Feb. 21, 2017: Smith ’81 on a Digital Geneva Convention, Alvarez ’77’s Key Fed Role, and More

Microsoft President Brad Smith ’81 told attendees at a cybersecurity conference that the world needs a “Digital Geneva Convention,” which would require countries “to develop and abide by global rules for cyber attacks similar to those established for armed conflict at the 1949 Geneva Convention that followed World War II.” — Reuters

Wharton School financial historian Peter Conti-Brown *15 writes that Federal Reserve general counsel Scott Alvarez ’77, who is retiring after 36 years at the Fed, has been “one of the most important figures in government.” — The Wall Street Journal

Pedro Pablo Kuczynski *61, the president of Peru, asked President Donald Trump to deport former President Alejandro Toledo, a visiting professor at Stanford, after he was accused of taking more than $20 million in bribes from Odebrecht, a Brazilian company being investigated in multiple corruption scandals. — UPI

Former Virginia Secretary of Education Anne Holton ’80 has been named to a four-year term on Virginia’s state Board of Education, where she will work to improve accountability and hands-on learning. — The Roanoke Times

Douglas Merrill *94, the founder and CEO of Zestfinance, is using big-data algorithms to “determine the types of behavior that can help predict whether someone will repay debt” in order to end predatory payday lending. — CNBC

Blair Anderson ’01, who was the undersecretary of policy at the Department of Transportation, will be joining Amazon’s transportation-policy team. — Politico

The Cleveland Indians promoted Brian Barren ’89 to president of business operations. Barren, a longtime Procter & Gamble executive, joined the Indians’ sales and marketing department in 2014. — Cleveland.com

William Rogers *89 has been tapped to lead the programs and communications division of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. — The Clarion-Ledger

Eric Lander ’78, an MIT biology professor who was the co-chair of President Barack Obama’s Presidential Council of Advisers for Science and Technology, received the James R. Killian Faculty Achievement Award for his “contributions to the rapid growth of human genomics, as well as his accomplishments in teaching and science policy.” — MIT News

Stephen Feinberg ’82, who is being considered to lead a review of the U.S. intelligence agencies, is seen as someone knowledgeable about national-security issues since he has “bought companies that refuel spy planes, train Green Berets, make sniper rifles, and watch America’s foes from space.” — Bloomberg

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) named Harvard University Professor of Demography Marcia Castro *02 as a 2017-18 public-engagement fellow. — AAAS.org

Johns Hopkins University Professor of Biomedical Engineering Michael Beer *95 received a $1.8 million grant from the NIH as part of the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements Consortium (ENCODE), “a collaboration of 18 labs striving to catalog all coding and regulatory regions of the human genome.” — The Johns-Hopkins Newsletter

Poet and California State University-Chico Professor Troy Jollimore *99 explains that poems come to him “mostly as a tiny bit of language, with a certain particular rhythm, that insists on its presence in [his] inner ear, and then serves as the seed crystal around which the larger crystalline structure grows.” — Los Angeles Review of Books

Actor David Duchovny ’82 has started singing for live audiences, and his first album contains 12 songs influenced by R.E.M, Bob Dylan, the Flaming Lips, and Wilco. — SF Weekly

Nate Walton ’01 “orchestrated one of the most successful shale deals in recent years” as a partner at Ares Management, which will make $1 billion on the sale of a Texas oil producer. — The Wall Street Journal

MIT Architecture and Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor John Ochsendorf *98 has been named the director of the American Academy in Rome, a “leading international center for independent study and advanced research in the arts and humanities.” —  MIT News

George Washington University Law Professor Orin Kerr ’93 explores whether the government has the authority to detain a federal employee until the employee reveals the password to his or her government-issued work phone. — The Washington Post

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