Campus News

Four finalists for vice president for research position will visit campus

Four finalists for the position of vice president for research and associate provost will visit campus in May and June to meet with university administrators and faculty, and with staff in the Office of the Vice President for Research.

A 19-member search committee, chaired by Alan Darvill, co-director of the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center, conducted a national search for the position. Gordhan Patel, who has been UGA’s vice president for research and associate provost since 2001, will retire in September after nearly 38 years at the university.

“The search committee evaluated a very impressive group of applicants and has chosen four outstanding candidates to visit the University of Georgia campus,” says Darvill. “We look forward to having them here.”

The finalists are:

  • Da Hsuan (Victor) Feng, vice president for research and graduate education and professor of physics at the University of Texas at Dallas;
  • Janie Fouke, dean of the College of Engineering and professor of electrical and computer engineering at Michigan State University;
  • Lawrence Krauss, chair of the physics department and Ambrose Swasey Professor of Physics at Case Western Reserve University, where he is also director of the Center for Education and Research in Cosmology and Astrophysics and professor of astronomy; and
  • David Lee, chair of the department of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and program leader of UNC’s Lineberger Comprehensive Care Center Cell Biology Program.

Each candidate will address an open meeting with UGA faculty. All meetings will be from 3 to 4:30 p.m. in room 214 of the Student Learning Center. Feng will visit May 23, Lee on May 31, Fouke on June 22 and Krauss on June 27.

The University of Georgia is considered among the nation’s top public research universities. External funding for research at UGA rose to a record $159.9 million in the 2004 fiscal year.