More news of Yale people

Honored

Yale biologist Valerie Horsley is one of 96 winners of this year’s Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, given by the White House. Horsley, the Maxine F. Singer Assistant Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, studies the role stem cells play in the function of the skin. The presidential awardees are chosen “for their pursuit of innovative research at the frontiers of science and technology and their commitment to community service.”

Appointed

When Sharon Kugler was appointed university chaplain in 2007, she was the first woman, the first Catholic, and the first layperson in the job. It seems to be working out: in announcing her appointment to a second five-year term in July, President Richard Levin ’74PhD said that Kugler “has been instrumental in transforming the role of the chaplain and the chaplaincy.” He also said that she “has been so engaged with undergraduates in particular that several residential college masters described her as ‘the 13th master.’”

Remembered

George De Forest Lord ’42, ’51PhD, the George M. Bodman Professor of English Literature, died on March 31 in Branford, Connecticut. He was 92. Lord was an authority on the English poet Andrew Marvell and on English satirical verse. He was master of Trumbull College from 1963 to 1966.

Lee Patterson ’62, ’68PhD, the Frederick W. Hilles Professor Emeritus of English, died of complications from a brain tumor on June 29 at the age of 72. Patterson helped revive interest in medieval studies with his books Negotiating the Past and Chaucer and the Subject of History. Patterson taught at the University of Toronto, Johns Hopkins, and Duke before joining the Yale faculty.

Arthur Ebbert Jr., a longtime administrator at the School of Medicine, died on June 7 in Hamden, Connecticut. He was 89. Ebbert, a physician, was once described by former dean Leon Rosenberg as the “soul of the medical school.” He came to the school as an assistant dean in 1953; he was named deputy dean in 1974 and served in that role until his retirement in 1987.