Alumni
Newsmakers
This
spring the U of C Alumni Association honored ten alumni with professional-achievement
or public-service citations. Winners were invited to campus to
receive the awards during Reunion.
Professional
Achievement Citations
A leading scholar and author on Mesoamerica, David
Carrasco, THM'70, AM'72, PhD'77, taught at the University
of Colorado from 1976 through 1993, establishing its Mesoamerican
Archive and Research Project and directing academic conferences
on Mesoamerican cities and religion. In 1993 Carrasco joined the
department of religion at Princeton University, continuing his
work on the religious dimensions of Latino cultures. Currently
editor in chief of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican
Cultures, Carrasco serves on the board of directors of the
Latino Public Broadcasting Organization and is at work on two
film projects.
Carl
F. Christ, SB'43, PhD'50,
is an economist and innovator in econometrics, testing economic
models' predictive performance. On the faculty of Johns Hopkins
University since 1961, he has held appointments at Princeton,
Cambridge, Chicago, the Center for the Advanced Study in the Behavioral
Sciences, and the Bank of Japan. He has also served for many years
as director and chair of the board of directors of the National
Bureau of Economic Research. Christ continues his work examining
the formulation of national economic policy, in particular the
government budget restraint.
As
president of Harold Washington College in the City Colleges of
Chicago since 1994,
Nancy C. DeSombre, AB'61, AM'62, has guided the institution
from a school with considerable problems to one with new programs,
expanded services, and bright prospects. On the boards of the
State University Retirement System, the Greater State Street Council
of the City of Chicago, and the American Association of Community
Colleges, DeSombre was named the American Association of Women
in Community Colleges' 1999 Woman of the Year. As president of
the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio Foundation (1994-1997),
she worked with the U of C on the restoration of Robie House.
Harold
F. Goldsmith, PhB'49, AM'54, developed and implemented
the 1980 Health Demographic Profile System, which identified the
types of communities more likely to experience higher prevalences
of mental disorders. In his work with the Center for Epidemiology
at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), he provided
models of the mental-health consequences of population growth
and change. Through his teaching at the University of Maryland,
Penn State, and Michigan State and directing demographic studies
at NIMH, Goldsmith has provided an empirical analysis of the relative
role of social and personal factors in the etiology of mental
disorders.
Samuel
Harvey Moseley, SM'74, PhD'79, is recognized as a "superstar"
of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and an influential contributor
to infrared and x-ray astronomy. His airborne infrared work has
focused on the nature of interstellar dust and how stellar material
is returned to the interstellar medium. Early in his NASA career,
he developed a mid-infrared spectrometer that has helped scientists
to understand stellar explosions that represent the fundamental
source of elemental enrichment of the universe. In x-ray astronomy,
he has developed the microcalorimeter, a revolutionary x-ray detector.
Lauren
M. Pachman, MD'61,
is internationally known for her pioneering research in pediatric
rheumatology and immunology. Her research into juvenile dermatomyositis,
a rare and debilitating autoimmune childhood disease affecting
the muscles and skin, has brought important new findings. Pachman
also established a national registry so that patients and their
families can be connected to each other and to reliable information
on the disease and its treatment. She teaches at the University
and at Northwestern Medical School, where she created and heads
the division of pediatric immunology/rheumatology.
Public
Service Citations
Gary
Gitnick, SB'60, MD'63, has improved the chances for
thousands of disadvantaged and disabled children in Los Angeles
by creating a comprehensive program of mentoring, support services,
and college scholarships. With Gitnick as its leader, the 24-year-old
Fulfillment Fund has 1,000 adult volunteers mentoring 2,000 students-seeking
to motivate adolescents to complete school and facilitate their
higher education through tutoring and college scholarships. Professor
of medicine and chief of the University of California-Los Angeles
School of Medicine gastroenterology division-the largest in the
world-Gitnick has published more than 300 articles and 60 books.
An
arts administrator and teacher developing relationships between
the arts and education, Ronne
Hartfield, AB'55, AM'82, led Urban Gateways, an arts
and education organization in Chicago from 1981 to 1991, during
which time it won the Presidential Medal for the Arts. Hartfield
also served as the executive director for museum education at
the Art Institute (1991-1999). As a member of the Divinity School's
Visiting Committee, Hartfield has focused the attention of Chicago's
major museums on issues in religious and sacred representation.
In the coming year she will continue that focus as a senior fellow
at Harvard University's Center for the Study of World Religions.
An
advocate for the mentally ill and the impoverished, Eva
Fishell Lichtenberg, AB'52, AM'55, PhD'60, has devoted
four decades to public service in Chicago. In addition to an active
career as a clinical psychologist and a forensic trial expert,
Lichtenberg chairs the board of the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis
and is secretary of the executive committee of the Emergency Fund
for Needy People. Lichtenberg's public service also has extended
well beyond Chicago. She is a member of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial
Museum's outreach committee and in the American Jewish Committee's
Leo Lichtenberg Institute.