School notes

School of Architecture
Robert A. M. Stern, Dean
www.architecture.yale.edu

First Bass Scholar named
Architecture student Stephen Gage ’12MArch will be the first Yale Bass Scholar in Architecture following his graduation in May. He will enroll in a one-year program at Cambridge University and earn an MPhil degree in architecture. The Bass Scholars in Architecture program, sponsored by Edward P. Bass ’68,’72ArtA, will fund an exchange of students between Cambridge and Yale Universities. Each year, one recent graduate of Yale will be selected to attend Cambridge, and one recent graduate of Cambridge will be chosen to enroll at Yale School of Architecture in either the MArch II program or the master of environmental design program.

Discussing parks, politics, and people
Lectures at the school this semester bring prominent architects, designers, and scholars to discuss various aspects of architectural design. On March 29 the Myriam Bellazoug Memorial Lecture will feature Adrian Benepe, commissioner of New York City Parks and Recreation, speaking on “Sustainable Parks for the 21st Century.” In April experimental French architect François Roche presents “The Risk(s) of Hiring Me,” while in the same week CUNY professor Neil Smith presents the Roth-Symonds Lecture, “Toxic Capitalism: Neoliberalism, City Building and Crisis.” Also in April, Eero Saarinen Visiting Professor Frank O. Gehry will hold a public “conversation” with Pulitzer Prize–winning architecture critic Paul Goldberger ’72 as part of the open house for admitted students. And wrapping up the season will be the Poynter Fellow in Journalism Lecture featuring New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman ’80.

School of Art
Robert Storr, Dean
www.yale.edu/art

Malcolm Morley in a nutshell
An exhibition of oil paintings, watercolors, and works on paper by international contemporary artist Malcolm Morley has been on view this winter in the school’s 32 Edgewood Avenue Gallery. Malcolm Morley in a Nutshell: The Fine Art of Painting 1954–2012 comprises 23 works: 15 paintings—including two painted installations being exhibited for the first time, seven watercolors, and a drawing. Featured works range from large-scale canvases such as Cristoforo Colombo (1965) and Camels and Goats (1980) to smaller sketches such as Hollywood Film Stars and Homes Foldout (1973) and two new painted installations, Biggles and The Spitfire (both 2012). The exhibition centers on the recurring themes of disaster and chaos in Morley’s oeuvre, while offering glimpses of its other more whimsical dimensions. Born in London in 1931, Morley has forged a unique path as an artist, creating a body of work that continues to reflect his childhood experience of the Blitz and the ensuing postwar era in London. Morley spoke at the school on January 30, just prior to the exhibition’s opening. The show remains on view through March 31.

Yale College
Mary E. Miller, Dean
http://yalecollege.yale.edu

A home for Native American students
Native American students at Yale are about to get a place they can call their own. This fall, Yale welcomed its largest-ever incoming class of Native American freshmen: 40 members of the class of 2015 identify themselves as primarily Native American, and another dozen identify themselves as Native Americans in conjunction with another group. To accommodate ever-increasing numbers of Native American students, Yale College is establishing a new site for the Native American Cultural Center (NACC), which was created in 1993 to promote Native American culture and issues on campus. The NACC currently shares space with the Asian American Cultural Center at 295 Crown Street, but will move during 2012 to its new location at 26 High Street.

Debating successes
The Yale Debate Association (YDA), the most successful collegiate debate team in the United States, has continued its winning ways this year. For the fourth year in a row, the YDA has been named the Club of the Year in the American circuit, which recognizes the consistency of each member on the team. In addition, YDA placed 1st, 2nd, and 3rd at last year’s North American championship, and 2nd and 3rd at this past year’s nationals. They have won four American tournaments this year and have competed overseas at Oxford and Cambridge Universities. The YDA was invited to this year’s world championships in Manila, where two Yale teams made it into the “octafinal” rounds. One of the oldest college debating teams in the country, the YDA celebrated its centennial in 2008.

A year as a Yale student
For the first time,Yale College has brought a small cohort of international students from partner institutions to spend a year as fully integrated members of the Yale community. Seventeen students from the National University of Singapore (NUS) and the Universidad Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico (the Tec) are enrolled in Yale College as part of the Yale Visiting International Student Program (Y-VISP). They take Yale undergraduate courses, live in the residential colleges, and enjoy the same extracurricular activities available to all Yale students. The “Y-VISPers” are actively taking advantage of all Yale’s resources and bringing the perspective of two very different cultural and educational systems into the classroom.

Divinity School
Harold W. Attridge, Dean
www.yale.edu/divinity

AYA honors YDS alumni
Yale Divinity School alumni have garnered two Association of Yale Alumni Board of Governors Excellence Awards. The awards—one for “outstanding school event” and the other for “best marketing, branding, and communications”—were formally announced during ceremonies at the AYA annual assembly in November. The school event award was presented in recognition of “Honoring the Past, Challenging the Future: Celebrating 8 Decades of Women at Yale Divinity School,” which highlighted Convocation and Reunions 2010 and helped bring a record number of alumni back to campus in 2010. The marketing award recognized communications surrounding YDS’s 2011 Lenten initiative, entitled “Mobilizing Faith, Fighting Poverty,” which spanned the 40 days of Lent.

Dean honored with festschrift
Dean Harold Attridge was honored with a festschrift prior to the concurrent American Academy of Religion and Society of Biblical Literature meetings in San Francisco in November, in recognition of his New Testament scholarship over a span of four decades. The festschrift, published by the Society of Biblical Literature and entitled Method and Meaning: Essays on New Testament Interpretation in Honor of Harold W. Attridge, is a tome of over 500 pages featuring articles by 30 scholars. Attridge will step down from the deanship at the end of his second five-year term in June but will continue to teach at YDS.

YDS Day of Service
On a Friday in November, 85 Yale Divinity School students and staff devoted their afternoons to serving neighbors in New Haven, as part of the second annual Day of Service organized by the YDS Committee on Community Engagement (YCCE). Volunteers assembled toiletry kits at a homeless shelter, played games and shared conversation with adults afflicted with mental illness, served music and ice cream at an elderly care facility, and painted, baked brownies, cleaned apartments, or made cards for seniors. Volunteer coordinator Lisa Levy ’12MDiv called the experience “transformative,” adding that she hoped it would lead YDS students “into a sustained life of service.”

School of Drama
James Bundy, Dean
www.yale.edu/drama

British dramaturg to chair playwriting
Jeanie O’Hare, the company dramaturg at the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) since 2005, has been appointed chair of Yale’s Department of Playwriting. At the RSC, O’Hare has been responsible for dozens of commissions that have brought the works of living playwrights back to high visibility within the company’s repertoire; brought playwrights into the RSC for extended residencies; forged an alliance with LAByrinth Theater Company in New York City; and conducted play development workshops at the University of Michigan, among many other projects. O’Hare’s three-year term begins July 1.

Former acting teacher remembered
Earle R. Gister, who served as associate dean, chair of the acting department, and the first Lloyd Richards Professor (Adjunct) of Acting during his tenure at the School of Drama from 1979 to 1999, died at his home in New Haven in January. Widely hailed as one of America’s foremost acting teachers, Gister will be mourned by generations of his students and colleagues here at Yale and elsewhere, after a career spanning more than 40 years teaching actors who went on to extraordinary success in theater, television, and film. He played key roles in actor training programs at North Carolina School of the Arts, the Juilliard School, Carnegie Mellon University, City College of New York, the British American Drama Academy, and the Actors Center. Earle was also a cofounder of the League of Professional Theatre Training Programs, an advisor to the National Endowment for the Arts, and cochair of the training panel of Theatre Communications Group. His teachings have been largely captured in the book, Acting: The Gister Method, written in collaboration with Joe Alberti and being released this year by Pearson Academic.

School of Engineering & Applied Science
T. Kyle Vanderlick, Dean
www.seas.yale.edu

Studying energy efficient buildings
An interdisciplinary project that studies electrical consumption in commercial buildings and develops automated methods to improve energy efficiency has received a boost from the Wells Fargo National Green Buildings Initiative. The Intelligent Buildings Project, headed by SEAS associate professor Andreas Savvides and the School of Architecture’s Michele Addington, in conjunction with the Yale Climate and Energy Institute, aims to lay the groundwork for the creation of “intelligent” buildings that are designed with better systems of managing energy use, significantly reducing the overall rate of consumption. The Wells Fargo $200,000 grant will support research and development of such systems.

Undergrads garner national award
A team of three Yale undergraduate engineering majors is the winner of the annual Collegiate Inventors Competition sponsored by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Juniors Elizabeth Asai, Nick Demas, and Elliot Swart won first place in the undergraduate category for their 3Derm System, a handheld imaging device that obtains 3-D, high-definition images of skin lesions and other abnormalities. Their skin imaging device is a small, low-cost camera that can be used by doctors or patients to capture and upload 3-D pictures to a web-based directory. Dermatologists can remotely access the pictures in the directory and monitor a variety of skin ailments without seeing the patient in person. The group developed the device as an extracurricular project. The award includes a $12,500 prize for the students and a $2,500 donation to SEAS to support future student design projects.

Graduate students win design prize
A team led by SEAS graduate student Monika Weber was awarded first place in the Create the Future design contest sponsored by NASA Tech Briefs magazine, for their design of a new way to both detect bacteria that cause food-borne diseases and help doctors diagnose infections. Other members of the Yale team include graduate student Christopher Yerino; alumni Hazael Montanaro and Kane Siu Lung Lo; and Mark Reed, the Harold Hodgkinson professor of engineering and applied science. Their design, called αScreen, can screen food in processing plants at a cost that is 50 times less expensive than current methods. The portable device will also allow doctors to quickly identify bacteria from blood samples. Their innovation will detect the presence of bacteria in less than 30 minutes at a cost of only $1 per test.

School of Forestry & Environmental Studies
Peter Crane, Dean
www.environment.yale.edu

Spotted salamander evolution
Spotted salamanders exposed to contaminated roadside ponds are adapting to th
eir toxic environments by evolving rapidly, according to a Yale paper in Scientific Reports. Salamanders breeding in roadside ponds are exposed to a host of contaminants from road runoff, most notably sodium chloride from road salt, which reaches average concentrations of 70 times higher than that of woodland ponds located hundreds of feet from the road. F&ES doctoral student Steven Brady, who authored the study, observed salamanders in ten ponds—five roadside and five woodland—in northeastern Connecticut, and found that the ones in roadside ponds have higher mortality, grow at a slower rate, and are more likely to develop L-shaped spines and other disfigurements. In addition, he found that only 56 percent of salamander eggs survive the first ten weeks of development, whereas 87 percent survive in the woodland ponds. But, Brady says, the salamanders that survive in the ponds year after year appear to have adapted to the harsh conditions and do “substantially better” than the woodland ones when they’re raised together.

Cyclones to cause greater damage
Yale and MIT researchers have calculated that by the year 2100, tropical cyclones will have caused $109 billion in damages. This figure represents an increased vulnerability from population and especially economic growth, as well as the effects from climate change. Using a tropical cyclone integrated assessment model along with climate models, the researchers were able to predict how the frequency, intensity, and location of tropical cyclones change in the seven oceans, and then applied historical data to estimate damages. The authors based their estimates on a future global population of 9 billion and an annual increase of about 3 percent in gross world product until 2100. The paper was published in Nature Climate Change.

Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
Thomas D. Pollard, Dean
www.yale.edu/graduateschool

New face at the Graduate School
The Graduate School has recruited Allegra di Bonaventura ’93MA, ’02JD, ’08PhD (history), to help provide guidance and support to students in the humanities and social sciences. As assistant dean, di Bonaventura runs the Dean’s Fund, which gives financial support to student-organized research workshops, seminars, and colloquia. She is also responsible for non-degree students, student leaves, fellowship programs, and joint degrees with the law school. Di Bonaventura continues to work half time as an assistant editor of the Benjamin Franklin Papers, where she focuses on Franklin’s French and Italian correspondence as well as on legal issues in his writings.

Bacteria in the gut fight lung infection
Graduate student Iris Pang (immunobiology), working with former postdoc Takeshi Ichinohe in Akiko Iwasaki’s lab, has shown that “commensal” bacteria—the harmless or helpful kind—in the intestines actually play an important role in fighting flu infection in the lung. Her recent publication in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has attracted a lot of attention and led to articles in American Scientist, Nature, and Scientific American. The study is the first to demonstrate that commensal bacteria provide a signal to the body that prepares other organs, in this case the lungs, to mount an immune response against viruses. Antibiotics, which suppress bacteria in the gut, seem to impair the body’s ability to send those signals.

Alumnus wins Humboldt Award
Robert Entman ’77PhD (political science) has won the Alexander von Humboldt Research Award for his groundbreaking contributions to the field of political communication. He is the world’s first political communication scholar to receive this award. Entman, the Shapiro Professor of Media and Public Affairs and professor of international affairs at George Washington University, studies media “framing” and bias and the media’s influence on foreign policy, race relations, and other aspects of American politics. His work has been cited in thousands of scholarly publications and has profoundly influenced current thinking about the media. In his forthcoming book, Scandal and Silence: Media Responses to Presidential Misconduct (Wiley, 2012), he challenges the conventional wisdom that the media seek out and publicize scandals, arguing that, in fact, most instances of corruption are ignored. Entman advances a theoretical model that reveals an underlying logic to what might seem arbitrary and capricious journalism.

Law School
Robert Post, Dean
www.law.yale.edu

Law School hosts distinguished guests
US Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas ’74JD was welcomed back to his alma mater on December 14, where he spent a full day meeting with members of the Yale Law School Federalist Society and Black Law Students Association and coteaching a Federal Jurisdiction class with Sterling Professor of Law Akhil Reed Amar ’84JD. He also attended a reception for faculty and guests hosted by Dean Robert Post ’77JD. Former secretary of state Henry Kissinger engaged with students on December 9 in a “Special Conversation on Sino-America Relations.” Kissinger addressed students from the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs as well as the Law School and later met with the Yale Law Foreign Policy Workshop. Former British prime minister Tony Blair spoke to the Law School community and guests on December 2 about faith, globalization, security, and constitutional reform in Great Britain, among other topics. Blair, who previously cotaught a course on faith and globalization with divinity professor Miroslav Volf, was delivering the Law School’s annual Judge Jon O. Newman Lecture on Global Justice.

Two receive endowed professorships
Anne L. Alstott ’87JD has been named the Jacquin D. Bierman Professor of Taxation. A specialist in taxation and social policy, Alstott joined Yale Law School in 1997 and was originally named the Bierman Professor of Taxation in 2004. She served as deputy dean in 2002 and 2004 and twice won the Yale Law Women teaching award. She left Yale Law in 2008 to teach law at Harvard, and rejoined the Yale Law faculty in July 2011. Michael Wishnie ’93JD has been named the William O. Douglas Clinical Professor of Law. He joined Yale Law School in 2006 and assumed directorship of the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization (LSO) in February 2011. His teaching, scholarship, and law practice have focused on immigration, labor and employment, habeas corpus, civil rights, government transparency, and veterans’ law.

Human rights program renewed through 2015
The Robina Foundation Human Rights Fellowship Initiative at Yale Law School was established in 2008 with the goal of fostering a burgeoning network of leaders who are passionate about and committed to human rights work. Originally funded by the Robina Foundation for three years, the grant was renewed in 2010 through fiscal year 2012. Recently the foundation pledged another $3 million to support the initiative through fiscal year 2015.

School of Management
Edward A. Snyder, Dean
www.mba.yale.edu

Developing global business leaders
Yale SOM has led the formation of a network of 17 top business schools from around the world, which will give students and faculty unique opportunities to expand their knowledge and grow into stronger global leaders as they consider the question of what leadership challenges face enterprises in the future. Enterprises in all sectors need leaders who understand markets and organizations, and can work in increasingly diverse and complex contexts. The Global Network for Advanced Management will help develop leaders who can operate successfully in this modern world. Sixteen schools have already joined the network, including the Asian Institute of Management (The Philippines), FGV Escola de Administração de Empresas de São Paulo (Brazil), INSEAD (France, Singapore), Koç University Graduate School of Business (Turkey), National University of Singapore Business School, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School (Ireland), and University of Ghana Business School. The network will officially launch with an event in New Haven and New York on April 26–27.

New degree in advanced management
Beginning this fall, a new one-year degree program at Yale SOM will bring a small group of extraordinary students from outside the US to Yale to further their educational and professional development. The Master of Advanced Management (MAM) program, open only to graduates of schools that are part of the new Global Network for Advanced Management, will focus on developing leaders with a strong understanding of markets and the ability to handle complex problems and organizations. Individualized programs of study may include courses at SOM as well as at other graduate and professional schools at Yale. MAM students will meet regularly with faculty, corporate partners, MBA students, and others to explore major issues facing businesses and societies.

School of Medicine 
Robert J. Alpern, Dean
www.med.yale.edu/ysm

Unlocking access to HIV care
Frederick L. Altice, a pioneering HIV/AIDS researcher, epidemiologist, and clinician, has been honored with a gift from the Indonesia-based Nusantara Trust Fund Foundation, a private philanthropic organization that provides aid and assistance for humanitarian programs in Southeast Asia. Altice, professor of medicine and public health, has traveled the world pursuing his work on the interface between infectious diseases and substance abuse. He has helped to improve access to care and treatment programs for HIV-infected drug users in Malaysia, Ukraine, Iran, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Peru. The gift, which includes a resource fund of $2 million, will enable Altice to expand on the research infrastructure he’s helped to build in Southeast Asia over the last decade.

A new window on the life of the brain
A new study of remarkable size and scope offers clues to how the human brain develops, from its early stages into old age. The landmark research, conducted by an international team of scientists led by Nenad Sestan, associate professor of neurobiology and a member of Yale’s Kavli Institute for Neuroscience, found that gene expression in the human brain is exquisitely choreographed across developmental periods and brain regions. This tailoring of gene expression occurs particularly during the prenatal period, during which there are rapid changes in brain structure and function. The study was published in the October 27 issue of Nature.

Pioneering psychiatric telemedicine
Linda S. Godleski has received the David M. Worthen Award for Career Achievement in Educational Excellence from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the VA’s highest recognition for academic accomplishments. Godleski, associate chief of staff for education for the VA Connecticut Healthcare System in West Haven, Connecticut, and associate professor of psychiatry at the School of Medicine, has pioneered the application of telemedicine (the use of technology to provide medical care when distance separates providers from patients) to psychiatry, in an emerging field known as “telemental health medicine.” As director of the VA National Telemental Health Center, Godleski has been a leader in developing telemental health curricula for the VA, which has one of the largest such programs in the world.

School of Music
Robert Blocker, Dean
http://music.yale.edu

Philharmonia explores chamber music
This February, the Yale Philharmonia worked with guest conductors Xu Zhong and William Christie on two programs of music for chamber orchestra. The first program, presented February 24, offered a chamber arrangement of Mahler’s Symphony No. 4, with Heather Buck ’96MusM as the vocal soloist, and Haydn’s Cello Concerto in C major, with Jian Wang ’88CERT as the soloist and cello professor Aldo Parisot conducting. The Philharmonia also performed under early music specialist William Christie ’69MusM in two concerts that also featured the debut of the Yale Choral Artists. The all-Handel program was performed both in Morse Recital Hall and, as part of the Yale in New York series, in Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall.

YSM pianists perform Prokofiev’s complete piano sonatas
The School of Music presented the complete piano sonatas of Sergei Prokofiev last December to celebrate a new, definitive performance edition of the scores, edited by faculty member Boris Berman. Berman, the author of Prokofiev’s Piano Sonatas: A Guide for the Listener and the Performer, was the first pianist to record the composer’s complete solo piano works. The sonatas were divided into two recitals, and each pair of programs was presented first on campus, in Morse Recital Hall, and then in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. The pianists, selected through a school-wide competition, were Naomi Woo ’13MusM, Euntaek Kim ’13ArtA, David Fung ’12MusAM, Esther Park ’12ArtA, Scott MacIsaac ’14CertPF, Lee Dionne ’13MusM, Larry Weng ’12ArtA, Melody Quah ’13ArtA, and Henry Kramer ’13ArtA.

Anonymous gift aids restoration effort
To help restore the Battell Stoeckel Estate in Norfolk, Connecticut—home of the annual Norfolk Chamber Music Festival—to its early twentieth-century splendor, an anonymous donor has contributed $500,000 toward the renovation of Whitehouse and $1 million to be used as a two-to-one challenge grant for restoring the historic Music Shed. The Battell Stoeckel Trust will add $1 million to the anonymous contribution for Whitehouse. The money will be used to complete the second phase of a total renovation of the Battell family’s ancestral home. The first phase was finished this past winter; the new construction, which includes rebuilding the roof and chimneys, as well as a new security system, is scheduled for completion in time for the festival’s 2012 season.

School of Nursing
Margaret Grey, Dean
www.nursing.yale.edu

Professor studies child exploitation
A US government committee, formed at the request of the Department of Justice to conduct a study of sex trafficking of children in the United States, will include among its members YSN associate dean for academic affairs Barbara Guthrie. Guthrie is part of a panel of experts who will review relevant research and inform future policy and practices within law enforcement, human services, and health care agencies. The committee was formed by the Institute of Medicine, the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences, and the National Research Council.

Helping teens cope with diabetes
YSN dean Margaret Grey and associate professor Robin Whittemore have received $750,000 from the American Diabetes Association to expand on past successes in helping adolescents cope with type 1 diabetes. Grey and Whittemore developed TeenCope, an online forum using an eye-catching graphic novel format to get adolescents talking to each other about managing diabetes. The site also delivers coping-skills lessons from animated characters. The new three-year translational research project, “Integrating Behavioral Care for Teens with Diabetes,” will enhance online participation through social networking, as peer support is an important component of maintaining a healthy lifestyle, and study its outcomes.

Nursing journal honors textbook
The American Journal of Nursing (AJN) has named Sleep Disorders and Sleep Promotion in Nursing Practice a Book of the Year for 2011. The graduate-level nursing textbook was coedited by Nancy Redeker, YSN professor and associate dean for scholarly affairs. The award states, “This well-written book provides a thorough exploration of sleep disorders. It outlines nursing care and guidelines to assist in the workup for sleep disturbances. As many geriatric patients experience such disorders, it’s extremely relevant for nurses caring for this population.” The AJN judges added that the book “provides information on a topic that’s not always covered in curriculum but is relevant to all patients.”

School of Public Health
Paul D. Cleary, Dean
http://publichealth.yale.edu

Skin cancer in young people linked to indoor tanning
People who use indoor tanning beds are at a significantly higher risk of developing basal cell carcinoma (BCC) before the age of 40 than people who never have used indoor tanning beds. Led by researchers from YSPH, a recent study determined that young people who had tanned indoors had a 69 percent increased risk of early-onset BCC. The association was strongest among women and the risk increased with years of indoor tanning use. “Indoor tanning was strikingly common in our study of young skin cancer patients, especially in the women, which may partially explain why 70 percent of early-onset BCCs occur in females,” said Susan T. Mayne, professor at the School of Public Health and the senior author of the study.

Using games to combat deadly disease
Students from the schools of public health and forestry and environmental studies are working with officials from the Red Cross/Red Crescent’s Climate Centre to promote an educational program that teaches children about the dangers posed by dengue fever. The students developed a game known as Humans Versus Mosquitoes with the goal of educating children about complex health and environmental concepts in a way that is fun and will make a lasting impression. The game can be played in an open field or on a tabletop. It requires no special equipment and has no complex rules. Its objective is simple—either the humans or the mosquitoes are left standing in the end.

Exploring public health aspects of food
An exhibition at Yale’s Peabody Museum of Natural History through December 2 addresses the food challenges of the twenty-first century, including changing eating habits and the alarming levels of obesity in the United States and beyond. Big Food: Health, Culture, and the Evolution of Eating will probe such topics as the neuroscience behind appetite and obesity; social, environmental, and cultural influences on behavioral choices in nutrition and exercise; and the serious health consequences associated with obesity. The exhibition’s lead curator is Jeannette R. Ickovics, professor and director of the social and behavioral sciences program at YSPH.