Last week, Provost Christophe Pierre announced that a search committee had been formed to find a new Vice Provost for Research and Innovation (VPRI). This position, which has been vacant since the departure of former VPRI Mo Dehghani, is responsible for “the research enterprise at Stevens through services and support that help faculty, staff, and students plan, perform and commercialize groundbreaking research.”
A candidate for the position should be picked during in the 2020-2021 academic year. However, this process may take longer because the aim of the committee is to find the best possible candidate for the position. The committee will make final recommendations then send them to Provost Christophe Pierre for review. From there, candidates will meet with key constituents and, based on a collection of feedback from the search committee as well as campus interviews, a new VPRI will be chosen.
The search committee—which is chaired by Min Song, professor and Department Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering—has nine members, all of which are faculty or staff: Cindy Chin, Paul Grogan, Eric Koskinen, Stephanie Lee, Jeff Nickerson, Hady Salloum, Dibyendu “Dibs” Sarkar, Negar Tavassolian, and Hongjun Wang.
Committee members are distinguished research faculty on campus. The School of Engineering and Science, School of Business, and School of Systems and Enterprises are represented on this committee. Cindy Chin, Associate Provost, stated, “We believe this group will do an outstanding job of reflecting the views of all the constituencies served by the VPRI.” Chin is also serving alongside the faculty to provide an administrative perspective, which is required for the role.
While the VPRI supports faculty, staff, and students, no students serve on the search committee. “The primary focus of the position is on the support and services that help faculty plan, perform, and commercialize research. In turn these services will help increase research opportunities at the school and department levels for the students at graduate and undergraduate levels,” said Chin. As the candidates come for final on campus interviews, representative graduate and undergraduate students will be able to participate and provide feedback.
The VPRI has oversight of all activities that support and foster the growth of research at Stevens. This includes all Stevens research facilities, research collaboration with external partners, intellectual property, and facility security and export. A position profile of responsibilities is currently under review and will be publicly available on the search firm’s website, Perrett Laver.
While the search committee evaluates candidates, the Interim Vice Provost is Dilhan Kaylon, who succeeded Mo Dehghani in August 2019. Kaylon is a professor of chemical engineering and material science as well as the Director of the Highly Filled Materials Institute. He earned his B.E. in Chemical Engineering from the Middle East Technical University and received both his Master of Engineering and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from McGill University. His research consists of precision structuring and processing of complex fluids like polymers which can be used for the development of new scaffold fabrication methods.
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