Category: Distinguished Research Professor

Distinguished Research Professor 2014

Kelley Moremen, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, is one of the leading figures in the field of glycobiology research. Glycans are tiny chains of sugar molecules that cover the surface of every living cell in the human body—providing the necessary surface coating for those cells to communicate, replicate and survive. But they are also involved in the development of serious diseases, including cancer, viral and bacterial infections, diabetes and cardiovascular disorders. Moremen has pioneered scientific techniques that tell us how these molecules function and how they might be exploited in the treatment of human disease. He is particularly well-known for his dozens of published papers on the production and characterization of the enzymes that create and degrade glycan structures and their use in studying glycan functions in health and disease. In addition, his lab is at the forefront of studies on genetic regulation of glycan synthesis with goals of understanding how diverse glycan structures are controlled in animal systems. Moremen is also part of many large collaborative projects related to stem cell glycomics, technology development and disease treatment that promise to speed discovery in Georgia and throughout the world.

Distinguished Research Professor 2014

Dorothy Figueira, professor of comparative literature, is one of the most prominent scholars in the field of Indian-Western literary and cultural relations, having made major contributions to discussions of the issues surrounding cultural studies, minority studies, multiculturalism and postcolonialism. Figueria has authored four books, with a fifth currently under review, in which she investigates the exoticism of the Indian texts and the Orient; orientalist thinking in 19th- and 20th-century German, French and English scholarship; a multifaceted history of the Aryan myth within both Western and Indian culture; and, in her most recently published monograph, she examines a host of contemporary cultural and theoretical discourses in the humanities and social sciences centered on engagement with the Other. Throughout her work, a commitment to historical fact, philological accuracy and theoretical clarity has guided her analyses. Such exceptional work has been possible because of her remarkable ability to work in eight languages and her deep familiarity with the cultures of both the West and India.

Distinguished Research Professor 2013

John Stickney, professor of chemistry, has received worldwide recognition for his contributions to the field of electrochemistry. He singlehandedly invented a method of producing extraordinarily thin semiconductors created one atomic layer at a time through a process he called electrochemical atomic layer epitaxy, or EC-ALE. He patented this approach and founded a company to market equipment for making materials by this process. The materials produced by EC-ALE are of a quality previously unmatched through traditional methods of electrodeposition, and they have great potential in a number of technological applications, including solar energy conversion, as specialty sensors, and for catalysis, the process of accelerating a chemical reaction by a catalyst. More recently, Stickney has been investigating how to electrodeposit the semiconductor germanium. Germanium is, in many respects, superior to silicon, which is presently used by industries to manufacture microprocessor chips and transistors.

Distinguished Research Professor 2013

Ron Butchart, professor and head of elementary and social studies education, is recognized nationally and internationally for his body of work on freedmen’s teachers in the South after the Civil War and on the history of black education in the United States. His Freedmen’s Teacher Project, a database with extensive biographical and prosopographic information on more than 11,600 individual teachers of the freed people between 1862 and 1876, is one of the largest individually constructed social history digital databases currently available. This data combined with Butchart’s critical analysis has provided historians with a much clearer picture of the freed people’s teachers, one that necessitates a revision of many previously held beliefs about the education of freed African Americans, the origins of Southern schooling and the history of race and American education. His most recent publication is Schooling the Freed People: Teaching, Learning, and the Struggle for African American Freedom, 1861-1876 (University of North Carolina Press, 2010).

Previous Award

William A. Owens Award 2012

Distinguished Research Professor 2013

Susan Fagan, Albert W. Jowdy Professor and associate department head of clinical and administrative pharmacy, is an outstanding leader in basic stroke research and an expert in stroke therapeutics. She was one of the investigators in a landmark clinical trial that led to the widespread use of the drug Activase as an acute treatment for embolic stroke. She is recognized by other distinguished scientists and clinicians as one of the few Americans and international leaders who continues to translate novel basic research into new treatment strategies for acute stroke. Along with her group of collaborators, she is on the cusp of establishing vascular protection as a tactic to improve the devastating morbidity and mortality associated with stroke, which affects more than 800,000 individuals annually in the United States alone. In addition to the development of novel treatments, Fagan is currently exploring new therapeutic targets in the brain blood vessels to enhance recovery and improve outcomes for stroke patients.

Distinguished Research Professor 2012

Christopher Whalen, the Earnest Corn Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, is widely recognized as a leading expert on the epidemiology of tuberculosis and its interaction with HIV infection. For over 20 years, he has conducted his field research in Uganda, where both tuberculosis and HIV epidemics are at their greatest intensity. Whalen and his colleagues have demonstrated that tuberculosis may make HIV infection worse, even when the tuberculosis is cured. He showed that AIDS and death were more likely to occur after contracting tuberculosis. His work also led to the landmark discovery that isoniazid, a drug used to treat tuberculosis infections, could prevent tuberculosis in patients with HIV. Whalen has also studied extensively the transmission of tuberculosis in African households, where the disease is often spread. His recent research is focused on designing the optimal control of tuberculosis in Africa by understanding the transmission patterns of M. tuberculosis in African urban community networks.

Distinguished Research Professor 2012

Edward Halper, professor of philosophy, has contributed significantly to ancient philosophy and to other areas of philosophy. He is highly regarded as a specialist in Aristotle, especially the Metaphysics. Although this Aristotelian work has been widely and intensely studied for more than two millennia, Halper developed a uniquely illuminating approach that he applied in detail in three lengthy volumes. Besides these books, Halper has written another book, a textbook (now in press), and some 50 papers in journals and books. Many of these papers are on the philosophy of Hegel and modern philosophers such as Kant, Spinoza and Nietzsche. A third specialty for Halper is medieval philosophy and philosophy of religion: he has written on Maimonides and spoken at international conferences. Altogether, Halper has presented over 100 different papers at various conferences. He is currently the president of the Metaphysical Society of America.

Distinguished Research Professor 2012

Michael Terns, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology and genetics, is a leading authority in the field of RNA biology. Among his many accomplishments, Terns’ work has revealed the pathways that regulate the activity of telomerase, an enzyme that is essential to the development of most cancers. His research group has studied extensively the C/D and H/ACA RNPs, enzymes that build and support critical cellular machinery, which has provided key insights into the development of the fatal bone marrow disease dyskeratosis congenital, and a common neuromuscular disease called spinal muscular atrophy. Terns also has conducted groundbreaking research into CRISPR-Cas systems, small RNA-based immune systems that protect bacteria from viruses and other threats. These systems are being employed to protect domesticated bacteria used in production of food, pharmaceuticals and biofuels. They also show promise as a way to fight disease-causing bacteria and slow or stop the spread of antibiotic-resistant microorganisms.