William Busch joins UMBI as Associate Vice President,

heads virtual education system

September 8, 1997 --- The University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute has named Dr. William S. Busch Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs. Dr. Busch will serve as director of the Secretariat for VIRTUE, a collaborative virtual university education and research program between the University System of Maryland, Gteborg University, Sweden, and the University of Bergen, Norway. The Secretariat representing all three universities will be based at UMBI.

"Dr. Busch's expertise in policy and strategic plan development, international research collaboration and education, as well as engineering and systems design will be keys to our successful implementation of the international virtual research university idea," says UMBI President Rita R. Colwell. "He is an authority on scientific and technical issues of the marine environment and environmental technology development, at both the international, domestic and regional levels. That's an outstanding fit with UMBI's Center of Marine Biotechnology."

VIRTUE is a collaborative research partnership initiated by the three universities and funded for five years by the Sweden-based Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. The intercontinental venture will use state-of-the-art communications and information systems technology daily to offer world-class lectures, seminars and courses on a real-time, full duplex, interactive basis. This means participants will have the capability to use both audio and video connections for scheduled, live learning sessions, including laboratory experiments.

The initial lectures and seminars will be based on collaborative research at UMBI's Center of Marine Biotechnology, the Center for Advanced Research in Biotechnology, and the Medical Biotechnology Center. In addition to teaching, the program will include collaborative research projects in marine biology and environmental medicine.

Dr. Busch has held numerous senior positions with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and also served as a senior policy analyst in the Executive Office of the President, Office of Science and Technology Policy, during the Bush administration. Before joining UMBI, Dr. Busch was director for emerging technologies in NOAA's Office of Global Programs, where he focused most recently on the development of environmental technologies relating to marine issues. In NOAA's Undersea Research Program, for 14 years and as senior program manager, he developed, implemented and managed state-of-the-art marine research facilities such as manned saturation habitats, deep diving submersibles, and spacecraft-based environmental monitoring systems.

"My goals are to use innovative and appropriate technologies to enable both developed and underdeveloped countries to address environmental issues," says Dr. Busch. "I look forward to drawing on my extensive contacts in international science and technology programs to act as a technical bridge and policy liaison between decision-makers, technology development groups, industry and academia."

Dr. Busch received bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan. His doctorate is from the University of Maryland in science and technology management and environmental science.