The Mary Alice Bennett University Professorship

 

BennettCreated as a PIK (Penn integrates knowledge) professorship, this Chair honors Mary Alice Bennett, the first woman to receive a degree from Penn. Dr Bennett (1851-1925) earned her PhD from the University’s School of Auxiliary Medicine in 1880. Already a physician when she began her Penn studies, Dr. Bennett went on to champion the use of more humane practices in treatment of the mentally ill.

A graduate of and lecturer at the Pennsylvania College of Medicine for Women, Dr. Bennett came to Penn to further her knowledge of anatomy, the course she taught. However, in 1880 she was approached by Dr. Hiram Corson, a pioneering mental health physician in Plymouth Meeting who believed female patients would benefit from treatment by women. Dr. Bennett accepted his invitation to head the women’s division of a new asylum in Norristown, and she served as Superintendent there for 16 years. She is believed to be the first woman in Pennsylvania to have held such a leadership role in mental health care.

At Norristown, Dr. Bennett introduced therapeutic activities such as music, painting, and crafts. She also forbade the use of straitjackets, saying, “I can have no shadow of doubt that extraordinary precautions often suggest, or increase, the violence they are intended to prevent. Freedom of action is a wonderful tranquilizer.”

In 1890, Dr. Bennett was elected the first woman President of the Montgomery County Medical Society. She was also a member of the American Medical Association, the Philadelphia Neurological Society, and the Philadelphia Medical Jurisprudence Society.

After leaving Norristown, Dr. Bennett entered private practice. She ended her career by serving gratis as Head of the Outpatient Department of Obstetrics in the New York Infirmary for Women and Children. This institution was famed for having been founded in 1857 by Drs. Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell, the sisters who were America’s first and third female physicians.

Penn’s PIK professorship 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.


 

demirisCurrent Chairholder

George Demiris, PhD

George Demiris, PhD is the Mary Alice Bennett University Professor, a PIK (Penn Integrates Knowledge) professorship at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Demiris holds joint faculty appointments in the Department of Biobehavioral Health Sciences at the School of Nursing and in the Informatics Division of the Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Informatics at the Perelman School of Medicine. He explores innovative ways to utilize technology and support older adults and their families in various settings, including home and hospice care. He also focuses on designing and evaluating personal health systems that produce patient-generated data, including “smart home” solutions for aging.

Dr. Demiris is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, and a fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics, the Gerontological Society of America, and the International Academy of Health Sciences Informatics. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Informatics for Health and Social Care and a Senior Fellow of the Leonard Davis Institute for Health Economics. He has conducted numerous federally funded studies, and his work has been funded consistently over the years both by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. He directs the Penn Artificial Intelligence and Technology Collaboratory for Healthy Aging and co-directs the Penn Community Collaboratory for Co-Creation.