February People Notes

Julian Agyeman, assistant professor of urban and environmental policy and planning, has been invited to convene an international panel of experts on "The Future of Sustainable Cities" at the the Sixth Sharjah Urban Planning Symposium, which will be held in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, April 6-8. After peer review, the papers will be published in Local Environment, the journal he co-edits with Prof. Bob Evans of the Sustainable Cities Research Institute at the University of Northumbria in the United Kingdom.

David F. Albertini, professor of anatomy and cellular biology, received the Hammond Medal from Western Europe's combined societies for reproduction and fertility December 21 in Tours, France. It was his fifth trip to Europe within the past year to discuss his reproductive biology research.

Dr. Nancy S. Arbree, associate dean for academic affairs and professor of prosthodontics and operative dentistry at the School of Dental Medicine, has been named president-elect of the American College of Prosthodontists (ACP) for 2003. Arbree is currently in her seventh year on the ACP Board of Directors. Arbree received her D.D.S. degree magna cum laude from Georgetown University School of Dentistry in 1977. She completed a general practice residency at the VA Hospital in Gainesville, Fla., in 1978, and a general prosthodontics residency and a maxillofacial prosthetics fellowship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in 1981. Arbree became a diplomate of the American Board of Prosthodontics in 1990. She earned a master's degree in dental science from Tufts dental school in 1996 and maintains a private practice in Boston. The American College of Prosthodontists is the official sponsoring organization for the specialty of prosthodontics, which is one of nine recognized specialties of the American Dental Association.

Wendy Archuleta, formerly of Vanderbilt University, is the new associate director of student services at the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences.

Diana Bailey, a professor at the Boston School of Occupational Therapy, received the Catherine A. Trombly Award for "significant contributions to the occupational therapy profession." Trombly presented the award November 15 at the annual conference of the Massachusetts Association for Occupational Therapy. She cited Bailey's support of clinical practice through teaching, research and professional activities.

Mary Alicia Barnes and Mary Evenson, fieldwork coordinators at the Boston School of Occupational Therapy, gave a presentation on continuing competence and mentorship at the November 2002 conference of the Massachusetts Association of Occupational Therapy.

Jonathan Callard, who has worked as an admissions officer and a development researcher over the past four years, has left Tufts to become assistant to the Christian Formation Programs at the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts and to begin his graduate studies in divinity.

Dr. Daniel B. Carr, professor of anesthesiology and co-director of the pain research, education and policy program at the School of Medicine, is serving as chair of the Clinical Expert Panel on the Pain Management Performance Measurement for the American Medical Association.

Dr. Barbara L. Carter, professor of radiology; Dr. Robert D. Kennison, professor of obstetrics and gynecology; Thomas F. Linsenmayer, professor of anatomy and cellular biology, and Dr. Harry P. Selker, professor of medicine, are the recipients of the 2002 Distinguished Faculty Awards at the School of Medicine.

Dr. Wai Cheung has been appointed a clinical instructor in periodontology at the School of Dental Medicine.

Sarah Conlon, director of the Tufts Fund for Arts, Sciences and Engineering, has left Tufts to enroll full time in a master's degree program at Boston College.

Maria Conroy, J93, has been appointed assistant director of development for donor communications in Arts, Sciences and Engineering. This position is the upgraded version of the stewardship and proposal-writing position held by Kathleen Devigne until she was promoted to a Tufts Fund position last spring. After leaving Tufts with a B.A. in English and a couple of varsity letters in lacrosse, Conroy spent eight years as a public relations and marketing account supervisor with MS&L Public Relations in Boston. Her clients there included Staples, Ocean Spray, The First Years and The Boston Globe. Conroy has full-time responsibility for developing and implementing effective stewardship for potential donors to the schools of Arts & Sciences and Engineering.

Dr. Bess Dawson-Hughes, director of the Bone Metabolism Laboratory at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (HNRCA), gave a presentation on the "Impact of Calcium, Vitamin D and Protein on Bone Health" at the Children's Hospital Bone Day October 2 in Boston. She discussed "Osteoporosis Fractures: Prevention and Treatment" at the Fracture Prevention Conference in Garden City, N.Y., on October 3, and "Osteoporosis Update: Bringing Bisphosphonate Therapy into Focus" at the Washington Hospital Center for Osteoporosis in Washington, D.C., on October 11. She spoke on "Current Advances in the Diagnosis, Prevention and Treatment of Osteoporosis" at the Call to Action: Osteoporosis Conference at Lowell General Hospital in Lowell, Mass., on October 16, and provided an update on osteoporosis, hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and bone loss at the Fletcher Allan Health Care Medical Center in Burlington, Vt., on October 17. Dawson-Hughes discussed "Maximizing Bone Density before Age 40" at the American Dietetic Association's Food and Nutrition Exposition and Conference in Philadelphia on October 21, and spoke on the current advances in the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of osteoporosis at St. Luke's Hospital in New Bedford, Mass., on October 24.

Deborah Digges, professor of poetry, has four new poems forthcoming in Salmungundi of Skidmore College, and new poems recently appeared in the Kenyon Review.

Dr. Susana Ferreira has been appointed a research instructor; Dr. Mohamed Shalaby a clinical instructor and Dr. Shradha Sharma a research instructor, all in the Department of Operative Dentistry and Prosthodontics at the School of Dental Medicine.

Dr. Sydney Gellis, professor emeritus of pediatrics and former chief of pediatrics at the Floating Hospital, died December 6. He was 88. At Tufts from 1965 until 1991, he established the medical school's first pediatrics department and created the nation's first birth defect center. He also promoted a program of "family participation" in the Floating and created units in pediatric infectious disease, neurology and intensive care. A 1938 graduate of Harvard Medical School, he trained at Johns Hopkins and then worked at Children's, Beth Israel and City hospitals in Boston before joining Tufts. His research focused on growth hormones, seizure control, birth defects, hepatitis, autism and newborn jaundice. Remembrances may be sent to the Dr. Sydney S. Gellis Teaching Scholarship Fund, Floating Hospital, 750 Washington St., Box 231, Boston, MA. 02111.

Dick Goulet, the university's director of facilities for nine years, left Tufts on December 31 to become a general manager with Sodexho USA's campus services division.

Jonathan Harris, director of the Theory and Education Project at the Global Development and Environment Institute, has published Environmental and Natural Resource Economics: A Contemporary Approach (Houghton Mifflin, 2002), which provides an introduction to the expanding field of ecological economics.

Dr. Hiroshi Hirayama has been promoted to professor of operative dentistry and prosthodontics at the dental school.

Dr. Louis Lasagna, dean emeritus of the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences, will be honored in May by the Alumni Association of Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons. He will be presented with a gold medal for distinguished academic achievement.

Dr. Joseph Lau, professor of medicine, delivered the keynote address at a conference on evidence-based dentistry at the Forsyth Institute January 10-13. His topic was "Systematic Reviews and Cumulative Meta-Analysis."

Richard M. Lerner, Bergstrom Chair in Applied Developmental Science, Ann Easterbrooks, associate professor of child development, and Jayanthi Mistry, associate professor of child development, published "Volume 6: Developmental Psychology" in I.B. Weiner's Handbook of Psychology. Lerner is also serving on the National Advisory Committee of the Merrill-Palmer Institute of Child Development at Wayne State University in Detroit, Mich., February 6-7.

Paul Milbury, a scientist in the HNRCA's Antioxidants Research Laboratory, spoke on the interaction between polyphenols and alpha-tocopherol in the protection of LDL from oxidation at the Almond Phytochemicals Roundtable at the University of California at Davis. He participated in the Oxidative Stress and Aging: Clinical Implications conference at the Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Brazil, October 25-26, when he gave a presentation on "Dietary-derived Polyphenolic Antioxidants: Synergistic Action and Multiple Mechanisms of Involvement in Oxidative Stress Status." Milbury gave the same presentation at the Graduate Series Seminar at the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition at the University of Illinois on November 8.

Dr. Gary J. Patronek, director of the Center for Animals and Public Policy and the first holder of the Agnes Varis Chair in Science and Society at Tufts, received the American Humane Association's (AHA) Donald B. Anthony Award for dedicated and unselfish service to the welfare of animals. The award was presented at the AHA's 125th annual conference in Englewood, Colo. As a veterinarian, former director of an animal shelter and an epidemiologist, Patronek has combined his veterinary knowledge, shelter experience and role as a researcher to find new ways to help animals. He has published papers on areas as diverse as feral cats, pet population dynamics, veterinary ethics and animal behavior. In 1997, he founded the Hoarding of Animals Research Consortium, the first interdisciplinary study group devoted to the problem of animal hoarding. His other research interests include animal cruelty, quality of life and enrichment issues for animals in shelters, the roles of veterinarians in animal protection and alternative teaching methods in veterinary education. Patronek is writing a chapter on animal abuse for the first veterinary textbook on shelter medicine.

Matt Rand, D04, the only dental student in the country participating in the prestigious Howard Hughes Medical Institute-National Institutes of Health Research Scholars Program, discussed the program December 6 in the Merritt Auditorium on the Boston campus. The one-year program, also called the Cloister Program, allows medical and dental students to perform supervised research at the National Institutes of Health, attend weekly scientific lectures/dinners and live with other research scholars. Housing and $17,800 stipends are provided, along with health insurance, moving expenses and travel costs to scientific meetings.

Beatrice Lorge Rogers, academic dean of the Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, was in Guatemala in December to give a talk on "The Effectiveness and Efficacy of Social Safety Net Programs with a Nutritional Orientation." The presentation was made at a conference hosted by the Nutrition Institute of Central America and Panama (INCAP) in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The conference was planned to implement interventions to improve household and individual food and nutrition security throughout Central America. Attending the conference was Mary Ann Anderson, who received her Ph.D. from the nutrition school and is now the head of Population, Health and Nutrition for the U.S. Agency for International Development mission in Guatemala.

Mary Beth Ruskai, research professor of mathematics, co-edited with Christopher King of Northeastern University a special volume on quantum information theory for the Journal of Mathematical Physics, which appeared last September. For this volume, the publication received an honorable mention award from the Professional/Scholarly Publishing Division of the Association of American Publishers in the category "Best Single Issue of a Journal."

Dr. Robert M. Russell, director of the HNRCA, and Guangwen Tang, director of the HNRCA's Carotenoids and Health Laboratory, gave a presentation on "Testing the Bioavailability of Beta-Carotene and Vitamin A from Golden Rice" December 16 at the Food and Drug Administration in Washington, D.C.

Pauline Stieff, information technology grants specialist for TCCS' Academic Technology Department, spoke at two national conferences in Los Angeles last fall. She was a featured speaker at the ResearchChannel's sixth annual meeting, where she gave a presentation on "Finding Funding 101" as well as various campus video updates. She was also one of three presenters for "Digital Video: Best Practices for Advanced Applications" at the Internet2 fall member meeting and served on the Internet2 Performing Arts Advisory Committee.

Dawn G. Terkla, director of institutional research, and Heather Roscoe, senior research analyst, presented a paper, "Paper vs. Web: The Differential Impact on Responses on Men and Women," at the North East Association of Institutional Research meeting held in Annapolis, Md., November 18-19. Also at that meeting, Terkla received the association's Distinguished Service Award for "being a guiding light to the institutional research profession."

Phyllis Valentine has joined the staff of the Office of Corporate and Foundation Relations as associate director. She will be working with the development staffs, deans, administration and faculty of the schools of Dental Medicine and Veterinary Medicine to build support from corporations and foundations for those schools' priorities, including research activities. Valentine comes to Tufts from Oxfam America, where she was a development officer for foundation and corporate support. She was previously assistant director of corporate and foundation relations at Brown University. She holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Connecticut and has extensive experience in university teaching and academic publishing.

Laura Walters, head of reference and collections in the Tisch Library, has been elected vice president/president-elect of the Massachusetts Metrowest Regional Library System. Metrowest consists of 351 academic, public, school and special libraries that work together to facilitate resource sharing, cooperative collection development and continuing education opportunities.

Patrick Webb, director of the Program on Food Policy and Applied Nutrition at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, will take a two-year leave of absence from the school, starting in mid-February, to serve as director of nutrition with the World Food Program (WFP) in Rome. WFP's new executive director, James Morris, has decided to enhance the visibility of nutrition activities and policy to have greater direct impact on global malnutrition. The work of the new Nutrition Unit will have a bearing on virtually all of WFP's current and future activities in emergency relief as well as in development. "Recognizing the Friedman School of Nutrition as a center of excellence in international nutrition and food policy, WFP has made explicit its desire to establish closer links and collaboration with Tufts," said Dean Irwin H. Rosenberg. "We can certainly count on more summer internships for students and joint studies in the field, as well as direct access to decision making within the UN system at the highest levels." Webb will retain his appointment at the school and will come back periodically to give seminars and attend meetings with students and faculty; he will continue his research responsibilities and advise his doctoral students. During his absence, Jim Levinson will take on the role of acting director of the Program on Food Policy and Applied Nutrition.

Arthur Winston, director of the Gordon Institute, has been named president-elect of the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers (IEEE). Winston began serving his term on January 1. He will become IEEE president in 2004 and chair the organization's board of directors. An IEEE Life Fellow, Winston has been an IEEE member since 1955. He served on the IEEE board of directors from 1996 to 1999, holding positions of vice president of educational activities and Region 1 director. He received an IEEE Third Millennium Medal in 2000. The IEEE is a nonprofit, technical professional association with more than 377,000 members in 150 countries. The organization produces 30 percent of the world's published literature in electrical engineering, computers and control technology, holds annually more than 300 major conferences and has more than 860 active standards, with 700 more under development.

Tim Wise and Kevin Gallagher of the Global Development and Environment Institute (G-DAE) were in Quito, Ecuador, for a meeting of trade ministers from the nations of the Western Hemisphere, scheduled with the goal of negotiating the text of a Free Trade Area of the Americas agreement, a NAFTA for the Americas. They participated in a parallel meeting on trade and sustainable development, presenting GDAE's research on corn under NAFTA and its work on the methodology and practice of conducting sustainability assessments for trade agreements. Wise spoke on a panel at the parallel meetings of the Hemispheric Social Alliance and presented a summary of the findings from his forthcoming book, Confronting Globalization: Economic Integration and Popular Resistance in Mexico.

Maryanne Wolf, professor of child development and director of the Center for Reading and Language Research, has been named U.S. editor of the journal Dyslexia. In the next two months, she will be presenting keynote addresses in Dallas, Houston, Virginia and New York about her work on the reading brain, dyslexia and intervention for children with reading disabilities. Along with Reid Lyon of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, she will be presenting an overview of the contributions of cognitive neurosciences to reading theory to the Learning Disabilities Association in Chicago.