Yale Bulletin and Calendar

March 23, 2007|Volume 35, Number 22

Visiting on Campus

Nobel Prize winner to give Arthur Leff Fellow Lecture

The Arthur Leff Fellow Lecture will be given by Nobel Prize winner Dr. Harold Varmus on Monday, March 26.

"Freeing Scientific Culture: The Fight to Provide Public Access to Results the Public Finances" is the topic of his talk, which will take place 4:30-6 p.m. in Rm. 127, Sterling Law Buildings, 127 Wall St. Sponsored by the Law School's Dean's Office, the talk is open to the public free of charge.

Varmus, who has served as the president and chief executive officer of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center since 2000, was the co-recipient of a Nobel Prize for studies of the genetic basis of cancer. Varmus shared the 1989 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with his colleague Dr. J. Michael Bishop.

In 1993, President Clinton named Varmus director of the National Institutes of Health, a position he held until 1999.

The author of over 300 scientific papers and four books, Varmus chairs the scientific board of the Grand Challenges in Global Health at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and is co-founder and chair of the board of directors of the Public Library of Science, a publisher of open access journals in the biomedical sciences.

A member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine, Varmus has received the National Medal of Science and the Vannevar Bush Award.

Noted psychiatrist to deliver Muriel Gardiner Lecture

The Anna Freud Centre Program at the Yale Child Study Center will present the fifth annual New Haven Psychoanalytic Research Training Program and the Muriel Gardiner Lecture delivered by Dr. David Reiss, director of the Division of Research in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and professor of psychiatry, medicine and psychology at George Washington University Medical Center, on Tuesday, March 27.

Reiss will discuss "A Second Look at the Parent and the Child in Parent-Child Relationships: Some Perspectives from Behavioral Genetics" at 7:30 p.m. in the Luce Hall auditorium, 34 Hillhouse Ave. A reception will precede the lecture at 6:30 p.m. in the common room. The talk is open to the public free of charge.

Also teaching analyst at the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute, Reiss focuses his research on the psychosocial aspects of chronic physical illness and disability, laboratory and field studies of family and small group interaction and the sociologic studies of psychiatric wards. For the last 20 years he has studied the interplay between social processes and genetic influences in child, adolescent and adult development.

He has authored many papers and has edited or written six books including "The Relationships Code: Deciphering Genetic and Social Influences on Adolescent Development" (with Jenae Neiderhiser, Mavis Hetherington and Robert Plomin).

He has received many awards and honors including the National Institute of Mental Health's Merit Award and the American Psychiatric Association's Adolf Meyer Award. Currently he is principal investigator of the National Institutes of Health-supported Early Growth and Development Study.

Award-winning author is next Shulman Lecturer

Author and science journalist Dava Sobel, whose best-selling works include "Longitude," "Galileo's Daughter" and "The Planets," will visit the campus on Tuesday, March 27.

Sobel will give a talk titled "Paper Planets" at 5 p.m. in the auditorium of the Whitney Humanities Center (WHC), 53 Wall St. Free and open to the public, her talk is the fourth in the inaugural "Drama and Science" series of Shulman Lectures in Science and the Humanities. For more information, contact Manana Sikic at (203) 432-0673 or manana.sikic@yale.edu.

A former New York Times science reporter, Sobel has won multiple prizes for her work, including the Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, England's "Book of the Year" for "Longitude," the 1999 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for science and technology and a 2000 Christopher Award for "Galileo's Daughter," which was also a finalist for the 2000 Pulitzer Prize in biography.

The PBS science program NOVA produced the television documentary "Lost at Sea -- The Search for Longitude" based on Sobel's book. A dramatic version of "Longitude" aired on A&E as a made-for-TV movie. A NOVA documentary "Galileo's Battle for the Heavens," based on "Galileo's Daughter," won an Emmy Award for historical programming.

Sobel has received a number of accolades for her writing including the Individual Public Service Award from the National Science Board and the Boston Museum of Science's Bradford Washburn Award.

The lecture series is named after Robert Shulman, Sterling Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, and senior research scientist in diagnostic radiology, in recognition of his roles as a founding fellow of the Whitney Humanities Center and as a supporter of the integration of science and the humanities.

Council on Foreign Relations fellow to give ISS lecture

The International Security Studies Grand Strategy Lecture Series will continue with a talk by Max Boot, senior fellow in national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, on Tuesday, March 27.

Boot's talk, titled "Revolutions in Military Affairs and the War on Terrorism," will begin at 4:30 p.m. in Rm. 208, William L. Harkness Hall, 100 Wall St. The talk is open to the public free of charge.

A weekly foreign affairs columnist for the Los Angeles Times, Boot is also a contributing editor to the Weekly Standard, and a regular contributor to The New York Times, Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, and many other publications.

He is the author of the new book, "War Made New: Technology, Warfare and the Course of History, 1500 to Today," and of "The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power," which was selected as one of the best books of 2002 by the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and the Christian Science Monitor, and won the 2003 General Wallace M. Greene Jr. Award.

Boot, who received a Master of Arts degree in history from Yale in 1992, is a member of the U.S. Joint Forces Command Transformation Advisory Group.

In 2004, he was named by the World Affairs Councils of America as one of "the 500 most influential people in the United States in the field of foreign policy."

Yale Angler's Journal co-founder to speak in Peabody event

The Peabody Museum will host a talk and book-signing with James Prosek, an artist, author, musician and co-founder of the Yale Anglers Journal, on Thursday, March 29.

Titled "Eels: Farewell to an Idea," Prosek's talk will begin at 5 p.m. at the museum, 170 Whitney Ave. Following the talk, which is free and open to the public, Prosek will sign copies of his book, which will be available for purchase. The program is part of the 2006-2007 John H. Ostrom Program Series titled "Nature in Art." For more information, visit the website at www.peabody.yale.edu.

Prosek is best known for his watercolor illustrations of trout in his first book "Trout: An Illustrated History" and "The Day My Mother Left," a novel about a nine-year-old boy who turns to nature in the wake of his parents' divorce. More recently, his artwork and prose have focused on eels.

Foreign policy specialist to speak on campus

The Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism will host a lecture by foreign policy specialist James Woolsey on Thursday, March 29.

Titled "Energy, Security and the Long War of the 21st Century," Woolsey's talk will take place 4:15-5:45 p.m. in Rm. 101, Linsly-Chittenden Hall, 63 High St. The talk is free and open to the public.

During his 12 years of government service, Woolsey held posts as director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1993 to 1995; ambassador to the Negotiation on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), Vienna, 1989-1991; under secretary of the Navy, 1977-1979; and general counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services, 1970-1973.

He was also appointed as delegate at large to the U.S.-Soviet Strategic Arms Reduction Talks and Nuclear and Space Arms Talks, and served in that capacity on a part-time basis in Geneva, Switzerland, 1983-1986. As an officer in the U.S. Army, he was an adviser on the U.S. Delegation to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, Helsinki and Vienna, 1969-1970.

He received an LL.B. from Yale Law School in 1968 and was managing editor of the Yale Law Journal.

Zigler Center talk will focus on schoolchildren in Ghana

Jocelyn Mackey, assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Southern Connecticut State University, will speak in the Edward Zigler Center in Child Development and Social Policy lecture series on Friday, Dec.1.

Her talk, titled "Skin Tone Preferences and Ghanaian Youth: The Doll Studies Revisited," will be held at 11:30 a.m. in Rm. 119, William L. Harkness Hall, 100 Wall St. The event is free and open to the public. For more information, send e-mail to sandra.bishop@yale.edu or call (203) 432-9935.

Mackey's recent research has extended the landmark study of Kenneth and Mamie Clark which was cited in the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, school segregation case in 1954. This research, conducted in Ghana, involved 200 school-aged children.

She has also designed and implemented Pathways Youth Development Program, which is a therapeutic, school-based intervention program. The curriculum supports development in children along six key pathways: psychological, social, moral/ethical, physical, language and cognitive. In addition, Mackey is collaborating on a textbook, "Introduction to Psychology: A Multicultural Perspective."

Mackey was previously a school psychologist and a special education public school teacher.

T H I SW E E K ' SS T O R I E S

Changes to enrich 'middle years' for Ph.D. candidates

Saturday series again will prove 'science is fun'

In Focus: Challenge Survivorship Clinic

Former president of Chile to give a public address on campus . . .

Yale astronomers conclude their tribute to one of their 'stars'

Study: Public polarized regarding safety of nanotechnology

Of genetic switches and misfolded RNAs . . .

Women's Faculty Forum hosts events exploring issues faced by . . .

SCHOOL OF MEDICINE NEWS

NIH grant will advance research on neurons' role in narcolepsy

Donaghue Foundation awards fund projects related to elderly, epilepsy

Brain's 'default mode' is abnormal in patients with schizophrenia . . .

Ob/Gyn researchers announce new findings at recent scientific meeting