Virginia S. Hinshaw, who now serves as provost and executive vice chancellor of the University of California, Davis, has been recommended as the new chancellor for the University of Hawai'i-Manoa.

Hinshaw received the recommendation of a UH search committee, and the UH Board of Regents is expected to vote this week to make her selection official.

A news conference has been scheduled Friday afternoon to introduce Hinshaw after the regents' monthly meeting at Hawai'i Community College in Hilo on the Big Island.

Her appointment as chancellor would be for five years, taking effect July 1 of this year and lasting through June 30, 2012.

The regents will vote on her salary at their meeting this week.

The appointment would also come with a housing allowance as well as joint appointments to the College of Natural Sciences and John A. Burns School of Medicine.

The probationary period for tenure would be waived.

Along with her academic credentials, Hinshaw is a virologist who has spent the last 25 years researching viruses. Her research has focused on various aspects of flu viruses, including their hosts in nature, their transmission in people as well as lower mammals and birds, and approaches to vaccines to control them.

At Davis, Hinshaw has been both chief academic officer and chief financial officer, handling the campus' $2.3 billion budget as well as having responsibility for the UC-Davis Health System.

Before she joined Davis in 2001, she served as the dean of the graduate school and vice chancellor for research at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.