Following a five-month long search, Agassiz Professor of Biological Oceanography James J. McCarthy and his wife Susan have been chosen to serve as the new masters of Pforzheimer House.

The McCarthys were introduced to Pforzheimer House students last night in a festive ceremony by out-going masters Mangelsdorf Professor of Natural Sciences J. Woodland "Woody" Hastings and his wife Hannah, who plan to step down at the end of this term.

Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 made the selection late last month after receiving advice from a number of College sources, including an advisory committee of students and tutors from Pforzheimer.

"I am thrilled that Jim and Sue McCarthy will be taking over as Masters of Pforzheimer House," said Lewis in a prepared statement.

"With their personal warmth and good humor, and their great breadth of interests, they will be continuing the tradition of intellectual and personal engagement of the Masters that the Hastings have established so strongly," he said.

James McCarthy currently holds teaching appointments in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences.

He is also a member of the Board of Tutors in Environmental Science and Public Policy.

McCarthy also served as Associate Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences from 1986 to 1990.

Susan McCarthy is currently an editor at the Journal of Comparative Neurology at the Medical School.

Joseph McCarthy's research interests relate to the regulation of plankton productivity in the sea and, in recent years, have focused on the cycling of nitrogen in planktonic ecosystems