Faculty receive named, distinguished appointments

Four University faculty members have been named to new appointments, effective Thursday, Jan. 1.

Brice Bosnich and Ian Foster have been appointed distinguished service professors, and Jeanne Marsh and Robert Richards have been appointed to named chairs.

Brice Bosnich

Brice Bosnich, who conducts research in areas that blend both organic and inorganic synthesis, has been appointed the Gustavus F. and Ann M. Swift Distinguished Service Professor in Chemistry.

Bosnich, formerly a Professor in Chemistry and the College, maintains research interests in the emerging field of supra-molecular chemistry, which stands at the crossroads of chemistry, bio-chemistry, physics and technology.

His research program in particular pursues a better understanding of molecular recognition, which is important in understanding such biological phenomena as immune response, enzyme catalysis and drug activity. Supra-molecular systems also can be built to serve as molecular switches and molecular machines.

In other studies, Bosnich examines how iron atoms facilitate the transport of oxygen in respiratory proteins. His work is aimed both at obtaining a better fundamental understanding of the process and at developing possible practical applications, such as generating fuel cells.

Bosnich joined the Chicago faculty in 1987, following appointments at the University College, London, and at the University of Toronto.

A Fellow of the Royal Society, Bosnich has received multiple awards, including the American Chemical Society’s Award in Inorganic Chemistry, the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Nyholm Award Medal, the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Organometallic Medal, and the Canadian Institute of Chemistry’s Noranda Award in Inorganic Chemistry.

Bosnich received his B.Sc. from the University of Sydney and his Ph.D. from the Australian National University.

Ian Foster

Ian Foster, who develops tools and techniques that allow people to use high-performance computers in innovative ways, has been appointed the Arthur Holly Compton Distinguished Service Professor in Computer Science.

Foster, formerly Professor in Computer Science and the College, oversees the Distributed Systems Laboratory, which operates at both the University and at Argonne National Laboratory. The DSL serves as the nexus of the multi-institutional Globus Project, a research and development effort that provides the advances required to make collaborative computing successful in science, engineering, business and other areas.

Globus technologies are used by thousands of researchers worldwide and form the basis for several dozen national and international collaborative computing projects funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Science Foundation, the European Union and the United Kingdom’s eScience Program.

Foster’s honors include the Lovelace Medal of the British Computer Society, the Gordon Bell Award, the Global Information Infrastructure “Next Generation” Award, the Best Paper Award of the 1995 Supercomputing Conference, and the British Computer Society Award for Technical Innovation.

Foster began working at Argonne National Laboratory in 1989. He joined the University faculty in 1991.

He received his B.S. degree with first class honors in computer science from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, and his Ph.D. in computer science from Imperial College, University of London.

Jeanne Marsh

Jeanne Marsh, one of the nation’s leading experts on the development and evaluation of social services for children and families, has been named the George Herbert Jones Professor in the School of Social Service Administration.

Her research focuses on substance abuse, service delivery, social program and policy evaluation, and knowledge utilization in practice and program decision making. She uses theories of organizations and social processes to identify effective social treatment for women and families.

Marsh is editor-in-chief of Social Work, considered one of the most eminent journals in the field, and is a member of the scientific advisory committee of the Institute of Social Work Research and a member of the board of the Society of Social Work Research.

The National Association of Social Workers honored Marsh in 1997 with the Award for Excellence in Social Work Research.

From 1998 to 2002, she served as chair of the Council on Social Work Education Commission on Education Policy where she helped to develop policies and standards to guide the accreditation of all professional social work schools and programs in the United States.

She joined the University faculty in 1978, and held appointments in both the School of Social Service Administration and the Committee on Public Policy Studies. She served as Dean of SSA from 1988 to 1998, and has been Director of the Ph.D. program since 2000.

Marsh received a B.A. in psychology in 1969, from Michigan State University and received her M.S.W. in 1972, and a Ph.D. in social work and psychology in 1975, from the University of Michigan. From 1987 to 1988, she was a Visiting Fellow at Clare Hall, the University of Cambridge and the London School of Economics.

Robert Richards

Robert Richards, an internationally respected authority on the history of science, has been named the Morris Fishbein Professor in the History of Science and Medicine.

Richards, who concentrates his research on the history and philosophy of biology, is the author of numerous books, including The Romantic Conception of Life: Science and Philosophy in the Age of Goethe, published in 2002 by the University Press. In the book, Richards examines the history of science during that era by looking at the many connections between art, philosophy and science.

His other books include The Meaning of Evolution: the Morphological Construction and Ideological Reconstruction of Darwin’s Theory, published in 1992 by the University Press and translated into Spanish in 1998.

He also is the author of Darwin and the Emergency of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior, published in 1987. The History of Science Society awarded Richards for this book with its 1988 Pfizer Prize.

Richards holds interdisciplinary appointments as Professor in History, Philosophy, Psychology, Conceptual Foundations of Science and the Committee on Evolutionary Biology. He also is Director of the Fishbein Center for the History of Science & Medicine and Director of the undergraduate program in History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Sciences & Medicine.

He came to Chicago as a graduate student in 1974, and he joined the faculty after receiving a Ph.D. in the History of Science from the University in 1978.

Richards received a Ph.D. in philosophy in 1971 from St. Louis University and an M.A. in biological psychology in 1974 from the University of Nebraska.

He is a 1982 recipient of the University’s Llewellyn John and Harriet Manchester Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching and received a Faculty Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching in 1995.