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CU • News & Events

Kathleen Kavanagh Appointed Robert A. Plane Endowed Chair at Clarkson University

Release Date
Wednesday October 14, 2020
Kathleen Kavanagh

Kathleen Kavanagh, newly appointed as the Robert A. Plane Endowed Chair, centers her research around applications from hydrology including simulation of groundwater flow and transport, adaptive temporal integration for a nonsmooth, nonlinear partial differential equations that models unsaturated groundwater flow, and optimal design for water resource management and groundwater remediation problems.

Clarkson University President Emeritus Robert A. Plane was also a former Clarkson trustee. He passed away in 2018 at the age of 90. Plane served as Clarkson's 12th president from 1974-1985, later serving as a Clarkson trustee from 1988 to 1992.  At the time, Plane completed the second-longest presidency in Clarkson's history.

Beyond her scholarly work, Kavanagh is an award-winning teacher both at Clarkson and by the Mathematics Association of America who bestowed Kavanagh with the Henry Alder Award for Distinguished Teaching in 2010. In 2018, she was awarded the Distinguished Teaching Award at Clarkson. Her extraordinary talents as a teacher and mentor and intellectual leadership in mathematics combine to establish Kavanagh as a leader in K-12 mathematics education.

“Professor Kavanagh’s distinguished scholarship and teaching and her significant outreach work are unparalleled. She is precisely, I am sure, who former President Plane had in mind when he established the endowed chair as she reflects, in all ways, the intent of the endowment to support a Clarkson faculty member who would, through the endowed position, broaden the reach of their work and advance the importance of extraordinary teaching for both colleagues at the institution and beyond,” said Provost Robyn Hannigan of Kavanaugh.

“How could anyone do more to enhance our collective reputation than Professor Kavanagh?” asks STEM Institute Director Peter Turner. “Ask anyone in the mathematics community where the hub of mathematics modeling education is and they will say ‘Clarkson’ because of Kavanagh’s distinctive work and her leadership in the profession.”

She is not only a mathematics professor but also the Associate Director of STEM Education at Clarkson.

Kavanagh received her bachelor of arts degree in mathematics from SUNY Plattsburgh and her master of science and Ph.D. in computational applied mathematics from North Carolina State University.

As a private, national research university, Clarkson is a leader in technological education and sustainable economic development through teaching, scholarship, research and innovation. We ignite personal connections across academic fields and industries to create the entrepreneurial mindset, knowledge and intellectual curiosity needed to innovate world-relevant solutions and cultivate the leaders of tomorrow. With its main campus located in Potsdam, N.Y., and additional graduate program and research facilities in the New York Capital Region, Beacon, N.Y., and New York City, Clarkson educates 4,600+ students across 95 rigorous programs of study in engineering, business, the arts, education, sciences and health professions. Our alumni earn salaries that are among the top 2.5% in the nation and realize accelerated career growth. One in five already leads as a CEO, senior executive or owner of a company. To learn more about Clarkson University, go to www.clarkson.edu.


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News directors and editors: For more information, contact Melissa Lindell, Director of Media Relations, at 315-268-6716 or mlindell@clarkson.edu.

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