CCNY's new CUNY Distinguished Professors, clockwise from left: Andreas Killen, Jennifer Roberts, Rosario Gennaro and Kevin H. Gardner.
City College of New York faculty members Kevin H. Gardner, Rosario Gennaro, Andreas Killen and Jennifer Roberts are the institution’s latest
CUNY Distinguished Professors. Conferred by the City University of New York (CUNY) Board of Trustees, Distinguished Professorships are reserved for faculty with records of exceptional performance by national and international standards of excellence in their profession.
The title is the highest academic honor that CUNY can offer its faculty.
Following are brief bios of The City College’s latest CUNY Distinguished Professors:
Kevin H. Gardner:
An international leader in the field of structural biology, Gardner’s research thrust has entailed using combined structural biology methods to probe how proteins perceive and react to changes in their environment. In addition to providing insights into fundamental biological processes, this has laid the foundation for a new targeted cancer therapy and novel biotechnology tools. Gardner has received over $40M in funding for his work and holds six patents. His honors include the Stein and Moore Award presented by the The Protein Society, and the Biophysics of Health and Disease Award from the Biophysical Society. In addition to his faculty position at CCNY, he’s the founding director of The Structural Biology Initiative in the CUNY Advanced Science Research Center, that is located on the City College campus. Click here to read more about Gardner.
Rosario Gennaro:
Director of CCNY’s Center for Algorithms and Interactive Scientific Software (CAISS), Gennaro has earned renown for his research on cryptography and network security, as well as theoretical computer science. CAISS is one of the world’s leading institutions in those fields. Gennaro is also the co-founder and co-director of CCNY’s Master’s Program in Cybersecurity. His most recent work addresses security and scalability of blockchain protocols, the security of the cloud computing infrastructure, and issues of privacy and anonymity in electronic communication. He also focuses on proactive security to minimize the effects of system break-ins. He’s been recognized widely with accolades such as the Outstanding Innovator Award by IBM Research, and Fellow of the International Association of Cryptologic Research. Click here for more.
Andreas Killen:
A noted historian and author, Killen has written widely on German history, the history of psychiatry and brain science, and film history. His publications include Berlin Electropolis: Shock, Nervousness, and German Modernity, Homo Cinematicus: Science, Motion Pictures, and the Making of Modern Germany, and, most recently, Nervous Systems: Brain Science in the Early Cold War. He is currently working on a book that draws on the correspondence of Norbert Wiener, the founder of cybernetics, to explore the relations between mainstream and fringe science in the 1950s. Killen’s honors include fellowships at the UCLA Humanities Center, the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, and NYU’s Remarque Institute. He was awarded the Stuart Katz Professorship in the Humanities at CCNY in 2023. He also teaches at the Graduate Center, CUNY. Click here for more.
Jennifer T. Roberts:
Pre-eminent in the humanities, Roberts served for six years as President of the Association of Ancient Historians, from which she received a distinguished service award in 2024. She has served on the faculty of CCNY and the Graduate Center, CUNY, since 1992, teaching courses ranging from Latin and Greek grammar and literature to warfare in antiquity and women’s studies. Her publications include two books on Athenian democracy, volumes on Herodotus and Thucydides in Oxford’s Very Short Introductions series, and The Plague of War: Athens, Sparta, and the Struggle for Ancient Greece. Most recently she has published a cultural history of Greece, Out of One Many: Ancient Greek Ways of Thought and Culture. She is also the co-editor of the Norton Critical Editions of Herodotus and Thucydides and a co-author of Oxford’s best-selling Ancient Greece: A Political, Social, and Cultural History, now in its fourth edition. Click here for more.
About The City College of New York
Since 1847, The City College of New York has provided a high-quality and affordable education to generations of New Yorkers in a wide variety of disciplines. CCNY embraces its position at the forefront of social change. It is ranked #1 by the Harvard-based Opportunity Insights out of 369 selective public colleges in the United States on the overall mobility index. This measure reflects both access and outcomes, representing the likelihood that a student at CCNY can move up two or more income quintiles. Education research organization Degree Choices ranks CCNY #1 nationally among universities for economic return on investment. In addition, the Center for World University Rankings places CCNY in the top 1.8% of universities worldwide in terms of academic excellence. Labor analytics firm Lightcast puts at $3.2 billion CCNY’s annual economic impact on the regional economy (5 boroughs and 5 adjacent counties) and quantifies the “for dollar” return on investment to students, taxpayers, and society. At City College, more than 16,500 students pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees in eight schools and divisions, driven by significant funded research, creativity, and scholarship. In 2023, CCNY launched its most expansive fundraising campaign ever. The campaign, titled “Doing Remarkable Things Together,” seeks to bring the College’s Foundation to more than $1 billion in total assets in support of the College's mission. CCNY is as diverse, dynamic, and visionary as New York City itself. View CCNY Media Kit.
Jay Mwamba
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jmwamba@ccny.cuny.edu