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Four faculty members are appointed to professorships

Professors Moungi G. Bawendi of the Department of Chemistry, Harold F. Hemond of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Uttam L. RajBhandary of the Department of Biology have been selected to hold named professorships. David A. Mindell has been selected to a named assistant professorship in the Science, Technology and Society (STS) program.

Professor Bawendi was appointed W.M. Keck Professor of Energy beginning September 1 for a five-year term. In making the appointment, Provost Joel Moses cited his outstanding achievements in nanomaterials and excellence in teaching.

Professor Ba-wendi holds the AB degree in chemistry from Harvard University, the AM in chemical physics from Harvard and the PhD in chemistry from the University of Chicago. He did his postdoctoral work at AT&T Bell Laboratories and then came to MIT in 1990 as an assistant professor of chemistry. He was promoted to associate professor of chemistry in 1995 and professor in 1996. His research interests are in the area of semiconductor nano-crystallite (quantum dot) systems, which bridge the region between molecular species and solid-state materials.

Professor He-mond, who is also director of the Parsons Laboratory, was selected for the William E. Leonhard Professorship for a five-year renewable term. The chair is a gift from William E. Leonhard, a 1940 graduate of MIT. Professor Hemond started his career at MIT in 1977 as a postdoctoral fellow and research associate in the Parsons Lab. His teaching and research centers on limnology, wetland ecology and the biogeochemistry of toxic metals such as arsenic and mercury.

Professor Hemond became an assistant professor in 1978 and an associate professor in 1981. He holds the BS in electrical engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, the MA in botany from Connecticut College and the PhD in environmental engineering from MIT.

Dr. RajBhandary, professor of biochemistry, will be the next holder of the Lester Wolfe Professorship of Molecular Biology beginning October 1 for a five-year renewable term. The chair was established by the late Mr. Wolfe, who graduated from MIT in 1919.

The author of close to 200 publications, Professor RajBhandary, whose research is in transfer RNAs and protein synthesis, joined MIT in 1969 as an associate professor of biochemistry and then became a professor of biochemistry in 1975. He taught previously at the University of Wisconsin.

He holds the BSc from the University of Patna in India, the MSc from the University of Calcutta and the PhD from the University of Dur-ham, England. He is also is an associate editor of the journal Gene Expression and has won several honors, including election as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1991.

Dr. Mindell was appointed to an assistant professorship at STS effective July 1. He also is the holder of the Frances and David Dibner Assistant Professorship of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing.

After receiving the BA in literature and the BS in electrical engineering, both from Yale University, he came to MIT in 1991 for his PhD in the STS program. Dr. Mindell has also worked as an ocean engineer at the Deep Submergence Laboratory of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. He was a National Science Foundation graduate fellow from 1993-95 and a graduate fellow at the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology in 1995-96. His dissertation was a history of feedback control and computing from 1916-1945.

A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on October 2, 1996.

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