More news of Yale people

Mary Helen Goldsmith View full image

Remembered

Mary Helen Goldsmith (left),a biology professor who served as head of Silliman College from 1987 to 1994, died on October 2. She was 91 years old. First appointed to the faculty in 1963, Goldsmith was a plant physiologist who studied the role of plant hormones. She helped create the undergraduate major in environmental studies, and she was director of the Marsh Botanical Garden for 16 years. Her husband Tim, who survives her, is an emeritus professor of molecular, cellular, and developmental biology.

David Smith ’64BD, a Yale Divinity School graduate who returned to the university decades later to be the first director of the Yale Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics, died on October 5. He was 85. Smith earned a PhD from Princeton, then spent 36 years as a religious studies professor at Indiana University, where he was also director of the Poynter Center for the Study of Ethics and American Institutions. At Yale, from 2007 to 2011, he oversaw the transformation of a bioethics program in the Institution for Social and Policy Studies to a more formally organized center.

Honored

Two Yale seniors and two recent graduates are among this year’s recipients of the Rhodes Scholarship. Sayda Martinez-Alvarado ’23, from Leesburg, Virginia, and Angelin Mathew ’25, from Davie, Florida, are among the 32 US Rhodes Scholars. Chriss Tuyishime ’25, from Rwanda, and Tony Wang ’24, from China, are international recipients. Around 100 Rhodes Scholars from around the world are chosen each year; the prestigious program offers funding for two to three years of graduate study at the Universiy of Oxford.

Peter Salovey ’86PhD, who returned full-time to the Yale faculty after stepping down as president of the university in June, has been appointed the Sterling Professor of Psychology. A pioneer in the study of emotional intelligence, Salovey was previously the Chris Argyris Professor of Psychology. He holds additional faculty appointments in the School of Management, the School of Public Health, the Institution for Social and Policy Studies, and the sociology department. The Sterling professorship is Yale’s highest faculty honor; up to 40 active professors can hold the title.