Walter and Leonore Annenberg
Professors in SAS

SAS Dean Samuel H. Preston has announced the appointment of Dr. J. Kent Blasie and Professor Peter Stallybrass to Walter H. and Leonore C. Annenberg Professorships.

Dr. J. Kent Blasie, professor of chemistry, is the new Walter H. and Leonore C. Annenberg Professor in the Natural Sciences. Dr. Blasie received his B.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1964 and 1968 respectively. He has been a professor of chemistry at Penn since 1979 and served as department chair from 1983 to 1985, initiating the first phase of an ongoing development plan. He also served on the faculty of the Medical School's Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics 1968-1979 before moving to the chemistry department in 1977 as an associate professor.

His research focus is on the structure and dynamics of membrane proteins and their artificial counterparts as biomolecular materials. He serves on the executive committee of the University's Laboratory for Research on the Structure of Matter, as well as advisory committees at Argonne National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. In addition, he is the director of the Complex Materials Collaborative Access Team at the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory.

He has been the recipient of research grants from the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health, and an undergraduate education grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Professor of English Peter Stallybrass is the new Walter H. and Leonore C. Annenberg Professor in the Humanities. Professor Stallybrass received his undergraduate degree from the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom, where he also taught and did graduate work in Shakespeare and in European Romanticism. He joined Penn's English faculty in 1988 after teaching at Smith College, Hampshire College and Dart-mouth College.

His area of interest is the Renaissance and the history of the book and material culture. He received the James Russell Lowel Prize of the Modern Language Association for his latest book, Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory with Ann Rosalind Jones. His other books include The Politics and Poetics of Transgression with Allon White and O Casaco de Marx: Roupas, Memria, Dor, a collection of essays on Marx, materiality, and memory. In 2000 he was the Samuel Wanamaker Fellow at the Globe Theater in London and chair of the English Institute at Harvard University. He won the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching in 2000 and SAS' Ira Abrams Memorial Award for Distinguished Teaching in 1997.

The Honorable Walter and the Honorable Leonore Annenberg, both of whom are emeritus Penn trustees, are lifelong supporters of Penn and patrons of education across the U.S. They have endowed many chairs in SAS and have made countless contributions to the University, including the creation of several professorships and the founding of the Annenberg School for Communication in 1958.