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Current Kirkland House interim faculty deans Peter J. Huybers and Downing Lu will stay on in their roles as the House’s next permanent faculty deans, College Dean David J. Deming announced in a Thursday email to Kirkland affiliates.

Huybers, an Earth and Planetary Sciences professor, and Lu, a doctor and hospital administrator, took over as interim faculty deans in July after Deming and his wife Janine M. Santimauro, a Boston Children’s Hospital administrator, stepped down from their posts following Deming’s appointment to dean of the College.

Huybers’ and Lu’s permanent titles will become official on July 1, one year after they moved into Kirkland.

Deming wrote that after convening a search committee at the beginning of the semester, the College chose to remove Huybers and Lu’s interim title due to their quick integration into the House and strong praise from Kirkland residents.

“Since joining Kirkland earlier this year, Peter and Downing — along with their sons Pax and Kai — have embraced the Kirkland spirit and its many traditions and quirks,” Deming wrote.

“It was wonderful to hear so much positive feedback from Kirklanders about Peter and Downing’s commitment to building a welcoming and vibrant community and advocating for the House,” he added.

Huybers holds an Environmental Science and Engineering faculty appointment in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and has chaired the EPS department since 2023. He has been a professor at Harvard since 2007.

Lu was as a senior fellow at the Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative, a program that brings leaders from around the world together to find solutions to pressing social issues, last year. She is a U.S. Army colonel and pediatrician and has worked as a high-ranking administrator in several military healthcare systems.

Both Huybers and Lu received their bachelor’s degrees from the United States Military Academy at West Point. Huybers received a Ph.D. in climate physics and chemistry from MIT in 2004, and Lu received an M.D. from Tulane University School of Medicine and an M.P.H from Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

“I think they connect with the Kirkland House students,” said Kirkland House resident Orlaith G. Lasell ’27. “You can always see one of them or their kids at IMs playing, which also matters a lot.”

“I haven’t heard a negative word,” she added. “We’re really pleased overall — we, as in Kirkland House.”

Correction: December 4, 2025

A previous version of this article misspelled the surname of Orlaith G. Lasell ’27..

—Staff writer Samuel A. Church can be reached at samuel.church@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @samuelachurch.

—Staff writer Cam N. Srivastava can be reached at cam.srivastava@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @camsrivastava.