In Brief: November-December 2008

  • Li-Chen Chin is the new director of Duke's International House, which helps new international students acclimate to life in the U.S. and at Duke, provides support to existing students, and promotes cross-cultural interaction on campus. Chin previously served as director of international programs at Bryn Mawr College.
  • Earl Dowell, dean emeritus of the Pratt School of Engineering and William Holland Hall Professor of mechanical engineering and materials science, received the 2008 Daniel Guggenheim Medal Award. The award is bestowed jointly by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the American Society of Mechanical Engineering, the American Helicopter Society, and the Society of Automotive Engineers. Dowell was cited "for pioneering contributions to nonlinear aeroelasticity, structural dynamics, and unsteady aerodynamics," for having "a significant influence on aeronautics," and for "contributions to education and public service in aerospace engineering."
  • Jeffrey Glass M.B.A. '99, professor of electrical and computer engineering and Hogg Family Director of engineering management and entrepreneurship, was named senior associate dean for education at the Pratt School. He succeeds Tod Laursen, chair of mechanical engineering and materials science.
  • Fredric R. Jameson, William A. Lane Professor of comparative literature and Romance studies, is the recipient of the fifth annual Holberg International Memorial Prize, a $900,000 award granted annually for outstanding scholarly work in the fields of the arts and humanities, social sciences, law, and theology. Jameson was cited for his many contributions to cultural theory and cultural studies, hermeneutics, architectural and postcolonial theory, aesthetics, film and television studies, and history.
  • Robert J. Lefkowitz, James B. Duke Professor of medicine and biochemistry and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at Duke Medical Center, earned a National Medal of Science, the nation's highest honor for contributions to science. Lefkowitz, who received the medal from President George W. Bush during a ceremony at the White House, was honored for a lifetime of research on a major receptor system that controls the body's response to drugs and hormones.
  • R. Sanders Williams M.D. '74, senior vice chancellor for academic affairs at Duke medical school and one of the principal architects of the medical center's global expansion in recent years, has been named senior adviser for international strategy for the university.
  • The Duke Global Health Institute has received a three-year, $400,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health's Fogarty International Center to develop a new interdisciplinary Master of Science in Global Health program.

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