The Board of Regents approved the following items at its March 26 meeting:
Former site of Kellogg Eye Center in Brighton to be sold
The Board of Regents authorized the sale of a 6,210-square-foot building on 1.17 acres at 5728 Whitmore Lake Road in Brighton, Michigan, for $965,000. The property had been used to house the Kellogg Eye Center Brighton until it was relocated to the Brighton Center for Specialty Care in the summer of 2018.
Ann Arbor campus
Faculty appointments with tenure
Amy S. Bohnert, associate professor of anesthesiology, Medical School, effective March 1, 2020.
Named professorships
Matthew L. Boulton, Pearl L. Kendrick Collegiate Professor of Global Public Health, School of Public Health, effective March 1, 2020, through Dec. 31, 2025.
Maya M. Hammoud, J. Robert Willson Research Professor, Medical School, effective March 1, 2020, through Aug. 31, 2025.
Jennifer J. Linderman, Pamela Raymond Collegiate Professor of Engineering, College of Engineering, effective March 1, 2020, through Feb. 28, 2025.
Suljo Linic, Martin Lewis Perl Collegiate Professor of Chemical Engineering, College of Engineering, effective March 1, 2020, through Feb. 28, 2025.
Marjorie E. McCullagh, Sally L. Lusk Collegiate Professor of Nursing, School of Nursing, effective April 1, 2020, through March 31, 2025.
Rada F. Mihalcea, Janice M. Jenkins Collegiate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, College of Engineering, effective March 1, 2020, through Feb. 28, 2025.
Amit Misra, Edward DeMille Campbell Collegiate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, College of Engineering, effective March 1, 2020, through Feb. 28, 2025.
Mark D. Peterson, Charles E. Lytle, Jr. Research Professor, Medical School, effective March 1, 2020, through Aug. 31, 2025.
Harry Luke Shaefer, Hermann and Amalie Kohn Professor of Social Justice and Social Policy, Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, effective March 1, 2020, through Feb. 28, 2025.
Dennis M. Sylvester, Edward S. Davidson Collegiate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering, effective March 1, 2020, through Feb. 28, 2025.
Administrative appointments
Christopher K. Bichakjian, chair, Department of Dermatology, Medical School, effective April 1, 2020.
Heather A. Carlson, chair,Department of Medicinal Chemistry, College of Pharmacy, effective July 1, 2020, through June 30, 2023.
Susan M. Collins, interim provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, Office of the Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, effective March 11, 2020.
Rebecca Cunningham, vice president for research, Office of the Vice President for Research, effective April 1, 2020, through March 31, 2025.
Monica Hakimi, associate dean for faculty and research, Law School, effective July 1, 2020, through June 30, 2023.
Martino Harmon, vice president for student life, Office of the Vice President for Student Life, effective July 1, 2020, through June 30, 2025.
*Donna L. Hayward, associate dean of libraries, University Library, effective July 1, 2020, through June 30, 2025.
*Gil Seinfeld, associate dean for academic programming, Law School, effective July 1, 2020, through June 30, 2024.
Other transactions
Amy K. Dittmar, change in title to senior vice provost for academic and budgetary affairs, Office of the Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, effective April 1, 2020.
Amy M. Kilbourne, transfer of tenure to professor of learning health sciences, with tenure, and professor of psychiatry, without tenure, Medical School, effective March 1, 2020.
Melvin Pearson, Graham Family Head Men’s Ice Hockey Coach, University of Michigan Athletics Department, effective March 26, 2020.
*Reappointments
Retirements
M. Michael Akiyama, professor of psychology in the UM-Dearborn College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters, Aug. 31, 2008. Akiyama received his Bachelor of Engineering degree in 1968 and his Master of Engineering degree in 1970 from the University of Tokyo. He received his Ph.D. in 1977 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Akiyama held teaching and research positions at the University of Oklahoma and the University of Michigan’s Ann Arbor campus. He joined UM-Dearborn as an associate professor in 1986 and was promoted to professor in 1997. He taught courses in introductory psychology, developmental psychology, psychology research methods and psychology of language. His research and scholarly interests explored a wide range of topics, including language development in children, self-perceived competencies and depression in children, the psychology of aging, and most recently, evolutionary explanations of human development across the lifespan. Akiyama received international recognition for his work on how children come to understand linguistic-form class and object categories. He was a member of a number of professional societies, including the American Psychological Association, the Midwestern Psychological Association and the Society for Research in Child Development. He is completing work on a textbook tentatively titled the “Psychology of Aging.”
Roberta M. Beyer, professor of education in the UM-Dearborn College of Education, Health, and Human Services, April 30, 2020. Beyer received her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1978 from Elmhurst College, her Master of Science in Education degree in 1979 from Northern Illinois University and her Doctor of Education degree in 1988 from Vanderbilt University. Beyer joined UM-Dearborn as an assistant professor in 1995. She was promoted to associate professor in 1999 and to professor in 2007. Early in her career, Beyer was a teacher and administrator in public, nonprofit and parochial schools. She began her university career as an assistant professor at Bemidji State University in Bemidji, Minnesota, from 1992-93, and at West Texas A&M University in Canyon, Texas, from 1993-95. At UM-Dearborn, Beyer served from 2000-06 as the associate dean for the School of Education. She received the 2009 Susan B. Anthony Campus Award, which recognizes campus members’ work on behalf of women. She served as the president elect (2011-13), president (2013-15) and immediate past president (2015-17) of the Michigan Association of Professors of Educational Administration. Beyer also served as an executive board member of the International Council of Professors of Educational Leadership from 2017-20. Her service to the Department of Education’s Ed.D. program included serving as the co-director of the program, as the chair or member of many doctoral committees and as a member of the Ed.D. Advisory Committee. She was also the program coordinator for the Educational Leadership Program.
John P. Boyd, professor of climate and space sciences and engineering in the College of Engineering, Dec. 31, 2019. Boyd received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1973, his Master of Science degree in 1975 and his Ph.D. in 1976 from Harvard University. He joined the University of Michigan as an assistant professor in 1977. He was promoted to associate professor in 1982 and to professor in 1988. Boyd was the associate director of the Laboratory for Scientific Computation from 1986-2000. He held an additional appointment as a professor of civil and environmental engineering from 2002-10. Boyd’s research at U-M focused on atmospheric and oceanic dynamics, nonlinear waves and computational algorithms. He taught courses on atmospheric dynamics, physical oceanography and numerical methods. He was a co-adviser for 20 Ph.D. students and supervised 38 undergraduates in research activities. Boyd received the College of Engineering’s Research Excellence Award in 2001, was the plenary speaker for the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics’ national meeting in 2008, and was named a Distinguished Visiting International Professor of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2012. He was the keynote speaker at the Chebyshev workshop at Oxford University in 2015. Additionally, Boyd was a member of the American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorological Society and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. He has published five books, with a sixth in progress, and roughly 260 journal publications.
Gail R. Luera, professor of education in the UM-Dearborn College of Education, Health, and Human Services, June 30, 2020. Luera received her Bachelor of Arts degree from California State University in 1980, her Master of Science degree from Northern Illinois University in 1984 and her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1998. She joined UM-Dearborn as an assistant professor in 1998. She was promoted to associate professor in 2006 and to professor in 2018. Early in her career, Luera was the acting principal for the Orange County Outdoor Science School in Orange County, California. She also worked as a research assistant and graduate instructor at UM’s Ann Arbor campus and as a lecturer at Eastern Michigan University. Luera served from 2006-10 as the associate dean for the School of Education at UM-Dearborn. As the committee chair and lead author, she played an instrumental role in the development of the School of Education’s doctoral program proposal from 2006-10. She was an external evaluator for two Michigan Department of Education grants and one National Science Foundation grant. Luera was actively involved in the redesign of UM-Dearborn’s general education program, serving on the General Education Implementation Program Committee in 2013 and on the Dearborn Discovery Core Committee from 2016-18. She also recently served as the project director for the Gateways to Completion (G2C) Program, a partnership with the John N. Gardner Institution that focused on improving student outcomes in high-risk courses.
Donna S. Shewach, professor of pharmacology in the Medical School, Aug. 1, 2018. Shewach received her Bachelor of General Studies degree from the University of Michigan in 1976 and her Ph.D. from the University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in 1981. She was a postdoctoral scholar from 1981-84, a research fellow from 1984-86 and assistant research scientist from 1986-88 in the U-M Department of Internal Medicine. In addition, Shewach served as an assistant research scientist from 1988-93, lecturer from 1991-95, associate research scientist from 1993-95, associate professor from 1995-2001 and professor from 2001-18 in the Department of Pharmacology. Shewach’s research activities focused on elucidating the mechanisms by which cancer chemotherapeutics attack cancer cells, with the goal of capitalizing on these mechanisms to enhance cancer therapy. Her research led to novel combination therapies and improved sequencing of drugs for patients with solid tumors. The primary emphasis of her work was the evaluation of new and existing nucleoside analogs combined with radiation therapy or other chemotherapeutics to improve the outcome of cancer treatment. She served as the co-sequence director of infectious diseases for medical students for more than 20 years, initiated and developed three translational courses for graduate students in pharmacology, and was an inaugural inductee into the Medical School’s League of Educational Excellence.
Marcian E. Van Dort, research associate professor of radiology, April 30, 2020. Van Dort received his Bachelor of Science degree in 1977 from the University of Colombo in Colombo, Sri Lanka. He earned his Master of Science degree in 1981 and his Ph.D. in 1983 from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He completed a pharmacology and medicinal chemistry postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Michigan in the laboratory of Raymond Counsell from 1983-84. Van Dort also served as a research associate I and research associate II in the Department of Pharmacology and Medicinal Chemistry. He was a research investigator, assistant research scientist and senior associate research scientist in the Division of Nuclear Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine. Van Dort went on to serve as a senior scientist in radiochemistry at Girindus America Inc. in Cincinnati, Ohio, from 2002-06. He returned to the U-M Health System’s Department of Radiology as a chemist staff specialist from 2006-09. He was promoted to research associate professor in 2009. Van Dort’s earlier research at U-M focused on the discovery and investigation of radiopharmaceuticals for application as SPECT or PET probes for cardiac, CNS and tumor imaging. His current research led to the discovery of novel multifunctional kinase inhibitors, which are under preclinical investigation as cancer therapeutics. Van Dort co-authored more than 53 scholarly publications and four book chapters. He received three U.S. patents. He also served as the principal or co-investigator on several National Institutes of Health grants, mentored several postdoctoral fellows and undergraduate students and served as a consultant to industry. Van Dort was on a number of university committees, including the Medical School’s Institutional Review Board, the Ford Nuclear Reactor Decommissioning Committee and the Committee for a Multicultural University. He was a member of the American Chemical Society and the Society of Nuclear Medicine.
Jacqueline Vansant, professor of German in the UM-Dearborn College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters, April 30, 2020. Vansant received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Washington College in 1976, her Master of Arts degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1977 and her Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin in 1986. Vansant joined UM-Dearborn as an assistant professor in 1992. She was promoted to associate professor in 1995 and to professor in 2003. She served as the head of the German section during those years and as director of the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies Program from 2003-06 and from 2008-10. Vansant centered her scholarly work on the construction of ethnicities, gender and national identities in post-World War II and contemporary Austrian literature, memoirs and films. She published on the image of Austria in Hollywood films and in the area of exile studies. During her tenure at UM-Dearborn, she published two academic books and more than 20 articles. Vansant received two teaching-research Fulbright grants as well as several other outside grants to conduct research. She organized film and lecture series, a symposium and an international conference for scholars of Austrian literature and culture in 2015. Vansant received UM-Dearborn’s Distinguished Research Award in 2017.
