Professors of Distinction
The honorific title College Professor of Distinction is reserved for scholars and artists of national and international distinction who are also recognized by their College peers as teachers and colleagues of exceptional talent.
Four new University of Colorado at Boulder professors have been named College Professor of Distinction in 2008 by the College of Arts and Sciences in recognition of their exceptional service, teaching and research or creative work.
The professors will hold the title during the remainder of their careers in CU-Boulder's College of Arts and Sciences.
"These professors are highly accomplished scholars with many books, articles and awards among them," said Todd Gleeson, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences."They are also superb teachers and mentors to young scholars pursuing their own studies, and the college is pleased to publicly honor them."
2008 PROFESSORS OF DISTINCTION
Alison Jaggar | Philosophy 2008
Alison Jaggar established her reputation as both a pioneer in feminist philosophy and a founder of the discipline of women and gender studies. She arrived at CU-Boulder in 1990 and currently teaches in both Philosophy and Women and Gender Studies. During the 1990s, Jaggar's research focused mainly on moral epistemology, exploring the possibility of cross-cultural social criticism in contexts of diversity and inequality. For the past ten years, Jaggar has been working in the area of global gender justice, investigating the gendered dimensions of the moral and political issues that are raised by increasing integration of the global economic and political order.
Doug Seals | Integrative Physiology 2008
Doug Seals joined the faculty at UC Boulder in 1992 and currently is Professor of Integrative Physiology. His broad research interest is the integrative physiology and pathophysiology of aging with a particular focus on "arterial aging". Dr. SealsŐ laboratory provides research training from the undergraduate to postdoctoral levels and is supported by grants from the National Institute on Aging. He teaches courses on the physiology of aging and on professional skills for the research scientist.
Michael Shull | Astrophysics 2008
Michael Shull is Professor of Astrophysics and past-Chair of the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He received his B.S. in Physics from Caltech (1972) and his Ph.D. in Physics from Princeton University (1976). After working as a researcher at UC Berkeley, he joined the CU faculty in fall 1977. Dr. Shull's research is in theoretical astrophysics and space astronomy. His astronomical interests include studies of gas between the stars and galaxies, exploding stars (supernovae), and galaxy formation. He and his studentsand postdocs are frequent users of the Hubble Space Telescope, including a new CU instrument to be installed on Hubble in 2009.
Payson Sheets | Anthropology 2008
Payson Sheets, who earned his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1974, is a leading expert in the archeology of Mesoamerica and the Intermediate Area of lower Central America, focusing on the interrelationships between human societies and volcanic processes in tropical climates. He has incorporated remote sensing with geophysical data to detect and explore the remains of human activity in Central America. His recent research has focused on the Ceren site, catastrophically buried by the eruption of nearby Loma Caldera volcano in AD 590. At this remarkable site, structures are preserved, including their thatch roofs and their entire artifactual contents, and fields with their cultigens are intact. Undergraduate and graduate students are included in field and laboratory research. Professor Sheets has won numerous research grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Geographic Society, NASA and the Colorado Historical Society. He has published 10 books, more than 20 book chapters, and dozens of refereed journal articles.
2007 PROFESSORS OF DISTINCTION
Gerard Hauser | Communication 2008
Jerry Hauser joined the faculty at CU Boulder in 1993 as Professor of Communication. He also has been a contributing faculty member to Comparative Literature since 1995. His research focuses on the history of rhetorical theory, the role of rhetoric in a democracy, and the interaction between formal and vernacular rhetoric within the public sphere. His theoretical and critical work includes development of the reticulate model of public spheres, the vernacular rhetoric model of public opinion, and developing, with his doctoral students, integration of ethnographic and critical methods for studying vernacular discourse.
Alice Healy | Psychology 2007
Alice Healy received her doctorate from The Rockefeller University in 1973 and was on the faculty of Yale University from 1973 to 1981. She joined the faculty of the University of Colorado, Boulder in 1981 and is currently College Professor of Distinction and Director of the Center for Research on Training there. She is also currently the principal investigator of a cooperative agreement from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and a Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative Grant from the Army Research Office.
Charles Judd | Psychology 2007
Charles "Chick" Judd received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1976. He joined the faculty of the Psychology Department of the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1981. In 1997 he became Professor of Psychology at the University of California at Berkeley, only to return one year later to rejoin his colleagues at CU. His research and teaching contributions have been in two areas: Social cognition and Behavioral research methods. In the former, he has been particularly interested in issues of stereotyping, intergroup relations, and social judgment. In the latter, he has written extensively on the analysis of behavioral data, with particular interests in issues of mediation and moderation.
Russell Monson | Ecology and Evolutionary Biology 2007
After taking a faculty position at the University of Colorado, Russell Monson discovered research collaborators among the many scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Laboratories in Boulder. Since the late 1980's his research has focused on the interactions between forests and the atmosphere, especially with regard to climate change. Professor Monson has published over 140 papers in refereed journals and books and obtained consistent research support from the National Science Foundation, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy.
2006 PROFESSORS OF DISTINCTION
Mark Ablowitz | Applied Math 2006
Mark Ablowitz is considered a pioneer in the field of applied mathematics, and his work in the field is among the most highly cited in the world. He is best known for his landmark contributions to the "inverse scattering transform," or IST, a method used to solve nonlinear wave equations. Mathematicians and physicists have used the IST to gain a better understanding of phenomena such as water waves. Ablowitz joined the CU-Boulder faculty in 1989.
Robert Schulzinger | International Affairs/History 2006
Robert Schulzinger, who directs CU-Boulder's International Affairs program, is an expert on U.S. foreign policy and diplomacy and contemporary U.S. politics. He is the former president of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. He is author or co-author of 12 books, including the award-winning "A Time for War: The United States and Vietnam, 1941-1975." A sequel, "A Time for Peace: The Legacy of the Vietnam War" will be published later this summer by Oxford University Press. He joined the CU-Boulder faculty in 1977.
Michael Tooley | Philosophy 2006
Michael Tooley's current research is mainly in the areas of metaphysics and philosophy of religion, where he has worked on questions about the nature of scientific laws, the nature of time and the existence of God. The author of six books and dozens of articles, Tooley has written about the moral issues raised by abortion, euthanasia and cloning. He joined the CU-Boulder faculty in 1992.
Thomas Veblen | Geography 2006
Thomas Veblen studies forest ecosystems in Argentina, Chile and Colorado, including the effects of fires and insect outbreaks on Colorado forests. He is an expert on the history of wildfires and fire ecology in the western United States and South America, using tree rings to understand the relationships between climate variation and wildfires. The National Science Foundation, U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Forest Service support his work. He joined the CU-Boulder faculty in 1981.
