2:11 p.m., Dec. 17, 2008----After an extensive international search, Daniel Carson, the University of Delaware Trustees Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences and chairperson of the department, has been selected as dean of Rice University's Wiess School of Natural Sciences, effective Jan. 1.

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“It is exciting to work with an institution with the longstanding tradition of excellence in the sciences that Rice University has, particularly as they launch new initiatives to enhance interactions with the outstanding institutions and investigators in the Texas Medical Center,” Carson said.

At UD, which was recently voted by The Scientist magazine as one of the top places to work in life sciences, Carson headed a department with 40 faculty members, 1,000 undergraduate majors, 80 graduate students and 24 support staff.

Under his leadership as department chairperson, there has been an increase in external research funding from $1.5 million to $10 million.

"Dan Carson has done an outstanding job in leading the University of Delaware's Department of Biological Sciences," Provost Dan Rich said. "The department is stronger today than at any earlier time, and he and his colleagues have established a very strong foundation on which to build in the decades ahead. I thank him for his contributions to UD and wish him well as dean at Rice University. I am confident that he will be very successful in his new leadership role."

Carson's research focuses on cell surface components in developing embryos and various tumor cell models and the molecular basis by which mammalian embryos implant into the uterine wall. He received a National Institutes of Health MERIT award to facilitate this work.

As dean at Rice, Carson will oversee six academic departments and multidisciplinary collaborations within the university and with external institutions.

A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Carson received his doctorate from Temple University. He was a postdoctoral fellow in biochemistry at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and then joined the faculty at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas until coming to the University of Delaware in 1998.

Mary “Cindy” Farach-Carson, professor of biological sciences and affiliated with materials science and the Delaware Biotechnology Institute, is married to Dan Carson and has been appointed associate vice provost for research at Rice University -- the first person to hold this post.

She is currently the director of the Center for Translational Cancer Research at the University of Delaware and will foster Rice's collaborations with the Texas Medical Center and other organizations and oversee its involvement with the newly forming Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas.

A graduate of the University of South Carolina, Farach-Carson received her doctorate from the Medical College of Virginia where she also was a postdoctoral fellow until moving to Johns Hopkins University and later to the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas. She will remain at UD until next summer.

Article by Sue Moncure