The University of California, Santa Cruz, has appointed Bruce Margon to serve as vice chancellor of research. Margon, currently associate director for science at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, will assume his position at UCSC on October 16. He replaces Robert C. Miller, who is resigning his successful tenure as vice chancellor of research to return to teaching.
 Bruce Margon |
As vice chancellor of research, Margon will provide executive leadership and coordination for research administration and planning. UC Santa Cruz, which has made steady increases in research funding in recent years, received more than $128 million in contracts and grants for the 2005-06 fiscal year, a 28 percent increase over the previous year. Research funding has increased a total of 88 percent in the last five years.
Margon has extensive management experience, including serving on national advisory and policy boards. He served for many years on the Board of Directors of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), acting as chair from 1995 to 1998. He has worked closely with NASA and the National Science Foundation for the past 25 years, serving on and chairing numerous federal advisory committees.
In his current position as associate director for science at STScI, Margon oversees the equivalent of a university-level office of research for nearly 100 scientists and manages the external grants program. STScI, established in 1981, manages the scientific program of the Hubble Space Telescope and its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope (currently under construction). It is one of the largest astronomical research institutions in the world.
Margon's own research focuses on high-energy astrophysics, particularly the late stages of stellar evolution and compact stars. He has been involved with the Hubble Space Telescope project for 25 years and has worked for more than a decade as the founding chair of the Board of Governors of the Astrophysical Research Consortium, a nonprofit consortium that builds and operates innovative ground-based telescopes, including the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Margon also oversees the STScI program in education and public outreach, the largest and most successful outreach program in astronomy.
Margon earned his B.A. in astrophysics from Columbia University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in astronomy from UC Berkeley. He has held faculty positions at UCLA and the University of Washington, and since 2002 he has held an appointment as adjunct professor of physics and astronomy at Johns Hopkins University. Author of more than 200 refereed publications, more than 100 papers delivered at scientific meetings, and dozens of other papers, Margon also has accepted a UCSC appointment as professor of astronomy and astrophysics. His annual salary as vice chancellor is $220,000.
