The search for a permanent director of the Office of Sexual Assault Prevention and Response is underway with the search committee planning to begin on-campus interviews early next year in hopes of filling the position during the spring semester.

The committee has finished the initial review of applications for the position and has begun screening applicants, Harvard University Health Services spokesperson Lindsey Baker wrote in an email, citing Director of the Department of Health Promotion and Education and Office of Alcohol and Other Drug Services Ryan M. Travia.

She added that Travia, who is overseeing the search for the new director, said he expects the committee to start the on-campus interviews during late January or early February.

Former OSAPR director Sarah A. Rankin departed Harvard after seven years to become the Title IX Investigator for MIT at the end of September, leaving the office without a permanent director. Alicia Oeser, who previously worked as DePaul University’s coordinator of Sexual Violence Support Services, currently serves as OSAPR’s interim director.

UHS Director Paul J. Barreira announced Rankin’s departure in an email to colleagues in late August, writing that administrators would conduct a search to fill the position but not then specifying a timeline.

Throughout much of Rankin’s time as director, student groups and others on campus discussed and debated Harvard’s sexual assault policy. A referendum on the 2012 Undergraduate Council presidential ballot, which called for a reconsideration of those policies, passed with 85 percent of the vote.

The new director will need to understand Harvard’s sexual assault policies and have a sense of “why the student body voted” to reevaluate them, said Sally M. Castillo ’14, who worked with Rankin as a member of Consent, Assault Awareness, and Relationship Educators, or CAARE. Castillo added that Rankin was “very, very familiar” with the strengths and weaknesses of Harvard’s sexual assault policies.

“Whoever is coming in will need to familiarize themselves with that extensively, because in order to work on this reform, you need to know what’s working and what’s not,” Castillo said.

“I’d really love for this director to be open to talking with students about the types of reforms that we need and not just working within the administration,” Castillo said.

—Staff writer Madeline R. Conway can be reached at mconway@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @MadelineRConway.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

CORRECTION: Dec. 12, 2013

Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this article misstated the name of the organization that sponsored the referendum on Harvard’s sexual assault policy. In fact, it was the Undergraduate Council.