In Brief: January-February 2009

In Brief

• James Applewhite '58, A.M. '60, Ph.D. '69, professor of English, was inducted into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame. He is the author of twelve books of poetry.
• William L. Chameides, dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment, has been appointed vice chair of America's Climate Choices, a new multidisciplinary climate-change study organized by the National Academies. The study was launched in November at the request of Congress to provide policy-relevant advice, based on scientific evidence, to guide the nation's response to climate change.
• Daniel Foster, assistant professor in the department of theater studies, is one of eight recipients of a fellowship through the American Academy of Arts and Sciences' Visiting Scholars Program. The program supports scholars and practitioners in the early stages of their careers who show potential to become leaders in the humanities, policy studies, and social sciences. Foster will work on "The Transatlantic Minstrel Show: British Romanticism and American Blackface," a history of blackface minstrels.
• Ted Kaufman '60 was appointed by Delaware Governor Ruth Ann Minner to complete the Senate term of Vice President-elect Joseph Biden. Kaufman served as co-chair of Biden's transition team and is on the advisory board of President-elect Barack Obama's transition team. Kaufman has been a senior lecturing fellow at the Duke law school since 1991, and has also taught in the Fuqua School of Business and the Sanford Institute of Public Policy.
• James W. Vaupel and Huntington Willard were inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Vaupel is a research professor who is director of Duke's Population, Policy, and Aging Research Center and director of the Duke Population Research Institute. Willard is the Nanaline H. Duke Professor of Genome Sciences and director of Duke's Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy.