The Daniel S. Och University Professorship

This Penn Integrates Knowledge (PIK) University Professorship was created in 2009 by Jane and Daniel S. Och. A Wharton graduate, Mr. Och is a University Trustee and serves on the Honorary Degrees and Awards Committee. Mr. Och is a member of the Wharton School’s Board of Overseers. He previously served on Wharton’s Undergraduate Executive Board for 10 years.

Mr. Och is the Founder of Och-Ziff Capital Management Group, an alternative asset management firm in New York. The Ochs have supported a variety of programs at Penn, including undergraduate scholarships, university life, Penn Medicine, and the Wharton School.

The PIK Program was launched by President Gutmann in 2005 as a University-wide initiative to recruit exceptional faculty members whose research and teaching exemplify the integration of knowledge across disciplines and who are appointed in at least two Schools at Penn.

Current Chairholder
Shelley L. Berger, PhD

Shelley L. Berger, PhD is the Daniel S. Och University Professor, Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology, and Professor of Biology. She is the founding Director of the Penn Epigenetics Program. Dr. Berger completed her postdoctoral training at MIT and Harvard University and earned her PhD in cell and molecular biology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

With appointments in the Perelman School of Medicine and the School of Arts and Sciences, Dr. Berger works at the intersection of genetics, epigenetics, genomics, computational biology, and cell and developmental biology. Charting new frontiers for the emerging science of epigenetics, she studies mechanisms linked to aging, neurodegenerative disease, cancer, and fertility. Her research is supported by major grants from the NIH and the NSF.