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Dear Colleague:
I am writing to inform you that Lydia Villa-Komaroff, Vice
President for Research, will be leaving Northwestern University
on January 1, 2003, to become Vice President for Research
and Chief Operating Officer at the Whitehead Institute. As
many of you are aware, the Whitehead Institute is one of the
world's preeminent biological research institutes, affiliated
with Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Lydia will also
serve as Senior Lecturer in the MIT Sloan School of Management,
where she will teach and write about the academic research
enterprise.
Lydia came to Northwestern in 1996 as Professor of Neurology
and Associate Vice President for Research Administration,
and was appointed Vice President for Research in 1998. As
Vice President for Research, she worked energetically and
effectively with the Deans and University administration to
expand the scope and excellence of research. During her tenure,
Northwestern's sponsored project volume grew from $214 million
in 1997-8 to over $320 million 2001-2. Her accomplishments
here include:
- Creation of nine new research centers - including the
DND Synchrotron Research Center, the Institute for Bioengineering
and Nanoscience in Advanced Medicine, the Center for Functional
Genomics, and the Institute for Nanotechnology - to capitalize
on external research funding opportunities.
- Formation of the Office of Strategic Initiatives to promote
interdisciplinary research among industry, government, and
other universities.
- Creation of the Office of Clinical Research and Training
to promote clinical research.
- Initiation of a program of seed funding to support innovative
faculty research and scholarship, particularly in the arts
and humanities.
- Inauguration of a program that provided grants to faculty
and graduate students for travel to domestic and international
research conferences.
- Institution of an internal review process that resulted
in an increase in the number of prestigious, highly competitive
awards received by Northwestern faculty.
- Close collaboration with the deans in recruiting of numerous
world class scientists and talented young investigators
who will help ensure the vitality of Northwestern's research
enterprise in the years to come.
- Initiation of a broad reengineering of the offices reporting
to the Vice President for Research.
In addition to her work at Northwestern, Lydia has been an
active national leader in research policy. She is a member
of the National Advisory Neurological Disorders and Stroke
Council at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an elected
member of the Board of Directors of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science, a member of the National Academy
of Sciences committee to evaluate the structure of the NIH,
and a member of the Institute of Medicine Committee on Assessing
the System for Protecting Human Research Subjects. She also
has chaired the Advisory Committee for the Biological Directorate
of the National Science Foundation. One of the country's most
prominent Hispanic-American scientists, Lydia is a founding
member and past president of the Society for the Advancement
of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science and is a member
of the Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Hall of Fame.
President Bienen and I have greatly valued Lydia's participation
as a key member of the President's Staff and we are deeply
grateful for her many contributions to the research enterprise
at the University. We wish her the very best as she returns
to her professional roots in the Boston area, where she received
her Ph.D. in cell biology at MIT and where she served on the
faculties of the Harvard Medical School and Children's Hospital
in Boston. She leaves behind an important legacy at Northwestern.
A national search will be undertaken to identify a successor.
Lawrence B. Dumas
Provost
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