Engineer to direct office of diversity
Michelle Nearon joined the Graduate School over the
summer as assistant dean and director of the Office for Diversity and Equal
Opportunity. After earning an undergraduate degree from MIT and a master of
science degree in aerospace engineering from Brooklyn Polytechnic University,
she worked in the private sector as a research engineer for eight years. Nearon
earned her PhD in mechanical engineering at Stony Brook University in 2000 and
remained there as a Turner Postdoctoral Fellow. She subsequently served as
director of recruitment and diversification for Stony Brook's College of
Engineering and Applied Sciences while holding an assistant professorship in
the Department of Mechanical Engineering.
Dean Butler goes abroad
As part of Yale's commitment to international
outreach, Dean Jon Butler has traveled to the Far East several times this year.
This summer he visited Beijing to meet new graduate students who are coming
from the People's Republic of China to pursue PhD and master's degrees at Yale
in the fall. The incoming students began their Yale affiliation with a
month-long English-language immersion program at the Beijing Foreign Studies
University, fully funded by Yale. The aim of the program was to improve English
proficiency and ease the cultural and social transition for students from PRC
to New Haven.
Last spring, Dean Butler traveled to
Japan to meet with Yale alumni and Japanese educators. His schedule included
hosting a large reception for alumni of all Yale schools and attending a
Yale-sponsored reception organized by alumni in government service. In
addition, he visited Japan's major universities and met with his counterparts
to discuss academic partnerships.
Commencement honors for graduates and faculty
At last May's commencement ceremonies, 227 doctoral
candidates were granted their PhD degrees -- in Latin, according to
long-standing Yale tradition. The Graduate School's convocation ceremony, held
the day before, featured a talk by Sterling Professor of History Jonathan
Spence and the distribution of student prizes, including two university-wide
awards.
The Theron Rockwell Field Prize, for
outstanding poetic, literary, or religious works by students enrolled in any
Yale school, was given to Claudia Lozoff Brittenham (history of art) for "The
Cacaxtla Painting Tradition: Art and Identity in Epiclassic Mexico"; Jeffrey M.
Leichman (French) for "Acting Up: Staging the Modern Subject in
Eighteenth-Century France"; and Brent Nongbri (religious studies) for "Paul
Without Religion: The Creation of a Category and the Search for an Apostle
Beyond the New Perspective."
The John Addison Porter Prize,
awarded for a work of scholarship in any field that is written in such a way as
to make the project of general human interest, was given to Elizabeth Nathan
Saunders (political science) for "Wars of Choice: Leadership, Threat
Perception, and Military Interventions"; and Siddhartha Das (chemistry) for
"Molecular Recognition in Regio- and Stereoselective Oxygenation of Saturated
C-H bonds with a Dimanganese Catalyst."
In addition, three faculty advisers
were honored for outstanding mentorship: Seth Fein, assistant professor of
history; Ellen Lust-Okar, associate professor of political science; and
Mitchell Smooke, the Strathcona Professor and chair of mechanical engineering
and professor of applied physics.
loading
Print
Email