Four faculty recognized as named professor

Steven D. Brown	Roberta Colman	Mary P. Donaldson-Evans	Monica Shafi

Four faculty members have been appointed named professors, all effective Sept. 1, in recognition of their outstanding scholarship, teaching and service to the University, Acting Provost Dan Rich has announced.

Steven D. Brown and Roberta Colman have been named Willis F. Harrington Professors of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and Mary Donaldson-Evans and Monika Shafi have been named Elias Ahuja Professors in Foreign Languages and Literatures.

STEVEN D. BROWN, who came to the University from Washington State University in 1986, has served as chairperson of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry for the past five years.

His research focuses on the development of new methods for mathematical and statistical analysis of chemical data, known as chemometrics.

He has published extensively in his field and serves as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Chemometrics and was associate editor for chemometrics of Analytical Letters and editor of the CRC Press Series on Chemometrics. He also served as president of the North American Chapter of the International Chemometrics Society.

Among his honors is the Eastern Analytical Symposium (EAS) Prize for best poster paper in spectroscopic methods in 2001; and he was the first to receive the EAS Award in Chemometrics in 1996.

His research has been supported by grants from the DuPont Co. and other private companies, the Department of the Army, Department of Energy and National Science Foundation. He also has served as a consultant and has applied for a patent with K.L. Mello for "System for Discovering Implicit Relationships in Data and a Method of Using the Same."

Brown received his bachelor's and master's degrees in physical and inorganic chemistry from Portland State University and his Ph.D. in analytical chemistry from the University of Washington.

ROBERTA COLMAN joined the Delaware faculty in 1973, after teaching biological chemistry at Harvard Medical School. She serves as the director of the Chemistry-Biology Interface Graduate Program.

A biochemist, Colman focuses on the structure, function and mechanism of action of isocitrate dehydrogenases, glutamate dehydrogenases, glutathione S-transferases and affimity labeling and site-directed mutagenesis of nucleotide sites in enzymes.

She has published extensively in her field, serves on the editorial boards of Protein Expression and Purification and Protein Science and also serves as executive editor of Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics. She has chaired the Division of Biological Chemistry of the American Chemical society and is a member of the U.S. National Committee for the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

A fellow of the American Association for Advancement of Science, Colman received the Herbert A. Sober Award for outstanding scientific achievement from the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and the 1990 award for scientific achievement from the Delaware Section of the American Chemical Society. At UD, she was awarded the Francis Alison Award in 1985 for making "the most outstanding contributions to her field of inquiry" and received the College of Arts and Science Scholar Award in 2002.

Colman received her bachelor's and doctoral degrees from Radcliffe College, Harvard University.

MARY P. DONALDSON-EVANS joined the UD faculty in 1969, served as associate chairperson of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures in 1989-90, chaired the department's Undergraduate Studies Committee from 1990-92 and was director of the Paris Semester Program in 2001. She also is an adjunct member of the Women's Studies Program faculty and served as the chairperson of UD's Commission on the Status of Women.

Her research interests include 19th century French literature, medicine and literature and Guy de Maupassant.

She has written several articles, made presentations and chaired conferences in her field. Her books include A Woman's Revenge: The Chronology of Dispossession in Maupassant's Fiction; Modernity and Revolution in Late Nineteenth-Century France; Moving Forward, Holding Fast: The Dynamics of Nineteenth-Century French Culture and Medical Examinations: Dissecting the Doctor in French Narrative Prose.

Donaldson-Evans received UD's excellence-in-teaching Award in 1983, the Mortar Board teaching award in 1984 and the Outstanding Teacher award in the College of Arts and Science in 1995. She also was named a "chevalier" of l'Association des Members de l'Ordre des Palmes Académique (an honorary society of the French Ministry of Education) in 1989 and received the 19th-Century French Studies Appreciation Award in 1996.

A graduate of Marquette University, Donaldson-Evans received her master's degree from the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee and her doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania.

MONICA SHAFI joined the faculty at UD in 1986 after teaching at Swarthmore College.

Her research interests are 19th- and 20th-century German literature, women writers, travel literature and Gertud Kolmar, Günter Grass and Ingeborg Drewitz.

She has chaired sessions at several professional conferences, presented papers and written several articles in her field. Her books include Balancing Acts: Intercultural Encounters in Contemporary German and Austrian Literature, published in 2001; Gertrude Kolmar: Eine Einführung in das Werk and Utopische Entwürfe in der Literatur von Frauen.

Shafi has served on and chaired several committees in the department and the University and served as a senator to the College of Arts and Science Faculty Senate. She was director of the Winter Session Abroad Program in Bayreuth in 1989 and served as faculty adviser to the German Honor Society, Delta Phi Alpha, from 1989-1992.

Shafi received a General University Research grant in 1994 and the August von Prahl Prize from the University of Maryland. Shafi also was a member of the Modern Language Association Delegate Assembly from 1999-2001.

A graduate of the University of Freiburg in Germany where she received her master's degree with distinction, Shafi earned her doctorate at the University of Maryland.

These named professorships honor long-time friends of the University.

WILLIS F. HARRINGTON SR. (1882-1959), whose memory is honored by the two named professorships in chemistry, graduated from Delaware in 1902 and received another degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before entering the chemical industry, where he was involved in the manufacture of dyes. Interested in civic affairs and the board chairman of the Delaware Hospital, he and his brother, Chancellor William Watson Harrington (1874-1959), an 1895 graduate of UD and a trustee for 59 years, were long-time friends of the University.

ELIAS AHUJA (1863-1951), whose memory is honored by the two named professorships in foreign languages and literatures, was born in Spain and represented the DuPont Co. in Chile in the early part of the 20th century.

He retired to Spain and was decorated by Alfonso XIII for his philanthropy. In 1937, he returned to the United States. He left generous bequests to philanthropies in Delaware in memory of his past association with the state.

SUE MONCURE