The faculty members will begin their new appointments in the 2025–26 academic year.
By Cara Nixon
March 24, 2025
Four Reed professors are the recent recipients of endowed chairs, prestigious faculty positions which reflect their contributions as both scholars and teachers. They will officially begin their appointments in the 2025–26 academic year.
Katja Garloff
Moe and Izetta Tonkon Professor of Judaic Studies and Humanities
Professor Katja Garloff’s research focuses on German literature, German Jewish culture, and film and media studies. She came to Reed in 1997 after receiving a master’s degree from the University of Hamburg and a PhD in German literature from the University of Chicago. In recent years, Garloff has received grants from the American Council of Learned Societies and the German Academic Exchange Service. She is the author of Words from Abroad: Trauma and Displacement in Postwar German Jewish Writers (Wayne State University Press, 2005), Mixed Feelings: Tropes of Love in German Jewish Culture (Cornell University Press, 2016), and Making German Jewish Literature Anew: Authorship, Memory, and Place (Indiana University Press, 2022).
The Moe and Izetta Tonkon professorship was established by alumnus Moe Tonkon ’26 and his wife, Izetta Tonkon, in 1988, and the chair was named in their honor by the college in 1990. Moe was an active member of the Board of Trustees for many years, and eventually served as its Chairman. He assumed emeritus status in 1966, a position he held until his death in 1984. Moe is well known for founding one of Portland’s largest and most prestigious law firms, Tonkon Torp LLP, and for being the first Jewish member of three prominent social clubs in Portland. After studying the fine arts at the University of Washington, Izetta played an active role in advancing philanthropic priorities that she shared with Moe.
Adam Groce
Roger M. Perlmutter Associate Professor of Computer Science
Professor Adam Groce is a cryptographer whose work focuses on database privacy. He’s also interested in all aspects of theoretical computer science and cybersecurity policy questions. Groce joined the Reed faculty as a visiting professor in 2014, following earning bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a PhD in computer science from the University of Maryland.
The Roger M. Perlmutter Professorship in Computer Science was established in 2022 by Roger M. Perlmutter ’73, a distinguished immunologist, pharmaceutical executive, and former chairman of the board of trustees. His groundbreaking career has spanned academia, biotechnology, and pharmaceutical research. This chair supports data science, including computer science and statistics, and is part of a broader effort to provide excellent teaching in computational methods across disciplines.
Angélica M. Osorno
F. L. Griffin Associate Professor of Mathematics
Professor Angélica M. Osorno researches algebraic topology, with a particular interest in higher category theory and its connections with higher K-theory and infinite loop space theory. She joined the Reed faculty in 2013 following earning a bachelor’s degree and PhD in mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and completing her postdoctoral studies at the University of Chicago. Recently, Osorno co-authored a paper for the Notices of the American Mathematical Society journal.
F. L. Griffin was Reed’s first hired faculty member and headed the mathematics department. He taught math at Reed for over 40 years. During his retirement, the board of trustees called upon Griffin to serve as acting president, and he filled the role from 1954–56. This chair was augmented with many small gifts and a few larger contributions over the decades following 1956.
Anna Ritz
Margaret Oakley Dayhoff Associate Professor of Bioinformatics
Professor Anna Ritz uses computer science to solve biological problems. Ritz earned master’s and PhD degrees in computer science from Brown University and completed her postdoctoral studies at Virginia Tech before joining the Reed faculty in 2015. Her research explores different ways to model biological systems using computers, focusing on how diseases like cancer affect those systems.
In 2010, an anonymous donor made an initial pledge to assist in establishing an endowed chair in bioinformatics and computational biology. Several major gifts were added to the fund over the next decade. In 2024, the advancement department decided to name the chair after Margaret Oakley Dayhoff, a pioneering biochemist and bioinformatics trailblazer. Dayhoff is perhaps best known for creating the first comprehensive protein sequence database and developing the one-letter amino acid code still used today. The professorship named in her honor recognizes her lasting impact on science and supports continued excellence in research and education at Reed.