Fefferman to serve second term as Dean of Physical Sciences Division

Robert Fefferman has been reappointed Dean of the Physical Sciences Division, President Zimmer and Provost Thomas Rosenbaum have announced. Fefferman, the Max Mason Distinguished Service Professor in Mathematics, will begin his second five-year term as Dean on Tuesday, July 1.

“Bob has built upon the core strengths of the division, while at the same time expanding its reach and power in new interdisciplinary initiatives, with a commitment to making the PSD the most attractive home possible for a diverse set of leading scholars,” said Zimmer and Rosenbaum, Provost and the John T. Wilson Distinguished Service Professor in Physics, in an e-mail to the faculty.

Fefferman’s first-term accomplishments include securing permanent funding for the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics and revitalizing the University’s computational science capabilities, Rosenbaum said. Fefferman also has led the planning and development of the University’s proposed Center for Physical and Computational Sciences, an effort that will involve a new building and renovation of the Research Institutes. He has been an important member of the Science Group, which has been working on long-term science needs for the University.

A Chicago faculty member since 1975, Fefferman specializes in harmonic analysis, partial differential equations and probability theory. He chaired the Mathematics Department from 1995 until 2001 and was first named Dean of the Physical Sciences Division in 2003.

Throughout the past 20 years, Fefferman also has worked with public elementary and high school teachers. He teaches in the Summer Institute for the Development of Mathematics Teachers in Chicago Middle Schools, a program sponsored by the Polk Bros. Foundation.