Robert Hampshire is the executive director of the Research Development Office at the University of Minnesota's Research & Innovation Office. In this role, his primary goal is to enhance the University’s overall research impact across its colleges and campuses. This includes a particular focus on supporting grant proposals for large-scale, interdisciplinary research initiatives and overseeing strategic growth initiatives across the institution. His own research, which is supported by the National Science Foundation, focuses on the management, modeling, and optimization of services.
Before joining the University of Minnesota, Hampshire served as an associate professor of public policy at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. From 2021 to 2025, Hampshire served as acting assistant secretary for research and technology at the USDOT. During that time, he also served as chief science officer, a role that had not been filled for more than 40 years.
He received his PhD in operations research and financial engineering from Princeton University in 2007 and has held faculty positions at Carnegie Mellon University and as a visiting professor at MIT.