An adviser to a high-profile North Carolina Republican legislative leader has been hired to lead research at a controversial branch of UNC.
Dr. Jeffrey Warren, who has served as the science policy adviser to North Carolina Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger since 2011, was hired as the research director of the North Carolina Policy Collaboratory.
Warren’s hire was effective Monday, when the hire was announced. The collaboratory was met with concern from faculty members at the UNC System’s flagship campus when it was launched last year. The North Carolina General Assembly ordered the collaboratory to conduct research on various environmental issues.
Chair of the UNC faculty, Dr. Bruce Cairns, said in an interview with WCHL last year that members of the faculty were concerned with how the center was initiated by the legislature. Chancellor Carol Folt said that putting Provost Jim Dean in charge of the collaboratory should show that the university was taking the research being done very seriously.
Warren will report directly to the collaboratory’s director Brad Ives, who is also the university’s chief sustainability officer and associate vice chancellor for campus enterprises.
“Jeff’s relationships and experience at both the General Assembly and across state government will be great assets in the future work of the Collaboratory,” Ives said in a release on Monday. “We have already made great strides in project development over the last six months and will be gearing up, with Jeff’s help, to do substantial work to apply the scientific expertise of the University of North Carolina system to the needs of North Carolina and its citizens in the area of natural resources management.”
The release said Warren will “develop requests for proposals for research, as approved by the faculty-led Collaboratory Advisory Board, supporting natural resource management issues within North Carolina.” Warren will also be charged to “support and monitor research on Collaboratory projects; work with researchers to prepare reports for the General Assembly; and support other operational needs of the Collaboratory.”
Warren has a Ph.D. in Geological Sciences from UNC.
The collaboratory is currently working on several projects, according to its website, including analyzing the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew on the eastern portion of North Carolina and the wildfires in the western portion of the Tar Heel state.
Warren is not the only aide to top Republican leadership recently hired by the university. House Speaker Tim Moore’s Chief of Staff was hired to a newly created position of vice chancellor of public affairs and secretary of the university earlier this year.
Photo via North Carolina Policy Collaboratory
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