The State University of New York Board of Trustees recently named three University at Buffalo professors SUNY Distinguished Professors.
Paschalis Alexandridis, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Venugopal Govindaraju, a professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, SEAS, and Daniel J. Kosman, a professor in the Department of Biochemistry, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences were all honored with this distinction.
The Office of the Provost created the title of Distinguished Professor to honor professors who have achieved distinction and have enough experience to become leaders in their own fields.
"My degrees are all in chemical engineering and my specialization is materials," Alexandridis said. "My research focuses on engineering the organization of molecules and nanoparticles."
Alexandridis did his undergraduate work at the National Technical University, Athens,
Greece, and obtained his Masters and Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"Following completion of my Ph.D., I joined Lund University in Sweden as a postdoctoral fellow in the division of physical chemistry," Alexandridis said. "[I joined UB] in January 1997."
Govindaraju founded the Center for Unified Biometrics and Sensors in 2003 with the mission of advancing the science of biometric technologies for both civilian and homeland security applications by integrating pattern recognition and machine learning algorithms with sensors technology.
Govindaraju has supervised the doctoral dissertations of 15 students in the last eight years.
"[I received my] bachelor's in technology from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur", Govindaraju said. "[I] joined the UB graduate school on a graduate presidential fellowship straight after completing my bachelor's."
Govindaraju then joined UB as a graduate student in 1986.
Kosman explained that he has published over 70 articles in the field of bioinorganic chemistry and has served on several grant review panels at the National Institutes of Health evaluating the research plans of other investigators in the field.
"I have a Ph.D. in physical organic chemistry, but at the university, my research has been primarily in the field of bioinorganic chemistry, specifically structure and function of copper oxidases and the role of copper oxidases in iron metabolism," Kosman said.
Kosman has a bachelor's degree from Oberlin College in Ohio.
"I was a graduate student at the University of Chicago and had post-doctoral fellowships at the University of Hawaii and at Cambridge University in England," Kosman said.
Kosman joined UB in September of 1970.
The recognition ceremony for the trio will take place on April 7 at the Center for the Arts.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
