Frank, Juhl, Andrews, and Zigmond Honored

Faculty receive Distinguished Professor designation

From left: Ellen Frank, Randy Juhl, George Reid Andrews, and Naomi Zigmond

Pitt is honoring four senior faculty members as Distinguished Professors: Ellen Frank has been named Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry, effective June 1; Randy Juhl, Distinguished Service Professor of Pharmacy, effective July 1; and, effective Sept. 1, George Reid Andrews, Distinguished Professor of History, and Naomi P. Zigmond, Distinguished Professor of Education. Pitt Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg made the appointments based on the recommendation of Pitt Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor James V. Maher.

The appointment of a faculty member to a Distinguished Professorship constitutes the highest honor that can be accorded a member of the professorate. The rank of Distinguished Professor recognizes extraordinary, internationally renowned scholarly attainment in an individual discipline or field. The title Distinguished Service Professor is given in recognition of distinctive contributions and outstanding service to the University community in support of its mission, as well as performance excellence in the faculty member’s department or school and national stature in his or her field.

Biographical information on the faculty honorees follows.

Frank is a professor of psychiatry and psychology in the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and director of the Depression and Manic Depression Prevention Program at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic.

Frank and her colleagues developed a new psychotherapy—interpersonal and social rhythm therapy—for the treatment of manic depressive illness under a MERIT award from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). She recently completed an NIMH-sponsored study of women with recurrent depression in which she examined how psychobiology, life stress, and different “doses” of psychotherapy interact to increase or decrease vulnerability to new episodes of depression. In addition, Frank is completing a joint project with researchers at the University of Pisa, Italy, aimed at achieving a better understanding of the clinical importance of subsyndromal mood, anxiety, and eating disorders—that is, when the symptoms are not severe enough for diagnosis as a clinically recognized syndrome.

An expert in mood disorders and their treatment, Frank was chair of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Panel. She also is a former member of the National Advisory Mental Health Council. She currently serves on the Mood Disorders Workgroup of the American Psychiatric Association Task Force on DSM-V and is an honorary fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. In 1999, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine.

A graduate of Vassar College, Frank earned a master’s degree in English at Carnegie Mellon University and a doctorate in psychology at the University of Pittsburgh.

Juhl, vice chancellor for research conduct and compliance, came to the University in 1979 to serve as chair of the Department of Pharmacy Practice. His research included the effects of disease states and other conditions on the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of drugs. In 1986, he was named dean of the School of Pharmacy, a position he held for 16 years. During his tenure as dean, the school converted its entry-level practitioner degree from the bachelor’s to the PharmD level; instituted advanced practice residencies in conjunction with UPMC and other partners; developed an innovative clinical scientist PhD program; and increased its endowment more than tenfold. The school also attained a Top 10 ranking among pharmacy schools and colleges as measured by grant support from the National Institutes of Health.

In July 2002, Juhl joined Nordenberg’s senior leadership team as vice chancellor for research conduct and compliance. His responsibilities include overseeing the University’s Institutional Review Board, the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, the Radiation Safety Program, the Recombinant DNA Office, and components of the University’s conflict-of-interest reporting and monitoring functions.

Juhl is a widely published and consulted expert in pharmacy. He has written or cowritten more than 70 manuscripts, abstracts, and books on these and related topics. He also currently consults for several companies and organizations that deal with self-medication and the process of having a prescription drug become an over-the-counter medication. He also is a frequent speaker on a variety of regulatory topics related to the FDA.

Juhl served as president of the American Pharmaceutical Association’s Academy of Pharmaceutical Research and Science from 1992 to 1993. In 1992, he was asked to chair the FDA’s newly created advisory committee on nonprescription drugs that advises the FDA on a range of issues related to over-the-counter medications; he served as committee chair until 1996. In 1998, he was appointed chair of the FDA’s Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee, created by the FDA Modernization Act of 1997 to serve as a public forum for the resolution of regulatory issues affecting pharmacy compounding.

Juhl received an associate’s degree from Waldorf College in 1968 and his BS, MS, and PhD degrees in pharmacy from the University of Iowa in 1972, 1974, and 1976, respectively. He has been honored as a distinguished alumnus of Waldorf College (1994) and the University of Iowa College of Pharmacy (2000).

Andrews, a professor in the Department of History in Pitt’s School of Arts and Sciences, is a historian whose interests focus on Latin America, comparative history, and race. At Pitt since 1981, he served as chair of the history department from 1998 to 2001 and from 2006 to 2007. In addition, Andrews has been a research professor of history in the University Center for International Studies since 1991.
Andrews has written numerous books, including Afro-Latin America, 1800-2000 (Oxford University Press, 2004), which was awarded the 2005 Arthur P. Whitaker Prize from the Middle Atlantic Council of Latin American Studies and was named Choice Outstanding Academic Title in 2005; and Blacks and Whites in São Paulo, Brazil, 1888-1988 (University of Wisconsin Press, 1991), which won the 1993 Arthur P. Whitaker Prize. He is currently working on a book titled Blackness in the White Republic: Afro-Uruguay, 1800-2000.

A 1996 Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award recipient, Andrews received a 2001 Rockefeller Humanities Fellowship for research at the Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay; a 1996-97 John Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship; and a Fellowship for University Teachers from the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1995.

Andrews serves on several editorial boards and is the senior editor for Hispanic American Historical Review. He also is a member of the American Historical Association, the Conference on Latin American History, and the Latin American Studies Association.

He earned the BA degree in history at Dartmouth College in 1972 and the MA and PhD degrees in history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1974 and 1978, respectively.

Zigmond is a professor of special education in Pitt’s School of Education Department of Instruction and Learning. Her primary focus is the education of school-age students with cognitive, behavioral, and physical disabilities. At Pitt since 1970, she served as chair of the instruction and learning department from 1994 through 2000.

Zigmond has received extensive grant support to conduct numerous research projects. Current projects include the Pennsylvania Alternate System of Assessment Project—with funding from the Pennsylvania Department of Education—to design, validate, and implement an alternate system of statewide assessment for Pennsylvania students with the most severe cognitive disabilities; the Monitoring Progress in Pennsylvania Pupils (MP3), a model demonstration grant (in partnership with Lehigh University and implemented in the Uniontown Area School District) from the Office of Special Education Programs, Division of Research to Practice; and the External Evaluation of the Pennsylvania Reading First Initiative from the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

Zigmond has served as chair of the Pennsylvania Special Education Advisory Panel and is founder of the Pacific Coast Research Conference, which held its 16th annual conference in February. She received the Research Award from the Council for Exceptional Children in recognition of research that has contributed significantly to the body of knowledge about the education of exceptional children and youth.

Zigmond serves on the executive committee of the Division for Children With Learning Disabilities of the Council for Exceptional Children and is a member of the American Educational Research Association and the Learning Disabilities Association.

She received the BS degree in physiological psychology from McGill University in 1962 and the MA and PhD degrees in language and learning disorders from Northwestern University in 1963 and 1966, respectively.