More news of Yale people

Dan Renzetti

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Appointed

Steven Girvin (left), who has been a professor in the physics department at Yale since 2001, has been appointed Sterling Professor of Physics. A leader in the field of quantum computing, Girvin also has an appointment in applied physics at the School of Engineering and Applied Science. The Sterling professorship is Yale’s highest faculty honor; up to 40 active professors can hold the title.

Kerwin Charles, dean of the School of Management since 2019, was appointed to a second five-year term that began on July 1. An economist whose own research focuses on inequality, Charles is also the Frederick W. Beinecke Professor of Economics, Policy, and Management at Yale. During his five years as dean, SOM has established the Swensen Asset Management Institute; the school also has become the new home of the Broad Center, which offers a tuition-free master’s degree in public education management.

MacArthur Foundation

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Honored

Martha Muñoz (left), an assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Yale, is among 22 winners of this year’s MacArthur Fellowships, the so-called genius grants awarded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The foundation wrote that “Muñoz is reshaping our understanding of evolutionary determinants and providing critical insights into how changing environments and the day-to-day behavior of organisms will impact long-term patterns of evolution.” Also among the winners is alumna Dorothy Roberts ’77, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania described by the foundation as a “legal scholar and public policy researcher exposing racial inequities embedded within health and social service systems.” The fellows receive an $800,000 award.
 
Four alumni of the Graduate School were honored in October with the Wilbur Lucius Cross Medal—given annually by the school’s alumni association for outstanding achievements in their fields. James Scott ’67PhD, a political scientist and Yale professor who died in July, was honored posthumously. The other medalists are Anne Ferguson-Amith ’89PhD (biology), a genetics professor at the University of Cambridge; John Guillory ’79PhD (English), a professor emeritus at New York University; and Kai Li ’86PhD (computer science), a professor at Princeton.

Remembered

William R. Burch Jr., a professor at the School of the Environment from 1968 to 2008, died on July 16. He was 91. Burch was a pioneer in the field of social and community forestry who put his ideas into practice as founder of the school’s Urban Resources Initiative. He also founded Yale’s Tropical Resources Institute. He retired as Frederick C. Hixon Professor of Natural Resources Management.