Stephen M. Camarata has been named acting director of the John F. Kennedy Center for Research and Human Development while the University searches for a permanent director to lead an expanded and strengthened program, according to Peabody Dean Camilla Benbow.

Camarata

"We have every confidence that Dr. Camarata will provide strong leadership as we continue with our plans to position the Kennedy Center as a University-wide institute," she said.

A committee with representatives of Peabody College, theMedical Center and the College of Arts and Science has been established to search for a successor to Travis Thompson, who has accepted an appointment at the University of Kansas Medical Center. During the search, the center will continue administratively as a part of Peabody College, as it has since its establishment in 1965. The new director will report to the Provost and the vice chancellor for health affairs, rather than the dean of Peabody. The new reporting structure will occur by fall 2001.

The change in the reporting structure is a result of the University's plans to transition the Kennedy Center to a campus-wide developmental disabilities research center. Last week, the Kennedy Center received word that its core grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development has been renewed.

"As a result of the expansion of the Kennedy Center's research initiatives to include genetic, pharmacological and neurological facets of developmental disabilities, the Kennedy Center has outgrown Peabody College. As a University-wide center, it will have greater access to resources and new investments that are being made in the area of neuroscience and other areas. It also gives the center an opportunity to grow and develop with the times," Benbow said.

The Kennedy Center is one in a network of national centers for collaborative research, training and information dissemination on behavioral, intellectual and brain development.

"I am happy to help Peabody College and the Kennedy Center through this transition until a permanent director has been identified," said Camarata, an associate professor of hearing and speech sciences, who also serves as deputy director for behavioral research at the Kennedy Center. "We will certainly miss Travis Thompson, whose leadership during the past nine years has helped increase the center's recognition among the national research community."

Dan Reschly, chair of Peabody's Department of Special Education, and Elaine Sanders-Bush, professor of pharmacology and of psychiatry, will co-chair the search committee.

Search committee members are Fred Bess, professor of audiology and chair of the School of Medicine's Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences; Randolph Blake, Centennial Professor of Psychology in the College of Arts and Science; Randy Blakely, Allan D. Bass professor of pharmacology; Dale Farran, professor of education, director of the Susan Gray School and associate director of the Kennedy Center; Lynn Fuchs, professor of special education and co-director of the Research Program on Learning Accommodations for Individuals with Special Needs; Daryl Granner, professor of molecular physiology and biophysics and chair of the department; Jonathan Haines, professor of molecular physiology and biophysics and co-director of the Research Program on Genetics, Brain and Behavioral Development; Jon Kaas, Centennial Professor of Psychology in the College of Arts and Science and professor of cell biology; Arnold Strauss, professor of pediatrics and chair of the pediatrics department; Tedra Walden, professor of psychology at Peabody; and Niels Waller, professor of psychology and human development at Peabody. Nearly all committee members are also Kennedy Center investigators.

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