Hyman Appoints Assistant Provost

In a move that reflects the administration’s developing priorities, Provost Steven E. Hyman has named a career researcher and a Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) administrator to the newly created position of assistant provost for science policy.

Today, Kathleen M. Buckley ’74 assumes her new post, where she is charged with coordinating science policy across the University and will help carry out University President Lawrence H. Summers’ vision for Harvard taking aggressive steps to bolster the sciences.

Buckley has served as FAS’ assistant dean for academic affairs in the sciences for the past year.

Hyman—who knew the neurobiologist Buckley from his own time as a Harvard Medical School professor—recruited Buckley this winter and announced her appointment in an e-mail to administrators a week and a half ago.

“In her new role, Kathy [Buckley] will assist President Summers and me in developing University-wide, interfaculty, science-based initiatives,” Hyman wrote. The new assistant provost will work on “academic planning and budget processes that will inform planning efforts in Allston.”

And Buckley will advise Summers and Hyman on a variety of other science related issues, including research policies, regulatory compliance and the state of Harvard’s affiliated teaching hospitals.

Buckley’s job will touch on a number of Summers’ oft-mentioned priorities.

In his installation speech this fall, Summers spoke on the need for Harvard to explore new approaches to the sciences.

He and Hyman have said that new initiatives will be formed that bring together scientists across not only departments, but across the University’s independently operating schools.

As Assistant Provost for Interfaculty Initiatives, Sean T. Buffington ’91 is in charge of the 11 existing interfaculty programs. But it will fall to Buckley to devise the more ambitious science programs that Hyman has promised.

Buckley said she has yet to get a sense from Hyman of what these new science initiatives will entail.

Buckley said that from conversations with the current assistant provosts she believes she will be given wide latitude in coming up with and implementing these programs and that she would not “just be carrying out what Steve [Hyman] and Larry [Summers] decide.”

Since his appointment as president, Summers has been insistent that the development of University land in Allston will occur on his watch. One of three scenarios being considered for University expansion across the river involves the creation of a science campus in Allston.

But while the physical planning process has begun, the University has not begun to formally investigate the academic possibilities that a new science campus would provide—a task that Hyman said that Buckley would help oversee.

“Its not just a matter of where do you put people in buildings, but how could we change how Harvard does, and thinks about science,” Buckley said.

Buckley said that she didn’t know exactly which hospital-related issues she will be working on.

But the hospitals threaten to become a time consuming topic.

Hyman has said his office is paying close attention to developments at the Boston teaching hospitals affiliated with, but not owned by Harvard.

The Beth-Israel Deaconess Medical Center—where more than a third of Harvard’s medical students and residents receive training—remains in dire financial straits and Hyman has said that the University would hope to avert any sale of the hospital to a for-profit company.

Hyman said this winter that he had offered his office’s assistance to Joseph P. Martin, dean of the Medical School, to help retain medical faculty threatened by the hospital’s uncertain future.

Buckley said her resume qualifies her to carry out these and other tasks.

After graduating from Harvard College in 1974, Buckley earned a doctorate in neurobiology from Harvard Medical School in 1980. After post-doctoral work at the University of California, San Francisco, Buckley returned to Harvard in 1988 and worked as a basic scientist at the Medical School for over a decade.

She has always felt she would make a good administrator, given her ability to see the bigger picture, Buckley said.

Last year, when a new position at FAS was created dealing with the sciences, Buckley decided to apply.

As assistant dean, Buckley said she gained administrative experience dealing with both the day to day issues with the science Faculty—appointments, promotions and leaves—but also long-term initiatives and programs. She also sat on a variety of faculty committees, including the Standing Committee on Professional Misconduct, the Systems Neuroscience Initiative and the Standing Committee on the Status of Women.

Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles said he was sad to see Buckley leave FAS.

“She has taken excellent care of our science departments, and we shall miss her wisdom and skill,” Knowles wrote in an e-mail.

Buckley said she was excited to get started in her new job today.

“Its going to be a pretty steep learning curve,” she said, but added she was confident Hyman and others could bring her up to speed.

—Staff writer David H. Gellis can be reached at gellis@fas.harvard.edu.