Class Correspondent

Paula Apsell, executive producer of the renowned PBS television series “Nova” and director of the science unit at Massachusetts public broadcaster WGBH, received the 2016 Pro Bono Humanum Award at the 10th annual Prix Galien USA Awards ceremony. The award recognizes groundbreaking individual and group initiatives that lead to improvement in the state of human health. Paula is the second woman to receive the award and the first from the journalism/communications profession. Jim Garb, P’01, ended his consulting business in the area of occupational and environmental medicine in March 2016. He stays busy volunteering with groups working to ensure the safe, expeditious decommissioning of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and preventing a Cape Cod electric utility from spraying toxic herbicides under its transmission lines. Jim still teaches ESL, does photography, plays music and enjoys his two grandchildren. Marc Hoffman retired in 2012 as executive director of the Consortium for Energy Efficiency, a U.S.-Canadian association of utility efficiency program administrators. He is on the board of directors of the New England Executive Service Corps. Through his efforts to raise money for scholarships for needy graduates of his alma mater, Hillhouse High School, in New Haven, Connecticut, he connected with fellow Brandeis and Hillhouse alumni Stephanie Brand, Allan Kipperman and Barbara Norwitz. Not only were they very supportive, but Marc had the added pleasure of getting together with Allan in San Francisco. Marc writes, “I have learned the secret of retirement is to do good deeds and take advantage of every opportunity to be involved with your grandchildren.” After retiring as head of special collections at the Winterthur libraries in Switzerland, Harry Joelson works as an archivist in two museums. One of them is the Museum Mayer van den Bergh, in Antwerp, Belgium, where Harry volunteers for a few weeks each year, giving him an opportunity to practice his Dutch. He writes, “It has been quite invigorating to leave musicology for art history, where I am specializing in 17th-century Dutch genre painting and presently preparing a paper on Dutch footwarmers (stoofjes).” Ron Krouk is grateful he is still fascinated by looking at something in front of him and then painting or drawing it, and by the challenge of teaching others to do the same, which he does at the Danforth Art School, in Framingham, Massachusetts, and the Concord Art Association. Eve Marder, the Victor and Gwendolyn Beinfield Professor of Neuroscience at Brandeis, won the prestigious Kavli Prize in neuroscience for her groundbreaking research on the nervous system. Eve’s research on small neural circuits found in lobsters and crabs has revolutionized scientists’ understanding of the fundamental nature of neuronal circuit operation, including how neuromodulators control behavioral outputs and how the stability of circuits is maintained over time. Nick Racheotes retired from the faculty of Framingham State University, where he served in a variety of capacities, including three terms as history department chair. He is now an associate at Harvard’s Davis Center for Eurasian Studies, where he continues to write about the life and times of St. Filaret (Drozdov), a leading figure in the Russian Orthodox Church. Nick is involved in a variety of volunteer activities, including serving as vice chair of the National Braille Press board of trustees. Rose Rosetree celebrated the publication of her book “The New Strong: Stop Fixing Yourself — and Actually Accelerate Your Personal Growth!” She facilitates personal-growth sessions for clients and trains practitioners in the field. She writes, “My full-time job is seeking truth even unto its innermost parts, and helping people along the way.” Ani Tuzman wrote “The Tremble of Love: A Novel of the Baal Shem Tov.”

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