Distinguished scholars join University faculty

"We are delighted to have such outstanding people as new faculty members," said Provost Geoffrey Stone. "The expertise in research and teaching that these scholars will bring to the University will enhance our already distinguished faculty."

Below are brief profiles of the new faculty members who have joined the University as full Professors.

PHYSICAL SCIENCES DIVISION

Joining the Physical Sciences Division are Zelmanov and Victor Ginzburg, both mathematicians from the former Soviet Union, as well as statistician Peter Donnelly, an expert in probability, applied probability and population genetics.

Efim Zelmanov, Professor in Mathematics, is one of four recipients of the 1994 Fields Medal. The award, given every four years by the International Mathematical Union to a scholar under the age of 40, was announced Aug. 3 at the 22nd International Congress of Mathematicians in Zuerich, Switzerland.

Zelmanov was honored for his work in the field of abstract algebra, including group theory, and specifically for his solution of the Restricted Burnside Problem, where he showed that certain mathematical constructs known as periodic groups are finite.

Before coming to Chicago, Zelmanov had been professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison since 1990; he previously was on the faculty at the Institute of Mathematics, Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R., in Novosibirsk. He is currently an editor of several mathematics journals, including Transactions of the American Mathematical Society, the International Journal of Algebra and Computation, and the Nova Journal of Algebra and Geometry.

Peter Donnelly, who has a joint appointment in Statistics and Ecology & Evolution, is best known for his work in molecular evolution -- tracing the roots of human existence to their earliest origins using the mutation rates of mitochondrial DNA. Originally from Australia, he has held academic positions at several American and British universities and was most recently professor at the University of London's Queen Mary and Westfield College. He is the co-author of a book, Genealogical Processes in Population Genetics and Molecular Evolution, scheduled for publication later this year.

Victor Ginzburg, Professor in Mathematics, is an expert in the geometry of representation theory and quantum groups. Prior to coming to Chicago, he was the chief researcher at the Schmid Institute of Physics of the Earth, at the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R. He has been a visiting professor at Harvard and at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J.

BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DIVISION

Robert Naclerio, a nationally acclaimed surgeon and authority on the causes and treatment of allergies, is among the new faculty members joining the Biological Sciences Division. Naclerio is Professor in Surgery and Chief of the Section of Otolaryngology/Head & Neck Surgery.

Naclerio comes to Chicago from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where he was professor in the departments of otolaryngology, medicine and pediatrics and director of pediatric otolaryngology. A pioneer in the understanding and treatment of allergic rhinitis -- inflammation of the lining of the nose caused by allergies -- he is the author or co-author of more than 90 articles in peer-reviewed journals, 35 book chapters and two teaching videos. He also serves on the editorial boards of several medical journals.

HUMANITIES DIVISION

Among the new faculty members joining the Humanities Division are Homi Bhabha, an expert in post-colonial literature and arts, and Sander Gilman, an interdisciplinary scholar trained in Germanic literature.

Homi Bhabha, Professor in English Language & Literature, focuses his research in English literature on post-colonial theory, writing and representation in a transnational context, and the institutional and intellectual problems of interdisciplinary work. Best known for his recent book The Location of Culture (1993), he also edited the widely popular collection Nation and Narration (1991). He is noted for his work on the advisory council of London's Institute of Contemporary Arts, the main publicly funded institution in London for contemporary cinema, music, art and cultural debate. Bhabha had been lecturer in English at Sussex University, England, since 1978.

Sander Gilman, Professor in Germanic Languages & Literatures, comes to Chicago from Cornell, where he was the Goldwin Smith Professor of Humane Studies, and Cornell Medical College, where he was professor of the history of psychiatry.

Gilman conducts interdisciplinary research on the cultural meanings of illness and psychoanalysis -- although that description does not begin to cover the areas addressed in the more than 42 works he has written or edited since he began publishing in 1972. Over the years, his work has spanned such diverse topics as AIDS, Bertolt Brecht, Nietzsche and Mark Twain. His central interests cluster around a few related topics: Freud and psychiatry, medicine and illness, and Jewish studies. Of Gilman's many books, perhaps the best known are Seeing the Insane: A Cultural History of Psychiatric Illustration (1982), Jewish Self-Hatred: Anti-Semitism and the Hidden Language of the Jews (1986) and Disease and Representation: Images of Illness From Madness to AIDS (1988).

SOCIAL SCIENCES DIVISION

Among the new faculty members joining the Social Sciences Division are two eminent anthropologists, Maria Manuela Carneiro da Cunha and Susan Gal; Alberto Palloni, a leading demographer and expert on Latin America; and Ronald Suny, an expert on the former Soviet Union, specializing in nationalities.

Maria Manuela Carneiro da Cunha, one of Brazil's leading anthropologists, is Professor in Anthropology. She is currently studying the connection between ecology and society in the Amazonian rain forest. She has also done path-breaking work on how freed slaves reconstructed their identities upon returning to Africa. A book exploring that topic, originally published in Brazil, is being translated for publication by the University of Chicago Press. Carneiro da Cunha has taught at the universities of Campinas and Sao Paulo and was a Tinker Visiting Professor at Chicago in 1990. She is a past president of the Brazilian Anthropological Association.

Susan Gal, Professor in Anthropology, is a leading scholar in the study of Central Europe, with interests in the fields of linguistic anthropology, the anthropology of gender and the study of nationalism. Her 1979 book Language Shift: Social Determinants of Linguistic Change in Bilingual Austria is a major work of sociolinguistic theory and has been excerpted in four textbooks. Her writings also examine such topics as ethnicity and local politics in Hungary and the cultural basis of language use among German speakers in Hungary. Before coming to Chicago, Gal was associate professor of anthropology at Rutgers, where she had been a member of the faculty since 1977.

Alberto Palloni, Professor in Sociology, comes to Chicago from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he published extensively on health and population. He had been a professor there since 1985. His research projects have explored topics such as fertility changes in Latin America, the levels and determinants of mortality in Peru, and determinants of infant mortality in the United States. He has also examined changing households in Latin America and the effects of breast-feeding and contraception on the pace of childbearing. He is currently writing a book, Population and Society in Latin America.

Ronald Suny, Professor in Political Science, comes to Chicago from the University of Michigan, where he was the Alex Manoogian Professor of Modern Armenian History. He also has been director of the Armenian Studies Program at Michigan and has published extensively on topics related to the former Soviet Union. Among the books he has written or co-authored are Party, State and Society in the Russian Civil War: Explorations in Social History (1989), The Making of the Georgian Nation (1983), Armenia in the Twentieth Century (1983) and The Baku Commune, 1917-1918: Class and Nationality in the Russian Revolution (1972).

DIVINITY SCHOOL

Joining the Divinity School faculty as Professor is Joel Kraemer, a scholar of Jewish culture and religion.

Kraemer studies the interplay of cultural and religious themes within Judaism and Islam. He is researching various Judeo-Arabic manuscripts, as well as investigating the life and work of Maimonides. He recently edited the book Perspectives on Maimonides: Philosophical and Historical Studies (1991) and is currently working on a comprehensive study of Jewish women in the world of Islam. He has written on the cultural transmission of the intellectual heritage of Greek antiquity to the worlds of Islamicate civilization, primarily in Humanism in the Renaissance of Islam (1986) and Philosophy in the Renaissance of Islam (1986).

Prior to coming to Chicago, Kraemer had been on the faculty at Tel Aviv University since 1971. He also has taught at Yale and has served as a visiting scholar at several universities, including Harvard. In 1993, he was Visiting Professor at Chicago in the Committee on Social Thought.

LAW SCHOOL

Joining the Law School faculty as Professor is Richard Craswell (J.D.'77), a nationally recognized authority on contract law, commercial law, trade regulation and consumer protection.

In the field of contracts and related commercial-law subjects, Craswell is considered one of the nation's top scholars. A former attorney for the Federal Trade Commission, he was an attorney-adviser to Federal Trade Commissioner David Clanton in the early 1980s. Craswell is co-editor of the book Foundations of Contract Law, released this year. He had been professor of law at the University of Southern California Law Center since 1983. He was Visiting Professor at Chicago in 1987-88.