Provost Hyman names Buckley, Porter top administrators for HUSEC

Harvard University Provost Steven E. Hyman has selected two individuals with both broad and deep experience in Harvard science administration to provide administrative leadership and structure for the newly created Harvard University Science and Engineering Committee (HUSEC).

Kathleen Buckley, a former Harvard Medical School (HMS) neurobiologist who has served as assistant dean for academic affairs in the natural sciences in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) and is currently serving as associate provost for science, has been named associate provost for science and director of academic affairs for interdisciplinary science. And Russ Porter, the executive director of the FAS Life Sciences Division, has been named associate provost and director of administration for interdisciplinary science.

“Kathy and Russ bring to our efforts in interdisciplinary, interschool science the ideal combined skill set for handling the myriad of complex administrative issues we will be confronting,” said Hyman. “HUSEC is lucky it is going to have two administrative leaders who are already so thoroughly grounded in the daily — and long-range — issues the committee will be confronting.”

HUSEC, which is chaired by the provost, includes the deans of FAS, HMS, Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), and 13 other leaders of the science community across Harvard’s Schools and affiliated hospitals. The committee, which has a start-up budget of $50 million, is charged with providing guidance on planning and governance of the University’s efforts in inter-departmental and inter-School science and engineering.

Buckley is a graduate of Radcliffe and earned a Ph.D. in neurobiology from Harvard. After postdoctoral work at the University of California, San Francisco, she joined the HMS Department of Neurobiology. In 2001, an associate professor at HMS, Buckley left the lab bench for science administration when she was named assistant dean for academic affairs in FAS. She joined the provost’s staff the following year as assistant provost for science policy, and in 2005 was named associate provost for science.

Porter, a graduate of the University of Colorado, Boulder, left PriceWaterhouse where he had served as a certified public accountant and began his Harvard career in the fall of 1990 as a project accountant and budget officer for the Harvard Institute for International Development. In 1996, he became the institute’s assistant director for finance and financial systems manager. For four years, Porter served as director of strategic planning for the Harvard School of Public Health, and, in November 2004, was named executive director of the Life Science Division of FAS.