Alumna to head Smith College
Kathleen McCartney ’82PhD (psychology) will become the 11th president of Smith College on July 1, when the current president, Carol T. Christ ’70PhD, steps down. McCartney is currently dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Gerald S. Lesser Professor in Early Childhood Development. An internationally recognized authority on child development and early education, she has been on the faculty of Harvard’s Graduate School of Education for 13 years, the last 7 as its dean. Under her leadership, the school expanded its faculty by 25 percent, launched a new doctoral program in educational leadership and an interdisciplinary, research-focused PhD program, and raised more than $162 million in philanthropic support.
Non-academic careers for PhDs
“Turn that PhD into a J-O-B” is a program of Graduate Career Services for students interested in working outside academia. The fall program focused on career options for scientists; this semester’s program is aimed at students in the social sciences and the humanities. Topics covered in the program include creating strong résumés and curricula vitae, setting realistic goals, and crafting an “elevator speech”—a one-minute presentation to give to a potential employer. Participants analyzed job descriptions to learn to read between the lines, and brainstormed networking opportunities available to them both on and off campus, including the very strong Yale alumni database.
Researching the causes of lupus
Allison Campbell ’10MD, ’10MS (immunobiology), is pursuing both an MD and PhD degree at Yale while studying the causes of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), an autoimmune disease in which the body attacks its own healthy tissue. Patients with SLE may have inflammation in a range of organs, including skin, joints, kidneys, and brain. There is no cure for SLE, and the source of the self-antigens targeted by the immune system is unknown. Campbell decided to look at the role of a key protein called NADPH oxidase, which had been implicated in causing lupus. Working with Professor Mark Shlomchik, she created a line of mice that lacked the protein. Contrary to expectations, these mice developed a severe form of lupus, suggesting that NADPH oxidase actually suppresses the disease, so its absence exacerbates the disease. Campbell’s findings were published last fall in Science Translational Medicine, a journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
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