4 UB Faculty Members Named SUNY Distinguished Professors

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Four faculty members at the University at Buffalo have been named a Distinguished Professor, the highest rank in the State University of New York system, by the SUNY Board of Trustees.

The rank is an order above full professorship and has three co-equal designations: Distinguished Professor, Distinguished Service Professor and Distinguished Teaching Professor.

The rank of Distinguished Professor was conferred upon Jorge J.E. Gracia, Ph.D., professor of philosophy. This designation is awarded to individuals who have achieved national or international prominence in their fields.

Two faculty members were named Distinguished Service Professors: John T. Ho, Ph.D., associate dean for research and graduate studies in the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics and professor of physics, and Murray Levine, J.D., Ph.D., professor of psychology. This rank recognizes outstanding service to the community, state or nation.

The rank of Distinguished Teaching Professor was conferred upon Harold Brody, Ph.D., M.D., professor of anatomical sciences. This designation is awarded to persons who have demonstrated outstanding teaching competence at the graduate, undergraduate or professional level.

Jorge Gracia, a UB faculty member since 1971, is an expert in medieval and Hispanic philosophy, and metaphysics. His book, "Individuality: An Essay on the Foundations of Metaphysics," won the first John N. Findlay Prize in Metaphysics from the Metaphysical Society of America as the best work in metaphysics published in North America during a three-year period.

He has served as president of several national professional groups, including the Society for Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy, the Society for Iberian and Latin American Thought and the International Federation of Latin American and Caribbean Studies.

He has authored four books and published more than 100 articles and 30 reviews in scholarly journals.

He earned a bachelor's degree from Wheaton College, master's degrees from the University of Chicago and the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in Toronto, and a doctorate from the University of Toronto.

Gracia resides in Snyder.

John T. Ho has been a UB faculty member since 1975. He served as chair of the UB Department of Statistics from 1987-89, and was a visiting scientist at AT&T Bell Laboratories in 1991. He has directed UB's Interdisciplinary Natural Sciences Program since 1984.

He has conducted experimental studies that have enhanced the understanding of phase transitions and critical phenomena in magnetic systems, liquid crystals and biomembranes.

In 1990, Ho was elected a fellow in the American Physical Society, a citation reserved for members who have contributed to the advancement of physics by independent, original research or have provided special service to the sciences. He also has been a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow and a SUNY Faculty Research Fellow.

The author of numerous scientific publications, he has served on various committees of the American Physical Society, the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, among others.

A graduate of the University of Hong Kong, he received his doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Ho resides in Williamsville.

A faculty member since 1968, Murray Levine also serves as co-director of UB's Research Center for Children and Youth and an adjunct professor of law.

In 1994, he was named to the U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect by Donna Shalala, U.S. secretary of health and human services. The 15-member board evaluates the nation's efforts to implement the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act and makes recommendations on ways in which those efforts can be improved. The panel recently presented its report on maltreatment-related fatalities in the United States to Hillary Clinton. Levine has written extensively on a number of legal issues related to child abuse and neglect, and has served as a member of the American Psychological Association's Working Group on Legal and Policy Issues in Child Abuse and Neglect.

His book, "Helping Children: A Social History," is considered a classic study of the evolution of child welfare services in the United States.

He earned a bachelor's degree from College of the City of New York, master's and doctoral degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and a law degree, magna cum laude, from UB.

Levine resides on the West Side of Buffalo.

Harold Brody has been a UB faculty member for 40 years, serving for half of that time as chair of the Department of Anatomical Sciences.

He has done research and published widely in the field of neuroanatomy, and has served on several editorial boards.

As a Fulbright scholar to Denmark in 1963, he helped establish the country¹s first cadaver donor program. He was one of the founding members of UB¹s Center for Aging and is past president of the Gerontological Society of America. He received the society's Robert W. Kleemeier Memorial Research Award for Outstanding Research in Gerontology in 1978.

Brody left the anatomy department chairmanship in 1991 to continue teaching, conduct research and fulfill a life-long dream of establishing a Museum of Neuroanatomy at UB. The museum, dedicated in January, has received national publicity and is being used actively for education and research.

A graduate of Western Reserve University, now Case Western Reserve University, he received a doctorate from the University of Minnesota and a medical degree from UB.

Brody is a resident of Eggertsville.