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March 2008

March People Notes

Frank Ackerman, research and policy program director at the Global Development and Environment Institute, participated in an expert workshop in December on the costs of inaction and alternatives to cost-benefit analysis, sponsored by the World Health Organization (WHO), the European Environment Agency and the EU’s Joint Research Center. It was part of an ongoing process led by WHO, which is developing agendas and proposals for the quadrennial meetings of European health and environment ministers. The meeting was held in Rome; Ackerman was the only American participant.

Sarah Belisle, N12, a doctoral student at the Friedman School, won the American Oil Chemist Society Honored Student and the Health & Nutrition Division Award.

Bob Bridges, professor of biomedical sciences at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, together with Elizabeth Byrnes, research assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences, and David Grattan of the University of Otago, New Zealand, were awarded a five-year,  $1.7 million grant to study the neural and endocrine consequences of parity, funded by the Reproductive Biology Branch of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Bridges was also an invited speaker at Gordon Conference on “The Prolactin and Growth Hormone Family” held in Ventura, Calif. His presentation was titled “Alterations in the Neuroendocrine Regulation and Neural Actions of Prolactin by Reproductive Experience.”

Barbara Brizuela, professor and chair of education, has received a Fulbright Fellowship to go to Argentina next spring and a Spencer Foundation grant for her research in elementary mathematics education. During the last few years, she has been collecting a longitudinal sample of data on children’s representations of number across different systems. Both fellowships cover data collection and analysis, as well as the writing of a book on the topic. The Fulbright also sponsors lectures in Argentina on this and on Brizuela’s early algebra research.

Ramon Bueno, research assistant at the Global Development and Environment Institute,was interviewed in Spanish on a live program on Radio Isla 1320 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on January 15. The interview was on the institute’s report “Florida and Climate Change: The Costs of Inaction,” written by Frank Ackerman, research and policy program director at the Global Development and Environment Institute, and Liz Stanton, research fellow at the institute.

Dr. Sang Woon Choi, a scientist in the Vitamins and Carcinogenesis Laboratory at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (HNRCA), will receive the Mead Johnson Award from the American Society of Nutrition, which is given to an investigator for a single outstanding piece of nutrition research or a series of papers in the same subject accomplished within 10 years of completing postgraduate training. He will receive the award at the Experimental Biology Conference.

Lori Doppman, project assistant in public health and community service at the School of Dental Medicine, received a community service award at an Oral Health Heroes event in Springfield, Mass., on February 15.

Julien Farland is a new biosafety officer in the Department of Public and Environmental Safety. Farland is based on the Grafton campus and will provide biosafety services and support to the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine. He was previously assistant director of environmental health and safety at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. He also worked as an environmental health and safety officer for the Whitehead Institute and Harvard University. He is a certified hazardous materials manager and is an active member of various biosafety and EH&S organizations. He received a B.A. in biology from Wesleyan University and a S.M. in environmental science and engineering from the Harvard School of Public Health.

Mark Feldman, D73, has been installed as the 144th president of the American Dental Association (ADA), which represents more than 155,000 dentists across the country. His top priority is improving access to dental care in America, especially in underserved areas. “I believe that every one of our ADA members should provide a certain amount of pro-bono work every year,” he says. Feldman is the second Tufts dental alum to serve as ADA president; Geraldine T. Morrow, D56, was elected the organization’s first woman president in 1991.

A review of The Enclave Economy: Foreign Investment and Sustainable Development in Mexico’s Silicon Valley, by Kevin P. Gallagher, senior researcher at the Global Development and Environment Institute, and Lyuba Zarsky, senior research fellow with GDAE’s Globalization and Sustainable Development Program, appeared in the December 31 issue of the Miami Herald.

Pamela Goldberg, director of the Entrepreneurial Leadership Program, received the Acton Foundation’s national Award for Excellence in Entrepreneurship Education, one of 27 college educators nationally to win this year’s award. Goldberg, A77, and other winners were initially nominated by their students and then judged by a panel of master entrepreneurship teachers at Acton School of Business, an intensive one-year MBA program in Austin, Texas. She has been director of the Entrepreneurial Leadership Program at Tufts School of Engineering since its inception in 2002. The program, which is housed within the Gordon Institute, provides courses and hands-on education opportunities for students interested in founding their own companies or working in entrepreneurial environments.

Dr. Marc S. Goldstein, clinical instructor in public health and family medicine, is the clinical director of an acupuncture clinic for the treatment of chronic pain located at the Pain Clinic of the Boston VA Healthcare System, Jamaica Plain campus. He also practices primary care ambulatory medicine at the VA Worcester Outpatient Clinic in Worcester, Mass.

Neva Goodwin, co-director of the Global Development and Environment Institute, published the second of a two-part series, “What Is the Economy for?” The piece, hosted on the e-zine, “Opinion Sur”, is “Internalizing Externalities: Making Markets and Societies Work Better.” The Spanish and English versions are available online.

Ray Jackendoff, the Seth Merrin Professor of Philosophy and co-director of the Center for Cognitive Studies, was honored at two conferences in France in January. The first was a two-day symposium titled “Autour de la Théorie Générative de la Musique Tonale de Fred Lerdahl et Ray Jackendoff,” held at the Institut Recherche et Coordination Acoustique-Musique in Paris. Jackendoff spoke on “The Roots of GTTM and Its Lessons for Cognitive Science.” The second was a two-day colloquium in Dijon titled “Musique Langage Cerveau, 25 ans après la Théorie Générative de la Musique Tonale de Lerdahl et Jackendoff.” Jackendoff spoke on “Parallels and Non-parallels between Language and Music.” He also delivered a plenary lecture at the 26th European Workshop on Cognitive Neuropsychology in Bressanone, Italy, speaking on “The Parallel Architecture and Its Role in Linguistics and Cognitive Science.”

Nancy Johnson, a dental hygienist in the department of public health and community service, received an Oral Health Hero Award for community service at the third annual “Watch Your Mouth Oral Health Heroes Event” at the State House on February 14.

John Kauer, professor of neuroscience, spoke about neural mechanisms coding olfactory processing and recognition at the 2008 Boston Regional Brain Bee at MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory in early February. The Brain Bee is a live Q&A competition testing the neuroscience knowledge of high school students. Kauer’s company, CogniScent, produces systems capable of detecting airborne traces of explosives, mold and other substances.

Dr. Brendan P. Kelly, assistant professor of medicine, helped lead the first annual Med-Peds Symposium on Cape Cod, the first national Med-Peds continuing medical education conference. Some 115 physicians from more than 20 states attended the conference in September 2007 in Brewster, Mass. Kelly is the director and organizer of the 2008 Med-Peds conference, which will be held in mid-September in South Yarmouth, Mass.

Jonathan Kenny, professor of chemistry, is one of nine researchers featured as a “Chemistry Explorer” in the latest edition of the textbook Chemical Principles by Steven Zumdahl. Kenny’s research is highlighted as a practical example of molecular spectroscopy. Research projects in his group are not confined to a laboratory setting; instead equipment is often taken into the field to analyze real-world samples such as groundwater contaminants. Kenny is known for his expertise in the field of fluorescence spectroscopy and spectroscopic applications to environmental issues, and has developed an environmental chemistry course aimed at non-science majors that integrates all facets of science.

Dr. Mary Labato, a clinical faculty member in small animal internal medicine, has been promoted to the rank of clinical professor at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine. Labato, V83, has been on the clinical faculty since 1987 and head of the Section of Small Animal Medicine since 2003. Her clinical research has focused on the areas of nephrology and hypertension. Recently, she participated in the development of two American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine consensus statements, on Lyme disease and hypertension.

Leslie Lawrence, lecturer in English, had her memoir, “What Can You Do,” recently published in Prairie Schooner. She is also planning to attend the upcoming Associated Writings Program in New York. She recently returned from a three-week trip to India with her sister, son, and nephew, Kenneth Leavitt, A08.

Alice Lichtenstein, senior scientist and director of the Cardiovascular Nutrition Laboratory at the HNRCA gave a presentation on “Dietary Recommendations and Health Claims in the United States—Current Challenges” at the International Experts Meeting at BOKU University in Vienna, Austria, in February.

John McDonald, associate professor of music and director of graduate music studies, received the 2007 Music Teachers National Association-Shepherd Distinguished Composer of the Year Award. His composition, “Stäudlin as Vogl: Preamble to a Winter Journey,” was selected from among 31 works entered in this year’s competition. A duo for saxophone and piano, it is McDonald’s response to the Schubert song cycle “Winterreise.” A $3,000 award will be presented to McDonald at the association’s national conference in Denver on April 2. Saxophonist Philipp Staudlin, the dedicatee of McDonald’s prize-winning work and a member of the Tufts music performance faculty, will perform the piece with McDonald at the conference.

Thomas McGuinness has been promoted to a senior research analyst in the Office of Institutional Research & Evaluation. He has a bachelor’s degree from Boston College and an M.Ed. from Harvard University.

Kaitlin Melanson joined University Web Communications as an editorial assistant in February. She will be concentrating on E-News and infoscreens. Before coming to Tufts, Melanson worked as a journalist at the Marblehead Reporter, a weekly community newspaper, and received several awards from the New England Press Association.

Dr. Mohsen Meydani, senior scientist and director of the Vascular Biology Laboratory at the HNRCA, gave a presentation on “Dietary Polyphenols and Their Modulation of Inflammation and Chronic Disease” at a conference on “Managing Menopause: A Common Denominator for the Prevention and Treatment of Chronic Disease,” held at Florida State University in February.

Dr. Simin Meydani, HNRCA associate director and director of its Nutritional Immunology Laboratory, gave a talk on “Nutrition and Inflammation: An Immunologist’s Point of View” at the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition Clinical Nutrition Week 2008 Intersociety Research Workshop on Nutrition & Inflammation in Chicago in early February. Meydani also received the Robert H. Herman Award in Clinical Nutrition from the American Society of Nutrition.

Paul E. Milbury, a scientist in the HNRCA Antioxidants Research Laboratory, presented a talk on “Distribution of Anthocyanins in Pig Tissues after Long-term Blueberry Feeding” during a panel on “Understanding the Antioxidant Controversy: Scrutinizing the ‘Fountain of Youth’ ” at the 234th ACS national meeting last summer.

Jose M. Ordovas, professor of nutrition, has been appointed by Francis Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, to the steering committee of a project designed to integrate genetics and epidemiologic research, with a focus on wide genome association studies. He has been unanimously elected as fellow of the Royal Society of Sciences of Zaragoza (Spain).

Dr. Basil A. Pruitt, M57, an internationally recognized burn surgeon, will receive the 2008 King Faisal International Prize for Medicine at a ceremony in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in March. He shares the prize in medicine with Donald D. Trunkey, professor of surgery at Oregon Health & Science University. Prize winners receive $200,000 in cash, a 24-carat gold medal and a certificate celebrating their work. Pruitt, clinical professor of surgery at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, and Trunkey are being honored for their work in trauma management. Pruitt serves as editor of the Journal on Trauma. The annual awards recognize outstanding scholars in a variety of fields from all over the world. Twelve recipients of the King Faisal Prizes for Medicine and Physics have gone on to become Nobel laureates.

Dr. Jonathan I. Ravdin, M76, will become dean and executive vice president of the Medical College of Wisconsin on May 5. He is currently professor and chair of the department of medicine at the University of Minnesota Medical School.

Vanessa Rhinesmith joined University Web Communications as project coordinator in February. A Fairfield University graduate, Rhinesmith is currently pursuing an MBA at Simmons School of Management. She previously worked as a project coordinator at Liberty Mutual and Simmons School of Management.

Susan Roberts, senior scientist and director of the HNRCA Energy Metabolism Laboratory, presented a talk on “Constructing an Optimal Weight Control Diet: How Close Are We?” at the ILSI North America 2008 annual meeting in January in Puerto Rico.

Dr. Robert Russell, senior scientist and director of the HNRCA, will receive the David Kritchevsky Career Achievement Award in Nutrition from the American Society for Nutrition at the Experimental Biology Conference.

W. George Scarlett, deputy chair of the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development, is writing Approaches to Behavior and Classroom Management: Integrating Discipline with Care for Sage Publications, and recently appeared on “Good Morning America” as an expert commenting on the phenomenon of baby modeling for television.

Hope Schreiber, associate clinical professor of psychiatry, co-edited Adult Learning Disorders: Contemporary Issues, with Lorraine Wolf and Jeannette Wasserstein. To be published by Psychology Press on April 17, the book addresses how neuroimaging and genetic mapping technologies have enhanced our understanding of neurodevelopmental disorders in adults. The heterogeneity of adults with learning disorders, the complexity of their clinical presentation and co-existing disorders are addressed from both a scientific and clinical perspective, demonstrating how empirical research and clinical practice inform each other.

Dr. Sanjeev Sharma, assistant clinical professor of medicine, was named a fellow of the American College of Geriatric Specialists, a diplomate of the American Board of Geriatrics and a diplomate of the American College of Ethical Physicians.

The longtime team physician for the athletic programs at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Dr. George A. Snook, M52, has been inducted into the Hall of Fame of the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine (AOSSM) in recognition of his contributions to sports medicine. He was team physician at UMass from 1960 to 1992, and also served as team physician for the Northampton (Mass.) High School football team, fencing coach at the Northampton YMCA and tournament physician for the New England Wrestling Association. He is a founding member of AOSSM, and was the organization’s president from 1987–88. He is a former chief of orthopedics at Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton and former president of the hospital staff.

Liz Stanton, research fellow at the Global Development and Environment Institute, was in Tallahassee in December testifying before the Florida legislature on GDAE’s recent Florida climate change report commissioned by Environmental Defense.

Industrialized livestock operations have benefited from low feed prices and lax environmental enforcement, according to two recent papers by Elanor Starmer, research assistant at the Global Development and Environment Institute, and Timothy Wise, deputy director and researcher at the institute, presented in the prominent agribusiness publication Feedstuffs. The article presents the papers’ main findings: industrial livestock firms saved $35 billion from 1997 to 2005 because they were able to purchase corn and soybeans below the cost of production. They also point out that mid-sized hog farmers who grow their own feed would have lower operating costs than large confinement operations if the latter had to pay full cost for feed and for safe disposal of manure.

E. Charles H. Sykes, assistant professor of chemistry, is one of nine researchers featured as a “Chemistry Explorer” in the latest edition of the textbook Chemical Principles by Steven Zumdahl. Sykes’ research focuses on probing nano-scale surface structures and phenomena. His group utilizes scanning tunneling microscopy to investigate surface topography and electron density of atoms and molecules with specific interest in self-assembly, catalysis and single molecule reactivity.

Stephanie Topping has been promoted to assistant director in the Office of Institutional Research & Evaluation. Topping received a B.S. and M.S. in civil engineering from Tufts.

Paul J. Tringale, A82, F01, director of conferences and summer programs, hosted the regional meeting of the Association of Collegiate Conference and Events Directors – International in November. At that meeting, Tringale presented and led a round-table discussion on conference center differentiation. Conference center managers and directors at area universities attended the regional meeting to discuss issues in the field and to begin to plan the association’s annual meeting in Boston, which will be held in March 2009.

Aron Troen, a scientist in the Vitamin Metabolism Laboratory and Nutrition and Neurocognition Laboratory at the HNRCA, presented a panel on animal models of vascular cognitive impairment, “A Mouse Model of Homocysteine-related Vascular Cognitive Impairment,” at the Vas-Cog Congress of the International Society for Vascular Cognitive and Behavioral Disorders in San Antonio, Texas, in July 2007.

Paul Waldau, director of the Center for Animals and Public Policy at the Cummings School, was interviewed on the topic of law, religion and animals on the website Electric Politics. The January 18 interview is available in a downloadable podcast. Electric Politics was among ten finalists, including Democracy Now and Slate, for best political podcast at the annual Podcast Awards competition.

Dr. Gene White has been promoted to associate professor at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine. White, who joined the faculty in 1997, received his D.V.M. from Cornell University and is a diplomate of the American Board of Veterinary Practitioners–Dairy Practice Category. In addition to being on clinics, he carries out research projects on mastitis, cattle lameness and sustainable agriculture. White received the Carl Norden Distinguished Teacher Award in 2005.

Timothy Wise, deputy director and researcher at the Global Development and Environment Institute, was quoted in the December 31 edition of Mexican newspaper La Reforma about the dangers of the final liberalization of Mexico’s agricultural sector under NAFTA, which took effect January 1, 2008. The article focused on a Woodrow Wilson Center report on the topic, which Wise helped launch in November in Mexico City.