People News, January 2017

Trustee Madeleine Morgan Fackler ’80 is the new chief information officer for the International Rescue Committee, a global nonprofit humanitarian aid organization that is currently working with refugees from Syria. Fackler majored in economics and mathematics at Smith and earned a master’s degree in computer engineering from Stanford University.

Jay Garfield, Doris Silbert Professor of Philosophy, has been named a fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. He is one of 21 international scholars elected to the academy in 2016.

Steven Heydemann, Professor and Janet Wright Ketcham ’53 Chair of Middle East Studies, will be a panelist in March for the German Political Science Association’s conference, “Unlike Twins? Comparing Democracies and Autocracies,” at the University of Tübingen. Heydemann will speak on “Democracy Promotion, Institutions and Authoritarian Resilience.”

Gail Thomas, learning specialist and coordinator of the tutoring program at the Jacobson Center for Writing, Teaching and Learning, was awarded Headmistress Press’s Charlotte Mew Prize for her fourth book of poetry, Odd Mercy.

Mariah Richardson A.M. ’00 has been named one of 10 Artist Fellows by the Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis. Richardson, a St. Louis native who earned a master of arts in playwriting from Smith, will receive a $20,000 fellowship to support her work.

Jennifer Cohen ’97 has been appointed to the Contra Costa (Calif.) Commission for Women. Cohen, who majored in art (architecture and urbanism) at Smith, earned an M.B.A. from Chadron State College. She works in sales for high-tech security solutions.

Alexandra Zapruder ’91 has published Twenty-Six Seconds, a new book about her grandfather’s history-changing film of the Kennedy assassination. Zapruder, who majored in art history and French language and literature at Smith, began her career as a founding staff member of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. 

Tara Joseph ’88 is the new president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong. Joseph, chief Asia correspondent for Reuters TV, has more than 25 years of experience in broadcast media in New York, London and Hong Kong. A history major at Smith, she earned a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University.

Kathleen Marshall ’85 is the director and choreographer of Broadway’s first a cappella musical, In Transit, which opened in December at New York’s Circle in the Square Theatre.

Katherine E. Young ’83 has been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Translation Fellowship for translation from the Russian of a trilogy of novellas by Akram Aylisli. Young, is the inaugural poet laureate of Arlington, Va.

Tamra Chant ’82 is the new executive director of Safe Haven of Pike County, Pa. Chant, who majored in economics and German language and literature at Smith, spent decades in Europe and the Middle East working with women’s centers and nonprofit organizations before returning to her hometown of Milford, Pa.

Ruth Eveland ’72 has been named 2016’s Outstanding Librarian by the Maine Library Association. Eveland, who has served as director of Jesup Memorial Library in Bar Harbor, Maine, since 2009, majored in American studies at Smith and earned a master’s degree in library science from Rutgers University.

Lesley Israel ’59 has been appointed to the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad. Israel, who majored in government at Smith, is a board member of the International Foundation on Electoral Systems and the National Executive Committee of the Anti-Defamation League.