Appointment to a named chair is the highest honor the university can bestow on a member of the faculty.  There are five types of distinguished professorships at Duke: the James B. Duke Professorships; the Bass Chairs; the individually named chairs; the interdisciplinary University Professorships; and the University Distinguished Service Professorships.

The new distinguished professorship awarded to Lozier is named in memory of the late Ronie Garcia-Johnson, a Nicholas School assistant professor and rising star in the field of environmental policy who died in 2003 at the age of 34 following a five-month battle with melanoma. 

“Ronie Garcia-Johnson was a brilliant young political scientist and a dedicated and exceptional faculty member who was passionate about environmental scholarship and her students,” said William L. Chameides, dean of the Nicholas School.  “By establishing this professorship in her name and awarding it to another exceptional researcher and teacher, we honor her remarkable legacy.”

Garcia-Johnson’s groundbreaking 2000 book, "Exporting Environmentalism, U.S. Multinational Chemical Corporations in Brazil and Mexico," explored how civil society in the United States exported environmentalist ideas. In recognition of the book’s contributions to the field of international environmental policy, Garcia-Johnson received the 2001 Harold and Margaret Sprout Award from the International Studies Association. 

Lozier, who also serves as chair of the Duke University Academic Council, is a widely cited expert on large-scale ocean circulation and its links to global climate change.  She has authored or co-authored with students more than 150 peer-reviewed papers, manuscripts or scientific abstracts and taken part in six oceanographic research cruises.  She has been a member of the Duke faculty since 1992 and is former chair of the Nicholas School’s Earth and Ocean Sciences Division.  

Among other professional honors and awards, Lozier was the recipient of a National Science Foundation Early Career Award in 1996, was awarded a Bass Chair for Excellence in Research and Teaching in 2000, received a Duke University Award for Excellence in Mentoring in 2007 and was named an American Meteorological Society Fellow in 2008.  In 2010, she received the Association of Women Geoscientists’ Outstanding Educator Award.

Lozier is one of 21 Duke faculty members awarded distinguished professorships this year.  The recipients were recognized last week at a dinner at the Washington Duke Inn and Golf Club.