Rice Names New VP for Administration

Kevin Kirby, former chief operating officer and vice president for administration at Columbia University Medical Center, has taken the reins as Rice’s new vice president for administration.

Kevin Kirby, Rice’s new VP for Administration.

“I am delighted that Kevin Kirby has accepted the position of vice president for administration,” said Rice president David W. Leebron. “His wide-ranging experience and knowledge of higher education make him the perfect choice for our leadership team. I commend the search committee and its co-chairs, Kathleen Matthews and Gilbert Whitaker, for producing such an outstanding candidate. They did a superb job.”

Kirby was chosen after a national search was launched when two new divisions were created to handle finance and administration, previously a single position held by Dean Currie, who left last year to become executive vice president at CalTech. Kathy Collins was named vice president for finance in May.

The search committee was “very enthusiastic” about Kirby’s candidacy, said Matthews, dean of the Wiess School of Natural Sciences.

“Kevin Kirby brings a unique combination of experience and insight to the role of vice president for administration,” she said. “The fit of his expertise and interest with our needs for the next phase of the university’s development is particularly compelling.”

Kirby said he looks forward to his new position at Rice. “What really motivates me is David Leebron’s vision for Rice as articulated in the Call to Conversation,” he said. “It’s very exciting, very bold, and I want to help him and his team implement it.”

Kirby has nearly 30 years of experience working for research organizations in both technical and administrative capacities. In his former position, he was responsible for the execution of strategy for the $1.2 billion medical center comprised of the schools of medicine, public health, dentistry, and nursing, as well as the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and a commercial biotechnology incubator. He supervised the majority of administrative functions and served on the management team overseeing the university’s development of a new 20-acre campus.

Whitaker, former dean of Rice’s Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management and professor emeritus of business economics, sees Kirby’s experience working in a medical center as a key positive attribute, due to Rice’s proximity to and many research collaborations with the Texas Medical Center.

“Kevin was clearly an outstanding candidate, and he will add value to the administration at Rice—first, because of his intelligence, and second, because of his knowledge of higher education and medical centers,” Whitaker said.

Before joining Columbia, Kirby was executive officer and acting deputy director for the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke at the National Institutes of Heath, where he was responsible for all the nonmedical functions of the $1.2-billion institute. Previously, he held several management positions with the Army Research Laboratory and the Army Laboratory Command, served on the staff of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and was science advisor for the Army Forces Command and research engineer for the Army Materials Technology Lab.

Kirby holds a bachelor of science in chemical engineering from Syracuse University, a master of science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in management, and another master’s degree in social and organizational learning from George Mason University. He currently is working on his doctorate in higher education management at the University of Pennsylvania.

Kirby is no stranger to Texas. He was born in Port Arthur, and his wife, Susan, is from San Antonio. They have two sons—Jake, 13, and Ty, 9.

—Margot Dimond