Archive for January, 2010

Patrick Swayze and his wife, Lisa Niemi Photo courtesy of Lisa Niemi

While battling pancreas cancer, Patrick Swayze courageously made his disease public and spoke out in support of cancer research. In this spirit, the Stanford Cancer Center has established the Patrick Swayze Pancreas Cancer Research Fund to support research that leads to more effective treatments for pancreas cancer patients. Gifts to this fund will support studies to increase understanding of pancreas cancer and develop new therapies and technologies that can be applied to improving diagnosis, treatment and prevention. “Our goal is to apply a multidisciplinary approach to the study of pancreas cancer and the care of patients afflicted with the disease,” says GEORGE FISHER, associate professor of medicine-oncology.

- Stanford Cancer Center

DAVID DONOHO, professor of statistics, has won the Norbert Wiener Prize in Applied Mathematics, which is awarded every three years for “an outstanding contribution to applied mathematics in the highest and broadest sense.” Donoho won for “introducing novel fundamental and powerful mathematical tools in signal processing and image analysis.” The award citation lauded Donoho as “one of the most cited applied and computational mathematicians of our time” owing to his methods, which were described as “very deep mathematically and very efficient computationally” and thus extremely successful for both theoreticians and practitioners. Donoho is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences. The prize is jointly awarded by the American Mathematical Society and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.

- Louis Bergeron

This week, PBS aired a three-part series called This Emotional Life, which takes an in-depth and expansive look at human emotions, from love and depression to fear and the pursuit of happiness. The series features everyday people and celebrities such as John Leguizamo, Katie Couric, Larry David, America Ferrera and FARAI CHIDEYA (’02 Knight Fellow). Several Stanford scholars weighed in as experts, including psychologists IAN GOTLIB, LAURA CARSTENSEN and JAMES GROSS. Biologist ROBERT SAPOLSKY also was featured as well as FRED LUSKIN, a university affiliate best known for his Forgiveness Project. Psychiatry Professor KEITH HUMPHREYS also was featured. If you missed it, no worries. You can view the series and supplemental materials online.

Brodie Hamilton

Stanford has been named as one of the “Top 10 cleantech universities in the U.S. for 2010″ by Cleantech.com. The Farm was singled out for developing an ambitious, long-range, $250 million initiative to reduce the university’s carbon footprint and for the establishment of the Precourt Institute for Energy . . . Stanford also received a nod in the Gold category as one of the Best Workplaces for Commuters. A program designed to encourage sustainable transportation innovation and managed by the University of South Florida’s National Center for Transit Research singled out 27 companies, institutions and individuals nationwide in the 2009 Race to Excellence Virtual Awards Ceremony. In addition to the university scoring a gold, BRODIE HAMILTON, director of Parking and Transportation Services (P&TS), was named best employee transportation coordinator. Says Hamilton: “Although I’m singled out in the ‘Coordinator’ category, this is more accurately a team/department acknowledgment since so many individuals in P&TS are involved in making our program happen.”

The Washington Independent has named MICHAEL MCFAUL one of the “Top Five National Security Players of 2009.” McFaul, professor of political science and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, is currently serving as the National Security Council’s director for Russia. The citation noted that McFaul traveled to Russia frequently last year to troubleshoot for the Obama administration. “Going forward, McFaul will be working on one of Obama’s major priorities: negotiating a treaty with Russia on nuclear weapons reduction,” the item said. In addition to McFaul, the other four players are Sen. John Kerry; Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan; Samantha Power, senior director for multilateral affairs at the National Security Council; and Denis McDonough, chief of staff for the National Security Council.

In her book Reindeer with King Gustaf: What to Expect When Your Spouse Wins the Nobel Prize, Anita Laughlin, wife of physics Professor ROBERT LAUGHLIN, descibes the pomp, the wardrobe changes and the ways the prize changed her family’s life. But the heady journey began at their campus home.
“Twenty years after our first date, on October 12, 1998, the director of the Stanford News Service called Bob at his office to inform him that he was on an ‘even shorter list’ of possible recipients to win a Nobel Prize, and that Bob was to call him immediately if he heard anything,” she writes. “Bob promptly threw the phone number away, believing that Stanford could not possibly win a third year in a row” (STEVEN CHU 1997; DOUG OSHEROFF 1996). Laughlin goes on to write about the call that came the next morning and what transpired during the hours that followed - the couple’s 13-year-old son answering the call on his Mickey Mouse telephone, then sleepily announcing that “some guy” from Sweden was calling. She describes the onslaught of folks who showed up at their house in the wee hours of the morning.
“The prize had been announced at 6:00 a.m. Eastern Time, and 3:00 a.m. West Coast time. At 3:30 a.m., an intrepid JACK HUBBARD from the Stanford News Service knocked on the front door. With remarkable trust, because I was still in my bathrobe, I let him in. He was immaculately dressed. He asked where the phone was, tossed his own cell phone on the desk, and explained: ‘I am here to get you through the day. I am here to answer the phone, set up newspaper interviews, be Bob’s bodyguard and chauffeur. We need to keep him calm and not let things get overwhelming. I take my cues from you on this.’”
An excerpt of the book, published by Wyatt-Mackenzie Publishing, accompanies an audio interview (recorded in the studio of Stanford Video) on National Public Radio’s website.

And, by the way, ROBERT LAUGHLIN himself is scheduled to give a lecture this afternoon titled “Here Comes the Sun,” in which he will discuss some of the recent developments that have changed solar energy from a scientific toy to a serious technology. The lecture is scheduled to take place at 4:15 p.m. in the Hewlett Teaching Center, Room 201.

While many of us were savoring the final days of the holiday break, Stanford athletes were hard at work this weekend. Alas, the Cardinal football team lost to the Oklahoma Sooners in the Sun Bowl in El Paso New Year’s Eve. “Our guys fought as hard as they could,” Coach JIM HARBAUGH said during a post-game press conference. One thing’s for sure, the Cardinal’s 2009 season was the best the football team has had in a long time . . . Meanwhile, the women’s basketball team enjoyed a decisive victory over Cal Saturday with a score of 79-58. NNEMKADI OGWUMIKE racked up 24 points and a career-high 16 rebounds. Click on the images to enjoy the highlights of the games in photos.

The “S” word pops up in the most interesting and unexpected places. The latest utterance is in the movie A Single Man, about George, a gay literature professor in Los Angeles, played by Colin Firth, who is coming to grips with the death of his longtime partner. George’s friend Charlotte (Julianne Moore) asks: “Why donʼt you take that position at Stanford? Why do you keep teaching at that little school when you could have any position you want?”