Dr. Terry Magnuson, a professor and geneticist researcher, will become the new vice chancellor for research at UNC-Chapel Hill on July 1. He will replace Dr. Barbara Entwisle.
The vice chancellor post is described as the “top research post” at the school. He will oversee research programs that have drawn almost $1 billion in contracts and grants in fiscal 2014.
“Dr. Magnuson is a national leader in his field and one of our deeply trusted colleagues,” said UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor CarolFolt in the announcement. “We are so honored that he will guide the basic curiosity, passion and creativity inherent in our faculty and students to help unleash the innovation potential of this great University.”
Entwisle will return to her post as a professor in the sociology department.
Noted UNC: “During her five-year tenure, UNC-Chapel Hill entered, for the first time, the ranks of the nation’s top-10 research universities in both overall and federal expenditures, underscoring UNC-Chapel Hill’s meteoric rise as a research powerhouse.”
Magnuson is a geneticist who studies chromatin and gene expression in various diseases.
“We have a lot of room to maximize our research efforts,” said Magnuson in a statement. “As technology develops, we can incorporate disciplines and bring researchers together in ways we have never thought of before. That’s where we can work closely with Judith Cone, vice chancellor for commercialization and economic development, and her team to commercialize university intellectual property.”
His bio as provided by UNC:
“[Dr.] Magnuson was recruited to UNC-Chapel Hill in 2000 as founding chair of the department of genetics and director of the newly established Carolina Center for Genome Sciences. He also created the Cancer Genetics Program in the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. In July 2010, he was appointed vice dean for research in the School of Medicine, helping oversee the construction of the University’s newest research imaging building Marsico Hall, with the idea of bringing many different scientists together to create synergy across different units of campus.
“He has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and also to the National Academy of Medicine. In 2014, he was appointed to the National Institutes of Health Council of Councils, an exclusive group of the top minds in the nation charged with guiding research projects that transcend NIH’s centers and institutes.
“Born in Upper Peninsula, Michigan, Magnuson grew up in Arcadia, California, graduated from the University of Redlands, earned a doctorate degree in biomedical sciences from Cornell University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco. He served as professor and director of the developmental biology center at Case Western Reserve, until being recruited to UNC-Chapel Hill in 2000.”
