Colorado State University president Tony Frank was elected to the Universities Research Association’s Board of Trustees. The URA is a union between 89 research universities across the United States, Canada, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom. The URA seeks to establish and operate laboratories and facilities for research and education within the physical and biological sciences. CSU became a member of the association last February.
The URA and the University of Chicago make up the Fermi Research Alliance LLC, which, on behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy, operates and manages Fermilab, the U.S. particle physics and accelerator laboratory.
As a member of the board, Tony Frank will serve as a voice for CSU researchers at national and international levels.
“It is a privilege to be invited to serve on the URA board of Trustees, and our community of scientists at CSU is committed to advancing innovation and discovery in collaboration with our research colleagues across the country and around the globe,” Frank said in a SOURCE article.
Tony Frank will be representing region two of seven regions of country represented by the URA board of trustees, which includes presidents and chancellors from other top universities around the country.
The growing connection between CSU and the URA allows for students and faculty to be more involved with the research occurring at Fermilab.
“CSU has had a consistent investment and prowess scientifically around physics, so joining the URA is really a great manifestation of that investment”, said Alan Rudolph, vice president for research. “The fact that they asked Tony to be on the board is I think of direct relation to our activity in (research) and it goes broadly past Fermilab kinds of science.”
Rudolph thinks that with CSU’s new connections with the URA, that there are exciting new possibilities for research and graduate programs at the university.
“We are consistently looking for opportunities to expand our graduate research programs,” he said. “Graduate programs and graduate research are key elements of (our research enterprise).”
