People News, January 2018 vol 2

Students participating in a January field trip to Nevada with Associate Professor of Geological Sciences Sara Pruss were filmed by a crew from the Smithsonian Institution for a June 2019 exhibit about “Deep Time.” The students were Amy Hagen ’21, Martha Slaymaker ’21, Renee Revolorio Keith ’21, Tessa McGann ’16 and Courcelle Stark ’18.

Tsewang Chuskit ’20 shared her experiences growing up in Ladakh, a remote region of the Indian Himalayas, at a December event at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York City. Chuskit, an education and child studies major at Smith, leads a summer program in her homeland that promotes girls’ health education and leadership.

A race car built by a Smith team led by Gracie Hackenberg ’18 was on display at the New England Auto Show in Boston in January. Other members of the race car team were Alysha de Silva ’18 and Jessica Wert ’18.

Anja Nordstrom ’18 and Judith Wopereis, technical director of Smith’s Center for Microscopy and Imaging, recently hosted a visit to the center by students from Foster Career and Technical Education Center, where Nordstrom’s father is an instructor. A neurosciences major, Anja Nordstrom has been using microscopy to create illustrations of zebrafish embryos for use in biological research.

Ben Baumer, assistant professor of statistical and data sciences, and Amelia McNamara, visiting assistant professor of statistical and data sciences, participated in “We’ll Start with Data Science,” a panel at the Women in Data Science Conference recently in Boston. The gathering was sponsored by MassMutual, Smith and Mount Holyoke College.

Eglal Doss-Quinby, professor of French studies, in collaboration with musicologist Gaël Saint-Cricq and philologist Samuel N. Rosenberg, has published the first comprehensive critical edition of the music and texts (with translations into English) of one of the richest collections of 13th-century French polyphony, Motets from the Chansonnier de Noailles.

Jay Garfield, Doris Silbert Professor of Philosophy, moderated a panel in Sarnath, India, at the Conference on Mind in Indian Philosophical Schools of Thought and Modern Science. His Holiness the Dalai Lama spoke at the conference, which was hosted by the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies.

Daniel Horowitz, Mary Huggins Gamble Professor Emeritus and Professor Emeritus of American Studies, is the author of Happier? The History of a Cultural Movement That Aspired to Transform America, about the positive psychology movement and its proponents.

Professor of Religion Suleiman Mourad participated in a fall symposium on “The Middle Ages, Crusades and the Alt-Right” at the National Churchill Library and Center in Washington, D.C. Mourad discussed how the Crusades are often portrayed in ways that ignore the complexities of those religious wars.

Michael Thurston, William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of English Language and Literature, has received a $50,400 fellowship award from the National Endowment for the Humanities for a book-length study of the life and times of American literary critic F.O. Matthiessen.

“Borrowed Time,” a visual work by Lynne Yamamoto, Jessie Wells Post Professor of Art, is on exhibit through October 2018 at the Honolulu Museum of Art. Yamamoto’s sculpture was shown at the inaugural Honolulu Biennial in 2017.

“Climate Resilience and Organizational Learning on Campuses and Beyond,” a research paper by Camille Washington-Ottombre, assistant professor of environmental science and policy, was named Best Paper at the Universities and Climate Change symposium held recently at Queen Mary University of London. Washington-Ottombre’s paper analyzed the planning process used by Smith’s Study Group on Climate Change as one of three case studies.

Emily Webster Murphy ’95 is the new head of the federal General Services Administration. Murphy, who majored in French studies and history at Smith, earned a law degree from the University of Virginia.

Jennifer Tyne ’89 has been named by the Massachusetts Governor’s Council to the position of associate justice in Central Berkshire District Court. Tyne, who majored in English language and literature at Smith, earned a law degree from Northeastern University.

Linda Scaparotti ’76 received the Human Rights Campaign’s Charles M. Holmes Community Service Award for her lifelong commitment to equality and social justice work with LGBTQ organizations in the San Francisco area and nationally. Scaparotti, who majored in Russian language and literature at Smith, earned a law degree from the University of California, Davis.

Deborah Farrington ’72 has been elected to the board of NCR Corp. Co-founder and general partner of StarVest Partners and president of StarVest Management Inc., Farrington has served on the Smith College Board of Trustees. She majored in economics at Smith and earned an M.B.A. from Harvard.

First Night photo by Smith Professor of Astronomy James Lowenthal