EMERITI REGENTS' PROFESSORS
Regents’ Professorships are bestowed on the most distinguished faculty of Georgia State University, whose scholarly achievements are recognized both nationally and internationally as innovative and renowned.
About Regents' Professorships
A Regents’ Professorship shall be awarded by the Board only upon the unanimous recommendation of the University president, the academic Provost, the appropriate academic dean, and three (3) other members of the faculty to be named by the president, and upon the approval of the Chancellor and the Committee on Academic Affairs (Board of Regents Minutes, October 2008). A Regents’ Professorship shall be granted by the Board of Regents for a period of three (3) years.
Consideration of the renewal of the professorship for a second three-year period shall be given by the Board of Regents upon recommendation of the president of the institution, the Chancellor, and the Committee on Academic Affairs. After a period of six (6) years the Regents’ Professorship shall be renewed at the discretion of the president of the institution (Board of Regents Minutes, August 2011).

Lauren Adamson
Each year, two Emeriti Regents’ Professors will be introduced through a brief bio.
Lauren Adamson
Dr. Lauren Adamson (died 2021) was Regents’ Professor Emerita of Psychology, College of Arts and Sciences, Georgia State University. Dr. Adamson received her BA from Swarthmore College (1970) and her PhD from University of California, Berkeley (1977).
Her primary research focused on communication and language development, parent-child interactions, and early social cognition. Dr. Adamson continued to be an active researcher as a GSU Emerita. She and three colleagues were funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD/NIH) to describe how auditory joint engagement typically develops from twelve to thirty months and how developmental disorders including autism spectrum disorder affect this developmental process.
Dr. Adamson advised research groups adopting the Joint Engagement Rating Inventory and the Play Protocol (systematic observational methods) that she and Roger Bakeman jointly developed. These techniques are being used to generate reliable data in several cultural contexts and to assess parent effectiveness as they interact with children at risk for communication difficulty and language delay.

Hal McAlister
Hal McAlister
Hal McAlister is Regents Professor Emeritus of Astronomy at Georgia State University where he founded the Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy (CHARA) in 1983 and served as its director until he retired in 2015. He led the team that turned a dream for an astronomical interferometer into the reality of the CHARA Array, currently producing the world’s highest resolution images of the surfaces and close environs of stars.
During 2002–2014 he also served pro-bono as CEO of the Mount
Wilson Institute and Director of Mount Wilson Observatory, the site of the CHARA Array. In 2017, Hal was given the Michelson Prize by the International Astronomical Union for Lifetime Achievement in his field. He was named as a Fellow of the American Astronomical Society for 2022. During Hal’s academic studies at University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, Hal served as student assistant for the famous Czech astronomer, Karel Hujer, who became Hal’s lifetime mentor. At Hujer’s death, Hal inherited Hujer’s papers and in 2023, Hal, and a Czech physicist, co-edited a book about Karl Huger.
Emeriti Regents' Professors List
*Lauren Adamson
Regents’ Professor Emerita
College of Arts and Sciences
Roy Bahl
Dean and Regents’ Professor Emeritus
Andrew Young School of Policy Studies
Richard L. Baskerville
Regents’ Professor Emeritus
J. Mack Robinson College of Business
*Joseph Baylen
Regents’ Professor Emeritus
College of Arts and Sciences
George Beasley
Regents’ Professor Emeritus
College of Arts and Sciences
Kenneth Bernhardt
Regents’ Professor Emeritus
J. Mack Robinson College of Business
*Kenneth Black, Jr.
Regents’ Professor Emeritus
J. Mack Robinson College of Business
David Boykin
Regents’ Professor Emeritus
College of Arts and Sciences
Harvey Brightman
Regents’ Professor Emeritus
J. Mack Robinson College of Business
William A. Edmundson
Regents’ Professor of Law and Philosophy
College of Law
Donald Edwards
Regents’ Professor Emeritus
College of Arts and Sciences
Margaret Fagan
Regents’ Professor Emerita
College of Arts and Sciences
Teryl Frey
Regents’ Professor Emeritus
College of Arts and Sciences
Martin Grace
Regents’ Professor Emeritus
J. Mack Robinson College of Business
Roger H. Hermanson
Regents’ Professor Emeritus
J. Mack Robinson College of Business
Hugh Hudson
Regents’ Professor Emeritus
College of Arts and Sciences
Mark Keil
Regents’ Professor Emeritus
J. Mack Robinson College of Business
*Marion L. Kuntz
Regents’ Professor Emerita
College of Arts and Sciences
*David Martin
Regents’ Professor Emeritus
Byrdine F. Lewis School of Nursing and Health Professions
Harold McAlister
Regents’ Professor Emeritus
College of Arts and Sciences
Ephraim R. McLean
Regents’ Professor Emeritus
J. Mack Robinson College of Business
*Michael Mescon
Regents’ Professor Emeritus
J. Mack Robinson College of Business
Yi Pan
Regents’ Professor Emeritus
College of Arts and Sciences
Donald Ratajczak
Regents’ Professor Emeritus
Andrew Young School of Policy Studies
Robert Sattelmeyer
Regents’ Professor Emeritus
College of Arts and Sciences
*William Sessions
Regents’ Professor Emeritus
College of Arts and Sciences
Phang Cheng Tai
Regents’ Professor Emeritus
College of Arts and Sciences
Walter Thompson
Regents’ Professor Emeritus
College of Education and Human Development
Wayne Urban
Regents’ Professor Emeritus
College of Education and Human Development
Richard Welke
Regents’ Professor Emeritus
J. Mack Robinson College of Business