Dear Rice Community,
After seven years of serving Rice in the role of vice provost for research, Yousif Shamoo has announced that he is stepping down from the position to go back to teaching fulltime and to focus more on his lab’s research. His transition will go into effect in January, 2022.
Yousif was appointed to the vice provost for research position in 2014 during a time when sponsored research at Rice had been flat or declining. Yousif’s charge was to boost sponsored research and to begin transitioning Rice to an elite wide-spectrum research university.
Yousif accomplished the first part of his charge early in his tenure and has made tremendous strides toward steering Rice and his office’s team of about 120 staff to improved research prominence. Since the start of Vision for the Second Century, Second Decade (V2C2) in 2017, sponsored research has increased 42% and reached $182 million at the close of fiscal year 2021. This put the university two years ahead of our targeted goals. During this time, Yousif also was instrumental in helping land several major centers at Rice.
In addition, Yousif dramatically expanded Rice’s research infrastructure, carried out a range of big and small building projects across campus and, with the help the deans and faculty, launched the Creative Venture Funds, which expands the Office of Research’s mission to include and provide support for a more expansive view of research and scholarship, not just activities that generate sponsored research dollars.
Yousif has been a great asset to Rice during the COVID-19 pandemic, using his experience as an infectious diseases researcher to advise and help the campus make sound public health decisions. His work in this area positively influenced how remarkably well our faculty, staff and students have carried out our pandemic strategy.
I, and so many others, are grateful for Yousif’s time, service and dedication to the Office of Research and the university’s research enterprise. Rice is a better place because of his leadership. Please join me in thanking Yousif for his contributions and wishing him well in his teaching and research endeavors.
A search for a new vice provost for research will commence in the upcoming months.
Warm Regards,
Reginald DesRoches, Howard Hughes Provost