Michael Hopkins

As vice provost for research infrastructure, Mike leads the office’s work on academic space allocation, long-range space planning, and capital planning, and serves as project executive on major academic capital projects. Additionally, Mike supports the development of new initiatives in the sciences, such as the Data Science Initiative, and serves as liaison to the Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago.

Prior to joining the Office of the Provost in 2017, Mike served for four years as deputy dean of the Physical Sciences Division, where his portfolio included strategic planning, oversight of the division’s master’s degree programs, and development of the division’s graduate student recruiting and fellowship strategy. Prior to that, he served as chair of the Department of Chemistry for six years, during which time he led planning and design for the full renovation of the Searle Chemistry Laboratory and for the department’s space in the Gordon Center for Integrative Science; led fundraising and design for the Searle Cleanroom, of which he was the founding director; and developed the department’s faculty expansion plan.

Mike’s research lies in three areas: the exploration of new light-absorbing catalysts with applications in organic synthesis and the production of renewable fuels from solar energy; the development of new methods for organizing nanomaterials on surfaces; and the discovery of inorganic X-ray contrast agents. He earned his BA from the University of California at San Diego and PhD from the California Institute of Technology, and was then a Director’s Postdoctoral Scholar at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Prior to joining the faculty of the University of Chicago in 1999, he was a member of the faculty at the University of Pittsburgh, from which he received the Chancellor’s Distinguished Research Award. Mike is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; a recipient of fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan, David and Lucile Packard, and Camille and Henry Dreyfus foundations; and a recipient of the Arthur L. Kelly Prize for Exceptional Faculty Service.