Huisking Foundation Chairs at the University of Notre Dame
 

Left to right :  Julie Knight, Xavier Creary, Frank Huisking, William Huisking, Jr;  Charles Huisking, Rev. Brian E. Daley, S.J.; and Cyril O’Regan. 9/29/2006

The Charles L. Huisking Chair in Mathematics
Julia Knight’s research specialty is logic, particularly computable structure theory.  She and her students have pursued research connecting definability with complexity in familiar kinds of mathematical structures.  She is co-author , with the late C.J. Ash . of Computational Structures and the Hyperarithmetical Hierarchy ( Elsevier ).  She has published more than 50 papers in scholarly journals and given an equal number of invited lectures.  Knight, who received her doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley is a member of the American Mathematical Society , the Association for Symbolic Logic and the Association for Women in Mathematics .  She has served as an editor for the Journal of Symbolic Logic and was a member of the Association for Symbolic Logic council for six years.  She has also served on a number of National Science Foundation panels.  

The Charles L. Huisking Chair in Chemistry
Xavier Creary is an organic Chemist.  He teaches undergraduates in the general chemistry program in addition to teaching organic chemistry to pre-professional , engineering and graduate students.  Renowned for his vivid and eye-catching lecture demonstrations, Creary has been awarded the Thomas P. Madden Award for outstanding teaching of first year students and the Kaneb Teaching Award.  Creary’s research has been funded over the years by the Petroleum Research Fund and the National Science Foundation.  He studies organic reaction mechanisms , examining the detailed processes by which one organic substance is converted to another.  He is particularly interested in the reactive molecules involved in chemical transformations.  His work is published regularly in professional journals.  Creary received his bachelors degree from Seton Hall University and his doctorate from The Ohio State University.  He pursued post doctorate studies at the University of California at Santa Cruz before joining the Chemistry Faculty at Notre Dame.  

The Catherine F. Huisking Chair in Theology
Rev. Brian E. Daley , S.J. is a specialist in patristics.  His primary research interest is in the development of classical Christian theology in the Eastern Churches,  particularly Greek patristic Christology.   Daley graduated from Fordham University .  A Rhodes Scholar,  he studied classics , philosophy  and ancient history at Merton College, Oxford, where he received a Master’s Degree. He also holds ecclesiastical licentiates in Philosophy for Loyola Seminary and in theology from Hochschule Sankt Georgen, and a doctorate in theology from the University of Oxford. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1964 and was ordained a priest in 1970.   Fr. Daley’s publications include Companions in the Mission of Jesus, an anthology of writings on Jesuit religious life, and  The Hope of the Early Church: A Handbook of Patristic Eschatology.  He serves as editor or on the editorial boards for several publications , including The Journal of Early Christian Studies and Traditions.  Since 1982 , he has been a member of the Orthodox-Roman Catholic Consultation, the bilateral dialogue sponsored by Orthodox and Roman Catholic bishops of the United States , and is now its Catholic executive secretary. 

The Catherine F. Huisking Chair in Theology
Cyril O’Regan, a native of Ireland , received his bachelor’s degree from University College , Dublin, and both his master’s degree and Ph.D. from Yale University’s Department of Religious Studies.  Before joining the Notre Dame faculty, he taught at Yale, Fairfield University , and St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota.   His principle teaching and research interests are systematic and historical theology, theological and philosophical hermeneutics, philosophy of religion, religion and literature, modern continental philosophy and mysticism.  O’ Regan’s publications include The Heterodox Hegel,  Gnostic Return in Modernity, and Gnostic Apocalypse :  Jacob Boehme’s Haunted Narrative.