NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The May 12 commencement ceremony at Vanderbilt University includes recognition for 15 faculty members who are retiring and will take on the title of emeritus or emerita faculty.
They are:
Dr. Ian M. Burr, professor of pediatrics, emeritus
Burr played a significant role in the planning and construction of the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, crowning a career at the university that stretches back to 1971 when he arrived as an associate professor and an investigator in pediatrics for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Over his career, Burr has been division chief of endocrinology and acting division chief of three divisions. From 1988 to 1999, he was James C. Overall Chair of the Department of Pediatrics, and medical director and physician-in-chief of Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital. His research interests include the neural control of hormonal release, specifically insulin release.
George E. Cook, professor of electrical engineering, emeritus
Cook’s work has resulted in a number of U.S. and foreign patents on robotic welding. He joined the faculty at Vanderbilt in 1963, and was named a professor in 1973. His research interests include control theory, communication theory, signal processing, robotics and industrial automation. Cook’s awards include the James F. Lincoln Foundation’s 1981 Gold Award for his work on through-the-arc sensing that led to an adaptive robotic welding control methodology. In 2003, he was named associate dean for research and graduate studies.
Robert Drews, professor of classics, emeritus
Drews is an internationally known scholar of early Greek history and author of five books on the subject. His interest in early Christianity and the reading of Biblical texts as historical documents led to the book In Search of the Shroud of Turin: New Light on Its History and Origins. Drews was chair of the Department of Classical Studies from 1975 to 1980 and again from 1996 to 1999. He has been a member of the College of Arts and Science Faculty Council, the Faculty Senate, the Graduate Faculty Council and the University Central Promotion and Tenure Review Committee. He has been a valuable mentor to students and junior faculty.
Dr. Fred Goldner Jr., clinical professor of medicine, emeritus
Goldner has served on the faculty of the Vanderbilt School of Medicine for 53 years. He has earned a reputation as an indefatigable and inspiring teacher among interns, residents, students, nurses and patients. For several years he organized and directed a multi-disciplinary cardiac work evaluation clinic at Vanderbilt, and in recent years taught the physical diagnosis course. Goldner is past president of the Tennessee Diabetes Association and the Nashville Cardiovascular Society.
Dr. David W. Gregory, associate professor of medicine, emeritus
Gregory is prominent in Nashville for his volunteer work providing health care to the underserved of the city, particularly refugees. He has served on the board of directors and as medical director of the Siloam Clinic since 1989. Gregory was chief of ambulatory services for Nashville Metropolitan General Hospital from 1973 to 1993. He has consistently published original reports and book chapters on unusual infections including Legionellosis, histoplasma, cat scratch disease and psittacosis. He won the Harold Love Award for Outstanding Community Service in 1989 and the Mary Catherine Strobel Volunteer of the Year Award in 2003. In April 2006, Gregory received the Oscar E. Edwards Memorial Award for Volunteerism and Community Service at the annual session of the American College of Physicians in Philadelphia.
Dale A. Johnson, Drucilla Moore Buffington Professor of Church History, emeritus
Johnson is a leading scholar of church history in the early modern period, with 43 articles and book chapters to his credit. He has written or edited five books, including Vanderbilt Divinity School: Education, Contest, and Change. From 1993 to 2001, he was the editor of Religious Studies Review. A member of the Vanderbilt faculty since 1969, Johnson served as associate dean of the Divinity School for a total of five years and on the advisory board of the Vanderbilt University Women’s Center, which he chaired in 1987. He received the Mary Jane Werthan Award in 1987 for extraordinary contributions to the advancement of women at Vanderbilt. Johnson has also chaired the Vanderbilt University Press Committee, served on the Faculty Senate and the University Committee on Appointment, Promotion, and Tenure.
Donald L. Kinser, professor of mechanical engineering, emeritus, and professor of materials science and engineering, emeritus
Kinser has contributed to the design of space system windows and optics through his research into the behavior of glasses in hostile radiation and space environments. In 38 years at Vanderbilt, Kinser has taught classes in the departments of mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, engineering science and material science. His students have gone on to prominent positions in industry, universities and government laboratories. An advocate for interdisciplinary research, Kinser helped develop joint research programs with electrical engineering, physics and chemistry. He has published 120 reviewed papers, co-edited three books and served as the co-editor of the Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids.
Harold G. Maier, David Daniels Allen Distinguished Professor of Law, emeritus
Maier is an internationally recognized authority on the application of United States regulatory legislation to foreign business activity. He has been an adviser to the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Secretary of State’s Advisory Committee on Private International Law, and testified before congressional committees. Maier founded the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law and the Transnational Legal Studies Program, serving as faculty adviser to the journal and director of the program for three decades. As a teacher, he focused on international civil litigation, conflict of laws and foreign relations. He joined the Vanderbilt faculty in 1965.
Richard D. Odom, professor of psychology, emeritus
Odom is a major figure in child development, serving from 1975 to 1980 as the editor of the principal journal of the field, Developmental Psychology. He wrote several influential papers showing that certain perceptual characteristics, such as information salience, significantly influence the development of important conceptual abilities such as meta-memory and classification. Recruited to Vanderbilt in 1964, Odom was a key member of a small group of faculty members that helped the Department of Psychology grow significantly in size and prominence.
Ljubica D. Popovich, professor of art history, emerita
Popovich has left an indelible mark on Byzantine and Slavic studies with a steady output of articles and juried/invited papers that established her as an international specialist in iconographic developments from the early Christian period forward. Popovich has been a dedicated and enthusiastic teacher, with teaching responsibilities encompassing all of Eastern and Western Medieval art history, from large surveys to freshman and graduate seminars. Her students are prominent among this generation’s art history specialists in museums and academia. Her 32 years of service include 17 as director of graduate studies and terms on the Graduate Faculty Assembly and Faculty Senate.
David L. Tuleen, professor of chemistry, emeritus
Tuleen excelled as a teacher in the first phase of his career at Vanderbilt, then as an administrator for more than two decades. Recruited to the university in 1963, Tuleen’s research papers have been frequently cited. One, Chlorination of Unsymmetrical Sulfides, has been cited more than a hundred times since its 1969 publication in the Journal of Organic Chemistry. His lecture style helped him become a popular teacher of introductory organic chemistry, a course notoriously hard to teach. In 1974, Tuleen was appointed associate dean of the College of Arts and Science, where he earned a reputation as a frugal budget manager. In 2003, after 18 years as associate provost for administration, Tuleen was named special assistant to the provost.
Dr. Jan van Eys, clinical professor of pediatrics, emeritus
The research of van Eys has focused on the care of hemophiliacs, and he was an advocate for the once-radical idea of self-administration of clotting factors. He first came to Vanderbilt in 1951 as a graduate student in biochemistry, was a fellow at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute from 1957 to 1966, and accepted an appointment to the pediatrics faculty in 1968. From 1969 to 1973, he was chief of the Pediatric Hematology Clinic at Vanderbilt. He left for the University of Texas in 1973, where he rose to chair of pediatrics before retiring in 1994. van Eys then returned to Vanderbilt as a clinical professor of pediatrics and senior scholar at the Ethics Center.
Medford S. Webster, professor of physics, emeritus
Webster studies experimental particle physics, the fundamental building blocks of the universe. He participated in a key 1964 bubble chamber experiment that resulted in the discovery of the Omega-minus particle. Webster arrived at Vanderbilt in 1967, was promoted to professor of physics in 1970, and chaired the department from 1976 to 1979. He has studied cosmic rays, heavy quarks and the measurement of parity violation in charm lambda decays. Webster was a driving force in the QuarkNet summer program for high school teachers, the primary Vanderbilt community outreach in particle physics.
Dr. Grant Robert Wilkinson, professor of pharmacology, emeritus
Wilkinson’s research has focused on drug responsiveness in humans and the role and importance of drug transporters. His findings are widely cited, and he has published 190 articles, 75 book chapters and reviews and 176 abstracts. He joined the Vanderbilt faculty in 1971 and was named professor of pharmacology in 1978. His awards include the Rawls-Palmer Progress in Medicine Award from the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, and a MERIT Award from the National Institutes of Health. He has served on many committees including the School of Medicine’s Faculty Appointments and Promotions Committee.
Wood’s research interests include ethnic differences in drug response and the genetics of drug metabolism. A member of the Vanderbilt faculty since 1978, he was assistant vice chancellor for clinical research from 1999 to 2004. He wrote the chapter on adverse drug reactions in Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine and has testified before Congress and advised White House and other federal officials. He serves on the editorial boards of the New England Journal of Medicine and Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics.
Media contact: Jim Patterson, (615) 322-NEWS
>jim.patterson@vanderbilt.edu