NASHVILLE, Tenn. – A dozen faculty members who are retiring from Vanderbilt University this year will be honored during the May 14 Commencement ceremony when the University honors their years of service and bestows on them the title of emeritus faculty.
Frank E. Carroll Jr., M.D., professor of radiology and radiological sciences, emeritus
Carroll came to Vanderbilt’s Department of Radiology and Radiological Sciences in 1983. He was given a secondary appointment in the Department of Physics and Astronomy in the College of Arts and Science in 1993 because of his productive relationship with the faculties in physics, molecular biology and the free-electron laser project. He is known for his research in a wide variety of pulmonary disciplines. His groundbreaking work with the free-electron laser project has yielded significant advances in the imaging of breast cancer and enabled multi-disciplinary research in other areas such as bond breaking at surfaces, neurosurgical applications and the development of a unique type of pulsed, tunable, monochromatic x-ray machine that will open new doors in the fields of human diagnostic imaging and cancer therapy. During his time at Vanderbilt, he served as director of the Laboratory for Radiologic Research, director of the Division of Diagnostic Radiology and chief of the Section of Thoracic Radiology. In addition, he has been responsible for the day-to-day teaching of radiology residents and medical students rotating through diagnostic radiology.
Benjamin J. Danzo, Ph.D., professor of obstetrics and gynecology, emeritus, and research professor of biochemistry, emeritus
Danzo will retire this July from Vanderbilt’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology after 33 years of service on the faculty of the School of Medicine. His research has focused on male reproductive biology and made significant contributions to the body of knowledge in the areas of hormonal regulation of epididymal function, androgen-binding proteins (ABP) and the effects of xenobiotics on reproductive health. He was a discoverer of androgen-binding proteins, which are produced by the Sertoli cells of the testes and influence epididymal function and sperm maturation. More recently, he has investigated the influence of environmental hormones on reproductive function and the mechanisms by which these effects are mediated through steroid receptor and/or steroid-binding protein pathways. Danzo has been an active participant in the educational mission of the School of Medicine, having offered the elective course "Reproductive Biology" (Cell Biology 333) to medical students since 1981. He also has served on the Medical Center’s Biosafety Committee, the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee and the interview team of the Medical School Admissions Committee.
John M. Flexner, M.D., professor of medicine, emeritus
Flexner arrived in Nashville in June 1954 to begin an internship in internal medicine at Vanderbilt University Hospital. At the time, the hospital was located in what is now Medical Center North, and physicians rotated through Nashville General Hospital and saw patients at the Veterans Administration Hospital in consultation. He joined the Vanderbilt School of Medicine faculty in 1959, and the University, he says, has become a part of his life and blood. Of his many accomplishments over the 45 years of service he has given to Vanderbilt and to the community, he is proudest of three. He was elected an American Cancer Society Professor of Oncology in 1981 for 10 years. At the time of his election, there were only 17 professors in the country so honored. He was a co-founder of Alive Hospice, which serves Nashville and its surrounding counties and is a dynamic part of health care in the region. And he was one of the early physicians interested in pain management, becoming one of the first to use PCA pain pumps and encourage his surgical colleagues to use them. Flexner also has been active in the training of fellows and residents. He taught the course "Dying, Death and Bereavement" at the School of Medicine for 25 years, teaching compassion to fellow physicians.
J. Donald M. Gass, M.D., professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences, emeritus
Gass is the premier medical retina specialist in the world. A native of Prince Edward Island, Canada, he received both his undergraduate (1950) and medical (1957) degrees from Vanderbilt. He joined the faculty of the newly formed Bascom Palmer Eye Institute of the University of Miami School of Medicine in 1963. He semi-retired in 1995, but returned to Vanderbilt as an active member of the faculty of the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences. Gass’ contributions to ophthalmology have been extensive. His text, Stereoscopic Atlas of Macular Diseases: Diagnosis and Treatment, is considered the authoritative work in this area and is currently in its fourth edition. Among his many honors are the Club Jules Gonin’s Hermann Wacker Prize (1980), the Howe Medal of the American Ophthalmologic Society (1983), the Award of Merit from the Retina Research Foundation (1986), the Alco Research Award and the Helen Keller Prize for Vision Research (2001). The Macula Society established the Gass Medal for Outstanding Contribution in Macular Disease, of which he was the inaugural winner in 1987. In addition, he has been named one of the 10 most influential ophthalmologists of the 20th century.
Sanford B. Krantz, M.D., professor of medicine, emeritus
Krantz joined the Vanderbilt faculty in 1970 as an associate professor of medicine and chief of the hematology section at the Veterans Administration Hospital. He was director of the hematology division at Vanderbilt for 24 years, during which time he built and rebuilt the division to give Vanderbilt international recognition in the area of hematology. His work-the description of the pathogenesis of pure red cell aplasia as an autoimmune disease and its successful treatment with immunosuppressive drugs; the successful trials of erythropoietin in renal disease and the anemia of chronic disease-rheumatoid arthritis; and the description of the anemia of chronic disease as an immune disease due to reaction to foreign proteins with the liberation of inhibitory cytokines-is recognized the world over. His laboratory had the first demonstration of autoimmunity to bone marrow cells. He has more than 200 publications based on his research, and his studies have been recognized by his election to the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians and by presentation of the Southern Society of Clinical Investigation Founders Medal, which he was awarded in 1998.
Robert S. Panvini, Ph.D., professor of physics, emeritus
Panvini joined Vanderbilt’s Department of Physics and Astronomy in 1971. His research is in the area of experimental particle physics, the study of the fundamental building blocks of the universe. His arrival at Vanderbilt occurred during a time of transition in particle physics, as detectors moved away from photographic techniques and toward automated detectors with electronic triggers. In collaboration with Vanderbilt professor Medford Webster, Panvini worked on hybrid "triggered" bubble chambers and streamer chambers. He then moved into electron-positron collider physics, joining the CLEO collaboration based at an accelerator at Cornell University. In 1979-80, this group produced some of the cleanest data on the newly discovered upsilon meson, confirming that it was composed of b quarks. In the mid-1980s, Panvini switched his research effort to the Stanford Linear Accelerator (SLAC), with Vanderbilt taking the leading role in computer simulations for the collaboration. This set of experiments produced the world’s best measurement of the weak mixing angle, an important parameter in the unified theory of the weak and electromagnetic forces. From 1973-2001, Panvini organized the Vanderbilt Series in High Energy Physics, which addressed important topics in particle physics and brought a "who’s who" of particle physicists to the University, including many Nobel laureates.
Helmut F. Pfanner, Ph.D., professor of German, emeritus
A native of Austria, Pfanner arrived at Vanderbilt in 1990 as chair of the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages, a position he held for three years. From 1992-99, he directed the Summer Institute for German Language and Culture at the University of California in Santa Barbara. His research has focused on 19th- and 20th-century German, Austrian and Swiss literature and German-American literary and cultural relations. His annotated bibliography of the works of exile writer Oskar Maria Graf is considered to be the standard research tool in this area. His edition of Graf’s essays and speeches composes one of the volumes of Graf’s collected works, as does his co-edition of Graf’s letters. His articles on Kurt Waldinger, as well as his book on the German and Austrian exile communities in New York, led the Waldinger heirs to bequeath a part of the writer’s literary estate to the Vanderbilt University library. Pfanner has published a dozen books and editions, one exhibit catalog, some 120 articles and smaller texts in journals and newspapers and more than 100 reviews. He has completed a monograph on the life and works of Karl Jakob Hirsch, scheduled to be published this year.
David L. Rados, Ph.D., professor of management, emeritus
Rados joined Vanderbilt’s Owen Graduate School of Management as a professor of business administration in 1977. He also has held visiting positions at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia; Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia; the Melbourne Business School, where he was Sir Donald Hibbett Lecturer; and the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. While he has published a number of scholarly articles in top-tier journals, his impact on the marketing profession is perhaps best captured through the publication of his textbooks, including Marketing for Non-Profit Operations (in its second edition) and Pushing the Numbers in Marketing (also in its second edition). Another book, titled Not Marketing 101, will be published this year. A proponent of the Socratic method of teaching, he won the Dean’s Award for Teaching three times between 1992 and 1999 and was the recipient of the James A. Webb Jr. Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1997, the award presented annually by the graduating class to its most outstanding teacher. Rados also has been a regular contributor to the Owen School’s executive education program.
William G. Siesser, Ph.D., professor of geology, emeritus
Before coming to Vanderbilt’s Department of Geology in 1979, Siesser served on the faculty at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. His research during his 12 years in Africa produced many papers on a variety of sedimentologic, stratigraphic and paleoceanographic topics. He co-authored the first book summarizing the Mesozoic and Tertiary geology of southern Africa, as well as produced the first geological map of the ocean floor off southern Africa. At Vanderbilt, Siesser served as chair of the geology department from 1982-85 and as secretary of the Arts and Science faculty. His major research at the University includes revising the bio- and chronostratigraphy of tertiary rock units in the central Gulf Coast region. He continued his geological oceanographic work by participating in six international oceanographic sea-floor coring expeditions. In 1994, Siesser co-edited Coccolithophores, considered a milestone in calcareous nannoplankton studies and a key reference book in the field. At its biannual meeting in 2002, the International Nannoplankton Association (INA) recognized Siesser’s work as a bibliographer and dedicated a volume of the Journal of Nannoplankton Research to him.
Bradley E. Smith, M.D., professor of anesthesiology, emeritus
Smith came to Vanderbilt in 1969 as chair of the Department of Anesthesiology. At the time he left the post in 1993, he was the longest-serving anesthesiology chair at a U.S. medical school. Smith’s research includes some of the initial work in the arena of obstetric anesthesiology and the teratogenic effects of anesthetic agents. During his tenure, he presided over the expansion of Vanderbilt’s Department of Anesthesiology from seven to 42 full-time faculty. Smith also served two terms on the Vanderbilt Faculty Senate and chaired the committee that instituted the first cardiopulmonary resuscitation program at Vanderbilt Hospital. Smith’s national service includes appointments to committees of the National Research Council and the Food and Drug Administration and three terms on the National Anesthesiology Residency Review Committee. He served as chairman of the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ Committee on Scientific Affairs. He has been president of the Tennessee Society of Anesthesiologists and received its lifetime Distinguished Service Award. He currently serves in the House of Delegates of the Tennessee Medical Association.
Raphael F. Smith, M.D., professor of medicine, emeritus
Smith received his undergraduate degree from Vanderbilt, and, after serving in the U.S. Navy, where he rose to the rank of chief of the Medical Sciences Division at the Naval Aerospace Medical Institute, he joined the Vanderbilt faculty in 1969. His initial responsibilities included directing Vanderbilt’s Coronary Care Unit and Heart Station. In 1975, he was named chief of the cardiology section at the Nashville Veterans Medical Center, a post he held for 23 years. During his career at Vanderbilt, Smith led an investigative team that performed the first quantitative electrocardiography during extended space flight of the SKYLAB missions. He collaborated on multiple studies designed to define the safety and efficacy of anti-arrhythmic agents in humans. More recently, he has focused his attention on the prevention of congestive heart failure and has led a very active clinical research group at the VA Hospital, which has been pivotal in the completion of important multi-center trials, including the V-Heft studies. A recipient of the American Medical Association’s Physician’s Recognition Award and American Heart Association’s Helen Farris Award for Distinguished Service, Smith has influenced a generation of trainees in cardiovascular medicine.
Robert T. Wertz, Ph.D., professor of hearing and speech sciences, emeritus
Wertz has been a professor in the Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences at Vanderbilt since 1992 and a senior rehabilitation research career scientist in the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Tennessee Valley health care system since 2000. His seminal work in the area of functional health status has had a significant impact on adults with communication disorders. His research has focused on the appraisal, diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of a variety of neurogenic communication disorders and included the direction of two Department of Veterans Affairs cooperative studies that evaluated the efficacy of treatment for aphasia, the impairment of the ability to use or comprehend words, usually as a result of a stroke or brain injury. He is a prolific author who has published five major textbooks, 33 book chapters and more than 120 refereed journal articles. Wertz has been awarded honors by both the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) and the Academy of Neurologic Communication Disorders and Sciences. He is a fellow of the ASHA and has been actively involved with the Academy of Aphasia and the Academy of Neurologic Communication Disorders and Sciences, serving as its president from 1994-96.
Media contact: Kara Furlong, (615) 322-NEWS
Kara.c.furlong@vanderbilt.edu