University People
One for the Books
Justin Ide / Harvard News Office
Robert C. Darnton
Justin Ide / Harvard News Office
Sidney Verba
Robert C. Darnton ’60, JF ’68, Davis professor of European history at Princeton, became Pforzheimer University Professor and director of the Harvard University Library, effective July 1, succeeding Sidney Verba in both capacities. Darnton, a former Rhodes Scholar, MacArthur Fellow, and chevalier of France’s Légion d’honneur, has published widely on the literary world of Enlightenment France. He has also directed Princeton’s Center for the Study of Books and Media—he is a founder of the study of books as a distinct historical subject—and is a trustee of the New York Public Library. In his new capacity, he will be responsible for coordinating policy among the University’s many libraries, and for central library functions such as extensive digital initiatives, preservation, and off-site storage at the Harvard Depository. Separately, friends of the libraries established a $2.5-million endowment in Verba’s honor, to be used flexibly to support high-priority projects throughout the library system.
Economics Acclaim
Kris Snibbe / Harvard News Office
Susan C. Athey
Professor of economics Susan C. Athey, who came to Harvard from Stanford in 2006, has become the first woman awarded the American Economic Association’s John Bates Clark Medal. The award, conferred every two years, recognizes the nation’s most promising economist under the age of 40; of the 29 previous winners, 11 have been named Nobel laureates. Harvard’s roster of medalists also includes the late Warburg professor of economics Zvi Griliches, Eliot University Professor and past Harvard president Lawrence H. Summers, and professor of economics Andrei Shleifer. Athey has conducted research that ranges from theoretical inquiries to studies of the conduct of auctions and the career paths of academic economists.
Guggenheim Grantees
Jon Chase / Harvard News Office
Daniel Carpenter
Jon Chase / Harvard News Office
Kay Kaufman Shelemay
Faculty members who have won 2007 Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellowships include professor of gov- ernment Daniel Carpenter, who also directs the Center for American Political Studies; professor of urban design and planning theory Margaret Crawford; Watts professor of music and professor of African and African American studies Kay Kaufman Shelemay; Ditson professor of music Anne C. Shreffler; and McKay professor of computer science and applied mathematics Salil P. Vadhan.
Courtesy Of Harvard Music Department
Anne C. Shreffler
National Academy Notables
Jon Chase / Harvard News Office
Gerald Gabrielse
Five faculty members have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences: Michael B. Brenner, Bayles professor of medicine; Gerald Gabrielse, Leverett professor of physics; Curtis T. McMullen, Cabot professor of the natural sciences; Jonathan G. Seidman, Bugher foundation professor of genetics; and Clifford J. Tabin, professor of genetics.
Ethics Emissary
Courtesy Of The Kennedy School Of Government
Frederick Schauer
Stanton professor of the First Amendment Frederick Schauer, of the Kennedy School of Government, will be the new director of the Safra Foundation Center for Ethics, President Derek Bok announced in April. Schauer succeeds Whitehead professor of political philosophy Dennis F. Thompson, the University-wide center’s founding director, who is completing 20 years of service; he, too, was appointed by Bok (see “Ethics in Practice,” May-June, page 58). While Schauer is at Oxford during the coming academic year, professor of ethics and public policy Arthur Applbaum will serve as interim director.
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