member in education at Bucknell University and the University of Alabama. She has also worked for the Southern Poverty Law Center designing language-arts curriculums promoting multicultural awareness for K-12 students.

Mechler holds a B.A. in music and a Ph.D. in educational psychology from the University of Alabama.