• Thomas O. Beebee, distinguished professor of comparative literature and Germanic languages and literature—Beebee has published six books studying literature. In 2008 he published a far-ranging study comparing modern literary treatments of "end-of-the-world" stories charting an ultimate battle between good and evil that destroys previous social structures and rings in a lasting new order. His interdisciplinary approach in Millennial Literatures of the Americas, 1492-2002 provides nuanced readings of a diverse group of forms and writers, from the letters of Christopher Columbus to the poetry of Ernesto Martinez to the lyrics of Bob Dylan and Bob Marley.
• D. Scott Bennett, Jr., distinguished professor of political science—Bennett specializes in studies of international conflict, methodology, and computer applications, and has studied the duration of international phenomena including wars, crises, rivalries and alliances. Along with numerous published analyses of war and alliance duration, Bennett published The Behavioral Origins of War, a comparative test of theories of international dispute outbreak and escalation. He has also developed software for political scientists to theories of war.
• Roxanne Parrott, distinguished professor of communications arts and sciences, and health policy and administration—Parrott emphasizes the processes and outcomes associated with communication about health in her research, teaching and service activities. Over the past decade, her funded research has focused on the design of health messages to promote behavioral adaptation in situations where individuals are unable, unwilling, and/or unlikely to avoid situations and practices that put their health at risk. She is a member of the Institute of Medicine’s Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Board, Pennsylvania’s Office of Rural Health’s Future’s Council, and the Penn State Cancer Institute’s Scientific Leadership Committee.
• Anne C. Rose, distinguished professor of history and religious studies—Rose is a historian of American culture of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries with an emphasis on religion. Her research and teaching focus on the challenges modern society poses to religion and how Americans of many backgrounds have adapted their traditions to new situations and is especially interested in the interactions among them in families, as shown in her book Beloved Strangers: Interfaith Families in Nineteenth-Century America. She teaches courses on religion in America, Christianity, Judaism and social and cultural history.
• Neil Wallace, distinguished professor of economics—A member of the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences Wallace is a contributor to the fields of monetary theory, regulation of financial intermediaries and central bank policy. He has conducted research on deposit insurance, the role of inside money, deficits and inflation, and the determination of exchange rates. Since the mid-1970s, Wallace has devoted his career to providing a foundation for monetary theory. His work is required reading for graduate students in economics around the world, and he has a separate research program on banking theory.