September 2016
It’s been nearly eight months since I assumed the role of vice president for the division of research.
I knew coming in that my job would be a very large task.
But I underestimated how exciting this job can be when we share in achievements. I couldn’t have been prouder of Kerry Smith and Lesly Tamesvari in Biological Sciences, and their EPIC team, when they were awarded Clemson’s second COBRE grant to study deadly pathogens. Or of Stephen Foulger in Materials Science and Engineering when he received an EPSCoR grant, bringing advanced materials to bear on neurological disorders.
I was equally proud that Clemson combined the arts with science and engineering once again at Artisphere, showing Greenville and the surrounding area that art and science belong together, like it is in Todd Anderson’s work. Todd, an assistant professor of printmaking, records glaciers around the world. His work with collaborators to record the receding glaciers in Glacier National Park, in a project called The Last Glacier, is as striking as it is important.
For each primary investigator there are many more faculty members, lab managers, students and staff performing and facilitating research, collaborating across disciplines and across colleges and departments.
It is your hard work – collaborating, finding new opportunities for convergence – that led the Carnegie Foundation to recognize Clemson as an R1 university, among about 80 other universities with the “highest level of research activity.”
Getting R1 designation was an important milestone for Clemson; staying an R1 will take more of the hard work that has helped our research revenues from from an average of about $70 million during the first part of this decade to $109 million in 2016.
ClemsonForward, the University’s strategic plan, has four pillars: research, engagement, academic core and living. REAL. Each pillar is necessary, starting with research.
The work you do is real. It makes a real impact on our city, our region, South Carolina, the United States and the world.
The Division of Research newsletter will be sent monthly by my office. Soon we will have a website with much easier navigation. These are some of our efforts to communicate better — more clearly, with one voice, giving you information you need to know and highlighting our great work. We hope you enjoy the newsletter; I welcome your comments.
Go Tigers!
Tanju
