Four Faculty Members Honored with Endowed Chairs

This past fall, Eileen T. Kraemer came to Clemson as the new C. Tycho Howle Director of the School of Computing. Characterized by Dean Anand Gramopadhye as “an impeccable researcher and scholar” with “a wealth of leadership experience,” Kraemer comes to Clemson from the University of Georgia, where she was associate dean of the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.
Being an administrator has not meant that she has left behind her research, which has combined psychology and computer science to find new ways of helping students reach greater achievements in computer science. She also is interested in the human aspects of software development. Kraemer’s other area of expertise is bioinformatics. She helped build a web-based database, EuPathDB.org, that allows biologists to analyze disease-causing pathogens, such as cryptosporidium, giardia and plasmodium. The website was a decade in the making and has received more than $6.5 million from the National Institutes of Health.
At Clemson, Kraemer oversees a school whose enrollment has grown nearly 84 percent, from 387 in 2007 to 712 in 2013. The school has 31 faculty who are tenured or on track to be tenured and six lecturers; three divisions: Computer Science, Visual Computing and Human-Centered Computing; and seven undergraduate and graduate degree programs.
[pullquote]Recruiting faculty such as Kraemer is made easier when Clemson is able to offer endowed professorships such as the one she holds, that provide support for the director’s salary and various activities, such as research.[/pullquote]
Kraemer was one of four faculty members honored this fall with the presentation of their endowed chair medallions at a ceremony that also honored the individuals and families who have provided funding for the chairs. In addition to Kraemer were Michael S. Caterino, who holds the John C. and Suzanne E. Morse Endowed Chair in Arthropod Biodiversity; Stephen Kresovich, who holds the Robert and Lois Coker Trustees Chair of Genetics; and Marek W. Urban, who holds the J.E. Sirrine Textile Foundation Endowed Chair in Advanced Polymer Fiber-Based Materials.
View a video of the endowed chairs ceremony: