University of New Orleans Distinguished Faculty Members

Boyd Professor

Peter Politzer
Chemistry

Distinguished Professors

Rasheed M. A. Azzam
Electrical Engineering

Warren M. Billings
History

Carol W. Gelderman
English

Charles J. O'Connor
Director, AMRI

Edwin D. Stevens
Department Chair, Chemistry

Peter Politzer

Ph.D., Chemistry, Case Western Reserve University, 1964

Publications

257 refereed articles in journals
71 invited chapters in volumes or special issues
5 volumes edited
125 invited presentations at conferences and symposia
60 invited lectures and seminars

Awards/Honors
President, International Society of Quantum Biiology and Pharmacology, 1987-1989; 1999-2001.
President, Cancer Association of Greater New Orleans, 1990-1991.
Distinguished Professor, UNO, 1982-93.
President, Environment and Health Council of Louisiana, 1990-present.
Co-Editor: Theoretical and Computational Chemistry
Journal of Molecular Modeling

Grants/Patents

Total external funding since 1981: $4.7 million

Rasheed Azzam

Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 1971

Publications

Dr. Azzam is author or co-author of 3 book chapters and over 250 papers, and the monograph Ellipsometry and Polarized Light, which was first published by North-Holland in 1977, translated into Russian by Mir, Moscow, in 1981, and appeared in paperback in 1987.

Awards/Honors

Fellow of the Optical Society of America
Fellow of the International Society for Optical Engineering
Fellow of the Third World Academy of Sciences (Trieste, Italy)

Azzam served as the Polarization Optics Topical Editor for Applied Optics (Optical Technology and Biomedical Optics Division), 1993-1999, and as the Topical Editor of the Journal of the Optical Society of America A for Polarization and Thin Films, 1985-1989. He served as co-organizer, co-chairman, and proceedings co-editor of several national and international conferences on ellipsometry, polarized light, and optical polarimetry. He was co-editor of special issues of Journal of the Optical Society of America A, Optical Engineering, two volumes of Surface Science, and editor of SPIE's Milestone Series Vol. 27 Selected Papers on Ellipsometry.

Azzam was recognized as an Outstanding American Inventor, and placed as a finalist, in America's 1988 Inventor of the Year Award, sponsored by Intellectual Property Owners, Inc., for his four-detector photopolarimeter. This invention, which led to the commercial development of the StokesMeter by Gaertner, received a Photonics Circle of Excellence Award and one of the R&D 100 Awards. Azzam was Fulbright Senior Research Scholar and Visiting Professor at Université de Provence, Marseille, France, 1985-86. He holds 5 US patents.

Warren M. Billings

Ph.D., History, Northern Illinois University, 1968

Publications

Editor and contributor A Law Unto Itself: Essays in the New Louisiana Legal History (Baton Rouge, 2001)
Editor and contributor In Search of Fundamental Law: Louisiana's Constitutions, 1813-1974 (Lafayette, La. 1993)
Jamestown and the Founding of the Nation (Gettysburg, Pa., 1991)
Colonial Virginia: A History (White Plains, N.Y., 1984), written with John E. Selby and Thad W. Tate
A Little Parliament: The General Assembly of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century (Library of Virginia, fall 2003)

Awards/Honors

Historian of the Supreme Court of Louisiana
Member, Federal Jamestown 400th Commission
Garnie W. McGinty Lifetime Achievement Award from the Louisiana Historical Association
Honorary Life Member, British and Irish Association of Law Librarians
Visiting Williams Professor of Law, University of Richmond, Fall 2002
Fellow, American Bar Foundation, 1982
Virginia Historical Society Mellon Fellow, 1989, 1992
Archie K. Davis Fellow, 1995-1996
National Endowment Travel to Collections grant, 1989
American Philosophical Grant-in-aid of Research, 1975,1992

Carol Gelderman

Ph.D., English, Northwestern University, 1972

Publications

All the Presidents' Words, The Bully Pulpit and the Creation of the Bully Pulpit, NY: Walker, 1997 (Chapter one: www.nytimes.com)
Louis Auchincloss, A Writer's Life, NY: Crown, 1993
Henry Ford, The Wayward Capitalist, NY: Dial Press, 1981 (paperback, St. Martin's Press, 1990)
George Fitzmaurice, Boston: G.K. Hall, 1979
Conversations with Mary McCarthy, Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1991
Four additional books and 75 articles

Awards/Honors

Mary McCarthy, A Life (St. Martin's Press, 1988) reviewed front page NYTBR, Wash. Post Book World, San Francisco Chronicle; cited as one of oustanding
books of 1988 by New York Times and best literary biography of Great Britain (Sidgwick and Jackson) in 1989 (Bookseller, Dec. 15, 1989, p.1924).

"Critics and How They Got That Way," American Theatre Magazine, June 1990 cited as best critical piece of the year by American Critics Association (July 18, 1990, p.4 in association's newsletter)

Member, State Selection Committee for Rhodes Scholarship Trust, 2000-

Keynoter or lecturer at several dozen forums on presidential speechwriting including Smithsonian, Heritage Foundation, White House, Williams College, the Kennedy School

Board member, P.E.N. American Center

Grants/Patents

Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History Fellowship, 2001
Four NEH Summer grants (seminars and stipends), 1997, 1993, 1979, 1975
NEH Research Fellowship, 1981-1982
American Council for Learned Societies Grant, 1985
NEH Planning and Production Grants for tv mini-series based on my biography of Henry Ford, $181,000, 1985-6

Charles J. O'Connor

Ph.D., University of Illinois at Chicago, 1976

Publications

"Synthesis and Characterization of Ni Magnetic Nanoparticles in AlMCM41 Host," J.-S. Jung, K.-H. Choi, W.-S. Chae, Y.-R. Kim, J.-H. Jun, L. Malkinski, T. Kodenkandath, W. Zhou, J.B. Wiley, and C.J. O'Connor, J. Phys. Chem. Solids, 64, 2003, 385-390.

"Electrodeposition of Metallic Nanowire Thin Films using Mesoporous Silica Templates," D. Wang, W.L. Zhou, B.F. McCaughy, J.E. Hampsey, X. Ji, Y.-B. Jiang, H. Xu, J. Tang, R.H. Schmehl, C. O'Connor, C.J. Brinker, Y. Lu, Advanced Materials, 15(2), 2003, 130-133.

"Synthesis of One-Dimensional Magnetic Co Nanoparticles in a Novel Solution System," C. Wang, J. Fang, J. He, and C.J. O'Connor, J. Colloid Interface Sci., 259(2), 2003, 411-413.

"Convenient Arc-Electrodeposition Technique to Synthesize CdS Nanotubes at Room Temperature," C. Wang, J. Fang, J. He, and C.J O'Connor, J. Mater. Sci Lett., 22(6), 2003, 413-415.

"Magnetic and Structural Properties of Nonstoichiometric Ni2MnGa Alloys with Ni and Ga Excess," V.O. Golub, A.Ya. Vovk, C.J. O'Connor, V.V. Kotov, P.G. Yakovenko, and K. Ullakko, J. Appl. Phys., 93, 2003, 8504-8506.

Grants/Patents

"Nano-Sized Powder Development and Processing for Use in Unique Low Voltage Tunable Thick Film Devices," DARPA, 7/01/02-6/30/05, $1,002,897

"Nanotechnology Research for Energy Conservation, and Biological and Environmental Applications," U.S. Department of Energy, 7/01/02-12/31/03, $485,000

"A Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FESEM) for UNO: Promoting Strategies that Lead to Superior Materials," LA Board of Regents Enhancement Program, 7/01/02-12/31/03, $451,600

"REU Site: Summer Research Program in Materials Science and Nanotechnology," National Science Foundation, 3/15/03-3/15/04, $195,000

C.J. O'Connor, E.E. Carpenter, and J.A. Sims, "Sequential Synthesis of Core-Shell Magnetic Nanoparticles for Nanocomposites using Reverse Micelles," U.S. Pat. Appl. Publ., US 20020068187, A1, 12 pp., (2002).