People News, June 2018

Daisy Astorga Gonzalez ’19 is one of just 67 college and university students to receive a 2018 Humanity in Action Fellowship. The award will allow her to spend the summer in Warsaw, Poland.

Claire Vinson ’19 and Peyton Higgins ’18 are recipients of undergraduate awards for excellence in chemistry from Iota Sigma Pi, the national honor society for women in chemistry. Higgins won the undergraduate award for excellence, and Vinson received the society’s Gladys Anderson Emerson Scholarship—the third year that a Smithie has received the award.

Smith Dining Services has been awarded a $10,000 grant from the Davis Educational Foundation for a pilot food waste reduction project. The grant was received from the Davis Educational Foundation established by Stanton and Elisabeth Davis after Mr. Davis’ retirement as chairman of Shaw’s Supermarkets, Inc.

Dana Leibsohn, Priscilla Paine Van der Poel Professor of Art, is the recipient of a $20,000 grant from the Terra Foundation for American Art for “Pacific America: Art, Travel and Collecting, ca. 1750-1850.”

Smith housekeeper Teri O’Brien read from her new memoir, While I Danced Alone with the Moon Across the Front Yard, in May at Historic Northampton. O’Brien’s book is about growing up in a large family in the small town of Haydenville, Mass.

Neil Salisbury, Barbara Richmond ’40 Professor Emeritus in Social Sciences, was a panelist for “Conflict, Resistance and Legacies: Revisiting King Philip’s War,” a recent symposium at Deerfield Academy.

Julianna Tymoczko, associate professor of mathematics and statistics, has been awarded a $204,533 grant from the National Science Foundation for “Combinatorial representation theory from knot theory and algebraic geometry.”

Ingrid Brioso Rieumont ’15 has been awarded a Donald and Mary Hyde Summer Fellowship for Research Abroad in the Humanities from Princeton University, where she is a doctoral student. Rieumont, who recently won a teaching award from Princeton, majored in Portuguese and Brazilian studies at Smith.

Kamina Pinder ’93 has been selected to teach at the Eversheds Sutherland Scholars Program, an intensive summer program for recent college graduates headed to law school. Pinder, who is currently an associate professor at Emory University School of Law, majored in government at Smith and earned law degrees from New York University and Georgetown.

Claudia San Pedro ’91 is the new president of Oklahoma City-based Sonic Corp. restaurant chain. San Pedro, who served as the company’s chief financial officer, majored in economics at Smith and earned an M.B.A. from the University of Oklahoma Norman.

Ruth Ford ’88 received a 2018 medallion for science and health reporting from the Society of Silurians for a series on disparities in life expectancy in New York City neighborhoods. A longtime journalist who has written for the The Washington Post and The Village Voice, Ford majored in history and minored in religion at Smith.

Lisa Beth Kovetz ’86 is co-creator of a new children’s bilingual book show on CUNY TV, “Reading Books: Leyendo Libros.” A playwright and senior writer-producer at the New York City-based station, Kovetz majored in English language and literature and theatre at Smith.

Susan McCouch ’75 has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences. McCouch, who majored in Hispanic studies at Smith, is Barbara McClintock Professor of Plant Breeding and Genetics at Cornell University, where she earned a Ph.D. in plant science.

Phoebe Haddon ’72 is the new deputy chair of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. A former Smith trustee who is currently chancellor of Rutgers University-Camden, Haddon majored in government at Smith and earned law degrees from Duquesne and Yale universities.

Shelly Lazarus ’68 is the recipient of a Golden Compass Awardfrom the International Advertising Association. A former Smith trustee, Lazarus is chairman emeritus of the Ogilvy & Mather ad agency, where she has spent more than four decades creating campaigns for brands including American Express, Coca-Cola and IBM.