After a summer of screening applications, the search committee for West Virginia University’s next vice president for research has begun inviting finalists for campus visits.

The second candidate to visit, Dr. Morris Foster, will visit Morgantown next week, Sept. 22-23.

Dr. Foster is currently Associate Vice President for Research for the University of Oklahoma’s main campus in Norman, OK, and also the Associate Vice President for Strategic Planning for both the main campus and OU’s Health Sciences Center campus in Oklahoma City. He is also the Deputy Director for the Prevention and Control of the Peggy and Charles Stephenson Oklahoma Cancer Center and a tenured Professor of Anthropology.

Dr. Foster earned a B.A. with Distinction at the University of Oklahoma and both an M.Phil and a Ph.D. from Yale University. Since 1986, Dr. Foster has served in various positions at Oklahoma, classified as a Research University (Very High Research Activity) by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

Click here to download a copy of Dr. Morris' CV.

Three general sessions are scheduled during his visit for members of the WVU community to meet Dr. Foster. He will give a short presentation about supporting and growing the research enterprise at WVU and then take questions from the audience.

The schedule for open sessions is:

  • Thursday, Sept. 22: 11:15 a.m.-12:15 p.m. NRCCE Room 101AB
  • Thursday, Sept. 22: 1:45-2:45 p.m. Health Sciences Center Room 2094
  • Thursday, Sept. 22: 4:45-5:45 p.m. Greenbrier Room, Mountainlair

Dr. Foster began his academic career as a cultural anthropologist, writing a book on Comanche social history that was awarded the American Society of Ethnohistory’s 1992 Ermine Wheeler-Voegelin Prize. Upon earning tenure, he spent five years as editor of the American Indian Quarterly, one of two national peer-reviewed publications in American Indian Studies.

Dr. Foster has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in linguistics, anthropology of religion, ethnography and general anthropology, as well as having supervised 16 doctoral students. Early in his career, he began collaborating with colleagues in the OU Health Sciences Center to assist in research with tribal communities. His collaborations grew to include studies in diabetes, cancer, scleroderma, HIV/AIDS and lupus. This work led to other research projects around minority community involvement in genetic studies. He has been a principle investigator on four National Institutes of Health RO1 projects, two Health Resources and Services Administration technical assistant centers and a variety of other grants that brought more than $10 million in external funding to Oklahoma University.

His publications have been primarily in biomedical and genetics journals, including Nature Genetics, American Journal of Genetics, Nature Reviews Genetics, Environmental Health Perspectives, Genetics in Medicine and Nature.

In 1999, Dr. Foster became involved in OU’s efforts to win a General Clinical Research Center award and was the founding director of its Special Populations Unit, focused on increasing the participation of American Indians in clinical research studies. He became Assistant Program Director in 2004 when the grant was renewed. In 2007, Dr. Foster became Deputy Director of what is now the Peggy and Charles Stephenson Oklahoma Cancer Center, which is on a five-year path toward application for a National Cancer Institute designation as a comprehensive cancer center. He has also served as Director of Outreach for the Harold Hamm Oklahoma Diabetes Center.

Over the past two years, Dr. Morris has transitioned form active researcher to full-time administrative responsibilities. As Associate Vice President for Research, he has been part of a strategic alliance agreement with Lockheed Martin, establishing a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Geological Survey, and significantly expanding OU’s infomatics support for faculty research. In his capacity as Associate Vice President for Strategic Planning, Dr. Foster works for the Vice President for Strategic Planning and Economic Development, and has university-wide responsibility covering both the main Norman campus and the OU Health Sciences campus.

“He’s extraordinarily familiar with both pre- and post-award processes,” said one colleague. “He’s a leader in analyzing research productivity and successes and knowing where there are opportunities for improvement.” Another colleague said Dr. Foster “brings the strength of being able to work across many disciplines, including the health science center, and be effective and respected.” Calling him “a talented and creative thinker,” as well as a “friendly, respected, effective leader,” colleagues said he has “provided leadership at Oklahoma University in large complex research collaborations that bring together researchers from OU’s Norman and Health Sciences Center.”

The committee is searching for a replacement for Curt. M. Peterson as vice president for research and economic development. Peterson announced in March that he will retire effective with the naming of his replacement.

-WVU-

jf/09/15/11

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