As the University’s vice president for research and graduate studies, Rich Linton works to find grant funding for University research.
Linton grew up in Pennsylvania and earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry at the University of Delaware, Newark in 1973. His college years were during the height of the Vietnam War, and Linton said he attended a few anti-war protests in Washington, D.C., at that time.
After earning a doctorate in chemistry at the University of Illinois, Linton was hired as a chemistry professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. He said his research interests were similar to those of the Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute in the realm of surface analysis.
He said he did not have military funding for his research projects, but he knew researchers who did, and he collaborated on projects that were funded by the Office of Naval Research. During the mid-1980s, Linton also served as the University of North Carolina system’s assistant vice president for research and chief research officer.
Linton came to the University in 2000 to be the vice president for research and graduate studies. He is also technically a chemistry professor but said he is too busy with administrative duties to teach.
Linton said his mission is to make the University successful, and he enlists external support as needed. He said his personal political views, which he declined to describe, are not involved in his decisions about funding sources.
“In my capacity as the research vice president, politics certainly is part of the job, but political persuasion and orientation on issues like that are peripheral to the mission of my office,” Linton said. “I try to maintain professionalism in the work of the office.”
– Eva Sylwester