The Graduate School

The Steenbock Professorships in Natural Sciences

In the early 1980s, Mrs. Evelyn Steenbock initiated a program to endow a series of prestigious professorships in the natural sciences, in honor of her late husband Harry Steenbock, emeritus professor of Biochemistry. The income from those endowments supports research costs and/or released time for research of outstanding faculty nominated by UW-Madison departments or groups of three or more individual faculty. The final selection in each case is made by an expert selection committee from U.S. and Canadian universities. The initial award is for a period of ten years after which the selection committee will decide on the awardee for the ensuing ten years.

A competition will be initiated by the Graduate School several months prior to the date on which a Professorship will become available. Information on the Professorship, nomination procedures and deadlines will be distributed to School/College research officers for distribution to Department Chairs and faculty as appropriate.

The Steenbock Professorship accounts are held at University of Wisconsin System Trust Funds, and the annual award amount will vary depending on the size of the specific endowment and the level of earnings in the previous year.

Current Steenbock Professors