Published in the March 5, 2026 issue of IU Today.
Indiana University has named six faculty members as Distinguished Professors, the most prestigious appointment offered to honor faculty whose outstanding scholarship, artistic or literary distinction, or other achievements have won significant recognition by peers.
“This year’s Distinguished Professor honorees span education, music, English, psychology and biology; they exemplify the incredible breadth of excellence of Indiana University faculty,” IU President Pamela Whitten said. “Their teaching, scholarship and leadership have transformed students’ lives and earned the respect of peers around the world. We congratulate and thank them for advancing IU’s mission of discovery, creativity and service.”
Distinguished Professor appointees for 2026 are:
Curtis Bonk
Curtis Bonk, a professor of learning, design and adult education in the School of Education at IU Bloomington, is a globally acclaimed educational psychologist and educational technologist.
Bonk, who relied on distance education to qualify for graduate school, has focused his research on how human learning intersects with ever-advancing technologies, including massive open online courses. Of his 20 books, he is perhaps best known for “The World Is Open: How Web Technology is Revolutionizing Education,” in which he predicted the current educational landscape.
As an innovative scholar, researcher and pedagogist, Bonk has been continually recognized for his ability to translate theory and research into practice while generating novel themes to research. Bonk has used his research in open, online and distance learning to serve both Indiana University and the global community.
At IU, he has been a highly valued member of distance and e-learning task forces, technology policy committees and educational technology strategy planning committees. Globally, he has given close to 2,000 presentations related to online teaching and learning, including over 300 keynote and plenary talks on six continents.
Halina Goldberg
Halina Goldberg is a professor of music and musicology in the Jacobs School of Music at IU Bloomington. She is an internationally acclaimed musicologist whose scholarship has transformed the understanding of Fryderyk Chopin, Jewish studies, and 19th- and 20th-century Poland and Eastern Europe through researching music and politics, performance practice and reception.
Her landmark monograph, “Music in Chopin’s Warsaw,” redefined studies about Chopin and continues to shape global discourse, as evidenced by translations of this work into Polish and forthcoming Chinese and Russian. Goldberg’s award-winning articles, such as the H. Colin Slim Prize recipient “Chopin’s Album Leaves and the Aesthetics of Musical Album Inscription” and her co-edited volume “Polish Jewish Culture Beyond the Capital,” exemplify her interdisciplinary reach by bridging musicology, Jewish studies and cultural history.
Her scholarship also extends to public humanities with the multimedia exhibit “In Mrs. Goldberg’s Kitchen,” which earned international recognition and was nominated for Poland’s most prestigious museum prize: the Sybilla Award. Goldberg was recently appointed to a five-year term on the Programme Board of The Fryderyk Chopin Institute in Warsaw, a rare honor for a U.S. scholar. She lectures globally and mentors a new generation of scholars whose work now shapes the field.
Julie Goodspeed-Chadwick
Julie Goodspeed-Chadwick is the Chancellor’s Professor of English in the Division of Liberal Arts at IU Columbus and an IU Bicentennial Professor. She is an internationally recognized scholar whose groundbreaking work in feminist studies, trauma studies and modernist literature has redefined the field.
She is the foremost authority on Assia Wevill, having authored three seminal books: “Reclaiming Assia Wevill,” Susan Koppelman Award winner “The Collected Writings of Assia Wevill” and Lewis P. Simpson Award winner “Lives Revised: Assia Wevill, Ted Hughes, and Sylvia Plath.” This body of work stands alongside her influential first monograph, “Modernist Women Writers and War.”
Through meticulous archival research and innovative feminist frameworks, Goodspeed-Chadwick has reclaimed the importance of unacknowledged voices, reshaped biographical and literary narratives, challenged entrenched tropes, and advanced trauma-informed criticism. Her scholarship is widely cited and has influenced international curricula and critical paradigms.
As founding director of IU Columbus’ Office of Student Research and co-founder of the Office for Women, she has created transformative opportunities for students and faculty.
Andrea Hohmann
Andrea Hohmann is the Linda and Jack Gill Chair of Neuroscience and professor of psychological and brain sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Psychological and Brian Sciences at IU Bloomington. She is a world leader in cannabinoid pharmacology and pain research.
Her pioneering work on cannabinoid and endocannabinoid mechanisms advance non-opioid, non-addictive strategies for pain relief — critical in addressing the opioid epidemic.
Hohmann’s research has demonstrated how neuropathic pain can be suppressed without developing tolerance, dependence or debilitating side effects. Her translational studies have informed clinical guidelines for chemotherapy-induced neuropathy and propelled development of new analgesics, including recent breakthroughs published in Nature Communications and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
She has been recognized globally for scientific excellence, and her contributions have been transformative to neuroscience and public health.
A dedicated mentor, she co-directs a National Institutes of Health T32 research training program and has guided numerous trainees to successful careers. Her leadership roles include chairing NIH study sections, serving on international task forces and organizing major conferences.
Jay Lennon
Jay Lennon, a biology professor in the College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Biology at IU Bloomington, is an award-winning scientist working at the cutting edge of microbial ecology and evolution.
The hallmark of his work is a broad and integrative perspective. He gives considerable attention to issues that are traditionally the focus of those working with larger multicellular organisms, such as patterns of biodiversity, resilience to environmental change and life-history strategies. This unique perspective has enriched the field of microbial ecology, motivating many other researchers to pursue similar research paths.
Lennon is well known for his work on dormancy and its implications for microbial population dynamics. His lab innovatively combines molecular biology, simulation modeling, lab experiments, field surveys and whole ecosystem manipulations to better understand microbial biodiversity, which Lennon estimates to be 1 trillion species on Earth.
He has been elected as an American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow, received the 2023 Humboldt Prize from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and served on the governing boards of the American Academy of Microbiology and the Ecological Society of America.
Gerardo Ortiz
Gerardo Ortiz, a physics professor in the College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Physics at IU Bloomington, is an internationally recognized leader in theoretical condensed matter physics and quantum information science.
His pioneering research has advanced the understanding of complex quantum systems, topological phases and quantum algorithms. He developed the groundbreaking Fixed-Phase and Released-Phase Quantum Monte Carlo techniques, which enable accurate simulations of systems with broken time-reversal symmetry. These advances are foundational to studies of quantum Hall systems and strongly correlated materials.
Ortiz was among the first to demonstrate that quantum computers can efficiently simulate many-body systems, establishing the bounded-error quantum polynomial time complexity class and proving quantum advantage for problems previously deemed intractable. His influential work on generalized entanglement, bond-algebraic dualities and higher-form symmetries has reshaped approaches to quantum order and error-resistant quantum computation.
As scientific director of IU’s Quantum Science and Engineering Center and site director for the NSF Center for Quantum Technologies, he has elevated IU as a hub for quantum research.
The College of Arts