People News, March 2020

A Smith team of Vivian Brock ’20, Annika Jensen ’20, Maggie (Xiaonan) Wang ’20 and Katya Garcia-Israel ’20 finished first in Yale University’s International Policy Competition in February. The Smith students competed against undergraduates from 41 other colleges in drafting policy briefs directly responding to issues raised through intelligence briefings. 

Smith's winning team on the campus of Yale University, where they took first prize in an international policy competition.

Caira Anderson ’20 and Issa Susa ’22 are recipients of the 2019 Janet L. Andersen Award for Undergraduate Research in Computational Biology. The students worked with Nessy Tania, a Smith research affiliate in mathematics and statistics, on their projects.

Amelia Austin ’21 is among a select group of 25 undergraduates who are spending the semester sailing through the waters of New Zealand with the Sea Education Association’s Semester at Sea Global Ocean program. Austin will spend six weeks on board the SSV Robert C. Seamans.

Vivian DeRosa ’23 is the recipient of an Emerging Writer Fellowship from Aspen Words—one of 10 fellows who will receive a scholarship to Aspen Summer Words in June. DeRosa’s writing has appeared in the Huffington Post, Lunch Ticket and Poets Reading the News.

Michaela Foster ’23 published “Support Group for Yiddish Daughters” in the February issue of the online Yiddish studies journal In Geveb.

Katie McGarry ’AC is one of 290 students from the U.S. and Mexico named a Newman Civic Fellow by Campus Compact. The fellowship recognizes students who are accomplished changemakers and problem solvers in their communities. McGarry is majoring in government at Smith.

Carrie Baker, professor of the study of women and gender, will be a speaker for Hampshire County’s Law Day celebration in May. This year’s event celebrates the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment granting the vote to women.

Kristin Dorsey, assistant professor of engineering, has been elevated to senior member status with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. The rank is given to members who have shown significant performance over the past five years.

Bosiljka Glumac, professor of geosciences, has been awarded a $70,000 grant from the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund for “Modification of Reefal Carbonate Reservoir Properties by Algal and Microbial Encrusters.”

Susanna Nazarova, lecturer in Russian, and Evgeny Dengub, Five College lecturer in Russian were awarded a best contribution to language pedagogy prize by the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages for their textbook, “Panorama” (Georgetown University Press, 2017). 

Susanna Nazarova (second from left), lecturer in Russian, and Evgeny Dengub (far right), Five College lecturer in Russian, display their language pedagogy prize.

Sara Newland, assistant professor of government, has been selected by the University of California Berkeley’s Institute of East Asian Studies to serve on a 10-member U.S.-Taiwan Next Generation Working Group for an inaugural leadership program in U.S.-Taiwan relations. During the three-year program, working group members will participate in training workshops with government officials and opinion leaders, and will learn how to effectively engage with the media.

Andy Rotman, professor of religion, Buddhist studies and South Asian studies, spoke recently on “Marketing Gods: Mediating Divinity in the Bazaars of Banaras” at a Transcendent Deities Lecture at the Michael C. Carlos Museum in Atlanta.

Sarah Witkowski, associate professor of exercise and sport studies, has been awarded a $412,548 grant from the National Institutes of Health for “Evaluation of the effect of fitness on hot flashes and subclinical cardiovascular disease risk in perimenopausal women.”

Paula Burgi ’14 received an Outstanding Student Presentation Award in December for her poster “Impact of forest disturbance on InSAR time series analysis” presented at the American Geophysical Union’s fall meeting. Burgi, who majored in astronomy and geosciences at Smith, is studying for a doctorate in earth and atmospheric sciences at Cornell University.

Entrepreneur Durreen Shahnaz ’89 has been shortlisted for the Athena40 roster of the 40 most powerful female minds for her work on gender diversity and equality. The founder of Singapore-based Impact Investment Exchange, Shahnaz majored in economics and government at Smith. She earned a master’s degree in international studies from Johns Hopkins University and an M.B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. 

Julie Lymberopulos AC ’87 assumed her duties as Panama’s ambassador to Greece this past December. A native of Panama City, she majored in economics at Smith and earned a master’s degree in international relations from the National University of Panama.

The Science Coalition has named U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin ’84 a 2020 Champion of Science for her continued support of fundamental scientific research and for highlighting the important role that investments in science and research play in the economy. Baldwin, who majored in government and mathematics at Smith and earned a law degree from the University of Wisconsin Madison, is a member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation and a ranking member of the Sub-committee on Science, Oceans, Fisheries and Weather. 

Liz Blake ’73 has been elected to the board of directors of Skyland Trail, a nonprofit mental health treatment organization in Atlanta. Blake, a former executive at General Electric Co. and U.S. Airways, majored in government at Smith and earned a law degree at Columbia University.

Smith College Medalist Laura D’Andrea Tyson ’69 has been named co-chair of the California Governor’s Council of Economic Advisors. The first woman to head the U.S. National Economic Council and the first female dean of the London Business School, Tyson graduated with a degree in economics from Smith and earned a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.