New York City – The State University of New York Board of Trustees
today approved the appointments of eight faculty members to the rank of
Distinguished Professor, one of four distinguished designations that constitute
the highest system tribute conferred upon SUNY instructional faculty.
“The SUNY distinguished professors,
of which there are more than 800, are nationally and internationally recognized
scholars and scientists of the highest academic distinction,” said SUNY
Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher. “Each of these faculty members has met or exceeded
the rigorous requirements for this promotion. SUNY is very proud of its
distinguished professors and I commend the Board of Trustees for recognizing
their talent and service by approving their appointments to distinguished
rank.”
“It is with great pride that we
recognize today’s recipients of the Distinguished Professorship,” said Board
Chairman Carl T. Hayden. “SUNY’s most brilliant scholars reflect their academic
accomplishments beyond the individual students they inspire and campuses were
they work. These most accomplished SUNY faculty shine across the system and
the nation. We join with their families and campuses in celebrating their
academic, research and teaching accomplishments.”
The Distinguished
Professorship is conferred upon individuals at SUNY’s state-operated
campuses who have achieved national or international prominence and a
distinguished reputation within the individual’s chosen field. This distinction
is attained through significant contributions to the research literature or
through artistic performance or achievement in the fine and performing arts. The
candidates’ work must be of such character that the individuals’ presence will
elevate the standards of scholarship of colleagues both within and beyond the
individual’s academic field. It must also be of such quality that students and
scholars on other SUNY campuses could and do benefit by lectures and seminars,
or other appropriate presentations the faculty members might bring to them.
Appointment constitutes a promotion to the SUNY’s highest academic rank and is
conferred solely by the SUNY Board of Trustees. The expectation is that
individuals so appointed will be accorded such support as is appropriate to the
individual’s academic endeavor, consistent with the resources of the campus,
including a salary above the mean salary for full professors. Receiving this
promotion today are:
- Marilynn Desmond, Binghamton University Department of English and Comparative Literature
- Thomas Dublin, Binghamton
University Department of History
- Randall H. McGuire,
Binghamton University Department of Anthropology
- Esther S. Takeuchi,
University at Buffalo Departments of Chemical and
Biological
Engineering
and of Electrical Engineering
- Evelyn J. Bromet, Stony
Brook University Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science
- Eva Feder Kittay, Stony
Brook University Department of Philosophy
- Ann C. Colley, Buffalo
State College Department of English
- Lawrence A. Fialkow, SUNY New Paltz Department of
Mathematics and Computer Science
Since the program’s inception
in 1963, SUNY has appointed 828 faculty to distinguished ranks, as follows,
including these most recent appointments: 270 Distinguished Professorships; 250
Distinguished Service Professorships; 306 Distinguished Teaching
Professorships; and 2 Distinguished Librarian Professorships. For more
information about SUNY’s faculty award program, please click
here.
About the Distinguished
Professors
Marilynn Desmond – Professor Desmond is the author of three
groundbreaking books on the reception of classical Latin texts in medieval France and England [Reading Dido; Myth, Montage and Visuality (with P. Sheingorn), and Ovid’s
Art and the Wife of Bath]. These books have changed the way scholars think
about gender, sexuality and authorship in late medieval culture. Since she
integrates the study of visual and textual cultures, her work is comparative
and interdisciplinary in scope and has had a major impact on several fields of
study, including classics, medieval French, Middle English and manuscript
studies. She has held a number of distinguished fellowships and appointments
including an NEH fellowship for university professors, a residential fellowship
at the Stanford Humanities Center (as a Marta Sutton Weeks Fellow), and a
residential fellowship at the Camargo Foundation in France; she has also been a
visiting fellow at Clare Hall, Cambridge University (where she is now a life
member), and she will be a visitor at the Institute for Advanced study in
Princeton in the Spring 2010 semester.
Thomas Dublin – Professor Dublin received his doctorate in 1975 and
shortly thereafter published a book on women workers in the early Lowell textile mills that shattered the prevailing understanding of nineteenth-century
working women. The book received two prestigious national book awards and is
still in print. He has published seven additional books, three of which have
gone through multiple editions, and received favorable reviews in academic and
mainstream publications. Professor Dublin later turned his attention to the
decline of the anthracite coal industry. Using multiple grants, he pursued a
research project that led to five scholarly articles and two books, one of
which won another national award. In addition, he developed and co-edits a quarterly
on-line journal/database/website that complements his scholarly writing and
textbooks. Finally, he has received three Teaching American History grants,
which have enabled him to partner with area BOCES districts to organize
workshops and seminars that provide area teachers with new insights into
American History.
Randall H. McGuire – Professor McGuire’s innovative thinking about
archaeological theory and his creative integration of new theory into the
practice of archaeology make his research impactful, unique, and world-renown.
Mainstream archaeology ignored the study of structured social inequity since
the middle of the 20th century, due in part to the backlash against
Marxist scholarship. Professor McGuire’s work on Marxian and Marxist approaches
in archaeology almost single-handedly brought these concerns back into American
archaeology. He did this through his particular interests in history and
power, and by excelling in both theory and practice. As a result, today
Marxist-oriented research in archaeology is one of the central tenets of the
field, and one that would not have been given its revival without the work of
Professor McGuire. He has received more than 20 grants totaling over $2.8
million. He has authored four books, edited four other books, and authored
nine other monographs and more than 100 articles and chapters. His work has
been published in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese and Catalan.
Esther S. Takeuchi – Professor Takeuchi came to the University at Buffalo after spending over 22 years in industry, where she developed an outstanding
international reputation for her technical research accomplishments. Inducted
into the prestigious National Academy for Engineering (2004) and named a Fellow
of the American Institute for Medical and Biomedical Engineering (1999), her
numerous other notable honors include the Electrochemical Society Battery
Division Technology Award (1995) and an inaugural national Astellas USA
Foundation Award administered by the American Chemical Society (2008). Dr.
Takeuchi holds 142 U.S. patents, by far the most of any female inventor in the
nation. The best-known specific example of Dr. Takeuchi’s scientific
innovation and creativity is her development of the lithium/silver vanadium
oxide (Li/SVO) battery, which powers over 90 percent of the approximately
200,000 implantable cardiac defibrillators (ICDs) implanted each year. She is
currently the principal investigator on over $1.8 million in new research
grants. On October 7, 2009, Dr. Takeuchi was one of four people honored with
the National Medal of Technology and Innovation at a White House ceremony. As
President Obama presented her medal, a military aide cited Dr. Takeuchi for
inventions “that improve the health and quality of life of millions of people.”
Evelyn J. Bromet – Professor Bromet’s research spans a range of
psychiatric problems including alcoholism, depression, post-traumatic stress
disorder, and schizophrenia. Her research on disaster mental health started
with a groundbreaking study of the psychological impact of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident on mothers of young children, workers at the
plant, and psychiatric patients in the public treatment sector. More recently,
she collaborated with the Ukrainian Psychiatric Association in Kyiv on the
first psychiatric epidemiologic research on the psychological impact of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident on evacuees in Kiev. She also spearheaded the
first national epidemiologic survey on mental and physical disorders in Ukraine as part of the World Health Organization’s World Mental Health Survey Consortium.
Her work has resulted in more than 200 papers, chapters and reports, and two
co-authored books. She received the Rema Lapouse Mental Health Research Award
from the American Public Health Association (1989), the Brigitte Prusoff
Memorial Prize from the Department of Epidemiology at Yale University (2007), and was named honorary fellow of the Ukrainian Psychiatric Association in
2005.
Eva Feder Kittay – Professor Kittay’s early work on metaphor is
considered a major contribution to the literature. Her book, Metaphor: Its
Linguistic Structure and Its Cognitive Force, is still in print and is read
internationally by linguists, psychologists, literary scholars as well as
philosophers. Dr. Kittay’s subsequent work on care ethics and feminism is
viewed as among the most sophisticated developments of this much-discussed line
of thought. It is discussed not only in the English speaking world, but in
Europe and in parts of Asia. Dr. Kittay’s most singular contribution to date
lies in creating an entire area of philosophical inquiry into disability, and
most particularly cognitive disability. This was set forth in her book, Love’s
Labor, and it has spurred an extensive debate that has been taken up by
leading figures in the profession. This work has crossed disciplinary
boundaries and is read in the contexts of bioethics, nursing schools,
sociologists, disability studies, as well as in philosophy and women’s studies.
Dr. Kittay’s contributions to care ethics and disability studies have been
widely recognized, as is signaled by the fact that she received the first-ever
award given by the Institut Mensche, Ethik, und Wissenshaft, a bioethics and
policy institute that has strong influence within the German government.
Ann C. Colley – Professor Colley is a leading scholar of the
Victorian period and a solo author of five highly acclaimed and groundbreaking
critical books published by academic presses in the USA and in England. One book was nominated for three awards. Chapters, articles, and editorships
have been part of her scholarly profile, as well as being Chair of the Modern
Language Association Executive Committee for the Victorian Period. Because of
her reputation as a well-known scholar of literature and culture, Dr. Colley
was invited to write the year’s review of nineteenth-century studies (250 books
published in the year 2007-08), published in Studies in English Literature.
Keynote speaker at conferences; delivered many papers at academic gatherings in
the states and abroad: Italy, England, Scotland, Ukraine and Poland. She was a Senior Fulbright Scholar in Poland and the Ukraine. In addition, she is
a respected and engaged scholar, known for her encouragement of junior faculty.
Lawrence A. Fialkow –
Professor Fialkow is an accomplished mathematics scholar who has achieved
worldwide recognition for his seminal research in functional analysis. He is
acknowledged as a founder and international leader in elementary operators and
multivariable moment problems and is perhaps best known for his work on the
“truncated moment problem,” an investigation that has resulted in new and
significant results recorded in two Memoirs of the American Mathematical
Society. Dr. Fialkow, a 2001 recipient of the Chancellor’s Award for
Research Excellence, is also known for successful collaboration with other
innovative mathematicians, which has expanded the impact of his efforts and
served to more effectively advance his field. His work has influenced scholars
throughout the world, and he is credited with inspiring significant new
research and publication. In addition to the impact his research contributions
have had on other mathematicians, Professor Fialkow has had a lasting influence
on SUNY New Paltz students. He has been a strong advocate for minority and
other traditionally underrepresented students intending to major in
mathematics, science, engineering and technology.
About the State University of New York
The State University of New York is
the largest comprehensive university system in the United States, educating nearly
465,000 students in 7,669 degree and certificate programs on 64 campuses. To
learn more about how SUNY creates opportunity, visit www.suny.edu.
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