Winthrop University

Dr. Takita Sumter provides leadership to Winthrop’s largest degree-granting college—including 14 departments and five centers and oversees more than 300 full- and part-time faculty and staff and a $18 million budget. She’s served in varied administrative roles and service positions both at Winthrop and within the broader biochemistry community. Prior to her more recent work as dean and vice provost for faculty affairs, she was the first Provost’s Faculty Fellow, interim chair of the Department of Human Nutrition and institutional co-principal investigator of Winthrop’s IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE) program.

Sumter’s scholarship has focused on understanding the biochemical processes involved in cancer initiation. She has secured more than $1.5 million in federal funding to support her research with students and has collaborated on other major funding initiatives. The funds have yielded several publications in cancer research journals, book chapters and editorial contributions to professional publications.

As a leader at the national level who promotes best practices in biochemistry education, Sumter currently serves on the National Science Foundation’s advisory committee for the biology directorate and on the presiding council for the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB). Further, she is one of the founding organizers of ASBMB’s Interactive Mentoring Initiatives for Grantsmanship Enhancement (IMAGE) program.

Sumter received her Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of South Carolina and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in pediatric oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine prior to joining the faculty at Winthrop in 2004.