Purdue News
Purdue News
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July 9, 1999
Purdue trustees confirm four distinguished professorsWEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- The Purdue University Board of Trustees today (Friday, 7/9) awarded distinguished professorships to three current faculty members and one incoming professor. They are Jeffrey Bennetzen, professor of biology, Supriyo Datta, professor of electrical engineering, Ei-ichi Negishi, professor of chemistry, and incoming faculty member Suresh Rao, professor of civil engineering."A distinguished professorship is the ultimate peer recognition in an academic career," said Robert L. Ringel, executive vice president for academic affairs. "It is a key element in our retention and recruitment of our very best faulty, and another way for us to recognize exceptional performance in teaching, research and service." There now are 47 distinguished professors and 22 named professors at Purdue. Bennetzen is the first H. Edwin Umbarger Distinguished Professor of Genetic Sciences. The professorship honors Umbarger, the Wright Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Biological Sciences, who is internationally recognized in the field of molecular biology for his pioneering work in cell regulation and metabolic regulation. Bennetzen is an internationally recognized leader in the field of plant genomics who earned a bachelor's degree in biology from the University of California at San Diego in 1974 and a doctorate in biochemistry from the University of Washington in 1980. He joined Plant Pathology Group, an international plant research institute in San Carlos, Calif., as a research scientist in 1981. He joined the Purdue faculty in 1983, and he has been director of the Purdue Genetics Program since 1997. Bennetzen's current research interests focus on the molecular and genetic analysis of gene and genome structure, function, and evolution in plants, and in plant disease resistance. His work has helped in the understanding of how plants evolve a genetic structure that makes them resistant to certain diseases. He won a Fulbright Foundation award in 1990. Datta has been named the Thomas Duncan Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. The professorship is named for Duncan, who founded Duncan Electric Manufacturing Co. in Lafayette in 1901 and was an early benefactor of Purdue. Datta, a member of the Purdue faculty since 1981, earned his bachelor's degree from the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur, India, in 1975. He completed his graduate work at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, gaining a master's degree in 1977 and a doctorate in 1979. Internationally respected for his work in solid-state physics, superconductivity, molecular electronics and semiconductor nanostructures, Datta has also been recognized for his teaching, and a book he wrote earned the Terman Award from the American Society for Engineering Education. Datta is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Negishi has been appointed the Herbert C. Brown Distinguished Professor of Chemistry. The professorship is named for Brown, the Wetherill Research Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1979. Negishi is internationally recognized for developing chemical reactions that are catalyzed or promoted by metal-containing compounds. These reactions have allowed scientists to develop a wide range of compounds that can be used in biological and medical applications. He grew up in Japan and graduated in 1958 from the University of Tokyo with a bachelor's degree. Between 1960 and 1963, he became a Fulbright scholar and obtained a doctorate in organic chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania. In 1966 he began working as a postdoctoral associate in Brown's laboratory at Purdue. After holding a series of academic positions at Syracuse and Purdue, he joined the Purdue faculty in 1979 as professor of chemistry. Negishi's work focuses on oganometallic chemistry. In 1987, Negishi received a J.S. Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. In 1997, he received a Chemical Society of Japan Award, and is until the year 2000 holding an Alexander von Humboldt Senior Researcher Award. In 1998, Negishi received the American Chemical Society Award for Organometallic Chemistry and the Herbert Newby McCoy Award, presented annually to a Purdue student or faculty member for outstanding contributions to science. Rao was named the first Lee A. Rieth Distinguished Professor of Civil Engineering, created by Mrs. Mary Jane Rieth in honor of her husband, the late Lee Rieth, a 1938 graduate of the School of Civil Engineering. Rao joins the Purdue faculty from the University of Florida, where he has been the director of natural resources and coordinator of the faculty's interdisciplinary research and extension efforts in ecosystem management and restoration. At Florida he held appointments as both a University of Florida Research Foundation professor and an affiliate professor in the department of environmental engineering sciences. At Purdue he will hold a joint faculty appointment in civil engineering and agronomy. Rao was born and raised in India, where he earned a bachelor's degree from A.P Agricultural University in 1967. He received a master's degree in 1970 from Colorado State University, followed by a doctorate from the University of Hawaii in 1974. He joined the University of Florida the following year. Rao's promotion of the exchange of research innovations among scientists and engineers and graduate education programs powered his rise through the academic ranks at Florida, where he was named a graduate research professor in 1993. His most recent research involves the development of innovative technologies for characterization of hazardous waste sites and for enhanced remediation of contaminated soils and aquifers. He has worked on several advisory committees to state and federal environmental agencies and recently chaired a National Research Council committee on commercialization of innovative cleanup technologies. In other action, the board confirmed the appointment of Richard A. Cosier as the next dean of the Purdue School of Management and the Krannert Graduate School of Management, effective Aug. 1. Cosier also will hold a faculty appointment as the Leeds Professor of Management. Cosier (pronounced KOE-zure), 52, dean and the Fred E. Brown Chair at the University of Oklahoma's Michael F. Price College of Business since 1993, will succeed Dennis J. Weidenaar, who returned to the faculty on July 1. Cosier's appointment was announced earlier.
Sources: Robert Ringel, (765) 494-9709, aaschumpp@evpaa.purdue.edu Jeffrey Bennetzen, (765) 494-4763, maize@bilbo.bio.purdue.edu Supriyo Datta, (765) 494-3511, datta@ecn.purdue.edu Ei-ichi Negishi, (765) 494-5301, negishi@purdue.edu Suresh Rao, (765) 496-6554, pscr@ecn.purdue.edu Writer: Sharon Bowker, (765) 494-2077; sharon_bowker@purdue.edu
Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu NOTE TO JOURNALISTS: Publishable, 200 dpi photographs of Jeffrey Bennetzen, Supriyo Datta and Suresh Rao are available online. To download them, point your Web browser to the Purdue News ftp site.
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