KSG Faculty Member Wins Policy-Research Award

Xavier de Souza Briggs, assistant professor of public policy at the Kennedy School of Government, received the Association for Public Policy and Management's 1997 award last month for the best dissertation in policy research in any field. His study, "Brown Kids in White Suburbs: Housing Mobility, Neighborhood Effects and the Social Ties of Poor Youth," focuses on the impacts of a controversial, court-ordered housing desegregation program in Yonkers, N.Y. His work contrasts the Yonkers approach with that of other mobility programs in order to isolate the effects of radically different neighborhood environments on young people and their families.

Schepens Receives Award From Holy Cross

Charles L. Schepens, known by many as "the father of modern retinal surgery," was recently honored by Holy Cross College with the Ignatian Award. Schepens is the founder and chairman emeritus of the Schepens Eye Research Institute, an affiliate of the Medical School and one of the leading eye research organizations in the world. He is an innovator in ophthalmic instrumentation, having invented the binocular ophthalmoscope, which allowed him to double the success rate of surgery to repair retinal detachment. At the award ceremony, he gave a lecture titled "M.D.'s -- What Kind?"

Russell Contributes to New Book on Armenian History

James Russell, Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies, is one of 17 noted scholars who contributed to an extensive new work detailing the Armenian people and their history. The work, The Armenian People: From Ancient to Modern Times (St. Martin's Press), is a pioneering two-volume history that begins by examining the origins of Armenians and traces domestic and international relations, society, and culture through the five dynastic periods, spanning nearly 2,000 years.