Speakers to Include Princeton’s Shirley Tilghman and Oxford’s Sally Shuttleworth; Inauguration Week Symposium to Focus on Advances in Child Development Research
Tufts to Inaugurate Anthony Monaco as President on October 21
MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, Mass. (Oct. 17, 2011) – Tufts University will inaugurate Anthony P. Monaco, M.D., Ph.D., as its 13th president on Friday, October 21, 2011, in a ceremony starting at 2:00 p.m. on the residential quad of the Medford/Somerville campus.
Monaco, a distinguished neuroscientist who identified the first gene specifically involved in human speech and language, served as the pro-vice-chancellor for planning and resources at the University of Oxford before assuming the Tufts presidency on August 1.
In addition to Monaco, speakers at the inauguration will include Shirley Tilghman, Ph.D., president of Princeton University, and Sally Shuttleworth, Ph.D., professor of modern literature at Oxford and former head of the Humanities Division there. Tufts students, alumni, faculty and trustees will participate in the ceremony. Guests will include Lawrence S. Bacow and John DiBiaggio – Tufts' 12th and 11th presidents -- and delegates from more than 100 other academic institutions and learned societies.
Named Oxford's pro-vice-chancellor for planning and resources in 2007, Monaco worked to broaden access to Oxford, create and fund interdisciplinary research initiatives, and secure additional support for the humanities.
Monaco previously directed Oxford's Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics. He played a leading role in doubling the size of the center, which is now the largest externally funded, university-based research center in the U.K. Monaco's own research has focused on the genetic basis of disorders such as autism, specific language impairment and dyslexia.
Monaco, a native of Wilmington, Del., spent the past 20 years at Oxford University. He is a first-generation college graduate who attended Princeton University on financial aid. He earned his M.D. and Ph.D. at Harvard University. His doctoral research led to the landmark discovery of the gene responsible for X-linked Duchenne and Becker muscular dystrophy.
Inauguration week will feature a number of special events. Among these will be a public symposium on child development -- from reading and cognition to obesity and neurodevelopmental disorders -- to be held on Wednesday, October 19, from 1:00 to 4:30 p.m. on Tufts' health sciences campus in Boston. Sir Michael Rutter, one of the world’s foremost experts on child psychiatry, will deliver the keynote address. Monaco and other faculty from Tufts' three Massachusetts campuses will present leading-edge research in the field.
Additional information about the inauguration is available at http://president.tufts.edu/inauguration2011/.
Tufts University, located on three Massachusetts campuses in Boston, Medford/Somerville, and Grafton, and in Talloires, France, is recognized among the premier research universities in the United States. Tufts enjoys a global reputation for academic excellence and for the preparation of students as leaders in a wide range of professions. A growing number of innovative teaching and research initiatives span all Tufts campuses, and collaboration among the faculty and students in the undergraduate, graduate and professional programs across the university's schools is widely encouraged.
