Faculty and staff

Angelo Scanu, distinguished service professor emeritus of medicine and biochemistry and molecular biology, died January 12 in Chicago. He was 93. After receiving a Fulbright Scholarship in 1955, Scanu left the University of Naples in his native Italy to study biochemistry at the Cleveland Clinic. In 1961 he entered the UChicago internal medicine residency program, and in 1963 he received his first faculty appointment in the Department of Medicine as assistant professor of cardiology. His research advanced the understanding of lipoprotein(a), a genetic risk factor for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Until his retirement in 2010, he was director or principal investigator on numerous grant-funded research projects and programs, including the Lipoprotein Study Unit and Lipid Clinic. His wife, Ann Wahl Scanu, AM’79, died in 2007. He is survived by his partner, Celina Edelstein; daughter Gabriella Scanu, LAB’83; son Marco Scanu, LAB’84; and two grandchildren.

Jack Halpern, the Louis Block Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, died January 31 in Chicago. He was 93. A leader in the field of inorganic and organometallic chemistry, Halpern joined UChicago in 1962. His research on homogeneous catalytic reactions in organometallic compounds became instrumental to a variety of modern chemical manufacturing processes, from pharmaceuticals to adhesives. For many years he was editor of the Journal of the American Chemical Society, and from 1993 to 2001 he served as vice president of the National Academy of Sciences, where he was also associate editor of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A supporter of the arts, Halpern was a longtime board member of UChicago’s Court Theatre and Smart Museum of Art. Survivors include daughters Janice Halpern, LAB’68, and Nina Halpern, LAB’72; a brother; two grandchildren; and a great-grandson.

Milton J. Rosenberg, professor emeritus of psychology, died January 9 in Chicago. He was 92. A social psychologist and a longtime radio host, Rosenberg taught in the Department of Psychology at UChicago from 1965 until his retirement in 1996. For nearly 40 years he hosted the daily long-format interview program Extension 720 on WGN radio, broadcasting to 38 states and bringing top public intellectuals of the day to a mass audience. Rosenberg’s scholarship ranged from the hidden social dynamics behind attitude acquisition to forms of public protest in the Vietnam War era. His publications include Vietnam and the Silent Majority: The Dove’s Guide (1970) and Beyond Conflict and Containment: Critical Studies of Military and Foreign Policy (1972). In 2008 he won the National Humanities Medal for his talk show. Survivors include his wife, Marjorie; a son, Matthew D. Rosenberg, LAB’76; a brother; and two grandchildren.

Robert McCormick Adams, PhB’47, AM’52, PhD’56, the Harold H. Swift Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, died January 27 in Chula Vista, CA. He was 91. Adams joined the UChicago faculty in anthropology in 1955, eventually serving in several leadership positions: as dean of the Division of the Social Sciences, as provost of the University from 1982 to 1984, and twice as director of the Oriental Institute. A scholar of Near Eastern archaeology, he reshaped theories about ancient urban societies, pioneered the use of landscape archaeology methods, and left a lasting influence on the study of the Anthropocene. His many books include Land behind Baghdad: A History of Settlement on the Diyala Plains (1965) and two others on Mesopotamian settlement patterns. From 1984 to 1994, he was secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Survivors include a daughter, Megan Adams, LAB’73; two stepdaughters; and three grandchildren.

Robert N. Clayton, the Enrico Fermi Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in Chemistry, Geophysical Sciences, and the Enrico Fermi Institute, died December 30 in Michigan City, IN. He was 87. In cosmochemistry, his studies of oxygen isotopes in lunar rocks retrieved by the Apollo missions led to a method of identifying meteorites, which fueled expansive studies of how planets and other bodies in the solar system formed. He also made major contributions to the field of stable isotope geothermometry. Chair of the Department of Geophysical Sciences and later director of the Enrico Fermi Institute, Clayton was awarded the National Medal of Science in 2004. He is survived by his wife, Cathy; his daughter, Elizabeth Clayton, LAB’93; and a granddaughter.

Peter Freund, professor emeritus in the Department of Physics and the Enrico Fermi Institute, of Chicago died March 6. He was 81. A theoretical physicist and literary author, Freund joined the UChicago faculty in 1965 and specialized in particle physics. He was an early contributor to supersymmetry and string theory. His publications in theoretical physics include the monograph Introduction to Supersymmetry (1986) and Superstrings (1988), which he coedited. In 2007 Freund began publishing narrative nonfiction and fiction, including A Passion for Discovery (2007), about famous physicists of the 20th century. He is survived by his wife, Lucy (MacAlpine) Freund, AM’60, PhD’65; two daughters; and five grandchildren.

Moishe Postone, SB’63, AM’67, the Thomas E. Donnelley Professor in the Department of History and the College, of Chicago died March 19. He was 75. Postone was a leading commentator on the works of Karl Marx and studied the phenomenon of 20th-century anti-Semitism in the context of capitalism’s history. His book Time, Labor, and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx’s Critical Theory (1993) put forth an influential reinterpretation of Marx’s theories of labor. A UChicago faculty member since 1987, Postone codirected the Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory, was a member of the Greenberg Center for Jewish Studies, and chaired the College Core sequence Self, Culture, and Society. He is survived by his wife, Christine Achinger; his son, Benjamin B. Postone, LAB’11, AM’17; a sister; and a brother.

Raymond Gadke, AM’66, reading room manager at the Joseph Regenstein Library, died February 26 in Chicago. He was 74. A member of the University’s library staff since 1969, Gadke began overseeing the microforms department when the Regenstein Library opened in 1971 and went on to manage the periodical reading room and the reference collections. Known for his personal collection of religious statues, he donated rare religious studies materials to the Regenstein and established the Elden and Ruth Lauffenburger Gadke Endowment Fund to acquire scholarly resources in the field. In 2015 more than 50 UChicago alumni raised money to create the Ray Gadke Internship Fund through the Jeff Metcalf Internship Program. He is survived by a brother.

John T. Cacioppo, the Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor of Psychology, died March 5 in Chicago. He was 66. A founder of the field known as social neuroscience, Cacioppo served as chair of the Social Psychology Program and director of the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience. Studying the links between social and neural development, he demonstrated the effects of loneliness on mental and physical health. His many publications include Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connections (2008). He received the Career Achievement Award from the Chicago Society for Neuroscience in 2016 and the William James Fellow Award from the Association for Psychological Science in 2018. He is survived by his wife, Stephanie Cacioppo, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral neuroscience; a daughter; and a son.

Steven Collins, the Chester D. Tripp Professor in the Humanities, died February 15 in New Zealand. He was 66. Collins joined the UChicago faculty in 1991 and taught in the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations and the Divinity School’s history of religions program. He was an expert in the Buddhist traditions recorded in the Pali language of South Asia. His publications include Selfless Persons: Imagery and Thought in Theravada Buddhism (1982), the textbook A Pali Grammar for Students (2006), and the anthology Readings of the Vessantara Jātaka (2016), which he edited. He is survived by his wife, Claude Grangier, senior lecturer in Romance Languages and Literature; three children; and three grandchildren.

Robert J. LaLonde, AB’80, professor at Harris Public Policy, died of complications from a neurodegenerative illness January 17 in Chicago. He was 59. LaLonde was on the UChicago faculty for three decades and served as director of Harris’s doctoral program. An expert in labor economics, he was also a fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research and the Institute for the Study of Labor. He served on the board of the nonprofit Public/Private Ventures, which helps improve the outcomes of community initiatives and social policies and programs. He is survived by his wife, Laura Skosey, LAB’79, AM’87, PhD’96; two daughters, Elena Skosey-LaLonde, LAB’13, and Eve P. Skosey-LaLonde, LAB’16; a son, current Lab student Julian Skosey-LaLonde; his father; four sisters; and two brothers.

1930s

Landrum R. Bolling, AM’38, died January 17 in Arlington, VA. He was 104. Bolling taught political science at Brown University and Beloit College before joining the faculty of Earlham College, a Quaker institution, where he served as president from 1958 to 1973. He later became executive vice president of the Lilly Endowment and then chief executive of the Council on Foundations. A longtime nonviolence advocate, Bolling played an unofficial role in President Jimmy Carter’s negotiations with Arab and Israeli leaders and helped secure the 1984 release of a US journalist held captive by Hezbollah. He is survived by two daughters, two sons, eight grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.

1940s

Myron Rush, AB’42, PhD’51, died January 8 in Herndon, VA. He was 96. Rush was trained as an encryption specialist in the US Army Air Force during World War II and afterward worked in the CIA’s Foreign Broadcast Information Service Analysis Group, where he helped establish the field of Kremlinology. While working as an analyst for the RAND Corporation, Rush published The Rise of Khrushchev (1958), which put forth a predictive analytic technique that was used to assess Soviet power struggles during the Cold War. From RAND Rush moved to Cornell University, where he was professor of government, and served the CIA as a consultant intermittently from the 1970s through the 1990s. His wife, Theresa Neumann, AB’44, died in 2012. He is survived by a daughter, two sons, four grandchildren, and a great-grandchild.

Milton Shadur, SB’43, JD’49, died January 15 in Glenview, IL. He was 93. Shadur served as US District judge for the Northern District of Illinois from 1980 until September 2017, though he never officially retired. He wrote more than 11,000 opinions on the federal bench. Many of his notable cases involved civil rights. In 1983 he approved a voluntary school desegregation plan proposed by the Chicago Board of Education. In 1986 he ruled that inmates in protective custody in Stateville Correctional Center had experienced constitutional rights violations. He is survived by his wife, Eleanor; a daughter; a son, Robert H. Shadur, JD’72; three grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren. His daughter, Karen Shadur, AM’87, died in 2010.

Daniel M. Enerson, SB’44, MD’46, died February 5 in Smicksburg, PA. He was 95. A specialist in cardiovascular and thoracic surgery, Enerson contributed to early research in cellular swelling and aortic valve replacement. He was also a thoracic surgeon at West Penn and Allegheny Valley Hospitals in the Pittsburgh region before opening his own private practice in the city. In the 1970s, he and his first wife founded Windgate Vineyards and Winery in Smicksburg. He is survived by his second wife, Catherine; four children; and four grandchildren.

Charles Edward Lindblom, PhD’45, died January 30 in Santa Fe, NM. He was 100. The Sterling Professor Emeritus of Economics and Political Science at Yale University, Lindblom taught at Yale for nearly four decades and helped found its Institute for Social and Policy Studies, where he was director from 1974 to 1980. His paper “The Science of Muddling Through” introduced the theory of incrementalism to discussions of public policy change and decision making. In Politics and Markets: The World’s Political-Economic Systems (1977), he addressed why organized business dominates the public policy sphere. He is survived by a daughter; two sons, including Eric Lindblom, EX’75; five grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

Miriam Gollub Banks, SM’47, CER’94, died November 25 in Chicago. She was 96. A longtime resident of Hyde Park, Banks studied biochemistry at UChicago. She put her scientific training to work volunteering for Chicago Public Schools to help evaluate and update their science curriculum. Her husband, Seymour Banks, MBA’42, PhD’49, died in 1996. She is survived by a daughter, Hannah Banks, LAB’70; sons Joel Banks, LAB’73, and David Banks, LAB’77; and five grandchildren.

Mary (Wheeler) Heller, PhB’47, died December 25 in New York City. She was 89. A professional fine art photographer, Heller was a longtime board member of the International Center of Photography and the MacDowell Colony. She served as president of the board of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and supported land conservation and historic preservation on Nantucket, MA, through the ’Sconset Trust, a nonprofit she helped found. Survivors include a daughter and two grandchildren.

Gabriel J. Fackre, DB’48, PhD’62, died January 31 in Oregon City, OR. He was 92. A theologian and pastor in the United Church of Christ, Fackre taught at Lancaster Theological Seminary before joining the faculty of Andover Newton Theological School, where he was the Abbot Professor Emeritus of Christian Theology since his retirement in 1996. As president of the American Theological Society in 1990–91, he stressed ecumenical dialogue among Christian denominations. His theological writings included a five-volume series on Christian doctrine, The Christian Story (1978–2007). He is survived by four daughters, including Skye F. Gibson, AB’82; a son; eight grandchildren; and a great-grandson.

1950s

William M. Cross, AM’51, died March 2 in Springfield, IL. He was 91. A minister in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, from 1955 to 1992 Cross served numerous Lutheran congregations throughout the Midwest. He earned a doctorate in sociology at South Dakota State University in 1971 and taught at Valparaiso University, Purdue University Northwest, Illinois College, MacMurray College, and Lincoln Land Community College–Jacksonville, IL. He is survived by two sons.

Ernest J. Blum, AB’52, AM’59, of Miami, FL, died January 17. He was 86. Blum was a journalist, linguist, and travel writer. He reported on Japanese business and cultural news for Economic Salon, a New York–based business magazine, and covered the cruise industry for Travel Weekly, a national newspaper for travel agents. His career was marked by extensive travels and a passion for learning new languages. He is survived by his wife, Lois; a son; and a daughter.

David M. Solzman, AB’53, PhD’66, of Chicago, died February 19. He was 83. Solzman was an associate professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), where he taught geography, meteorology, and astronomy since 1965. An expert in urban geography, he authored the book The Chicago River: An Illustrated History and Guide to the River and Its Waterways (1998) and frequently gave local boat tours for alumni of both UIC and UChicago. He is survived by his wife, L. Rachel McKinzie; two daughters; a brother; and a granddaughter.

Hazel L. (Mason) Hadley, EX’54, of Palmyra, PA, died December 27. She was 97. Hadley was a civilian mathematics instructor in the US Navy during World War II and later studied mathematics education at UChicago. Her career as a mathematics instructor included positions at high schools, the University of Mary Hardin–Baylor, and the Ohio State University. Her husband, Wayne B. Hadley, PhD’54, died in 2001. She is survived by a daughter and a brother.

Richard H. Lobenthal, AB’55, of West Bloomfield, MI, died September 26. He was 83. Lobenthal was the Michigan director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) from 1964 to 1996. In retirement he served as Midwest regional director of the ADL and interim director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Michigan. He is survived by his wife, Judith Kovach; a daughter; a son; a brother, Joseph S. Lobenthal, AM’52, JD’55; seven grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren.

David O. Munroe, MBA’56, died February 22 in Centerville, OH. He was 92. Munroe worked for International Business Machines (IBM) in Westchester County, NY, from 1963 to 1989. In retirement he volunteered as a business manager for St. Joseph Catholic Church and School in Cincinnati, where he also assisted with business operations at Venice on Vine, a preemployment training and job placement program through the nonprofit Power Inspires Progress. Survivors include his wife, Lenore; three daughters; and four grandchildren.

Munir M. Nawas, AM’58, PhD’61, died July 23 in Berg en Dal, Netherlands. He was 89. An academic specialist in clinical psychology, he taught at the University of Missouri, Indiana State University, and Radboud University in the Netherlands until retiring in 1983. He published numerous articles on the fundamentals of psychotherapy and wrote a popular student handbook on theories of personality. He is survived by his wife, Eugenia; a daughter; two sons; and five grandchildren.

1960s

Robert Pincus-Witten, AM’60, PhD’68, died on January 28 in New York City. He was 82. An influential art critic, Pincus-Watten was a longtime contributor and editor for Artforum and a professor at the City University of New York (CUNY). His books include Eye to Eye: Twenty Years of Art Criticism (1984) and Postminimalism into Maximalism: American Art, 1966–1986 (1987). After retiring from CUNY in 1990, Pincus-Witten switched to the commercial art world, serving as curator at Gagosian Gallery and director of C&M Arts (later Mnuchin Gallery).

Bernard P. Alpiner, SB’60, died February 5 in Libertyville, IL. He was 81. Trained as a physicist, Alpiner worked for companies specializing in electronics and automatic test equipment before cofounding Chicago Laser Systems (CLS), an international corporation that manufactured laser equipment. He retired in 1994, after CLS was acquired by a high-tech company. He is survived by his wife, Patricia; three daughters; six stepsons; a sister; and 11 grandchildren.

Elizabeth S. Mayhall, AB’61, died January 25 in Durham, NC. She was 78. Mayhall lived abroad with her husband and children in London and Kolkata, India, before they settled in Durham in 1973. Mayhall was a senior psychiatric diagnostic technician at Duke University Health System’s Division of Neurology until her retirement in 2001. She is survived by a daughter, a son, two stepdaughters, and five grandchildren.

Jay Bloom, AM’62, died January 21 in Oakland, CA. He was 80 years old. From 1965 until his retirement in 1999, Bloom was an associate professor of economics at the State University of New York, New Paltz, where he served as department chair in economics and helped establish a separate department of business. He also served as a faculty adviser to Hillel and president of the local chapter of United University Professions. He is survived by his wife, Judith; a daughter; a son; and three grandchildren.

Abby Dorfman Tanenbaum, LAB’62, AB’66, of Naperville, IL, died October 13. She was 72. Tanenbaum was a retired college math instructor. She is survived by her husband, William M. Tanenbaum, SB’66; two daughters; a sister, Julie Dorfman, LAB’66, and a grandson.

Stephen A. Zarlenga, AB’63, of Valatie, NY, died April 25, 2017. He was 75. Zarlenga was founder and director of the American Monetary Institute, a nonprofit charitable trust dedicated to the study of monetary history and the cause of monetary reform. In The Lost Science of Money: The Mythology of Money, the Story of Power (2002), he critiqued the private control of the US monetary system.

William R. Arnold, PhD’63, of Lawrence, KS, died November 17, 2016. He was 83. A sociologist who specialized in criminology, Arnold taught at Hanover College and the University of Texas at Austin before joining the University of Kansas, where he was an associate professor of sociology for more than three decades. His books on youth crime and criminal justice include Juveniles on Parole: A Sociological Perspective (1970) and Juvenile Misconduct and Delinquency (1983). He advocated for changes to sentencing guidelines in the Kansas state legislature and policies to reduce disproportionate minority youth confinement. He is survived by his wife, Margaret; a daughter; two sons; eight grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.

Marvin Frankel, PhD’64, of Bronxville, NY, died in mid-January. After briefly teaching at the University of Chicago, he joined the faculty at Sarah Lawrence College in 1971, where he was professor of psychology until his death. His classes taught therapeutic models and addressed clinical situations but also posed philosophical questions about mental health concepts and criteria.

Stanley Bach, AB’66, died May 30, 2017, in Tampa, FL. He was 71. Bach taught at the University of Massachusetts before moving to Washington, DC, in 1974 to work in the federal government. He joined the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress in 1976, where he was a senior specialist in the legislative process until his retirement in 2002. He coauthored Managing Uncertainty in the House of Representatives: Adaptation and Innovation in Special Rules (1988), about congressional strategy and decision making in the 1980s.

1970s

Albert S. Liu, SB’71, of Walnut Creek, CA, died January 18. He was 70. A program manager in the federal government, he held positions in human resources at the Internal Revenue Service and in the Public Buildings Service at the General Service Administration. He ended his career as manager of computer systems for a regional office of the GSA. He is survived by a brother.

Jack L. Uretsky, JD’75, died August 24 in Hinsdale, IL. He was 93. A theoretical physicist and a lawyer, Uretsky established a legal practice in Illinois that ranged from military veterans’ issues to patent law. At the time of his death, he was a guest physicist in the High Energy Physics Division at Argonne National Laboratory. Survivors include a daughter, a son, three grandchildren, and one great-grandson.

1980s

Michael L. Hemler, MBA’85, PhD’88, of Granger, IN, died February 14. He was 64. An associate professor of finance at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, Hemler taught courses on derivatives, financial management, and applied investment management. His research on investments concentrated on financial derivatives. He is survived by his wife, Deb; three daughters; a stepdaughter; a stepson; and two sisters.

2000s

Mary Ellen Konieczny, PhD’05, of South Bend, IN, died February 24 of cancer. She was 58. Associate professor of sociology and the Henkels Family Collegiate Chair at the University of Notre Dame, Konieczny was the author of The Spirit’s Tether: Family, Work, and Religion among American Catholics (2013), an ethnography of Catholic parishes and their politics, and coeditor of Polarization in the Catholic Church: Naming the Wounds, Beginning to Heal (2016). She was at work on a book about religion in the military. She is survived by her husband, Chris Chwedyk; two sons; her mother; and two brothers.

Robert E. Croston Jr., AM’06, of Chicago, died March 5 of Marfan syndrome. He was 34. Croston was principal of Jenner Academy of the Arts, an elementary school in the former Cabrini-Green area of Chicago’s Near North Side. He helped bring about a merger that goes into effect this fall between Jenner, which serves a majority African American and lower-income student population, and nearby Ogden International School, which draws from a largely white and wealthier population in the neighboring area. He is survived by his wife, Sheena; his father; three sisters; and a brother.

2010s

Cynthia DuBois, MPP’10, died of cancer January 2 in Chicago. She was 32. Dubois earned a master’s in public policy at Harris Public Policy before entering the Northwestern University School of Education and Social Policy, where she received her PhD in 2017. Her doctoral research focused on affirmative action policies intended to diversify candidate pools in labor markets ranging from professional football to education. She is survived by her partner, John Boller, SM’91, PhD’99; her father; and her sister.