More news of Yale people

Honored

Joan Steitz, a Sterling Professor of Biophysics and Biochemistry, has been awarded the Albany Medical Center Prize. The eight-year-old prize, which Steitz shares this year with Elizabeth Blackburn of UC–San Francisco, comes with a cash award of $500,000. Steitz was cited for her pioneering work in RNA research.

Peter Jones, the James E. English Professor of Mathematics, is among 72 people selected for membership in the National Academy of Sciences this year.

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences has selected nine Yale faculty members and a university trustee as new members. In addition to trustee and Pepsico CEO Indra Nooyi ’80MPPM, the academy chose professors Mel Bochner (painting and printmaking, adjunct); Michael Donoghue (biology); Stathis Kalyvas (political science); David Quint '71, '76PhD (English and comparative literature); Reva Siegel '78, '81MA, '85JD (law); Susan Stokes (political science); Chief Investment Officer David Swensen '80PhD (management, adjunct), Alan Trachtenberg (English and American studies, emeritus); and Meg Urry (physics and astronomy).

Retired philosophy professor Ruth Barcan Marcus '46PhD has been awarded the third Lauener Prize for an Outstanding Oeuvre in Analytical Philosophy.

Elected

Yale alumni have elected DNA researcher Peter Dervan '72PhD to a six-year term on the Yale Corporation, the university’s board of trustees. Dervan, a chemistry professor at Caltech, outpolled Chanel CEO Maureen Chiquet '85 and film producer Walter Parkes '73 in the election. He succeeds Maya Lin '81, '86MArch.

Appointed

Mary Miller and Joseph Roach have been appointed to Sterling professorships, the university’s highest faculty honor. Miller, an art history professor and master of Saybrook College, is a leading authority on Mesoamerican art and architecture. Roach, a theater director and a scholar in the field of performance studies, is a professor in the theater studies, English, and African American studies departments.

Remembered

Jean Boorsch, who taught French at Yale for 40 years, died on March 23 at the age of 102. Boorsch, a native of France, arrived at Yale in 1934 and soon became part of a renowned cohort of French professors. During World War II, he developed an immersion technique for teaching French that later evolved into the widely used "French in Action" curriculum published by Yale.