Mackay, Ade Honored With Goodnight Innovation Distinguished Chair, Professorship
[spotlight-box label=”” img=”” heading=”Our Professorships” cta=”Learn more” url=”https://sciences.ncsu.edu/giving/ways-to-give/our-professorships/”]Professorships honor faculty who are leading the way in research, teaching and creativity. Meet the college’s professorship holders.[/spotlight-box]
The College of Sciences recently awarded a distinguished chair and a distinguished professorship to two of its outstanding scientists. The professorships were made possible by a gift from longtime NC State supporters Jim and Ann Goodnight.
Trudy Mackay of the Department of Biological Sciences was named a Goodnight Innovation Distinguished Chair. Mackay is a prominent geneticist whose groundbreaking work focuses on the genetic and environmental factors affecting variation in complex traits, characteristics that can be tied to one or more genes in an organism. Her signature project is the Drosophila Genetic Reference Panel, a collection of more than 200 fruit fly lines that hundreds of researchers around the world use in their work.
Harald Ade of the Department of Physics was named a Goodnight Innovation Distinguished Professor. Ade is a noted physicist who has received international attention for his interdisciplinary work on understanding the physics of organic solar cells and light-emitting diodes, creating novel devices, and inventing and using new characterization methods with an emphasis on applications to organic devices. Some of his recent work has focused on fabricating more efficient plastic solar cells.
The ability to recruit and retain faculty through the creation of endowed positions is one of NC State’s Think and Do the Extraordinary Campaign priorities.
