Endowed Chairs and Titled Professors
Endowed Chairs and Titled Professors allow Clemson to attract and support eminent scholars of international reputation who enhance the quality of the University’s teaching, research and service activities. They initiate, encourage and support development of ideas and innovations, and they are teachers, mentors and role models for their students and colleagues.
The Endowed Chairs and Titled Professors group meets typically once a month during the regular semesters with members of the upper administration to discuss issues of interest to both, to provide a sounding board to the administrators, and to help them elevate the reputation of the University. The group strongly believes in excellence in scholarship, teaching and research.
James (Jim) Anderson
James C. Kennedy Endowed Chair of Waterfowl and Wetland Ecology
The James Kennedy Waterfowl and Wetlands Conservation Center leads in conserving the Atlantic wetland ecosystems through education, research and outreach. Headquartered at the Baruch Institute of Coastal Ecology and Forest Science, the Kennedy Center is the first endowed waterfowl and wetlands conservation center along the 3,000-mile Atlantic Flyway stretching from the Canadian Maritimes to the Gulf of Mexico. A 30-year veteran researcher of wetland and wetland-dependent wildlife including waterfowl, Anderson joined Clemson in August 2021. His primary focus is on wetland-dependent wildlife, emphasizing waterfowl ecology and management and management of wetland impoundments. Within the wetlands and wetland-dependent wildlife arena, areas of specific interest include carrying capacity, climate change, habitat relations, sea-level rise, species ecology, STEM education, and restoration among others.
Robert Fritz Baldwin
Margaret H. Lloyd-SmartState™ Endowed Chair in Urban Ecology and Restoration
One of the primary goals of the Margaret H. Lloyd endowment is to foster the economic growth of the state of South Carolina through the promotion of scientific advancement. By partnering with the South Carolina SmartState Initiative, Dr. Robert Baldwin, who has served as the Lloyd-SmartState™ Chair since 2015, is heading the Center for Urban Ecology and Restoration through his work with the Lloyd Project at Hardscramble. Dr. Baldwin and his team are planning to positively impact South Carolina's economic and environmental education standings through their research. A conservation biologist, Baldwin is engaged with systematic conservation planning, which is a spatial approach to allocate conservation resources to the most valuable parts of the landscape in the context of environmental and socio-economic change.
Michael S. Caterino
The John C. and Suzanne E. Morse Endowed Chair in Arthropod Biodiversity
Caterino joined the Clemson faculty in March 2014 to begin leading a research program focused on mapping arthropod species diversity in the Southeast and understanding how it may affect the everyday lives of South Carolina citizens. Caterino is considered the world’s foremost expert in a group of beetles called Histeridae, of which there are numerous species in the southeastern U.S. The John C. and Suzanne E. Morse Endowed Chair in Arthropod Biodiversity was endowed by retired Clemson entomology professor John Morse and his wife, Suzanne. The Morses’ contributions have been matched 4-to-1 by the W.C. English Foundation, established in 1966 by Suzanne’s father.
Kay Cooksey
Cryovac Endowed Chair in Packaging Science
Cooksey joined the faculty at Clemson University in October 1998 after working at the University of Wisconsin-Stout for more than five years. Dr. Cooksey was a faculty intern at Dupont Packaging and Industrial Polymers Division and had the honor of receiving the Reister-Davis Lifetime Achievement Award from the Food Packaging Division of the Institute of Food Technologists in 2010. She was named the Cryovac Endowed Chair in Packaging Science in 2006, becoming the third person to hold the prestigious post. Her research focuses on food and packaging interactions and includes active packaging (specifically antimicrobial), biopolymer packaging and shelf life studies and sustainable packaging.
Susan Kay Duckett
Ernest L. Corley Jr. Trustees Chair in the Department of Animal and Veterinary Sciences
Duckett held faculty positions at the University of Idaho and University of Georgia prior to her appointment at Clemson University in 2006. Dr. Duckett’s research integrates ruminant nutrition and meat science to alter lipid metabolism, fatty acid composition and palatability of animal products. The chair’s namesake, Ernest L. Corley, a 1949 dairy science graduate who became one of the top officials with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, always credited Clemson University with opening the door to his success. The Saluda native expressed his gratitude in 2000 by funding the Ernest L. Corley Jr. Trustees Chair in bovine livestock production.
Stephen Kresovich
Robert and Lois Coker Trustees Chair in Molecular Genetics
Stephen Kresovich joined Clemson University in July 2013 as the Robert and Lois Coker Trustees Endowed Chair of Genetics in the Department of Genetics and Biochemistry and the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences. Dr. Kresovich also serves as director of the Clemson Institute of Translational Genomics and the Advanced Plant Technology Program. Both initiatives integrate advances in genetics and genomics to solve problems in agriculture, the environment, and human health. Robert Coker served as a Clemson life trustee from 1960 until his death in 1987. Earlier that year, the Cokers created an endowment to fund the Robert and Lois Coker Trustees Chair in Molecular Genetics at Clemson. Through the Farm Bureau, they also established a graduate fellowship in agriculture at Clemson.
Raghupathy Karthikeyan
Charles Carter Newman Endowed Chair of Natural Resources Engineering
Raghupathy Karthikeyan joined Clemson University in 2019 as the Charles Carter Newman Endowed Chair of Natural Resources Engineering. This position was established by an endowment from J. Wilson Newman and his wife, Clara, in honor of his father. The position calls for “an individual of outstanding accomplishment in the application of engineering principles to solving problems in the management of natural resources.”
J. Drew Lanham
Provost’s Distinguished Professor and Alumni Distinguished Professor of Forestry and Natural Resources
Joseph Drew Lanham, professor of wildlife ecology in Clemson University’s Department of Forestry and Environmental Conservation, was named an Alumni Distinguished Professor in 2012. Lanham’s research interests include songbird ecology and conservation, integration of game and nongame wildlife management and the African-American land ethic and its role in natural resource conservation. In his teaching, research, and outreach roles, Lanham seeks to translate conservation science to make it relevant to others in ways that are evocative and understandable. Dr. Lanham is a widely published author and award-nominated poet, writing about his experiences as a birder, hunter and wild, wandering soul. His first solo work, The Home Place-Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature (Milkweed Editions, Minneapolis MN) will be published in 2016-17.
