Mr. Erichsen to Getty Trust; Ms. White: General Counsel
 Peter C. Erichsen, Vice President and General Counsel for Penn and UPHS,
will leave to become Vice President and General Counsel for The J. Paul
Getty Trust, a private cultural and philanthropic foundation in Los Angeles.
He assumes his new position in September.
Mr. Erichsen will direct and manage all legal activities as well as play
an active role in helping set the strategic vision for the Getty, which
encompasses the J. Paul Getty Museum, institutes for research and conservation,
plus a grant program supporting learning and scholarship about the visual
arts and cultural heritage.
Mr. Erichsen has served as Vice President and General Counsel for Penn
and the Health System for nearly four years. During that time he has engineered
and managed the combining of the separate University and Health System legal
offices into a unified Office of General Counsel. "Under his leadership,
OGC has flourished as a team of professionals committed to providing outstanding
legal services," said President Judith Rodin in announcing Mr. Erichsen's
departure.
"Peter oversaw the coordination of the legal response to some of
our greatest institutional challenges, including the death of a volunteer
in a gene therapy clinical trial and the restructuring of the Health System.
His advice--not only on legal topics, but on a whole range of strategic
issues--will be sorely missed," Dr. Rodin said. Wendy S. White, Deputy
General Counsel for Penn, will become the new Vice President and General
Counsel upon Mr. Erichsen's departure at the end of this summer. "We
are truly fortunate to have someone with Wendy's demonstrated leadership
skills and depth and breadth of experience already on board to assume this
key position," said President Rodin.
 Ms. White came to Penn in September 1999 from the Washington, D.C. law
firm of Shea & Gardner, where she had been the administrative partner,
specializing in litigation and in issues related to non-profit institutions.
She took her J.D. degree, magna cum laude, from Penn Law in 1975.
"She has played a key role in developing our legal responses to
a variety of major challenges, managed the legal activities for a broad
range of institutional issues across the University, and provided advice
and counsel on numerous other issues. We are confident that she will be
a tremendous addition to the University's leadership team."
Lee J. Dobkin will become Deputy General Counsel for Penn and Chief Counsel
for UPHS. Mr. Dobkin joined the Office of General Counsel in March 1997,
where he currently serves as Deputy General Counsel for Compliance and Executive
Director for Compliance and Training. He had previously served as a section
chief in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District in Pennsylvania.
He took his J.D. degree cum laude, from Penn Law in 1982.
 "The University has benefited greatly from Lee's expertise and
counsel on a broad range of Health System and related issues," said
Dr. Rodin. Among his accomplishments are the successful completion of Clinical
Practice of the University of Pennsylvania's (CPUP) five year Corporate
Integrity Agreement with the federal government, and the re-design of the
Health System's Billing Compliance Program, as well as providing legal guidance
to the University's continuing efforts to ensure that clinical research
at Penn meets the highest possible standards for patient safety.
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$14 Million Grant for Bioengineering Education
The Whitaker Foundation announced a $14 million Leadership Development
Award to the Department of Bioengineering, a leader in bioengineering education
since granting the nation's first Ph.D. in the discipline 40 years ago.
The Whitaker funds will be matched by Penn support of $42.8 million, for
a total $56.8 million initiative.
"The University's strong belief in and commitment to the important
role of engineering and technology on its campus is reflected in this extraordinarily
generous investment in this initiative," said SEAS Dean Eduardo D.
Glandt.
The multi-year Whitaker grant will make possible new facilities for Bioengineering,
the recruitment of seven new faculty members and additional funds for graduate
student support.
"We are pleased and honored to be the recipients of this award acknowledging
Penn's strength in biomedical engineering education and research,"
said Dr. Daniel A. Hammer, professor and chair of bioengineering and principal
investigator on the award. "This is an extraordinary time for biomedical
engineering in the U.S., and Penn, with its strengths in engineering and
medicine, is well-poised to take advantage of new medical discoveries and
new advances in human health."
A major objective of the grant is to use insights and techniques of modern
molecular medicine and cell biology to prevent and treat diseases, Dr. Hammer
said, through technologies such as genomics, proteomics and cell and tissue
engineering.
"Engineering will play an increasing role in the development and
application of these concepts from fundamental biology to clinical treatment,"
Dr. Hammer said.
The Whitaker award is earmarked for further development of four of the
department's existing clinical research and teaching strengths: orthopedic
bioengineering, cardiovascular bioengineering, injury bioengineering and
neuroengineering.
A cornerstone of the Agenda for Excellence, the bioengineering department
will gain a new building, with modern research and educational facilities.
The grant will also allow the department, now with 14 faculty, to grow by
more than 50 percent.
Based in Arlington, Va., the foundation's mission is to promote better
human health through advancements in medicine and rehabilitation. The foundation
administers a series of competitive grant programs supporting research and
education in biomedical engineering at institutions in the U.S. and Canada. |
The Wharton School has announced
the creation of the William and Phyllis Mack Center for Technological Innovation.
As the umbrella organization for all of Wharton's technology management
initiatives, the Center will support the research and publishing activities
of Wharton faculty members, create an endowed professorship and support
a student-run conference. The Center is being established with a $10 million
gift from Penn Trustee William L. Mack, W '61, president and senior managing
partner of the Mack Organization, a national owner, investor and developer
of warehouse facilities. Mr. Mack also serves as chairman of Mack-Cali Realty
Corporation, a publicly traded REIT that owns and operates a portfolio of
office buildings throughout the United States, and he is founder and managing
partner of Apollo Real Estate Advisors.