Julie Schumacher and Susan M. Wolf have been named as the University of Minnesota’s newest Regents Professors. Established in 1965 by the Board of Regents to recognize the national and international prominence of faculty members, the Regents Professorship is the highest honor the University of Minnesota bestows on its faculty. It recognizes faculty who have made exceptional contributions to the University through teaching, research, scholarship, or creative work, and contributions to the public good.
Julie Schumacher is a nationally recognized author and deeply respected professor in the Department of English in the College of Liberal Arts. She currently serves as the interim director of the Creative Writing Program. Under her leadership, the master of fine arts (MFA) in creative writing at the University of Minnesota has grown to be a nationally recognized program and regularly receives over 400 applications per year. Schumacher is one of the University's most visible spokespeople, and arguably its most famous writer of fiction. Her debut novel, The Body is Water, was a finalist for the prestigious PEN/Hemingway Award, and was translated into seven languages, a remarkable and rare occurrence among debut novels. She is the first woman to win the Thurber Prize for American Humor (2015) for her novel Dear Committee Members.
Schumacher is also a passionate teacher devoted to her craft, her students, the University, and to the art of inspiring others. Her commitment to her students has been called otherworldly, attentive, articulate, and life-changing. Learn more about Julie Schumacher.
Susan M. Wolf, McKnight Presidential Professor of Law, Medicine, & Public Policy; Faegre Baker Daniels Professor of Law; and professor of medicine, is nationally and internationally renowned as one of the nation’s top scholars in law, medicine, and bioethics. She is also the founding chair of the Consortium on Law and Values in Health, Environment & the Life Sciences at the University of Minnesota, which is recognized around the world for path-breaking research, seminal publications, high-impact events, and critical policy collaboration. Wolf is the only University of Minnesota faculty member ever elected to the National Academy of Medicine, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Law Institute.
Wolf’s pioneering work has changed scholarship, policy, and real-world practice. She has put the University of Minnesota on the map for top work on societal issues in biomedicine and the life sciences. She has helped to secure over $60 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, and other funders as principal investigator or co-investigator, leading interdisciplinary teams and authoring seminal publications. Additionally, Wolf is a gifted teacher who has made teaching, advising, and building innovative programs for students a centerpiece of her work. She is widely known for involving her students in her research, both grant-funded and independent scholarship. Learn more about Susan M. Wolf.