Board Resolution
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November 3, 2016
MEMORANDUM
November 3, 2016
TO:
Members of the Board of Trustees
FROM:
Nancy L. Zimpher, Chancellor
SUBJECT: Appointment of Distinguished Professors
Action Requested
The proposed resolution appoints the faculty members listed below to the
rank of Distinguished Professor at the State University of New York campus
indicated.
Resolution
I recommend that the Board of Trustees adopt the following resolution:
Whereas the Board of Trustees has proudly established a
historic tradition of acknowledging and honoring extraordinary
faculty achievement through appointment to Distinguished
Faculty Rank; and
Whereas the appointment to Distinguished Faculty Rank at the
State-operated campuses is both a system-wide distinction and
a promotion in rank; and
Whereas the Board of Trustees has the authority to bestow
system-wide distinctions; now, therefore, be it
Resolved that each faculty member listed below be, and hereby
is, appointed to the rank of Distinguished Professor at the State
University of New York campus indicated, effective November
3, 2016:
Professor Douglas R. Holmes, State University of
New York at Binghamton;
Professor Manuel London, State University of
New York at Stony Brook;
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November 3, 2016
Professor Scott A. Smolka, State University of
New York at Stony Brook; and
Professor Yuanyuan Yang, State University of
New York at Stony Brook.
Background
Appointment to the rank of Distinguished Professor is conferred upon
individuals who have achieved national and/or international prominence and a
distinguished reputation within a chosen field. This distinction is attained through
extraordinary contributions to, and impact on, the candidate’s field of study, often
evidenced by significant research and/or creative activity. Moreover, the
candidate should be a role model for students and other faculty and their work
must be of such character that their presence will tend to elevate the standards
of scholarship or creative activity of colleagues both within and beyond their
academic fields. Their work must be of such quality that students and scholars
on other State University of New York campuses would wish to benefit from
lectures and seminars, or other appropriate presentations the faculty members
might bring to them. Further, to be eligible for nomination, a faculty member
must have attained and held the rank of full professor for five years, and must
have at least one year of full-time service at the nominating institution.
The contributions of these individuals also far exceeds their scholarly
productivity. They have contributed meaningfully and consistently in several
notable areas, including extensive and superior service to the profession;
leadership and ongoing participation on influential disciplinary committees;
membership on prestigious editorial boards; service as reviewer or consultant on
regulatory, advisory, and award-making bodies; and status as an invited
presenter at conferences and symposia. The candidates are also often
considered superlative teachers, setting the highest academic standards for their
students.
A brief summary of the contributions of each candidate is provided below,
though the contributions of these scholars far exceed those mentioned in this
resolution. The following encapsulates their disciplinary accomplishments:
Professor Douglas R. Holmes – Dr. Holmes, a member of the
Department of Anthropology at Binghamton University, has gained
international recognition for his research on the anthropology of European
integration and Europeanization, and on the anthropology of central
banking. Professor Holmes published this research in an ethnographic
trilogy of three books: Cultural Disenchantments: Worker Peasantries in
Northeast Italy; Integral Europe: Fast-Capitalism, Multiculturalism; and
Neofascism and Economy of Words: Communicative Imperatives in
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November 3, 2016
Central Banks. In Italy, he found that the European social model with
promises of welfare and dignity had reset expectations in rural
populations. His research on neofascism seeks to understand the
regionalism and the turn to violent radicalization that have become so
prevalent in modern Europe. In the depth of the last world recession,
Dr. Holmes went behind the closed doors of central banks to produce
provocative new insights into the way bankers conceptualize and manage
economies. Professor Holmes directly engages the realities of the
integration of Europe, neofascism, and international monetary
management. His insights have made him an international commentator
and advisor to those building governmental policies to confront these
realities.
Professor Manuel London – Dr. London, Dean of the College of
Business at Stony Brook University, has had a remarkable career
combining research and practice that meet the highest level of
academic excellence, and serves as a model for how social science
is critical for business education. With 30 years as a university faculty
member and administrator, and 12 in corporate research and
management, Dr. London established himself as a prolific and highly
cited scholar in the areas of leadership development, career
dynamics, performance management, and social entrepreneurship.
Professor London was one of the first to study multisource
performance evaluations and feedback in work settings, leading to
seminal publications and ubiquitous corporate applications.
Professor London's theory of career motivation and associated
research outlined how individuals' resilience, insight, and identity
influence career goals and suggest structures for management
development. Professor London's award winning books and articles
on performance management in changing organizations focused on
creating climates to support employee learning. His book, The
Power of Feedback, is now in its 3rd edition. Recognizing that much
work is done in teams, Dr. London extended his ideas to how teams
learn to be adaptive, generative, and transformative. He has held a
range of administrative positions at Stony Brook.
Professor Scott A. Smolka – Dr. Smolka, a member of the Department
of Computer Science at Stony Brook University, joined the department in
1982, and was promoted to Full Professor in 1995. He has made
fundamental research contributions in a number of areas, including
process algebra, model checking, probabilistic processes, runtime
verification,and the modeling and analysis of cardiac cells and neural
circuits. He is perhaps best known for the algorithm he co-invented with
Paris Kanellakis for deciding bisimulation, a fundamental notion of
equivalence for concurrent processes . His research has resulted in over
190 publications, generating 7,630 citations with an h-index of 45. He
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has also been principal investigator and co-principal investigator on
grants totaling more than $23 million, and is the lead principal investigator
on a recently awarded $4.2 million National Science Foundation (NSF)
multi­institutional grant on Compositional, Approximate, and Quantitative
Reasoning for Medical Cyber-Physical Systems. He also recently served
as Deputy Director of a $10 million NSF multi­institutional grant on
Computational Modeling and Analysis of Complex Systems. He was
recently recognized as a Fellow of the European Association for
Theoretical Computer Science, is the recipient of the President and
Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities,
and the Computer Science Department Research Excellence Award .
Professor Yuanyuan Yang – Dr. Yang, a member of the Department of
Electrical and Computer Engineering at Stony Brook University, is
internationally recognized as a leading scientist in the field of parallel
and cloud computing systems and computer networks. She has made
seminal contributions to this field. For her outstanding achievements, she
has been elected Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers (IEEE) – the world's largest professional society involved in
all aspects o f e lectronics and computing. Dr Yang is a recipient of
Best Paper Awards and Distinguished Leadership Awards at top
international conferences, and an IEEE Award for New Technical Concepts.
Her research has been extensively supported by the National Science
Foundation and Department of Defense. Dr. Yang has served on the
editorial boards of top journals in computer systems and networks,
including her current service as Associate Editor-in-Chief for IEEE
Transactions on Cloud Computing – the leading journal in the cloud
computing field. Professor Yang has served as a general chair and
program chair at several major conferences, and a program committee
member for numerous conferences in her field. She also serves as
the Vice Chair for Computer Society IEEE Fellow Evaluation
Committee.
A copy of the nominating letter from each candidate’s respective campus
president is attached. Complete dossiers are available in the Office of the
Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor.
Attachments