More news of Yale people

Honored

Computer science and mathematics professor Daniel Spielman ’92 won a MacArthur Fellowship this year. Spielman does theoretical research aimed at developing “error-correcting codes” to aid in the transmission of digital data. Spielman was one of 23 winners  of the 2012 fellowships, which provide $500,000 over five years to people “who show exceptional creativity in their work.”

The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences conferred the Wilbur Lucius Cross Medal on four alumni on October 11: ecologist John Aber ’71, ’73MFS, ’76PhD, provost and vice president of the University of New Hampshire; historian Alfred McCoy ’77PhD of the University of Wisconsin; biologist and DNA-sequencing entrepreneur Jonathan Rothberg ’91PhD; and linguist Sarah Grey Thomason ’68PhD of the University of Michigan.

Remembered

Phil Moriarty, the Yale swimming and diving coach who coached athletes to collegiate championships and Olympic medals, died on August 18. He was 98. He began coaching in 1939, and by his retirement in 1976 had coached his teams to 11 Eastern Intercollegiate Swim League championships and a 195–25 dual-meet record. John Lapides ’72, former president of the Yale Swimming Association, told the Yale Daily News that Moriarty was a source of guidance both inside and outside the pool.

Richard Warren ’59, curator of Yale’s Historical Sound Recordings Collection for 42 years, died on October 7, at the age of 75, after a stroke. Warren compiled the definitive discography of the works of composer Charles Ives, Class of 1898, and he worked on the reissue of historic recordings, including some of composer Cole Porter ’13.