University Times

N. John Cooper, the Bettye J. and Ralph E. Bailey Dean of the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, will deliver the keynote address at the University’s 41st annual honors convocation Feb. 24. The convocation will be held at 3 p.m. in Carnegie Music Hall.

Cooper, who has been dean since 1998, will step down from his post in August and return to the faculty.

Cooper began his academic career at Harvard, serving as a research fellow and faculty member 1976-86. He was appointed Loeb Associate Professor of Natural Sciences in 1984. He joined the Pitt faculty in 1986 as a professor of chemistry and served as department chair 1989-94. He was appointed dean of A&S in 1998 and since 2006 also has served as dean of the College of General Studies.

His research is in synthetic and mechanistic organometallic chemistry; he has published over 80 refereed articles in major international journals in his field. His academic honors include appointment as a fellow of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the 1986 Corday-Morgan Medal of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Cooper earned his bachelor’s and doctoral degrees in chemistry at Oxford, where he was a Scholar of Balliol.