Brandeis Magazine

Rebecca Menapace is the new associate provost for innovation and executive director of the Office of Technology Licensing at Brandeis. She will be responsible for advancing the university’s academic mission of research excellence by pursuing strategic industry partnerships. Previously, she was director of research ventures and licensing at Partners HealthCare. Menapace holds an MBA from Northeastern University’s High-Tech MBA program and a BA in biology, with a concentration in chemistry, from SUNY Oswego.

In its annual rankings of pre-experience master’s programs, the Financial Times again ranked Brandeis International Business School No. 1 in the United States for its MA in international economics and finance (the Lemberg Program). It is the third straight year Brandeis has earned this distinction. The two-year Lemberg Program helps students gain the applied finance and economics skills they need to understand the forces driving the global economy and the operations of international capital markets. To determine its ranking, the Financial Times evaluated such criteria as alumni career progress, school diversity and international experience.

The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has awarded Robin Feuer Miller, the Edytha Macy Gross Professor of Humanities, a fellowship to complete a book project on novelists Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy. Miller is one of 175 scholars, artists and scientists awarded a 2013 Guggenheim fellowship from a group of almost 3,000 applicants in the United States and Canada. Miller says her project aims “to approach these writers not through the great plots and the massive heroes of their works, but to creep upon them from the side — to look at these men through the animals, children and minor characters in their works.”

Four faculty members won teaching and mentoring awards in the College of Arts and Sciences this spring. Donald B. Katz, associate professor of psychology, was awarded the Lerman-Neubauer ’69 Prize for Excellence in Teaching and Mentoring. Sara Shostak, associate professor of sociology, won the Michael L. Walzer ’56 Award for Teaching. James R. Morris, associate professor of biology, won the Louis Dembitz Brandeis Prize for Excellence in Teaching. ChaeRan Yoo Freeze, associate professor of Near Eastern and Judaic studies and women’s and gender studies, received the Dean’s Mentoring Award, for outstanding mentoring of students in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

The National Council for Research on Women presented its 2013 Research and Scholarship Award to the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute. The award recognizes recent research that advances understanding of the experiences of women and girls in society. The council also honored Shulamit Reinharz, the institute’s founder and co-director and the Jacob S. Potofsky Professor of Sociology, as a trailblazer in research on women.

Steve Whitfield, PhD’72, the Max Richter Professor of American Civilization, received the 2013 Sachar Award from the Brandeis National Committee. The award is presented annually to a person of outstanding achievement in the field of education. The author or editor of 10 books, Whitfield is one of the faculty most frequently mentioned by students and alumni as having profoundly and positively influenced them during their time at Brandeis.