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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Selwyn Rogers to head UChicago Medicine's adult trauma center

Thu, 12 Jan 2017 12:00 -0600

Selwyn O. Rogers, a top surgeon and public health expert with 16 years of trauma care experience, will lead the University of Chicago Medicine’s development of the South Side’s only Level 1 adult trauma center, scheduled to open in 2018. He joined the organization on Jan. 5.

As chief of the Section for Trauma & Acute Care Surgery and founding director of the University of Chicago Medicine Trauma Center, Rogers will build an interdisciplinary team of specialists to treat patients who suffer injury from life-threatening events such as car crashes, serious falls and gun violence. He and his team will work with leaders in the city’s trauma network and at other hospitals to expand trauma care on the South Side.

“Dr. Rogers is highly qualified for this role,” said Kenneth S. Polonsky, executive vice president for medical affairs at the University of Chicago. “He will provide leadership that will ensure clinical excellence and growth for the Medical Center, as well as operational leadership for trauma services.”

Rogers comes to Chicago from the University of Texas Medical Branch, where he had been vice president and chief medical officer since 2014. Prior to that, he served as chair for the Department of Surgery and surgeon-in-chief at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia from 2012 to 2014 and as division chief of Trauma, Burn and Surgical Critical Care at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston from 2005 to 2012. He also served as associate professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School from 2008 to 2012.

His clinical and research interests have focused on the health care needs of underserved populations. While at Harvard, Rogers helped to launch the Center for Surgery and Public Health, whose mission is to understand the nature, quality and utilization of surgical care nationally and internationally. He has published numerous articles relating to health disparities and the impact of race and ethnicity on surgical outcomes.

To allow him to continue in this area, Rogers also has been appointed executive vice president for community health engagement. In this capacity he will oversee the Urban Health Initiative, which is the primary civic and community engagement arm of UChicago Medicine. Rogers and his team will help to foster programs for and leverage resources of the Medical Center and University to improve the health and well-being of neighboring communities.

Rogers’ appointment underscores the University’s work in addressing the public health challenges of the South Side. His role will complement efforts in UChicago Urban, the University’s commitment to understand urban issues and create a positive impact for Chicago and other cities worldwide.

“In this position, Dr. Rogers will collaborate with faculty across the University and members of the community to help develop a multidisciplinary approach to trauma care and health disparities that will help us better understand and address the social factors that affect victims of violence and underserved populations,” said Derek Douglas, vice president for civic engagement. “This will bring together resources of the Medical Center, University and community to develop novel approaches to achieving better outcomes for victims of trauma.”

‘Opportunity of a lifetime’

UChicago Medicine launched a national search for a trauma director after state regulators unanimously approved expansion plans in May 2016. The proposal, dubbed Get CARE, sought to increase community access to emergency, trauma and specialty care. The state’s approval allowed UChicago Medicine to move forward with plans to relocate and expand its adult emergency department, provide adult trauma care, and build a facility dedicated to cancer care and treatment. Under the plan, 188 inpatient beds also will be restored to support this growth.

“Dr. Rogers will lead the clinical direction of this new section within our department,” said Jeffrey Matthews, chairman of the Department of Surgery, who led the national search. “His most important priority in the coming months is the preparation and successful launch of the adult trauma program.”

The new emergency department is projected to treat an additional 25,000 patient visits a year by 2021. (The medical center handled about 59,300 adult ER visits in fiscal 2016.) About 2,000 adult trauma patients are expected in the first 12 months of trauma center designation. The number of physicians and staff needed to provide Level 1 trauma care will be determined in the weeks ahead. UChicago Medicine has begun taking steps to be designated a Level 1 adult trauma center in Illinois.

Rogers holds degrees from Harvard College and Harvard Medical School, as well as a master’s degree in public health from the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.

“Joining UChicago Medicine is truly an opportunity of a lifetime,” Rogers said. “I look forward to working in Chicago’s South Side to help meet the clinical needs of patients while working to understand and help address the broader challenges that go beyond our hospital walls.”

Timeline of UChicago Medicine’s emergency department/trauma plans

December 2015: UChicago Medicine announces plans to open Level 1 adult trauma center at its Hyde Park campus.
February 2016: Application filed with state to increase access to emergency, trauma and specialty care.
May 2016: State regulators approve application; construction of relocated and bigger adult emergency department begins.
September 2016: Groundbreaking ceremony held for new adult emergency department, which will house four trauma bays.
January 2017: Dr. Selwyn Rogers takes helm as director of UChicago Medicine Trauma Center.
January 2018: New adult emergency department scheduled to open.
Spring 2018: Level 1 adult trauma care to begin.

James L. Skinner appointed director of Water Research Initiative at IME

Mon, 12 Dec 2016 10:00 -0600

Renowned theoretical chemist James L. Skinner has been appointed to the Crown Family Professorship and named director of the Water Research Initiative at the Institute for Molecular Engineering. His five-year term will begin Jan. 1, 2017.

Skinner joins IME after serving for 26 years as director of the Theoretical Chemistry Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and four years as chair of the Department of Chemistry. The Joseph O. and Elizabeth S. Hirschfelder Professor of Chemistry, Skinner is the world leader in the theoretical and conceptual understanding of hydrogen bonding in water. Among many other accomplishments, he and his team are noted for their calculations detailing hydrogen bonding, the factor that dominates and complicates water properties.

“I’m very excited to join IME,” Skinner said of his appointment. “Its world-class researchers have accomplished a very considerable amount in a short period of time, including laying the groundwork for the Water Research Initiative. Now the initiative is ready to advance as well.”

Skinner will lead the development and expansion of the Water Research Initiative, which was launched in 2013 in collaboration with researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Argonne National Laboratory. Originally charged with using nanotechnology to create new materials and processes for making clean, fresh drinking water more plentiful and less expensive by 2020, the initiative will now broaden its scope.

“Professor Skinner is uniquely qualified to guide the Water Research Initiative through its next phase of expansion,” said Matthew Tirrell, dean and Founding Pritzker Director of IME. “His expertise and track record of academic leadership will enable him to articulate a coherent vision for the initiative, and to successfully recruit new investigators.”

Skinner said that over the past 10 to 20 years, water has become a critical issue for many reasons: availability, potability, climate change and energy. “Research on water is extremely timely,” he said, “and that’s one reason coming to IME is so exciting. We have an opportunity here to make a difference on a global scale.”

Skinner received his PhD from Harvard in 1979 and joined the faculty of Columbia after a two-year postdoc at Stanford. He became a full professor at Columbia in 1986, where he remained until 1990, when he was named director of the Theoretical Chemistry Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Skinner has published approximately 220 refereed research articles. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. His many awards include the American Chemical Society Physical Chemistry Division Award in Theoretical Chemistry and the Irving J. Langmuir Award in Chemical Physics from the American Chemical Society.

Skinner is a member of the advisory board of the Midwest Integrated Center for Computational Materials, led by Giulia Galli, the Liew Family Professor at IME. In 2018, Skinner will chair the Welch Foundation’s annual conference, which will be devoted to fundamental and applied research on water.

Four UChicago scholars named to first group of MBL fellows

Mon, 13 Jun 2016 11:45 -0500

Nine faculty members from institutions around the country, including four from the University of Chicago, have been named to the inaugural group of MBL Fellows at the Marine Biological Laboratory.

The fellows chosen from UChicago are Jack Gilbert, professor in Ecology & Evolution and Surgery; Melina Hale, professor in Organismal Biology and Anatomy; Patrick La Rivière, associate professor in Radiology; and Clifton Ragsdale, associate professor in Neurobiology.

MBL Fellows come to Woods Hole, Mass. to pursue collaborative research on key topics related to the MBL’s strategic plan. Each fellow holds a primary appointment at another U.S. or global institution while also carrying out significant, ongoing research and educational commitments throughout the year at the MBL.

In announcing the appointments, MBL President and Director Huntington Willard added, “Since its founding, a singular feature of the MBL has been its convening power, attracting the world’s most accomplished scientists to Woods Hole to carry out some of their most creative and far-reaching work. Establishing an active and committed fellows program will be a key mechanism for realizing the MBL’s power to bring together scientists to tackle big, complex problems, especially in the context of marine biodiversity, the oceans and our changing environment.”

Drawing from the rich scientific community of thousands of researchers who assemble each year at MBL, fellows will engage colleagues in transformative research or training, attract new investigators and students, and help to advance both projects and careers.

As part of their investigations, fellows may initiate new MBL research collaborations, educational programs, or workshops and conferences to drive MBL research and educational goals forward into a new era of biological discovery.

The inaugural MBL Fellows also include Maureen Conte of Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences, Jane Maienschein of Arizona State University, Loretta Roberson of University of Puerto Rico, Joshua Rosenthal of University of Puerto Rico, and Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado of Stowers Institute and Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Eric D. Isaacs named Executive Vice President for Research, Innovation, and National Laboratories

Tue, 08 Mar 2016 17:12 -0600

In recognition of the University of Chicago’s growing initiatives in large-scale science, engineering, computing, and numerous areas of technological and business innovation, the University is revising its leadership structure to include a new position of Executive Vice President for Research, Innovation and National Laboratories. Provost Eric D. Isaacs has been named to this role, effective July 1.

The new role will replace and build upon the responsibilities of the Vice President for Research and for National Laboratories, currently held by Donald H. Levy, who is retiring from the position at the end of the academic year, having completed two five-year terms in the role.

In his new position, Isaacs will be charged with integrating and overseeing numerous important endeavors in science and innovation that cut across divisions, schools and institutes, along with those initiatives’ connections to policy and industry. He will provide direct oversight of Argonne National Laboratory, Fermilab, the Marine Biological Laboratory and the University’s founding-partner relationship with the Giant Magellan Telescope project. He will also play a leading role in the University’s efforts in computation, data science and innovation in Hyde Park, including the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation and the Chicago Innovation Exchange.

“Eric has deep experience, broad knowledge and a record of strong leadership in public engagement, and I am grateful that he is taking on this new challenge, which is an essential one for the University,” said President Robert J. Zimmer. “His particular set of experiences make him singularly well positioned to lead this rapidly evolving set of activities.”

Isaacs, the Robert A. Millikan Distinguished Service Professor in Physics, served as director of Argonne before becoming provost in 2014. A condensed matter physicist whose work focuses on quantum materials, Isaacs joined the University and Argonne in 2003 as the founding director of the Center for Nanoscale Materials, after working for 15 years at Bell Laboratories. He said the University and its affiliated labs have an unusual opportunity to provide international leadership in a range of complex scientific activities, while fostering the development of related innovative businesses in Hyde Park and the Chicago region.

“This is an exciting time for the University in science, applied science and engineering. It is also an opportune moment to develop and foster a spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship across the sciences,” Isaacs said. “I look forward to this expanded office being an advocate for and a point of entry into University collaborations with partners across campus and in industry.”

With Isaacs’ move to the new role, Zimmer said he will be seeking input and nominations from faculty to guide his selection of a new provost.

Zimmer thanked Levy for his leadership and for agreeing to serve for the next year as Senior Adviser to the President, focusing on planning for the University’s scientific infrastructure needs. Levy, the Albert A. Michelson Distinguished Service Professor in Chemistry, was appointed as Vice President for Research and for National Laboratories in 2007. He joined the UChicago faculty in 1967 and has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, among many other awards and honors.

“Don has been instrumental in guiding great changes in science and technology, research and computation, innovation, and in the research programs at both Argonne and Fermilab,” said Zimmer. “I am very grateful to him for his dedicated and skilled leadership in an exceedingly complex area of administration.”

“I am honored to have played a role in furthering research and innovation at the University of Chicago, my academic home for almost 50 years,” said Levy. “I’m also very pleased to have had the opportunity to work with so many talented and dedicated individuals from all three institutions during my tenure as Vice President for Research and for National Laboratories.”

UChicago faculty members receive named, distinguished service professorships

Wed, 17 Feb 2016 16:20 -0600

A total of 19 faculty members recently have received named professorships or have been named distinguished service professors. Graeme I. Bell, Philip Bohlman, Eric D. Isaacs and Konstantin Sonin have received distinguished service professorships; and Daniel Abebe, Sian Beilock, Diane Brentari, Kathryn A. Colby, Nicolas Dauphas, Justin Driver, Robert D. Gibbons, Melissa L. Gilliam, Gary Herrigel, Aziz Huq, Michèle Lowrie, David Meltzer, Andrey Rzhetsky, Amir Sufi and Gary Tubb have received named professorships.

Biological Sciences Division

Graeme I. Bell, the Louis Block Distinguished Service Professor of Medicine and Human Genetics, has been named the Kovler Family Distinguished Service Professor.

Bell studies the genetics of diabetes mellitus and the biology of the insulin-secreting pancreatic beta-cell. He cloned and characterized many of the genes involved in the regulation of glucose metabolism, including insulin, glucagon, glucose transporters and others.

He has won many honors in the field, including the 2013 Banting Medal for Scientific Achievement from the American Diabetes Association for his pioneering work in understanding the role of genetics in the diagnosis and treatment of diabetes. In 2012, he received the Manpei Suzuki International Prize for Diabetes Research. Bell is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as well as the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

As a core member of the University of Chicago Medicine’s diabetes genetics team, Bell works to personalize treatment based on a patient’s specific genetic defect. Many of these patients are children, and some can be treated with pills that compensate for the genetic defect, rather than with insulin shots. More than 1,500 patients and family members are now participating in genetic studies aimed at improving treatment through a better understanding of genetics.

Bell joined the UChicago faculty in 1986.

Kathryn A. Colby, Professor and Chair of Ophthalmology and Visual Science, has been named a Louis Block Professor.

Colby is an internationally renowned corneal surgeon, educator and researcher with expertise in a wide variety of corneal diseases, neoplastic diseases of the surface of the eye, and the implantation of artificial corneas. She has a longstanding interest in Fuchs’ corneal dystrophy, the most common cause for corneal transplantation in the United States and her studies in this area have run the gamut from basic science to clinical trials and novel surgical treatments to improve patient outcomes.

In addition, she has specific expertise in the management of ocular surface tumors, including conjunctival melanoma and squamous cell carcinoma. Colby spearheaded efforts to improve surgical techniques for a variety of implanted eye devices, including the Boston keratoprosthesis (artificial cornea) and the implantable miniature telescope, the only FDA-approved device to improve vision for patients with advanced macular degeneration.

Colby is an active teacher, who has trained hundreds of medical students, ophthalmology residents, clinical cornea and pediatric ophthalmology fellows, many of whom are leaders in ophthalmology. Colby was the founding director of the pediatric cornea service at Boston Children’s Hospital and is a member of the executive committee of the board of directors of the Cornea Society.

Colby joined the University of Chicago faculty in 2015.

Robert D. Gibbons, Professor of Medicine, Public Health Sciences and Psychiatry has been named the Blum-Riese Professor.

Gibbons is a nationally recognized authority on a range of statistical disciplines, including mental health statistics, environmental statistics, item-response theory and drug safety. Gibbons has led the Center for Health Statistics since it was established in 2010. From its beginning, the center has continuously earned federal funding and acclaim for its work applying complex statistical theory to inform public policy.

Gibbons has authored or co-authored nearly 300 peer-reviewed publications and six textbooks. In addition, he has served on several editorial boards, including the board of the Journal of the American Medical Association, Psychiatry.

Gibbons is a Pritzker Scholar, a fellow of the American Statistical Association and cofounder of its Mental Health Statistics section. He also is an elected member of the International Statistical Institute and the National Academy of Medicine. Gibbons has earned numerous important accolades, including lifetime achievement awards from the American Statistical Association, the American Public Health Association, and Harvard University, as well as two W. J. Youden Awards for outstanding contributions to statistics in chemistry.

He joined the UChicago faculty in 2010.

Melissa L. Gilliam, Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Pediatrics, has been named the Ellen H. Block Professor in Health and Justice.

Gilliam is section chief of family planning and contraceptive research at the University and serves as dean for diversity and inclusion for the University of Chicago Medicine and Biological Sciences Division.

As an authority on contraception and adolescent health, Gilliam addresses the gynecologic needs of girls and adolescents, especially youth of color, sexual minorities and young people at risk for poor sexual and reproductive health. Gilliam says her work focuses on “marginalized populations, reduction of health disparities through community-based interventions and efforts to increase diversity and improve health policy.” She heads the University’s Center for Interdisciplinary Inquiry and Innovation in Sexual and Reproductive Health, also known as Ci3. She cofounded the Game Changer Chicago Design Lab, which develops games and digital media interventions for youth.

In October of 2015, she was elected a member of the National Academy of Medicine, which honors those who have made major contributions to the fields of health and medicine and demonstrated outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service.

Gilliam joined the University of Chicago faculty in 2005.

David Meltzer, Professor of Medicine, Economics and Public Policy, has been named the Fanny L. Pritzker Professor.

Meltzer’s research explores problems in health economics and public policy with a focus on the theoretical foundations of medical cost-effectiveness analysis, and the cost and quality of hospital care. In his research, Meltzer uses economic analysis to address problems in health economics and public policy, focusing on the cost and quality of care, especially in teaching hospitals.

He is a national leader in the study of the relatively new specialty of hospital medicine. He heads the Hospitalist Scholars Program at UChicago, which provides training in this field and examines the economic forces that have fueled growth of this specialty. Meltzer also pioneered the development of the Comprehensive Care Physician model, in which physicians provide inpatient and outpatient care for patients who are at an increased risk for hospitalization. The model is designed to leverage the power of the doctor–patient relationship and improve outcomes while controlling costs.

Meltzer also directs the Center for Health and the Social Sciences, and chairs the Committee on Clinical and Translational Science. Meltzer also is director of the University of Chicago Urban Health Lab. In October of 2015, he was elected a member of the National Academy of Medicine.

Meltzer joined the University of Chicago faculty in 1996.

Andrey Rzhetsky, Professor of Medicine, has been named the Edna K. Papazian Professor.

Rzhetsky is a pioneer in the development of novel computational strategies that shed light on the complex genetic, molecular and environmental interactions involved in human health and disease.

His research utilizes powerful approaches to extract insights from big data. To harvest as much information as possible, his group runs data-mining projects that involve mathematical modeling and analysis of disparate datasets, such as electronic medical records, scientific texts and high-throughput experimental data. His models require dynamic collaboration with a range of experts in disease phenotypes, genetics, statistical modeling, epidemiology and the sociology of science. Rzhetsky also developed in invented the first automated literature extraction program for the prediction of molecular interactions.

Rzhetsky is the director of the Conte Center for Computational Neuropsychiatric Genomics, and is a senior fellow of both the Institute for Genomics and Systems Biology and the Computation Institute.

He serves as associate editor for numerous high-profile journals, including Nature Scientific Reports and PLoS Computational Biology.

Rzhetsky joined the UChicago faculty in 2007.

Humanities Division

Philip Bohlman, the Mary Werkman Distinguished Service Professor of Music and in the College, has been named the Ludwig Rosenberger Distinguished Service Professor in Jewish History.

An ethnomusicologist, Bohlman studies a wide range of topics related to music and modernity, with a focus on Jewish music and the politics of religion and race in the music of the Middle East and South Asia. His other research interests include Song Loves the Masses (2016) a translation of the musical writings of the 18th-century philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder and the Eurovision Song Contest.

Bohlman is the author of Revival and Reconciliation: Sacred Music in the Making of European Modernity (2013), Focus: Music, Nationalism, and the Making of the New Europe (2011), Jewish Music and Modernity (2008), and World Music: A Very Short Introduction (2002). He also edited The Cambridge History of World Music (2013).

An active performer as well as a scholar, Bohlman is the artistic director of the New Budapest Orpheum Society. The eight-member Jewish cabaret troupe is the ensemble-in-residence of the Division of the Humanities at the University.

The group’s recent projects include As Dreams Fall Apart (2014), a CD that draws on music from Yiddish and German-Jewish films from the 1920s to the post-Holocaust generation of the 1950s, and for which the ensemble received a 2016 Grammy Award nomination. Bohlman and the New Budapest Orpheum Society were the recipients of the 2011 Noah Greenberg Award for Historical Performance from the American Musicological Society.

Bohlman joined the UChicago faculty in 1987.

Diane Brentari, Professor of Linguistics and in the College, has been named the Mary Werkman Professor.

Brentari, PhD’90, studies sign languages from around the world to better understand their similarities and differences and to illuminate the properties that all languages share. Her work has included projects on phonetics, phonology, morphology and prosody. She has developed the Prosodic Model of sign language phonology.

Currently, her work addresses cross-linguistic variation, particularly the differences and similarities among sign languages. She is also interested in the emergence of language, and is engaged in studies of the cognitive, social and cultural aspects of gesture, homesign systems and well-established sign languages.

Brentari is the author of Sign Languages: A Cambridge Language Survey (2010) and A Prosodic Model of Sign Language Phonology (1998), and editor of Foreign Vocabulary in Sign Languages: A Cross-linguistic Investigation of Word Formation (2001) and Morphology and its Relation to Syntax and Phonology (1998).

She is the director of the Sign Language Linguistics Laboratory and co-director of the Center for the Study of Gesture, Sign, and Language.

Brentari joined the UChicago faculty in 2011.

Michèle Lowrie, Professor of Classics and in the College, has been named the Andrew W. Mellon Professor.

A literary scholar with interests in ideology and forms of expression, Michèle Lowrie traces the history of political concepts and their transmission by figurative means. Her research focuses on Roman literature and political thought and ancient Rome’s continued resonance in modernity.

Her current projects include: the emergence of security as a concept in the wake of the collapse of the Roman Republic; the Roman tradition of representing civil war, in collaboration with Barbara Vinken; the exemplum and exceptional politics from Cicero to Augustus; “Thinking through Tropes,” a faculty seminar funded by the Neubauer Collegium that examines the representational methods for structuring traditions; and transformations in the public sphere between Cicero and Horace.

Lowrie has written two monographs and numerous articles, as well as edited four volumes. She is a recipient of the Burkhardt Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies, a visiting research professorship at the Warburg-Haus in Hamburg, a fellowship from the Research Center for Cultural Theory and Theory of the Political Imaginary at the University of Konstanz, and fellowships from the Center for Advanced Studies at Ludwig-Maximilian’s University in Munich. Lowrie is currently in residence at the American Academy in Berlin as the Dirk Ippen Berlin Prize Fellow. Her sabbatical has received additional funding from the Loeb Classical Library Foundation Fellowship.

Lowrie, who will become deputy dean for the Division of the Humanities on July 1, joined the UChicago faculty in 2009.

Gary Tubb, Professor of South Asian Languages and Civilizations and in the College, has been named the first Anupama and Guru Ramakrishnan Professor.

A leading Sanskrit scholar, Tubb examines the tradition’s poetics, grammatical forms and commentarial traditions. In addition to his scholarship of Sanskrit language and literature, Tubb studies the literary, religious and philosophical traditions of India.

Tubb is the author of Scholastic Sanskrit: A Handbook for Students (2007). He is an editor and primary contributor in the book Innovations and Turning Points: Toward a History of Kavya Literature (2014). Another book, On Poets and Pots: Essays on Sanskrit Poetry, Poetics and Philosophy, is forthcoming from Oxford University Press.

Alongside his teaching and research, Tubb is the faculty director of the University of Chicago Center in Delhi.

He joined the UChicago faculty in 2007.

Physical Sciences Division

Nicolas Dauphas, Professor of Geophysical Sciences and in the College and the Enrico Fermi Institute, has been named a Louis Block Professor.

A leading isotope geochemist, Dauphas draws upon the analytical and modeling methods of his training as an engineer to develop novel strategies for solving important scientific questions using naturally occurring isotope variations. He founded and directs UChicago’s Origins Laboratory to examine questions pertaining to the early evolution of the Earth and what meteorites reveal about the formation of planets, asteroids and comets.

His research has included an examination of how the rapid formation of Mars makes it more akin to a planetary embryo than a fully grown planet, and the discovery of microscopic remnants in a meteorite of a nearby supernova that exploded before the solar system was formed.

Just last year, a paper Dauphas published was named an Editors’ Choice by Science Magazine. The paper addressed a longstanding problem regarding the origin of Earth’s depletion in silicon and the origin of Earth’s core density deficit. His research bridges the gap between planetary sciences and astrophysics, as attested by his invitation to deliver the 2015 Spitzer lecture in the Department of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University.

Dauphas has received the American Geophysical Union’s Macelwane Medal, the European Association for Geochemistry’s Houtermans Medal, and the Meteoritical Society’s Nier Prize. He also is an American Geophysical Union fellow and a David and Lucile Packard Foundation fellow.

Dauphas joined the UChicago faculty in 2004.

Eric D. Isaacs, Provost and Professor of Physics and in the College, has been named the Robert A. Millikan Distinguished Service Professor.

Isaacs’ distinguished research career as a condensed matter physicist has focused on quantum materials. His early research in developing synchrotron X-ray scattering techniques continues to play an important role in nanoscale scientific research.

Isaacs served as director of Argonne National Laboratory from 2009 to 2014. Under his leadership, Argonne researchers focused on solving the grand scientific and engineering challenges of our time—particularly the vital national priority of developing game-changing sustainable energy technologies. During that period he also played key roles in the creation of the Institute for Molecular Engineering and expanding the impact of the Computation Institute—two joint efforts of the University and Argonne.

From 2003 to 2008 he served as founding director of Argonne’s Center for Nanoscale Materials.

Isaacs has authored or co-authored more than 150 scientific papers and presentations. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and has served on multiple national scientific advisory committees, including the Department of Energy’s Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee.

Isaacs joined the UChicago faculty in 2004 and became University provost in 2014.

Social Sciences Division

Sian Beilock, Vice Provost for Academic Initiatives and Professor of Psychology and in the College, has been named the Stella M. Rowley Professor.

Beilock, whose research focuses on topics at the intersection of cognitive science and education, explores the cognitive and neural substrates of skill learning as well as the mechanisms by which performance breaks down in high-stress or high-pressure situations.

Beilock is one of the world’s leading experts on the brain science behind “choking under pressure” and the many factors influencing all types of performance: from test-taking to public speaking to one’s golf swing. In her laboratory, the Human Performance Lab, Beilock employs a wide range of methods such as measures of performance, physiological measures of stress, and neuroimaging techniques. She also conducts studies in the classroom with students from early elementary school through college.

She has authored two books: How The Body Knows Its Mind: The Surprising Power of the Physical Environment to Influence How You Think and Feel (2015) and Choke: What The Secrets Of The Brain Reveals About Getting It Right When You Have To (2010).

Beilock joined the UChicago faculty in 2005.

University of Chicago Booth School of Business

Amir Sufi, the Chicago Board of Trade Professor, has been named the first Bruce Lindsay Professor of Economics and Public Policy.

In his research, Sufi focuses on finance and macroeconomics. His recent research on household debt and the economy has been profiled in The Economist, the Financial Times, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. He also has presented this work to policymakers at the Federal Reserve, the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, & Urban Affairs, and the White House Council of Economic Advisors. This research forms the basis of his book co-authored with Atif Mian: House of Debt: How They (and You) Caused the Great Recession and How We Can Prevent It from Happening Again, which was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2014.

Sufi also is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and he serves as an associate editor for the American Economic Review and the Quarterly Journal of Economics. His articles have been published in the American Economic Review, the Journal of Finance and the Quarterly Journal of Economics.

Sufi graduated Phi Beta Kappa with honors from the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University with a bachelor’s degree in economics. As a PhD student in economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he received the Solow Endowment Prize for Graduate Student Excellence in Teaching and Research.

He joined the UChicago faculty in 2005.

The College

Gary Herrigel, Professor of Political Science and in the College, has been named the Paul Klapper Professor.

Herrigel’s research interests include comparative political economy and alternative forms of governance in economic process and regulation throughout the developed and developing world. A common thread in his work has been an interest in the changing boundaries of firms and the political arrangements that govern them in Europe (particularly Germany), the United States and Japan.

Herrigel’s most recent book, Manufacturing Possibilities: Creative Action and Industrial Recomposition in the U.S., Germany and Japan, applies pragmatist theories of creative social action to contemporary industrial transformation processes.

Currently, he is completing a book on recursivity and governance in the globalization of German manufacturing. He also is beginning a project to explore the intersection of public and private governance architectures in environmental, health and safety regulation in the Norwegian offshore oil industry.

In the face of pessimism regarding the future of manufacturing in developed countries, Herrigel aims to understand and identify possibilities for continued growth and employment by conceiving of contemporary manufacturing in a globally interactive way.

In addition to the books Herrigel has authored and co-edited, he has written numerous articles and book chapters and has edited a special issue of the journal Enterprise and Society.

Herrigel joined the UChicago faculty in 1989.

Harris School of Public Policy Studies

Konstantin Sonin, Professor of Public Policy, has been named the John Dewey Distinguished Service Professor.

A prominent scholar of Russian, Sonin’s research interests include political economics, development and economic theory and political economy. In recent years Sonin has focused on applying behavioral microeconomic concepts to an array of social and political phenomena, including corruption, dictatorship and the inequitable distribution of property.

His academic work has earned him three medals from the Global Development Network, best economist awards from the Russian Academy of Science in 2002-03, and the 2008 Ovsievich Memorial Prize in Mathematical Economics, given annually to a distinguished Russian scholar under 40.

Sonin’s papers have been published in leading academic journals of economics such as the Quarterly Journal of Economics, American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, Review of Economic Studies and political science such as the American Political Science Review and American Journal of Political Science.

Sonin joined the UChicago faculty in 2015.

University of Chicago Law School

Daniel Abebe, Professor of Law, has been named the Harold J. and Marion F. Green Professor of Law.

Abebe’s research interests focus primarily on the relationship between the constitutional law of U.S. foreign relations, public international law and international politics; international courts and the structure of international organizations; and cyber warfare and presidential power.

He has taught foreign relations law, public international law, conflict of laws, international trade law, legal issues in international transactions, and refugee and asylum law, among other courses and seminars.

He is a contributor to a forthcoming book Why Comparative International Law Needs International Relations Theory, (Oxford University Press 2016) and two of his papers, “Cyber War, International Politics and Institutional Design” and “International Human Rights Law in Africa: Are Courts Effective,” will be published in the University of Chicago Law Review and the Virginia Journal of International Law respectively.

Abebe’s articles have appeared in the Chicago Journal of International Law, the Vanderbilt Law Review, the Stanford Journal of International Law, the Supreme Court Review, and the Michigan Journal of International Law.

Abebe clerked for Judge Damon J. Keith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

He joined the UChicago Law School faculty in 2008.

Justin Driver, Professor of Law, has been named the Harry N. Wyatt Professor of Law.

Driver’s principal teaching and research interests include constitutional law, constitutional theory, education law and the intersection of race with legal institutions.

His writing has appeared in publications such as the University of Chicago Law Review, Yale Law Journal, Columbia Law Review, Supreme Court Review, Harvard Law Review, and the New Republic.

His paper, “The Constitutional Conservatism of the Warren Court” (published in the California Law Review), was awarded the 2012 William Nelson Cromwell Article prize for the best article in American legal history published by an early career scholar.

Driver served as a law clerk to Judge Merrick B. Garland, United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and Justice Stephen Breyer of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Driver joined the University of Chicago Law School faculty in 2014.

Aziz Huq, Professor of Law, has been named the Frank and Bernice J. Greenberg Professor of Law.

Huq’s teaching and research interests include constitutional law, criminal procedure, federal courts and legislation. His scholarship concerns the intersection of institutional design and individual rights and liberties.

He has been published in both leading law reviews and peer-reviewed journals. His recent research articles have won the Association of American Law Schools’ Junior Scholars Paper Competition Award in Criminal Law and have been selected for the Harvard/Stanford/Yale Junior Faculty Forum. His co-edited volume “Assessing Constitutional Performance” is forthcoming from Cambridge University Press this year.

Prior to UChicago, Huq litigated cases in both the U.S. Courts of Appeals and the Supreme Court. He also was a senior consultant analyst for the International Crisis Group, researching constitutional design and implementation in Pakistan, Nepal, Afghanistan, and Sri Lanka.

He clerked for Judge Robert D. Sack of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Huq joined the UChicago faculty in 2009.

Data science specialist Michael Franklin to lead computer science at UChicago

Mon, 11 Jan 2016 09:18 -0600

As part of a plan to greatly increase the scale, scope and impact of computer science research and education across the University community, the University of Chicago has appointed prominent data science scholar Michael Franklin to chair its Department of Computer Science and to serve as senior advisor to the provost on computation and data science.

Franklin will provide leadership for a major expansion in faculty, education programs and scientific directions of the computer science department, building upon ongoing data science projects and catalyzing the development of new collaborations within the University and with partners outside the University. Within UChicago these opportunities include the application of computation to biomedical sciences, the physical sciences, social science, applied social sciences and public policy; the Institute for Molecular Engineering, and the Computational and Applied Mathematics Initiative.

Data science is an expanding area of research among the University’s affiliated institutions, including Argonne National Laboratory, the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., and the campus-based Toyota Technological Institute of Chicago. The University also is exploring new opportunities for innovation in data science, in collaboration with entrepreneurial and industrial partners across the region.

Franklin is ideally suited to lead these efforts, with more than 30 years of experience in the fields of database, data analytics, data management fields and distributed systems as an academic and industrial researcher, laboratory director, faculty member, entrepreneur and software developer. He is currently the Thomas M. Siebel Professor of Computer Science and chair of the Computer Science Division of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. He directs Berkeley’s Algorithms, Machines and People Laboratory (AMPLab), a leading academic big data analytics research center, and serves as an executive committee member for the Berkeley Institute for Data Science, a campus-wide initiative to advance data science environments.

“Computation in its multiple forms continues to emerge as a powerful intellectual discipline and is increasingly essential for many new opportunities in research, education and impact across a wide range of fields. It has likewise become a key driver of entrepreneurial innovation,” said President Robert J. Zimmer. “Mike’s outstanding scholarly work, his applied experience, his record of leadership and the ambition he brings make him a perfect fit for this new role. He will be a powerful advocate for computer science across disciplines within and beyond the University.”

“Mike’s appointment as chair and senior advisor to the provost on computation and data science reflects our commitment to sustain an ambitious, University-wide approach to computation and data science, which is increasingly critical for many disciplines,” said Provost Eric D. Isaacs. "His vision and broad experiences in research, education and innovation will help shape the University’s directions in computation and data science in the years ahead.”

Data science has become an integral part of innovation at universities and in other areas of society, Franklin said.

“UChicago is uniquely positioned to take a leadership role in the emerging computational and data-driven world, due to its broad strengths and excellence across the spectrum of sciences, policy, business and medicine, and in recognizing the importance of collaboration and cross-fertilization across these domains,” he said. “These strengths, combined with its commitment to invest in the continued growth of the computational and data science fields on campus, lead to some truly transformational opportunities.”

An energetic entrepreneur in addition to his academic work, Franklin founded and became chief technology officer of Truviso, a data analytics company later purchased by Cisco Systems. He currently serves on the technical advisory boards of various data-driven technology companies, including Databricks, an AMPLab spinout based on the popular Apache Spark analytics framework that was developed at the lab.

AMPLab, which has 30 active industrial partners, including founding sponsors Amazon Web Services, Google, IBM and SAP, has received a National Science Foundation “Expeditions in Computing” award, which was announced as part of the White House Big Data Research Initiative in 2012. AMPLab has produced industry-changing open source software, including the Berkeley Data Analytics Stack—a set of software tools to help researchers and others make use of big data.

Franklin received his bachelor’s degree in computer and information science from the University of Massachusetts, his master of software engineering from the Wang Institute of Graduate Studies and his PhD in computer science from the University of Wisconsin.

Franklin is a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery and a two-time recipient of the ACM SIGMOD (Special Interest Group on Management of Data) “Test of Time” award. Among many other honors, he also has received the outstanding advisor award from Berkeley’s Computer Science Graduate Student Association.

The University already has major initiatives underway related to data science, and plans to expand and develop more such activities. Current significant initiatives include:

The Computation Institute, a joint effort with Argonne National Laboratory. Under the direction of Ian Foster, the Arthur Holly Compton Distinguished Service Professor, the institute has effectively undertaken a variety of large-scale computational projects such as Globus, which provides powerful tools that help researchers solve problems involving data-intensive research.
The NCI Genomic Data Commons, which will be launched by the National Cancer Institute to store and harmonize genomic data generated through NCI-funded research programs, is being built and will be maintained by the University.

The Computational and Applied Mathematics Initiative, launched by the Department of Statistics, brings sophisticated methods to the handling of large data sets in numerous scientific disciplines, including the study of protein dynamics and computational neuroscience.

“Mike Franklin brings the experience and the vision to further grow computer science into one of the top departments in the country, to expand computer science and computational science educational offerings at the undergraduate and graduate levels, and to establish a vital computational culture throughout the University,” said Edward “Rocky” Kolb, dean of the Physical Sciences Division.

Several new members join Fermilab board of directors

Mon, 07 Dec 2015 11:30 -0600

The Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is a U.S. Department of Energy laboratory, the leading institution for particle physics research in the United States and one of the leading such institutions in the world. For decades, work at Fermilab has led to fundamental discoveries about the elementary building blocks of the universe and likewise about the evolution of the universe. Planning is now underway for Fermilab to build a major facility for the study of neutrinos, one of the most mysterious particles in the universe, enabling it to launch the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment.

Since the start of 2015, Fermi Research Alliance LLC, a partnership between the University of Chicago and Universities Research Association, has appointed several distinguished new members to its board of directors. Members of the board serve as ambassadors and advisers in support of Fermilab’s ambitious research agenda and play a leading role in the advancement of scientific objectives.

“We are very pleased to welcome these distinguished leaders to the board of directors,” said President Robert J. Zimmer, who chairs the Fermilab board. “Their collective expertise and accomplishments will help to facilitate the lab’s work as a leader in fundamental scientific discovery.”

The newest members of the board are:

Sam Pitroda, former adviser to the prime minister of India on public information, infrastructure and innovation
Steven M. Ritz, professor of physics and director of the Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics, University of California, Santa Cruz
Maxine Savitz, vice-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology
F. Quinn Stepan, chairman of Stepan Company
John Womersley, chief executive officer of the Science and Technology Facilities Council

Members that will join in January 2016 are:

Kate Gregory, (rear admiral of the U.S. Navy, ret.), former commander of Naval Facilities Engineering Command and chief of civil engineers
Rolf-Dieter Heuer, president-elect of the German Physical Society and director-general of CERN, 2009-15

“It is a privilege to be working for such an esteemed group,” said Fermilab Director Nigel Lockyer. “Their engagement reflects well on our laboratory's past achievements and bodes well for our future successes.”

Fermi Research Alliance LLC, the operator of Fermilab for the U.S. Department of Energy, announced in August 2014 that it would restructure its board to better support the laboratory and advance Fermilab’s position as a global leader in high-energy physics—neutrino science in particular. These new members will serve three-year terms as members of the board of directors, which will eventually include up to 15 global business, academic and public leaders.

“This is an exciting time for particle physics in the United States and abroad. Fermilab has all the right ingredients to continue to make important discoveries about our world, train the next generation of scientists and develop cutting-edge technologies that drive innovation and grow the economy. The new board will help us in this endeavor,” said Lou Anna K. Simon, vice chair of the Fermi Research Alliance and president of Michigan State University.

Matthew Tirrell named deputy laboratory director for science at Argonne National Laboratory

Mon, 24 Aug 2015 15:00 -0500

Matthew Tirrell, the founding Pritzker Director of the Institute for Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago, has been appointed to an additional scientific leadership role at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory, in a move that will strengthen the two institutions’ combined efforts.

Tirrell, a pioneering researcher in the fields of biomolecular engineering and nanotechnology, will maintain his leadership of the IME, which is a scientific partnership between the University and Argonne. In his new role, effective Sept. 1, he also will serve as Argonne’s deputy laboratory director for science.

As a scientific advisor to Argonne Director Peter B. Littlewood, Tirrell will have primary responsibility for integrating the lab’s research and development efforts and science and technology capabilities. He will develop and drive the strategy to support integrated, harmonized teams across divisions and disciplines, in support of the lab’s large strategic initiatives.

“Matt is a proven leader whose guidance of the IME is a tremendous asset for both Argonne and the University of Chicago,” Littlewood said. “He will now bring his clarity of scientific vision to a wider range of activities at Argonne, helping the lab and our partners capitalize on historic opportunities while continuing his superb leadership of our joint efforts at the IME.”

New partnership will strengthen UChicago-Argonne ties

Since becoming the IME’s founding director in 2011, Tirrell has led the new institute on a course of rapid growth in the emerging discipline of molecular engineering. The program has attracted a core of 12 faculty members, with a thriving graduate program and a new undergraduate major. Many IME faculty members have joint appointments as Argonne scientists, including Tirrell. The success in bringing faculty leaders to the IME has enabled Tirrell to build the leadership team and organization within the institute, allowing him to take on an expanded role.

Scientists at the IME explore innovative technologies that address fundamental societal problems through modern advances in nanoscale manipulation and the ability to design at a molecular scale. In 2014, the institute recorded $10 million in research volume and began equipping and staffing its new Pritzker Nanofabrication Facility.

Before leading the IME, Tirrell served for 10 years as dean of engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he was credited with bringing the program to national prominence.

University of Chicago President Robert J. Zimmer, who serves as chairman of UChicago Argonne LLC and its board of governors, said Tirrell’s additional role at Argonne will allow him to make an even greater impact.

“The collaborations that Argonne makes possible facilitate scientific and technological creativity in many disciplines,” Zimmer said. “Matt is just the right kind of leader for this collaborative environment. I am pleased that his remarkable leadership of the IME will continue, and that he will bring the same spirit of innovation and ambition to his dual role at Argonne.”

His new role will require a greater cross-disciplinary focus than ever, Tirrell said. Along with fostering new collaborations among Argonne’s computing, environment, life sciences, energy, global security, photon sciences and physical sciences and engineering divisions, his new position will help both Argonne and UChicago to fully leverage their science and technology strengths, he said.

The partnership between the lab and the University, Tirrell noted, already has produced many successes in addition to the IME: among them are the Computation Institute; collaboration on a partnership to create a regional center for wastewater recovery and reuse, with the ultimate goal of an economy based on sustainable water consumption; and a joint venture to bolster genomic sequencing capabilities.

“These existing partnerships are just the beginning,” Tirrell said. “Argonne has so much research and development and science and technology capabilities not only to be exploited, but combined both internally and with external entities, to create innovative opportunities and break new ground in the 21st century.”

Tirrell’s experience complements Argonne senior team

Tirrell’s appointment completes the senior executive team for Littlewood. That team also includes: Paul K. Kearns, deputy laboratory director for operations and chief operations officer, who oversees areas that include finance, human resources, communications, safety and health, and computing and information systems; and Alfred P. Sattelberger, deputy laboratory director for programs, who manages the external interactions of Argonne’s scientific programs, with the DOE sponsors and other stakeholders; and builds relationships with other laboratories, the university community and international collaborators that enable new groundbreaking research and large-scale programs.

In addition to Tirrell’s tenure as engineering dean at the University of California, Santa Barbara, he served as the Arnold and Barbara Silverman Professor and chair of bioengineering at the University of California, Berkeley. Tirrell also served as professor of materials science and engineering and chemical engineering, and as a faculty scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Tirrell began his academic career in 1977 at the University of Minnesota, where he served as Shell Distinguished Chair in chemical engineering, the Earl E. Bakken Professor of biomedical engineering, director of the Biomedical Engineering Institute, and head of chemical engineering and materials science.

Tirrell has provided leadership to numerous national and regional organizations, including the Science and Technology Panel of the University of California President’s Council for National Laboratory Administration from 2000 to 2010. He has served as editor or on the editorial boards of 18 publications.

Tirrell 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. He has received many honors, including the Polymer Physics Prize of the American Physical Society, and election to the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

John Cunningham appointed chairman of Pediatrics

Wed, 12 Aug 2015 15:35 -0500

After a national search, John M. Cunningham, the Donald N. Pritzker Professor, has been formally appointed chairman of the Department of Pediatrics, effective Aug. 1.

An authority on the study and treatment of childhood cancers, as well as the biology and therapy of hemoglobinopathies—blood diseases such as sickle cell anemia and thalassemia—Cunningham is known for his work on understanding the molecular mechanism underpinning red blood cell production. He has developed stem cell transplant techniques for the 70 percent of children who do not have a sibling match. These approaches have made transplant an option for any child requiring this therapy.

Kenneth Polonsky, dean of the Biological Sciences Division and executive vice president for medical affairs, lauded Cunningham in his role as section chief of pediatric hematology/oncology since arriving at the University in late 2006.

“He rapidly built up our pediatric cancer program by recruiting leading faculty, establishing new programs, expanding our clinical trial and bone marrow transplantation programs, strengthening basic research efforts and working with his colleagues to build relationships with community hospitals and referring physicians,” Polonsky said. “He has continued that success in his larger role, since 2014, as interim chair of pediatrics.”

In December 2006, Cunningham moved to UChicago to become professor of pediatrics and section chief of hematology/oncology and stem cell transplantation. He was named vice chairman for research in pediatrics in 2008.

“It is a great honor and a vast responsibility to take on this new role,” Cunningham said. “Pediatrics at the University of Chicago has tremendous strengths, including numerous nationally renowned members of the faculty, strong clinical and research programs, excellent nursing, and a nearly new and expanding facility: the Comer Children’s Hospital.”

“I am flattered to have been selected,” he said, “and determined to enhance our commitment to compassionate, individualized care for all children, and to continue at the forefront of innovation and discovery of the most effective therapies for childhood diseases.”

Cunningham has published almost 80 scientific articles in leading journals, as well as multiple book chapters and invited reviews. He served on the editorial board of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, and is a reviewer for Blood; Molecular and Cellular Biology; Cancer Research; and Genomics. He is a member of the American Cancer Society’s Council for Extramural Grants, and pediatric series editor for The Oncologist.

Polonsky reappointed as head of biological sciences, medical school and medical center

Wed, 18 Mar 2015 13:00 -0500

Kenneth S. Polonsky, the Richard T. Crane Distinguished Service Professor of Medicine, has been appointed to a second five-year term as dean of the Biological Sciences Division and the Pritzker School of Medicine and executive vice president for medical affairs at the University of Chicago. The reappointment is effective Oct. 1, 2015.

In his role as dean, Polonsky oversees the University’s research and education programs in the biological sciences and medicine. As executive vice president, he reports directly to the University president and serves as an officer of the University, overseeing the University of Chicago Medicine.

President Robert J. Zimmer said the reappointment is a reflection of Polonsky’s accomplishments during the past four-and-a-half years, reinforced by the recommendation of a faculty-reappointment advisory committee.

“Under Kenneth’s leadership, the medical center has made dramatic steps forward in virtually every aspect of clinical care,” Zimmer said. “That this has been accomplished in a very uncertain and volatile environment for health care nationally has made these advances all the more remarkable. Thanks to the work that Kenneth, his leadership team and all members of our clinical care delivery program have done over the past few years, we are in a dramatically stronger position to address these challenges.”

“Kenneth has not only been a leader in clinical affairs, but also in the quality of our educational programs. Students from the College are now among the best prepared to enter top graduate programs, and the Pritzker School of Medicine is attracting top students and increasingly recognized for its eminence,” Provost Eric D. Isaacs said. “We are confident that Kenneth is the right leader to build on these accomplishments, grow the research enterprise and continue to make the University a premier destination for faculty and students.”

The growing strength of the clinical enterprise has enabled Polonsky, working closely with the faculty, to begin laying the foundations for new and major investments in research and education, and for ensuring the strength of the structures that support the basic sciences. In the last four years, the Biological Sciences Division has recruited outstanding scholars who have been helping to build and enhance existing programs and launch new ones.

Important accomplishments during his tenure include the opening in early 2013 of the Center for Care and Discovery, a model for health care delivery; appointment of John Maunsell, a pioneering researcher in the neuroscience of vision and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Neuroscience, as inaugural director of the Grossman Institute for Neuroscience, Quantitative Biology and Human Behavior; and recruitment of Douglas R. Dirschl, a nationally recognized orthopedic surgeon, administrator, teacher and researcher, to head the newly created Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and Rehabilitation Medicine.

A distinguished scientist, Polonsky continues to study the role of the pancreatic beta cell in the development of diabetes The beta cell produces and secretes insulin.

“I have been privileged to work with talented faculty and staff in the Biological Sciences Division, Pritzker School of Medicine and the University of Chicago Medical Center to continue our commitment to our core missions of research, education, patient care and community health,” Polonsky said. “I am honored by this vote of confidence in my reappointment and look forward to the next five years.”

Polonsky came to the University of Chicago in 1978 for a fellowship in endocrinology. He joined the University faculty in 1981, and soon became section chief of endocrinology and director the Diabetes Research and Training Center. He served for 10 years as the Adolphus Busch Professor and chair of the Department of Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis, then returned to the University of Chicago in his current role in 2010.

A member since 2006 of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, Polonsky has won multiple research awards. He has published nearly 300 papers, has served on the editorial boards of several leading journals, and on national and regional committees of a number of organizations, including the American Diabetes Association and Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

Prof. Amanda Woodward appointed Deputy Dean of the Division of Social Sciences

Fri, 20 Feb 2015 14:38 -0600

Amanda Woodward, the William S. Gray Professor of Psychology, has been appointed Deputy Dean of Faculty Affairs for the Division of the Social Sciences. The three-year term starts July 1. Woodward is currently the chair of the Department of Psychology, director of the Infant Learning and Development Laboratory and president of the Cognitive Development Society.

In making the announcement, Dean David Nirenberg praised Woodward’s sensitive and intelligent leadership in her roles as researcher, teacher, colleague and department chair. In her new role, Woodward will support the dean in various aspects of faculty and academic support, as well as facilitating the emergence of new research initiatives, programs and centers; supporting diversity initiatives within the division; supporting review processes and coordinating development of the multiple graduate programs.

Woodward joined the University of Chicago faculty in 1993, spent five years at the University of Maryland and returned to UChicago in 2010. Her research investigates social cognition during infancy and childhood. She is particularly interested in how children reason about and learn from the actions of other people.

The process of identifying a new chair for the Department of Psychology will begin immediately.

Huntington Willard named president and director of Marine Biological Laboratory

Mon, 08 Dec 2014 12:50 -0600

Huntington Willard, an innovative leader in the fields of genetics and genome biology who has built comprehensive research centers at leading institutions, has been appointed the next president and director of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass.

President Robert J. Zimmer, who is also chairman of the MBL’s Board of Trustees, announced the appointment to the MBL and University communities. MBL is an affiliate of the University of Chicago, a relationship designed to yield novel avenues for scientific discovery and education at both institutions.

At the MBL, Willard will lead one of the world’s foremost centers for biological research, international collaboration and education. Willard, currently the Arts & Sciences Professor of Biology and Genome Sciences at Duke University, will begin his appointment at the MBL on Jan. 1, 2015.

Willard has earned a reputation as a groundbreaking scientist, a strong leader and builder of complex academic initiatives, as well as a talented educator who has received multiple teaching awards. From 2003 to 2014 he was the founding director of the Duke Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy, a highly interdisciplinary unit that spanned the life sciences, engineering, medicine, social sciences and the humanities. For that program, Willard recruited 35 faculty members to Duke across 21 departments and established broad institutional strength in the genome sciences. He had previously chaired the Department of Genetics at Case Western Reserve University, where he also built a widely respected program of research and education.

As a researcher, Willard has explored many facets of genetics and genome biology, with a particular interest in the structure and function of chromosomes, the epigenetic regulation of gene silencing, and the evolution and organization of complex genomes. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has won many awards for genetics scholarship, including the William Allan Award from the American Society of Human Genetics.

“Hunt Willard is an outstanding scholar and a proven scientific leader who has created programs that have earned international respect,” said Zimmer. “He exemplifies the values that guide the Marine Biological Laboratory and the University of Chicago—wide-ranging collaboration, eagerness to explore and define new fields of study, and a dedication to discovery through engaged education. We are delighted to welcome him to this community, and confident that he will lead the MBL in a way that preserves its strengths, creates new opportunities for growth, and takes advantage of the relationship with the University of Chicago.”

Willard said he was attracted by the MBL’s historic role as a beacon for scientists from around the world, including its renowned summer courses and creative year-round programs of research and education.

“I’m honored to be named the next president and director of MBL,” Willard said. “The MBL has enjoyed such a strong tradition of integrating research and education since its founding, and offers wonderful opportunities to develop and implement novel strategies for tackling some of the most pressing questions in life sciences and biomedical research today. The highly interdisciplinary nature of its year-round and visiting scientists and students offers unique combinations of scholarship, teamwork and adaptability that can’t be easily matched elsewhere.

“I can’t imagine a place that better illustrates the values of integrated research and education that are important to me—as a scientist, an educator and as a leader. I look forward with great enthusiasm to joining this community, at both MBL and the University of Chicago.”

Jennifer Morgan, an MBL scientist and associate director of the Eugene Bell Center for Regenerative Biology and Tissue Engineering, said Willard is a perfect fit for the MBL’s intellectual culture.

“As a leader who has brought together researchers with many diverse kinds of expertise, Hunt Willard is an exceptional choice to enrich the spirit of innovation and collaboration that has guided the MBL since its founding in 1888,” Morgan said.

The MBL is known as an institution dedicated to scientific discovery and improving the human condition through research and education in biology, biomedicine and environmental science. In July 2013 the MBL and the University of Chicago formed an affiliation that is producing growing collaborations between the two institutions and researchers at Argonne National Laboratory, which is managed by UChicago and has many research ties to the University.

In addition to his leadership of the MBL, Willard will have a faculty appointment in the Department of Human Genetics at the University of Chicago. Prior to his appointments at Duke and Case Western Reserve, Willard held faculty positions at the University of Toronto and Stanford University and was founding president and director of the University Hospitals of Cleveland Research Institute. He received his PhD in genetics from Yale University and his AB degree in biology from Harvard University.

Willard is widely considered a leading figure among American geneticists, having authored or contributed to more than 300 scholarly publications, providing fundamental insights and new tools for studying how cells inactivate genes on the X chromosome and what DNA sequences are involved in chromosome segregation during cell division. His team also received international attention in 1997 when it constructed the world’s first human artificial chromosome.

“What’s so extraordinary about Hunt Willard’s academic career is his demonstrated ability to lead the charge in scientific discovery, both as an investigator and as a director of several large, ambitious programs,” said Neil Shubin, the Robert R. Bensley Distinguished Service Professor of Organismal Biology and Anatomy and associate dean for academic strategy in UChicago’s Biological Sciences Division. “He has a sense of where fields are going, and an ability to identify and recruit the best academic talent. That’s going to make him an outstanding leader for the MBL, and a great colleague for all of us.”

Sally Kornbluth, provost of Duke University and the James B. Duke Professor of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology, praised Willard’s contributions at Duke.

“Hunt Willard is a stellar scientist, an energetic teacher and an innovative leader who helped make genomics a point of excellence at Duke,” Kornbluth said. “His appointment at the MBL heralds an exciting opportunity for the laboratory.”

Willard will succeed Arthur M. Sussman, the MBL’s interim president and director, who assumed that role in November with the departure of former President and Director Joan Ruderman. Zimmer sent a message to the MBL community last May praising Ruderman’s record of commitment to the lab, which began in 1974 when she first arrived as a postdoctoral researcher.

UChicago faculty members receive named, distinguished service professorships

Tue, 11 Nov 2014 14:00 -0600

Eleven UChicago faculty members—Andrew Cleland, Michael Greenstone, M. Todd Henderson, Ali Hortacsu, Wayne Hu, Jeffrey Hubbell, Jonathan Masur, John H. R. Maunsell, Larry Norman, David Rubin and Melody Swartz—have received named professorships, while five UChicago scholars—Victor Friedman, Lenore Grenoble, Chuan He, Ralph Weichselbaum and Luigi Zingales—have been named distinguished service professors.

Biological Sciences Division

John H. R. Maunsell has been named the Albert D. Lasker Professor in Neurobiology.

An internationally recognized neuroscientist, Maunsell has made fundamental contributions toward understanding the neurobiological mechanisms of vision and perception. Known for elegant, rigorous and technically demanding physiological experiments, he recently has focused on understanding how behavioral and cognitive factors, such as attention and learning, influence the way neurons process information in the visual circuits of the brain.

Since 2007, Maunsell has served as editor-in-chief of The Journal of Neuroscience, one of the top peer-reviewed journals in its field and primary publication of the Society for Neuroscience, the largest neuroscientist organization in the world.

Maunsell’s honors include election to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Academy of Arts and Sciences and appointment as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.

Maunsell joined the University of Chicago faculty in 2014.

David T. Rubin, section chief of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition and co-director of the Digestive Diseases Center, has been appointed the Joseph B. Kirsner Professor in Medicine.

A nationally recognized authority on digestive diseases and investigational therapies, Rubin studies novel therapies for Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, colon cancer prevention and clinical medical ethics. He is the principal investigator for multiple clinical research projects and trials of novel therapies, including the first Food and Drug Administration-authorized study of fecal microbiota transplantation for ulcerative colitis.

Rubin is a fellow of the American Gastroenterological Association, the American College of Gastroenterology, and American College of Physicians and an active national leader in the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America.

Rubin has earned many honors and awards in his field, including the Governor’s Award for Excellence in Clinical Research in 2003 and 2013 from the American College of Gastroenterology, and the Rosenthal Award in 2012 from the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of America. He is an associate editor for the journals Digestive Diseases & Sciences and Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology.

Rubin earned his medical degree with honors from the University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Medicine.

Ralph R. Weichselbaum, chairman of Radiation and Cellular Oncology and co-director of the Ludwig Center, has been named the Daniel K. Ludwig Distinguished Service Professor.

A nationally recognized authority on the effects of radiation and on radiation therapy for cancer, Weichselbaum has been a leader in research into the ability of certain types of tumors to resist the lethal effects of radiation, the combination of radiation therapy with chemo- or immune-therapy, and the use of precisely targeted high-dose radiotherapy for patients with a limited number of metastases.

Weichselbaum is a member of many scientific and medical societies, including the prestigious Institute of Medicine, and has served on national committees for the National Institutes of Health, the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, the American College of Radiology, the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology, and the Radiation Research Society. He serves on the editorial boards of several influential journals and on the advisory board of biotech companies.

Weichselbaum came to the University of Chicago in 1984 as professor and chairman of Radiation and Cellular Oncology.

Humanities Division

Victor A. Friedman, PhD’75, a linguist working on languages of the Balkans and Caucasus, has been named the Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Service Professor in the Humanities. He is also director of the University’s Center for East European and Russian/Eurasian Studies.

Friedman’s publications include more than a dozen books and edited works, as well as more than 300 scholarly articles and book reviews. In addition to his research on the Balkan languages, he has published extensively on Lak grammar, as well as on Georgian, and he has done field work in Daghestan in addition to more than 40 years of field work in the Balkans. His main research interests are grammatical categories, contact linguistics as well as sociolinguistic issues related to standardization, ideology and identity.

Friedman is president of the U.S. National Committee of the International Association for Southeast European Studies. He is a member of the Macedonian Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Academy of Sciences of Albania, the Academy of Arts and Sciences of Kosova, Matica Srpska and has been awarded the “1300 Years of Bulgaria” jubilee medal. During the Yugoslav Wars of Succession he worked for the United Nations as a senior policy analyst in Macedonia and consulted for other international organizations.

He has taught at UChicago since 1993.

Lenore Grenoble, an expert on Slavic linguistics and language contact and attrition, has been named the John Matthews Manly Distinguished Service Professor in Linguistics and the College.

She specializes in Slavic and Arctic Indigenous languages, and is currently conducting fieldwork on Evenki (Tungusic) in Siberia, Kalaallisut (West Greenlandic, Inuit) in Greenland, and Wolof (Niger-Congo) in Senegal. Her research focuses on the study of contact linguistics and language shift, discourse and conversation analysis, deixis and issues in the study of language endangerment, attrition and revitalization.

She is the author of numerous articles and books, including Deixis and Information Packaging in Russian and Language Policy in the Former Soviet Union and co-author of Saving Languages: An Introduction to Language Revitalization and a reference grammar for Evenki. Grenoble has co-edited multiple volumes such as Endangered Languages; Language Documentation: Practices and Values and, most recently, Language Typology and Historical Contingency.

Grenoble has taken an active role in promoting indigenous language vitality as coordinator of the Arctic Council’s Arctic Indigenous Languages Vitality project.

She joined the UChicago faculty in 2007.

Larry F. Norman has been named the Frank. L. Sulzberger Professor in Romance Languages and Literatures, Theater and Performance Studies and the College. He is currently chair of Romance Languages and Literatures.

Norman’s research focuses on French and European literature of the 17th and 18th centuries, and theater across the ages. His interests include theater history, book history, intellectual and cultural history, literary criticism and theory, and the relation between the visual arts and literature.

He is the author of The Public Mirror: Molière and the Social Commerce of Depiction, and The Shock of the Ancient: Literature and History in Early Modern France, which received the Jeanne Scaglione Prize for French and Francophone Studies from the Modern Language Association in 2012.

Norman was the University’s inaugural Deputy Provost for the Arts and held that position for two terms. His tenure was marked by the development of major new arts facilities, programs and initiatives. These include the planning, construction, programming and operation of the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts; the creation of the Richard and Mary L. Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry; and the launch of the Arts and Public Life initiative and its Arts Incubator in the Washington Park community.

He joined the UChicago faculty in 1995.

Physical Sciences Division

Chuan He, who brings a chemist’s perspective to biological problems, has been named the John T. Wilson Distinguished Service Professor in Chemistry. He’s research contribution spans a broad range in epigenetic, RNA biology, chemistry, biochemistry, cell biology, molecular biology, structural biology and microbiology.

With colleagues at UChicago, He’s group is mostly known for the discovery of reversible modification on RNA that significantly affects gene expression regulation analogous to similar effects on DNA. His laboratory also is known for developing enabling technologies to label and sequence recently discovered chemical modifications in mammalian DNA that are particularly important for cell differentiation and development. A particular modification is also highly abundant in the brain. He’s work also has shed light on the roles of metals in biological systems, identified bacterial regulators of virulence and antibiotic resistance, and illuminated mechanisms of DNA repair. He continues to work on understanding how the addition and removal of methyl groups on genetic material and RNA affect genetic regulation.

He, who directs the Institute for Biophysical Dynamics, joined the UChicago faculty in 2002. He holds a joint professorship with Peking University, and guest professorship at several other universities. The recipient of numerous honors, last year he was named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.

Wayne Hu, whose research focuses on understanding structure formation in the universe, has been named the Horace B. Horton Professor in astronomy & astrophysics.

Early in his career, Hu gained recognition for his theoretical work on the temperature differences of the cosmic microwave background, the afterglow of the Big Bang. His work has provided important insights on how to use the CMB temperature differences to test cosmological theories and to determine cosmological parameters.

Hu focuses his research on how structures such as galaxies and clusters of galaxies were seeded at the Big Bang and how they related to dark matter—an unknown force that causes the explanation of the universe to accelerate. Hu also uses gravitational lensing (and effect that distorts images of galaxies) to study the physics of dark energy at large scales.

Hu co-leads the dark energy portion of UChicago’s Physics Frontier Center, a $17 million effort funded by the National Science Foundation. He also is a member of the South Pole Telescope and Dark Energy Survey collaborations, and a senior member of UChicago’s Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics. A member of the UChicago faculty since 2000, his many honors include elected membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Social Sciences Division

Michael Greenstone has been named the first Milton Friedman Professor in Economics.

His research focuses largely on the costs and benefits of environmental quality and energy policy. Over the years, Greenstone has worked extensively on the Clean Air Act and examined its impacts on air quality, manufacturing activity, housing prices and infant mortality. He is currently engaged in a large-scale project to estimate the costs of climate change around the world.

Greenstone now heads the interdisciplinary Energy Policy Institute at Chicago (EPIC). Prior to rejoining the faculty at Chicago, where he began his career as an assistant professor, he served as the 3M Professor of Environmental Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 2006 to 2014. He is a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and editor of The Journal of Political Economy. From 2009 to 2010, he was the chief economist for the Obama administration’s Council of Economic Advisors and has been a member of the EPA Science Advisory Board’s Environmental Economics Advisory Committee.

Greenstone joined the UChicago faculty in July.

Ali Hortacsu has been named the Ralph and Mary Otis Isham Professor.

Hortacsu’s research focuses primarily on how supply actually equals demand and he develops mathematical and statistical methods to model, analyze, and optimize real-world market clearing mechanisms. His methods have been used in many contexts, including government securities auctions, central bank refinancing operations, and wholesale electricity markets.

Hortacsu has written or coauthored some of the first academic papers in leading academic journals on online auctions, online dating/matchmaking, and online consumer search behavior. A fellow of the Econometric Society, and research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, Hortacsu is the co-editor of the Journal of Political Economy. He was elected an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow in 2006, and was a recipient of an NSF CAREER grant.

Hortacsu joined the UChicago faculty in 2001.

University of Chicago Booth School of Business

Luigi Zingales has been named the Robert C. McCormack Distinguished Service Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance.

His research has covered corporate governance, financial development, political economy, the economic effects of culture and the best interventions to cope with the aftermath of the financial crisis. He developed the Financial Trust Index, designed to monitor the degree of trust Americans have in their financial system, with Paola Sapienza of Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.

Zingales’ recent works include “The Values of Corporate Culture,” written with Luigi Guiso, of the Einaudi Institute for Economics and Finance, and Sapienza and forthcoming in the Journal of Financial Economics, and “Liquidity and Inefficient Investment,” written with Oliver Hart and forthcoming in the Journal of the European Economic Association. He also has two working papers, “Diagnosing the Italian Disease,” written with Bruno Pellegrino of UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, and “Monnet’s Error,” written with Guiso and Sapienza.

Previous works have been published in the Review of Financial Studies, Review of Economic Studies, Journal of Finance, American Economic Review, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Journal of Financial Economics and Quarterly Journal of Economics, among others. He has published three books—Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists, with Raghuram Rajan, also of Chicago Booth, A Capitalism for the People and Europa o No.

Zingales also serves as American Finance Association president, Control Committee and of the Nominating Committee of Eni Spa board members and American Academy of Arts and Sciences member, and is founding director of the Center for Economic Analysis of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. He joined Booth in 1992, and has been the Robert C. McCormack Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance since 2006.

University of Chicago Law School

M. Todd Henderson has been named the first Michael J. Marks Professor.

Henderson’s research interests include corporate law, securities and financial regulation, and law and economics.

With an engineering degree cum laude from Princeton University in 1993, Henderson worked for several years designing and building dams in California before matriculating at the University of Chicago Law School. He was an editor of the Law Review, and captained the law school’s all-university champion intramural football team.

Upon graduating magna cum laude in 1998, Henderson was elected to the Order of the Coif and served as clerk to the Hon. Dennis Jacobs of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He practiced appellate litigation at Kirkland & Ellis in Washington, D.C., and was an engagement manager at McKinsey & Company in Boston, where he specialized in counseling telecommunications and high-tech clients on business and regulatory strategy.

Henderson joined the UChicago faculty in 2005.

Jonathan Masur has been named the John P. Wilson Professor of Law.

Masur’s research and teaching interests include patent law, administrative law, legislation, behavioral law and economics, and criminal law.

Masur clerked for Judge Richard Posner of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and for Chief Judge Marilyn Hall Patel of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

Masur taught at the Law School as a Bigelow Fellow and Lecturer in Law before joining the faculty as an assistant professor in 2007. He served as deputy dean from 2012 to 2014 and as the Herbert and Marjorie Fried Teaching Scholar from 2011 to 2013.

Institute for Molecular Engineering

Andrew N. Cleland, who specializes in quantum computing, quantum communication and quantum sensors, has been appointed the first John A. MacLean Sr. Professor for Molecular Engineering Innovation and Enterprise.

Cleland led the team that built the first quantum machine—a device whose motion can only be described with the peculiar laws of quantum mechanics. That feat earned Cleland’s team “Breakthrough of the Year 2010” honors from Science magazine. The same work was named a top-ten discovery of 2010 by Physics World.

He also has been developing a quantum computer based on superconducting quantum circuits. Such a computer would be able to process many complete sets of input data at the same time—far exceeding the parallel processing capabilities of modern classical computers.

In the quantum-communication arena, Cleland seeks to provide a means for the completely secure transmission of information, without relying on conventional encryption methods, instead relying on the principles of quantum mechanics.

A member of the UChicago faculty since July, Cleland formerly served as a professor of physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and as associate director of the California Nanosystems Institute at UCSB. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the American Physical Society.

Jeffrey A. Hubbell, who develops a variety of biomaterial and molecular therapeutics, especially for regenerative medicine and immunological interventions, has been appointed the first Barry L. MacLean Professor for Molecular Engineering Innovation and Enterprise.

Hubbell is an entrepreneurial chemical and biological engineer who has founded three companies based on his academic research: Kuros Biosurgery in Zurich, Switzerland; Anokion in Lausanne, Switzerland; and Focal Inc., of Lexington, Mass. Along with his associates, he holds 88 U.S. patents. Recently he has been designing biomolecules and biomaterials to turn on immune responses to fight infection and cancer, and on the other hand, specifically turn off immune responses in auto-immune diseases such as Type 1 diabetes. He coined the term “immune-modulatory materials” to describe this newly emerging field of research.

Hubbell formerly served as the Merck-Serono Chair in Drug Delivery and acting dean of the School of Life Sciences at Switzerland’s École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, where he also had served as founding director of the Institute of Bioengineering. He joined the UChicago faculty in July.

He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and an elected fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Melody A. Swartz, who studies how lymphatic vessels and their transport functions contribute to immunity and cancer, has been appointed the William B. Ogden Professor in Molecular Engineering.

Biomedical scientists typically regard the fluid drainage function of the lymphatic system as mostly important for maintaining tissue fluid balance. Cell transport functions, which regulate immunity, are considered separately. Swartz’s team has revealed new immune functions of lymphatic endothelial cells that are strongly linked to the transport functions of lymphatic vessels.

Her team also is trying to target lymphatic vessels for improved cancer immunotherapy because this is one aspect of the tumor microenvironment that seems to contribute to therapeutic failure. With these new insights, she is attempting to build a new picture of the lymphatic function in which the fluid and cell transport functions of the lymphatic vessels are intrinsically involved in regulating immune responses.

Schwartz previously held joint appointments as a professor of bioengineering and cancer research at Switzerland’s École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lusanne and served as director of its Institute of Bioengineering. A 2012 MacArthur Fellow, Schwartz also has received an Arnold and Mabel Beckman Young Investigator Award, and the Wenner Prize, Switzerland’s largest prize for cancer research. She joined the UChicago faculty in July.

Wendy Freedman, world-leading astronomer, joins UChicago faculty

Thu, 07 Aug 2014 15:00 -0500

The University of Chicago has appointed one of the world’s most influential astronomers, Wendy L. Freedman, as a University Professor of Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Freedman currently serves as the Crawford H. Greenewalt Director of the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington in Pasadena, Calif. She also has served as chair of the board of directors of the Giant Magellan Telescope project since its inception in 2003, a role she will retain at UChicago. Freedman’s appointment will be effective Sept. 1.

University Professors represent the highest scholarly aspirations of the University of Chicago. They are selected from outside the University on the basis of their eminence and potential for broad impact on campus. Freedman is the 20th person to hold a University Professorship, and the seventh active faculty member holding that title.

“Wendy is a scholar of extraordinary ambition and accomplishment. Her research has had an unmistakable influence on her field, while her active engagement with a broader public has captured imaginations and helped convey the importance of the work going on in astronomy,” said Provost Eric D. Isaacs. “We are delighted to welcome her to the University of Chicago, where she joins a tradition of scholars who have helped shape how we understand our universe.”

“This is a real game-changer,” said Angela Olinto, the Homer J. Livingston Professor and chair of Astronomy & Astrophysics at UChicago. “We will become the world leader in optical astronomy with the vision that Wendy will bring to the University of Chicago. Her appointment will be great for our department, for our faculty, for the students and for the future of the Giant Magellan Telescope. She did an outstanding job in her 30 years at Carnegie, and she will do a brilliant job here.”

Extraordinary career

Freedman has enjoyed an extraordinarily productive career at the Carnegie Observatories. She received a Carnegie Fellowship at the Observatories in 1984, joined the faculty in 1987 and became director in 2003.

“For me there’s a bittersweet quality to this move, because I’ve had a great 30 years at Carnegie,” Freedman said. “At the same time, I am tremendously excited to join a very exciting and dynamic faculty in all kinds of academic disciplines at the University of Chicago, including the sciences and the humanities, and I am delighted to begin a new chapter in my research career.

“I’m also looking forward to continuing my leadership role in the Giant Magellan Telescope. The University of Chicago is an active and dynamic partner in that endeavor.”

UChicago became a founding partner of the Giant Magellan Telescope Organization in 2010. The GMT will be the world’s largest telescope once it’s constructed at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. The GMT will combine seven 8.4-meter primary mirror segments operating together as if they were part of a single, 24.5-meter telescope. Its resolution capabilities will exceed those of the Hubble Space Telescope. Commissioning of the GMT could begin as early as 2020.

Freedman became world-renowned more than a decade ago for leading a team of 30 astronomers who carried out the Hubble Key Project to measure the current expansion rate of the universe. At the project’s start in the mid-1980s, estimates of the age and size of the universe ranged between 10 and 20 billion years. The project’s final results resolved this longstanding debate in 2001, determining the age of the universe as 13.7 billion years with an uncertainty of 10 percent.

The Hubble Project was named for UChicago alumnus Edwin Hubble, SB1910, PhD1917. Following military service during World War I, Hubble became an astronomer at the Carnegie Observatories. There, in the 1920s, Hubble made the discoveries that showed the universe consisted of more than just our galaxy and that the universe is expanding, which provided the basis for the Big Bang model.

Another UChicago-Carnegie historical connection is George Ellery Hale, who founded the University’s Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics in the 1890s and was the first director of UChicago’s Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wis. Hale built the Mount Wilson Observatory in southern California with Carnegie support in 1904, which led to the establishment of the Carnegie Observatories.

“Well, finally Edwin Hubble and George Ellery Hale are back, and their name is Wendy Freedman,” Olinto quipped.

Astronomical measurements

Today Freedman focuses on measuring both the current and past expansion rates of the universe, and on characterizing the nature of dark energy—the mysterious force that causes the universe to accelerate its expansion. She is leading a project to use the Spitzer Space Telescope, the Hubble Space Telescope and the Magellan telescope to measure the expansion rate to an accuracy of three percent, and she co-leads the Carnegie Supernova Project, which uses the 100-inch and Magellan telescopes at Las Campanas to better understand dark energy.

Through numerous public lectures and television appearances, Freedman also maintains a passionate interest in communicating science to popular audiences. She once lectured with physicist Stephen Hawking to an audience of 10,000 in Japan. She delivered UChicago’s inaugural Brinson Lecture in 2008 and has lectured throughout the world. Additionally, Freedman has appeared in NOVA/PBS documentaries, including “The Runaway Universe,” “The Journey to Palomar” and “Closer to Truth.”

Freedman received her bachelor’s and doctoral degrees in astronomy and astrophysics from the University of Toronto. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and of the American Philosophical Society. She also is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the American Physical Society. Additional honors include the American Philosophical Society's Magellanic Prize, as well as the Gruber Cosmology Prize, which is widely viewed as astronomy’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize.

Michael Ludwig appointed associate vice president for research administration

Wed, 14 May 2014 16:05 -0500

Michael R. Ludwig, director of Sponsored Program Services at Purdue, has been appointed associate vice president for research administration and director of University Research Administration at the University of Chicago, effective June 20, following a national search. He succeeds Carol Zuiches, who announced last October her plan to retire this spring.

Ludwig will lead University Research Administration, a team of more than 25 professionals responsible for grant and contract management, research compliance, and review and institutional endorsement of all applications for sponsored funding, including clinical studies and trials and Material Transfer Agreements. Last year, UChicago received 2,168 awards totaling $450 million in sponsored research funding. The group also provides sponsored project information services and overall guidance, support and research administration training.

During his 26-year tenure at Purdue, Ludwig served for nine years as associate director of Sponsored Program Services and six years as director, overseeing a staff of 75 with broad, pre- and post-award responsibility, including most areas of financial administration and reporting. Sponsored research funding at Purdue was $320 million in 2013. Two-thirds of total funding came from federal funders, the largest of which were the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.

“Mike’s demonstrated success in leading sponsored research administration and improving departmental processes across all colleges and regional campuses at Purdue make him exceptionally well qualified to lead URA,” said Donald H. Levy, vice president for research and for national laboratories at UChicago.

As director of SPS, Ludwig leads the team responsible for pre- and post-award support to faculty, including approval of sponsored program proposals; negotiation and acceptance of awards and other agreements affecting research activities; subcontract issuance and monitoring; account setup, invoicing, reporting and audits. Together with senior administrators at the university, Ludwig develops and implements policies and procedures to enhance services and assure compliance with federal regulations.

“I am honored to have been selected for this important position and look forward to the challenges and opportunities in providing world-class support to the talented faculty of the University of Chicago,” said Ludwig.

As associate director for Sponsored Program Administration at Purdue from 1999-2008, Ludwig led a staff of 65 professionals and implemented an effective, new organizational structure and pre- and post-award process to better serve faculty in response to significant growth in sponsored research funding that had growth 250 percent in nine years. He also oversaw the implementation of a new research administration system.

Prior to that position, Ludwig served as director of Academic Business Managers from 1993-99 and directed a staff of 200 providing business services support such as budgeting, payroll, purchasing and account management, to business managers in the schools, divisions and departments. He also led the development of new systems and procedures to enhance business services provided to faculty and staff. During this time, Ludwig participated in the development of the University’s annual budget plan that exceeded $1 billion; served as Purdue’ Public Records Officer; and served as interim director of personnel services from 1995-96.

A prominent and respected leader in his field, Ludwig represents Purdue in national organizations such as the Federal Demonstration Partnership, the Council on Governmental Relations and National Council of University Administrators. He is a member of COGR board of directors and serves on the Research Compliance and Administration Committee and the Steering Committee for Administrative Computing. He has served as committee member and presented and participated in workshops at NCURA Financial Research Administration’s annual conferences.

Ludwig received his bachelor of science in agricultural economics at Purdue.

“Mike’s competence, mission-orientation, extensive management experience in research administration and business, and his dedication to customer service will be a great asset to the University and our world-leading faculty.” said Levy. “He is also inheriting a highly competent and efficient team thanks to the exceptional leadership of his predecessor Carol Zuiches.”

National Academy of Sciences elects five from UChicago, Marine Biological Laboratory

Fri, 02 May 2014 10:20 -0500

Four University of Chicago faculty members and a scientist at the affiliated Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., have been elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. The new academy members are Jeffrey Harvey, the Enrico Fermi Distinguished Service Professor in Physics; Carlos Kenig, the Louis Block Distinguished Service Professor in Mathematics; Lucia Rothman-Denes, professor of molecular genetics and cell biology; Dam Thanh Son, University Professor in Physics; and Jerry Melillo, distinguished scientist and director emeritus of the MBL’s Ecosystems Center. Additionally, UChicago alumni who have been elected members of the Academy this year are Charles Lewis Kane, AB’85, and Martin Matthew Matzuk, AB’82. These members are among 84 new inductees that the academy announced April 29.

Jeffrey Harvey is a theoretical physicist who studies the behavior of the most fundamental particles in nature. Much of his work focuses on string theory and particle physics, although he also maintains interests in mathematics, condensed matter physics (the physics of liquids and solids) and cosmology. Strings are theoretical objects that may help explain how the four fundamental forces of nature—gravitation, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces—fit together, and give a promising framework for understanding the quantum behavior of gravity. His honors include election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and from UChicago a Graduate Teaching Award and the Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching.

Carlos Kenig, SM’75, PhD’78, works in the field of analysis: a major branch of mathematics that includes calculus and other techniques often applied to scientific problems. His contributions to harmonic analysis, partial differential equations and nonlinear dispersive partial differential equations earned him the 2008 Maxime Bôcher Memorial Prize of the American Mathematical Society. Kenig became an inaugural fellow of the AMS in 2012 and also is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Harmonic analysis, an outgrowth of the research of Joseph Fourier nearly two centuries ago, can be applied to the study of heat, light and other phenomena involving wave motion. Kenig principally studies partial differential equations and one of their subclasses, nonlinear dispersive equations, which describe various aspects of such phenomena.

Lucia Rothman-Denes is best known for pioneering a novel system to study how bacterial viruses take over the molecular processes of their hosts. Combining genetic, biochemical, biophysical and structural approaches, her work has yielded fundamental insights into viral-host interactions and identified new mechanisms for gene expression. Her lab now focuses on discovering new targets for antibacterials. She is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Microbiology. She has shown remarkable dedication as a teacher and mentor since she joined UChicago in 1974, and her outstanding mentorship of both graduate and undergraduate students in her laboratory has cultivated the careers of numerous successful scientists.

Dam Thanh Son’s research has demonstrated the links between such seemingly unrelated areas of physics as nuclear physics and black holes. His interests also range across atomic, condensed matter, nuclear and particle physics. Son gained international prominence for his application of ideas from string theory to the understanding of nuclear matter under high temperature and high density—conditions generated in the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Last year Son became a Simons Investigator, which will provide him with $500,000 of support over five years. Son is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has received fellowships from the American Physical Society and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Jerry Melillo’s research team at the MBL focuses on understanding the impacts of human activities on ecological systems using a combination of field studies and simulation modeling. His field studies include two soil-warming experiments at the Harvard Forest in central Massachusetts. Melillo and his associates have developed and used a simulation model, the Terrestrial Ecosystem Model, to consider the impacts of various aspects of global change (climate, chemistry of the atmosphere and precipitation, land cover and land use). TEM is part of the Integrated Global Systems Model, an integrated assessment model, based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Melillo also chaired the federal advisory committee that prepared the Third U.S. National Climate Assessment for release this spring.

Joining Melillo as new Academy members are 13 other scientists who are affiliated with MBL.

Joseph Kanabrocki appointed associate vice president for research safety

Mon, 28 Apr 2014 17:06 -0500

Joseph Kanabrocki, associate professor of microbiology, assistant dean for biosafety and select agent responsible official for the Biological Sciences Division at the University of Chicago, has been appointed associate vice president for research safety, effective May 1.

In his new position, Kanabrocki will lead an important new enterprise, the University’s Office of Research Safety, situated within the Office of the Vice President for Research and for National Laboratories. He also will serve as the biological safety officer and select agent responsible official for the University.

The creation of the Office of Research Safety reflects the University’s institutional commitment to safety. The office is charged with instilling a culture that focuses on the health and well-being of all UChicago personnel engaged in research activities. The new office will be guided institutionally by the Research Safety Policy Council, which will be chaired by the provost and composed of the vice president for research and for national laboratories, relevant deans and other appropriate University leaders. The council will be responsible for reviewing and approving University-wide research safety standards, policies and procedures, which the Office of Research Safety will then implement.

”Safety is integral to the University’s scientific research mission,” said Provost Eric Isaacs. “Our exceptional faculty, students and staff care deeply about safety and the responsible conduct of research. The new Office of Research Safety will develop and implement coherent research safety standards, policies and training to bolster these efforts University-wide.”

In his new role, Kanabrocki will provide staff support to the council and lead a Research Safety Leadership Team to assist in the development of standards and policies for review and approval. He will also work closely with counterparts in the academic divisions, the University Environmental Health and Safety Office, the Animal Resources Center and, as appropriate, with Argonne National Laboratory, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and the Marine Biological Laboratory.

“Joe is exceptionally well-qualified to lead this critical endeavor,” said Donald H. Levy, vice president for research and for national laboratories. “His deep expertise in biosafety management will help us to instill the highest possible safety standards and practices for all of the world-changing research that takes place here.”

“Having worked with Joe in the past, I know he is very talented in taking a balanced approach to integrating safety into our research programs,” added Isaacs, who formerly was the director of Argonne.

As assistant dean for biosafety, Kanabrocki served as select agent responsible official, University biosafety officer and director of the biosafety programs at the University’s Ricketts Regional Biocontainment Laboratory at Argonne and the Great Lakes Regional Center of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases Research. As associate professor for microbiology he supervised the training of postdoctoral fellows in biosafety and select agent research safety.

Prior to that, Kanabrocki was director of biological safety/biological safety officer, assistant director of Environmental Health and Safety and assistant research professor in the Department of Molecular Microbiology at Washington University in St. Louis. He also served as the administrative officer for the Washington University Institutional Biological and Chemical Safety Committee as well as the institution’s responsible official for the Select Agent Program. Prior to this appointment, he served as the responsible official and as biosafety officer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for eight years.

Kanabrocki earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Notre Dame and his PhD in microbiology from the University of South Dakota School of Medicine. He was trained as a postdoctoral fellow in the Section of Genetics and Development at Cornell University and in the Laboratory of Molecular Biology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

He obtained his professional certifications as a Certified Biological Safety Professional from the American Biological Safety Association, where he has been a member since 1992, and from the National Registry of Microbiologists-Specialist Biological Safety.

Kanabrocki is a former voting member of the NIH Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee and currently serves as a member of the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity. He also serves as chair of the Biological Safety Examination Board for the American Society for Microbiology National Registry of Microbiologists and is a former member of the Scientific Advisory Board for the National Institutes of Health National Biosafety and Biocontainment Training Program. He has written extensively about biosafety education, risk assessment and operations in scholarly journals as well as the popular press, given interviews and testimony, and has been an invited speaker at many national and international biosafety conferences.

“I am humbled and honored at the opportunity to lead this important new Office of Research Safety at the University of Chicago,” said Kanabrocki. “I look forward to working closely with existing programs, departments and individuals who are proponents of a culture of responsible research of which research safety is a critical component. It is our goal to partner with the research community to provide an environment where discovery and the responsible conduct of research are seamlessly integrated.”

Peter B. Littlewood appointed director of Argonne National Laboratory

Tue, 25 Mar 2014 12:08 -0500

Peter B. Littlewood, a professor of physics at the University of Chicago and the associate laboratory director for Physical Sciences and Engineering at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory, has been selected to serve as Argonne’s 13th director, President Robert J. Zimmer announced March 25.

Littlewood becomes director at a time of significant growth and momentum for Argonne, marked by transformational scientific discoveries and a key role in the region’s expanding innovation ecosystem. Landmark projects are underway in fields such as high-performance computing and energy storage, even as the laboratory builds next-generation facilities.

As associate laboratory director, Littlewood has led an innovative cross-disciplinary approach that brings together leading researchers in materials science, physics, chemistry and computation to create new materials with the potential to revolutionize energy science. Those efforts made Argonne a key part of the Center for Hierarchical Materials Design, which was recently awarded $25 million by the National Institute of Standards and Technology to establish a new center of excellence for advanced materials research.

Littlewood will succeed Eric D. Isaacs, who is leaving Argonne to become provost at the University of Chicago on March 31.

“Peter has an international reputation as an accomplished scientist, and a record of strong leadership in guiding scientific organizations,” said Zimmer, who is chairman of the board of governors of UChicago Argonne LLC, which manages the laboratory. “We look forward to working with him to advance Argonne and its partnerships, which are addressing some of the most important scientific challenges of our time.”

'Right person to lead Argonne'

The University of Chicago has managed Argonne for DOE since 1946, when the laboratory was established under the guidance of its first director, Nobel laureate Enrico Fermi. Since then, Argonne has grown to be one of the nation’s foremost centers for discovery and innovation in clean energy, environment, technology and national security.

Littlewood was recommended by a search committee of eight distinguished scientists and leaders led by Don Levy, vice president for research and for national laboratories at the University of Chicago and chief executive officer of UChicago Argonne, LLC. His selection was strongly endorsed by U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz.

“The director’s position is of crucial importance to Argonne, to the DOE and to the future of our nation’s scientific research enterprise,” said Patricia Dehmer, acting director of the DOE’s Office of Science. “Building upon Argonne’s record of outstanding achievement and his own leadership in the physics community, Dr. Littlewood will guide the laboratory’s vision, identify new challenges, and develop a strategy to continue delivering world-renowned, mission-driven research and innovation.”

As Argonne’s director, Littlewood will have oversight responsibility for a variety of high-impact projects at the laboratory.

The laboratory has already launched the Advanced Photon Source Upgrade project, building a powerful, versatile, next-generation facility that will assure U.S. leadership in synchrotron science.

Scientists at Argonne also are leading a high-performance computing effort, which has set a goal of building the world’s first exascale computer, capable of one million trillion operations per second. Argonne is also home to the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research, designated in 2013 as the DOE’s Batteries and Energy Storage Hub, a $120 million five-year effort to create transformative new battery systems for transportation and the grid.

Littlewood will guide Argonne’s multiyear Lab Modernization plan, which is bringing state-of-the-art research facilities to the Argonne campus outside Chicago.

“Peter is the right person to lead Argonne at this moment in the lab’s history. He is a brilliant scientist who has a great gift for bringing talented people together and inspiring them to collaborate in powerful, productive new ways,” Isaacs said. “In his three years at Argonne, Peter has dramatically strengthened Argonne’s work in the physical sciences by reaching across the laboratory, and bringing computation, synthesis and imaging together as a fundamental part of materials discovery and creation.

“In my new role as provost, I look forward to working closely with Peter to continue building on the partnership between Argonne and the University, and supporting the growing eminence of institutions such as the Institute for Molecular Engineering and the Chicago Innovation Exchange,” Isaacs said.

building upon lab's legacy

Littlewood has been a key contributor to the Institute for Molecular Engineering, which UChicago established in 2011 in partnership with Argonne. The Institute is using molecular-level science to address some of the world’s most challenging technological problems—from assuring safe, clean and abundant water resources to creating the new materials genome.

“I am proud to follow in the footsteps of so many great scientists and leaders in this powerful laboratory,” Littlewood said. “Argonne has changed the world by finding solutions to big challenges for both science and society, from the science of the nucleus to nuclear power, and from the structure of the universe to the structure of proteins. Engaging the grand challenges of energy and sustainability, Argonne is well positioned with our great legacy, strong programs, and above all, our talented and committed staff. It will be an honor to assist them to even greater successes.”

Littlewood came to Argonne from the University of Cambridge, where he served as head of the Cavendish Laboratory and the Department of Physics, and before that the Cavendish’s Theory of Condensed Matter Group. There, he stewarded new programs ranging from biophysics and atomic physics to sustainability and energy sciences, initiating substantial budget growth and new laboratory construction in biophysics and astrophysics.

During a 2003-2004 sabbatical leave, he was the Matthias Scholar at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he did collaborative research with laboratory staff in theoretical physics, materials science, atomic physics and nuclear radiation detection. From 1980 through 1997, Littlewood worked at Bell Laboratories, where he rose to become head of Theoretical Physics Research. He was named a distinguished member of Bell Labs’ technical staff in 1989. He also has been a consultant for Los Alamos National Laboratory, the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Littlewood holds a bachelor’s degree in natural sciences (physics) and a PhD in physics, both from the University of Cambridge. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of London, the Institute of Physics and the American Physical Society, and is an associate member of The World Academy of Sciences. Littlewood holds six patents and has published more than 200 articles in scientific journals. A notable speaker, he has given more than 100 invited talks at international conferences, universities and laboratories.

Littlewood serves as a professor of physics in the University of Chicago’s James Franck Institute; he also is a fellow of the University’s Institute for Molecular Engineering.

About Argonne National Laboratory

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology. The nation’s first national laboratory, Argonne conducts basic and applied scientific research in many major scientific disciplines. Argonne researchers work closely with researchers from hundreds of universities, companies, and federal, state and municipal agencies to help advance America’s scientific leadership, solve specific problems and contribute to the nation's strength in the future. With employees from more than 60 nations, Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science.

About UChicago Argonne LLC

The University of Chicago has served as prime contractor of Argonne since the lab’s founding in 1946 as an outgrowth of the Manhattan Project and the University’s Metallurgical Laboratory. Through UChicago Argonne, LLC, the University of Chicago brings the best of commercial practices and marshals the talent of Illinois’ leading research universities to lead Argonne into the future.

American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering honors Ka Yee Lee

Thu, 30 Jan 2014 13:50 -0600

The University of Chicago’s Ka Yee Lee has been elected to the College of Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.

Lee is a professor in chemistry, director of the National Science Foundation’s Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at UChicago and a fellow of the Institute for Molecular Engineering.

Her interdisciplinary orientation is further reflected in her affiliations with UChicago’s James Franck Institute and the Institute for Biophysical Dynamics. She will be inducted into the College of Fellows March 24 at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., during AIMBE’s annual meeting.

Lee conducts research on lung surfactant, a complex mixture of lipids and proteins that assists the breathing process. Her work also aims at elucidating the membrane disruptive mechanism of antimicrobial peptides, the effects of cholesterol on membrane structure and assembly, the role of lipids in immunological response and the mechanism of membrane sealing by polymers.

The College of Fellows consists of 1,500 outstanding bioengineers in academia, industry and government who have distinguished themselves as leaders through their contributions in research, industrial practice and/or education.

The Washington, D.C.-based AIMBE is a nonprofit organization representing 50,000 members, including the top two percent of medical and biological engineers. AIMBE also represents academic institutions, private industry and professional engineering societies.