People News, November 2018

Smith College has received a Marks of Distinction award from Second Nature for a solar energy-purchasing project the college launched with four other leading liberal arts institutions. Second Nature, a support organization for the Carbon Commitment, presents the awards to higher educational institutions for progress made in specific sustainability areas.

Smith’s Jill Ker Conway Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center was a finalist for the Outstanding Emerging Entrepreneurship Center Award from the Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers.

Four Smith students have been named University Innovation Fellows by Stanford University’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design: Emma Sui ’19 (anthropology and economics), Beth Yigzaw ’19 (biochemistry), Asmita Gautam ’20 (engineering science and computer science) and Isabelle Hodge ’20 (computer science and sociology). The global program trains student leaders to increase campus engagement through innovation, entrepreneurship and design thinking.

David Ball, professor emeritus of French language and literature and comparative literature, has published “Listening: The Ethics of Translation” on the literary AGNI blog.

Jesse Bellemare, associate professor of biological sciences, recently gave a talk at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens on climate change and gardening strategies that can help save plant species from extinction.

Ginetta Candelario, professor of sociology and Latin American studies, spoke at the Center for the Study of Women in Society at the University of Oregon in October about her work as editor of Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism.

Floyd Cheung, professor of English language and literature and American studies, has published a piece in East Wind ezine, “Consequences of Family Separation…A Lesson from the Incarceration of Japanese Americans.”

Professors of Physics Gary Felder and Doreen Weinberger were guests on an October 6 edition of “The Bill Newman Show” on WHMP Radio, talking about women who have won the Nobel Prize in physics. The podcast segment begins at 34:50.

Aprile Gallant, associate director for curatorial affairs and senior curator at the Smith College Museum of Art, has been awarded a $5,000 grant from the Wyeth Foundation for American Art for an exhibition catalog, Defiant Vision: Prints & Poetry by Munio Makuuchi. The catalog will accompany an SCMA exhibition with the same title, scheduled for the fall of 2019.

Daniel Gardner, Dwight W. Morrow Professor of History, is the author of a new book, titled Environmental Pollution in China: What Everyone Needs to Know.

Laura Kalba, Priscilla Paine Van der Poel Associate Professor of Art, is the recipient of the biennial Laurence Wylie Prize in French Cultural Studies from the Institute of French Studies at New York University for her 2017 book, Color in the Age of Impressionism: Commerce, Technology and Art, which explores the impact of new color technologies on French visual and material culture.

James Miller, professor of economics, has been awarded a $78,289 grant from the Future of Life Institute for “Utility Functions: A Guide for Artificial Intelligence Theorists.”

“Voices from the killing jar,” a new work for voice and chamber ensemble by Kate Soper, Smith’s Iva Dee Hiatt Professor and assistant professor of music, will be performed on November 30 at the Americas Society in New York City. “A killing jar is a tool used by entomologists to kill butterflies and other insects without damaging their bodies,” says Soper. Her work depicts a series of female protagonists caught in their own “killing jars.”

Bozena Welborne, assistant professor of government, is co-author of The Politics of the Headscarf in the United States, which investigates the social and political effects of the practice of Muslim-American women wearing the headscarf.

A paper by Sarah Witkowski. associate professor of exercise and sport studies, “Follicle-stimulating hormone, but not cardiorespiratory fitness is associated with flow-mediated dilation with advancing menopausal stage,” has been accepted for publication in the May 2019 issue of the journal Menopause.

Amy Britt ’06 is the new coordinator of Leadership Pioneer Valley’s Leaders OnBoard nonprofit board development and training program. Britt, who majored in biological sciences at Smith, is a former communications director for Tapestry regional public health agency.

Whitney Joiner ’00 is the new articles editor for The Washington Post Magazine. Joiner, who majored in American studies at Smith, formerly worked as features director for Hearst Magazines Digital Media and as a senior features editor at Marie Claire. In 2015, she co-founded the online Recollectors Project to support adult children of parents lost to AIDS.

Rachel Payne ’97 gave the keynote address at the October 22 Women in Technology Luncheon in Los Angeles. A tech entrepreneur and philanthropist, Payne majored in government at Smith and earned an M.B.A. from Stanford University.

Barbara Babcock Millhouse ’56 is the recipient of the North Carolina Award, the state’s highest civilian honor, for her work as founder of the Reynolda House Museum of American Art in Winston-Salem, N.C. Millhouse, who majored in art at Smith, stewarded the restoration of her historic childhood home as a museum in 1967 and is a published author and scholar of North Carolina history and American art.