April 28, 2008
Michael Tanenhaus named Bishop Professor
jonathan.sherwood@rochester.edu
Michael Tanenhaus
Michael Tanenhaus, a leading expert on the neural
mechanisms of real-time spoken language and reading comprehension, will be
installed as the first holder of the Beverly Petterson Bishop and Charles
W. Bishop Professorship in the College of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering,
on May 6.
The professorship has been created to support an
outstanding scientist whose work is devoted to understanding the cognitive
functions of the brain and who is engaged in both research and the teaching
of undergraduate and graduate students. It is funded by a gift from two
University alumni from the class of 1946: Beverly Petterson Bishop, who
earned her master’s degree in psychology, and her husband Charles W.
Bishop, who earned with his doctorate in biochemistry.
“Michael Tanenhaus is an international
authority on the comprehension of language,” says Peter Lennie, the
Robert L. and Mary L. Sproull Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Sciences, and
Engineering. “His impact on the field, through his research and
through his training of students, has been remarkable, and I am delighted
that the generosity of Beverly and Charles Bishop enables us to recognize
it.”
“The nomination of Michael Tanenhaus seems like
a perfect match for the start I got in my scientific training in the
psychology department at Rochester,” says Beverly Bishop. “I am
excited to study some of his ground breaking studies on language processing
in the brain.”
Tanenhaus, currently a professor in the Department of
Brain and Cognitive Sciences, will be honored for the strength of his
research, which looks at how we comprehend language before the full meaning
of a phrase or sentence is known.
Tanenhaus and his students have recently begun using a
head-mounted eye-tracking system to monitor a person’s eye movements
as he or she follows spoken instructions to manipulate objects. By noting
precisely where a person glances as they interpret spoken words, Tanenhaus
is able to perceive how the brain works to comprehend language, even though
the listener is likely unaware of his or her own brain’s efforts.
Tanenhaus won the University Award for Excellence in
Graduate Teaching in 2002, became a fellow of the Association for
Psychological Science in 2005, and in 2006 was elected a fellow of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science
Beverly Bishop is a professor in the Department of
Physiology and Biophysics at the University of Buffalo where she studies
how the nervous system controls muscle activity. Her research interests
were strongly influenced by the late Hermann Rahn, former vice-chairman of
the Department of Physiology at Rochester. Bishop was awarded the SUNY
Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1975, and in 1992
received the highest accolade among faculty in the state-wide university
when she was named a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor. She is the
author of over 150 scholarly articles and editor of four books, and she has
taught and mentored thousands of students during a career that has spanned
over 50 years.
Charles Bishop is an associate professor of
medicine emeritus at the Erie County Medical Center in Buffalo. He is a
pioneer in the field of medical informatics, having designed the CODEN
system while working at the Chronic Disease Research Institute at the
University of Buffalo in 1953. Since then Bishop has expanded his quest to
make medical information freely available by founding a Web-based computer
patient record system and creating FRAMEMED, a Web site that allows users
to freely learn about nearly any medical concept. The founder of the Blood
Information Service, Bishop also published Current Literature of Blood weekly
for 11 years.
Lennie, along with President Joel Seligman and Board
Chairman G. Robert Witmer, Jr. 59’ will celebrate the Bishop’s
gift and present Tanenhaus as the inaugural recipient of the new
professorship at 4 p.m. in the Hawkins-Carlson Room in Rush Rhees Library.
A reception will follow immediately. All members of the University
community are welcome to attend. For parking information contact Francine
Miller at 275-7498 or fmiller@admin.rochester.edu.
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