On Monday, President Shirley Ann Jackson announced the appointment of Wei Zhao as dean of the School of Science. Zhao will begin as dean on January 1, 2007 and will take over for Samuel Wait, who has served as acting dean of the School since July 1, 2005.
Zhao said he is “very pleased to be joining the team.” He added that RPI has moved rapidly in the past few years and that the School of Science has excellent faculty and very high quality students.
Having earned degrees in physics and computer science, he began serving as associate and senior associate vice president for research at Texas A&M University in September 2001. He explained that there are several major differences between A&M and RPI. He said that the former is a state university while RPI is a prestigious private university and the missions of the schools also differ somewhat. He became director of the Division of Computer and Network Systems at the National Science Foundation last year, which last year awarded almost $200 million in research grants.
Comparing Texas A&M’s Vision 2020—the university’s strategic plan—to The Rensselaer Plan, he said “both are great plans” for each institution. He explained that the goal of Vision 2020 is to elevate the university to be in the top 10 of public universities and that RPI is also looking to move up in the rankings as well.
Zhao pointed out that the role he will be fulfilling has “several major differences” to his role in Texas. At A&M, he had a hand in managing research for the entire university whereas here he will be running the School of Science and reporting to the provost.
He said that his main goal for the School will be to be consistent with the Institute’s goal of moving forward. He pointed out that “there are several challenges.” One area of improvement he mentioned would be to build up the research program, particularly in the School of Science. In addition, he mentioned trying to improve undergraduate student enrollment, pointing out that our acceptance rate is quite high. Finally, he mentioned that having more money and resources is always helpful.
Prior to his research leadership roles at A&M, he was an associate and then full professor there, eventually heading the computer science department. After receiving his bachelor’s in physics from the Shaanxi Normal University in 1977, he went on to get master’s and doctoral degrees in computer science from the University of Massachusetts. Before arriving at Texas A&M, he served as a senior lecturer at the University of Adelaide in Australia.
RPI’s School of Science has been led by Wait, who served as the acting dean from July of 2005. At that time, Joseph Flaherty stepped down from the post, due in part to a stroke he suffered in 2004.
