Twenty-four retiring faculty members were recognized during Vanderbilt’s Commencement ceremony May 13, when the university honored their years of service and bestowed on them the title of emeritus or emerita faculty.
Michael L. Aurbach, professor of art, emeritus
Aurbach is an accomplished practicing artist and educator. His creative work, often protest-based, is directly related to his arts advocacy and activism. He has participated in more than 200 exhibitions, more than 80 of which have been solo exhibitions. He has lectured at more than 250 universities, museums and art institutions throughout the United States and has received grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Southern Arts Federation, the Tennessee Arts Commission, Vanderbilt University and others. His passion for arts advocacy and improving the status of artists within academia led to his election as president of the College Art Association by its board. CAA is the world’s largest organization of visual arts professionals. Aurbach was elected by his colleagues in the College of Arts and Science for service on Vanderbilt’s Faculty Senate and the Faculty Council. In 1997, he was awarded the Alumni Outstanding Freshman Adviser Award. He served as the director of undergraduate studies in the Department of Art, as a pre-major adviser for the College of Arts and Science for 20 years, and as Vanderbilt’s pre-architecture adviser. He has served on several committees appointed by the dean of Arts and Science and chaired numerous committees within his department. Aurbach is the first member of the Department of Art to work with Vanderbilt Visions and the only department member to teach in the Master of Liberal Arts and Science program. His work was selected in a national competition for the first solo show of contemporary art at Nashville’s Frist Center for the Visual Arts in 2001. He was the 1995 recipient of the Southeastern College Art Conference Award for Outstanding Artistic Achievement, and he received the organization’s lifetime achievement award in 2015. His work has been displayed at the Wichita Art Museum, the Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga, and most recently, at the Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery.
James W. Bradford Jr., dean of the Owen Graduate School of Management, emeritus
Bradford was named the fifth dean of the Owen Graduate School of Management in 2005 after having served as acting dean for nine months. He first came to Owen in 2002 to teach strategy in the MBA program after nearly two decades of experience as a corporate executive. A graduate of Vanderbilt Law School, he practiced law from 1973 to 1984, serving as general counsel for AFG Industries before accepting the position of president and CEO of that firm. During Bradford’s tenure, he diversified Owen’s educational programs, raised the student profile of the school’s incoming MBA and Executive MBA classes, and worked to engage a larger number of alumni in the life of the school and the university. Bradford spearheaded the development and launch of several degree programs at Owen: a full-time Health Care MBA and a Master of Management in Health Care for working professionals; a Master of Accountancy; a Master of Science in Finance; and an Americas MBA for executives. He also oversaw the creation of Accelerator, a 30-day intensive summer program for highly qualified undergraduates, as well as a leadership development program developed in partnership with Korn-Ferry. Financial support under Bradford from alumni and friends of the school resulted in the endowment of 19 new school scholarships and eight new faculty chairs. Bradford has served on several corporate boards, was named Outstanding Chairman of the Year for 2015 by the New York Stock Exchange Governance and Leadership Committee, and chaired the board of directors for the Graduate Management Admissions Council, the organization that administers the GMAT exam. Since stepping down as dean in 2013, he has taught strategic management in the MBA core and has developed a successful new strategy elective on the life cycle of an enterprise.
Karen E. Campbell, professor of sociology, emerita
Campbell earned a bachelor of arts in sociology and anthropology from Randolph-Macon Woman’s College (now Randolph College) in Lynchburg, Virginia, in 1977, and a master’s (1982) and Ph.D. (1985) in sociology from the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill. She joined the faculty at Vanderbilt in January 1985 and was promoted to associate professor of sociology in 1992. Her research has focused on gender inequalities in various settings and forms: gender differences in the use of social networks for job searches; gender differences in neighborhood networks; the successes and failures of state women’s suffrage movements in the United States; the entry of women into the professions of medicine and law in the late 1800s and early 1900s; and changes over time in regional variation in gender-role attitudes. During her time at Vanderbilt, she received the Mentoring Award from the Margaret Cuninggim Women’s Center (1998), an Affirmative Action Award from the university (1998), and the Jeffrey Nordhaus Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching in the College of Arts and Science (1999). In spring 2016, she received the Mary Jane Werthan Award for contributions to the advancement of women at Vanderbilt. In 2013, the Southern Sociological Society awarded her its Jocher-Beard Award for distinguished scholarly contributions to the understanding of gender and society. Administratively, she has served as director of undergraduate studies, director of graduate studies, interim chair and vice chair in the Department of Sociology; twice as interim director of the program in women’s studies; and as assistant to the acting provost. She served on 60 dissertation committees in sociology and related disciplines. In 2011, she began a stint as senior associate dean for undergraduate studies in the College of Arts and Science. Since 2006, she has been a member of the board of trustees of Randolph College and is now vice chair of the board. She joins her husband, Bob Galloway, professor of biomedical engineering, emeritus, in retirement; they will live at Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia.
Charles W. Coffey II, professor of medicine, emeritus
Coffey’s formal education concluded with a bachelor of science in physics, a master of science in medical dosimetry from the University of Kentucky, and a Ph.D. in bionucleonics from Purdue University. He was a 2003 Hall of Fame inductee for the Division of Radiation Sciences at the University of Kentucky College of Health Sciences, and he was awarded the 2005 Distinguished Alumnus Award by the School of Health Sciences at Purdue University. Coffey began his career in academic radiotherapy medical physics in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of Kentucky Medical Center in 1975. Within three years, he was given the title of chief of clinical physics, which he held for 15 years. In 1993, he became the chief clinical physicist in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, serving 18 years in the clinical physics subspecialties of external beam radiotherapy, brachytherapy, radiosurgery, intensity modulated radiotherapy and therapy imaging. In 1998, the departments of Physics and Astronomy, Radiology and Radiological Sciences, and Bioengineering in the Vanderbilt University Graduate School were granted a master of science graduate program in medical physics. Coffey was appointed as the medical physics program director; that position was later moved to the departments of Radiology and Radiological Sciences and Radiation Oncology within Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. In 2009, the Vanderbilt Board of Trust approved a new medical physics professional doctorate program similar to the doctor of audiology (Au.D.) program administered through the Vanderbilt School of Medicine. The D.M.P. represented the first professional medical physics graduate program offered in the United States. Because of the successful creation of the professional medical physics doctorate, Coffey was awarded the 2008 Vanderbilt School of Medicine Gerald S. Gotterer Award for “excellence in teaching and innovations in educational programming that has been proven effective.” The Vanderbilt medical physics graduate programs have 68 M.S. graduates and 21 D.M.P. graduates to date. In 2011, Coffey stepped down as chief clinical physicist and served as a departmental clinical medical physicist, continuing to function as program director of both the M.S. and D.M.P. medical physics programs. He retired from Vanderbilt on Sept. 8, 2015.
Pelayo Correa, professor of medicine, emeritus
Correa has been eminently successful throughout his rich and robust career as an academician, has made outstanding contributions to the field of gastric cancer research, and has established himself as one of the most outstanding investigators in the country. He has been an extraordinarily productive faculty member and has targeted his research to journals of the highest caliber. He has maintained continuous funding for 35 years, delivered presentations at both national and international meetings, chaired important review panels, and served as well as founded high-impact journals, including Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention. Based on his research success, Correa has received multiple national and international awards from leading organizations, such as the American Association for Cancer Research, the National Academy of Medicine and the American Gastroenterological Association. He also has served on critical committees for the National Cancer Institute. At Vanderbilt, he has taken on important leadership roles with passion, integrity and commitment and has mentored countless individuals, serving as a role model for younger faculty members in the Department of Medicine. He has unequivocally demonstrated evidence of original research leading to significant advances in his discipline and has attained national and international recognition for accomplishments in his field. Correa possesses a superior level of scholarship, great intelligence, a love of teaching, and a high level of motivation.
Allan E. Cox, professor of trumpet, emeritus
Cox joined the Blair School of Music faculty as a full-time professor of trumpet in fall 2000 following 28 years on the faculty of the University of Southern Mississippi, where he received the Excellence in Research Award for Performance and Creativity in 1995. He has served as guest professor at Tokyo’s prestigious Musashino Academic Musicae conservatory. His students hold professional playing positions and college teaching positions on four continents. He is a nationally recognized performer and teacher who has performed with many orchestras, bands and brass quintets in the United States, Asia and Latin America, including the Tokyo Yomiuri, Tokyo Metropolitan, Nagoya and Kagoshima Symphony Orchestras, the Taipei City Symphony, the Taiwan National Symphony Orchestra, the Orquesta Sinfónica Carlos Chávez in Mexico City, and the Simón Bolivar Orquesta Sinfónica in Caracas, Venezuela. He has presented solo recitals in the United States, Japan, Korea, Germany and Italy. He is a founding member of Sonus Brass, which has had seven successful concert tours to Asia and South America since 1990. Sonus also has been featured at major international conventions: the International Tuba-Euphonium Conference (1992), the International Trumpet Guild Conference (1999 and 2001), and the International Brass Chamber Music Festival (2008). Cox has released two solo recordings on Mark Records, and he also can be heard on two recordings by Sonus.
Philip S. Crooke III, professor of mathematics, emeritus
Crooke earned his bachelor of science in science from Stevens Institute of Technology in 1966 and his Ph.D. in applied mathematics from Cornell University in 1970. He started his 46-year career at Vanderbilt University in 1970 as an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics. He was promoted to associate professor in 1976 and professor in 1986, and he received a secondary appointment as professor of education in 1995. He served as the vice director of the Biomathematics Study Group (2002–05) and as vice chair of the Department of Mathematics (2003–09, 2012). More recently, he served on the executive advisory committee of the Chemical and Physical Biology program. One of Crooke’s major interests over the years has been the use of technology in teaching. He participated in various programs to integrate technology and instruction. He was the departmental coordinator of Mathematica Across the Curriculum, which was funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts. From 1992 to 1995, he organized summer workshops for high school teachers on the use of computer algebra systems for teaching mathematics. From 2004 to 2007, he helped to organize NIH-sponsored summer workshops for graduate students, postdocs and faculty on the use of mathematical modeling in cancer growth and invasion. He has authored two textbooks: A Guidebook to Calculus with Mathematica with J.G. Ratcliffe and Mathematics and Mathematica for Economists with C.J. Huang. Crooke’s research interests have evolved over his career. He has published on a variety of problems: growth properties of the Saffman dusty gas equations, Sobelev inequalities, bifurcations in fermentation processes, parameter estimation in enzyme kinetics, the effects of mergers in auctions, optimization of dialysis networks, and dynamics of mechanical respiratory ventilation. Recently, his efforts have been directed toward the use of mathematics in translational medicine. His models have been used to optimize mechanical ventilation of critically ill patients; assess breast cancer risk from estrogen metabolism in postmenopausal women; predict autoimmune diseases, such as MS, using the patient’s gene expression data; and design annuloplasty rings for aortic valve repair. His research and education efforts have been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Justice, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Dell Strategic Technology and Research Program, the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, and Vanderbilt University.
Robert L. Crowson Jr., professor of education, emeritus
Crowson joined the faculty in the Department of Leadership, Policy and Organizations in 1993. He received his doctorate in educational administration (politics of education) from the University of Chicago in 1974. Before coming to Vanderbilt, he served as a faculty member at the University of Illinois. Crowson is one of academe’s leading scholars in the politics of education. His research focuses on the study of urban school organization and administration. He has conducted ethnographic studies of urban principals and school district superintendents and has been engaged in nationwide studies of school-community relations, particularly in the domains of “back to the neighborhoods” in school assignment. He also has coordinated services for families and children as well as relationships between community development and school reform. Crowson has edited and/or authored 11 books on such topics as the school principalship, organization theory, the politics of reforming school administration, community development, and school-community relations, and he has published widely in journals and book chapters. His work has always been forward thinking and provides deep analysis to change our theoretical frameworks for understanding complex urban school systems. All the central issues of administration and reform in education are enveloped in politics and are better understood because of Crowson’s scholarship. In addition, he has been the senior editor of the Peabody Journal of Education since 2010, establishing an international and national reputation for the journal and bringing it to heightened impact and reach under his leadership. Among Crowson’s many accomplishments during his tenure at Vanderbilt, he received the prestigious Roald F. Campbell Lifetime Career Achievement Award from the University Council for Educational Administration in 2013. He has served on numerous committees and panels and has held leadership roles throughout his distinguished career. He has been an extraordinary mentor to students and junior faculty alike.
Kenneth A. Debelak, associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, emeritus
Debelak received his bachelor of science in chemical engineering from the University of Dayton in 1969. He received his master of science (1973) and Ph.D. (1977) in chemical engineering from the University of Kentucky. He worked for General Motors (1969–71) and the Environmental Protection Agency (1973–74). In 1977, Debelak joined the Vanderbilt faculty in the Department of Chemical Engineering. During his 39-year career at Vanderbilt, he has served as associate chair, director of graduate studies, and director of undergraduate studies for the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. He served the School of Engineering as director of information technology and was awarded the Edward J. White Award for service to the School of Engineering. Debelak’s research interests include energy and environmental systems and chemical process control. His teaching included the areas of simulation and model-based chemical process design and control. He served as the adviser for several student organizations, including the student chapter of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, VU Motorsports, and men’s and women’s club volleyball.
J. Stephen Dummer, professor of medicine, emeritus
Dummer earned a bachelor of arts from Wesleyan University and an M.D. from the University of Pittsburgh. Following a residency in internal medicine at Stanford University Hospital, he completed a fellowship in infectious diseases at the University of Pittsburgh, where he remained on faculty and dedicated his efforts to the management and investigation of transplant-related infections. In 1990, he moved to Vanderbilt University Medical Center to be the director of transplant infectious diseases, a post he has held for 25 years. Dummer has been a full-time clinician serving both organ- and stem cell-transplant patients and also had continuing engagement in research and scholarship at Vanderbilt. He has authored more than 150 publications, including the chapters on organ transplant infections in six editions of Principles and Practices of Infectious Diseases, the leading infectious diseases textbook. He participated in clinical trials of important antiviral and antifungal medications that have become part of the standard management of transplant infections. His extensive teaching activities have included bedside teaching of residents and formal lectures to medical students, residents and faculty. Dummer also has given invited lectures in 20 states and two foreign countries. In 1993, he originated a transplant elective for second-year medical students and remained its director for 13 years. He was in charge of Infectious Disease Grand Rounds from 1996 to 2005 and has won four teaching awards from the Division of Infectious Diseases. He has mentored numerous fellows in their research, including two who have become prominent in the field of transplant infectious diseases. Dummer’s major academic activity outside of Vanderbilt in his later career was a 12-year-long association with the American Board of Internal Medicine from 2002 to 2014, which included a membership for six years on the committee responsible for producing the certification exam in infectious diseases.
James A. Duncavage, professor of otolaryngology, emeritus
One of the four original founders of the Vanderbilt Department of Otolaryngology in 1986, Duncavage participated in starting the otolaryngology residency program at Vanderbilt in 1987 and served as the first residency coordinator. He was part of the team that brought laser surgery to Vanderbilt in 1986, educating otolaryngologists in the surgical use of lasers through instructional courses at Vanderbilt, national meetings, international lectures and as president of the American Society for Lasers in Medicine and Surgery. Duncavage continued to instruct otolaryngologists globally with contributions during the annual American Academy of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery (AAO–HNS) meetings. He saw a need for otolaryngologists to learn surgical techniques in the new field of endoscopic sinus surgery in 1987, and he taught many endoscopic sinus courses. He also published numerous peer-reviewed articles on endoscopic techniques and outcomes. With the second generation of powered endoscopic instruments, Duncavage recognized that otolaryngologists needed to learn the safe use of these instruments. His mini-seminar “Powered Instrumentation and ESS Complications” at the 2004 AAO–HNS annual meeting, along with subsequent articles describing complications in endoscopic sinus surgery, furthered the understanding of how complications occur and how to prevent them. In 1995, Duncavage and three colleagues at Vanderbilt were among the first to recognize the value of a unified approach to airway disease, leading to the opening of the Vanderbilt Asthma, Sinus and Allergy Program in 1997. It was a first-of-its-kind disease-management center using nurse practitioners, rhinologists, allergists and pulmonologists with protocol-managed delivery of health care. Duncavage continues to have an active interest in instructing otolaryngologists in safe surgical techniques in endoscopic sinus surgery.
Dennis G. Hall, dean of the Graduate School, emeritus; professor of physics, emeritus; and professor of electrical engineering, emeritus
Hall joined Vanderbilt in July 2000 to become its first associate provost for research as well as a professor of physics and a professor of electrical engineering. He had spent the previous 20 years teaching and carrying out research on the faculty of the University of Rochester Institute of Optics, where he rose to become department chair (1993–2000) and William F. May Professor. In January 2003, he assumed oversight of the Vanderbilt University Graduate School. At the end of the 2014 calendar year, after nearly 15 years in the central administration, Hall stepped down as vice provost for research and dean of the Graduate School. He spent 2015 on leave, laying the groundwork for his future research. He retired from Vanderbilt on Dec. 31, 2015, but continues research on the foundations of physics. While in the Vanderbilt administration, he served as the Graduate School’s chief academic officer and as Vanderbilt’s chief research officer for nonmedical research, working collaboratively with Vanderbilt University Medical Center to oversee university-wide activities and interests. In addition to research-related functions, he oversaw the Vanderbilt University Press and the University Library and served on the provost’s Budget Allocation Committee and as the permanent member of University Central’s Promotion and Tenure Review Committee. On his watch, external funding for research, applications for graduate study, and the number of Ph.D.s awarded each year all increased substantially. Hall is a fellow of the Optical Society of America, the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the International Society for Optical Engineering. He received two undergraduate teaching awards at Rochester, authored or co-authored more than 120 refereed journal articles and several book chapters, edited one reprint volume, and authored a number of newspaper and magazine articles for a general audience. He has supervised 21 doctoral dissertations and six master’s theses. A first-generation college student, he received a bachelor of science from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, a master of science from Southern Illinois University–Edwardsville, and a Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee–Knoxville, all in physics. His dissertation research in theoretical solid-state physics was carried out at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Kenneth R. Hande, professor of medicine, emeritus
Hande graduated with honors from Princeton University and received his M.D. from Johns Hopkins University. After completing his internship and residency at Washington University Barnes Hospital, he completed a fellowship in medicine and pharmacology at the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health. Hande joined the faculty of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in 1978 and served as the chief of medical oncology at the Nashville Veterans Administration Medical Center for 33 years. Trained as both a clinical pharmacologist and an oncologist, he was an early leader in the study of the pharmacogenetics of responses to antineoplastic drugs and the development of personalized treatment of cancer. In early, highly cited work, he described the use of pharmacokinetics to predict and prevent methotrexate toxicity. He played an important role in the development of anticancer drugs targeting topoisomerase II. In addition to his research contributions, Hande has been recognized as one of the Best Doctors in America from 2000 through 2014. He also became a national leader in the training of clinical and translational investigators in oncology. In addition to directing the Vanderbilt Fellowship Program in Hematology and Oncology for more than 10 years, he founded and directed the NIH-funded Vanderbilt Clinical Oncology Research Development Program from 2001 until 2015. He has served on numerous review panels for the National Cancer Institute and has chaired the Pharmacology Section, the Oncology Training Program Committee, the Geriatric Oncology Committee, and the Oncology Fellows In-Service Training Exam Committee of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). He was awarded the ASCO Statesman Award in 2008.
Michael Kreyling, professor of English, emeritus
Kreyling, who took his doctor of philosophy at Cornell University in 1975, arrived at Vanderbilt in 1985 after teaching at Mississippi State and Tulane. Over the course of his career, he became one of the nation’s foremost scholars of American literary studies and Southern cultural studies. The author of eight books on Southern writers and literature and dozens of articles, Kreyling is the nation’s leading authority on the works of writer Eudora Welty. He co-edited the Library of America’s two volumes of Welty’s work as well as a collection of essays on Flannery O’Connor and George Washington Cable’s The Grandisemmes. Kreyling’s commitment to the works of women and minority writers in the South has made him one of the most notable figures of his generation, one who has, in the words of a major scholar in his field, “truly changed the face of Southern cultural studies.” His contemporaries describe his work as “iconoclastic, trail-blazing and risk taking” while at the same time “elegant,” “penetrating” and “lucid.” Kreyling is currently working on a book that explores, in his words, “the impact of the photograph of American authors on the general conception of literary authorship, (and) the crafting and manipulation of authorial personality.” He is legendary in his scholarly field, as well as a legend among the hundreds of Vanderbilt undergraduates and graduates who have studied with him. Doctoral students come to Vanderbilt just to study with Kreyling, and they are never disappointed, a fact recognized when the College of Arts and Science gave him the Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award in 1999. Kreyling served as the president of the Society for the Study of Southern Literature and has been awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies and the Fulbright Commission. He has offered his time to the Tennessee Humanities Council, the Southern Festival of Books and the Nashville Public Library. At Vanderbilt, Kreyling has served on an array of committees, boards and searches and as director of graduate studies, director of undergraduate studies and acting chair of the Department of English.
M. Douglas LeVan, J. Lawrence Wilson Chair, Emeritus; and professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, emeritus
LeVan received his bachelor of science from the University of Virginia and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, both in chemical engineering. After receiving his Ph.D., he spent two years as a senior research engineer with Amoco Production Company. He then served as a faculty member in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Virginia for 19 years. He joined Vanderbilt University in 1997. A professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, he held the J. Lawrence Wilson Chair. In addition to serving as chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering at Vanderbilt for 11 and a half years, LeVan has been a member of the Faculty Senate, the University Promotions and Tenure Committee, the Dean’s Consultative Committee and many faculty search committees. He won the department’s inaugural teaching award in 2014 and received high-impact paper awards from the Vanderbilt Institute for Nanoscale Science and Engineering in 2013 and 2014. LeVan has had an active professional career. He has been a Senior Fulbright Scholar to Portugal (1985–86) and France (1993–94). He has been active in programming and conference organization for the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) and the International Adsorption Society. LeVan’s research is principally in the area of adsorption, with interests covering novel adsorbent materials development, adsorption equilibrium and thermodynamics, intraparticle mass transfer rates in nanoporous adsorbents, dispersion, and applications of fixed-bed adsorption and membrane processes. He has been the research adviser to 30 doctoral students, with three Vanderbilt students winning the annual international competition for the AIChE’s Graduate Research Award in Adsorption and Ion Exchange. He is the co-editor of the “Adsorption and Ion Exchange” chapter of Perry’s Chemical Engineers’ Handbook and has published approximately 200 research articles. He is a fellow of the AIChE. He was honored by researchers in the adsorption and ion exchange area with the inaugural honorary plenary session sponsored by the area, held at the 2013 Annual AIChE Meeting in San Francisco.
Arnold W. Malcolm, professor of radiation oncology, emeritus
Malcolm embodies the principles and virtues of outstanding physicians. He is an honorably discharged veteran who served as a U.S. Army medical corpsman in Vietnam and the Dominican Republic. After leaving the Army, Malcolm obtained his bachelor of science from Kent State University and M.D. from Meharry Medical College. He completed his radiation oncology residency training at the Joint Center for Radiation Oncology, Harvard, where he was appointed chief resident. After finishing his residency, he joined the faculty at the Joint Center for Radiation Therapy, Harvard, and rose to the rank of assistant professor. In addition, he was appointed a research member at MIT. In 1981, Malcolm was recruited to Vanderbilt University School of Medicine as the director of the Vanderbilt Center for Radiation Oncology and an associate professor of radiology. He was the first African American to obtain a leadership position in the School of Medicine. In addition to serving as director, Malcolm was the residency director for radiation oncology and co-director of the Breast Diagnostic Center at the Medical Center, as well as served on numerous university committees. He was appointed to Meharry Medical College as an associate professor of radiology. Malcolm also found time for scholarly activities, as witnessed by the number of publications that he co-authored. In 1987, he left Vanderbilt to practice medicine in California. He returned to Vanderbilt in 2005 as an associate professor of radiation oncology. He was immediately appointed the department’s medical director. He served the university as a board member of the Canby Robinson Society, on the Radiation Safety Committee, as a faculty mentor for the VUMC Minority House Staff for Academic and Medical Advancement organization, on the Promotions Committee for Vanderbilt Medical Classes, and as chairman of the Vanderbilt Medical Group Executive Finance Committee. In 2009, he was appointed interim chair of radiation oncology. In July 2010, he was appointed chair of radiation oncology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. He is the first African American chair in the Medical Center. In 2012, he was named the Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Radiation Oncology.
Volker E. Oberacker, professor of physics, emeritus
Oberacker received his bachelor of science in 1971, master of science in 1974 and Ph.D. in 1977, all in physics and all from the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. In 1977, the Association of Friends and Supporters of the University honored him with an award for “the best Ph.D. thesis written at the Goethe University” that year. Following a postdoctoral appointment at Oak Ridge National Laboratory from 1978 to 1980, Oberacker joined Vanderbilt University as an assistant professor of physics in 1980. He was promoted to associate professor in 1985 and to professor in 1994. He served twice as director of graduate studies in physics (1987–91, 1999–2002) and once as director of undergraduate studies (1996–97). In 1994, he received an award from the provost’s Initiative on Technological Innovation in the Classroom, concentrating on introductory physics for nonscience majors. In 2005, he received the Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award of the College of Arts and Science. His university service includes being a member of the Faculty Senate (1995–98), the Senior Advisory Review Committee of the College of Arts and Science (2008–09 and 2011–12), and the AXLE Review Committee of the College of Arts and Science (2009–10). Oberacker’s research has focused on the quantum many-body theory of low-energy heavy-ion reactions. Much of this work has been done in collaboration with Professor Sait Umar of Vanderbilt and is very computationally intensive. Oberacker’s research has been funded since 1984 by the U.S. Department of Energy. In 1992, Oberacker and Umar received a Grand Challenge Award from the Department of Energy High-Performance Computing and Communications Program for a project titled “The Quantum Structure of Matter,” a collaboration between Vanderbilt, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee. Oberacker’s most recent research focuses on fusion reactions of exotic neutron-rich nuclei and nuclear reactions related to the production of new superheavy elements. Some of this work involves collaborations with faculty at Michigan State University, Indiana University, the Universities of Frankfurt and Erlangen in Germany, and the Australian National University in Canberra.
John F. Plummer III, professor of English, emeritus
Plummer was awarded his Ph.D. in comparative literature by Washington University in 1971 and has spent his career at Vanderbilt University, where, year after year, he has introduced students to Chaucer and his world and sent them on their way with a fuller appreciation of Anglo-Saxon and medieval English literature. From Beowulf and The Canterbury Tales to the sonnets of Shakespeare and the poetry of Keats, Plummer has introduced and often surprised Vanderbilt undergraduates (who, in their words, come to his classes expecting such literature to be “horrible and boring”) with their newfound love of English poetry and verse. Plummer, the editor of two Chaucer Variorum editions for the University of Oklahoma Press Variorum Chaucer Project and dozens of articles, also has edited a festschrift in honor of renowned Chaucerian Emerson Brown Jr. as well as Vox Feminae, a collection of essays on medieval-era women’s song. He has served as a visiting professor at the University of Virginia and at the University of Leeds; as an associate fellow at Clare Hall of Cambridge University; and has been awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. At Vanderbilt, he has served widely on College of Arts and Science committees, on the Graduate Faculty Council, and in the Department of English as acting chair, director of graduate studies and director of freshman English.
Edward K. Shultz, associate professor of biomedical informatics, emeritus
As one of the nation’s foremost experts on information technology architecture and data science, Shultz provides a bridge between the basic research activities within the Department of Medicine and the units that support operational systems in the hospital, clinics and affiliated sites. Shultz obtained his M.D. from Yale University School of Medicine. He completed an internship in clinical pathology at Barnes Hospital, Washington University in St. Louis, in 1979–80, and residency training in clinical pathology at the University of Minnesota from 1980 to 1984. He joined the faculty at Dartmouth–Hitchcock Medical Center in 1984 and began a long and productive career in the fledgling field of biomedical informatics. Shultz gained national recognition through his research, teaching and service while at Dartmouth and was promoted to associate professor of pathology in 1990. At Dartmouth, he created the first hypermedia-based model of a clinical workstation, the Interactive Medical Record, which has had widespread influence on the field. He served as director of the NIH/NLM-sponsored Dartmouth Medical School Training Program in Medical Informatics from 1989 to 1994 and director of the Dartmouth Program in Medical Information Science from 1988 to 1996. He was elected to fellowship in the American College of Medical Informatics in 1992. Upon his arrival at Vanderbilt in 1997, Shultz served as director of technology integration and subsequently chief technology officer of the Informatics Center, a position he held until 2013. He has been a productive researcher, with grants totaling more than $17 million and publications with more than 900 citations.
Bonnie S. Slovis, professor of medicine, emerita
After an early career in counseling and health systems analysis, Slovis attended Emory University School of Medicine, where she graduated cum laude in 1990 and was elected to AOA. She completed her internal medicine residency and fellowship in pulmonary and critical care medicine at Vanderbilt before joining the faculty of the Division of Allergy, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine in 1996. In 1997, she became the first director of outpatient pulmonary medicine at Vanderbilt, a position that she held until 2015. During the last 20 years, Slovis has been instrumental in building a large and effective outpatient practice in pulmonary medicine that has evolved to care for a wide range of patients with chronic and end-stage lung diseases. She developed the Adult Cystic Fibrosis Center at Vanderbilt and has served as director since 1998. Slovis has provided other important services to Vanderbilt, including being a member of the Hospital Task Force for Preventable Deaths (2007–present), the Task Force on Advanced Practitioners (2008–present), and the Outpatient Order Management Advisory Committee (2010–present). She served as a member of the Faculty Senate from 2006 to 2009 and chair of the Promotions Committee for the School of Medicine Class of 2016. She has been a preceptor for the internal medicine ambulatory care rotation since 2005 and has served as a clinical mentor for 14 pulmonary and critical care fellows. In addition to her service at Vanderbilt, Slovis has been a national leader in the care of adults with cystic fibrosis. She has served on the Adult Program Directors Care Center Committee for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and the Data Safety and Monitoring Board for the Cystic Fibrosis Therapeutics Development Network. She has been instrumental in improving care for adults with cystic fibrosis by addressing issues, such as diabetes, that are particularly important in this group.
Dan M. Spengler, professor of orthopaedic surgery and rehabilitation, emeritus
Spengler was raised in Defiance, Ohio. He received a Union Carbide Scholarship to attend Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, Ohio. He earned his bachelor of science in 1962. Spengler attended the University of Michigan Medical School and received his M.D. in 1966. He served his internship at the King County Hospital in Seattle. He returned to the University of Michigan for his year as an assistant resident in general surgery. From 1968 to 1970, Spengler served in the United States Air Force, including a one-year tour in Vietnam. He was honorably discharged from the Air Force and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for Meritorious Service in May 1970. He completed his orthopaedic residency at the University of Michigan in 1973 followed by a fellowship in orthopaedic biomechanics at Case Western Reserve University. Spengler was on the faculty at the University of Washington in Seattle from 1974 to 1983. In 1981, he was selected as an American-British-Canadian Traveling Fellow. In 1983, he became the fourth chair of the Department of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation at Vanderbilt. During his 26 years as chair, the department grew in scope and size. In 2009, he stepped down as chair but continued to practice as an orthopaedic spine surgeon. Spengler’s expertise in patient care has been recognized by Castle Connolly and Best Doctors. He also has received three prestigious research awards: the Volvo Award for Low Back Pain Research in 1990, the Kappa Delta Award for Outstanding Orthopaedic Research in 1991, and the Cervical Spine Research Society Award for Outstanding Basic Science Research in 1998. Spengler has published more than 125 peer-reviewed articles and has lectured throughout the world. He also was elected to a nine-year term on the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery, serving as president from 1993 to 1994. He served as president of the American Orthopaedic Association in 2003–04. He also served on the board of trustees for the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery for six years, including two years as treasurer. He was recognized by Baldwin-Wallace College in May 2008 when he was invited to return as Commencement speaker and was awarded an honorary doctor of science.
Theodore Speroff, professor of medicine, emeritus
Speroff’s academic career has been productive in clinical epidemiology and clinical decision analysis and in bridging quality improvement with the rigor and methods of the Center for Health Services Research. He has been involved professionally as founder and board member of the Academy for Healthcare Improvement, as chief of Health Services Research within the Tennessee Veterans Healthcare System (TVHS), as associate director of the TVHS VA Quality Scholars Fellowship Program, and as a scientist in the VA Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Centers. He has been a longstanding member of Academy Health and its Interest Group on Quality and Safety, and of the Society for Medical Decision Making. He is a research methodologist and psychometrician with interests in health services research and outcomes assessment, continuous quality improvement, patient safety, patient health care behavior, assessment of patient preferences, clinical decision analysis and modeling, applied clinical informatics for quality measurement, and methodological reviews of the literature. He built and directed the Data Coordination Center for the National Neurosurgical Data Outcomes Database, a patient registry sponsored by the American Association of Neurological Surgeons. Speroff has been principal investigator of multisite clinical trials, director of a national registry of patient quality outcomes, co-chair of a leading international scientific symposium on quality improvement research, panel chair of merit review committees, mentor for many graduate student and postdoctoral trainees, and recipient of the 2010 F. Tremaine Billings Faculty Teaching Award for Excellence in Primary Care Education by the Division of Internal Medicine and Public Health of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. His publications include a variety of techniques, including meta-analysis, decision analysis, cost analysis, implementation science and patient-reported outcomes.
John L. Tarpley, professor of surgery and anesthesiology, emeritus
Tarpley attended undergraduate and medical school at Vanderbilt and trained in surgery at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. He spent two years at the National Cancer Institute, Surgery Branch, during his residency. Tarpley is a “general general” surgeon whose first career (1978–1993) was in a tertiary care mission hospital in Ogbomoso, Nigeria, where he directed the training for general practice house officers and helped establish a nursing school. He served as an associate lecturer in surgery at the University College Hospital of the University of Ibadan College of Medicine during his years in Nigeria. He served several years at the Loch Raven VA in Baltimore and on the Johns Hopkins faculty and then joined the Vanderbilt University Department of Surgery and the Nashville VA in 1993 as associate chief of the surgical service. He directed the Vanderbilt general surgery residency program from 1995 to 2014. A professor of surgery and anesthesiology, he is also affiliated faculty in the Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health and established the first Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)-approved international rotation for surgery residents. He has co-taught medical school electives in global health, spirituality in medicine and history of medicine. Tarpley has received a number of teaching awards locally and nationally. In 2002 he received the ACGME’s Parker J. Palmer “Courage to Teach” Award, and in 2006 he received the Pfizer–ACS Surgical Volunteerism Award. He has been actively involved in mentoring medical students and surgical trainees for his entire career, particularly those interested in teaching and in global health. He served as president of the Association of VA Surgeons (AVAS) and as president of the Association of Program Directors in Surgery. In April 2016, Tarpley received the AVAS’ Distinguished Service Award. The Society for Black Academic Surgeons elected him an honorary member. He is a member of the American College of Surgeons, the West African College of Surgeons, the American Surgical Association and other professional associations. Tarpley is a member of the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery. Surgical education, global health, the history of medicine, spirituality in medicine and clinical surgery, especially in the treatment of patients with hernias or esophageal cancer, are major areas of interest. He is currently the associate chief of the surgical service, VA Tennessee Valley Healthcare System, Nashville Campus, and has worked as a VA surgeon for 25 years. John and Margaret Tarpley are known as “team Tarpley.” They plan to return to Africa (Kijabe Hospital, Kenya, and the University Teaching Hospital of Kigali, Rwanda) for the 2016-17 academic year.
Lawrence K. Wolfe, professor of clinical medicine, emeritus
Wolfe received his bachelor of arts and his M.D. and completed his internship and first-year residency in internal medicine all at Vanderbilt. After completing his second-year residency in internal medicine at Barnes Hospital in St. Louis, he returned to Vanderbilt and served as chief resident in internal medicine. Wolfe then completed a two-year fellowship in endocrinology at Vanderbilt under the direction of Dr. Grant W. Liddle, chief of endocrinology and a world-renowned endocrinologist, during which Wolfe investigated adrenocorticotropic hormone and steroid physiology. During the course of his fellowship, he was drafted into the U.S. Army at the time of the Vietnam War. Wolfe returned to Nashville in 1968 following his military service and began practice in internal medicine and endocrinology at St. Thomas Hospital, a major teaching hospital for Vanderbilt house staff and fellowship training. At this time, he joined the clinical faculty at Vanderbilt and began more than a half-century of teaching Vanderbilt medical students, residents and fellows in endocrinology on the Vanderbilt Endocrinology Service, in his clinic at the Nashville Veterans Administration Medical Center, and at St. Thomas Hospital. In 1997, Wolfe became associate chief of medicine at St. Thomas Hospital, and in 2001 he became director of the Diabetes Institute. In 2005, he joined the Vanderbilt faculty full-time as a professor of clinical medicine in the Division of Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism, where he continued his efforts in medical education and clinical practice. His contributions to medical education and teaching were recognized with the William Salmon Teaching Award in Endocrinology in 2008. Wolfe’s honors include serving as the first president of Vanderbilt’s Brittingham Society; as a member and historian of Vanderbilt’s Grant Liddle Society; as a board member of the Canby Robinson Society; as president of the Vanderbilt Medical Alumni Association; and as a physician with the Vanderbilt Diabetes Center. For more than 50 years, Wolfe has contributed immensely to Vanderbilt, its clinical efforts, and its training of medical students, residents and fellows.
