Robert Gardner ’51 recently received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) at the group’s annual meeting this winter in San Diego. Gardner was recognized for writing more than 130 hands-on science books for children during the past 35 years. Terry Young, chairman of the award selection committee, noted that Gardner’s clear presentation of science at all grade levels, along with his creative writing and use of common household materials, have excited thousands of children to get involved in science and understand the scientific method, all while having fun. The AAAS awards, funded by Subaru, are chosen by a select committee appointed by Science Books and Films, a bimonthly publication of AAAS.
Nella Young ’98, who earned her master’s in urban and environmental policy and planning from Tufts, has received the German Chancellor’s Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. The year-long program offers its fellows an opportunity to design a project that will expand their professional expertise. Young, whose particular interest is in developing planning approaches for cities that have experienced large-scale population change, will work with the International Building Exhibition (IBA) Urban Redevelopment Saxony-Anhalt 2010, a partnership between a state planning agency and a private foundation. A studio arts major as an undergraduate at Wesleyan, she hopes to observe particular ways that community-wide arts projects are used to maintain a high quality of life in cities where population is declining.
Lin-Manuel Miranda ’02, Tony-winning playwright and composer of In The Heights and collaborator on the script for Broadway’s West Side Story, was honored at the fundraising gala for El Museo del Barrio, one of New York’s leading Latino cultural institutions. Also honored that night were Luis Ubiñas, the president of the Ford Foundation, and Emilio and Gloria Estefan, for their contributions both to music and to the community. Laura Siegle ’06, development officer for El Museo, shared a moment with her fellow Wesleyan alumnus, in front of the camera.
A story by Paul Yoon ’02, “And We Will Be Here,” was only one of 20 included in the 2009 PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories. Yoon’s winning story is also included in his collection, Once the Shore, his first book, published this year by Sarabande Books. These eight stories are linked by their setting, a South Korean island, and form a portrait of the island, spanning 50 years, from just before the Korean War through the present. When asked in a publisher’s interview about this aspect of setting the stories on an imaginary—but realistic—island, while he, himself, has lived his life in the United States, Yoon explains, “Writing, at least for me, is the act of exploring some aspect of the unknown; there is always that underlying sense of entering ‘foreign territory’ whenever I start a story.”
Joseph Wright ’79, MD, MPH, was appointed to the 14-member Pediatric Advisory Committee of the Food and Drug Administration. The committee advises the commissioner of the FDA on a range of pediatric issues, including identification of research priorities, ethics design and analysis of clinical trials, pediatric labeling disputes, and adverse event reports for drugs granted for pediatric exclusivity and safety issues. He is a senior vice president at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., where he heads the hospital’s Child Health Advocacy Institute. A professor of pediatrics, emergency medicine, and health policy at the George Washington University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, he earned an M.D. from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and a master of public health in administrative medicine from George Washington University.
Matthew K. Gold ’95, assistant professor of English at New York City College of Technology, CUNY, received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) for his innovative digital humanities project, “Looking for Whitman: The Poetry of Place in the Life and Work of Walt Whitman.” The project involves students and professors from four colleges (CUNY, New York University, University of Mary Washington, and Rutgers University, Camden), each of which is located in an area central to Whitman’s life and work. Using social networking technology and an open-source Web site, students will share their written, photographic, and video responses to Whitman’s work. The project was highlighted in the Chronicle of Higher Education.
The exhibition, Form and Movement: Photographs by Philip Trager [’56], will appear at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., through January 3, 2010. With a July 11 opening date, the exhibit showcases images from Trager’s 40-year career, including new work exhibited publicly for the first time. Most of the 90 photographs in the exhibition are black and white platinum, gelatin silver, or Iris prints, with the exception of Trager’s recent explorations with bold color. The exhibition includes images of New England, New York cityscapes, the Italian villas of Andrea Palladio, Paris along the Seine, and depictions of modern dance. Form and Movement is presented in cooperation with the Library of Congress, which will house the definitive archive of Trager’s life work. The curators of Form and Movement are Laura Schiavo ’91 and Reed Haslach.
David Rosenblum ’75 was appointed chief operating officer for the Strategy & Operations practice of Deloitte Consulting LLP, an approximately 2,000-person unit of Deloitte. A graduate of The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, he has been affiliated with Deloitte Consulting for 30 years and a principal for 20 of those. With a focus on the corporate, financial, and competitive issues of the healthcare and life sciences industries, he continues to serve clients while also maintaining responsibility for daily operations of the practice. Additionally, he has served on the board of the Echo Foundation, which operates an elementary school for hearing and hearing-impaired children, including five years as chair. As an undergraduate at Wesleyan, he majored in economics and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
Daniel B. Prieto ’91, an adjunct senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations, is the author of the newly released CFR report, War About Terror: Civil Liberties and National Security After 9/11. The report addresses a range of issues—from Guantanamo to warantless wiretapping—and how to maintain America¹s longstanding democratic traditions while protecting it from real and serious threats. To download a copy, go to www.cfr.org/war_about_terror. Prieto, who worked for over two years on the politically-charged project, earned his Wesleyan degree in the College of Social Studies and his master’s from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).
Wanda Hill ’78 was one of six women honored at the 16th Annual Women of Distinction Breakfast, sponsored by The Girl Scout Council of Greater New York. Council Board President Patricia Stensrud says that the honorees “represent powerful role models for our girls, demonstrating that anything they dream of becoming is possible.” Hill is the managing director and director of Strategic Initiatives at BNY Mellon Wealth Management. The Network Journal, an African American business magazine, had included Hill in its 2006 roundup of 25 influential black women. She was a French major at Wesleyan.
![The exhibition, Form and Movement: Photographs by Philip Trager [’56], will appear at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., through January 3, 2010. With a July 11 opening date, the exhibit showcases images from Trager’s 40-year career, including new work exhibited publicly for the first time. Most of the 90 photographs in the exhibition are black and white platinum, gelatin silver, or Iris prints, with the exception of Trager’s recent explorations with bold color. The exhibition includes images of New England, New York cityscapes, the Italian villas of Andrea Palladio, Paris along the Seine, and depictions of modern dance. Form and Movement is presented in cooperation with the Library of Congress, which will house the definitive archive of Trager’s life work. The curators of Form and Movement are Laura Schiavo ’91 and Reed Haslach.](https://classnotes.blogs.wesleyan.edu/files/2013/11/trager.jpg)
