Senior Leadership
Interim President and Chief Financial Officer
Leanne Dowe, CPA, CA
NSCAD appointed Leanne Dowe as Interim President on July 1, 2025. She became NSCAD’s Chief Financial Officer in 2020 after serving as the university’s controller since 2016. She is a chartered professional accountant (CPA, CA) and has more than 30 years of experience as a finance professional including serving as CFO for Gammon Gold and director of finance for both the Arts Club Theatre Society and Forefront Entertainment Group.
As CFO, Leanne provides strategic financial and risk management of the university and serves as an executive resource to NSCAD’s Board of Governors including the Finance and Physical Resources Committee, and Audit and Risk Committee. She is also a board member and executive committee member of Atlantic Universities’ Interuniversity Services Incorporated.
Leanne holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, NS.
Email: finance@nscad.ca
Vice-President (Academic + Research) and Provost
Kyla Mallett
NSCAD appointed Kyla Mallett as its new Vice-President (Academic and Research) and Provost, effective July 1, 2025.
For almost seven years, Kyla has been Dean of the Audain Faculty of Art at Emily Carr University in Vancouver and has previously held multiple assistant dean positions as well as serving as a faculty member for 13 years.
Kyla earned a BFA from ECU and an MFA from the University of British Columbia. As a practicing artist, her background is in photography, text, media and print. Her work engages with the intersection of culture and language, using archival research to examine social and cultural activities with a focus on adolescence, self-help, feminisms and art.
She has shown at a broad range of galleries nationally and internationally, including Catriona Jeffries Gallery, the Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris, the Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver Art Gallery, the Art Gallery of Alberta, Presentation House Gallery, Artspeak, Chicago’s Paris London Hong Kong Gallery, Malaspina Printmakers Society and Mercer Union in Toronto.
As dean, she co-chaired the University Strategic Planning process for ECU, worked with faculty members and leadership to expand curricular offerings to include a fuller range of art practices, developed partnerships and grant opportunities for professional practice initiatives, and supported faculty-led Equity, Diversity and Inclusion initiatives through curricula and community engagement activities, as well as through educational, administrative and hiring practices.
Email: provost@nscad.ca
Academic dean
Dr. JAcqueline Warwick
Professor Jacqueline Warwick was appointed Academic Dean on July 1, 2024. Dr. Warwick is a Canadian musicologist (PhD UCLA, 2002) who came to Halifax for a position at Dalhousie University in 2003. She has served in leadership roles for more than half of her years at Dal, in the interdisciplinary Gender & Women’s Studies program, the MA program in Musicology, and as the inaugural Director of the Fountain School of Performing Arts.
In this last position, she oversaw the merging of Dal’s departments of Music and Theatre, the development of new curriculum, and fundraising for the Strug Concert Hall and Costume Studies suite in the newly opened Arts Centre expansion. She continues to be an active researcher and writer and is currently working on a book about child prodigies in music for Oxford University Press.
Email: dean@nscad.ca
Dean, Student Affairs and Registrar
Shawn Tracey
NSCAD appointed Shawn Tracey as its new Dean, Student Affairs and Registrar on July 3, 2024. Shawn comes to NSCAD from Saint Mary’s University, where he was Director of Graduate Student Support and Recruitment at the Sobey School of Business. There, he provided leadership and direction on strategic enrolment management, program operations, and student success.
Shawn has a reputation as a consensus builder and collaborator with a strong knowledge of best practices and data-driven decision making. He served as director of Advancement at the Halifax Grammar School, worked at Dalhousie University as an assistant registrar and a development officer, and chaired the Board of Directors for the Nova Scotia College of Early Childhood Education.
In his first year, Shawn has embraced the role to grow an integrated, student-facing support system at NSCAD, from admission to graduation. The Dean reports to the Vice-President (Academic & Research) and Provost, providing strategic and student-focused leadership to the Office of Student Experience, which houses all these offices under one umbrella.
Associate Vice-President, Operations
dan harroun
Dan Harroun was appointed Associate Vice-President of Operations on April 2, 2024, a position that is integral to the facilitation of NSCAD’s planned consolidation at the Port Campus in 2030.
Dan joins NSCAD with a rich background in engineering and project management and brings more than two decades of operational experience to the position.
Dan previously worked with the Halifax Regional Centre for Education (HRCE) where he was responsible for the operation and maintenance of the HRCE site and buildings. His role involved liaising with regional and municipal authorities like Health Canada, Halifax Fire and the Halifax Water Commission to ensure the safe and efficient operations of schools across the city.
Prior to that, he was the Senior Project Manager for Wood Environmental and Infrastructure, where he facilitated the design, construction, and tendering of building and municipal projects. His most memorable experience was a 16-year stint at Hershey Canada, where he managed the engineering operations of the Moir’s Chocolate Plant; facilitating robotic packaging and manufacturing projects, reducing utilities costs by four per cent and maintenance expenses by six per cent.
He has also worked with the Municipality of East Hants, Ainsworth Inc., SNC-Lavalin Operations and Maintenance, and Eaton’s Crouse-Hinds. Harroun has a Bachelor of Engineering (Industrial Engineering) and a Bachelor of Science (Mathematics) from Dalhousie University.
As AVP, Operations, he will oversee Computer Services, as well as the Facilities Management team.
Email: facilities@nscad.ca