Alumni Gazette

Hoffman (Moka) Lantum ’03M (PhD) and Lynne Davidson ’01 (PhD) were named to Foreign Policy magazine’s list of the 100 Leading Global Thinkers for 2016.

Lantum, an executive and consultant in health care delivery and management, and Davidson, a political scientist with expertise on poverty and microfinance, are the founder and executive director, respectively, of 2020 MicroClinic Initiative. The initiative, which Lantum founded in Rochester in 2011, works to improve maternal and newborn health care in underserved areas of the globe. Its program, Operation Karibu, has provided clothes, emergency transportation, birth preparation, training in infant care, and safe deliveries to thousands of mothers in rural Kenya.

Prior to their work on the initiative, Lantum and Davidson played multiple roles in the University and Greater Rochester communities. In addition to serving as director of medical services at Excellus BlueCross BlueShield, Lantum, a native of Cameroon, founded the Baobab Cultural Center in Rochester’s Neighborhood of the Arts. Davidson is a former assistant professor of health services research at Rochester, as well as former deputy to the University president and vice provost for faculty development and diversity.

Two other members of the University community have made Foreign Policy’s list in the past few years. Brian Grimberg ’96, an assistant professor of international health at Case Western Reserve University, was named to the list in 2014 in recognition of his work on rapid malaria detection devices; and Narayana Kocherlakota, who joined Rochester’s faculty as the Lionel W. McKenzie Professor of Economics in January 2016, was named to the list in 2012. Kocherlakota, former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, is a leading scholar and public intellectual on monetary and financial economics.

Grammy Nomination Roundup

The 59th Grammy Awards will take place on February 12 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Nominees, who were announced in early December, include several Eastman School of Music alumni:

Steve Gadd ’68E, Steve Gadd Band, Way Back Home: Live from Rochester, NY (BFM Jazz): Best Contemporary Instrumental Album.

Geoff Saunders ’09E, bassist, as part of the O’Connor Band with Mark O’Connor, Coming Home (Rounder Records): Best Bluegrass Album.

Bob Ludwig ’66E, ’01E (MM), mastering engineer for Andrew Bird, Are You Serious (Loma Vista Recordings): Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical.

Sean Connors ’04E, percussionist with Third Coast Percussion, Steve Reich (Cedille Records): Best Chamber Music Performance.

Kristian Bezuidenhout ’01E, ’04E (MM), Mozart Keyboard Music, Vols. 8 & 9 (Harmonia Mundi): Best Classical Instrumental Solo.

Gene Scheer ’81E, ’82E (MM), librettist for the opera Cold Mountain (Pentatone Music) and Christopher Theofanidis ’92E (MM), Theofanidis: Bassoon Concerto (Estonian Record Production): Best Contemporary Classical Composition.