Emilie Marcus ’82 was appointed editor of the bi-weekly life sciences journal, Cell. Previously the editor of Neuron, one of Cell’s sister-publications, Marcus received her Ph.D. from Yale in neurobiology. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the Salk Institute in California. In an interview with the Boston Globe, Marcus said, “My main goal is for Cell to be a driving force in promoting interdisciplinary research.”
Fred Maynard ’80 is one of six partners to develop a new country club along Rhode Island’s southern coast, the Shelter Harbor Golf Club. Maynard and his partners have fulfilled their goal of conserving open space by creating an environmentally friendly golf course without adjacent homes. Maynard is a principal of HarbourVest Partners and serves on the advisory boards of several private equity partnerships. He maintains a summer residence in Westerly.
Bruce C. McKenna ’84 recently won the 2003 Writer’s Guild Award for Best Adapted Long Form, for his episode in the Band of Brothers miniseries, “Bastogne.” McKenna has written or co-written three of the ten episodes of Band of Brothers, which was based on the book by Stephen E. Ambrose and produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks. The miniseries has won numerous awards, including a Peabody Award, a Christopher Award, a Golden Globe and an Emmy. McKenna was nominated along with the show’s other writers for an Emmy.
Patricia Head Minaldi ’80 was appointed federal district judge in the western district of Louisiana in June. Previously she served for six years as a state district judge in the 14th judicial district court in Lake Charles, the first woman to hold that seat. A cum laude history major at Wesleyan, she graduated from Tulane Law School and began her career as a prosecutor in Orleans Parish of Louisiana before moving to the Calcasieu parish, where she spent 11 years as an assistant district attorney. She was also the first woman to serve as president of the Louisiana District Judges Association.
Amy Montgomery ’77 was recently honored with a gold medal at the ForeWord Magazine Book-of-the-Year awards ceremony, held at BookExpo America. Montgomery’s novel, Just an Accident, is a record of the life of logger Scott Remington after he sustained spinal injury. The late actor Christopher Reeve praised her work as “captur[ing] not only the drama of an accidental tragedy but the power of the human spirit to overcome it. Montgomery, a CSS major at Wesleyan, holds a master’s degree from the University of Michigan.
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.
Sasha Chanoff ’94, executive director of Mapendo International, is a recipient of a 2007 Draper Richards Foundation fellowship, a prestigious award given to emerging social change organizations throughout the United States and the world. Mapendo, a lifeline for forgotten refugees, received the support of lead refugee officials from the U.N., the U.S. government, other foundations, and experts across the world.
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.
Donald Clippinger ’66, an award–winning writer with wide experience in the racing industry, was named communications consultant for the National Steeplechase Association (NSA). He had retired as editorial director of Thoroughbred Times Company. Clippinger, whom NSA President Guy Torsilieri praised for his “thorough knowledge of steeplechase racing and its participants,” had been the racing writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer and editor of The Thoroughbred Record. In 1996, he won the Eclipse Award for an article that appeared in the Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred. With Curtis L. Barrett, Ph.D., he is the co-author of Winners! The Story of Alcohol and Drug-Abuse Programs in the Horse Racing Industry. Clippinger is a founding director and treasurer of the Winners Federation, a nonprofit dedicated to combating addictions in the horse racing environment.
![Amy Montgomery '77 was recently honored with a gold medal at the ForeWord Magazine Book-of-the-Year awards ceremony, held at BookExpo America. Montgomery's novel, Just an Accident, is a record of the life of logger Scott Remington after he sustained spinal injury. The late actor Christopher Reeve praised her work as "captur[ing] not only the drama of an accidental tragedy but the power of the human spirit to overcome it. Montgomery, a CSS major at Wesleyan, holds a master's degree from the University of Michigan.](https://classnotes.blogs.wesleyan.edu/files/2013/11/montgomery.jpg)
