The annual lectureship is the highest honor the University gives to senior faculty members. Holland was nominated for the honor by the U-M Research Club and was confirmed by the Regents at their November meeting. He will deliver the Russel Lecture at 4 p.m. March 16 in Rackham Amphitheater.
Holland, who received a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship last June, is an expert on cognition and artificial intelligence. He studies complex adaptive systems---constantly evolving, changing and interacting mechanisms that control everything from how people learn, to how advanced computers process information, to global economics and politics.
Holland, who joined the U-M faculty in 1959, received the Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award in 1987 and the Louis E. Levy Medal of the Franklin Institute in 1961.
He is a fellow and member of the board of advisers for the Santa Fe Institute, a private organization dedicated to interdisciplinary scientific research and education. He also is a consultant to Los Alamos National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory.
He received his M.A. in mathematics in 1954 and his Ph.D. in computer science in 1959, both from the U-M.