Newsmakers

LIU WINS WENDELL SCHOLARSHIP

Harvard sophomore Elise Liu of Cabot House has been named the 2009 recipient of the Jacob Wendell Scholarship Prize. Liu was honored at the annual Wendell Scholarship dinner Saturday (April 25). The award, established in 1899, is given annually to a Harvard College student, without reference to financial need, in recognition of scholarship and contribution to the College community. By tradition, the prize is given to a member of the sophomore class on the basis of the freshman year record, a piece of written work, and contributions made outside of the classroom.

NYE, WALT, AND RUGGIE RECOGNIZED BY TRIP

The Harvard Kennedy School’s (HKS) Joseph Nye, the Sultan of Oman Professor of International Relations and member of the Belfer Center board of directors, has been named the most influential international relations scholar on U.S. foreign policy in the past 20 years, according to a biannual survey of international relations faculty by the Teaching, Research, and International Policy Project (TRIP). The survey also listed Nye’s HKS and Belfer Center colleagues Stephen Walt, Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Affairs; and Evron and Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of International Affairs John Ruggie both rank among the 20 most influential academics in international relations.

The survey, which is published by the Institute for the Theory and Practice of International Relations at the College of William and Mary, is based on the answers of 2,724 international relations scholars from around the world.

Nye, Walt, and Ruggie were also cited for producing some of the most interesting scholarship in the past five years, and were ranked on a list of those having the greatest influence on the field of international relations in the past 20 years.

WITZEL RECEIVES RECOGNITION

Michael Witzel, the Wales Professor of Sanskrit at Harvard, has recently received an honorary membership to the German Oriental Society (Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft), a scholarly organization dedicated to studies of Asia and “the broader Orient.” The 164-year-old organization, established in Leipzig by leading Oriental scholars from Germany, was founded “to promote all aspects of the knowledge of Asia and of the countries closely related to it and to propagate participation of this in wider circles.”

CID AWARDS QUADIR PRIZE

Earlier this month (April 10), the Center for International Development (CID) at the Harvard Kennedy School awarded its Anwarul Quadir Prize to Stephen Goodwin Honan, a cadet at the U.S. Naval Academy from Fairfax, Va.

The $25,000 award was for his essay “An Innovative Approach to Providing Safe Water to Bangladesh.” Honan proposed using a simple, easily grown fern to purify water tainted with arsenic in millions of polluted tube wells in Bangladesh. Years ago, the wells were unwittingly sunk into arsenic-laced soils by the World Bank. Since then, as many as 88 million Bangladeshis have been harmed.

CID principal investigator Robert Rotberg, an HKS adjunct professor of public policy and director of the Program on Intrastate Conflict, praised the “elegance and ingenuity” of the novel purification scheme.

Honan’s essay was among more than 70 submissions from over a dozen countries.

The Quadir Prize is sponsored annually by the CID and the Anwarul Quadir Foundation, a U.S.-based foundation founded in 2004 to promote innovations for Bangladesh.

KOVEN-MATASY ’10 NAMED BEINECKE SCHOLAR

Veronica Koven-Matasy ’10 has been recently awarded a Beinecke Scholarship, given annually to individuals in their junior year who have demonstrated superior academic achievements and have exceptional promise. The scholarship, which has been given to 21 Beinecke scholars this year, offers $4,000 for the students’ senior year, and an additional $30,000 for two years of graduate school in the United States or overseas. The scholarship is a highly competitive national competition, and only permits schools to nominate one candidate to the national round each year.

CHENG NAMED TO USA TODAY ALL-USA COLLEGE ACADEMIC TEAM

Allen Cheng ’09 is among the 20 students to be named by USA Today to its 20th annual All-USA College Academic Team. The students, who are recognized for outstanding intellectual achievement and leadership, receive a $2,500 cash award. The team of 20 was selected by a panel of judges from hundreds of students nominated by colleges and universities across the United States. Judges considered grades, leadership, activities, and how students extend their intellectual talents beyond the classroom.

SATCHER TO GIVE RICHMOND LECTURE

David Satcher, the 16th surgeon general of the United States and former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has been named the 2008-09 recipient of the Julius B. Richmond Award, the highest honor given by Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH).

Satcher, the first recipient of the award since Julius Richmond passed away last year, will address the Harvard community at a lecture and awards ceremony on May 4, sponsored by the HSPH Division of Public Health Practice and the Office of the Dean. The lecture will take place at the Joseph B. Martin Conference Center at Harvard Medical School (77 Ave. Louis Pasteur, Boston) from 4:30 to 6 p.m.

ALLISON TO RECEIVE NAS AWARD

Graham Allison, the director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), received the 2009 National Academy of Sciences’ (NAS) Award for Behavioral Research Relevant to the Prevention of Nuclear War. The award, which Allison received April 26, comes with a $20,000 prize and recognizes basic research in any field of cognitive or behavioral science that uses formal and empirical methods to advance the understanding of the risk of nuclear war.

Allison is being honored for illuminating alternative ways of thinking about political decision making with special relevance to crises, which is demonstrated in a number of his works including his groundbreaking book, “Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis” (Longman, 2nd ed., 1999).

— Compiled by Sarah Sweeney and Gervis A. Menzies Jr.