University People

Vice President’s Ciao

Ann E. Berman

Stephanie Mitchell / Harvard News Office

Vice president for finance Ann E. Berman will relinquish the position next April. Berman, who has lived in and worked from Italy during the summer months since her appointment in 2002, cited a desire to spend half of each year there. She will continue to work on special projects for the University. In a statement accompanying the announcement, President Lawrence H. Summers cited her success in “improving both the effectiveness and efficiency of financial management” at Harvard. Treasurer James F. Rothenberg said that “in no small part” due to Berman’s work, “at a time when universities across the country were forced to cut programs and suspend construction projects, Harvard was able to stay focused on its academic mission and plan for continued growth and expansion.” A search for her successor is under way.

Sue Goldie

Harvard School of Public Health

Mme. MacArthur

The 2005 MacArthur Fellows, who receive $500,000 of unrestricted support over five years, include physician Sue Goldie, associate professor of health decision science in the Harvard School of Public Health. Goldie uses quantitative techniques to analyze diseases such as HIV, hepatitis C, and cervical cancer caused by human papilloma virus (see “Medicine by Model,” July-August 2002, page 44). She is now pursuing this work in part through the Harvard Initiative for Global Health (see “Global Health Aims HIGH,” January-February 2005, page 61). Alumni recipients include Pehr Harbury ’87, Ph.D. ’94, associate professor of biochemistry at Stanford; Nicole King, Ph.D. ’99, assistant professor of molecular and cell biology at Berkeley; and Michael Magna, Ph.D. ’94, associate professor of earth and planetary science, also at Berkeley.

Humanities Hat Trick

Homi K. Bhabha, Rothenberg professor of English and American literature and language and recently appointed director of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’s Humanities Center (see “A Humanist Who Knows Corn Flakes,” September-October, page 64), has taken on a third responsibility: he will serve as senior adviser in the humanities at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

Mass Hall Makeover

A. Clayton Spencer

Stephanie Mitchell / Harvard News Office

Kasia Lundy

Justin Ide / Harvard News Office

President Lawrence H. Summers prepared for the academic year by formally announcing new senior staff members in an official news release, a first. A. Clayton Spencer, since 1998 associate vice president for higher education policy, becomes vice president for policy, a new position. In this capacity, she assumes “a broader role overseeing the work of the president’s office” with the aim of ensuring “a more integrated approach to activities that entail cooperative efforts with other departments or schools.” Spencer, a lawyer and trustee of Phillips Exeter Academy and Williams College, has worked on such issues as creating the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and enhancing financial aid for lower-income students. She has also served as liaison to several schools and staffed decanal searches. Citing Harvard’s “ambitious goals,” she said, “[A]s we move forward, the emphasis increasingly will be on effective execution.” The president’s new chief of staff, Kasia Lundy ’95, M.B.A. ’00, previously served as a staff member on the Allston Initiative task force on undergraduate life and the University’s Task Force on Women Faculty. Her Harvard experience distinguishes her from her two predecessors, who had previously worked in the U.S. Treasury Department, where Summers was Secretary before becoming Harvard’s president in 2001. John Longbrake, the new senior director of communications (the principal spokesman for the president and provost), is a Treasury public-affairs veteran.