Following a national search that spanned seven months, university President Wallace Loh announced Friday that he selected a leader close to home to fill a top administrative post charged with fostering innovative research projects campus-wide.
Patrick O’Shea — who has served as chair of the department of electrical and computer engineering for the past six years and is the co-director of the Maryland Cybersecurity Center — will take the helm as the university’s new vice president for research July 1. His selection marks the second appointment of a string of administrative posts that were left vacant after the spring semester ended.
O’Shea will take the reins from the interim vice president Norma Allewell. She held down the fort since last June when Mel Bernstein stepped down after four years in the position aimed at increasing the university’s growth as a premier research institution among its peers and bolstering the division’s funding.
Behavioral and Social Sciences Dean John Townshend, who chaired the 17-person search committee, said the group was looking for leaders who were interested in promoting research across multiple disciplines: from the sciences and the social sciences to the arts and the humanities. And O’Shea fit the bill very well, he said.
“He is a person of immense breadth,” Townshend said. “He understands the campus, and he understands the different parts of the campus. And he’s actively bringing people across the campus together to look at challenging new innovations. That’s exactly what we need —someone of those kind of capabilities.”
O’Shea, who could not be reached for comment this weekend, said in a university-wide press release that he plans to fortify research relationships with other institutions in the University System of Maryland and capitalize on the university’s prime location inside the beltway to work with the government and with the commercial sector.
“We will be bold, diverse, adaptive, creative, innovative and entrepreneurial,” O’Shea stated. “Our aim is to take our place among the great institutions of the world, dedicated not only to the dissemination of knowledge, but to its creation and application.”
In the press release, Loh wrote that this vision is what prompted him to choose O’Shea for the post that oversees more than a half-billion dollars in research funding.
“Pat brings that rare blend of academic expertise, vision, administrative excellence and entrepreneurial spirit to this pursuit,” Loh stated in the press release. “He is well-equipped to increase the university’s research and educational impact internationally and within this region.”
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