December People Notes

Jomarie Alano has joined the Arts & Sciences faculty as a lecturer in history. She is completing her doctoral degree in modern European history at the University of Rochester and also served as a Regional Visiting Fellow at the Cornell University Institute for European Studies. She also holds an MBA from Cornell. Alano has worked as an assistant director of admissions at Cornell, a management consultant at Chemical Bank in New York and as a graduate school administrator at Mount Sinai Medical Center. Well versed in French, Italian and Spanish, she has taught at the high school level and runs an independent translation business in which she translates documents into all three languages. Her dissertation, A Life of Resistance: Ada Prospero Marchesini Gobetti, focuses on the life of one woman in the Italian Renaissance. Alano has won a number of awards, including an American Historical Association Bernadotte E. Schmitt Research Grant and the Salomone Prize for Outstanding Work in European Intellectual and Cultural History from the University of Rochester.

Astier M. Almedom, the Henry R. Luce Professor in Science and Humanitarianism, presented an invited talk on "Social Factors That Mitigate Maternal Mental Ill Health in Complex Humanitarian Emergency Settings: Example from Eritrea" at the 30th annual conference of the American Public Health Association. The conference topic was "Putting the Public Back into Public Health."

Chad Anderson, D04, presented his research on the long-term stability of hydrogen peroxide whitening of tetracycline-stained teeth at the annual meeting of the American Dental Association in New Orleans in October. He earned the trip as the winner of the ADA/Dentsply Student Clinician Program Award for best overall pre-doctoral table clinic at the 2002 Bates-Andrews Research Day. His advisor on the project was Dr. Gerard Kugel, associate dean for research at the School of Dental Medicine.

Dr. Floyd Atkins, associate professor of medicine and Lemuel Shattuck Hospital's chief of cardiology for 18 years, was honored in October, when the ICU at Shattuck was named for him. Atkins is also assistant dean for students at the School of Medicine.

Dr. Naomi Balaban has joined the School of Veterinary Medicine as an assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences. She received her B.Sc. in biology from the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and her M.Sc. in neurobiology and her Ph.D. in infectious disease from the Weizmann Institute of Science, also in Israel. Balaban's research interests are in bacterial pathogenesis and vaccine development.

Dr. David N. Bardwell, associate clinical professor of prosthodontics and operative dentistry and director of postgraduate esthetic dentistry, and Dr. Simone Deliperi, visiting instructor and research associate, had their article, "An Alternative Method to Reduce Polymerization Shrinkage in Direct Posterior Composite Restorations," published in the October issue of The Journal of The American Dental Association.

William Burton has joined the Arts & Sciences faculty as a lecturer in the Department of German, Russian and Asian Languages and Literatures. He holds a Ph.D. in Japanese language and literature from the University of Washington, an M.A. in Asian languages and literature from the same institution and a M.Phil. in Anglo-Irish literature from University College Dublin. His main research interests include the influence of Edo period humorous and satirical genres, the history and development of Japanese cinema and utopias in Japanese literature. He has earned several academic honors, including a Chester-Fritz Fellowship for Study Abroad and a Foreign Language Area Studies Fellowship.

Bonnie Chakravorty of the Program in Community Health presented a paper, "For the Young and the Breathless: Addressing Sexuality in a Disease Self-Management Program for persons with Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency (AAT)-Related Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease," November 13 at the 130th annual meeting of the American Public Health Association (APHA) in Philadelphia. The paper was co-authored by Dr. Robert Sandhaus of the National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver. At the same meeting, Chakravorty was reappointed continuing education chair for the HIV/AIDS section of the APHA.

Charley Cheney, D04, Dr. Lonnie H. Norris, dean of the School of Dental Medicine; Mark Gonthier, associate dean for admissions and student affairs at the dental school; and Dr. Margaret Howard, assistant professor of oral diagnostics, attended the American Dental Education Association's minority recruitment and retention meeting in New York on October 8-10.

Dr. Susan Cotter, professor of clinical sciences at the School of Veterinary Medicine, will receive the prestigious Mark L. Morris Lifetime Achievement Award at the opening ceremony of the North American Veterinary Conference in Orlando, Fla., in January. Hill's Pet Nutrition will donate $20,000 to the Morris Animal Foundation on Cotter's behalf. She is being honored for her significant contributions to the welfare of companion animals through a lifetime of professional work.

Dr. Armelle deLaforcade, assistant professor in veterinary emergency and critical care medicine, has passed the certifying examination of the American College of Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care.

James F. Dice, professor of physiology, will become interim chair of physiology when Dr. Irwin Arias steps down on December 31 while the search for a permanent department chair is under way.

Johanna T. Dwyer, professor of nutrition, medicine and community health, director of the Frances Stern Nutrition Center at Tufts-New England Medical Center and a senior scientist in the Nutritional Epidemiology Program at the Jean Mayer Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (HNRCA), received a Medallion Award from the American Dietetic Association (ADA) at its annual meeting in Pennsylvania in October. ADA's Medallion Awards, given each year since 1976, honor individuals who have shown dedication to the high standards of the dietetics profession through active participation, leadership and devotion to serving others in dietetics and allied health fields.

Murray Elder has joined the Arts & Sciences faculty as an assistant professor of mathematics. He received his Ph.D. in geometric group theory from the University of Melbourne in 2002, and since then, had been a visiting assistant professor at Texas A&M University. Elder's research interests include geometric group theory, automatic group theory and low-dimensional topology.

Amira El-Zein has joined the Arts & Sciences faculty as an assistant professor of Arabic. She comes to Tufts from Georgetown University, where she had been a visiting assistant professor for seven years. She received her Ph.D. in Arabic language and literature from Georgetown in 1995. She also holds an M.A. in French consecutive and simultaneous translation from the University of Paris VIII, an M.A. in French literature from Lebanese University and a D.E.A. in Arabic and Islamic studies from La Sorbonne Nouvelle University. A poet, El-Zein has published several books, including Bedouin of Hell and Palm Trees.

Francesca Failla (periodontology), Wai Cheung (periodontology), Torsten Wallerius (periodontology), Hani Eid (pediatric dentistry) and Noor Al-Sulaiti (pediatric dentistry) were awarded their master of science degrees from the School of Dental Medicine in September.

Evan Haefeli has joined the Arts & Sciences faculty as an assistant professor of history. He earned his doctoral degree in history in 2000 from Princeton, where he had worked as a lecturer. His thesis, The Creation of American Religious Pluralism: Churches, Colonialism and Conquest in the Mid-Atlantic, 1628-1688, re-examines traditional interpretations of religion and politics. He has two books, The 1704 French and Indian Raid on Deerfield, Massachusetts, with co-author Kevin Sweeney, and Captivity Stories of Colonial Deerfield, with Sweeney as co-editor. Haefeli is fluent in German, French, Italian, Dutch and Spanish, which aids him in his research on early colonial life in North America. He has received a number of grants and fellowships, including a Gilder Lehrman Research Fellowship and a New Jersey Historical Commission research grant.

Dr. John T. Harrington, who steps down December 31 as dean of the School of Medicine, has been named dean emeritus, effective January 1, by the university's Board of Trustees.

Ya-Pei Kuo has joined the Arts & Sciences faculty as a lecturer in history. She comes to Tufts from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where she completed her doctoral degree in history. Kuo's dissertation, The Critical Review and the Search for Chinese Cultural Identity, 1922-1923, will serve to clarify a neglected part of Chinese intellectual history. She is the recipient of several awards, including the Marie Christine Kohler Fellowship, a Vilas Professional Development Fellowship and an International Research Travel Grant. Her research focuses on the intellectual history of modern China.

Dr. Louis Lasagna, who stepped down last summer as dean of the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences, has been named dean emeritus by the university's Board of Trustees.

Gary G. Leisk has joined the School of Engineering as a visiting assistant professor of mechanical engineering. Leisk holds three Tufts degrees—a B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering. Since 2000, he had worked as a postdoctoral research associate at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. He also has conducted research at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the NASA-Glenn Research Center and MIT. His scholarly interests include materials characterization, nondestructive evaluation, manufacturing applications and signal processing using the Hilbert-Huang Transform method.

Richard M. Lerner, Bergstrom Chair in Applied Developmental Science; Francine Jacobs, associate professor of child development and of urban and environmental policy and planning; and Donald Wertlieb, professor of child development, published the four-volume Handbook of Applied Developmental Science: Promoting Positive Child, Adolescent and Family Development Through Research, Policies and Programs. Lerner is also co-editor of New Directions for Youth Development: Theory, Practice and Research with Carl S. Taylor and Alexander von Eye of Michigan State University.

Kathleen Merrigan, director of the Agriculture, Food and Environment Program at the Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, was staff author of the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990. The long-awaited organic rules were implemented on October 21. Merrigan served for five years as an environmental representative of the USDA National Organic Standards Board, helped lead the national grassroots response to oppose the USDA's original organic rule, and then was appointed by President Bill Clinton to rewrite the rule as administrator of the Agricultural Marketing Service. Merrigan, Maine organic farmer Elliot Coleman and a staff member from the American Council on Science and Health were featured on "The Connection," National Public Radio's morning talk show for an hour-long discussion on the benefits of buying organic food. Following her radio talk, Merrigan flew to Washington, D.C., to join other key organic organizers for a celebratory dinner at Restaurant Nora, the only certified organic restaurant in the country. Merrigan and William Lockeretz, professor of nutrition, directed the "Conference on Ecolabels and the Greening of the Food Market," held in Boston November 7-9 and sponsored by the Economic Research Service and the Agricultural Marketing Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The conference addressed the complex issues of "eco-labeling" on consumer food items, meant to deal with areas such as consumption of renewable resources; soil, air and water pollution; biodiversity and wildlife; farm animal welfare and social justice and equity. Delegates to the conference represented 15 nations.

Frank Newman, D03, is the first recipient of a scholarship established in the name of the late Paul Wright, D77. The scholarship, presented to Newman in October, will be awarded annually to an African-American Tufts dental student for high scholastic achievement.

Dr. Thomas O'Donnell, M67, CEO of Tufts-New England Medical Center, and Dr. Donald Wilson, M62, dean of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, have been appointed to the Board of Overseers to the School of Medicine and the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences.

Jose Ordovas, professor of nutrition and a senior scientist in the Lipid Metabolism Laboratory at the HNRCA, had his work on addressing the medical riddle in which some people can consume a diet high in saturated fat and still have low cholesterol published in the October 29 edition of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. Ordovas has identified a gene called LIPC that seems to affect cholesterol levels. Patients with a mutated form of this gene must stay on a low-fat diet to keep their cholesterol in check. But those who lack the mutated gene can eat fat and still maintain healthy cholesterol levels.

Colin Orians, associate professor of biology, and graduate student Benjamin Babst presented papers at the 3rd International Poplar Symposium in Uppsala, Sweden, and at the Harvard Forest Workshop on Long Distance Transport Processes in Plants in Petersham, Mass. Orians has accepted an offer to join the editorial board of Oecologia, an internationally recognized ecological journal.

Janie Orthey has joined Tufts as coordinator in the Tufts Dental Fund and Alumni Relations Office. She was previously an account executive at the Darnauer Group in Aspen, Colo., where she developed media buys, press kits, corporate identities and special promotional and resource materials. Orthey received her B.S. in mass communications at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

Inez Pacheco has joined the development records staff as a gift and biographical records assistant. She is responsible for gift and biographical entry to the ADV database. She comes to Tufts with an extensive background in data entry, records management and clerical administration. She worked several years for Arthur D. Little Inc. in Cambridge, Mass.

Paul Page has been appointed the new assistant director of purchasing at Tufts. Page's primary responsibility is in the area of special projects, including identifying opportunities for significant university savings, developing project plans and seeing those plans through to completion. Page comes to Tufts with extensive experience in the purchasing profession, primarily at MIT. He was a member of MIT's electronic catalog ordering system team and was a project lead representing purchasing and other areas as MIT implemented the SAP (ERP) system. In addition, Page served as a core team member for Harvard's "Project ADAPT," an effort geared toward streamlining university business processes.

Dr. Bruce Pastor, M68, is the new president of the Tufts Medical Alumni Association.

Dr. Anthony Robbins has resigned as chair of the medical school's Department of Family Medicine and Community Health. Dr. Harris Berman, CEO of Tufts Health Plan and a clinical professor of medicine at Tufts, will succeed Robbins. However, Dr. Morton Madoff, dean emeritus and the department's first chair, will serve as interim chair until Berman can assume the position full time in summer 2003.

Monica Moreno Rocha has joined the Arts & Sciences faculty as an assistant professor of mathematics. She received her master's degree in applied mathematics from the Center of Mathematical Research in Guanajuato, Mexico, in 1997, and recently completed her doctoral studies in mathematics at Boston University. She has worked as an associate professor of mathematics at the Universidad Tecnologica de la Mixteca, teaching algebra, linear algebra and dynamical systems to undergraduates. Her research interests are in complex dynamics and low dimensional topology. In particular, Rocha is interested in the iteration of holomorphic functions in the complex plane and in the study of the topology of Julia sets using continuum theory. Her dissertation, On Indecomposable Subsets of the Julia Set for Unstable Exponentials, focuses on the existence of indecomposable continua for the complex exponential family and the study of conjugacy classes for these sets.

Laurence Senelick, Fletcher Professor of Oratory and professor of drama, received the 2002 Distinguished Scholarship Award for "outstanding achievement in scholarship in the field of theater studies" from the American Society for Theatre Research at its annual meeting in Philadelphia in November. Senelick, who serves on the society's executive committee, also presented a paper at the conference on "Consuming Passions: Eating and the Stage at the Fin de Siècle." His most recent publications are "The Queer Root of Theatre" in The Queerest Art (New York University Press); "The First Photographs of Actors" in European Theatre Iconography (Rome: Bulzoni); and "Master Hughes' Profession: Homosexual Blackmail and Wilde's Drama" in Wilde Writings: Contextual Conditions (University of Toronto Press). Senelick was guest editor for the November issue of Theatre Survey, a journal devoted to theater iconography.

Catherine Squires and Andrew Wright, both professors of molecular biology and microbiology, have been named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). They are among 291 new fellows who will be honored February 15 at the AAAS annual meeting in Denver. Squires, department chair, was cited for "pioneering studies on the regulation and utilization of the rRNA operons," and Wright's "development and application of methods for visualizing chromosome movement in bacteria" was noted.

Dr. Theoharis Theoharides, professor of medicine and pharmacology and experimental therapeutics, received the George Papanicolaou Award on October 20, presented annually to a U.S. or Canadian physician/scientist for lifetime achievement by the Prefecture of Evia, Greece, where Papanicolaou (inventor of the Pap test) was born.