Vice Provost for Research James Coleman

Jim Coleman is Vice Provost for Research and Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Rice University where he is charged with facilitating the growth of research at Rice, and he is responsible for oversight of Rice’s $100,000,000 research enterprise.

The role of the Office of Research is to facilitate the ability of Rice's faculty to excel at research and to ensure that the broader Rice community understands the important role that research, creativity, innovation and scholarship play in generating the intellectual energy that makes Rice such a special place. We try to do this by providing high quality support functions for identifying and securing research funding; developing and submitting high quality research proposals; protecting and commercializing intellectual property; facilitating and creating a culture of compliance with federal, state and local regulations governing research; and promoting the fantastic research ongoing at Rice University.

The most recent focus of Coleman's research interests has been the ecological effects of environmental change, but his role as vice provost keep him too busy to run a lab here.

Prior to joining Rice, Jim was the Vice Chancellor for Research and Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Missouri – Columbia (MU) and he was Vice President for Research and Business Development at the Desert Research Institute (DRI) - an internationally renowned environmental science research institute with annual research expenditures of approximately $50,000,000 and campuses in both Reno and Las Vegas, Nevada. Jim was an Assistant Professor, and then Associate Professor, of Biology at Syracuse University and he served as a Program Officer for Ecological and Evolutionary Physiology at the National Science Foundation (NSF) where he also ran programs for Dissertation Improvement Awards and a joint agency program in Terrestrial Ecology and Global Change. While at Syracuse University, Jim received an NSF Young Investigator Award, and was recognized for outstanding graduate teaching with Syracuse University’s William Wasserstrom Prize. The British journal The Scientist reported in 1996 that a paper co-authored by Jim in 1993 (Oecologia.93: 195-200) was the number six most cited paper in the field of global change biology and he has been co-author on two significant additional publications in the journal Nature on global change biology, including the September 18, 2008 cover article.

Jim has also been heavily involved in building research infrastructure at the national, statewide and university level through role as a chief research officer, and through his role in building research capacity as Nevada’s statewide EPSCoR director, as a member of the Board of the Coalition of EPSCoR states, and his current roles as Commissioner, University of Rhode Island Commission for Research and Innovation; Chair, State of Arkansas National Science Foundation EPSCoR external advisory committee; Chair, State of Nevada National Science Foundation EPSCoR external advisory board. He also serves as a Board member, National Space Biomedical Research Institute; Board Member, Southern Universities Research Association; and has served in the past in other capacities including being a Board Member, Missouri Innovation Center; President of the Physiological Ecology Section of the Ecological Society of America; Associate Editor and Editorial Board Member for the journals Ecology and Ecological Monograph; Associate Editor for The International Journal of Plant Sciences.

Jim has a B.S. (Forestry) from the University of Maine and a M.S., M.Phil. and Ph.D. from Yale University. Dr. Coleman also held positions as a postdoctoral researcher in biology at Stanford University and Harvard University. He has been Principal or co-Principal investigator on approximately $40,000,000 in competitive grants and cooperative agreements and has authored or co-authored over 75 peer reviewed publications.