Five scholars join University

Among the new faculty members on campus this fall are five distinguished scholars, in areas ranging from international history to chemical reactions, who have joined the University as full professors: Bruce Cumings, Charles Larmore, Ann McGill, Norbert Scherer and, joining the faculty with an endowed chair, Alwyn Young.

Alwyn Young has been appointed the Joseph Sondheimer Professor of International Economics and Finance in the Graduate School of Business. His research activities have focused on growth in East Asia, cross-country comparisons of productivity growth and international trade and specialization.

Before coming to Chicago, Young was professor of economics at Boston University from 1995 to 1997. He previously served as assistant professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management from 1990 to 1995.

Young received his B.A. from Cornell in 1981 and holds four advanced degrees: an M.A. in law and diplomacy (1983) and a Ph.D. in international relations (1989), both from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University; and an M.Phil. in economics (1988) and a Ph.D. in economics (1990), both from Columbia. He is currently a Sloan Foundation Fellow (1996-98).

Bruce Cumings, a scholar of international history and East Asian political economy, has rejoined the faculty as Professor in History.

A member of the History faculty from 1987 to 1994, Cumings was most recently the director of the Center for International and Comparative Studies at Northwestern University. He is perhaps best known for his series of books on the Korean War, which have been widely acclaimed as among the best in the field: The Origins of the Korean War: Liberation and the Emergence of Separate Regimes, 1945-1947 (1981), Korea: The Unknown War (1988) and The Origins of the Korean War, II: The Roaring of the Cataract, 1947-1950 (1990). His new book, Korea's Place in the Sun: A Modern History appeared earlier this year. He is planning to complete a major study of the Northeast Asian political economy in 1998.

He received his B.A. from Denison in 1965 and his Ph.D. in 1975 from Columbia.

Charles Larmore, a leading political philosopher, joins the faculty as Professor in Political Science and Philosophy.

Through his examination of the foundations of liberalism, Larmore has developed new understandings about how concepts of individual freedom can have meaning in pluralistic, modern societies. He is the author of three path-breaking books related to liberalism: Patterns of Moral Complexity (1990), The Romantic Legacy (1996) and The Morals of Modernity (1996).

Larmore comes to the Chicago from Columbia, where he was professor of philosophy. He received his A.B. in Greek and philosophy from Harvard in 1972, and his Ph.D. in philosophy from Yale in 1978.

Ann McGill (M.B.A.'85, Ph.D.'86) joins the University faculty as Professor in the Graduate School of Business. Her research has focused on consumer and management decision-making with special emphasis on causal explanations, comparative processes and the use of imagery in product choice.

McGill comes to the University from Stanford, where she was a visiting associate professor. She was formerly an associate professor at Northwestern, assistant professor at New York University, visiting associate professor at Thailand's Chulalongkorn University and visiting assistant professor at the European Institute of Business Administration (INSEAD).

Before coming to graduate school at Chicago, McGill received her B.B.A. in accounting from the University of Michigan in 1979 and worked at Peat, Marwick, Mitchell and Co. as an auditor until 1981.

Norbert Scherer (B.S.'82) has been appointed Professor in Chemistry and the James Franck Institute.

Scherer, a physical chemist who specializes in ultrafast spectroscopy of chemical and biological reactions, including photosynthesis and development of new spatially-localized spectroscopies, has a long association with the University. He graduated from the College with a degree in chemistry and then received his Ph.D. from Caltech before returning to Chicago from 1989 to 1992 as a postdoctoral fellow, working with Graham Fleming. He has since been assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania.

Scherer is currently a National Science Foundation National Young Investigator (1993-98), a David and Lucile Packard Foundation Fellow (1993-98) and was an Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation Young Investigator from 1994 to 1996. He also received the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation Teacher-Scholar Award in 1996 and an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship in 1997.