Edward Steinfeld Among Three UB Professors Named as SUNY Distinguished Professor

Three more UB faculty members have been named a SUNY Distinguished Professor, the highest faculty rank in the SUNY system.

Appointed Distinguished Professors in recognition of their national or international prominence in their fields were Paresh Dandona, UB Distinguished Professor in the Department of Medicine, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences; Peter Rogerson, professor in the Department of Geography, College of Arts and Sciences; and Edward Steinfeld, professor in the Department of Architecture, School of Architecture and Planning.

The rank of distinguished professor is an order above full professorship and has three co-equal designations: distinguished professor, distinguished service professor and distinguished teaching professor.

The trio was among 21 SUNY faculty members appointed to the distinguished professor ranks by the SUNY Board of Trustees at the group’s May 10 meeting.

One of the world’s leading experts in the treatment of diabetes and vascular disease,Paresh Dandona also is founder and director of the Diabetes-Endocrinology Center of Western New York.

His current research interests include insulin resistance, inflammation and atherosclerosis; pro-oxidative and pro-inflammatory effect of macronutrients; anti-oxidative and anti-inflammatory effect of insulin and insulin sensitizers, TZDS; and the use of insulin infusion in reducing inflammation and increasing cardioprotection and cerebroprotection in heart attack and stroke.

Head of the Division of Endocrinology in the UB medical school and chief of endocrinology at Kaleida Health, Dandona has authored or co-authored more than 450 publications and has presented at numerous conferences on diabetes and endocrine disorders.

A UB faculty member since 1991, Dandona is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (UK), the American College of Physicians, the American College of Cardiology and the American College of Endocrinology.

Peter Rogerson is known internationally for his work in both population geography—demography—and in the field of spatial science, particularly for spatial modeling of migration and for new methods of spatial analysis.

A prolific scholar, he has edited two books and authored or co-authored three, including a best-selling textbook now in its third edition, and has published nearly 100 articles in refereed journals.

He has received numerous awards over the course of his career, including a NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award, a Guggenheim fellowship, a fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University and a Sustained Achievement Award from the UB Exceptional Scholars Program.

Most recently, Rogerson, who joined the UB faculty in 1986, was elected a 2011 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

An international pioneer in the field of inclusive design and environmental access, Edward Steinfeld is director of the Center for Inclusive Design and Environmental Access (IDeA), a UB center dedicated to making environments and products more usable, safer and healthier in response to the needs of an increasingly diverse population.

Steinfeld also is principal investigator for the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center (RERC) on Universal Design and the Built Environment, the largest funded research and design program on universal design in the world.

He is one of the authors of the seminal Principles of Universal Design, a framework for designing beautiful and functional environments for all people, regardless of age, gender or ability. The principles are instrumental in defining the concept throughout the world.

A UB faculty member since 1978, Steinfeld has published more than 150 scholarly articles and reports, as well as several books on inclusive design, and is the holder of three patents.