Marsico to be ASU interim vice provost

Removing research barriers is key goal, says new Biosciences Institute chief

Travis Marsico has been selected as interim vice provost for Research and Technology Transfer and executive director of the Arkansas Biosciences Institute at Arkansas State University, Interim Provost Len Frey has announced.

Marsico, 42, a Jefferson Science Fellow with the U.S. Department of State, replaces Tom Risch, 60, who is departing for the position of vice chancellor for research at Rutgers University in Camden, N.J.

“One of my primary goals is to remove barriers to research so that all faculty and students who have important questions to answer and products to create can do so with the support they need for success,” Marsico said in a news release. “I will work across all units at A-State to expand research activities and creative endeavors.”

The Arkansas Biosciences Institute ia a collaborative research effort involving five institutions — Arkansas Children’s Hospital; Arkansas State University; the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture; the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville; and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences — to improve the health of Arkansans. The Institute is the major research component of the Tobacco Settlement Proceeds Act of 2000. The Institute’s focus is on agriculture and basic and clinical science research that will lead to health improvement, especially in the area of tobacco-related diseases.

Arkansas State’s Office of Research and Technology Transfer is essentially the Jonesboro campus’ coordinated research arm. The office is responsible for protecting faculty, staff, and student IP via copyrights and patents, and for working collaboratively with the university’s inventors in commercializing marketable technologies and in developing licensing agreements, according to the ASU website.

The Jefferson Science Fellowship — administered by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and supported by the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development — engages the American academic science, technology, engineering, and medical communities in U.S. foreign policy and international development.

Fellows spend one year on assignment at the U.S. Department of State or U.S. Agency for International Development, working as advisers on issues of foreign policy and international development.

Marsico worked in the Office of the Geographer and Global Issues, a division of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, the State Department’s intelligence wing. He is the first researcher from the state of Arkansas to participate in the Jefferson Science Fellowship, according to Arkansas State University.

Marsico will manage his new interim role with ASU remotely through July 16, when he will return from his fellowship. He will start working full-time at ASU’s Jonesboro campus on July 17. Marsico’s annual salary will be $177,910, a spokesman said.

Before his fellowship, Marsico was a professor of botany and the associate chairperson of the ASU Department of Biological Sciences. He also oversees the Arkansas State Herbarium, commonly known as STAR, a resource for scientists investigating regional flora, or concentrating on specific taxonomic groups represented in the region. Additionally, Marsico was the inaugural recipient of the Chancellor’s Medal for Research and Creative Activities in 2021.

Marsico joined ASU in 2010 as an assistant professor of botany. He was promoted to associate professor in 2014, then elevated to full professor of botany in 2019. He previously served in administrative roles for ASU, including two stints as the associate chairperson of the Department of Biological Sciences from July 2014 to April 2018, and then from July 2020 until taking up his fellowship at the State Department in August 2022. He was the interim chairperson of the department from May 2018 to June 2020.

He has an undergraduate degree from Arkansas Tech University in biology, a master’s degree from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, and a doctorate from the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.