The search might be over for a new leader of the University of California.

A nine-member search committee of UC regents will recommend Thursday a candidate to take over when UC President Richard Atkinson retires in October, according to people close to the process.

The full board of regents would have to vote on the recommendation, which could be for either an interim or permanent president.

It's not clear who is on the short list of finalists. Internal names floated in the past include UCLA Chancellor Albert Carnesale, UC San Diego Chancellor Robert Dynes, UC Santa Cruz Chancellor M.R.C. Greenwood and UC Santa Barbara Chancellor Henry Yang.

UC Senior Vice President Bruce Darling, who is working to fix the university's management failures at Los Alamos Laboratory, has also surfaced as a possibility. But in the past he has said he should not be considered because the faculty wants someone with an academic background and Darling does not have a doctorate.

The search committee, headed by UC Board of Regents Chairman John Moores, had said it would conduct a thorough nationwide search and in February hired A.T. Kearney Inc., a senior level executive search firm, to assist.

The new president will face many challenges, including deciding whether to compete to continue operating Los Alamos when its contract goes up for bid. Other issues include severe budget cuts and a growing student population.

Of the rumored internal candidates, Greenwood was previously a dean and vice provost at UC Davis and associate director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Carnesale is an international security and foreign policy expert and a former provost of Harvard University. A semiconductor expert, Dynes was previously a research scientist at AT&T Bell Labs, and he is currently vice chairman of the UC president's committee on oversight of the national laboratories. Yang was previously dean of engineering and a distinguished professor at Purdue University.

When the university sought to fill the vacancy in 1995, it hit embarrassing snags before finally settling on Atkinson. The first choice, Ohio State University President E. Gordon Gee, withdrew shortly before his confirmation by the board. The committee stalled as it looked at in-house candidates. It voted against recommending Atkinson as president and then voted for him.

The search committee had its last formal meeting May 16 and then began interviewing candidates.