The William Maul Measey Professorship of Microbiology

William Maul Measey

Created through gifts from the Benjamin and Mary Siddons Measey Foundation, the Professorship is intended to support the Chair of the Department of Microbiology. The Professorship honors William Maul Measey (1875–1967), an alumnus of the University of Pennsylvania Law School Class of 1898.

William Maul Measey, a distinguished corporate attorney in Philadelphia, created the Benjamin and Mary Siddons Measey Foundation in 1958 to honor the memory of his parents. Since the Foundation supports several colleges, universities, schools of medicine, and hospitals in the Philadelphia area, the Measey name has become synonymous with the furtherance of medical education in the region.


Frederic BushmanCurrent Chairholder
Frederic Bushman, PhD

Frederic Bushman, PhD is the William Maul Measey Professor, as well as the Co-Director of the Penn/Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) Microbiome Program, Chair of the Department of Microbiology, and Co-Director of the Penn Center for Research on Coronavirus and Other Emerging Pathogens. Dr. Bushman received his bachelor’s degree in biology and English at Amherst College and his PhD in cellular and developmental biology at Harvard University. He completed his postdoctoral training at Harvard and at the National Institutes of Health. He joined the Penn Medicine faculty in 2003.

Dr. Bushman’s research often involves development and implementation of new technology for basic research and biotechnology. His work has identified and modeled key steps in HIV replication, which provided foundational insight and tools for developing HIV integrase inhibitors, which are in wide use today.

Dr. Bushman served as Principal Investigator for the Human Microbiome Project, and he helped found and co-directs the PennCHOP Microbiome Program. Dr. Bushman has published more than 400 research papers (ISI h-index of 73) and two books. He is a Fellow of both the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Microbiology. Dr. Bushman is also a Stohlman Scholar of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of America. In 2014, he was recognized as a pioneer in the field of cell and gene therapy as a recipient of the Pioneer Award from the journal Human Gene Therapy.

He lives in Rose Valley, PA with his wife Annette and children Marshall and Joyslin.

Previous Chairholders

  • Robert W. Doms, MD, PhD 2011–2012