Dr. Richard K. Scotch

Dr. Richard K. Scotch is professor of sociology, public policy and political economy at The University of Texas at Dallas. His teaching includes courses on medical sociology, public health, social stratification, and social and health policy, while his research focuses on a variety of social policy topics related to disability, health, and education. 

Dr. Scotch received his BA with honors from the University of Chicago in 1973 and his MA and PhD in sociology from Harvard University in 1975 and 1982. Prior to joining the UTD faculty in 1983, Dr. Scotch served as a Congressional Science Fellow with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He has numerous publications on social policy reform and social movements in disability, health care, education and human services. His 2020 book with Allison Carey and Pamela Block, Allies and Obstacles: Disability Activism and Parents of Children with Disabilities, received “best book” awards from the North Central Sociological Association and the Section on Disability in Society of the American Sociological Association. A follow-up edited volume, Families and Disability Activism, is forthcoming, with financial support from the Ford Foundation.

Dr. Scotch is the past Chair of the Section on Disability and Society of the American Sociological Association and past president of the Society for Disability Studies. He received the Senior Scholar Award of the Society of Disability Studies in 2013, and the inaugural Distinguished Contribution Award of the ASA Section on Disability and Society in 2014. 

Dr. Scotch has worked with public and nonprofit health and human service agencies for over three decades, including the North Texas Behavioral Health Authority; Collin County; Dallas County; the Parkland Healthy Start Program; the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas; Educational First Steps; the Texas Pride Community Foundation; United Cerebral Palsy; the Arc; the National Institute of Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research; and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Dr. Polykarp Kusch

Dr. Polykarp Kusch was Nobel laureate in physics in 1955 and came to The University of Texas at Dallas in 1972.

At UT Dallas, he was Regental Professor and served on the physics faculty. His distinguished science career was complemented by his superb teaching. He delighted students with his presentations of physics experiments in his “Phenomena of Nature” classes.

Before coming to UT Dallas, Dr. Kusch had served as professor, vice president, provost and dean of faculties at Columbia University.

When he retired in 1982, UT Dallas established a program of annual lectures with the theme “Concerns of the Lively Mind” to honor Dr. Kusch.

Kusch Lectures