Old Dominion recently announced the appointment of two Batten Chairs, one a current member of the faculty and the other who will join the university next spring.

The endowed chairs are funded by Landmark Communications founder Frank Batten’s $32 million gift to the university.

Karl H. Schoenbach, ODU eminent scholar of electrical and computer engineering, received the Batten Endowed Chair in bioelectrics engineering during a ceremony in June at the Center for Bioelectrics in Norfolk. The event also marked the completion of Phase II of the center, which was developed as a research initiative of Old Dominion in partnership with EVMS.

The center’s mission is to increase scientific knowledge and understanding of how electromagnetic fields and ionized gases interact with biological cells and to apply this knowledge to the development of medical diagnostics and therapeutics, and to environmental decontamination. The center is located in the Norfolk Public Health Building.

Patrick G. Hatcher, a professor of chemistry at Ohio State University and director of the OSU Environ-mental Molecular Science Institute, has been appointed Batten Endowed Chair in physical sciences, effective with the start of the spring 2006 semester.

Hatcher, who will join the faculty of the ODU chemistry and biochemistry department, will also serve as director of the Major Instrumentation Core Facility, to be housed in the university’s planned Physical Sciences Building.

Hatcher’s research interests include organic geochemistry of coal, kerogen (solid bituminous material in some shales, which yields petroleum when heated) and humic substances (from the organic part of the soil).

He received the 2005 American Chemical Society Geochemistry Division Medal in recognition of his accomplishments in and contributions to organic and environmental geochemistry.

According to an article in Chemical and Engineering News, “His work, now spanning several decades, has both refined and redefined our understanding of complex geopolymeric materials.”