IUPUI Distinguished Professors Symposium

Ten Indiana University faculty members have been appointed as distinguished professor, the university's highest academic rank for scholars and researchers.

"Indiana University's distinguished professors are scholars and researchers who are recognized by their peers as some of the very best anywhere in the world," IU President Michael A. McRobbie said. "These remarkable men and women continue to set the highest standards with their teaching, scholarship, innovation and leadership, while also educating our students at the highest levels. This rank is reserved for only the most highly acclaimed and accomplished IU faculty. Among our more than 10,000 faculty, there are fewer than 100 who have been appointed distinguished professor, which truly celebrates those faculty who have transformed their fields of study and have earned worldwide recognition."

Eduardo S. Brondizio's work focuses on the study of human-environmental interactions in the Amazon and is at the forefront of current discussions about climate change, biodiversity, sustainability, institutions and governance. He is considered a pioneer on the integration of ethnographic methods, surveys and remote sensing in anthropological research, and a leading authority on multi-scalar analysis. His work has contributed to understanding the mechanisms connecting household decisions and regional landscape change, rural-urban social networks and interactions between global commodity chains and small farmers.

Arnaldo Cohen was born in Brazil and completed bachelor's degrees in piano in 1968 and violin in 1969 at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, earning the university's Gold Medal award for excellence. He won first prize in both the Busoni International Piano Competition and the Beethoven International Competition.

Michael J. Econs is a leading geneticist in metabolic bone diseases whose research focuses on rare and poorly understood disorders, such as X-linked hypophosphatemic rickets and autosomal dominant hypophosphatemic rickets. His research has played a critical role in the discovery of the genes responsible for both of these disorders.

Kirsten A. Grønbjerg's work has formed the foundation of the new field of nonprofit organizations and management, where she has focused on government-nonprofit relations, nonprofit funding and the development of empirical information and data systems. Grønbjerg is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.

Elisabeth A. Lloyd's path-breaking and seminal research illuminates how scientists go beyond the scientific method of hypothetico-deductive reasoning, which revolves around formulating hypotheses, making a prediction and then testing whether the prediction is upheld. Her work addresses fundamental philosophical questions about the nature of knowledge.

Kenneth P. Mackie is a leader in the cannabinoid field, and his research began at a time when the effect of cannabinoids was relatively unknown to neurobiologists. His work has opened the way for our current view of cannabinoids as modulators of electrical signaling and of the input-output relations in neurons.

Sharon M. Moe's translational research focuses on mineral metabolism and chronic kidney disease; she is considered one of the most influential scientists in her field. She has served on the editorial board of six journals in nephrology or kidney diseases and on 24 National Institutes of Health study sections.

Catherine A. Pilachowski's contributions to stellar astrophysics and to the astronomical community regarding the detailed elemental abundances in stars have uncovered vital clues to understanding the evolution of the Milky Way Galaxy to its present state. Pilachowski played a key role in the design, construction and realization of the Wisconsin-Indiana-Yale-NOAO consortium and its 3.5-meter telescope on Kitt Peak, as well as the international 8-meter telescope Gemini Observatory project, where she served as deputy director of the U.S. Gemini program.

Samrat Upadhyay is a fiction author -- both novels and short stories -- whose work focuses on Nepali lives in times of political and social upheaval. He has published seven major works, including "Arresting God in Kathmandu," which received the Whiting Award; "The Royal Ghosts," which won the Asian American Literary Award and the Society of Midland Authors Award and was named Best of Fiction in 2006 by The Washington Post; and "The Guru of Love," which was on the Weltempfanger best list of African, Asian and Latin American fiction. He has also published more than 50 essays and short stories as well as five poems.

Michael A. Weiss' work in molecular biomedical research focuses on insulin signaling and its relation to diabetes mellitus and sex determination and its relation to genetic infertility syndromes. Research in his lab has led to understanding a newly recognized syndrome of diabetes and, in the area of sex determination, to the understanding of structure and dynamics of many critical proteins.