February 20, 2013
Notables
Diversity award recipients inspire success in students
President Joel Seligman with 2013 Diversity Award winners (from left) Suzanne Piotrowski (THSP), Kevin Graham (THSP), Alyssa Cannarozzo (THSP), Lynne Maquat, Kim Muratore (THSP), and Vivian Lewis, vice provost for faculty development and diversity.
The Teen Health and Success Partnership and Lynne Maquat, the J. Lowell Orbison Chair and Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the Medical Center, were honored as the 2013 Presidential Diversity Award recipients. Both awardees were chosen for their commitment to helping underrepresented minority students achieve their academic goals.
“Diversity is a core value of the University,” says President Joel Seligman. “I am delighted to recognize two outstanding teams who have been remarkably successful in supporting students at critical points along the educational pipeline.”
Teen Health and Success Partnership
Launched in 2009, the Teen Health and Success Partnership works with University departments, the Rochester City School District, the Hillside Work Scholarship Connection, and a host of community agencies to create University employment opportunities for at-risk, underrepresented minority teens. In three years, the program has grown from 11 to 100 participants employed in 36 different departments across campuses. The program boasts a 100 percent high school graduation rate and 87 percent of those teens have enrolled in college or trade school. The program has become a national model for health facilities and has been replicated in Syracuse and Prince George’s County, Md.
The program also provides youth access to health care services; libraries; computer labs; counseling services; college application preparation support; academic tutoring; leadership and management skills workshops; and campus social, cultural, and athletic events, among others.
Lynne Maquat
An internationally respected researcher and scholar, Lynne Maquat has spent her career advocating for young women in the sciences. Maquat founded the University’s Graduate Women in Science program in 2003. Funded through an NIH grant, the program has grown into a highly valued means of outreach and mentoring for women scientists. Each month, the program hosts a roundtable discussion of high-profile speakers who are using advanced degrees in traditional and nontraditional ways. Speakers share how they successfully navigated their own personal and professional hurdles.
Anthropologist receives Frederick Douglass Medal
President Joel Seligman presented this year’s Frederick Douglass Medal to anthropologist Yolanda Moses, a leading scholar on the origins of social inequality, former president of the City College of New York, and one of the driving forces behind the creation of the traveling exhibition RACE: Are We So Different? at the Rochester Museum & Science Center. “Frederick Douglass has been my touchstone throughout my entire career,” Moses said. “And it is wonderful to have this award.”
Richard Eisenberg, the Tracy H. Harris Professor of Chemistry, is being honored for his work in the field of inorganic photochemistry. The New York Section of the American Chemical Society has named Eisenberg the winner of its 2013 William H. Nichols Medal Award. Eisenberg’s work has focused on inorganic and organometallic chemistry, photochemistry, and catalysis. He is a specialist in the chemistry of converting light into chemical energy. These interests have paved the way for his current work developing a system that could lead to more efficient and environmentally friendly production of hydrogen fuel from water.
Todd Krauss, professor of chemistry, has been named a fellow of the American Physical Society. Krauss is being recognized for his outstanding contributions to the field of nanoscience, especially the photophysics of nanoscale semiconductors. Krauss’s research focuses on understanding the fundamental properties of materials as small as individual molecules.
Krauss received the University’s Goergen Award for Distinguished Achievement and Artistry in Undergraduate Teaching in 2009. He was also honored with the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award in 2005 and won an Alfred P. Sloan Award in 2004.
Sue Stewart, former senior vice president and general counsel at the University, was awarded this year’s Susan B. Anthony Lifetime Achievement Award for her dedication to women’s issues and commitment to the local community. Stewart became the University’s chief lawyer in 2003 after retiring from a 33-year career at Nixon Peabody. She was one of the first women hired by the firm in 1968 and was among the first women to be made partner in 1975. She later became the first female practice group leader and the first female member of the firm’s managing committee. In 1998 she was named the firm’s first female managing partner. Stewart recently retired from the University