People Notes March 2011
Astier Almedom, director of the International Resilience Program at Tufts’ Institute for Global Leadership and a professor of practice at the Fletcher School, had her article, “Profiling Resilience: Capturing Complex Realities in One Word,” published in the latest issue of the Fletcher Forum of World Affairs.
Salah Alrakawi, assistant professor of medicine and program director of the Tufts Medical Center’s transitional year residency program at Lemuel Shattuck Hospital, has been appointed chief of medicine at Lemuel Shattuck.
Barry Briss, D66, DG70, professor and chair of orthodontics at the School of Dental Medicine, received the Dr. Frederick Moynihan Award for Outstanding Contributions and Service to Orthodontics, presented by the Massachusetts Association of Orthodontists. Moynihan graduated from Tufts Dental School in 1951 and practiced in Massachusetts for more than 40 years.
Aaron Brown, G12, a graduate student in mathematics, has been awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the National Science Foundation.
Benjamin Carp, an associate professor of history in the School of Arts and Sciences and author of Defiance of the Patriots: The Boston Tea Party and the Making of America (Yale University Press, 2010), was named a “Top Young Historian” by the History News Network of George Mason University, which selects scholars who have “made outstanding contributions to the discipline in their area of research.” Carp’s book also received an award from the American Revolution Round Table of New York for Best Book on the Era of the American Revolution.
James C. M. Chan, a professor of pediatrics at Tufts and the director of research at the Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital at Maine Medical Center, is the 2011 recipient of the Henry L. Barnett Award, the highest honor of the American Academy of Pediatrics nephrology section, for outstanding teaching and clinical care of children with kidney disease. The award will be presented at the academy’s annual meeting in Denver in May.
Leila Fawaz, the Issam M. Fares Professor of Lebanese and Eastern Mediterranean Studies and founding director of the Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies, has been elected president of Harvard University’s Board of Overseers for 2011–12. She has been on the board since 2006, and will be serving the final year of her six-year term. She will assume her new role following the Harvard commencement in the spring, succeeding Seth P. Waxman, former solicitor general of the United States and a partner at the law firm WilmerHale in Washington, D.C. Fawaz also holds appointments as a professor of diplomacy at the Fletcher School and as a professor of history in the School of Arts and Sciences. She earned master’s and doctoral degrees in history at Harvard.
Daniella Floru, assistant professor of medicine and chief of geriatrics at Lemuel Shattuck Hospital, is the new associate program director of the Tufts Medical Center transitional year residency program at Lemuel Shattuck.
Kevin P. Gallagher, a senior researcher at the Global Development and Environment Institute, held a workshop for senior United Nations delegates from the G-77 on trade treaties, capital controls and sovereign debt restructuring on February 25. The next day, he delivered a paper titled “Regaining Control? Capital Controls and the Global Financial Crisis” at the Eastern Economics Association meetings in New York.
Harish Gulati has been promoted to associate clinical professor of general dentistry at the School of Dental Medicine.
Timothy Hempton, associate clinical professor of periodontology at the dental school, was named the 2011 Clinician of the Year during the annual Yankee Dental conference in recognition of his decade of service as a speaker and volunteer at the annual dental meeting in Boston. Hempton continues to teach periodontics to sold-out crowds of dentists, hygienists and assistants at the convention. He has served on several Yankee Dental program committees and last year was one of four program chairs.
Richard Jankowsky, an assistant professor of music in the School of Arts and Sciences, published a new book, Stambeli: Music, Trance, and Alterity in Tunisia (University of Chicago Press, 2010).
David Leader, D85, has been promoted to associate clinical professor of general dentistry at the School of Dental Medicine.
John Leong has been named the new chair of the Department of Molecular Biology and Microbiology at Tufts School of Medicine. After completing his M.D. and Ph.D. at Brown University, he came to Tufts as a postdoctoral fellow, studying with Professor Ralph Isberg. He then joined the faculty as an assistant professor of medicine in the division of rheumatology and immunology at Tufts Medical Center. In 1995, he moved to the University of Massachusetts Medical School, where he became a professor and vice chair of microbiology and physiological systems. He has had appointments as a Pew Scholar and an American Heart Association Established Investigator. His research focuses on host-bacterial interactions that lead to disease, with a particular interest in enterohemorrhagic E. coli, Streptococcus pneumoniae and Borrelia burgdorferi, the pathogen that causes Lyme disease. His work has appeared in more than 70 publications and is funded by several grants from the National Institutes of Health.
Richard Lerner, the Bergstrom Chair in Applied Developmental Science in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development, received the 2010 John P. Hill Memorial Award for Lifetime Outstanding Work from the Society for Research on Adolescence. His recent books as editor or editor-in-chief include The Handbook of Developmental Science, Behavior and Genetics (Wiley Blackwell, 2010); Cognition, Biology, Methods: Volume 1 of The Handbook of Lifespan Development (Wiley, 2010); and Social and Emotional Development: Volume 2 of The Handbook of Lifespan Development (Wiley).
Barry S. Levy, A66, an adjunct professor in the Department of Public Health and Community Medicine at the School of Medicine, is senior editor of the recently published sixth edition of the textbook Occupational and Environmental Health: Recognizing and Preventing Disease and Injury. He is co-editing Mastering Public Health: Essential Skills for Effective Practice and the second edition of Terrorism and Public Health, both of which will be published this fall. All three books are from Oxford University Press.
Nancy Levy-Konesky, a lecturer in the Department of Romance Languages in the School of Arts and Sciences, and Jo Stepp-Greany of Florida State University gave a presentation on “Using Authentic Texts to Enhance Reading and Language Skills” at the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages in November.
Vincent P. Manno, associate provost and professor of mechanical engineering, has been appointed provost and dean of faculty at Olin College of Engineering, where he will also serve as professor of engineering. The appointment is effective July 1. “Dr. Manno was one of four finalists in a national search to fill this key leadership position at Olin,” said Richard K. Miller, president of Olin College. “My personal interactions with him have convinced me that he brings to the position the right mix of senior academic leadership experience, passion for innovation in undergraduate education, personal academic achievement and exceptional interpersonal leadership skills.” Manno has taught at Tufts since 1984, and held appointments as chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, associate dean of engineering for graduate studies and interim dean of engineering.
Ali Muftu has been promoted to professor of prosthodontics and operative dentistry at the School of Dental Medicine.
Liz Queler, J81, along with her husband, the Broadway pianist and conductor Seth Farber, have released a CD, called The Edna Project, of 21 poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay that they have set to music. More information is available at www.redwallrecords.com and www.myspace.com/ednaproject.
Kareem Roustom, a lecturer in the music department and director of the Tufts Arabic Music Ensemble, was nominated for an Emmy Award for his score for the PBS documentary The Mosque in Morgantown. Roustom was also awarded a fellowship to the 2010 Sundance Film Composer’s Lab, which takes place annually at the Sundance Institute in Utah. Other recent highlights include a performance of his chamber work “Buhur” at the Philadelphia Orchestra Chamber Music Series. In late 2010, Roustom completed a large-scale choral work titled “The Son of Man.” With a text by Khalil Gibran, this work will have its Boston premier in May.
Liz Rozanski has been promoted to associate professor of clinical sciences at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine. She was the invited faculty commencement speaker for the classes of 2007 and 2010, and has served as vice president of the American College of Emergency and Critical Care and president of the Veterinary Comparative Respiratory Society.
Roger Swartz was named executive director of the Positive Deviance Initiative, based at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, in November. Previously he was director of the Boston Public Health Commission’s Community Initiatives Bureau for 10 years. He has experience managing and implementing international public health programs in Africa and the Middle East, working with John Snow, Inc., World Vision International and the Peace Corps.
Laura Walters, associate director of Tisch Library, gave a presentation on data assessment at the winter meeting of the Library Instruction Section of the New England chapter of the Association of College and Research Libraries.
Xiang-Dong Wang, director of the Nutrition and Cancer Biology Laboratory at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging and a professor at the Friedman School, received an honorary visiting professorship from one of the top universities in China, Zhejiang University. At the ceremony, he gave a presentation titled “Biological Actions of Carotenoids: Implications for Human Health and Diseases.” As a representative of the American Society for Nutrition delegation, led by Professor Emeritus Robert M. Russell, Wang visited the Chinese Society for Nutrition in Beijing and the Institute for Nutritional Sciences at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai.
Timothy A. Wise, deputy director of the Global Development and Environment Institute, was interviewed by KRLD radio in Dallas in early February about NAFTA’s impacts on agriculture in Mexico and the effects on Mexican migration to the United States. He was also quoted in two recent McClatchy news wire stories on corn in Mexico, based in part on his work on agricultural dumping. “Mexico, Cradle of Corn, Finds Its Noble Grain Under Assault” focuses on the contentious issue of genetically modified corn, while “Free Trade: As U.S. Corn Flows South, Mexicans Stop Farming” explores the impact of NAFTA on small-scale Mexican farmers. The articles appeared in the Sacramento Bee, among many other McClatchy papers.
Adriana Zavala, associate professor of art and art history in the School of Arts and Sciences, received the 2011 Association of Latin American Art’s Book Award for her book Becoming Modern, Becoming Tradition: Women, Gender, and Representation in Mexican Art (Pennsylvania State University Press).