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Three emerge as finalists in provost search
By SUE WUETCHER
Reporter Editor
Three deans—two from engineering schools and one from a unit representing the physical and life sciences—have emerged as finalists in the search for a new UB provost.
The candidates are David E. Daniel, dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Martin Moskovits, dean of the Division of Mathematical, Life and Physical Sciences in the College of Letters and Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Satish K. Tripathi, dean of the Bourns College of Engineering at the University of California, Riverside.
Each of the candidates will spend several days at UB—Tripathi was on campus earlier this week, Daniel is here today and tomorrow and Moskovits will visit on Monday and Tuesday. While on campus, the candidates will meet with representative faculty, staff, students, deans, vice provosts, vice presidents, UB Council members and selected community partners and individuals, said A. Scott Weber, chair of the Provost Search Committee and professor in the Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. The search committee also plans to hold open meetings with the candidates for members of the general university community. An open meeting with Tripathi was held on Monday afternoon. Meetings with Daniel and Moskovits will be held from 12:30-1 p.m. tomorrow and Tuesday, respectively, in the Jeannette Martin Room, 567 Capen, North Campus.
More information about the candidates is available at www.buffalo. edu/provostsearch/Daniel, www. buffalo.edu/provostsearch/Moskovits and www.buffalo .edu/provostsearch/Tripathi
"Our hope is that these meetings will provide an opportunity for the candidates to gain a greater sense of the strengths and potential of UB, while simultaneously providing an opportunity for the campus community to get to know the candidates beyond what might be gleaned from a review of their respective paper records," Weber said. "Perhaps most importantly, we believe that the opportunity to meet UB's faculty, staff, students, administrators, alumni and friends will make the position of UB provost especially attractive to our three candidates.
"Our ultimate hope," he said, "is that these visits will be so successful and exciting that when President (John B.) Simpson determines to whom to make an offer, that the individual he selects will accept that offer with a sense of extraordinary pride and optimism about UB's future."
Weber called the candidates "highly respected and renowned scholars in their respective disciplines.
"All three come highly recommended by former colleagues; all three have extensive administrative experience, including decanal experience and experience as department chairs; all three are excited about the opportunities and challenges that define the future of UB, and all three share a vision for the university that is consistent with the values and goals articulated by the university community during the search process," he noted.
Daniel joined the University of Illinois in 1996 as professor and head of the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, and was named dean of the university's College of Engineering in 2001. Among his accomplishments as dean that he cited in a biographical sketch provided to the search committee are the creation of a new Department of Bioengineering, completion of the $80 million Siebel Computer Science Building and a $20 million expansion of the college's nanotechnology laboratory.
He previously was professor and associate chair for academic affairs in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin.
As dean of science at UC, Santa Barbara, Moskovits' responsibilities cover the traditional physical and biological sciences, as well as the social sciences of geography, psychology and environmental studies, among others. He holds an appointment as professor of chemistry at UCSB, and previously served as professor and chair of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Toronto. He is director of the Nanoelectronics Program in the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research.
He lists among his accomplishments in his three years as dean the addition of 50 new faculty members in the sciences, initiation of four building projects and the creation, with $55 million from the U.S. Army, of the Center for Collaborative Biotechnologies.
A computer scientist who specializes in networking and software engineering, Tripathi serves as William R. Johnson, Jr. Family Distinguished Professor of Engineering, in addition to engineering dean at UC Riverside. Among the high points of his seven years as dean he cites the tremendous growth of the college—from 550 students six years ago to a current enrollment of approximately 2000, along with the hiring of 50 faculty members—as well as the creation of M.S. and Ph.D. programs in every department within the college, which previously only had a graduate program in computer science.
His administrative experience at UC Riverside includes a stint as acting executive vice chancellor for the university.
Prior to joining UC Riverside, Tripathi spent 19 years at the University of Maryland, College Park, as a faculty member and department chair.
The three candidates were among 12 semi-finalists the search committee winnowed from a field of more than 100 inquiries, applications, and/or nominations. The committee had solicited nominations from a wide array of constituent groups, placed advertisements in national publications and worked closely with the national search firm of Witt/Kieffer to produce the lengthy list of "potentially viable candidates whose administrative expertise and experiences meshed with the qualifications we had identified as ideally suited for UB's new provost," Weber said.
The committee is charge with providing Simpson with recommendations and evaluations of the top three candidates, in unranked order, by April 15. The anticipated start date for the new provost is July 1.