This spring, MARION WILSON ’83 will be opening her first solo exhibition at her New York City gallery at Cheryl Pelavin’s. Another solo exhibit will open at the same time at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, N.Y. The exhibition, Distilled Lives, focuses on issue surrounding the death penalty, an installation comprised of discrete vignettes that reproduce the last meals chosen by five condemned criminals. Wilson, a studio arts major at Wesleyan, received her MA from Columbia University and her MFA from the University of Cincinnati.
Awards are rapidly accumulating for Lisa Chedekel ’82, after her series “Mentally Unfit, Forced to Fight“ appeared in The Hartford Courant. Recipient of both a George Polk Award for military reporting and the Selden Ring Award for investigative journalism, the series focuses on the flaws in the U.S. military’s treatment of soldiers with mental illness. The series also was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize. In a WESeminar on award-winning journalism during Reunion/Commencement 2007 moderated by editor and colleague Dan Haar ’81, Chedekel noted that the US military has, since her article appeared, increased its screening procedures in efforts to protect soldiers suffering mental health issues.
Wesleyan Visiting Writer Alexander Chee ’89 was one of 10 authors recently named winners of the Whiting Writers’ Award, given annually since 1985 by the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation to “emerging writers of exceptional talent and promise.” Chee, a fiction writer, is the author of Edinburgh (Picador, 2002). An English major at Wesleyan, he is also a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Chee makes his home in New York City.
The Massachusetts Secretary of Public Safety and State Fire Marshal, along with the Task Force on Fire and Building Safety and the Department of Fire Services honored Edward V. Colbert III ’89 as instrumental in the passage of a law they consider a landmark. A reception for Colbert last September marked the second anniversary of the Chapter 304 of the Acts of 2004, An Act Relative to Fire Safety in the Commonwealth. Called “the sprinkler law” and inspired by a horrific nightclub fire in Rhode Island that left 100 dead and more than 200 injured, this law states that nightclubs in Massachusetts with a capacity of more than 100 people must have an automatic sprinkler system installed. As an undergraduate, Colbert was a government major. He earned a Juris Doctorate degree from Suffolk University Law School in 1994.
Gordon J. Coburn ’86 has been promoted to Chief Financial and Operating Officer for Cognizant Technology Solution Corporation in Teaneck, N.J. He has had over sixteen years of experience in the IT industry. After majoring in history at Wesleyan he earned his MBA from the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth and is a member of the Board of Directors of the ITC Group in the IT Services Division of the ITAA.
CEO Suzanne Delbanco ’89, a CSS major at Wesleyan, was featured in Modern Healthcare, the only heathcare business news weekly, on April 18, for her work as founder of Leapfrog Group Committed to improving healthcare by reducing the number of medical errors made in healthcare, the company has grown from 60 Fortune 500 members at its inception in November 2000 to more than 500 members who use their consumer influence to push for increased patient safety.
Nancy Campbell, MALS ’80 and former first lady of Wesleyan, recently earned the National Trust’s Louise Du Pont Crowninshield Award for her dedication to historic preservation, extending over more than 25 years. After several years serving on state historical trusts, in 1983 Campbell was nominated to the National Trust’s Board of Advisors and was later selected to serve on the Board of Trustees. Marking an important milestone in history, in 1966 Campbell was chosen as the first woman chair of the Trust and successfully led the Campaign for America’s Historic Places to vastly exceed its fundraising goals. President of the trust Richard Moe, says Campbell, “epitomizes the spirit of volunteerism that is the bedrock of preservationalism.”
David M. Ackman ’84, M.D., commissioner of health for Nassau County, N.Y., is president of the New York State Association of County Health Officers, which represents the state’s 58 local health departments on such issues as bioterrorism preparedness, public health funding, HIV prevention strategies and vaccination programs. “Ever since 9/11, health departments have been asked to take on a greater role in emergency preparedness without reducing attention to basic public health problems,” Ackman observes. “The result is that health directors are juggling more balls than ever, with fewer resources.”
Peter C. Adamson ’80, MD, a pediatric oncologist and scientist at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Research Institute, has been selected to lead the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) in its efforts to find cures for children with cancer. An internationally recognized leader in pediatric cancer drug development, he was elected by principal investigators of more than 200 Children’s Oncology Group sites. “Scientific discovery today is occurring at an unprecedented pace, but the clinical trial system that historically worked so well is showing a diminishing rate of return in our ability to cure children,” said Adamson in a hospital press release. “This system was not designed to rapidly bring findings from the bench to the bedside, and a transformation of the system’s approach is needed to propel translational efforts on an international scale.” A chemistry major at Wesleyan, he earned his MD from Cornell University School of Medicine.
Michelle V. Anderson-Lyn ’84, M.D., was one of 10 Houston-area women cited by Texas Executive Women for her success in business and community service. An attending physician at Texas Children’s Hospital, assistant professor of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine, and medical director of the pediatric emergency center at Ben Taub General Hospital, she also serves as medical adviser for the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners Program at Texas Children’s. A biology/psychology major at Wesleyan, she earned her medical degree at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Her husband is Kurt Lyn ’87.
