Richard Malkin named interim dean of the College of Natural Resources

May 30, 2000
dean_malkin.jpg




Richard Malkin, professor and associate dean for academic affairs in the College of Natural Resources, has been appointed interim dean of the College, effective July 1, 2000, UC Berkeley Vice Provost Nicholas P. Jewell has announced. Malkin will serve a two-year post, succeeding Gordon Rausser, the Robert Gordon Sproul Distinguished Professor and dean of the College since fall 1994.

A professor in the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, Malkin received his bachelor's degree in chemistry from Antioch College in 1962 and his doctorate in biochemistry from UC Berkeley in 1967. He returned to Berkeley in 1969 after conducting postdoctoral research in Sweden and became a faculty member in the College in 1979. He is an authority on the biophysical and biochemical aspects of photosynthesis, having published over 200 research papers in his field, and his research has been highly influential in advancing our scientific understanding of how light energy is converted into a biologically useful form. His work has involved extensive analysis of the structure and function of photosynthetic membranes in higher plants and in photosynthetic bacteria.

Malkin also is an extremely popular teacher, who in 1999 received the College's Distinguished Teaching Award. For more than 10 years he has been one of the instructors in Biology 1A, a large introductory biology course for Berkeley students majoring in one of the many biological science programs; he also has taught upper-level and graduate courses in plant biochemistry. For five years he has led the freshman seminar "Dean's Night Out."

Malkin served as the first chair of the Department of Plant Biology, from 1988 through 1992, and has served as associate dean for academic affairs in the College since July 1992. He was acting dean of the College from July through December 1994.