Alumni Gazette

In the News

We’re not very good at the scholastic stuff, but we see other things that are different. And that’s a big advantage.

—Heart surgeon Delos (Toby) Cosgrove ’68M (Res), who was appointed CEO of the Cleveland Clinic last June, discussing with the Cleveland Plain Dealer how his dyslexia has helped foster his creativity.

Hitchcock ’69M (PhD) Leads Canadian University

Karen Hitchcock ’69M (PhD), the former president of SUNY Albany, is taking over as the leader of Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, where she has been appointed the university’s principal and vice-chancellor.

A specialist in cell and developmental biology, Hitchcock also holds a full professorship in cell biology and anatomy at the 16,000-student campus.

Credited for helping lead Albany’s efforts in economic development and technology transfer, Hitchcock had led the SUNY campus since 1996. She joined the administration at Albany in 1991 and served as vice president of academic affairs and as interim president before being appointed president.

Nobelist Named Director of National Laboratory

Nobel laureate and Rochester trustee Steven Chu ’70, a longtime professor in the physics and applied physics departments at Stanford University, has been named the new director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

The lab, managed by the University of California for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, is one of the nation’s most prominent research centers of its kind, with programs in nanoscience and advanced materials, the life sciences, computing, energy and earth sciences, physics, and cosmology.

Chu, who earned his doctorate from Berkeley, was awarded a share of the Nobel Prize in physics in 1997.

Economist Serves in Taiwan’s New Cabinet

The president of Taiwan has tapped a Rochester-trained economist to serve in a new post in his cabinet. Hu Sheng-cheng ’70 (PhD), who taught economics at Purdue University for nearly 30 years, has been named the chair of the country’s Council for Economic Planning and Development in the cabinet of President Chen Shui-bian, who was reelected last May.

Writer Wins Top British Book Prize

A recasting of an early 20th-century murder first fictionalized by Theodore Dreiser has earned Jennifer Donnelly ’85 Britain’s top prize for children’s literature. Donnelly’s book, A Northern Light, won the Carnegie Medal, presented annually by children’s librarians in Great Britain, beating out two British favorites, Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, and David Almond’s The Fire Eaters. Published in Britain as A Gathering Light, the book uses the perspective of a fictional teenager to tell the story of a pregnant 19-year-old who was killed by her boyfriend in the Adirondacks in 1906. The real-life murder was the basis for Dreiser’s American Tragedy. Last spring, Donnelly’s book also won the Los Angeles Times Book Award for best young adult fiction.