Newsmakers

Harvard faculty to shine at ‘Literary Lights’

The Associates of the Boston Pubic Library will honor three Harvard faculty members at the 14th annual “Literary Lights” dinner on Sunday, April 14, at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel. Leila Ahmed, professor of women’s studies in religion at Harvard Divinity School, Bernard Bailyn, Adams University Professor Emeritus and James Duncan Philips Professor of Early American History Emeritus, and Harvey Cox, Victor S. Thomas Professor of Divinity, will join eight other distinguished New England authors who are being honored. “Literary Lights” celebrates the wealth of literary talent in New England, while heightening the awareness of the cultural resources of Boston Public Library. Former Charles Eliot Norton Professor Harold Bloom will give the keynote address.

Freshman scores composition award

The National Association for Music Education (MENC) has selected Harvard freshman Miriam Lense as one of 24 winners of its student composition contest. Her winning string quartet composition, titled “Introspection,” will be performed at MENC’s 58th National Biennial In-Service Conference this month in Nashville, Tenn.

APS honors Gabrielse

Professor of physics Gerald Gabrielse has received the 2002 Davisson-Germer Prize in Atomic or Surface Physics from the American Physical Society (APS). Gabrielse was nominated for the prize, which includes $5,000, for his “pioneering work in trapping, cooling, and precision measurements of the properties of matter and antimatter in ion traps.”

Coles, Southern win National Humanities Medal

James Agee Professor of Social Ethics Robert Coles, and Eileen Southern, professor of Afro-American Studies and of Music Emerita, have been named recipients of the 2001 National Humanities Medal. President Bush and first lady Laura Bush will present the medal to Coles, Southern, and six other recipients at a special ceremony at the White House on April 22.

– Compiled by Andrew Brooks