In 1992, Hopps joined the National Science Foundation, where he was director of the division of materials sciences, and in 1995 returned to Morehouse, where he became provost and senior vice-president Hopps was appointed by President George West. Bush as deputy Undersecretary of Defense, in 2001, where he oversaw research for defense and engineering, a position he held until his death on 14 May 2004 in Potomac, Maryland.
A native of Dallas, Texas, Hopps was a Ford Scholar to Morehouse College, also receiving degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (where he was a member of Omega Psi Phi fraternity) and Brandeis University. After his graduation in 1971, Hopps joined the faculty at Ohio State University, and later accepted a research position in nuclear engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and was a member of leadership at the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory.
