Electrical engineering professor SANJEEV KULKARNI will step down from his position as dean of the faculty in June, after four years in the role. President Eisgruber ’83 praised Kulkarni’s “thoughtful leadership, good judgment, sterling integrity, and selfless dedication to the values of this University.” Kulkarni, who also has led the Graduate School and the Keller Center, said he is looking forward to returning to teaching and research.
CASSIDY YANG, a fifth-year graduate student in quantitative and computational biology, and her sister, Angel, died in a car accident in Ohio Dec. 5, 2020, while driving home to Naperville, Illinois. A foundation honoring the sisters will fund educational opportunities for girls and young women interested in STEM fields, according to the Chicago Tribune.
IN MEMORIAM J. LIONEL GOSSMAN, a prominent scholar of French literature and history, died Jan. 11 in Philadelphia. He was 91.
Gossman joined the Princeton faculty in 1976, chaired the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures from 1991 to 1996, and retired in 1999. His books included studies of Molière and French historian Jean-Baptiste de La Curne de Sainte-Palaye. In 2005, Gossman received an honorary degree at Princeton’s Commencement, where President Shirley Tilghman called him “the quintessential Princeton faculty member.”
A gift from the late Herbert Paschen Jr. ’56 will help Princeton ReachOut 56-81-06 expand its support for fellowships in public service. The program awards one domestic and one international fellowship per year. Because of the pandemic, fellowships for the classes of 2021 and 2022 will be awarded in 2022. A new fellowship, named for Paschen, will be inaugurated in 2023.
The Princeton Open Campus Coalition (POCC), a student group that has advocated for academic freedom on campus, received the 2020 Outstanding Student Group Award from Heterodox Academy. The award announcement cited POCC’s opposition to a June 2020 student petition that promoted anti-racist policies.