College of Science announces leadership changes

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Larry Buckley and Mihail Barbosu

RIT Dean of the College of Science Sophia Maggelakis has announced the appointments of Larry Buckley and Mihail Barbosu to key positions on her leadership team.

Buckley was named head of the Thomas H. Gosnell School of Life Sciences. Buckley, who joined RIT in 1998, has served as the associate head of the School of Life Sciences. He won a 2001 Richard and Virginia Eisenhart Provost’s Award and has developed courses in evolutionary biology, population genetics and biogeography.

Buckley’s research interests focus on phylogenetics and vertebrate systematics, especially reptiles and amphibians, with an emphasis on population genetics of iguanid lizards. Buckley works to save remaining populations of endangered species in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. In a 1997 paper published in Copeia, the publication of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, Buckley and his co-authors describe a news species of iguana indigenous to the forests of Honduras in Central America.

Buckley earned his Ph.D. in zoology from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, M.S. in biology from SIU at Edwardsville and B.S. in biology at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. He is a member of the Society for the Study of Evolution, the International Biogeography Society, the Geological Society of America and the Society of Systematic Biologists.

New to RIT this fall, Mihail Barbosu joined the university as head of the School of Mathematical Sciences. Prior to RIT, he was the chair of the Department of Mathematics at The College at Brockport.

Barbosu’s research focuses on theoretical and computational methods in differential geometry, dynamical systems, celestial mechanics and space dynamics, applied statistics, computer algebra systems and modeling mass movements. He has written two texts and numerous research papers.

Barbosu earned his Ph.D. and M.S. in celestial mechanics and astronomy from Paris Observatory and Pierre et Marie Curie University in France. He completed a second Ph.D. in mathematics from Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, where he also earned his B.S. in mathematics.