Grant McGimpsey, one of four candidates up for the position of UNM vice president of research, talked at an open forum held in the SUB on Tuesday about the important role research plays at universities.
UNM Provost Chaouki Abdallah invited each of the candidates to visit campus and meet with faculty, students and staff during their stay. Open forums for each candidate have been scheduled, after which the community will have the opportunity to offer feedback.
Abdallah will make the final decision on who gets the job, but he will take feedback from the search committee and the general public into consideration, said Julie Coonrod, search committee chair.
The selected candidate will take over the Main campus research program from Interim Vice President for Research Michael Dougher, who will retire next June, according to the search committee website.
McGimpsey is currently the vice president for research at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. Originally from Canada, he has a science background and has done research in laser chemistry, nanoscience, biosensors and prosthetics. He has published 80 journal articles, holds nine issued patents and has one patent pending.
“It’s about the impact of what we do on the outside world,” McGimpsey said. “I think that when you combine medicine, engineering, the sciences, the arts and humanities, among other things you open up a lot of different possibilities for the impact of research. UNM has more of those pieces (than Kent State). It’s a larger university from a research perspective and it sounds like there’s some exciting opportunities.”
McGimpsey said that universities have three main duties to fulfill in order to better their surrounding communities: solving major challenges such as environmental problems, improving quality of life both physically and culturally, and using research to drive economic development.
He discussed his work at Kent and the programs he started there to aid faculty on an individual basis. He worked to find out each person’s individual skill set and then helped those people move forward on research in any way possible, he said. Initiatives to help faculty with creating proposals and getting them passed are also important to McGimpsey.
He also answered questions from a wide range of faculty about how he would handle specific issues if he gets the job.
“We should be making things interesting. There is such an opportunity for universities to enrich the lives of the people in the community and we should be doing more of that,” McGimpsey said. “We should do more outreach, we should tell (people) more about what we do. Yes, we educate people, but we also enrich their lives.”
The four finalists for the position were chosen from a large pool of applicants who replied to a national search, Coonrod said. The search committee rated each applicant based on a list of preferred qualifications and chose a top group. The finalists were chosen from that group based on interviews conducted over Skype, according to Coonrod.
Three other finalists for the new VP of Research will each speak at open forums in the coming weeks:
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
- Alan Rebar is a senior associate vice president for research and executive director of Discovery Park at Purdue University, and a professor of Veterinary Clinical Pathology in the College of Veterinary Medicine. Campus visit dates: Feb. 16-17; Public forum: Feb 16, 2-3 p.m., SUB Ballroom C
- Gabriel P. Lopez is a professor of biomedical engineering and mechanical engineering & materials science at Duke University and an adjunct professor of chemical and biological engineering at UNM. Campus visit dates: Feb. 23-24; Public forum: Feb. 23, 1:30-2:30 p.m., SUB Lobo A&B
- Robert Peterkin is the chief scientist for Directed Energy in the Air Force Research Laboratory, where he is responsible for scientific quality for all Air Force Directed Energy Research & Development, which has an annual budget of as much as $330 million. Campus visit dates: March 4-5; Public forum: March 4, 2-3 p.m., SUB Lobo A&B
Marielle Dent is a staff reporter for the Daily Lobo. She can be contacted at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @Marielle_Dent.
