People News July 2020

Poems by Rosetta Marantz Cohen, Myra M. Sampson Professor of Education and Child Study, and Abby Minor ’08 have been published in the latest issue of Feminist Studies. Cohen’s poem is titled “There Were Six of Us at Dinner.” Minor, who majored in American studies at Smith and earned a master of fine arts degree at Pennsylvania State University, wrote “Jump Rope Chant: A Cure for All Kinds of Stomach Aches.”

As part of this year’s Impact Awards program, Emily Norton, director of Smith’s Design Thinking Initiative, and Laura Lilienkamp ’18, prototyping studio coordinator, received the Year on Climate Change award for embracing and integrating the mission of Smith’s Year on Climate Change in their design thinking courses and programming.

Steven Heydemann, Janet Wright Ketcham 1953 Professor in Middle East Studies, was a participant in a two-year joint Brookings Institution/World Bank research project, “Stabilization and human development in a disordered Middle East and North Africa,” exploring four innovative approaches to Middle Eastern and North African conflict contexts.

Daniel Horowitz, Mary Huggins Gamble Professor Emeritus of American Studies, has published “Entertaining Entrepreneurs: Reality TV’s Shark Tank and the American Dream in Uncertain Times.”

Lisa Mangiamele, assistant professor of biological sciences, recently presented a virtual seminar for the Oyster Bay-East Norwich School District in New York on “How new behaviors evolve: Androgenic hormones as modifiers of neuromotor structure and function.”

Sara Newland, assistant professor of government, has been awarded a $28,000 grant from Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for the International Scholarly Exchange for her research project, “Local Government: Responsiveness in Taiwan.”

“Reflections on Feminist Interventions Within the 2015 Anticorruption Protests in Lebanon,” published in the Smith-based journal Meridians, is featured in Duke University Press’ Political Protests and Movements syllabus.

Smith trustee emerita Mona Sinha ’88 participated in a Women’s eNews “Women Saving the World” podcast, discussing her advocacy work for gender equality in business and society. Sinha, who majored in economics at Smith, earned an M.B.A. from Columbia University in financial management and marketing.

Arielle Dror ’20 published “Real-time data from mobile platforms to evaluate sustainable transportation infrastructure” in the June 2020 issue of Nature Sustainability. Dror, who majored in government and statistical and data sciences at Smith, helped conduct the study of electric car-charging stations as a Civic Data Sciences Fellow at the Georgia Institute of Technology.  

Nina Henry ’19 recently published an essay, “Suffrage and the Fight for Reproductive Rights,” for the Jewish Women’s Archive 2020 Suffrage series. Henry, who earned a degree in government from Smith, is studying for a law degree at New York University.

Elizabeth Stephani ’18 has been named to the editorial board of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy’s 39th annual Federalist Society National Student Symposium Issue, which will be published this fall. Stephani, who majored in government at Smith, is now studying for a law degree at the University of Wyoming College of Law, and is working this summer as an extern with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Denver, Colorado.

Leen Ajlouni ’18, an investment associate with North Coast Ventures, has been named to the Crain’s Cleveland Business “20 in their Twenties” list honoring the region’s young leaders, advocates, healers and entrepreneurs. Ajlouni majored in engineering at Smith.

Emily Duncan Wilson ’17 is a member of the Yale School of Drama’s Design Class of 2020. A sound designer who is studying for her master of fine arts degree at the Yale School of Drama, Wilson majored in music at Smith.

Jessie Fredlund ’07 is the recipient of a women’s studies fellowship from the Woodrow Wilson Foundation to support her doctoral dissertation in anthropology at the City University of New York. Fredlund, who earned her Smith degree in anthropology, is working on a dissertation about the political history of rain in a key water catchment area of Tanzania.

Aleks Kajstura ’05 has been named a Commonwealth Heroine of 2020 by the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women for her advocacy work as legal director for the Prison Policy Initiative. Kajstura majored in government and history at Smith and earned a law degree from Yeshiva University.

Aleks Kajstura ’05

Emily Jacobs ’04, assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences at the University of California Santa Barbara, has been awarded a $5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health for a study of how ovarian hormones impact the structural and functional architecture of the human brain. Jacobs, who graduated cum laude with a degree in neuroscience from Smith, earned a doctoral degree in neuroscience from the University of California Berkeley.

Zoey Abbott ’96 has illustrated a children’s book, “Over the Moon,” by James Proimos, about a little girl raised by wolves. Abbott majored in women’s studies at Smith.

Selena Kong ’99 has been promoted to director of Sales Information Systems for Ambu, Inc., a medical device maker. Kong, who majored in neuroscience at Smith, formerly worked for IBM and as senior manager for commercial data systems for Ambu. She earned a master of fine arts degree from the University of South Carolina Columbia.

Dr. Shamiram Ruth Feinglass ’90, chief medical officer and vice president of global medical affairs and policy at Danaher Corporation, is a panelist for the Aspen Institute’s “COVID-19: Health Care at an Inflection Point” webinar series. Feinglass, who majored in biochemistry at Smith and earned her master of public health and M.D. degrees at Emory University, speaks on “COVID-19 Testing: The Hope and the Hype.”

Photograph by Aidan Wright ’22