UChicago News

Angela Olinto named dean of Physical Sciences Division

Thu, 07 Jun 2018 12:00 -0500

Angela V. Olinto, the Albert A. Michelson Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, has been appointed dean of the Division of the Physical Sciences at the University of Chicago.

Olinto is a leading scholar in astroparticle physics and cosmology, focusing on understanding the origin of high-energy cosmic rays, gamma rays and neutrinos. Her appointment as dean is effective July 1.

“Angela brings depth of University experience and scholarly expertise to this leadership role, making her an excellent choice as dean,” wrote President Robert J. Zimmer and Provost Daniel Diermeier in announcing her appointment.

Olinto’s research includes important contributions to the physics of quark stars, inflationary theory and cosmic magnetic fields. She currently leads NASA sub-orbital and space missions to discover the origins of high-energy cosmic rays and neutrinos. This includes a NASA-funded balloon mission planned for 2022 that will use an ultra-sensitive telescope to detect cosmic rays and neutrinos coming from deep space.

“I am thrilled and humbled to be appointed to lead this historic and dynamic division, home to visionary scholars who constantly redefine the boundaries of the physical and mathematical sciences. I look forward to collaborating with faculty, students and staff to advance the important work of the division,” Olinto said.

Olinto joined the UChicago faculty in 1996 and served as chair of the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics from 2003 to 2006 and from 2012 to 2017. She is the leader of the POEMMA and EUSO space missions and a member of the Pierre Auger Observatory, which are international projects designed to discover the origin of high-energy cosmic rays. She is a fellow of the American Physical Society, was a trustee of the Aspen Center for Physics, and serves on advisory committees for the National Academy of Sciences, U.S. Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation and NASA.

Olinto’s awards and honors include the Chaire d'Excellence Award of the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche in 2006, the University’s Llewellyn John and Harriet Manchester Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching in 2011, and the Faculty Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching and Mentoring in 2015. Olinto received her undergraduate degree from Pontificia Universidade Catolica in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and her doctoral degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Olinto succeeds Edward “Rocky” Kolb, the Arthur Holly Compton Distinguished Service Professor of Astronomy & Astrophysics, whose work over the last five years enhanced the division’s historic strengths as a leading center of scientific discovery. Kolb will return to his full-time work on the faculty next month.

The selection of the new dean by Zimmer and Diermeier was informed by the recommendations of an elected faculty committee chaired by Stuart A. Kurtz, professor in the Department of Computer Science.

Mary Lou Gorno appointed chair of Smart Museum Board

Tue, 05 Jun 2018 16:15 -0500

Mary Lou Gorno, a business executive and alumna of Chicago Booth who serves as vice chair of the University of Chicago’s Board of Trustees, has been appointed chair of the Smart Museum of Art’s Board of Governors.

Gorno, managing director of the executive search firm Ingenuity International, serves the University in a variety of capacities, including chair of the University of Chicago Phoenix Society, a trustee of Court Theatre and a director at NORC. She has been a member of UChicago’s Board of Trustees since 2004.

“Mary Lou Gorno brings to the Smart Museum Board of Governors a deep knowledge of the University of Chicago and extensive experience in leading organizations. I look forward to seeing momentum as the Smart Museum continues to grow with her board leadership, supporting the expanding role of the arts at the University,” President Robert J. Zimmer said.

Gorno’s two-year appointment as board chair is effective Sept. 1. The Smart Museum of Art is UChicago’s fine arts museum, home to thought-provoking exhibitions, a wide-ranging collection, and public programs that encourage the examination of complex issues through the lens of art objects and artistic practice, both contemporaneously and across history.

"The arts have an important and growing role at the University of Chicago. I look forward to working with my fellow board members in support of Alison Gass and her dynamic team as the Smart Museum writes the future of university art museums," Gorno said.

Gorno succeeds Pamela Hoehn-Saric, MAT’81, who has served as chair of the Smart Museum Board since 2012. During that period, the Smart Museum celebrated its 40th anniversary, appointed Alison Gass as the Dana Feitler Director and launched the Feitler Center of Academic Inquiry. Hoehn-Saric will continue to serve as a member of the Smart Museum Board.

“I am thrilled to welcome Mary Lou to the board as chair-elect,” said Hoehn-Saric. “The Smart is on an exciting trajectory, and Mary Lou brings extensive experience and talent in board development and strategy, which will help Ali, the board and the staff realize Ali’s exciting vision for the museum.”

Gorno earned a bachelor’s degree in business and economics from Saint Mary’s College, a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University, and master’s degree in finance and accounting from UChicago’s Booth School of Business.

Gorno began her career in advertising, becoming a senior executive at the Leo Burnett Company where she worked with Walt Disney, Reebok and Procter & Gamble. She later moved to the executive search profession and currently leads the CEO and Board practice for Fortune 500, mid-cap and privately owned companies. As a board and CEO adviser, she specializes in organizational governance, succession planning and leadership issues.

In addition to her extensive involvement at the University, Gorno serves as vice chair of the Board of Trustees of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, vice chair of the Archdiocese of Chicago Catholic School Board and director of the Chicago Humanities Festival.

Behavioral economist Sendhil Mullainathan to join Booth faculty as University Professor

Mon, 21 May 2018 12:10 -0500

Influential economics scholar Sendhil Mullainathan will join the University of Chicago Booth School of Business faculty on July 1, 2018, where he has been appointed University Professor. He currently serves as the Robert C. Waggoner Professor of Economics at Harvard University.

Mullainathan’s research spans broad areas of economics: behavioral, labor, public economics and corporate finance, and most recently has focused on the intersection of machine learning and public policy. His seminal research includes topics ranging from the impact of poverty on mental bandwidth to showing that higher cigarette taxes make smokers happier.

“Sendhil is a phenomenal scholar, whose work has had great impact in a variety of fields,” said Madhav Rajan, dean of Chicago Booth and the George Pratt Shultz Professor of Accounting. “Sendhil’s history of collaboration across disciplines will strengthen ties among Booth’s research areas and deepen the school’s connections to the rest of the University.”

University Professors are selected for internationally recognized eminence in their fields as well as for their potential for high impact across the University. Mullainathan will become the 22nd person to hold a University Professorship, and the ninth active faculty member holding that title.

After completing his PhD in economics at Harvard in 1998, Mullainathan taught at Massachusetts Institute of Technology until 2004, when he moved to Harvard, where he is a professor of economics and affiliate of Harvard’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

“The University of Chicago has a grand tradition of defining new disciplines: the phrase ‘Chicago School of’ has its own resonance in many academic fields,” Mullainathan said.

“Today a new discipline is emerging at the intersection of human and machine intelligence. Algorithms are now capable of amazing feats, and fully harnessing their capacities requires integrating them equally with marvelous aspects of human cognition,” he added. “I’m excited to join Booth and be part of a team that will hopefully define another ‘Chicago School’ in this emerging discipline.”

Mullainathan has published more than 50 journal articles, including 14 papers in top economics journals. He recently co-authored Scarcity: Why Having too Little Means so Much and writes regularly for The New York Times. In 2002, he received a MacArthur Fellowship and serves on the board of the MacArthur Foundation.

In 2012, Mullainathan was designated a “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum; was labeled a “Top 100 Thinker” by Foreign Policy Magazine, and named to the “Smart List: 50 people who will change the world” by Wired Magazine.

He helped co-found the non-profit organization ideas42, which applies behavioral science to positively change lives; and co-founded Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, a center to promote the use of randomized control trials in development. Mullainathan is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is affiliated with the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Nipam Patel appointed director of the Marine Biological Laboratory

Mon, 23 Apr 2018 11:30 -0500

Nipam Patel, a leading scholar in modern evolutionary and developmental biology, has been appointed director of the Marine Biological Laboratory, an affiliate of the University of Chicago. In addition, Patel will be appointed as a faculty member at the University of Chicago.

Patel currently holds the William V. Power Endowed Chair in Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is professor and co-chair of the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology and professor in the Department of Integrative Biology. His appointment is effective Sept. 4.

Patel’s connections to the MBL and the University reach back two decades. For the past 17 years, he has taught the MBL Embryology course, having served as co-director from 2007 to 2011. Patel’s ties to UChicago include serving as a professor in the Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy from 1995 to 2003.

Patel studies the evolutionary changes that have brought about the diversity of life seen today. Over the course of his career, he has established a marine crustacean named Parhyale hawaiensis as a genetic model for understanding how diverse body plans develop and evolve. Patel’s significant scientific contributions complement a core focus of the MBL: discoveries emerging from the study of novel marine organisms, including research in comparative evolution and genomics, regenerative biology, neuroscience and sensory biology.

Prof. Nipam Patel established a marine crustacean, Parhyale hawaiensis, as a model system for studying the evolution and development of diverse body plans. (Image courtesy of Nipam Patel, MBL Embryology course 2017)

“From a pool of extraordinarily accomplished candidates, Nipam distinguished himself as particularly passionate about MBL’s rich history and even more so about its promising future,” said David Fithian, executive vice president of the University of Chicago, MBL trustee and co-chair of the search advisory committee. “He will be a compelling spokesperson for and determined leader of the MBL’s next chapter.”

“It is an incredible honor to have the opportunity to lead the MBL, an institution that has had a remarkable influence on my own career through the teaching and research opportunities it has provided me over almost 20 years,” Patel said. “I am excited to build upon the MBL’s extraordinary history to elevate it to even greater prominence, and to partner with the University of Chicago in this endeavor. I look forward to working with all the dedicated MBL scientists and staff, as well as all those who come to visit and share in the magic of the MBL.”

Patel grew up in El Paso, Texas and received a bachelor’s degree in biology from Princeton University and a PhD in biological sciences from Stanford University. He joined the University of California, Berkeley in 2003, where he has held the Schubert Endowed Chair, and serves as faculty curator at the Essig Museum of Entomology. Patel has served as an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and an adjunct professor at the National Institute of Genetics in Shizuoka, Japan. He began his career as a staff associate in the Department of Embryology at the Carnegie Institution in Baltimore, Maryland.

Patel is the editor of the journal Development and serves on the editorial boards of eLife, EvoDevo, Developmental Biology, Development Genes and Evolution and Evolution and Development. He is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and has served on numerous advisory boards, including the board of directors of the Society for Developmental Biology.

Patel is a member of the MBL Education Committee, which provides strategic planning for more than 20 advanced research training courses and other educational programs at the MBL, including collaborative initiatives with UChicago.

Patel succeeds interim MBL co-directors Melina Hale, the William Rainey Harper Professor in the Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy and in the College, and vice provost for academic initiatives at UChicago; and Neil Shubin, the Robert R. Bensley Professor in the Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy at UChicago.

The MBL in Woods Hole, Massachusetts is a leading international center for investigation in the biological and ecological sciences. Founded in 1888, the laboratory convenes scientists from institutions around the world to collaborate in its resident and visiting research centers and to teach in its education division. UChicago and the MBL formed an affiliation in 2013.

The selection of the new director by President Robert J. Zimmer was informed by a search advisory committee, which Fithian co-chaired along with Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado, an investigator at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research.

Amanda Woodward named dean of the Division of the Social Sciences

Wed, 04 Apr 2018 11:00 -0500

Amanda Woodward, the William S. Gray Distinguished Service Professor of Psychology, has been appointed dean of the Division of the Social Sciences at the University of Chicago.

Woodward, a leading scholar in the social development of infants and young children, has been serving as interim dean of the Division since July 2017. Her appointment as dean of the Division is effective April 4.

“Amanda has provided vital leadership, sustaining the momentum of the Division of the Social Sciences. We are confident that she will be an excellent leader for the Division in the years to come,” wrote President Robert J. Zimmer and Provost Daniel Diermeier in announcing her appointment.

Woodward in her research has pioneered the development of experimental methods to investigate social cognition in infants and young children. Her work has produced fundamental insights into infants’ social understanding and the processes that support conceptual development early in life. Her current research includes investigating the effects of culture and community in shaping children’s social learning strategies and the neural processes involved in early social-cognitive development.

“It is an honor to lead such an extraordinary community of scholars. I look forward to working together in many areas of research and an array of educational endeavors with faculty, students and staff to advance the social sciences at the University,” Woodward said.

Woodward has been a member of the University faculty since 1993. She was a founding member of the Center for Early Childhood Research and has served as director of the Infant Learning and Development Laboratory as well as chair of the Department of Psychology and deputy dean of faculty affairs for the Division.

Woodward was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2014. Her research has been recognized by such awards as the Ann L. Brown Award for Excellence in Developmental Research, the American Psychological Association Boyd McCandless Award for an Early Career Contribution to Developmental Psychology and the John Merck Scholars Award. Woodward received her undergraduate degree from Swarthmore College and her doctoral degree from Stanford University.

Woodward succeeds David Nirenberg, the Deborah R. and Edgar D. Jannotta Distinguished Service Professor of Social Thought, History, and Romance Languages, who serves as executive vice provost at the University.

The selection of the new dean by Zimmer and Diermeier was informed by the recommendations of an elected faculty committee chaired by Kenneth Pomeranz, University Professor in the Department of History and the College.

Yesomi Umolu, exhibitions curator at Logan Center, named artistic director of next Chicago Architecture Biennial

Tue, 06 Mar 2018 09:03 -0600

Yesomi Umolu, exhibitions curator at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago, will serve as the artistic director of the Chicago Architecture Biennial 2019 edition, the Biennial and Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced on March 6.

With a background in architectural design and curatorial studies, Umolu focuses her work on global contemporary art and spatial practices. Her recent projects—including the exhibitions Kapwani Kiwanga: The sum and its parts, The Land Grant: Forest Law, and The Museum of Non Participation: The New Deal—have explored the politics of the built environment. A Chicago-based curator and writer, Umolu is a visiting lecturer, critic and speaker at a number of international universities and institutions.

“I am honored to be invited to serve as artistic director of the 2019 Chicago Architecture Biennial,” said Umolu. “Having my roots in the field of architecture, spatial questions have always been an important consideration of my work with contemporary artists, architects and urbanists from across the world. I am excited to embark on the journey of engaging the city of Chicago and it publics, as well as visitors to Chicago from across the country and around the world, in these conversations.”

Jack Guthman, chairman of the Biennial, said Umolu’s “broad curatorial experience makes her ideally suited to build upon the critical acclaim accorded to our 2015 and 2017 Biennials by our dual constituencies—the architecture profession worldwide, as well as Chicagoans and visitors to our city.”

In the coming months, Umolu will formalize and convene an international curatorial team of creative practitioners with strong knowledge of visual arts, architecture and design practices globally. The members of the curatorial team will be announced this spring. Umolu’s vision for the next Chicago Architecture Biennial features the exploration of emerging practices and global locations that are developing new approaches to architecture, urbanism and spatial practice. Through this process, she will use the Biennial as a forum to explore creative responses to shifting spatial conditions at local, regional and international levels.

“Yesomi is a visionary curator with strong roots in Chicago, and she will work tirelessly to cultivate an incredible cultural, educational and economic event for the city,” said Emanuel. “With Yesomi at the helm, the third Chicago Architecture Biennial is sure to secure its reputation as the most innovative architectural, art and design showcase of its kind.”

“We are delighted by Yesomi Umolu’s appointment as the next artistic director of the Chicago Architecture Biennial. The appointment further testifies to the curatorial imagination and dexterity she has demonstrated so well at the Logan Center for the Arts,” said Daniel Diermeier, provost of the University of Chicago. “By consistently showcasing the best in architectural innovation—in a city renowned for its architectural achievements—the Biennial advances the conversation about the potential impact of design. That conversation is playing an increasing role at the University of Chicago, and it is vital, of course, to the future of Chicago’s South Side, as to cities around the world.”

Umolu was selected by a committee comprised of Chicago Architecture Biennial board members, as well as past artistic directors, who considered candidates from around the world and from a variety of disciplines. Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee, 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial artistic directors, said: “Umolu’s curatorial practice, which boldly, yet elegantly, traverses the fields of art and architecture, makes her uniquely situated for success in this role. The Biennial is a complex and multifaceted platform for exploring both the history and present-day challenges in the field, and we eagerly await the outcomes of Umolu’s curatorial inquiry and exploration.”

Now in its third edition, the Biennial will return Sept. 19, 2019 and run through Jan. 5, 2020.

Following a successful partnership in 2017, the opening of the 2019 edition will align with EXPO CHICAGO, the International Exposition of Contemporary and Modern Art, and the main site of the Biennial will once again be the Chicago Cultural Center.

—Adapted from a Chicago Architecture Biennial news release.

New professorship honors Core curriculum

Fri, 29 Dec 2017 07:44 -0600

As part of the College’s commitment to general education, excellence in teaching and intellectual development through the Core curriculum, the College has established the Christian W. Mackauer Professorship in the College and in the Division of Social Sciences, supported by a $3.5 million dollar donation by Glenn Swogger Jr, AB‘57, chairman of the Redbud Foundation. John D. Kelly, professor of anthropology, has been named the inaugural Christian W. Mackauer Professor.

The new chair is named for Mackauer, who taught history in the College from the 1940s until his death in 1970. Mackauer was an architect and legendary teacher of the College’s History of Western Civilization Sequence, who powerfully articulated the mission of general education and its connections and tensions with more specialized knowledge. Mackauer declared that "students must comprehend the complexity and even arbitrariness of received ideas in order to understand their own possible roles in modern society.” Today, the College’s emphasis on general education for first- and second-year students with a strong foundation in the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural and mathematical sciences continues that principle, resulting in enriching and rigorous courses of study that allow College students to pursue advanced studies in their third- and fourth years with multiple dimensions of general knowledge.

“Historically, the University was dedicated to the rigorous study of liberal arts for undergraduates from its very beginnings in the 1890s,” said John W. Boyer, dean of the College. “But it was not until the decades after 1930 that the College developed a Core curriculum for first- and second-year students, insisting that a rigorous introduction to broad, general knowledge was a necessary complement to and preparation for the more specialized knowledge of the Departments and the Schools. The Mackauer Professorship honors our unique mission to instill a common vocabulary and intellectual foundation among our students while also teaching them to rigorously analyze data, break down arguments and construct their own ideas from many approaches.”

Kelly teaches regularly in the Civilizations Sequence as well as Self, Culture and Society. His scholarship has focused on rituals throughout history, semiotic and military technologies and colonialism and capitalism. His research explores the impact of these topics in both India and Fiji. He also is the author of more than 30 articles, edited volumes and numerous lectures, and has written several influential books.

In addition, Kelly has successfully trained several generations of graduate students from a variety of departments in the practice of effective undergraduate teaching.

Faculty members receive named, distinguished service professorships

Wed, 27 Dec 2017 16:23 -0600

Seventeen faculty members received named professorships or were appointed distinguished service professors. Michael Foote, Sydney Hans, Heinrich Jaeger and Carole Ober received distinguished service professorships; Daniel Arber, Christopher Berry, Mark Courtney, Fred M. Donner, Steven Durlauf, Dwight N. Hopkins, Bana Jabri, John D. Kelly, Howard Nusbaum, Louis H. Philipson, James T. Robinson, Stuart Rowan and Chad Syverson received named professorships.

Biological Sciences Division

Daniel A. Arber has been named the first Donald West and Mary Elizabeth King Professor in the Department of Pathology.

Arber, chair of the Department of Pathology at the University and an authority on the diagnosis, classification and molecular genetics of blood cancers, came from Stanford University, where he was the Ronald F. Dorfman Professor in Pathology, vice chair for clinical services and medical director of anatomic pathology and clinical laboratory services.

Arber’s research focuses on molecular genetics and immunophenotypic changes in blood cancers. He was a major contributor to the 2016 World Health Organization classification of tumors of hematopoietic and lymphoid tissues, and was the lead author of the WHO classification of myeloid neoplasms and acute leukemias. He is currently president of the Society for Hematopathology (2016-2018), and he recently co-chaired a group of leading hematopathologists and hematologists who developed joint College of American Pathology/American Society of Hematology guidelines for the initial workup for acute leukemia, a five-year project that was published in 2017. He is also on the board of directors of the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology.

Arber is the author of more than 300 publications, book sections and chapters. He has co-edited several textbooks in the field, including Hematopathology and two editions of Wintrobe’s Clinical Hematology, and was a co-author of the textbooks Illustrated Pathology of the Bone Marrow and Atlas of Peripheral Blood: The primary diagnostic tool. He has been honored with multiple teaching awards from Stanford School of Medicine and the Department of Pathology.

Bana Jabri has been named the Sarah and Harold Lincoln Thompson Professor in the Department of Medicine and the College.

Jabri, vice chair for research in the Department of Medicine and director of research at the University of Chicago Celiac Disease Center, is a gastroenterologist and an expert in human immunology. She has followed a career interest in celiac disease, autoimmune disorders and inflammatory bowel disease. She is an elected member of the prestigious Association of American Physicians, and received multiple awards including the William K. Warren, Jr. Prize for Excellence in Celiac Disease Research in 2009, the Lloyd Mayer Prize in Mucosal Immunology in 2017 and the Llewellyn John and Harriet Manchester Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Education.

Jabri has extensive experience in intestinal mucosal immunology. More recently, she has demonstrated a role for viral infections in loss of oral tolerance and celiac disease, and been developing mouse models that mimic key aspects of immune dysregulation found in patients with inflammatory intestinal disorders and autoimmune diseases.

Jabri completed her medical and PhD training at the Université Paris VII and the Institut Pasteur in Paris. She is co-director of the Digestive Diseases Research Core Center at UChicago, responsible for the scientific direction, administration, and efficient usage of the facilities and resources of the Integrated Translational Core.

Carole Ober has been named the Blum-Riese Distinguished Service Professor in Human Genetics and the College.

Ober is chair of the Department of Human Genetics. Her research focuses on the genetics of complex human phenotypes, with particular emphasis on traits related to reproduction and asthma susceptibility.

A fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Ober is principal investigator of a March of Dimes Prematurity Research Center and co-chair of the EVE Consortium on Asthma Genetics. She has received many awards for her research contributions in the areas of fertility and asthma, including the J. Christian Herr Award for Excellence in Basic or Applied Research in Reproductive Immunology (1986), the American Society of Reproductive Medicine Distinguished Scientist Award (2003), the Northwestern Obstetrics and Gynecological Society Award (2005), the Charles Reed Lectureship (2004) and the John E. Salvaggio Memorial Lectureship (2016) from the American Association of Asthma, Allergy and Immunology, and the March of Dimes Jonas Salk Health Leadership Award for Research (2017).

Her research on understanding the role of genes and gene-environment interactions on reproductive outcomes and asthma susceptibility has resulted in more than 200 publications. A 2016 New England Journal of Medicine study by Ober and colleagues on “Innate Immunity and Asthma Risk in Amish and Hutterite Farm Children” was honored by the Clinical Research Forum, a national organization of senior researchers, as the best clinical research paper of the year.

Louis H. Philipson has been named the first holder of the James C. Tyree Professorship of Diabetes Research and Care in the Department of Medicine.

Philipson, director of the University of Chicago Medicine Kovler Diabetes Center, is an authority on diabetes. He is the founding director of the Kovler Diabetes Center, president of the Chicago Community Leadership Board and national President-elect for Science and Medicine of the American Diabetes Association. He and his colleagues have discovered insulin gene mutations that cause neonatal diabetes, and he has helped make UChicago Medicine the national leader in the study of monogenic diabetes. He also directs research in preventing and treating Type 1 diabetes.

Philipson completed his PhD and medical training at the University of Chicago, and is a graduate of Harvard College. He was recently named a recipient of the 2018 Order of Lincoln Award, which honors public service for the betterment of humanity in Illinois and is considered to be the state’s highest civilian honor.

The College

Fred M. Donner has been named the Peter B. Ritzma Professor in the College and the Humanities Division.

Donner, a professor of Near Eastern History in the Oriental Institute and Department of Near Eastern Language and Civilizations, has focused his scholarship on the origins of Islam, tribal and nomadic society, early Islamic history, Arabic-Islamic Historiography and Islamic law. Donner has served as the director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and chair of the Department of Near Eastern Language and Civilizations, and is the author of several influential books and more than 50 articles.

Donner was appointed in 2012 a life member of the Scientific Committee of the Tunisian Academy of Sciences, Letters, and Arts “Beït al-Hikma.” He served as president of the Middle East Studies Association of North America in 2012 and president of Middle East Medievalists from 1992-1994. Donner was a Marta Sutton Weeks fellow at the Stanford Humanities Center in 2014-2015 and held the NEH Professorship at the American Center for Oriental Research in Amman, Jordan in 2001. Donner is a recipient of a 1994 Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching and a 2007-2008 Guggenheim Fellowship.

John D. Kelly, PhD’88, has been named the inaugural Christian W. Mackauer Professor in the College and the Division of the Social Sciences.

Kelly’s professional scholarship has focused on rituals throughout history, semiotic and military technologies, and colonialism and capitalism. His research explores the impact of these topics in both India and Fiji. In addition to over 30 articles, edited volumes and numerous lectures, Kelly has written several influential books, including The American Game: Capitalism, Decolonization, World Domination, and Baseball (Paradigm Press, 2006), Represented Communities: Fiji and World Decolonization (University of Chicago Press, 2001), and A Politics of Virtue: Hinduism, Sexuality, and Countercolonial Discourse in Fiji (University of Chicago, 1992).

Kelly has been a member of the faculty of the Department of Anthropology since 1994. He served as master of the Social Sciences Collegiate Division from 2002-2005, and currently serves as core chair for the Self, Culture and Society sequence in the College.

Division of the Physical Sciences

Michael Foote has been named the Louis Block Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Geophysical Sciences and the College.

Foote is a paleobiologist who documents large-scale patterns in the history of life, such as why some environments foster more species than others, or how widely a species is spread affects its extinction risk. His research covers biogeography, evolutionary paleoecology and macroevolution.

Foote co-authored the third edition of the highly influential Principles of Paleontology. He is a fellow of the Paleontological Society and received its Charles Schuchert award in 2000. After serving for nine years as the chair of the Geophysical Sciences department, he is currently the deputy dean for academic affairs in the Division of the Physical Sciences.

Heinrich Jaeger has been named the Sewell L. Avery Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Physics and the College.

The main theme of Jaeger’s research is the investigation of materials under conditions far from equilibrium. Such conditions give rise to a wealth of complex phenomena, and insights gained can be used to design new classes of smart materials. A focus of Jaeger’s work are granular materials, which are large aggregates of particles in far-from-equilibrium configurations, that exhibit properties intermediate between those of ordinary solids and liquids. His group’s projects explore how controlling this behavior provides a path to stress-adaptive materials for high-efficiency energy absorption, to soft robotic systems that can change shape or compliance, and to new forms of architectural structures that are fully recyclable. On the nanoscale, Jaeger’s research investigates the self-assembly of particles into ultrathin membranes that function as nano-sieves with tunable pore size.

He has been a UChicago faculty member since 1991, directing the UChicago Materials Research Center from 2001-2006 and the James Franck Institute from 2007-2010. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society.

Social Sciences Division

Howard Nusbaum has been named the Stella M. Rowley Professor in the Department of Psychology and the College.

Nusbaum is internationally recognized for his multi-disciplinary studies of the nature of wisdom and the cognitive and neural mechanisms that mediate communication and thinking. Nusbaum’s past research has investigated the effects of sleep on learning, adaptive processes in language learning and the neural mechanisms of speech communication. His current research investigates how experience can increase wisdom and produce changes in insight and economic decisions, and examines the role of sleep in cognitive creativity and abstraction.

Nusbaum is the director of the Center for Practical Wisdom and a member of the executive committee of the new Computational Social Science program, which he played an instrumental role in creating. From 1997-2010, he served as the chair of the Department of Psychology. He has also served as co-director of the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience and as a steering committee member of the Neuroscience Institute. In 2012, Nusbaum was honored with the Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, and he received the Future Faculty Mentorship Award in 2007. He has just completed a two-year term as the division director for Division of Social, Behavioral and Economics Sciences at the National Science Foundation.

Booth School of Business

Chad Syverson has been named the Eli B. and Harriet B. Williams Professor of Economics.

Syverson’s research focuses on the interactions of firm structure, market structure, and productivity. His background as a mechanical engineer spurred his research interest in productivity—how things are put together, what can go wrong and what factors influence a company’s operating success.

He has written dozens of scholarly articles and is the coauthor, along with his colleagues Profs. Austan Goolsbee and Steve Levitt, of an intermediate-level textbook, Microeconomics. He serves as an editor of RAND Journal of Economics, is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and has served on multiple National Academies committees. He has been on the University of Chicago faculty since 2001 and joined Chicago Booth in 2008. He earned two bachelor’s degrees in 1996 from the University of North Dakota–one in economics and one in mechanical engineering. He earned his PhD in economics in 2001 from the University of Maryland.

Divinity School

Dwight N. Hopkins has been named the Alexander Campbell Professor in the Divinity School and the College.

A constructive theologian, Hopkins works in the areas of contemporary models of theology, various forms of liberation theologies (especially black and other third-world manifestations), and East-West cross-cultural comparisons. He is interested in multidisciplinary approaches to the academic study of religious thought, especially cultural, political, economic and interpretive methods.

He is the author of numerous books, including, most recently, Looking Back, Moving Forward: The Sankofa Institute for African American Pastoral Leadership (editor), Black Theology – Essays on Gender Perspectives and Black Theology – Essays on Global Perspectives. He was recently awarded the honorary recognition of Professor Extraordinarious in the Department of Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology at the University of South Africa in Pretoria. He has been a visiting faculty member at numerous institutions including Renmin (People’s) University, Chung Chi College Divinity School, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea, and the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

James T. Robinson has been named the Caroline E. Haskell Professor of the History of Judaism, Islamic Studies, and the History of Religions in the Divinity School and the College.

Robinson’s research focuses on medieval Jewish intellectual history, philosophy and biblical exegesis in the Islamic world and Christian Europe. His main interests lie in the literary and social dimensions of philosophy, and the relation between philosophy and religion. He has taught more than 25 different courses during his time at UChicago and was awarded, in 2017, a Faculty Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching and Mentoring.

Robinson is the author of four books: Samuel Ibn Tibbon’s Commentary on Ecclesiastes, The Book of the Soul of Man; Asceticism, Eschatology, Opposition to Philosophy: The Arabic Translation and Commentary of Salmon b. Yeroham on Qohelet (Ecclesiastes), The Arabic Translation and Commentary of Yefet b. ‘Eli the Karaite on the Book of Joshua, and Sefer Nefesh ha-Adam: Perush Qohelet li-Shemuel ben Yehudah ibn Tibbon. He is also the editor of The Cultures of Maimonideanism: New Approaches to the History of Jewish Thought.

Harris School

Christopher Berry has been named the William J. and Alicia Townsend Friedman Professor in the Harris School and the College.

Berry is a scholar of American politics whose research agenda includes state and local politics and finance and congressional budgetary politics. His recent work on distributive politics challenges the theoretical paradigm that has dominated political science’s understanding of congressional politics for decades. He is known for an award-winning book, Imperfect Union: Representation and Taxation in Multilevel Governments, as well as other works on political control of administrative agencies, women and politics, and the implementation of state court rulings.

Berry is director of the Center for Municipal Finance and co-director of the Harris School’s M.S. in Computational Science and Public Policy.

Berry is involved in the execution of the undergraduate public policy program in the College, serving as the chair of the Curriculum Committee at the College, as well as teaching one of the core courses for the major.

Steven Durlauf has been named the Steans Family Professor in Educational Policy.

Durlauf’s research spans economic theory, econometrics and applied economics. He has helped pioneer the integration of sociological ideas into economic models and the use of statistical mechanics methods to study aggregate behavior when social influences are present. His research has had an impact on scholarship in policy areas including poverty, inequality and economic growth. He has also made contributions to the theory of policy evaluation.

Durlauf’s administrative contributions to the University predate his move to the Harris School. As he has served as co-director of the Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Global Working Group since 2012. He is now also serving as associate director of the Center for Economics of Human Development. Prior to joining Harris, Durlauf was the William F. Vilas Research Professor and Kenneth J. Arrow Professor of Economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, fellow of the Econometric Society, and a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Institute for Molecular Engineering

Stuart Rowan has been named the Barry L. MacLean Professor for Molecular Engineering Innovation and Enterprise.

Rowan is an acclaimed soft materials chemist and engineer exploring the design and synthesis of new polymeric materials with a focus on the use of dynamic/reversible chemistry to access stimuli-responsive/adaptive polymeric materials, that includes self-healing as well as actuating polymers. His group also works on investigating the potential of nanocellulose to access more environmentally friendly materials and developing new synthetic methods for the construction of complex polymeric architectures. In addition to his appointment in the Institute for Molecular Engineering he has joint appointments in the Department of Chemistry at UChicago and the Division of Chemical Sciences and Engineering at Argonne National Laboratories.

He has recently been named the new editor-in-chief of the American Chemical Society’s ACS Macro Letters and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry as well as a fellow of the American Chemical Society’s POLY division. He has published over 140 scientific papers and reviews. He is a prior recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER award for promising young faculty and more recently received the Morley Medal (ACS) in 2013, and the Herman Mark Scholar Award (ACS) in 2015. Before joining UChicago in 2016, he was the Kent H. Smith Professor of Engineering at Case Western Reserve University.

School of Social Service Administration

Mark Courtney has been named the Samuel Deutsch Professor in the School of Social Service Administration.

Courtney’s fields of special interest are child welfare policy and services, the connection between child welfare services and other institutions serving marginalized populations, and the professionalization of social work. His current work includes studies of the adult functioning of former foster children, experimental evaluation of independent living services for foster youth, and the influence of juvenile courts on the operation of the child welfare system.

Courtney is an affiliated scholar of Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, where he served as director from 2001 to 2006. He is the author of the 2007 report Midwest Evaluation of the Adult Functioning of Former Foster Youth, a study that led to changes in federal law. In October 2008, the U.S. Congress passed an act permitting states to continue care for foster children until age 21 and receive federal assistance. Courtney testified in Congressional hearings about the value of the change and pointed to results of the Midwest study.

He is also a fellow of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare, a fellow of the Society for Social Work and Research, and has received the Distinguished Career Achievement Award from the Society for Social Work and Research and the Peter W. Forsythe Award for Leadership in Public Child Welfare from the National Association of Public Child Welfare Administrators. Since 2016, he has served as editor of SSA’s scholarly publication Social Service Review.

Sydney L. Hans has been named the Frank P. Hixon Distinguished Service Professor in the School of Social Service Administration.

Hans’ research seeks to understand how biological and social factors interact in contributing to risk and resilience in human development. She studies how experiences in early life, particularly the relationship between mother and infant, influence development at later ages. She has conducted studies focusing on the development of young children whose parents use illicit substances, suffer from major mental disorders, have experienced traumatic events, and/or live in conditions of extreme poverty.

Hans is particularly interested in using research to develop interventions and public policy that will benefit infants, young children and their families. She is currently working in Chicago and smaller urban areas in Illinois with home visiting programs in which community doulas provide services to teenage mothers. These programs work to improve maternal and infant health and to build mothers' efficacy and pride in parenting. She is also working with the Ounce of Prevention Fund to evaluate their Educare program, which gives children high-quality learning experiences from shortly after birth to age five.

Hans currently serves as SSA Deputy Dean for Research and Faculty Development as well as director of SSA’s Family Support Training Program. She also is a faculty member in the Department of Comparative Human Development and a faculty affiliate in the Department of Psychology. Hans previously held an academic appointment in the Department of Psychiatry for more than 25 years.

Gretchen Crosby Sims appointed executive director at Institute of Politics

Tue, 19 Dec 2017 10:00 -0600

Gretchen Crosby Sims will be the new executive director at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics, the institute announced today.

Sims is an accomplished leader in the fields of politics and public policy, reflecting her deep commitment to the values of service and civic engagement central to the IOP’s mission.

Most recently, she was a director at Social Finance UK, a leading impact investment consulting firm in London. Previously, she served as the chief program executive at Chicago’s Joyce Foundation, where she oversaw grant making programs in seven issue areas, ranging from education to gun violence prevention. She also served for six years on the board of the National Association for Urban Debate Leagues.

“Gretchen’s rich background and obvious passion made her a splendid choice,” said IOP founder and director David Axelrod in announcing the appointment. “She’s an exceptional person who will bring great energy and vision to the IOP. I’m thrilled to welcome her.”

Sims succeeds Steve Edwards, who in August returned to Chicago public radio as vice president and chief content officer for WBEZ.

Since opening its doors in 2013, the non-partisan IOP has brought more than 1,000 speakers from across the political spectrum and around the globe to engage in thoughtful dialogue with UChicago students.

Each quarter, the IOP also hosts a roster of visiting fellows; distinguished practitioners in politics, policy, and journalism, who lead seminars and mentor students. The IOP has sent more than 800 students on life-changing internships in the U.S. and overseas and supported students in launching innovative and impactful civic engagement programs of their own conception.

“Now more than ever, our country needs thoughtful, talented leaders for its political and civic institutions,” Sims said. “The Institute is playing an extraordinary role in inspiring, informing and preparing the next generation of those leaders for public service, and I’m delighted to join David and the IOP team in January to continue and strengthen this work.”

Sims has also worked at the Council on Foreign Relations, CNN, Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and as a policy adviser to presidential candidate Bill Bradley. She holds a BA in government from Harvard University as well as PhD and MA degrees in political science from Stanford University, where she won a departmental award for teaching excellence. She was selected as an inaugural Fellow of the Entrepreneurial Leaders for Public Education Program, created by the Aspen Institute and the New Schools Venture Fund.

Paul K. Kearns appointed director of Argonne National Laboratory

Fri, 17 Nov 2017 09:45 -0600

Paul K. Kearns has been appointed director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory. President Robert J. Zimmer announced the appointment in his capacity as chairman of the board of directors of UChicago Argonne LLC, which operates Argonne for the U.S. Department of Energy.

Kearns, who has served in multiple leadership roles in the national laboratory system and at the Department of Energy, is currently the interim director of Argonne. His appointment is effective immediately.

Kearns is the 14th director of Argonne, a multidisciplinary science and engineering research center that seeks scientific and engineering solutions to the grand challenges of our time: sustainable energy, a healthy environment and a secure nation.

“Paul has a strong record of leadership at laboratories across the country, and brings to Argonne a deep understanding of how to support and advance research and scientific discovery,” said Zimmer. “We look forward to working with him on an ambitious program of research in science and engineering that helps address critical challenges faced by society.”

The University of Chicago manages the laboratory for the Department of Energy through UChicago Argonne, LLC. Argonne was established in 1946 following the first sustained nuclear reaction conducted at the University as part of the Manhattan Project. Argonne was the first in a series of national laboratories funded to conduct scientific research in the nation’s interest.

Today, the laboratory’s mission is to lead discovery and to power innovation in a wide range of energy and scientific priorities—from fundamental research on physics, computing and chemistry to cutting-edge applications for batteries and energy storage, security and sustainable energy analysis, and innovation.

The laboratory works closely with UChicago in these areas as well as such emerging priorities as quantum computing, microbiome research, sensing and detecting, and water research.

Kearns will lead the laboratory as it pursues the next generation of science. Such work includes bringing the nation to the next level of supercomputing power—called “exascale”—by the year 2021, and new initiatives in materials science and chemistry. Argonne is in the process of upgrading the brightness and energy of the Advanced Photon Source, the laboratory’s powerful X-ray synchrotron, where thousands of scientists annually conduct research across a wide-range of fields.

Kearns joined Argonne in 2010 as its chief operations officer. During his career at Argonne, he has helped drive and increase collaboration to advance Argonne’s most critical initiatives and expanded engagement with the University and its Institute for Molecular Engineering. He also has streamlined operations for efficiency, which improved execution and delivery of services. He also has worked to increase collaboration across the laboratory, as well as strengthen relationships and raise the laboratory’s visibility with sponsors and partners.

Kearns’ appointment was informed by a panel of distinguished leaders and scientists, chaired by Eric D. Isaacs, UChicago executive vice president for research, innovation and national laboratories and a former director of Argonne. Kearns became interim director in January after then-Laboratory Director Peter Littlewood stepped down to assume a faculty position at the University of Chicago.

Prior to joining Argonne, Kearns served as the laboratory director of Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory and held a series of roles at Battelle Global Laboratory Operations. At Battelle, he conducted strategic planning and business development for research activities in energy, environment and national security.

Kearns holds a doctorate and a master’s degree in bionucleonics, and a bachelor’s degree in natural resources and environmental sciences, all from Purdue University. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the American Nuclear Society and the Society for Conservation Biology.

Dieter Roelstraete appointed curator of Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society

Thu, 09 Nov 2017 12:45 -0600

Dieter Roelstraete, an internationally renowned curator of contemporary art, has been named the next curator of the Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society.

In his new role, effective November 10, Roelstraete will oversee all aspects of the Neubauer Collegium Exhibitions Gallery, working with the University arts community as well as with arts organizations in the city of Chicago and around the world.

Roelstraete joins the Neubauer Collegium after serving on the curatorial team that organized documenta 14, the international art exhibition that ran this past spring and summer in Kassel, Germany, and Athens, Greece. Widely hailed as a significant statement about the relevance and aesthetic concerns of the contemporary art world, the show brought together work by 160 artists at more than 80 sites.

The move is a return to Chicago for Roelstraete. Prior to his work with documenta 14, he served as the Manilow Senior Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago from 2012 to 2015. During his time there, Roelstraete organized and co-organized a number of highly regarded shows, including The Way of the Shovel: Art as Archaeology (2015); The Freedom Principle: Experiments in Art and Music 1965 to Now (2015), which told the story of a radical group of jazz artists from the South Side of Chicago; and Kerry James Marshall: Mastry (2016), a retrospective of the acclaimed Chicago-based artist that traveled to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. From 2003 to 2011 Roelstraete was a curator at the Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen, where he organized large-scale group exhibitions as well as monographic shows.

“Dieter is one of the most creative and thoughtful curators at work today,” said Jonathan Lear, the Roman Family Director of the Neubauer Collegium. “His work exemplifies how artistic expression and humanistic research can meld together and support each other. I am looking forward to working with him, and I am eager to see how he’ll make use of the freedom our gallery affords.”

One of the Neubauer Collegium’s three key initiatives, alongside faculty-led collaborative research projects and a global visiting fellows program, the gallery presents both historical and contemporary art in support of the Neubauer Collegium’s mission to explore novel approaches to complex human questions. In its first two years of operation, the gallery has hosted 11 idea-driven exhibitions that reflect the productive interplay between visual arts practice and scholarly inquiry. Several shows have been curated as part of a campus-wide set of related exhibitions.

“After spending three years working on what is effectively the largest art exhibition in the world—a hugely complex and impossibly expansive affair—I am excited to start working in a much more concentrated, in-depth fashion. Curating in a beautiful, humanly sized space at the University of Chicago will both allow and require that,” Roelstraete said. “I am a long-standing advocate for the idea of art as a form of research and knowledge production, and I cannot think of a more welcoming home to further develop these intuitions in concert with the great minds that people the wilds of Hyde Park.”

In addition to joining the Neubauer Collegium, Roelstraete will co-teach a course this winter with acclaimed artist Assoc. Prof. William Pope.L. as Mellon Collaborative Fellow in Arts Practice and Scholarship at the Richard and Mary L. Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry. The course, titled “Art and Knowledge,” will extend their documenta 14 collaboration (also supported by the Gray Center) to explore the different types of knowledge art can produce. Roelstraete will pursue further teaching within the Department of Art History in the Humanities Division starting in the 2018-2019 academic year.

“I couldn’t be more thrilled by Dieter’s appointment. He joins an extraordinary group of internationally known curators working across the arts institutions at the University of Chicago,” said Alison Gass, the Dana Feitler Director of the Smart Museum of Art. “This hire will benefit UChicago Arts and further advance the University’s commitment to arts scholarship and practice and curatorial excellence.”

The exhibitions program at the Neubauer Collegium will continue to play a vital role in advancing UChicago Arts’ commitment to visual arts exhibition, alongside colleagues at the Arts and Public Life’s Arts Incubator, Booth School of Business’ Contemporary Art Collection, the University Library’s Special Collections Research Center, Logan Center Exhibitions, the Oriental Institute, the Renaissance Society and the Smart Museum of Art.

Roelstraete succeeds Jacob Proctor, the Neubauer Collegium’s inaugural curator, who is pursuing international opportunities from his new home base in New York City. “The gallery as it stands today is very much a reflection of Jacob’s extraordinary talent and vision,” Lear said. “He has given us a remarkable foundation on which Dieter can build.”

The Neubauer Collegium’s current exhibition, Terence Gower’s Havana Case Study, runs through Jan. 26. Roelstraete is conducting research for his first exhibition as curator, tentatively scheduled to open next spring.

Nigel Lockyer appointed to second term as director of Fermilab

Wed, 27 Sep 2017 09:45 -0500

Nigel Lockyer has been reappointed as the director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. During his first four years as leader of the world-renowned laboratory he helped enhance its international scientific leadership, including the launch of a pioneering international particle physics project hosted by Fermilab.

Lockyer’s second five-year term, which begins Sept. 3, 2018, comes as Fermilab begins building its flagship project that will send neutrino particles underground from Illinois to South Dakota to unlock new insights into the origins of the universe. The lab is also a leader in the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland, while serving as the home of groundbreaking experiments conducted by scientists from around the world.

“For decades, scientists working at Fermilab have made major discoveries that have greatly illuminated the nature of matter and the universe. Under Nigel’s outstanding leadership, Fermilab is not only continuing many of its important ongoing projects, but has embarked upon a new ambitious research agenda for the coming years that will enable further profound discoveries,” said Robert J. Zimmer, president of the University of Chicago and chair of the board of directors of Fermi Research Alliance, LLC.

The Fermi Research Alliance, which was formed in 2006, is a joint partnership of UChicago and the Universities Research Association, Inc. Together they manage Fermilab under a contract with the Department of Energy. Fermilab’s operations include a powerful complex of particle accelerators and sophisticated experiments to study the nature of matter, energy, space and time, with more than 4,500 scientists from 50 countries using the research facilities annually.

“On behalf of the Universities Research Association, Nigel has been an extraordinary leader, and we join the University of Chicago in enthusiastically supporting this reappointment,” said Lou Anna K. Simon, chair of the Universities Research Association and vice chair of Fermi Research Alliance, LLC.

During his first term, Lockyer positioned Fermilab as a world leader in research of neutrinos, spearheading the successful launch of the Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility with locations in Illinois and South Dakota. The facility will house the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, a massive research project that brings together more than 1,000 scientists from 31 countries in a quest to understand the hard-to-detect particles and usher in a new era of international particle physics research.

“DOE is committed to supporting world-leading science at its national laboratories,” said Steve Binkley, acting director of the DOE Office of Science. “LBNF/DUNE exemplifies America’s strong partnerships with the international community in pioneering scientific discoveries.”

Lockyer has forged new international partnerships dedicated to advancing experiments at the laboratory, while retaining Fermilab’s leadership in the Large Hadron Collider and Compact Muon Solenoid experiment at CERN. Fermilab has contributed major components for the collider’s accelerator and Compact Muon Solenoid experiment upgrades.

As Fermilab director, Lockyer has continued Fermilab’s trailblazing program in particle astrophysics that seeks to understand the nature of dark energy and discover particles of dark matter. He has led efforts to revitalize the laboratory’s infrastructure, accelerated the laboratory’s efforts to translate scientific discoveries to applications for society and kicked off new initiatives such as Fermilab’s participation in the Chicago Quantum Exchange.

Lockyer earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from York University and a doctorate in physics from the Ohio State University. He served for more than two decades as a physics faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania.

Before arriving at Fermilab, Lockyer was director of Canada’s TRIUMF laboratory for particle and nuclear physics and a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of British Columbia. He is the 2006 recipient of the American Physical Society’s Panofsky Prize for his leading research on the bottom quark.

Sharon Marine named vice president for alumni relations and development

Fri, 01 Sep 2017 09:11 -0500

Sharon Marine, who currently serves at Cornell University as vice president for development for Cornell Tech and associate vice president for alumni and development for the Northeast Corridor, has been appointed vice president for alumni relations and development at the University of Chicago, following a national search. Her appointment is effective Oct. 15, 2017.

At Cornell, Marine has been responsible for developing and maintaining donor relationships in support of faculty, students, program endowment and the construction of a new campus for Cornell Tech. During her tenure, Cornell Tech raised more than $415 million in new gifts and commitments, including three transformational gifts totaling $283 million. Sharon also played a key role in building Cornell Tech’s board of overseers, and she has been responsible for oversight and consolidation of the alumni engagement and fundraising strategy for Cornell University’s most important regional market.

At UChicago, Sharon will help set the overall strategy, direction and organization for development, alumni relations and campaign planning. She will collaborate with schools, units and divisions across campus.

“Sharon joins the University during the most ambitious and comprehensive campaign in our history. With two years remaining in the campaign, she will support efforts to advance the University's mission by encouraging the intellectual, social, professional and philanthropic engagement of all members of the University community,” said President Robert J. Zimmer. “Sharon will work closely with me, as well as with the provost, deans, officers and the Board of Trustees, to maximize support for all areas of the institution.”

Before joining Cornell, Marine held positions at Stanford Graduate School of Business as associate dean for external relations and associate dean for development. There, she led a highly successful campaign that raised $884 million, far surpassing the school’s $500 million goal. Marine was director of development for the western region of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School from 1999 to 2004, and from 1992 to 1999, she served in fundraising roles at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

“The University of Chicago is where I started my career in higher education, so the opportunity to come back is very special,” said Marine. “I am thrilled to rejoin the University in the midst of a fundraising campaign that has achieved incredible momentum and I am excited for the opportunity to help sustain and build on that progress.”

Sharon holds a Bachelor of Arts in history from Brown University.

Garrett P. Kiely appointed to third term as director of University of Chicago Press

Tue, 29 Aug 2017 11:00 -0500

Garrett P. Kiely, a leader in academic publishing who has expanded and elevated the work of the University of Chicago Press, has been reappointed as its director. He will serve a third five-year term beginning Sept. 1.

Kiely will continue to lead the nation’s largest academic press, which publishes award-winning books and journals for both scholarly and general interest audiences. The Press also serves as the largest distributor of academic publications in the United States through its Chicago Distribution Center.

“Garrett’s leadership continues to be essential to the Press at a time of great change in publishing,” Provost Daniel Diermeier said. “In the face of such seismic shifts, Garrett has not only grown the work of the Press and extended its global reach, but fostered a closer connection to the University of Chicago and its faculty.”

The Press publishes more than 350 new books and 73 journals a year including such recent titles as the critically acclaimed Henry David Thoreau: A Life. Long a leading academic publisher in areas of the humanities and sciences, the Press has in recent years expanded its offerings in law and economics and continues to deepen its connection to the mission of the University through new publishing relationships with faculty as well as centers, institutes and labs. Such relationships include a book series with the UChicago-affiliated Marine Biological Laboratory titled Convening Science: Discovery at the Marine Biological Laboratory and KNOW: A Journal on the Formation of Knowledge, a new journal with the Stevanovich Institute on the Formation of Knowledge.

“It is my great honor to work every day with the best people in publishing. Their passion, skill and expertise inspire me and are a reflection of the institution we represent. I appreciate the University’s support for its Press and I look forward to continuing and extending our tradition for excellence,” Kiely said.

In September, the Press will publish the 17th edition of its most famous title, The Chicago Manual of Style, in print and electronic versions. Under Kiely’s leadership, all new works appear simultaneously in print and digital editions, and the Press has expanded its print-on-demand program, which ensures titles are available around the world.

Kiely joined the Press in 2007 after more than 20 years at Palgrave Macmillan USA, a division of St. Martin’s Press, where he served as president, vice president of the Scholarly and Reference Division, and both sales and marketing director. He recently served as chair of a task force that developed a new membership structure for the Association of American University Presses.

Adrian Talbott appointed executive director of UChicago Institute of Politics

Wed, 19 Jul 2017 10:30 -0500

Adrian Talbott, a leader in civic engagement at the University of Chicago, has been appointed executive director of the University of Chicago Institute of Politics.

Talbott, who serves as director of strategy, research initiatives and development in the Office of Civic Engagement, will join the Institute of Politics on Aug. 1. Talbott’s experience prior to joining the University in 2014 includes co-founding and serving as executive director of Generation Engage, a nonpartisan organization dedicated to increasing civic participation among college-age youth.

“Adrian has devoted his life to encouraging young people of all political persuasions to become active, engaged citizens; for him, this work is not a job but a mission,” said David Axelrod, the founder and director of the Institute of Politics. “He has the experience, energy and commitment to help build on the tremendous momentum the IOP has established in five short years on campus. We are thrilled to welcome him.”

The nonpartisan Institute of Politics is a leader on campus and across the country in igniting a passion for politics and public service among young people, through speakers and visiting fellows, career development programs, and opportunities for civic engagement and community service. Talbott will oversee the institute’s extracurricular programs and staff, while advancing new initiatives and building and strengthening partnerships with other units of the University and outside organizations.

Axelrod thanked the institute’s outgoing executive director, Steve Edwards, who was instrumental in growing institute programing and building its strong staff. Edwards was recently appointed vice president and chief content officer at WBEZ, Chicago’s public radio station.

“The IOP would not be what it is today without Steve Edwards,” Axelrod said. “His brilliant, sensitive leadership has earned him the love and respect of IOP students and staff and my undying gratitude. We borrowed him from journalism five years ago and return him today, trailed by a litany of accomplishments that have made a positive mark on so many young lives. He will be missed.”

In the most recent academic year, the Institute of Politics brought to UChicago 165 speakers, including then-Secretary of State John Kerry, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton as well as White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, CNN President Jeff Zucker and New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd. Students active with the Institute of Politics had an opportunity to meet with former President Barack Obama during his visit to campus in April.

The institute provided 250 internships, held political exploration trips, and oversaw community engagement and volunteer programs. Seventeen fellows, including former United Kingdom Cabinet Minister Douglas Alexander and Washington Post reporter and “Washington Week” host Robert Costa, spent time at the institute, sharing with students.

“I am grateful and excited for the opportunity to join an organization that has done so much in its first five years. I look forward to working with the stellar team at the institute to build on its successes and momentum and help advance the institute’s work with a new generation of leaders in politics and public service,” Talbott said.

In UChicago’s Office of Civic Engagement, Talbott has worked with faculty and staff to advance urban research, develop funding opportunities for civic engagement initiatives and lead strategic planning. Talbott spent four years leading Generation Engage, the non-profit organization he co-founded that used technology and grassroots outreach to increase civic participation among young adults, on and off college campuses. He also served as program director of CGI Lead at the Clinton Global Initiative, overseeing a program that brings together emerging global leaders.

Talbott started his career working on political campaigns in North Carolina and as a legislative aide in the U.S. Senate. He received a bachelor’s degree from Amherst College.

The institute began programming in 2012, before officially opening in January 2013 under the leadership of Axelrod, AB’76, who served as chief strategist and senior advisor to President Obama and is currently the senior political commentator for CNN. Its goal is to enrich political discourse and to help inspire a new generation of leaders by providing opportunities for students to engage with leading public servants and political practitioners.

Faculty members receive named, distinguished service professorships

Wed, 12 Jul 2017 12:00 -0500

Twenty-four faculty members received named professorships or were appointed distinguished service professors. Steven Davis, Daniel Diermeier, Angela V. Olinto and Canice Prendergast received distinguished service professorships; and Zeresenay Alemseged, Bariş Ata, Katherine Baicker, Joy Bergelson, Michael Bourdaghs, John M. Cunningham, Thomas F. Gajewski, Mikhail Golosov, Rex Haydon, Jeffrey Hubbell, Emir Kamenica, Stefan Nagel, Madhav Rajan, Wilhelm Schlag, Sonali M. Smith, Nir Uriel, Christopher Woods, Ben Zhao, Haitao Zheng and Laurie Zoloth received named professorships.

Biological Sciences Division

Zeresenay “Zeray” Alemseged has been named the Donald N. Pritzker Professor in Organismal Biology and Anatomy and the College.

A noted paleoanthropologist, Alemseged studies the origin of early human ancestors and the environmental factors that influenced their evolution. He established and led the Dikika Research Project, in which Alemseged made several breakthrough findings, including the discovery of the almost-complete fossilized remains of “Selam,” a 3.3-million-year-old child of the species Australopithecus afarensis. Now known as “the world’s oldest child,” it is the most complete skeleton of a human ancestor discovered to date and represents a major advancement in the understanding of human and pre-human evolution.

Alemseged is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the co-founder and president of the East African Association of Paleontologists and Paleoanthropologists. He was a senior scientist at the Max Planck Institute and recently the Irvine Chair and senior curator of anthropology at the California Academy of Sciences.

Joy Bergelson has been named the James D. Watson Professor in Ecology and Evolution and the College.

Bergelson’s work focuses on the plant Arabidopsis thaliana and the community of bacteria that inhabit it, with particular interest in understanding how the ecology of these interactions shapes evolutionary change. Her studies combine molecular evolutionary research with functional genomics under natural field conditions to test models of host-pathogen co-evolution. Along with colleagues she also has pioneered the development of Arabidopsis thaliana as a system for genome-wide mapping studies, which culminated in the Arabidopsis 1001 project. She received the 2017 BSD Distinguished Investigator award for this body of work.

The chair of the Department of Ecology and Evolution, Bergelson is a member of three UChicago committees, and has served on dozens of other departmental, divisional and university committees, National Science Foundation and U.S. Department of Agriculture panels, international advisory boards and journal editorial boards. She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and has served as chair of the AAAS Biology section.

John M. Cunningham has been named the George M. Eisenberg Professor in Pediatrics and the College.

Cunningham is an internationally known expert in the treatment and research of childhood cancers and blood diseases. He has particular expertise in treating leukemia, immunodeficiencies, sickle cell disease and thalassemia. He is a recognized leader in the field of pediatric stem cell transplantation and has developed novel uses for this life-saving treatment. Cunningham studies the transcriptional mechanisms operative in hematopoiesis and leukemia, and the development of clinical trials for the treatment of leukemia and genetic diseases.

Cunningham's research has received support from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; the American Society of Hematology; and other prominent scientific organizations. He is a member of the scientific council of the American Cancer Society and a member of the editorial board of The Oncologist.

Thomas F. Gajewski has been named the first AbbVie Foundation Professor of Cancer Immunotherapy in Pathology.

Gajewski’s team members study ways to overcome a tumor’s ability to elude the immune system, with a focus on drugs that help the immune system, especially T cells, gain access to tumor sites. They have discovered genetic clues that correlate with response versus resistance, enabling them to identify new therapies to overcome resistance and expand efficacy. They also discovered that certain components of the gut microbiota—microbes that live in a patient’s digestive tract—could stimulate the immune system to attack tumor cells. They are now refining this approach and analyzing a large cohort of human samples.

Earlier this year, Gajewski received an outstanding investigator award from the National Institutes of Health for productivity in cancer research. Gajewski is an editor for Cancer Research and the Journal for Immunotherapy of Cancer and past president of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer.

Rex Haydon has been named the Simon and Kalt Families Professor in Orthopaedic Surgery.

An orthopedic surgeon and physician-scientist, Haydon specializes in the comprehensive treatment of tumors in bone or soft tissue. He works closely with patients hoping to avoid limb amputation as well as those who need reconstructive surgery on their upper and lower extremities. Haydon’s research focuses on advancing the treatment of musculoskeletal tumors. He’s the author of more than 120 articles and book chapters and has accepted career development awards from both the Orthopaedic Research and Education Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

Beyond his work in the University of Chicago’s Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and Rehabilitation Medicine, Haydon is also the associate director of the University of Chicago Medicine Molecular Oncology Laboratory.

Sonali M. Smith has been selected as the first Elwood V. Jensen Professor in Medicine.

The director of the lymphoma program, Smith is an expert on lymphoma treatment and has made outstanding contributions to the field through clinical care, education and clinical research. She studies new agents and combinations in the management of both treatment-naïve and relapsed/refractory lymphomas. She is currently studying the role of stem cell transplantation for patients with high-risk follicular lymphoma.

Smith is vice chair of the Southwest Oncology Group Lymphoma Committee, where she oversees clinical trial development and mentors faculty. She chairs the American Society of Oncology's Women in Oncology Subcommittee and is the incoming chair of ASCO’s Continuous Professional Development Committee. She is co-editor of ASH’s Hematology and co-chair of the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research Lymphoma Working Group. Smith serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Clinical Oncology and Cancer. She is an elected fellow of Pritzker’s Academy of Distinguished Medical Educators and a senior faculty scholar in the Bucksbaum Institute. She has more than 140 publications and lectures extensively to peers and patients nationally and internationally.

Nir Uriel has been named the Louis Block Professor in Medicine.

Uriel, who is director of the Heart Failure, Transplant and Mechanical Circulatory Support program, is a leader in the field of heart failure, mechanical circulatory support and heart transplantation. He specializes in caring for patients who require mechanical circulatory support, including ventricular assist devices. Uriel's research focuses on advanced heart failure physiology, heart transplant and mechanical circulatory support. Uriel specialized and reported physiological changes and developed treatment algorithms for patients supported with Mechanical Circulatory Support that are being used worldwide. These findings were published in the Journal of American College of Cardiology.

Uriel has a strong interest in high-risk transplant populations, including HIV-positive patients and patients who have received mediastinal radiation due to tumors or prior transplants. He has improved treatment protocols and patient care for these high-risk groups.

Division of the Humanities

Michael Bourdaghs has been named the Robert S. Ingersoll Professor in East Asian Languages and Civilizations and the College.

Bourdaghs is a scholar of modern Japanese literature, culture and intellectual history, as well as popular music and literary and critical theory in Japan. He is also a prolific translator, including most recently Kojin Karatani's The Structure of World History: From Modes< of Production to Modes of Exchange.

Bourdaghs is the author of The Dawn That Never Comes: Shimazaki Toson and Japanese Nationalism, and Sayonara Amerika, Sayonara Nippon: A Geopolitical Pre-History of J-Pop. He is currently completing a book on the works of Japanese novelist Natsume Sōseki.

Division of the Physical Sciences

Angela V. Olinto has been named the Albert A. Michelson Distinguished Service Professor in Astronomy and Astrophysics and the College.

Olinto works on astroparticle physics and cosmology. She has made important contributions to the physics of quark stars, inflationary theory, cosmic magnetic fields and astroparticle physics. She currently leads NASA sub-orbital and space missions to discover the origins of the highest-energy cosmic rays and neutrinos.

Olinto is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Physical Society, and has received the Chaire d’Excellence Award of the French Agence Nationale de Recherche, the Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, and the Faculty Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching and Mentoring, among other awards. She serves as chair of the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University.

Wilhelm Schlag has been named the Homer J. Livingston Professor in Mathematics and the College.

Schlag is the author of more than 80 scholarly papers and five books, and his research focuses on linear and nonlinear partial differential equations, operator and spectral theory, and harmonic and classical analysis, among other subjects.

Schlag serves on the editorial boards of numerous publications, including Communications in Mathematical Physics, Communications in Partial Differential Equations, Geometric and Functional Analysis and Journal of Spectral Theory, and has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship. He was an invited speaker at the 2014 International Congress of Mathematicians in Korea, and a plenary speaker at the 2012 International Congress of Mathematical Physics in Denmark.

Ben Zhao has been named the Neubauer Professor in Computer Science and the College.

Zhao’s research covers a range of topics including large-distributed networks and systems, HCI, security and privacy, and wireless and mobile systems, mostly from a data-driven perspective. Zhao is an ACM distinguished scientist and a recipient of the National Science Foundation’s CAREER award, MIT Tech Review’s TR-35 Award and IEEE Internet Technical Committee’s Early Career Award.

Zhao joined the University in July from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he served as a professor of computer science. He co-directs the Systems, Algorithms, Networking and Data Lab, which is relocating to UChicago.

Haitao “Heather” Zheng has been named the Neubauer Professor in Computer Science and the College.

Zheng’s research focuses on mobile computing, wireless networking, and online and mobile data analysis. Her current research includes developing novel mmWave networking and imaging systems, crowdsourcing enabled spectrum monitoring and enforcement, as well as data-driven networking and systems design. Zheng led the Nautilus project on open spectrum systems at Microsoft Research Asia and worked on radio resource allocation for broadband wireless networks at Bell-Labs.

Zheng joined UChicago in July from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she was a professor in the Department of Computer Science and co-directed the Systems, Algorithms, Networking and Data Lab, which is relocating to UChicago. She was selected in 2005 by MIT Technology Review as one of the top 35 innovators under the age of 35. She received the Google Faculty Research Award in 2012, 2014 and 2016 and is an IEEE Fellow.

Division of the Social Sciences

Mikhail Golosov has been named the Homer J. Livingston Professor in Economics and the College.

Golosov joined UChicago in July from Princeton University, where he was a professor of economics. He has also held positions at Yale University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Golosov’s research focus includes macroeconomics, public finance and political economy.

He is an associate editor of Econometrica and the Review of Economic Studies. Golosov has been awarded the Sloan Research Fellowship and the National Science Foundation CAREER Grant. He is a fellow of the Econometric Society and a distinguished CESifo affiliate.

Chicago Booth School of Business

Bariş Ata has been named the Chookaszian Family Professor of Operations Management.

Ata takes a problem-driven approach to bridge the theory and practice of operations management. He has used stochastic models to study delivery of health care services, sustainable operations, management of manufacturing and service operations, and revenue management. His current research interests also include operational issues in the criminal justice system and the logistical challenges in the last-mile delivery problems in Africa.

Ata serves as the editor for the Stochastic Models and Simulation Department of Management Science. He has served as an associate editor for Mathematics of Operations Research, Operations Research, Management Science, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management and Stochastic Systems. Prior to joining the Chicago Booth faculty in 2013, Ata was a faculty member at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Steven Davis has been named the William H. Abbott Distinguished Service Professor of International Business and Economics.

Davis studies business dynamics, employment, labor market institutions, economic fluctuations, public policy and other topics. He is known for his influential work using longitudinal data on firms and establishments to explore job creation and destruction dynamics and their relationship to economic performance.

Davis is also a co-creator of the Economic Policy Uncertainty Indices and the DHI Hiring Indicators, and he co-organizes the Asian Monetary Policy Forum, held annually in Singapore. He is a former editor of the American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics and an elected fellow of the Society of Labor Economists. He is also a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, senior academic fellow with the Asian Bureau of Finance and Economics Research, adviser to the U.S. Congressional Budget Office, and visiting scholar and consultant, respectively, with the Federal Reserve Banks of Atlanta and Chicago. In 2013, he received the Addington Prize in Measurement, awarded by the Fraser Institute for Public Policy.

Emir Kamenica has been named the Richard O. Ryan Professor of Economics.

Kamenica studies an eclectic set of topics in microeconomics with a focus on theoretical work on the design of informational environments.

His work has been published widely, including articles in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, Review of Economic Studies and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Kamenica is a recipient of the 2013 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship and is an editor of the Journal of Political Economy.

Stefan Nagel has been named the Fama Family Professor of Finance.

Nagel’s research focuses on asset pricing, investor behavior and risk taking of financial intermediaries. His most recent work explores the role of personal experiences in shaping expectations about the macroeconomy and financial market returns, novel approaches for measurement of bank tail risk exposures, and the application of machine learning techniques to understand the risk and return of investment strategies in the stock market.

Nagel is executive editor of the Journal of Finance, a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a research fellow at the Centre of Economic Policy Research. Before joining Chicago Booth in 2017, Nagel taught at the University of Michigan, Stanford University and Harvard University.

Canice Prendergast has been named the W. Allen Wallis Distinguished Service Professor of Economics.

Prendergast is a microeconomist who studies the economics of organizations, including compensation practices of firms and social influences of trade within firms. His recent research involves designing and implementing an efficient market system for allocating food to food banks across the United States.

He is the author of “The Motivation and Bias of Bureaucrats,” published in the American Economics Review in 2007 and "The Tenuous Trade-Off Between Risk and Incentives," which appeared in the Journal of Political Economy in 2002. Prendergast’s work also appears in The Quarterly Journal of Economics, The RAND Journal, The Economic Journal, Journal of Labor Economics and European Economic Review. He has worked as the editor of the Journal of Political Economy and the Journal of Labor Economics. In addition to being the Booth Faculty Fellow from 2011 to 2014, he is the recipient of two National Science Foundation Awards, is a fellow of the Society of Labor Economics and has been a faculty research fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Madhav Rajan has been named the George Pratt Shultz Professor of Accounting.

The dean of Chicago Booth, Rajan was most recently senior associate dean at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, where he held the Robert K. Jaedicke Chair in Accounting. Rajan’s primary research interest is the economics-based analysis of management accounting issues, especially as they relate to the choice of internal control and performance systems in firms.

He has served as editor of The Accounting Review and is co-author of Cost Accounting: A Managerial Emphasis, the leading cost accounting textbook used around the world. Before joining Stanford in 2001, Rajan held faculty positions at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. In 2000, Rajan won the David W. Hauck Award, Wharton’s highest undergraduate teaching award. Earlier this year, he received the Robert T. Davis Award for lifetime achievement and service, the highest faculty recognition awarded by Stanford GSB. Rajan held a visiting professorship at Chicago Booth in 2007-08.

Divinity School

Laurie Zoloth has been named the Margaret E. Burton Professor in the Divinity School.

The dean of the Divinity School, Zoloth is a leader in the field of religious studies with a particular focus on bioethics and Jewish studies. Her scholarship includes the ethics of genetic engineering, stem cell research, and how science and medicine are taught. She is a founding board member of the Society for Scriptural Reasoning, and has been the president of the American Academy of Religion and the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities. Before joining UChicago, Zoloth served as a Charles McCormick Deering Professor of Teaching Excellence at Northwestern University, holding appointments in the Department of Religious Studies in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and in the Feinberg School of Medicine.

Zoloth is the author of Health Care and the Ethics of Encounter: A Jewish Discussion of Social Justice and co-editor of five books, including Notes from a Narrow Ridge: Religion and Bioethics and& Jews and Genes: The Genetic Future in Contemporary Jewish Thought.

Harris School of Public Policy

Katherine Baicker has been named the Emmett Dedmon Professor in the Harris School of Public Policy.

Baicker, who will begin serving as dean of Harris Public Policy on Aug. 15, is a leading scholar in the economic analysis of health policy. Her research focuses on the effectiveness and value of public and private health insurance. Her scholarship spans Medicaid, health insurance finance, health care quality and the effect of health system reforms.

Baicker arrives at UChicago from Harvard University where she serves as the C. Boyden Gray Professor of Health Economics. She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and National Academy of Social Insurance and serves as a member of the Congressional Budget Office’s Panel of Health Advisers, a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and an affiliate of the Jameel Poverty Action Lab. Baicker has served as a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers and the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission.

Daniel Diermeier has been named the David Lee Shillinglaw Distinguished Service Professor in the Harris School of Public Policy and in the College.

Diermeier was appointed provost of UChicago in 2016. Previously, he served as dean of Harris Public Policy, where he was the Emmett Dedmon Professor of Public Administration. His teaching and research focus on formal political theory, political institutions, the interaction of business and politics, as well as crisis and reputation management. He has published two books and more than 100 research articles in academic journals, mostly in the fields of political science, economics and management, but also in other areas ranging from linguistics, sociology and psychology to computer science and applied mathematics.

Diermeier is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Guggenheim Foundation and the Canadian Institute of Advanced Research. Prior to joining UChicago, he taught at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University and the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, most recently as IBM Professor of Regulation and Practice in the Department of Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences and director of the Ford Motor Company Center of Global Citizenship.

Institute for Molecular Engineering

Jeffrey Hubbell has been named the inaugural Eugene Bell Professor of Tissue Engineering.

Hubbell’s research focuses on tissue engineering, including designing materials to guide processes of morphogenesis through engineering of extracellular matrix molecules and growth factors, to create implants that are drug-like in their function. He and his team are also developing molecular- and materials-engineering approaches in immunotherapy, including focusing vaccination on infectious disease and cancer.

Earlier this year, Hubbell received the Society for Biomaterials' Founders Award, the highest honor bestowed by the society. Hubbell has co-founded five companies, three of which are based on or related to research he directs at his UChicago laboratory. The companies include ClostraBio, a startup that is developing treatments for food allergies, Kuros Biosciences, which develops growth factor engineering and biomaterials technology for surgical sealants and tissue repair agents, and QGel, which develops biomaterials matrices for cell culture in drug discovery.

Oriental Institute

Christopher Woods has been named the John A. Wilson Professor in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and the College.

Woods began serving as director of the Oriental Institute on July 1. His research and writings focus on Sumerian language as well as early Mesopotamian religion, literature, mathematics and administration. Woods serves as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Near Eastern Studies.

His publications include The Grammar of Perspective: The Sumerian Conjugation Prefixes as a System of Voice and the forthcoming Materials for the Sumerian Lexicon 18. Woods is editor of Visible Language: The Inventions of Writing in the Ancient Middle East and Beyond.

Rika Mansueto, AB’91, elected to University of Chicago Board of Trustees

Tue, 11 Jul 2017 16:50 -0500

Rika Mansueto, AB’91, director of the Mansueto Foundation, has been elected to the University of Chicago Board of Trustees. She began her five-year term at the May 2017 board meeting.

“Rika is a distinguished and dedicated alumna who has provided meaningful support for intellectual life and activity at the University of Chicago,” said Board Chairman Joseph Neubauer, MBA’65. “We are delighted to welcome Rika to the Board, and look forward to benefitting from her knowledge and experience as she continues her deep commitment to the University as a Trustee.”

Mansueto currently is a member of the advisory board of Teach for America of Chicago-Northwest Indiana, and serves on the executive committee of the board of Francis W. Parker School. Previously she was an editor and stock analyst at Morningstar, Inc. As an undergraduate student in the College she studied anthropology.

Mansueto and her husband, Joe Mansueto, AB’78, MBA’80, have been generous supporters of the University of Chicago. Joe Mansueto is executive chairman of Morningstar. They live in Chicago with their three children.

“Rika has a long-standing connection to the University, a deep sense of the values of the University, and clear appreciation of the importance of bringing these values into all our efforts,” said President Robert J. Zimmer. “I know because of these qualities, her intelligence and her excellent judgment, that she will be a wonderful addition to the Board of Trustees.”

A gift from the Mansuetos in 2016 established the Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation, which will bring together programs in the social, natural and computational sciences and in the humanities to enhance the University’s strengths in urban scholarship and education. In 2008, their gift helped support the construction of the Joe and Rika Mansueto Library, which has become a campus icon and an essential part of the University of Chicago Library since it opened in 2011.

Paul M. Rand named Vice President for Communications

Tue, 20 Jun 2017 09:45 -0500

Paul M. Rand, a senior communications executive who has founded and led successful public relations and digital agencies, has been named Vice President for Communications after a national search. His appointment is effective Aug. 1.

Rand held senior roles at leading communications firms before building two agencies of his own: Corporate Technology Communications, one of the nation’s largest independent public relations firms; and Zócalo Group, a full-service digital and social media agency. Based in Chicago, Zócalo Group has received numerous industry awards for its work. Rand is currently chairman of Critical Mass/Zócalo.

“The University benefits greatly from communications that foster engagement around our academic mission, in a global context where modes of communication are always changing,” said President Robert J. Zimmer. “Paul is a highly regarded industry leader in digital communications and social media as well as traditional communications—areas that will enhance and extend the University’s current communications capabilities.”

Rand’s previous roles include serving as chief digital officer and chief growth and innovation officer at Ketchum, a global public relations firm, and as an executive vice president at Golin. He started his career at Burson-Marsteller in Chicago.

In addition to his professional roles, Rand is vice chairman of the Dean’s Advisory Board at DePaul University’s Kellstadt Graduate School of Business, where he was also an adjunct faculty in management. Rand also serves on the board of Northwestern University’s Spiegel Research Center, part of the Medill School of Journalism, Media and Integrated Marketing.

“I am very excited to join the extraordinary team at UChicago,” said Rand. “The University is making significant contributions on the global, national and Chicago stages, and I’m looking forward to helping share these inspiring stories.”

Rand holds a bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a master’s degree in business administration and public policy from DePaul University. He is the author of Highly Recommended: Harnessing the Power of Social Media and Word of Mouth Marketing to Build Your Brand and Your Business.

Jeffrey Hubbell named inaugural Bell Professor in Tissue Engineering

Thu, 15 Jun 2017 14:00 -0500

Prof. Jeffrey Hubbell, a biomaterials scientist and entrepreneur, has been named the inaugural Eugene Bell Professor in Tissue Engineering at the University of Chicago.

The Bell Professorship was created to promote innovative work at UChicago’s Institute for Molecular Engineering and the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass. Hubbell was serving as the Barry L. MacLean Professor of Molecular Engineering Innovation and Enterprise at the University.

“Jeff Hubbell is a pioneering researcher and early entrepreneur in the field of tissue engineering,” said Matthew Tirrell, the Pritzker Director of IME and deputy laboratory director for science at Argonne National Laboratory. “His 2005 paper on synthetic microenvironments for tissue engineering has been cited thousands of times, and he has trained dozens of other leaders in the field in his laboratory. This year, the Society for Biomaterials endowed him with their highest honor, the Founders Award.”

The Bell Professorship, which is supported by a $3.5 million donation from the Millicent and Eugene Bell Foundation, was created to foster scholarship on tissue engineering at MBL and IME, where scientists are focused on exploring innovative technology at the molecular scale, with the potential for societal impact in areas including health care, computing, energy and the environment. The gift was made in memory of Eugene Bell, a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and member of the MBL scientific community, who founded the field of tissue engineering through efforts to generate replacement tissue for treating severe burns and other injuries.

“It is a tremendous honor to follow in the footsteps of Eugene Bell, who through application of discoveries in cell biology and innovations in biomaterials science launched the field of tissue engineering with his work on engineered skin and blood vessels,” Hubbell said.

Hubbell joined UChicago in 2014 after serving as the Merck-Serono Chair in Drug Delivery at Switzerland’s École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, where he also was founding director of the Institute of Bioengineering. He has served on the faculty of the University of Texas and California Institute of Technology.

In his new appointment, Hubbell will continue to be based at IME. He will direct a research project at the MBL’s Eugene Bell Center for Regenerative Biology and Tissue Engineering and hold a faculty appointment there.

"We are incredibly excited that Jeff will be joining us on a more regular basis,” said David Mark Welch, interim director of MBL Division of Research. “He has already started several collaborative projects that leverage his expertise in tissue engineering with the unique marine models available at the MBL.”

In his research in tissue engineering, Hubbell designs materials to guide processes of morphogenesis through engineering of extracellular matrix molecules and growth factors, to create implants that are drug-like in their function. He and his team are also developing molecular- and materials-engineering approaches in immunotherapy, including focusing vaccination on infectious disease and cancer.

Hubbell has co-founded five companies, three of which are based on or related to research he directs at his UChicago laboratory. Most recently, Hubbell and Cathy Nagler, the Bunning Food Allergy Professor at UChicago, worked with the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation and the Institute for Translational Medicine to found ClostraBio, a UChicago startup that is developing treatments for food allergies. Other companies include Kuros Biosciences, which develops growth factor engineering and biomaterials technology for surgical sealants and tissue repair agents, and QGel, which develops biomaterials matrices for cell culture in drug discovery.

University announces appointments to leadership roles

Wed, 07 Jun 2017 14:10 -0500

The University of Chicago is announcing new appointments to leadership roles with responsibilities in areas that support the University’s academic mission and provide oversight for key priorities.

President Robert J. Zimmer made three appointments of Vice Presidents, and Provost Daniel Diermeier announced four additional new appointments in the Office of the Provost. All of the appointments are effective July 1. They all represent new roles for individuals who are already part of the UChicago community, and who bring deep experience to important issues that come before the University.

Darren Reisberg, Vice President and Secretary of the University since 2014, will be the Vice President for Strategic Initiatives and Deputy Provost. In his new role, Reisberg will provide oversight for the operation and budget of the Office of the Provost; for several academic centers and initiatives including UChicago Urban and the Urban Education Institute; for regulatory and compliance matters under the purview of the Provost’s Office; and for faculty governance. As a Vice President, Reisberg will continue to oversee certain strategic initiatives in the President’s Office, including leadership development across the University.

Katie Callow-Wright, currently Vice President and Chief of Staff, will succeed Darren Reisberg as Vice President and Secretary of the University. As Secretary, Callow-Wright will be the senior officer with direct responsibility for oversight and facilitation of governance practices at the University. She will work closely with President Zimmer to manage all activities related to the Board of Trustees, providing direct support and counsel to the President and the Trustees. She will help guide the support work for other boards, such as the Medical Center Board of Trustees and the Board of the Marine Biological Laboratory. The strategic coordination of governing activities involving national laboratories and the boards of other affiliates will also be a key aspect of her role. Callow-Wright’s responsibilities will include oversight for the Office of University Events and Ceremonies, and she will continue as Chief of Staff in the Office of the President.

Bala Srinivasan, currently the Associate Provost for International and Strategic Initiatives and Senior Advisor to the President, will become Vice President for Global Initiatives and Strategy and Senior Associate Provost. This change reflects the increasing responsibility Srinivasan has assumed within the Office of the President since he joined it in July 2016, the contributions he has made and the importance of the University’s global efforts. As Vice President, Srinivasan will now also serve as an officer of the University. In the Office of the Provost, one of his key responsibilities will be to work with faculty, deans and University administration to build academic partnerships and research collaborations with international partners, create global educational opportunities and strengthen the University’s connections to foreign institutional partners, policymakers and civic leaders.

David Nirenberg, currently Dean of the Division of Social Sciences, will become Executive Vice Provost. His responsibilities will include greater strategic, budgetary and administrative coordination, especially among the Divisions and the College. In this role, Nirenberg will work closely with the deans of the divisions and the College, and will continue to build upon cross-divisional efforts such as UChicagoGRAD. Nirenberg, the Deborah R. and Edgar D. Jannotta Distinguished Service Professor of Medieval History and Social Thought, was the founding Director of the Neubauer Collegium before becoming Dean of the Division of Social Sciences. He holds an academic appointment in the College and five academic appointments across the Social Sciences and Humanities Divisions: in the John U. Nef Committee on Social Thought, Department of History, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, and Center for Jewish Studies.

Michael Hopkins will join the Office of the Provost as Vice Provost for Strategic Planning. He will lead the area of academic space allocation, and working with other faculty and administrative leaders will be the Provost’s Office representative in space planning, innovation and environmental sustainability. Hopkins is currently Deputy Dean of the Physical Sciences Division. In that role he assists Dean Rocky Kolb with strategic planning and overseeing the division’s undergraduate and graduate education programs. He is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry, serving as chair from 2003-09.

Bridget Le Loup Collier will serve as Associate Provost and Director of the Office for Equal Opportunity Programs. Collier has served as interim Associate Provost since Jan. 24. She joined the University in May 2015 as Dean of Students and Senior Director of Student Engagement at the Graham School, where she provided innovative and strategic leadership for a variety of programs in service to students. Collier is the founder and chair of the Chicagoland Title IX Consortium, an organization of more than 40 higher education institutions that seeks to enhance knowledge, understanding and application of Title IX policies and resources to advance gender parity and reduce sexual misconduct.

Jason Merchant will become Vice Provost for Academic Affairs in Winter Quarter 2018, succeeding Ronald Thisted, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs and Professor in the Departments of Public Health Sciences, Statistics, and Anesthesia & Critical Care, and in the College, who will step down at the end of February 2018. As Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, Merchant will work with the deans and chairs on faculty appointments, promotions, recruitments, and retentions. Merchant is the Lorna Puttkammer Straus Professor in the Department of Linguistics, and in the College. He served as Deputy Dean of the Division of the Humanities from 2013-16.

Educator Charles Abelmann named director of UChicago Laboratory Schools

Mon, 05 Jun 2017 10:50 -0500

Charles Abelmann, an educator who has led highly regarded independent and public schools and worked on international education at the World Bank, has been appointed director of the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools.

Since 2010, Abelmann has served as head of school at Barrie School in Silver Spring, Md., an independent school for students 18 months through grade 12. He has strengthened academic programs at Barrie, in part by ensuring coordination among divisions and promoting pedagogical innovation. He developed a teaching fellow and intern program, and formed partnerships that attracted guest artists and visiting teachers from other countries. Under his leadership, the school became a convener on important topics in education, and formed local and global partnerships that provided new opportunities for students and faculty to build community and support social responsibility.

Prior to his leadership of Barrie, Abelmann served in a variety of roles for the World Bank, including overseeing its investments in education programs in Indonesia, China and Mongolia. He conducted policy analysis and aided in capacity building with ministries of education and local governments across East Asia and other countries including Latvia, Uganda, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Brazil, Guatemala and Colombia. Earlier in his career he served as principal of Janney Elementary School, which is part of the Washington, D.C public schools, and was special assistant to the superintendent of the D.C. public schools.

“The Laboratory Schools have a legacy of outstanding and innovative education, and Charlie will provide the strong academic leadership needed to continue and enhance that tradition,” said President Robert J. Zimmer. “He is also committed to fostering vibrant connections between Lab and the rest of the University, which will bring multiple benefits to our community.”

Abelmann, whose appointment is effective July 1, holds a bachelor’s degree in English and religion from Duke University and a master’s degree and doctorate in administration, planning and social policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He has two sons, Tobias and Emilio.

“We have been greatly impressed by Charlie’s passion for education, his breadth of experience and his enthusiasm for collaborating across the Lab community to advance teaching, learning and the development of students,” said David Fithian, executive vice president of the University, who has oversight responsibility for Lab and its director.

As Laboratory Schools director, Abelmann will oversee the nursery school, kindergarten, primary school, lower school, middle school and high school, stewarding their distinctive cultures, supporting their faculties, and encouraging creativity, innovation and ambition. He will be responsible for developing the human and financial resources the Schools need to continue to excel, promoting a community that engages alumni, families, the University and the city of Chicago.

Abelmann said that during his visits to Lab he has been impressed by the confidence of the students, the integration of the arts into school life and the strong sense of community.

“I am excited to join a school with such a rich history and deep connections to the University, and to help chart the path forward to continue a tradition of excellence and innovation,” Abelmann said. “I grew up around university life, and I am eager to be part of a community that is so engaged in the education of children and youth, and that places a high value on questioning and collaboration.”

“Our search committee was unanimous in its enthusiasm for Charlie’s candidacy,” said David Kistenbroker, chair of the Laboratory Schools Board. “His style of leadership is characterized by excellent analytical skills, compassion and a strong vision for education. He has shown an affinity for collaborative work with boards, parents, teachers, staff and students. We look forward to welcoming him to our community.”

American philosopher and educator John Dewey founded the Laboratory Schools in 1896 to test and demonstrate his educational theories. Since then, Lab has continued to be an integral part of the University of Chicago, now serving more than 2,000 students from nursery school through 12th grade.

Abelmann succeeds Beth A. Harris, who has served as interim director since 2016. In a message to the Lab community announcing the appointment, Fithian and Kistenbroker thanked Harris for her work over the last year. Harris served on the Laboratory Schools Board from 2002 though 2015 and was the University vice president and general counsel for 13 years.

Kenton W. Rainey named chief of police for UCPD

Thu, 01 Jun 2017 16:15 -0500

Veteran Police Chief Kenton W. Rainey has been named the new chief of police for the University of Chicago Police Department, effective July 1.

As chief, Rainey will oversee the approximately 100 members of the full-service, professionally accredited police department and serve as the department’s representative on campus and in the neighboring communities. Rainey also will direct the UCPD’s policing initiatives, develop innovative crime prevention strategies and implement effective community policing programs.

Rainey will report to Eric M. Heath, associate vice president for the University’s Department of Safety & Security.

“One of the many valuable areas of expertise Kenton brings to the University of Chicago is his involvement with creating innovative, community-based policing strategies,” said Heath. “Throughout his law enforcement career, Kenton has worked in diverse communities, where he built strong and positive relationships with community members and successfully implemented new policing programs, resulting in effective policing efforts.”

Most recently Rainey served as the chief of police for the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Police Department until his retirement from the role at the end of last year. Rainey also has served as chief of police for the Fairfield, Calif. Police Department and commander of the airport police for the San Antonio Police Department, in addition to leadership roles with several other law enforcement agencies in California and Ohio.

"The University of Chicago is a world-class organization, and it is an honor and privilege for me to have been selected for this position,” said Rainey. “I’m excited to work with the members of the University’s police department, the University’s students, faculty and staff, and area community members so that together we can achieve our public safety mission.”

Rainey, who is originally from Chicago, is a graduate of California State University, Long Beach with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and the University of Phoenix with a master’s degree in organizational management.

Tanika Island Childress named CEO of the UChicago Charter School

Wed, 31 May 2017 16:04 -0500

Tanika Island Childress, a nationally distinguished educator and veteran leader at the University of Chicago Urban Education Institute, has been named CEO of the University of Chicago Charter School.

Island Childress will apply her wide-ranging expertise from more than two decades of teaching and leading to continuing the development of UChicago Charter as a model for fostering greater equity and excellence in urban education.

The appointment builds on Island Childress’s 16-year career at the Urban Education Institute, where she most recently served as director of the UChicago Urban Teacher Education Program. Earlier in her career, Island Childress served as the UChicago Charter School’s chief academic officer and director of the UChicago Charter North Kenwood/Oakland Campus, one of the highest-performing non-selective elementary schools in the city of Chicago.

During her tenure as director of the North Kenwood/Oakland Campus, Island Childress was recognized with a Community School Leadership Award in 2012 from the Federation of Community Schools and a Principal Achievement Award from the city of Chicago in 2013. She also has been recognized as a national leader in non-cognitive and academic development, serving as a member of the Aspen Institute’s Council of Distinguished Educators on Social, Emotional and Academic Development.

“I have big ambitions for UChicago Charter School students, which begin and end with my belief in their ability to learn, grow and succeed,” Island Childress said. “I hope to change the lives of many Chicago students by building on the UChicago Charter School’s strong culture of belief in students’ capabilities, and tradition of teacher learning and accountability grounded in research and data.”

Prior to joining UEI, Island Childress was an adjunct faculty member at Northwestern University’s Teaching Practicum and Field Experience Seminar. From 1997 to 2001, Island Childress was also the fourth-grade team leader for the Martin L. King Experimental Laboratory School in Evanston, Ill., where she took on the roles of Language Arts District Representative, School Literacy Committee member, Teachers as Readers Committee member and Sisterhood Project mentor.

“We are so fortunate to have Tanika’s depth of expertise at the helm of UChicago Charter School,” said Sian Beilock, executive vice provost of the University of Chicago and UChicago Charter School interim governing board chair. “Her vision, commitment and compassion will ensure we continue to help students across the South Side of Chicago realize their potential and achieve their goals, in school and in life.”

Island Childress’s appointment is part of UEI’s ambitious plan to improve schooling nationwide by conducting rigorous applied research, training exemplary teachers, operating a high-achieving public school, and designing school improvement tools and training for thousands of schools and classrooms across the United States.

The PreK-12 UChicago Charter School is designed to cultivate culturally aware critical thinkers and leaders, and prepare all of its students for college acceptance and graduation.

Its elementary model was recently the subject of a multi-year study that showed UChicago Charter is effectively addressing educational inequality and closing the achievement gap that has persisted between students of different racial and socioeconomic backgrounds. The study’s findings were published this year in the book The Ambitious Elementary School. UChicago Charter’s Woodlawn campus received a Level 1 school quality rating from the Chicago Public Schools district last year and will open a new high school facility next year with state-of-the-art engineering science labs, a media arts space and a college resource center.

Island Childress has been serving as the interim CEO of the UChicago Charter School since February and will continue developing UChicago Charter as a model of excellence in fostering high school achievement, college attainment and young adult success.

“Tanika brings a unique lens and extremely rare combination of experiences to her new role,” said Sara Ray Stoelinga, the Sara Liston Spurlark Director of UEI. “As the former director of UChicago’s Urban Teacher Education Program, she has deep expertise in what it takes to train and retain high quality teachers within some of the nation’s most distressed communities and challenging classroom environments. She also has a wealth of experience in working directly with UChicago Charter School leaders, teachers, students and families. She is a highly respected and visionary leader who has changed—and will continue to change—students’ educational and life trajectories for the better.”

Island Childress received her bachelor’s degree in education with a concentration in psychology from National Louis University in Chicago. She also earned a master’s degree in literacy education from Loyola University and received a leadership fellowship through the Urban Education Institute.

Christopher Woods appointed director of the Oriental Institute

Wed, 17 May 2017 09:30 -0500

Christopher Woods, a leading scholar of Sumerian language and writing, has been appointed director of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.

Woods will become the 13th director of the Oriental Institute, widely considered the world’s leading interdisciplinary center for research on civilizations of the ancient Near East. Founded in 1919, the institute serves as home to a museum and extensive collection of artifacts and research materials. It sponsors archaeological and survey expeditions across the Near East including Egypt, Turkey and Israel.

Woods will begin his new role on July 1. He succeeds Gil Stein, professor of archaeology at UChicago, who has served as the institute’s director since 2002.

“Chris is an outstanding scholar who also has a deep understanding of the Oriental Institute,” Provost Daniel Diermeier said. “He will advance the institute’s important work and build on the strong leadership that Gil Stein has provided over the last 15 years.”

Woods is an associate professor of Sumerian in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University. His research and writings focus on Sumerian language as well as early Mesopotamian religion, literature, mathematics and administration. He serves as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Near Eastern Studies and oversees the Oriental Institute’s post-doctoral scholars program.

Woods’ publications include The Grammar of Perspective: The Sumerian Conjugation Prefixes as a System of Voice and the forthcoming Materials for the Sumerian Lexicon 18. He is editor of Visible Language: The Inventions of Writing in the Ancient Middle East and Beyond. He led the launch of an interdisciplinary effort to explore early writing, entitled Signs of Writing: The Cultural, Social, and Linguistic Contexts of the World’s First Writing Systems. Sponsored by the Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society, the project enhanced UChicago’s role as an international center for the study of early writing.

“The opportunity to lead an institute where legends in our field have worked and to build on what Gil has done is one of the greatest honors in the field of Near East studies,” Woods said. “The Oriental Institute is the original interdisciplinary institute at the University, and I look forward to building new partnerships across campus and to developing collaborative projects that reach across fields.”

Prior to joining UChicago, Woods received his bachelor’s degree from Yale University and doctorate in Assyriology from Harvard University, where he was a junior fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows.

In his announcement Diermeier highlighted the accomplishments of Stein and thanked him for his service to the institute. Under Stein’s leadership, the institute has expanded its research capabilities, opened up new areas of scholarship, and resumed field research in countries such as Iraq and Israel, where institute scholars had not worked for years. Stein’s initiatives included developing a database to turn the institute’s extensive archives into a searchable digital resource and establishing the public education department for outreach to the University community, elementary and secondary schools, and the public.

Stein will take on the new role of Senior Advisor to the Provost for Cultural Heritage, starting July 1, with the goal of planning and implementing a cross-disciplinary initiative for the preservation of cultural and archaeological heritage for the University.

Ivan Samstein joins University as vice president and chief financial officer

Wed, 03 May 2017 11:00 -0500

Ivan Samstein, the current chief financial officer for Cook County and a longtime leader in public finance, has been appointed vice president and chief financial officer for the University of Chicago, following a national search. His appointment is effective June 26.

As CFO for Cook County, Samstein has had primary responsibility for the budget, capital and debt structure for the second-largest county government and associated health system in the country. During Samstein’s tenure, he has successfully designed and led several transformative projects in financial operations, technology, program-based budgeting and performance metric-driven management. He previously held positions as an investment banker and a financial analyst.

At UChicago, Samstein will help lead integrated strategic financial planning and provide oversight for the execution of the University’s work in financial analysis and functions, information technology and human resources.

“Ivan will work to ensure that ongoing analysis, discipline and appropriate organization best support and serve the ambitious academic mission and priorities of the University,” said President Robert J. Zimmer. “He will work closely with the provost and me, as well as with deans, officers and the board of trustees.”

Before he joined Cook County in 2012, Samstein was a director in the public finance department at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where he served as lead banker on a large portfolio of fixed-income securities from 2004-11. As assistant vice president in public finance for Moody’s Investors Service from 1999-2004, he evaluated fiscal, debt, budgetary, and risk management policies and procedures of municipalities across the Midwest.

“The University of Chicago is not only one of the world’s leading academic institutions, but is also an anchor for the greater Chicago economy and has an active commitment to that role. That is one of the things that attracted me to this position,” Samstein said. “I look forward to taking on this exciting new challenge and continuing to build out the University’s financial administrative function.”

Samstein holds a bachelor of arts in economics, magna cum laude, from Hunter College of the City University of New York, and he earned an MBA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.