People News, October 2014

Eric Reeves, professor of English language and literature, was the guest of honor and keynote speaker at the Darfur Women Action Group’s Third Annual National Symposium on Women and Genocide in the 21st Century. The theme of the October 25 gathering in Washington, D.C., was “The Case for Darfur.”

The Association for Women in Mathematics has honored a Smith faculty member and an alumna with awards—including one named for a Smith graduate. Ruth Haas, Achilles Professor of Mathematics and Statistics and professor of engineering, is this year’s winner of the association’s Humphreys Award for mentorship of undergraduate women in mathematics. The award is named in honor of Gweneth Humphreys ’33.  T. Christine Stevens ’70, a professor of mathematics and computer science at Saint Louis University, received the association’s Louise Hay Award for contributions to mathematics education. The two scholars will receive their awards in January at the association’s Joint Mathematics Meetings in San Antonio, Texas.

The Sabermetric Revolution, a book by Andrew Zimbalist, Robert A. Woods Professor of Economics, and Benjamin Baumer, visiting assistant professor in statistical and data sciences, has been nominated for the 2014 CASEY Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year. The award is sponsored by Spitball: The Literary Baseball Magazine. The book is published by the University of Pennsylvania Press.

Joshua Miller, a professor in the Smith College School for Social Work, has been awarded a $394,600 grant from the U.S. State Department to extend his conflict resolution work with professional leaders in Uganda to similar leaders in Rwanda. The grant will allow nonprofit and government leaders from both countries to come to Smith for training. Miller has also been awarded a grant from the Chinese government for approximately $35,000 to support his teaching and research at Beijing Normal University in China.

Mary Harrington, Tippit Professor in Life Sciences (Psychology), has been awarded a one-year $44,373 grant from the National Institutes of Health and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston for a project on “Sleep, Aging and Circadian Rhythm Disorder.”

Dannia Guzman ’15 wrote a Huffington Post column urging people to participate in Ebola mapping workshops as a way to help fight the epidemic. “Anyone with a computer with Internet access and the ability to point and click has all the expertise needed to fight against Ebola,” Guzman wrote. Smith’s Spatial Analysis Lab has been hosting mapping workshops on campus. The most recent was held Oct. 23.

Avis Baum ’79, author and former banking executive, gave a talk in October to the American Association of University Women in Norwalk, Conn. Baum, who majored in art at Smith, was born in Cuba and grew up in Lima, Peru, and the United States. At 27, she became the youngest vice president in Bank of Boston’s New York office, according to the News of New Canaan.

Virginia Taylor ’61 has been selected by Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton of Atlanta as one of seven of the firm’s attorneys listed in the 2014 Expert Guide to the World’s Leading Women in Business Law. Taylor specializes in domestic and international trademark, unfair competition, advertising and copyright law. She has been admitted to the bars of the First, Second, Fourth, Fifth, Seventh, Eleventh and Federal Circuits and the U.S. Supreme Court, the firm reports.

Four members of the class of 2013 curated a public park exhibit as part of the annual ArtPrize competition Sept. 24-Oct. 12 in Grand Rapids, Mich. Elizabeth Esposito, Seneca Gray, Hailey Hargraves and Shama Rahman showcased Candy Chang’s Before I Die and Jenny Ustick’s Metanoia: You Are Here in their exhibit space in Ah-Nab-Awen Park.

Eric Reeves