Christopher Chen honored as 2019 William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor
Last week, Boston University President Robert A. Brown announced “…the appointment of four of our colleagues as William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professors. The Warren Professorship is the highest recognition that the University bestows on a faculty member. Christopher Chen, Michael Hasselmo, Xuefei Jin, and Ann McKee have been chosen to join this group, bringing the number of active Warren Professors to 13.”
The following is an excerpt from a news story on BU Today by Amy Laskowski. The full article can be read here.
“The William Fairfield Warren Professorships, named in honor of BU’s first president, were established in 2008 to recognize BU’s most distinguished faculty. The award is the highest distinction bestowed upon senior faculty members who remain actively involved in research, scholarship, teaching, and the University’s civic life. It comes with an annual scholarly allowance of $20,000 and funding for a month of summer salary. Each recipient is bestowed an emeritus title upon retirement…
Christopher Chen is one of the world’s leading experts on regenerative medicine. He studies tissue engineering and mechanobiology, which combines engineering and biology to study how physical forces and changes in cell or tissue mechanics affect development, physiology, and disease. He is director of BU’s Tissue Microfabrication Laboratory, founding director of the Biological Design Center, and deputy director of the National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center for Cellular Metamaterials, both housed at Boston University. Chen is also a member of the Harvard Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering.
“It means a great deal to be sharing this esteemed professorship with other luminaries here at BU, and especially being the first ENG faculty to be selected,” says Chen, who also recently won the 2019 Robert A. Pritzker Distinguished Lecture Award and is a fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. “It is especially meaningful to know that my research and educational activities are being amplified by this honor, and I hope to continue to add to its luster.”
Chen says the news of the professorship caught him off guard. Brown had invited him to a meeting at his office “to discuss nominations for awards, so I presumed he was asking me for input on one of his projects,” he says. “I thought something was up when he and Jean Morrison sat me down and they were beaming. It was meaningful to receive the honor personally from them.” “
ENG Professor Christopher Chen at a laboratory, Cummington Mall.
Photo by Chitose Suzuki for Boston University Photography