Duke Awards 32 New Distinguished Professorships for 2024

Duke University has awarded distinguished professorships to 32 faculty and will recognize them in a ceremony at the Washington Duke Inn on May 23.

“I am very pleased to honor these faculty members with distinguished professorships,” said President Vincent Price. “Their outstanding scholarship has advanced knowledge across a wide variety of fields and made a positive impact on society, and I am proud to have them as colleagues.”

Distinguished professorships honor faculty who are well-established members of the Duke academic community and have also achieved distinction as creative scholars in their field or in their ability to transcend disciplines.

“I congratulate my colleagues on receiving distinguished professorships recognizing their impressive scholarly achievements and leadership in our academic community and beyond,” said Provost Alec D. Gallimore. “Duke is tremendously fortunate to count these bold thinkers among its faculty.”

During its February meeting, Duke’s Board of Trustees approved the awarding of Distinguished Professorships to the following faculty, effective July 1, 2024:

Lisa M. Amaya-Jackson (Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences)

Michelle Winn, MD, Distinguished Professor

Huiman Xie Barnhart (Biostatistics & Bioinformatics)               

James B. Duke Distinguished Professor

Christopher Charles Beyrer (School of Medicine)

Gary Hock Distinguished Professor in Global Health

David B. Brown (Fuqua School of Business)

Snow Family Distinguished Professor

Doriane Lambelet Coleman (School of Law)

Thomas L. Perkins Distinguished Professor

Erica Field (Department of Economics)

James B. Duke Distinguished Professor

Sara Sternberg Greene (School of Law)

Katharine T. Bartlett Distinguished Professor

Simon Gray Gregory (Department of Neurosurgery)

Margaret Harris and David Silverman Distinguished Professor

Christoph Paul Vincent Hornik (Department of Pediatrics)

Samuel L. Katz Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics

Kimberly Sherell Johnson (Department of Medicine)

Brenda E. Armstrong, M.D. Distinguished Professor

Sönke Johnsen (Department of Biology)

Ida Stephens Owens Distinguished Professor

Hui-Kuan Lin (Department of Pathology)

Fred and Janet Sanfilippo Distinguished Professor

Jianfeng Lu (Department of Mathematics)

James B. Duke Distinguished Professor

Xunrong Luo (Department of Medicine)

Boyce Haller Distinguished Professor in Nephrology

Veronica Root Martinez (School of Law)

Simpson Thacher & Bartlett Distinguished Professor of Law

Joel Meyer (Nicholas School of the Environment)

Sally Kleberg Distinguished Professor of Environmental Genomics

Michael C. Munger (Department of Political Science)

Pfizer,Inc./Edmund T. Pratt, Jr. University Professor

Willie John Padilla (Electrical and Computer Engineering)

Dr. Paul Wang Distinguished Professor

Michael Patrick Pignone (Department of Medicine)

Rebecca & John Kirkland Distinguished Professor

Thomas James Polascik (Department of Urology)

Lawrence C. Katz Distinguished Professor

Jonathan Posner (Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences)

J. P. Gibbons Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry

Michael Vernon Relf (School of Nursing)

Mary T. Champagne Distinguished Professor

Cynthia D. Rudin (Department of Computer Science)

Gilbert, Louis, and Edward Lehrman Distinguished Professor

Emily Ryo (School of Law)

Charles L. B. Lowndes Distinguished Professor of Law

Kevin O'Neil Saunders (Department of Surgery)

Norman L. Letvin M.D. Distinguished Professor in Surgery and the Duke Human Vaccine Institute

Kevin Lindsey Thomas (Department of Medicine)

Donald F. Fortin, M.D. Distinguished Professor of Cardiology

Georgia Doris Tomaras (Department of Surgery)

A. Geller Distinguished Professor for Research in Immunology

Qianben Wang (Department of Pathology)

Banks Anderson, Sr. Distinguished Professor

Erika S. Weinthal (Nicholas School of the Environment)

John O. Blackburn Distinguished Professor

Heather Elizabeth Whitson (Department of Medicine)

Duke School of Medicine Distinguished Professor in Neuroscience

Kanecia Obie Zimmerman (Department of Pediatrics)

Wilburt C. Davison Distinguished Professor

Lee Zou (Department of Pharmacology & Cancer Biology)

George Barth Geller Distinguished Professor

In addition, four faculty members awarded Distinguished Professorships that took effect July 1, 2023, will also be honored at the ceremony:

Elisabeth D. de Fontenay (School of Law)

Karl W. Leo Distinguished Professor of Law

Kafui  Dzirasa (Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Science)

A. Eugene and Marie Washington Presidential Distinguished Professor

Alec Gallimore (Thomas Lord Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science)

Alfred J. Hooks E '68 Distinguished Professor

Miriam Treggiari (Department of Anesthesiology)

Paul G. Barash Distinguished Professor of Anesthesiology

For a complete list of Duke’s Distinguished Professors, please visit the Provost’s Office website.