Fuiman Tapped as UTMSI Director

By Mary Judson
South Jetty editor

The man who soon will become director of The University of Texas at Austin Marine Science Institute (UTMSI) in Port Aransas is a self-described “geezer volleyball player”.

That and a whole lot more.

Announcement that Dr. Lee Fuiman, who has a passion for volleyball, will assume duties as director Sept. 1 was made Saturday, Aug. 14, during a meeting of the UTMSI Advisory Council.

Dr. Lee Fuiman will become director of the University of Texas Marine Science Institute in Port Aransas effective September 1.  Fuiman has been on staff for many years and has been active as a volunteer as well as a member of the faculty.  He replaces Dr. Wayne Gardner who will return to teaching and research. 

In addition to playing volleyball in his spare time, Fuiman “has good technical skills, he’s a good teacher and he has good people skills,” according to his predecessor, Dr. Wayne Gardner, who is stepping aside to return to research and teaching.

UTMSI is part of the College of Natural Sciences at UT-Austin and houses the university’s Department of Marine Science.

College of Natural Sciences Dean Mary Ann Rankin said selecting Fuiman was a challenging and difficult choice among excellent candidates for the position.

“Lee brings a nice combination of things – they all did. It was a hard choice,” Rankin said.

“Lee is a natural leader in that he’s clearly a good administrator. We can see that through other things he’s done,” she said, noting that he handles UTMSI’s Web page among other volunteer activities.

“He always does well and is very well-organized. He’s very articulate, thinks ahead and thinks strategically on behalf of the Institute. He’s very tough about it – in a positive way -- and that’s really important for someone who wants to try to make changes,” Rankin said.

Fuiman’s vision for UTMSI is to “take off from the strategic plan that Wayne put together with the faculty over the past year or so. The idea is to be a world class marine science program with the expertise we already have, but add more faculty to enable us to cover a broader array of marine-related research areas.”

UTMSI currently has a team of 13 faculty with an offer out to a 14th candidate. Fuiman wants to grow that number by six.

“We could be a big force in marine science with a 20-person faculty. With the Texas Natural Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR) program spearheaded by (Dr.) Paul (Montagna), we hope to get three or four new positions. We hope to convince the provost to approve more, and we may get that done in eight to 10 years,” Fuiman said.

However, “We’re at a space crunch right now,” Fuiman said, acknowledging that “We couldn’t hold them if we had them today.” So, he also has asked the dean and the provost to approve new construction to accommodate and refurbish outdated labs. A visit by Provost Sheldon Ekland-Olson and Rankin about two weeks ago “showed good faith from the upper administration,” Fuiman said.

As a result of Fuiman’s request, the dean and provost have put together a legislative appropriations request (LAR) for an addition to UTMSI’s line item funding. It would mean a substantial increase for UTMSI’s annual expenses to accommodate six new faculty members. That the request has been included in the LAR “tells me they’re truly interested . . . we’re very excited about that because it is one of only three line item expenses that UT-Austin has requested,” Fuiman said.

Line item expenses must be approved by the UT System before going to the Legislature for final approval.

Fuiman, according to Rankin, did not want to accept the position unless the Austin administration made promises about what would be available to him as director, “and they were extremely good things to ask for. I agreed with all of them and would have asked for the same thing if I was in his position.”

Fuiman asked for the additional positions, which will require an increase in facilities and the educational component of UTMSI’s mission, Rankin said.

Fuiman’s proposals also will require new residences, laboratory and teaching facilities.

“It’s not that the administration has agreed to a certain dollar amount, but in principal they’ve agreed to the strategy, and that’s because of Lee even before he’s become director,” Rankin said.

Fuiman is a professor in the Department of Marine Science and School of Biological Sciences, Section of Integrative Biology, as well as a research professor at UTMSI.

He earned his bachelor of science degree in 1974 at Southampton College of Long Island University, his master of science degree at Cornell University in 1978, and his Ph.D. at the University of Michigan in 1983.

Among Fuiman’s research projects was one that took him to Antarctica to learn why some air-breathing mammals, specifically Weddell seals, can stay under water for so long.

With funding from a grant from the National Science Foundation, Fuiman and several other researchers went to Antarctica where they strapped a camera and a small computer on the back of a Weddell seal to find out how much energy they were really spending. “We put video cameras on these mammals and instead of pointing them forward, we pointed the camera backward to see what their tails were doing,” Fuiman said.

To their surprise, the researchers discovered that these underwater mammals weren’t doing much swimming at all. In fact, they were gliding. As a result, they conserved much of their energy, using up less oxygen and prolonging the amount of time they could stay underwater.

The story of this research, which took place over a period of three or four years, is one that Fuiman shares with audiences via a slide presentation.

“I think he’s going to be excellent –- he’s very good with external community. He’s well spoken, good at talking about his and others’ research and the priorities of UTMSI in such a way to excite people. I’ve already seen him do this,” Rankin said.

Oh, and about that volleyball. He can’t find enough players in the 45-50 age range to form a team in this area, so he teamed up with players from Houston and San Antonio to compete in the U.S. National Volleyball Championships in Atlanta last spring.

His wife, Linda, a native of Scotland and a naturalized U.S. citizen, is senior office assistant to Rick Tinnin who is director of UTMSI’s marine education services.

Fuiman will assume his position just days before the bi-annual Open House at UTMSI, which is scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 4.