Purdue News
Purdue News
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December 15, 2001 Trustees award 2 distinguished professorships, 1 posthumous degreeWEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – The Purdue University Board of Trustees today (Saturday, 12/15) honored two scholars with distinguished professorships and granted a posthumous degree to a student from the Calumet campus.
Freydoon Shahidi, a professor of mathematics on the West Lafayette campus, and Frank Paladino, a professor of biology at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, have been named distinguished professors in their respective disciplines. "We are delighted to be able to recognize their fine scholarship and teaching," said Purdue Provost Sally Frost Mason. "Their work is helping Purdue systemwide toward its goal of pre-eminence and world leadership in the areas of basic and applied sciences." Shahidi is considered an international leader among mathematicians in the field of the arithmetic theory of automorphic forms, known as The Langlands Program. Over the past two decades he has developed an approach to the analytic theory of L-functions that is now known as the Langlands-Shahidi method. He has been the sole author or co-author of 47 scientific papers and a book on the subject. During the course of his Purdue career he has been invited to serve as a visiting professor at more than a dozen colleges and universities around the world and has participated as a guest lecturer or keynote speaker at more than 112 events. His recent work has resulted in several recognitions, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and an invitation to speak before the International Congress of Mathemeticians in Beijing, China, in August 2002. Shahidi earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Tehran in 1969 and a doctorate from Johns Hopkins University in 1975 before joining the Purdue faculty in 1977 as an assistant professor of mathematics. He currently serves as associate editor of the Canadian Mathematical Society Journals and as a member of the editorial board of the Iranian International Journal of Science, published by the University of Tehran. He also is an editor of the International Mathematics Research Notices.
Paladino is head of the biology department at the Fort Wayne campus, where he also is the director of the Life Science Resource Center. His research focuses on the physiology, ecology, migration and conservation of marine sea turtles, a field in which he has published more than 50 journal articles, including three that have appeared in the highly regarded international journal of science, Nature. Paladino's work has been profiled in two National Geographic television specials and one PBS series entitled "The Dinosaurs." His research also was the focus of a monthlong interactive expedition on the Discovery Channel entitled "Life and Death on Turtle Beach." Paladino earned a bachelor's degree in biology from State University College at Plattsburgh, N.Y., in 1974 and a master's degree in ecology from State University College at Buffalo in 1976. He received his doctorate from Washington State University in 1979. He began his professional academic career as a visiting assistant professor in the zoology department at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, that same year. He joined the biology faculty at IPFW in 1982 and was named head of the department in 1992. He was recently selected the Indiana Academy of Science Speaker/Researcher of the Year for 2001-2002. In other business, the board awarded a bachelor of science degree posthumously to Deborah Strange Brown, who had completed more than 80 percent of the requirements for graduation in the Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Purdue Calumet before her death. Writer: Sharon A. Bowker, (765) 494-9723, sbowker@purdue.edu Sources: Sally Frost Mason, (765) 494-9709, sfmason@purdue.edu Freydoon Shahidi, (765) 494-1917 shahidi@math.purdue.edu Frank Paladino, (219) 481-6304, paladino@ipfw.edu NOTE TO JOURNALISTS: Publication-quality photographs of Freydoon Shahidi and Frank Paladino are available at ftp://ftp.purdue.edu/pub/uns/shahidi.f.jpeg and ftp://ftp.purdue.edu/pub/uns/paladino.f.jpeg. Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu
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