UChicago News

Thomas J. Miles appointed dean of University of Chicago Law School

Tue, 06 Oct 2015 14:30 -0500

Thomas J. Miles, a leading scholar of criminal justice and judicial behavior and an expert in a wide range of contemporary issues such as race and immigration enforcement, has been appointed the next dean of the University of Chicago Law School.

Miles, PhD’00, who is the Clifton R. Musser Professor of Law and Economics and Walter Mander Research Scholar, has served on the Law School faculty since 2005. His appointment as dean will begin on Nov. 1.

Miles has been widely published in economics and legal journals, with extensive expertise on such varied topics as judicial diversity, immigration, mail fraud and wiretapping. He is a widely admired educator and a recipient of the Law School’s Graduating Students Award for Teaching Excellence.

“Tom’s deep experience at the Law School, along with his outstanding record as a teacher, colleague and legal scholar, make him an excellent choice to continue and expand the Law School’s legacy of intellectual leadership and interdisciplinary focus,” wrote President Robert J. Zimmer and Provost Eric D. Isaacs in a message to the Law School.

“I am excited and humbled to serve as dean of the Law School,” said Miles. “The Law School is my intellectual home. In addition to my personal connections as a faculty member and a graduate, my scholarship is steeped in ideas that were developed here. The continuation and extension of the Law School’s leadership in legal thought and education therefore have a particular personal importance to me.”

Miles’ primary research focus is in the areas of criminal justice and judicial behavior, and he has looked extensively at issues of race through a variety of legal perspectives. His work makes creative use of the tools of law and economics—an approach that originated at the Law School, which maintains leadership in the field through such initiatives as the Coase-Sandor Institute for Law and Economics.

Frequently, Miles’ work uses the methods of law and economics to investigate social questions not conventionally thought to fall within that field. For example, he and Adam Cox at the New York University School of Law published an article in 2008 that examined how African American judges tended to decide voting rights cases differently than white judges. Their research was the first to use robust statistical evidence to show that the racial identity of judges matters in how voting rights cases are decided, and highlighted the importance of diversity on the bench.

“Quantitative evidence often provides surprising insights and can spur new ideas in law,” Miles said. “For this reason, legal scholars have become increasingly interested in such evidence during the past decade.”

Before joining the faculty, Miles was the Olin Fellow in Law and Economics at the Law School. He has served in several leadership roles during his time on the faculty, including chairing the appointments committee and the accreditation review committee.

Miles received his PhD in economics from the University of Chicago and his JD cum laude from Harvard Law School. Upon graduation, he served as a law clerk to the Hon. Jay S. Bybee of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. From 2005 to 2013, Miles was an editor of the Journal of Legal Studies. He graduated summa cum laude with a BA in political science and economics from Tufts University.

Miles succeeds Michael H. Schill, who became the president of the University of Oregon on July 1. His appointment follows a national search, led by a faculty committee chaired by Randal Picker, the James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor of Law.

In their note to the Law School, Zimmer and Isaacs extended their gratitude to Geoffrey R. Stone, the Edward H. Levi Distinguished Service Professor and a former dean of the Law School and provost of the University. Stone has served as interim dean and will continue in that role until Nov. 1.

Joseph Neubauer elected chairman of University of Chicago’s Board of Trustees

Fri, 27 Feb 2015 12:12 -0600

The University of Chicago’s Board of Trustees has elected Joseph Neubauer, MBA’65, as its next chairman. Neubauer will begin his three-year term as chairman after the board’s annual meeting on May 28.

Neubauer succeeds Andrew M. Alper, AB’80, MBA’81, who has served as chairman since 2009.

Neubauer, who is the retired chairman of ARAMARK Corporation, has served on the University’s Board of Trustees since 1992, and became vice chairman in 2012. He is also chair of The University of Chicago Campaign: Inquiry and Impact. This most ambitious and comprehensive campaign in the University’s history is targeted to raise $4.5 billion to support faculty, students, and programs of research, education, clinical care and impact across the full scope of the University’s work in Chicago and around the world.

“I’ve had the pleasure of working closely with Joe Neubauer in his many roles at the University of Chicago over the years,” Alper said. “In particular, Joe has been an active and engaged member of the board’s executive committee, and President Zimmer and I have found his advice and counsel invaluable. Joe is a seasoned leader, and the nature of his university philanthropy demonstrates a deep appreciation of what makes the University of Chicago so special. I look forward to a seamless transition of board leadership over the next several months.”

“Joe Neubauer has a deep understanding of the University of Chicago’s potential to transform and enrich lives, grounded in his own experience and wide-ranging interests,” said President Robert J. Zimmer. “His philanthropic generosity and hard work on the University’s behalf have greatly enhanced the University’s capacity to make an impact around the world. With his new role as chairman of the board, I know his leadership will make great contributions to the University’s ability to further enhance our work in research, education and impact.”

“The University of Chicago has always occupied a very special place in my life,” Neubauer said. “The intellectual prowess and the global reach of the University have inspired me personally and professionally for over 50 years. It is therefore a great honor for me to work closely with President Zimmer and my fellow board members during this ambitious period in the University’s distinguished history.”

Neubauer and his wife Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer have a long history of generous philanthropic giving. They received the University of Chicago Medal in 2013. Awarded by the Board of Trustees, the University Medal recognizes distinguished service of the highest order to the University by an individual or a couple.

The Neubauers’ major donations to the university focus on investments in human capital. Their first gift was an endowed chair in entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in 1996. More recently, their 2012 landmark gift established the Neubauer Family Collegium for Culture and Society, an ambitious initiative to expand the boundaries of humanistic study. Last December, the Neubauer Family Foundation sponsored two new programs that remove barriers to admission and matriculation for academically gifted international students and students from Hispanic communities. The family also has endowed numerous student scholarships and professorships, and supports the Oriental Institute’s Neubauer Expedition to Zincirli in southern Turkey.

Neubauer’s parents fled Nazi Germany in 1938. Born in Israel, Neubauer came to the United States at age 15 to live with his aunt and uncle in Danvers, Mass. He studied engineering at Tufts University, working his way through school waiting tables and running a late-night milk and sandwich delivery service from his fraternity house kitchen.

After earning an MBA at Chicago, Neubauer took positions at Chase Manhattan Bank and PepsiCo. In 1979 he joined ARAMARK, a worldwide provider of food, hospitality and other professional services, as chief financial officer. He served for nearly three decades as ARAMARK’s chief executive officer and later board chairman. During his tenure the company grew revenues from $2 billion to $14 billion and employed more than 250,000 people in 23 countries. He currently serves on the boards of Macy’s, Inc. and Mondelēz International, and recently retired from the board of Verizon. He also serves as chairman of the board of the Barnes Foundation and is the immediate past chairman of the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans.

As noted above, he was elected to the University’s Board of Trustees in 1992 and became its vice chairman in 2012. He also serves as chairman of the Alumni Relations and Development Committee, a member of the board’s Executive Committee, and as a life member of the Council on Chicago Booth.

Neubauer has two children, Melissa Anderson and Lawrence Neubauer, MBA’95, JD’95.

Two new members elected to University of Chicago Board of Trustees

Tue, 15 Jul 2014 10:05 -0500

The University of Chicago Board of Trustees has elected two new members: Debra A. Cafaro, JD’82, chairman and CEO of Ventas, Inc.; and Kenneth Griffin, founder and CEO of Citadel, LLC. Cafaro and Griffin both began their five-year terms at the June 2014 board meeting.

“We are very fortunate that Debra and Ken will be joining us as trustees,” said Board Chairman Andrew M. Alper, AB’80, MBA’81.“They each bring a remarkable record of professional accomplishment to the board, and will add considerably to our capacity for leadership and support.”

Debra Cafaro

Named by the Financial Times as one of the “Top 50 Women in World Business,” Cafaro heads Ventas, Inc., an S&P 500 company with an enterprise value of about $27 billion. Prior to Ventas, Cafaro was the director and then president of Ambassador Apartments Inc.

A former chair of the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts, she serves on the boards of Weyerhaeuser Company, the Real Estate Roundtable, the Executives’ Club of Chicago, the Economic Club of Chicago and World Business Chicago. Cafaro was recognized as one of ‘50 Women to Watch’ by the Wall Street Journal, one of the 10 ‘Best CEOs’ by Forbes, and one of the ‘100 Most Influential People in Healthcare’ by Modern Healthcare.

After completing her undergraduate degree at the University of Notre Dame, Cafaro received her JD cum laude in 1982 from the University of Chicago Law School, and served as a judicial clerk to the Hon. J. Dickson Phillips, United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, from 1982 to 1983. A founding member at Barack Ferrazzano in Chicago, she practiced real estate, corporate and finance law for 13 years, and taught real estate transactions and finance as an adjunct professor at Northwestern University Law School from 1988 to 1992.

In 2013, Cafaro made a $4 million gift to provide full-tuition, three-year scholarships for Law School students with financial need. The Law School named Cafaro a distinguished alumna in 2011. At present, Cafaro serves on the Law School’s Business Advisory Council, the Law School Campaign Planning Group, and the Law School’s Visiting Committee.

Kenneth Griffin

Kenneth C. Griffin is the founder and chief executive officer of Citadel, one of the world’s largest alternative asset managers and securities dealers.

A diverse financial institution, the Citadel group includes Citadel, an industry-leading alternative asset manager; Citadel Securities, one of the leading liquidity providers in America’s capital markets; and Citadel Technology, a solutions provider for investment management technology.

Griffin received a bachelor’s degree in economics from Harvard College. He is an active supporter of causes that drive community improvement, and he serves on the board of directors of the Chicago Public Education Fund. His philanthropic activities focus on high impact education, health and civic initiatives. Griffin is also a member of the board of trustees for the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Contemporary Art.

Within the business community, Griffin is a member of numerous organizations including the World Economic Forum, G100, the Economic Club of Chicago and the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago.

Griffin has supported several key education initiatives at UChicago. His $10 million donation to the University in 2009 furthers groundbreaking research to improve K-12 education, with a special emphasis on pre-K. The funds have resulted in the direct advancement of thousands of underprivileged children. Griffin also provided support for the Woodlawn campus of the University of Chicago Charter School and the Initiative on Global Markets at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Chicago Booth alum Satya Nadella takes helm of Microsoft

Tue, 04 Feb 2014 13:36 -0600

Microsoft Corp. announced Feb. 4 that Satya Nadella, MBA’97, was promoted to CEO, effective immediately.

Nadella, a Chicago Booth graduate who recently returned to the University of Chicago campus to discuss the future of technology, will lead the world’s largest software company, where he has spent the last 22 years. Microsoft last year reported annual net revenue of $77.3 billion; Nadella will oversee a global workforce of more than 100,000 employees.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates praised Nadella’s global vision for technological development in announcing the appointment.

“Satya is a proven leader with hard-core engineering skills, business vision and the ability to bring people together,” Gates said in a news release.

Originally from Hyderabad, India, the 46-year-old Nadella said as a young person he “always wanted to build things.”

“How I think has been shaped by my life’s experience,” the executive said in a video interview posted by Microsoft on the morning of the announcement.

“The one thing that I would say defines me is that I love to learn. I get excited about new things, I buy more books than I read or finish,” he said.

Previously the leader of Microsoft’s Cloud and Enterprise group, Nadella has overseen computing platforms, developer tools and cloud services, leading Microsoft’s responses to many trends sweeping the technology industry.

“This is the first time I see four major trends evolving simultaneously: mobile, cloud, big data and social media,” Nadella told Booth students last November, during a fireside chat with Chicago Booth Dean Sunil Kumar, the George Pratt Shultz Professor of Operations Management.

Nadella took time to offer Booth students some career advice when he visited last fall. He said his UChicago education taught him to manage his division’s future performance as well as its current results. Nadella also confessed that as a Booth student, he initially thought he might want to be an investment banker, but that it wasn’t a match for his passions. He encouraged students to find their “superpower,” embrace hard work, and ask themselves where they can apply their strengths to produce the greatest impact.

“Play the long game,” he said.

Jens Ludwig elected to prestigious Institute of Medicine for research on social determinants of health

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 16:52 -0500

Jens Ludwig, one of the nation’s leading researchers applying scientific tools to the study of social issues such as crime, poverty and health, has been elected to the National Academy of Science’s Institute of Medicine.

Ludwig, the McCormick Foundation Professor of Social Service Administration, Law and Public Policy, and director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab, is one of 70 new members and 10 foreign associates elected to the prestigious organization. He is the 14th member of the UChicago faculty to be elected to the group since 1978.

The Institute of Medicine is both an honorific membership organization and a policy research organization. Membership in the Institute is considered "one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine and recognizes individuals who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievements and commitment to service," according to the IOM. The Institute's members serve without compensation in the conduct of studies and other activities on matters of significance to health.

Current active members elect new members from among candidates nominated for their accomplishments and contributions to the advancement of the medical sciences, health care and public health. Established in 1970 as a component of the National Academy of Sciences, the IOM has become recognized as a national resource for independent, scientifically informed analysis and recommendations on health issues.

“It is a great honor to be selected to join the IOM,” said Ludwig. “Researchers and policymakers are increasingly aware that some of the most important determinants of health have nothing to do with what happens in the medical system, and are instead related to the social environment. It is a privilege to be able to work with the IOM to learn more about social determinants of health outcomes for some of our nation’s most economically disadvantaged people.”

“The Institute of Medicine is greatly enriched by the addition of our newly elected colleagues, each of whom has significantly advanced health and medicine,” said IOM President Harvey V. Fineberg. “Through their research, teaching, clinical work and other contributions, these distinguished individuals have inspired and served as role models to others.”

Ludwig’s research on the social determinants of health has focused largely on three areas: the prevention of violent crime, the effects of urban poverty on health and well-being, and the ways in which public policy affects health outcomes.

With his colleagues at the University of Chicago Crime Lab and its sister organization, the Urban Education Lab within the Urban Education Institute, Ludwig partners with government agencies to carry out randomized clinical trials to learn more about the most cost-effective ways to prevent violence and closely related social problems, such as high-school dropout. The Crime Lab recently released the results of one large-scale randomized trial that was carried out in partnership with the Chicago Public Schools and two local non-profits (Youth Guidance and World Sport Chicago). The study randomly assigned 2,740 disadvantaged young males in grades 7-10 from distressed South and West Side neighborhoods in a counseling and mentoring program called Becoming a Man – Sports Edition.

Ludwig and colleagues found that even a modest investment in strengthening “non-academic” skills such as impulse control, future orientation and social-information processing – at a cost of about $1,100 per participant – was capable of increasing high school graduation rates by 7 to 22 percent, and reducing violent-crime arrests by fully 44 percent. The Crime Lab is now partnering with the MacArthur Foundation to carry out an even more ambitious experiment starting in the fall of 2013.

A second strand of Ludwig’s research focuses on the effects of urban poverty on the health and well-being of low-income families. Violence, adverse health outcomes and many other social problems are geographically clustered and disproportionately concentrated in the most distressed urban neighborhoods. This pattern has raised questions about whether something about neighborhood environments themselves might causally affect people’s life outcomes, although this hypothesis has been difficult to test with available data.

Since 1995 Ludwig has been involved in the study of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Moving to Opportunity (MTO) residential-mobility experiment, which randomly offered some public housing families the opportunity to use housing vouchers to move into less-distressed neighborhoods. Ludwig served as the project director for the long-term (10-15 year) MTO follow-up, for which he had lead responsibility for raising $16 million from HUD, NIH, NSF, CDC, the US Department of Education and numerous private foundations to carry out in-person data collection from families – including the collection of “biomarkers” to measure detailed health outcomes. In a series of recent papers, including publications in the New England Journal of Medicine and Science, Ludwig and his collaborators showed that while moving from a high-poverty into a lower-poverty neighborhood had few detectable effects on adult economic outcomes or children’s schooling outcomes, such moves generated very large declines in rates of extreme obesity, diabetes, and clinical depression.

A third strand of his research focuses on the effects of education and other public policy interventions on health outcomes. He has, for example, written about the sensitivity of health outcomes to policy intervention during early childhood as part of his work on Head Start. He has also carried out research on gun violence, including efforts to measure the social impacts of gun violence on American society (Gun Violence: The Real Costs, with Philip Cook, Oxford University Press, 2000); a study with Cook on the effects of the Brady Act on gun violence, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association; and a study of the “industrial organization” of underground gun markets in Chicago and the implications for violence prevention, carried out in partnership with Cook, Anthony Braga, and Sudhir Venkatesh.

Ludwig, 43, was born in Germany and grew up in Massachusetts and New Jersey. He received his PhD from Duke University. From 1994-2007 he was on the faculty of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., before coming to the University of Chicago.

Ludwig has received many honors including the David Kershaw Prize from the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management, for contributions to public policy by age 40, an Investigator Award in Health Policy from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and a visiting scholar award from the Russell Sage Foundation. He is also an elected fellow of the Academy of Experimental Criminology, non-resident senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution, and co-director of the National Bureau of Economic Research working group on the economics of crime.

Ludwig is married to Elizabeth Scott. They have one child and are expecting another, and live with their dog, Trixi, in Hyde Park.

Edward Morrison, leading bankruptcy scholar, to join Law School faculty

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 10:25 -0500

Edward R. Morrison, one of the country’s leading scholars in law and economics, will join the University of Chicago Law School, his alma mater, effective July 1.

Morrison is Harvey R. Miller Professor of Law and Economics at Columbia University and the co-director of the Richman Center for Business, Law and Public Policy. He is credited with developing ideas that changed how the legal and business communities view bankruptcy, and he is highly regarded by practicing lawyers and judges as well as in the academic world.

Morrison is also a three-time UChicago graduate, having earned a master’s and PhD in economics (in 1997 and 2003) and his JD from the Law School in 2000.

“Ed is the perfect addition to our faculty; his values and commitment to the academic enterprise are our values,” said Michael Schill, dean of the Law School. “With Ed, Douglas Baird, Randy Picker and Tony Casey on our faculty, we easily have the strongest commercial law faculty in the nation.”

Morrison said he’s happy to be back, and he’s armed with ideas.

“I am particularly enthusiastic about helping the school build a new center focused on the intersection of law, business and regulation,” he said. “I want to support deeper connections with the University’s outstanding business school and with the city’s leading business and legal professionals.

“There are many potential synergies here, and I hope to play a role in finding and leveraging them.”

Morrison is a first-rate empirical economist whose legal skills are second-to-none, said Douglas G. Baird, Harry A. Bigelow Distinguished Service Professor of Law.

The popular impression of law professors often overlooks their connections with the day-to-day practice of law, but Morrison remains “completely wired with the bankruptcy bench and bar,” Baird added. And his empirical papers are standard readings in business and economics courses.

Randal C. Picker is part of the National Bankruptcy Conference, a small group of practicing lawyers, judges and academics, along with Morrison and Baird. It’s clear that Morrison is “well-regarded as among the elite of the bankruptcy world,” said Picker, the Paul H. and Theo Leffmann Professor of Commercial Law.

His new UChicago colleagues described Morrison as a talented teacher who was beloved by students during his 2008 stint as a visiting professor.

“His intellectual honesty, his mental quickness, his curiosity about every subject and his willingness to chase down ideas wherever they might lead him — all these traits describe both Ed and the University of Chicago Law School," said Lior Strahilevitz, deputy dean of the Law School.

Immediately following his graduation with high honors from the Law School, Morrison worked as a law clerk for Judge Richard A. Posner, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. He went on to clerk for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

Morrison’s best-known work includes a measurement he developed to determine how adept bankruptcy judges were at predicting which firms were likely to survive, Baird said. The common thought at the time was that judges tended to be fairly bad at that, but Morrison proved otherwise, just as he had predicted.

Beyond academics, Morrison said he’s simply happy to rejoin the Hyde Park community, where he met his wife Anne in Prof. Gary Becker’s Price Theory course.

“We are thrilled to return,” Morrison said. “Hyde Park offers a great fit for my three children: a calm environment and welcoming community with first-rate educational opportunities and quick access to Sox games.”

Matthew Tirrell named founding director of Institute for Molecular Engineering

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 12:47 -0600

Matthew Tirrell, a pioneering researcher in the fields of biomolecular engineering and nanotechnology, has been appointed founding Pritzker Director of the University of Chicago’s new Institute for Molecular Engineering, effective July 1. The institute, created in partnership with Argonne National Laboratory, will explore innovative technologies that address fundamental societal problems through modern advances in nanoscale manipulation and the ability to design at a molecular scale.

Tirrell comes to UChicago from the University of California at Berkeley, where he has served since 2009 as the Arnold and Barbara Silverman Professor and chair of the Department of Bioengineering, as professor of materials science and engineering and chemical engineering, and as a faculty scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He has received many honors, including election to both the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

The appointment of Tirrell represents a critical step in the creation of the new Institute for Molecular Engineering, said University of Chicago President Robert J. Zimmer.

“Research in molecular engineering has the potential to yield extremely significant advances in both basic science and technology, as well as to create innovations in engineering education,” Zimmer said. “Matt Tirrell and the faculty of the new institute will benefit from its partnership with Argonne, opening the door to collaborations of profound impact.”

The creation of the institute brings a rare opportunity to help define a nascent field of study while drawing outstanding scientists from around the world, said University Provost Thomas F. Rosenbaum.

“Matt is the perfect leader for this new enterprise,” said Rosenbaum, who serves as the John T. Wilson Distinguished Service Professor in Physics. “He brings to the University and to Argonne deep appreciation for basic science, the sensibility of an accomplished engineer, and the vision to embrace fundamental problems of societal import.”

Prior to his appointment at Berkeley, Tirrell served for a decade as dean of engineering at UC Santa Barbara, where he helped build the program’s national prominence. He specializes in the manipulation and measurement of the surface properties of polymers, materials that consist of long, flexible, chain molecules. His work combines microscopic measurements of intermolecular forces with creation of new structures. His work has provided new insight into polymer properties, especially surface phenomena such as adhesion, friction, and biocompatibility, and new materials based on self-assembly of synthetic and bio-inspired materials.

Tirrell said he was excited by the prospect of forging a new kind of engineering program at UChicago, in partnership with Argonne researchers.

“This isn’t going to be directed narrowly toward one scientific discipline, but at creating an institute that attacks societal problems from a technological viewpoint,” he said. “Many important societal problems in energy or health care or the environment can be addressed by new molecular-level science. When you are trying to solve problems, you need people from different kinds of disciplines. That’s something the Institute for Molecular Engineering can create right from the beginning.”

Partnership with Argonne will be crucial

The institute’s partnership with Argonne, which will include a substantial presence at the lab, creates a powerful combination of research strengths crucial to the next generation of scientific discoveries, Tirrell said. Specifically, the institute will benefit from leading scientists and engineers and the world-class facilities at Argonne, including the Advanced Photon Source, the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility, and the Center for Nanoscale Materials.

"Given the energy, security, and environmental challenges our nation faces today, the institute comes at a critical time in our search to discover and deliver new solutions," said Argonne Director Eric D. Isaacs.

Molecular engineering is an emerging field that relies on new ways of fabricating and manipulating nanoscale structures to develop new technologies. The institute will have the potential to deliver fundamental advances in basic science, as well as findings that address pressing societal problems, ranging from energy supply and human health to clean water production and quantum computing.

“We’re interested in the engineering of the future: how can you organize molecular systems to have a certain property or function,” said Steven Sibener, the Carl William Eisendrath Distinguished Service Professor in Chemistry, who headed two faculty committees that recommended forming the new institute and defined its ambitious horizons. “That’s a great opportunity that will require engineering disciplines.”

Erin Adams, an assistant professor in biochemistry & molecular biology who served on one of the faculty committees that recommended the institute, said that now is the perfect time for UChicago to pursue molecular engineering.

“The University doesn’t have a pre-existing engineering program, so the space is wide open for development, integrating new technologies, and also bringing together the research that we’re already doing on the biological and also the physical sciences level,” Adams said.

Institute researchers likely will pursue a variety of research that might include the development of smart materials or biologically inspired materials. A bridge built of smart materials might, for example, be able to signal when it has become dangerously stressed, or possibly even to repair itself. Biologically inspired materials, meanwhile, might consist of molecular components that could build muscle and tissue to heal severe injuries. Molecular engineers may also be able to devise faster computers that harness light rather than electrons to perform their operations. Researchers foresee applications of molecular engineering in clinical medicine, such as in bioengineered structures or the study of complex systems of cell signaling.

“This is a singular moment in history when our ability to create and control materials at the molecular scale promises to transform the way we engineer solutions to the key scientific and technological challenges of our time,” said Amanda Petford-Long, Director of the Center for Nanoscale Materials at Argonne.

Another benefit of the partnership with Argonne is the lab’s experience in shepherding projects with the potential for industrial and commercial applications, such as Argonne’s licensing of innovative battery technology for use in hybrid automobiles. The new institute has the potential to create new findings with commercial uses. University and laboratory leaders believe that intellectual property from the institute will help strengthen the Chicago-area economy, and lead to even more robust regional activity for cutting-edge engineering and biotechnology companies.

Internal, external committees recommended new Institute

The institute is the largest new academic program that the University has started since the founding of the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy Studies in 1988. Molecular Engineering will have a target size of 24 faculty members, many of them with joint appointments at Argonne, who will be recruited over the next decade to work in four to six thematic areas to be determined by the director and other faculty.

The faculty of the institute will develop introductory and specialized courses, and later will propose a curriculum in molecular engineering to support an undergraduate major as well as graduate degrees, which will require separate faculty approval.

The establishment of the new institute followed three years of discussion and review. Sibener headed two ad hoc committees, one in 2007 and one in 2009, which President Zimmer and Provost Rosenbaum charged with assessing the possibility of establishing a formal molecular engineering program at the University. The work of the committees flowed from molecular research developments in recent years as basic sciences, including physics, chemistry, and biology, began new collaborations with once-distinct engineering disciplines.

Sibener’s committees, including faculty members from the University’s Physical and Biological Sciences divisions, enthusiastically endorsed the creation of a molecular engineering program, as did an external committee chaired by Robert Langer of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The faculty Council of the Senate’s vote to create the institute was followed by endorsement of the University’s Board of Trustees in March 2010.

Construction will begin in September 2011 on the William Eckhardt Research Center, which will house the new institute as well as several programs of the Physical Sciences Division.

The WERC is named for Chicago futures trader and alumnus William Eckhardt, S.M.’70, in recognition of a generous gift he made in support of scientific research at the University. The Pritzker Directorship is named in honor of the Pritzker Foundation, which has made a generous gift in support of the Institute for Molecular Engineering. This major gift of the Pritzker family adds to the family’s long history of support of the University of Chicago. Thomas J. Pritzker is a Trustee of the University.

Tirrell began his academic career in 1977 at the University of Minnesota, where he served as Shell Distinguished Chair in Chemical Engineering, Earl E. Bakken Professor of Biomedical Engineering, director of the Biomedical Engineering Institute, and head of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science.

Tirrell moved to the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1999, where for a decade he was Professor of Chemical Engineering, Materials, Biomolecular Science and Engineering, and Richard A. Auhll Professor and Dean of the College of Engineering.

He received his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Northwestern University in 1973 and his doctoral degree in polymer science and engineering from the University of Massachusetts in 1977.

Composer Augusta Read Thomas appointed University Professor

Mon, 08 Nov 2010 12:00 -0600

Renowned composer Augusta Read Thomas has been appointed as University Professor of Composition in the Department of Music and the College at the University of Chicago.

University Professors are selected for internationally recognized eminence in their fields as well as for their potential for high impact across the University. Thomas will become the 16th person ever to hold a University Professorship, and the fifth currently at the University.

Martha Roth, Dean of the Division of the Humanities, announced the appointment on Nov. 8. Thomas’ appointment takes effect in July 2011.

“It is exciting to welcome as a colleague someone whose work lies at the intersection of the creative and scholarly worlds,” Roth said in a message to Humanities faculty. “The University has a renewed commitment to expanding and integrating the arts into the academic enterprise and out into the city of Chicago and beyond; Augusta’s appointment is an important expression of that goal.”

Thomas is widely considered to be among the world’s most accomplished and original contemporary composers. She has won acclaim for the dramatic, spontaneous quality of her work and her masterful use of instrumental color.

Her extensive body of work has won praise from conductors, performers and music critics worldwide. From 1997 to 2006, she was the Mead Composer-in-Residence at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, which has commissioned seven major compositions from Thomas. Her latest violin concerto is set to receive its American premiere at Washington D.C.’s John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in June 2011.

“To join the University of Chicago community is an incredible gift. My colleagues are scholars and musicians of the highest order who inspire me and from whom I can learn vastly,” Thomas said. “I am an active artist, and I hope to share my passion for the practice with our students. I look forward to working diligently, with wholehearted enthusiasm, to help ensure that the creative arts continue to thrive at the University of Chicago.”

She found early success as a composer at age 24, when she submitted her first major orchestral work to an American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers student composition contest. David Del Tredici, one of the contest judges and then the composer-in-residence for the New York Philharmonic, was so taken by Thomas’ piece that he decided to program it for the orchestra’s “Horizons” series.

Since that time, Thomas has premiered musical compositions with many of the world’s great ensembles, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra and many others.

Her many awards include recognition from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Siemens Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. “Colors of Love,” a Chanticleer album featuring two of Thomas’ compositions, received a Grammy Award in 2000. Her double concerto for flute, violin and orchestra, Astral Canticle, was a finalist for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Music.

"The appointment of Augusta Read Thomas as a University Professor perfectly demonstrates the centrality of the creative and performing arts to the intellectual life of the University and to its culture of inquiry,” said Larry Norman, Deputy Provost for the Arts. “As we look forward to the spring 2012 inauguration of the Reva and David Logan Arts Center, her arrival will have a catalyzing effect not only on our programs in music composition, but also across the campus.”

Dean Roth noted that the appointment is part of the University’s commitment to faculty expansion, an initiative expected to add 60 new faculty members.

Thomas studied composition at Tanglewood, Northwestern, Yale and the Royal Academy of Music. She was a 1990-91 Bunting Fellow at Radcliffe College and a member of the Society of Fellows at Harvard University from 1991 to 1994. In 2004, Thomas was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music, the school’s highest honor. The American Academy of Arts and Letters elected Thomas to membership in 2009.

In addition to her own works, Thomas is an active teacher of composition. She previously taught at the Eastman School of Music and Northwestern University, where she now sits on the Dean’s Advisory Music Board. She is currently mentoring six high school-aged composers who will each have their work premiere at the New Haven Symphony.

Yehudi Wyner, a Pulitzer Prize-winning composer who taught with Thomas at Tanglewood, praised her as “one of those rare people who [composes] because she cannot do otherwise. She lives first and foremost to write music.” At the same time, Wyner said, her artistic gifts are coupled with “extraordinary generosity” toward her colleagues and a desire to appreciate their work.

Thomas’ fellow University Professors currently at UChicago are Alexander Beilinson, the David and Mary Winton Green University Professor in Mathematics and the College; Gary Becker, University Professor in the Economics, Sociology and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business; James Cronin, University Professor Emeritus in Physics and Astronomy & Astrophysics, the Enrico Fermi Institute and the College; and David Wellbery, the LeRoy T. and Margaret Deffenbaugh Carlson University Professor in Germanic Studies, Comparative Literature, the Committee on Social Thought and the College.

Rasul named Director of Neighborhood Schools Program

Fri, 29 Oct 2010 13:00 -0500

Shaz Rasul, Managing Director of the Chicago Public Schools/University of Chicago Internet Project, has been named Director of the University’s Neighborhood Schools Program. Rasul also will manage the Gear–Up Program that provides academic enrichment to students at Dunbar Vocational Career Academy and Kenwood Academy High School. He will begin his new position Monday, Nov. 1.

Rasul, SM’08, AB’97, has a wide array of experience working with schools as a teacher trainer, curriculum integration expert, and an IT consultant for nearly a decade. He has worked with more than 35 public schools and the CPS Technology Magnet Cluster Program to help strengthen technology integration efforts throughout greater Chicago.

A Hyde Park resident, Rasul has been instrumental in mentoring various Neighborhood Schools Program students, and he worked closely with teachers and school administrators to find the best ways to utilize technological resources that would make a transformative impact in the classroom. Rasul also served in the U.S. Peace Corps, where he developed and facilitated workshops for teachers and school management committees in South Africa on the post–Apartheid curriculum.

“We are delighted to have Shaz Rasul join our team as director of such a worthwhile program that helps to enhance our education outreach efforts,” said Sonya Malunda, Associate Vice President for Civic Engagement. “The Neighborhood Schools Program provides support to more than 40 schools, community centers and the administrative offices of local elected officials. It is our goal to link these partners to the vast array of University resources to improve the quality of life within the community.”

Founded more than 30 years ago, the program provides opportunities for University of Chicago students to assist in classrooms, community centers and government offices. In addition to classroom instruction, students also do individual and group tutoring. The program not only connects the University’s public school partners to campus resources but also offers a way for students to gain invaluable, hands–on experience by working in the community.

“It has been the greatest of pleasures to work with Shaz and to experience his practical solutions to very difficult, daily problems of the city schools,” said Donald York, the Horace B. Horton Professor in Astronomy & Astrophysics, who has worked with Rasul as a co–director of CUIP. “I and all of our staff members wish him the very best in his new position.”

Bernadette Butler, Principal of William H. Ray Elementary School, located in Hyde Park, said Rasul has a sound ability to work with many different constituencies to handle the various educational needs within the community.

“I have worked with Mr. Rasul for the past three years in his leadership capacity with CUIP,” said Butler. “He worked over months, tirelessly, facilitating the process of how to upgrade our technology hardware at Ray School. During that project, Mr. Rasul had to work with parents, teachers and community members to address technology needs.”

Rasul succeeds long–time program director Duel Richardson, who retired in June after 34 years of building the University’s ties with the community. Richardson was an early staff member of the Office of Civic Engagement when it was created in 1974 as the Office of Community Affairs.

“As a college student at the University, working in the Neighborhood Schools Program gave me my first opportunity to help schools in a meaningful way,” said Rasul. “I am humbled by this appointment as this is an excellent way to help nurture and build upon our partnerships in the community while supporting the University’s commitment to public education.”