March People Notes

Pam Aghababian has joined the Arts, Sciences & Engineering Advancement staff as a staff assistant and will be assisting major gift officers with all aspects of prospect solicitation and cultivation. Aghababian graduated magna cum laude from Tufts last May with a B.A. in archaeology and art history. While an undergraduate, she taught in the Experimental College, worked as an administrative assistant at the Granoff Family Hillel Center and served on the Senior Class Committee.

Jason Ales, who previously provided technical support to the Finance Department, has joined the University Advancement team as a technical user support specialist. For the past three years, he has supported the technical needs of nearly 80 Tufts employees at TAB.

Alan Balsam, adjunct assistant professor of public health and family medicine at the School of Medicine and adjunct assistant professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, was honored by the Brookline (Mass.) Chamber of Commerce in January as its “Person of the Year.” Balsam, who received his Ph.D. from the Friedman School, has been Brookline’s health commissioner since 1995, and is credited with working effectively with town officials, residents and local health care professionals to meet the range of public health needs in the town.

Peggy Barrett, director of the Women’s Center, was nominated for a 2005 Champions for Change award from the Boston Rape Crisis Center. The award honors those who have made a significant impact on issues of sexual violence.

Anne Marie Biernacki, G90, founder and chief technology officer of the Digiticians, LLC, a Waltham-based software company, has been selected as one of 10 “Women to Watch in 2005” by Mass. High Tech. Biernacki graduated from Tufts School of Engineering in 1990 with a master’s degree in electrical engineering. While at Tufts, she also was a Draper Fellow at the Charles Stark Draper Laboratories in Cambridge, Mass. She demonstrated her commitment to career development for women in engineering and science early on in her own career, participating as a counselor at the University of Dayton Women in Engineering summer camp program for high school girls.

Dr. Richard B. Brown, professor of medicine and chief of infectious diseases at Baystate Medical Center, a Tufts affiliate in Springfield, Mass., received the Kenneth Kaplan Infectious Disease Clinician Award from the Massachusetts Infectious Diseases Society in recognition of his excellence in all facets of the practice and teaching of infectious diseases.

Greg Carleton, associate professor in the Department of German, Russian and Asian Languages and Literature, has just had his book, Sexual Revolution in Bolshevik Russia, published by the University of Pittsburgh Press.

Sing-chen Lydia Chiang, assistant professor of Chinese, has published a new book, Collecting the Self: Body and Identity in Strange Tale Collections of Late Imperial China (Leiden and Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2005). Her book analyzes Qing dynasty (1644-1911) strange tale collections as expressions of authorial self-images and creative responses to social ideals of the normative Confucian manhood. Inspired in part by Freud’s theory of the uncanny, this study explores the emotive subtexts of late imperial tales of the strange to consider what these tales tell us about suppressed cultural anxieties, the construction of gender and authorial self-identity.

Tara D’Eon, a student in the Friedman School, is the recipient of the American Physiological Society’s 2005 Caroline tum Suden/Francis Hellebrandt Professional Opportunity Award. The $6,000 Women’s Health Dissertation Fellowships, funded by the Johnson & Johnson Co., were awarded this year to 10 graduate students around the country who were selected for their scholarship and their contribution to women’s health. D’Eon is a graduate research assistant in the laboratory of Dr. Andrew S. Greenberg, director of the Obesity and Metabolism Laboratory at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (HNRCA).

Deborah Digges, professor of English, has done quite a bit of traveling to read from her new book of poetry, TRAPEZE, including readings in New York City, Pennsylvania and the Ohio Poetry Circuit, where she read at Kenyon College, Denison University, Oxford, Ohio University and the University of Cincinnati, among others. More readings are scheduled for this spring at the University of Oregon at Eugene and Penn State. The poems from TRAPEZE have also been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her article, “Rising From the Ashes," appeared in the November 2004 issue of Real Simple Magazine. Digges is at work on a fifth book of poems as well as a book on the life of Sarah Winchester.

Dr. Nicholas Dodman, professor of clinical sciences and director of the Animal Behavior Clinic at the School of Veterinary Medicine, was interviewed for a story in the January 30 edition of The Boston Globe about a dog that repeatedly left his home in Hyde Park, Mass., and headed for Milton, where his mother and sister live. Dogs have the ability to “make mental maps,” Dodman told the Globe. “A dog can find its way from point a to point b in a pea soup of fog if it really wants to.” An expert on dog psychology, Dodman is the author of The Dog Who Loved Too Much and the recently published If Only They Could Speak: Stories about Pets and Their People.

Leila Fawaz, Issam M. Fares Professor of Lebanese and Eastern Mediterranean Studies and founding director of the Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies at Tufts, has accepted an invitation to join the Comité Scientifique de la Maison Méditerranéenne des Sciences de l’Homme in France. Fawaz has also accepted an invitation to join the editorial board of the American Historical Review, the flagship of the American Historical Association. She was invited to join the advisory board of the Council for the International Exchange of Scholars, which is responsible for the Fulbright Senior Scholar Program. Fawaz will soon end her two-term service as a delegate to the American Council of Learned Societies. She continues to serve as editor of a book series at Columbia University Press, chair a visiting committee appointed by the Harvard University Governing Board and be a member of the academic council of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service. Last summer, she presented a paper on the unpublished memoirs of a European woman visiting the Levant in the Ottoman period at an international conference organized by the German Orient-Institut in Beirut, the Institut Français du Proche Orient a Damas, the University of Utah and the Fares Center. In April, she will present a paper at an international conference on Egypt in the Mamluk and Ottoman periods, which will be held at the University of Cairo. In June, she will participate in a weeklong “Semaine Internationale d’Etudes sur le Moyen-Orient Arabe des Independances a Aujourd’hui,” organized by the several institutions, including the Fares Center. In August, she will present a paper at the University of Erlangen’s international conference on “The Roots of Liberal Thought in the Eastern Mediterranean.” She also wrote an article on “Lebanon in the Late Ottoman Empire: Issues of Language and Identity” (Istanbul: IRCIA, in press).

Roger A. Fielding, director of the Nutrition, Exercise Physiology and Sarcopenia Laboratory at the HNRCA, has been appointed to the Aging Systems and Geriatrics Study Section of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for a term that ends in June 2008. Study section members are selected on the basis of their demonstrated competence and achievement in their scientific discipline. As a study section member, Fielding will review grant applications submitted to the NIH, make recommendations on these applications to the appropriate NIH national advisory council or board and survey the status of research in his field.

Dr. David N. Gottsegen, clinical instructor of pediatrics at Baystate Medical Center and a practicing pediatrician with Holyoke Pediatric Associates, for the past 15 years has been teaching children the skills of self hypnosis to help them cure themselves of a number of common pediatric problems, including headaches, abdominal pain, bedwetting, tics, school anxiety and even warts. He received his training from the Society of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, which has trained clinicians all over the world in this discipline. He has given Grand Rounds at Baystate on this subject, taught med students and child life staff, talked with urologists and other physicians about hypnotherapy with children and will be giving an all-day workshop on hypnosis for abdominal pain and enuresis at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis on March 12 in St. Louis. His article, “Curing Bedwetting on the Spot: A Review of Five One-Session Cures,” was published in the March/April 2003 issue of Clinical Pediatrics. Gottsegen and his colleagues plan to pursue grant funding for a multi-center trial of hypnosis or self regulation for enuresis as compared to other therapies. An article about his work appeared in the September 10, 2004, issue of The Republican newspaper in Springfield, and was reprinted in The Buffalo Physician, the alumni magazine of his medical school.

David Valdes Greenwood, a lecturer in English, has received a $5,000 commission from the Ensemble Studio Theatre to write a new play. His short play “Dream of Jeannie-by-the-Door” is going to be in the 2005 Humana Festival, the premiere new works festival in the United States, and will be published in 2006. Look for his pieces, rotating with three other writers, under the “Coupling Column” in the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine.

Samantha Harris has joined University Advancement’s prospect research and management team as a researcher. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College with a degree in English. Most recently, Harris was the program coordinator of the Brandeis University National Women’s Committee, a 34,000-member fund-raising organization for Brandeis.

Marcie Hershman, lecturer in English, gave a lecture at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst about issues raised by her novel, Tales of the Master Race, in an appearance sponsored by the departments of Creative Writing, Jewish Studies and Women’s Studies. Earlier in the year, she gave a reading from her memoir, Speak to Me, to students in the Tufts Institute for Lifelong Learning program, where she also spoke about the art of memoir.

Bruce Hitchner, professor of classics, has received two seed grants from the German Marshall Fund and Carnegie Corporation of New York for the project, “Creating a Roadmap for Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Transition from Dayton to Brussels,” which is being prepared for the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the international community. The project is being run through the Dayton Peace Accords Project, the nonprofit organization Hitchner runs at Tufts.

Paul Jacques, senior scientist and director of the HNRCA Nutritional Epidemiology Program, was invited to discuss “Focus on Vitamin E and Eye Health: Vitamin E, Cataracts and Macular Degeneration” at the Vitamin E Impact on Health and Disease conference sponsored by the New York Academy of Sciences on January 27.

Denice Kelley has joined the Arts, Sciences & Engineering Advancement staff as a staff assistant. She comes to Tufts from TechMission Inc., where she worked as a program coordinator and conference director in support of faith-based and community groups that serve at-risk youth, low-income adults and the homeless. She is a recent graduate of Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash., where she worked as a senior manager of the Whitman College phonathon for three years.

Alice H. Lichtenstein, senior scientist and director of the Cardiovascular Nutrition Laboratory at the HNRCA and the Stanley N. Gershoff Professor of Nutrition Science and Policy in the Friedman School, is one of 14 individuals chosen by the University of Kuopio in Finland to receive an honorary degree in June. Lichtenstein’s research assesses the interplay of diet and heart disease risk factors. Lichtenstein is also a professor of public health and family medicine at the School of Medicine. She serves as chair of the American Heart Association’s Nutrition Committee and is an associate editor of the Journal of Lipid Research.

Julia Motl Lowe has been promoted to director of the Fletcher Fund in Fletcher’s Office of Development and Alumni Relations. She succeeds Betsy Rowe, who retired in January. Motl joined the office as annual fund coordinator in 2003 after working as an assistant director in Tufts’ Office of Undergraduate Admissions for four years.

John McDonald, associate professor of music, has enjoyed two recent phases of concerts in which he functioned as composer and pianist. On February 22 in Boston’s Jordan Hall, his “Transcriptions” for alto saxophone and string quartet—a Worldwide Concurrent Premieres Commission that received 65 roughly simultaneous premieres internationally—was premiered by saxophonist Kenneth Radnofsky. McDonald performed with Radnofsky in other new works for saxophone and piano. On February 26-27 in Merkin Hall in New York, McDonald participated in The Hartford Commissions, a two-concert series of new music by Hartford and Boston composers. Three solo works by McDonald were premiered for violin, contrabass and piano, and he performed seven others.

Gilbert E. Metcalf, professor and chair of economics, appeared on “The Exchange,” New Hampshire Public Radio’s morning talk show, to discuss reforming the federal income tax. He described various options available for changing the tax code as well as constraints on change arising from the federal budget deficit. Metcalf also spoke on federal budget policy last October at Tufts’ Lunch and Learn lecture series, a program sponsored by the Tufts Institute for Lifelong Learning.

Dr. Simin Meydani, associate director of the HNRCA and director of its Nutritional Immunology Laboratory, gave a presentation on “Antioxidants, Immune Function and Infectious Diseases in the Elderly” at the Graduate Nutrition Seminar at Texas A&M University on February 2. She also spoke on “Aging, Immunosenescence and Related Diseases” at the 2005 Healthy Aging Workshop in Lausanne, Switzerland, February 26 to March 2.

Jo-Ann Michalak, director of the Tisch Library, has been asked to join the board of directors of NELINET Inc., a member-owned, member-governed cooperative of more than 600 academic, public and special libraries that promotes the advancement of libraries in the six New England states.

P. Kirsten Newby and Ann Yelmokas McDermott, N02, have been selected to attend the Dannon Nutrition Leadership Institute this June. The institute’s purpose is to equip outstanding nutrition Ph.D. graduates with a global perspective and the skills needed to help them become more effective leaders in the field. Newby is a scientist in the HNRCA’s Epidemiology and Dietary Assessment Research Program and an adjunct clinical instructor at the Friedman School. McDermott, who received her Ph.D. from the Friedman School in 2002, is the project director for the Boston Obesity, Genetics and Lifestyle Study, which is being conducted through the Lipid Metabolism Laboratory at the HNRCA.

Jose M. Ordovas, senior scientist and director of the HNRCA Nutrition and Genomics Laboratory, has been appointed as a member of the editorial board and consulting editor of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the most highly rated peer-reviewed journal in the Institute for Scientific Information’s nutrition and dietetics category. The journal publishes the latest worldwide basic and clinical studies relevant to human nutrition in topics such as obesity, vitamins and minerals, nutrition and disease and energy metabolism.

Dr. Liron Pantanowitz, clinical instructor of pathology and the cytopathology fellow in the Department of Pathology at Baystate Medical Center, a Tufts-affiliated hospital in Springfield, Mass., received the Papanicolaou Society of Cytopathology Research Award for work he has done during his fellowship on the project “Trichomonas Vaginalis p16 Immunoreactivity in Cervicovaginal Pap Tests: A Diagnostic Pitfall.” He received the award at a meeting of the Papanicolaou Society of Cytopathology February 26 in San Antonio, Texas.

Jan A. Pechenik, professor of biology, gave an invited symposium talk in San Diego in January at the annual meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology. His talk concerned the many ways in which early embryonic and larval experiences eventually can influence the performance of juveniles and adults much later in development; such “latent effects” have now been reported for a wide range of animals, including marine invertebrates, insects, amphibians and humans. Last summer, he talked at the Larval Biology meeting in Hong Kong about a new way of assessing larval mortality in the ocean; the talk was part of a symposium on “Assessing Mortality during Development” that he was asked to organize for that meeting. While in Hong Kong, he also worked with colleagues on three different research projects, two on latent effects in barnacles and one on the fertilization ecology of a marine worm, and ran a one-week course for graduate students on scientific writing. He presented a poster on the fertilization work at the January meeting of the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology. In mid-January, he conducted a workshop on teaching undergraduates to write in the sciences for science faculty at Smith College. The fifth edition of Pechenik’s A Short Guide to Writing about Biology has been published by Pearson Longman.

Lisa Perrone, assistant professor of mathematics, gave three research talks at the joint national meetings of several mathematics societies in January. She spoke at a special session of the American Mathematical Society on the “Radon Transform and Inverse Problems,” co-organized by Todd Quinto, professor of mathematics. Her talk in this session, “Kronecker Approximations for Anti-Reflective Boundary Conditions in Image Restoration,” described an approximation method that provides great savings in computer processing time and memory space in the restoration of blurred and degraded digital images. At a workshop of the Association for Women in Mathematics, Perrone discussed “Linear Algebra and Image Restoration,” providing a mildly rigorous but heavily conceptual presentation (accessible to non-experts!) on the mathematical process of image blurring and de-blurring. In her third talk, at a session of the Mathematics Association of America, she spoke with Katrina Palmer of Appalachian State University on “Math Research for Freshmen: Applications in Image Restoration,” describing a freshman seminar project that Perrone co-coordinated and co-taught at Emory University, from which she earned her Ph.D.

Dr. David B. Pomfret, associate clinical professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation, will be honored by Stonehill College in April with its Outstanding Alumnus Award for his work in Tanzania from 1995 to 2000. He served as director of research and postgraduate studies at the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center, one of two medical schools in that physician-impoverished nation. He also brokered an affiliation between Tufts School of Medicine and the M.D./M.P.H. program, which sent a Tanzanian student to Tufts in 1999.

Michael Preiner has been hired as the new annual fund coordinator at the Fletcher School. He comes to Tufts from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he was the program coordinator for the Program in Professional Education. A native of Minnesota, Preiner did his undergraduate work in international business and Spanish at Marquette University before venturing East to pursue his master’s degree in higher education from Harvard. Preiner will work to further the goals of the Fletcher Fund, particularly the class fund agent program and the Young Associates Program.

Patricia Reilly, director of undergraduate financial aid, has been elected a member of the New England Regional Council of the College Board. As part of her College Board duties, she also will serve on the Financial Aid Division Advisory Committee for the New England Regional Assembly of the College Scholarship Service.

Heather S. Roscoe has been promoted to assistant director for institutional research. She has been at Tufts since June 2000.

Dr. Robert M. Russell, director of the HNRCA, was invited to give a presentation on “Carotenoid Status and Metabolism on Healthy Aging” at the January meeting of the European Academy for Medicine of Aging: Nutrition in the Elderly and Its Main Related Consequences in Sion, Switzerland.

Jeswald W. Salacuse, Henry Braker Professor of Law at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, has been appointed president of an international arbitration tribunal under the auspices of the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes to hear and decide claims being brought against the government of Argentina by European private investors.

Sunny Schlichter has joined University Advancement as director of planning and administration. She comes to Tufts from Boston University Law School, where she was director of finance and facilities for five years and oversaw a $32 million budget. Before that, Schlichter worked at Columbia University for five years as departmental administrator for the Office of the Provost. While at Columbia, she earned her MBA. She will oversee campaign planning, strategic and operational planning, all University Advancement budgets, facilities planning and other administration.

Laurence Senelick, Fletcher Professor of Oratory and professor of drama, will stage the world premiere of his new translation of Anton Chekhov’s tragicomic play “The Three Sisters” during six performances at Bates College in March. Published in 1901, the play is the story of three sisters and a brother, members of the privileged class, stuck in a provincial backwater and pining for the excitement of Moscow. The work performed at Bates is among five Senelick renderings of Chekhov plays published last fall in a W.W. Norton collection, Anton Chekhov’s Selected Plays.