A University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) neuroscience and neurological disease researcher was recently appointed to the Louise G. Hearn Chair in Dementia and Long-Term Care.
Steven Barger, Ph.D., was invested with the endowed chair on Nov. 18. Barger is a professor in the UAMS College of Medicine’s Geriatrics, Neurobiology and Developmental Sciences and Internal Medicine departments.
“Dr. Barger is an accomplished geriatric scientist whose work helps us unravel the mysteries of aging-related diseases, and we thank him for his dedication to the people of Arkansas,” UAMS Chancellor Cam Patterson, M.D., MBA, and CEO of UAMS Health said in a statement.
The Louise G. Hearn Chair in Dementia and Long-Term Care was established in 2006 in honor of Louise Hearn. According to a UAMS news release, Hearn was an Arkansas native who moved to Texas with her husband, Vernon, where they owned a printing company and a cattle ranch and were the majority stockholders in a Houston bank. She returned to Arkansas later in life and was a patient at the Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging.
Endowed chairs, according to the news release, are “among the highest academic honors a university can bestow on a faculty member.” Distinguished chairs are established by gifts of $1 million or more.
Barger graduated from Hendrix College before obtaining a doctorate in cell biology at Vanderbilt University and receiving postdoctoral training at Sanders-Brown Center on Aging at the University of Kentucky. He joined UAMS in 1996 and has published more than 100 scientific articles in the neuroscience field.
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