Newsmakers

Sailing captures coed championship

A day after retaining its team race national championship, Harvard sailing captured the Coed Dinghy North American Championship this past Tuesday (June 10) at Bayview Yacht Club in Grosse Point, Mich. The Crimson sailors dominated both A and B Divisions to defeat a field of 18 schools. Harvard finished with 165 points, 69 less than runner-up University of Hawaii.

The victory marks the Crimson’s first national coed championship in 29 years and the program’s fifth overall.

Widener renovation team is recognized

The Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS) has awarded the Widener Library Renovation team, which includes the Harvard College Library, the Physical Resource Office of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, contractor Lee Kennedy Company Inc., and Einhorn Yaffee Prescott Architecture & Engineering P.C., with its 3rd annual Collaboration Award. The award is given to a renovation team that demonstrates exemplary collaborative effort throughout a construction project.

Scheduled to be completed in spring 2004, the multimillion-dollar renovation seeks to ensure the long-term preservation and security of the collections at Widener by upgrading all building and safety systems.

Oarsmen sink Yale to stay perfect

Harvard’s heavyweight crew closed out a perfect 2003 campaign with an impressive win over Yale in the 138th rowing of the Harvard-Yale Regatta on June 7 in New London, Conn. The national champion Crimson blasted through the four-mile course in 18:54.4 – the fourth-fastest upstream time ever recorded on the Thames River – besting the Elis by nearly 50 seconds. The margin of victory was the largest between the two schools in 92 years. Harvard, which now leads the series, 85-53, also captured the second varsity and freshman contests to earn its third consecutive race-day sweep.

Fuerstman selected to meet laureates in Germany

Harvard graduate student Michael Fuerstman has been selected by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) as one of 18 outstanding research participants to attend the 53rd international convention of Nobel laureates in Lindau, Germany. From June 30 to July 4, Fuerstman, who is studying chemistry and chemical biology, will partake in activities with Nobel laureates relating to biology and medicine.

Since 1951, Nobel laureates in chemistry, physics, and physiology/medicine have annually convened in Lindau to have open and informal meetings with students and young researchers from around the world.

Zhou named Runyon Cancer Research Fellow

The Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation has named Qiao (Joe) Zhou as one of its 14 postdoctoral fellowship recipients. Fellowships are given to outstanding young scientists conducting theoretical and experimental research that is relevant to the study of cancer. Zhou, whose research deals with the development of “novel genetic screen technique in zebrafish for pancreatic research,” will receive three years of financial support.

Princeton awards Summers honorary degree

President Lawrence H. Summers joined four other distinguished individuals to receive honorary degrees from Princeton University at its 256th commencement ceremony on June 3. Princeton President Shirley M. Tilghman conferred upon Summers an honorary doctor of laws.

About Summers, the official citation said: “As a public servant, most notably as secretary of the treasury, he was a steward of our nation’s economic well-being. … Whether as steward of our financial or of our intellectual resources, he is ever guided by the pursuit of excellence.”

– Compiled by Andrew Brooks