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Edward Felten, professor of computer science and public affairs (Denise Applewhite/Office of Communications)
Edward Felten, professor of computer science and public affairs (Denise Applewhite/Office of Communications)
Computer science and public affairs professor Edward Felten will take a one-year leave of absence from Princeton to serve as the first chief technologist of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the University announced Nov. 4. His appointment begins in January 2011.
 
Felten directs the Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP), an innovative group of faculty and visiting scholars that will be featured in the cover story of Princeton Alumni Weekly’s Nov. 17 issue. Since its creation in 2005, CITP has emerged as a leader in research on electronic voting, government transparency, and a range of computer security and privacy issues.
 
Felten’s work first made national headlines in 2000, when he led a team of researchers that published a paper showing how to circumvent a digital-rights-management system that record companies had incorporated into their music files. The creators of the anti-piracy system sued Felten, but the suit was later dropped. At CITP, Felten has earned widespread attention for his work on flaws in electronic voting machines and disc encryption systems.
 
In his new position, Felten will advice FTC officials on consumer issues that are linked to technology, consumer protection, including online privacy and cybersecurity, as well as antitrust matters in the tech industry, according to a University news release.

In an election season filled with fresh faces, at least two new Princeton alumni have earned seats in the House of Representatives.

Nan Hayworth '81 (Courtesy nanhayworth.com)
Nan Hayworth '81 (Courtesy nanhayworth.com)

Nan Sutter Hayworth ’81, a Republican in New York's 19th district, won her race against Democratic Rep. John Hall. Hayworth is a retired ophthalmologist and former PAW contributor (she wrote an essay for our 2006 Reunions Guide). After receiving the news that she was headed for Capitol Hill, she told The Journal News that her victory “belongs to a country that is desperate for change and eager for the change we have made here in District 19. We did it with darn hard work.” Hayworth had campaigned on a platform aimed at spurring economic growth with free-market policies.

Terri Sewell '86 (Courtesy sewellforcongress.com)
Terri Sewell '86 (Courtesy sewellforcongress.com)

Terri Sewell ’86, a Democrat in Alabama’s seventh district, also stressed economics in her campaign, listing job creation as her lead issue (unemployment in her district far exceeds the national average). Sewell’s win was historic: She will be the state’s first African-American woman to serve in Congress. As Sewell told The Selma Times-Journal, her family has a tradition of political firsts. “I have a wonderful role model in my mother,” she said. “Some people ask me, ‘Where do you get your tenacity?’ My mom was the first African-American woman to sit on the city council of Selma and was also the person who gave me my first book. I traveled through those books long before I ever had this chance.”

For a full list of alumni election results, click here.

Do you have a nominee for Tiger of the Week? Let us know. All alumni qualify. PAW's Tiger of the Week is selected by our staff, with help from readers like you.

wb_alumni.jpgFive of the 12 Princeton alumni running for U.S. Congressional or gubernatorial seats won their elections Nov. 2, according to news reports. For more details, follow the links below.
 
Governor
 
In a bid to regain the office he held from 2003 to 2007, Maryland’s former Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich ’79 lost to incumbent Democrat Martin O’Malley. [Baltimore Sun]
 
California Republican Meg Whitman ’77, the former CEO of eBay and lead donor for Princeton’s Whitman College, fell to former Gov. Jerry Brown. [Los Angeles Times]
 
Senate
 
On Wednesday morning, Republican Ken Buck ’81, district attorney for Colorado’s Weld County, remained deadlocked in his race against Democrat Michael Bennet, the state’s junior senator. [Denver Post]
UPDATE (Nov. 3, 11:12 a.m. EST)
The Denver Post has announced Bennet as the winner in Colorado’s senate race.
 
House of Representatives
 
The morning after election day, Randy Altschuler ’93, a co-founder of two start-up businesses and Republican challenger in New York’s first district, trailed in a close race with Rep. Tim Bishop, a four-term incumbent Democrat. [Newsday]
UPDATE (Nov. 3, 11:20 a.m. EST)
With 99.3 percent of precincts reporting, USA Today has called the election in favor of Bishop, who leads by 3,332 votes (1.8 percent of votes counted).
UPDATE (Nov. 8, 12:13 p.m. EST)
The Wall Street Journal reports that Altschuler jumped ahead by 400 votes after a routine check of totals discovered an error in the tallies relayed to election officials. More than 9,000 absentee ballots will be counted later this week.
 

Donn Cabral '12 (PAW)
Donn Cabral '12 (PAW)
By the time Donn Cabral ’12, right, reached the final stretch of the Ivy League Heptagonal Championships Oct. 29, he was the clear frontrunner, leading Harvard’s Dan Chenoweth by about 10 seconds. Cabral crossed the finish line in 24:03.8, and within a minute, four teammates had followed in the top 13, ensuring a team victory for MEN’S CROSS COUNTRY and a Princeton sweep at Heps.
 
Earlier in the day, WOMEN’S CROSS COUNTRY won its fifth straight Ivy title, led by individual champion Alex Banfich ’12, the second woman to break the 17-minute barrier at Heps. Five Tiger women finished in the top 11.
 
Princeton added to its list of Ivy championships Oct. 30 when the FIELD HOCKEY team clinched at least a share of the league title by holding off Cornell in a 3-2 win in Ithaca. The Tigers are 6-0 in Ivy play with one game remaining, vs. Penn Nov. 5.
 
WOMEN’S SOCCER also earned an important win in Ithaca Oct. 30, topping the Big Red in overtime on a
Hobey Baker 1914 (PAW Archives)
Captain Hobart A. H. Baker 1914, in a photo from the Jan. 15, 1919, issue of the Princeton Alumni Weekly. Click on any image to view as a slide show.
Hobey BakerHobey Baker
Baker Rink

On Nov. 11, the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame will induct Hobey Baker, Class of 1914, a legendary football and hockey star at Princeton. That Baker would be honored on Veterans Day seems appropriate: A World War I fighter pilot, he died in a flying accident the month after the Allies and Germans signed the Nov. 11, 1918, armistice that ended the war.

Baker, a native of Bala-Cynwyd, Pa., was an agile and swift open-field runner on the football field. He also earned acclaim for his kicking skills. But it was in hockey that he truly dazzled, earning a reputation as the greatest player of his era. At the time, hockey was a relatively minor sport on campus, in part because Princeton did not have its own rink. Varsity games were played in New York City.

Baker’s athletic exploits were well known to his contemporaries, but shortly after his death, the Princeton Alumni Weekly took a closer look at his contributions as an aviator with an article written by Maj. Charles Biddle 1911, a flying ace and one of Baker’s former commanders. In it, Biddle describes Baker as “a striking example of the finest that America can produce” – courageous, unselfish, and modest.

The full text of Biddle’s article is included below.

From PAW, Jan. 15, 1919

Captain Hobart Baker’s career in the service

By Maj. Charles J. Biddle 1911

To the many friends of Captain Hobart A. H. Baker 1914 the news from France that he was killed in an accident while flying at the Toul aerodrome on Saturday, December 21st, came as a great shock. With the fighting at an end we had all been hoping to see him home before long, where we could personally do him the honor which he so richly deserved, for no one ever knew Hobey Baker who did not admire him for his many splendid qualities and the work he had done, and love him for the man he was. His death makes us realize more than ever that the great war did not end with the signing of the armistice, nor will it end for many years to come, and we know that our friend has laid down his life for a cause to which his whole heart was devoted, just as surely as though he had gone down in combat on the lines.

 
After a long and phenomenal career as an athlete at Princeton, Hobey Baker took up flying more than a year before America’s entry into the war, with the idea of fitting himself for the service should the need arise. As might have been expected of probably the best and most successful athlete this country ever produced, he excelled in flying as he had in football and hockey. 

Molly Ephraim '08 (© Peter Hurley)
Molly Ephraim '08 (© Peter Hurley)
October has been a good month for actress Molly Ephraim ’08. This week, she’s wrapping up a five-week run playing the title role in The Diary of Anne Frank at the Westport (Conn.) Country Playhouse – a performance for which she earned a mostly positive review from The New York Times. And last weekend, Ephraim’s latest movie, Paranormal Activity 2, opened as the country’s No. 1 box-office hit, grossing more than $40 million.
 
The two recent roles are the latest examples of Ephraim’s ability to bridge stage and screen. Before coming to Princeton, she starred as Little Red Riding Hood in the Broadway revival of Into the Woods. During the summer before her senior year of college, she worked on her first feature film, playing the pastel-sweater-wearing daughter of Donny Osmond in the Disney movie College Road Trip. And since receiving her A.B. in religion in 2008, she also has appeared on TV, opposite fellow alum Mark Feuerstein ’93 in an episode of Royal Pains.
 
A few of Princeton’s alumni actors – including Feuerstein – discovered their love of the stage while in college. But for Ephraim, the career path was on her mind long before she arrived on campus.
 
“My parents always joke that I was asking for an agent for my birthday when I was 10,” she told PAW in 2008. “Most kids that age are asking for a pony.”
 
Do you have a nominee for Tiger of the Week? Let us know. All alumni qualify. PAW's Tiger of the Week is selected by our staff, with help from readers like you.

October 26, 2010

Names in the news

wb_alumni.jpg

After departing The Amazing Race, Connor Diemand-Yauman ’10 and Jonathan Schwartz ’10 are off to South Korea and Broadway, respectively. [Los Angeles Times]
The American Sport Art Museum and Archives has selected sculptor Harry Weber ’64 as one of its Sport Artists of the Year. [KMOX.com]
Former NFL lineman Ross Tucker ’01 wrote about blows to the head in a recent column, noting that while rules may reduce the number of dangerous hits, they “will never completely eliminate the problem.” [ESPN.com]

Ariel Capital Chairman and CEO John Rogers ’80 will chair President Obama’s Advisory Council on Financial Capability. [Chicago Sun-Times]
 
W.S. Merwin ’48 delivered his inaugural reading as the U.S. poet laureate at the Library of Congress Oct. 25. [Washington Post]

Princeton’s 1877 squad was the first to beat Harvard (and the first to lose to the Crimson – the teams played twice that year.) Now entering its 103rd game, the Princeton-Harvard series trails only Princeton-Yale on the Tigers’ list of most-played rivalries. (Athletics at Princeton: A History)
1877: Princeton’s 1877 squad was the first to beat Harvard (and the first to lose to the Crimson – the teams played twice that year.) Now entering its 103rd game, the Princeton-Harvard series trails only Princeton-Yale on the Tigers’ list of most-played rivalries.  (Athletics at Princeton: A History)

Mark Siegler '63, M.D. (Dan Dry for the University of Chicago Medical Center)
Mark Siegler '63, M.D. (Dan Dry for the University of Chicago Medical Center)

Working with critically ill patients as a young doctor in the intensive care unit of a Chicago hospital in the early 1970s, Mark Siegler ’63 found himself confronting a range of ethical issues, including end-of-life care and decision making within the doctor-patient relationship. Siegler and his mentor, Dr. Alvan Feinstein, began to think about – and write about – what they called "clinical ethics," developing an important field within the study of medicine.

Since 1984, Siegler has directed the University of Chicago's MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics, the nation's first program devoted to clinical ethics, and this weekend, the pioneering ethicist will receive a lifetime achievement award from the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities, in recognition of his insightful contributions to the field.

Clinical ethics is grounded "in medicine as practice," Siegler explained in a recent news release. "Its intellectual foundation derives from the doctor-patient encounter and the nature and goals of medicine rather than from ethical theory based on philosophy, theology, or law," he said. Siegler is the author of five books, including the popular textbook Clinical Ethics: A Practical Approach to Ethical Decisions in Clinical Medicine.

An English major and honors graduate at Princeton, Siegler studied medicine at the University of Chicago, where he also served as an intern, resident, and chief resident. He was a Princeton trustee from 2006 to 2010 and is currently the Lindy Bergman Distinguished Service Professor of Medicine and Surgery at the University of Chicago.

Do you have a nominee for Tiger of the Week? Let us know. All alumni qualify. PAW's Tiger of the Week is selected by our staff, with help from readers like you.

The WMAP spacecraft, shown in this NASA rendering, has measured the oldest light in the universe for the last nine years. (NASA / WMAP Science Team)
The WMAP spacecraft, shown in this NASA rendering, has measured the oldest light in the universe for the last nine years. (NASA/WMAP Science Team)

The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) was launched in June 2001 to make fundamental measurements of the universe, and by all accounts, its nine years of exploration have been a resounding success. 

Science named WMAP its "breakthrough of the year" in 2003, and more recently, in an Oct. 10 editorial, The New York Times said "it is hard to overstate just how far this one small satellite has carried us in our understanding of the history of the universe." NASA's WMAP home page lists the program's "top 10" contributions, including the first "fine-resolution, full-sky map" of cosmic microwave background radiation, and a definitive age of the universe: 13.73 billion years old, accurate to within 1 percent or 0.12 billion years.

Its mission complete, the probe was sent into retirement orbit around the sun last month. 

From WMAP's beginning -- and in a preceding project, the Cosmic Background Explorer -- Princeton scientists played an important role in the measurement of background radiation, the oldest light in the universe. Key contributors include the late astrophysics professor David Wilkinson (WMAP's namesake), the late physicist Robert Dicke, current professors David Spergel ’82 and Lyman Page, and senior research physicist Norm Jarosik.

"The end of WMAP is a moment of sadness, joy and satisfaction," Spergel said in an Oct. 13 University release. "Sadness -- thinking about its journey come to an end. Joy -- from thinking about the pleasure of working with my colleagues on the WMAP team. And satisfaction -- thinking about its successful nine-year run."

Read more about WMAP's contributions to the field of cosmology in W. Barksdale Maynard ’88’s Sept. 22 Princeton Alumni Weekly feature about Princeton astronomers.

Anthony Marx *86 *90 (Jonathan Blanc/NYPL)
Anthony Marx *86 *90 (Jonathan Blanc/NYPL)

As a child, Anthony Marx *86 *90 spent after-school hours studying and reading at a neighborhood library in Inwood, near the northern end of Manhattan. His educational path took him from the New York City public schools to an undergraduate career at Yale, on to South Africa in his 20s, where he helped found a secondary school, and eventually to Princeton, where he earned a master’s degree from the Woodrow Wilson School and a Ph.D. in politics. Now Marx, the president of Amherst College, is returning to his hometown -- and its libraries -- to take on a new challenge as president and CEO of the New York Public Library (NYPL). The move, announced Oct. 6, will become effective in July 2011.

In an introductory news release, Marx spoke glowingly about New York's libraries and the ways in which they help "millions of people learn, explore, and become more active participants in our democracy." As NYPL president, he will play an important role in providing access to library resources at 86 local branches.
 
“Libraries are at the core of our values as a civilization and as a city," Marx told WNYC last week. "We need to make sure the library not only continues to exist, but that it continues to be a center of educational life, and informed life, and of citizenship and enlightenment, at a time when all that seems to be much more threatened than I would have guessed.”
 
Marx taught politics at Columbia University for 13 years before leaving to lead Amherst in 2003. He takes over the NYPL post from another past college president, Paul LeClerc, formerly head of Hunter College, who led the library system for 17 years.

Do you have a nominee for Tiger of the Week? Let us know. All alumni qualify. PAW's Tiger of the Week is selected by our staff, with help from readers like you.

The Oct. 13 issue of the Princeton Alumni Weekly includes a brief statistical snapshot of the Class of 2014. How does Princeton's freshman cohort compare with those at the other Ivies? Check out the chart below for a side-by-side overview.

 

* Data not available
 

Sources: Princeton.edu, Brown Alumni Magazine, Columbia.edu, Cornell Chronicle, Dartmouth NowHarvard Admissions, Harvard Gazette, Daily Pennsylvanian, Yale Daily News

 

 

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