The School of Nursing appointed three new professors to endowed professorships this academic year.
According to the Sept. 8 announcement, the recent appointees include nutrition professor Bart De Jonghe and professors of nursing Melanie Kornides and Lauren Massimo, who will each hold chairs related to their research and teaching experience. At Penn, endowed professorships are enabled by a minimum donation of $3 million.
De Jonghe, a professor of nutrition in the Nursing School’s Department of Biobehavioral Health Sciences, was named the Shearer Endowed Term Professor in Healthy Community Practices.
His research primarily focuses on the neuroscience of appetite and nausea and has advanced the understanding of how hormones influence food intake and gastrointestinal side effects. Over the course of his career, he has published more than 50 peer-reviewed articles in leading scientific journals.
De Jonghe — who helped establish Penn’s Nutrition Science undergraduate major — has chaired Penn’s Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee for the last four years. In 2022, he also received the University’s Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching.
Kornides, a professor in the Department of Family and Community Health, was named the Dr. Hildagarde Reynolds Endowed Term Chair of Primary Care Nursing.
Her research examines vaccination, preventive care, and population health, with a focus on HPV vaccination and adolescent health. She has also studied factors associated with vaccine hesitancy, particularly among adolescents and underserved populations.
Before joining the Nursing School, Kornides worked as a family nurse practitioner and public health nurse. She is now a Senior Fellow at Penn’s Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics.
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Massimo, a professor in the Department of Biobehavioral Health Sciences, was named the Anthony Buividas Term Chair in Gerontology.
Massimo studies the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases and serves as the co-director of the Penn Frontotemporal Degeneration Center, which studies a group of brain disorders caused by degeneration in the frontal or temporal lobes.
Her recent publications include research on racial differences in the clinical presentation of frontotemporal degeneration, as well as a pilot study about frontotemporal degeneration caregivers who “sacrifice their own self-care to manage the functional impairments of their loved one.”
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Staff reporter Saanvi Ram covers science and health and can be reached at ram@thedp.com. At Penn, she studies health and societies. Follow her on X @Saanvi_vivi.
