University Times

Pitt has honored four senior faculty members, two as distinguished professors and two as University professors.

Robert D. Drennan has been named Distinguished Professor of Anthropology; Eugene N. Myers, Distinguished Professor of Otolaryngology, and Lauren B. Resnick, University Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Science. Kenneth F. Schaffner, who returned to Pitt Jan. 1, was reappointed University Professor of History and Philosophy of Science. He originally was appointed to that rank in 1990.

Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg made the appointments based on the recommendation of Provost James V. Maher. The appointments became effective Jan. 1.

The rank of distinguished professor recognizes extraordinary, internationally recognized, scholarly attainment in an individual discipline or field; the title of University professor is given in recognition of eminence in several fields of study, transcending contributions to a single discipline.

Drennan, a professor in the Department of Anthropology in the School of Arts and Sciences, is an archaeologist whose interests focus on the origins and development of complex societies, especially chiefdoms; on regional settlement pattern studies, and on household archaeology.

His principal methodological specialties are quantitative data analysis and computer applications. He does fieldwork in Mesoamerica, northern South America and China.

At Pitt since 1977, Drennan was named a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2004 for his distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.

Prior to joining Pitt’s faculty, Drennan was curator at the R. S. Peabody Foundation for Archaeology in Andover, Mass. He also has held adjunct appointments in the anthropology section of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh; in the anthropology department at the University of the Andes in Bogotá, Colombia; at the University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology, and in the anthropology department at the National University of Colombia in Bogotá.

Drennan served as chair of Pitt’s anthropology department from 1996 to 1999 and from 2000 to 2003.

Myers, who came to Pitt in 1972, is emeritus chair of the Department of Otolaryngology, professor of oral and maxillofacial surgery in the School of Dental Medicine and director of the Oral Cancer Center of Discovery at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute. He is considered one of the world’s leading experts in otolaryngology and head and neck surgery.

He has written several books, the best known of which is “Cancer of the Head and Neck,” co-authored with James Y. Suen.

Currently serving as coordinator of international affairs for the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Foundation, he also is international editor of the journal Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery.

Myers is past president of the American Board of Otolaryngology, the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, the American Laryngological Association, the American Head and Neck Society, and the Pan American Association of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery.

Resnick, professor of psychology and education, director since 1977 of Pitt’s Learning Research and Development Center (LRDC) and a senior scientist in LRDC, is an internationally known scholar in the cognitive science of learning and instruction. In 1990, she co-founded the New Standards Project, a performance-based assessment system that was developed to improve learning among school children in the United States.

Resnick came to Pitt in 1966 as an LRDC research associate. She is renowned for her work in LRDC’s Institute for Learning, which focuses on professional development for educators based on cognitive learning principles. Begun in 1995 under her direction, the institute has achieved national recognition for helping to improve the performance of urban school districts.

Resnick’s current research lies at the intersection of cognitive science and educational policy.

Resnick is a lifetime national associate of the National Academies; a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and American Psychological Association, and past president of the American Educational Research Association.

She received the 1998 E. L. Thorndike Award from the American Psychological Association and the 1999 Oeuvre Award from the European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction.

Schaffner, internationally acknowledged as a leader in ethical and philosophical thinking in psychiatry, had built strong relationships between Pitt’s schools of Arts and Sciences and medicine before accepting a position in 1993 at George Washington University as University Professor of Medical Humanities.

Schaffner’s scholarly writings include numerous refereed and invited journal articles, book chapters, monographic articles, books and proceedings. Among his published monographs are “Nineteenth-Century Aether Theories,” “Discovery and Explanation in Biology and Medicine” and “Behaving: What’s Genetic and What’s Not, and Why Should We Care?”

Schaffner’s honors include a Guggenheim postdoctoral fellowship in 1972 and a fellowship from the Institute for Human Values in Medicine in 1977.

He was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1986, a fellow of the Hastings Center in 1991 and a fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Philosophy and Psychiatry in 1992.

Schaffner has served as an adviser to, or consultant for the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute of Mental Health, the Royal Society of Medicine Foundation and the National Library of Medicine, among others.