Distinguished Professors

The University of Miami received an anonymous gift to its Momentum campaign that created five new distinguished professorships to honor outstanding faculty scholars in arts and sciences and architecture.

The new Distinguished Professors are: Dr. Chuck Carver, Distinguished Professor of Psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences; Dr. David Ellison, Distinguished Professor in the Humanities in the College of Arts and Sciences; Dr. Howard Gordon, Distinguished Professor of Physics in the College of Arts and Sciences; Dr. Susan Haack, Distinguished Professor in the Humanities in the College of Arts and Sciences; and Dean Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Distinguished Professor of Architecture. Each professorship will fund research that supports the scholarly work of the faculty member.

In addition to these appointments in arts and sciences and architecture, renowned endocrinologist and Nobel Laureate Dr. Andrew Schally joined the faculty as Miller Distinguished Professor in the Miller School of Medicine. Dr. Schally’s appointment is supported by the generosity of the family of the late Leonard M. Miller.

Dr. James M. Tien and Dr. Camillo Ricordi were honored as distinguished professors in 2007.  Dr. Tien is a Distinguished Professor in Engineering and is currently the Dean of the School of Engineering at the University.   Dr. Camillo Ricordi is a Distinguished Professor in Medicine and is the Scientific Director and Chief Academic Officer of the Diabetes Research Institute at the Miller School of Medicine.

The Distinguished Professors are:

• James M. Tien became dean of the University of Miami College of Engineering in September 2007. An internationally renowned researcher, he formerly served as the Yamada Corporation Professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, was founding chair of its Department of Decision Sciences and Engineering Systems, and professor in its Department of Electrical, Computer and Systems Engineering. Tien joined the Rensselaer faculty in 1977 and twice served as its acting dean of engineering. In 2001 he was elected to membership in the National Academy of Engineering, one of the highest honors accorded an engineer. His research interests include systems modeling, public policy, decision analysis, and information systems. He has served on the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Board of Directors (2000-04) and was its vice president in charge of the Publication Services and Products Board and the Educational Activities Board.
  
  
• Camillo Ricordi, M.D. is the Stacy Joy Goodman Professor of Surgery, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, and Microbiology and Immunology, and serves as Scientific Director and Chief Academic Officer of the University of Miami Diabetes Research Institute.  At the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine, Dr. Ricordi also serves as Chief of the Division of Cellular Transplantation, Department of Surgery, Director of the Diabetes Research Institute Cell Transplant Center and Responsible Head of the cGMP Human Cell Processing Facility, an NIH funded cGMP facility that has been providing Human Cell Products for research and clinical applications at UM, in Florida and across state barriers since 1993. Dr. Ricordi has also served as Co-Director of the Executive Office of Research Leadership (2001-2003) and as Senior Associate Dean for Research (2003-2006) at the UM Miller School of Medicine. Acknowledged by his peers as one of the world's leading scientists in cell transplantation, Dr. Ricordi is well-known for inventing the machine that made it possible to isolate large numbers of islet cells (insulin-producing cells) from the human pancreas and for performing the first series of clinical islet transplants that reversed diabetes after implantation of donor purified islets into the liver of recipients with diabetes. The procedure is now used by laboratories performing clinical islet transplants worldwide. Dr. Ricordi has also developed highly innovative strategies in an attempt to transplant cells and organs without the continuous requirement for anti-rejection drugs.   He coordinated the University of Miami Stem Cell, Cellular Therapies and Tissue Engineering Initiative, which resulted in the establishment of the W. H. Coulter Center for Translational Research at the University of Miami.
  
  
• Charles S. Carver is a professor of psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences. As a personality psychologist, his research has focused on stress and coping, issues in emotional experience, and goal regulation. His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation; the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism; the National Cancer Institute; the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute; and the American Cancer Society. He has published a large number of articles and books and is editor of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. He is a Fellow and Charter Member of the American Association for Psychological Science.
  
  
• David R. Ellison is professor of French in the College of Arts and Sciences, where he chaired the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures from 1993 until 2003.  During his tenure as chair, he introduced changes in curriculum development and teaching techniques, including using advanced electronic learning technologies, digitized audio and multimedia lessons to allow distance learning over the Internet, and brought in specialists in language pedagogy and acquisition. He has authored four books and is currently at work on a new book project. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Council of Learned Societies.  He was designated Chevalier dans l’ordre des Palmes Académiques by the government of France in 1994 in recognition of his service to French culture.  In 2003 he received the Provost’s Award for Scholarly Activity, and in 2006 was appointed a Cooper Fellow in the College of Arts and Sciences.
  
  
• Howard R. Gordon, professor in the department of physics in the College of Arts and Sciences, came to the University of Miami in 1967. His research has focused on experimental ocean optics, and he has served as lead researcher in more than 40 publications. During the 1970s, he became involved in satellite oceanography, and as a member of the CZCS [Coastal Zone Color Scanner] instrument team developed the atmospheric correction scheme that was used to process the ocean color data from CZCS. He has been a member of many national and international instrument science teams and has received many awards for his work with NASA. He is a fellow of both the Optical Society of America and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. 
  
  
• Susan Haack has taught at the University of Miami Since 1990, where she is presently Cooper Senior Scholar in Arts and Sciences, Professor of Philosophy, and Professor of Law. In 1997-8 she was national Phi Beta Kappa Romanell Professor of Philosophy, and in the course of her career she has held numerous visiting professorships and fellowships.  Haack has authored seven books and numerous articles, essays, and papers. In 2006 she was the recipient of the Forkosch Award for excellence in writing given by the Council for Secular Humanism. In 2005 she served on a panel writing the Fordham Foundation report on K-12 Science Standards across the United States. Haack has received Awards for Excel¬lence in Teaching from the American Philosoph¬ical Association and from the University of Miami, where she has also received the Award for Outstanding Graduate Mentor; the Provost's Award for Research; and the Faculty Senate Distinguished Scholar Award.
  
  
• Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk has taught at University of Miami’s School of Architecture since 1979, becoming dean in 1995. During this time she has created a graduate program in Suburb and Town Design and has also served as director of the university's Center for Urban Community and Design, organizing and promoting numerous design exercises to the benefit of communities throughout South Florida. In addition to her duties at the University, she is in practice with Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company, Architects and Town Planners, a leader in the New Urbanism movement, which has completed designs and codes for over two hundred new towns, regional plans, and community revitalization projects. Plater-Zyberk is a founder and emerita board member of the Congress for the New Urbanism, established in 1993. She is currently the City of Miami’s lead consultant, planner and architect for Mayor Manny Diaz’s “Miami 21” initiative to overhaul the city’s long-term zoning plan. She has authored two books and has received several honorary doctorates, the Brandeis Award for Architecture, the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Medal of Architecture from the University of Virginia, and the Vincent J. Scully Prize for exemplary practice and scholarship in architecture and urban design from the National Building Museum. She has been a resident at the American Academy in Rome and for fourteen years served as a member of the Board of Trustees of Princeton University.
  
  
• Andrew V. Schally won the Nobel Prize for medicine and physiology in 1977 for his research in endocrinology. A member of the Miller School of Medicine faculty in the department of pathology, he also has an appointment at the Miami Veterans Association, where he came from New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina last year. He was one of a pair of scientists to first isolate several of the communicating chemical links between the brain and the pituitary gland, and also determined their structure and succeeded in synthesizing them. Schally is credited with extending the concepts of hormone-dependent tumors beyond the pioneering work of Charles Huggins. Hormonal therapies he proposed are based on the peptide analogs of hypothalamic and other hormones, and are relatively free of side effects, unlike radiation and chemotherapy. His discoveries have led to many practical clinical applications that are in wide use. He has written over 2,200 publications, more than 1,200 of them written since receiving the Nobel Prize.