Class Notes from Reed magazine Spring ’09

The Class Notes section of the Reed magazine Spring 2009 reports on some Reed chemists:

  • Arlene Blum ’66 was one of six individuals selected for a Purpose Prize in 2008. The prize recognized the extraordinary contribution she has made during her “encore career” as an advocate for policies and regulations that protect human and environmental health, and carried a cash award of $100,000. Arlene’s organization, the Green Science Policy Institute (greensciencepolicy.org), promotes decision-making about the use of chemicals in consumer products based on scientific data, with a goal of creating informed, engaged, and healthy communities worldwide. A video of Arlene discussing her work is at the prize website, www.purposeprize.org.
  • Laurel Wilkening ’66 reports that her spouse of 33 years, Godfrey T. Sill, died in December 2007, in Tucson, Arizona.
  • A symposium at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville in January fortuitously brought together four Reed alumni. The symposium, “Civil Liberties, National Security, and the Legacies of the Japanese Removal and Incarceration: A Multidisciplinary Exploration,” was organized by Jeff Kovac ’70 and others from the University of Tennessee and the Knoxville community. Jeff and Michael Bess ’79, Chancellor’s Professor of History at Vanderbilt University, were among the speakers. The event also included a production of a new play, Dawn’s Light: The Journey of Gordon Hirabayashi, by Jeanne Sakata. The team that produced the play included Jed Diamond ’79, associate professor of performance in the theatre department at UTK, who participated in the symposium, as did Susan Davis Kovac ’71. To learn more about the symposium, visit www.artsci.utk.edu/symposium.
  • Ken Jacobson ’75 has received two awards for his work in pharmacology and medicinal chemistry. The 2008 Sato Award, names for Yoshio Sato ’36, was awarded to Ken as an outstanding U.S. scientist, and was presented in March, in Kyoto, Japan, by the Council of the Pharmaceutical Society of Japan. The 2009 Pharmacia-American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET) Award for Experimental Therapeutics was presented to Ken in April, in New Orleans, at the ASPET and Experimental Biology business meeting and awards reception. Ken was recognized for his creativity and his ability to combine the field of chemistry with those of pharmacology and molecular biology. His research has led to agents in clinical trials for cystic fibrosis, cancer, cardioischemia, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, and asthma. He also was recently included in a listing of the 10 most cited researchers in the field of pharmacology, and is acting chief at the Laboratory of Bioorganic Chemistry, and chief of the Molecular Recognition Section, at the National Institute of Diabetes & Digestive & Kidney Diseases, National Institutes of Health, in B3ethesda, Maryland.
  • Robert Hamatake ’76 is director of virology at GlaxoSmithKline and has relocated his family to Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
  • Kevan Shokat ’86 still lives in San Francisco with his family — including children Kasra, 16, Mitra 12, and Leila, 10 — and two cats. He is trying to persuade Kasra to become a member of O.R.G.Y.
  • Kevin Day ’97 has happily returned to the church after long (and ongoing) sojourn among varied religions and philosophies. As a recent addition to the Benedictine Community of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, he is looking forward to new insights and relationships, while continuing to live and work in downtown Portland.
  • Zach Pegram ’05 popped up in a Reed magazine article (“Lawyer Trades Briefcase for Dogsled”) about the experiences of (non-chemist) alum, Chad Lindner ’03, in the Iditarod. Zach was part of a much larger crew in Alaska that was following the progress of the Lindners during the race.
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