November People Notes

David F. Albertini, professor of anatomy and cellular biology and of obstetrics and gynecology, delivered the Founders Lecture at the 32nd annual meeting of the Australian Society of Reproductive Biology and the Endocrine Society of Australia on September 10 at Gold Coast, Queensland. The title of his lecture was "Cellunomics of the Mammalian Ovarian Follicle: Epigenetic Determinants of Recruitment and Selection." He presented research seminars in Melbourne at the Monash Institute of Reproduction and Development and Prince Henry's Institute of Medical Research on "Optimizing Oocyte Quality for Use in Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ARTs)" and at the University of Adelaide Reproductive Medicine Unit, where he spoke on "Cell Signaling Mechanisms That Integrate Oogenesis and Folliculogenesis." Albertini's work is being funded by grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in collaboration with Dr. Eric Overstrom of the School of Veterinary Medicine, and from the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation.

Dr. Nancy Arbree, assistant dean for academic affairs at the School of Dental Medicine, has been promoted to associate dean for academic affairs. top

Dr. Chieko Azuma, assistant professor in the Department of Clinical Sciences at the School of Veterinary Medicine, has passed the American College of Veterinary Radiology board certification exams for radiation oncology. top

Jonathan Burton has joined the Office of Alumni Relations on the Medford campus as a member of the constituent relations team. He is a 1992 graduate of Clark University, with a B.A. in American government, and worked at Boston University for six years as a program coordinator in the George Sherman Student Union. He is working with Young Alumni Programming and Boston-based alumni programs, including the Tufts Club, in addition to assisting with class reunions and Homecoming. top

Thomas Cahill has joined Tufts as the new senior director of university development. He will replace Phil Salem, who is retiring at the end of the year after 23 years at the university. Cahill will be working with Salem over the next two months and will take over full responsibility for the Development Division's administrative and financial affairs at the end of December. A resident of Andover, Mass., Cahill was the vice dean for administration and finance at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, where he was responsible for all administrative and financial services, information technology and sponsored program research services. He worked extensively with the school's fund-raising officers and with the overseers board in identifying fund-raising opportunities. Prior to Penn, Cahill spent 10 years at Harvard Medical School, advancing to the position of director of budgets, financial planning and analysis. top

Bonnie Chakravorty of the Program in Community Health presented a paper, "Recruiting and Retaining AIDS Service Organization (ASO) Volunteers to Serve Rural Communities," at the Second National Conference on HIV/STD Prevention in Rural Communities in Indianapolis, Ind., last spring. The study of rural New England ASOs was supported by a Tufts Faculty Research Award and is now being replicated in rural Texas. At the same conference, Chakravorty moderated a panel discussion of HIV and other STD prevention strategies for rural men who have sex with men. Chakravorty is also co-principal investigator with Drs. Robert Buchanan and Suojin Wang of the School of Rural Public Health at Texas A&M University on a nationwide study of nursing home residents with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The study, which is funded by the Alpha One Foundation, will describe demographic and other characteristics of nursing home residents with COPD as well as the care and treatments these residents receive. top

David Cochrane, professor of biology, attended the 5th World Congress on Inflammation, in Edinburgh, Scotland, where he presented results from his laboratory titled "Histamine-Releasing Peptide, An Albumin-Derived, Protease Generated Inflammatory Peptide." This work was co-authored by Ross Feldberg, associate professor of biology, and Dr. Robert E. Carraway of the Department of Physiology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. The work was supported by the NIH and by Tufts' Faculty Research Awards Committee. top

Deborah Digges, associate professor of English, has published a new book, The Stardust Lounge: Stories from a Boy's Adolescence (Nan Talese/Doubleday, June 2001). Her poem, "Boat," appeared in the June 2001 issue of The New Yorker. top

Kevin Dunn, associate professor of English, led a Tufts Alumni Tour of the Cotswolds, England, in May, and was the on-site director of the Bread Loaf School of English in Juneau, Alaska, this past summer. top

Lee Edelman, professor of English, has been elected to the Arts & Sciences faculty Grievance Panel for a term that ends in 2004. top

Rachel Ellis has joined the Office of Alumni Relations in Medford as a staff assistant. She is a 2001 summa cum laude graduate of Presbyterian College in Clinton, S.C., with a B.A. in music. During her undergraduate years, she worked in the financial aid office and has relocated to the Boston area with her husband, who is pursuing graduate studies at Tufts. top

John Fyler, professor and acting chair of English, was the on-site director of the Bread Loaf School of English at Lincoln College, Oxford, this past summer. He gave a lecture on "Landscape and Later Medieval Literature" at the University of Cambridge International Summer School in August. top

Mark Gonthier, assistant dean for admissions and student affairs at the School of Dental Medicine, has been promoted to associate dean for admissions and student affairs. top

Dr. David Greenblatt, professor and chairman of pharmacology and experimental therapeutics, received the Nathaniel T. Kwit Memorial Distinguished Service Award from the American College of Clinical Pharmacology in September. top

Marcie Hershman, lecturer in English, has published her third book, the memoir/meditation Speak to Me: Grief, Love and What Endures (Beacon Press). On a book tour, she spoke at venues, including the Arlington Street Church in Boston and at independent bookstores across the East Coast and Midwest. She also gave radio and print interviews. Speak to Me was the subject of a front-page Arts/Living article in the July 17 issue of The Boston Globe, and on September 26, National Public Radio's nationally syndicated "The Connection" from WBUR aired an hour-long show on the issues the book raises as well as an interview with Hershman and listener call-ins. Throughout the fall, Hershman will give a number of talks, including readings and master classes at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. In July, she taught an intensive week-long writing workshop, "Shaping Memoir," at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown Mass. top

Joseph Hurka, lecturer in English, had his memoir, Fields of Light, published in June. The book received strong reviews in Publishers Weekly, The Prague Post, The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and other national publications. Hurka recently was interviewed on NECN (New England Cable News), and feature articles are forthcoming in The Bloomsbury Review and The Bergen Record (NJ). Fields of Light is the current winner of the Pushcart Editors' Book Award. top

Sibyl Johnston, lecturer in English, has just published a creative writing textbook with Addison Wesley Longman titled Where the Stories Come From: Beginning to Write Fiction. Examination copies are available at www.ablongman.com. top

Dr. Elizabeth Lawrence, professor emerita at the veterinary school, has been named an honorary alumna of the Angell Memorial Animal Hospital. She was recognized for being one of the true pioneers in veterinary medicine during the 1950s and 1960s, when it was difficult for women to pursue veterinary careers. Lawrence taught courses on human-animal relationships at Tufts for 20 years before retiring in 2000. She continues to be involved in the master's degree program at the Center for Animals and Public Policy. top

Leslie Lawrence, lecturer in English, attended an advanced fiction writing workshop featuring Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Cunningham. top

Richard M. Lerner, Bergstrom Chair in Applied Developmental Science in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development, published the third edition of his textbook, Concepts and Theories of Human Development, with Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. He also published a new textbook, Adolescence: Development, Diversity, Context and Application, with Prentice-Hall. On October 3, Lerner co-taught with former Vice President Al Gore at Middle Tennessee State University and at Fisk University. The title of his lecture was "Youth Development in the Context of Family-Centered Community Building." On October 5, he delivered a talk at Yale University on "Building University-Community Collaborations to Promote Positive Youth Development." On October 26, he delivered a talk at Clark University on "From Developmental Systems Theory to Applied Developmental Science: A Contemporary Synthesis." He also attended a Society for the Study of Human Development conference in Ann Arbor, Mich., October 18-21. Lerner will deliver a colloquium speech, "Applying Developmental Science to Promote Positive Child and Family Development," November 14 at Suffolk University. top

Nan Levinson, lecturer in English, was awarded a writer's fellowship from the Somerville Arts Council. She is currently doing a project on the freedom to read with the West Somerville Neighborhood School. top

Claudia Mejia, lecturer in Spanish and course administrator, organized the 2nd Colombian Film Festival, which took place at Olin Center this past summer. It was co-sponsored by the Colombian Consulate in Boston and the Fleet Bank. Hundreds of participants had the opportunity to watch the latest films produced by a new generation of Colombian directors. top

Jo-Ann Michalak, director of the Tisch Library, has been elected vice president/president-elect of the Boston Library Consortium, a cooperative association of 16 academic and research libraries whose programs include resource sharing and enhancement of services to users through cooperative collection building, access to electronic resources, access to physical collections and enhanced interlibrary loan and document delivery. top

Colin Orians, associate professor of biology, was accepted as a Bullard Fellow at Harvard University for spring and summer 2002. Orians will collaborate with colleagues in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard and will initiate a long-term research project at the Harvard Forest in Petersham, Mass. top

Grant Rice, who has worked in the Development Division for the past two years, left Tufts October 12 to become director of corporate and foundation relations at Harvard Law School. top

Michael Romero, assistant professor of biology, attended the annual meeting of the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology in Chicago. He was accompanied by Benjamin Nephew, a graduate student who presented a portion of his thesis work, and Luke Remage-Healey, A00, who presented his Senior Honors Thesis. Romero had his research featured in an article he co-authored in the April 20 issue of Science magazine. His research focuses on stress responses in wild animal populations. Romero has been part of a team studying effects of environmental agitations, including those of El Ni–os, on the marine iguana population. In the Science article, he writes about the effects of the January 17 oil spill on the iguanas residing off San Cristobal Island in the Galapagos Natural World Heritage Site. Romero and his research team collected data that determined plasma levels of corticosterone, the species-specific stress hormone, were highly elevated after the oil spill. top

Dr. Morton Rosenberg, professor of oral and maxillofacial surgery at the School of Dental Medicine and head of the Division of Anesthesia and Pain Control, will receive the distinguished Horace Wells Anesthesia Award at the 107th annual meeting of the Horace Wells Club on December 8 in Hartford, Conn. The Horace Wells Club, formed in 1894 on the 50th anniversary of Wells' discovery of nitrous oxide, continues to meet every year on the anniversary of Wells' discovery to foster the study of anesthesiology. top

Winifred B. Rothenberg, associate professor of economics and formerly vice president of the Economic History Association, has been elected to the executive committee of the Social Science History Association, an organization that encourages the use of quantitative methodologies in teaching and in research in all the social sciences. top

Dr. Ronenn Roubenoff, associate professor of medicine and nutrition, has been appointed director of human studies at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts (HNRCA). He oversees the Metabolic Research Unit (MRU) and the Nutrition Evaluation Laboratory as part of his duties. In his new capacity, he will continue to support and expand the MRU programs that are an underpinning of the center's scientific reputation. top

Yves-Rose SaintDic has joined the Tufts community as director of affirmative action/OEO, university Title IX coordinator. She received an M.A.L.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1996. Since then, SaintDic has held management and leadership positions in minority-led nonprofit agencies and governmental affirmative action/equal opportunity divisions. Most recently, she was executive director of Transition House and the Women's Education Center, as well as executive director for the City of Somerville's Human Rights Commission. top

Jacob Schneps, Vannevar Bush Chair and professor of physics, has been chosen by the Faculty Research Awards Committee to receive the Distinguished Scholar Award. Schneps is a member of the High Energy Physics group that proved the existence of the tau neutrino, the final member of the fundamental particles group comprising all matter. Schneps is being recognized for his distinguished contributions to the fundamental properties of neutrinos, and in particular, the discovery of the interactions of tau neutrinos. top

Michelle Blake Simons, lecturer in English, had her second novel, Earth Has No Sorrow, published last spring by Penguin Putnam. In November, she will be reading at the Tisch Library, where the book is currently on display. top

Nak-Ho Sung, professor of chemical and biological engineering and director of the Laboratory for Materials and Interfaces, has been elected president of the Korean American Scientist and Engineers Association in America (KSEA), with headquarters in Washington, D.C. KSEA is a 30-year-old, nonprofit organization with approximately 8,000 members and 50 chapter offices nationwide. One of the goals of KSEA is to foster cooperation in science and engineering between the United States and Korea. As the general chair, Sung organized the three-day 2001 US-Korea Conference on Science, Technology and Entrepreneurship (UKC-2001), which was held August 10-12 at MIT. Topics discussed included life science/biotechnology, information science and technology and advanced materials. About 400 scientists and engineers participated, including 100 from Korea and 300 from the United States and Canada. A number of Tufts students, research staffs and faculty members also participated. top

Rosemary Taylor, associate professor of sociology and community health, has introduced a new course on the sociology of epidemics, led a Windows on Research advising unit that focused on historical methods and health care policy and organized an international conference, "Rethinking Social Protection: Citizenship and Social Policy in the Global Era." top

Patrick Webb, associate professor at the Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, co-edited The Special Issue of Food Policy (August 2001, vol. 26, no. 5,) on "Income Diversification and Livelihoods in Rural Africa: Cause and Consequence of Change." His co-editors are Christopher Barrett of Cornell and Thomas Reardon of MSU. The special issue offers an unprecedented collection of case studies based on detailed primary data from across Africa. The collection of papers reveals three empirical regularities that emerge consistently across countries, periods and analytical methods. First, there is a positive relationship between non-farm income and household welfare indicators across most of rural Africa. Second, substantial entry or mobility barriers hinder access of the moor to high return economic niche activities in the rural non-farm economy. Third, panel data evidence from across the continent suggest that greater non-farm income diversification causes more rapid growth in earnings and consumption. Webb also co-authored two articles in the special issue: "Non-Farm Income Diversification and Household Livelihood Strategies in Rural Africa: Concepts, Dynamics and Policy Implications" with Barrett and Reardon, and "The Dynamics of Livelihood Diversification in Post-Famine Ethiopia" with Steven Block, associate professor of international economics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. top