Szymanski has more than twenty years of experience in higher education. Before joining William Peace University, she served as Provost at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. She began her academic career as a faculty member at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minnesota. There, she became full professor and held multiple leadership positions, including associate provost, interim provost, associate dean of the school of humanities, arts, and sciences, and department chair of psychology.
Szymanski earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology from Connecticut College and holds a doctorate in clinical psychology from West Virginia University. She completed her pre-doctoral internship at the Brown University School of Medicine in Providence, Rhode Island, and her post-doctoral fellowship at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center in Chicago. Szymanski’s area of specialty is health psychology. She has completed extensive research on women’s health and body image concerns.
