Artistic License
The Tepper Family Chair in Visual Arts was established in 2011 with a gift from Marlene Brandt RC’80. It is the first endowed chair at Mason Gross School of the Arts, and Park McArthur became the third holder of the Tepper Chair in 2019. You can read a profile on her here: https://www.rutgers.edu/news/park-mcarthur-inspires-young-artists-rutgers-tepper-chair
In the Professor’s Own Words
What aspects of your work are most satisfying?
Everything that might fall under the phrase “working closely with students”: the privilege of learning about where their art comes from; learning about what is needed in their academic journey; reflecting upon my own experiences as an artist; and bringing in my friends and mentors as class visitors to make connections across communities.
What do you hope your students take away from your classes?
An ongoing process of talking with themselves about what they need to nourish their art practices and themselves. And that their practices are necessary in making the world we want to live in come about.
What advice do you give students who are concerned about making a living as an artist?
Talking about our challenges is really important. The nature of institutional policy (whether in a museum or a recording contract) hasn’t necessarily been set up to benefit artists. That’s part of what’s hard about making a living as an artist. Demystifying how these policies shape our work and lives can identify needed changes even if changes, some of which can happen inside of the logic of an artwork and some of which can’t, are not able to be implemented as immediately or widely as desired.
How has the pandemic made teaching the visual arts more challenging? Has teaching remotely had any upside?
Shout out to everyone in the art and design department and our chair, Marc Handelman, who have prioritized our safety across overlapping, interdependent staff, student, and faculty bodies. The department has made teaching remotely possible, the upside of which is hope and our survival. Teaching remotely also underscores the ways in which many artworks that we might think of as personally influential we may not have experienced in person. Artworks distant from us nevertheless shape our perspectives and thinking, our feeling, and our understanding of art.
József Beck, the Harold H. Martin Professor of Mathematics
Chair holder in mathematics is a leader in probability and numbers theory research.
József Beck is a professor of mathematics at the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers University–New Brunswick. He is a leader in the fields of number theory, probabilistic methods, combinatorial games, and combinatorial geometry.
Beck earned his doctorate at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the most prestigious institution of higher learning in Hungary. Beck credits his book, Irregularities of Distribution, written with W.W. Chen and published by Cambridge University Press in 1987, as one of the reasons he was offered the Martin professorship.
His other books include Inevitable Randomness in Discrete Mathematics; Probabilistic Diophantine Approximation: Randomness in Lattice Point Counting; and Strong Uniformity and Large Dynamical Systems. He is working on a new book, Large Systems: Proving a Second Law, and another book on non-integrable dynamical systems.
In addition to conducting research, Beck teaches undergraduate courses, including “Mathematical Reasonings,” “Probability II,” and “Stochastic Processes,” as well as advanced topics for graduate students.
The Harold H. Martin Professor of Mathematics chair was established by Harold H. Martin to be occupied by an internationally renowned scholar in mathematics.
In the Professor’s Own Words
What brought you to Rutgers?
To be frank, the main reason was to save money, and then to go back to Hungary and do things
like buying a car or moving to a bigger apartment, etc. But eventually we liked it here so much
that we decided to stay.
How would you characterize the students who work with you?
The overwhelming majority of the students really want to learn and appreciate a “tough” guy like me.
Do you enjoy teaching undergraduates?
I prefer to teach reasonably good undergraduate students (compared to graduate students). They are more grateful.
What is the most satisfying aspect of your work?
I went on sabbatical leave for one semester in 2003, and since then I never missed a semester. I would miss the contact with students. But my true love is research. I am very, very happy that I can still do good research at the age of 68 and can compete with the brightest Ph.D. students and fellow mathematicians.
This story is part of Rutgers University Foundation’s Endowed Chairs Impact series. Supporting professorships and research helps spark innovation and creativity here in New Jersey and beyond.
Dunbar P. Birnie, III, the Corning-Saint-Gobain Malcolm G. McLaren Chair in Ceramic Engineering
A materials scientist focuses his efforts on harnessing renewable sources of power, especially solar.
Dunbar P. Birnie III’s scholarship and textbook development have influenced research and teaching in the field of ceramic engineering nationally and internationally. He is a faculty member in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering in the School of Engineering at Rutgers University–New Brunswick.
Birnie’s core research focuses on renewable energy, particularly at the cutting edge of solar, battery, and related technologies. He also encourages and promotes innovation at Rutgers and in the region. He led a team of Rutgers innovators to win a $500,000 National Science Foundation grant to create a five-year I-Corps Site that will help accelerate student and faculty teams’ efforts to commercialize their ideas.
Much of Birnie’s work looks at materials for solar power collection and expanding the use of solar power, both in buildings and for charging batteries in hybrid electric vehicles. One project involves testing the hardware installation of a solar panel for generating power that will enable cars to travel farther with fewer recharging stops. Another NSF-funded project is examining how microstructure enhancements may improve lithium battery performance for electric vehicles.
Birnie teaches courses on solar cell design and processing, electrochemical materials and devices, and ceramics, all with an emphasis on encouraging student innovation and involvement. His strategic outreach efforts include showcasing the department’s achievements in innovation, promoting sustainability on campus, and serving on the oversight board of the Honors College at Rutgers–New Brunswick.
The chair Birnie holds honors McLaren, a professor and chair of Rutgers’ Department of Ceramic Engineering for 25 years and an internationally recognized leader in the field. It was created with funding from Corning Incorporated and Saint-Gobain Advanced Materials Corporation.
This story is part of Rutgers University Foundation’s Endowed Chairs Impact series. Supporting professorships and research helps spark innovation and creativity here in New Jersey and beyond.
Joseph R. Blasi, the J. Robert Beyster Professorship of Employee Ownership
An international expert on employee ownership studies how workers can share in a corporation’s success.
Joseph R. Blasi is an authority on employee share ownership, a practice in which a company includes its employees in equity ownership or makes shares available to some or all of its employees. While it’s a common phenomenon in the United States, the practice didn’t have a major academic home and research effort behind it until the creation of the Beyster professorship at Rutgers’ School of Management and Labor Relations.
Blasi, the inaugural holder of the Beyster professorship, focuses his research and teaching on employee share ownership, broad-based stock options, profit-sharing, and the social and economic history of the corporation. He also devotes significant time to mentoring students, advising them on research and careers.
Blasi directs Rutgers’ Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing, which examines current and emerging models of employee ownership and profit sharing both nationally and throughout the world, particularly models that broaden employees’ access to the rewards of their work. “Workers need their weekly pay to live,” Blasi says. “Equity ownership is the fruit of labor.”
Blasi holds a doctorate in education from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. He previously was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, where he was the Mellon Foundation Fellow in the School of Social Science and the William D. Loughlin Member of the School of Historical Studies. He belongs to the Academy of Management, the American Historical Association, the American Sociological Association, and the Labor and Employment Relations Association.
He is the author or editor of 15 books, most recently The Citizen’s Share: Reducing Inequality in the 21st Century, written with Rutgers colleague Douglas Kruse and Harvard economist Richard Freeman. His journal articles have appeared in Industrial and Labor Relations Review and British Journal of Industrial Relations.
The Beyster chair was established by nuclear physicist and entrepreneur J. Robert Beyster and the Foundation for Enterprise Development. Beyster, who started the San Diego-based Science Application International Corp. in 1969, was one of the first technology industry leaders to offer stock and profit sharing and stock options to employees. He established the Beyster Foundation for Enterprise Development, which has supported the School of Management and Labor Relations for more than 10 years, and committed $2 million toward the endowed professorship.
This story is part of Rutgers University Foundation’s Endowed Chairs Impact series. Supporting professorships and research helps spark innovation and creativity here in New Jersey and beyond.
Shridar Ganesan, the Omar Boraie Chair in Genomic Science
Researcher believes genes may point the way to more effective cancer treatments.
Shridar Ganesan, the inaugural holder of the Omar Boraie Chair in Genomic Science at Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, is internationally recognized for his expertise in cancer genomics and molecular biology, especially the biology of hereditary breast cancer and the basic mechanisms by which cells repair damage to DNA. He and his colleagues have identified which cancers are likely to respond well to cancer therapies, including targeted therapy and immunotherapies, and are working to identify novel biologic vulnerabilities in individual cancers that can be targeted by new drugs.
Ganesan believes that Omar Boraie’s gift to support his endowed chair is essential to his work. “This support enabled me to pursue novel investigations in cancer research that would not otherwise have been possible,” he says. “In these days of decreasing funding from the National Institutes of Health and traditional sources, the role of private donations is critical to spur innovative and impactful cancer research. We have learned through the years that cancer is not a single disease, but rather a collection of diseases, each with unique features. Instead of determining cancer type by only the organ in which it originates, genomic analysis opens the door for additional classification by identifying the set of changes present in each cancer that drives its growth, which can guide more precise—or tailored—therapy.”
Boraie, who earned an undergraduate degree in chemistry in his native Egypt and pursued a doctorate at Rutgers, has high hopes for the research conducted by Ganesan and his colleagues. “Physician-scientists at Rutgers Cancer Institute are making significant advances with precision medicine for those patients whose cancers are no longer responsive,” he says. “Imagine being able to apply that science to all cancer patients!”
Ganesan, who graduated from Yale University with a medical degree and a doctorate in cell biology, completed his medical residency at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and was a fellow in medical oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. His many honors include the Hero Award from the Triple Negative Breast Cancer Foundation in 2016, the Sidney Kimmel Foundation’s Kimmel Scholar Award in 2006, the National Cancer Institute’s Howard Temin Award in 2004, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in 1999. He also is a professor of medicine and pharmacology at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.
The Boraie Chair was created by a gift from Omar Boraie’s family and a matching gift from an anonymous donor. Boraie, a real estate developer who has been instrumental in revitalizing New Brunswick, New Jersey, now hopes to make it a “health care city. My goal in life,” he says, “is to see New Brunswick be the center of research and development, and the Rutgers Cancer Institute to be the largest in the United States.”
Boraie supports many vital causes and institutions, including the Bristol-Myers Squibb Children’s Hospital. His conversations with young cancer patients there inspired him to support Rutgers’ efforts to identify cancer treatments that can be customized to fit the genetic profile of a patient’s cancer.
This story is part of Rutgers University Foundation’s Endowed Chairs Impact series. Supporting professorships and research helps spark innovation and creativity here in New Jersey and beyond.
Vivien Hsu, the W.H. Conzen Chair in Clinical Pharmacology
A rheumatologist strives to help patients with joint and connective tissue disorders have a better quality of life.
Vivien Hsu is a rheumatologist and expert on connective tissue diseases. Her areas of expertise include scleroderma and related connective tissue diseases, rheumatoid arthritis, and psoriatic arthritis.
Rheumatism describes any painful disorder in the joints, muscles, or connective or soft tissues around joints and bones, including arthritis, gout, and systemic lupus, as well as scleroderma, which may be caused by overactive autoimmune system. Scleroderma causes a hardening of the skin and connective tissues and, in about one-third of cases, also impacts blood vessels and the heart, lungs, and kidneys. It is a complex and difficult-to-diagnose disease, and patients may search for years before getting an accurate diagnosis and treatment plan.
“Unusual, very different symptoms can send undiagnosed patients bouncing from one doctor to another and wondering what is causing their pain,” says Hsu NCAS’78, NJMS’83. “You have to know a lot about internal medicine, about every organ that is affected by these different rheumatic diseases. Most, like scleroderma, have no cures but we can offer a lot to control the disease.”
Hsu is one of only a few dozen scleroderma specialists in the United States. She directs the Rutgers Scleroderma Program, part of the university’s Division of Rheumatology and Connective Tissue Research, which has achieved national and international recognition for clinical care and research.
The W.H. Conzen Chair in Clinical Pharmacology was established by the Schering-Plough Foundation in honor of its late chairman and chief executive.
In the Professor’s Own Words
Why did you choose to specialize in rheumatology?
The rheumatic diseases are fascinating. No two patients with the same diagnosis are alike and just when you think you have the answer, the patient changes over time!
What achievements are you proudest of?
We have learned so much about scleroderma, including the disease’s course, how to measure changes as the disease changes, and how improved management and earlier intervention have clearly improved quality of life for our patients.
What is most fulfilling about your work?
Seeing our patients feel better and live longer with our interventions. The extra time spent in counseling our patients improves their understanding of their disease, compliance with their medications, and trust so that they are willing to participate in clinical trials of novel therapies, sometimes “first in man,” to bring better treatment to future generations with this disease.
What aspect of your work is the most frustrating?
Exorbitantly high costs of new drugs, insurance denials for the simplest things. Or the need to appeal anything—treatments or tests—that our patients need.
This story is part of Rutgers University Foundation’s Endowed Chairs Impact series. Supporting professorships and research helps spark innovation and creativity here in New Jersey and beyond.
Juan González, the Richard D. Heffner Professor in Communications and Public Policy
An award-winning journalist teaches his students about the power of investigative reporting to help right society’s wrongs.
Acclaimed journalist Juan González, a professor of communications and public policy at Rutgers’ School of Communication and Information, was a columnist for the New York Daily News for nearly 30 years. His columns often focused on urban affairs, municipal land use and tax policies, public education, criminal justice, race relations, trade unions, immigration, and the Latino community.
González, a two-time winner of the prestigious George Polk Award for his “unflinching” investigative reporting, devoted much of his work to exposing “injustices visited upon the powerless.” He was the first reporter to question government officials’ insistence that the air around Ground Zero was safe after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. In 2015, the Society of Professional Journalists’ New York City chapter inducted him into its Journalism Hall of Fame.
González, who frequently co-hosts Democracy Now!, an international independent news program, is a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists Hall of Fame. Hispanic Business Magazine named him one of America’s most influential Hispanics, and he earned a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Hispanic Academy of Media Arts and Sciences.
He is the author of four books: Fallout: The Environmental Consequences of the World Trade Center Collapse; Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America (a required textbook in nearly 200 Latino history and ethnic studies courses); Roll Down Your Window: Stories of a Forgotten America; and Reclaiming Gotham: Bill de Blasio and the Movement to End America’s Tale of Two Cities. He also coauthored News for All the People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media.
The Richard D. Heffner Professorship in Communications and Public Policy was created in 1987, originally as the Edythe and Dean Dowling Professorship in Communications and Public Policy, with a generous gift from the Edythe and Dean Dowling Foundation. It was renamed in honor of Richard D. Heffner, a professor of communications and public policy at Rutgers and the host of the long-running public television broadcast The Open Mind.
In the Professor’s Own Words
What do you hope your students take away from their studies with you?
I try to teach my students that great journalism requires hard work, perseverance, and courage. It means digging deep below the surface chatter of press releases, official statements, and social media posts. I teach them how to obtain and interpret obscure data and official reports that are not always readily available, how to find and interview ordinary people directly affected by government policies and corporate practices, and how to fashion all the material they collect into a gripping visual or written narrative.
What is your proudest achievement?
During 40 years of writing for commercial newspapers, I produced more than 4,300 stories, several of which prompted significant reforms in government policy or the redress of some little-known injustice. But my proudest achievement is that 80 percent of those stories resulted from my own initiative or tips from readers, not from waiting for some editor to hand me an assignment. That’s why I always tell my students to go find the big stories, don’t wait for them to find you.
How has journalism changed over the course of your career?
Technological change has been a hallmark of mass communications for centuries, and the digital age is no different, except that each new medium also rewires how our brain processes information. This has never been truer than with social media, which is where most Americans get their news these days. Our brains have been gradually rewired by social media and smart phones to tolerate only short posts, to prioritize scandal and sensation over depth and nuance. As Marshall McLuhan once said, “The ‘content’ of a medium is like a juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind.”
What impact do you hope to have?
Keeping alive the belief that great journalism can still awaken society to make qualitative improvement in people’s lives, that it can still “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”
This story is part of Rutgers University Foundation’s Endowed Chairs Impact series. Supporting professorships and research helps spark innovation and creativity here in New Jersey and beyond.
Kelvin Kwan, the Duncan and Nancy MacMillan Faculty Development Chair in the Life Sciences
A neuroscientist works to create an artificial human cochlea to combat hearing loss.
Kelvin Kwan is an associate professor in Rutgers’ Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience whose research focuses on alleviating and curing progressive hearing loss. He is the inaugural holder of the Duncan and Nancy MacMillan Faculty Development Chair in the Life Sciences.
Kwan and his team are making advances in stem cell replacement therapies associated with hearing loss, a neurodegenerative disorder that typically impacts a person over the course of many years. Approximately 17 percent of people in the United States—about 42 million—have been diagnosed with hearing loss, and that number is likely to increase due to exposure to loud sound levels from phones and other devices.
Hearing loss is often the result of the death of delicate hair cells in the ear, which are part of the neural system that transmits sound to the brain. If these hair cells are not functioning, standard methods of improving hearing—such as hearing aids and cochlear implants—won’t improve a person’s hearing. Kwan is designing regenerative cell therapies to aid people who have suffered inner ear damage.
He also is working to develop a human cochlea—a cavity in the inner ear that contains a receptor organ for hearing—on a chip, in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania’s engineering department and Rutgers’ biomedical engineering department. This chip, which has the potential to be used as an auditory prosthesis, is derived from cells that are cultured on flexible polymer that mimics cochlear sensory tissue. “The inner ear stem cell line that we have created has been distributed worldwide for other researchers to use,” Kwan said.
Kwan holds a doctorate from Harvard University and completed his postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School. His lab has generated enough preliminary data to earn a five-year grant from the National Institute of Deafness and Communicative Diseases. He has been invited to present his lab’s work at international conferences and local symposia.
The Duncan and Nancy MacMillan Faculty Development Chair in the Life Sciences was established by Duncan and Nancy MacMillan to support a promising early-career faculty member in the life sciences.
In the Professor’s Own Words
Why did you choose to focus your work on hearing?
I am interested in how sensory systems convert physical stimuli, such as sound, into neural signals. One of the least understood sensory systems is hearing. Sensory hair cells and spiral ganglion neurons are responsible for detecting and transmitting sound information to the brain. However, the molecular machinery required for their cellular function is largely unknown.
What made you decide to come to Rutgers?
The opportunity to mentor undergraduates and graduate students was one of the main reasons for my decision in coming to Rutgers. Another major reason was the strong community of molecular and cellular neuroscientists in the area for potential collaborations.
What is the most fulfilling aspect of your work?
The possibility of performing cutting-edge research that may one day be used for regenerative medicine is one of the most exciting parts of my research. A major goal in the lab is to regenerate sensory hair cells and spiral ganglion neurons from inner ear stem cells.
How would you describe your students?
The students in my lab are inquisitive and eager to learn. They provide a fresh perspective to different hurdles that must be overcome in research. The presence of students in the lab adds an additional level of liveliness and enthusiasm in an already vibrant research environment.
This story is part of Rutgers University Foundation’s Endowed Chairs Impact series. Supporting professorships and research helps spark innovation and creativity here in New Jersey and beyond.
Luciano D’Adamio, the Krieger Klein Endowed Chair in Alzheimer’s Disease and Neurodegeneration Research
Neuroscientist works to unlock the mysteries of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia in efforts to create new therapies.
Luciano D’Adamio, an internationally renowned expert on Alzheimer’s disease, is the inaugural holder of the Krieger Klein Endowed Chair in Alzheimer’s Disease and Neurodegeneration Research. The chair was established with a 2015 gift from former U.S. congressman Herbert C. Klein and his wife, Jacqueline Krieger Klein, who died of Alzheimer’s disease in 2017, and an anonymous donor who provided matching funds to create new chairs for Rutgers.
More than 6 million Americans live with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. As the population ages, the number of citizens with these diseases will grow. Alzheimer’s is the sixth-leading cause of death in the United States. The financial costs of caring for people with these conditions are staggering, as is the impact they have on patients, families, and friends. So far, there are no viable treatments to prevent these brain diseases or alleviate their multiple symptoms.
D’Adamio is trying to change that by leading promising research conducted at the Rutgers Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia Research Center, part of the Brain Health Institute. He and his lab take an innovative approach to unlocking the mysteries of degenerative brain diseases, with an eye toward the creation of new drugs to combat them. The center plans to develop a dementia clinic for patient evaluation and treatment and for testing new therapies. Its researchers also conduct basic and translational research, using human genome information to identify novel biomarkers and to develop stem cell models of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.
D’Adamio’s contribution to the field of Alzheimer’s disease has been recognized with the 2001 Alzheimer Award from the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, the 2011 Zenith Award from the Alzheimer’s Association, and awards from the Irene Diamond Foundation and the Edward N. and Della L. Thome Memorial Foundation. He has published more than 97 peer-reviewed articles in journals such as Science, Cell, and Neuron.
D’Adamio holds a medical degree from the University of Perugia in Italy and a doctorate from Sapienza University in Rome. He did his thesis work at Harvard Medical School’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and was a principal investigator at the National Institutes of Health. His lab there was the first to identify the role of cell-death pathways in Alzheimer’s disease, sparking his interest in neurodegeneration. He holds five patents on his discoveries and is the scientific co-founder of three companies—RemeGenix, Kappa Lifescience, and SienaGen.
In the Professor’s Own Words
How much progress has Alzheimer’s and dementia research made in the past decade?
The most progress has been made in understanding the genetic components of dementia. These new genetic data suggest that other cell types, not only neurons, contribute to dementia pathogenesis.
What do you hope this research looks like five years from now?
That we acquire a better understanding of mechanisms causing dementia and that we can develop drugs that can normalize these mechanisms.
What approaches for treatment or a cure hold the most promise?
Approaches aimed at determining the main factors causing dementia. When we understand those, we can develop ways to correct them.
What do you find most personally fulfilling about your work?
I would find it fulfilling if our work would contribute to understanding the normal function of the brain, how malfunctions cause disease, and how ro correct these malfunctions.
This story is part of Rutgers University Foundation’s Endowed Chairs Impact series. Supporting professorships and research helps spark innovation and creativity here in New Jersey and beyond.
Renping Zhou, the William and Myrle Garbe Chair in Cancer and Leukemia Research
Chair holder focuses on using gene therapy to treat ALS and other diseases.
Renping Zhou studies how biological signals regulate normal and pathological processes in the nervous system. In addition to being an accomplished researcher, he also is a dedicated teacher. He considers teaching one of his most important tasks as a professor at Rutgers and devotes a significant amount of time and energy to training the next generation of scientists, supervising research activities of undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows. He is also chair of the Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy’s Department of Chemical Biology,
Much of Zhou’s current research focuses on ALS, a devastating motor neuron disease with an average survival time of two to four years, with the goal of using gene therapy to develop effective avenues of treatment.
In collaboration with Xi Zheng, a research professor in the pharmacy school’s Department of Chemical Biology, Zhou established a collaboration between Rutgers and Wuyi University in China to facilitate student training and scientific exchange.
Zhou holds a doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Cancer Institute. He serves on the editorial boards of PLoS One and Cell & Bioscience.
The William and Myrle Garbe Chair in Cancer and Leukemia research was established through a gift from the estate of Myrle W. Garbe.
In the Professor’s Own Words
How do you inspire your students?
I encourage them to read widely and identify the big and important problems that need to be solved by research. Once we decide on a project, I work with the students in designing and performing experiments. My drive and passion in research and discovery to elucidate the mysteries of life and discover disease treatments seem to excite students.
How would you characterize the students you work with?
The Rutgers students I have worked with show a strong thirst for knowledge and commitment to improving human health.
What aspect of your work is most personally fulfilling?
The freedom to pursue research to find cures for diseases and to inspire students to discovery.
What are some of its biggest challenges?
The biggest challenges are finding support for early stage innovative research.
This story is part of Rutgers University Foundation’s Endowed Chairs Impact series. Supporting professorships and research helps spark innovation and creativity here in New Jersey and beyond.