- Provide the person's name, title, and the date on which the appointment is effective, as shown in the attached examples.
- State where the Ph.D. (or M.D.) was earned, as well as the subject and year. If the person was appointed to an Acting position and the Ph.D. was pending at the time of acceptance, please state when the degree is expected to be conferred. If the person received a degree that is equivalent to a Ph.D. or M.D., this should be stated. (Example: "Dr. X received his M.B., Ch.B. [equivalent to the M.D.] from the University of Oxford Medical School in 1988.") If the person has been hired in a department that does not require a Ph.D., list the degree(s) the person does hold. Don't include information on bachelor's or master's degrees unless there is a particular reason to do so.
- State where postdoctoral studies were done. Mention awards and honors conferred for Ph.D. and postdoctoral work, such as particularly prestigious fellowships or awards. Please be sure the names of fellowships and awards are complete and correct.
- Briefly list academic positions held prior to appointment at UCSD, if any. Mention prominent awards and honors, including memberships in major organizations such as the National Academy of Sciences. (Being a reviewer or board member for journals and granting agencies is commonplace and should not be mentioned unless there is an unusual reason to do so.)
- Briefly describe the person's main area(s) of research, the direction it will take at UCSD, and how the person's research focus fits the department's plans for future growth. It is essential that this material be clear and concise, and that it be nontechnical enough for a lay person to understand. While a staff member may be able to prepare other material for the mini-biography, in most cases the chair or another faculty member with expertise in the field should write the segment on research.
- Describe how the person will contribute to teaching, and mention any past teaching awards or other specific evidence that the person will be an exceptional teacher. Parents of prospective students are interested in the caliber of teaching at UCSD, so this information should not be neglected. If the person has been especially active in educational outreach activities, mention this as well. It is not necessary to list the specific classes the person will teach, but avoid vague statements such as "Her talents and commitment to teaching and mentoring will enrich graduate and undergraduate education in the Department of XXX." At least mention the general subjects the person will teach: "Dr. X will teach an undergraduate core course in developmental psychology and will offer graduate seminars in cognitive development."
Samples
PIOTR WINKIELMAN
Associate Professor, Psychology
Appointment effective 7/1/2003Dr. Winkielman received his Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Michigan in 1997, followed by a one-year postdoctoral fellowship in social neuroscience at Ohio State University. He was an assistant professor at the University of Denver prior to his appointment at UCSD. Dr. Winkielman has gained international recognition in the very important area of emotion research and will enhance the Department of Psychology's national standing in social psychology. His primary emphasis is on exploring the role of unconscious processes on affective states and the role of unconscious affective reactions on behavior. This work addresses basic questions of how emotion and cognition are integrated in the human mind, which is fundamental to any full understanding of behavior. One of Dr. Winkielman's research areas is autism, specifically the possible early emotional deficits underlying that disorder. He is well known for tackling cutting-edge problems with ingeniously designed experiments, and his work is supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Alliance for Autism Research. A highly rated instructor, Dr. Winkielman will teach undergraduate and graduate courses on social cognition and emotion and will develop a graduate seminar in psychophysiology and neuroscience.
ISAAC MARTIN
Acting Assistant Professor, Sociology
Appointment effective 7/1/2003Mr. Martin will join the Department of Sociology in July 2004 and will hold a joint appointment in the Urban Studies and Planning Program. He is expected to receive his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley, in December 2003, and during the 2003-04 academic year he will be a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Labor and Employment at Berkeley. His primary interests are social movements, urban politics, fiscal policy, and access to higher education. His dissertation examined the American grassroots tax revolt of the 1970s in comparison with a similar movement in Denmark, and he has also authored an article on local living-wage policies that received the Best Graduate Student Paper award for 2002 from the American Sociological Association. As deputy director of the Berkeley Project on Equal Opportunity, he is co-author of a forthcoming article on inequalities in access to higher education. This project, directed by Jerome Karabel and funded by the Ford Foundation, is expected to lead to a co-authored book on college admissions and public policy. Dr. Martin received an Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor award from UC Berkeley and is anticipated to be an excellent teacher. He will offer core graduate courses in political sociology and economic sociology, undergraduate classes in political sociology, social inequality, and urban sociology, and various courses in research methodology.
BRIAN KEATING Assistant Professor, Physics
Appointment effective 7/1/2003Dr. Keating received his Ph.D. in physics from Brown University in 2000. He was subsequently an NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellow at the California Institute of Technology, where he also received two graduate fellowships from NASA and emerged as a leader in the area of cosmic microwave background (CMB) studies. Fluctuations in temperature and polarization of the cosmic microwave background are important tools used to explore the origins of the universe and are consequently of great current interest in astrophysics. Dr. Keating made a substantial impact at Caltech, contributing as both a theorist and as a developer of new instrumentation in CMB studies, and he will open up this area of investigation for the astrophysics group at UCSD. He will teach courses in astrophysics and general physics, and students attest to his excellence as an instructor and mentor. In addition, Dr. Keating has considerable experience in educational outreach activities. While at Brown University, he presented research demonstrations to more than 1,800 high school students, and at Caltech he obtained funding for a radio telescope and arranged for high school students to use it to obtain data on bright radio sources. He plans to engage in similar outreach projects at UCSD.