Oxford University selects Vijay Balasubramanian as the George Eastman Professor for the 2024-2025 academic year

vijay

The Eastman Professorship was established in 1929 by George Eastman, founder of the Eastman Kodak Company. Eastman created a chair at Oxford University to be filled on a visiting basis by senior American Scholars of the highest distinction.  Each appointment is made for one year. The fund which supports the Eastman Professorship is administered by the Board of Directors of the AARS through the American Trust For Oxford University. Electors to the Eastman Chair are the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University, four persons appointed by the Council of Oxford University, two persons appointed by the Board of Directors of the AARS, and two persons from Balliol College (to which the visiting professorship is associated).

Past occupants of the Eastman Professorship in physics include Arthur Holly Compton, Norman Ramsey, Philip Anderson and J.D. Bjorken, three of whom won the Nobel Prize.   David Hubel, an Eastman Professor in 1990-1991, represented neuroscience.  Occupants from other fields have included the legal scholar and Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, the anthropologist Clifford Geertz, the Nobel-winning economist Robert Solow, the historians Natalie Zemon Davis and Robert Darnton, the philosopher Willard VanOrman Quine, and the Nobel-winning chemist Linus Pauling. 

The Rhodes Foundation administers the Eastman Professorship, and you can read more about it here: https://www.americanrhodes.org/info.html