PITT NAMES NEW ARTS & SCIENCES DEAN

PITTSBURGH, Feb. 16 -- N. John Cooper has been named dean of the Faculty and College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh, effective July 1, 1998. He is currently a professor in the Department of Chemistry at Pitt and recently completed serving five years as chair of that department.

In announcing Cooper's appointment, Provost James V. Maher emphasized the importance of the Arts and Sciences to the University's mission. "I have great confidence that Dr. Cooper can provide the aggressive and insightful academic leadership that will be needed to make our Arts and Sciences programs as good as they can possibly become. Dr. Cooper has demonstrated excellence in research and teaching, along with genuine concern for and interaction with graduate and undergraduate students, and he has all the qualities of talent, energy and integrity to be the truly outstanding dean that we need for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences," Maher said.

Cooper joined Pitt in 1986 as a professor of chemistry. Prior to that, he spent ten years on the faculty of Harvard University, where in 1983 he was appointed the first Loeb Associate Professor of Natural Science at that institution. He completed both his bachelor's and doctoral degrees in chemistry at Oxford University, and he has been a Fellow of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and is a recipient of the Corday-Morgan Medal from the Royal Society of Chemistry.

His primary research interests have been in the chemistry of the transition metals, and his work is supported by the National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research. In addition to his teaching, research, and administrative duties while at Pitt, he has also served on the University's Technology Transfer Committee, the Environmental Health and Safety Committee, and the Arts and Sciences Faculty Planning Advisory Committee.

Cooper succeeds Peter F. M. Koehler, who has served as dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences since 1986. Koehler will remain at Pitt as a faculty member in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.