UAF Chancellor appoints directors of research and economic development

Submitted by Carla Browning
Phone: 907-474-7778
06/29/05

University of Alaska Fairbanks Chancellor Steve Jones has appointed President’s Professor of Remote Sensing Buck Sharpton as the Chancellor’s Director of Research and School of Management Dean Wayne Marr as the Chancellor’s Director of Economic Development. Sharpton is charged with charting the direction of research and developing new research capacity. Marr will help coordinate the development of new opportunities for collaboration with industry and business partners.

"The importance of these two positions cannot be overstated," said UAF Chancellor Steve Jones. "Our research enterprise of $113 million annually has an enormous impact on our community and the state. There are many more opportunities to grow our research enterprise and we intend to do just that."

Historically, each dollar of state investment in UAF research has leveraged nearly $7 in external funding from federal agencies and business and industry partners.

Sharpton and Marr will work closely with state and federal agencies as well as provide oversight and leadership for many of UAF’s research programs. Sharpton will continue in his capacity as President’s Professor and serve as the director of the Geographic Information Network of Alaska and the International Observatory of the North. He will work closely with activities involving the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence, the Center of Biomedical Research Excellence and the Specialized Neuroscience Research program. Sharpton will oversee UAF’s Office of Intellectual Property, the Office of Sponsored Programs, the Office of Research Integrity and chair UAF’s research working group. In addition, he will provide leadership for UAF activities in conjunction with the International Polar Year, an international research and education focus on the high latitudes that will take place in 2007-2008.

Marr will continue as the SOM dean and work closely with the Cold Climate Housing Research Center, the Office of Electronic Miniaturization and NanookTech, a project launched cooperatively by the Fairbanks Economic Development Corp., the Fairbanks North Star Borough, the city of Fairbanks and UAF to support the development of start-up businesses here in the Interior. Marr and Sharpton will share responsibility in some areas and when possible will collaborate on projects.

"I’m pleased that both Buck and Wayne have agreed to take on these new challenges," said Jones. "They will provide the coordination and leadership to move the university forward in some of our most critical research and economic development arenas."

Sharpton joined UAF in 1998 with a joint appointment between the Geophysical Institute and the Department of Geology and Geophysics. In 2001, he was awarded one of six presidential professorships across the UA system. Prior to joining UAF, Sharpton was senior staff scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute, affiliated with NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, where he served 14 years. His research experience includes field validation studies; synthetic aperture radar: multispectral and other remotely acquired image data sets; image processing; and instrumental geochemical techniques. Since coming to Alaska, Sharpton has broadened his research interests and works closely with several government agencies in developing new uses for satellite remote sensing. He received his Ph.D. in geological sciences from Brown University in 1984.

Marr came to UAF in September 2004 from Austin, Texas, where, as senior manager for Computer Sciences Corp, he specialized in performance measurement, transitions and strategic modeling. Prior to his position with CSC, Marr served as a member of the management team at Dell Project Office, TEK Solutions. In 1993, he co-founded Social Science Electronic Publishing and was its vice president and chief operating officer for more than five years. In 1990, Clemson University named him First Union professor of finance, a position he held until 1995. He was a professor of finance at Tulane University from 1986-1990. From 1982-1986 he served in a joint appointment with the Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington, D.C. and Virginia Tech as a senior economist and associate professor of finance.

Marr received his bachelor’s degree in biology and chemistry in 1977, a master’s degree in economics in 1980 and a Ph.D. in finance and statistics in 1983, all from Texas Tech University. His primary academic research interests have focused on corporate finance, financial markets and money and banking. Additionally, he has performed extensive proprietary research in software engineering and computer systems engineering.

CONTACT: Buck Sharpton at (907) 474-5837 or e-mail buck.sharpton@alaska.edu, or Wayne Marr at (907) 474-7916 or e-mail wayne.marr @uaf.edu for more information.

Note to editors: High resolution photos are available for download at: http://www.uaf.edu/files/news/download/releasephotos/05/directors/