Dr. Lorden joined the University of North Carolina at Charlotte as Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs in 2003, where she provides leadership for seven colleges, research institutes, and a university-wide graduate school.  She has overseen significant growth in enrollment, instructional programs at all levels, and funded research at UNC Charlotte, North Carolina’s urban research university of over 24,000 students and 900 faculty. During her career, Dr. Lorden has directed several programs designed to improve the recruitment of women and minorities into doctoral programs in science and engineering. She currently serves as the principal investigator for an NSF ADVANCE Institutional Transformation grant, designed to increase the recruitment and retention of women faculty in science and engineering. She is a member of the Howard University Specialized Neuroscience Research Program Advisory Committee and serves on the Board of Directors for the Charlotte Research Institute and the Institute for Social Capital.  She is active in community organizations, serving on the boards of several local organizations, including the Blumenthal Center for the Performing Arts and the Echo Foundation.  She has served as a member of the Charlotte Advisory Board for the Knight Foundation.

Before moving to Charlotte, Dr. Lorden served as Associate Provost for Research and Dean of the Graduate School at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) where she was a Professor of Psychology and directed the university-wide graduate program in neuroscience. With funding from NIH, NSF, and other agencies, she conducted research in animal models of inherited movement disorders and was awarded the Ireland Prize for Scholarly Distinction by UAB.  She has been a member of review panels and study sections at NIH, NSF, DoD, and private agencies. While at UAB, she established one of the first offices for postdoctoral scholars.  She has chaired the Boards of Directors of the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) and Oak Ridge Associated Universities and served as the Dean in Residence at the Division of Graduate Education at NSF and as president of the Conference of Southern Graduate Schools.  She continues her engagement in graduate education through her service on the NRC Committee to Assess Research Doctorate Programs.    

Lorden received a B.A. from the City College of New York and a Ph.D. in psychology from Yale University.