Five appointments to career development chairs have been announced. The new CD professors are:
Alan D. Grossman, to the Whitehead Chair in biology.
Qing Hu, to the KDD Chair in electrical engineering and computer science.
Leslie A. Kolodziejski, to the Van Tassel Chair in electrical engineering and computer science.
John R. Williams, to the Winslow Chair in civil engineering.
Jacquelyn C. Yanch, to the W.M. Keck Chair in nuclear engineering/Whitaker College.
Professor Grossman, the Whitehead Career Development Professor, has been recognized for his research in microbial physiology and genetics and for his work as an adviser to undergraduates. He joined the faculty here in 1988 after a postdoctoral position at Harvard. He is interested in furthering the understanding of the regulation of gene expression and differentiation. He studies these problems in the relatively simple organism Bacillus subtilis because it allows for integration of molecular, genetic, biochemical and physiological approaches and offers the opportunity for understanding regulatory processes in the whole organism. Professor Grossman holds the BA in biochemistry (1979), Brown University, and the PhD in molecular biology (1984), University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Professor Hu, the KDD Career Development Professor in Communications and Technology, joined MIT in 1990. He holds the BS (1982), Lanzhow University; and the MA (1983) and PhD (1987), both Harvard University. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California before coming to MIT. His research efforts focus on the study of response of solid-state devices to high-frequency radiation and the development of high-frequency (>100 GHz) and high-speed (<10 picosecond) electronic and optoelectronic devices. Conventional semiconductor devices, such as diodes and transistors, fail to function at this frequency range because of the limitations of mobility and feature size. New approaches and novel device concepts must be developed. Professor Hu is currently working on the development of superconducting electronic devices, semiconductor quantum-effect devices, and solid-state far-infrared (THz) lasers. The results of his research may greatly benefit space-to-ground communication and high-frequency and high-speed signal processing.
Professor Kolodziejski, the Karl Van Tassel Professor, joined MIT in 1988 after two years at Purdue University as assistant professor. She holds the BS (1983), MS (1984) and PhD (1986) from Purdue. Her principal fields of interest are solid state physics, electronic materials and optoelectronics. She is a member of the Materials and Fabrication section of the Research Laboratory of Electronics where she has led experiments in the fabrication of novel semiconductors using advanced epitaxial growth techniques.
Professor Williams, the Gilbert T. Winslow Professor, joined MIT in 1990. His area of speciality is at the intersection of noncontinuum mechanics of multibody systems and computer support for design. His research in the Intelligent Engineering Systems Laboratory involves the application of information systems to support the design process and the development of computer tools for large-scale system design. He holds the BA (1971), Oxford University; the MS (1973), UCLA and the PhD (1977), Swansea University in the UK.
Professor Yanch, the W.M. Keck Career Development Professor in Biomedical Engineering, is an assistant professor in the Department of Nuclear Engineering with a secondary appointment in the Whitaker College of Health Sciences and Technology. Her research currently involves investigations of the uses of ionizing radiation in medicine for both diagnostic and therapeutic purposes, and the understanding of the health effects of ionizing radiation. Dr. Yanch holds two BSc degrees from McMaster University, one in psychology (1981), the other in health and radiation physics (1983). She obtained the MSc in health and radiation physics, McMaster (1985) and the PhD in physics (1988), University of London.
A version of this article appeared in the March 18, 1992 issue of MIT Tech Talk (Volume 36, Number 24).
