UIC Distinguished Professor Award

Learn more about the UIC Distinguished Professorship.

Announcing 2024-25 UIC Distinguished Professors Heading link

The UIC Distinguished Professorship was created to recruit and recognize persons who have made a significant impact upon their field through scholarship, creativity, and leadership.

Eben Alsberg

Eben Alsberg

Departments of Biomedical Engineering, Orthopaedic Surgery, Pharmacology and Regenerative Medicine, and Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Colleges of Medicine and Engineering

Eben Alsberg holds the Richard and Loan Hill Chair and is a UIC Distinguished Professor in the Departments of Biomedical Engineering, Orthopaedic Surgery, Pharmacology and Regenerative Medicine, and Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Illinois Chicago. His laboratory focuses on engineering functional biologic replacements to repair damaged or diseased tissues in the body. He has co-authored more than 155 peer reviewed papers and book chapters, and his work has been recognized with the TERMIS Senior Scientist Award, the Biovalley Young Investigator Award from the TESI, the Ellison Medical Foundation New Scholar in Aging Award, the Crain’s Cleveland Business Forty Under 40 Award, the Technion Lady Davis Fellowship, a Visiting Professorship at Kyung Hee University, and election as fellow of NAI, TERM, AIMBE, BMES and IAMBE. His research has been funded by the NIH, DOD, NSF, the Ellison Medical Foundation, the Coulter Foundation, the Musculoskeletal Transplant Foundation, and the AO Foundation. Alsberg has ~30 patents issued or pending in the field of tissue engineering. He has given more than 160 invited lectures around the world and is active in many professional societies.

Abolfazl Mohammadian

Abolfazl Mohammadian

Department of Environmental Engineering
College of Engineering

Dr. Abolfazl ‘Kouros’ Mohammadian is a Professor of Transportation Systems and Head of Civil, Materials, and Environmental Engineering Department. His research has covered various areas of transportation systems engineering, modeling and simulation, travel behavior analysis, travel demand forecasting, travel survey methods, and freight and logistics modeling. He is well known for using computational methods for advancing transportation system operations and mobility of people and goods for the next generations of infrastructure systems.

R.V. Paul Chan

R.V. Paul Chan

Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Science
College of Medicine

R.V. Paul Chan, MD, MSc, MBA is the Department Head and the John H. Panton, MD Professor of
Ophthalmology at the Illinois Eye and Ear Infirmary, University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). His clinical
practice focuses on vitreoretinal surgery, with an expertise in pediatric retinal disease. Dr. Chan received
his BA from the University of Pennsylvania, MD from the Temple University School of Medicine, MSc
from Weill Cornell Medical College (WCMC), and MBA from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of
Business. After completing Ophthalmology residency at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital of WCMC,
he went on to a Fellowship in Vitreoretinal Surgery at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary at
Harvard Medical School. Dr. Chan spent nine years on faculty at WCMC, as Director of the Retina Service
and Vitreoretinal Fellowship, before moving to UIC.

Dr. Chan is a global leader in pediatric blindness prevention and retinopathy of prematurity (ROP). His
primary research interests focus on utilizing new technology and imaging techniques to better evaluate
and manage children with retinal disease. He has authored over 250 peer reviewed articles and has
received grant funding by the NIH, the NSF, and a number of charitable foundations. He is a core team
member of the Imaging and Informatics for ROP (i-ROP) consortium and leads the Global Education
Network for ROP (GEN-ROP), which is an international collaboration of investigators with expertise in
neonatology, ophthalmology, biomedical informatics, international health, and medical education. Dr.
Chan also serves as a consultant for programs sponsored by the United States Agency for International
Development (USAID), Orbis International, and Helen Keller International (HKI).

Dr. Chan is a leader in academic ophthalmology and organized medicine. He serves on the Board of
Trustees for Prevent Blindness America, the Board of Trustees for the Society of Heed Fellows, the Board
of Trustees for the Association of University Professors of Ophthalmology, the Executive Committee for
the Pan-American Association of Ophthalmology (PAAO), and is a member of the Committee of
Secretaries for the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO), where he was the Secretary for Global
Alliances.

Past UIC Distinguished Professor Award Recipients Heading link

  • Sanjib Basu, Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health
  • Ana Bedran-Russo, Department of Oral Biology, College of Dentistry
  • Sudip Mazumder, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering
  • Gail Prins, Department of Urology, College of Medicine

 

  • Mark I. Rosenblatt, Administration, College of Medicine
  • Nik Theodore, Department of Urban Planning and Policy, College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs
  • María de los Angeles Torres, Department of Latin American and Latino Studies, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
  • Anne George, Professor, Oral Biology, Dentistry
  • Jennifer Lim, Professor, Ophthalmology, Medicine
  • Zizi Papacharissi, Professor, Communication, Liberal Arts and Sciences
  • Larry Danziger, Professor, Pharmacy Practice, Pharmacy
  • Xiaoping Du, Professor, Pharmacology and Regenerative, Medicine
  • Jie Liang, Professor, Biomedical Engineering, Engineering
  • William F Mieler, Professor, Ophthalmology, Medicine
  • Anna Curtenius Roosevelt, Professor, Anthropology, Liberal Arts and Sciences