Newsmakers

Disaster management expert elected to IOM

Visiting scientist Frederick “Skip” Burkle, a senior fellow at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI), was recently elected to the Institute of Medicine (IOM). As a member of the institute, Burkle will devote a significant amount of volunteer time on IOM committees, which engage in a broad range of health policy issues.

Burkle is a professor at the University of Hawaii School of Medicine, where he directs the Asia-Pacific Center for Biosecurity, Disaster and Conflict Research. A former deputy assistant administrator for the Bureau of Global Health at the U.S. Agency for International Development, he has authored four books on disaster management and is a member of the board of directors of the International Rescue Committee. Burkle is a retired Navy Reserve captain, and served in Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, and Somalia.

Shorenstein Center to present Theodore White lecture, seminar

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd will deliver the Theodore H. White Lecture on Press and Politics Thursday (Oct. 25) at 6 p.m. in the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum at the Kennedy School of Government. The following morning (Oct. 26), the Theodore H. White Seminar — titled “The Invisible Primary” — will be held in the Malkin Penthouse (fourth floor of the Littauer Building) from 9 to 10:30 a.m.

The morning panel discussion will feature Charles Cook of the Cook Political Report; Tom Fiedler, former editor-in-chief of the Miami Herald; Mark Halperin of Time magazine; Kennedy School of Government (KSG) lecturer Steve Jarding; Wellesley College Professor Marion Just; Dana Priest of The Washington Post; and Jeff Zeleny of The New York Times. Thomas Patterson, Bradlee Professor of Government and the Press at KSG, will serve as moderator.

The lecture and seminar are sponsored by the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy.

Benz appointed to UNC Cancer Research Fund

Richard and Susan Smith Professor of Medicine Edward Benz Jr. has been appointed to the governance committee of the University Cancer Research Fund at the University of North Carolina (UNC). The president and CEO of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and a professor of pediatrics and pathology, Benz was recently appointed to the committee with John Mendelsohn, president of the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

The fund was created this year by the North Carolina General Assembly. Its goal is to accelerate cancer research at UNC’s School of Medicine, Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, and the North Carolina Cancer Hospital, now under construction. The fund will increase to $50 million per year beginning in 2009.

Benz and Mendelsohn will be charged with setting research funding priorities that advance understanding of the causes and course of cancer.