More news of Yale people

Michael Marsland

Jacob Hacker ’00PhD is the new Stanley B. Resor Professor of Political Science. View full image

Appointed

Two years ago, the University of California-Berkeley lured away Yale political scientist Jacob Hacker ’00PhD. Now he's back at Yale, with a new title: Stanley B. Resor Professor of Political Science. Hacker, a leading researcher on social policy, has written widely on health care reform. In 2007, he authored a proposal called “Health Care for America” for the Economic Policy Institute that forms the basis for the health-care reform proposal currently before Congress. Hacker is married to Oona Hathaway ’97JD, a law professor who is also returning to teach at Yale after a stint at Berkeley.

Honored

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded $100,000 grants to two Yale researchers as part of its Grand Challenges Explorations initiative, an “agile, accelerated process” to encourage “bold ideas” to improve health in the developing world. David Spiegel ’04MD, ’04PhD, an assistant professor of chemistry, is trying to create drugs that will combat antibiotic resistance in Streptococcus pneumoniae. Craig Crews, a professor of chemistry, pharmacology, and molecular, cellular and developmental biology, is pursuing drugs that will prevent HIV from forming functional viral particles.

Remembered

Robin Siegel Theurkauf ’80, ’01PhD, ’08MDiv, a lecturer in political science who studied human rights and international law, died of cancer on July 10. She was 51 years old. Theurkauf became a widowed mother of three sons when her first husband, Thomas Theurkauf, was killed in the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001. An opponent of the death penalty, Theurkauf testified at the 2006 trial of 9/11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui that “no good can come from executing this man, for any reason. We as Americans should be big enough to recognize that vengeance is never justice.” Theurkauf is survived by her sons and by her second husband, the Reverend James K. Poinsett ’05MDiv.