Academia

Cynthia M. Friend, the Theodore Williams Richards Professor of Chemistry and a professor of materials science at the Harvard School of Engineering & Applied Sciences (SEAS), has been named the next director of the Rowland Institute at Harvard University. She succeeds Frans Spaepen, the John C. & Helen F. Franklin Professor of Applied Physics at SEAS, who has been director of the institute for the past decade. Friend joined the Harvard faculty in 1982, became a full professor in 1989, and has served as chair of the chemistry and chemical biology department and as associate director of the Harvard Materials Research Science & Engineering Center. She was also associate laboratory director for photon science at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. The Rowland Institute is a privately endowed, nonprofit, basic research organization aimed at advancing science in a variety of fields.

Holger Schönherr has been appointed as a guest professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University for a three-year term. In addition, he recently received the 2013 Research Prize of the faculty of science and technology at Germany’s University of Siegen, where he is also a professor in the department of chemistry and biology.