Five retiring members of the faculty were honored at a luncheon last Friday.

They are Carolyn Cohen, Michael Gilmore, K.C. Hayes, Rachel McCulloch and Robert Meyer.

Biology Professor Carolyn Cohen, whose research explores protein structures using X-ray crystallography, has been a member of the faculty for 40 years.

Her courses include “How Science is Really Done,” and her work has been published in the journals Nature, Cell and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Cohen holds a bachelor’s degree from Bryn Mawr College and a Ph.D. from MIT. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Founding Fellow of the Massachusetts Academy of Sciences.

Michael “Timo” Gilmore, the Paul Prosswimmer Professor of American Literature, has been a member of the English department for 37 years.

His courses have explored the literature of the American Revolution and the American Renaissance. This past semester he taught a special course on literary rebels from nearby Cambridge, Mass. He is the author or editor of nine books and is currently working on a project about authors from Cambridge.

Gilmore, who received a bachelor’s degree from Yale and a Ph.D. from Harvard, has served as chair of the English Department.

Biology Professor K.C. Hayes has taught at Brandeis for 28 years, during which time he has served as director of the Foster Biomedical Research Laboratories and chair of the department. Hayes has studied the impact of diet on disorders of lipid and glucose metabolism in humans and in animal models, which led to the development of Smart Balance.

He was elected to be a member of the American Society for Nutrition in 2008. In 2011, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Malaysian Palm Oil Industry.

Hayes earned a bachelor’s degree from Wesleyan University, a doctorate in veterinary medicine from Cornell University and a Ph.D. from the University of Connecticut.   

Rachel McCulloch, the Rosen Family Professor of International Finance, has taught at Brandeis for 24 years. 

McCulloch’s has published nearly 100 articles over 40 years. She’s made seminal contributions to international economics on topics ranging from exchange rate regimes to tariffs and quotas to new forms of administered protection. She has consulted with the World Bank, been a member of the Academic Advisory Council for the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston since 2000 and served on the Board of Editors for the Journal of International Economics and Economic Policy since 2003.

McCulloch received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania and masters’ degrees and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.  

Physics Professor Robert Meyer has taught at Brandeis for 33 years. He is a member of the Condensed Matter and Biophysics Experiment research group in the Department of Physics, in which he investigates complex fluid systems, and has served as chair of the department. He also is director of the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center. He has also served as chair of the department.

Meyer’s research has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Army Research Office, the U.S. Department of Energy and Raytheon Corp. He was awarded the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics from the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia in 2004, following in the footsteps Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein, and has received the premier prize in condensed matter physics, the Oliver Buckley Prize from the American Physical Society, in 2005. He also won the Joliot Curie Medal of the City of Paris. He was heralded last year as an Outstanding Reviewer for the Physical Review journals.

Meyer earned a bachelor’s degree and a Ph.D. from Harvard University. 

A reception will be held at 2 p.m. Thursday in the Mandel Center for the Humanities Forum honoring members of the faculty who have rendered long years of service to the university.

Hosted by President Fred Lawrence and Provost Steve A.N. Goldstein ’78, the reception will be followed by the final faculty meeting of the academic year.

Those to be honored are:

For 35 years of service: Chris Miller, BCHM; Wellington Nyangoni, AAAS; Joan Press, BIO; Ralph Thaxton, POL; Judith Tsipis, Genetic Counseling/BIO

For 40 years: Irv Epstein, CHEM; Mark Hulliung, HIST; Ray Knight, PSYC; John Wardle, PHYS

For 45 years: Robert Greenberg, PHIL; Larry Kirsch, PHYS; Alan Mayer, MATH

For 50 years: Jerry Cohen, AMST; Howard Schnitzer, PHYS

The Rose Art Museum will be open from noon to 5 p.m. on Saturday, May 19, the final day to see “Collecting Stories,” an exhibit that conveys the museum’s growth throughout its first 50 years – from gifts of modernist paintings that inspired the Rose's formation to contemporary art acquisitions connected to its legacy of bold art.

The museum will be closed Tuesday, May 15, through Friday, May 18.

The Rose will then reopen for Alumni Weekend on Sept. 20 with “Art at the Origin: The Early 1960s,” including works by Roy Lichtenstein, Ellsworth Kelly, Claes Oldenburg, Willem de Kooning, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol and Marisol; the stroboscopic film triptych “Bruce Conner: EVE-RAY-FOREVER (1965/2006)” and its new exhibit, “Dor Guez: 100 Steps to the Mediterranean.” 

Yu-Hui Chang, an associate professor of music and East Asia studies, is going to Beijing next week to attend the Beijing Modern Music Festival at the Central Conservatory of Music.

The contemporary music ensemble that she co-directs, Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble, is invited to be there to give a concert May 22. One of her pieces, "Binge Delirium," a percussion solo, will be performed.

She also will conduct the world premiere of Wang Feinan's sextet and Pulitzer Prize winner John Harbison's "Songs America Loves to Sing."

Dr. Avi Bernstein has been named the new director for the Brandeis Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (BOLLI) in the Rabb School, beginning July 1.

 Bernstein received a B.A. from Brown University and a Ph.D. in religion from Stanford University. He served most recently as dean of educational planning and development at Hebrew College. He brings considerable experience in adult education, graduate humanities and teaching at both the secondary and collegiate levels. His scholarship is in moral philosophy and philosophy of education.

According to Provost Steve Goldstein and Vice Provost Michaele Whelan, Bernstein will advance some important university directions including intergenerational connections among undergraduates, graduate students and adult learners; programmatic innovation in lifelong learning; and the creation of porous and overlapping communities with BOLLI, alumni and the Brandeis National Committee.



Winners of the Jerome A. Schiff Undergraduate Fellows and the Undergraduate Research programs for the 2012-2013 academic year have been announced.

To be named a Schiff fellow, sophomores, juniors or seniors together with a faculty sponsor apply to perform an innovative research or pedagogical project. Each fellow receives a $2,000 stipend and their mentor receives a $500 stipend toward his or her own research.

The program runs for a full academic year. Some summer work is possible in the case of special circumstances (i.e. faculty member on leave; student abroad for one semester). Students and mentors participate in panel discussions and a work-in-progress showcase each year. Additional programming for student fellows may be coordinated within departments (students often present their work in the department, as well as to a larger campus audience).

The following students were named 2012-2013 fellows:

Darnell Wilson, a junior at Northern Kentucky University (NKU) is the winner of the third annual Sillerman Prize for Innovations in Philanthropy on College Campuses this year, a $5,000 award. Wilson conceived of “Norse in Need” to boost student retention by helping peers in need of emergency aid. The fund, which will be developed through small student donations, is designed to supply mini-grants of up to $250 to help students facing a possible disruption of studies. The student-managed project casts a wide net for contributions as small as $5.00 to build up the stock of resources that supply this pool of emergency aid.

In Wilson’s oral presentation to the prize judges (twelve philanthropists and higher education professionals) at the The Heller School for Social Policy and Management, he said he wanted NKU to be known as the “philanthropy school,” earning the reputation directly from the generosity of its students. While other schools may be known for their athletic prowess or other attributes, Wilson's plan proposed an NKU stake in the ground for philanthropy.

Wilson’s dynamic presentation and grass-roots approach resonated with the judges who reviewed four finalist applications of the twenty submissions from around the country. Wilson’s enthusiastic commentary on how most student philanthropy models are designed without a way for the students learning about philanthropy to have skin in the game through personal sacrifice, won. Courses that teach philanthropy, even experiential courses with a giving component, use other people’s money and so the experience is still “one off,” Wilson said in his winning submission.

"Norse in Need" incorporates the latest technologies and social media to create a simple process that can encompass all students at NKU through events, a mobile phone application and honoring fellow students through one’s own donation.

Sillerman Center Associate Director Claudia Jacobs, who coordinates the prize each year, said “Darnell’s folksy authentic approach, with PowerPoint slides using the Kentucky Derby Pie as his theme, captured the hearts of the judges who each agreed with his approach of democratizing philanthropy on the NKU campus—and his tale of transporting a Kentucky Derby pie through airport security brought smiles to judges and other prize contestants alike.”

NKU is a private school of 15,000 students located in Kentucky, seven miles southeast of Cincinnati. Norse is the University symbol.

The Sillerman Center for the Advancement of Philanthropy sponsors this prize annually to motivate college and graduate students around the U.S. to think more deeply and creatively about how to incorporate philanthropic values into campus life. The Prize award is a no-strings-attached $5,000 to the winner. The 2011 award was won by a team of Babson College students for their “Piglet Project,” supplying freshmen with piggy banks where they saved coins to donate for Babson student scholarships.

The 2013 competition will be announced in the fall on the Sillerman Center website.

Irving R. Epstein, the Henry F. Fischbach Professor of Chemistry and senior adviser to the provost for research, has announced the recipients of the first senior faculty research leaves.  Epstein says the initial intent was to award two leaves for spring 2013, but the number and quality of the proposals that were received persuaded the selection committee to increase the number; four leaves have been selected for next year.  The winners and their projects are:

• Gregory Freeze (HIST) – Church and society in imperial Russia
• Karen V. Hansen (SOC) – Scandinavian immigrants and Lakota Indians coexisting on reservations, 1890-1930
• Ann Olga Koloski-Ostrow (CLAS) – Roman thinking about technology, engineering and art
• Janet McIntosh (ANTH) – Ethnography of postcolonial white citizens in Kenya
  
  

The selection committee, which consisted of Epstein, Dean Susan Birren and Professors Joyce Antler, Sue Lanser, Robin Feuer Miller and Jonathan Unglaub, was exceedingly impressed by the remarkable breadth and depth of the projects proposed by the applicants. 

“We wish that we had been able to fund even more of these wonderful projects, and we look forward to continuing the program in the future,” Epstein said.

Howie Baker, director of the Lemberg Children’s Center, was recently named the 2012 Director of the Year by the National Coalition for Campus Children's Centers (NCCCC). This honor is particularly well timed as summer 2012 marks Baker’s 40th year at Lemberg. Anyone who has been involved in the center is encouraged to attend a Lemberg Reunion celebration on Sunday, May 6 from 2:00 to 6:00 p.m. This includes both past and current TAs, staff, families and children. The event will take place on the field in front of Lemberg and Brown (rain location to be announced). There will be an informal ceremony at 3:00 p.m. which will include various speakers who will honor Baker.

To cover event costs, tickets will be sold: $15 for adults and $7 for children age 12 and younger (all children require parent supervision).  To ensure that all may attend, discounted and free tickets will be offered through the Lemberg office (781.736.2200 or lemberg@brandeis.edu).  Please contact Debi Maxey for more information. Due to the nature and location of the event, space will be limited to 250 tickets, which may be purchased online.

For those who are unable to attend, but wish to contribute, please submit your favorite memory of Howie to be included in the presentation to him.

The Graduate School of Arts and Science will honor 22 of its teaching fellows at a reception May 6. Honorees were selected based on their overall teaching excellence, student and course instructor evaluations and letters from faculty. The award recipients who will be recognized at this year's TF Award Reception are listed here in alphabetical order:

Travis Alford (Music Composition and Theory)

Chris Anderson (Near Eastern and Judaic Studies)

Margeaux Auslander (Psychology)*

Keri Avery (Chemistry--general chemistry laboratory sections)

Kyley Caldwell (English)

Michael Drzyzga (Chemistry--organic chemistry laboratory sections)

Gil Harel (Musicology)

Sarah Kelley (Women and Gender Studies)

Ryan LaRochelle (Politics)

Qian Liu (Chemistry--upper level laboratory sections)

Georgia Luikens (Musicology--outstanding TF; English--outstanding TF in a UWS course )

Lishibanya Mohapatra (Physics)

Matthew Moynihan (Mathematics)

Lincoln Mullen (History)

Vanessa Lopes Munoz (Sociology)

Andrew Russell (Molecular and Cell Biology)**

Ross Shaull (Computer Science)

Roberto Soto-Carion (Sociology)

Michiel van Veldhuizen  (Classics)

Professor Joyce Antler’s History as Theater (American Studies 128b) has been busy this semester learning about documentary drama and writing its own. Using Brandeis archives and other historical materials, the class has probed student radicalism in an earlier generation, focusing on the famous case of Susan Saxe and Kathy Power (Brandeis, 1970). 

Come out and see the students’ work and join in contemplation of the changing meanings of social justice on the college campus. The play, “When Rebellion Becomes Revolution: A Play of Protest, Murder, Denial and Atonement,” will be read in the International Lounge on Wednesday, April 25, at 7 p.m.

Seating is limited so please RSVP to Antler.