Heading East
Francis J. Doyle III, a professor of chemical engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has been appointed dean of Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), effective August 1. Doyle, whose research has focused on analyzing regulation in biological systems, brings prowess in bioengineering to Cambridge: an area of rising interest extending from SEAS’s faculty ranks to the Medical School and its affiliated hospitals, the Wyss Institute, and other Boston-area institutions. Doyle was a founder of and now directs a collaborative biotechnology institute with Caltech and MIT—a U.S. Army-funded “University Affiliated Research Center,” which includes cooperative ventures with many defense-related and other businesses. He succeeds dean Cherry Murray, who stepped down last December, and interim dean Harry R. Lewis. For more information see harvardmag.com/doyle-15.
Heading South
Photograph by Kent Dayton
Julio Frenk, who became dean of Harvard’s public-health school in January 2009, has been appointed president of the University of Miami; he will depart this summer. A native of Mexico and his country’s minister of health from 2000 to 2006, he will be at the center of academic interchange between North and South America. Pending the search for his successor, academic-affairs dean David. J. Hunter, Gregory professor in cancer prevention, has been appointed interim dean. For an overview of Frenk’s substantive agenda at Harvard, addressing four global health threats and prompting broad revision of the school’s curriculum, see harvardmag.com/frenk-15.
Photograph by Kris Snibbe/HPAC
Photograph by Kris Snibbe/HPAC
Top Teachers
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences has conferred its highest recognition for superior undergraduate teaching, the Harvard College Professorship, on: Evelyn Hu, Tarr-Coyne professor of applied physics and of electrical engineering; Maya Jasanoff, professor of history; Elena Kramer, Bussey professor of organismic and evolutionary biology; Louis Menand, Bass professor of English; and Rob Moss, professor of visual and environmental studies. For a full list of FAS teaching prizes, see harvardmag.com/mentor-15.
Lawyer-in-Chief
Loretta Lynch ’81, J.D. ’84, was confirmed as the eighty-third attorney general of the United States in April, after the most protracted confirmation process for a Cabinet member during the past three decades.
Hedge-Fund Helpers
Ben S. Bernanke ’75, former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, has become an adviser to Citadel, the huge hedge fund founded and run by Kenneth C. Griffin ’89. The latter gave a $150-million gift to The Harvard Campaign, principally for financial aid, in early 2014 (see harvardmag.com/griffin-15). Bernanke told The New York Times he chose to work with Citadel because it is not regulated by the Fed. He subsequently signed another advisory agreement with PIMCO, the giant fixed-income investment firm.
Separately, Safra professor of economics Jeremy C. Stein, who was a member of the Fed’s Board of Governors from 2012 to 2014, has become a consulting adviser to BlueMountain Capital Management, another multibillion-dollar hedge fund.
Such fund managers can readily afford to pay for advice they find productive: according to the annual ranking of hedge-fund managers’ compensation and earnings on their investments released in May by Institutional Investor’s Alpha magazine, Griffin ranked first at $1.3 billion in 2014, and William Ackman ’88, M.B.A. ’92 (donor of $26 million in 2014 for behavioral economics, global health, and men’s crew—see harvardmag.com/ackman-15), who runs the activist Pershing Square Capital Management, brought home $950 million, good enough for fourth place.
Finance Chief
Paige Brown/Tufts Medical Center
Thomas J. Hollister, who began a career in commercial banking in 1979, and then served as chief operating and financial officer of a Massachusetts-based distributor of energy, became Harvard’s chief financial officer and vice president for finance in mid May. He fills a vacancy created last September when Dan Shore stepped down to join a young technology company. A report on Hollister’s background, including his service on several local nonprofit organizations’ boards, appears at harvardmag.com/hollister-15.
Academy Honorands
The National Academy of Sciences has elected to membership: Robert H. Bates, Eaton professor of the science of government and professor of African and African American Studies; Catherine Dulac, Higgins professor of molecular and cellular biology; Scott V. Edwards, professor of organismic and evolutionary biology; Alfred I. Goldberg, professor of cell biology; Jeannie T. Lee, professor of genetics; Bruce Western, professor of sociology and Guggenheim professor of criminal justice (whose work was explored in “The Prison Problem,” March-April 2013); and Hao Wu, Springer professor of structural biology.
Photograph by Stephanie Mitchell/HPAC
Serious—and Not
The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has awarded 2015 fellowships to Maria Gough, Pulitzer professor of modern art (for work on Soviet photography), and Mary Lewis, professor of history (French colonialism). In a lighter vein, Patricia Marx ’75—profiled in “Not Groucho (but Way Funny),” March-April 2008—received a fellowship to support work on her memoir of her years at the Harvard Lampoon. Among the other fellows are Alex Ross ’90, the longtime music critic of The New Yorker, and sociologist Mark R. Warren ’77, Ph.D. ’95, an associate professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston (educational justice).
Lauded Librarian
Pforzheimer University Professor Robert C. Darnton, the University Librarian since 2007, a pioneering historian of the book, has retired from his Harvard posts as of the end of the academic year (see “Gutenberg 2.0,” May-June 2010). He championed open-access publishing of research online, and wrote the prospectus for the Digital Public Library of America. He will remain a denizen of Widener, pursuing his research and adding to an already formidable shelf of his own published works. For his views on the libraries, see harvardmag.com/darnton-15.
Carnegie Citations
The inaugural class of 32 Andrew Carnegie Fellows—who receive $200,000 grants for research and writing, provided by the Carnegie Corporation of New York—includes Gamble professor of economics and demography David E. Bloom, a public-health scholar, and Laurence A. Ralph, assistant professor of African and African American studies and anthropology. Bloom will work on the aging U.S. population. Ralph is focusing on policing, race, and democracy in the twenty-first century.
Photograph by Kris Snibbe/HPAC
Excellence in Economics
Lee professor of economics Roland G. Fryer Jr. has been awarded the American Economic Association’s Clark Medal, conferred on the scholar under the age of 40 who is considered to have made the most significant contributions to economic theory and knowledge. A scholar of race, education, and inequality, he is the first African-American recipient.
Loeb Leader
Architect John Peterson has been appointed curator of the Graduate School of Design’s Loeb Fellowship, effective next January. The program brings professionals to campus for a year of study. Peterson, himself a Loeb Fellow in 2006, founded Public Architecture, a nonprofit that provides design services to underserved communities; for more about him, read “Good Design” (March-April).
Photograph by Jon Chase/HPAC
Photograph by Rose Lincoln/HPAC
Arts and Sciences Academicians
Faculty affiliates elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences include: Marcia Angell, senior lecturer on social medicine; Thomas B.F. Cummins, Dumbarton Oaks professor of the history of Pre-Columbian and Colonial art; Peter T. Ellison, Cowles professor of anthropology; Noah R. Feldman, Frankfurter professor of law; Roland G. Fryer Jr., Lee professor of economics (the newly minted Clark medalist—see above); David D. Ginty, Lefler professor of neurobiology; Paul L. Harris, Thomas professor of education; James Kloppenberg, Warren professor of American history; Margaret S. Livingstone, Takeda professor of neurobiology; and Gerhard Wagner, Blount professor of biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology.
Photograph by Jon Chase/HPAC
Photograph by Stephanie Mitchell/HPAC
Radcliffe Institute Fellows
The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study’s 2015-2016 fellows include eight faculty affiliates: associate professor of statistics Edoardo M. Airoldi; Gottlieb professor of law Christine A. Desan; Zervas professor of neurosurgery Ann-Christine Duhaime; professor of history Mary Lewis, also a Guggenheim honorand (see above); assistant professor of African and African American studies and anthropology Laurence A. Ralph, also a Carnegie Fellow (see above); music-department associate Steven Kazuo Takasugi; visiting lecturer on visual and environmental studies Athina Rachel Tsangari; and professor of government Daniel Ziblatt. For further details, see harvardmag.com/radcliffe-15.
Interpreters of International Relations
Two leading historians of international relations have joined University faculties. Fredrik Logevall, most recently at Cornell, has been appointed Belfer professor in the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) and professor of history in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. His 2012 book, Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam, drawing on archives from around the world, won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in history and the Society of American Historians’ Francis Parkman Prize. Odd Arne Westad, arriving from the London School of Economics, has been appointed HKS’s Lee professor of U.S.-Asia relations. His 2005 book, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times, was honored with the Bancroft Prize.