Newsmakers

Farrar to take helm of Harvard water polo

Longtime collegiate water polo coach Erik Farrar will take the reins of Harvard’s men’s and women’s programs, it was announced earlier this month. Farrar, who has spent more than 20 seasons in the collegiate coaching ranks, has registered a longstanding record of success as a head coach, most notably at Brown, where he oversaw the men’s program from 1994 to 1998 and the women’s team from 1985 to 1987, and again from 1993 to 1997.

At Brown, Farrar lead the men to three national top-20 finishes, and helped the women capture consecutive Collegiate Water Polo Association Northern Division titles in 1995 and 1996, when the Bears finished the season ranked No. 12 and No. 11 in the nation, respectively. He was also named women’s coach of the year from 1994 to 1996.

HART soars high and weightless

Seven Harvard students participated in NASA’s Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program from July 21 to 31 in Houston. The Harvard Aerospace Research Team, or HART, tested emergency CPR procedures aboard a plane designed to simulate a microgravity environment. The team of students included Carl Desir ’05, Mario Garcia ’04, Diana Hudak ’06, Rishi Jajoo ’07, Jennifer Joseph ’04, Patrick Lenehan ’05, and Tina Tanhehco ’05,

This summer marked the second year that Harvard students have been represented at the NASA program.

Zhu receives research fellowship

Feilin Alicia Zhu ’06 was recently selected to receive a 2004 Solvay Pharmaceutical Student Research Fellowship. Administered by the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America, the fellowships are awarded to undergraduate, graduate, or medical students who will perform full-time mentored research on inflammatory bowel disease.

Zhu, one of 15 students nationally selected to receive the fellowship this year, will study the effect of B cell subsets proliferation and activation of intestinal T cell subsets. Her research will be conducted in the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles.

KSG names Rosenzweig director of CID

Mohamed Kamal Professor of Public Policy Mark R. Rosenzweig has been named director of the Center for International Development (CID) at Harvard University.

Rosenzweig came to the Kennedy School of Government, where the center is based, in September 2002. Rosenzweig has conducted extensive research on a number of topics in economic development, including investigations of technology adoption and international labor migration. He is currently the co-principal investigator for the New Immigrant Survey, the first national longitudinal survey of immigrants in the United States, and editor of the Journal of Development Economics.

“I’m grateful to Mark for taking on the challenge of further

developing our research and education efforts in this important area,” said President Lawrence H. Summers. “He’s uniquely qualified and well positioned to lead such an effort.”

Sevcenko elected foreign member

Ihor Sevcenko, Dumbarton Oaks Professor of Byzantine History and Literature Emeritus, was elected a foreign member of the class of moral, historical, and philological sciences of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei on July 28.

Herzlinger receives BOD award

Regina E. Herzlinger has been named the 2004 recipient of the Healthcare Financial Management Association’s distinguished Board of Directors Award, which is bestowed on those who make “remarkable contributions to the health-care profession.” Herzlinger is widely recognized for her innovative research in health care, including her early predictions of the unraveling of managed care, and the rise of consumer-driven health care and health-care focused factories, two terms that she coined.

The Nancy R. McPherson Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School (HBS), Herzlinger is the first woman to be tenured and chaired at HBS. Her latest book, “Consumer-Driven Health Care,” lays out a plan for cost-effective care that allows providers to innovate and gives people more control over their health care. Her research has been profiled in industry journals and business publications, such as The Economist and Fortune.

– Compiled by Andrew Brooks