January People Notes

Diana M. Bailey, associate professor of occupational therapy, recently presented two papers: At the fourth annual research conference of the Society for the Study of Occupation on October 28 in Potomac, Md., she presented "Tracing the Effects of Participant Selection on Study Findings," and at the annual conference of the Massachusetts Association for Occupational Therapy on October 21, she presented "Integrating Evidence-Based Practice into Clinicians' Daily Work."

Sheila Bayne, director of Tufts Programs Abroad and junior class dean, has been elected to a three-year term on the advisory council of the Forum on Education Abroad. The forum is a global membership association whose purpose is to serve the field of education abroad by setting standards of good practice, engaging in advocacy, conducting research and data collection, encouraging outcomes assessment and promoting the integration of education abroad into high-quality curriculum development and academic design. The forum has been recognized by the U.S. Department of Justice as the Standards Development Organization for the field of education abroad. Forum member institutions represent 60 percent of the U.S. student population studying abroad.

Catherine Beck, A06, and Becca Ades, A06, of the women's cross-country team were named to the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) Second Team, based on their finishes at the NESCAC Championships, held October 29 at Wesleyan University. Beck finished in 11th place with a time of 18:32.4, and Ades, coming back from injury, ran 18:42.3 for 13th place. Head Coach Kristen Morwick's Jumbos took fourth place in the highly competitive championship race, which featured five teams ranked in the top 10 nationally.

Jeffrey Blumberg, director of the Antioxidants Research Laboratory at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (HNRCA), discussed "Teas: Traditional Beverage or Functions Foods?" and Johanna T. Dwyer, professor of medicine and of nutrition, gave a presentation on "Why Are Americans Using Dietary Supplements? Motivations for Dietary Supplement Use" at the American Dietetic Association conference in St. Louis, Mo., October 22-25.

Joe Carroll has been promoted to associate dean for administration and finance at the School of Medicine.

Karen Cirrito has been appointed associate director for alumni relations at the School of Dental Medicine. She comes to Tufts from Brandeis University, where she was associate director of alumni relations and has directed and managed events and communications for more than 35,000 alumni. Prior to Brandeis, she was a regional director/youth programs specialist for the American Heart Association's New England affiliate. She also has worked in television graphics and production. She has a graduate certificate in web content development from Brandeis and a B.S. in television and radio from Ithaca College.

John M. Coffin, professor of microbiology, is the recipient of a prestigious award from the National Institutes of Health that is given to fewer than 5 percent of NIH researchers. The MERIT (Method to Extend Research in Time) grant provides long-term support to accomplished scientists. Coffin, who also is director of the HIV Drug Resistance Program at the National Cancer Institute, investigates interactions between retroviruses and their host cells and organisms. The MERIT award will support Coffin's research on retrovirus evolution.

Carol Cohn, director of the Boston Consortium on Gender, Security and Human Rights, was invited to present a paper to the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission (also known as the Blix Commission). In her paper, "Weapons of Mass Destruction: Is Gender Relevant?" she argues that in order to address WMD challenges more effectively, it is essential to take into consideration the ways in which gender-laden ideas and assumptions shape thinking about armaments, non-proliferation and security. A later version of this talk was published in the fall 2005 issue of Disarmament Diplomacy. Cohn served as a consultant on gender mainstreaming in peacekeeping for the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO). As part of this work, she and two other consultants led a series of six workshops with DPKO staff. The purpose was to facilitate the creation of a department-wide action plan for implementing Security Council Resolution 1325 (on gender and peacekeeping) in DPKO's work.

Mark Cronin-Golomb, associate professor of biomedical engineering, is a recipient of a Denison Distinguished Visitorship Award from the School of Physics at the University of Sydney. The award provides funding to support his stay in Sydney as well as to present research to the public to help broaden its impact.

Dr. Henry (Rick) D'Angelo, assistant clinical professor of medicine, has been appointed chair of family medicine at Newton-Wellesley Hospital. He will succeed Dr. Robert Dickman, associate clinical professor of medicine. D'Angelo has been on the Newton-Wellesley medical staff since 1995. He has a strong clinical interest in obstetrics, women's health and sports medicine and is the school doctor for Westwood High School and the team physician for Westwood's athletics department.

Maria Flytzani-Stephanopoulos, professor of chemical engineering, is the recipient of a $1.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. The grant will fund a new research project to be conducted at Tufts over the next three years that involves interdisciplinary work in collaboration with Columbia University on nanocatalyst materials design for clean hydrogen production. The work supports the President's Hydrogen Fuel Initiative. Flytzani-Stephanopoulos is the principal investigator for the project. The novel materials under investigation are based on highly dispersed oxidized clusters of gold, copper and platinum bound on nanoscale oxide matrices. Tufts is one of 12 universities nationwide selected to conduct catalyst design at the nanoscale for the Hydrogen Fuel Initiative. For more information on the project, go to http://www.sc.doe.gov/bes/hydrogen.html.

Sol Gittleman, University Professor and professor of German, was awarded an honorary degree during the 40th anniversary celebration of the Tufts study-abroad program in Tübingen, Germany, in June. More than 600 Tufts students have taken part in the exchange program since 1965. Tufts' partner institution, Eberhard-Karls University Tübingen, founded in 1477, was ranked last year by Stern magazine as Germany's top university. Gittleman, the former provost of Tufts, was recognized for his role as founder of the Tufts-in-Tübingen program as well as for his scholarly work. At the invitation of Eberhard-Karls University Tübingen, he gave a series of four lectures in June on "The American Paradox, 1620-2005: Some Things Never Change." He received his honorary degree on June 17 in the Tübingen castle. The next day, Sheila Bayne, director of Tufts Programs Abroad, and Ute Link, resident director of Tufts-in-Tübingen, hosted a reception for alumni and friends of the program.

Dr. Jeffrey K. Griffiths, director of global health and associate professor of public health and family medicine at the medical school, is serving on two U.S. Environmental Protection Agency groups addressing water quality in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Griffiths, who studies infectious and tropical diseases, will lend his expertise to the Workgroup on Coastal Mississippi Water Quality Assessment Plan and the Workgroup on Residue Sampling Plan.

Lauren Kane has joined the Advancement Division as staff assistant for the Tufts Dental Fund. She graduated from the University of Maryland in 2003 with a bachelor's degree in communication and earned a master's degree in higher education from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in May. While at UMass, Kane worked in the development office as an assistant researcher.

Rajendra Kumar-Singh, an assistant professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences and of human genetics at the University of Utah, will be joining the faculty of Tufts School of Medicine. He works on developing gene-based therapies for retinosis pigmentosa (RP) and age-related macular degeneration. RP is one of the most common causes of inherited blindness in the United States. Using viral and non-viral gene vectors, Kumar-Singh and his colleagues have corrected the genetic defect responsible for RP and slowed down retinal degeneration in animal models. He also seeks to design viruses that infect photoreceptor and other nervous system cells more efficiently. Such novel viral vectors could be used to treat glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy and other diseases of the central nervous system.

Matt Lacey, E06, co-captain, and Josh Kennedy, E07, of the men's cross-country team, were named to the All-New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) Team, based on their finishes at the NESCAC Championships, held October 29 at Wesleyan University. Lacey finished fourth with a time of 25:28.2, and Kennedy came in seventh at 25:42.1. Matt Fortin, E06, co-captain, was named to the NESCAC Second Team after finishing eighth with a time of 26:07.5. At Wesleyan, the Jumbos won their third consecutive NESCAC title, edging Williams, 58-62. Men's first-year coach Ethan Barron was named NESCAC's Co-Coach of the Year along with Wesleyan's John Crooke.

Dr. Stuart B. Levy, professor of molecular biology and microbiology and of medicine and director of the Center for Adaptation Genetics and Drug Resistance at the School of Medicine, has been elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The new class of 376 fellows, honored for their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications, will be recognized during the 2006 AAAS annual meeting in St. Louis, Mo., in February. Levy was selected for his groundbreaking work on antibiotic resistance.

Dr. Andrea Looney has joined the clinical faculty at the Cummings School as an anesthesiologist in the teaching hospitals. In addition, she will help establish a formal pain clinic in the Foster Hospital for Small Animals. She is a graduate of the New York College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell University.

Patrick Magoon, A06, captain of the 2005 Jumbo football team, has been named to the ESPN Magazine Academic All-District Football Team. He is one of just five New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) players on the squad. The team consists of players from all the Division II and III teams in the Northeast. As a pre-med student, Magoon has made Dean's List four out of six semesters at Tufts. He anticipates entering Tufts School of Medicine next fall.

Nicola McKeown, a scientist in the epidemiology program at the HNRCA, is the recipient of the HNRCA's Pilot Grant Initiative Award for 2005, which will support her work on "Whole Grain Intake, Adiposity and Related Metabolic Disturbances in Older Men and Women." Her collaborators are Sarah Booth, a scientist in the Vitamin K Research Laboratory, and Dr. Edward Saltzman, a scientist in the Energy Metabolism Laboratory.

Miriam McLean has joined the Office of Corporate and Foundation Relations as associate director. She comes to Tufts from Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston where she was development manager for corporate and foundation relations. She holds a degree in business administration from Marymount-Manhattan College in New York and an M.B.A. from the Hagan School of Business at Iona College in New Rochelle, N.Y. She will focus her efforts on building corporate and foundation support primarily for the School of Engineering, with additional responsibilities for corporate and foundation achievement in the School of Arts & Sciences.

Dr. Mohsen Meydani, director of the HNRCA Vascular Biology Laboratory, presented lectures on "Green Tea and Oats in the Prevention of Cancer and Cardiovascular Disease" and "Functional Foods and Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease and Cancer" at the 3rd International Food Congress on Functional Foods in Medellin, Colombia, October 24-28.

Dr. Simin Meydani, HNRCA associate director and director of its Nutritional Immunology Laboratory, spoke on "T Cell Receptor Proximal Effect of Vitamin E in Old Mice: Reversal of Age-Associated Decrease in Effective Immune Synapse Formation" at the Signaling Defects in Aging Immune Cells Workshop in Potomac, Md., October 24-25. She was invited to discuss "Essential Fatty Acids and Immune Function" at the "Centennial: Celebrating 100 Years of the College of Human Sciences" at Florida State University in Tallahassee October 27-28.

Dr. Melvin Miller, assistant professor of general dentistry, was awarded a master's degree in public health from Tufts School of Medicine last May. He recently returned from a humanitarian mission to Quito, Ecuador, where he presented a lecture on "The Quality of Life of TUSDM Patients Before and After Receiving Complete Dentures." Through the generosity of the Hispanic Dental Association, Tufts dental school and the Henry Schein Co., many supplies and instruments were donated. Aidee Herman, former president of the Hispanic Dental Association and clinical assistant professor of periodontology at the School of Dental Medicine, organized the mission. Miller, Herman and seven Tufts dental students treated 316 patients in three days, mostly poor children from Quito and surrounding towns.

Suzanne Miller has joined the University Relations Division as a public relations specialist. She works with Kim Thurler, associate director of public relations, to support the schools of Arts & Sciences and Engineering, the University College of Citizenship and Public Service and other university initiatives. Miller's varied background includes serving as general assignment reporter for The Evening Sun in Hanover, Pa.; spending a year in New Delhi, India, to write a history of the nonprofit organization Interserve India; and, most recently, serving as assistant director of public relations at Messiah College in Grantham, Pa. She earned an M.A. in international relations and international communication from Boston University and a B.A. in journalism from Messiah College.

Lea Napolitano, A06, and Stacey Watkins, A07, of the field hockey team have been named to the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) Second Team by the conference's coaches. Napolitano, co-captain, scored three goals with three assists for nine points in 15 starts. She has started every game of her career at Tufts and is a two-time team MVP. Watkins moved from sweeper to center back this season. The primary striker on corners, she scored three goals with four assists for 10 points. Tufts finished the season with an 8-7 overall record and as the fifth-place team in NESCAC.

Joseph Neubauer, A63, chairman and CEO of ARAMARK Corp., is the recipient of a 2005 Outstanding Director Award from the Outstanding Directors Institute. The annual awards program, in its eighth year, honors directors of public companies who have been recognized by their peers for outstanding leadership in corporate governance. Neubauer, who is vice chairman of the Tufts Board of Trustees, serves as a director of Wachovia Corp., Verizon Communications Inc. and Federated Department Stores Inc. He was elected a Tufts trustee in 1986. In addition to serving as vice chair, he is a member of the Executive Committee, the Academic Affairs Committee and the Committee for University Advancement.

Iris S. Nguyen has joined the Advancement Division as a gift planning administrator. She is a trusts and estates attorney who worked most recently at the firm Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky & Popeo P.C. in Boston. She also worked as a senior tax associate at Arthur Anderson and was a staff attorney at G.W. & Wade in Wellesley, where she provided financial, tax and estate planning strategies to high net worth executives. Nguyen received her B.A. in international relations and Asian studies from Tufts in 1994.

Sharon Ray, assistant professor of occupational therapy, and Mary Alicia Barnes, fieldwork coordinator in occupational therapy, presented a workshop, "Addressing the Needs of Students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders in School-based Practice," at a conference of the Massachusetts Occupational Therapy Association October 21 in Westford, Mass.

Paul Roazen, adjunct professor of psychiatry at Tufts and professor emeritus of social and political science at York University, will be inducted as an honorary member of the American Psychoanalytic Association at its winter meeting in New York City in January. Roazen has written numerous biographies of noted psychoanalysts and is recognized for disseminating broader knowledge of psychoanalysis to the public domain.

Barbara Rodriguez, assistant professor of English, is one of 19 fellows that Harvard's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute appointed for the academic year. The yearlong fellowships recognize scholars for achievement in African and African-American studies and allow them to pursue their own projects using Harvard's resources.

Pearl T. Robinson, associate professor of political science, has been elected vice president of the African Studies Association. Her term began in November at the association's annual meeting in Washington, D.C. She will become president of the association in 2006. Robinson studies the politics of interest representation, comparative democratization, the political economy of development and Africa's changing cultures of politics. She directs Tufts' interdisciplinary minor in Africa and the New World. Robinson said she would like to see the African Studies Association in the "forefront of a campaign to define access to the Internet for African universities as a global equity issue." In 2000, she initiated a curriculum co-development project that linked international studies courses at Tufts, Makerere University and the University of Dar es Salaam.

Dr. Morton B. Rosenberg, professor and director of anesthesia and pain control at the School of Dental Medicine, has been appointed interim administrative chair of the school's Department of Pediatric Dentistry. He also has been appointed to the Standing Committee on Anesthesiology of the Council on Dental Education and Licensure of the American Dental Association.

Christopher Simoneau has joined Tufts as director of central development programs within the University Advancement Division. He is a member of the University Advancement senior management team, with responsibility for overseeing gift planning, corporate and foundation relations, central annual giving programs and volunteer management for the upcoming campaign. Most recently, he served as associate vice president for university relations at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, where he was responsible for strategic and organizational planning for a division accountable for fund-raising, marketing and communications, government and community relations, alumni relations, programs and events and advancement services. Previously, Simoneau was director of contract services in the Office of Business Services at Columbia University and associate director for administration at Columbia's Earth Institute. He holds an M.B.A. from Columbia.

Drs. Carlos Sonnenschein and Ana M. Soto, professors of anatomy, have been installed as honorary members of the Order of Lafayette, an association dedicated to maintaining and promoting the historical bonds of friendship between France and the United States. The two were recognized for their work with endocrine disruptors--chemical pollutants that can affect reproduction and development in wildlife and humans.

Dawn Geronimo Terkla, Heather S. Roscoe, Jessica Sharkness and Thomas McGuinness of the Office of Institutional Research presented a paper, "Dashboards 101: Examples & Advice for Developing an Institutional Dashboard," at the Northeast Association for Institutional Research's 2005 conference. Roscoe co-presented a workshop at the same conference on "How to Conduct Your Surveys on the Web with WebSurveyor" with a representative from WebSurveyor Inc. Roscoe's portion of the workshop centered on how to use good survey design to develop web-based surveys.

Carrie Thomas, associate director of alumni relations for the medical and Sackler schools, has been promoted to development officer for the two schools. In this new position, Thomas will focus on individual donor qualification for major gift potential as well as the cultivation and solicitation of donors for annual and major gifts. She reports to Josh Young, director of major gifts. For the past four years, Thomas has increased attendance at medical alumni reunions and regional alumni events and solicited the Tufts Medical Alumni Association for the largest single annual fund donation the school has received for the past three years.

Dr. Quisheng Tu has been appointed an instructor of general dentistry at the School of Dental Medicine.

Alexander Vilenkin, professor of physics, had his work featured in two articles in the October issue of Astronomy magazine--one about the "multiverse" and the other about cosmic strings. The second article also describes the work of another Tufts cosmologist, Ken Olum, associate research professor of physics, and of former Tufts Ph.D. students Tanmay Vachaspati and Xavier Siemens.

William H. Waller, research associate professor of astronomy and co-founder of NASA's New England Space Science Initiative in Education, gave an invited talk on "Cosmic Evolution--From the Galaxies to the Galapagos" as part of the annual Darwin Festival that Salem State College hosts. He also gave invited talks on "Multi-wavelength Diagnostics of Starbirth in Starbursts" and "Educational Applications of Star Formation Research" as part of a NASA workshop on "Star Formation in the Era of Three Great Observatories" that took place in July in Cambridge, Mass. In August, Waller co-organized a NASA workshop on "Scientific Ballooning" that was held at Cornell University and directed Community Cosmos, a park-based educator enrichment program in the earth and space sciences that was held at Halibut Point State Park in Rockport, Mass. Following last summer's "Cosmos in the Classroom 2004--A Hands-on Symposium on Teaching Introductory Astronomy" that took place on the Medford/Somerville campus, Waller and Andy Fraknoi of Foothills College have edited the proceedings book, which is now available from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.

Donald Wertlieb, professor of child development, was elected to the board of directors of Jewish Family and Children's Service (JF&CS), a constituent agency of Combined Jewish Philanthropies and a beneficiary agency of the United Way that serves more than 30,000 clients each year in 83 communities across eastern Massachusetts. Wertlieb's projects with the Mercaz Gil Technical Assistance Center in Haifa, Israel, and the Educational Resource Center for Children with Special Needs at the Bet Hana Teacher's College in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, will be among the initiatives he pursues in his new role as a JF&CS board member.

Melissa K. White has been promoted to director of the Tufts Fund for Arts, Sciences and Engineering. She had served as acting director for two months and has led the annual fund team in setting fiscal year goals, organizing resources and mapping out strategic plans to meet those goals, filling several vacancies and providing overall leadership. Prior to that, she was assistant director of development for the Tufts Fund for three years.

Robert D. White has joined the School of Engineering as an assistant professor of mechanical engineering. He comes to Tufts from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, where he completed his doctorate in mechanical engineering. He has a master's degree in mechanical engineering from M.I.T. His dissertation is titled Trapped Fluid Microsystems for Acoustic Sensing, and his research is in micromechanical systems (MEMS), dynamics, acoustics, cochlear mechanics and experimental methods. He also is interested in electronics for measurement, electromechanical systems and dynamics and controls. As part of his doctoral work, he designed and fabricated the first fully micromachined, life-sized, hydromechanical cochlear model and also integrated this with sensing elements to produce a cochlear-like sensor/filter. He has worked as a MEMS test engineer and a Draper Fellow in the Charles Stark Draper Laboratories in Cambridge, Mass. He is a recipient of a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship and a Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship. The National Science Foundation has published an article about the research White did while working on his Ph.D. White and Karl Grosh of the University of Michigan built a microsensor that mimics the structure of the human cochlea. He plans to continue work on the project here at Tufts.

Michael Wiley has joined the University Advancement Division as supervisor of gift and information services. He comes to Tufts from the Liberty Funds Group, where he worked as a network analyst and manager.

Stephen Witkowski has joined the Advancement Division as senior director of development for the School of Engineering. He comes to Tufts from Boston University, where he had been director of development for the College of Engineering for the past four years. He also has been assistant dean of the College of Engineering at BU, the program manager of a complex radar systems program at General Electric and a career naval officer. He has had extensive experience as an F-14 pilot and jet instructor. A graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he earned his B.S. and a master's degree in engineering, he also holds a master of science in education from Old Dominion University.

Tim Yanni-Lazarus has joined the Advancement Division as a technical user support specialist. He comes to Tufts from the Boston law firm Mintz Levin, where he was a help desk specialist. He also has worked at Bowdoin College in various computer lab roles.

Kyung-Jin Yeum, a scientist in the HNRCA Carotenoids and Health Laboratory, was invited to speak on "Modification of Lymphocyte DNA Damage by a Physiologic Dose of Mixed Carotenoids in Humans" at the Nutrition, Oxygen Biology and Medicine Conference in Paris, France, last spring. Yeum was notified by the editorial board of Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics that her article, "Biomarkers of Antioxidant Capacity in the Hydrophilic and Lipophilic Compartments of Human Plasma," was one of the top 20 downloaded articles for the journal in 2004. The journal is available online to more than 10 million registered users.