{"id":494289,"date":"2026-10-13T04:20:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T04:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/494289\/"},"modified":"2026-10-13T04:20:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T04:20:08","slug":"new-dean-welcomed-to-usc-iovine-and-young-academy-annenberg-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/494289\/","title":{"rendered":"New dean welcomed to USC Iovine and Young Academy \u2013 Annenberg Media"},"content":{"rendered":"

The installation ceremony for Anijo Matthew was held on Oct. 5 to celebrate his new role as dean of USC\u2019s Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy. He replaced former dean Thanassis Rikakis, who stepped down in July 2025 and remains at IYA as a professor of arts, technology and the business of innovation, according to USC Today<\/a>. <\/p>\n

USC President Beong-Soo Kim, Provost Andrew T. Guzman and IYA founders Jimmy Iovine and Andre \u201cDr. Dre\u201d Young attended Mathew\u2019s official welcome. <\/p>\n

\u201c[Mathew] had a very clear initiative: to take IYA from the startup phase it has been in, and is still perceived to be in, to a bigger institution,\u201d said Keanan Duffty, a lecturer in fashion innovation at IYA. \u201cI mean physically bigger, but also bigger in its goals. We can\u2019t be a startup forever. I\u2019m quoting him on that point, and I think he\u2019s absolutely right.\u201d <\/p>\n

Duffty has taught at IYA since 2023. According to the IYA<\/a> website, Mathew has worked to combine design, technology and business to solve problems.<\/p>\n

\u201cDean Mathew is fantastic,\u201d Duffty said. \u201cAside from all the professional and academic weight he brings to the role, he\u2019s a great person. He has a very positive, light touch. He\u2019s extremely personable and has a great sense of humor.\u201d <\/p>\n

At his installation ceremony, as reported by USC<\/a>, Mathew quoted Albus Dumbledore, a character from the \u201cHarry Potter\u201d series: \u201cIt\u2019s our choices, Harry, that show us who we truly are, far more than our abilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur choices matter,\u201d Mathew said. \u201cThe choices we make together will decide what IYA becomes and what our graduates become.\u201d <\/p>\n

Mathew declined an interview with Annenberg Media. According to his public relations team, Mathew was not ready to discuss his long-term goals for the school. <\/p>\n

Before his role at USC, Mathew served as dean of the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology and co-founded a digital design firm in India. He received his doctorate in design computing from The Open University in the United Kingdom after completing his master\u2019s degree in design studies at Harvard University and a professional bachelor of architecture at the Birla Institute of Technology in India, according to the IYA website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sid Chowdury, a freshman studying business of innovation at IYA and USC Marshall School of Business, says the new dean often interacts with students. <\/p>\n

\u201cHaving his experience in design is valuable to such a school, and he has a bunch of accolades,\u201d Chowdury said. \u201cHe\u2019s super nice and he\u2019s super involved. Like I see him around the building and he\u2019s just so happy to see you.\u201d <\/p>\n

Another student, Eve Nepo, who is studying arts, technology and the business of innovation at IYA, said she would like to see the dean preserve the school\u2019s close-knit community as it grows. <\/p>\n

\u201cI do think IYA has hit its peak. Like we\u2019ve grown a lot, and I think right now the main problem is we\u2019re trying to figure out how to keep that small-like cohort style learning with these big numbers coming in,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

Tina Sharkey, a lecturer in business of innovation at IYA, expressed similar thoughts about the school\u2019s close-knit community and said Mathew has the experience needed to continue the school\u2019s growth.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe really understands all three worlds that define the academy, which is design, technology, and business. He\u2019s an entrepreneur. He\u2019s an educator, and he\u2019s a proven institutional builder. That\u2019s an incredibly powerful combination,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe academy was founded on an audacious idea by Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre, and Dean Mathew really understands how to honor that founding vision while building the right systems, and right partnerships, and the right institutional capacity to take it to the next level. So we have an opportunity to really codify our leadership as a model for higher education under his leadership,\u201d she continued.<\/p>\n

Sharkey said she believes IYA will continue to grow under Mathew\u2019s leadership. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe can codify what makes it so special while managing the need to scale our impact and then continually demonstrate why this model matters more than ever in order to get our students ready to be the leaders in the future of work,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Edited by Natalie Cerna <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The installation ceremony for Anijo Matthew was held on Oct. 5 to celebrate his new role as dean…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":494290,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[14850,11122,2195,8403,119699,60076,192253,192251,48,52,51,192252,47,50,49,1282,3533,192250,20967],"class_list":["post-494289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-academic","tag-academy","tag-and","tag-celebration","tag-dean","tag-founders","tag-gathered","tag-iovine","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-ledership","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-new","tag-usc","tag-welcomed","tag-young"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}