I am delighted to announce the appointment of Dr. Philip Farabaugh as Chair of the Department of Biological Sciences, effective August 23, 2011.
A Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, Dr. Farabaugh will build on his many experiences with leadership roles at UMBC. He has served as the Graduate Program Director of the MS Program in Applied Molecular Biology and the PhD Program in Molecular and Cell Biology, as well as the Undergraduate Program Director of the BS Program in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. He has chaired the University Faculty Review Committee and the University Direct Research Initiative Fund (DRIF) Grant Review Committee and served on a variety of other University committees and councils. Within the Department of Biological Sciences he has served as chair of the Graduate Committee, the Writing Intensive (WI) Program Committee, the Seminar Committee, the Web Page and Marketing Committee, and several faculty search committees.
Continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) since 1981, Dr. Farabaugh has earned over $5 million in Federal funding. He has authored 62 peer-reviewed publications and a book. In his laboratory he has mentored 10 PhD and three M.S. candidates, six postdoctoral fellows, and 31 undergraduate students. He has presented at 48 national and international conferences and presented seminars at 54 institutions across the United States and several European countries.
Dr. Farabaugh came to UMBC in 1989 from the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington, Connecticut. He completed postdoctoral work in Molecular Genetics in 1981 while working with Dr. Gerald Fink at Cornell University after receiving his PhD in Biochemistry in 1978 from Harvard University while working with Walter Gilbert, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1980. He earned a BA in Biology, magna cum laude, in 1972 from the University of California San Diego. On behalf of our faculty, students, and staff I would like to thank Dr. Farabaugh for his willingness to serve our community with his skills and experience.
We also express our most sincere gratitude to Dr. Lasse Lindahl, who has served as Chair of the Department of Biological Sciences for the past 17 years. Dr. Lindahl came to UMBC from the University of Rochester in Fall 1994 and, during his tenure as chair, he has worked to improve the department in many ways. He has overseen the hiring of 19 faculty members and the establishment of several new educational programs. He led the comprehensive effort to renovate the Biological Sciences Building by successfully applying to the National Science Foundation for $1.5 million in seed money for the $12.5 million project, which was completed in 2000. Dr. Lindahl, who has maintained an active research lab in ribosome biogenesis, has promoted student research in the life sciences at the undergraduate and graduate levels by applying for and receiving training grants from a variety of federal sources. He will continue to serve as the Program Director of the Minority Access to Research Careers (MARC) Program at UMBC, which has been continuously funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) since 1997. Also, he will continue to serve as the Principal Investigator of the $1.5 NIGMS-funded Interdisciplinary Quantitative Biology (IQB) Curriculum Project. Dr. Lindahl is responsible for planting the seed for the concept of the interdisciplinary life sciences building, now in the planning stages. The department’s research and education programs have expanded and are much stronger as a result of his leadership.
