John G. Milton has been named the William Rand Kenan Jr. Professor in Computational Neuroscience at The Claremont Colleges.
Milton, whose Joint Science Department appointment was approved by the Board of Trustees of Claremont McKenna, Pitzer and Scripps colleges, joins The Claremont Colleges in July from the University of Chicago, where he has been on the faculty of the department of neurology for 15 years. He holds an M.D. and Ph.D. in biophysical chemistry from McGill University, with clinical interests focusing on the treatment and management of patients with medically intractable epilepsy. In addition, Dr. Milton is actively involved in developing treatment strategies to improve the quality of life of mentally challenged individuals who have epilepsy, and their caregivers.
The position in computational neuroscience at The Claremont Colleges grew out of a developing intercollegiate neuroscience program that involves undergraduate students and faculty in departments of biology, psychology, philosophy, and engineering. It reflects the Colleges' interest in building bridges spanning these various disciplines.
Search committee chair Alan Jones, Pitzer College dean of faculty, noted, "Dr. Milton brings to Claremont an enormous enthusiasm for undergraduate education, as well as a well- defined research program which utilizes sophisticated computational techniques to examine the development of expertise for the performance of voluntary motor skills and the role that self-regulatory control mechanisms play in the emergence of such expertise." He joins the Joint Science department of 23 faculty members, which includes Newton Copp, the Sidney J. Weinberg Jr. Chair in Natural Sciences; Emil Morhardt, the Roberts Professor of Environmental Biology; Stephen Naftilan, the Kenneth Pitzer Professor in Physics; and David Sadava, the Pritzker Family Foundation Professor of Biology.
As The Claremont Colleges' William R. Kenan Jr. Professor, Milton joins others on 55 campuses nationwide who hold William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professorships.
The William R. Kenan Jr. Professorship was established in 1977 by a gift from the William Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust to Claremont University Consortium to benefit all undergraduate Claremont Colleges. The professorship was established "to support a professorial chair of distinction at CUC to honor Mr. Kenan and to support and encourage a scholar-teacher who will broaden the learning process and make an effective contribution to the undergraduate community."
Born in Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1872, William R. Kenan Jr. earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry from the University of North Carolina in 1894. An outstanding student, Kenan became an internationally known chemical and engineering adviser who participated in the discovery of calcium carbide and its use in the production of acetylene gas. William Rand Kenan Jr. was a chemist, engineer, industrialist, executive, farmer and philanthropist. In his autobiography, he noted that his life was shaped by the great professors who taught him, and it was his goal to aid universities in attracting the finest faculty.
Dr. Milton is the third faculty member in Claremont to hold this distinguished national chair; the professorship has been previously held by faculty in anthropology and political studies and Chicano studies.