More news of Yale people

Remembered

Edwin McClellan, the Sterling Professor Emeritus of Japanese Studies, died on April 27 of lung cancer. He was 83. A lifelong British citizen, McClellan was born and raised in Japan, where his father was a businessman. The family left Japan at the start of World War II. McClellan created a program in Japanese studies at the University of Chicago, then came to Yale in 1972. He was known for his translations of Japanese novels.

Appointed

After eight years as University Librarian, Alice Prochaska will return to her native Britain in September 2010 to become the principal of Somerville College at the University of Oxford. Prochaska is an alumna of Somerville, which was Oxford's first college for women. (It admitted men in 1992.) In announcing her departure, President Richard Levin said Prochaska has helped Yale's library "develop as the leading international research library of North America." Prochaska will step down as librarian in January.

Yale scored a coup in 2007 when it lured green-chemistry pioneer Paul Anastas from Washington, DC, to found the university's Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering. But Washington struck back in May, when President Obama nominated Anastas to head the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Research and Development. Anastas's research focuses on finding safer substitutes for hazardous chemicals. He will be on leave from Yale during his EPA tenure.

The university's newest Sterling Professor is William L. Jorgensen, a chemistry professor and a leader in the field of computational chemistry, which uses computers to help solve complex problems. Jorgensen came to Yale from Purdue in 1990 as the Whitehead Professor of Chemistry. Sterling professorships are Yale's highest faculty honors

Stepping down

Office of Public Affairs director Helaine Klasky is leaving in July after eight years of overseeing Yale's public relations strategy. Klasky is moving to Washington, DC, where her husband has been named a deputy assistant secretary of defense. Her own plans, she said, "are as yet unsettled." Klasky, who also served as a special assistant to President Richard Levin, worked in the Clinton administration before coming to Yale.