April Sherman
Gerald Marschke entered the faculty of the Department of Economics this fall, bringing with him a strong background in microeconomics and related fields, particularly in studying the effectiveness of incentives in public organizations.
Much of that study has centered on "agency theory," which looks at those service delivery agencies responsible for getting the unemployed off welfare. In looking at the effects of these agencies� contracts with governments, Marschke has centered on whether these agencies respond to incentives and the degree to which agents reorient their activities in response to incentives.
"This is truly excellent work, and I believe it exceeds the quality of almost any other empirical work on incentives," Candice J. Prendergast, professor of economics at the University of Chicago�s Graduate School of Business.
Marschke�s work has increased awareness of organizational functions, according to Professor James Heckman of the University of Chicago. "His research is an important contribution to the merging field of economics," said Heckman.
"Marschke has played a critical role in collecting unique data and in analyzing it in creative ways that contribute to our understanding of the way organizations function. His work sheds valuable light on the likely success of �Reinventing Government� as a method for improving the performance of public bureaucracies."
Other faculty at the University are looking forward to working with him. "He is an expert in applied microeconomics and organizations, which is a good blend for the department," said department chair Terrence Kinal. "He has experience in applying economics to organizations, especially federal programs, and I think he will be useful for directing many of the department�s Ph.D. students.
"He also has an impressive list of publications for being a fairly new Ph.D., and he certainly shows promise."
Marschke holds a Ph.D. (1997) in economics from the University of Chicago, where he received a University of Chicago Fellowship from 1988-92. He also was the recipient of the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation Fellowship from 1990-92. He was an economic consultant to RCF Inc. in 1990 and a financial consultant to Parta Corporation in both 1990 and 1994.
Marschke�s most recent research and teaching experience has been as a visiting economics faculty member at the State University at Buffalo. He also worked as a research associate at the University of Chicago from 1993 to 1996.
Rabi Ann Musah arrives at the Department of Chemistry this fall with award-winning efforts as a teacher and as a researcher into the isolations, analysis, biological evaluation and structure elucidation of natural products from medicinally important plants.
Musah�s special focus has been on organic synthesis, organic reaction-mechanism elucidation, and the utilization of various analytical techniques for the separation and characterization of the components of complex organic mixtures. Included in her rational evaluation of folkloric, ethnomedical and traditional medicinal plants as been a particular focus on those plants used in anti-cancer, anti-HIV, cancer chemopreventive treatments.
"She brings to the department the skills in molecular biology to uncover the chemistry of enzymatic processes," said Professor Charles Scholes. "Because of her background and scientific connections in Ghana she has scientific plans to isolate, characterize, and synthesize pharmocologically active compounds originating in the rain forest of West Africa.
"Her hiring is the start of an initiative by our department to build modern bioorganic, bioinorganic, and biophysical chemistry to unravel biochemical processes."
Musah holds a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Arkansas (1995), and a B.S. in Chemistry (summa cum laude) from Prairie View A&M University (1985). She worked as a teaching research assistant and a teaching assistant at the University of Arkansas, where she was the winner of an outstanding teacher award. She has had several articles published in leading journals, including the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
From 1994 to the present she was at the Scripps Research Institute in California, where she worked on a project whose aim was to engineer and utilize forms of enzyme cytochrome c peroxidase (CCP) that demonstrate the feasibility of rational protein design oxidative catalysis of specific organic reactions. From 1995 to the present her work has been funded by a National Research Service Award from the National Institutes of Health.
Musah said of her appointment at Albany, "I like working at the University. I came here because I believed there would be a number of research opportunities. I hope to be able to put together a successful research program."
She said she welcomes the teaching aspect of her position. "My teaching responsibilities involve teaching organic chemistry courses at graduate and undergraduate levels. I teach one of the most difficult courses at the University, organic chemistry, and I hope to be able to attract students to it and yet be an effective enough teacher to help them get through it."