First candidate for vice chancellor for research to present April 15

LAWRENCE — Shelley Hooks will be the first candidate for the vice chancellor for research position to visit the University of Kansas Lawrence campus and give a public presentation.

Her presentation, which will detail her vision and strategies for the future of research and discovery at KU, will take place 2:30-3:30 p.m. April 15 in the auditorium at the 1502 Building, located at 15th and Iowa streets. The event will also be livestreamed, and the passcode is 360297.

Hooks is the associate vice president for research at the University of Georgia and a professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical & Biomedical Sciences at the College of Pharmacy.

The remaining three candidates will be announced approximately two business days before their respective campus visits. Their public presentations are scheduled for the following dates and locations:

• Candidate 2: 2-3 p.m. April 19, 1502 Building Auditorium
• Candidate 3: 3-4 p.m. April 25, Lied Center Pavilion
• Candidate 4: 2:30-3:30 p.m. May 1, 1502 Building Auditorium

Members of the KU community are encouraged to attend each presentation and provide feedback to the search committee. Presentation recordings and the online feedback form will remain available on the search page through May 7. 

Additional search information, including Hooks’ CV, is also available on the search page.

As associate vice president for research, Hooks oversees internal grants, awards and research personnel. She currently manages an approximately $750,000 portfolio of internal research support funding programs and leads initiatives to support faculty, postdoctoral scholars and other research personnel.

Hooks has previously served as the interim department head for UGA’s Department of Pharmaceutical & Biomedical Sciences and the interim director of the UGA Center for Drug Discovery. She additionally leads the Office of Research’s strategic plan and serves as a liaison between the office, academic units, centers, institutes and faculty.

As an independent investigator, Hooks’ research focuses on signaling mechanisms and novel therapeutic strategies for cancer and neurological disease. Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and the Marsha Rivkin Center for Ovarian Cancer Research, and she has supervised a number of graduate and undergraduate students.

Outside of her service at UGA, Hooks has served as an executive committee member for the Molecular Pharmacology division of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET), grant reviewer for the Marsha Rivkin Center for Ovarian Cancer and an editorial board member for ASPET’s peer-reviewed journal, Molecular Pharmacology. Hooks has published more than 80 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters and abstracts.

Hooks earned her bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from Clemson University and her doctorate in biochemistry from the University of Virginia. She completed her postdoctoral research at the University of North Carolina’s Department of Pharmacology in the School of Medicine.