ALUMNIQUARTERLY

ColloquyThe graduate school of arts and sciences | spring 2011

Alumni Day 2011

A conversation with the Chronicle’s provocateur

Reunions for Economics and for Dudley House

The Mind’s Eye

Across the disciplines, probing the intersections between the brain and the mind to unlock the mysteries of perception and experience The graduate school of arts and sciences • harvard university Colloquy ALUMNIQUARTERLY

Alumni Day Allan M. Brandt 2 With reunions of graduate economics programs dean and of Dudley fellows adding to the mix, our Margot N. Gill annual rite of spring was both interdisciplinary and administrative dean intergenerational. Elisabeth Nuñez director of publications and alumni relations

Bari Walsh editor Colloquy with William Pannapacker, PhD ’99 8 On the humanities conundrum with the Chronicle’s Sametz Blackstone Associates provocateur. design Graduate School Alumni Association (GSAA) Council Naomi André, PhD ’96, music Reinier Beeuwkes, COL ’62, PhD ’70, division of medical sciences Thomas Davenport, PhD ’80, sociology Mia de Kuijper, MPA ’83, PhD ’83, economics Fertile Ground Stacy Dick, AB ’78, PhD ’83, economics 10 A. Barr Do lan,AM ’74, applied sciences Increasingly, humanists are turning to cognitive and Richard Ekman, AB ’66, PhD ’72, history of American civilization neuroscientists — and vice versa — to gain new John C.C. Fan, SM ’67, PhD ’72, applied sciences insights into perception and experience, making Neil Fishman, SM ’92, applied sciences Kenneth Froewiss, AB ’67, PhD ’77, economics disciplinary barriers irrelevant. Homer Hagedorn, PhD ’55, history, ex officio R. Stanton Hales, PhD ’70, mathematics David Harnett, PhD ’70, history George Heilborn, AM ’58, physics Karen J. Hladik, PhD ’84, business economics Alumni Books Daniel R. Johnson, AM ’82, East Asian history, AM ’84, 14 The architecture of a war-ravaged country, bu siness economics Gopal Kadagathur, PhD ’69, applied sciences a comparative look at hip-hop and high school, Alan Kantrow, AB ’69, PhD ’79, history of American civilization tips for awakening creativity, and getting human Gyuri Karady, PhD ’80, applied sciences rights right — our alumni authors tackle those Robert E. Knight, PhD ’68, economics Felipe Larraín, PhD ’85, economics, ex officio topics and more. Jill Levenson, PhD ’67, English and American literature and language See-Yan Lin, MPA ’70, PhD ’77, economics Suzanne Folds McCullagh, PhD ’81, fine arts John J. Moon, AB ’89, PhD ’94, business economics I Choose Harvard . . . 17 Sandra O. Moose,PhD ’68, economics HARVARDIS How a global business leader found value in F. Robert Naka, SD ’51, applied sciences supporting graduate research in international Betsy M. Ohlsson-Wilhelm, AB ’63, PhD ’69, medical sciences Maury Peiperl, MBA ’86, PhD ’94, organizational behavior the opportunity to fo development — and how a PhD student is using your research where M. Lee Pelton, PhD ’84, English and American literature and language takes you that support to study conflict in Africa. Nancy Ramage, PhD ’69, classical archaeology, ex officio John E. Rielly, PhD ’61, government Allen Sangínes-Krause, PhD ’87, economics; chair Charles Schilke, AM ’82, history Sidney Spielvogel, AM ’46, economics, MBA ’49, ex officio David Staines, PhD ’73, English and American literature and language Marianne Steiner, MEN ’78, SM ’78, applied mathematics Dennis Vaccaro, PhD ’78, division of medical sciences Donald van Deventer, PhD ’77, economics Lee Zhang, AM ’01, medical sciences Gustavus Zimmerman, PhD ’80, physics

On the cover: Portrait of woman by Natsuo Ikegami, Getty Images. from the dean

Allan M. Brandt Dean, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences; Amalie Moses Kass Professor of the History of Medicine, ; professor of the history of science, Harvard Alumni Association The Brightest and the Best Faculty of Arts and Sciences Appointed Directors John E. Rielly • Daniel R. Johnson This fall, the Graduate School of Arts and new resources in creative and efficient ways. GSAA Council Ex Officio Sciences will welcome what is probably the Offering financial aid packages that most remarkable class of students in its strongly compete with those of our peers is, president of Harvard University Michael D. Smith history. Our top applicants this year brought of course, the first and most essential step in dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences credentials that looked in many cases as if attracting and retaining the best students. Allan M. Brandt they had been pulled from a promotion That’s why funding for our graduate fellow- dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Margot N. Gill dossier for an assistant professor. Many of ships will continue to be a central priority. administrative dean of the Graduate School of these students are already becoming leaders But as I think about our needs over the Arts and Sciences in their fields. next five years, I see other key priorities. PhD ’64, English and American literature and language, We received 12,000 applications in all, We must invest in innovation in teaching dean of Continuing Education and University Extension affirming once again that students from all and learning, so we can help our graduate John P.Reardon Jr. corners of the world continue to se ek out the students become the educational leaders that AB ’60 executive director of the Harvard Alumni Association extraordinary opportunities that Harvard the world needs them to be. offers. The 615 or so new students (the We must invest in a diverse student number is still not final at press time) who population, both by fortifying the pipeline The GSAA is the alumni association of Harvard University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. will join us at Orientation on August 24 were that will prepare the most talented minority Governed by its Council, the GSAA represents and chosen by our faculty, after close and careful students to come to Harvard and by creating advances the interests of alumni of the Graduate School by consideration, as the very students those structures to support them fully once they are sponsoring alumni events and by publishing Colloquy four times each year. leaders most want to work with to advance here. And we must assure that we are educat- scholarship in their fields. ing the finest minds, irrespective of gender, Graduate School Alumni Association Our faculty takes graduate admissions across all fields of inquiry. To achieve gender Holyoke Center 350 1350 Massachusetts Avenue extremely seriously, as I discovered anew equity in the Graduate School, we need to Cambridge, MA 02138-3846 when I visited each of our programs this offer better support to our students who are phone: 617-495-5591 • fax: 617-495-2928 winter to review applications and discuss the parents. [email protected] • www.gsas.harvard.edu progress of current students. And that’s We must invest in better writing programs Colloquy on the Web appropriate, since this faculty is a magnet for for our students, so that we ensure they build Access current and back issues of Colloquy, as well as students, giving Harvard a clear advantage as the communication skills that are increasingly a range of other alumni services and information, at www.gsas.harvard.edu/alumni. it recruits new graduate students. essential to professional success in every field. And yet we know that many of our best Finally, we must examine the relation- Letters to the Editor applicants also applied to, and were eagerly ship between disciplinary excellence and Colloquy does not print letters, but we welcome your thoughts and story ideas. Write to: Colloquy, Harvard recruited by, our peer institutions in the Ivy interdisciplinary opportunity. Increasingly, University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Holyoke League and beyond. Among that exception- our top applicants crave the opportunities for Center 350, 1350 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA ally talented and promising group of top interdisciplinarity that Harvard’s resources 02138-3846; or e-mail [email protected]. applicants, admission is really just the begin- make so compelling. They expect to be able Moving? ning of the process. Successfully recruiting to move fluidly across traditional academic Please send your Colloquy mailing label and your new those candidates — as the playing field boundaries, and we need to create contexts in address to Alumni Records, 124 Mt. Auburn Street, 4th Floor, Cambridge, MA 02138-3654. grows ever more competitive — is where the which they can do so. real work lies. GSAS is responding by continuing to Colloquy is printed by PrintResource/DS Graphics. I spend a good deal of time thinking expand our roster of secondary fields — about what it will take to ensure that intellectually coherent courses and experiences Harvard continues to attract the very best in a given field that offer students desirable graduate students in the world. As fiscal breadth as they chart their professional challenges mount, I believe that those of us paths. This past year, we added new secondary who steward higher education must make fields in critical media practice, computational a new commitment to innovation as we artic- science, and science, technology, and society ulate our priorities. We need to reallocate our — all with exciting interdisciplinary possibil- existing resources to align with emerging ities. As we go forward, this is precisely the realities and to serve the students who will one kind of cost-effective innovation we must day take the reins, and we need to deploy our encourage.

Colloquy 1 Spring 2011 ALUMNISECTIONTITLE WEEKEND 2011

ALUMNI WEEKEND 2011

Generations of GSAS

By Bari Walsh

This spring’s Alumni Weekend celebration at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences had a notably intergenerational flair. Enlivened by the presence of current students and young alumni — some drawn back by a celebration of Dudley House — the weekend featured opportunities to connect and network, to share and seek advice, and to get to know the members of this diverse and collegial community. Faculty symposia reflected that diversity, but the state of the world’s

economy provided the theme that unified two days of events. On Friday,April 1, graduate alumni of Harvard’s economics programs held a reunion that featured talks by renowned senior thinkers and up-and-coming new voices. And on Saturday, April 2, global economist Kenneth Rogoff delivered the Alumni Day keynote address at Emerson Hall.

Photographs by Jessica Scranton

Harvard University 2 GSAS Table Talk SAVE THE DATE Alumni Weekend 2012 A recurring highlight of Alumni Day is discussions of how life as a graduate student April 13–14 lunch at the Harvard Faculty Club, and this has changed — or not — over the years. year, guests had the chance to socialize at After lunch, alumni and students headed discipline- or department-specific tables. back to Emerson Hall to sample offerings Many alumni took advantage of the oppor- from an interdisciplinary menu of faculty tunity for these interest-based points of symposia — on computer science and connection, which were facilitated by computer-assisted political science, on current PhD students designated as hosts empire and insurgency, on punishment for the day, alongside GSAS Alumni Council and inequality, on the science of blindness, members. The students joined alums for and on the philosophical comforts of lunch to talk about their work, prompting the classics.

At left, Leo Beranek, in organizational behavior, SD ’40, applied science, whose research interests and Fotis Constantine combine economic Kafatos, PhD ’65, molec- sociology, entrepreneur- ular biology, share ship, and development; a chat before the Alumni Louis and Anna Sebok Day keynote address. joined their daughter Above, clockwise from top Veronica Sebok,AB ’83, left, Susan Milmoe,AB SM ’83, applied sciences, ’65, PhD ’74, psychology MBA ’88, for lunch at and social relations, the Faculty Club. and Jennifer Sheehy- Skeffington, a PhD candi- date in psychology; Erin Henry, a PhD candidate

Colloquy 3 Spring 2011 ALUMNI WEEKEND 2011

Clockwise from left, Alice Adler, PhD ’61, chemistry, celebrated her 50th Harvard reunion with Ed Ginsberg; GSAS Dean Allan Brandt on stage for the Alumni Day keynote address; Jessica Tollette, a PhD candidate in sociology, whose interests include racial identity, class, gender, and inequality; Keith Stone, a PhD candidate in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures, specializing in the Hebrew bible, chats over lunch with George Bates, AB ’54; GSA ’56, physics; MBA ’58.

ALUMNI OF ALL AGES MIN GLED W ITH CURRENT STUDEN TS AND FACULTY, GIVING THIS AN NUAL RITE OF SPRING A T RULY IN TERGENERATIONAL FLAIR.

Harvard University 4 GSAS Surveying the history of economic meltdowns produces one bit of cheery news, says Ken Rogoff. “So far, all financial crises have come to an end.”

Eight Centuries (and Counting) of Financial Folly

Kenneth Rogoff is a premier thinker on those develop ing nations to grow and colo- matters related to national and global nize. He noted that today, it is the rich coun- economic policies, and his keynote address at tries whose debt is at or near all-time highs, Alumni Day was full of colorful history and a reality that will hinder growth over the insider’s tidbits, drawn from his experience next 5 to 10 years. as section chief at the International Finance Drawing on his experience as former Division of the US Federal Reserve Bank. chief economist at the International In discussing his latest book, This Time Monetary Fund, Rogoff described how he Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial and his coauthor, economist Carmen M. Folly — he joked that it spent a week in Reinhart, were able to collect voluminous fourth place on Amazon’s bestsellers list, data from vastly disparate gl obal archives, behind three Stieg Larsson novels — Rogoff data that prior to their work was difficult to traced the history of debt crises and defaults find and use. Noting the rhythmic cycle of back to 1340, when Edward II, invading debt crises over history — and the seemingly France as part of the Hundred Years War, endless varieties of “folly” that preceded Top, Kenneth Rogoff, and Hanspeter Pfister of defaulted on loans to Italian lenders. Rogoff each — he consoled his audience with one a professor of economics Computer Science. Sean highlighted a connection between early conclusion of his research: all economic and the Thomas D. Cabot Kelly of Philosophy European debt crises and the aspirations of crises do eventually end. Professor of Public Policy, and Constance Cepko delivers the Alumni Day of the HMS departments keynote address. At right, of Ophthalmology from left to right, faculty and Genetics also led symposia leaders Gary symposia. King of the Department of Government, Caroline Elkins of History and African and African American Studies, Bruce Western of Sociology,

Colloquy 5 Spring 2011 ALUMNI WEEKEND 2011

Celebrating the Old and New in Economics

Welcoming alumni to the graduate reunion this room.” He went on to describe how the quality of one’s kindergarten experience of Harvard’s programs in economics, tradition enriches a department like with earning power in adulthood, and Fryer business economics, and political economy Economics, which has especially benefitted has worked on measuring the impact of and government on April 1, GSAS Dean from the “wonderful chain of influence that incentive-based reforms in US public schools. Allan Brandt described the impact of connects faculty of one era to their students, On the same panel, Nava Ashraf, PhD ’05, Harvard’s economics programs on private, who become faculty of the next era.” and Erica Field looked at correlations public, and nonprofit sectors around the But then Campbell talked about bucking between wealth and health and at ways to world. And impact was the catchword of tradition, saying that one of the things he increase the effectiveness of global health the day, it turned out, as junior and senior was most excited by was the infusion of initiatives by focusing on the behavior of the faculty talked with alumni about some of youth and energy into the faculty ranks in patient/consumer. the most pressing issues facing the world — recent years. The department today boasts In the second panel, several of the and some of the most hopeful ideas for an “intellectual breadth that envisages department’s senior leaders weighed in on new directions. economics as a big tent,” he said — and that the global financial crisis. Benjamin Economics chair John Campbell kicked point was driven home during afternoon Friedman, Andrei Shleifer, Jeremy Stein, and things off by talking about tradition. “The panels that featured just the vibrant mix of Gita Gopinath engaged their audience with Harvard tradition is embodied not just in accomplished scholarship and energetic a fascinating look at how things reached crisis buildings but in people,” he said over lunch expansiveness that Campbell cited. level, how financial models malfunctioned, in the intimate confines of the Faculty Club In the first panel, Raj Chetty, PhD ’03, how risk was neglected, which corrective Library. “It’s a living tradition that evolves and Roland Fryer talked about their innova- steps were successful (and which not so), and over time. You can see that living tradition in tive work in education. Chetty has correlated what lessons were learned.

Top, left to right, Carmen PhD ’59, the Lewis Robinson Henry and P. and Linda L. Geyser LaVaughn Henry, PhD University Professor ’91, economics, at the emeritus and former economics reunion Dean of the Faculty of luncheon; Professor Arts and Sciences; Jerry Green, chair of the Nava Ashraf, PhD ’05, business economics PhD an associate professor program, welcomes at Harvard Business alumni and reminisces School; Benjamin about his predecessors, Friedman, AB ’66, John Lintner and Dick PhD ’71, William Joseph Caves. At left, from left to Maier Professor of right, Henry Rosovsky, Political Economy.

Harvard University 6 GSAS alumni notes

Anthropology Daniel T.Potts,AB ’75, PhD ’80, announces that a collection of twenty of his papers — entitled Mesopotamia, Iran and Arabia from the Seleucids to the Sasanians — has been published by Ashgate Variorum as part of its Collected Studies series. Potts is the Edwin Cuthbert Hall Professor of Middle Eastern Archaeology at the University of Sydney in Australia.

Astronomy David Barrado, GSA ’96, has contributed to the recent publication Postcards from the Edge of the Universe: An Anthology of Frontline Astronomy from Around the World (ESO, 2010).The book is based on the science carried out by a hand-picked selection of the best bloggers from the “Cosmic Diary,” one of Dudley House the 12 cornerstone projects of the International Year of Astronomy 2009. It provides a unique snap- shot of contemporary astronomy. 20th ANNIVERSARY REUNION English Showering affection — and flowers — on Dudley House’s longtime administrator, Susan Zawalich, are former Leon Guilhamet, PhD ’67, has published his third Dudley fellows (from left) Bayliss Camp, PhD ’03, sociology; Oliver Dinius, PhD ’04, history; Luca Marinelli, PhD book in eighteenth-century studies, entitled Defoe ’02, physics; and Daniel Kramer, PhD ’03, Germanic languages and literatures. Photo: Jonathan Ruel and the Whig Novel: A Reading of the Major Fiction (University of Delaware Press, 2010). Recently When Dudley House was dedicated as the Friday, April 1, an evening that featured retired as professor and former chair of English at graduate student center at GSAS 20 years specially crafted Dudley-themed cocktails — the City College, City University of New York, ago, the ide a of building community among the Dudley Daiquiri and the Lehman Guilhamet presents a reassessment of Robinson graduate students was still considered exper- Lemonade, served in embossed pint glasses. Crusoe and five other works of fiction by Daniel imental. The move was the culmination of They attended Alumni Day events on Defoe in light of Whig culture in the late seven- years of effort by the GSAS Alumni Council, Saturday and then returned to the House for teenth and early eighteenth centuries. deans and administrators, and students a soiree that evening. themselves, all of whom recognized a need From its commanding location in Germanic Languages and Literatures for graduate students to come together, to Lehman Hall, on the southwest corner of Wm.A. Little,A M ’53, has published Mendelssohn decompress, to leave the lab or library (on , Dudley is a central point of and the Organ (Oxford University Press, 2010), occasion), and generally to maintain the connection for the Graduate School’s 4,000 exploring Felix Mendelssohn’s lifelong engagement interests and hobbies that brought themo t students. Under the direction of the House with what Little argues was his instrument of Harvard — interests that would enrich not Masters and longtime administrator Susan choice, the organ. The book examines the resulting only their own lives, but their Harvard Zawalich, as well as the fellows (GSAS influence on the composer’s professional and community. students all) who plan activities each year, personal life. It has been a grand success, a model for Dudley has its own orchestra, jazz band, peers, and a refuge for students — especially literary magazine, dining hall, coffee house, Government those at the beginning of their programs, film series, game room, and intramural Robert H. Binstock, AB ’56, PhD ’65, has pro- seeking to find their place at Harvard. sports program, among other gems. It duced the seventh edition of The Handbook of Aging “There really is nothing like this at most sponsors student outings to museums, plays, and the Social Science s. He is professor of Aging, graduate schools,” says Jim Hogle, the and performances around and to Health, and Society at the Case Western Reserve Edward S. Harkness Professor of Biological recreational sites further afield. University’s School of Medicine. A former president Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology and The Harvard community will pause to of the Gerontological Society of America, Binstock chair of the PhD program in biophysics. mark Dudley’s 20th anniversary as the has served as director of a White House Task Force He has been co-master of Dudley House graduate student center in October, when — on Older Americans. since 2002, with his wife, patent attorney as part of the University’s 375th anniversary Doreen Hogle. festivities — the House will host a gala History GSAS celebrated the 20th-anniversary dinner to celebrate not only the special Leslie Dossey, PhD ’98, has published Peasant and milestone by hosting a laugh-filled reunion qualities of the building and the people who Empire in Christian North Africa, tracing the region’s over Alumni Weekend for Dudley fellows help it flourish, but also the central role that social and cultural history from the Punic times to from each of those 20 years. About 85 fellows graduate students play in the life of the the eve of the Islamic conquest. and guests mingled at a casual open house on University. continued on page 9

Colloquy 7 Spring 2011 col.lo.quy: a conversation, a dialogue ...with WILLIAM PANNAPACKER On the humanities conundrum with the Chronicle’s provocateur

By Bari Walsh

In the world of education journalism, there are few opinion voices as potent as that of William Pannapacker, PhD ’99, history of American civilization.

Writing under the pen name Thomas William Pannapacker Courtesy H. Benton in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Pannapacker has caused sensa- tions — and jammed up the online comment section — with articles like “Why Do They Hate Us” (September 26, 2010), about a certain kind of public disdain for academia, and “The Big Lie About ‘The Life of the Mind’” (February 8, 2010), about what he sees as an institutional failure to address the realities of graduate education. Perhaps his most notorious piece is William Pannapacker, PhD ’99, history of American civilization, in his office at Hope College. “Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don’t Go” (January 30, 2009), which conditions of academic employment, particu- as universities become aware of the valuef o enjoyed a long shelf life among the most-read larly in humanities. this constellation of fields. But the number of articles on the Chronicle’s website. I regularly meet students who have been positions is much smaller than the number of An associate professor of English at encouraged to enroll in programs that offer outstanding candidates. Hope College, in Holland, Michigan, no funding and no reliable information One positive sign is that digital human- Pannapacker has a knack for illuminating about job placements after graduation. After ists tend to have an “alt-ac” [alternate the anxieties within contemporary academic all, we are trained to believe that more academic] sensibility: they see themselves as culture. Reader reactions, ranging from education always equals more opportunity adaptable to a variety of employment virtual shouts of hallelujah to strong and that educational debt is always “good contexts — technology, information, educa- rebuttals, collectively testify to his skill at debt.” And professors who deviate from tion, administration, programming, and so finding issues that resonate. that message are seen as undercutting on. I am seeing some success stor ies (in higher education. But I am not saying a traditional academic sense), but I am also You have — pretty dramatically — advised people anything that has not been said by the seeing more people in the digital humanities not to go to graduate school in the humanities. AAUP [American Association of University having careers that look more like the norm Why? Professors], and backed up by their data, for for people in non-academic careers: multiple Pannapacker: The problem is the dramatic more than 30 years. short-term and concurrent positions, free- conversion of full-time, tenure-stream lance work, and a lot of moving around. academic positions into part-time, non- Do the emerging practices of digital humanities tenurable, no-benefit positions. Institutions trigger hopes for more jobs? Have your opinions evolved since you first can exploit teachers when there are no I wish I could provide a Horace Greeley took on this issue in the late 1990s? regulations and so many graduates willing to moment: “Go into the digital humanities, Yes, my concerns are less self-interested now. work under those conditions. Since those young scholar.” But I do think the digital I am no l onger reflecting on my own job practices are not likely to change out of good humanities offers new possibilities for intel- search. Mainly, I care about what happens to will towards academic workers, I focus my lectual collaboration and dissemination of my students at Hope College. I also identify, efforts on the supply side of the problem. If work. It allows us to visualize data in new sympathetically, with what’s happening to we could reduce the number o f PhDs on the ways, and to see patterns that were previously graduate students and all those faculty market — and expand their career options — obscured in the mass of archival information. members who do not have reliable academic we might see some improvement in the And there are some good positions emerging positions. And, of course, I also care about

Harvard University 8 GSAS alumni notes continued from page 7 the future of higher education, particularly in students’ labor, harvest their tuition payments, the humanities. Contingent labor is a symptom and s end them into a marketplace that has Music of a much larger problem; namely, as Martha no room for them. We need to re-envision Composer Faye-Ellen Silverman, AM ’71, music Nussbaum [PhD ’75] has argued, the United satisfying and productive career paths for composition, has recorded a CD titled Transatlantic States has become so focused on profits — people with the humanistic values and intel- Tales with guitarist Volkmar Zimmermann. All the and education has become so expensive — lectual capacities that led them into graduate works feature guitar, ranging from solo to guitar that few people can afford to study anything programs in the first place. Our current quartet to works for voice with guitar. Silverman without direct, practical applications, unless system is a tragic waste of resources; it has earned her DMA from Columbia in 1974 and they are already financially secure. been that way for generations now, and it has been a member of faculty at The New School There are some points of light — including must change. since 1991. Harvard, I am sure — but nearly all trends point in the other direction: funding cutbacks, Let’s talk about the rewards of a scholarly life. Near Eastern Languages and program consolidation, for-profit education, Why were you drawn to this life? Civilizations and declining support for the liberal arts Because I like doing research. I enjoy literary Carrie E. Duncan, AM ’04, was awarded the (largely caused by fears about employment). studies, particularly 19th-century American 2011 CharlotteW.Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation It doesn’t help that we are living through literary culture in an interdisciplinary context. Fellowship. The Newcombe Fellowship is the another era of politically motivated hostility I often like teaching — though I mostly nation’s most prestigious such award for PhD towards higher education. I wish I could say teach out of my field — and I like working candidates in the humanities and social sciences that things will get better, but, for most with students. addressing questions of ethical and religious values. graduate students, the best advice seems to I was drawn to this life because Duncan is now a doctoral candidate in religious be to make alternate plans for the future. But I believed that I could continue the experi- studies at the University of North Carolina-Chapel I know that’s hard to do when just being ences I enjoyed as an undergraduate and Hill. Her dissertation explores representations of a successful graduate student requires every make a living at it . I got lucky, and I do not women in Jewish inscriptions from Late Antiquity. bit of energy you can muster. believe for one second that I have a tenured position because I was more qualified than Regional Studies–East Asia The Graduate School has amplified career most of the PhDs of my generation who did After spending more than two years as a staff services for students on nonacademic tracks not. Increasingly, I see my role as creating member at the House Committee on Foreign and offered transition workgroups for students a context in which students — and faculty Affairs, handling Asia-Pacific policy considerations considering the switch. What else should univer- members — can cultivate their scholarly for Democratic Chairman Howard Berman, Jessica sities be doing to assist graduate students? passions and find a way to make a living at Lee, AM ’08, is now foreign policy adviser to Harvard’s Office of Career Services provided that. One way I try to do that is by directing Congressman Jim McDermott (D-WA). Lee was a refuge for students like me who were the Andrew W. Mellon Scholars Program in recently selected as a 2011 Spring Fellow at the wondering what they were going to do with the Arts and Humanities at Hope College. Partnership for a Secure America, a think tank that their degrees. I am glad to know those efforts It’s designed to integrate traditional research promotes bipartisan n ational security solutions. She are expanding. Most of all, I would support methods with digital technologies and is participating in the Young Turkey/Young America creating alt-ac or non-ac internships, prefer- to encourage students to explore career program, sponsored by the Atlantic Council and ably paid ones, to allow graduate students to directions that may not lead directly to Sabanci University, with emerging leaders from two get relevant experience and build networks graduate school. countries. that might lead to job offers. I also hope that seeking alternate career paths is less stigma- What about your own scholarly interests? tized now than it was a decade ago. I am considering writing a book on student- Submit Alumni Notes to: Colloquy, Harvard University At the same time, I think individual faculty collaborative research based on my Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Holyoke Center programs need to provide more detailed recent experiences with the Mellon Scholars 350, 1350 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138- information about job placement after Program. I want to find ways to integrate the 3846; or gsaa@fas. harvard.edu. Alumni Notes are subject graduation, not just the success stories, tradi- liberal arts with digital technology and to to editing for length and clarity. tionally understood as tenure-track positions cultivate students who are prepared to at major research universities. They should explore options besides graduate school, or also inform prospective students about to at least select graduate programs with an acceptance rates, time to degree, attrition eye toward their applicability for a range of rates, and funding. If they do that, my hope options besides college teaching. is that competitive pres sure for the best I have an ongoing interest in the students will bring significant reforms. relationship between literature and place, and I hope I’ll find time in the next five years If we were to see a substantial decline in PhDs, to complete a project on Whitman and what would that mean for our country and its Philadelphia and Camden (my two home- research landscape? towns) that integrates literary history with I do not think that most PhD programs in the geographic information systems — if provi- humanities effectively use the talents and dence grants me, as Melville says, “time, energies of the students who populate them. strength, cash, and patience.” On the contrary, I think they tend to use their

Colloquy 9 Spring 2011 ACROSSSECTION THE TITLE DISCIPLINES

Fertile Ground Increasingly, humanists are turning to cognitive and neuroscientists — and vice versa — to gain new insights into perception and experience By Janelle Weaver The Art of Seeing

If you’ve ever seen Claude Monet’s Impression, which normally helps us pinpoint items, the sun Having taken personal inspiration from art for decades, Margaret Livingstone, Sunrise, an 1873 painting of a misty harbor at appears to move around, and the wo rk of art a professor of neurobiology at Harvard Medical School who works with PhD dawn, you may have noticed that the red-orange comes to life. students in neuroscience, regularly includes art slides in her presentations to illustrate sun glowing in the sky seems to pulsate amidst This technique, called equiluminance, has how vision works. Early on, Livingstone didn’t know much the surrounding gray clouds. This jittery effect is frequently been used by Impressionists and about art history, so she decided to brush up on the topic. While reading an art book in not just a trick of the imagination; it’s actually pointillists to make their paintings sparkle. her office in 2000, she came across a picture of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and a neuroscientifically measurable byproduct of But working artists are not alone in their pondered a question that has teased admirers of this masterpiece for centuries: Why is the disconnected nature of visual processing in explorations of how our brains shape our Mona Lisa’s smile so elusive? “I looked at it as if I had never seen it before and noticed the brain. perceptions. Scholars from fields as seemingly that the effect had something to do with where I was looking,” Livingstone says. While brain regions that respond to color disparate as art and neuroscience, or When she stared at Mona Lisa’s mouth, its outline was sharp and clear, but when detect the boundary between Monet’s sun and psychology and literature, are increasingly she gazed at the background, the lips appeared blurry. clouds, other parts of the brain that process recognizing how their knowledge can mutually As she was riding her bicycle one crisp fall day, she was struck by an idea: Perhaps light intensity do not, because these shapes enlighten one another, and they are acting on the smile’s ambiguity is caused by differences in spatial acuity between the center of gaze reflect the same amount of light. In a black-and- the need to break down longstanding barriers and the per ipheral visual field. To simulate what the smile would look like to central and white version of the piece, the sun would vanish. between the humanities on one end, and peripheral vision, Livingstone filtered the image to exaggerate either coarse shapes or Because of the lack of luminance information, cognitive science on the other. fine features, such as lines and edges. She

Colloquy 11 Spring 2011 ACROSS THE DISCIPLINES

Professor of neurobiology Margaret Livingstone pursues an active side interest in using “what we know about vision to understand some of the discoveries artists have made about how we see.” Harvard News Office

found that the blurry mouth seems more suggesting that he had trouble perceiving established artists are more likely to have cheerful than the sharp one, and so the depth. This casual observation stimulated an deviating eyes than the general population. strength of Mona Lisa’s smile depends on experimentally testable question: Is poor Artists often close one eye to more easily where the viewer looks. depth perception linked to artistic ability? portray three-dimensional scenes on flat A few years after logging this discovery, “Some artists are so talented that you have to surfaces using pictorial depth cues, such as Livingstone traveled to Paris to find out consider the possibility that there’s some- perspective, occlusion, and shading. “If whether equiluminance could explain the thing about their brain that makes them somebody already sees the world as slightly shimmering quality of the sun in Impression, better at art,” she explains. flatter, they have a built-in advantage when Sunrise. During a trip to the Louvre Upon returning to the US, Livingstone they’re kids that might make them tend Museum, she entered a room full of piled dozens of Rembrandt self-portraits on toward wanting to become an artist from the Rembrandt self-portraits and noticed that her desk and measured his eye alignment, get-go,” Livingstone says. the painter’s eyes did not align properly, confirming her hunch. She later found that

Left Brain, Meet facts about how the mind works, you can begin to understand why some pieces of art, Right Brain music, and literature are more successful than others,” Kosslyn says. “I don’t think Inspired by conversations with colleagues there’s going to be any shortage of possible in Cambridge, Stephen Kosslyn, Harvard’s connections between various aspects of Harvard News Office former dean of social science and John the humanities and cognitive science and Lindsley Professor of Psychology — and an neuroscience.” expert on mental imagery — has organized Forging these connections has become a two-week summer workshop exp loring easier in recent years, says Anne Harrington, intersections between the humanities and who is a co-director of the summer work- cognitive sciences at Stanford University’s shop at Stanford and a professor of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral history of science at Harvard. “Neuroscience Sciences (CASBS). Advanced graduate students and the cognitive sciences have themselves Professor of the history of science Anne Harrington and young investigators were admitted from become more expansive and interested in has long been interested in mind-body interactions, a variety of humanistic fields, from film studies things that speak to intrinsic concerns of the particularly focused on clinical treatments and to philosophy, to explore fundamental prin- humanities,” she says. “That makes the outcomes. ciples of cognitive science and neuroscience perceived potential for dialogue much more and relate them to work in the humanities. attractive and potentially much more academy can’t be as robust and can’t “The ultimate goal is to enrich both the constructive for a lot of people than it might flourish if we set up these silos in which humanities and the sciences,” says Kosslyn, have felt a generation or two ago.” we burrow down and do our own work who now directs CASBS. Dialogue between areas of study — without asking about what our colleagues Participants will survey a range of engaging topics like information processing, in the next building might know about the topics, from perception and imagery to memory, aesthetics, emotions, the uncon- same phenomenon,” she says. “The most motivation and morality, and focus on scious, and ethics — is essential for a strong important thing going forward has to be to such interdisciplinary questions as why university, adds Harrington, whose most try to create a community in which the audiences empathize with certain movie recent book is The Cure Within: A History genuinely important insights and methods characters and how different types of music of Mind-Body Medicine. “In the end we’re of people in both camps can be understood elicit distinct emotions. “If you know basic one academy, and over the long term the and respected.”

Harvard University 12 GSAS Many Minds Together

The Literary Brain literature tells you a lot about people — how Harvard’s Mind/Brain/Behavior they behave, what they’re made of, and how Interfaculty Initiative (MBB) has B y describing the way dappled light streams to think about them.” brought together faculty and students through a window and falls onto a chair, or People read fiction because they enjoy from many disciplines since 1993, the way a man and a woman circle around thinking about the intentions of others, says when then-President Neil Rudenstine one another on a dance floor, writers can Anna Henchman, PhD ’04, an assistant called for programs that would unite evoke mental images that are almost as vivid professor of English at Boston University scholars in the brain and mind sciences as objects we see in front of us, creating rich who is one of the directors of the seminar. across Harvard’s schools. Co-directed sensory worlds out of nothing but black “We can learn a lot about our mental by Alfonso Caramazza, a professor marks on a page. abilities from studying texts, which are much of psychology at FAS, and Albert As literary theorists are coming to more complex than a lot of psychological Galaburda, a professor of neurology appreciate, the effectiveness of these writerly experiments.” at Harvard Medical School, theBB M techniques can be explored not only through To understand these elaborate psycho- provides courses, seminars, lectures, the narrative itself, but through experimental logical scenarios, more literary scholars are and research awards and builds research in fields such as psychology. “A lot turning to cognitive theory, including community for undergraduate and of great thinking about the mind goes Henchman herself. For her new book, she graduate students, postdoctoral on across the University, within different is applying what she has learned in the fellows, and faculty who are examining disciplines,” says Elaine Scarry, the Walter seminar about theory of mind — the ability the nature of the mind using a variety M. Cabot Professor of Aesthetics and General to attribute knowledge, intentions, and feelings of approaches, such as behavioral Theory of Value, who considered questions to others — to crawl into the heads of tiny testing, electrophysiology, computer of how literature produces rich interior creatures, such as worms and ants, as they modeling, biochemical techniques, imagery in her 1999 work, Dreaming by burrow into the ground or walk along a blade genetics, neuroimaging, and philosophy. the Book. “There’s more and more good of grass. “There’s not one objective perceptual The MBB has long offered track will toward the idea of working across world that we as humans have access to,” she programs and s econdary fields to disciplines” — taking research and new says. “We all have certain perceptual organs undergraduates, but starting this fall, modes of thinking out of the silos that limit and certain things that we try to pay attention a secondary field in MBB will be their impact. to in the world, and the world is constructed offered to graduate students, who To encourage interaction among by those perceptual organs.” “oftentimes provide the connective humanists and scientists, Scarry cofounded At the same time, neuroscientists are tissue between faculty members in the monthly Seminar in Cognitive Theory asking questions that pertain to literary different departments,” Galaburda says. and the Arts in 2000, with Alan Richardson, studies. For example, seminar participant PhD students in the core MBB PhD ’85, a professor of English at Boston Joshua Greene, an assistant professor of disciplines will be able to follow a College who publ ished The Neural Sublime: psychology, has used neuroimaging to specialized secondary field, while a Cognitive Theories and Romantic Texts examine the influence of emotions and general track will be offered to other in 2010. The seminar, held at Harvard’s reasoning on moral judgments, and Daniel graduate students. A steering com- Mahindra Humanities Center, is still going Schacter, the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor mittee composed of eight graduate strong, attracting faculty and graduate of Psychology, has used the same method to students has led to alliances with students from neuroscience, literature, music, investigate the relationship between remem- related graduate-student groups, such philosophy, and art history. bering the past and imagining the future. as the Student Association for Law Joshua Rothman, a PhD student in the “Moral conundrums are constantly and Mind Sciences at Harvard Law English Department, is a regular attendee explored in the arena of fiction, and acts of School, in addition to symposia and who gave a talk last fall about 19th- and prediction and forecasting are at the center a seminar series that have explored 20th-century novelists’ descript ions of the of what a reader does in moving through topics including the history of violence, varying timescales of conscious experiences, a narrative,” Henchman says. “By the end of moral cognition and the law, the from a single day to a lifetime. “Novel writ- the story, there are all these possibilities usefulness of emotion for computer ing was the real psychology before there was and shadow plots that have already been science, and complex decision making experimental psychology,” he says. “Reading imagined by the reader.” and the brain.

Colloquy 13 Spring 2011 RECENTLY RECEIVED

alumni books

Violence Taking Place stresses that discussions of creativity are broadly Southern intellectuals took toward their (Stanford University Press, applicable outside the rarified world of the culture-building endeavor. During wartime, 2010) explores the Mozarts, Einsteins, and Van Goghs among us. partisanship too often trumps all, and wartime destruction of architec- We all can nurture and draw on creativity every literature is often short-lived. The lasting ture in the Kosovo day, she argues, and her book includes a variety writings from this conflict (e.g., Crane’s Red War (1998−99). Author of exercises to help do just that. Badge of Courage, Bierce’s short stories) came Andrew Herscher (PhD much later, a phenomenon hardly unique to the ’02, urban planning) first A child of Indian immi- Civil War. Yet ultimately the South achieved surveyed the wartime grants, Natasha Warikoo literary greatness, from William Faulkner to damage to Kosovo’s (EdM ’97, PhD ’05, sociol- Toni Morrison — a story that could have been architectural heritage for the International ogy) has a deep interest elaborated in the book’s conclusion. Criminal Tribunal. This book broadens the in the process of assimila- story, looking back to socialist urban renewal tion. In Balancing Acts After Evil (Columbia efforts beginning in the late 1940s, which razed (University of California University Press, 2011) Ottoman-era bazaars to erect modernist Press, 2011), she studies critiques U.S.-dominated government buildings and apartment blocks. young second-generation human rights discourse During the 1980s, rising tensions between immigrants in New York since the end of the Cold Kosovo’s ethnic Serbs (Orthodox) and and London, looking parti cularly at the impact of War. Robert Meister Albanians (Muslim) led to vandalism of mosques rap or hip hop culture on their academic (PhD ’76, government) and Orthodox churches. Herscher notes ironies success. Efforts to address the superficial contrasts p ost−Cold War in the representation of destructive acts — markers of that cultural influence — to ban low- human rights thinking Serbian actions were viewed as ethnic cleansing slung pants, for instance — are wrong-headed, with the 1789 Declaration and genocide; UN and NATO bombings, in she argues. In a conclusion that should reassure of the Rights of Man. The Declaration, he humanitarian terms; and postwar destructfion o parents and grandparents (who once likely argues, recognized the reality of victims and Orthodox churches by Muslim Kosovars was embraced musical/cultural styles that perturbed perpetrators and the need for justice, including largely ignored. their elders), as well as the educators and policy- redistributive justice. Human rights actions makers she see ks to reach, Warikoo sees this in recent years have aimed at halting immediate Your Creative Brain: Seven Steps to youth culture identification as being peer-driven violence, without addressing underlying Maximize Imagination, Productivity, and (striving to fit in with peers) rather than or preceding social injustices. Thus South Innovation in Your Life (Jossey-Bass, 2010) oppositional — and not intrinsically opposed to Africa’s post-apartheid Truth a nd Reconciliation is more than a typical academic engagement. Commission sought resolution through self-help book. And its emotional catharsis, not redress involving focus is far broader than In Confederate Minds (white) haves and (black) have-nots. Among the title suggests. Shelley (University of North many examples, Meister’s densely argued Carson (PhD ’01, psy- Carolina Press, 2010), narrative addresses the reunification of North chology) surveys research Michael Bernath (PhD and South after the Civil War, the 1994 Rwandan on the brain to plumb the ’05, history) recounts genocide, and — as its defining example — the physiological sources of the Civil War effort Final Solution. creativity and provide an to create a distinctly acce ssible introduction to synapses and neuro- Southern literary culture. transmitters, brain-wave studies, imaging This undertaking failed on research that has identified functional regions of several grounds. Southern the brain, and 1960s-era studies of patients defeat insured its political end; lack of literary whose brain hemispheres were surgically split talent undermined it in a practical sense. But (to treat severe epileptic seizures). Carson most telling was the programmatic approach

Harvard University 14 GSAS In Impressionist Children political common sense, Thomas Paine’s 1776 Macedonia that his horse has won the Olympics. (Yale University Press, pamphlet of that name. In more recent years, That day Philip also learned that his troops 2010), Greg Thomas she concludes, common sense has had a rocky gained a major victory and that he was father (PhD ’95, fine arts) exam- existence, linked to anti-intellectualism and to a son, Alexander. Philip issued a decree ines how the French simplistic, “kitchen-table” political solutions. honoring “the good news he valued above all Impressionists have colored others . . . the victory of his horse.” Alexander, of our collective vision of In 2008, some commenta- course, eclipsed his father, conquering lands children and childhood. tors pronounced that from the Danube to the Upper Nile to the This lavishly illustrated, large-format volume Barack Obama’s election frontiers of India. draws on the paintings of Renoir, Cassatt, Monet, revealed a new, “post- Manet, Morisot, and others, with topical racial” America. The The World War II–era chapters exploring the ways in which the essays collected in Race destruction of European Impressionists portrayed children and families in the Age of Obama Jewry and the postwar — in pu blic places and private gardens, out- (Emerald, 2010) critique exodus to Israel, the doors and indoors, and as little bourgeois such views. This volume, United States, and else- consumers (evidently providing a ready market as edit ors Donald Cunnigen (PhD ’88, sociol- where have received for dresses, dolls, jewelry, and toys of all sorts). ogy) and Marino Bruce observe, helps clarify the much scholarly attention. The Impressionists, Thomas notes, played a role “contours and complexities” of race — and But Shimon Redlich in making bourgeois family life the Western underscores its continuing relevance. Individual (AM ’64, regional studies, social ideal. Most significant, however, the essays probe Obama’s foreign policy toward USS R) tells a story less Impressionists wrenched themselves free of Africa and initiatives in the area of college familiar — and equally fascinating. Life in past allegorical models (biblical, mythological) to education; three essays focus on the challenges Transit (Academic Studies Press, 2010) capture children as autonomous individuals. Michelle Obama faces as First Lady. Perhaps recounts the brief flowering of a postwar Jewish most memorable are Nadia Kim’s firsthand community in Lodz, Poland. Redlich offers both Common Sense (Harvard account o f her experiences as a volunteer history and memoir, having lived in Lodz as an University Press, 2011) is in Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign and adolescent from 1945−50. With the end of a meticulously researched a sobering discussion by Adam Murphree and hostilities, Jews returned to Lodz and created intellectual history. Its Deirdre Royster on the depths of racial animosity a vibrant array of community organizations, author, Sophia Rosenfeld expressed by contributors to conservative an active political life, a nd a strong presence (PhD ’96, history), recounts Web discussions. in the arts. But endemic Polish anti-Semitism, how the concept of the growth of Zionist organizations and senti- “common sense,” with its Philip Freeman (PhD ments, and the imposition of a Soviet-backed classical roots, emerged ’94, classical philology) regime brought an end to the Lodz Jewish in the seventeenth and envisioned Alexander community. eighteenth centuries as a well-honed political the Great (Simon & tool. Scots and Englishmen from the northern Schuster, 2011) as “first Reviews by James Clyde Sellman, counties were centrally important in giving and foremost a story.” PhD ’93, histor y common sense its bite, making it a parry against And Freeman’s Alexander abstruse university scholasticism and a strategy — tempestuous, hard- for closing the distance between intellectual drinki ng, and “exceedingly Alumni authors: Would you like your book (general philosophy and the general populace. fond of war, horses, interest, published within the past year) considered for Contemporary Holland, a hotbed of radicalism, beautiful women, and handsome young boys” — inclusion? Send it to Colloquy, Harvard Graduate was likewise instrumental in spreading the leaps off the page and across the centuries. School of Arts and Sciences, Holyoke Center 350, notion. And Rosenfeld explores the influence Freeman opens with a cinematic anecdote: 1350 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138. of the best-known, most enduring call for a messenger breathlessly riding to tell Philip of Question? E-mail [email protected].

Colloquy 15 Spring 2011 NEWSSECTION AND TITLE NOTES

HARVARD HONORS FOR HARVARD’S OWN Two alumni of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences were among the nine people awarded honorary degrees by Harvard University at its 360th Commencement, on May 26. Nobel Prize–winning chemist Dudley Herschbach, PhD ’58, chemical physics, the Frank B. Baird Jr. Harvard News Office professor of science emeritus, who has been a member of the faculty since 1963, was praised not only for his own scientific achievement, but also for his warmth and his dedication t o advancing the scientific enterprise at all levels. He was awarded a Phi Beta Kappa teaching prize during the honor society’s annual Literary Exercises in Sanders Theatre on May 24. Historian and theorist of 20th-century art Rosalind Krauss, PhD ’69, Dudley Herschbach, PhD ’58; Rosalind Krauss, PhD ’69 fine arts, a University Professor at Columbia, was honored for helping to define the post-structuralist mode of art criticism in writings on artists from Picasso to Pollock, as well as in her work on minimalism, surrealism, and the development of photography.

WORKING FOR THE PUBLIC GOOD Three GSAS students were among the first cohort of winners of Harvard’s new Presidential Public Service Fellowships, established last year by President Drew Faust. Ten students won grants of up to $5,000 for undergraduates and $10,000 for graduate students, out of more then 100 who applied. The inaugural class of fellows includes Evelyn Boettcher, an AM candidate in regional stu dies–East Asia who hopes to expand her efforts to build a strong US-China bilateral relationship. Harvard News Office She will serve in the US military’s China Strategic Focus Group at US Pacific Command (PACOM) in Hawaii, working on the development of foreign policy as it relates to China, and the groundwork she’s laid has opened the door to other Harvard students interning at PACOM. The cohort also includes John Huls ey, a writer, artist, and filmmaker pursuing a PhD in film and visual studies. This summer, he will work with Boston community organizations City Life/Vida Urbana, the Bank Tenants Association, and others to build a media production group that will generate performances, projections, and public actions to speak about the experience of people facing foreclosure. The final GSAS fellow for 2011 is Tsione Wolde-Michael, a PhD candidate in history, AM candidate Evelyn Boettcher with a secondary field in African and African American studies, whose research interests include the intersections of gender and race, particularly as they relate to comparative nineteenth-century slavery. She will take a curatorial internship at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC, contributing to exhibitions th at will connect her interest in public history to her commitment to community engagement.

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Harvard University 16 GSAS HARVARD IS... the opportunity to follow your research wherever it takes you I CHOOSE HARVARD...

Hartley R. Rogers ’81, MBA ’85

“Harvard has a broad impact on the world, and I wanted to help advance its world-class research,” says Hartley R. Rogers, who, along with his wife, Amy C. Falls, funded the Hartley R. Rogers Dissertation Completion Fellowship, an endowment administered by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in direct partnership with the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.

The most recent recipient is PhD student Janet Lewis, who researches insurgency and counterinsurgency in Africa.

“Africa is the last great emerging market, with potential for eco- nomic growth and development that could go a long way in alleviating human suffering,” says Rogers, who has been immersed in global business ventures since 1981 and travels to Asia fre- quently as chair of Hamilton Lane, a private equity fi rm located in Pennsylvania.

“I know there is an acute need to help graduate students, and I’m Janet Lewis, a PhD candidate in government, interviews delighted that my gift helps international development,” says civilians in eastern Uganda about their experiences living Rogers. He gives for personal reasons, too, which include his time near rebel militia groups. Lewis is exploring why some at and his studies as a concentrator in geology. Whether people become powerful insurgents in Africa and others do it’s the memory of running An Evening with Champions, a Jimmy not. “Once they become major threats, it’s much more Fund benefi t, or working alongside professors Stephen Jay Gould diffi cult to stop them and the humanitarian costs that typi- and John A. Wood, remembering his time at Harvard inspires cally accompany them,” says Lewis, who is a recipient of Rogers to give. the Hartley R. Rogers Dissertation Completion Fellowship. To read more about Janet’s research, visit alumni.harvard. “Harvard laid the foundation for a wonderful career, tremendous edu/colloquy/harvard-is. friends, and a formative experience like no other,” he says. Choose Harvard today with a gift to the Graduate School Fund. Visit alumni.harvard.edu/colloquy/I-choose-harvard.

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CALL FOR NOMINATIONS PUBLIC SERVICE ON THE MAP The GSAS Centennial Medal GSAS alumni, we invite you to Help GSAS recognize its most distinguished alumni through nomination post your public service for the Centennial Medal. The medal recognizes contributions to society experiences on the Harvard as they have emerged from graduate study at Harvard. Past recipients Alumni Association’s “Public include historian Bernard Bailyn, author Susan Sontag, biologist E. O. Wilson, Service on the Map” website, economist Jeffrey Sachs, and historian and memoirist Jill Ker Conway. which functions as a clearing- To nominate: Submit a letter stating your reasons for selecting the house of volunteer opportuni- candidate, marked for the Centennial Medal Nominations Committee, to ties around the world — [email protected] or GSAS Alumni Association, Holyoke Center 350, as well as a testament to H arvard’s impact. Let other alumni know 1350 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138. about the causes and organizations that are important to you. Visit onthemap.harvard.edu. POINT OF CONNECTION Do you want to connect with Harvard's alumni services? Reconnect with A GLOBAL PASS FOR ACCESS the Gradua te School? Learn about upcoming events, and stay on top of Connect to the 190 Harvard Clubs that exist in more than 70 countries news about GSAS students and alumni? We invite you to make the GSAS around the globe through the HAA’s Global Pass program. Members alumni web portal your central point of connection. Access all the services of participating Global Pass Clubs can attend events held by any of and information you need here: www.gsas.harvard.edu/alumni. the other participating Global Pass Clubs, on a space-available basis, and pay the local member price for that event. Learn more at STAY IN TOUCH www.clubsandsigs.harvard.edu. Join HarvardGSAS on Twitter and Facebook to stay connected with goings-on in Cambridge. You’ll get short updates about career events, research achievements, campus happenings, and issues related to graduate research education at Harvard and across the country.