Alumni distinguished professorships
In 2024-25, gifts to The Carolina Fund supported the current cohort of five Alumni Distinguished Professors. Established in 1961, these are the oldest professorships at Carolina, funded entirely by private donations from alumni.
The professorships supplement the salaries of professors whose outstanding teaching and research activities boost the stature of UNC-Chapel Hill.
From UNC Kenan-Flagler student to dean
Dean Mary Margaret Frank is making history at UNC Kenan-Flagler as a triple Tar Heel.
Mary Margaret Frank
Frank received her PhD, Master of Accounting and BSBA from UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School. Dean of UNC Kenan-Flagler since 2023, she is an award-winning teacher and researcher and an accomplished academic leader. Her academic interests include the integration of business principles and public policy objectives, cross-sector collaboration and leadership, and sustainable investing. These interests developed from her research on the effects of regulation on reporting and investment decisions.
Joseph G. Ibrahim
Appointed professor in the Department of Biostatistics in 2002, Ibrahim’s areas of research include Bayesian inference, missing data problems, medical imaging analysis and genomics. He is principal investigator of two National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants for developing statistical methodology related to cancer and genomics research. Ibrahim is also the director of the Biostatistics Core at UNC’s Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Richard A. Luettich
Joining marine sciences at Carolina in 1987, Luettich is a coastal physical oceanographer whose research deals with modeling and measurement of circulation and transport in coastal waters. He is a co-developer of the ADCIRC coastal circulation and storm surge model — widely used for coastal flooding studies by academia, the private sector and multiple federal agencies. Luettich is the principal investigator of the Department of Homeland Security’s Coastal Resilience Center of Excellence.
Helen Tibbo
Tibbo teaches in the areas of archives and records management; digital preservation and access, appraisal, trustworthy repositories, and data curation. She is director of the Professional Science Master’s Degree in Digital Curation at the UNC School of Information and Library Science (SILS), where she developed the archives and records management concentration. She was principal investigator on several projects that have helped define digital curation best practices.
Richard Jude Samulski
Samulski is the Alumni Distinguished Professor of Pharmacology at the UNC School of Medicine, former director of the UNC Gene Therapy Center and a member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. He has co-founded multiple biotechnology companies, including AskBio, to translate discoveries into treatments for diseases such as muscular dystrophy, hemophilia and Parkinson’s. With nearly 100 patents and more than 200 publications, Samulski’s pioneering work laid the foundation for today’s FDA-approved AAV-based therapies.
Engineering a future inspired by family
Esther Lee ’26 found her purpose in biomedical engineering through the love and inspiration of her family. With support from The Carolina Fund, she’s turning that motivation into meaningful research that connects science, creativity and care for others.
Thank you for your generosity and support
Your gift to The Carolina Fund makes an impact on every aspect of Carolina, from the student experience to teaching excellence. Please know how grateful we are for your commitment to our university. All gifts made a difference.
Startup funds for Carolina students
