The 2006 GSAS Alumni/Alumnae Achievement Award was presented to Stephen S. Roach (M.A., 1970, Ph.D., 1973) at Dean's Day 2006. As Managing Director and Chief Economist of Morgan Stanley, Stephen S. Roach oversees the firm's highly-regarded team of economists located in New York, London, Frankfurt, Paris, Tokyo, and Hong Kong. Mr. Roach has been widely recognized as one of Wall Street's most influential economists. His published research has covered a broad range of topics, with recent emphasis on globalization, the emergence of China, productivity, and the capital market implications of global imbalances. He is widely quoted in the financial press and other media, and his work has appeared in academic journals, books, congressional testimony, and on the op-ed pages of The Financial Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. Click here to view the webcast.
The 2005 GSAS Alumni/Alumnae Achievement Award was presented to Jill Bargonetti-Chavarria (M.S., 1987, Ph.D., 1990). Molecular biologist Jill Bargonetti-Chavarria is a renowned cancer researcher, and innovator in the education of minorities in science. Currently an associate professor at Hunter College of the City University of New York, Professor Bargonetti-Chavarria has done extensive research on the p53 protein, which assists in the suppression of tumor cells. At Hunter's Center for the Study of Gene Structure and Function, she and her colleagues are currently working to determine if DNA damage caused by various chemotherapeutic drugs is able to bring about differential activation of the p53 target genes as well as activate alternative cell death pathways. Her research group is also investigating how the oncogenic protein Mdm2 functions in multiple ways to inactivate p53 function in cancer cells. Awarded the prestigious Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers by President Bill Clinton, Bargonetti-Chavarria has received research grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. She also won the Young Investigator Award, given by the mayor of New York City, the 1998 New York Voice Award, given to those who have made a significant improvement to the quality of life in New York City, and the 1997 Kathy Keeton Mountain Top Award from the New York branch of the NAACP. In December 2004, Working Mother magazine profiled her as one of the nation's "Stellar Moms."
The 2004 GSAS Alumni/Alumnae Achievement Award was presented to Rush Holt (M.S., 1974, Ph.D., 1981). A Member of Congress representing New Jersey's 12th District since 1999, Representative Rush Holt is a strong and vocal advocate for scientific research and education. He earned a Master's and a Ph.D. in physics at NYU, and has held positions as a teacher, Congressional Science Fellow, and arms control expert at the U.S. State Department where he monitored the nuclear programs of Iraq, Iran, North Korea, and the former Soviet Union. He currently serves on two Congressional committees, including the Committee on Education and the Workforce and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He has served on the National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching for the 21st Century, chaired by former Senator John Glenn, and currently sits on several caucuses, including those on Renewable Energy, Sustainable Development, Alzheimer's, Diabetes, Biomedical Research, and Human Rights. Prior to joining Congress, Holt was Assistant Director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, where he conducted extensive research on alternative energy and has his own patent for a solar energy device.
The 2003 GSAS Alumni Achievement Award was awarded to Grace Schulman. Grace Schulman has received the Aiken Taylor Award in Modern Poetry and the Delmore Schwartz Award for Poetry, as well as three Pushcart Prizes and a poetry fellowship from the New York Foundation of the Arts. She is poetry editor of The Nation and a former director of the Poetry Center of the 92nd Street Y. Her poems have been anthologized in both the Best American Poetry and The Best of the Best American Poetry, 1988-1998. Schulman lives with her husband in New York City, where she is Distinguished Professor of English at Baruch College, City University of New York.
The 2002 GSAS Alumni Achievement Award was presented to Ruth J. Abram. Founder and president of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum and an internationally prominent expert in building museums, Ms. Abram is recognized as a leading voice promoting diversity in the U.S. and paying tribute to our country's immigrant roots. She has also been widely published on the emergence of women in the medical profession and other issues related to professional and personal equality for women. A recipient of many awards, Ms. Abram holds a B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College, an MSW from Brandeis University, and an M.A. in American History from NYU.
At Dean's Day 2001, we bestowed awards on two giants in their respective fields: Dr. Hugh Gloster, former president of Morehouse College and Philip Pearlstein, celebrated Realist artist.
The New York University Community is saddened by the loss of Dr. Hugh M. Gloster on Saturday, February 16, 2002.
Hugh M. Gloster, Ph.D. '43, president emeritus of Morehouse College, was among the most influential contributors to the education of African-Americans. Previously a professor of English at NYU and several universities abroad, he founded the College Language Association, an alliance of college-level English and foreign-language teachers serving the academic community. Among Gloster's many achievements was founding the Morehouse School of Medicine. He was a member of the advisory board of the HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) Science Program, whose mission is to improve the quality of undergraduate science and mathematics instruction at HBCUs. He received honorary doctorate degrees from numerous universities, including NYU. He was the author of Negro Voices in American Fiction, co-editor of The Brown Thrush: An Anthology of Verse by Negro College Students and My Life - My Country - My World: College Readings for Modern Living, and a contributing editor to Phylon: The Atlanta University Review of Race and Culture.
Philip Pearlstein, M.A. '55, is widely regarded as one of the most important and innovative artists of the contemporary Realist school and has achieved international renown. Pearlstein received his B.A. in 1949 from the Carnegie Institute of Technology and wrote an influential master's thesis on Francis Picabia while studying art history at NYU. His artwork has appeared in major exhibits worldwide and is in the permanent collections of numerous museums including: The Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Whitney Museum, the Carnegie Institute (Pennsylvania), the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), and the Berlin Nationalgalerie (Germany). A distinguished professor emeritus of Brooklyn College, Pearlstein has been honored with a Fulbright Fellowship; honorary doctorate degrees from Carnegie Mellon University, Brooklyn College, the Center for Creative Studies, and the College of Art and Design; and awards from institutions such as The National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation.
George Perle, Ph.D. '56, a Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and a MacArthur Foundation Fellow, received the 2000 GSAS Alumni Achievement Award. Perle's compositions have figured on the programs of many of the world's major orchestras, including the Boston, Philadelphia, New York Philharmonic, and Royal Philharmonic orchestras. Professor Emeritus of the City University of New York, Perle has also held visiting professorships at the University of California at Berkeley as well as Columbia, Yale and New York universities. He is the author of seven books, including The Operas of Alban Berg. An alumnus of DePaul University, the American Conservatory of Music, and GSAS at NYU, Perle is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters as well as the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
The 1999 GSAS Alumni Achievement Award was presented to Nobel Prize winner Julius Axelrod (M.A. '41). A distinguished biochemist, Dr. Axelrod was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1970 for discoveries that led to a greater understanding of how brain cells communicate with one another. A scientist emeritus of the National Institutes of Health, Axelrod clarified how drugs, used to treat mental illness, work in the brain and how brain systems are disturbed in mental disorders. He earned his M.A. from NYU in 1941 and his Ph.D. from George Washington University. He is the recipient of numerous awards and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a number of professional and editorial boards and author of more than 450 publications.
The 1997 GSAS Alumni Achievement Award was presented to historian and author, Margaret Maxwell GSAS '62, and physicist Robert J. Celotta, GSAS '69.
