EVENTS ON CAMPUS

September 27-28
250th Anniversary
Fall Celebration

For more information: 250.brown.edu

October 23-24
Women’s Leadership Council Meeting

Former President of Chile and Brown Professor-at-Large Ricardo Lagos, who served as U.N. Special Envoy for Climate Change, chaired a conference called “Governing Climate Change: New Ideas and Latin American Leadership as Peru Prepares to Host the 2014 U.N. Climate Negotiations,” held at the Watson Institute for International Studies. Former President of Mexico and Chair of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate Felipe Calderón also spoke at the event, which was organized by the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies and the Climate and Development Lab.

Former Chancellor of Austria and former Visiting Professor at the Watson Institute Alfred Gusenbauer delivered a lecture titled “The Policy of the European Union Concerning Eastern Europe and Ukraine” as part of the Watson Institute’s European Politics Seminar Series.

James Harmon ’57 P’84 P’91 GP’14 GP’16 was recently honored by the World Resources Institute for his outstanding accomplishments as its chairman. During his tenure, the Institute deepened its engagement in Africa and expanded its work in 30 countries, including Brazil, China, India, and Indonesia.

Stuart Symington ’74, former United States Ambassador to Rwanda, has been named U.S. Special Representative for the Central African Republic, helping to shape and coordinate U.S. strategy toward this area.

Claudia Palmer ’85, EMI Music Publishing’s former executive vice president and chief operating officer for Europe, has been named chief financial officer for the London-based news agency Reuters.

OBIE Award-winning playwright Adam Bock AM’89’s new play—The Colby Sisters of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania—makes its world premiere at the Tricycle Theatre in London this June. Bock received a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in 2012 for his work.

Pierre-Alexis Dumas ’91 (France), artistic director of Hermès, was recently interviewed by The Business of Fashion. “…Hermès objects are desirable because they reconnect people to their humanity,” says Dumas.

Marcela Gaviria ’91 won a 2014 Writers Guild Award for co-writing the documentary Egypt in Crisis. Two years after the revolution, the documentary looks at the causes, the mistakes, and the new leader, General Sisi.

Suzan LeVine ’93 was sworn in as the United States Ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein on May 30.

Charlie Enright ’08 and Mark Towill ’11 secured a $21 million sponsorship from Turkish medical device company Alvimedica and will sail in the Volvo Ocean Race, the nine-month, 38,739-mile course around the globe from Spain to Sweden.

IE Brown Executive MBA alumnus Fahim Saddiqui, executive vice president of product and operations for New York technology firm Intralinks Holdings Inc., talks about his experience in the IE Brown Executive MBA program and how it helped him gain a broader perspective of global business.

Brown Clubs around the world are celebrating the University’s 250th anniversary with special events.

In April, the Brown Club of Thailand held a reception and dinner with Assistant Vice President Josh Taub ’93, who spoke about Brown’s strategic plan for the next decade. The event was hosted by Celia ’83 and Chali Sophonpanich ’83 P’12.

Photo: Members of the Brown community at the dinner in Bangkok.

Also in April, the Brown Club of Greece held a reception in Athens, where club president Demetrios Iatrides ’95 spoke about the life of Samuel Gridley Howe, Class of 1821. Iatrides proposed establishing an award in Howe’s honor for those strengthening relations between Greece and the United States in the fields of foreign policy, education, and culture.

In 1824, shortly after earning his M.D. from Harvard, Samuel Gridley Howe sailed for Greece and fought in the war for Greek independence, earning for his courage the title of ‘the Lafayette of the Greek Revolution.’

Photo: From left - Demetrios Iatrides ’95, Thomas Giolmas ’92, and Alex Manos ’94.

John Carter Brown, Class of 1816, collected books on the discovery, exploration, and settlement of the Western hemisphere. His son John Nicholas Brown, Class of 1885, continued to acquire Americana and add to what had already become known as the John Carter Brown Library. After the death of John Nicholas Brown in 1900, both the collection and the funds to construct a library building came to Brown. Although located in the center of campus, the John Carter Brown Library is an independently administered and funded research center.

Brown Alumni Association

Giving to Brown

President Paxson Travels to India
In March, Christina Paxson made her first visit to India as president of Brown. During the visit, she met with alumni/ae, parents, and friends to celebrate the University’s 250th anniversary and to present Building on Distinction: A New Plan for Brown, the vision for the University’s next decade. President Paxson also convened a meeting of the Brown University Advisory Council on India. Vice President Ron Margolin and Regional Director Robert Ayan accompanied the president along with Associate Provost for Global Engagement Sonia Feigenbaum.

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.

During President Paxson’s visit, hundreds of Brown alumni/ae, parents, and friends gathered to celebrate Brown’s 250th anniversary.

Photo: President Paxson greeting more than 200 members of the Brown community of India during the dinner hosted by Trustee Tanya Godrej Dubash ’91 and Arvind Dubash ’92 in Mumbai.

Photo: A musical performance by Sivamani, a popular Indian fusion band, at the dinner for more than 150 guests hosted by Urvashi and Shiv Khemka ’85 in Delhi.

Brown’s 246th Commencement
President Paxson presided over Brown’s 246th Commencement on May 25, a ceremony that also marked the 250th anniversary of the University’s founding. Commencement included special forums, exhibitions, and honorary degrees for nine alumni/ae, including U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez ’83. Forums included “From Apple to Nike: Making Globalization Work for All” by Richard Locke, Howard Swearer Director of the Watson Institute for International Studies and professor of political science, and “India’s 2014 Elections: Analyzing Results, Speculating on Possibilities” by Ashutosh Varshney, Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences and director of the Brown-India Initiative.

Summer Internships
As part of Building on Distinction: A New Plan for Brown, the University is committed to enhancing internship and research opportunities for all Brown students. Trustee Tanya Godrej Dubash ’91 is offering internships in Mumbai, while several alumni/ae and parents are making numerous internships available in Hong Kong and China. Rob Petty ’83 P’16, a member of the Presidential Advisory Council on Internships, is providing internships in Hong Kong and Mumbai for students in the C.V. Starr Program in Business, Entrepreneurship and Organizations. In addition, Ron Beller ’83 and Jennifer Moses ’83 are funding internships for students on financial aid. Brown recently established BrownConnect to facilitate this new initiative.

Aga Khan Workshop on Sharia, Government, and Development
The Third Annual Aga Khan Conference/Workshop brought together renowned scholars from multiple fields to explore the relationships among Islamic law, governance, and socioeconomic development in various early-modern and modern settings. This annual conference was organized by Middle East Studies at Brown and was supported by the Aga Khan Visiting Professorship in Islamic Humanities.

Brazil: From Dictatorship to Democracy Conference
Brown presented a three-day conference titled “Brazil: From Dictatorship to Democracy,” with a keynote lecture by Carlos Fico of Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. The event was part of Brown’s newly launched Brazil Initiative, which aims to make the University a leading center for the study of Brazil through teaching, research collaborations, and exchanges.

Achebe Colloquium on Africa
The 2014 Achebe Colloquium on Africa brought together an international group of academics, activists, African government officials, and writers to campus in May. This year’s colloquium, “African Literature as Restoration: Chinua Achebe as Teacher,” focused on the life and legacy of the Nigerian novelist, who was the David and Marianna Fisher University Professor and professor of Africana studies at Brown.

Annual International Reception
The Office of International Advancement hosted its annual reception for more than 400 graduating international students and their families and for international alumni/ae in reunion on May 24 at Rochambeau House. During the reception, Regional Director Robert Ayan, an advisor to the Brown International Scholarship Committee (BISC), introduced outgoing BISC president Olivia del Balzo ’14 (United Kingdom) and incoming president Ignacio Semerene ’15 (Ecuador), who spoke of their efforts raising scholarships for international students. They introduced Julmar Carcedo ’16 (Philippines), an International BAF Young Leaders Group Scholarship recipient, who shared his inspiring story.

Kertzer’s Book to Be Made into a Film
Steven Spielberg is planning to make a film based on the book The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara written by David Kertzer, Paul Dupee Jr. University Professor of Social Science and professor of anthropology and Italian studies. A finalist for the National Book Award, it tells the story of Mortara, a six-year-old boy taken from his parents’ home in Italy by papal authorities in 1858 after a servant claimed to have baptized the child, which made him Catholic in the eyes of the church. In the Papal States of the time, a Catholic child could not be brought up in a Jewish home.

Photo: Professor David Kertzer
Credit: Bob Thayer/The Providence Journal

Roberts Wins the 2014 Frederick H. Buttel International Award
J. Timmons Roberts, Ittleson Professor of Environmental Studies and professor of sociology, has been awarded the Frederick H. Buttel International Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Environmental Sociology, which will be presented at the International Sociological Association meeting in Japan this summer. The award is given once every four years to a scholar for the outstanding contribution to the international study of environment-society relations.

Photo: Professor J. Timmons Roberts
Credit: David Braun/The Brown Daily Herald

Head Addresses European Scientists
James Head III, the Louis and Elizabeth Scherck Distinguished Professor of Geological Sciences, gave a keynote address at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2014 in Vienna. Head’s address, “Space and the Earth,” described the evolutionary paths of the planets and moons in our solar system.

Seminar Organized by Doumani Wins Award
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded $175,000 for a Sawyer seminar, “Displacement and the Making of the Modern World: Histories, Ecologies, and Subjectivities,” organized by Beshara Doumani, Joukowsky Family Distinguished Professor of Modern Middle East History and director of the Middle East Studies. The award provides resources for post-graduate research fellowships, three workshops, and a seminar series.

Bodel Named 2014 ACLS Fellow
John Bodel, professor of classics, has been named a 2014 fellow to the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). ACLS Fellowships provide salary replacement for scholars who are embarking on six- to-twelve months of full-time research and writing in the humanities and humanistic social sciences. Bodel will be researching ancient Roman funeral practices.

Hayeur Smith Awarded NSF Arctic Grant
Michèle Hayeur Smith, a research associate at Brown’s Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, has been awarded a three-year, $605,000 research grant from the National Science Foundation’s Arctic Social Sciences program to examine women’s roles in the production and trade of cloth across the North Atlantic from the Viking Age until the early 19th century.

A Nobel Laureate Teaches His Last Class
Nobel Prize-winning physicist Leon Cooper, the Thomas J. Watson Sr. Professor of Science and director of the Institute for Brain and Neural Systems, taught his last class in April after 56 years at Brown. Cooper won the Nobel Prize in 1972 with John Bardeen and Robert Schrieffer for their jointly developed theory of superconductivity.

Photo: Professor Leon Cooper
Credit: Mike Cohea/Brown University

In Memoriam:
George Borts, George S. and Nancy B. Parker Professor Emeritus of Economics, died on May 2. Borts was devoted to the Brown community during his entire academic career. As an economist, he made contributions to the fields of transportation economics, industrial organization, and international finance. He held a variety of appointments beyond Brown, including as a visiting research fellow at the London School of Economics and as a visiting professor of economics at Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan.

Gerald Guralnik, the Chancellor’s Professor of Physics, died on April 26. Guralnik had been a member of the Brown faculty for 47 years. He was one of six physicists who originated a theory explaining why some particles have mass and others do not. That theory, which would come to be known as the Higgs mechanism, was proven nearly 50 years later by an international team of physicists at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland.

STUDENTS ORGANIZE CONFERENCES ON CAMPUS
Students organized the Brown China Summit 2014: A Conference of the Chinese Dream. With the theme of “My Chinese Dream,” more than 15 guest speakers from China, Europe, and the United States shared their experiences and stories on four different panels: education, art, media, and business on April 5 and 6. President Paxson delivered opening remarks at the event, which was sponsored by the China Initiative at the Watson Institute for International Studies.

Photo: The Brown China Summit 2014 Team

Brown’s Hong Kong Students Association hosted “Reframing Hong Kong: Challenges and Opportunities in the City, 2017 and Beyond” on March 14 and 15. The conference focused on the recent social and political developments in Hong Kong and featured a number of scholars as panelists. The event brought together students and academics interested in Hong Kong to discuss what they can do to shape the city’s future.

Photo: The Reframing Hong Kong Steering Committee

Students Selected for the Clinton-Global Initiative University Meeting
Eleven Brown students were selected to attend the Clinton Global Initiative University 2014 at Arizona State University in Phoenix in March. The annual meeting brings together students, 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.

Shakes Awarded an Inter-American Foundation Grassroots Development Field Research Fellowship
Nicosia Shakes, a Ph.D. student in Africana studies, was awarded an Inter-American Foundation Grassroots Development Field Research Fellowship for the 2014-2015 academic year. The Inter-American Foundation Grassroots Development Fellowship Program awards fellowships to scholars studying at U.S. universities who are conducting field research related to grassroots development in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Engineering Partnership with Chinese Universities
Engineers at Brown and universities in China have developed a procedure that can strengthen steel without sacrificing ductility. The new technique, described in Nature Communications, could produce steel that performs better in a number of structural applications.

Semiquincentenary Visit by Keio Faculty
In March, Keio University in Japan sent a delegation of three faculty members to campus as Brown launched its 250th anniversary celebration. Brown and Keio have a long-standing connection. Textbooks by Brown’s fourth President Francis Wayland and Professor of Classics Albert Harkness were brought to Japan by Keio founder Yukichi Fukuzawa in the 1860s and became a fundamental part of Keio’s curriculum. Every year on May 15, Keio celebrates “Yukichi Fukuzawa-Francis Wayland Memorial Lecture Day.”