Skip to Navigation
University of Pittsburgh
Print This Page Print this pages

January 10, 2002

PEOPLE OF THE TIMES

Pittsburgh Magazine has named Pitt Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg and Carnegie Mellon University President Jared L. Cohon the 2001 Pittsburghers of the Year, citing their deepening collaboration on ventures important to Pittsburgh and joint efforts to secure the city's place in the global community.

In 1998, Nordenberg and Cohon approved the concept of the Pittsburgh Digital Greenhouse, an economic development effort linking academia, government and industry. Three years ago, the two men decided to combine their universities' strengths in information technology and biotechnology in forming the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse. With a goal of creating 5,500 new jobs, the initiative will unite universities, companies and government to bring new medical techniques, devices and drugs to market.

Last October, Nordenberg and Cohon presided over the unveiling of the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center's Terascale Computing System, located in the Westinghouse Energy Center in Monroeville. The university leaders were credited with securing funding for the system, which can perform six trillion calculations per second.

 

————————————————————————

Robert Hill, Pitt executive director of Public Affairs since October 1999 and the University's spokesman, last month was named vice chancellor for Public Affairs.

Since assuming direction of Public Affairs, Hill has expanded and reorganized the division, creating the Executive Communications unit, which comprises Pitt and PittMed magazines and writing of other official University communications; a marketing communications unit that combines the functions of the former University Relations and Graphics, Marketing, and Printing units; and an expanded News, Information, and National Media Relations unit which, among other things, publishes the Pitt Campaign Chronicle, established by Hill in October 2000.

In July 2000, he became publisher of the University Times.

He also put into place a three-year strategic Web site development initiative.

Last month, the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) awarded Public Affairs a Bronze Award for promoting awareness of the need to immunize children attending Pittsburgh city schools.

Hill recently conceived, narrated and was executive producer of a documentary video on the African American student heritage at Pitt; this video is being used to reconnect Pitt's African American alumni and was cosponsored by the University's Office of Alumni Relations and Office of Institutional Advancement.

Hill has been an administrator in higher education for 32 years, 21 of them at Syracuse University, where he served as vice president and special assistant to the chancellor for affirmative action from 1977 to 1988, vice president for program development from 1982 to 1988, and vice president for public relations from 1988 to 1998. In addition, he was a faculty member for eight years, serving as an assistant professor of retailing in Syracuse's College for Human Development.

Immediately prior to joining the Pitt administration, Hill was vice president for university advancement at California University of Pennsylvania, where he was responsible for external relations, development, public relations, the Foundation of California University of Pennsylvania, the Mon Valley Renaissance economic development program and the University Art Gallery. He founded the university's first official faculty-staff newspaper, the California Journal, and established a Pittsburgh-based annual fund-raising gala for student scholarships.

 

————————————————————————

Mary Ann Aug, assistant vice chancellor for executive communications at Pitt since 2000, has been promoted to associate vice chancellor for Public Affairs.

Aug joined Pitt's Public Affairs staff as a communications specialist in the 1970s, representing the Schools of the Health Professions. She was promoted to director of the University News Bureau, director of Pitt's Department of News and Publications and assistant vice chancellor for University Relations.

Aug oversaw the conception and launching of Pitt Magazine 14 years ago. The magazine has earned numerous of Gold Medal Awards in the annual international Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) competition. PittMed, the School of Medicine's magazine, also was launched under her direction and won CASE Gold awards in its first two years.

Under her direction, Pitt's communications program won numerous national CASE awards for news, publications and video production, culminating in the CASE Grand Gold Award for Overall Institutional Relations Programs in 1989.

 

————————————————————————

Bernard D. Goldstein, dean of Pitt's Graduate School of Public Health (GSPH), has been chosen president-elect of the Society for Risk Analysis, a 2,000-member international organization of scientists primarily focusing on environmental risk analysis.

He will be installed as the society's president next year at its annual meeting in New Orleans.

Goldstein's research has focused largely on the concept of biological markers in risk assessment. He has published in the areas of blood toxicity; the formation of cancer-causing substances, including free radicals, following exposure to inhalants; various aspects of public health decision-making, and global issues in environmental health.

Before becoming GSPH dean in June 2001, Goldstein was professor and chairman of the department of environmental and community medicine at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Robert Wood Johnson (UMDNJ-RWJ) Medical Schools, and founder/director of the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute at UMDNJ-RWJ Medical School and Rutgers — The State University of New York.

From 1983 through 1985 he served as assistant administrator for research and development at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Goldstein earned his bachelor of science degree from the University of Wisconsin and his medical degree from the New York University School of Medicine.

————————————————————————

Jay M. Frerotte has been appointed director of Pitt's Department of Environmental Health and Safety. He will coordinate and administer Pitt policies and procedures concerning all areas of environmental health and safety for the University system.

Frerotte has 17 years of experience in environmental health and safety, and spent the last 13 years with the Johns Hopkins University and Hospital. Most recently, he was occupational safety and administrative manager for Johns Hopkins University and safety manager for the hospital.

————————————————————————

Margaret C. McDonald, Pitt assistant vice chancellor for academic affairs, Health Sciences, has been named vice-chair for public relations of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Group on Institutional Advancement (GIA).

The AAMC is a non-profit association founded in 1876 to work for reform in medical education in efforts to improve the nation's health. The AAMC comprises the 125 accredited U.S. and 16 Canadian medical schools, 400 major teaching hospitals and health systems, 90 academic and professional societies and the nation's medical students and residents.

The GIA was informally established in the 1950s and has grown to comprise more than 800 professionals in the fields of development, marketing, alumni and public affairs; each member has been appointed by leaders of medical schools and teaching hospitals. The group aims to foster members' endeavors in enhancing public awareness, understanding, and support for medical education, research, and patient care as well as to encourage professional development.

At Pitt, McDonald coordinates the development and support of academic and public affairs initiatives within the Health Sciences schools. She also serves as an assistant professor of epidemiology in the Graduate School of Public Health and a clinical instructor in the medical school's psychiatry department. McDonald coordinates the School of Medicine's mini-medical school program and is the co-coordinator of Science2001, a university-wide research festival.

————————————————————————

Pitt English professor Michael West has received the 2001 Christian Gauss Award from Phi Beta Kappa, the nation's oldest academic honor society, for his book "Transcendental Wordplay: America's Romantic Punsters and the Search for the Language of Nature," published last year by Ohio University Press. The honor carries a $2,500 prize.

In its announcement, Phi Beta Kappa stated that West's book "examines 19th century American attitudes toward language — the making of a new language inherited from English. The judges noted that West regards the 'revolution' of transcendentalism as essentially philogical, and tries to determine where and how Thoreau, Emerson, Whitman, Dickinson, Melville and others got their proclivity for extravagant puns, riddles, acrostics, anagrams and other forms of wordplay."

————————————————————————

Henri R. Ford, chief of the division of pediatric surgery at Pitt's School of Medicine and Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, has been elected president of the Association for Academic Surgery (AAS) for the 2002-2003 term. He will serve as president-elect for the prior term.

The AAS is an inclusive surgical organization focused on advancing the field of research-based academic surgery through the exchange of ideas among senior surgical residents, junior faculty and established academic surgical professors.

"Within the University we have long known that Dr. Ford is one of the most dedicated, creative and compassionate surgeons, teachers and researchers in the field," said Arthur S. Levine, Pitt senior vice chancellor for the Health Sciences and medical school dean. "It is an honor to see these qualities recognized by his colleagues nationwide."

Ford holds the Benjamin R. Fisher chair in pediatric surgery at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, where he also is director of the Benedum Pediatric Trauma Program and director of pediatric surgical research.

He is an associate professor in the Pitt medical school's Department of Surgery.

Ford's research focuses on the role of nitric oxide in necrotizing enterocolitis and other conditions such as shock and bloodstream infections. He has given numerous lectures on these topics and others related to pediatrics and trauma. He has made significant contributions to the scientific literature by publishing more than 65 journal articles and serving on the editorial board of seven professional journals.

————————————————————————

The National Kidney Foundation of Western Pennsylvania will present its 2002 Gift of Life Medical Award to Jerry McCauley, Pitt associate professor of medicine and medical director of the Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute.

The Gift of Life Awards, created in 1988, recognize individuals who have contributed to improving quality of life for kidney disease patients, particularly transplant recipients. The awards dinner will be held March 9 at the Duquesne Club.

————————————————————————

Assad Panah, professor of geology and environmental science at Pitt's Bradford campus, has been named president-elect of the National Association of Academies of Science.

Panah, who also directs the campus's geology department and its new environmental studies program, currently serves as secretary of the NAAS board of directors, which includes nationally recognized scientists in many areas of science and technology. He will begin his term as president-elect in February. After a year in that position, he will become president.

NAAS, founded in 1926, fosters goals held in common by the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences and its member academies.


Leave a Reply