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A University of Georgia associate vice president and pharmaceutical researcher will be the first candidate to interview for a vice chancellor position that oversees all research activity at the University of Kansas.

Shelley Hooks, the associate vice president for research at the University of Georgia, is the first announced candidate for KU’s open vice chancellor for research position. Hooks will give a public presentation at 2:30 p.m. on April 15 at the 1502 Building, which is at 15th and Iowa streets and previously housed the KU welcome center.

In addition to her research leadership role at Georgia, Hooks is a professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical & Biomedical Sciences at the College of Pharmacy. Her research focuses on novel therapeutic strategies for cancer and neurological disease.

In her role as an associate vice president, Hooks oversees a portfolio of approximately $750,000 of internal research funding programs, and also leads efforts to support faculty, postdoctoral scholars and other research personnel.

Hicks is one of four candidates for the KU position, which became available after Simon Atkinson left the post to take a similar research position at the University of California, Davis.

The other three candidates for the position have not yet been announced. Each will give a public presentation as part of the interview process. Those presentations are scheduled for April 19, April 25 and May 1. KU intends to release the name of each candidate one to two days prior to each presentation.