Newsmakers

‘Cosmic Evolution’ Web site wins two awards

“Cosmic Evolution,” the Web site based on the Harvard Extension School course Astronomy E8: “Cosmic Evolution: The Origins of Matter and Life,” was recently named the recipient of two awards. The site – an interdisciplinary synthesis of astrophysics and biochemistry – won the 2004 Science and Technology Web Award from Scientific American, and a 2004 Digital Dozen Award from the U.S. Department of Education.

View the site at http://www.tufts.edu/as/wright_center/cosmic_evolution.

Buell’s ‘Emerson’ wins PBK book award

“Emerson” (Harvard University Press, 2004) by Powell M. Cabot Professor of American Literature Lawrence Buell has been selected for the 2004 Phi Beta Kappa (PBK) Christian Gauss Award. This award is given annually by PBK for outstanding contributions in the field of literary scholarship or criticism. Books worthy of the award should be of broad interest, “accessible to the general, literate reader,” as well as significant works of scholarship.

The award will be presented at the PBK Senate dinner in Washington, D.C., on Friday (Dec. 3).

HBS professors receive symposium paper award

Assistant professor in the finance unit a Harvard Business School (HBS) Daniel Bergstresser, and Mihir Desai, associate professor in the School’s finance and entrepreneurial management areas, along with Joshua Rauh of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, recently received the Barclays Global Investors Best Symposium Paper Award at the European Finance Association 2004 annual meeting. Their research, titled “Earnings Manipulation, Pension Assumptions and Managerial Investment Decisions,” was published as part of the National Bureau of Economic Research working paper series.

Sandel to speak at European Intellectual Summit

Michael J. Sandel, the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government, has been invited to speak at the European Intellectual Summit, an international gathering of thinkers, writers, and political leaders to be held in December in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende – the current president of the Council of Europe – is convening the summit to discuss the challenges of democracy and the meaning of citizenship as the European Union prepares for its historic expansion.

Four MGH physicians receive award

Four Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) physicians were recently awarded the McGovern Clinical Excellence Award from the Massachusetts General Physicians Organization (MGPO). This year’s award recipients are Associate Professor of Surgery Daniel P. Doody, Associate Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Biology Annekathryn Goodman, and assistant professors of medicine Hasan Bazari and John Godine. The four were recently honored at the MGPO’s 10th anniversary celebration.

Named in honor of Brian McGovern, a cardiac arrhythmia expert at MGH who was tragically killed in 2003, the award recognizes physicians who “make compassion the foundation of their practice” and “go above and beyond the call of duty.”

Stager delivers Schweich Lectures

Lawrence Stager, the Dorot Professor of the Archaeology of Israel, delivered the Schweich Lectures on Biblical Archaeology this October at the British Academy in London, the first American to do so since the lecture series began in 1908. The three lectures, titled “Ashkelon, Seaport of the Canaanites and the Philistines,” were based on findings from the Leon Levy Expedition at Ashkelon, which Stager has directed since 1985.

– Compiled by Andrew Brooks