Princeton Weekly Bulletin June 8, 1998
Promoted to full professor
The following faculty members were recently promoted to full professor as of July 1.
In Molecular Biology and the Princeton Materials Institute, Steven Block's interests lie in biophysics, particularly in how motion is generated by proteins. His lab has pioneered laser-based optical trapping methods for biological use. At Princeton since 1994, he previously held appointments at the Rowland Institute in Cambridge, Mass., and in Harvard's Department of Cellular and Developmental Biology.
In Physics, Gordon Cates joined the University staff as research associate in1987. Tenured in 1993, he studies such subjects as optical pumping, magnetic resonance, parity nonconservation and nucleon spin structure. He is a coinventor and patent holder for a rapidly growing new technique for MRI using laser polarized noble gases. Cates was recently made a Fellow of the American Physical Society.
In Electrical Engineering, Niraj Jha joined the faculty in 1987. A fellow of the IEEE, his research interests include digital system testing, fault-tolerant computing, computer-aided design of integrated circuits, distributed computing and real-time computing.
In Physics, Bernhard Keimer, a condensed matter physicist, received his PhD from MIT in 1991 and joined the Princeton faculty in 1992. He uses x-ray and neutron scattering to study the structure and dynamics of novel materials, including high temperature superconductors. His research is supported by the National Science, Alfred P. Sloan and David and Lucile Packard foundations. He has taught undergraduate courses on quantum mechanics and solid state physics.
Also in Physics, Igor Klebanov joined the Princeton faculty in 1989. He has authored over 30 papers on various aspects of gauge theory and string theory, with an emphasis on the physics of black holes. Recently, Klebanov and his collaborators found interesting connections between the quantum mechanics of black holes and that of gauge theories which are akin to the field theory used in describing strong interactions.
Also in Physics, Lyman Page, who was appointed assistant professor in 1991, is an experimental cosmologist who measures the cosmic microwave background. As part of the Princeton Gravity Group, Page is designing instrumentation for a Microwave Anisotropy Probe that will measure spatial variations in the radiative remnant of the Big Bang.
In Chemistry, Robert Pascal has been at Princeton since 1982. His research is in two areas: physical organic chemistry, with emphasis on the synthesis of unusual aromatic compounds; and biochemistry, in particular the study of enzyme mechanisms and the design of enzyme inhibitors.
In Civil Engineering and Operations Research, hydrologist James Smith studies the hydrometeorology of extreme storms and floods. He has been at Princeton since 1990.
In Religion, Stephen Teiser joined the faculty in1988. He is particularly interested in Chinese religion, especially Chinese Buddhism. His 1994 book, ''The Scripture on the Ten Kings'' and the Making of Purgatory in Medieval Chinese Buddhism, won the Joseph Levenson Prize, awarded by the Association for Asian Studies for the best book in Chinese studies published that year.
In Electrical Engineering, Wayne Wolf, who has been at Princeton since 1988, studies computer aided design of digital systems, VLSI systems, embedded computing systems, digital video architectures, multimedia computing systems and digital video libraries. He is a fellow of the IEEE.