People News, January 2019

Perryne Vega ’22 has received the Girl Scout Gold Award—the organization’s highest honor—for a diversity project she led in her hometown of Holyoke.

The Botanic Garden of Smith College has been awarded a $15,380 grant from the Stanley Smith Horticultural Trust for “Seeding the future: Training the next generation of horticultural researchers while expanding native plant offerings in the retail market.” The grant will support the purchase of seed germination chambers.

Smith Dining Services has been awarded a $250,000 grant from the Henry P. Kendall Foundation for “Whole Animals for the Whole Region – NE Food Vision Prize.” Smith Dining will partner with Mount Holyoke, Westfield State, Hampshire and Amherst College to shift meat purchases away from industrial supply chains to support farmers throughout the region. The total economic benefit is estimated at $1.2 million to local, sustainable farms.

Carrie Baker, professor of the study of women and gender, is the author of “Solving Child Sex Trafficking Requires Addressing the Conditions of Vulnerability,” published in December in The Gender Policy Report.

Steven Heydemann, Janet Wright Ketcham ’53 Professor in Middle East Studies, has published a new report for the Atlantic Council’s Rebuilding Syria Initiative, “Rethinking Stabilization in Eastern Syria: Toward a Human Security Framework.” Heydemann participated in a December panel discussion about the issues raised in the report at the council’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Sam Intrator, professor of education and child study, and Denys Candy, director of the Jandon Center for Community Engagement, have been awarded a $17,700 grant from the MassMutual Foundation for “Urban Education Pathway.” The project will support the Jandon Center’s Urban Education Initiative and the Urban Ed Fellows Program, which places Smith students in intensive apprenticeships with mentor teachers—many of them alumnae—in major U.S. cities, in order to encourage a diverse cohort of students to consider careers in education.

Steve Waksman, Sylvia Dlugasch Bauman Professor of American Studies and professor of music, has been awarded a $10,000 grant from the Jeanann Gray Dunlap Foundation to help equip Sweeney Concert Hall, Smith’s primary concert venue, with the resources needed to make professional quality sound and video recordings. The new resources will also allow for livestreaming of events held in Sweeney.

Steven Williams, Gates Professor of Biological Sciences, has been awarded an $83,777 grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for “The role of environmental surveillance in monitoring the impact of soil-transmitted helminth control programs.”

Arianne Abela ’08, director of the Amherst College choral program, conducted a choral concert in December to benefit the Sidney F. Smith Toy Fund. The concert, held at Amherst’s Buckley Recital Hall, featured performances by students from Smith and the Five Colleges, the Amherst Regional High School Hurricane Singers and the Hampshire Young People’s Chorus. Abela, who majored in music at Smith, earned a master’s degree in music from Yale University.

Kinna Likimani ’93 is a judge for the Short Story category of the Writivism Prizes for African literature. Likimani—who is director of Odekro, a parliamentary monitoring organization based in Ghana—majored in chemistry at Smith and earned a master of public health degree from Columbia University.

Sarah Turner ’93 is the new president of the historic North Bennet Street School in Boston. Turner, who majored in sociology at Smith, earned a master of fine arts degree from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Mich.

Donna Milrod ’89 has been appointed to lead State Street Corporation’s new Global Clients Division. Milrod, who majored in government at Smith, earned an M.B.A. from Columbia University.

Mona Sinha ’88 is the new board chair for the global philanthropic organization Women Moving Millions. A former Smith College trustee, Sinha is a founding member of the Asian Women’s Leadership University being established in Malaysia.

Pamela Stobierski ’83 is the new chair of the board of directors for Greenfield Savings Bank. A trustee of the bank since 2008, Stobierski has served on the bank’s executive board and as chair of its trust committee. She majored in education and child study at Smith.

Raise Hell: The Life & Times of Molly Ivins, a new documentary film about the late newspaper columnist and humorist Molly Ivins ’66, will have its premiere on January 28 at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Ivins, who majored in history at Smith and earned a master’s degree in journalism from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, wrote for newspapers including the Texas Observer, The New York Times and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram before becoming a syndicated columnist. She received a Smith College Medal in 2001.

Perryne Vega ’22