Five members of the Biological Sciences Division faculty received distinguished service professorships, named professorships, or endowed chairs, effective July 1.
Marcelo Nóbrega has been named as a distinguished service professor. Megan Applewhite, Luís Bettencourt, and Scott Oakes have received named professorships, and Mohamad Bydon has received an endowed department chair position.
Megan Applewhite has been named the Carolyn and Matthew Bucksbaum Professor in Honor of Mark Siegler in the Department of Surgery.
Applewhite is a board-certified surgeon who specializes in endocrine surgery, specifically focused on the thyroid, parathyroid and adrenal glands. She performs surgical procedures that involve operating on these glands, which can help manage a wide range of conditions, including thyroid cancer, benign thyroid disease, parathyroid disease and adrenal disease.
In addition to her clinical work, Applewhite conducts research on the care of endocrine surgery patients, as well topics at the intersection of surgery and clinical medical ethics. In her role as the Associate Director of the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics, she focuses on bioethics education and research ethics, including the challenges surrounding surgical informed consent.
Her work in clinical research, as well as ethics research, has been published in numerous peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of the American College of Surgeons, Surgery, Annals of Internal Medicine, American Medical Association Journal of Ethics, The American Journal of Bioethics and more. She is also dedicated teacher who has guided medical students as they embark on their medical careers and serves as a committed mentor for residents and fellows, inspiring and educating the next generation of healthcare professionals.
Luís M. A. Bettencourt has been named the Lorna Puttkammer Straus Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution and the College.
Bettencourt’s research focuses on the theory and modeling of complex systems and the processes that underlie the structure and growth of cities. His work creates multidisciplinary theory and methods that integrate concepts from the natural and social sciences, based on network structures and dynamical processes of learning and adaptation. His research also explores new data and global contexts that allow for quantitative comparisons through time and space to advance our understanding of nature and society.
He collaborates with governments, NGOs, and interdisciplinary researchers worldwide to co-produce new insights and transformative practices for sustainable development. He is a pioneer in the field of urban science and wrote one of its foundational textbooks. His work has contributed significantly to a new sense of excitement about our scientific understanding of cities and processes of development, unifying urban themes over space and time and leading to new insights across complex systems more generally.
Bettencourt is also Associate Faculty of the Department of Sociology and External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute and the Vienna Complexity Science Hub. He grew up in Lisbon (Portugal) and obtained his undergraduate degree in Engineering Physics from IST Lisbon. He obtained his PhD from Imperial College London in Theoretical Physics and held postdocs and research positions at the University of Heidelberg (Germany), Los Alamos National Laboratory, MIT, and the Santa Fe Institute.
Mohamad Bydon has been named the Ginni and Mark Rometty Chair of Neurological Surgery.
Bydon, currently the Stahl Professor of Neuroscience in the Wallman Society of Fellows of Neurological Surgery, is a highly skilled neurosurgeon specializing in complex spinal conditions. International patients from global destinations, as well as national patients from across the United States, seek his expertise in robotic, minimally invasive and endoscopic spine surgery. He offers advanced, patient-centered care for diseases of the cervical, thoracic and lumbar spine, using advanced procedures to help patients return to their daily activities more quickly and with greater confidence.
As a committed researcher, Bydon is at the forefront of advancing spine surgery techniques. His work focuses on improving surgical outcomes and exploring new methods to enhance patient recovery. A national leader in large data analytics and surgical outcomes, he has directed national neurosurgical data registries encompassing over 400,000 spinal and cranial surgeries.
Additionally, Bydon has led large Phase 1 and Phase 2 clinical trials for the regenerative treatment of spinal cord injury using stem cells. He has over 600 peer-reviewed publications and is an international thought leader in spinal surgery, neurosurgical outcomes and spinal cord regeneration. He is passionate about mentoring the next generation of neurosurgeons, sharing his expertise and dedication to excellence in the field.
Marcelo Nóbrega has been named the Haig P. Papazian Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Human Genetics and the College.
Nóbrega, formerly the A.N. Pritzker Professor in the Department of Human Genetics and the College, was recently named Chair of the Department of Human Genetics. He is a globally respected investigator whose work has deepened understanding of how noncoding regions of the genome influence gene regulation and human diseases, including obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disorders, asthma, and preterm birth. By combining functional genomics, computational biology, and experimental approaches, his research has provided important insights into how genetic variation contributes to complex traits. This work is helping to advance the field of precision medicine and expand opportunities for therapeutic innovation.
In addition to his scientific contributions, Nobrega is a highly regarded mentor and collaborator who has strengthened interdisciplinary partnerships across the Biological Sciences Division and the University. He is deeply committed to fostering scientific curiosity, collaboration, and the development of future leaders in genetics.
He has served as an Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs for basic science faculty in the Biological Sciences Division, where he helped lead efforts to promote faculty development, including orientation of new faculty, career development, and skill building workshops on such topics as preparing for promotion, scientific writing, grantsmanship, trainee mentoring, leadership training, and wellness. He has also served as the chair of the Committee on Genetics, Genomics and Systems Biology, along with several committees focused on recruitment, mentoring and training of graduate students and faculty.
Scott Oakes has been named the inaugural Frank W. Fitch Professor in the Department of Pathology.
A pathologist and cell biologist, Oakes studies the signaling pathways that allow mammalian cells to sense, communicate and respond to intracellular stress and injury. His laboratory has made key discoveries into how these ancient stress-signaling pathways contribute to cancer, diabetes, and other diseases, and has designed early therapeutics to control them. He has a long history of training college students, PhD students, MD/PhD students, postdoctoral fellows and physician-scientists who have gone on to successful careers in biomedical research.
Oakes holds multiple leadership positions in the Biological Sciences Division (BSD). As the Vice Chair of Research for the Department of Pathology, he has greatly expanded the Experimental Pathology section through the recruitment of pathologist-scientists. He co-leads the Molecular Mechanisms of Cancer Program at the University of Chicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center. He is Vice Dean of Clinical Science Research in the BSD and plays a central role in steering the research enterprise for the Division, including the creation of the new Therapeutics Discovery Institute (TDI) and Hyde Park Labs.
Oakes has won numerous awards for his research, including an HHMI Early Career Physician Scientist Award, American Cancer Society Research Scholar Award, Harrington Discovery Institute Scholar-Innovator Award, American Association for Cancer Research Award, Induction into the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI), and Outstanding Investigator Award from the American Society for Investigative Pathology.
