February People Notes

Adam Arsenault, A08, a linebacker on the Jumbo football team, received the 2007 New England Football Writers Association Jerry Nason Award, given to the senior player in New England who has persevered against all odds to succeed in football. Arsenault’s achievement was simply making it back onto the field. As a freshman, he was the New England Small College Athletic Conference Defensive Rookie of the Year, even though he played with a bad shoulder and had surgery during the off-season. His football career was put in jeopardy his sophomore year, when he fractured and dislocated his ankle during a game at Williams College. He did not play again until his senior year. “Football has been a part of my life for the last 10 years. I didn’t feel like I had reached my potential as a player,” Arsenault says. “I wanted to try to have one more season before I left.”

Lynne Ausman, professor of nutrition, gave the inaugural lecture as the Saqr bin Mohammed Al Qasimi Professor in International Nutrition in December, “Coming Full Circle: A Nutritional Biochemist’s Relationships to the Outside World.” An audio recording of the lecture is available online. Ausman is creating a master’s degree in nutrition via distance learning, a collaboration of the Friedman School and the government of Ras Al Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates.

Tufts President Lawrence Bacow has been selected as CEO of the Year for District I of the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). He will be honored at a dinner in Boston on February 11.

Andreea Balan-Cohen, assistant professor of economics, presented her paper “Sobering Up: The Impact of the 1985-1988 Russian Anti-Alcohol Campaign on Child Health” at the Northeastern Universities Development Consortium Conference at Harvard University in October.

Jeffrey Blumberg, professor of nutrition and director of the Antioxidants Research Laboratory, was quoted in a Reader’s Digest article on “The Vitamin Myth.” “There have been many studies looking at supplements,” he said, “but the most consistent evidence we've had over the past 30 years is that eating a healthy diet, low in salt and saturated fat, losing extra weight, exercising moderately, reducing stress and quitting smoking are our best guarantees against disease and premature death.”

Drusilla Brown, associate professor of economics, gave the keynote address at the Expert Group Meeting on Full Employment and Decent Work for All at the United Nations in New York in October.

Brigid Burke has joined the regional programs team in the Office of Alumni Relations, with specific responsibilities for chapter programming in Southern California, Texas, Cape Cod and other regions. She graduated from Bowdoin College in 2005, and taught English in Thailand for six months before joining Tufts. She played lacrosse at Bowdoin, and was a member of the Bowdoin Young Alumni Leadership Program.

Jonathan Burton, associate director for student and young alumni programming, has left the Alumni Relations Office to join the Cummings School advancement team as assistant director for stewardship and development. Jonathan Kaplan, A96, has been promoted to fill Burton’s role as associate director for Campus Constituency Programs, overseeing all student, young alumni, reunion and special constituency programs.

Tufts University Advancement will be well-represented at the District I conference of CASE (Council for the Advancement and Support of Education), in Boston from Feb. 10 to 12. Twelve staff will present successful practices in fundraising, fundraising services, and alumni relations. Advancement participants are: Sunny Callahan and Tim Cross, Sr. , “Planning for Success”; Gretchen Dobson and Calicia Mullins, “Alumni World Day”; Mini Jaikumar, Jeff Winey and Tim Brooks, “From Volunteer to Major Campaign”; Jonathan Kaplan (with Ruben Stern, director of the Latino Center), “21st Century Alumni Relations: Diversity and Shared Interest Groups”; Carolyn Rolfe, “Annual Fund 101”; Christine Sanni (with Michael Armini, Harvard Law School), “Across the Divide: How to Talk the Talk of your Fundraising and Communications Colleagues”; and Cindy Briggs Tobin and Elizabeth Sterns, “Now for Something Completely Different: Raising Funds from Friends.”

Dr. Hubert Caplan, M55, clinical professor of medicine, has transferred his medical practice to the Marino Center in Wellesley, Mass., where he has been appointed a consultant in rheumatology. He will continue to practice as an internist there. Over the past several months, he has been vigorously advocating for the civilian care of current military casualties, a concept that has been endorsed by the Massachusetts Medical Society and the American Medical Association.

Rajeev Dehejia, associate professor of economics, had his research on “The Role of Religious and Social Organizations in the Lives of Disadvantaged Youth” covered in the Boston Globe and the New York Times Freakonomics Blog.

Gretchen Dobson, associate director for domestic and international programs in the Office of Alumni Relations, has been awarded the Rising Star Award from CASE (the Council for Advancement and Support of Education). Dobson has grown the world-wide alumni regional alumni chapter network from 12 active groups to more than 50. Recently, she and her staff won a gold national CASE medal for Tufts World Day, an ambitious initiative involving more than 1,000 alumni in 12 countries. Gretchen graduated cum laude from Boston College in 1991, where she also earned a master’s in higher education administration in 1995.

Johanna Dwyer, professor of nutrition, co-authored an editorial in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute that was quoted by Reuters in an article about vitamin D. “While vitamin D may well have multiple benefits beyond bone, health professionals and the public should not in a rush to judgment assume that vitamin D is a magic bullet and consume high amounts of vitamin D.”

Jason P. Epstein, A96, partner and portfolio manager for Columbus Nova in New York City, has joined the School of Arts and Sciences Board of Overseers. Dr. William F. Owen, Jr. , M80, president of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, is a new overseer to the School of Medicine and Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences. Charles A. Steinberg, a dentist who is vice president of marketing and public relations for the Los Angeles Dodgers, has been named an overseer to the School of Dental Medicine, and Francine L. Trull, G80, president of Policy Directions Inc. in Washington, D.C., has been appointed to the Board of Overseers to the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine.

Kevin P. Gallagher, senior researcher at the Global Development and Environment Institute, delivered talks at the University of Guadalajara and at the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean in November. Gallagher also spoke at the Science, Technology and Policy Program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government on Wednesday, November 28. Gallagher, Timothy Wise, deputy director and researcher at GDAE, Roberto Porzecanski, a Ph.D. candidate at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a GDAE pre-doctoral fellow, and Ann Helwege, GDAE senior research fellow, comprised a panel on globalization and economic development in Latin America at the New England Council of Latin American Studies meeting at Mount Holyoke College in Hadley, Mass., in November. An article of Gallagher’s titled “Trading Away the Ladder? Trade Politics and Economic Development in the Americas,” has been accepted by the peer-reviewed journal New Political Economy.

Neva Goodwin, co-director of the Global Development and Environment Institute, wrote the report “Economic Vitality in a Transition to Sustainability,” released by the Civil Society Institute, as part of their Growing the Economy Through Global Warming Solutions series. The report will be available for download from GDAE’s website as soon as it is made available by CSI.

Boris Hasselblatt, professor of mathematics, has been awarded a summer faculty fellowship at the Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach, which has also awarded him and his collaborators support through the Research-in-Pairs program. A book he edited, Dynamics, Ergodic Theory and Geometry, was recently published by Cambridge University Press. Also, all issues of the first year of the Journal of Modern Dynamics, which he co-founded, are available online. Though new, he reports, it is already the most selective journal in the discipline.

Justin Hollander, assistant professor of urban and environmental policy and planning, has been appointed a research fellow with the Genesee Institute, which provides planning and research on issues related to vacant, abandoned and tax-foreclosed properties, sustainable neighborhoods, shrinking cities, economic revitalization, urban sprawl and growth management. The appointment includes funding for UEP graduate students Courtney Knapp and Julia Wolfson to conduct research on neighborhood change in shrinking cities.

Yannis Ioannides, the Max and Herta Neubauer Professor of Economics, visited the department of economics and the Tinbergen Institute at the University of Amsterdam in October, and presented his paper “Searching for the Best Neighborhood.” He also participated in the 46th Economic Policy Panel meeting, which was hosted by the Bank of Portugal in Lisbon, October 19-20, where he presented his research on “The Effects of Information and Communication Technologies on Urban Structure.”

Jessica Jones-Hughes, N09, a dietetic intern at the Frances Stern Nutrition Center, recently created a program plan for a new nutrition-based cooking class for Community Servings, a Boston nonprofit that provides free meals to critically ill individuals. She worked through all the details of the literature base, partnership, outreach and program setup, including creating outreach and educational materials.

Eileen Kennedy, dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, was invited to be the keynote speaker in December at the USDA Economic Research Service Conference on “Recent Findings and Emerging Issues in Food and Nutrition Programs.”

Naoko Kotoge has joined Tufts’ International Center as international student and scholar adviser. She has been an adviser to international students at Emerson College, the Boston Architectural Center, Northeastern University and Lesley University and worked as an intern for Tufts’ International Center in 2003. Kotoge holds a master’s degree in international relations from Lesley University and is a native of Japan.

Dr. Michael Kowaleski, V93, has joined the Department of Clinical Sciences at the Cummings School as an associate professor in small animal orthopedic surgery. For the past five years, he was a faculty member at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Ohio State University. He has a research interest in the surgical treatment of canine cruciate ligament injuries and will share responsibility for heading the school’s small animal orthopedic surgery service with Dr. Randy Boudrieau.

Chao-Qiang Lai, a USDA Agricultural Research Service molecular biologist in the HNRCA Nutrition and Genomics Laboratory, received $100,000 in funding from the 2008 USDA-ARS Postdoctoral Research Associate Program to hire a postdoctoral associate for two years.

Alice Lichtenstein, Stanley N. Gershoff Professor of Nutrition Science and Policy, gave a presentation on “Diet, Dietary Components, and Atherosclerosis” at the Drugs Affecting Lipid Metabolism Conference in New York on October 6. She also presented on “Dietary Modification to Optimize Plasma Lipids and Lipoprotein Concentrations” at the American Heart Association: Scientific Sessions in Orlando, Fla., on November 4. In a letter to the editor in the New York Times, she called attempts to curb junk food in schools a good idea, but cautioned that “focusing a disproportional amount of energy on this low-hanging fruit avoids tackling the larger problem. . . . As long as parents stock the house with mega-sized containers of less preferable food and drink options and companies use popular figures to advertise these products, our well-intended efforts in the schools are doomed to fail.”

Enju Liu, a nutritional epidemiology student at the Friedman School, received the second-place award at the 5th annual World Congress on the Insulin Resistance Syndrome for her poster titled “Association of Plasma 25-hydroxy Vitamin D with Glucose Tolerance and Markers of Insulin Resistance in the Framingham Offspring Study.” Her poster was selected both as a finalist and for an oral presentation from more than 90 abstracts submitted to the Congress.

Joe McManus has been appointed executive associate dean for the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine as of January 7 and will assume most of the responsibilities of the current position. Responsibility for admissions and student affairs will move to Dr. Angie Warner, while Dr. Sawkat Anwer will oversee the Division of Teaching and Research Resources, which formerly reported to McManus. The transition will likely occur in February.

Margaret McMillan gave a seminar on offshoring in the international workshop at Yale, and presented a paper on profit sharing in the oil industry at the Northeastern Universities Development Consortium conference at Harvard in October in a session on corruption, crime and the underground economy. She was also an invited panelist at the 2007 Latin American Meetings of the Econometric Society (LACEA-LAMES) in Bogota, Colombia.

Gilbert E. Metcalf, professor of economics, was invited by Al Gore to make a presentation on carbon taxes as part of a panel on carbon pricing at a workshop on climate change. Gore chaired and hosted the private meeting in New York City in January, which included financier and philanthropist George Soros and members of the GreenTech Team from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a venture capital firm.

Mohsen Meydani, professor and director of the Vascular Biology Program at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging, was quoted in the article “Studies Reveal Opportunities for Future Vitamin E Recommendations” published December 26 in The Tan Sheet.

Dr. Simin Meydani, professor of nutrition and director of the Nutritional Immunology Laboratory at the HNRCA, gave a presentation on age-associated immune and inflammatory dysregulation at the Pennington Scientific Symposium in Baton Rouge, La., in early December. She gave a talk titled “Nutrition, Immune Response and Infectious Diseases in the Aged” at a conference on nutritional aspects of immunology sponsored by the American Association of Veterinary Immunologists and the American College of Veterinary Microbiologists in Chicago on December 2.

Lynne T. Miller, assistant director of the Center for Reading and Language Research, and Stephanie Gottwald, research coordinator for the center, presented research and curricula at the Learning Disabilities Network and to the D.C. Capital Branch of the International Dyslexia Association.

Julie Nelson, senior research associate at the Global Development and Environment Institute, gave a lunchtime talk on feminist economics, ethics and climate change at the Tellus Institute in Boston on November 7.  

George Norman, William and Joyce Cummings Family Chair of Entrepreneurship and Business Economics, presented a paper on “Spatial Competition and Agglomeration: An Application to Motion Pictures” at the ninth Business and Economics Scholars Workshop in Motion Picture Industry Studies, held in Los Angeles in early November. Norman was also installed as a senior scholar of the De Santis Center for Motion Picture Industry Studies, Florida Atlantic University, in recognition of the research in which he is engaged on the economics of the motion picture exhibition market.

Scott O’Neil, senior information analyst, is featured in the book Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure, which will be published February 5 by Harper Perennial. Scott’s memoir, “Changing mind postponed demise by decades,” refers to his ten-year battle with depression and is among a handful to be featured on its own page with original artwork by the author. The book includes hundreds of six-word stories by writers and celebrities from Stephen Colbert to Aimee Mann to Dave Eggers, and by ordinary folks with something to say—something short and to the point. Scott has worked in Information Technology Services for the past seven years, and does desktop and network computer support for a variety of departments on the Medford campus.

Carole Palmer, professor of nutrition, is the new director for the master’s degree program affiliated with the Frances Stern Nutrition Center. She will join Assistant Professor Kelly Kane, director of the internship program, in overseeing the combined dietetic internship and master’s degree program at the center.

Martha Pokras, formerly executive associate dean at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, has been named executive director for planning and administration in Medford, and began working in her new position in mid-January. “As part of the executive vice president’s office, Martha will lead complex cross functional administrative projects,” says Patricia Campbell, university executive vice president. “Martha will leave a heritage at Cummings School that includes 27 years of exemplary service. During that time, the school has relied upon Martha for her intelligence, thoughtful problem solving, and comprehensive knowledge of process and the Tufts system. Martha’s excellent judgment led to hiring and mentoring of key leaders in the school and her steady hand has assured effective management of the most complex issues. Martha’s strategic thinking and her care and concern for our students, staff and faculty have shaped so much of what Cummings is today. The school owes Martha an enormous debt of gratitude for her devoted and tremendously effective service.”

The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition recently published three studies on consumption of fish/omega-3 fatty acids and cognitive function. Professor Irwin Rosenberg’s accompanying editorial, “Rethinking Brain Food,” noted there is growing evidence of such an association, but said randomized clinical trails are needed to confirm the link. His editorial was referenced in a HealthDay News article published in the Washington Post and several other newspapers.

Amit Sachdeo, assistant professor of prosthodontics, presented his research at the International Association for Dental Research meeting in Brisbane, Australia, and at the annual meeting of the Northeast Gnathological Society in New York. He gave a lecture titled “Biofilms in the Edentulous” at the 2007 American College of Prosthodontists annual meeting, and gave a poster presentation titled “Intra-Oral Biofilms in the Complete Denture-wearing Patient” at the Tufts Translational Research Day: Applying Discovery. Sachdeo was awarded the prestigious 2007 John J. Sharry Award for Outstanding Prosthodontic Research by the American College of Prosthodontists in November. His biography was published in the Marquis Who’s Who in America and Marquis Who’s Who in Healthcare and Medicine (Diamond Edition). He was also selected to be published in the Continental Who’s Who and the Cambridge Who’s Who Among Executives and Professionals in Dentistry (Honors Edition).

Sharan L. Schwartzberg, professor of occupational therapy and adjunct professor of psychiatry, presented a faculty seminar on her research program at Tufts–New England Medical Center’s Inpatient Psychiatry Unit, “Inpatient Group Therapy Program Outcomes,” at Lund University in Sweden on November 27. She also met with Mona Eklund, an associate professor of occupational therapy at Lund University, to discuss common research endeavors during a scientific visit to Sankt Lars Psychiatric Hospital in Lund.

Laurence Senelick, Fletcher Professor of Oratory and professor of drama, has been awarded a William Evans Visiting Fellowship to the University of Otago in New Zealand. The award is made to “persons of academic distinction who have a strong record in research and/or teaching and/or professional practice.” Senelick will visit Otago in summer 2008, when he will deliver the keynote address at the annual conference of the Australasian Drama Studies Association and present lectures in the university programs of Russian studies, gender studies and music and theater. Senelick also has been appointed to the advisory board of the Stanislavski Centre, located at Rose Bruford College in London. He presented a paper in French on Michael Chekhov’s performance as Khlestakov at an international conference on the actor sponsored in Paris by the Center for Scientific Research. The paperback edition of his translation of The Complete Plays of Anton Chekhov (W.W. Norton) has just been published, and he contributed 60 entries to the new edition of The Cambridge Guide to American Theatre.

Jay Shimshack, assistant professor of economics, presented his research on “Mercury Advisories and Household Health Trade-offs” at the Workshop on Environmental Economics sponsored by the National Bureau of Economic Research, the University of Connecticut and the University of Colorado. He is also an expert contractor for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Enforcement Deterrence Measurement Project.

NBC Entertainment co-chairman Ben Silverman, A92, was among the “36 revolutionaries” Esquire magazine cited as the “Best and Brightest of 2007.” Silverman made his mark selling foreign TV shows, including Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and Survivor, to American broadcasters, and producing U.S. versions of The Office and Ugly Betty.

Enrico Spolaore, professor of economics, gave a talk on “Civil Conflict and Secessions” at a conference on New Perspectives on Fiscal Federalism: Intergovernmental Relations, Competition and Accountability, hosted and organized by the Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB) on October 18-20. Spolaore presented his research on “Trade, Geography and History” at the Kellogg School’s Political Economy Workshop at Northwestern University on November 12. In December he spoke on his research on the diffusion of development and on civil conflict and secessions at seminars at the European University Institute and the University of Florence.

Liz Stanton, research fellow at the Global Development and Environment Institute, and Frank Ackerman, research and policy program director at the GDAE, are the authors of a new report commissioned by Environmental Defense, “Florida and Climate Change: The Costs of Inaction.” The report, which was widely covered in the media, is the first detailed analysis on the potential consequences of continued climate change for the state’s economy, arguing that if left unchecked, climate change will significantly harm Florida’s economy in the next several decades. In December, Stanton testified before the Florida State Senate and House Committees on the report.

Elanor Starmer, a research assistant with the GDAE, and Timothy Wise, GDAE deputy director and researcher, announced two new publications on the implicit subsidies to factory farms from U.S. agricultural policies. These include a new working paper that is the product of Starmer’s master’s thesis at Tufts, as well as a new policy brief examining implicit subsidies to five livestock sectors from below-cost feed. They also added two new fact sheets Starmer wrote for the Agribusiness Accountability Initiative’s “Leveling the Field” series of issue briefs. These publications are available from the GDAE’s Feeding the Factory Farm Project.

Allen Taylor, senior scientist and director of the Laboratory for Nutrition & Vision Research at the Jean Mayer Human Nutrition Research Center, recently gave a talk at the Annual U.S.–Japan Cooperative Cataract Research Group Meeting in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, in early December. Taylor gave a presentation titled “Linking Risk for Cortical (And Nuclear) Opacities, Dietary Carbohydrate Intake, and Protein Quality Control.”

Loring W. Tu, associate professor of mathematics, published in November 2007 An Introduction to Manifolds, a textbook on the geometry and topology of spaces of arbitrary dimension. He is spending the spring semester at the University of Paris 7 on a Tufts Faculty Research Awards Committee (FRAC) New Directions Award, to collaborate on research with French mathematicians.

Joel Weinstock, professor of gastroenterology and immunology at the School of Medicine, was among the “36 revolutionaries” Esquire magazine cited as the “Best and Brightest of 2007.” Weinstock, also chief of gastroenterology at Tufts–New England Medical Center, has found that Americans’ antiseptic quest to make their lives germ-free has eliminated a batch of good intestinal worms that play a vital role in regulating the health of our immune systems.

Timothy Wise, deputy director and researcher at the Global Development and Environment Institute, took part in a meeting in Mexico City in mid-November with Beatriz Leycegui, one of the Mexican government’s lead trade negotiators, and her staff at the Economics Ministry. Wise joined farm leader Victor Suarez to advocate for policies to delay the final and full liberalization of the corn and bean markets under NAFTA, which was set for January 1, 2008. He also presented some of the findings from his recent paper, “State of Emergency for Mexican Maize.”

Maryanne Wolf, John DiBiaggio Professor of Citizenship and Public Service, Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development, was the keynote speaker to the Japanese Academy of Learning Disabilities. Her book, Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, was featured in recent articles of the New Yorker, Science and Spirit and U.S. News and World Report and will be translated into Spanish, Czech, Greek, Japanese and Korean. She received the Margot Marek Award for the best book on reading from the New York International Dyslexia Association. Wolf directs the Center for Reading and Language Research at Tufts.

Helen Young, professor of nutrition and research director of nutrition and livelihoods at the Feinstein International Center, Abdalmonium el Khider Osman, senior researcher, and their colleagues recently completed a paper on livelihoods programming in the Darfur region of Sudan. They concluded that conflict and insecurity are destroying livelihoods and the adaptations made in turn by particular groups fuel the conflict.