At Brown

New associate dean of Graduate School

Karen Newman, dean of the Graduate School, has appointed William Heindel as associate dean of the Graduate School.

Heindel, associate professor of psychology, "brings to the Graduate School a range of talents and skills that will be invaluable in strengthening graduate education at Brown," Newman said in a letter sent to graduate students late last month.

Heindel, who joined the Brown faculty in 1992, is the principal investigator on a number of grants in his area of research on Alzheimer's disease. He has served the Brain Science Program in a number of capacities and is a member of its Executive Committee.

Notice to NewsBytes readers

Computing and Information Services' monthly newsletter, NewsBytes, will no longer appear in the George Street Journal. However, members of the Brown community can stay current with the latest news from CIS online at www.brown.edu/cis and through CIS' periodic e-mail announcements to the Brown community.

Staff Advisory Committee seeks new members

Staff members who have been employed at Brown for at least two years are eligible to apply for one of 10 openings on the President's Staff Advisory Committee (SAC).

The 10 new members will serve two-year terms beginning Jan. 1, 2004, and are required to attend bi-weekly Tuesday meetings and occasional subcommittee meetings. SAC meets regularly with senior administrators to advise and make recommendations to enhance the workplace for all staff.

Recent accomplishments of SAC include:

• participating on the University Resource Committee and the Campus Safety Committee;
  
• revising the reward and recognition program;
  
• serving on the search committee for the associate provost and director of diversity;
  
• improving the Emergency Grant Program;
  
• being interviewed by the Administrative Review Team;
  
• compiling an administrative department managers handbook.
  

Serving on SAC benefits Brown and staff, as well as provides an opportunity for members to develop networks and professional relationships across the University. SAC has met with numerous individuals and groups over the past year, including: Beppie Huidekoper, the executive vice president for finance and administration; Provost Bob Zimmer; Dick Spies, the executive vice president for planning and senior adviser to the president; Terri-Lynn Thayer and Nancy Dunbar from the Administrative Review Team; and architect Frances Halsband regarding the Campus Master Plan. SAC also sponsored the president's forum and several community service projects. The most recent were the collection of items for Travelers Aid during the Holiday Bazaar and participation in the "Books are Wings" project to benefit area libraries.

Staff members who are interested in applying for membership should submit an application by Oct. 1. Applications are available from the SAC Web site.

Awards and Honors

Two faculty members from computer science -- Professor Pascal Van Hentenryck and visiting assistant professor Laurent Michel -- will receive an award for best paper at the ninth international Conference on the Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming, to be held in Ireland Sept. 29-Oct. 3. The paper, titled "Control Abstrations for Local Search," describes novel control abstrations to simplify the development, compositionality and reuse of local search algorithms. About 184 papers were submitted, 48 of which were accepted.

"Crosstalk: Citizens, Candidates, and the Media in a Presidential Campaign," the 1996 book written by Professor Darrell West, the John Hazen White Professor of Political Science and Public Policy and director of Brown's Taubman Center for Public Policy, has been awarded the Doris Graber Prize for Best Book on political communications. The prize was presented by the Political Communications section of the American Political Science Association at its recent convention.

Vincent Capaldi received the 2003 Harry L. Gardiner Award, presented by the Rhode Island Chapter of the American Lung Association. The scholarship award recognizes Capaldi's volunteer work at Rhode Island Hospital and Hasbro Children's Hospital and his decision to pursue a career in medicine. Capaldi, who began his first year at Brown Medical School this month, had been a research assistant in the Medical School/Miriam Hospital Centers for Behavioral and Preventive Medicine, Brown Medical School/The Miriam Hospital.

Jenelle S. Krishnamoorthy was named a 2003-04 policy fellow of the Society for Research in Child Development. Policy fellows spend one year working as legislative assistants in federal agencies or congressional offices. The program aims to increase interactions between researchers and public policymakers. Krishnamoorthy is a postdoctoral fellow at the Centers for Behavioral and Preventive Medicine, Brown Medical School/The Miriam Hospital.

Joseph V. Penn, M.D. received the 2003 Association for Academic Psychiatry (AAP) Junior Faculty Development Award. The honor recognizes both commitment to teaching and excellence as a teacher. It provides financial support for Penn to attend this year's AAP Annual Meeting in Philadelphia and partial support to attend next yearÕs gathering and give a poster presentation on an educational program. A clinical assistant professor, Penn is director of child and adolescent forensic psychiatry at Rhode Island Hospital and serves as director of psychiatric services at the Rhode Island Training School.

The Pew Charitable Trusts named Tricia Serio one of its 2003 Pew Scholars in the Biomedical Sciences, 20 individuals lauded as America's "most promising biomedical researchers." Serio was chosen for her proposed investigation of a compound required for normal protein synthesis. The awards go to junior faculty members at U.S. medical schools and research institutions "who show outstanding promise in the basic and clinical sciences." Each scholar receives a total of $240,000 to help support research over four years. Serio is an assistant professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology and Biochemistry.

People

Sheila Blumstein, the Albert D. Mead Professor of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences, has been named a trustee of the board of the University of Rochester, her undergraduate alma mater.

Deborah L. Myers, M.D. is the new director of the Center for Women's Surgery, which is part of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island. Myers was also named director of the Division of Urogynecology and Pelvic Reconstructive Surgery in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Brown Medical School. She is an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology.

Obituary

A memorial service for Anthony Houghton, professor emeritus of physics and professor of physics (research) who died last month at the age of 67, will be held at Brown sometime this fall.

Houghton retired from regular teaching at Brown in July 2002 but remained actively involved in physics research until his death.

He came to Rhode Island in 1963 when he joined the Brown faculty as an assistant professor of physics. He was promoted to the rank of associate professor of physics in 1967 and to professor of physics in 1971. He served as chairman of the Department of Physics from 1992 to 1998.

He wrote more than 90 papers on a diverse range of condensed matter physics problems including superconductivity, interacting electrons, disorder, and critical phenomena. In a famous collaboration with Franz Wegner, Houghton made a very important early contribution to renormalization group theory. A Fellow of the American Physical Society (only 1 percent of APS members are Fellows) and a Humboldt Fellow, Houghton was a visiting professor at many European and American institutions, including Oxford University, the Norges Tekniske Hogskole, the University of Sussex, the University of Manchester, the University of Heidelberg, Imperial College, London, and the University of California at San Diego. He held Science Research Council Fellowships at the Universities of Manchester and Sussex and at Imperial College London, as well as an Alexander von Humboldt Senior Scientist Award at the University of Heidelberg.

Houghton taught courses ranging from pre-med physics to specialized graduate classes in advanced statistical mechanics and quantum many-body theory. His many Ph.D. students have gone on to productive careers in condensed matter physics.

As his colleague Professor Leon Cooper, recalled: "Tony made many contributions to physics and to the Brown University Physics Department, to which he was enormously devoted. Tony did not seek headlines, and avoided publicity. He was a physicistÕs physicist whose work was best appreciated by his colleagues for its craftsmanship and great originality. He loved doing and talking about physics; he also loved good food, good wine and good conversation as well as the light of the setting sun on the water. He was a stimulating companion and fun to be with. We miss him."

Houghton brought to the department strength as a scientist and dedication as a teacher, along with a commitment of service to the University, said Professor David Cutts, current chairman of the department. "Tony was in many ways the backbone of the department. The leader of the condensed matter physics group, Tony was devoted to physics, as is evident through both his important contributions to the field and his outstanding qualities as a committed teacher and mentor. Junior physics faculty flourished, thanks to his advice, guidance and friendship. Frequently exhibiting a wry, British sense of humor, Tony could still be as fiercely passionate about issues important to the department and to the University as he was about physics. He took seriously the call to service, and devoted much time in leadership positions and University committees."

He is survived by his wife, Patricia, a sister and two nephews.