In Short

Published June 23, 2022

Hamera

Jon Sweeney/Lewis Center for the Arts

Judith Hamera, a professor of dance, was named the new chair of the LEWIS CENTER FOR THE ARTS, effective July 1. Hamera, who joined the Princeton faculty in 2014 and has appointments in the Lewis Center and the Effron Center for the Study of America, has written extensively about performance and dance as well as communication and cultural studies. She fills the role vacated by creative writing professor and former U.S. poet laureate Tracy K. Smith, who moved to Harvard University last year. Another prominent creative writing professor, Jhumpa Lahiri, a writer of essays, novels, and short stories, departed Princeton this June for a post at Barnard College, her alma mater.

Rabbi Gil Steinlauf ’91 will be the new executive director of Princeton’s CENTER FOR JEWISH LIFE (CJL), beginning this summer. Currently a rabbi in Rockville, Maryland, Steinlauf has founded programs devoted to teen leadership and LGBTQ fellowship within the Jewish community. CJL also announced a gift from David Mandelbaum ’57 and his wife, Karen Mandelbaum, to renovate and expand the center’s main kosher kitchen and dining facilities.

Princeton has filled four new positions related to DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION. Sociology professor Frederick Wherry *04 will be the vice dean for diversity and inclusion in the Office of the Dean of the Faculty, supporting the University’s goal of increasing the number of faculty members from underrepresented groups. Cole Crittenden *05 will lead the exploration of a possible new credit- or degree-granting program for adult learners, an idea first announced in September 2020, as the new vice provost for academic affairs. Rayna Truelove became the associate dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. And Jordan “JT” Turner will be the associate director of athletics for diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Sixteen professors — including two Nobel laureates — are transferring to EMERITUS STATUS after a combined total of more than 430 years on the faculty: Leonard Barkan, comparative literature; John Borneman, anthropology; David Dobkin, computer science; Denis Feeney, classics; Martha Himmelfarb, religion; Ruby Lee, electrical engineering; Anne McCauley, art and archaeology; Stewart Prager, astrophysical sciences; Martha A. Sandweiss, history; Jeffrey Schwartz, chemistry; Robert Sedgewick, computer science; Christopher Sims, economics; James A. Smith, civil and environmental engineering; Shivaji Sondhi, physics; Edwin Turner, astrophysical sciences; and Eric Wieschaus, molecular biology and the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics. Sims and Wieschaus have won the Nobel Prize.

The University announced a MAJOR GIFT from Margaret and Robert Hariri, parents of two recent Princeton graduates and a current student, to support the expansion of the undergraduate student body. A dormitory in Yeh College will be named Hariri Hall. The University did not release the amount of the gift. Robert Hariri is the founder and CEO of Celularity, a human cellular therapeutics company. Margaret Hariri manages several of the family’s businesses.

Sheinerman ’23

Courtesy Marie-Rose Sheinerman ’23

Daily Princetonian editor-in-chief Marie-Rose Sheinerman ’23 was part of the Miami Herald team that won a PULITZER PRIZE for Breaking News Reporting for its coverage of the June 2021 condominium collapse in Surfside, Florida. The Pulitzer board also awarded its Feature Writing prize to Jennifer Senior ’91 for her September 2021 Atlantic story about the family of Robert McIlvaine ’97, who died 20 years earlier in the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center.

Alumni elected three University TRUSTEES for terms beginning July 1: Yolandra Gomez Toya ’88, a pediatrician and public-health advocate in Bernalillo, New Mexico; Jackie Yi-Ru Ying *91, director of NanoBio Lab in Singapore; and Naomi Hess ’22, the young-alumni trustee, who plans to work at Mathematica.

The University reported two UNDERGRADUATE DEATHS in the week following spring semester exams. Jazz Chang ’23 died May 13 in Princeton, and Justin Lim ’25 died at home in Chicago May 17. In a University release, Lim’s parents attributed his death to mental illness.

Published in the July 2022 Issue

In Short