American Academy of Arts and Letters Elects Two Harvard Members

Robert Brustein, artistic director of the American Repertory Theatre, and Henry Louis Gates Jr., W.E.B. Du Bois Professor of the Humanities, are among the 11 newly elected members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The new members will be formally inducted into the Academy at the organization's Ceremonial in May.

New members are elected annually to fill vacancies in the Academy's membership of 250 American artists, architects, writers, and composers. The honor of election is considered the highest formal recognition of artistic merit in this country.

Clinton Names Outstanding Young Scientists

Nalini Ambady, assistant professor of psychology, and Brian D. Dynlacht, assistant professor of molecular and cellular biology, were among the 60 young researchers named last week by President Clinton as recipients of the third annual Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). This award is the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on young professionals at the outset of their independent research careers.

Those selected receive five-year research grants to further their study in support of critical government missions. Ambady will do research under the auspices of the National Science Foundation; Dynlacht, with the National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services.

CfA Team Wins Software Prize

Educators at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) are winners of the 1998 Computers in Physics Educational Software Contest. Led by Harvard College Observatory software engineer Freeman Deutsch, the team developed a system that allows teachers and students to access distant telescopes from their classrooms. Using the MicroObservatory Net, students can make observations and scientific measurements through any of five telescopes. They check weather at a telescope site, then enter sky coordinates of objects they want to observe. The system takes images of the objects they specify and sends them to the classroom electronically.

Whittemore Appointed Chief Medical Officer

Anthony D. Whittemore, professor of surgery at the Medical School, was recently appointed chief medical officer for Brigham and Women's Hospital. Whittemore will serve as the link between hospital administration and medical staff and lead the hospital's care improvement and quality assurance effort related to physician and medical staff issues.

Preceding the appointment, Whittemore was the chief of vascular surgery.