Dr. Michael D. Devine joined the non-profit MDS Research Foundation and its affiliate SynCure Cancer Research Foundation as Executive Director in July 2000. Previously he served as Vice Chancellor for Research, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville from 1995-2000. He also held a tenured faculty appointment in Industrial Engineering. During this time he also served as Chairman of the Board of the Tennessee Center for Research and Development (TCRD), a position he still holds, and served on the Boards of Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU), the Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA), and the University of Tennessee Research Corporation (UTRC).

Dr. Devine has a B.S. in Physics (1966) and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering (1969), specializing in Operations Research, both from the University of Texas at Austin. From 1969-87, he was a professor of Industrial Engineering at the University of Oklahoma; from 1978-87 he was also Director of the Science and Public Policy Program at OU. In 1987, Devine became Associate Vice President for Research at Florida State University (FSU), with a tenured faculty appointment in the Department of Information and Management Sciences (College of Business), and in the Department of Industrial Engineering. He was at FSU until 1995 and during this time, among other responsibilities, he started a successful technology transfer program that has subsequently earned FSU over $300 million in royalties.