Six appointed to WARF professorships

Six members of the University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty have been appointed to Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation named professorships.

The appointments, which include $75,000 in research support from WARF over five years, are:

William M. Bement, Hans Ris Professor of Cell Biology and Zoology, who studies the way cells transmit chemical signals from outside their walls to the inside during cell repair and cell division. Bement is director of the Laboratory of Cell and Molecular Biology, and has served the American Society for Cell Biology on its public policy committee and twice as co-chair of society mini-symposia.

Craig Berridge, Patricia Goldman-Rakic Professor of Psychology, who focuses on neurotransmitters associated with stress, arousal and cognition — work that may improve our understanding of behavioral disorders such as ADHD and post-traumatic stress disorder. Berridge is the associate chair for graduate studies in the Psychology Department and a member of the American Academy of Pediatric Neuropsychology-sponsored Empirically-Derived Disorders of Attention Work Group.

Sally Chisholm, Germain Prévost Professor of Music, who is violist for the Pro Arte Quartet and a founding member of the Thouvenel String Quartet and the Chamber Music Society of Minnesota — where she has performed with artists such as Leon Fleisher and Yo-Yo Ma. Chisholm has performed on The Today Show, was featured as Musician of the Month by Musical America, toured China and Tibet, and was a finalist at the Naumburg Chamber Music Competition and First Prize winner in the Weiner International Chamber Music Competition.

Timothy M. Smeeding, Lee Rainwater Distinguished Professor of Public Affairs and Economics, who examines the causes and consequences of inequalities in income, consumption and wealth — and the effects of social policy on inequality, poverty and mobility across generations — in national and cross-national contexts. Smeeding was the founding director of both the Luxembourg Income Study and Syracuse University’s Center for Policy Research.

Lee Palmer Wandel, Michael Baxandall Professor of History, who has written about deep changes in western understandings of Christianity in the 16th century, and is now exploring questions of religious exile and visualizations of the Earth. Wandel has been a Visitor at the Institut für Spätmittelalter und Reformation of the Universität Tübingen, a fellow of the Whitney Humanities Center at Yale University and a member of the Institute for Advanced Study.

Stephen J. Wright, George B. Dantzig Professor of Computer Sciences, who works on theory and applications of mathematical optimization, a field that concerns itself with techniques for finding the best element (as measured by a mathematical function) from a large or infinite set of possible alternatives. Wright has served as chair of the Mathematical Optimization Society and three terms as a trustee of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.