Class Correspondent

45th Reunion
June 6-8, 2014

Ellen Schwartz, an art professor at Eastern Michigan University, recently completed a section on Byzantine art and architecture for the Oxford online bibliographies. Her son Eric earned his master’s in economics from the University of Tokyo, and son Bram received his master’s in musical composition from the University of Texas at Austin. SFX Entertainment, the company led by media executive Robert F.X. Sillerman, has agreed to buy the music download site Beatport; news reports say Robert’s company intends to build a $1 billion empire centered on the electronic music craze. Beatport, founded in 2004, is the leading download store for electronic dance music. Eve Marder, the Victor and Gwendolyn Beinfield Professor of Neuroscience and director of the Division of Science at Brandeis, was at the White House in April when President Barack Obama announced a $100 million research initiative aimed at revolutionizing our understanding of the brain. Eve is one of 14 scientists on the advisory board charged with defining the project and its goals. Brandeis is the smallest research university represented on the board, which includes neuroscientists from Stanford, the California Institute of Technology, Harvard, Brown and Princeton. “We’re at a very interesting and exciting moment in neuroscience research right now because the technological innovations of the last decade have completely transformed the kinds of experiments we can do today,” says Eve, a past president of the Society for Neuroscience and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. “We couldn’t even dream of these experiments 15 years ago.” David G. Roskies, MA’71, PhD’75, and Naomi Diamant co-authored “Holocaust Literature: A History and Guide.” Published by Brandeis University Press as part of the Tauber Institute Series, the book is a historical survey of Holocaust literature across genres, countries and major languages. Beginning with the wartime years, the book covers the literature of mobilization and mourning in the free world, as well as the vast and varied literature produced in Nazi-occupied ghettos, bunkers, places of hiding, and the transit and concentration camps. David is the Sol and Evelyn Henkind Chair in Yiddish Literature and Culture and professor of Jewish literature at the Jewish Theological Seminary. Rob Romasco, president of AARP (formerly the American Association of Retired Persons), returned to Brandeis in April to participate in the James J. Callahan Jr., PhD’68, Memorial Lecture — “Medicare and Social Security: Who Wins and Who Loses in Entitlement Reform?” At AARP, Rob serves as the organization’s primary volunteer spokesperson. He visited 20 states and logged 60,000 miles in his first six months on the job, hearing about the lives of people over 50, to determine how AARP can best serve and advocate for their needs. Before joining AARP, Rob was senior vice president of customer, distribution and new business development at QVC.

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