Three named SUNY Distinguished Professors at UB

BUFFALO, N.Y. – Three more University at Buffalo faculty members have been appointed to the ranks of distinguished professors by the State University of New York Board of Trustees.

Paul R. Knight III, UB Distinguished Professor of Anesthesiology, and Daniel J. Kosman, UB Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry, have been named a Distinguished Professor in recognition of national or international prominence in their fields.

Lynn Mather, professor of law, has been appointed a Distinguished Service Professor in recognition of extraordinary service to the community, region, state, nation or world.

The rank of distinguished professor, the highest faculty rank in the SUNY system, is an order above full professorship and has three co-equal designations: distinguished professor, distinguished service professor and distinguished teaching professor.

The trio was among 16 SUNY faculty members appointed to the distinguished professor ranks by the trustees at their May 7 meeting.

Paul Knight joined the UB faculty in 1992 as a professor of anesthesiology and microbiology, and chair of the Department of Anesthesiology. He served as chair until 1998 when he stepped down to devote more time to research and clinical activities. He continues to maintain administrative duties in the department, serving as associate chair for research and director of the Medical Scientist Training Program – the MD/PhD program at UB.

Knight’s research focuses on the effects of inhalation anesthetics on lung function, with specific emphasis on the relationship between anesthetics and viral infection, and the inflammatory process in lung tissue following the inhalation of vomit due to surgery or accidental causes.

A prolific scholar and recipient of the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities, he has published 115 papers in premier peer-review journals in the field, and was editor of the seventh edition of Wylie and Churchill-Davidson’s “A Practice of Anesthesia,” the premier textbook in anesthesiology. He has authored or co-authored 27 book chapters, including a chapter in “A Practice of Anesthesia.”

Daniel Kosman studies how organisms acquire and metabolize iron and copper, intrinsically toxic metals essential to cellular respiration and oxygen transport. One of his goals is to develop antifungal drugs to treat infections in humans.

His research has been funded nearly continuously by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation since he joined the UB faculty in 1970.

He has authored or co-authored nearly 100 scholarly publications and currently is writing a book, to be published by Garland Press, on protein structure and function to be used by upper-level undergraduates and first-year graduate students.

He has been an invited speaker and/or chair at numerous national and international symposia, a reviewer for some of the top journals in his field and a member of numerous study sections for the NIH.

A former acting chair and associate chair of the Department of Biochemistry, Kosman has been appointed to more than 25 university or School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences committees, including search and promotions committees, and panels on teaching and curriculum development.

Lynn Mather joined the UB faculty in 2002 as professor of law and political science, and director of the Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy. She previously held the Nelson A. Rockefeller Chair in Government at Dartmouth College and was a Dartmouth faculty member for more than 30 years.

A leading scholar in the field of law and society, she has published extensively on lawyers, legal professionalism, women in the legal profession, courts in popular culture, litigation against tobacco, trial courts and public policy, divorce mediation, plea bargaining and the transformation of disputes.

Her most recent books are “Lawyers in Practice: Ethical Decision Making in Context” (University of Chicago Press, 2012), co-edited with Leslie C. Levin, and “Private Lawyers and the Public Interest: The Evolving Role of Pro Bono in the Legal Profession” (Oxford University Press, 2009), co-edited with UB sociologist Robert Granville.

A former president (2001-02) of the international Law and Society Association, she continues to remain active in the multidisciplinary, scholarly association, contributing to its intellectual pursuits and mentoring younger colleagues in the field.