By endowing faculty positions, donors create streams of funding to enable faculty to discover and invent what we can only now imagine.
At the Celebration of Distinction ceremony in October, 2019, Professor of Anesthesiology Samsun Lampotang, PhD, and Associate Professor of Anesthesiology Patrick Tighe, MD, MS, received wooden chairs with gold nameplates to represent their appointments to endowed professorships. Appointment to an endowed professorship or chair is among the highest honors a college can bestow on a faculty member, and it is usually reserved for scholars of national or international acclaim.
Dr. Lampotang received the Joachim S. Gravenstein Professorship in Anesthesiology and Dr. Tighe received the Donn Dennis, MD, Professorship in Anesthetic Innovation.
The Joachim S. Gravenstein Professorship in Anesthesiology was established to honor the memory of Dr. Joachim Stefan Gravenstein, who founded the division of anesthesiology at UF in 1959. Dr. Gravenstein became the youngest head of an academic anesthesiology department in the U.S. He led a team of scientists and engineers in the creation of “Stan” the Human Patient Simulator and the Virtual Anesthesia Machine, VAM. Dr. Gravenstein passed away in 2009 at age 83.
The Donn Dennis, MD, Professorship in Anesthetic Innovation was established in the name of Donn Dennis, MD, to support research in the department of anesthesiology with a special focus on anesthetic innovation. Dr. Dennis came to UF as a resident in the department of anesthesiology in 1987 and joined the faculty in 1992. He enjoyed many prestigious appointments at UF and other locations such as the Joachim S. Gravenstein, MD, endowed professor of anesthesiology; Director of nanomedicine for the UF College of Medicine; board member for the Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research; and member of the National Academy of Inventors.
Congratulations!
