Kent State University’s Vice President of Research and Sponsored Programs, Grant McGimpsey, will step down, the university announced Aug. 20.

However, McGimpsey will stay on Kent State’s staff as a researcher and professor and agreed to continue his vice president position until a replacement has been named, according to a univeristy press release.

“I have been an active researcher for more than 30 years,” McGimpsey said in an email interview, “investigating a wide variety of subjects including nanotechnology, solar energy conversion, biomedical sensors and implantable prosthetics. This research has taken me across several disciplines and is incredibly rewarding, particularly when we find answers to questions that will be helpful to members of the public. It is this ‘love of finding things out’, as Richard Feynman put it, and making something useful from the answers, that has motivated me (to make the change).”

McGimpsey also said that his aspirations remain the same, despite his change in position.

“I have been a professor and a researcher for the past 25 years, for 22 years at my previous institution and for the past three years here at Kent State, so my goals remain the same as always – investigate problems that need solving, apply the solutions to helping people,” McGimpsey said in the email interview.

He elaborated on his goal of solving problems to help people by explaining some of his research.

“A good example of this is the work that I have now been doing for 10 years with the U.S. Army Medical Research community on the development of implantable prosthetics for military amputees – soldiers who have lost limbs in battle,” he said in an email interview. “I find this work energizing and motivating. I am fortunate to be able to use my education and training to help in a small way those men and women who have been injured in the service of our country. I will continue to work on this problem going forward.”

McGimpsey’s leadership and support will be missed, said Lori Burchard, director of sponsored programs. She said she is happy that he will remain in the position until a replacement has been named.

Although McGimpsey is stepping down, he said that “working with faculty to help them be more successful in their own research programs… has been a very rewarding experience.”

A replacement vice president of Research and Sponsored Programs has yet to be found. University spokesman Eric Mansfield said a search committee to fill the position has not yet been assembled, and finding a replacement for the position will likely take a few months.

Contact Jacob Brown at [email protected].