Media Relations

Margaret Klawunn, currently associate vice president for campus life and dean for student life, has been named vice president for campus life and student services at Brown University. Her appointment is effective July 1, 2008. 07-164

Chief Marshal Martha Sharp Joukowsky, a 1958 alumna, will lead more than 6,000 people down College Hill during Brown University’s 240th Commencement, which takes place on Sunday, May 25, 2008. The Commencement procession is one of the nation’s largest and most colorful academic pageants and caps Brown’s Commencement/Reunion Weekend. 07-158

The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University celebrates its 34th graduating class with a speech by global health expert and former U.S. health envoy Nils Daulaire, M.D. The faculty address will be given by pediatrics professor Brian K. Alverson, M.D., and David Lloyd Ain will deliver the student address. 07-162

The National Academy of Sciences has elected Johanna Schmitt, the Stephen T. Olney Professor of Natural History at Brown University, to become a member of the society of distinguished scholars. Election to the Academy is considered one of the highest honors that can be accorded a scientist or engineer. Schmitt, whose biological research integrates plant evolutionary ecology, physiological ecology, and ecological genomics, is the first female scientist at Brown to be elected into the Academy. 07-155

David Gottlieb, a professor of applied mathematics at Brown University, has been elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the honorary society that includes the world’s leading thinkers. 07-154

In the first experiment in a natural environment, Brown University scientists have shown that greater plant diversity significantly enhances an ecosystem’s productivity. The finding, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, underscores the importance of biodiversity to an ecosystem’s value, such as capturing the global warming gas carbon dioxide. 07-148

Brown University researchers have found compelling evidence of thick, recurring glaciers on Mars, a discovery that suggests that the Red Planet’s climate was much more dynamic than previously believed – and could change again. Results are published on the cover of Geology magazine. 07-144

From A.A. to Zouave: Collections at Brown, an exhibition featuring more than 150 materials from Brown University’s libraries, museums, and galleries, is on view from Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2007, through Friday, May 30, 2008, in the Annmary Brown Memorial, 21 Brown St. The exhibition is free and open to the public. 07-074