Richard Ewing, the former vice president of research at Texas A&M, and a distinguished professor in the math department, died after suffering a heart attack on Wednesday, according to University officials.
Ewing, 61, became the university's vice president of research in 2000. In August, he returned to the mathematics department following a highly publicized inquiry by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The investigation was spurred by accounts of workers in A&M's biodefense lab being exposed to dangerous bioweapon agents.
In his career, Ewing received notoriety as both a researcher and an administrator. He worked for Texas A&M University System since 1992. He earned his bachelor's, master's and doctorate degrees from the University of Texas.
After his resignation, he returned to the math department at A&M to continue research there and to his work with the organization he founded, A&M's Institute for Scientific Computation.
The CDC ordered Texas A&M to stop the biodefense research portion of its homeland security research after learning that four researchers had been accidentally exposed to the bioweapon agent known as Q fever in the previous year.
The University did not meet Federal law requirement of reporting such exposures within one week.
Ewing resigned in August saying that it was his duty to do so; he attributed the problems to human error.
In Ewing's resignation letter, he wrote that he was leaving his position "during a time the university is under tremendous scrutiny surrounding its select agent research program."
Ewing also indicated that it was his goal to work with new administrators to make things right in the biodefense research labs.
"I fully intend to work with the interim university administration, faculty and staff to help bring our program back into full compliance."
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