Distinguished professor lecture dates set

Updated 11:00 AM January 16, 2006

Distinguished professor lecture dates set

By Kevin Bergquist

Five Distinguished University Professors (DUPs) during the winter semester will present lectures drawing on some of their best work.

Bhattacharya
(File photo/Bill Wood,
U-M Photo Services)

Bucksbaum (File photo/
U-M Photo Services)

Danziger (Courtesy Sheldon Danziger)

Hochster (Courtesy Melvin Hochster)

Yocum
(Martin Vloet, U-M Photo Services)

DUPs have earned the highest honor accorded faculty members by the University. The honorees are scheduled to present as follows:

• Philip Bucksbaum, the Peter Franken Distinguished University Professor of Physics, will lecture Feb. 7 about "Ultrafast Control of Atoms and Molecules."

• Sheldon Danziger, the Henry J. Meyer Distinguished University Professor of Public Policy, will speak about "America's Persisting Poverty: What Research Says About How to Reduce It" Feb. 21.

• Charles Yocum, the Alfred S. Sussman Distinguished University Professor, will discuss on March 28 the mechanism by which binding of a polypeptide manganese stabilizing protein to a large protein complex photosystem II stimulates this enzyme's ability to use light to produce oxygen from water—the reaction that supports nearly all life on earth.

• Pallab Bhattacharya, the Charles M. Vest Distinguished University Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, will discuss "From Pigeons to Spin-Polarized Lasers: Transmission of Information Through the Ages," during his lecture April 4.

• Melvin Hochster, the Jack. E. McLaughlin Distinguished University Professor of Mathematics, will deliver his lecture April 11. He will highlight the contributions of McLaughlin to the Mathematics Department and touch on problems associated with mentoring undergraduate and graduate students.

The lectures begin at 4 p.m. in the Rackham Amphitheatre. A reception will follow in the Rackham Assembly Hall.

DUPs earn an annual salary supplement of $5,000 and an annual research supplement of $5,000. The duration of the appointment is unlimited, and the title may be retained after retirement.

"These faculty members are outstanding scholars who push the frontiers of knowledge in their respective fields," Interim Provost Edward Gramlich says. "They are representative of the University's tremendous depth and breadth as they hold appointments in several different schools and colleges.

"The University's stature as an international leader in education rests on the extraordinary quality of our faculty. These individuals are exceptional members of that group."

During the last 25 years, Bhattacharya, the James R. Mellor Professor of Engineering, has made outstanding and seminal contributions in the areas of growth and characterization of III-V compound semiconductors and their application to optoelectric devices and optoelectronic integrated circuits. Some of his most important contributions include work on integrated high-speed lasers, self-organized quantum dots, room-temperature quantum dots, quantum dot intersubband detectors, and photonic crystal micro cavities—a field in which he widely is regarded as one of the world's top researchers.

When Bhattacharya joined the College of Engineering faculty in 1984, the college and the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) had decided to make advanced electronics and optics a high priority. When the state awarded the Research Excellence Fund to the University, Bhattacharya played a key role in the phenomenal growth in the advanced electronics and optics area, particularly in optoelectronics.

His pioneering work led to the creation of the field of nanophotonics, now established worldwide. In recognition of his significant contributions and stature in the field, he was selected a 1998-99 Distinguished Lecturer by the IEEE-Laser and Electro-Optics Society and delivered talks about his work all over the world. He was selected a Guggenheim Fellow for 1998-99 and has received some of the most prestigious awards in his field.

"I am humbled by this tremendous honor," Bhattacharya says. "I couldn't have done what I've done without the support of the EECS department, the College of Engineering and the University."

One of the world's leading physicists in atomic, molecular and optical physics, Bucksbaum, the Otto Laporte College Professor of Physics in LSA, has had a remarkable career. His impact in the physical sciences began during his graduate studies, with work that provided early confirmation for the Standard Model of particle physics.

With his mentor, Eugene Cummins, Bucksbaum authored a textbook in the new field of electroweak interactions that was a standard text for more than a decade. Since then, he has made seminal contributions in optical and laser science, semiconductor physics, molecular physics, quantum physics, and ultrafast optical and X ray science, all marked by creativity, ingenuity, technical expertise, and a profound joy in exploring new areas of physics.

His key contributions to the field of atomic and molecular physics may have been determining the underlying science of light-matter interactions and explaining how the science works; his papers have received some 3,000 citations.

During the last several years, Bucksbaum has demonstrated leadership and service by designing and heading the National Science Foundation's highly visible and successful FOCUS Center at U-M, where a number of skilled scientists study ultrafast phenomena in physics, chemistry, biology and engineering.

"I am very pleased and humbled to receive this honor," Bucksbaum says. "I know that, in some sense, this is considered an individual achievement; but I am a physicist, and my area of scholarship cannot be advanced in isolation.

"There is tremendous intellectual depth, technical skill, and scholarship throughout the University of Michigan, and I feel very lucky to have spent the past 15 years developing my science here in Ann Arbor."

Danziger, who also is a research professor in the Population Studies Center at the Institute for Social Research, is a renowned scholar of poverty, inequality and public policy. For three decades he has been a major figure in the analysis of the effects of economic, demographic and social policy changes on poverty in the United States. His international reputation is based not only on publications notable for their contributions to a wide range of disciplines, but also on his ability to generate creative policy research by other scholars.

"America Unequal" (1995), co-authored by Danziger and Peter Gottschalk, documented how economic growth after 1970 benefited the poor relatively little because of rising labor market inequalities. Danzinger is widely cited as the organizer and co-editor of three summary volumes, "Fighting Poverty" (1986), "Confronting Poverty" (1994) and "Understanding Poverty" (2002).

At U-M he has been centrally involved in organizing and funding two research centers—the Research and Training Program on Poverty and Public Policy and the National Poverty Center. He has received numerous honors, including the Flynn Millennium Year Prize in Social Work in 2000. His achievements led to his election as a fellow in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2002.

"I am delighted with (Ford School) Dean (Rebecca) Blank's decision to nominate me and with the support of colleagues and former students who wrote letters on my behalf," Danziger says. "Many of the studies that contributed to my selection were collaborative projects with Michigan faculty and doctoral students."

One of the most eminent mathematicians in the world, Hochster has had a transforming impact on his field of commutative algebra. He is the originator of topics discussed at commutative algebra conferences everywhere, and the tools, techniques and basic theorems of the field often are of his design. He also is a dedicated teacher and mentor of undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral students.

His influence on the field of commutative algebra is pervasive. Commutative algebra is a central branch of mathematics, with intimate connections to algebraic geometry. Hochster's research primarily is concerned with commutative Noetherian rings, with a particular interest in Cohen-Macaulay rings and modules. His work resulted in the famous Hochster-Roberts Theorem, according to which invariant rings of linearly reductive groups are Cohen-Macaulay. This theorem, proved in the mid-1970s, was a remarkable feat of depth and ingenuity and is based on a technique that has been used in other groundbreaking ways.

Among his many honors, Hochster received the Frank Nelson Cole Prize in Algebra in 1980 and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1982. In 1992, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. He won the Margaret and Herman Sokol Faculty Award in the Sciences in 2001.

"I am very honored to have been appointed to a Distinguished University Professorship," he says.

An internationally recognized scientist and authority on photosynthesis, Yocum is considered one of the world's top half-dozen researchers in photosynthesis. He made a key contribution to the field by discovering a simple way to purify the protein complex, photosystem II. This was a critical breakthrough, permitting researchers to conduct the controlled experiments necessary to understanding the photosynthesis process.

In addition to receiving nearly every distinguished award offered by the University, Yocum has been recognized nationally as a senior Fulbright scholar, a fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, and an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

"Michigan has been very supportive of my work, in particular by providing me with an environment where basic research is highly valued and rewarded," Yocum says. "I am delighted to receive a Distinguished University Professorship. It's a great honor and one that I didn't expect. I am deeply grateful to my colleagues who participated in the nomination and selection processes."

Editor's note: Biographical information on the honorees was taken from their DUP award citations.

Distinguished professor lecture dates set

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