Tim Mulcahy could be called the insider-outsider candidate for chancellor at UW-Madison.

He spent 20 years on the faculty and in administrative positions at UW-Madison before leaving for the University of Minnesota in 2005, where for the past three years he served as vice president for research.

And he clearly still embraces UW-Madison as his home institution, often referring to the university's priorities as what "we" need to do to stay competitive and to improve.

At Minnesota, Mulcahy was in charge of $600 million in academic research and at UW, he headed one of the largest centers of biology research in the world.

He would be a boon to the already flourishing world of scientific research at UW-Madison, colleagues say. But Mulcahy said that doesn't mean he would give a short-shrift to the other half of the university — humanities and the arts.

"If I were to be chancellor here, I think my colleagues in the humanities, arts and social sciences can be confident their areas of inquiry and scholarship will still be a very high priority for the university," Mulcahy said at a news conference at Memorial Union on Wednesday. "If you don't have the whole array of that kind of academic experience as a student, you aren't creating a well-prepared citizen for the future."

The chair of the UW-Madison history department, David McDonald, said morale is low in some humanities departments due to funding cuts, but he has no objection to having a scientist in the top job.

"I don't think there's any generic prejudice against the idea of a science person," McDonald said. "I do think a lot of my colleagues would hope a scientist in a position of such authority would take into account the very different nature of funding and the making of knowledge (in humanities)."

Mulcahy arrived at UW-Madison in 1985 as an associate professor of human oncology. He became associate dean of biological sciences in 1996 and associate vice chancellor for research policy in 2001.

In 2002, Mulcahy was a finalist for the position of graduate school dean, the top research position at UW-Madison, but the job ultimately went to Martin Cadwallader, a professor of geography. In 2005, Mulcahy left to become vice president of research at Minnesota.

Mulcahy was at the center of several controversies at UW-Madison, including the debate over stem-cell policy and animal cruelty allegations at the Wisconsin Regional Primate Center.

In his roles at UW-Madison, Mulcahy was instrumental in keeping rising stem-cell star researcher James Thomson on campus by helping to create the Genome Center, a $27 million expansion to the biotechnology building, said Mike Sussman, director of the UW Biotechnology Center.

"It was a very heady time. Jamie Thomson was on the cover of Time magazine," Sussman said. "[Mulcahy] was essential to creating the Genome Center and helping to create the environment specifically to keep Jamie here."

At Minnesota, he revolutionized the technology transfer office, which serves as the bridge between research discoveries and private industry. An article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune last month called him a "magician" for, among other things, taking the university to a national ranking of No. 6 in royalty money.

Mulcahy said one of his priorities as chancellor would be to define what makes UW-Madison unique and capitalize on it, even if it means cutting programs.

"To be honest with you, there is going to be a need to look at what we currently do now and say, do we need to continue to do all the things we are doing now?" he said. "Are there better ways for some of our programs to be delivered? Are some of these programs more appropriate at one of the other UW System schools?"

He added: "If we sit still, they're going to eat our lunch. And we can't afford to do that."

Sussman said Mulcahy reminds him of former UW-Madison chancellor Donna Shalala in his leadership style.

"He's not your typical egghead," Sussman said. "In other words, he both understands and works extremely well in the elite scientific and intellectual climate we have here. In addition, he has a personable way about him."