May 2021 People News

A team of Smith students won first place in intermediate statistics in the 2020 Undergraduate Statistics Project Competition: Dianne Caravela ’22, Natalia Iannucci ’22, Hannah Snell ’21 and Xian Ye ’21 won for “Bayesian Analysis of Quality of Life and PPE Use During the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic.” Miles Ott, assistant professor of statistical and data sciences, was their project mentor. A second Smith team, also mentored by Ott, won an honorable mention for “Measuring Healthcare Access: Are Income and Health Insurance Coverage Associated with whether Americans have a Usual Doctor’s Office?” Team members were Ivy Chen ’22, Kathleen Hablutzel ’23 and Juliet Ramey-Lariviere ’22.

Six Smith students are recipients of this year’s Grinspoon Foundation Entrepreneurship Concept Awards for venture pitches. They are Matlhabeli Molaoli ’22, Sethatevy Bong ’22, Kacey Jean-Jacques ’22 and Chi Qiu ’24 for TARO; Sara Kragness ’21 for The People’s Archive; and Vanessa Silva-Burgos ’24 for Compassionate Styles. The awards are given to college student entrepreneurs in the Pioneer Valley.

Biochemistry major Sefra Belay ’21 is the recipient of a four-year Warby Parker Scholarship to the New England College of Optometry. The scholarship was created in 2020 to “increase Black representation in the field of optometry” and support recipients “who have the desire to impact the field of optometry.”

Geosciences major Martha Slaymaker ’21J and Professor of Geosciences Sara Pruss published research in the February issue of Facies, “Cambrian reefs in the lower Poleta Formation: a new occurrence of a thick archaeocyanthan reef near Gold Point, Nevada.”

Carrie Baker, professor of the study of women and gender, co-led a recent workshop on “Barriers to Reproductive Justice in Western Mass and Beyond,” for the Springfield, Massachusetts-based Sojourner Truth School for Social Change Leadership.

Ginetta Candelario, professor of sociology and Latin American and Latino/a studies, published an essay for the Fulbright Association, “100 Years of Dominican Feminisms Published,” about her experience as a Fulbright Fellow in the Dominican Republic in 2016.

Paula Giddings, Elizabeth A. Woodson Professor Emerita of Africana Studies, spoke in April about the role Black women played in passage of the 19th Amendment. Her talk was part of City Club of Cleveland’s forum on “Missing from History: Black Suffragists and the Right to Vote.”

Lisa Mangiamele, assistant professor of biological sciences, has been awarded a three-year, $69,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for “IRES Track I: Neurobiology and evolution of frog dance displays in Austria and India.”

Miles Ott, assistant professor of statistical and data sciences, is the recipient the 2021 LGBTQ+ Educator of the Year Award from the National Organization of Gay and Lesbian Scientists and Technical Professionals. The award recognizes Ott for his impact on STEM students through teaching, counseling, advocacy and role modeling.

Dwight Pogue, professor emeritus of art, has published a new book, “1961 Ozark Breakaway: The Year McDonald County Succeeded from Missouri,” about political events that occurred when he was a teenager growing up in a Missouri newspaper family.

Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor, associate professor of history, gave a virtual lecture, “What is it about the n-word?” at the Menlo Park (California) Library in April.

Loretta Ross, visiting associate professor for the study of women and gender, led a virtual class in February on “Calling in the Call Out Culture” for the Springfield, Massachusetts-based Sojourner Truth School for Social Change Leadership.

Julianna Tymoczko, professor of mathematics and statistics, has been awarded a $286,576 grant from the National Science Foundation for her project, “Combinatorial Group Action and Applications to Geometry, Knot Theory and Representation Theory.” Tymoczko also received $12,693 in ongoing NSF funding for “Further Advancing the Northeast Combinatorics Network.”

Smith’s Jandon Center for Community Engagement and the Clark Science Center hosted the second annual Western Massachusetts High School Science and Engineering Fair in March. The event drew 31 students from six high schools in the region. 

Bowdoin College’s new Center for Arctic Studies is named in honor of Smith Trustee Lile R. Gibbons ’64 and her husband, John. Lile R. Gibbons, who majored in economics at Smith, is a former Connecticut state legislator and a trustee of the Hartford Foundation.

Ruth Tekleab ’19 is the new community chair of the Bard Globalization and International Affairs Program’s advisory board. Tekleab, who majored in sociology at Smith, works in the Office of the Chief Justice, Federal Supreme Court of Ethiopia—her home country—and is founder and host of the podcast internationalie.

Idia Irele ’16 has been awarded a prestigious 2021 Charles B. Rangel International Affairs Fellowship from the U.S. Department of State and Howard University to pursue a two-year master’s degree in an area of relevance to the Foreign Service. Irele, who majored in government and Spanish at Smith, is a former Fulbright Fellow and the current director of curriculum and strategic relations manager at the Latin American Leadership Academy in Medellin, Colombia. She earned a master’s degree in international education policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Ingrid Brioso-Rieumont AC ’15 has been awarded the Casa de las Américas Literary Prize for Brazilian Literature for her translation and introduction to Aparecida Vilaça’s “Paletó y yo. Memorias de mi padre indigena.” Brioso-Rieumont, who majored in Portuguese-Brazilian studies at Smith, earned a Ph.D. from Princeton University.

Katherine Finnerty ’12 is the new deputy editor for live journalism for the Wall Street Journal. Finnerty, who majored in government at Smith, has been a senior producer at The Washington Post since 2018 and also worked at Reuters and The New York Times.

Katharine Manning ’96 is the author of “The Empathetic Workplace: 5 Steps to a Compassionate, Calm and Confident Response to Trauma on the Job.” Manning, who majored in government at Smith, earned a law degree from the University of Virginia Charlottesville. As a senior attorney adviser with the U.S. Justice Department, she offered counsel on victims’ rights in cases including the Boston Marathon bombing and the Pulse nightclub shootings.

Farah Pandith ’90, a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, led a recent virtual conversation on “The Way Forward: Steps the Biden Harris Administration Can Take to Repair Civil Society and Build a More Resilient Nation.” Pandith, who majored in government and psychology at Smith, is a Smith Medalist who has served on the U.S. National Security Council, the Department of State and as the Secretary of State’s first Special Representative to Muslim Communities.

Aimee Cutrona ’91 has been appointed by President Joe Biden to serve as Acting Special Representative for Syria Engagement at the National Security Council. Cutrona, who majored in government at Smith, earned a master’s degree in international relations and conflict management from Johns Hopkins University. She has served as a political officer in embassies in El Salvador, Qatar and Egypt, and also in Washington, D.C. in the Near Eastern Affairs Bureau promoting international women’s issues.

Attorney Lisa Abrams ’90 has been appointed to the Pima County (Arizona) Superior Court, where she currently serves as commissioner. Abrams, who majored in government at Smith, earned a law degree from the University of Arizona Tucson and began her career in the Pima County Public Defender’s Office.

Leslie Sarasin ’81 has been recognized as CEO of the Year by the Food Industry Association for her leadership of the trade association during the past year of the pandemic. She “guided FMI staff to work diligently to ensure the food industry was included as part of the nation’s essential workforce,” the association said in its announcement, “and that industry and customer needs were on the radars of a wide array of different government entities.” Sarasin, who majored in economics at Smith, earned a law degree from the University of San Diego.