UChicago News

University to bestow five honorary degrees at Convocation

Tue, 29 May 2018 14:48 -0500

The University of Chicago will present honorary degrees to five distinguished scholars during the 531st Convocation on June 9.

The honorary degree recipients are Fabiola Gianotti, the director-general of CERN; Charles M. Lieber, chair of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology and the Joshua and Beth Friedman University Professor at Harvard University; Michael C.A. Macdonald, research associate in the faculty of Oriental Studies and the Khalili Research Centre at the University of Oxford; Robert E. Ricklefs, the Curator’s Distinguished Professor of Biology at the University of Missouri-St. Louis; and William S-Y. Wang, chair professor of Language and Cognitive Sciences at Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Fabiola Gianotti, an experimental particle physicist who led the search and characterization of the Higgs boson, will receive the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Science.

Gianotti led the 3,000-member ATLAS collaboration since its inception at CERN Laboratory to search for the Higgs boson, one of the most sought-after objects in scientific history. Her early career was devoted to the search for supersymmetric particles, which could provide stability to nature’s two very different fundamental energy scales—gravity and weak interaction.

Gianotti is a member of the Italian Academy of Sciences, a foreign associate of the United States National Academy of Sciences and the French Academy of Sciences, and an honorary member of the Royal Irish Academy. She is the author or co-author of more than 500 publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Her scientific and societal contributions have been recognized by prestigious honors, including the Special Fundamental Physics Prize of the Milner Foundation, the Enrico Fermi Prize of the Italian Physical Society, the Medal of Honor of the Niels Bohr Institute of Copenhagen, and the honor of “Cavaliere di Gran Croce dell’ordine al merito della Repubblica” by Italian President Giorgio Napolitano.

Charles M. Lieber, a groundbreaking scholar of nanoscience and nanomaterials, will receive the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Science.

Lieber has defined directions and demonstrated applications of nanomaterials in areas like electronics, computing and photonics, and has pioneered the interface of nanoelectronics with biology and medicine, including his current focus on brain science. He has originated new paradigms that have defined the rational growth, characterization and original applications of functional nanometer diameter wires and heterostructures, and provided seminal concepts central to the bottom-up paradigm of nanoscience.

Lieber’s work has been recognized by a number of awards, including two National Institutes of Health Director’s Pioneer Awards, the MRS Von Hippel Award, the Willard Gibbs Medal and the Wolf Prize in Chemistry. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine. He is also a fellow of the Materials Research Society and American Chemical Society, and honorary fellow of the Chinese Chemical Society. In addition, Lieber is co-editor of the journal Nano Letters, and serves on the editorial and advisory boards of a number of other journals. He has published over 395 papers in peer-reviewed journals, and is the principal inventor on more than 40 patents.

Michael C.A. Macdonald, a leading expert in early language and civilization in the Arabian Peninsula, will receive the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Humane Letters.

Macdonald has improved knowledge of the languages, religions, cultures and history of ancient Arabia and neighboring areas, including the Hellenistic and Roman Near East, through his scholarship on the vast number of inscriptions on the Arabian peninsula that predate the language of the Quran. Macdonald created the Online Corpus of the Inscriptions of Ancient North Arabia, a database that collects more than 70,000 inscriptions, many of which were unearthed, edited and translated by Macdonald himself. He was instrumental in establishing the field of Ancient North Arabian studies as an academic field in its own right, and has been its foremost scholar for the past three decades. He has fundamentally enabled the work of scholars of Ancient North Arabia, and has contributed research and writing that has shaped and guided this field.

In addition to his many articles, Macdonald also wrote the book Literacy and Identity in Pre-Islamic Arabia (2009). Macdonald was elected to the Fellowship of the British Academy in 2016.

Robert E. Ricklefs, a leading figure in evolutionary ecology, will receive the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Science.

Ricklefs has contributed fundamental research linking disease dynamics to macro-ecology, linking life-history evolution with macro-evolutionary patterns, and searching for commonalities in patterns of ecological communities across types of organisms and geographic areas. His research focused on history’s role in determining population densities and distributions on islands, at a time when other leading ecological researchers were emphasizing the importance of species interactions at local scales for shaping species distributions. Because of this, his work represents the modern foundation for the recent synthesis of local conditions and historical processes in shaping the composition of communities of organisms.

Ricklefs is the recipient of the 2015 Ramon Margalef Prize from the government of Catalonia, the 2011 Alfred Russel Wallace award from the International Biogeography Society and the 1999 President’s Award from the American Society of Naturalists, among other honors. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

William S-Y. Wang, a pioneer in the study of language evolution and the emergence of new languages, will receive the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Humane Letters.

Wang is an internationally renowned linguist whose scholarship and academic impact have spanned two continents across the Pacific Ocean. He has performed multidisciplinary research on the biological and evolutionary basis of language, as well as computational linguistics with a focus on the production and processing of language, the brain and computer interface, machine translation, and speech synthesis and recognition. He was one of the first to apply a combination of linguistics and acoustics to the problem of machine recognition of speech.

Wang is the founder and lead editor of the Journal of Chinese Linguistics, which is the top publication in this field. He has had full professorial careers at the University of California, Berkeley; at the City University of Hong Kong; and at National Taiwan Normal University. His wide-ranging scholarship has been written in or translated into Chinese, English, French, German, Italian and Japanese.

Martin Baron, executive editor of The Washington Post, to receive Benton Medal

Thu, 24 May 2018 16:50 -0500

The University will award the Benton Medal for Distinguished Public Service to Martin Baron, executive editor of The Washington Post. Baron will receive his honor at the University of Chicago’s 531st Convocation on June 9.

Baron is regarded as an influential leader in the field of investigative journalism, whose work reflects dedication to fact-based reporting around difficult or controversial issues, the responsibility to inform the public and the protection of freedom of the press. He is the 15th recipient of the Benton Medal, which recognizes people who have rendered distinguished public service in the field of education, including anyone who has contributed in a systematic and distinguished way to shaping minds and disseminating knowledge.

Baron oversees more than 800 journalists at The Washington Post. News organizations under his leadership have won 14 Pulitzer Prizes, including seven at The Post, six at The Boston Globe and one at The Miami Herald. In Boston, he launched an investigation of the Catholic Church’s cover-up of clergy sexual abuse that won the Pulitzer Prize for public service and was portrayed in the Academy Award-winning film Spotlight. He also held top posts at The New York Times and Los Angeles Times.

Baron is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was awarded the 2016 Hitchens Prize from the Dennis & Victoria Ross Foundation, which is bestowed upon a journalist or author whose work “reflects a commitment to free expression, a depth of intellect and an unswerving pursuit of the truth, without regard to personal or professional consequence.”

Nominations for the Benton Medal are submitted by members of the faculty, evaluated by the Committee on Awards and Prizes and voted upon by the Council of the University Senate.

The University President extends an invitation to Benton nominees to receive their medals during Convocation. The nominees also are invited to give a public lecture or workshop the following academic year.

Chicago Booth’s Douglas Diamond wins Onassis Prize in Finance

Wed, 25 Apr 2018 09:30 -0500

Prof. Douglas W. Diamond, one of the world's leading authorities on bank runs and liquidity crises who is considered the father of modern banking theory, has been awarded the 2018 Onassis Prize in Finance.

Awarded every three years, the Onassis Prize recognizes the world’s foremost academics in the fields of finance, international trade and shipping, to honor outstanding academic achievements that have had international significance. Nobel laureate and Chicago Booth scholar Eugene Fama won the inaugural prize in finance in 2009.

“I am delighted to receive the Onassis Prize,” said Diamond, the Merton H. Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. “After the recent financial crisis, policymakers and scholars have a renewed focus on the stability of financial institutions.”

Diamond changed the way people view banks through his pioneering research, which laid the groundwork for how central bankers, regulators, policymakers and academics approach modern finance. His research agenda for the past 30 years has been to explain what banks do, why they do it and the consequences of these arrangements.

Named after Aristotle Onassis who excelled in these three disciplines, each Onassis Prize is worth $200,000; they are sponsored by the Onassis Foundation and awarded jointly by Cass Business School London with the Onassis Foundation.

—This story first appeared on the Chicago Booth website.

Robert H. Malott, trustee emeritus, 1926-2018

Thu, 19 Apr 2018 14:00 -0500

Trustee Emeritus Robert H. Malott, former chairman and chief executive officer of FMC Corporation, who served as vice chairman of the University of Chicago Board of Trustees, died April 4. He was 91 years old.

Malott was elected a trustee of the University in 1976. He served as vice chairman of the Board of Trustees from 1988 to 1993, was elected a life trustee in 1993, and was named a trustee emeritus in 2007. Malott joined FMC in 1952 and was elected chief executive in 1971, moving the corporate headquarters to Chicago. He led FMC for two decades, retiring in 1991.

Malott’s civic leadership and philanthropic work ranged from higher education to scientific research to the arts. He served on the governing board of Argonne National Laboratory, which the University manages for the U.S. Department of Energy, and chairman of the board of overseers of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Malott was chairman of the board of the National Museum of Natural History and served on the boards of the Public Broadcasting Service, the National World War II Museum and the National Academy of Sciences. He was a life director of the Lyric Opera Company of Chicago and the Chicago Botanic Garden.

Malott was born in Boston. His father, Deane W. Malott, became chancellor of the University of Kansas where his son enrolled at age 16, studying chemistry and playing basketball. Malott enlisted in the U.S. Navy a year later and served on an electronics repair ship stationed in San Francisco. After World War II, he returned to the University of Kansas to finish his bachelor's degree. He earned an MBA from Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration and attended New York University Law School. Malott served as assistant to the dean at the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration before joining FMC.

Malott is survived by his three children, Liza, Barb and Deane. Elizabeth “Ibby” Malott, his wife of 43 years, died in 2003. In keeping with UChicago board tradition, a memorial resolution in honor of Malott will be presented at the board meeting in May.

John T. Cacioppo, pioneer and founder of the field of social neuroscience, 1951-2018

Thu, 08 Mar 2018 10:17 -0600

Prof. John T. Cacioppo, a pioneer and founder of the field of social neuroscience whose research on loneliness helped to transform psychology and neuroscience, died unexpectedly and peacefully at home on March 5. He was 66.

Cacioppo was the Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor of Psychology at the University of Chicago and served as director of the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience and chair of the Social Psychology Program. He is survived by his beloved wife, Stephanie, director of the brain dynamics laboratory at the University; and two children, Anthony and Christina.

“John’s passing is a profound loss for the field, the University, and the many, many colleagues, students and friends who knew him and learned from his myriad of contributions,” said Amanda Woodward, the William S. Gray Distinguished Service Professor of Psychology and interim dean of the Division of Social Sciences. “His influence across psychology, social neuroscience and health science was enormous, not only as a scientist but as an advocate for science. His legacy cannot be overstated.”

Cacioppo’s colleagues and family said he will be remembered as a truth seeker, creative genius, brilliant scientist, innovator, colleague, teacher, mentor, leader, father and husband.

“There are so few people of whom we can truly say, ‘He was one of a kind,’ but of John it was painfully, obviously true,” said Daniel Gilbert, the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University.

“His influence across psychology, social neuroscience and health science was enormous, not only as a scientist but as an advocate for science.”Prof. Amanda Woodward

Social neuroscience as a distinct field of study was first coined by Cacioppo and colleagues at Ohio State University in 1992. The interdisciplinary field that Cacioppo developed focused on human and animal investigations of the multi-level interactions between neural, hormonal, cellular, and genetic/genomic mechanisms underlying social structures and processes. While most research in neuroscience focused on the individual, the new discipline examined the associations between social and neural development and evolution from a multi-disciplinary perspective.

“John's work embodied everything we strive for: tackling the most important questions with all the tools available, no matter how big the challenge,” said former colleague Ralph Adolphs, the Bren Professor of Psychology, Neuroscience and Biology at the California Institute of Technology.

‘Visionary research’

Born June 12, 1951 in Marshall, Texas, Cacioppo received his PhD in psychology from the Ohio State University in 1977. He began his career at the University of Notre Dame before returning to Ohio State in 1989. He joined the University of Chicago’s faculty in 1999.

“John Cacioppo conducted visionary research that made groundbreaking contributions to psychology and other fields in the social and biological sciences,” said Susan Levine, the Rebecca Anne Boylan Professor in Education and Society and chair of the Department of Psychology at the University of Chicago. “As a colleague, he played a leading role in our graduate program in Social Psychology and was a dedicated undergraduate teacher regularly teaching Fundamentals of Psychology, which introduces many students to the field. He will be greatly missed.”

Cacioppo began his research by exploring what happens to the brain when social connections are absent. For two decades he studied social fitness, resilience and the effects of loneliness, showing the negative impacts social isolation has not only on mental health but physical health.

“The purpose of loneliness is like the purpose of hunger,” Cacioppo said in a 2017 interview with The Atlantic. “Hunger takes care of your physical body. Loneliness takes care of your social body, which you also need to survive and prosper. We’re a social species.”

In a 2016 interview with the Guardian, he had emphasized that human beings thrive best when not only receiving, but also giving, affection: “One of the things that we have learned is that avoiding loneliness is not about ‘getting,’ not about being a recipient. Despite what economists say, that is not how we are designed. We need mutual aid and protection.”

John and Stephanie Cacioppo (Photo by Joe Sterbenc)

Cacioppo met his wife, Asst. Prof. Stephanie Cacioppo, at a scientific conference in Shanghai, and they married in 2011. Friends and colleagues said the two set an inspiring example of true love and how to love deeply in a marriage.

Stephanie Cacioppo’s academic specialty is love and its benefits. She joined the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Medicine, and the two shared an office and a desk, maintaining a partnership in life and in research. Their romance was featured in a recent “Modern Love” column in The New York Times, which emphasized Stephanie Cacioppo’s research finding that love brings with it physical and mental benefits, such as thinking better and healing faster. She called their marriage “the perfect meeting of the study of loneliness with the study of love.”

Stephanie Cacioppo said she is devastated by her husband’s passing and described their seven years of marriage as “the best years of my life.” She said she will be forever bonded to him by love, truth and science.

“My husband was my everything. He was the smartest and the kindest person I have ever met. He was, he is and he will remain the love of my life; my intellectual hero, my inspiration, and my role model in life and science,” Stephanie Cacioppo said. “His legacy will live on through his seminal work, our forever lasting love and through all of us whose minds had the privilege of his influence.”

‘Impossible to replace’

Over a celebrated career, John Cacioppo made several breakthroughs and authored more than 500 articles and books, including Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connections (2008).

“John Cacioppo has been more influential on my thinking than anyone else. He will be truly impossible to replace,” said Jay Van Bavel, associate professor of psychology and neural science at New York University.

Cacioppo was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, served on numerous advisory panels, including the President’s Committee on the National Medal of Science as an appointee by President Obama, and was elected as a fellow to 19 scientific societies. He also served as the president of several societies and was the founding faculty director of the Brain Academy and the Arete Initiative of the Office of the Vice President for Research and National Laboratories at the University of Chicago, a program that helped to promote the careers of faculty by advancing their ideas with funding agencies.

“This is a terrible loss for all of us,” said Eric Isaacs, UChicago's executive vice president for research, innovation and national laboratories. “John was a wonderful and caring person and an incredible leader in science and scholarship. There are very few who have had such a significant influence by helping to create a new field of study. Social neuroscience continues to be of growing importance to science and society. John leaves a remarkable legacy.”

“His legacy will live on through his seminal work, our forever lasting love and through all of us whose minds had the privilege of his influence.”Stephanie Cacioppo

Cacioppo’s innovative lines of inquiry and his substantive findings received wide recognition, including the Distinguished Scientist Award from the Society for Experimental Social Psychology (2015), the Distinguished Scholar Award from the Social and Affective Neuroscience Society (2016), and the Career Achievement Award from the Chicago Society for Neuroscience (2016).

“Put simply, John is one of those once-in-a-generation psychologists whose impact is felt broadly and deeply within the field. He is a creative genius whose cumulative accomplishments are so inseparable from the field that it is hard to imagine contemporary psychology without him,” said longtime collaborator Richard E. Petty, Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Psychology at Ohio State University.

In 2017, Cacioppo was honored with the Phoenix Prize, the Division of the Social Sciences’ highest honor, for his exceptional work which shaped the direction of research and inquiry around the world. Cacioppo was only the fifth faculty member to receive the prize, which was established in 1994.

In May, Cacioppo was to receive the prestigious William James Fellow Award from the Association for Psychological Sciences for a lifetime of “significant intellectual contributions to the basic science of psychology.”

As director of the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience, Cacioppo led investigations to better understand the functions of the brain and nervous system and their implications for human cognition, behavior, health and societies.

A University memorial service will be held at 6 p.m. March 28 at Rockefeller Memorial Chapel. In lieu of flowers, please consider a gift to a fund supporting Prof. Cacioppo’s work and legacy. For more information, contact Blake Davis at (773) 702-7175 or blake2@uchicago.edu.

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

Tue, 06 Mar 2018 09:03 -0600

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—Adapted from a Chicago Architecture Biennial news release.

Steven Collins, world-renowned scholar of Buddhism, 1951-2018

Thu, 01 Mar 2018 11:52 -0600

Prof. Steven Collins, a world-renowned scholar of Buddhism and its associated Pali language, passed away from natural causes Feb. 15, while leading a seminar in New Zealand. He was 66.

The Chester D. Tripp Professor in the Humanities, Collins chaired the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations several times since joining the UChicago faculty in 1991. He was also associate faculty in the Divinity School.

Whitney Cox, associate professor and chair of South Asian Languages and Civilizations, said Collins was one of his generation’s most distinguished historians of premodern Southern Asia.

“He was perhaps the single most sheerly intelligent person I’ve ever known, a great citizen of the University, and a wise and compassionate teacher and friend,” Cox said. He described Collins as a “doting husband, father and grandfather, an obsessive Miles Davis and John Coltrane fan, and a lifelong supporter of Tottenham Hotspur F.C. soccer.”

Collins was the author of several books on Buddhist studies. His thesis became the basis for his first book, Selfless Persons. He later examined the makings of Buddhist civilization—an idea he explored in Nirvana: Concept, Imagery, Narrative. Most recently he was writing about civilization, wisdom and practices of the self.

Daniel Arnold, associate professor of the philosophy of religions in UChicago’s Divinity School, said he had a “transformative encounter” with Collins’ Selfless Persons as a graduate student. He later became Collins’ colleague and counted him a friend.

“I will miss many things after his tragically untimely passing,” Arnold said. “May all who of us who learned from his exemplary intellectual engagement strive to continue bringing something of this lost clarity of thought to a world badly in need of it.”

Collins is survived by his wife, Claude Grangier, senior lecturer in Romance Languages and Literatures at UChicago; as well as three children and three grandchildren.

Two UChicago faculty members win Sloan research fellowships

Mon, 26 Feb 2018 12:35 -0600

University of Chicago chemist Timothy Berkelbach and neurobiologist Mark Sheffield have been awarded Sloan research fellowships.

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation gives the awards annually to early-career scholars identified as the promising scientific researchers working today in the United States and Canada. This year's 126 winners will receive $65,000, which may be spent over a two-year term on any expense supportive of their research.

Candidates must be nominated by their fellow scientists, and fellows are selected by an independent panel of senior scholars on the basis of a candidate’s independent research accomplishments, creativity and potential.

Tim Berkelbach, a Neubauer Family Assistant Professor, is a theoretical chemist who studies the electronic and optical properties of nanoscale materials. His group adapts computational models written for tens of atoms and scales them up to work for sets of hundreds or thousands—which you need to model materials for applications in solar energy, catalysis and manufacturing, chemical sensing and electronics.

“It’s an honor to be selected, especially alongside such an amazing lineup of people who have been recognized as Sloan fellows over the years,” Berkelbach said.

He joined the University in 2016.

Asst. Prof. Mark Sheffield studies memory—how memories are formed, retrieved and altered over time. Recent advances now let scientists identify, monitor and manipulate the neurons involved in a specific memory; his lab uses imaging and optogenetics to track how individual and groups of neurons in the hippocampus (the center of emotion and memory) interact.

“We know quite a lot about memory at a psychological level, but our understanding of the neurobiology that underlies memory function lags far behind,” Sheffield said. “We’re very excited, with the help of the Sloan fellowship, to move forward with these experiments, which we hope will provide insight for the development of treatments for memory disorders such as Alzheimer’s and PTSD.”

He joined the University in 2017.

Robert McCormick Adams, anthropologist, former provost and Oriental Institute director, 1926-2018

Mon, 05 Feb 2018 15:10 -0600

By 1950, University of Chicago student Robert McCormick Adams had already been a steel mill worker, a physics student and a Navy radio technician, and thought he wanted to be a journalist. Then one day his professor, renowned anthropologist Robert Braidwood, had a sudden opening on an archaeological dig in the foothills of Iraq that would change Adams’ life.

Adams, PhB’47, AM’52, PhD’56, was picked because he knew how to work on cars, but the chance trip would lead to decades of digs in Iraq, Mexico, Iran and Saudi Arabia. It opened a wide-ranging career at the University of Chicago, where he spent nearly three decades and served as director of the Oriental Institute and provost of the University before leaving to direct the Smithsonian Institution.

The Harold H. Swift Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, Adams died Jan. 27 at age 91. Colleagues remember the prolific scholar as one of the most influential figures in the archaeology of ancient complex societies, who fundamentally transformed theories about the origins of urbanism before leaving to shape museums in the nation’s capital.

“Bob was a towering figure of Near Eastern archaeology and a pioneer of innovative methods of landscape archaeology,” said Christopher Woods, director of the Oriental Institute. “He was fundamentally interested in the reciprocal interaction between humans and their environments—how civilization and geography are inextricably intertwined.”

Adams’ scholarship focused on the relationships between societies and their environment, with particular interest in social evolutionary theory and how innovation is connected to societal structure. He was an early pioneer of the technique of using aerial photography and satellite images, which he combined with historical and ethnographic data to investigate settlement patterns, irrigation structures and early urbanism. Later in his career Adams was renowned for his lucid observations about the responsibilities of archaeologists—and science itself.

Adams later served as director of the Oriental Institute from 1962-68 and 1981-83. He was dean of the Division of the Social Sciences from 1970-74 before being appointed provost of the University in 1982.

“As a student, a scholar and an administrator, Professor Adams made contributions to the University of Chicago throughout his life,” said Amanda Woodward, interim dean of the Division of the Social Sciences and the William S. Gray Distinguished Service Professor of Psychology. “His many achievements are a testament to his dedication to this institution, and his leadership not only influenced the Division of the Social Sciences and the Oriental Institute but also enriched the reach of the social sciences to people across the nation.”

During his decade-long tenure at the Smithsonian, Adams oversaw the opening of the National Museum of the American Indian, the National Museum of African Art and the National Postal Museum. He also headed renovations to aging infrastructure, encouraged digitization of its research, made a point to involve indigenous communities in museum planning, and oversaw a shift to spotlight darker or more controversial points of American history and science, such as an Enola Gay exhibit in the National Air and Space Museum.

His numerous books include The Evolution of Urban Society, Paths of Fire, Heartland of Cities and The Land Behind Baghdad. After his retirement in 1994, he continued his research as an adjunct professor at the University of California in San Diego.

In an American Antiquity article reviewing Adams’ work, Norman Yoffee wrote, “Few archaeologists have had the power to influence the course of their times as has Adams, nor to have done it so well.”

His honors include the distinguished service award from the Society of American Archaeology and the UChicago Alumni Association’s Alumni Medal, bestowed for achievement of an exceptional nature.

At the University he met and married Ruth Salzman Adams, who became the editor of The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists and director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois. She died in 2005.

Prof. Richard Thaler delivers Nobel Prize lecture

Fri, 08 Dec 2017 13:37 -0600

Until Prof. Richard H. Thaler came along, economists resisted the idea of basing their models on how real people behave. The reality is people don’t always know what they want, much less what’s best for them.

In October, Thaler was honored with the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for his pioneering scholarship in the field of behavioral economics. On Dec. 8, the Chicago Booth scholar delivered his Nobel lecture in Stockholm as part of a weeklong celebration of the 2017 Nobel laureates. He will receive his Nobel Medal on Dec. 10 at a white-tie-and-tails affair at the Stockholm Concert Hall. (Live webcast begins at 7:30 a.m. CST here).

In his Nobel speech, entitled “From Cashews to Nudges: The Evolution of Behavioral Economics,” Thaler told stories of various field experiments in his everyday life—ranging from a dinner party as a graduate student in Rochester, N.Y. in the 1970s to the Swedish government’s present-day effort to get its citizens to sign up for retirement plans.

Prof. Richard Thaler delivers the 2017 Nobel Prize Lecture in Economic Sciences on Dec. 8. (Photo by Henrik Montgomery / TT)

“One lesson from these stories is that there are a bunch of things economic theory says we can leave out, and in fact, makes the strong prediction that they simply will not matter,” Thaler said in his Nobel address. “I call these ‘supposedly irrelevant factors.’ And really my research can be summarized as there are a lot of these supposedly irrelevant factors that are not irrelevant. They matter.”

Thaler launched his journey as one of the founders of behavioral economics with a bowl of cashews at a dinner party. He was concerned his guests were eating too many and that it would spoil their appetites, so he took them away. His guests, all economists, were happy when he removed the nuts, and that led to a discussion: How could they be happy, given that a first principle of economics is more choices are better than fewer choices?

“If we learn from other social scientists, we can improve economics and increase its explanatory power, and it can give us new tools we can use to improve people’s outcome. In short, we can nudge them.”Prof. Richard H. Thaler

Eminent bioengineering scholar to lead UChicago’s Center for Physics of Evolving Systems

Thu, 07 Dec 2017 14:15 -0600

The University of Chicago is launching the Center for Physics of Evolving Systems to study the secrets behind the extraordinary efficiency, flexibility and robustness of biological systems designed via evolution.

The new center will span the Division of the Biological Sciences and the Institute for Molecular Engineering, bringing together faculty across biology, physics and engineering, and potentially the humanities.

Nature is full of systems that boggle the minds of engineers. Built by evolution, these systems—like the proteins in our cells—are constantly performing very precise and complex tasks, while adapting to startlingly fast to new conditions. This fascinates scientists, who want to illuminate the fundamental principles of design and physics at play—both to understand biology and disease and to improve engineering.

To lead the center, prominent scientist Rama Ranganathan has joined UChicago as professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and the Institute for Molecular Engineering. He will also lead the BioCARS beamline at the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory.

“Collaboration across several scientific disciplines has always been a defining feature of research at the University of Chicago,” said Kenneth Polonsky, dean of the Biological Sciences Division and Pritzker School of Medicine, and executive vice president for medical affairs at the University of Chicago. “The creation of this new center, with Professor Ranganathan at the helm, continues that tradition as we explore the fundamental mechanisms that define all biological systems.”

Ranganathan studies the evolution of biological systems like proteins and cellular signaling—decoding the complex processes by which cells communicate with each other and sense their environments. His laboratory combines experimental laboratory work with modeling and simulation, all to unravel the dynamics of biological systems.

“My goal has always been the understanding of living systems and the design principles that underlie them,” Ranganathan said. “Thanks to a series of breakthroughs in the past decade, we’re now at a point where we can begin transitioning now from studying parts of the system to trying to understand the whole.”

Once one understands evolution, Ranganathan said, one can bring the same principles to bear to engineering; man-made machines lag far behind natural systems in their flexibility and resilience.

“Professor Ranganathan’s focus on understanding the curious mix of robustness and sensitivity of biological systems holds many instructive insights for several of the Institute for Molecular Engineering’s goals, such as our immunology program,” said Matt Tirrell, the founding Pritzker Director of the Institute for Molecular Engineering.

Ranganathan said that he was attracted to UChicago’s approach to basic science research. “I’ve always admired the University’s enormous commitment to fundamental sciences,” he said. The breadth of the University’s research was attractive as well: “This really resonates with my idea of the Center for Physics of Evolving Systems, which is to draw from the strengths of different areas to try to address this problem of evolution.”

Ranganathan arrives from the University of Texas-Southwestern, where he led the Cecil H. and Ida Green Center for Systems Biology.

He received his bachelor’s degree in bioengineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and his MD and PhD from the University of California, San Diego.

Fourth-year student named Rhodes scholar

Thu, 30 Nov 2017 11:55 -0600

Lucas Tse, a fourth-year student in the College, has earned a Rhodes Scholarship for Hong Kong to study at the University of Oxford next fall. He hopes to pursue an MPhil in economic and social history, with aspirations for a career as a scholar and educator.

“There are ideals in both directions that attract me,” Tse wrote in an email from Hong Kong, where he has lived for 19 years and where he was visiting family. “I would like to further my academic training and take on the challenges of scholarship, and at the same time do work outside the university, especially in Hong Kong and in mainland China. Education asks that we build something together that can connect with real human beings.”

Since 1986, one Rhodes Scholar for Hong Kong is selected annually on the basis of intellect, character, leadership and commitment to service, to join the other Rhodes scholars around the world. Tse is the 52nd person affiliated with the University of Chicago to earn a Rhodes scholarship.

“We are tremendously proud of Lucas, as Rhodes Scholarships are awarded to students who demonstrate the highest levels of academic excellence, character and ambition,” said John W. Boyer, dean of the College. “The University of Chicago has a long history of fostering rigorous inquiry. We are delighted that Lucas’s pursuit of knowledge will continue to grow in preparation for a career as a scholar and educator.”

Tse has focused on philosophy and philology through the interdisciplinary Fundamentals major. That has afforded him close contact with UChicago scholars, whom he credits for guiding him “through philosophical and religious texts across traditions and helping me work toward an understanding of the core problems.” His Fundamentals paper is a philosophical reading of the Analects of Confucius, in which he examines moral transformation.

While at UChicago Tse has continued an interest in music. He studies voice privately and works with fellow student pianists to give recitals including works such as Schumann’s Dichterliebe, Fauré’s Cinq mélodies “de Venise” and Ravel’s Don Quichotte à Dulcinée. He also is a member of Chicago Chorale, the Rockefeller Chapel Choir and the Early Music Ensemble.

“Music is another way for people to communicate,” Tse said. “It is difficult and fulfilling to truly share an experience.”

Tse also teaches philosophy to youths aged 8 to 16 as part of the Civic Knowledge Project, a program that connects UChicago with South Side communities.

“The University has been an intellectual community for me,” Tse said. “I am often busy organizing and participating in reading groups. I have learned a lot by coming together with people from different academic backgrounds.”

Tse secured application support through the College Center for Scholarly Advancement, which guides undergraduates and College alumni through rigorous application processes for nationally competitive fellowships. Additional support is provided by the British Awards faculty nomination committee; their ongoing service is a critical part of students’ success at the national level.

Japanese government honors Prof. Raaj Sah for analysis of economic and financial policies

Fri, 10 Nov 2017 17:35 -0600

Prof. Raaj Sah has been awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon from the government of Japan.

Conferred on behalf of His Majesty the Emperor of Japan, the award honors Sah’s contributions to the analysis of Japan’s economic and financial policies. Among the government policies that Sah, a professor of public policy and economics at the Harris School of Public Policy, has engaged with are tax reform, public revenues, deficits and redistribution—some of the central issues for contemporary Japan.

“Professor Sah combines his researcher’s incisiveness and his vast knowledge with his practical wisdom. He works seamlessly across cultures and societies, deeply respecting the differences and, at the same time, transcending them. He is admirably original in all domains of his work,” said Prof. Dan Black, deputy dean of Harris Public Policy.

“His ideas have impacted many societies, and not just Japan and India,” said Prof. Errol D’Souza, the director-in-charge of the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. Sah is a distinguished fellow at the institute.

Sah has previously held faculty positions in business, economics and public policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University, the University of Pennsylvania and Yale University. Among the honorary positions he has held is at the Ministry of Finance Japan.

Sah holds a PhD in economics from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad.

Daniel S. Follmer, director of College Admissions, 1982-2017

Wed, 08 Nov 2017 09:50 -0600

Daniel S. Follmer, deputy dean and director of College Admissions at the University of Chicago, died of cancer on Nov. 4 at the age of 34.

Follmer joined the University in 2008 and was highly regarded by colleagues, students and families alike. Those close to him said his work reflected a passion for increasing access to higher education for students from underrepresented communities, enthusiasm for the liberal arts and enduring curiosity.

“He will be remembered for his kindness, his integrity and his great respect for the humanity in every person,” said Follmer’s brother, Max Follmer.

Follmer was responsible for daily operations in College Admissions, and played a key role in designing and implementing strategy. That approach included a more personalized outreach to prospective students, expanded scholarship opportunities for low-income families and a comprehensive professional development program for admissions counselors.

In addition, through his personal admissions recruiting efforts in the Manhattan borough of New York City, Follmer built relationships with thousands of students, families, teachers and college counselors. His work contributed to the College’s dramatic increase in applications and the number of students who view UChicago as their first choice.

“Daniel was especially passionate about helping his staff establish long and successful careers in admissions and higher education,” said James G. Nondorf, vice president of Enrollment and Student Advancement and dean of College Admissions and Financial Aid. “He served as a friend and mentor to several cohorts of College Admissions counselors at UChicago. He leaves a formidable legacy, and we will miss him greatly.”

A lifelong resident of Hyde Park, Follmer was one of many family members with deep connections to UChicago. Survivors include his wife, Jessica Rhoades; his parents, Anita Samen and David Follmer, AM’66; brother, Max Follmer; and sister, Sarah Follmer, AB’05.

A memorial service will be held on campus in Daniel Follmer’s honor at 11 a.m. Nov. 8 in Rockefeller Memorial Chapel.

Marshall Chin elected to National Academy of Medicine

Tue, 17 Oct 2017 14:41 -0500

University of Chicago Medicine physician Marshall Chin has been elected a member of the National Academy of Medicine.

Chin was one of 80 new members elected to the Academy, it was announced Oct. 16. Election to the Academy is one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine. It indicates that an individual has made major contributions to medicine and health care and demonstrated outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service.

Chin, the Richard Parrillo Family Professor of Healthcare Ethics and associate chief and director of research for the Section of General Internal Medicine, is a general internist with extensive experience caring for both the clinical and social needs of vulnerable patients with chronic disease.

“Marshall Chin is an international leader in improving care and outcomes for racial and ethnic minority patients and persons with social risk factors,” said Kenneth S. Polonsky, dean of the Division of the Biological Sciences and the Pritzker School of Medicine and executive vice president of medical affairs.

“He has devised and implemented a series of innovative approaches to patient care with particular emphasis on the alleviation of difficult clinical, social and economic problems,” Polonsky added. “He is also a talented physician, with a lifelong commitment to improve patient care, reduce health care disparities and make the best use of available resources.”

Chin directs the NIH-funded Chicago Center for Diabetes Translation Research. He and Assoc. Prof. Monica Peek co-direct the South Side Diabetes Project, which has advanced diabetes care and outcomes through healthcare system and community interventions.

Chin also leads the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Finding Answers: Solving Disparities through Payment and Delivery System Reform. Through that program, he and his team created the Roadmap to Reduce Disparities, a six-step framework to help health care organizations improve minority health and foster equity.

Chin studies the patient-centered medical home—a team-based care-delivery model—in safety net clinics, and efforts to improve shared decision-making between clinicians and LGBTQ persons of color. His research has improved care in federally qualified health centers through the national Health Disparities Collaboratives.

Chin co-chairs the National Quality Forum’s Disparities Standing Committee, which works to reduce health care disparities and reform clinical performance measurement and payment. He currently serves on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Community Preventive Services Task Force and is a former president of the Society of General Internal Medicine.

In addition to his clinical and research roles, Chin is a teacher and award-winning mentor, committed to providing opportunities for trainees and young faculty. He is also associate director of the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics. He joined the UChicago faculty in 1994.

With Chin’s appointment, there are now 15 current or emeritus UChicago faculty members who have been elected to the National Academy of Medicine, formerly known as the Institute of Medicine.

Richard Thaler wins Nobel Prize 'for his contributions to behavioural economics'

Mon, 09 Oct 2017 05:06 -0500

University of Chicago Prof. Richard H. Thaler has been awarded the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2017.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences honored Thaler, the Charles R. Walgreen Distinguished Service Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, “for his contributions to behavioural economics,” a relatively new field that bridges the gap between economics and psychology. Thaler’s research investigates the implications of relaxing the standard economic assumption that everyone in the economy is rational and selfish, instead entertaining the possibility that some of the agents in the economy are sometimes human.

“Richard’s original, broadly influential and paradigm-defining work has richly earned this recognition,” President Robert J. Zimmer wrote in a message to the UChicago community. “We look forward to celebrating Richard’s work and his place in the distinguished legacy of eminent economics research at the University of Chicago.”

He is among the 90 scholars associated with the University to receive Nobel Prizes, and among the 29 who have received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics. In addition to Thaler, five current UChicago faculty members are Nobel laureates in economics: Profs. Eugene Fama and Lars Hansen (who won in 2013), Roger Myerson (2007), James Heckman (2000) and Robert E. Lucas Jr. (1995).

Thaler learned of the award after his cell phone rang at 4 a.m. The phone number was from Sweden, so “I had a pretty good idea what that might be,” he said Monday. The award was particularly meaningful because behavioral economics was “really out in the wilderness 40 years ago,” when Thaler began his research.

“It’s been a long journey,” he said, “so I’m happy about that.”

‘Knowledge with enduring impact’

At a news conference Monday morning in the Charles M. Harper Center, Chicago Booth Dean Madhav Rajan said Thaler “represents the quintessence of Chicago Booth’s mission: to produce knowledge with enduring impact, and to influence and educate current and future leaders.” Rajan also credited Thaler with helping to build Chicago Booth’s faculty in behavioral science, “vastly expanding the school’s footprint and stature in this field.”

Thaler, who took the stage to cheering from the excited students and faculty who had lined the staircases of the Winter Garden, described the experience being a Booth faculty member as one of “tough love. The behavioral science group, it’s a little less tough, but only a little.”

He admitted he hadn’t persuaded all of his colleagues and fellow economists of the importance of behavioral economics, so instead, “I’ve used the strategy of corrupting the youth, whose minds aren’t already made up,” he said. “Many great, young economists have embraced behavioral economics…The growth of the field is really due to the work of the people that followed me.”

Spotting fellow Nobel laureate Eugene Fama, the Robert R. McCormick Distinguished Service Professor of Finance, in the front row, Thaler added, “It’s been good to be here all these 20 years, arguing with guys like Fama. It’s good for me.” These days, however, “[we] try to keep our arguments to the golf course.”

Prof. Richard Thaler talks to Cass Sunstein, his former UChicago scholar and his Nudge coauthor, via Skype from his living room after winning the Nobel Prize. (Photo by Anne Ryan)

‘The father of behavioral economics’

Thaler, who has been dubbed the “father of behavioral economics,” wrote the bestselling books Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics (2015) and Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness (2008). He is renowned for creating easy-to-understand scenarios that show how human behavior often contradicts traditional economic logic.

Many economic models, Thaler told National Public Radio last year, assume people are rational, unemotional, and self-controlled. “I believe that for the last 50 or 60 years, economists have devoted themselves to studying fictional creatures,” he said. “They might as well be studying unicorns.” Every day, his research reveals, we behave in ways that violate economic principles.

In keeping with his research into these human idiosyncrasies, Thaler joked in a Nobel news conference Monday morning that he planned to spend the 9 million Swedish krona (about $1.1 million USD) he will receive with the prize “as irrationally as possible.”

In Misbehaving, which Financial Times named one of the six most influential business books of 2015, Thaler chronicles the struggle to bring the academic discipline of economics back down to earth and reveals how behavioral economic analysis can change the way we think about everything from household finances to the NFL draft.

For instance, Thaler’s research has challenged the classical economic notion that money is fungible—that is, that one dollar is the same as any other dollar. But Thaler’s work on mental accounting, one of the areas of research highlighted by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in its Nobel citation, has shown that, in practice, people don’t treat money this way. Instead, they mentally earmark money for specific purposes, such as housing, food, and travel, and make financial decisions based on how those decisions will affect each small fund. “Money in one mental account is not a perfect substitute for money in another account,” Thaler wrote in a 1999 paper.

Thaler illustrated the point with his own Nobel win. Most economists, he said at the news conference, would challenge the premise of a question like, “What do you plan to do with your prize money?” Because they view money as “fungible,” they wouldn’t—in theory—distinguish prize money from any other money.

Not Thaler. “I believe in something called mental accounting, which is precisely people putting labels on money,” he explained. “Anytime I spend any money [on something] that’s really fun, I’m going to say that came from the Nobel Prize.”

‘Make it easy’

Nudge, coauthored with Harvard Law School Professor Cass R. Sunstein, explores how the concepts of behavioral economics can be used to tackle many of society’s major problems and influence public policy. Ranked as the Best Book of the Year by The Economist and Financial Times, the research prompted the United Kingdom’s government in 2010 to establish a Behavioral Insight Team, or “Nudge Unit,” to create policies that nudge British citizens to make better choices and, in turn, save the state money. Thaler served as an advisor in setting up the unit’s guiding principles.

At the heart of Nudge is what Thaler calls his “mantra”: “If you want to get people to do something, make it easy. Remove the obstacles,” he explained. “Nudges” push people toward better choices by making those choices easy. For example, employers can “nudge” employees by automatically enrolling them in a retirement savings plan, rather than requiring them to opt in; schools can “nudge” kids toward healthy food choices by putting fruit at eye level.

“If you want to get people to do something, make it easy. Remove the obstacles.” Prof. Richard Thaler on the mantra behind 'Nudge'

Thaler’s other books include Quasi-Rational Economics and The Winner's Curse: Paradoxes and Anomalies of Economic Life. His work has been published in the American Economics Review, the Journal of Finance, and the Journal of Political Economy.

Thaler was named in 2015 to Bloomberg Markets 50 Most Influential People; he also was the American Economic Association’s president for 2015. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2000.

Before joining the Chicago Booth faculty in 1995, Thaler taught at the University of Rochester and Cornell University. He also served as a visiting professor at the University of British Columbia, the Sloan School of Management at MIT, the Russell Sage Foundation, and the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University.

Originally from New Jersey, Thaler attended Case Western Reserve University where he received a bachelor's degree in 1967. Soon after, he attended the University of Rochester where he received a master's degree in 1970 and a PhD in 1974.

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.

Adrian Talbott appointed executive director of UChicago Institute of Politics

Wed, 19 Jul 2017 10:30 -0500

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tue, 11 Jul 2017 16:50 -0500

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

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

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

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

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

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

Philip Gossett, scholar of 19th-century Italian opera, 1941–2017

Mon, 19 Jun 2017 14:29 -0500

Philip Gossett, an acclaimed musicologist and scholar of 19th-century Italian opera, died June 13 at his home in Hyde Park. He was 75.

Gossett, the Robert W. Reneker Distinguished Service Emeritus Professor in Music at the University of Chicago, conducted exhaustive research of composers such as Giuseppe Verdi and Gioachino Rossini. His work included uncovering forgotten operatic compositions, editing critical editions on such works as La gazzetta, and writing books, including the award-winning Divas and Scholars: Performing Italian Opera.

In a 2010 interview, Gossett said he hadn’t planned to study Italian opera. “I was thrown into it because I began looking at available sources for some of the music of Rossini, and I discovered that every single source that I looked at was different from every other source, and at a certain point I had to ask myself, ‘well what did the man actually write?’” he said.

Born in New York, Gossett began studying piano at age five. During high school, he attended what is now Juilliard’s Pre-College Division. Gossett completed his undergraduate studies at Amherst College in music, having started in physics, and received his doctorate in musicology from Princeton University. He joined the University of Chicago in 1968.

“I’ll always treasure the memory of Philip as a scholar’s scholar, a musician’s scholar and a public scholar—all in full and equal measure,” said Anne Robertson, dean of the Division of the Humanities and the Claire Dux Swift Distinguished Service Professor of Music and the Humanities.

Over his 40 years of scholarship, Gossett helped unearth such operas as Verdi’s Stiffelio, which was staged at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in 1993. The Italian government recognized Gossett’s efforts with the Cavaliere di Gran Croce, the country’s highest civilian honor.

Gossett was the first musicologist to receive a Mellon Distinguished Achievement Award, a $1.5 million prize, and served as general editor of The Works of Giuseppe Verdi and of The Critical Edition of the Works Gioachino Rossini. His book Divas and Scholars: Performing Italian Opera received the Gordon J. Laing Prize from the University of Chicago Press and Otto Kinkeldey Award of the American Musicological Society as the best book on music of the year.

After retiring from teaching full-time in 2010, Gossett continued to actively research, write and discover new opera masterpieces to share with modern audiences. Over a distinguished career, Gossett served as president of the American Musicological Society and the Society for Textual Scholarship, as dean of the Division of Humanities, and as a lecturer and consultant at opera houses and festivals in America and Italy.

James Chandler, the Barbara E. & Richard J. Franke Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of English, remembers Gossett for his incredible passion for the University of Chicago, including during his time as dean from 1989 to 1999.

“Phil Gossett was probably the hardest working colleague I’ve ever known,” Chandler said. “I mostly got to know him after he became dean, a job he attacked with enormous zeal. He made you want to be a part of the institution to which he himself was so passionately committed.”

In 2017, Gossett donated his complete music collection of more than 2,000 items to The Julliard School as part of their special collections.

Gossett is survived by his wife, Suzanne Gossett, professor emerita of English at Loyola University Chicago; and sons David and Jeffrey.

Services were held on June 15 at KAM Isaiah Israel Temple in Chicago. A private burial will take place in New York.

Anne Pippin Burnett, renowned scholar of Greek poetry, 1925–2017

Mon, 12 Jun 2017 16:30 -0500

Prof. Anne Pippin Burnett, a renowned scholar of Greek poetry and a UChicago faculty member for more than three decades, passed away April 26 at her home in Kingston, Ontario. She was 91.

Burnett focused her research on Greek tragedies and lyrical poetry. She wrote extensively on the archaic and early classical periods, including three books on the ancient Greek poet, Pindar.

Burnett, professor emerita in the Department of Classics, first joined the UChicago faculty in 1961 as an assistant professor, becoming a professor in 1970. She served as chairman of the Department of Classical Languages and Literatures from 1969 thru 1973. She retired in 1992.

Longtime colleague Peter White, the Herman C. Bernick Family Professor in Classics and the College, remembered Burnett as a true star of the department.

“Anne chose to study poets like Euripides and Pindar who were challenging intellectually and brilliant verbally, which was just what her own writing was like,” said White, who joined the UChicago faculty in 1968. “Although she was a celebrity in our field, she did not seem to chase celebrity. She just wrote and wrote one interesting, original study after another, and her audience grew.”

Prior to her time at UChicago, Burnett taught at Vassar College and worked as an editor and translator at the Hachette publishing house.

Among her many honors during a distinguished academic career, Burnett was selected as a Guggenheim fellow in 1981 and delivered the Classics Department’s inaugural George B. Walsh Memorial Lecture in 1989.

She is survived by daughters Maud Burnett McInerney and Melissa Gromoff and three grandchildren.

A memorial service is planned for the fall.

University announces appointments to leadership roles

Wed, 07 Jun 2017 14:10 -0500

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kenton W. Rainey named chief of police for UCPD

Thu, 01 Jun 2017 16:15 -0500

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

University to bestow three honorary degrees at Convocation

Thu, 25 May 2017 15:40 -0500

The University of Chicago will present honorary degrees to three distinguished scholars during Convocation on June 10.

The honorary degree recipients are Robert MacPherson, the Herman Weyl Professor of Mathematics at the Institute for Advanced Study; Shaul Mukamel, Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine; and Craig B. Thompson, president and CEO of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and professor at the Weill Cornell Medicine Graduate School of Medical Sciences.

Robert MacPherson, a mathematician whose prolific work has impacted many different areas in his field, will receive the honorary degree of doctor of science.

His early work was devoted to singularities. In his first work in topology, MacPherson defined Chern classes for singular varieties. After that he contributed to the Riemann-Roch formula for singular varieties, the definition of intersection homology, and the idea of a perversity. This work had large implications for mathematics, including algebraic geometry and representation theory.

MacPherson also developed the idea of deformation to the normal cone, and worked on its application to intersection theory. He made numerous other contributions throughout the field of mathematics, including the development of stratified Morse theory, and his work has had a great impact in pure topology. Also, as one of the leading pure mathematicians, he is working to break down barriers between pure and applied mathematics.

The University’s honorary degree is based on his later, less recognized work pertaining to locally symmetric spaces and the trace formula leading to the Fundamental lemma, stratified Morse theory and its many applications, combinatorics, and, most recently, applied topology.

MacPherson was recognized with the National Academy of Sciences Award for Mathematics and the AMS Steele Prize. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.

Shaul Mukamel, a theoretician whose groundbreaking work has changed and advanced the field of spectroscopy, will receive the honorary degree of doctor of science.

Mukamel has played a seminal role in research on molecule-light interactions and their consequences, with contributions to understanding complex electron and nuclear dynamics in molecules. His research has a great impact on the field of ultrafast nonlinear spectroscopy, with applications in physics, chemistry and biology.

His work has additionally created new subfields of ultrafast nonlinear spectroscopy, and provided ways to interpret essentially all experimental research in this field. Over a 40-year career, he has led the introduction of new concepts that illuminate the complexities associated with molecular electronic processes.

His research provided, for the first time, a framework and predictive theory that allowed for the unified description of many nonlinear experiments. His theory was also the first step in developing multidimensional optical and infrared spectroscopy, which revolutionized the way in which molecular spectroscopy has been performed in the 21st century.

Mukamel has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is fellow of the American Physical Society and the Optical Society of America. He has received the Hamburg Prize for Theoretical Physics, the Zewail Award of the American Society, the Meggers Award of the Optical Society of America and the University of Chicago’s Mullikan Prize Medal.

Craig B. Thompson, a leader in the field of cancer metabolism, will receive the honorary degree of doctor of science.

Thompson’s discoveries relating to the mechanism of cell metabolism have led to advances in the understanding of tumor growth and metabolic pathways. He served as director of the Gwen Knapp Center for Lupus and Immunology Research at the University of Chicago from 1993-99. Since then, he has focused on human cell epigenetics and, most recently, the identification of mutations that can be targeted in drug development.

In 2003, Thompson began studying the role of protein kinase B in cell growth and transformation. His research resulted in a detailed understanding of the mechanisms and consequences of metabolic reprogramming in cancer cells.

This groundbreaking work revealed that the major function of most cancer genes is to control cellular metabolism, and has led to new therapeutic approaches for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. His most recent work has investigated oncogenic mutations in metabolic enzymes.

Thompson has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences and is a recipient of the American College of Physicians Award for Medical Science. He has published, or has in press, more than 250 original articles, with over 60,000 citations for his work since 1999.

Musician and educator Steve Coleman to receive Jesse L. Rosenberger Medal

Mon, 22 May 2017 16:15 -0500

The University of Chicago will award the 2017 Jesse L. Rosenberger Medal to Steve Coleman, a composer, saxophonist, educator and native of the city’s South Side.

Coleman, who will receive the award at Convocation on June 10, is an artist known for his original, challenging compositions that draw inspiration not only from musical traditions around the globe, but from nature and scientific concepts. He has spent several decades conducting lengthy interviews with older jazz musicians in order to develop a deeper understanding of race relations and musical history and forms, among other topics.

Coleman is a leader in education and community building, providing instruction and opportunities for musicians to participate in workshops and collaborations across the country. He is founder of the M-Base Concepts, Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to using music as a tool to aid in the expansion of consciousness.

Over the last two years, Coleman and M-Base Concepts, Inc. have partnered with UChicago’s Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts and Arts + Public Life, along with the Rebuild Foundation, the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events and the Jazz Institute of Chicago to develop multi-week residencies focused on the importance of musical mentorship. His ensemble, Steve Coleman and Five Elements, focused on workshops, outreach on Chicago’s South Side and performances—the majority of which were free. They also led workshops with young musicians in the Chicago Public Schools and partnered with Free Write Arts and Literacy to visit a juvenile detention center, where the band talked about their lives and gave youth the opportunity to play various instruments.

Coleman has received a Doris Duke Impact Award and a Doris Duke Artist Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship and a MacArthur Fellowship.

Coleman is the 53rd recipient of the Rosenberger Medal, established in 1917 by Mr. and Mrs. Jesse L. Rosenberger in recognition of achievement through research, in authorship, in invention, for discovery, for unusual public service or for anything “deemed of great benefit to humanity.”

Members of the UChicago faculty nominate candidates for the Rosenberger Medal. The faculty Committee on Awards and Prizes then evaluates the nominations, which are voted upon by the Council of the University Senate.

Rosenberger Medalists are invited to give a public lecture or workshop during the following academic year.