Vice chancellor of research to leave UC Davis for new position

Vice Chancellor Prasant Mohapatra named the University of South Florida’s provost and vice president of academic affairs

BY SYDNEY AMESTOY campus@theaggie.org

Vice Chancellor of Research Prasant

Mohapatra is leaving UC Davis for the University of South Florida (USF), where he will become the university’s provost and vice president of academic affairs effective March 1, according to a recent press release.

Mohapatra has been at UC Davis as a member of the faculty since 2001 and took on the role of vice chancellor of research in 2018, according to the statement on his departure. During his tenure in the Office of Research (OR) at UC Davis, funding increased for research across several disciplines, including public health and medicine and food and agriculture technologies. The university received a recordbreaking $846.7 million in external funding in the 2017-2018 fiscal year, and last year that number surpassed $1 billion.

Andy Fell, a news and media relations specialist for UC Davis, said that the search for a new vice chancellor of research is already underway nationwide.

“There will be an interim vice chancellor to fill the position after Prasant leaves until the recruitment is complete,” Fell said. A press release from Feb. 7 announced that Professor Emeritus Jeffery Gibeling will serve as the interim chancellor for research beginning March 1. He will serve for an estimated six months. UC Davis Chancellor Gary May will soon form a recruitment advisory committee, according to the release, to conduct the search for the