Dozens of UUP members this academic year have earned SUNY’s distinguished ranks for extraordinary research, teaching and service.

The Voice this month continues to highlight these exceptional educators. Below are eight more faculty members to be granted the highest rank the state university has to offer.

The distinguished professor rank is conferred on individuals who have achieved international prominence and are recognized for significant contributions to the research in their chosen fields.

The rank of distinguished teaching professor recognizes and honors mastery of teaching, as well as exceptional service to students and a commitment to furthering their own intellectual and professional growth.

The distinguished service professor rank is awarded to individuals who demonstrate substantial service to SUNY and the community at large. Their service over multiple years goes above and beyond that which is expected of them in the performance of their University duties, and brings their scholarly and research findings to issues of public concern.

“In their own way, each of these faculty members exhibit their dedication to teaching and shaping future generations,” said UUP Acting President Frederick Floss. “They are indicative of the talent inherent within the membership of UUP.”

Arthur Applebee, a distinguished professor in UAlbany’s department of educational theory and practices, is known internationally for his seminal scholarship in the fields of literacy and language learning. He is director of the National Research Center on English Learning & Achievement, and his studies focus on how children and adolescents develop the advanced language and literacy skills necessary for success in school and life.

George Lee, a distinguished professor in the department of civil, structural and environmental engineering at the University of Buffalo, is a pioneer in the fields of engineering research and structural engineering. Throughout his 45 years at the university, Lee has helped to build cross-national bridges in the field of earthquake research worldwide, and he has co-authored four books and published 250 papers on engineering.

Mark Lenzenweger, a distinguished professor in the psychology department at Binghamton University, is a renowned researcher in the areas of schizophrenia and personality disorders. His finding that the features of personality disorder show substantial variability over time strikes at the heart of prior assumptions. On the Binghamton faculty since 2001, Lenzenweger in 2006 earned a Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities.

Makau Mutua, a distinguished professor of law at the University of Buffalo, is a world-renowned scholar and human rights activist. Mutua joined the UB faculty in 1996 after serving as associate director of the Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School. He currently directs the Human Rights Center at the UB Law School and is co-director of the Program on International and Comparative Legal Studies in the university’s Baldy Center for Law.

Thomas O’Connor, a distinguished professor of romance languages and literature at Binghamton University, has achieved national and international recognition for excellence in the field of Spanish Golden Age studies. A member of the Binghamton faculty since 1988, O’Connor has been a major force in furthering and enriching the study of Spanish classical theater.

Stephen David Ross, a distinguished professor in the department of philosophy and comparative literature at Binghamton University, is internationally recognized as a talented philosopher who emphasizes complexity over reductive simplifications and a celebration of diversity over unification. The author of 26 books and a widely read anthology in aesthetics and philosophy of art, Ross has been teaching at Binghamton since 1967.

Jeanne Ryan, a distinguished teaching professor in the department of psychology at SUNY Plattsburgh, is considered an extraordinarily gifted and effective teacher who involves her students in her research into Alzheimer’s and traumatic brain injury. Ryan specializes in neuropsychology and is supervisor of the college’s Psychological Services Clinic. She helped to establish the Traumatic Brain Injury Center in 1994, which continues to provide services to children and young adults who have such injuries.

M.A.Q. Siddiqui, a distinguished service professor in the department of anatomy and cell biology at Brooklyn HSC, is internationally known for his contributions to molecular cardiology. As chair of anatomy and cell biology, he has provided strong leadership to the department since 1987. He is also founder and director of Downstate’s Center for Cardiovascular and Muscle Research, where discoveries in molecular genetics are being translated into clinical applications that will help patients.

— Karen L. Mattison