November People Notes

Frank Ackerman, Bill Moomaw, Robin Taylor, Kayo Tajima and Chris Swan of the Global Development and Environment Institute (G-DAE) met with three visitors from Australia and one from Japan to talk about research on waste and climate change. In addition to the well-attended public forum on "Hot Air and Solid Waste" on October 9, the group held several smaller working sessions to review the team's ongoing research projects. Ackerman and Rachel Taylor of G-DAE also attended the New Orleans meeting of the PVC work group of the Coming Clean Collaborative, a network of groups involved in environmental health issues, including Health Care Without Harm, Greenpeace, the Coalition for Health Environment & Justice, Healthy Building Network and others. GDAE presented a draft report on the economics of replacing PVC. The meeting included a field trip to a small town up the Mississippi from New Orleans in the "Cancer Alley" region, where a giant refinery is engulfing and overwhelming a small, largely African American community. The residents are campaigning for the refinery to provide them with funds for relocation, comparable to what a nearby white community has received.

Dr. Maisa Al-Sebaei, a third-year resident in oral and maxillofacial surgery at the School of Dental Medicine, was one of four recipients of the 2002 Straumann Resident Scientific Presentation Award for her paper, "Mandibular Distraction Osteogenesis: A Rabbit Model Using a Novel Experimental Design." The awards were presented in October at the annual meeting of the American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons in Chicago.

Dr. Karen Anderson has been appointed a clinical instructor in the Department of General Dentistry, Division of Public Health and Practice Management at the dental school.

Dr. David N. Bardwell, associate clinical professor of prosthodontics and operative dentistry and director of the postgraduate program in esthetic dentistry, and Dr. Ronald D. Perry, associate clinical professor of prosthodontics and operative dentistry and director of the Gavel Center for Restorative Research, received awards for the excellence of their presentations on behalf of Dentsply Professional. Bardwell and Perry have donated their $1,500 grant award to the School of Dental Medicine.

Indira Basu, a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Molecular Biology and Microbiology, has received a grant from the Natalie Zucker Research Center for Women Scholars.

Dr. Abhayjit Bedi has been appointed assistant professor of prosthodontics and operative dentistry at the dental school.

Jacob Benner has joined the Arts & Sciences faculty as a lecturer and lab coordinator in geology. He completed his master's degree in geology and geophysics this past May at the University of Utah at Salt Lake City. His most recent position was as program manager of regional networks at the company Second Nature, where he planned, developed and coordinated three regional networks across the nation to promote education for sustainability among colleges and universities. Benner's primary research interests include fossil benthic invertebrates and the substrate on or in which they lived and modern analogs, including shallow marine, inter-tidal and rocky shore environments.

Dr. Carl Carlamere has been appointed assistant clinical professor of orthodontics at the dental school.

Madeline H. Caviness, Mary Richardson Professor and professor of art history, was elected to a second term as president at the 26th general assembly of the International Council for Philosophy and Humanistic Studies (Conseil International de la Philosophie et des Sciences Humaines or CIPSH) in September. CIPSH is a non-governmental organization with a secretariat at UNESCO in Paris. Its 14 affiliated members are international scholarly organizations that represent more than 1,600 learned societies throughout the world. The vice presidents who will serve with Caviness come from the People's Republic of China, South Korea, the Ivory Coast, Sénégal and Poland. In conjunction with the CIPSH assembly, a conference on "The Encounter of 'Rationalities' " was organized by the philosopher Paulin Hountondji of the Centre Africain des Hautes Etudes of Porto Novo, Republic of Benin, West Africa. UNESCO sponsored the meeting through its Pathways into the Third Millennium Program. About 50 speakers, many of them from African countries, addressed Western and non-Western modes of thought. Visits before the conference included the Yoruba palaces in Abomay, partially restored by UNESCO; the museum of the slave trade in Ouidah and the village of Sakété, where the group was received by the Yoruba king.

Dr. Michael D. Coffey, a family practice resident in the Tufts Family Practice Residency Program in Malden, Mass., has been elected a resident member of the board of directors of the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), which represents more than 93,500 physicians and medical students nationwide. He was elected by the National Congress of Family Practice Residents in July and confirmed by the AAFP's governing body to a one-year term that began in October. As a resident member, Coffey is responsible for representing the interests and opinions of the National Congress of Family Practice Residents to the AAFP board of directors and the Congress of Delegates. Coffey received his undergraduate degree from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and his medical degree from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. Last year, Coffey was chosen for the American Medical Association Foundation Leadership Award, awarded annually to 25 residents for outstanding leadership. He also received the AAFP/Bristol-Myers Squibb Award for Graduate Medical Education in Family Practice. The Massachusetts Academy of Family Physicians (MAFP) awarded him a grant to give a presentation at the 2001 World Organization of Family Doctors World Congress in Durban, South Africa. While serving on the AAFP's Commission on Resident and Student Issues, he led a resident group that wrote a proposal to reform resident work hours. In addition, he was the first resident ever to serve on the board of the MAFP.

Dr. Ali Alper Comut has been appointed assistant professor of prosthodontics and operative dentistry at the dental school.

Dr. Jose E. Colon De Jesus has been appointed a clinical instructor in the Department of General Dentistry, Division of Public Health and Practice Management at the dental school.

Murray Elder, assistant professor of mathematics, and colleagues from the City College of New York and the State University of New York at Albany organized a special session on geometric group theory at the Northeast sectional meeting of the American Mathematical Society, which was held at Northeastern University October 5-6. At that meeting, three mathematics faculty members presented talks: Prof. Mauricio Gutierrez on "Sections of Projections from a Free Product to One of Its Factors;" Kim Ruane, assistant professor, on "Approximating CAT(0) Geodesics by Cayley Graph Geodesics;" and Anton Kaul, assistant professor, on "Automorphisms of Right-angled Coxeter Groups." The special session on convex geometry included a talk by Prof. Todd Quinto on "Pure and Applied Aspects of Limited Data Tomography," and the special session on ergodic theory and dynamical systems included talks by Prof. Zbigniew Nitecki on "Entropy Points, Expansiveness and Symbolic Dynamics" and Prof. Boris Hasselblatt on "Dimension of Hyperbolic Sets Computed from Stable and Unstable Slices," as well as a talk by Tufts alumnus E.A. Robinson, A78, now a professor at George Washington University. In addition, Hasselblatt introduced the first Erdos Memorial Lecture by Prof. H. Furstenberg.

Kevin Gallagher, a research associate at the Global Development and Environmental Institute, has been selected by the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (NACEC) to be among 15 experts from North America to present a paper at the Second Symposium on the Environmental Impacts of Trade in North America, which will be held in Mexico in March 2003. His paper is tentatively titled "Energy Technology, Fuel Use and Air Pollution: Mexican Manufacturing under Economic Integration." NACEC has awarded him a grant of $6,000 to conduct the research. Gallagher also is a co-editor of The Earthscan Reader on International Trade and Development, which will be published this month by Earthscan. The book can be ordered at http://www.earthscan.co.uk/asp/bookdetails.asp?key=3805&field=new

David Valdes Greenwood, lecturer in English, had an off-Broadway staged reading of his play, "Wonderland," at HERE in New York City this past summer. His short play, "Day Eight: Snow Globe," was published by Baker's Plays in September, and another short play, "Office Masaai," was just named a finalist for the Heideman Prize at the Actors Theater of Louisville. His play, "Brave Navigator," was recently performed in Texas and Indiana. His work will be seen locally this winter, including a staged reading of his new play, "Holocausta," in Boston and a full production of "Wandaleria" in Needham.

Robert Leibson Hawkins has joined the Arts & Sciences faculty as a lecturer in the departments of Child Development and Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning (UEPP). Hawkins taught last year in UEPP and served as director of educational programs through the University College of Citizenship and Public Service. He holds a master's degree in public administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Ph.D. from the Heller School of Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University. His research concentrates on family, children and poverty; race and gender policy issues; public policy analysis and communities and community-based organizations.

Alan K. Henrikson, associate professor of diplomatic history at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and director of the Fletcher Roundtable on a New World Order, spoke on "Religion, Politics and Diplomacy" and represented the Fletcher School at the International Forum on Diplomatic Training, held in Amman, Jordan, September 23-25. This was the 30th meeting of directors and deans of diplomatic academies and institutes of international relations (a.k.a. "The Sons and Daughters of Maria Theresa," as its oldest member is the Diplomatische Akademie Wien, founded by the Austrian empress in the 18th century). Henrikson also was invited to present the proposal he has developed for establishing "The International Open University under the Auspices of the United Nations," the text of which is now accessible on a UN web site: http://unicttaskforce.org (click on "Matchmaking" and scroll to "The International Open University." While in Amman, Henrikson was interviewed by Jordanian television. He emphasized that the best way to resolve the current and impending conflicts in the area is through diplomacy, rather than violent means. At the same time, he said that in present circumstances "military pressure" plainly is needed to "move discussions along." Next March through June, he will be on leave from the Fletcher School as Fulbright/Diplomatic Academy Visiting Professor of International Relations at the Vienna Diplomatic Academy, teaching U.S. diplomatic history, American foreign policy making, and U.S.-European relations.

Dr. Albert Intonti has been promoted to associate clinical professor of prosthodontics and operative dentistry at the dental school.

Robert J.K. Jacob, associate professor of computer science, appeared on the "AnchorDesk" radio show on CNET radio in San Francisco on October 17 to discuss the future of input devices. You can hear his segment at http://www.cs.tufts.edu/~jacob/radio.mp3

James Joseph, associate professor of nutrition and chief of the Neuroscience Laboratory at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (HNRCA), will present the Glen Foundation Award Lecture at the annual meeting of the Gerontological Society of America at the Westin Copley Place in Boston on November 24 at 8:30 a.m. He will discuss the impact of caloric restrictions versus caloric selection in brain aging.

Dr. Gerald T. Keusch, adjunct professor of medicine and former chief of Tufts-New England Medical Center's geographic medicine and infectious diseases division, received the Infectious Diseases Society's Bristol Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Roni Khardon has joined the School of Engineering faculty as an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering. He received a M.Sc. in electrical engineering from Technion in Israel in 1992 and a Ph.D. in computer science from Harvard University in 1996. Since his graduation, he has taught at the University of Edinburgh and at Tufts. Khardon's research interests are in machine learning, artificial intelligence and theoretical computer science, and he has received a National Science Foundation grant to pursue his research.

Anna Labykina has joined the Arts & Sciences faculty as the technical director and lecturer in the Department of Drama and Dance. She holds an MFA in technical design and production from the University of Texas at Austin, where she worked as a production assistant in the scene shop for two years. She also was technical director for the summer theater at Mount Holyoke College in 1999. Her dedication to the teaching and mentoring of undergraduates is evidenced in her master's thesis, "A Guide to Choosing a Career Path in Technical Theater," which she wrote primarily for use by undergraduates interested in the field.

Constantine Laskarides and Lawrence Herman of the oral and maxillofacial surgery department at the School of Dental Medicine traveled recently to Villavicencio, Columbia, to treat patients with cleft lips and palates.

David Lee has joined the Arts & Sciences faculty as an assistant professor of chemistry. He received his Ph.D. in macromolecular and cellular structure and chemistry from the Scripps Research Institute in 1998. He worked as a NSERC postdoctoral fellow and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Fellow of the Life Sciences Research Foundation at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at MIT. Lee has won numerous awards, including a Scripps Research Institute Society of Fellows Travel Award and a Medical Research of Canada Postgraduate Studentship. His research involves the design and selection of functional, self-assembling biomolecules, from peptides and proteins to nucleic acids. He has taught graduate level courses at MIT and Scripps as well as served as a lecturer and laboratory instructor for high school students.

Kyongbum Lee has joined the School of Engineering as an assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering. He earned his doctoral degree in chemical engineering, with a minor in applied mathematics, from MIT in 2001. He has worked as a visiting graduate fellow at the Center for Engineering in Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School and the Shriners Hospital for Children. His research areas are in biochemical and biomedical engineering.

Richard M. Lerner, Bergstrom Professor of Applied Developmental Science in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development, will be in Minneapolis, Minn., November 7-9 for the Healthy Communities, Healthy Youth conference, "Changing America with and for Youth." He will make two presentations, "Creating New Lens: The Thriving Indicators Project" and "Spirituality, Adolescent Development and Assent Building: A Dialogue Regarding Connections, Possibilities and Challenges." Lerner has been selected to receive the New England Psychological Association's 2003 Distinguished Scholar Award at the organization's 42nd annual meeting at Salem State College in November 2003.

Dr. Phyllis Mann has been promoted to assistant professor of biomedical sciences at the School of Veterinary Medicine. Since 1990, Mann has been a research associate in the school's Department of Comparative Medicine and was appointed research assistant professor of biomedical sciences earlier this year. Mann joins the recently established Section of Reproductive Biology and will be involved with research in reproductive biology and anatomy.

Claudia Mejía, lecturer in Spanish, was an invited speaker at the IV Jornadas del Maestro Investigador that took place at Pontificia Bolivariana University in Medellín, Colombia, October 3-5. She presented the paper, "Teaching Language and Culture over the Web," and held a virtual class from Medellín with the students in her class, Art and Culture in Colombia.

Dr. Olivier Morteau has joined the veterinary school faculty as a research assistant professor of biomedical sciences. Morteau has degrees from the University of Toulouse in physiology and cell biology, cellular and molecular biology, and his Ph.D. is in pharmacology. Most recently, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Children's Hospital in Boston. His research focuses on cellular and molecular biology and digestive pharmacology.

Ali Muftu, assistant professor of prosthodontics and operative dentistry, co-authored a study of 677 individual implants that found a two-year success rate of 95.2 percent and a five-year success rate of 90.2 percent. The study of Bicona dental implants found that tobacco use and single-stage implant placement were associated with an increased risk for failure of the implant; failure was defined as implant removal. The research was published in The Journal of Oral Implantology.

Dr. Roya Zand Parsa has been promoted to assistant professor of prosthodontics and operative dentistry at the dental school.

Anabel Perez, associate director of development and alumni relations at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, left Tufts in October to take a senior development position at INSEAD in Paris. INSEAD is widely recognized as one of the world's largest and most influential business schools.

Dr. Morton B. Rosenberg, head of the Division of Anesthesia and Pain Control at the School of Dental Medicine, was awarded honorary membership in the Massachusetts Society of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons for contributing "to the specialty of oral and maxillofacial surgery by sharing his expertise through clinical programs and personal friendships." The recognition was given at the society's September 25 meeting, at which Rosenberg gave a presentation on "Propofol for Ambulatory Anesthesia."

Dr. Yun Saksena has been promoted to assistant clinical professor of prosthodontics and operative dentistry at the School of Dental Medicine.

Jay P. Shimshack has joined the Arts & Sciences faculty as an assistant professor of economics. He comes to Tufts from the University of California at Berkeley, where he completed his Ph.D. in agricultural and resource economics. His major areas of interest and research are environmental and natural resource economics. His doctoral thesis, Environmental Compliance, Cost of Crop Insurance and Bureaucratic Behavior, is a series of policy-related essays that touch on each of these areas. His work has generated provocative results, including that self-reporting with fines can produce fewer effluent violations in pulp and paper mills than regular inspections and increasing the share of non-branded foods in a market can increase the prices of branded foods.

Ted Simpson has joined the Arts & Sciences faculty as a lecturer in scene design in the Department of Drama and Dance. He received his MFA degree in theater design from Brandeis University in 1995. Then he moved to New York City, where he worked as a free-lance set and lighting designer. He has designed for more than 100 shows, ranging from small summer theaters to opera and off-Broadway. Some of his recent designs have been for "The Beauty Queen of Leenane," "Heaven Can Wait" and "La Boheme."

Judith Stafford has joined the School of Engineering as an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering. She comes to Tufts from the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, where she worked for two years as a senior member of the technical staff. She received her doctoral degree in computer science from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2000. Stafford is the author of numerous journal articles, conference papers, book chapters and technical reports. She is co-author of two books, Distributed Software Components and Documenting Software Architectures. She has extensive experience in system development, most recently creating Aladdin, a tool for static dependencies among architectural components.

Philip T.B. Starks has joined the faculty as an assistant professor of biology. He received his Ph.D. in neurology and behavior from Cornell University in 1999. While at Cornell, he was awarded a NAS IUSSI Eickwort Memorial Award for excellence in graduate research on social insect biology. Before coming to Tufts, Starks worked as a Miller Fellow at the Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science at the University of California at Berkeley. His research interests are in behavioral ecology, and he uses laboratory and field techniques to investigate the adaptive significance of social behavior in insects.

Dr. Michael Steer, an authority on pancreatic diseases, has been appointed vice chairman of surgery at the School of Medicine and chief of general surgery at Tufts-New England Medical Center. Steer has been a member of the staff at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and a faculty member at Harvard Medical School. He served as Beth Israel's associate surgeon-in-chief from 1982 to 1996.

Sheridan Thomas has joined the Arts & Sciences faculty as a lecturer in acting and directing in the Department of Drama and Dance. She earned an MFA in acting from the University of Minnesota in 1974 and furthered her education through a variety of actor training programs in New York and Los Angeles. She has acted in stage, television and film productions and has won awards for her performances in "Angels in America" and "A Family Affair." She has taught acting at Southern Methodist University, Cornell University and the Cincinnati Playhouse. Through her teaching, she guides students to understand the power of relaxation for acting through techniques of psychophysical gesture, movement improvisation and tai chi.

Dr. Flo Tseng has been appointed assistant director of the Wildlife Clinic at the School of Veterinary Medicine.

Anthony Tuck has joined the Arts & Sciences faculty as a lecturer in classics. He comes to Tufts from the University of Evansville, where he had been an assistant professor of archaeology for four years. He holds a Ph.D. in classical archaeology and art from Brown University. His scholarly and teaching interests include early Etruscan social formation, emergent economics and systems of production, Etruscan funerary iconographies and problems in Italian prehistoric chronology. He has been a co-director of the Murlo Excavations in Italy since 1996 and has supervised a number of excavations in Indiana. Tuck has earned a number of fellowships and awards, including a Lilly Foundation EXCEL Faculty Innovational Instruction Grant and a Fulbright Fellowship.

Dr. Matthew K. Waldor, associate professor of medicine, received the Infectious Diseases Society's Squibb Award in recognition of outstanding achievement by a society member under age 45.