1980s
Hendrik Hartog, MA’81, PhD’82, is the Class of 1921 Bicentennial Professor in the History of American Law and Liberty and the director of the American studies program at Princeton University. His research focuses on the social history of American law. His most recent book is “Someday All This Will Be Yours: A History of Inheritance and Old Age.” He has been awarded a variety of national fellowships and lectureships, and for a decade he co-edited Studies in Legal History, the book series of the American Society for Legal History. He is affiliated with Princeton’s Program in Law and Public Affairs. Audrey Shelto, Heller MMHS’82, of Newton, Mass., was named president of the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation. She has worked for Blue Cross Blue Shield since 2007, most recently as a senior vice president and chief executive of a program to manage care for adults with disabilities. Audrey served as a consultant when the foundation was established in 2001 and was interim president in 2005. Dor Ben-Amotz, MA’82, is a professor of chemistry and past winner of a Charles B. Murphy Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award at Purdue. He has made it a mission to help students understand the intricacies of physical chemistry, especially those who might be struggling, reminding them that they’re not alone. In his textbook “Understanding Physical Chemistry,” he reveals the personal perspectives and early conceptual struggles of scientists such as Albert Einstein, Ludwig Boltzmann and Josiah Willard Gibbs, who became pioneers in the field. The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra presented the East Coast premiere of “Stumble to Grace,” a piano concerto by Steven Mackey, PhD’85. The concerto was commissioned by the New Jersey Symphony, the St. Louis Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. It was inspired, Steven told The New York Times, when he watched his son Jasper “learn to walk, first by just throwing himself on the floor and then by gradually becoming more graceful.” Steven is a composer, a guitarist and a professor of music at Princeton. Steve White, Heller PhD’85, is a member of the board of trustees of the Pulmonary Hypertension Association. He and his wife, Andrea, lost a daughter to pulmonary hypertension when she was 22. Steve is a priest of the Episcopal Church and served as Episcopal chaplain at Princeton University from 2000-08. He currently serves a parish as an interim pastor and provides spiritual mentoring to students at Yale Divinity School. Carol Tobias, Heller MMHS’86, was named vice president for program design and development at the Commonwealth Care Alliance, a nonprofit care-delivery system for Massachusetts residents. Carol is also an assistant professor at the Boston University School of Public Health. Lisa Hochberg-Miller, MJC’86, is the rabbi at Temple Beth Torah, a Reform congregation in Ventura, Calif. Featured in a story in the Ventura County Star, Lisa told the newspaper that the most challenging part of her job is finding ways to engage Jews in their Judaism and in Jewish living. “Many Jews are Jewish by heritage but not fully understanding the fullness of what Judaism can bring to their lives,” she said. “For a lot of people, they’re Jewish, but they can’t be bothered with the observances. I say, ‘Give those rituals a chance to have real meaning.’” Lisa and her husband, Rabbi Seth Hochberg-Miller, an X-ray technician, have three daughters. Describing the world’s current approach to the environment as occupying a place “between absurdity and obscenity,” Yale professor Paul Anastas, MA’87, PhD’89, urged businesses, scientists, environmentalists, policymakers and consumers to adopt the principles of green chemistry to ensure a sustainable future. He spoke to a crowd of about 125 people in Rapaporte Treasure Hall at Brandeis’ third annual Saul G. Cohen Memorial Lecture. Anastas is known as the father of green chemistry, a field that advocates for the design of safer products and manufacturing processes. “We, as a society, are on an unsustainable trajectory,” the Teresa and H. John Heinz III Professor in the Practice of Chemistry for the Environment told his listeners.