Dr. Elaine D. Collins is the current Associate Dean of the College of Science at San José State University, and she has been an active professor and university administrator for more than twenty-five years. Currently, she oversees student support programs, transitional programs, and advising for College of Science students.  She is also involved in campus-wide initiatives to improve retention and graduation rates for all students and to remove all differences in retention and graduation rates between underrepresented minority and Pell grant-eligible students and their peers. 

Dr. Collins received her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from University of California at Riverside, and has taught at Riverside Community College and CSU Fullerton before becoming a faculty member at SJSU in 1998.   

As a professor, she taught lecture and laboratory courses in biochemistry and was an active researcher on vitamin D nuclear receptors with 29 publications. Also during that time, she was the Executive Director of the Santa Clara County Biotechnology Education Partnership, a program for outreach and curriculum development for high school science programs in biotechnology.