[Skip to Content]

Two receive SUNY distinguished faculty honors

Two receive SUNY distinguished faculty honors

Patricia M. Kane, PhD, and David F. Lehmann, MD, PharmD, of Upstate Medical University, have been appointed to the Distinguished Faculty Rank by the State University of New York Board of Trustees. They join 27 faculty members from SUNY’s 64 campuses to receive distinguished ranks this year. Distinguished Faculty Ranks are the highest system honors awarded to SUNY instructional faculty.

Along with this distinction, they join the SUNY Distinguished Academy. The Academy is made up of all active SUNY faculty members who hold a distinguished rank, as appointed by the Board, and who are charged with forwarding the overall mission of the State University of New York.

“The SUNY distinguished professor rankings are the highest honors our Board of Trustees has the opportunity to convey to faculty, making them a tremendous point of pride for us all,” said SUNY Board Chairman H. Carl McCall. “These individuals are leaders and innovators in their field, serving as excellent mentors for our students while advancing groundbreaking research and discovery in New York and around the globe.”

SUNY Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher says that the SUNY distinguished faculty are “best of the best.” “Through innovative instruction, unique research opportunities, and engaging applied learning opportunities, they deliver a top quality higher education for our students that is second to none. Many thanks and congratulations to this most recent class of distinguished faculty,” Zimpher said.

Patricia M. Kane, PhD

Kane, chair and professor of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, has been named a Distinguished Teaching Professor. She was awarded this rank for demonstrating consistently superior mastery of teaching; outstanding service to students and commitment to their ongoing intellectual growth; scholarship and professional growth; and adherence to rigorous academic standards and requirements

Kane is an expert on the structure and function of vacuolar ATPase and an outstanding scientist, having maintained continuous NIH grant funding for more than 20 years. She has served on NIH study sections, as an ad hoc NIH reviewer, and as an editor and reviewer for many top journals in her field. She is an extraordinary educator, in the classroom, in seminar, and in the laboratory, and has received multiple teaching awards at Upstate Medical, including the President’s Award for Excellence in

Teaching and the Outstanding Teacher Award from the College of Graduate Studies three times. Student evaluations attest to the high quality of her teaching, in both the College of Graduate Studies as well as the College of Medicine. Kane is a particularly skilled mentor in the laboratory, providing a substantial part of everyday encouraging, challenging, and fostering the maturation of talented and diverse students on the transformative path to becoming independent investigators.

David F. Lehmann, MD, PharmD

Lehmann, professor of medicine and practicing internist, hospitalist and clinical pharmacologist, has been named Distinguished Service Professor. This distinction honors and recognizes him for extraordinary service not only at the campus and the State University, but also at the community, regional, state, national and international levels.

Lehmann has dedicated a substantial amount of time in service to academic leadership as chair of the Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee at Upstate University Hospital, chief of the Clinical Pharmacology Inpatient Consult Service, and chief of the Section of Clinical Pharmacology in the Departments of Medicine and Pharmacology. He has previously served as vice chair of the Department of Medicine and chief of the Division of General Medicine.

Lehmann has had substantial teaching roles, teaching pharmacology in Upstate’s undergraduate and graduate medical education programs. In these clinical, administrative and educational roles, he has promoted high quality prescribing practice and improved patient safety. Lehmann also served as the medical director of the SUNY-NYS Department of Health Collaborative for Medication Use, designed to enhance the safety, efficacy, and cost-effectiveness of the NYS Medicaid formulary and to educate providers through the NYS Medicaid Prescriber Education Program. He has served as a reviewer for many clinical pharmacology journals, and as a member of the Board of Regents for the American College of Clinical Pharmacology. Professor Lehmann has served as a practicing physician in Saipan, hospital pharmacy director in Kenya, and educator and consultant in the development of pharmacology curricula in Nepal and India.

Since the program’s inception in 1963, SUNY has appointed 1,062 faculty to the distinguished ranks, including these most recent appointments: 371 Distinguished Professorships; 310 Distinguished Service Professorships; 376 Distinguished Teaching Professorships; and 5 Distinguished Librarian Professorships.

Caption: Patricia M. Kane, PhD, chair and professor of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, has been appointed to the rank of Distinguished Teaching Professor. David F. Lehmann, MD, PharmD, professor of medicine and practicing internist, hospitalist and clinical pharmacologist, has been named Distinguished Service Professor.

Top