Three professors selected for endowed appointments

McDaniel College has appointed three faculty members to endowed positions. The professors will hold these new appointments for five years.

Dana Ferraris has been named the John Desmond Kopp Professorship in the Sciences. Ferraris is an associate professor and chair of the Chemistry Department at McDaniel.

Ferraris began teaching at McDaniel in 2015 as a visiting professor before joining the faculty as associate professor in 2017. During his time at McDaniel, he has mentored undergraduate students completing student-faculty research and most recently, worked with students on research to discover drugs to fight COVID-19. Ferraris also received FDA approval for cedazuridine, the cancer drug he invented more than a decade ago when working in the biotech industry as a synthetic medicinal chemist. Prior to joining McDaniel, he taught at the Johns Hopkins University, Stevenson University and The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

Ferraris graduated from Lafayette College in Easton, Pa., in 1994 with a bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry. He obtained his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry in 2000 and M.B.A. in 2009 both from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

The John Desmond Kopp Professorship in the Sciences was established in 2006 through a $1.25-million bequest from John Desmond Kopp.

A member of the class of 1922, Kopp passed away in 1992 at the age of 91. He worked as an analytical and metallurgical chemist at Scovill Inc., a manufacturing company in Waterbury, Conn., for 30 years before retiring in 1962.

Steven Pearson is the Joan Develin Coley Chair in Creative Expression and the Arts. Pearson is a professor and chair of Art & Art History Department at McDaniel.

Pearson began teaching at McDaniel nearly 16 years ago and was named The Ira G. Zepp Distinguished Teacher in 2019. He is also a visual artist and has had numerous solo and group exhibitions. In 2012, he was named a semi-finalist for the Janet and Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize and he was a semi-finalist for the Bethesda Painting Award in 2013.

At McDaniel, he launched the College’s Visiting Artist Lecture series that brings regionally, nationally and internationally recognized artists to campus. Pearson has also served as the director of the Esther Prangley Rice Gallery since 2006, organizing exhibitions throughout the academic year that focus on regional and national artists as well as students’ works.

After serving in the United States Navy, Pearson received his bachelor’s degree in Studio Art in 1994 from The College of Saint Rose in Albany, N.Y., and his Master of Fine Arts in Painting in 1997 from the LeRoy E. Hoffberger School of Painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. Pearson’s work focused on narrative figuration during his training at the undergraduate and graduate levels. After graduating, he took on painting still life, in addition to examining the formal and abstract nature of everyday objects.

Established in 2010, the Joan Develin Coley Chair in Creative Expression and the Arts was created by the Board of Trustees in honor of Joan Develin Coley, who was elected in 2000 as the first female president of McDaniel College and the first president to be promoted from the faculty ranks. As a member of the faculty since 1973, she served as director of the Graduate Reading Program, dean of Graduate Affairs, chair of the Department of Education and provost of the College.

This endowed chair, which honors someone who is passionate about creativity in all its forms: as artistic process, expression or performance, includes scholars from areas such as the fine or performing arts, creative writing or poetry, film analysis or music theory, or areas yet to be developed through scholarship research.

Kevin McIntyre is the Ethan A. Seidel Chair in Economics and Business Administration. McIntyre is a professor of Economics and Business Administration and serves as coordinator of the master’s degree program in Data Analytics at McDaniel.

McIntyre has spent 20 years at McDaniel College, and has taught courses ranging from introductory economics to upper-level finance and statistics.

He graduated from Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa in 1994 with a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and Economics. He earned a master’s degree in Economics in 1995 and his doctorate degree in Economics in 1998 at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Va. He also attended the London School of Economics and the Institute of European Studies in 1993.

The Ethan A. Seidel Chair in Economics and Business Administration was established in 2008 by current McDaniel College trustee and former board chair Martin K. P. Hill to honor Ethan A. Seidel, professor of Economics and Business Administration.

This endowed chair recognizes a tenured member of the Economics and Business Administration Department whose dedication to students and colleagues embodies excellence in teaching and service.