In Brief

The White House announced in April that professor emerita TONI MORRISON, right, would be one of 13 recipients this year of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest U.S. civilian honor. ­Morrison, who taught in the ­creative-writing program and founded the Princeton Atelier, won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1993 and has authored 10 ­novels. 

The University is joining forces with the Max Planck Society of Germany to launch the MAX PLANCK PRINCETON RESEARCH CENTER FOR PLASMA PHYSICS to enhance research on fusion and astrophysical plasmas. The center will create a trans-Atlantic collaboration between researchers from Princeton’s astrophysical sciences department and the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory with Max Planck scientists. 

President Tilghman said the partnership will “advance the development of clean and abundant energy.” The center will be staffed by eight postdoctoral fellows from PPPL and the astrophysical sciences department and 13 postdocs from the Max Planck institutes. Funding for Princeton’s side of the venture will come from the Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, and the University. 

Politics professor ROBERT GEORGE has been appointed to a two-year term on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. The commission monitors religious freedom in other countries and makes policy ­recommendations.