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.
Alfred S. Joseph III ’65 was appointed by the governor of Kentucky to serve on the state’s Oral History Commission, a nationally recognized program to record and preserve the diverse stories that are part of Kentucky’s history. Additionally, he received the 2008 Commercial REACH Award from the Greater Kentucky Chapter of the March of Dimes for his contributions to commercial real estate and to the community. Joseph, counsel with Stites & Harbison in Louisville, Ky., joined the firm in 1983 and focuses on complex development projects, affordable housing, commercial financing transactions, general real estate law, zoning, and insurance. He is a fellow of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers. A government major at Wesleyan, he earned his JD from the University of Michigan.
Benjamin Fontes ’86, the biosafety officer at Yale University, is president-elect of the American Biological Safety Association. Fontes, who manages operational safety in all three spheres of biohazards—those from biological, chemical, and radiation sources—credits much of his expertise and interest in the field to Gladys Caspar P’85, who, as his mentor when he began his career at Harvard—affiliated labs and hospitals in Boston, encouraged critical thinking. “In biosafety, there’s very little black-and-white,” he says. “In addition to frequent updates in the pathogens studied, there’s always a new piece of equipment that arrives in a lab—and you have to understand not only how it works when it”s used properly, but also what could go wrong.” As president-elect, Fontes looks forward to increasing opportunities to develop collegial relationships internationally. He was a biology major at Wesleyan and earned his MPH from the University of Michigan.
Andrew W. Seibert ’86 was named to the newly created position of president at SmartMoney, a joint venture between Hearst Corporation and Dow Jones & Co. Previously vice president and publisher of SmartMoney’s Custom Solutions, the custom publishing arm, he will continue this effort, while adding responsibility for the circulation, advertising, and marketing operations of SmartMoney magazine, as well as for SmartMoney.com. He joined SmartMoney in 1999 as creator and head of the Custom Solutions division. At Wesleyan, he majored in the College of Social Studies and then earned an MBA at Columbia.
Maria E. Rodriguez ’81 has been elected to the board of trustees of the Contemporary Museum in Baltimore. A partner at the Baltimore office of the law firm Venable, LLP, she focuses on business and commercial litigation. Additionally, she was named editor–in–chief of Litigation magazine. “Maria’s background and passion for the arts will make her a valuable addition to the board of the Contemporary,” said Board President Pamela Berman. An American studies major at Wesleyan, she earned a master’s degree in psychology from the University of Oregon, and received a law degree from Stanford University.
![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)
