Schuster New Provost
Beautiful to Behold
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The birth of the furless, blind, 4-ounce baby was met with tears, cheers and the clinking of glasses as Zoo Atlanta and its president and CEO, Dennis Kelly, ME 76, celebrated the long-wanted delivery of a panda cub in early September.
The mother, Lun Lun, and the male, Yang Yang, arrived on loan from China in 1999 in large part due to the work of Kelly's predecessor, Tech psychology professor Terry Maple, the keeper of the zoo for 17 years, and Rebecca Snyder, MS Psy 96, PhD 00, the first Institute graduate student to study pandas in China, where she met the pair shortly after their births and continued to watch over them as curator of giant panda research and management in Atlanta.
Compared in size to a stick of butter at birth, panda cubs are completely dependent upon their mothers. Their eyes don't fully open for the first two months. They won't begin walking for a month or two after that. Nursing continues until after cubs mark their second birthdays.
The cuteness factor comes sooner. The distinctive black markings appear within about 10 days of birth, and cubs grow a full coat of fur in about a month.
Per Chinese custom, a naming ceremony will come 100 days after the birth.
Schuster New Provost
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Gary B. Schuster has succeeded Jean Lou Chameau as provost, Georgia Tech's chief academic officer.
Schuster has been dean of the Georgia Tech College of Sciences and a chemistry professor since 1994. He was named the Vasser Woolley chair of chemistry and biochemistry in 2001.
"He has had an outstanding career as a teacher and researcher and that, combined with his long tenure as a school chair at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and as a dean here on our campus, provides him with a clear appreciation of what it takes to be an outstanding provost," says President Wayne Clough.
"I have had the pleasure of working with him for 12 years at Tech and have admired his innovative and collaborative approach to ideas and his understanding of our goals we have for excellence in our teaching, research and service missions," Clough says.
Schuster has had leading roles in bringing internationally recognized research faculty to the Institute and in the conceptualization and development of the interdisciplinary biotechnology complex at Georgia Tech. He has published more than 250 articles, holds 12 patents and has received numerous fellowships and awards.
"I am eager to continue to work with colleagues throughout the campus to set high goals and to provide the environment needed to realize those goals," Schuster says.
He received his bachelor's degree in chemistry from Clarkson College of Technology and doctorate from the University of Rochester.
Chameau left Georgia Tech to serve as president of the California Institute of Technology.
©2006 Georgia Tech Alumni Association
