International Brown Club EVENTS

June 18 – London
6:30 p.m.-8:00 p.m.
Reception for Brown alumni/ae, parents, and friends with President Christina Paxson.

Hogan Lovells
International LLP
Atlantic House
50 Holborn Viaduct
London EC1A 2FG

View the invitation and RSVP to Celebrate@Brown.edu.

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June 19 – Paris
June 20 – Brussels
Senior Lecturer in Classics Elissavet Amanatidou will speak about "Knowing how, when, and why to say what to whom."
Contact: Julia Furman ’06 (Paris)
Catherine Tylke ’05 (Brussels)

June 27 – Istanbul
Professor Emeritus of Classics Kurt Raaflaub P’96 will give a talk titled "Why does ancient history matter today? Lessons learned from the ancient Greeks and Romans."
Contact: Tolga Erem ’05

Brown accepted 2,649 students from across the United States and around the world for the Class of 2017: 9.2 percent of 28,919 applicants. Students from 83 nations are represented in the admitted class. The countries with the greatest number of students admitted are China, Canada, India, Korea, and the United Kingdom.

On April 16, Ricardo Lagos, former president of Chile and Brown professor-at-large, discussed El siglo que despierta, the book he wrote with Carlos Fuentes, the late Mexican novelist and Brown professor-at-large. The book is dedicated to the new social and political trends in Spain and Latin America. The event was co-sponsored by the Department of Hispanic Studies, the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and the Transatlantic Project at Brown.

Thomas Perez ’83 has been nominated by President Obama to be the next secretary of labor. Perez currently serves as the assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. He previously served as the secretary of Maryland's Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation.

Trustee Tanya Godrej Dubash ’91 (India) has been named 4th Most Influential Woman by IMPACT magazine in its "50 Most Influential Women" in the Indian marketing, advertising, and media ecosystems. Dubash is executive director and president (marketing) at Godrej Industries, Ltd.

Filmmaker Debbie Lum ’91 made her feature-length directing debut in May with Seeking Asian Female. The documentary about facing stereotypes and the judgments that stem from them aired as part of the PBS Independent Lens series on May 6.

Ayad Akhtar ’93—playwright, actor, novelist, and screenwriter—has won this year's Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Disgraced. The play has its run at the Bush Theatre in London from May 17 through June 29.

Alena Polenska ’13 (Czech Republic) was a captain on the Czech Republic women's national hockey team at the world championship in Ottawa, Canada.

In March, the Brown Club of Germany in Berlin hosted Professor of History Michael Steinberg, who spoke about "Cultural History of Modern Germany and Austria."

In April, alumni/ae in Pakistan hosted a dinner in honor of U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Richard Olson ’81 P’14. They also welcomed two members of the Class of 2017 at the dinner.



Photo: Members of the Brown community at the dinner in Islamabad with Ambassador Olson (center).

Claus Emanuel Ekstrom, Brown professor of education, was born in Falkenberg, Sweden in 1892. He graduated from Brown in 1916 and earned his master’s degree at Brown the following year. He helped organize "Majblommen," the Swedish-American anti-tuberculosis association in the United States in 1922, and was awarded the first class medal, Royal Order of Vasa, by King Gustaf V of Sweden for his work.

The Claus Emanuel Ekstrom Fund was established at the University Library in his memory by his son Lincoln Ekstrom ’53 and his daughter-in-law Ruth Ekstrom ’53 LLD’88 for the acquisition of books in the fields of history or education.

Brown Alumni Association

Friends of the Watson Institute

Giving to Brown

Brown in India
In March, Brown faculty and administrators visited India where a meeting of the Brown University Advisory Council on India was convened. Members and guests discussed strategic plans to strengthen the University’s ties with the country. The delegation also met with alumni/ae, parents, and friends to seek support for the University. The delegation included Vice President for International Advancement Ron Margolin, Vice President for International Affairs Matthew Gutmann P’14, Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and Social Sciences and Director of the Brown-India Initiative Ashutosh Varshney, and Regional Director for International Advancement Robert Ayan.

Photo: Advisory Council members and guests and the members of the Brown delegation at the meeting hosted by Nita and Mukesh Ambani P’13 P’17—co-chairs of the Advisory Council—at their home in Mumbai.

Simmons Receives French Legion of Honor
Ruth J. Simmons, the 18th president of Brown (2001-2012), was awarded the French Legion of Honor in a ceremony on May 16 at the John Carter Brown Library. The award is the highest decoration given by the French government, recognizing individuals who have contributed to the advancement of French arts and culture. Simmons was selected by decree of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Transformative Gifts to the School of Engineering
New gifts totaling $44 million—including $35 million from two engineering graduates—have launched a $160 million campaign for the School of Engineering. Goals of the campaign include construction of new teaching and research facilities, creation of a Center for Entrepreneurship, and the addition of 15 new faculty members.

Brown Ranks Third on Forbes 2013 Midas List
Brown ranks third on Forbes magazine’s the Education of Venture Capitalists: Midas List 2013 Edition for schools with the most alumni/ae who made this year's list.

Brown Hosts "Third World First: The Social Boom in Brazil’s Literary Cultures"
Brown’s Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies, in conjunction with the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies and the Office of International Affairs, hosted a symposium titled "Third World First: The Social Boom in Brazil’s Literary Cultures" on May 3 and 4 at Salomon Hall. The event included discussions by novelists, poets, and literary/cultural policy makers and activists from Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.

Showcasing the Digital Scholarship Lab
This spring, the University Library launched a series of talks by Brown faculty and visiting scholars across the disciplines to celebrate the opening of the Patrick Ma Digital Scholarship Lab at the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library. Series speakers have demonstrated ways in which digital technologies have impact on their teaching and research and enable new forms of student learning and interaction. The Lab is made possible through the generosity of Patrick Ma P’14 and Lisa Ma Kung P’14 (Hong Kong).

Annual Commencement/Reunion International Reception at Brown
The Office of International Advancement hosted its annual reception for nearly 300 graduating international students and their families and international alumni/ae in reunion on May 25 at Rochambeau House.

Donoghue and Nurmikko Participate in the BRAIN Initiative
John Donoghue PHD’79 P’09 P’12 MD’16, the Henry Merritt Wriston Professor of Neuroscience and Engineering and director of the Brown Institute for Brain Science, and Arto Nurmikko, professor of engineering, were at the White House on April 2 for President Barack Obama’s announcement of the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative. Working with a core group of other scientists including Nurmikko, Donoghue helped to catalyze a new vision for brain research.

Photo: Professor Donoghue.

Hurt Named Editor of Carbon
Robert Hurt, professor of engineering, has taken over as editor-in-chief for the materials science and nanotechnology journal Carbon, an international multidisciplinary forum for communicating scientific advances. Hurt will lead a ten-member editorial board of scientists from all over the world. The editorial headquarters for the journal will be Brown’s Institute for Molecular and Nanoscale Innovation, of which Hurt is director.

Mandre Funded for Bipedalism Studies
Shreyas Mandre, assistant professor of engineering, is part of an international research team awarded a Young Investigator Grant by the Human Frontier Science Program, based in Strasbourg, France. The team will receive $350,000 in each of three years to study the fundamental mechanics of the human foot.

In Memoriam: Chinua Achebe (1930-2013)
Chinua Achebe, acclaimed Nigerian novelist and the David and Marianna Fisher University Professor and professor of Africana studies, died on March 21. Achebe, among the world’s greatest writers of his time, joined the Brown faculty in September 2009. His first novel, Things Fall Apart, is the most widely read work of African fiction, having sold more than 12 million copies in English alone. It has been translated into 50 languages.

Photo credit: Mike Cohea/Brown University

Brown Students Selected for the Clinton Global Initiative University Conference
Thirteen Brown students were selected to attend this year’s Clinton Global Initiative University, which took place April 5-7 in St. Louis, Missouri. The annual meeting brings together students, national youth organizations, topic experts, and celebrities to discuss solutions to pressing global issues. Each student who attends must make a Commitment to Action, an initiative to improve a specific community in the world.

Brown Students Awarded State Department Language Scholarships
Nine Brown students have been awarded U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarships to study languages abroad over the summer. The students will spend seven to ten weeks in intensive language institutes in China, India, Japan, Morocco, Oman, and Turkey.

Bissel Awarded Fulbright Grant
Elliston Perot Bissel, a doctoral student in the Sanskrit and classics Ph.D. program, has been awarded a grant by the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, which provides funding for individually designed study/research projects for one academic year at a university outside the United States. Bissel will use his grant to study at the University of Vienna.

Brown Plus One Reaches Barcelona
Brown has partnered with Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) in Barcelona, Spain, as part of the Brown Plus One program for students interested in international study. UPF Rector Josep Joan Moreso visited Brown to sign a partnership agreement on March 13. UPF is the fourth international partner in the Brown Plus One initiative, joining Trinity College Dublin, the University of Edinburgh, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Photo: President Paxson (left) and UPF Rector Josep Joan Moreso signing the agreement.
Credit: Mike Cohea/Brown University

Brown Orchestra Travels to Ireland
The Brown University Orchestra teamed up with the Limerick Choral Union for a concert on March 27 that featured works by Verdi and Gounod. The Orchestra’s tour to Ireland also included concerts at Wexford Opera House and the National Concert Hall in Dublin. Founded in 1918, the Orchestra—currently led by Paul Phillips—has performed at Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall, toured China, and won seven national awards.

Photo: The Brown Orchestra performing at Wexford Opera House.