On July 1, Associate Professor of Mathematics and Statistics Garikai Campbell '90 officially joined the Dean's Office staff as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. In this role, he is responsible for the College's pre-major advising system, serves as the principal liaison between the Dean's Office and the faculty, provides personal and academic advice to students, and oversees staff who coordinate programs focused on graduate and fellowship advising, learning resources and disability services support, and health careers and pre-law advising. In this important leadership role, Campbell will help shape, articulate and support the college's vision, strategies and programs to ensure continued excellence in helping students thrive at the College.

While a student at Swarthmore, where he graduated with a B.A. in Mathematics in 1990, Campbell was selected for the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship from the Andrew Mellon Foundation and earned Academic All-American honors in wrestling. Campbell returned to Swarthmore in 1997 as a Consortium for a Stronger Minority Presence Pre-doctoral Fellow in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics. After receiving his Ph.D. in 1999 from Rutgers University, he joined the faculty as a member of the department. His primary area of research focuses on elliptic curves — producing both theoretical and computational methods for discovering curves with specific algebraic properties and using these objects to solve number theoretic problems.

As a faculty member, Campbell is known for his personal commitment to students and his involvement as an advisor and mentor. Although his devotion to the success of students on campus and nationally is well known at Swarthmore, it was further recognized in 2006 when he received the Henry L. Alder Award for Distinguished Teaching by a Beginning Faculty Member from the Mathematical Association of America.