Two new faculty appointments were announced on Friday, but three of Penn's schools are receiving professors.
University President Amy Gutmann announced the appointment of two professors for Penn Integrates Knowledge - her program launched in 2005 to hire professors to hold appointments in multiple schools - at Friday's trustees meeting.
Christopher Murray from the IBM research division and Jonathan Moreno from the University of Virginia are beginning their careers at Penn next semester.
Murray will join the Chemistry department in the School of Arts and Sciences and the Materials Science department in the School of Engineering and Applied Science.
Moreno will teach medical ethics in the School of Medicine and in the History and Sociology of Science department in the School of Arts and Sciences.
"Both of these appointments are going to be tremendous assets for the School of Arts and Sciences," said dean of the School of Arts and Sciences Rebecca Bushnell. "Both of them are in critical areas for our strategic plan."
She explained that part of Penn's strategic plan includes major investments in nanoscale research. Murray is a leading researcher in the field, coming from managing the Nanoscale Materials and Devices department at IBM.
"We were ranked number one in Small Change magazine in nanoscience this year," Gutmann said. "The recruitment of Christopher Murray is going to put us over the top."
Engineering School Dean Eduardo Glandt agreed.
"This is a transformational hire," he said. "He is one of the most cited scientists in nanotech in the world."
And Murray is excited to bring his work to Penn.
"I've always worked at the intersection between chemistry and material sciences," he said. "What was a real attraction for me was the recent revitalization of the material-science program at Penn."
Murray added that other institutions do not have Penn's level of advancement in his research areas.
Moreno was also attracted to Penn because of the interdisciplinary nature his work would take at the University.
"The idea of integrating medical ethics and the history and sociology of sciences just fits what I do like a glove," he said. "I seem to be unable to write about medicine without writing about the history of ethics and the history of medicine."
Moreno, who comes from serving as the director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics at the University of Virginia, will be teaching a freshmen seminar called "Is there an Ethicist in the House?" named after his recent book of the same title.
"I feel like, first of all, I'm going to be a less-experienced freshman than the freshmen, but I'm really excited to be working with the students," he said. "That's the fun part of being a professor."
And the two appointments have actually yielded three professors, as Murray's wife, Cherie Kagan, will be joining him as an Electrical Engineering professor.
"They had offers from all over," Glandt said. "They chose to come to Penn."
