School Notes: Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
May/June 2014

Bringing science to the public

A group of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows who call themselves “Yale Science Diplomats” devote time and talent to improving communication between scientists, the general public, and policy makers. One of their most popular efforts is “Science in the News,” a series of entertaining educational programs held once a month at the New Haven Free Public Library. Yale Science Diplomats also send speakers into the public schools to demonstrate real-world science and interest teenagers in STEM careers. They host lectures and workshops and, in coordination with Graduate Career Services, go to Washington, DC, every two years to meet with scientists at agencies such as the NIH, the State Department, and the EPA to learn about career and fellowship opportunities.

Creating robotic hands

Graduate student Raymond Ma ’13MS (engineering) and other scientists in Aaron Dollar’s GRAB Lab study how the human hand grasps and manipulates objects. Then they design and build robotic devices that can perform those functions. Their creations may one day become prosthetics or be put to work in search-and-rescue missions. And if robotic personal assistants ever become available, these are the hands that might uncork a bottle of wine and pour it into your glass. Currently available artificial hands are either simple parallel-jaw grippers or highly complex and expensive. Ma is developing dextrous hands “that are affordable and only require simple commands, but are capable of more than just basic grasping and pinching.” 

Honors for environmentalist

The Botanical Research Institute of Texas recently presented its International Award of Excellence in Conservation to pioneering environmentalist Thomas E. Lovejoy ’64, ’71PhD (EEB), in honor of his life’s work. Lovejoy was also recently appointed to l’Ordre des Palmes Academiques by the French government and given the World Wildlife Fund’s Leaders for a Living Planet award. In 1980, in the early years of the environmental movement, Lovejoy coined the term “biological diversity.” Over the years, he has conducted research on the Amazon rainforest and elsewhere, launched important ecological initiatives, taught and published books, created the PBS program Nature, advised presidents from Carter to Clinton, and more.