The following professors were elected to newly endowed chairs by the Cornell Board of Trustees at its May meetings. The appointments become effective July 1 unless otherwise noted.

College of Engineering

T. Michael Duncan was elected the first Raymond G. Thorpe Teaching Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Duncan's research concerns studies in heterogeneous catalysis and advanced materials to determine the molecular basis for macroscopic effects such as chemical, electrical and mechanical properties.

Since joining the Cornell faculty in 1990, he has received numerous teaching awards, including the College of Engineering's Tien Prize for Teaching Excellence in 1994, its Excellence in Teaching award in 2000 and 2001, and the Tau Beta Pi/Cornell Society of Engineers Award for Teaching Excellence in 1997 and 2008. He has been named a Merrill presidential scholar mentor seven times, and in 2005 he was named a Weiss presidential fellow.

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education selected Duncan as New York's Professor of the Year in 2007.

He received his Ph.D. (1980) from the California Institute of Technology.

ILR School

Pamela Tolbert was elected the first Lois S. Gray Professor of Industrial Relations and Social Sciences, effective May 29. She is professor and chair of the Department of Organizational Behavior.

She came to the ILR School in 1983 after receiving her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California-Los Angeles. She is broadly interested in processes of organizational change, the role of organizations in social stratification and the impact of occupations on organizational structures. Her current research includes studies of the use of tenure systems by higher education organizations, the effects of organizational and occupational demography on career patterns and the effects of earnings differences within dual-career couples on spousal relationships.

She has served on numerous editorial boards of academic journals, as the book review editor for Administrative Science Quarterly and as an associate editor for Management Science. She is currently an associate editor for the Academy of Management Review.

Johnson School

Harold Bierman Jr. was elected the first Harold Bierman Jr. Distinguished Professor of Management. (The chair was created in his honor, not by Bierman.) When the appointment becomes effective, he will surrender his current title of Nicholas H. Noyes Professorship of Business Administration.

Bierman is interested in investment and corporate financial policy decisions. He has consulted for many public organizations and industrial firms and is the author of more than 150 articles and various books in the fields of accounting, finance, investment, taxation and quantitative analysis.

He earned his MBA and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. He joined Cornell in 1956 as an associate professor and served as associate dean of the Johnson School 1981-82.

In 1985 he was named the winner of the Dow Jones Award of the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business for his outstanding contributions to collegiate management education.