Indiana University has named four faculty members as Distinguished Professors, the most prestigious appointment offered to honor faculty whose outstanding scholarship, artistic or literary distinction, or other achievements have won significant recognition by peers.

Distinguished Professor appointees for 2025 are:

Atar Arad

Atar Arad, a professor in the Jacobs School of Music Strings Department at IU Bloomington, is a world-renowned violist, composer and pedagogue whose contributions to both performance and composition have made a profound impact on the international music community. His work has not only elevated the role of the viola but also set a standard of excellence that continues to inspire and influence musicians worldwide.

Arad’s achievements as a violist are well-documented, from his early years as principal violist of the Frankfurt Symphony and his years as violist of the world-renowned Cleveland Quartet, to his status as a leading violist on the international stage. His recordings and performances have been met with critical acclaim, reflecting his deep interpretative insight and technical prowess.

Strad Magazine has described his performances as “definitive.” One reviewer in the Journal of the American Viola Society said Arad’s performance of his Sonata for Solo Viola left him “considering whether or not I had heard before such an excellent performance of a composer’s own piece; the only examples I could possibly think of that could rival this one are the performances Rachmaninoff gave of his own piano concertos.”

Arad is also a distinguished composer whose works have expanded the repertoire for viola, and he is deeply committed to nurturing the next generation of musicians.  

Alan Dennis

Alan Dennis, a professor in the Kelley School of Business’ Department of Operations and Decision Technologies at IU Bloomington, is a pioneering and widely recognized researcher in the field of information systems who is among the most-published and most-cited researchers in this relatively new and critical area in contemporary society.

In 2021, Dennis was recognized by his peers with the Association for Information Systems’ LEO Award, the highest honor in the global discipline that recognizes “truly outstanding scholars who have made exceptional global contributions in the field of information systems. In addition, they will be regarded as a preeminent representative of their national or regional information systems community.”

He has also received international recognition for three decades of path-defining, theoretically grounded and empirical research that has contributed to human knowledge. He is a leading authority on technology-enabled collaboration. His research is foundational to understanding how teams use technology across time and location, and his research catalyzed a major pivot in theory regarding how electronic media affects human understanding and decision-making processes.

His work not only initiates research conversations but also extends and deepens them as technology and human behavior co-evolve. He has published 145 refereed research journal articles and 89 refereed conference proceedings papers. According to Google Scholar, his work has been cited over 38,000 times with h-index of 81, and he has a career i10-index of 200 and an i10-index of 136 for the last five years alone.

Cynthia Graham

Cynthia Graham, a professor in the College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Gender Studies at IU Bloomington and a Kinsey Institute senior scientist, is one of the most highly regarded and influential scientists on issues of sexuality and gender in the world. Her pioneering research is known and used around the world by scientists, clinicians, students, industry innovators and the press.

Graham’s rigorous and expansive research focuses on four categories: condom use and misuse, sexual health and aging, innovative sex education interventions for youth, and the use of technologies and artificial intelligence strategies to understand and improve sexual health.

She has received numerous awards, including the Masters and Johnson Award and the Distinguished Scientific Achievement Award. She is also a Fellow of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality and the British Psychological Society.

She has served as editor-in-chief of The Journal of Sex Research for over 15 years. As editor of this flagship journal, Graham has overseen the creation of a gold standard editorial board and peer review process and standards; commissioned focal research articles; and shaped and made indelible marks on the field of sexual science.

Her research and reputation as unimpeachable led to her appointment to a work group on the latest revision of the American Psychiatric Association’s widely used clinical reference book, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. She is widely regarded as a thoughtful and innovative researcher, with scores of scientists and scholars across disciplines and institutions benefiting from her research, collaboration and guidance.

William Tierney

Dr. William Tierney is a professor in the IU Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health’s Department of Community and Global Health at IU Indianapolis. His expertise and tireless work ethic as a physician-scientist, informatician, educator, mentor and passionate advocate for vulnerable populations have shifted the paradigm for patient care and health services in the nation and across the globe.

Tierney is internationally known as the founding director of informatics and research for AMPATH, the Academic Model Providing Access to Healthcare, a 30+-year collaboration of more than 20 North American universities with Moi University in Kenya. He led the team that developed sub-Saharan Africa’s first ambulatory electronic health record, which grew into one of the world’s most widely adopted platforms implemented in more than 50 countries.

His outstanding reputation as a scientist, leader and advocate for equity, across multiple disciplines, has significantly enhanced the reputation and standing of Indiana University on local, national and international stages. He has published more than 600 articles and 15 books and received over $60 million in grants.

He has supported collaborators around the world across three areas of cross-disciplinary translational research expertise: internal medicine, biomedical informatics and population health. An elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, he has pioneered ground-breaking multidisciplinary research and scholarly activity and played a pivotal role in the development of infrastructures that promote health care informatics and population health.