Academia

Suzanne Fortier has been selected as McGill University’s 17th principal and vice chancellor. Her five-year term will begin in September 2013. Most recently, she was president of the Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), in Ottawa. Prior to joining NSERC, she served as a vice principal and an associate dean of graduate studies at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, where she was also a professor of chemistry.

Jennifer A. Lewis, an internationally recognized leader in the fields of 3-D printing and biomimetic materials, has been appointed as the first Hansjörg Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering at the Harvard School of Engineering & Applied Sciences. In addition, she has been named a faculty member of Harvard University’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. Prior to joining Harvard, Lewis was the Hans Thurnauer Professor of Materials Science & Engineering and director of the Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Victor R. McCrary has been named vice president for research and economic development at Morgan State University in Baltimore. In this newly created position, he will oversee the creation of an enterprise-wide research strategy to increase external research funding and expand the university’s intellectual property portfolio in an effort to spark strategic partnerships with industry, government, and other academic institutions. Previously, he had been the business executive for science and technology at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory.

Krishnan Sadagopan has been named an assistant professor in the chemistry department at Oklahoma State University. Previously he was a postdoctoral research associate at Oxford University. His research focuses on bioanalytical chemistry, biocatalysis, electrochemistry, surface chemistry, biofuel cells, enzyme biosensors, drug screening, and protein detection. Yolanda Vasquez has also joined OSU’s chemistry department as an assistant professor. Vasquez was a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard University. She specializes in nanoscience, materials science, tissue engineering, and biomaterials. In addition, Jimmie Weaver has been named an assistant professor in OSU’s chemistry department. Weaver, who conducted postdoctoral research at Yale University, is focused on organic chemistry, catalysis, material remediation, and development of synthetic methodology.

Wolfgang Voelter has retired from the University of Tübingen, in Germany. He joined the university in 1970, focusing his research on carbohydrate and peptide chemistry. He is credited with more than 800 publications, books, and patents.