Over the past several months a main priority for President Jackson, faculty, and the Institute alike has been personnel searches. From the dean positions of the Lally School of Management and Technology to positions in the biotech constellations, administration is in the process of creating a great infrastructure, all according to the Rensselaer Plan.
Since last January, a new school of thought, namely constellations in biotechnology, has been created in order “to build up new areas of biology and not strengthen existing ones,” asserts Professor Georges Belfort, search committee chair. The constellations are in three specialized areas: functional tissue engineering, integrative systems biology, and biocatalysis and metabolic engineering.
President Jackson has tasked the search committee with two major responsibilities: “to start new initiatives and to increase awareness of biotechnology on campus,” says Belfort. To accomplish the latter, a distinguished lecture series with guest speakers such as 1993 Nobel Laureate Richard Roberts, RPI alumni Jeffrey Friedman of Rockefeller University and Claire Fraser of TIGER have already taken place here on campus.
President Jackson appointed three external advisors to the committee: George Whiteside from Harvard University, Joshua Lederberg from Rockefeller University, and Dr. Marlene Belfort from the Wadsworth Center.
The search committee has also received support from General Electric, President Jackson, and Art Sanderson, the vice president of research, who represents administration, affirms Professor Belfort.
The committee also took an extensive trip to the West Coast, specifically Caltech, UC-San Francisco, UC-Berkeley, Stanford University, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and the University of Washington. The intent of the trip was to alert others of the constellation search, publicize the committee works, and seek help from each institution.
The search committee is seeking one senior and two junior professors per constellation. Finding one constellation a year was the original goal of the committee, but because of the learning curve and time intensive orgainizing proess involved in a search of this magnitude, the process has been off to a slow start. Belfort assures that the process should now be efficient and steady.
So far the committee has found one senior and three junior candidates. The committee has since declined further pursuit of the remaining senior candidate and is currently in the process of evaluating the junior applicants. With help from Larry Sturman, director of the Wadsworth Center, and to a lesser extent Paul Davis from Albany Medical College and David Shub from SUNY-Albany, a set of criteria has been established to judge applicants.
Belfort exclaimed that since November, the committee has given status check presentations to the biology and chemistry departments as well as the Senate and would be more than happy to give presentations to any student groups.
The construction of the research center dedicated to this cause is set to break ground this spring and is expected to be completed within two years as well as house a parking lot.
