People News, June 2023

Smith was ranked 23rd out of 6,000 schools in the U.S. by Forage, an online library of employer designed job simulations, for the college’s outstanding commitment to experiential learning and work-integrated learning.

Nine recent Smith alums have earned 2022-23 Fulbright awards. English Teaching Assistantship Award recipients and the countries where they will be teaching are: Leyla Akin ’23 (Turkey), Shastia Azulay ’23 (South Korea), Jasselle Garcia ‘23 (Spain), Tiv Hay-Rubin ’21 (Nepal), Rachel Hong ’23 (Jordan), Emila Tamayo ‘23 (Brazil), Bea Weinand ’23 (Jordan), and Sydney Williams ‘23 (South Korea). Smith’s research grant awardee is Mika Holtz ’23J (Japan).

Smith teams garnered two out of three Best In awards at this year’s Five College DataFest held at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The Smith teams were The Model Mavericks, who won Best in Show (Clara Li ’23, Nikki Lin ’25, Rose Porta ’23, Quinn White ’23), and the Sexy Data Scientists, who won Best in Group (Sarah Branch ’24, Yaretsy Castro ’25J, Camila Maldonado ’24, Su Than Thar Nyi ’24J and Sonia Paredes ’23). 

Catherine Park ’23 is the recipient of an Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award from the American Institute of Physics. Park, who is attending the Perimeter Scholars International Master’s Program at Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, majored in physics at Smith.

Research by Smith faculty and an alum, “Integrating Data Science Ethics into an Undergraduate Major” A Case Study,” has been selected for a Jackie Dietz Best Paper Award by the Journal of Statistics and Data Science Education. Co-authors are: Ben Baumer, associate professor of statistical and data sciences, Randi Garcia, associate professor of psychology, Albert Y. Kim, assistant professor of statistical and data sciences, Katherine Kinnaird, Claire Booth Luce Assistant Professor of Computer Science and of Statistical and Data Sciences, and Miles Ott ’01.

Carrie Baker, Sylvia Dlugasch Bauman Chair of American Studies and professor of the study of women and gender, is the co-editor of Public Feminisms, a new collection of essays by a diverse range of scholar activists.

Ginetta Candelario, professor of sociology and of Latin American and Latino/a studies, received an honorable mention in the Haiti-Dominican Republic Section of the Latin American Studies Association’s inaugural Translation Prize for El negro detrás de la oreja: Identidad racial dominicana, desde los museos hasta el salón de belleza, Editorial Universitaria Bonó, a translation of Black behind the Ears: Dominican Racial Identity from Museums to Beauty Shops, Duke University Press.

Jaime Green, lecturer in English, is the author of The Possibility of Life: Science, Imagination, and Our Quest for Kinship in the Cosmos.

Sarah Mazza, assistant professor of geosciences, and John Brady, Mary Elizabeth Moses Professor Emeritus of Geosciences, are the recipients of a $38,493 grant from the National Science Foundation for “A Workshop to Share, Explore, Develop and Evaluate Online Petrology Teaching Resources and Strategies in Varied and Evolving Geoscience Education Settings.”

Christen Mucher, associate professor of American studies, has received a $276,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation's New Directions Fellowship program to support her in retraining in Earth science and Indigenous languages to forge an interdisciplinary methodology for the field of environmental history during a year in residence at the University of Minnesota. The New Directions program supports faculty members in the humanities and humanistic social sciences in retraining in areas outside their original expertise to work on the problems that interest them most. 

Sharon Owino, assistant professor of neuroscience, is the recipient of a $154,000 grant from the American Heart Association for “GPR37, an under appreciated regulator of the Wnt pathway: relevance to enhancing regeneration following stroke.”

Tom Roberts, assistant professor of Russian, East European and Eurasian studies, was the co-leader of a faculty workshop this spring on “Rethinking Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies in Light of Russia’s War in Ukraine.” The workshop, held at the Center for Russian Culture at Amherst College, was funded by the Alliance to Advance Liberal Arts Colleges. 

Loretta Ross, associate professor of the study of women and gender, gave the keynote address in May at the YWCA’s Stand Against Racism Conference in partnership with the Toledo, Ohio, Library. Ross, who spoke on the conference theme “Advancing Justice: Ensuring Equity for All,” is a 2022 MacArthur Fellow.

Kate Soper, Iva Dee Hiatt Professor of Music, is the recipient of a Frederic A. Juillard/Walter Damrosch Rome Prize for musical composition from the American Academy in Rome for Orchestra Orpheus Opus Onus.

Ileana Streinu, Charles N. Clark Professor of Computer Science, is the recipient of a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Fellowship. Streinu, who has been teaching at Smith since 1994, will be collaborating with the director of the Athena Research and Innovation Center at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece, on applying new techniques in computational algebra to problems in distance geometry, crystallography and materials science.

Andrew Zimbalist, Robert A. Woods Professor Emeritus of Economics, was the moderator for a virtual panel discussion in May on “Sports Betting: What are the Risks for Intercollegiate Athletics?” sponsored by the Drake Group Education Fund.

Maria Mutka ’22 is the recipient of Film Matters Magazine’s Masoud Yazdani Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Film Scholarship for her article “’To Begin on Again’: A Study of Early Cinema’s Unique Influence on Modernist Literature” published in 2021. Mutka earned her Smith degree in anthropology and Russian, East European and Eurasian studies.

Alison Mitchell Ph.D. ’20 SSW is the recipient of the Transformative Teaching Award from Plymouth State University, where she is an assistant professor of social work.

Takwonda Priscilla Semphere ’18 is the recipient of a Knight-Hennessy Scholarship for study at Stanford University. Semphere, who earned her Smith degree in the study of women and gender and African studies, will be pursuing a master’s degree in learning design and technology at the Stanford Graduate School of Education.

Ellie Grace M.F.A. ’15 is one of 16 social-change musicians selected to be featured on a new album, Hope Rises II, compiled by Noel “Paul” Stookey of Peter, Paul and Mary. Grace earned her master’s degree at Smith in dance.

Itefayo Harvey ’14 was a panelist for “Psychedelics Today: Tales of Transformation,” on June 8 at the Athenaeum in New York City. Harvey, who is a drug policy reform advocate and founder of People of Color Psychedelic Collective, earned her Smith degree in history.

Alice Howe ’13 has released her second album, Circumstance. The Patriot Ledger called Howe’s voice “a marvelous instrument, strong and effortlessly musical.” Howe earned her Smith degree in medieval studies.

Karen Poppy ’98 has published her first poetry collection, Diving At the Lip of the Water. Poppy earned her Smith degree in comparative literature and Spanish and holds a law degree from University of California College of the Law, San Francisco.

MerPeople, a documentary by Cynthia Wade ’89 about the work of underwater performers, premiered on Netflix in May. Wade majored in theatre at Smith and earned a master’s degree in communications at Stanford.

Nancy Feldman M.S. ’88 has been inducted into the Jewish Sports Heritage Association in recognition of her longtime contributions as a women’s soccer coach at Boston University. Feldman earned her Smith degree in exercise and sport studies.

Dana Rubin ’81 gave a talk recently on “Speaking While Female: 75 Extraordinary Speeches by Women” at the Allen Public Library in Texas. An author and editor, Rubin founded the Speaking While Female online speech bank.

Ann Sheffer ’70 was honored recently with the 460th star on the Walk of the Stars in Palm Springs, California. A longtime patron of the arts, Sheffer served as the Palm Springs Public Arts Commission chair and has been engaged in numerous humanitarian and philanthropic agencies. Sheffer majored in theatre at Smith and holds a master of arts in theater/dramatics from Tufts University and an M.B.A. from the University of Washington Seattle.