Newsmakers

JEFFREY BIGHAM ’03, ANDREW HOUCK ’00, and EREZ LIEBERMAN-AIDEN ’02 have been named to this year’s TR35, Technology Review magazine’s list of top technologists and scientists under age 35.

Bigham, a computer science graduate who teaches at the University of Rochester, was honored for creating WebAnywhere, a free screen-reading application that converts Web pages to audio for people who have little or no vision. (Watch a video of Bigham discussing his work at paw.princeton.edu.)  

Houck, assistant professor of electrical engineering at Princeton, received praise for developing a superconducting quantum bit that helps keep quantum information intact for a few microseconds — a significant advance.

Lieberman-Aiden, a Ph.D. candidate in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, was cited for his contributions to advanced models of evolutionary theory, the evolution of language and culture, and the structure of genomes. He also created the “iShoe,” an insole that detects balance problems and could help prevent elderly people from falling.

An HBO comedy series created by author JONATHAN AMES ’87, called Bored to Death, was scheduled to debut Sept. 20. The show — based on a short story published in Ames’ new collection of fiction and nonfiction, The Double Life Is Twice As Good (Scribner) — features a struggling writer in Brooklyn who moonlights as a private detective.  

LOCOMOTIVES Princeton trustee SONIA SOTOMAYOR ’76 was sworn in as a Supreme Court justice Aug. 8, becoming the third woman and the first Hispanic to serve. She joins Samuel Alito ’72 on the bench. ... Rice Univer­sity selected Princeton professor SARAH WHITING *90 to be its dean of architecture. She will start her new job Jan. 1, 2010. ... Caltech astronomer MICHAEL BROWN ’87 and a team of colleagues were the first to track clouds over the tropical latitudes on Saturn’s moon Titan. The finding was published in the Aug. 13 issue of Nature . … Former New York Times reporter and editor SHERYL WUDUNN *88 and her husband, Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, will receive the 2009 Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Lifetime Achievement Nov. 8. ... JOSHUA DUBOIS *05, the White House’s director of faith-based and neighborhood partnerships, was tapped to lead a new initiative encouraging responsible fatherhood. … Former Woodrow Wilson School dean ANNE-MARIE SLAUGHTER ’80 was described as the “center of [Hillary] Clinton’s brain trust” in an Aug. 23 piece in The Washington Post , which said she is leading an effort to rethink foreign aid. ... RICHARD CUMMINGS ’59 ’s play Soccer Moms From Hell , about two families who rebel against their suburban lifestyles, is being revived at the New Haven Theater Company Oct. 16 and 17 in New Haven, Conn. ... BILLY ARONSON ’79 ’s satirical play The First Day of School , about parents who don’t know what to do with themselves, premieres Sept. 23 at San Francisco’s SF Playhouse and Oct. 1 at Philadelphia’s Plays and Players Theatre.