Five Women Appointed to Named Chairs at the University of Chicago

The University of Chicago has announced the appointments of five women to named chairs.

(L to R) Maryellen L. Giger, Lauren Berlant, Karin Knorr Cetina, Elisabeth S. Clemens, and Susan C. Levine

Maryellen L. Giger was named the A.N. Pritzker Professor in Radiology. Dr. Giger is the director of the Imaging Research Institute and is the immediate past director of the graduate program in medical physics. She joined the faculty at the University of Chicago in 1986.

Professor Giger is a summa cum laude graduate of Illinois Benedictine College. She holds a master’s degree in physics from the University of Exeter in England and a Ph.D. in medical physics from the University of Chicago.

Lauren Berlant was appointed the George M. Pullman Distinguished Service Professor in English Language and Literature. Professor Berlant serves as the director of the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality at the university. She is the author of Cruel Optimism (Duke University Press, 2011), which won the 2012 Rene Wellek Award from the American Comparative Literature Association.

Professor Belant has been teaching at the University of Chicago since 1985. She holds a Ph.D. from Cornell University.

Karin Knorr Cetina was named the Otto Borchert Distinguished Service Professor in Sociology and Anthropology. She has served on the faculty at the University of Chicago since 2010. She previously taught at the University of Bielefeld and the University of Konstanz. She is the author of Epistemic Cultures: How the Sciences Make Knowledge (Harvard University Press, 1999) and the co-editor of The Sociology of Financial Markets (Oxford University Press, 2004).

Dr. Cetina holds a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from the University of Vienna.

Elisabeth S. Clemens was appointed the William Rainey Professor in Sociology. She chairs the sociology department at the university. Professor Clemens joined the faculty at the university in 2002. She is the author of several books including The People’s Lobby: Organizational Innovation and the Rise of Interest Group Politics in the United States, 1890-1925 (University of Chicago Press, 1997).

Professor Clemens is a graduate of Harvard University. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

Susan C. Levine is the inaugural Rebecca Anne Boylan Professor in Education and Society. She also serves as co-director of the university’s Center for Early Childhood Research. Professor Levine is the co-author of Quantitative Development in Infancy and Early Childhood (Oxford University Press, 2002) and Neural Plasticity and Cognitive Development: Insights From Children With Perinatal Brain Injury (Oxford University Press, 2012).

Dr. Levine joined the University of Chicago faculty in 1976. She is a graduate of Simmons College and holds a Ph.D. in psychology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.