UAF is Alaska's flagship university and a land, sea and space grant institution. It houses six research institutes, eight academic colleges, six community campuses, a museum, a press, outreach and extension centers, and more than 20 off-campus facilities that focus on Arctic research. UAF men's hockey team competes at the NCAA Division I level, and ten other sports teams compete at the NCAA Division II level. As Provost I oversee UAFs 170 plus academic programs ranging from occupational endorsement to Ph.D. that are delivered in all modalities over seven campuses spanning a geographic base of 360 million acres. The university has ~8000 students, ~800 faculty, ~1600 staff, and a budget of ~$430M. As the executive vice chancellor, I am the second-in-command and work in tandem with the chancellor, leading other vice chancellors in integrating and coordinating the educational, research, and public service activities of the University.

Alaska Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research is an interdisciplinary, statewide, capacity-building program that funds hundreds of faculty, postdocs, graduate and undergraduate researchers as well as infrastructure, education and outreach. The National Science Foundation and the State of Alaska fund this $24 million, 5-year long program.

I lead two different phases of the EPSCoR program that required a high level of leadership, management, compliance and fiscal oversight. For the most recent EPSCoR Phase 5 award, I competitively selected a statewide team of researchers, brainstormed a new program direction, and lead the writing of the successful grant proposal that brought in $20 million to the State of Alaska. I also prepared the new leadership team to take on the program after my departure.

For the EPSCoR Phase 4, I brought stability in the program during leadership transition; greater transparency in our processes and increased visibility of program outcomes through communication ramp-up via newsletters, list-serves, social-media, and publications; accelerated planned activities to ensure timely product delivery and minimize the need to carry-forward funds; increased support for students, diversity initiatives, workforce development, and cross-campus collaboration; and facilitated peer-reviewed publications and proposal submissions. I successfully closed out the 6-year long award.

The College of Natural Science and Mathematics is the academic lead in the sciences for the University of Alaska system. CNSM houses 7 departments, includes ~115 faculty members, offers ~40 programs, grants ~25 doctoral degrees (half the Ph.D.s in the State of Alaska) each year, and has an annual budget of ~ $17M. As an associate dean and later as interim dean I worked closely with the executive officer, fiscal manager, and all department chairs to promote enrollment, academic, research, and was deeply engaged in all administrative tasks.

I gained experience in the full-spectrum of responsibilities of a dean, gradually infused an inclusive and open culture through transformational leadership, provided a strong voice and support for Title IX, diversity, and equity, increased morale in fiscally challenging times, and alleviated specific faculty, staff, and students issues that could potentially become contentious.

The CNSM Division of Research provided research support for ~45 faculty members and research staff from all disciplines of natural sciences, mathematics, and veterinary medicine. During my tenure, every year CDR researchers submitted ~60 proposals, brought in over $6M in external funding annually, with an overall award success rate of 38 %. At any given time CDR administered more than 75 grants (including foundation grants) worth more than $15M. As director of CDR I was responsible for promoting research, setting research priorities, and overseeing pre- and post-award functions.

I completely restructured the research unit gave it a new name and visibility, documented processes and made policies and forms accessible online, expanded operations and achieved a 140 % increase in research revenue in less than 5 years, and took the unit from the brink of elimination to being an efficiently run and sought-after research unit.

UAFs Department of Geosciences is home for more than 20 faculty members with diverse expertise who together offer undergraduate programs in earth sciences, geography, and geoscience with 7 different concentrations, and MSc and PhD programs in geology and geophysics. I served as the co-chair for the department from June 2011 through August 2012.

My most significant achievements were establishing a co-funding agreement with the Alaska department of geological and geophysical surveys to support graduate students, developing new student orientation materials, documenting best practices for mentoring undergraduate and graduate students, establishing uniform practices for comprehensive exams, thesis defense, and student evaluations, generating guide-maps for undergraduate advising; revamping the geophysics curricula, starting a geospatial concentration, and conducting advising workshops for core and affiliated faculty members.

Earth and Planetary Remote Sensing is one of seven research groups within the Geophysical Institute, an institute that was established in 1946 and earned an international reputation for studying Earth and its physical environments at high latitudes.

Along with a few other colleagues, I ensured that the importance of research faculty members in the fabric of the University was recognized. We ensured that research faculty had a mandatory representation in the faculty senate, and thus had a voice in shared faculty governance. We also helped to institute mentoring and annual evaluations of research faculty and post-doctoral fellows, much like that of tenure-track faculty members.

The Geological Resource Management and Environmental Geology Program was a popular program within the Department of Earth Systems Analysis, at the Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation of the University of Twente (ITC), Enschede, the Netherlands. Among other things, ITC focuses on meeting the training and professional development needs of mid-career professionals from developing countries. I served as the GRMEG dean of students for two years. I was responsible for making students feel welcome, to ensure that they knew the academic processes, and followed the student code of conduct.

I made a positive impact in the lives of at least a few students by helping them cope with the stress of being away from young family and working in a foreign country.

Dayanand Vidya Mandir is bilingual (Hindi and English medium) school in Lucknow, India. The English-medium section of the school was from nursery to 8th grade. The Hindi-medium section was from nursery to 12th grade, and was a feeder school to a popular private university. The 820 students were from very diverse socio-economic backgrounds. I got this fantastic opportunity serendipitously, as the principal transferred at short notice.

In an interim position, I had limited authority to make structural changes. I had a huge learning curve, successfully navigated through a complex system, and even in the short time I gained the trust and respect of staff, students, and trustees alike.