When Kristin Eschenfelder was a high school student in Virginia, she found herself drawn to Model United Nations, lured by the experience of role-playing representatives from faraway countries and learning the finer points of diplomacy.
“You’re on a Security Council with a bunch of other people, and you’re given an issue, and you have to pretend to negotiate some solution,” says Eschenfelder, who most recently served as the College of Letters & Science’s associate dean and associate director for the School of Computer, Data & Information Sciences (CDIS) and is a professor in the Information School. “It’s part theater, where you have to pretend to be different people and represent their interests, and part trying to develop some sort of solution.”
Those diplomatic and consensus-building skills she learned and honed over the course of her career are two of the many assets she brings to her newest role: Interim Dean of the College of Letters & Science. Eric M. Wilcots, the Mary C. Jacoby Professor of Astronomy who served as L&S Interim Dean in 2019 and then Dean beginning in 2020, assumed the role of UW–Madison’s Interim Chancellor on May 17, replacing departing Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin.
Eschenfelder had planned to be on leave for the 2026-27 academic year, but the opportunity to lead an organization she deeply cares about — she has been a faculty member in the College for the last 25 years and served in academic administration on the Dean’s leadership team for the last seven — was far too important to pass up.
“I have a desire to contribute in more strategic ways, to be able to think about and work on really hard problems at the campus level,” says Eschenfelder. “And what we’re pitching to our alumni and current and future students — the enduring value of a liberal arts and sciences education — is something I deeply believe in.”
Like Wilcots, Eschenfelder values her interactions with students, who are the beating heart of the College. She has taught them, worked with them, and, perhaps most importantly, learned from them, dating all the way back to those Model UN sessions back in high school.
Her new role is both massive and challenging, but it won’t be the first time Eschenfelder has been involved in leading a major campus project. She was one of the key collaborators who helped turn the vision for CDIS — soon to be the College of Computing & Artificial Intelligence (CAI) on July 1 — into reality.
She was also one of the driving forces behind the creation of the uber-popular data science major and certificate (both of which preceded CDIS) and supported development of the CDIS mission and vision statements. Getting buy-in for the latter pieces from a wide range of campus constituencies was crucial to the project’s eventual success.
“We needed a thoughtful and collaborative process that addressed concerns from all our campus partners,” Eschenfelder recalls. “Taking the time to build that collaboration and support is what made building CDIS possible, and it’s a great example of what you can do when you’re all working together.”
Eschenfelder sees several parallels in the role she served with CDIS and her new role as Interim Dean, beginning with managing critical shared governance processes among different campus units to support important new ideas and initiatives.
“I believe in systems where voices are heard and all stakeholders feel included, even If they don’t necessarily totally agree with the final outcome that comes through the collaborative process,” she says. “One of the biggest things I bring to the Interim Dean role is that I believe in listening and the value of learning from other people’s viewpoints and experiences.”
As an undergraduate at the College of William & Mary in Virginia, Eschenfelder, the daughter of a Marine, thought she’d end up as an anthropologist, participating in digs in countries like Peru. She graduated with degrees in Latin American Studies and Spanish.
One of her earliest post-graduation jobs was working as a receptionist in the student affairs office at Syracuse University, where she began taking advantage of a policy that allowed full-time staff members to take one free class per semester. Courses in computer science began to draw her attention, and she quickly discovered the burgeoning field of information science, something that hadn’t existed at her alma mater. The fit felt natural, and Eschenfelder ended up earning a master’s degree and PhD.
“The anthropologist piece of it still makes sense, because what I do is study the social aspects of computing,” she explains. “It really draws on approaches from applied cultural anthropology.”
Information sciences is also an interdisciplinary field, a fact that fits well with leading a college that touts the benefits of an interdisciplinary approach to the liberal arts and sciences.
“My academic background allows me to be deeply appreciative of all parts of L&S,” she notes. “My academic studies have spanned languages, literature, anthropology, economics and political science, and I’m intensely interested in physics and astronomy. This background gives me first-hand appreciation for the tremendous benefits of the full depth and breadth of L&S.”
That academic diversity also shows up in her research centered in the iSchool, where she studies how technology impacts the ways scholars and scientists share their work.
“There’s a somewhat dysfunctional relationship between universities and the presses – the companies that produce research journals – and it’s been an ongoing challenge,” says Eschenfelder. “Universities have to pay too much to get access to these journals that are filled with the intellectual property of our scientists.”
Eschenfelder is excited by the initiatives in the College of Letters & Science that leverage a diverse intellectual curiosity, such as the new Center for Humanistic Inquiry into AI and Uncertainty, an entity that supports humanities and social science research into key AI-related topics. She has also been tapped to co-chair the AI Readiness & Competency Working Group, a campus-wide initiative designed to position UW–Madison to take advantage of technological advances.
“We’re at an exciting time culturally, where I think, because of the growth of AI, people are more interested in the things that make us human, which is all the work that happens right here in L&S.”
Outside of academia, Eschenfelder leads an active, nature-centric life. She enjoys hiking and is only one segment away from completing the entirety of the 70-mile Dane County National Scenic Ice Age Trail. She recently took up birdwatching, a hobby spurred by one of her doctoral students.
“The thing I like about birdwatching is it’s very slow,” she says. “Hiking can be competitive — we’re going to go out, do 13 miles and reach the top of the mountain. But with bird watching, you’re just outdoors. You’re just standing in the meadow, very still, waiting for the birds to come or go.”
Eschenfelder enjoys both the cooking and the guitar playing of her spouse, Alan Rubel, who is also a professor in the iSchool. The two of them recently took a music tour, visiting Nashville and Memphis, as well as the Fame Recording Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, where Aretha Franklin and other Motown stars recorded their legendary music. Eschenfelder found herself drawn to conversations with the sound engineering students at the studio, because the work they do with song licensing touches the information-sharing research she does in the iSchool.
While the College of Letters & Science is in a strong position and has many things to look forward to, including the September 2026 opening of Irving & Dorothy Levy Hall, there are also serious challenges tied to national cuts in federal government research funding.
“Eric Wilcots assembled an amazing leadership team in the College of Letters & Science, and I’m grateful for the student-focused environment he created,” she says. “It gives me confidence that I can come in and be really successful.”