Dean for Research to depart

The dean for research position, which oversees the PPPL and manages research funding and grants, will be vacated in January when Smith assumes the newly created position. A search committee has been formed to determine his successor.

Smith, a physics professor, joined the faculty in 1967 and chaired the physics department for most of the 1990s. He served as the chair of the University Research Board until 2006, when the position was created to streamline the University’s research fundraising efforts.

Provost Christopher Eisgruber ’83 explained in an email that before Smith’s appointment as a dean, Princeton was unique in that it did not have a full-time chief research officer.

Smith’s new role will focus on sustaining and expanding funding in a time of domestic budgetary challenges for the laboratory, such as upgrades to the lab’s major test facility, the National Spherical Torus Experiment. Furthermore, administrators said that Smith should facilitate better collaboration between PPPL and University researchers.

“We welcome this change, which will enable Stew Smith, with his understanding of physics research and his long experience of working with DOE, to devote his efforts to PPPL,” William Brinkman, director of DOE’s Office of Science, said in the statement.

Eisgruber noted that Smith’s primary responsibility will be maintaining communication between the DOE and PPPL.

“That relationship requires a great deal of time, and by separating the PPPL responsibilities from the dean for research office, the University will enable subsequent deans to focus on other aspects of Princeton’s research enterprise,” he said.

Since 2006, Smith has overseen the expansion of the University’s research operations and increased funding from governments, corporations, foundations and other sources.

From the 2005 fiscal year — the last year before Smith began as chair of University’s Research Board — to the 2011 fiscal year, funding for Princeton- and PPPL-sponsored research increased by $54.6 million from $226.2 million to $280.8 million, according to the statement.

Moreover, Smith restructured the University’s research functions, incorporating the Office of Corporate and Foundation Relations, the Office of Research and Project Administration and various animal research and biosafety programs. With a larger senior management staff, Smith said that this realignment was a key factor in increasing funding and research support.

Smith also created partnerships at the international level, including relationships with member organizations of Japan’s National Institutes of Natural Sciences in the fields of astrophysics, fusion science and biology.

“Stew Smith has done a terrific job and really has built this position to take us into the 21st century in terms of our research support functions,” President Shirley Tilghman said in the statement.

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In the meantime, a 10-member faculty committee chaired by molecular biology professor Thomas Shenk will begin the nationwide search for Smith’s successor immediately. Representatives include Jeremy Adelman, director of the Council for International Teaching and Research, Janet Currie, director of the Center for Health and Wellbeing, and Richard Register, chair of the chemical and biological engineering department.

Eisgruber said he expected the search to continue into the fall semester and that the University will consider both internal and external candidates.