Dr. Holden Thorp, distinguished professor and chair of the department of chemistry, is the dean of UNC's College of Arts and Sciences. An alumnus of the College and a native of Fayetteville, N.C., Thorp was selected as the result of a national search.
"Leading the oldest public college in the country presents and exciting challenge and a humbling opportunity," said Dean Thorp. "The search process provided a great reminder of how deeply people care about the College of Arts and Sciences, and I look forward to working with those who have given so much to producing our outstanding programs in graduate and undergraduate education."
An award-winning teacher and researcher, Thorp has held several important leadership positions on campus since joining the university faculty in 1993. In July 2005 he became Kenan professor and chair of the chemistry department. Since 2002, he has also been the faculty director for a fundraising effort to raise $22 million in private funds towards the completion of the Carolina Physical Science Complex, the largest construction project in the university's history.
From 2001 to 2004, Thorp served as director of UNC's Morehead Planetarium and Science Center, a newly expanded museum providing informal science education throughout North Carolina. An estimated 130,000 visitors attended science programs at the historic landmark during the last fiscal year. Under Thorp's leadership, the center created "DNA: The Secret of Life," a 30-minute film for science museums that is permanently installed at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City and playing at science museums throughout North America.
Thorp has published more than 120 scholarly publications on the electronic properties of DNA and RNA. He has invented technology for electronic DNA chips that is the subject of 14 issued or pending U.S. patents. One of his technologies is being used to provide a less expensive blood test to determine if prospective parents carry the gene for cystic fibrosis.
For his DNA chip technology, Thorp was recognized as one of the Top Innovators of 2001 by Fortune Small Business magazine. He also has been advisor, co-founder or consultant with many small companies, including Novalon Pharmaceuticals, Xanthon, Osmetech, OhmX, and MaxCyte. In 2005, Thorp co-founded Viamet Pharmaceuticals, a company dedicated to finding new drugs for metalloenzymes. Viamet received seed financing from Intersouth Partners in July 2005.
Thorp has won many other honors for his research, including a Presidential Young Investigator Award, an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, the David and Lucile Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering, and both the New Faculty Award and Teacher-Scholar Award from the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation.
In addition, he won the university's Tanner award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching and the Distinguished Young Alumnus Award.
Thorp received his bachelor of science degree, with highest honors, in chemistry from UNC in 1986. He went on to receive his doctorate from the California Institute of Technology in 1989. He came to UNC in 1993 as an assistant professor of chemistry.
Thorp replaces Madeline G. Levine, who served as interim dean of the College since 2006 when former dean Bernadette Gray Little was promoted to the post of executive vice chancellor and provost of the university.
