CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Three University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign faculty members have been selected for endowed chairs deemed to be among the most distinguished honors on the campus.
Jiawei Han, a professor of computer science, was named the Michael Aiken Chair. Matthew Finkin, a professor of law, and Nancy Sottos, a professor of materials science and engineering, were named Swanlund Endowed Chairs.
Chancellor Robert Jones selected the recipients on the recommendation of a committee headed by Provost Andreas Cangellaris. The endowed chairs take effect Aug. 16, extend for five years and are renewable. They provide a salary stipend and financial support for each recipient’s research.
“These extraordinary scholars are the greatest authorities in their fields, and they continue to pioneer their research and scholarship in new directions for the greater good of our society,” Cangellaris said. “They personify Illinois’ leadership and impact as one of the world’s best public research universities.”
Han is an Abel Bliss Professor of Engineering. His recent research interests include data mining, text mining, information network analysis and big data analytics, with more than 900 publications. He is a Fellow of ACM and a Fellow of IEEE, and received the 2004 ACM SIGKDD Innovations Award and the 2009 IEEE Computer Society M. Wallace McDowell Award. In 2018, he became the fourth non-Japanese scientist to earn the Funai Achievement Award, Japan’s highest honor for information science.
Finkin, the Albert J. Harno and Edward W. Cleary Chair in Law, teaches labor and employment law in both the domestic and comparative contexts. His awards include the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation’s Research Prize and designation by the University of Illinois as a Center for Advanced Study Professor. He has lectured widely in Europe, Asia and South America. His work has been translated into seven languages.
Sottos is the Donald B. Willet Professor of Engineering in the department of materials science and engineering and leads the Autonomous Materials Systems group in the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. Her research interests include polymers and composites capable of self-healing and regeneration, mechanochemically active polymers, tailored interfaces and novel materials for more reliable energy storage. She is a Fellow of the Society of Engineering Science and the Society for Experimental Mechanics.
The Michael Aiken Chair was established in honor of former Chancellor Michael Aiken and is supported by a gift from Mr. and Mrs. Robert C. Campbell and other sources.
The Swanlund chairs were established through a gift from longtime U. of I. supporter Maybelle Swanlund.