Long-time Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry faculty member Dr. Martin Schimpf retired this summer, leaving after 35 distinguished years of service to Boise State University.
Marty first joined our department in 1990, becoming a full professor in 1998. In his service to the university, he held several appointments, including Chair of Chemistry, Associate Dean and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and served as Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs from 2010 to 2018. With the retirement of Dr. Bob Kustra, Marty was named Interim President of Boise State University in 2018, a position he held for a year before Dr. Marlene Tromp became President in July of 2019.
During his tenure as provost, Marty was credited with a number of student success initiatives, including expanding the Honors curriculum, enhancing tutoring and academic advising, and improving the foundational studies program. He was instrumental in building Idaho’s largest graduate school, introducing a series of new Ph.D. programs that resulted in Boise State being classified as a doctoral research institution by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education in 2016. Also during his time as provost, Boise State established the School of Public Service, the College of Innovation and Design, the School of Allied Health, the Center for Global Education, and greatly expanded the e-Campus online offerings, creating 21 fully online degrees offered by the university. To commemorate his accomplishments, one of the lecture halls in the Education Building was named in his honor.
Dr. Schimpf holds a Bachelors degree in Chemistry from the University of Washington and a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Utah. His interdisciplinary research on thermophoresis and the characterization of nanomaterials has led to over 100 internationally distributed scientific publications that have been cited thousands of times.
To celebrate his retirement, Marty was presented with his own Wizard Hat, a tradition exclusive to the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry here at Boise State. It was decorated with the pins we hand out to our chemistry majors and adorned with stars in Boise State and his alma maters’ colors. A group of current and former faculty gathered for dinner at Bittercreek Alehouse to wish him farewell. As Marty called it, it was “a reunion of 20th century Boise State chemists.”
We’d like to thank Marty for his decades of service not only to our department but to the university as a whole. The impact he has made here will last many generations and he will be missed. Best of luck in your next adventure Marty!