Notes - 4/14/08

Thanks to Bob Wright for his leadership and tremendous personal effort in preparing the Superfund Basic Research Program proposal which was submitted this week.  Bob would be quick to point out the terrific work of Jean Economos and her crackerjack admin team in pulling all this together, and to the multiple faculty and scientists who prepared pieces of the proposal.  This grant has provided core support for many activities in the Department, and we all benefit from the hard work by the team that put this proposal together.   

Frank Speizer is being awarded the William Silen Lifetime Achievement in Mentoring Award from the Medical School.  The award will be presented on Tuesday, May 20, 2008 from 4:00pm in the Carl Walter Amphitheater (HMS, Tosteson Medical Education Center).  Many of us in the department, myself included, have benefitted from Frank’s mentoring over the years. Congratulations to Frank on this well deserved recognition and thank-you! See our web site Spotlight for more information: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/departments/environmental-health/

On Monday we welcome back Earl Dotter with his photography exhibit on farm workers in Maine, "The Labor and Health of Migrants in Maine".  The exhibit will be in the FXB atrium.  There will be an opening celebration at 4:00.  See the department web site for more details.  Thanks to Ann Backus for coordinating this event.  A little over a year ago Earl visited us and shared his work on coal miners in West Virginia.  His work is both informative and moving and well worth a visit to the exhibit.

It was a pleasure and indeed a rare opportunity to host Dr. Theo Colburn yesterday.  She is best known for her 1996 book “Our Stolen Future” which brought attention to the exposures to endocrine disrupting chemicals and their ability to interfere with the natural signals controlling development of the fetus. Her presentation was sponsored by the Organics Research Core of the Harvard-NIEHS Center, and was organized by Russ Hauser, Nick Ashford, and Ann Backus.  

Have a great weekend!

Doug