At Brown

Nominations sought for Outstanding Union Employee Award

In honor of the outstanding contributions of two retired Facilities Management employees, Raul Gaspar and the late Leonard Arzoomanian, Facilities Management is seeking nominations for the Facilities Management 2003 Outstanding Union Employee Award.

The selection committee is "looking for that special Facilities Management employee who has demonstrated outstanding performance, exemplified quality service and made a significant contribution to Brown," John Noonan, associate vice president for facilities management, stated in a recent memo. "Please take a moment to consider the many and varied services that the staff of Facilities Management provide; and then complete a nomination form for someone you would like to thank for that special service. Consider, for example, the employees who are in and out of your building every day cleaning offices, building new shelves for our books, painting the hallways, getting that light to work over our desks, servicing our boilers, setting up the athletic fields, keeping the temperature in our offices 'just right,' or keeping us from slipping on the ice."

The nomination form and selection criteria for the award are online.

Awards and Honors

Brown's Collaboration for Translational Brain Research (CTBR) program has selected the recipients of pilot research grants for 2003-2004:

Changes in extracellular dopamine in mesolimbic brain regions following repeated ethanol treatment. PI: Kimberly A. Leite-Morris (Department of Psychiatry & Human Behavior/Center for Alcohol & Addiction Studies); co-PIs: Gary B. Kaplan (DPHB), J. Michael Walker (Psychology), and Cristine L. Czachowski (DPHB)

Multisensory integration in Alzheimer's disease. PI: William Heindel (Psychology); co-PIs: Brian R. Ott (Neurology) and Elena F. Martino (Psychology)

Diffusion tensor imaging of frontal systems in mild cognitive impairment. PI: Stephen P. Salloway (Clinical Neuroscience/DPHB); co-PIs: Paul Malloy (DPHB), Stephen Correia (DPHB), David H. Laidlaw (Computer Science), and William Heindel (Psychology)

Behavioral aspects of deep brain stimulation. PI: Benjamin D. Greenberg (DPHB); co-PIs: Gerhard M. Friehs, MD, PhD (Neuroscience)

The CTBR program was established to foster interdepartmental faculty collaboration and to add to the outstanding brain science research programs already active at Brown. The CTBR integrates research and teaching among BrownÕs Departments of Psychiatry & Human Behavior, Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychology in order to develop basic, preclinical, clinical, and translational studies of the pathogenesis and treatment of neuropsychiatric, neurological, and neurosurgical disorders.

On Jan. 15, the late William G. McLoughin was inducted into the newly created Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Hall of Fame at Providence City Hall by Mayor David Cicilline. McLoughlin taught American religious and intellectual history at Brown for nearly 40 years, from 1954 into the early 1990s, and was a former chair of the Rhode Island chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. Nominated by a panel of community leaders and recommended by a special selection committee, McLoughlin was honored "for his work as a tireless and lifelong advocate for social justice and civil rights - especially the protection of freedom of speech, religion, and academic and student rights." One observer recounted that on one occasion McLoughlin, who frequently appeared at campus protests, had six sets of picket signs lined up inside his family's Bowen Street home - for use in various demonstrations.

On the Road

Martin B. Keller, M.D., chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at the School of Medicine, recently returned from a six-day trip to Havana, Cuba, where he participated in a unique collaborative program with basic and clinical neuroscientists and psychiatrist from throughout the United States and Cuba. Keller was one of only 10 U.S. specialists chosen for this conference. The meetings were held Jan. 15-20 at the Hotel Nacional de Cuba and at the Cuban Neuroscience Center.

The purpose of the summit was to build bridges between Americans and Cubans who study the brain and treat its disorders. Specialized workshops about scientific advances in neuroscience research and treatment reviewed the advances and failures in constructing scientific ties between the two countries and identified further possibilities for collaboration. Keller presented findings from his clinical research of the long-term management of recurrent and chronic major depression.

During the visit to Cuba, Keller and the other U.S. delegates visited a psychiatric hospital and a community mental health center, where they learned about the Cuban mental health care delivery system that pays for and allows patients to remain with their families during treatment.

As a result of his visit, Keller has been invited to return to Cuba to help design a research program in epidemiology, the naturalistic course of mental illness, and long-term randomized clinical trials with pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy alone and in combination.