University of Alaska President Pat Gamble announced Wednesday that Rick Caulfield, a veteran University of Alaska professor and administrator, will replace outgoing chancellor John Pugh at the University of Alaska Southeast.
A university committee had proposed to Gamble that Caulfield, the UAS provost, succeed Pugh, who retires this month. Gamble said Caulfield has worked closely with Pugh and is the right person "to guide UAS into a bright future."
Caulfield began teaching at the Dillingham campus in 1985 and later served as a professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks in the Department of Alaska Native and Rural Development. Before accepting the provost job in Juneau, Caulfield served as director of the UAF Tanana Valley Campus in Fairbanks.
He has written two books and served on numerous national and international committees and boards. His academic and professional interests include commercial fishing, flying, sailing, home building, mushing and hunting, according to UA. He earned his doctorate at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom.
Caulfield's dissertation focused on subsistence whaling in Greenland and other issues related to natural resources in the Arctic.