Andrew Biewener, a biology professor and department chair at the University of Chicago, has accepted a full professorship in Harvard's Organismic and Evolutionary Biology (OEB) Department.

Biewener, who chairs the Organismic Biology and Anatomy Department at Chicago, formally accepted his appointment on Feb. 24 in a letter to Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles.

According to Biewner, he received the OEB department's recommendation for appointment last spring, and his case was heard by President. Neil L. Rudenstine in October 1997.

Biewener joins Harvard as a professor of biology and will also serve as the new director of the Concord Field Station, the principal ecological research facility of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University.

"I'm thrilled and I feel very fortunate. It's invigorating to move to a new place that has a great intellectual community in Boston and in Harvard locally," Biewener said.

Biewener's enthusiasm was shared by Harvard faculty as well. Jay L. Taft, director of administration for OEB, was very pleased about Biewener's appointment.

"He's a terrific addition to our faculty and his work represents an area important to the department both in undergraduate and graduate education," said Taft.

"He brings a research capability that will be very helpful to the Concord Field Station," he said.

Biewener will leave Chicago after working there for 16 years and serving as the department chair for three and a half years.

He said his decision to leave Chicago for Harvard was rooted in his excitement about the University's resources and the chance to take his career in new directions.

"Harvard provides excellent opportunities in its extraordinary and unique resources as well as the chance to move in new directions in my work while interacting with a new set of colleagues," Biewener said.

Colleagues of Biewener at Chicago were disappointed that he was leaving but were pleased by his success.

"He [Biewener] is the ideal person to manage the Concord Field station because he's really one of the best peoplearound to effect its modernization," said PhilipC. Ulinski, professor of Organismal Biology andAnatomy at Chicago.

As director of the Concord Field Station,Biewener said he hopes to make it the premiereplace for doing comparative biomechanics researchand comparative physiology and locomotion.

"I would also like to broaden the base ofactivities to include other faculty efforts aswell," Biewener said.

As a graduate student at Harvard as well as inseveral studies, Biewener has worked with theprevious director of the Concord Field Station,Richard Taylor. He has not formally worked withany other faculty at Harvard.

Biewener received his bachelor of science inzoology degree from Duke University and got hismasters and Ph.D at Harvard. After graduating, hebegan his tenure at the University of Chicago.

Biewener has published a number of notableresearch articles in his field. His articles haveconsidered the effects of locomotor posture on thebiomechanics of support and the energetic costs oflocomotion.

More recent papers in Nature and the Journal ofExperimental Biology have looked at the mechanicalrequirements of force and power outputs by musclesin hopping wallabies and in the flight of birds.

Biewener's work in the past has been concernedwith the influence of broad aspects ofsize-related design of the muscle-skeletal systemin vertebrates regarding locomotion as well as themanner in which skeletal tissues respondadaptively to changes in functional demand.

He now looks forward to moving in the newdirection of looking at how muscles function inpowering the mechanical requirements of movementin animals in motion.

Biewener's appointment is effective July 1, andhis first class will be offered next fall. WithProfessor A.W. Crompton, he will teach Biology 21:"Structure and Physiology of Vertebrates.