Commencement/
Reunion 2013
Annual Reception for graduating international seniors and their families and alumni/ae in reunion
May 25, 2013
5:00-6:30 p.m.
Rochambeau House
84 Prospect Street
E-mail for details and to RSVP.

Reunion 2013:
May 24, 25, and 26
If your class year ends in 3 or 8, make plans now to celebrate your lifelong connection to Brown through your class reunion on College Hill.

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International Brown Clubs Host Brown Faculty

April 26 - Vancouver
Adjunct Professor of Engineering Barrett Hazeltine GP’06 GP’10 will speak about "Google and the Government of China: A Case Study in Cross-Cultural Negotiation."
Contact: Carolyn Heller ’81

May 5 - Geneva
Professor Emeritus of Classics David Konstan will speak about "Ancient ideas of emotion, forgiveness or beauty."
Contact: Clara Gotch ’00

May 13 - Paris
May 14 - London
May 18 - Istanbul
May 22 - Milan
Professor of Political Science and International Studies Peter Andreas will speak on "Smuggler Nation: How Illicit Trade Made America."
Contact: Julia Furman ’06 (Paris)
Luke Balleny ’06 (London)
Tolga Erem ’05 (Istanbul)
Eric Egan ’90 (Milan)

May 15 - Rome
The Brown Club of Italy will host Professor of Political Science Corey Brettschneider.
Contact: Jeffrey Greenbaum ’81

June 4 - Shanghai
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: Wendy Chen ’11

On March 1, Robert Ayan joined the International Advancement team as regional director. He will be working primarily with alumni/ae, parents, and friends in South Asia and the Middle East. Previously, Ayan was an entrepreneur and a management consultant in a variety of different fields. He holds a bachelor of science in business administration from Boston University’s School of Management and an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Brown received 28,807 applications for the Class of 2017, the third largest number in University history. Brown also received its largest percentage of international applicants (17 percent—4,783) from 145 nations, the largest number of countries ever represented in an applicant pool. A record number of applications came from China and India, the top two countries after the United States. Other countries with high numbers of applicants included Canada, Korea, and the United Kingdom.

Grant Gibbons ’74 (Bermuda) has been appointed minister of economic development by the newly-elected premier of Bermuda, Craig Cannonier. His main focus will be the country’s economic recovery and creating ideal conditions for new jobs.

Bruce Hirsh ’81 was named chief international trade counsel by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus. Previously, he served as an international trade counsel advising Senator Baucus.

Wei Yang PHD’85 SCD’12 hon., a member of the Brown University Advisory Council on China, has been named president of China’s National Natural Sciences Foundation, the nation’s top science agency. He takes the helm of an organization that last year allocated $2.8 billion to fund scientific activity. Previously, Yang was president of Zhejiang University.

Shiv Khemka ’85 (India), chairman of Sun Group, was among the influential global leaders convened by the Alwaleed Bin Talal Foundation to launch Op4Unity. The mission of Op4Unity is tackling some of the world’s most serious problems—including economic disparity—by uniting people of different cultures, faiths, and professions.

Holly Gordon ’93, a producer at ABC News, is executive producer of the documentary Girl Rising, which tells the story of how education transformed the lives of ten girls from ten different developing countries. Each girl’s story is written by an accomplished writer from her country. The narrator for one of the stories is Edwidge Danticat MFA’93.

Walter Goodnow Everett, Class of 1885, was head of Brown’s Philosophy Department from 1896 to 1930, and served as acting president while President William Faunce made a trip around the world in 1912-1913. He earned his Ph.D. degree at Brown in 1895, and then studied at the Universities of Berlin and Strasburg the following year. He became internationally known for his book, Moral Values, which was published in England in 1920 and translated into Japanese in 1929 at the request of the Imperial University of Tokyo. He was appointed a delegate of the American Philosophical Association to the Allied Congress of Philosophy in Paris in 1921.

Everett House in Keeney Quadrangle was named in his honor.

Brown Alumni Association

Friends of the Watson Institute

Giving to Brown

Indian Ambassador Delivers the Brown India-Initiative Lecture
On February 4, President Christina Paxson welcomed India’s Ambassador to the United States Nirupama Rao, who delivered the first Brown-India Initiative lecture of 2013. During her lecture on "America’s Asian Pivot: the View from India," Ambassador Rao addressed how the United States is increasing its focus on South Asia’s developing economic and political climate. The Brown-India Initiative was inaugurated in September 2012.

Photo: President Paxson (left) and Ambassador Rao

Brown Creates School of Public Health
On February 13, the Brown Corporation—the governing body of the University—approved creation of a School of Public Health beginning July 1. The new school will allow Brown’s already strong research and teaching in public health to expand further. Terrie "Fox" Wetle, associate dean of medicine for public health, will serve as the school’s inaugural dean.

Brown Ranks Fourth in Best Undergraduate Teaching
Brown ranks fourth in best undergraduate teaching based on a survey conducted by U.S. News & World Report in spring 2012. U.S. News asked college presidents, provosts, and deans of admission, as part of the annual U.S. News peer assessment survey, to name the schools that they think have faculty with an unusually strong "commitment to undergraduate teaching."

The 2012 Achebe Colloquium on Africa at Brown
In December, the 2012 Achebe Colloquium on Africa—convened by Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe, the David and Marianna Fisher University Professor and professor of Africana studies—was held in the Perry and Marty Granoff Center for the Creative Arts. The Colloquium brought together an international group of scholars and officials from African governments, the European Union, the United States, and the United Nations for two days of intense deliberation on the importance of strengthening democracy and peace on the African continent.

In Memoriam: President Donald Frederick Hornig
Donald Frederick Hornig, the 14th president of Brown (1970–1976), died on January 21. President Hornig was a scientific adviser to four U.S. presidents—Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon—and was among the first government scientific officers to predict that environmental action would become a major national issue. "Frontiers are dangerous places," he said in his inaugural address. "The front edge of change is dangerously sharp. But it is where a great university belongs."

Photo: Sayles Hall Portrait by John Howard Sanden, 1976

Mumford Honored by BBVA
David Mumford, professor emeritus of applied mathematics, is one of the winners of the 2012 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the category of basic science. Based in Spain, the BBVA Foundation promotes scientific research of excellence. Mumford has been honored previously with the Fields Medal, the ‘Nobel’ prize in mathematics; the Wolf Prize in Mathematics, an international award granted in Israel; and the National Medal of Science, the highest scientific honor in the United States.

Padture Honored by IIT Bombay
Nitin Padture, professor of engineering, received a Distinguished Service Award from his undergraduate alma mater, the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay. Since 1999, the awards have been given to IIT Bombay alumni who have contributed in a notable and sustained manner to the progress of the Institute. He is editor of Scripta Materialia, one of the leading journals in the field of materials science and engineering

Brown Faculty Hosts Urban China Research Network Conference in Hong Kong
In December 2012, Professor of Sociology John Logan was co-organizer of a conference in Hong Kong on urban China. Professor of Economics and Urban Studies J. Vernon Henderson arranged several panels on urban economics; Professor Emeritus of Sociology David Meyer also participated. The multidisciplinary conference brought together many scholars from China and elsewhere who are members of the Urban China Research Network, of which Logan is the co-director. Their involvement was supported by the Grace Yue ’88 and John So ’87 China Urban Studies Fund.

Photo: From left, Professor Emeritus Meyer, John So ’87, Professors Henderson and Logan.

Li Publishes Book about Learning in the East and West
Associate Professor of Education Jin Li recently published Cultural Foundations of Learning: East and West, in which she says culture influences learning far more than any particular school curriculum. For her research, Li studied thousands of children in both the East and West to discern how culture dictates educational values and beliefs. In the West, curiosity, interest, enjoyment, and intrinsic motivation are paramount. In contrast, Asian students are taught to value perseverance, commitment, and humility.

Photo credit: Frank Mullin/Brown University

Head and Dickson Conduct Research on Antarctica’s Don Juan Pond
James Head, professor of geological sciences, and James Dickson, science data analyst and lab manager, have gathered time-lapse photography and other data about the sustained salinity of Antarctica’s Don Juan Pond, the most saline natural body of water on earth. Their findings, published online in Scientific Reports, suggest that such ponds could be possible on Mars.

Photo: Documenting the saltiest pond on Earth
Credit: Geological Sciences/Brown University

Brown Students Make Hult Prize Regionals
A team of five Brown students has advanced to the regional finals of the 4th annual Hult Prize. Co-hosted by the Clinton Global Initiative and the Hult Business School (on which Philip Hult ’93 serves as chair of the board), this year’s competition is focused on providing food security in urban slums. Teams were chosen from more than 10,000 applications from 350 colleges and universities in over 150 countries.

Kwang-Min Kim GS’ Explores Potential Pathway for Alzheimer’s Treatment
Kwang-Min Kim, a biomedical engineering graduate student from Korea, is lead author of a study that appears in the journal Biomaterials about a protein associated with neuron damage in Alzheimer’s patients. The protein Kim identified provides a superior scaffold for growing central nervous system cells in the lab. This finding might lead to an effective treatment for people with neurodegenerative diseases. Kim performed the research under the direction of his Ph.D. advisor Tayhas Palmore, professor of engineering and medical science.

Photo: Professor Tayhas Palmore (left) and Kwang-Min Kim
Credit: Mike Cohea/Brown University

Kasey Haas ’13 Participates in UN Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities
In September 2012, Royce Fellow Kasey Haas ’13 presented a summary of her report titled "Special Olympics: An Emerging Player in the Sport for Development Field" during the annual United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities. For the report, Haas conducted interviews with program directors while working at the Special Olympics International headquarters in Washington, D.C. Haas is a member of Brown’s gymnastics team.

Founded in 2007, the Royce Fellowship recognizes Brown undergraduates who have a record of excellence in academics and sport, supporting these student-athletes to embark on research or projects.

Brown, Université Paris-Est Créteil Build Stronger Ties
President Paxson signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with administrators from the Université Paris-Est Créteil (UPEC) on February 12. The MOU includes faculty and student exchanges and the creation of joint research programs, courses, and seminars. UPEC President Luc Hittinger, Chief of Staff Francoise Travernier, and Vice President of International Relations Isabelle Alfandary traveled to Brown to take part in the signing ceremony in University Hall.

Photo: President Paxson (right) and UPEC President Luc Hittinger signing the agreement.
Credit: Mike Cohea/Brown University

Brown and Brazil Expand Exchanges
In February, Vice President for International Affairs Matthew Gutmann P’14 traveled to Brazil, where he signed agreements with two local agencies to strengthen scholarship and research ties between Brown and the country, including one that will bring a Brazilian scholar to Brown each year to teach. He also joined a delegation from the Alpert Medical School that toured area medical schools and met with health researchers.

Brown Partners with New Barenboim-Said Academy in Berlin
Brown will partner with world-renowned conductor Daniel Barenboim in bringing together students from the Middle East to the Barenboim-Said Academy, which will be based in Berlin beginning in 2015. Up to 100 music students, aged 17 to 20 and hailing from Israel and its neighbors, will study world affairs, politics, and the humanities, as well as Arabic and Hebrew. Visiting professors from Brown will teach at the new academy. The German government has pledged almost $27 million over the next four years for the project.

Also, Daniel Barenboim and the musicians of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra—an ensemble of young Arab and Israeli musicians co-founded in 1999 by Daniel Barenboim—were on campus in January. The week-long residency included concerts of Beethoven symphonies at Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Providence and a campus conversation.