UChicago News

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

David Rockefeller, University trustee and descendent of UChicago’s philanthropic founder, 1915-2017

Tue, 21 Mar 2017 12:07 -0500

David Rockefeller, PhD’40, a prominent philanthropist, banking executive and University trustee whose grandfather, John D. Rockefeller Sr., was the philanthropic founder of the University of Chicago, died on March 20. He was 101.

Rockefeller’s ties to the University spanned a lifetime, from touring Egypt and the Middle East as a teenager with distinguished University archaeologist James Henry Breasted to the endowment of a professorship in UChicago’s economics department, from which he received his doctorate. Rockefeller was associated with the University’s Board of Trustees for seven decades, providing a strong connection to the institution’s founding in 1890.

David Rockefeller was a leader in finance as chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank and was a prominent philanthropist, serving as chairman of such institutions as the Museum of Modern Art, the Council on Foreign Relations and Rockefeller University. His global work included the founding the Trilateral Commission, a non-partisan group to foster closer cooperation between the North America, Europe and Asia, and providing leadership and support for the International House Association, including International House at the University of Chicago.

“David Rockefeller led a truly remarkable life, characterized by his keen intellect, an understanding of global issues and a deep appreciation of the responsibility that his family’s legacy had given him,” said President Robert J. Zimmer. “He was a generous supporter of the University and offered the benefit of his experience and good judgment. He will be remembered here for his prominent role in the University’s history.”

Rockefeller was born in New York City on June 12, 1915 to John D. Rockefeller Jr. and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller. He attended the Lincoln School in Harlem, which featured progressive teaching methods influenced by John Dewey. As a child and young man he knew his grandfather, the former leader of Standard Oil, who was one of the most influential corporate figures and philanthropists in American history, but whom David Rockefeller knew as a “benign, indulgent” patriarch who gave out dimes to children. “He was the least dour man I have ever known; he was constantly smiling, joking and telling shaggy dog stories,” David Rockefeller wrote in his 2003 book, Memoirs.

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David Rockefeller

Rockefeller remembered a youth filled with art and travel. In 1929, at age 14, Rockefeller and members of his family toured Egypt and the Middle East at the invitation of Breasted, whose work fascinated Rockefeller’s father. Such excursions “made us feel the excitement of the opportunities open to us and recognize the role the family was playing in so many areas. These experiences gave us an education that transcended formal learning,” Rockefeller wrote about the experience.

Rockefeller graduated from Harvard College in 1936, and after a year at the London School of Economics, arrived at UChicago to pursue a PhD. The school “boasted one of the premier economics faculties in the world…the fact that Grandfather had helped found the university played a distinctly secondary role in my choice,” he recalled. His thesis, “Unused Resources and Economic Waste,” was published by the University of Chicago Press in 1940.

“David was proud of his Chicago degree and spoke often of his admiration for the great economists he had encountered here,” said President Emeritus Hanna Holborn Gray. “He liked to reminisce about his boyhood trip with James Henry Breasted, which happened as the Oriental Institute and Chicago House in Luxor, Egypt became objects of the Rockefeller family’s philanthropy.”

While working on his dissertation, Rockefeller met Margaret “Peggy” McGrath. The couple were married for 55 years until McGrath’s death in 1996.

Service and leadership on a global stage

After completing his graduate work, Rockefeller began in government service, working for New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia. During World War II, he served as an intelligence officer in North Africa and the south of France, achieving the rank of captain. With the return of peace, Rockefeller embarked on his career at Chase Manhattan and worked to continue his family’s tradition of philanthropy—what John D. Rockefeller Sr. called “the art of giving.” He was first elected as a trustee of the University of Chicago on May 8, 1947. He served as a trustee until 1963, became an honorary trustee until 1966, then was a life trustee until 2007 and was a trustee emeritus at the time of his death.

Rockefeller became chairman and chief executive of Chase, where he focused on global banking and developed important relationships with numerous world leaders. He was part of a generation of Rockefellers who held a prominent place in American civic life. His brother Nelson Rockefeller was governor of New York and later vice president of the United States, while his brother Winthrop Rockefeller served as governor of Arkansas.

David Rockefeller’s civic work included helping New York City through its financial crisis, serving as a key supporter of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, and leading Rockefeller University as chairman of its board of trustees. His many years of service to educational, civic and cultural institutions earned Rockefeller honors, including the U.S. Legion of Merit, the French Legion of Honor and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Gray said that when Rockefeller retired from Chase, the bank’s board decided to honor him by endowing a chair in his honor, rather than through a direct gift — after all, “what could you give a Rockefeller?”

There was a competition between Harvard and the University of Chicago for the chair, which was to be in international economics. Chicago won, and Rockefeller came for the announcement and dinner that inaugurated the chair. “He always remained interested in following its progress and learning of its incumbents,” Gray said.

The chair is now held by Nobel laureate Lars Hansen, the David Rockefeller Distinguished Service Professor in Economics.

John W. Boyer, dean of the College and author of The University of Chicago: A History, said David Rockefeller valued what his family had begun at the University of Chicago, and he contributed to its later successes.

“David Rockefeller served with great distinction as an active trustee of the University, as a generous philanthropist in support of the University’s academic programs and as a wise adviser to several of our presidents,” Boyer said. “The gifts of his grandfather, John D. Rockefeller Sr., to the early University of Chicago were primarily responsible for the founding of one of the great new research universities in modern America, setting a model for those who would follow in advancing the well-being of American higher education and society. David Rockefeller shared with his grandfather and his father a deep conviction about the profound responsibilities that the great American universities bear in enhancing the intellectual creativity and cultural progress of American civic life.”

Rockefeller is survived by five of his children, David Rockefeller Jr., Abigail Rockefeller, Neva Rockefeller Goodwin, Peggy Dulany and Ellen Rockefeller Growald. He was preceded in death by his son Richard Rockefeller.

Janellen Huttenlocher, pioneering scholar in childhood development, 1932–2016

Thu, 01 Dec 2016 10:42 -0600

Janellen Huttenlocher, a pioneer in the field of childhood development whose research explored how children acquire language, understand space and learn math, died Nov. 20 in Chicago. She was 84.

The William S. Gray Professor Emeritus in Psychology, Huttenlocher was a researcher, teacher and mentor at the University of Chicago for four decades. Her research delved into a broad range of topics such as categorization, spatial coding and memory—themes scholars continue to explore. It was marked by groundbreaking work on the role of environment in the development of language skills, including the importance of parents talking to their young children often and in complex sentences.

“Janellen was a big ideas person and had a lot of influence because of that,” said Susan Levine, the Rebecca Anne Boylan Professor of Education and Society, who worked closely with Huttenlocher. “She was a pioneer in early childhood research, including her work on language development and the effects of parents.”

Huttenlocher’s impact in the field of psychology included co-authoring the books Making Space: The Development of Spatial Representation and Reasoning and Quantitative Development in Infancy and Early Childhood, as well as publishing hundreds of research articles. Her scholarship spanned 60 years from her first publication in 1956 to her last in 2015.

Her work on the role of environment in the development of language skills carry on through a multi-year project at UChicago on children and language funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The group of researchers includes Levine, Susan Goldin-Meadow, the Beardsley Ruml Distinguished Service Professor; Stephen Raudenbush, the Lewis-Sebring Distinguished Service Professor; and Assoc. Prof. Lindsey Richland.

Kelly Mix, AM’93, PhD’95, a former student of Huttenlocher’s who is chair of the Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology at the University of Maryland, said Huttenlocher’s research explored a broad range of topics, but was always marked by a common-sense elegance that provided simple explanations about how children develop.

“I learned so much from watching how she thought about things, how she tackled problems,” Mix said. “Janellen would always say, ‘We came for the truth.’ She didn’t want the data to support what she already was thinking, but rather, reveal what was actually happening.”

‘An eye on both adult and kid’

Huttenlocher was born in Buffalo, N.Y. in 1932. She received her undergraduate education at the University of Buffalo and married Peter Huttenlocher shortly after graduating. The couple, which their family described as best friends, collaborated on research at UChicago, where Peter was a renowned neuroscientist, pediatric neurologist and professor.

Janellen Huttenlocher came to UChicago in 1974 after earnings a master’s and doctorate at Harvard University and serving as a professor of psychology and education at Columbia University.

Over the next four decades, her research explored many topics, including early mathematical thinking in children from different socioeconomic groups and the relationship between exposure and vocabulary and syntactic growth. Her work on mathematical development showed that children form mental models of sets and set transformations, and that learning of number words propelled their understanding. She also found that nonverbal mathematical thinking was much more similar across socioeconomic groups than verbal mathematical thinking.

With respect to language, Huttenlocher found that the more a parent spoke to a child, the more the child’s vocabulary grew. Her research also found that speaking in complex sentences rather than simple ones is important for the development of children’s language comprehension.

More broadly, Huttenlocher’s work challenged the idea a child’s ability to learn is driven primarily by inherited traits. In one example, her research found that children’s ability to learn fluctuates depending on whether they were spending time in school during the school year or out of school during the summer months. The work was cited as an argument for year-round schooling.

“She was really ahead of her time in wanting to understand childhood development and adult cognition,” said Nora Newcombe, the Laura H. Carnell Professor of Psychology at Temple University, who collaborated with Huttenlocher in researching spatial development and spatial cognition. “She always kept an eye on both adult and kid. Even today they are very separate worlds.”

Besides her prolific career as a researcher, Huttenlocher helped draw top psychology scholars to UChicago and mentored and taught many students, influencing new generations of psychologists who are on the faculty at universities and colleges across the country. Even into retirement, she remained an active research collaborator and frequently attended colloquia and the weekly developmental seminar in UChicago’s Department of Psychology.

Newcombe described Huttenlocher as having a keen mind and a love of classical music and the arts. She also was deeply devoted to her children.

Huttenlocher was preceded in death by her husband. She is survived by her children: Daniel, Anna and husband Andrew, Carl and wife Tami, and six grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Jan. 28 at Montgomery Place, 5550 S. Shore Drive, Chicago. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the University of Chicago Department of Psychology.

Charles E. Bidwell, scholar who studied sociology of education, 1932-2016

Thu, 17 Nov 2016 16:15 -0600

Charles E. Bidwell, an influential sociologist and former chair of the Departments of Education and Sociology at the University of Chicago, died Nov. 6. He was 84.

Bidwell, AB’50, AM’53, PhD’56, whose time as student and teacher at the University spanned seven decades, was the William Claude Reavis Professor Emeritus. His research focused on the organization of educational institutions and how decisions are made, from the classroom to the community level. He chaired the Department of Education for a decade and later chaired the Department of Sociology. Bidwell also served as editor of the American Journal of Sociology and American Journal of Education.

“Charles Bidwell influenced the thinking of a generation of sociology of education scholars in significant ways,” said Sara Ray Stoelinga, AB’95, PhD’04, the Sara Liston Spurlark Director of the Urban Education Institute and a former student of Bidwell. “But the essence of Charles to me were the values he brought to his daily work: his deep commitment to the mentoring of students and faculty, his integrity and high standards, and his kindness.”

Bidwell’s son Charles L. Bidwell said his father’s interest in sociology took root while a student at the University’s Laboratory Schools when he did a project on the Tennessee Valley Authority. As a boy, Charles remembers driving around Chicago with his father, who would tell him stories about the neighborhoods and how they were changing.

“He was best storyteller I ever knew,” Charles said. “My Dad was fascinated by people and so intrigued by the way the city developed, its ethnic mix and all the standards, practices and values that groups brought to the city and how they interacted and mixed.”

Bidwell was born on Jan. 24, 1932 in Chicago. His initial connection to the University was through his mother, Eugenia Bidwell, who was a graduate of the Class of 1924. He graduated from the Laboratory Schools and enrolled at the University as a 14-year-old under a program created by then-President Robert M. Hutchins.

Bidwell received his bachelor’s degree in 1950 followed by a master’s and a doctorate from the University in 1953 and 1956, respectively. He was drafted in 1957 and spent two years as a researcher and speechwriter in Army headquarters in Washington, D.C., where he met his wife Helen. Bidwell was recruited to Harvard University by famed sociologist Talcott Parsons. But after two years there, he found the lure of Chicago to be strong and joined UChicago in 1961 as an assistant professor.

Bidwell spent the next four decades at the University. Edward O. Laumann, the George H. Mead Distinguished Service Professor of Sociology, remembered his friend as incredibly bright and curious. He loved debating ideas, but never raised his voice and was the consummate gentleman.

“He was an exemplar of much of what we talk about today at the University around diversity, freedom of inquiry, and a willingness to pursue ideas and not celebrate petty wins,” Laumann said. “In his work, Charles was interested in trying to understand something so people could make it more successful, more effective.”

Bidwell’s scholarship has had considerable influence on the sociology of education, beginning with his seminal 1965 chapter, The School as a Formal Organization. Drawing upon and extending Willard Waller’s Sociology of Teaching, Bidwell built a series of scholarly works which sought to understand the motivations of the variety of actors in and around schools within the layered contexts of classrooms, schools, districts and the larger society. His work is known for its attention to micro-level factors, mechanisms that shape organizational behavior and evolution, and broad theoretical applications to other organizational forms.

Bidwell’s work reignited interest in the application of formal organizational theory to schools, influencing the thinking of a generation of scholars focused on the sociology of education. Later in his career, Bidwell extended his exploration of the formal organization of the school into inquiries that considered the work of teachers within schools and classrooms in more detail, drawing upon a variety of methods from grounded theory, to qualitative data collection, to social network analysis.

Bidwell shaped the Department of Education after the closure of the University’s School of Education, recruiting and retaining top scholars as chairman. He presided over the hiring of professors in economics, sociology, psychology and statistics, seeking a comprehensive research approach to education. He executed a similar strategy in the Department of Sociology, hiring six faculty who became the core of a new generation of Chicago sociology.

Bidwell was deeply involved as a teacher and mentor, chairing 39 dissertations and serving on another 30 committees in sociology alone. His students teach at major universities and serve in research centers focused on education.

Bidwell’s honors included the American Sociological Association’s Willard Waller Award, which recognizes distinguished scholarly contributions to the field of sociology of education.

Bidwell is survived by his son and daughter-in-law Rebecca Mullen and two grandchildren, Andrew and Emma. He is preceded in death by his wife. A memorial service will be held at a later date.

Isaac Abella, physicist, teacher and resident master, 1934-2016

Thu, 03 Nov 2016 16:00 -0500

Prof. Emeritus Isaac Abella, a popular teacher, cherished resident master and noted physicist who worked on the early development of lasers, died Oct. 23 in Chicago of complications related to cancer. He was 82.

Abella taught at the University of Chicago for nearly five decades and was a longtime resident master at the Shoreland residence hall. As a physicist, he specialized in laser physics, quantum optics and spectroscopy of rare-Earth laser materials. While an accomplished scholar, his first love was teaching and mentoring students.

“Teaching was his forte, and mentoring undergraduate students is what he would be the proudest of,” said his son Benjamin Abella, an associate professor and physician at the University of Pennsylvania. “He made his classroom like a conversation. He was almost gleeful in his desire to share stories and engage students. That was his magic.”

At UChicago, Prof. Henry J. Frisch remembered how he and Abella discussed ways to teach physics topics, such as the concept of special relativity or the Coriolis force, which describes the effect of Earth’s rotation on the motion of terrestrial objects.

He made his classroom like a conversation. He was almost gleeful in his desire to share stories and engage students. That was his magic.Benjamin Abella on his father, Prof. Emeritus Isaac Abella

“He cared deeply about transmitting the essence of the physics,” Frisch said. “He was a very popular and successful teacher who was extremely interested in pedagogy.”

Abella and his wife, Mary Ann Abella, were resident masters for 16 years at Shoreland, serving as mentors and hosting events from pizza parties in the dorm to field trips to the Lyric Opera.

Katie Callow-Wright, UChicago’s vice president and chief of staff in the Office of President, met the Abellas in 2000 when she moved into the Shoreland as assistant director of housing. She described the couple as a “force of nature” at Abella’s memorial service on Oct. 26 at Congregation Rodfei Zedek in Hyde Park.

“I became part of the well-organized machine the Abellas had created to support the engaged, interesting, complex community they fostered so thoughtfully as resident masters of the Shoreland,” she said.

Abella was born in Toronto, Canada in 1934. He earned a bachelor of arts in physics and astronomy from the University of Toronto in 1957, and then earned a master’s and doctorate in physics from Columbia University.

While at Columbia, he worked under Nobel laureate Charles H. Townes, conducting research on early lasers. His thesis is among the earliest works on two-photon absorption. He wrote Some Properties of Ruby Optical Masers with Applications to Non-Linear Effects, which was published in 1963.

Abella started teaching at UChicago in 1965. He won the Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching in 1969.

During his career, Abella was a fellow at the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics in Boulder, Colo.; a visiting scientist at the Optical Sciences Division of the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C.; a guest scientist at the National Bureau of Standards at the Boulder Laboratories; and research fellow at Argonne National Laboratory.

He has served on the Education Committee of the American Physical Society; chaired APS’ Education Committee of Laser Science Topical Group; and chaired APS’s Frank Isakson Prize for Optical Effects in Solids Committee. He was elected fellow of the APS, fellow of the Optical Society and president of the Chicago Chapter of Sigma Xi. In addition, Abella was a member of the National Research Council’s National Science Standards Working Group, which published the K-12 National Science Standards in 1996.

Abella was a member of the National Academy of Sciences’ Committee on Undergraduate Science Education, which addressed science literacy in the United States. He was also a member of the NAS Mathematics (K-12) Standards Review Committee on behalf of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. He also played a big role in University of Chicago’s Physics Department Teaching Activities Committee.

Abella retired from the University in 2011.

Abella was a frequent writer of letters to the editor. One printed in the New York Times in 1992 addressed the physics behind conspiracy theories regarding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It attracted quite a bit of attention, including Abella being interviewed on a TV program hosted by Penn & Teller, a comedy duo who were taking a skeptical look at conspiracy theories.

Abella is survived by his son, Benjamin; daughter, Sarah Abella; brother, Jack Abella; sister, Bracha Glass; and his six grandchildren: Lillie, Hannah, Sam, Max, Asher and Avi. He was preceded in death by his wife, Mary Ann.

Phil C. Neal, former Law School dean, 1919-2016

Thu, 29 Sep 2016 15:00 -0500

Former University of Chicago Law School Dean Phil C. Neal, an antitrust expert, litigator and law firm founder whose ability to cut through complexity earned him a reputation as a deft problem-solver, died Sept. 27. He was 97.

Neal was a professor at the Law School for 21 years starting in 1961 and served as its sixth dean between 1963 and 1975. He taught a wide range of subjects, including elements of the law, antitrust and constitutional law. As dean, he hired many influential scholars, including Richard Posner, now a judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals; the late Ronald Coase, the 1991 recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics; Gerhard Casper, Norval Morris, Frank Zimring, William Landes and Geoffrey R. Stone.

Neal began a new phase of his long career as senior partner at Neal Gerber Eisenberg, the Chicago-based law firm he helped found in 1986. During his time in private practice, Neal litigated cases on a wide range of issues, from antitrust to school desegregation, and advised the corporate boards of major companies. In the 1950s and 1960s, Neal was appointed to several high-profile government bodies, serving as chairman of the Pacific Regional Enforcement Commission of the Wage Stabilization Board, executive secretary of the Coordinating Committee for Multi-District Litigation for the United States District Courts and chair of a White House task force on antitrust policy.

“Phil Neal led an exceptional career of service and responsibility,” said Dean Thomas J. Miles, the Clifton R. Musser Professor of Law and Economics. “He was one of our longest-serving deans, and he led the Law School during a time of extraordinary change for our country and the legal profession. The Law School is forever better thanks to his leadership. Were that not enough, he was an elite practitioner, served in multiple high-level positions in the government, and even founded a major law firm. His career is a model of leadership for all lawyers.”

Neal was an agile thinker who could “untangle Gordian knots where others were just sort of lost,” said his son, Andrew Neal. “He was very intelligent, quick-witted and didn’t suffer fools gladly. But he was also incredibly gracious, and very deliberate and thoughtful in the way he approached problems—life problems or legal problems—and he would not stand pat on whatever the thinking of the day was about anything.”

This enabled Neal to “see the core simplicity” in even the most complex issues, said Stephen Fedo, JD’81, Neal Gerber Eisenberg’s general counsel and former student of Neal’s.

“He was brilliant at cutting away the underbrush from an issue, and he was wonderful at articulating the simple truth of a problem in the most simple, elegant prose I’ve ever read,” Fedo said. “His real strength, as a lawyer and as a friend, is that he was always present when he spoke to you. His focus was on that person’s concerns, and on finding a way to address those concerns.”

Neal, who was born in Chicago and graduated from Oak Park and River Forest High School in 1936, received his undergraduate degree summa cum laude from Harvard in 1940, and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1943. While in law school, Neal was president of the Harvard Law Review. After law school, Neal served for two years as a law clerk to Justice Robert H. Jackson of the U.S. Supreme Court. He joined the faculty at Stanford Law School in 1948 after working at a law firm in San Francisco for several years. While at Stanford, Neal introduced Jackson to a student named William H. Rehnquist, who would also serve as his law clerk. Rehnquist was one of two future U.S. Supreme Court justices whom Neal taught at Stanford; the other was Sandra Day O’Connor.

Roberta Cooper Ramo, JD’67, who was a student during Neal’s deanship, cited him as having played a pivotal role as she broke through gender barriers in the legal profession. Ramo—the first woman president of the American Bar Association and the first woman president of the American Law Institute—recalled Neal’s support as she accepted the ABA Medal, the group’s highest honor, last year.

“In 1967 when I couldn't find anyone who would even answer my letters as [my husband and I] were about to move to North Carolina … [Dean Neal] called me in to find out why I didn’t have a job,” she said. “When I explained, without hesitation and with me sitting right there, he picked up the phone and called [former North Carolina] Gov. Terry Sanford, who just stepped down from the governorship. He demanded that Gov. Sanford personally take on the job of finding me some place to work, posthaste. And out of fear of Phil Neal, he did.”

Even during his years in private practice, Neal stayed on top of what was happening at the Law School and the University of Chicago.

“He cherished his years at the Law School, and it was always in his heart,” his son Andrew Neal said. “He was very invested in the whole University and remained so until the end of his life.”

Neal is survived by his wife, Linda Thoren Neal, JD’67; three sons, Stephen (Michelle S. Rhyu), Timothy (Laurie) and Andrew (Holly A. Harrison); 13 grandchildren; and one great-grandson. He was preceded in death by his son Richard, who died in 2015.

A memorial celebration will be held at 4 p.m. on Dec. 5, in the Glen Lloyd Auditorium of the University of Chicago Law School. In lieu of flowers gifts may be made to scholarship funds at The University of Chicago Law School or Music of the Baroque.

—Article originally appeared on the University of Chicago Law School website.

Barry F. Sullivan, alumnus and trustee emeritus, 1930-2016

Wed, 28 Sep 2016 16:00 -0500

Trustee Emeritus Barry F. Sullivan, MBA’57, a banking chief and former chair of the University of Chicago Board of Trustees, died Aug. 11 at the age of 85.

Sullivan, who was elected to the Board of Trustees in 1980, served as chair of the board from 1988 to 1992. In his professional life he was a prominent banking executive and civic leader. From 1957 to 1979, he worked at Chase Manhattan Bank, rising to the level of executive vice president. From 1980 to 1991, he served as chairman and CEO of First Chicago Corporation. He then served as the vice chairman of Sithe Energies, Inc.; director of Liati Group, LLC; and vice chairman and COO of KRoad Power. He also was a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

In 1992, Sullivan joined the public sector as deputy mayor for finance and economic development of New York City and later served as the COO of New York City’s board of education. He was president of the Greater New York Chamber of Commerce. He also served as a trustee of Columbia University, Georgetown University and the Art Institute of Chicago.

Sullivan became a life trustee at UChicago in 1996 and a trustee emeritus in 2007. He served as vice chair of the board from 1985 to 1987 before being named chair of the board. In 1990 he received the University’s Distinguished Alumnus Award. In 2004, he was inducted into the Founder's Circle of the Harper Society and received an honorary doctor of laws degree. He was a former member of the Council on Chicago Booth and a former trustee of the University of Chicago Medical Center.

Sullivan grew up in the Bronx in New York City and played basketball at Georgetown University. After service in Korea in the U.S. Army from 1952 to 1954, he earned a BA from Columbia University in 1955 and an MBA from what is now the Booth School of Business in 1957.

Sullivan is survived by his five children: Barry Jr., MBA’86; Gerald, MBA’86; Mariellen, Scott and John, as well as 17 grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his spouse Audrey, who had served as a member of the Women’s Board.

In keeping with tradition, a memorial resolution in Sullivan's honor will be presented at the Board of Trustees meeting in November.

James W. Cronin, Nobel laureate and pioneering physicist, 1931-2016

Sat, 27 Aug 2016 08:00 -0500

James W. Cronin, a pioneering scientist who shared the Nobel Prize in physics in 1980 for his groundbreaking work on the laws governing matter and antimatter and their role in the universe, died Aug. 25 in Saint Paul, Minn. He was 84.

Cronin, SM’53, PhD’55, spent much of his career at the University of Chicago, first as a student and then a professor. A University Professor Emeritus of Physics and Astronomy & Astrophysics, he was remembered this week as a mentor, collaborator and visionary.

“He inspired us all to reach further into the unknown with deep intuition, solid scientific backing and poetic vision,” said Angela Olinto, the Homer J. Livingston Distinguished Service Professor in Astronomy and Astrophysics. “He accepted his many recognitions and accolades with so much humility that he encouraged many generations to follow his vision.”

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James W. Cronin images

Edward “Rocky” Kolb, dean of the Physical Sciences Division and the Arthur Holly Compton Distinguished Service Professor in Astronomy and Astrophysics, described Cronin as “a person of real honesty and integrity who was a mentor and friend to so many people.”

“Just like in basketball, there are good players in science, but the greatest players are the ones who make the people around them better. Jim was that great player,” Kolb said.

Cronin’s research that resulted in the Nobel Prize came in 1964 while he was working with Val Fitch at the Brookhaven National Laboratory. The two scientists, who were Princeton University professors at the time, observed the first example of nature’s preference for matter over antimatter. Without the phenomenon, which physicists refer to as charge-parity violation, no matter would exist in the universe.

Cronin and Fitch studied the short-lived subatomic particles that appeared after the collision of accelerated protons and the nucleus of an atom. They observed indirect charge-parity violation, which is the unbalanced mixing of neutral subatomic kaon particles with their charged antiparticles. Called the Fitch-Cronin effect, the finding showed that some physical laws are violated when the direction of time is reversed. It also lent support for the big bang theory of the universe’s origin.

He inspired us all to reach further into the unknown with deep intuition, solid scientific backing and poetic vision.Prof. Angela Olinto of James Cronin

Cronin later in his career shifted his focus, becoming co-leader of the Pierre Auger Project. The $50 million international collaboration of 250 scientists across 16 nations focused on the mysterious sources of rare but extremely powerful cosmic rays that periodically bombard Earth. The project led to the creation of the Auger Observatory, which consists of a vast array of cosmic-ray detectors in Argentina.

“It was 25 years ago since Jim and I first conceived the idea of what became the Auger Collaboration. It was definitely a great partnership as we drummed up financial and scientific support for the collaboration,” said Alan Watson, emeritus professor of physics at the University of Leeds and a fellow of the Royal Society.

The collaboration has made definitive measurements on the energy spectrum of cosmic rays, on the patterns of their arrival directions, and on their mass compositions. It also has conducted particle physics research, measuring phenomena that far exceed the energies of the Large Hadron Collider.

“It’s been an outstanding success, and it’s still going strong,” Watson said.

Drawing inspiration from Fermi

Cronin was born on Sept. 29, 1931, in Chicago, while his father was a graduate student in classical languages and literatures at the University of Chicago. The younger Cronin received a bachelor’s from Southern Methodist University in 1951 before returning to the University of Chicago as a National Science Foundation Fellow to earn his master’s and doctoral degrees.

Cronin met his first wife, Annette Martin, while both were students at the University. She died in 2005, and Cronin married Carol McDonald (nee Champlin) in late 2006.

Cronin began his scientific career at Brookhaven before becoming a member of the physics faculty at Princeton in 1958. In 1971, he joined the University of Chicago, where he was appointed the University Professor of Physics. He became University Professor Emeritus of Physics and Astronomy & Astrophysics in 1997.

Cronin shared a birthdate with Prof. Enrico Fermi, who earned the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1938. Cronin, who knew Fermi from his graduate school days at UChicago, organized a symposium in 2001 to mark the 100th anniversary of Fermi’s birth, and was editor of the resulting book, Fermi Remembered. It included contributions from seven Nobel Prize recipients and many other scientists who studied under or worked with Fermi at UChicago.

“What’s significant about Fermi is if you look through his career, he never just did the same thing. He kept moving on to new scientific challenges,” Cronin once said of Fermi. The same statement also could be applied to Cronin and his research shift from high-energy physics to ultra-high-energy cosmic rays.

Cronin’s honors include the University of Chicago Alumni Medal (2013), an honorary doctoral degree from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany (2013), election as a foreign member of the Royal Society of London (2007), Distinguished Graduate Award of SMU’s Dedman College (2004), Legion d’honneur of France (2001), National Medal of Science (1999), University of Chicago’s Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching (1994), Laureate of Lincoln Academy of Illinois (1981), Ernest Lawrence Memorial Award for outstanding contributions in the field of atomic energy (1977), John Price Wetherill Medal of the Franklin Institute (1975) and the Research Corporation Award (1968).

In 1990 Cronin delivered the Ryerson Lecture, which provides an opportunity each year for a distinguished faculty member to address the UChicago community on significant aspects of his or her research.

He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Physical Society, American Philosophical Society, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei of Italy, Mexican Academy of Sciences and the Russian Academy of Sciences. Cronin also had received honorary doctorates from l’Université Pierre et Marie Curie, University of Leeds, Université de Franche Conte, Novo Gorica Polytechnique of Slovenia, University of Nebraska and the University of Santiago de Compostela and the Colorado School of Mines. Cronin served as international chair of the College de France in 1999-2000.

Cronin is survived by his wife, Carol; daughter, Emily Grothe; son, Daniel Cronin; and six grandchildren: James, Cathryn, Caroline, Meredith, Alex and Marlo. A daughter, Cathryn Cranston, died in 2011.

Arrangements for a memorial service are pending.

Arthur M. Sussman, former UChicago general counsel and vice president, 1942-2016

Fri, 12 Aug 2016 22:43 -0500

Arthur M. Sussman served in leadership roles at the University of Chicago for more than two decades, earning widespread admiration and respect as general counsel and vice president for administration and Argonne National Laboratory.

Sussman, 73, died Aug. 10 in Chicago due to complications associated with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

His friends and colleagues across the University community and at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, where he served as vice president for 10 years, remembered Sussman as a reliable and wise leader who could manage complex projects with efficiency and a sense of humor. Even after leaving his leadership position he continued to play an important role in the UChicago community, including membership on the board of the Seminary Co-op Bookstore and serving in 2014-2015 as interim director of the UChicago-affiliated Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass.

“Art was enormously accomplished, contributing in so many ways to the University of Chicago over the years. He brought not only great intelligence and judgment, but a deep personal engagement and commitment to his work,” said President Robert J. Zimmer. “He inspired deep loyalty and made lasting friends everywhere he went. We will miss him a great deal.”

A beloved husband, father, grandfather and brother, Sussman was also an engaged citizen of Chicago and the world, a leader of the city’s cultural, academic, and philanthropic communities, an avid photographer, and a frequent international traveler.

Born to Miriam and Julius Sussman and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Sussman graduated from Cornell University in 1963, where he was an associate editor for the Cornell Sun newspaper and met his wife of 52 years, Rita Padnick. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1966. Sussman served in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps in the Fifth Army headquarters in Highland Park, as an Army captain and later in Washington, D.C. for the secretary of the U.S. Army.

He worked for the New York law firm of Cahill-Gordon and was a partner in the Chicago law firm of Jenner & Block before serving as legal counsel for Southern Illinois University (1977-79) and then general counsel and vice president for administration and Argonne National Laboratory at the University of Chicago for 22 years (1979-2001). Sussman taught a seminar for many years at the University of Chicago Law School on higher education law.

Former University of Chicago President Hanna Gray remembered Sussman as “much more than a lawyer; he was a wise counselor with a broad understanding of and deep commitment to the University and its mission.”

Richard Taub, professor emeritus in Sociology, said Sussman was “a force of nature” who left a mark in many areas of the University. “He never really left the University,” Taub said. “He had this unusual energy, warmth and just all-around good judgment.”

As vice president at the MacArthur Foundation (2001-2011), Sussman helped to shape the foundation’s grantmaking in support of human rights and international justice, biodiversity preservation, and arts and culture in Chicago. Former MacArthur President Jonathan Fanton said of Sussman: “His advice and good instincts about people and programs sharpened MacArthur’s work. He was always open to new ideas, new voices and fresh perspectives.”

Sussman cared deeply about Chicago’s vibrant arts and culture sector. He attended theater and music performances regularly, visited museums large and small, generously supported numerous arts groups and served as chairman of the Illinois Humanities Council, encouraging thought and discussion about the important issues that shape our community and society. He served as board chairman for the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis.

Erika Schmidt, president of the institute, explained: “Art touched all of us as he brought his wisdom and skill to the role of board chair, supporting our efforts to move forward. I am deeply appreciative of his contributions.” Sussman also served on the board of directors for the Albany Park Theatre Project, the Dramatists and Columbia College.

He traveled extensively and to seven continents, including Antarctica. He was a Fulbright fellow who studied British higher education while living in London, and he served as a visiting professor at the Law School at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria. His pictures of West Africa were presented in a 2012 exhibition at Schoenherr Gallery at North Central College in Naperville, Ill.

Sussman is survived by his wife Rita, son Eric and daughter-in-law Carrie, daughter Johanna Ilfeld and son-in-law Jeff Ilfeld, brother Edward, and six grandchildren: Adin Ilfeld, Nathaniel Ilfeld, Miriam Ilfeld, Hannah Sussman, Grace Sussman and Alec Sussman.

Sussman’s funeral is scheduled for Aug. 14 at 10:30 a.m. at KAM Isaiah Israel,1100 E. Hyde Park Blvd. There will be a private interment following the service. The family will receive well-wishers and sit shiva at 3:30 p.m. Aug. 14 and from 3 to 6 p.m. on Aug. 15 and Aug. 16 at 2440 N. Lakeview Ave., Apt. 18E, Chicago. The shiva minyan (religious service) will be held at 6:30 p.m. on each date.

Donations in Sussman’s memory or to honor the family should be directed to the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis, 122 S. Michigan Ave, Suite 1300, Chicago, IL 60603-6184 or online at http://www.chicagoanalysis.org/content/support-us.

This piece was adapted with material from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Halil Inalcik, historian of Ottoman Empire and University Professor, 1916-2016

Mon, 01 Aug 2016 15:30 -0500

Prof. Halil Inalcik, a preeminent expert on the Ottoman Empire who trained two generations of scholars in the United States and Turkey, died on July 25. He was 100 years old.

Inalcik’s research was critical in elevating the Ottoman period to a leading role in the study of world history. His scholarly work was marked by rigorous research of source materials, and his writings, including The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age 1300–1600, became critical texts for historians around the world.

“Without exaggeration one really has to say he not only created but actually built the study of things Ottoman and the Ottoman Empire in its many cultural, political and economic contexts. He was really and truly the master,” said Cornell Fleischer, the Kanuni Suleyman Professor of Ottoman and Modern Turkish Studies.

Inalcik was born in Istanbul in the final years of the Ottoman Empire and received his formal education in Turkey, completing his PhD at the University of Ankara in 1942. He later wrote his childhood in Istanbul partly drew him to his field of study, but a bigger factor was the rich and expansive source materials from the Ottoman period.

Inalcik was recruited to UChicago in the early 1970s from the University of Ankara by Prof. William McNeill, a pioneer in the field of world history. Inalcik, who also taught at Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton University, became one of UChicago’s early University Professors, an appointment reserved for scholars with internationally recognized eminence in their fields and potential for high impact across the University.

Inalcik held appointments in History and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations.

“Halil Inalcik was a scholar of international repute whose work was marked by high erudition, superb critical analysis and an extraordinary command of vast historical sources. We were greatly honored that he was a member of our faculty,” said John W. Boyer, the Martin A. Ryerson Professor in History and dean of the College.

At the University, Inalcik trained a series of young historians who became top scholars, while continuing his own research, which spanned the history of Crimea, Albania and Anatolia in the 15th century to Bulgaria in the 19th century. His work encompassed social, political and economic history from peasants to sultans.

“Professor Inalcik transformed the field of Ottoman studies from an obscure and exotic sub-field into one of the leading historical disciplines. He has set the agenda for critical analysis and understanding of a crucial time period in world history,” said Fariba Zarinebaf, PhD’91, a former student of Inalcik and associate professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at the University of California at Riverside.

Inalcik retired from the University in 1986 and became a professor emeritus. He returned to Turkey and founded the history department at Bilkent University in Ankara. Inalcik received numerous honors during his lifetime, including 23 honorary doctorates and awards in Turkey for his contributions to history and culture.

Inalcik wrote about his life and career in an essay published in 1993, including his time at the University. One of his favorite memories was a visit to campus by dervishes from Turkey who practice Islamic mysticism. He remembered being deeply moved as their cries reverberated off the ceiling of a University chapel.

Gary Toback, renowned authority on kidney disease, 1941-2016

Tue, 26 Jul 2016 13:10 -0500

Gary Toback, professor of medicine and former interim section chief of nephrology, died July 20 when he was struck by a vehicle while jogging near his South Shore home.

Toback, a highly respected authority on kidney disease, especially the use of renal growth factors to treat acute kidney injury, was a loyal, productive and popular member of the faculty for 42 years. He was devoted to the care of patients with kidney disease and the education of medical students.

He was also a highly respected clinical scientist. His earliest studies focused on potassium and the kidney, and on the development of kidney stones. Later in his career he concentrated on proteins associated with regeneration of kidney tissues. More recently, in collaboration with colleagues in gastroenterology, he searched for proteins that could prevent damage or speed recovery for gastric epithelial tissues, with a particular emphasis on inflammatory bowel disease.

“I feel a great sense of personal loss at this tragic event,” said Kenneth Polonsky, dean of the Biological Sciences Division and the Pritzker School of Medicine and executive vice president for medical affairs at the University of Chicago. “Gary was a true role model for physician-scientists, deeply committed to scholarship, education and the care of patients with renal disease. He always conducted himself with the highest level of dignity and professionalism.”

Toback’s efforts to identify, purify and characterize various growth factors involved in wound healing, and later with kidney stone disease, led to multiple patents and the formation in 1995 of a biotechnology company, NephRx Corporation, based in Kalamazoo, Mich.

“He trained as a scientist and a clinician,” said Fredric Coe, professor of medicine and medical director of the University’s Kidney Stone Prevention Program, “and focused on cell biology, in this case how individual cells respond to an injury. In the process, he discovered a molecule, antrum mucosal protein-18, which is of considerable importance for cell repair.”

He was also “passionate about both scientific enquiry and the rights and protection of patients participating in clinical research,” said Arlene Chapman, section chief of nephrology and director of the Clinical Research Center for the University of Chicago’s Institute for Translational Medicine. As the research subject advocate for the ITM, Toback “tirelessly ensured participants’ best interests were taken into account when enrolled in clinical trials,” she said.

“Gary Toback was a quadruple threat,” said Jonathan Moss, professor of anesthesiology. “He was a superb clinician, an outstanding researcher, a gifted teacher and a successful administrator.”

Colleagues also remember Toback as a remarkably friendly, kind, level-headed and well-liked professor, readily available to faculty and students, and consistently able to provide solid, sensible advice.

“Gary was a mensch,” said geneticist Graeme Bell, the Kovler Family Distinguished Service Professor of Medicine. Everyone liked him. Talking with him was valuable because he was widely respected in his field, always saw the big picture and could fill in the details, as needed, with pure common sense.”

“He was a superb listener,” said Marshall Lindheimer, professor emeritus of medicine and obstetrics and gynecology, who helped recruit Toback to UChicago. “He was open and engaging. He had a talent for paying attention. He could focus intently on whoever was speaking as if they were saying something profound—even if it was mostly malarkey.”

“Gary was a quiet soul,” Coe added, “a lovely, warm, gracious, considerate man. He was always a good person to have in the room.”

Four decades at UChicago

Frederick Gary Toback was born Oct. 23, 1941, in Brooklyn, N.Y. He graduated cum laude in biochemistry from Columbia University in 1963. He completed his medical training at the New York University School of Medicine in 1967, followed by residency at the Cleveland Metropolitan General Hospital, part of the Case Western Reserve system. After serving for a year in the United States Navy Medical Corps, he returned to school to earn his PhD in biochemistry at Boston University, followed by a clinical nephrology fellowship at the Beth Israel Hospital in Boston.

He came to the University of Chicago in 1974 as an assistant professor of medicine and—except for one sabbatical year at the Salk Institute in San Diego, where he studied the importance of sodium ions in epithelial cell growth—stayed for the rest of his career. He was promoted to associate professor in 1980 and professor in 1985. He served as interim section chief for nephrology from late 2008 to 2015. He published 100 research papers during his 42 years at the University of Chicago and lectured at distinguished universities throughout the United States and Europe.

Toback took on dozens of administrative and committee roles, within the University and on the national level. He participated in four internal search committees for department chairmen and three department reviews and was a member or chair of multiple grant review committees at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.

Toback was honored nationally by election to the Association of American Physicians and the American Society for Clinical Investigation. He was a fellow of the American Heart Association’s Council on the Kidney in Cardiovascular Disease. He was an active member of the National Kidney Foundation and the American Society of Nephrology.

The University’s Biological Sciences Division honored him last year with a symposium about the biology of kidney disease and its treatment.

He was also devoted to his family. He married his childhood friend Phyllis Brooks in 1963. They raised three children—David Andrew Toback, Alison Rachel and Jonathan Daniel—and have seven grandchildren.

A memorial service at the University of Chicago will be held at a later date. In lieu of flowers, donations should be sent to the Gary Toback Research Fund, in care of the Medical Center Development Office, 773-702-6565 or GivetoMedicine@bsd.uchicago.edu.

Wallace W. Booth, alumnus and trustee emeritus, 1922-2016

Tue, 19 Jul 2016 13:00 -0500

A prominent business executive and philanthropist, Trustee Emeritus Wallace (Wally) W. Booth, AB’48, MBA’48, died at home in Los Angeles last month at age 93.

Booth was the retired chairman of the board and CEO of Ducommun Inc., a Los Angeles-based company engaged in the production and servicing of aerospace-related components. Throughout his career, he held senior positions with Ford Motor Co., Rockwell International and United Brands, Inc.

Born in Nashville, Tenn., Booth was raised in Chicago. He served as an officer in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II before earning his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in business from UChicago in 1948. He was elected to the University Board of Trustees in 1982, becoming a life trustee in 1991 and trustee emeritus in 2007.

He served on the budget planning, development planning and investment committees and was a vice chair of the Council on the Graduate School of Business (Booth Council). In 1986 he endowed the Wallace W. Booth Professorship. (Wallace Booth is of no relation to David Booth, for whom Chicago Booth is named).

He served on the board of directors of several companies, including Litton Industries, Rohr, First Interstate Bank and Navistar International and was involved in a number of philanthropic organizations, including The Children’s Bureau, the Achievement Rewards for College Scientists Foundation and the League for Children. Booth also was a former president of the Southern California United Way.

Booth is survived by his wife, Rosemary; his children, Ann Booth Cox and John England Booth; three grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by Donna Booth, to whom he was married for 50 years.

Antonin Scalia, Supreme Court justice and former UChicago law professor, 1936-2016

Mon, 15 Feb 2016 12:30 -0600

During U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s return visit in 2012 to the University of Chicago Law School, where he taught for five years, a law student asked him what was the most important issue that had not yet come before the court.

Scalia paused before responding, “What is the meaning of life?” It was a fittingly expansive answer from a justice known for his wit, keen intellect and the belief that many of the most important questions in life and public policy are outside the court’s authority.

Scalia, a defining figure in modern conservatism who was also known as a gracious colleague and teacher, died Feb. 13 during a hunting trip in Texas. He was 79.

“The Law School mourns the passing of Justice Antonin Scalia, our former faculty member, whose theories of statutory and constitutional interpretation have been among the most influential ideas in law in the last half-century,” said Law School Dean Thomas J. Miles. “Justice Scalia’s connections to the Law School were many and deep. After he left the faculty and later was appointed to the court, Justice Scalia was a mentor to dozens of our graduates whom he hired as his law clerks. He was also the father of a distinguished graduate of the Law School, Eugene Scalia. The power and clarity of Justice Scalia’s reasoning, as well has his lively writing style, ensure that his judicial opinions will be widely read and widely debated for many years to come.”

At the University and in his 30 years of service on the Supreme Court—the longest of any current justice—Scalia was known as a standard bearer for originalism, an approach to constitutional interpretation that focuses on the text’s meaning as people at the time would have understood it. Prof. Geoffrey Stone, who was a young faculty member when Scalia arrived at UChicago in 1977, described “Nino” as “tough, brilliant and kind.” He said Scalia’s positions have often prevailed, though his originalist philosophy has not become as widespread as Scalia might have hoped.

“He was a brilliant analyst, an extraordinary writer and fervently committed to his views,” wrote Stone, the Edward H. Levi Distinguished Service Professor of Law, in The Daily Beast. “In the end, I suspect Nino’s greatest disappointment was that he could never persuade his colleagues to embrace his originalist vision of constitutional law.”

A graduate of Georgetown University and Harvard Law School, Scalia taught at the University of Virginia and served in the Nixon and Ford administrations before coming to the University of Chicago. He helped organize the Law School’s first chapter of the conservative Federalist Society in 1982—one of the society’s first three chapters nationwide—and served as its first faculty advisor. The subjects that he taught included administrative law, and Stone recalled that he was an engaging and witty participant in a monthly poker game.

Scalia said in his 2012 visit that the most lasting impact of his time at the Law School came from his influence on students rather than from his legal writings.

“A whole lot of what I am intellectually is attributable to this place,” Scalia said when he delivered the 2012 Ulysses and Marguerite Schwartz Memorial Lecture before a full Law School auditorium. “The University of Chicago is one of two or three of the most formidable intellectual institutions in the world; a really impressive place. You’re lucky to be here. And I’m glad to be back.”

‘A great man, and a deeply good one’

In 1982 President Ronald Reagan appointed Scalia to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, followed in 1986 by Scalia’s nomination to the Supreme Court, which the Senate confirmed unanimously. “It’s hard to believe this,” he said in 2012. “I was confirmed by a vote of 98 to nothing. Me!” He said the contentiousness of recent Supreme Court confirmation hearings arises in part from anxiety over the court’s elevated role—in his view, “putting in new rights that didn’t exist before and taking out some rights that used to exist.”

On the court, Scalia was known as a gifted writer and a brilliant participant in oral arguments, often using historical evidence as an aid in determining the original meaning of laws and the Constitution. He cast his originalist approach as a safeguard against ideologically motivated decisions, and a limit on the temptation for unelected judges to give themselves more power at the expense of elected representatives.

“Justice Scalia’s powerful arguments for originalism and textualism changed the way all justices, liberal and conservative, approached cases,” said Aziz Huq, the Frank and Bernice J. Greenberg Professor of Law. “One of his great victories is that many tenets of his approaches to legal problems are now conventional wisdom. And for better or worse, Scalia’s pungent and forceful opinions did not merely appeal to law professors or other jurists. Rather, he spoke directly to the public, making him, in a sense, one of the democratic Justices of our age.”

“Justice Scalia had a gigantic influence, and he inspired a generation of law students to see the importance of legal craft,” said William Baude, the Neubauer Family Assistant Professor of Law. “He was brilliant and witty, but even more important, he had integrity. Some of his most important opinions—in sentencing, trial rights and government searches, for example—upheld the rights of criminal defendants toward whom Scalia was not particularly sympathetic. But he took pride in trying to follow legal principle, regardless of whether he liked the results.”

Scalia’s positions sometimes surprised liberals, such as his support for the “rule of lenity,” giving defendants the benefit of the doubt in instances where the will of Congress is unclear. He befriended people across the ideological spectrum, including close friend Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, with whom he went parasailing in France and rode an elephant in India.

Cass Sunstein, who served with Scalia on the Law School faculty, said even those who disagreed with Scalia “owe him an immense debt, because the clarity and power of his arguments forced us to do better.” Sunstein said Scalia treated him with “immense kindness” and generosity when Sunstein was a young professor at UChicago.

“He was a great man, and a deeply good one,” Sunstein wrote in Bloomberg.

Scalia discussed many current legal issues with UChicago students and faculty members during his two-day visit in 2012, but his most widely cited quote came in response to a student who asked what advice he would give to a young law student today.

“Try to find a practice that enables you to have a human existence,” said Scalia, who began his law career at a firm in Cleveland, in part to allow more time for his family. “I’m not talking about time for goofing off; I’m talking about time to attend to your other responsibilities—to your family, to your church or synagogue, to your community. All of those are real responsibilities.”

Looking back at his first law job, Scalia said, “You should look for a place like that. I’m sure they’re still out there. Maybe you have to go to Cleveland.”

Scalia’s legacy at the Law School includes strong family connections. His son Eugene Scalia, JD’90, served as editor-in-chief of the University of Chicago Law Review and has sometimes taught courses at the Law School since graduating.

In addition to his son Eugene, Scalia is survived by his wife of 56 years, Maureen McCarthy Scalia, their eight other children and numerous grandchildren.

Lloyd Rudolph, leading scholar and teacher of South Asia, 1927-2016

Mon, 18 Jan 2016 12:00 -0600

Editor’s note: A memorial service for Lloyd I. Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph will be held Nov. 12 at 1:30 p.m. in Rockefeller Memorial Chapel

Lloyd Rudolph, professor emeritus of political science, died Jan. 16, in Oakland, Calif. of prostate cancer. He was 88.

He had a long and distinguished career at UChicago, almost entirely in collaboration with his wife, Prof. Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, who died in December 2015. In 2014, the Rudolphs jointly received the Padma Bhushan Award, one of India’s highest civilian honors. The award recognizes distinguished service of a high order to the nation of India in any field.

“When it comes to thinking about contemporary India, one misses political analysts of the caliber of Lloyd and Susanne,” said colleague Dipesh Chakrabarty, the Lawrence A. Kimpton Distinguished Service Professor in History and South Asian Languages and Civilizations.

The Rudolphs had the capacity to express academic criticism of Indian politics in a way that communicated their concerns for the country—a trait that Charkabarty said he admired.

“They undertook their scholarly work in a true spirit of generosity,” Chakrabarty said. “They were almost proud of what they saw as the achievements of Indian democracy while being critical of what they saw as its shortcomings. They, unlike many other external observers, did not make Indians feel defensive about their nation, and that was one reason why they were deeply respected by Indian leaders and scholars,” Chakrabarty said.

The Rudolphs also were known for encouraging other South Asian scholars in a variety of disciplines, and sought to integrate into their work the insights provided by social science scholarship from outside political science.

“I was often surprised to find that they had actually read some of my historical essays and wanted to discuss them with me,” Chakrabarty said.

Rudolph’s research and teaching focused on institutional political economy, state formation, South Asian comparative politics, and Gandhian thought and practice. The Rudolphs co-authored or co-edited eight books together, starting with The Modernity of Tradition (1967), a seminal formulation of the problem of tradition and modernity that has shaped the study of India past and present over the last 50 years.

“The Modernity of Tradition turned out to be one of the most enduring interpretations of modernization of Indian society,” Chakrabarty said. “At a time when reigning theories of the 1950s blamed the so-called backwardness of India on the tenacity of her ‘traditional’ institutions like caste, the Rudolphs showed how traditional-seeming institutions had actually morphed through the colonial period to take on functions that one could only see as ‘modern.’”

Their later work on Indian capitalism, Gandhi and other topics were similarly informed by a deep sensitivity to India’s specific history and culture, he said.

Their other books include Education and Politics in India (co-editors, 1972), The Regional Imperative: The Administration of U.S. Foreign Policy Towards South Asian States (co-editors and contributing authors, 1980, reissued in 2007); Gandhi: The Traditional Roots of Charisma (1983); Essays on Rajputana (1984); and In Pursuit of Lakshmi: The Political Economy of the Indian State (1987).

More recently they published Reversing the Gaze: The Amar Singh Diary, a Colonial Subject’s Narrative of Imperial India (2000, 2005); and Postmodern Gandhi and Other Essays (2006).

In 2008, the Oxford University Press published a three-volume, career-spanning collection of the Rudolphs’ writings entitled Explaining Indian Democracy: A Fifty-Year Perspective.

Lloyd Rudolph also edited or co-edited and contributed to Cultural Politics in India (1984); The Idea of Rajasthan (1994), and Experiencing the State (2006).

In 2002, the Rudolphs co-delivered the University’s Nora and Edward Ryerson Lecture, during which they reflected on their intellectual lives and work together. The faculty selects each Ryerson Lecturer based on a consensus that a particular scholar has made research contributions of lasting significance.

Lloyd Irving Rudolph was born in Chicago on Nov. 1, 1927, and grew up in Chicago and Elgin. His mother, Bertha M. Rudolph, was co-operator of the Allied Shoe Company and a leading Hyde Park real estate owner and manager. After graduating from Elgin High School, he was appointed a cadet at West Point in 1945, but resigned his commission to attend Harvard University, from which he graduated magna cum laude in 1948. From Harvard he also earned a master of public administration degree in 1950, and a PhD in political science in 1956. He married Susanne Hoeber Rudolph in 1952.

In 1956, the Rudolphs drove a Land Rover from Austria to New Delhi, their first trip to India, launching an almost 60-year partnership studying the country. In 2014, they published an account of that journey, Destination India.

Rudolph joined the Harvard faculty with Susanne in 1957, where they remained until their appointment to the UChicago political science faculty in 1964. At the University he served as chair of the Committee on International Relations and the Master of Arts Program in the Social Sciences and as chair of concentrations in political science, public policy, international studies and South Asian studies in the College. In 1999, Rudolph received UChicago’s Faculty Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching. He retired as professor emeritus in 2002 along with Susanne.

The Rudolphs were famous for co-teaching courses, and they often lectured together. “They have been so deeply entwined with each other’s thinking and work that it becomes impossible to separate them, even though they each wrote and thought separately,” said Philip Oldenburg, PhD’74, an adjunct associate professor of political science at Columbia University. Oldenburg said that Lloyd was his mentor but treated him as a junior colleague from his first year in graduate school.

He recalled that the Rudolphs would often invite world-famous scholars, tenured colleagues and selected graduate students to social events at their home. “These were gatherings where conversation flowed across the reputation/experience barriers, and where serious discussions melded with conviviality,” Oldenburg said.

Together, the Rudolphs served on the defense committees of approximately 300 students. “The Rudolphs were generous with their time, ideas and resources,” said Kamal Sadiq, PhD’03, an associate professor of political science at University of California, Irvine, who had both Lloyd and Susanne as his advisors. Sadiq remembers fondly how a 15-minute meeting with Susanne would frequently flow into an extended meeting with Lloyd in the neighboring office.

“Soon both the Rudolphs were in an animated exchange over my dissertation. A multitude of concepts and facts were examined, and I would emerge smiling and enthused about the research ahead,” Sadiq said.

Lloyd Rudolph’s family had strong UChicago ties. Both of his brothers attended the University. His older brother Robert, X’46, MBA’54, died in 2012. His younger brother Wallace, AB’50, JD’53, was a professor and dean at two law schools. He practices law in Florida.

“As a University of Chicago PhD myself, I always felt inspired by both Lloyd and Susanne,” said nephew Alexander L. Rudolph, PhD’88, professor of physics and astronomy at California State Polytechnic University in Pomona. “I saw them as the model of what an academic can be in a very old-school way, meaning that as a compliment. I also feel a certain pride in having received my PhD from their institution, albeit in a different field.”

The Rudolphs were active in the “Perestroika” movement in political science, a movement that challenged the idea that objective truth had to be divorced from time, place and circumstances. The Rudolphs vigorously promoted the value of area studies to scholarship.

In 2003, the Rudolphs’ colleagues convened a three-day UChicago conference in their honor, titled “Area Studies Redux: Situating Knowledge in a Globalizing World.” The conference, coming less than two years after the 9/11 tragedy, focused on the need to better understand other cultures, the role regions play in world politics, and the significance of “local knowledge” and area studies.

Rudolph received grants or fellowships from the MacArthur Foundation, Ford Foundation, National Science Foundation, Guggenheim Foundation, the American Institute of Indian Studies, National Endowment for the Humanities and the Fulbright program.

Rudolph published in scholarly journals such as the American Political Science Review, World Politics, Journal of Asian Studies, Modern Asian Studies, and Daedalus. He also wrote opinion pieces for outlets such as Foreign Affairs, New Republic, New York Times Magazine, New York Times Book Review, Christian Science Monitor and The Nation.

Rudolph is survived by his three children: Jenny, who serves on the faculty at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School; Amelia, artistic director of Bandaloop, an Oakland, Calif.-based aerial dance company; and Matthew, a political scientist teaching at San Francisco State University; his three grandchildren: Gia (19), Maya (9) and Ry (4); and his younger brother Wallace Rudolph.

Arrangements for a memorial service are pending. Memorials may be made in honor of Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph to the American Institute for Indian Studies.

John Fennessy, pioneering radiologist, 1933-2016

Fri, 15 Jan 2016 12:15 -0600

John Fennessy, a pioneer in the field of chest radiology, died Jan. 3 from complications following cardiac surgery in November 2015. He was 82.

A professor emeritus and former chair of the Department of Radiology, Fennessy was known by colleagues as the final authority on anything involving radiologic examination of the chest or abdomen, and the person other physicians turned to for interpretation of subtle diagnostic details on X-rays.

Those who trained with Fennessy also recalled his patience, kindness, distinctive sense of humor and genuine respect for medical students and residents. He won the McClintock Award for Outstanding Teaching in 1969 and was selected nearly 30 times as a favorite faculty member by the graduating medical students.

“He was one of the most thoughtful people I’ve ever met,” said pulmonologist J.P. Kress, professor of medicine at the University of Chicago. “He was generous with his time, down to earth, funny in a kind way and an unbelievably great radiologist. On a tough case, we all wanted his input.”

Whenever his former students get together, “we all agree that we hope, someday, to be just like him,” Kress said. “None of us has quite gotten there yet.”

Fennessy had a direct impact on the field. One of his first papers, published in 1966, expanded on a technique developed in Japan in which radiologists inserted a catheter into the lung to obtain tissue from lesions at the periphery of the bronchial tree. Fennessy’s innovative adaptation, known as the bronchial brush, enabled physicians to acquire better samples from hard-to-reach areas of the lungs, without the need for an incision. His technique was widely disseminated in the United States and abroad.

He also was a founding member of the Society of Thoracic Radiology and a member of the prestigious Fleischner Society, an international, multidisciplinary medical society for thoracic radiology.

“He was sort of a legend,” said Steve Montner, associate professor of radiology at UChicago, who trained under Fennessy. “We were all a little awed by him. He was one of the gods of chest radiography, but he was so kind and gentle, he quickly put patients and trainees at ease.”

John James Fennessy was born March 8, 1933, in Clonmel, Ireland. He was educated at the Glenstal Abbey School and University College, Dublin, where he completed his medical degree in 1958. He began his internship at Mater Misericordiae University Hospital in Dublin, before moving to the United States in 1959 to work as an intern at Mercy Hospital in Chicago.

He came to UChicago as a resident in 1960 and was elected chief resident in his final year, followed by two years on staff as an instructor. In 1965, he joined the faculty as an assistant professor. He was promoted to associate professor in 1968 and professor in 1974.

That year he was named chairman of radiology, a position he held for 10 years. In 1982, Fennessy led the team that designed the department’s clinical facility in Mitchell Hospital, which opened in 1983.

“He was an extremely capable but somewhat reluctant chairman,” recalled Heber MacMahon, who worked with Fennessy for his residency and is now chief of thoracic radiology at UChicago. “He preferred teaching and taking care of patients to administration and battling for resources, but he helped build up the department with a series of excellent recruits and was able to bring in the latest technology for the opening of Mitchell Hospital in 1983.

Fennessy won many honors for his research, teaching and service to the field. He was elected first vice president of the Radiological Society of North America in 1987. He was invited to speak as a visiting professor at universities across the United States as well as in Canada, England, Ireland, Qatar and Taiwan.

He was also the radiologist for a team assembled by UChicago gastroenterologist Joseph Kirsner, which provided medical care for King Hassan II of Morocco for two decades at the University of Chicago and at the royal palace in Rabat, Morocco’s capital.

Family and colleagues cited Fennessy’s many interests outside medicine.

“He was a voracious reader—a habit we all inherited,” said daughter Deirdre Wallace Fennessy. “He lived and breathed medicine, but he also knew and taught us a great deal about the history and literature of Ireland. He stayed in touch with relatives and friends there and often took us to visit. He even kept a small house there, a shack really, with no running water. He particularly enjoyed fly fishing. I think he was happiest out in the woods.”

Fennessy is survived by his wife of 55 years, Ann Mary Ursula; two siblings in Ireland, Nora Stapleton and Cianan Fennessy; and six children: Deirdre Ann, Conor Dermott, Sean Donal, Rona Meabdh, Niall Patrick and Ruairi Brendan. One daughter, Emer Moira, died last year. Dr. Fennessy and his wife have five grandchildren and numerous nephews and nieces.

Funeral services were held on Jan. 11 at St. Thomas the Apostle Church, 5472 S. Kimbark Ave. The family plans to inter his ashes in Ireland.

John Eaton, composer and electronic music pioneer, 1935-2015

Wed, 09 Dec 2015 16:45 -0600

John Eaton, a pioneering composer known for his chamber operas and advances in electronic music, died Dec. 2 from a massive brain hemorrhage. Eaton, 80, was professor emeritus in music.

A 1990 MacArthur fellow, Eaton drew praise for his inventive style and sound—one critic dubbed him “the most interesting opera composer writing in America today.” He was especially known for small-ensemble operas in which instrumentalists joined the action, dancing and acting onstage alongside the vocalists.

“John Eaton was a composer unlike any other,” remembered his friend and UChicago colleague Shulamit Ran, the Andrew MacLeish Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in Music. In all his work, “his own, thoroughly personal voice always prevailed. Everything that he did had a deeply musical impulse to it—passionate and profoundly human.”

Eaton studied composition under Milton Babbitt and Roger Sessions at Princeton University, where he received his bachelor’s degree in 1957 and his MFA in 1959. Both “encouraged me to go my own way,” he recalled later.

Eaton’s compositions owe their distinctive sound to his use of microtones—notes the fall between the traditional 12 tones of the Western musical scale.

His exploration of microtonal music grew out of his experiences as a jazz pianist. Unlike the saxophonists with whom he performed, Eaton couldn’t “bend” notes to alter their pitch. “As a pianist, my notes were fixed,” Eaton explained to NewCity in January 2015.

To achieve the diversity of sounds he wanted, Eaton developed a novel technique: For his 1964 piece “Microtonal Fantasy,” a single pianist plays two pianos tuned a quarter-tone apart.

The result is what Eaton’s colleague and fellow composer Augusta Read Thomas describes as “unusual and personal harmonic fabrics of sound.” She added, “when I hear his work, I feel like I’ve entered into this unique, otherworldly place that he’s taking me on a beautiful adventure.”

Eaton’s search for a subtler and expressive keyboard led him to collaborate with Robert Moog, inventor of the famed Moog synthesizer. Together, the pair developed a sophisticated new synthesizer, which featured three 49-key keyboards. Each key was programmed to respond to five different motions, like the finger’s front and back position on each key or the pressure on the key when pushed.

When the Eaton-Moog Multiple-Touch-Sensitive Keyboard was unveiled in 1992, Eaton declared it “the world’s most sensitive instrument next to the human voice. Playing it is a kind of combination of playing a very sensitive stringed instrument and playing a keyboard instrument.” Eaton gave his invention its first live concert performance in Mandel Hall in May 1992 in a piece called “Genesis.”

That same concert also featured the world premiere of Peer Gynt, an intimate chamber opera. It was one of Eaton’s many operas inspired by literature or folklore, including Don Quixote, The Tempest, The Cry of Clytaemnestra and Myshkin, which was broadcast on PBS and received a Peabody Award. He also explored modern themes: In 1995, Eaton collaborated with UChicago colleague and acclaimed novelist Richard Stern on the libretto for the 1995 satirical opera Golk, which examines a “Candid Camera”-esque TV show.

To support the production of his work, Eaton founded the Pocket Opera Company in 1992. The nimble company featured only about a dozen freelance musicians and eschewed elaborate sets and costumes, giving them the freedom to perform almost anywhere. Eaton continued to lead the ensemble after retiring in 2001.

In retirement, Eaton also maintained close ties to the University. Most recently, he composed “The End Of It” for the 50th anniversary of the contemporary music ensemble Contempo. Eaton composed “The End Of It” with an awareness that it might be among his final works; shortly before its premiere, he told Ran that it meant more to him than any other work he had composed.

Family members recall Eaton as a man whose heart matched his intellect. His warm presence and twinkling wit made Eaton a favorite host among his friends, who dropped by to enjoy his expert cooking, as well as his company. Eaton also enjoyed reading classic literature, traveling to Rome and spending time with his beloved cat, Bobok.

“It seems almost incomprehensible to accept that he is no longer with us,” Ran said. “But his art will remain alive—through the huge repertoire of operas, song cycles, and much more, that he left as his legacy.”

Eaton is survived by his wife, Nelda Nelson-Eaton, and his children, Estela and Julian Eaton. A wake will be held Dec. 10 at the Eaton home in New Jersey. A memorial concert is planned for March 2016 in New York.

Terence Turner, anthropologist and human rights advocate for indigenous people, 1935-2015

Tue, 17 Nov 2015 16:15 -0600

Prof. Emeritus Terence Turner, a UChicago anthropologist who did research in the Amazon basin and became a proponent for the rights of indigenous people, died Nov. 7 in Ithaca, N.Y. He was 79.

In 1962 Turner began working among the Kayapo, who live in small villages in central Brazil—returning to the area on an almost annual basis. His research covered topics such as social organization and kinship; myth, ritual and history; political organization and mobilization; values and inter-ethnic relations.

His field work led to an interest in activism for the Kayapo people, who gave Turner the Kayapo name Wakampu during his earliest field visits. His wife, Jane Fajans, a professor of anthropology at Cornell University, said Turner’s activism began when the Brazilian Indian Agency asked him to investigate Brazilian nationals’ incursion into Kayapo territory for both gold mining and poaching. That activism was further fueled around opposition to the Karararao (now Belo Monte) dam in the mid 1980s, she added.

“Terry Turner was both a brilliant theoretical thinker about the nature of social systems and an indefatigable ally of the indigenous people among whom he worked as an ethnographer—the Kayapo people of Brazil,” said Michael Silverstein, the Charles F. Grey Distinguished Service Professor of Anthropology at UChicago.

“Increasingly he became a champion of the rights of the Kayapo and other indigenous peoples—not merely to survive, but to negotiate ways of flourishing as participants in the contemporary world,” Silverstein added.

Activism grows out of commitment to anthropology

In his field work, Turner saw the work of missionaries, loggers, miners and ranchers encroaching upon the Kayapo way of life. While a British TV crew was filming a documentary series in 1987 on disappearing cultures, he encouraged the Kayapo to trade access to their villages for the use of camera equipment, which they used to record their way of life.

“Terry’s activism grew organically out of his commitment to anthropology,” said Prof. Adam Smith, chair of anthropology at Cornell University. “It was his long-term relationship with the Kayapo that created the kind of trust that could lead to initiatives like the video project. Terry’s thoughtful approach offers an enduring lesson for scholars and activists alike.”

He helped encourage the Kayapo’s front-line activism in the global movement to protect the Amazon rainforest. In 1990, he founded the Kayapo Video Project to provide the community with film equipment and production training. This ongoing project will be honored in December with a United Nations Equator Prize at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Paris.

In addition, Turner was a translator for a delegation of Kayapo who joined Cree people from Canada in 1992 at a conference to talk about the problems indigenous people were having with electrical power developments that threatened their environment.

Silverstein said that Turner’s “devotion was returned in the most touching and heartfelt expressions of respect by his Kayapo and other allies.” In a recent letter to Turner, the Kayapo community’s leadership wrote: “You are a great warrior that taught us so much…and fought so hard for the Kayapo…Thank you for sharing your book of life with us and letting us be part of a beautiful chapter written with trust and friendship. To you, Wakampu, all of our respect and admiration.”

A closer look at the Kayapo

Born Dec. 30, 1935 in Philadelphia, Turner received his bachelor’s degree from Harvard University in 1957, a master’s in 1959 from the University of California, Berkeley, and a PhD in 1965 in social anthropology from Harvard.

He joined the UChicago faculty in 1968 after serving as a research associate at the Museo Nacional do Brasil in Rio de Janeiro and as a visiting assistant professor of social anthropology at Cornell University. In 1982, he was named professor at Chicago. He retired in 1999 and became an adjunct and later visiting professor in anthropology at Cornell.

“He was an extraordinarily charismatic colleague, and one of the most intellectually gifted members of the (UChicago) Anthropology department,” said John Comaroff, a former UChicago colleague who is now a professor at Harvard.

“His are among some of the best essays written in late-20th-century anthropology,” said Comaroff. He hailed Turner’s “The Social Skin,” which analyzed the significance of body decoration among the Kayapo, as “an inspirational piece—one of many that combined a conceptual tour de force with a deep respect for thick description.”

A full version of “The Social Skin” was published in 1980 in the book, Not Work Alone. In an article published on the topic in 1979 in the magazine New Scientist, Turner explained how the way people choose to dress communicates meaning.

He pointed out that while adult Kayapo men wear little clothing, they adorn their bodies with paint and lip plugs. “A closer look at Kayapo bodily ornament discloses that the apparently naked savage just described is as fully covered in a fabric of cultural meaning as the most elaborately draped Victorian lady or gentleman,” Turner wrote in the New Scientist.

Turner was the president of Survival International U.S.A., a group that advocates for indigenous people, and a founding member of the American Anthropological Association’s Ethics and Human Rights Committees. In 1998, he received the Association’s Solon T. Kimball Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Application of Anthropology to Human Rights and Development Issues.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by daughters Vanessa Fajans-Turner and Allison Fajans-Turner; sister Allison K. Turner; and sister-in-law Anne M. Turner.

Leo Kadanoff, leading figure in theoretical physics, 1937-2015

Fri, 30 Oct 2015 14:15 -0500

Theoretical physicist Leo Kadanoff, who transformed theory and practice across scientific disciplines, died of respiratory failure on Oct. 26 in Chicago. He was 78.

“Leo was a prodigious scientist,” said his longtime UChicago colleague Sidney Nagel, the Stein-Freiler Distinguished Service Professor in Physics. “His work on statistical mechanics is one of the great achievements of 20th-century theoretical physics. It laid the conceptual and mathematical foundations for some of the most insightful and effective tools on which our modern understanding of nature is based.”

Kadanoff’s work has applications throughout physics, ranging from condensed matter (liquids and solids) to elementary particles, Nagel said, with the reach of his work extending to mathematics and other sciences.

Kadanoff received the 1999 National Medal of Science, the nation’s highest science honor, from President Bill Clinton in a White House ceremony. Kadanoff was cited “for leadership in fundamental theoretical research in statistical, solid-state and nonlinear physics, which has led to numerous and important applications in engineering, urban planning, computer science, hydrodynamics, biology, applied mathematics and geophysics.”

In 2013, UChicago received a $3.5 million gift from anonymous donors to support the Leo Kadanoff Center for Theoretical Physics. The center brings together physicists who ordinarily work in a specialty such as particle physics, relativity theory or condensed matter theory and encourages them to work on problems of interest in all of those areas.

In the 1960s, Kadanoff made innovative and original contributions to the understanding of phase changes, such as the change of water from liquid to ice. In later years, working in collaboration with students, junior scientists and colleagues, he helped construct a new field of knowledge called soft condensed matter physics, which deals with such phenomena as the flow of fluids and the behavior of granular materials.

Kadanoff was especially interested in how complexity arises from simple phenomena, such as avalanches forming from the forces that are transmitted between grains of sand. A skilled teacher of colleagues, graduate students and undergraduates, one of his contributions was to use and to show others how to use computer models and simplified conceptual models for better understanding the world.

Curator and cultivator

Kadanoff had been active at the James Franck Institute until a few weeks before his death. One of his particularly important contributions there in his final years was to lead the long-running Computations in Science seminars.

“This was easily the most influential seminar connected with the physics department,” said longtime UChicago colleague Thomas Witten, the Homer J. Livingston Professor Emeritus in Physics.

“Its strategy was to scout actively for the most promising topics that would attract many disciplines, from math and physics to chemistry and geology. Its success was due to Leo’s persistent search for the most exciting topics and speakers. He evolved gracefully from his series of landmark discoveries in statistical physics to his last role of curator and cultivator.”

Nagel also commented on Kadanoff’s ability to attract the attention of scientists from multiple disciplines.

“Here at the University, he was the center of so much activity that it is difficult to imagine the campus without him,” Nagel said. “He had an extraordinary breadth of interests with a keen eye and appreciation for novel and imaginative science of all kinds.”

Kadanoff championed that work to his colleagues and was central to the culture of collaboration in the Physical Sciences Division. “When he saw an opportunity, he brought many of us together to attack a problem from different perspectives,” Nagel noted.

At Kadanoff’s funeral on Oct. 28, his daughter Marcia Kadanoff remarked that her father underwent a sea change during his 50s regarding his role in life. He started viewing his main work as developing people, rather than making prize-winning discoveries.

“The Leo I knew was all about developing people,” Witten said.

Born Jan. 14, 1937 in New York City, Kadanoff received his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees from Harvard University. After completing his doctorate in 1960, Kadanoff conducted postdoctoral research at the Bohr Institute for Theoretical Studies in Copenhagen. He joined the faculty of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1962, where he remained until joining the Brown University faculty in 1969.

He and his wife, the former Ruth Viterbo, had been together since 1975.

Distinguished professorship

Kadanoff became a professor of physics at UChicago in 1978 and was named the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Distinguished Service Professor of Physics and Mathematics in 1982. He directed UChicago’s Materials Research Center from 1981 to 1984 and from 1994 to 1997.

He also had served as a visiting professor at Cambridge University in 1965, and as the Lorentz Professor at the University of Leiden in The Netherlands in 2003. He retired as professor emeritus in 2003 but remained professionally active, serving as president of the American Physical Society in 2007.

Kadanoff had received many honors during his career. These included the Wolf Foundation Prize in Physics, the Grande Medaille d’Or of the Académie des Sciences de l’Institut de France, the American Physical Society’s Onsager and Buckley prizes, the Franklin Institute’s Elliott Cresson Medal, the Boltzmann Medal of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, and the Lorentz Medal of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences. He also was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, of the American Physical Society, and of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Kadanoff was further recognized for his undergraduate teaching. At UChicago he designed a new undergraduate course, “Chaos, Computers and Physics.” Nominated by his students, he received the University’s prestigious Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching in 1990.

Survivors include his wife, Ruth; daughters, Marcia Kadanoff, Felice Kadanoff, Betsy Kadanoff and stepdaughter Michal Ditzian; and grandchildren, Alexandra Mironov, Benjamin Clemens, Sophia Clemens and Reuben Clemens. Funeral services were held. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made in his memory to the Kadanoff Center for Theoretical Physics, c/o Kathleen Conroy, University of Chicago James Franck Institute, 929 E. 57th St., Room 145, Chicago, IL 60637.