Three new trustees for the U of C

The University's Board of Trustees recently elected new members Casey Cowell, AB'75; Karen L. Katen, AB'70, MBA'74; and Frank A. Wilczek, SB'70. Howard G. Krane, JD'57, was reelected as chair of the board for another year.

Cowell helped launch U.S. Robotics, a leading supplier of data communications products and systems, in 1976, heading the company until its merger with 3COM in June 1997. He has since joined Chicago-based Durandal, Inc., a holding company, as chair and president. In 1995, Business Week chose him as one of its top 25 managers in the world; Crain's Chicago Business named him executive of the year in 1996. Cowell is on the board of the Chicago Public Library Foundation and is a trustee of the Field Museum of Natural History and the Golden Apple Foundation.

Katen began her career at Pfizer in 1974 as a marketing associate. She is currently president of Pfizer U.S. Pharmaceuticals, executive vice president of the global Pfizer Pharmaceuticals Group, corporate vice president, and a member of Pfizer's corporate management committee. Named the United Service Organizations Woman of the Year in 1996, Katen serves on the board of both General Motors and the Harris Corporation and is a national trustee of the American Cancer Society Foundation.

Wilczek joined Princeton's physics faculty in 1973, teaching there for eight years before joining the University of California, Santa Barbara. He returned to Princeton in 1989 as a professor in the natural sciences department of the Institute for Advanced Study. Wilczek's research has encompassed pure particle physics, the behavior of matter at ultra-high temperatures, and the quantum theory of black holes. A member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he is a 1982 recipient of a MacArthur grant.