People News, May 2019

A team of Smith students created a mobile park in April outside the Hampshire Regional YMCA in Northampton. Phoebe Uman ’22, Anna Levine ’22, Elisabeth Nesmith ’22 and Zoe Nadig ’21J worked with landscape studies lecturer Reid Bertone-Johnson on the ParKit project.

Smith students participating in the April Midwest Trading Competition at the University of Chicago pitching ideas for new trends in finance were Qiaqia Ji ’20J, Emily Geng ’21, Isabella Zhu ’20, Jocelyn Hu ’19, Yuliya Lavysh AC, Xiaoyue Tan ’21 and Chenwei Xu ’20J. 

Christina He ’21, Emily Geng ’21 and Carol Lui ’21 received a Meritorious Award at this year’s international Mathematical Contest in Modeling/Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling for their design of an evacuation strategy for the Louvre. The team worked over a 96-hour period to solve their mathematical modeling problem. 

Ginny Svec ’20 and Clare Sandke ’20 are participating in the Sea Education Association’s Semester at Sea program. Svec has been aboard the Robert C. Seamans en route from New Zealand to Tahiti, and Sandke has been sailing on the Corwith Cramer in the Sargasso Sea south of Bermuda.

Smith’s Institutional Research and Educational Assessment Department received the Joseph Pettit award from the Consortium of Financing Higher Education for thoughtful and creative use of data to inform strategic planning and decision making at Smith. The college’s team includes Cate Rowen, assistant vice president for institutional research and analytics; Kathleen Foley, associate director of analytics; Minh Ly, associate director for assessment; Kate Aloisio ’13, assistant director for institutional research; Kayla Cheneba,  enterprise resource planning implementation manager; and Lidia Ortiz Zamora ’17, a post-baccalaureate assessment fellow.

Jordan Crouser ’08, assistant professor of computer science, has been awarded a $31,299 grant from the U.S. Department of Defense for “Investigating the Role of Individual Differences in Visual Analytic Workflows.”

Tim Johnson, director of the Smith College Botanic Garden, gave a talk in April on “Stories About Seeds” at Tower Hill Botanic Garden in Boylston, Massachusetts.

Jamie MacBeth, assistant professor of computer science, has been chosen to participate in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Visiting Professor/Scholar Program, which aims to enhance and recognize the contributions of minority scholars and encourage individuals of underrepresented groups, with emphasis on African Americans, to share their scholarly achievements with MIT faculty, staff and students.

Professor of Art John Moore was recently a panelist for “Rome and Lisbon in the 18^th Century,” an international conference at the Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal. Moore spoke on “Obsequies for Peter II (1707) and John V (1751) in S. Antonio dei Portoghesi, Rome.”

Lakes Writer-in-Residence Monica Palacios gave a reading May 2 of her play I Kissed Chavela Vargas at Wistariahurst Museum in Holyoke. Palacios’ new work uses memory and music to explore the relationships between three generations of Chicanas.

Olivia Cappello ’14 is co-author of “Radical Attempts to Ban Abortion Dominate State Policy Trends in the First Quarter of 2019,” published by the Guttmacher Institute. Cappello earned a degree in government from Smith.

Hannah Frydman ’12 is the recipient of a Women’s Studies Fellowship from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation to support her doctoral work on women and gender issues. Frydman, who majored in French studies and history at Smith, is working on a dissertation using Parisian women’s classified ads to question traditional economic, political and social history narratives.

Sara Fluerant ’10 is the new director of the Oxford Street Shelter, Portland, Maine’s largest homeless shelter. A sociology major at Smith, Fleurant has worked as a community policing coordinator for the Portland police and as a human services counselor for the Oxford Street Shelter.

Joan Demarest ’93 has been has been appointed to serve as a judge on the Benton County Circuit Court in Salem, Oregon. Demarest, who majored in government at Smith and earned a law degree from the University of Oregon Eugene, has served as a defense attorney, a prosecutor and a municipal judge.

Maria Farinella ’92 has been named chief of staff for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. An economics major at Smith, Farinella earned a law degree from American University and has had a longstanding career as an energy attorney, both for the FERC and in private practice.

Pam Victor ’88, Olivia Ilano Davis ’83 and Alice Parker ’47 are recipients of 2019 New England Public Radio Arts and Humanities Awards for their contributions to the region’s cultural scene. Victor is founder of Happier Valley Comedy, Inc., a nonprofit that presents  shows and professional development programs. Davis is founder and artistic director of the 37-year-old Spectrum in Motion Dance Theater Ensemble, based in Hartford, Conn. Parker is an internationally renowned composer, conductor and teacher who has created music for women’s choruses.

Business leader and Smith Trustee Emerita Phoebe Wood ’75 has been inducted into the Junior Achievement Kentuckiana Business Hall of Fame. Wood, who is principal of CompaniesWood consulting firm and a former CFO of Brown-Forman Corp., majored in psychology at Smith and earned an M.B.A. from the University of California Los Angeles.

Ann Lindenberger Christensen ’56 has been named Woman of the Year by the Idaho Mountain Express for her leadership as an environmental activist, educator and community volunteer. “Few people have left so deep a mark on their community, while encouraging so many to leave no trace around it,” the paper reported.