Four Women Appointed to Endowed Chairs at the University of Illinois

Klara Nahrstedt, a professor of computer science, was named to the Swanlund Endowed Chair. She had held the Grainger Distinguished Chair of Engineering. Dr. Nahrstedt is the director of the Coordinated Science Laboratory at the university. Her research in computer science is related to trustworthy multimedia distributed systems and networking; quality of service and resource management in wired and wireless systems and networks; and real-time security for trustworthy smart grids.

Professor Nahrstedt holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and a master’s degree in numerical analysis from Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany. She earned a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Pennsylvania.

D. Fairchild Ruggles, a professor of landscape architecture, was selected as the inaugural Presidential Humanities and Social Science Chair. Professor Ruggles is the former Debra L. Mitchell Chair in Landscape Architecture. Her research is credited with having a defining role in establishing Islamic landscape architecture as an essential scholarship discipline. She is the author of Tree of Pearls: The Extraordinary Architectural Patronage of the 13th-Century Egyptian Slave-Queen Shajar al-Durr (Oxford University Press, 2020).

Dr. Ruggles is a graduate of Harvard University. She holds a master’s degree and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.

Cynthia Oliver, a professor of dance and special advisor to the chancellor for arts integration at the University of Illinois, has been named a Gutgsell Endowed Professor at the university. Her work seeks to forge a new understanding of the relationship between dance, identity, gender, and Afro Caribbean Americanness. She joined the dance faculty at the university 2000. Dr. Oliver is the author of Queen of the Virgins: Pageantry and Black Womanhood in the Caribbean (University Press of Mississippi, 2009).

Dr. Oliver holds a bachelor of fine arts degree in dance from Adelphi University in Garden City, New York. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in performance studies from New York University.

Chrystalla Mouza, a professor and dean of the College of Education, has been named a Gutgsell Endowed Professor. Dr. Mouza is a widely recognized scholar in technology and computer science education. She joined the faculty in 2022 after serving as the director and Distinguished Professor of Teacher Education specializing in educational technology in the School of Education at the University of Delaware.

Professor Mouza holds two master’s degrees and a doctorate in instructional technology and media from Teachers College at Columbia University.