Clark University - Clark News Summer 2003
Newsbriefs (summer 2003)
Dennis Dimitri ’75 and Robert Stevenish recently joined Clark’s Board of Trustees. Stevenish was appointed to the board. Dimitri was elected to the board. Each will serve a six-year term, beginning July 1.
Dimitri is a doctor at UMass Memorial Health Care and professor of family medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, both in Worcester. He has served on the board of UMass Memorial Health Care and previously was the chief of the Department of Family Practice at Worcester Hahnemann Hospital. Dimitri and his wife Tamara Walker ’75 are long-time supporters of Clark. Dimitri has served on Alumni Council, participated in the Career Resources Network and was a member of his Reunion gift and social committees. As a trustee, Dimitri hopes to help Clark create a vision that will allow the University to build on its reputation as a small, research university and further develop its national reputation as an outstanding example of academic innovation and high standards.
“During my four years at Clark, I received much personal and intellectual stimulation that allowed me to succeed later in my life. I’m excited now to have the opportunity to give some of that back,” says Dimitri, who extends his gratitude to his fellow alumni for electing him to the board.
Stevenish is president and chief operating officer of Modell’s Sporting Goods, Inc., a sporting goods and apparel retailer with more than 100 stores in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic States. Prior to his appointment at Modell’s, he served as president and CEO of Trilegiant Corporation, a membership and marketing firm with 22 million active members, and was a senior executive at major U.S. retailers, including Montgomery Ward, Hills Department Stores and J.C. Penney. In addition, Stevenish serves on the Board of Directors of the International Mass Retailers Association and on its Executive Committee. He is also a member of the One Price Clothing Board of Directors and Governance and Audit committees, the Best Transportation Board of Advisors, the FEDCO Charitable Foundation Board of Directors and Modell’s Board of Advisors.
He and his son Robert Stevenish II ’86 have been involved with Clark’s Graduate School of Management (GSOM). In April 2003, Robert Stevenish spoke at the first GSOM Leadership Forum, held as part of a series of events celebrating the 20th anniversary of GSOM as a separate professional school.
“I am honored to serve on the Board of Trustees of Clark University,” Stevenish says. “My association with GSOM was personally rewarding. It allowed me to share my leadership philosophy with the student body. I look forward to serving on the board of this distinguished school and sharing my many years of business experience.”
Seven Clark University students competed in the American Mock Trial Association’s American Tournament, held April 11 to 13 in Richmond, Ky. The team tied for seventh place, among more than 50 teams participating in the national tournament.
“I have never been a part of a team so committed to representing the group, the school, and our coach,” says team captain Rich Fields ’03, who is currently weighing acceptances from top-10 law schools. Fields adds that five of the seven team members were competing in a collegiate mock trial for the first time. The team includes Tiffany Joslyn ’04, Kayla Carlsen ’05, Deirdre Connor ’05, Brendan Johnson ’05, Matthew Gilman ’06 and Eric Miller ’06. Massachusetts Superior Court Judge Timothy S. Hillman is the team’s coach.
“Judge Hillman and the student members of the Clark Mock Trial Team have done a wonderful job this year. The Mock Trial Team is a very important piece of Clark’s overall prelaw program, and we anticipate that the team will grow even stronger in the future,” says Professor Mark Miller, who directs Clark’s Law and Society Program.
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Clark is among 50 colleges and universities worldwide to be designated as a New Media Center by the New Media Consortium (NMC) this year. The recognition is the result of NMC’s fourth worldwide search for proven leaders among higher-education institutions in the application of technology to scholarly and creative activities.
New Media Centers are recognized for their demonstrated commitment to pushing the boundaries of teaching, learning, research, or creative expression through the adept application of technology. These institutions become part of the NMC’s community of innovators, working with colleagues around the world to help set the agenda for technology in higher education.
The 2003 honorees join 125 prestigious colleges, universities and museums that have received the designation during the last 10 years. NMC members include: MIT, Princeton, Yale, the University of California, Los Angeles, Mount Holyoke College and innovative museums such as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. |
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Approximately 300 students participated in the 13th-annual Academic Spree Day, held on April 25. Nearly every department and program was represented in this year’s event with poster presentations, panel discussions, talks, art exhibits and music and theater performances. Projects focused on a wide range of topics, such as: “A Cellular Approach to Mapping the Rana pipiens Genome”; “Modeling Environmental Voting in the U.S. Senate”; “The Relationship Between Power and Violence in Shakespeare’s Macbeth’”; “Access and Availability of Cancer Care to Native Americans in the United States”; “State Building in Iraq—Following Suit”; “Elliptic Curves and Cryptography”; “Payne v. Tennessee: Victim Impact Statements”; “Gaze and Guilt: Looking Away Makes You Feel Down”; and “The Caryatid Maidens of the Erechtheion.”
A complete list of this year’s Academic Spree Day projects is on the Clark Web site at www.clarku.edu/academicspreeday. |
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Darcy Lee was promoted to director of the Clark Fund, the University’s annual fund, in February. She previously served as the senior associate director of the fund.
As director, Lee oversees the Clark Fund and manages its programs, including the Jonas Clark Fellows, the Reunion Giving Program and the Parents Association.
Every year thousands of alumni, parents of Clark students and friends from around the world contribute to the Clark Fund. Clark Fund contributions provide crucial support for scholarships and academic programs that help the University attract and retain top-quality students and faculty.
Lee joined Clark in October 1998. She previously served as Press Aide to U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy in his Boston office and worked for several years at the John F. Kennedy Library and Foundation in Boston, where she was research associate and event coordinator for the Profile in Courage Award and Distinguished Foreign Visitor events. Lee succeeds Jonathan Kappel ’81, who is leading the development and major gifts program at Clark |
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| Dr. Mary Lekas '49 |
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Dr. Mary Lekas ’49 and her husband Harold Picozzi recently established the Dr. Mary Despina Lekas M.D., D.Sc. Endowed Chair in Biology with a $1.5-million gift. Biology Department Chair Thomas Leonard ’62 has been named to this first endowed chair in biology. The Lekas Chair is the 17th endowed chair established at Clark.
“It’s an attitude of gratitude,” Lekas says.
Lekas was a pioneer in medicine, paving the way for future generations of women who aspire to the profession. A Worcester native, she was the only woman in her Clark class studying premedicine. Lekas, like Leonard, was inspired and nurtured by Professor Rudolph Nunnemacher, a member of the Clark faculty for 49 years and former chair of the Biology Department. With Nunnemacher’s encouragement, Lekas earned a graduate degree at Boston University and an M.D. with honors at the University of Athens Medical School. Her specialty is otolaryngology—head and neck surgery.
Lekas was the first woman to head the otolaryngology department at Rhode Island Hospital. She was also the first woman to be professor of clinical otolaryngology at Brown University’s medical school and the first woman on the East Coast to become a fellow in the Triological Society, the most prestigious society in her specialty. In 1980, she was the first woman to be elected president of the New England Otolaryngological Society. She was named Rhode Island’s Woman Physician of the Year in 1992, was awarded the President’s Citation from the Triological Society in 1993, and received the keys to the city of Providence twice. In 1996, she was honored by the Providence Medical Association “in recognition of distinguished service to the profession and the community.” In her retirement, Lekas mentors aspiring women doctors.
“The Lekas Chair is a wonderful strategic part of our commitment to enhance the natural sciences at Clark as we plan to build a new biology building,” says President John Bassett. “Professor Leonard is a most worthy first holder of the chair. A distinguished scientist, he has been the key player in putting Clark’s Biology Department back on the national map.”
Leonard, who specializes in developmental genetics and secondary metabolism, has held professorships at the University of Kentucky in Lexington and the University of Wisconsin in Madison. In 1994, he returned to Clark to spearhead the revitalization of the Biology Department. A committed teacher and mentor, Leonard has won many awards at the national and university level, including Clark’s Outstanding Teacher Award.
Eleven undergraduates received Anton fellowships to support independent scholarly and creative endeavors this summer and during the upcoming academic year.
This is the third year of the Anton Fellowship Program, established by Barbara ’56 and Thomas ’56 Anton to give undergraduates more opportunities to explore original research, creative ideas or public-service projects. Recipients become part of the Society of Anton Fellows, which meets with faculty mentors at special gatherings throughout the year. Professor Sharon Krefetz directs the program.
This year, Anton fellowships have allowed the following students to pursue research and creative work in Albania, Ghana, throughout Europe and in places closer to home, such as New York, New England and in Clark’s science laboratories.
Mary Badon ’05 is continuing her research into the processes that regulate cell division. Stephanie Bator ’05 is investigating possible connections between the geography of colonial Lexington, Mass., and its social structure at the time of the American Revolution and how these factors might have impacted the Battle of Lexington. Jerrica Breindel ’06 is studying an abnormal growth in a certain strain of fungus that behaves similarly to benign tumors in humans. Dorothy Fennell ’04 is conducting an internship cosponsored by the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance and the Point Community Development Corporation. Sarah Fineberg-Lombardi ’05 is studying and comparing local politics in Portsmouth, N.H., and Cianorte, Brazil. Kriti Gaur ’04 is continuing her research into how measles viruses enter cells and plans to present her work to Worcester high-school students. David Hahn ’04 is studying Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” and traveling to England, Germany and Italy to examine representations of those stories in painting and sculpture. Etel Haxhiaj ’04 is traveling to Albania to research and produce a documentary about girls and women in Albania who were kidnapped and sold into prostitution. Michael Healy ’05 is embarking on a political tour of New England to study how the Green Party conducts campaigns for mayoral and gubernatorial elections, with a focus on how the Green Party uses the media. Stephanie Roy ’04 is investigating how toxic proteins secreted by the Anthrax bacteria interact with human host proteins and small molecules that may serve as models for the development of drugs to combat Anthrax infections. Jay Shapiro ’04 is spending one month in Ghana, West Africa, filming a documentary about a Ghanaian child.
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| Yearbook staff |
The Pasticcio 2003, Clark’s yearbook, was inducted into Walsworth Publishing’s 2003 Gallery of Excellence, an honor bestowed on less than 5 percent of Walsworth’s yearbooks this year. The Pasticcio staff was honored at Walsworth’s Creativity Seminar and Planning Workshop Awards Luncheon and Desktop Technology Premiere, held on March 31 in Tilton Hall of the Higgins University Center. Nate Pierce ’05 is this year’s Pasticcio editor. Michelle Walmsley, assistant director of Alumni Affairs, is the yearbook adviser.
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| Geographer David Angel |
Geographer David Angel has been named provost and vice president for Academic Affairs, effective July 1. Angel succeeds chemist Frederick Greenaway, who has served as provost for the last eight years and is returning to teaching and research at Clark.
“Professor Angel is highly respected at Clark for the intellectual leadership he provides and for his creative vision as an administrator. He is also widely respected in his own field as a scholar of international reputation,” says President John Bassett, who named Angel to the post in April after an internal search. “I can think of no one better suited to be chief academic officer of this University in the new century and no one better prepared to build on Fred Greenaway’s accomplishments.”
Angel joined Clark in 1987. He served as associate provost and dean of graduate studies and research from 1997 to 2002 and is the current Leo L. and Joan Kraft Laskoff Professor of Economics, Technology and Environment. Angel is also a member of Clark’s George Perkins Marsh Institute and editor of the journal Economic Geography. He has received major grants from the MacArthur Foundation, National Science Foundation, Social Science Research Council and the U.S. Department of Commerce to support his research, which focuses on issues of technological and industrial change.
Funded by the National Science Foundation, Angel is currently studying economic globalization and the environmental performance of industry in China, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. He is also researching the integration of economic and environmental policy in China and Chinese Taipei, a project funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The author of three books and many research articles, Angel provides research support to the United Nations Industrial Development Organization and has been a technical adviser to many public and private organizations, including the Asian Development Bank and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.
Geography graduate student Alex Pulsipher recently received a fellowship from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The three-year award totals $82,500, with an additional $31,500 cost-of-education allowance awarded directly to Clark.
Pulsipher studies the vulnerability of human-environment systems to climate change. He is particularly interested in how suburban sprawl in the United States is influencing drinking-water supplies and the loss of ecosystem services. Pulsipher co-authored a textbook with his mother, Lydia Pulsipher, professor of geography at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The book, “World Regional Geography,” is intended for introductory geography courses at the university level.
According to the NSF, 900 fellowships were awarded to a pool of 7,788 applicants this year, and only four were awarded to geographers. The number of fellowships awarded to geographers varies from year to year, but has never exceeded five.
Roger Kasperson ’59, University Professor at Clark and director of the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), was elected to the National Academy of Science (NAS) in April.
Kasperson is the fourth Clark geographer to be elected to NAS, following Robert Kates, B.L. Turner II and Susan Hanson, and raises the number of current faculty in the NAS to three. No other geography program in the country has produced as many NAS members.
The NAS cited Kasperson’s outstanding achievements in risk, hazards and vulnerability research, including his work establishing the role of the social amplification-attenuation of risk and moral analysis in technological choice, and in developing vulnerability analysis for global environmental change and regions at risk. A fellow and past president of the International Society for Risk Analysis, Kasperson is the only noneconomist social scientist to serve on the board of the Environmental Protection Agency and is the only nonphysical scientist to serve as director of SEI.
“Because my work over my career has been highly collaborative, this honor is shared with others, particularly my wife, Jeanne X. Kasperson, who has been my co-author and collaborator on most of my work over the past two decades, and others in the Geography Department and Marsh Institute at Clark University as well,” Kasperson says.
A Worcester native, Kasperson joined the Clark faculty in 1968 and has served as dean of the college, University provost and director of the George Perkins Marsh Institute. He took a leave from Clark in 2000 to serve as director of SEI and will return to Clark and the Marsh Institute in 2004. In April, the Marsh Institute library was renamed and dedicated in memory of his wife, Jeanne X. Kasperson ’59, who was the librarian and research associate professor at the Marsh Institute.
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Gaia Catalano '03 with children in the farming village in Nicaragua where she and other Clark students spent spring break. |
Nineteen undergraduate students and Josh Roka ’02 spent spring break in Nicaragua working in a rural community. Miranda Jennings ’04 organized the trip, which was undertaken through the organization Bridges to Community.
According to participant Gaia Catalano ’03, the students worked on part of a sustainable development project in one of the poorest areas of Nicaragua. Working with students from the nearby Uraccan University in Siuna, Nicaragua, the Clark students helped the community begin converting to organic farming practices. Current farming practices employ harsh chemicals that destroy the soil, Catalano explains. The Clark students helped cut down trees, rebuild fences and build compost boxes, attended several workshops about the local culture and spent time with their host students and families.
This is the third year Clark students have participated in this project in Nicaragua. The students were responsible for their own travel expenses for the trip and raised $600 as a group to donate to a women’s organization in Siuna.
Departments
BIOLOGY: Denis Larochelle was awarded two supplements to his National Science Foundation (NSF) grant. The supplements of $7,500 and $8,875 are for two summer undergraduate research assistants and also the involvement of a Worcester school teacher during the summer. Larochelle’s research is on “Characterization of a Novel Regulatory Protein Required for Cytokinesis.”
CHEMISTRY: Sharon Huo entered an agreement of $62,500 as a co-investigator with the Human Frontier Science Program for research on “Exploring HIV-1 Tat Function by Single Molecule Imaging and Molecular Dynamics Simulation.” Huo was also awarded a $35,000 grant from the American Chemical Society, Petroleum Research Fund, for her studies on “Mapping the Early Steps of Amyloid Formation with Computational Approaches.” Daeg Brenner continues his long-term funding success with the Department of Energy with three additional years of support, totaling $320,000, for his work on “Nuclear Structure Research.” Al Jones continues his grant success with a new three-year grant, totaling $290,000, from the U.S. Army Research Office for his research on “NMR Studies of Micro-Structured and Nano-Structured Polymeric Membrane Systems.”
PSYCHOLOGY: Elaine Reese was awarded a four year RO1 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to support her research on “Enhancing Low-Income Children’s Emergent Literacy.” The grant totals $390,421 and provides $130,140 in the first year. Jamie McHale was awarded $114,842 in renewal funds from the NIH for his research on “Coparenting and Family Level Processes” and received an additional $42,659 of support for research assistant Easter Vo.
GEORGE PERKINS MARSH INSTITUTE: Gil Pontius received $15,012 in supplemental funding from Pennsylvania State University (funded by NSF) for the summer Human Environment Research Observatories Project. The funds support three undergraduates participating in a six-week course on local global-change research this summer.
Lisa Meierotto and Michael Marshall, both graduate students in Clark’s International Development, Community and Environment Department, received Fulbright fellowships this spring to pursue their research.
Meierotto, who is earning a master’s degree in international development and social change, will be based at the University of Crete for her research into how transnational environmental NGOs help shape environmental agendas in Greece. She will explore whether local, national and transnational agendas differ and how these differences impact environmental policy and activism. Meierotto hopes to gain an understanding of the role of NGOs on a global level and to reveal the importance of balance in addressing local and global needs. Her study is especially significant for Greece as it is integrated into the European Union.
Marshall, who is earning a master’s degree in environmental science and policy, will use his Fulbright to conduct a study using current climate-change models, a Geographic Information System and time series data to examine the relationship between precipitation and temperature change and incidences of malaria and cholera in Lake Victoria communities in Uganda. Marshall hopes his study will lead to a model that can predict which communities are at highest risk for exposure to malaria and cholera agents under different climate-change scenarios.
This spring, Mary Badon ’05 won a triple crown in undergraduate scholarship. Badon is spending the summer in the Clark biology labs with the support of a coveted Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship, a Pfizer Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship and one of Clark’s Anton fellowships.
Badon is one of 300 Goldwater recipients nationwide, chosen from approximately 1,000 applicants this year. The scholarships are awarded to college juniors and seniors in math, science and engineering who are nominated for the award by faculty members. Badon’s Goldwater Scholarship provides $15,000 of tuition support over two years.
The $5,000 Pfizer fellowship is also a national award, with only seven recipients in biology this year. It supports eight to 10 weeks of research during the summer and culminates in an informal poster presentation of the research at Pfizer Global Research and Development’s Groton Laboratories in Groton, Conn. The Anton fellowship is awarded through Clark’s Anton Fellowship Program, which supports undergraduates in their pursuit of original ideas, creative endeavors and community service (see page 3).
Badon is studying biochemistry and molecular biology. She is researching cell division, specifically the role of centrosomes, a part of the cell that participates in the final step of cell division. She is working with Clark biologist Denis Larochelle and Stephen Doxsey, a scientist at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester.
“Mary is one of the most outstanding students I’ve worked with at Clark,” says Larochelle, who invited Badon to join his lab in summer 2002. “She is among the rarest of students who have very clearly defined scholarly and career goals and the ability to succeed in achieving those goals.”
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Clarknews Summer 2003
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