Alumnus heads Smithsonian museum
Kirk Johnson ’89PhD (geology & geophysics) became the Sant Director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, in October. At the museum, he oversees more than 460 employees, an annual federal budget of $68 million, and a collection of more than 126 million specimens and artifacts—the largest collection at the Smithsonian. The natural history museum hosts an average of seven million visitors a year, and its scientists annually publish about 500 scientific research studies. Before coming to the Smithsonian, Johnson was chief curator at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.
Students devote time and talent to New Haven
“Giving back to the community in which we all live” is one of the “responsibilities students have as scholars and researchers,” Dean Thomas Pollard says. The Graduate School takes that responsibility seriously, hosting blood drives, collecting donations for local food pantries and coat closets, and supporting McDougal Public Service Fellows, who organize and promote opportunities for students to volunteer throughout the year. The annual Yale Day of Service, organized by public service fellows Ted Schmid (immunobiology) and Michelle Legaspi (chemistry), took place in October. About 160 people helped out at 24 local agencies, including the Ronald McDonald House, the Eli Whitney Museum, the YMCA, Common Ground High School, Edgewood Park, and Neighborhood Housing Services. Legaspi says, “Public service plays a large role in helping me develop a sense of place in New Haven. I have seen the positive impact we can make as volunteers, and it is indescribably fulfilling.”
Exploring the neurobiology of alcoholism
Jacqueline Barker (neuroscience) is part of a team of Yale researchers who are looking into the neurobiology of addictive behavior. She was lead author of an article that appeared in a recent issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience describing a simple behavioral test that she and her colleagues used to predict which mice would exhibit alcoholism-related behaviors such as the inability to stop seeking alcohol. The study is part of her dissertation, which investigates differences in neural circuitry connected to reward-seeking. She hopes her research may help predict a propensity toward addictive behaviors and enable the identification of new therapeutic strategies to prevent addictive disorders. Jacqui’s research is done in the lab of Jane Taylor, the Charles B. G. Murphy Professor of Psychiatry and professor of psychology at the Yale School of Medicine.
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