Longtime faculty member Entwisle named vice chancellor for research (UNC news release)
Mar 24, 2011
Posted at: http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/4408/107/ and http://research-edit.unc.edu/news-events/VCR_ANNOUNCEMENT
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Dr. Barbara Entwisle, Kenan Distinguished Professor of
Sociology who has been a leading researcher at the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill for 26 years, has been appointed as the vice chancellor for
research.
The appointment, effective Friday (March 25), was approved today (March 24) by
the University's Board of Trustees. Entwisle has been the interim vice chancellor
for research and economic development since last August.
"Barbara has been a great addition to our administrative team and already has
effectively championed the University's research enterprise in her interim
role," said Chancellor Holden Thorp. "She brings extensive experience in
leading the Carolina Population Center, one of our most distinguished research
units. She understands multidisciplinary research - a hallmark of this
University -- extraordinarily well and has the skills and insights we need to
help keep Carolina competitive nationally."
Entwisle succeeds Tony Waldrop, who served as vice chancellor until leaving
last summer to become provost and vice president for academic affairs at the
University of Central Florida.
As vice chancellor, Entwisle leads a campus-wide research program that
attracted $803 million in contract and grant funding in fiscal 2010 - more than
double the amount from a decade ago. Helping spur that growth has been the
construction, made possible in recent years by public and private investments,
of key research facilities including the Carolina Physical Science Complex. The
vice chancellor leads efforts to connect academic units across the campus with
University priorities and manages research support offices as well as select
centers and institutes.
Entwisle, a social demographer who studies population, health and environment,
joined Carolina's department of sociology in 1985. From 2002 until last summer,
she directed the Carolina Population Center, and within the last decade assumed
additional faculty appointments in the department of geography, curriculum for
the environment and ecology, curriculum in international and area studies, and
department of Asian studies.
The Carolina Population Center routinely attracts funding from the National
Institutes of Health and other federal agencies and helps drive related social
science and health research projects across campus. Last year, the center was
engaged in more than 43 active research projects, and brought in more than $47
million in external support. Faculty, staff and students affiliated with the
center work in 85 countries around the world.
Entwisle won Carolina's Distinguished Teaching Award for Post-Baccalaureate
Instruction in 2003. In addition, she has been honored several times for
excellence in mentoring, teaching and research training by the National
Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the Sociology Graduate
Students Association.
She is a past president of the Population Association of America (PAA), a
former editor of Demography (the PAA's flagship journal) and a fellow of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science. She has been elected to
serve as president of the Sociological Research Association in 2014-2015.
Entwisle also serves on numerous advisory and review groups for the National
Academy of Sciences, National Institutes of Health, National Science
Foundation, Environmental Protection Agency and NASA.
A native of Springfield, Mass., Entwisle grew up in Baltimore, Md., and
graduated from Swarthmore College. She earned master's and doctoral degrees in
sociology from Brown University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the
University of Michigan. She served as assistant professor of sociology at
Dartmouth College before moving to UNC.
Entwisle was one of three finalists identified for the vice chancellor post as
part of a national search. Karen Gil, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences,
chaired the search committee.
Photo URL: http://tinyurl.com/4toauah
Contact: Mike McFarland, (919) 962-8593, mike_mcfarland@unc.edu
