Brandeis Magazine

The university’s Board of Trustees has welcomed three new members: Marjorie Hass; Len Rosenberg ’89; and Jay Ruderman ’88, H’18. Hass is president of the Council of Independent Colleges, the first woman to hold this position in the organization’s 65-year history. Rosenberg is a partner at Mayer Brown, working out of the law firm’s Palo Alto and San Francisco offices, and leading its cross-border real estate practice. Ruderman is president of the Ruderman Family Foundation, a nonprofit that seeks to advance the inclusion of people with disabilities throughout society, and strengthen the relationship between Israel and the American Jewish community.

A team of Brandeis scientists has been awarded $1 million from the W.M. Keck Foundation to learn more about how the human brain interacts with the sympathetic nervous system, research that could lead to new understanding of how the sympathetic nervous system is disrupted in disorders like hypertension. The labs headed by Susan Birren, the Zalman Abraham Kekst Professor in Neuroscience; Sacha Nelson, the Gyula and Katica Tauber Professor of Life Science; Gina Turrigiano, the Joseph Levitan Professor of Vision Science; and University Professor Eve Marder ’69, the Victor and Gwendolyn Beinfield Professor of Biology, will collaborate on the three-year study. The research will be led by Birren and Nelson, and conducted in their laboratories, with intellectual and technical contributions from Turrigiano and Marder.

Derron Wallace, assistant professor of sociology and education, has earned a 2022 National Academy of Education/ Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship, which provides $70,000 to early-career scholars to allow them to focus on their research. He also received a Fulbright Scholar Award, through which, while based for a year in the sociology department at Durham University, he will work on a project related to policing in British schools.

Journalist Martin Baron, who has overseen stories and investigations that led to 18 Pulitzer Prizes, has been named the 2023 Richman Distinguished Fellow in Public Life at Brandeis. Baron was The Washington Post’s executive editor from 2013 until his retirement in 2021. Before that, he served as editor of The Boston Globe from 2001-12, overseeing the paper’s scrutiny of the Catholic Church’s concealment of clergy sex abuse, an investigation that was awarded a 2003 Pulitzer Prize and was dramatized in the Academy Award-winning film “Spotlight.” Baron will visit campus in March for a residency that includes an award ceremony, a public presentation, and a variety of events.

Jan Steyaert, scientific director of the VIB-VUB Center for Structural Biology, at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, in Brussels, was presented with Brandeis’ 24th Jacob and Louise Gabbay Award in Biotechnology and Medicine in October. Steyaert was instrumental in the development of Camelid single-domain antibodies (also known as nanobodies) used for groundbreaking contributions to structural biology. The Gabbay Award recognizes the combination of Steyaert’s fundamental research and his ability to apply the research to the development of therapeutic technologies.

Mathematics professor Dmitry Kleinbock is serving as a member of the Institute for Advanced Study for the 2022-23 academic year, one of 200 researchers and scholars selected from around the world to engage in interdisciplinary collaboration at IAS, which is located in Princeton, New Jersey.

Sabine von Mering, professor of German, and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies, has been awarded the Volkmar and Margret Sander Prize by Deutsches Haus at New York University. The prize honors individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the cultural, political, and academic relationship between the German-speaking world and the United States. Presented annually, it is endowed with a $5,000 grant.

The William Randolph Hearst Foundation has awarded Brandeis University $125,000 to support undergraduate research work in the creative arts, humanities, and social sciences. The gift will provide stipends that allow students who are less financially secure to undertake unpaid research opportunities. First-generation, low-income, and underrepresented students will be prioritized.