Environmental contamination is topic of two talks
Konstantin Krivoruchko, assistant professor and head of the Geographic Information System (GIS) Laboratory at the International Sakharov Institute of Radioecology in Minsk, Belarus, will discuss environmental contamination this week in two talks, during which he will use research data from the Chernobyl nuclear accident. His first talk, "Environmental Contamination and Disease Incidence in the Aftermath of Chernobyl: A GIS Approach," will take place on Monday, Oct. 13, at 4 p.m. in Bowers Hall of the School of Forestry, 205 Prospect St. On Wednesday, Oct. 15, he will discuss "Using GIS as a Tool in Epidemiology: Chernobyl Case Study" at 4 p.m. in Winslow Auditorium in the Laboratory of Epidemiology and Public Health, 60 College St. The talks are free and open to the public.
During his talk, Mr. Krivoruchko will present his newly developed GIS, called MapStudio, a spatial analysis software. He will demonstrate MapStudio's capabilities to process spatially distributed environmental and epidemiological data using data from the Chernobyl accident.
Mr. Krivoruchko, who has been at the international Sakharov Institute for the past four years, developed the first versions of MapStudio in 1994. A year later, he presented the early version of the program at three universities in Europe. "It became clear to me then that the idea of combining the visualization advantages of GIS and advanced methods of data processing in the same system was greatly needed and not yet implemented into any available programs," he has said. Prior to his current position,
Mr. Krivoruchko was division chief at the Belarussian National Academy of Sciences, where he worked in the physics department's Nuclear Power Institute.
Former Cargill CEO to speak as Gordon Grand Fellow
Whitney MacMillan '51, chair emeritus of Cargill, Inc., America's largest privately owned corporation, will speak as a Gordon Grand Fellow on the topic "Building the Global Food System" on Wednesday,
Oct. 15. His talk, which is free and open to the public, will begin at noon in Steinbach Lounge, 52 Hillhouse Ave.
Mr. MacMillan became chair and chief executive officer of Cargill -- a diversified services company founded by his great-grandfather -- in 1976. The company has nearly 50 businesses in 60 countries, and employs about 73,600 people. While known primarily as a grain trader, the company's other businesses are related to industrial products, commercial services and transportation, in addition to other areas.
Mr. MacMillan began working for the company as general trainee after graduating from Yale and held various jobs in the Vegetable Oil Division in San Francisco and Manila and the Grain Division in Minneapolis. In 1968 he was elected group vice president, managing the Seed Division, the Salt Division and Cargo Carriers. He was elected president of the company in 1975. Since his retirement in 1995, he has been teaching corporate strategy to graduate students at the University of St. Thomas Business School. He also is an adviser to Claremont College, the University of Wyoming and Harvard University, and is a director of the Deluxe Corporation, CARE International, the U.S.-Russia Business Council, the U.S.-Japan Business Council and the Investment and Services Policy Advisory Committee of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, among others.
Yeats curator to lecture at Yale Center for British Art
Hilary Pyle, the Yeats Curator at the National Gallery of Ireland, will present a lecture titled "'But a Vision of Reality': A Comparison of the Work of the Brothers Yeats" on Wednesday, Oct. 15, at 5 p.m. at the Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel St. Her talk, which is free and open to the public, is being held in conjunction with the center's exhibition "Irish Paintings from the Collection of Brian P. Burns."
Ms. Pyle is a noted biographer, scholar and critic of artist Jack B. Yeats, brother of the poet William B. Yeats. She is currently supervising the assemblage of the proposed Yeats Gallery, which will display the work of the two brothers and other members of the Yeats family. She is also responsible for the recent acquisition of the Jack B. Yeats archive -- which includes the library of the artist, his collection of sketch books and all memorabilia -- and for the acquisition of several key paintings by Yeats, including "A Morning." She has written a fully illustrated catalogue of the entire Yeats collection, published by the National Gallery of Ireland and Merrell Holberton, London. She has lectured extensively in the United States on Yeats and organized the "Yeats in Dublin" exhibition at the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery in 1988, as well as the "Images of Yeats" exhibition in Monaco in 1990.
For further information, call 432-2800.
Cultural myths about children will be explored in lunchtime talk
Cultural critic Lucia Hodgson '93 will speak on the topic "The Child Advocacy Dilemma: Conflicts Between Social Science Research Findings and Cultural Myths About Children" on Friday, Oct. 17, at noon in Rose Alumni House, 232 York St. The event, which is free and open to the public, is part of the weekly lecture series on social policy issues sponsored by the Bush Center in Child Development and Social Policy.
Ms. Hodgson is the author of "Raised in Captivity: Why Does America Fail Its Children?" which was published last month by Graywolf Press. In 1991, while an undergraduate at Yale, she began writing a bi-monthly column for the Los Angeles Village View on issues related to children. She wrote her Yale senior essay on the rhetoric of the children's rights movement of the 1970s, and continued her investigation of children in American culture at the Claremont Graduate School, where she earned a master's degree in American literature in 1995. Currently the director of the Gaylord Donnelley Children and Youth Studies Center at Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences in Santa Monica, California, she formerly served for two years as executive administrator of the Los Angeles Roundtable for Children, a children's policy think-tank.
For further information, call 432-9935.
African activist to deliver the Schweitzer Lecture
Ruth Bamela Engo-Tjega, president and founder of African Action on AIDS and United Nations' (U.N.) Special Coordinator for Africa and Least-Developed Countries, will deliver the 1997 Albert Schweitzer Lecture on Friday, Oct. 17. Her talk, titled "African Development: Efforts from Within the Continent," will begin at 4 p.m. in
Rm. 208 of the Whitney Humanities Center (WHC), 53 Wall St. A reception will follow in Rm. 108. The public is welcome to attend the talk and reception, which are sponsored by the Albert Schweitzer Institute for the Humanities and the WHC.
Ms. Engo-Tjega has worked since 1992 as a senior expert in the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Office of the Special Coordinator for Africa and the Least Developed Countries (OSCAL). Previously, she was officer-in-charge for the Secretariat of the United Nations Programme of Action for African Economic Recovery and Development, and she has been secretary of a number of U.N. working groups concerned with African economic and social development.
A native of Cameroon, Ms. Engo-Tjega began her career in civil service as head of that country's Trade Union Office. She later became a consultant on women's issues, particularly as they related to Africa, food security and AIDS. She founded African Action on AIDS in 1990 and cofounded Advocates for African Food Security in 1986. She has been a participant in a number of world conferences, including the Fourth World Conference on Women and the NGO Forum in Beijing in 1995, and has served on the boards of many international organizations, including OXFAM, the Forum of African Voluntary Development Organizations and the World Sustainable Agriculture Association.
Hospice leader to present hospital's Dobihal Lecture
Dame Cicely Saunders, a leader in the hospice movement, will discuss "Hospice as a Bridge Builder" at Yale-New Haven Hospital's (YNHH) ninth annual Edward F. Dobihal Jr. Lecture on Religion and Health on Wednesday, Oct. 22. Her lecture will take place at 4 p.m. in the Mary S. Harkness Auditorium at the School of Medicine, 333 Cedar St. The event, which will be followed by a reception, is free and open to the public.
Ms. Saunders is founder and chair of St. Christopher's Hospice in London. She is well-known for her contributions to the hospice movement in England and the United States, as well as for her work in palliative care. Thirty-three years ago, she brought her ideas and concepts of hospice to her audience as a speaker in the same medical school auditorium. She is the recipient of many honorary degrees and awards, including the Order of Merit, which she was given in 1989 by England's Queen Elizabeth. Only 24 individuals are holders of the Order of Merit at one time.
The annual lectureship honors Edward F. Dobihal Jr., who served at YNHH for 25 years as the first full-time chaplain and director of religious ministries. He was instrumental in establishing Connecticut Hospice, the first hospice in the United States, and he continues to volunteer in the New Haven area, particularly in geriatric care. Scholars and others who present the lectureship in his honor address the interactions of ethics, medicine and spirituality.