After an international search starting in September, UB has found its new provost. Charles F. Zukoski will help implement the university's academic vision with President Satish K. Tripathi.
Zukoski was appointed on Friday to fill the spot vacated by Tripathi when he became president. He will start as provost during the summer semester.
Zukoski was a professor in the department of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champlain. In his 17 years at Illinois, he held a number of positions on the administrative front.
From 2002 to 2008, he served as the vice chancellor for research, a position at which he oversaw the creation of the Office of International Research, which helps foster relationships between the university and other institutions in Singapore, India, and Cyprus.
He also oversaw the establishment of three multidisciplinary institutes, including the Energy Biosciences Institute, which is a 10-year collaboration between the University of Illinois, the University of California-Berkley, and British Petroleum.
In addition, Zukoski served as chairman of the Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC) of the Agency for Science, Technology, and Research (A*STAR) from 2006 to 2012. At SERC, he played a significant role in the development of technology-sensitive industries in Singapore through many different partnerships.
His experience on the international front is highly relevant to a school that has a strong international presence; UB is at the top among public universities in terms of international enrollment, according to Tripathi. That had a big role in the selection of Zukoski, Tripathi said.
Zukoski's former colleagues praised the effort and attitude that he brought to the department at the University of Illinois.
"I have worked closely with him, and he's a wonderful human being," said K. Kay Moran, assistant to the head of Illinois' department of chemical and biomolecular engineering. "He's very energetic, he has a way with people, and he's open to new ideas. He has been an icon to this university for as long as I can remember."
Zukoski was selected from a group of 60 people, and he was one of three candidates to make campus visits as finalists. The attributes his staff saw at the University of Illinois carried through in his meeting with the provost selection committee at the campus' open forum.
"He had a tremendous amount of energy, and he was engaging," said Professor Anne Curtis, co-chair of UB's provost search committee. "He had a lot of interest. He truly seemed to be interested with Buffalo and the University at Buffalo in taking on a challenge like this."
Public forums were held during the candidates' visits to the campus as a way to further involve the student body and faculty in the search for a high-ranking university official.
"[In the] public sessions...[the candidates] were able to make comments and also take questions from the audience," Curtis said. "It went very well. Certainly it was open. We asked for input and got a wide range of input, and it was all taken into consideration, and put into our report to President Tripathi."
Tripathi decided that Zukoski is the one to best help lead the president's visions for the university.
"Charles Zukoski is a stellar addition to our senior leadership team and to our academic community as a whole," Tripathi said in a press release following the announcement. "A first-rate provost needs to shine as an administrator, as a scholar, as a community leader, as a colleague, and as an intellectual visionary. Charles excels in all these facets. He has a tremendous creative energy, a richly informed worldview, and a genuine passion for public higher education."
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