Newsmakers

Two receive Killam Fellowship Awards

The Killam Fellowships Program, an undergraduate scholarship and exchange program between Canada and the United States, recently granted Nassira Nicola ’04 and Christopher Doucette ’06 fellowship awards to study in Canada during the 2004-05 academic year. Both the students will be studying in Montreal: Nicola at the Université de Montréal, and Doucette at McGill University.

Humanities Center awards dissertation fellowships

The Humanities Center at Harvard has named graduate students Colin Milburn and Linzy Brekke recipients of its interdisciplinary dissertation completion fellowships for 2004-05. Milburn (Department of History of Science) received the fellowship for “Monstology,” while Brekke (Department of History) was recognized for “Fashioning America: Consumption, Clothing and the Politics of Appearance, 1783-1838.”

Center for Jewish Studies names prize recipients

Harvard’s Center for Jewish Studies has named Elinathan Ohiomoba ’06 as the winner of this year’s Norman Podhoretz Prize for her short story “A Change Is Going to Come.” The award is given to the best essay, feature article, or short story on a Jewish theme. Sponsored by the Ernest H. Weiner Fund at the American Jewish Committee, the prize is named for the longtime editor of Commentary magazine.

The center also named Liora Halperin ’05 as the first-place recipient for this year’s Selma and Lewis Weinstein Prize competition for her essay “Is It Really Fate?: The Women’s Question on the Kibbutz in the Midst of the 1936 Arab Revolt.” Lewis H. Weinstein A.B. ’27, LL.B. ’30 established the prize, which is given to the best essays in Jewish studies submitted by Harvard College students.

Junior to present original choreography at Kennedy Center

Junior Rebecca Alaly was recently selected to be part of 12 (out of 50) to advance to the state level of the American Dance Festival. Her piece – “Inside the Gingerbread House” – was one of the three selected to move on to the National American Dance Festival. Alaly will compete in her work along with Harvard students Adrienne Minster ’04 and Christina Shelby ’04 June 1-3 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

“Out of the 50 pieces shown in our region, many were choreographed by dance majors and graduate students as well as faculty and guest artists. Rebecca is the only undergraduate student choreographer chosen to go to nationals from our region. This is a great honor for Harvard and for Rebecca,” said Elizabeth Bergmann, director of the Harvard Dance Program.

Charles Willie speaks at South African conference

Charles V. Willie, the Charles William Eliot Professor of Education Emeritus, recently returned from South Africa where he delivered the keynote address at an international conference celebrating the 10th anniversary of South Africa as a democracy, and the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision.

Willie’s address at the conference, which was organized by the University of Pretoria, was titled “Brown v. Board of Education: The Restoration of Equity in Public Education.” Following the conference, Willie was in residence for a week as a consultant to the university’s faculty of education.

Sandel to give inaugural Commonwealth Humanities Lecture

Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government Michael J. Sandel will give the inaugural Commonwealth Humanities Lecture at the National Heritage Museum in Lexington on June 10. The lecture – presented by the Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth and the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities – is titled “Are We Still a Commonwealth? Markets, Morals, and Civic Life.”

The 7:30 p.m. lecture is free and open to the public, and will be followed by a reception.

Germanic Languages names 2003-04 awardees

The Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures has recently announced its award recipients for the 2003-04 academic year.

This year’s Bernhard Blume Prize for Graduate Study in the First Three Terms has been awarded to Gundela Hachmann and Christina Svendsen; the Bernhard Blume Prize for the Best Honors Thesis on a German Subject goes to Sonja Totten-Harris ’04; the Esther Sellholm Walz Prize for the Best Graduate Student Paper has been awarded to Brigitta Wagner; the Jack M. Stein Teaching Fellow Prize in German goes to graduate student Andrea Deeker; and the Elizabeth Wilder Prize for a Freshman in German A has been awarded to Annie Kathleen Smith.

APS elects 4 faculty members

The American Philosophical Society (APS) recently elected four Harvard faculty members among its most recent class of inductees. In biological sciences, APS elected Barry R. Bloom, dean of the Harvard School of Public Health; in social sciences, Drew Gilpin Faust, dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and Christopher Jencks, Malcolm Wiener Professor of Social Policy at the Kennedy School of Government; and in the arts, professions, leaders in public and private affairs category, Professor of Medicine and Health Care Policy Samuel O. Thier.

– Compiled by Andrew Brooks