The Pew Charitable Trusts recently named Hong Sun, assistant professor in genetics, as one of 22 1996 Pew Scholars in the Biomedical Sciences nationwide. As such, she will receive an award of $200,000 over a four-year period to help support her research project, "Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinases and Cell Signaling." According to the researcher, "We are studying the molecular mechanisms that cells use to translate the external stimuli into a cellular response, such as cell growth, differentiation or cell death. Our studies should help us to understand how aberrant regulation of these pathways lead to human diseases, such as cancer."
Economists from Yale and around the world gathered on campus May 10 and 11 to pay tribute to Gustav Ranis, the Frank Altschul Professor of International Economics and director of the Yale Center for International and Area Studies. Professor Ranis, who earned his master's and doctoral degrees at Yale, has written extensively on development theory and policy. He has served as director of Yale's Economic Growth Center and of the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, and he was assistant administrator for program and policy in the U.S. State Department's Agency for International Development. He has been a member of the Yale faculty since 1961.
This summer, as it celebrated its 135th anniversary, the Yale Glee Club traveled to the Far East on an Asian Tour. On May 29, the group flew to San Francisco, where they presented a concert, before taking off for Beijing in the People's Republic of China. Other stops on the group's tour, which concluded June 23, included Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea and Japan, where they presented concerts in Osaka, Kyoto and Tokyo.
Stephanie Atiyeh, who graduated from Yale College in May, and Eugene Hagiwara '99 of Pierson College were among the college students who took part in the 1996 Summer Medical and Research Training SMART Program at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. The 10-week program, directed by Baylor's Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, offers first-hand experience in laboratories conducting biomedical projects. Participants are chosen on the basis of their commitment to achieving excellence in the preparation for a biomedical science career.
The American Nurses Association recently inducted two members of the School of Nursing community into its Hall of Fame: the late Virginia A. Henderson, a long-time researcher at the School of Nursing and Florence S. Wald, a former dean of the school. Ms. Henderson, who was a senior research associate emeritus at Yale at the time of her death on March 19, 1996, has been described as the "foremost nurse of the 20th century," whose contributions have been compared to those of Florence Nightingale because of their far-reaching effects on the national and international nursing communities. Ms. Wald, a psychiatric nurse who is now a clinical professor of nursing at Yale, founded the hospice movement in the United States.
Dr. Edward Chu, formerly a senior investigator with the National Cancer Institute's Navy Medical Oncology Branch, has been named director of the newly established VA Cancer Center at the VA Connecticut Medical Center in West Haven. The program is designed to strengthen the clinical and basic research efforts in oncology at the VA and integrate them with existing programs at the Yale Cancer Center. The thrust of the program at the VA Cancer Center will be the development of new drug therapies. "We plan to take existing pre-clinical research efforts at Yale and translate them into novel clinical studies at the VA," says Dr. Chu, who was also appointed codirector of the Developmental Therapeutics Program at the Yale Cancer Center. "Although our patient population consists entirely of veterans, the clinical and laboratory research conducted here will impact cancer care for everyone." Joining Dr. Chu on the Developmental Therapeutics Program team is Dr. Lorrin Yee, previously an assistant professor of medicine at Rhode Island Hospital, Brown University.
Six Yale professors from the Yale Child Study Center traveled to Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science in July to take part in a one-day symposium on Tourette Syndrome, a genetic disorder that can cause repetitive, involuntary twitching and swearing. The symposium, a collaborative effort between Yale and the Weizmann Institute, brought together 130 researchers from Holland and Israel to discuss how combining basic research with clinical studies could promote the discovery of a cure for the disorder. The Yale participants were Dr. Donald J. Cohen, director of the Child Study Center, and Dr. Robert King, Dr. James Leckman, David Pauls, Dr. Bradley Peterson and George Anderson.
Also this summer Charles Greer, associate professor of surgery neurosurgery and neuroanatomy, served as program chair for the joint meeting of the International Symposium on Olfaction and Taste XII and the Association for Chemoreception Sciences XIX, which was held July 7-12 in San Diego. This meeting is the major venue for the exchange of basic, clinical and applied research in the chemical senses.
A search is underway for a successor to Handsome Dan XIV, Yale's official mascot, who died this summer due to heart-related problems. The 2-year-old bulldog, who was also known as "Whizzer," took over for Handsome Dan XIII, who is still alive and may be brought out of retirement until a new mascot is found.
Mary Hunter, formerly of the Seattle Repertory Theatre, has been named as chair of the stage management concentration at the School of Drama and production stage manager of the Yale Repertory Theatre. In addition to her teaching duties at the drama school, Ms. Hunter will select students for the stage management program, develop a three-year curriculum and supervise students in their stage management assignments in both the school and the Rep.
Also on the theatrical front: This summer, the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven awarded a $5,000 to the Dwight-Edgewood Project, a community outreach program sponsored by the School of Drama and the Yale Repertory Theatre that allows area youngsters to write, produce and perform in original plays. The grant from the Richard A. Rathbone & Laetitia V. Pierson Funds helped support "One-on Ones," the second phase of the project, which was introduced this year. "One-on-Ones" allows youngsters who have completed the "Playmaking" phase of the program to return to further their artistic development with the help of a playwright mentor.
Among the individuals who have recently been appointed to chairmanships of departments or programs are: Gary Haller, chemical engineering; Lee Patterson, medieval studies program; Maria Rosa Menocal, Spanish and Portuguese; Martin Schultz, computer science. Faculty members reappointed as department, section or program chairs include: Donald Crothers, chemistry; Dr. James Fischer, therapeutic radiology; Richard A. Flavell, section of immunobiology; Frederic L. Holmes, section of history of medicine; Dr. Peter I. Jatlow, laboratory medicine; Dr. Jon S. Morrow, pathology; Dr. Pasko Rakic, section of neurobiology; Sabatino Sofia, astronomy. Other recent appointments include: Spyridon Artavanis-Tsakonas as director of the division of biological sciences; John Szwed as acting chair of the anthropology department; and Harry B. Adams as chair of the Council of Masters a reappointment.
In memoriam: William Granger Ryan, a research scholar and visiting lecturer at the Divinity School and the Institute of Sacred Music for several years, passed away on June 21 in Queens Village, New York, at the age of 90. A linguist, translator and student of religion and the arts, Monsignor Ryan served for 20 years as president of Seton Hill College in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. During his time at Yale, he completely reworked an earlier translation from the Latin of Jacques de Voragine's "Golden Legend," the standard medieval compendium of saints' lives.