Eight Distinguished Faculty Fellowships have been awarded for two-year terms effective July 1.

Named Charles Gershenson Distinguished Faculty Fellows were John Bukowczyk, professor of history; Martin Newcomb, professor of chemistry; Roberta Pourcho, professor of anatomy; Barry Rosen, professor of biochemistry; and Michael Rybak, professor of pharmacy practice.

Board of Governors Distinguished Faculty Fellowships were awarded to Jerry Herron and Christopher Leland, professors of English, and Charles Manke, professor of chemical engineering and materials sciences.

In addition to the honor and recognition associated with the fellowships, each recipient receives a $6,000 award to support his or her scholarly endeavors. Those awards will be renewed in the second year if funds continue to be available.

The Gershenson fellowships are financed through a benefaction by the late Charles Gershenson, former member of the Board of Governors. The board fellowships are funded by revenues specially available to the board.

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History Professor John Bukowczyk of Royal Oak, who received a Charles Gershenson Distinguished Faculty Fellowship, is one of the nation's leading scholars in immigration and ethnic history and in the history of American cities.

His first book, And My Children Did Not Know Me: A History of Polish Americans, examined the history of a large working-class ethnic community and the formation of a Polish-American ethnicity in a pluralistic America. It won a Board of Governors Faculty Recognition Award and the annual book prize of the Polish American Historical Association.

Bukowczyk's work merges the traditional issues in the social history field with the theoretical interests, interdisciplinary methods and professional sensibilities of the "new social history." He previously was a Probus Club Award recipient and the university appointed him to a Career Development Chair.

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English Professor Jerry Herron of Detroit, who received a Board of Governors Distinguished Faculty Fellowship, has distinguished himself as a public intellectual with a national reputation. He has produced a powerful and widely read body of scholarly writing in professional journals as well as in non-academic publications such as Harper's and Raritan all while maintaining an extraordinary level of public engagement through presentations and lectures.

As director of the American studies program he has pursued vigorously his interdisciplinary interests, including architecture, cultural memory, media, urban politics and contemporary culture. At the same time, he has maintained a remarkable commitment to serving Wayne State through numerous committee involvements.

Herron frequently is invited to speak in such prestigious forums as the Detroit Institute of Arts, Cranbrook Academy and the School of Architecture at the University of Michigan. In this important role he has come to serve as a university ambassador to the larger cultural community.

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English Professor Christopher Leland of Detroit, who was honored with a Board of Governors Distinguished Faculty Fellowship, is a gifted novelist who brings an acute historical sensibility to bear on his characters and fictional situations. Many of his works deal with characters caught in the crosscurrents of large-scale historical dramas.

His novels include Letting Loose, The Book of Marvels, The Professor of Aesthetics and Mrs. Randall. He also has written a sizable number of journal articles and story translations. Reviewers consistently have noted the emotional power of his stories.

In addition to giving numerous readings and scholarly presentations, Leland also has worked as a dramaturge for California-based Shadow Hill Entertainment. While there he co-wrote a screenplay based on Mrs. Randall. Colleagues expect that his forthcoming work, The City of the White Caesars, likely will break new literary ground with an experimental hybrid narrative approach.

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Charles Manke of West Bloomfield Township, professor of chemical engineering and materials sciences, who was honored with a Board of Governors Distinguished Faculty Fellowship, has secured more than $1.6 million in grants and contracts from major corporations.

He was a member of the first research team outside of Ford Motor Co. to receive an award for scientific contributions that usually is reserved for the firm's own scientists.

Internationally renowned in the areas of rheology and visoelastic fluid theory, he has precise instincts for forming colleague partnerships that provide complementary expertise in collaborative research projects. Thus, the outcomes of his research have significant impact.

The significant attribute of Manke's research, in addition to its high quality and productivity, is its usefulness.

He has shown keen insight into how basic research can be used to solve broadly based industrial problems.

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Chemistry Professor Martin Newcomb of Detroit, who received a Charles Gershenson Distinguished Faculty Fellowship, is a true leader in physical organic chemistry, specifically the study of rapid chemical reactions. His recent contributions involving biological systems have attracted worldwide attention.

In 1994, he received the Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award from the American Chemical Society, one of the highest honors an organic chemist can receive. Newcomb's work also was rewarded recently by the National Science Foundation through a merit-based creativity extension, which cannot be requested by principal investigators and are given strictly based on the quality of the research.

In 1994, he chaired a Gordon Research Conference, which are acknowledged to be among the most influential topical research conferences in the world. This year, he was named to the advisory board of the Journal of Organic Chemistry, the premier journal in the field.

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Roberta Pourcho of Bloomfield Hills, who received a Charles Gershenson Distinguished Faculty Fellowship, is exceptional in all three areas of scholarly activity: research, teaching and service. Her publication record parallels many of the advances made in the area of retinal neurotransmitters during the past 15-20 years.

A study she published in 1980 provides the basis for much of the current interpretation of transmitter circuitry in the retina. She now is directing her attention to the types of receptors for glutamate, a major retinal neurotransmitter.

In addition to her challenging research, Pourcho has contributed greatly to medical and graduate student training. She has received the Lamp Award from the School of Medicine as the outstanding basic science faculty member, and her graduate histology course receives high ratings from students.

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Barry Rosen of West Bloomfield Township, who received a Charles Gershenson Distinguished Faculty Fellowship, has been an invited speaker or session chair at 12 international meetings in the United States and abroad in 1995-96.

He has given or is scheduled to give national and international seminars at universities in China, Taiwan, Japan, New Zealand and at the National Cancer Institute.

Rosen organized a Keystone Symposium and currently is organizing a national meeting on drug resistance, to be held at Wayne State this spring.

He has served on a study section for the National Institutes of Health and is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Biological Chemistry and the Japanese Journal of Biochemistry. In 1995-96 he had 17 primary publications in prominent journals, including the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Michael Rybak of Troy, who received a Charles Gershenson Distinguished Faculty Fellowship, has developed a mature research program that evaluates factors influencing anti-infective responses during therapy of bacterial endocarditis, a serious infection common in intravenous drug users.

He recently developed a unique in vitro model for evaluating responses to antimicrobials, a model which provides an alternative to animal studies. This model drew the attention of Procter & Gamble Co. in the form of an Animal Alternatives Research Program grant. Rybak received one of just two awards nationally from this national competition.

A prolific presenter whose writings have been published widely, Rybak has served on several professional organizations, including a recent appointment as scientific editor for the journal Pharmacotherapy.