Three finalists for vice president for research and innovation selected for campus interviews

6 Apr 2015

From left, Cynthia M. Furse, Arthur F. Kramer, and Patricia Rankin

Since Robert Walters stepped down earlier this year, Dennis Dean has been serving as the interim vice president for research. A search committee was appointed in December and has been working to find the next vice president.

As part of the interview and selection process for the next vice president, Senior Vice President and Provost Mark McNamee invites all members of the campus community to meet the candidates selected for campus interviews.

University and community members are invited to attend each candidate's open forum presentation on "Research and Innovation at Virginia Tech: Vision and Strategies for the Future." The presentations will be broadcast live online for remote participants, and recordings of the sessions will be available online following each.

Candidate CVs and survey links to provide feedback will be posted on the Office of the Senior Vice President and Provost website in advance of each visit date. The search committee encourages all campus and community members to submit feedback via the online surveys.

Arthur F. Kramer: April 21-22

Kramer is the director of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science & Technology, an interdisciplinary research institute at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He received a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology, with minors in statistics and neuroscience, from the University of Illinois. Having begun his faculty career with joint appointments in psychology and mechanical and industrial engineering, he currently is the Swanlund Endowed Chair in Neuroscience and Psychology at the University of Illinois and has held numerous leadership roles in research projects and enterprises.

Open Forum Presentation: 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. April 21 at The Inn at Virginia Tech and Skelton Conference Center Latham Ballrooms D-E-F

Cynthia M. Furse: April 23-24

Furse is associate vice president for research at the University of Utah, where she also has been a researcher and faculty member since 1994. Having also served a leadership role in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, she has directed the Center of Excellence for Smart Sensors and is the chief scientist and co-founder of LiveWire Test Labs Inc. She holds master's and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Utah.

Open Forum Presentation: 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. April 24 at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute Auditorium

Patricia Rankin: April 27-28

Rankin is associate vice chancellor for research at the University of Colorado Boulder. In addition to having served on the faculty at University of Colorado since 1988, she has served as associate dean for the natural sciences (College of Arts and Sciences), associate vice chancellor for faculty diversity and development, and interim director of the Office of Contracts and Grants. She also served as a National Science Foundation program manager for two years. She holds a Ph.D. in physics from Imperial College, London University.

Open Forum Presentation: 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. April 27 at The Inn at Virginia Tech and Skelton Conference Center Latham Ballrooms D-E-F

Dedicated to its motto, Ut Prosim (That I May Serve), Virginia Tech takes a hands-on, engaging approach to education, preparing scholars to be leaders in their fields and communities. As the commonwealth’s most comprehensive university and its leading research institution, Virginia Tech offers 240 undergraduate and graduate degree programs to more than 31,000 students and manages a research portfolio of $513 million. The university fulfills its land-grant mission of transforming knowledge to practice through technological leadership and by fueling economic growth and job creation locally, regionally, and across Virginia.