Contact by email:
Director (or send email to emeriti@emory.edu) Letters to the Editor Click on the above link to let us know what you think (or send email to emeriti@emory.edu)! |
Upcoming Events
January 22, 2018
Lunch Colloquium
Jessica Thompson and
Kendra Ann Sirak
February 5, 2018 Lunch Colloquium Sidney Perkowitz and Eddy von Mueller
|
Contact Other Members
Click here to read about the use of these listservs
find out about a travel destination or find other EUEC members who would like to travel with you, send an email to:
Find other members to get together for shared interests, whether it is forming a book club or a photography club, or getting together to take a hike. Send email to the following link to contact member who would like the same activity!
|
|
 |
|
This issue of our newsletter is sent to members and friends of the Emory University Emeritus College (EUEC). I hope the newsletter will help keep you informed about our activities and help you feel connected with our members throughout the U.S. On the left are links to our website and links to contact either me or the EUEC office.
With best wishes,
Gray
Gray F. Crouse Director, EUEC
|
 Message from the Director
Given today's date and our location in Atlanta, it would be completely remiss to fail to acknowledge the importance of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s life and work toward the betterment of our society. It is all too easy to be discouraged, as his dream seems more distant than ever. No institution is perfect, and that is certainly true of Emory. However, there has been, and continues to be, much good at Emory, and many of you have been important contributors to the myriad ways in which Emory improves the lives of so many people. Thank you for what you have done, and continue to do. While thinking about the many contributions you and other members have made, please consider nominating yourself or one of your colleagues for our Distinguished Faculty and Service Awards. There is a call for nominations below.
Our Lunch Colloquiums begin again, and our first is given by a faculty member and one of her graduate students. This is a fine example of the important and interesting work done at Emory and the talented faculty and students who are recruited here.
It is with great pleasure that we are able to announce that the website for the AROHE Conference we are hosting this fall is now live! There has been a lot of work to get to this point, and there is more still to do. Please see the article below for more information.
One of Emory's biggest news stories got buried last week. It was announced on January 8 that Emory had received the largest gift (in dollar amount) in its history. Unfortunately, January 8 was also the day of the college football playoff in Atlanta's new Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Most of the rest of that day's new cycle was occupied by the threatened ice storm, which didn't happen, but was enough to close Emory for half a day as well as most metro schools. You can read about the gift below.
I am very grateful to John Bugge, Herb Benario, and Gretchen Schulz for help with proofing and editing.
|
|
|
Lunch Colloquium January 22
|
|  | |
Jessica Thompson
| |
|
| |
Kendra Ann Sirak
|
The Vanished People of Northern Malawi: Ancient DNA and Hunter-Gatherer Lifeways in Prehistoric Africa
|
AROHE 2018 Conference Website Goes Live!
EUEC will be hosting the 2018 Nation AROHE (Association of Retirement Organizations in Higher Education) Conference this October. Many EUEC Members, as well as members of our co-hosting organization, GA-HERO (Georgia Association of Higher Education Retiree Organization), have been working on Conference organizing for over a year.
Thanks to much hard work by EUEC Member Marilynne McKay and Stacey Jones (who maintains our EUEC website), our Conference website is now live. Even if you don't plan to attend, I hope you will take an opportunity to view the fruits of their labor and get a sense of what the Conference will have to offer. You can view the website at: https://arohe2018.org/. A website is never finished, and in this case there is still a lot of work to be done to develop the Conference program, so there will be much more added to the site over time.
The website itself would mean little without the content developed by many of the Conference Committees. Special thanks go to several of the committees whose work is reflected in the website: the Conference Planning Group chaired by John Bugge, the Publicity and Engagement Committee chaired by Marilynne McKay, the Program Committee chaired by Gretchen Schulz, and the Atlanta Arrangements Committee chaired by Marianne Scharbo-DeHaan.
|
New Members
|
Faculty Activities
|
Call for EUEC Award Nominations
Each year, the Emory University Emeritus College (EUEC) offers two categories of awards - EUEC Faculty Awards of Distinction and the Distinguished Service Award. It is now time for nominations for this year's awards. I would like to emphasize that self-nominations are not only permitted, they are encouraged. Too often, retired faculty are not fully aware of the achievements of their colleagues, and we must rely on self-disclosure. Please submit your nominations no later than January 26, 2018. The selection committee, composed of a chair and several former recipients of the awards, cannot accept late nominations.
You may submit your nomination electronically to the EUEC office (emeriti@emory.edu) or mail or hand-deliver it to the EUEC office.
The eligibility requirements are as follows:
EUEC Faculty Award of Distinction (formerly Distinguished Emeritus/Emerita Award):
- All retired Emory faculty who have been members of EUEC for at least two years.
- Significant professional contributions since retirement to Emory University or its affiliated institutions as well as contributions to local, state, regional, national, or international communities or professional organizations that reflect the "spirit of Emory."
- A maximum of four awards given annually.
- This award may be conferred only once.
Distinguished Service Award:
- All members of the EUEC, including those who have received the Distinguished Emeritus Award.
- Membership in the EUEC for at least two years.
- Significant service to Emory University or its affiliated institutions as well as to local, state, regional, national or international communities or other organizations that reflect the "spirit of Emory." These contributions must have been made since retirement and are beyond those used to support a previous DEA Award.
- Limited to one award annually. No requirement that an award be given.
When you make your nomination, please include the following:
- Department or unit with which the nominee is associated
- Contact information (email, phone number, and mailing address)
- Department or unit with which the nominator is associated
- Contact information (email, phone number and mailing address)
- Description of why the nominee should receive this honor, in no more than two pages. Please do not exceed this limit but be certain to include enough information for the selection committee to make an informed decision. Please include a curriculum vitae if possible.
Sincerely,
Samuel Candler Dobbs Emeritus Professor of History
Chair, EUEC Honors and Awards Committee
|
Largest-Ever Gift to Emory goes to WCI
It was announced on Monday, January 8, that the largest-ever gift to Emory of $400 million has been given by the Woodruff Foundation to the Winship Cancer Institute:
The Robert W. Woodruff Foundation has pledged $400 million to find new cures for disease, develop innovative patient care models, and improve lives while enhancing the health of individuals in need. Through a new Winship Cancer Institute Tower in Midtown and a new Health Sciences Research Building on Emory's Druid Hills campus, the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation's generosity will help advance new solutions for some of medicine's most challenging diagnoses, even changing the meaning of what it means to receive those diagnoses for future generations.
Sources indicate that the new Health Sciences Research Building will be along Haygood Drive next to the railroad tracks.
The complete press release can be read by clicking here.
|
Walking the Campus with Dianne
|
Lunch Colloquium January 22
|
| | Thompson, left, examines fragments of artifacts from the Malawi excavations in her lab with Emory graduate student Kendra Ann Sirak. Sirak helped with the radiocarbon dating and DNA extraction of the "forgotten" 8,100-year-old skeleton from Mount Hora. (Photo by Ann Borden, Emory Photo/Video) |
The Vanished People of Northern Malawi: Ancient DNA and Hunter-Gatherer Lifeways in Prehistoric Africa
Jessica Thompson, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, and Kendra Ann Sirak, PhD Candidate, Department of Anthropology
Archaeological evidence, linguistic data, and DNA from living people clearly show that between 4000 and 2000 years ago there was a massive migration of early farmers and herders across sub-Saharan Africa. Indigenous hunting and gathering lifeways came to an end everywhere this migration reached, but many mysteries remain. What was life like for hunter-gatherers then? Did they mix with the incoming farmers or vanish completely? New archaeological work and advances in the study of ancient DNA in northern Malawi (east-central Africa) begin to answer some of these questions. And Emory's own Jessica Thompson and Kendra Ann Sirak have been at the center of that work and study (with the help of some of our undergraduates, as well). They'll report on their experiences and their findings to us today.
About Jessica Thompson
Jessica received a BS in Anthropology with a minor in Biology from the University of New Mexico, an MPhil in Archeology from the University of Cambridge, and a PhD from the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University. She was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, from 2009-2014, and has been an Assistant Professor at Emory since 2015. She is a Principal Investigator for the Malawi Earlier-Middle Stone Age Project (MEMSAP) and describes her research as follows:
Dr. Thompson is an archaeologist with a career focus on investigations of the Middle to Late Pleistocene evolution of modern hunter-gatherer behavior in Africa, through both zooarchaeological analysis and the recovery of new field data. More recently, she has extended her research into experimental taphonomy and related questions of Plio-Pleistocene hominin subsistence. She worked on problems of human origins in South Africa, Tanzania, Malawi, and Ethiopia. As director of MEMSAP she is responsible for directing all primary fieldwork, including both excavation and survey. She has built and directs the research team, coordinating their efforts in specialist areas such as lithic analysis, sediment dating, and geoarchaeological interpretation. She also undertakes zooarchaeological analysis of any fossil animal bones recovered by the project.
There is a great article about her work in the eScience Commons by Carol Clark that can be read by clicking here.
Jessica writes about her research and teaching on: https://scholarblogs.emory.edu/jcthompson/.
The website for MEMSAP is here: https://memsap.org/
About Kendra Ann Sirak
Kendra received a BA in Anthropology from Northwestern University, an MA in Anthropology from Emory, and is currently a PhD student at Emory. As Carol Clark writes, here is how Kendra became involved in her current work:
Here's where Emory graduate student Kendra Ann Sirak enters the story. Sirak had the distinction of being the last graduate student of Emory anthropologist George Armelagos, one of the founders of the field of paleopathology. He spent decades working with graduate students to study the bones of ancient Sudanese Nubians to learn about patterns of health, illness, and death in the past. Armelagos sent Sirak to one of the best ancient DNA labs in the world, at University College Dublin (UCD), in Ireland, with samples of the Nubian bones. After Armelagos died in 2014, at age 77, Thompson stepped in as one of Sirak's mentors.
Kendra describes her work as follows:
My research interests lie at the intersection of anthropology and genetics, specifically in the utilization of approaches from both disciplines in order to create a comprehensive bioethnography of a population. In my case, this population is the ancient Nubians, who inhabited the Nile corridor and transmitted genes, products, and culture between the Mediterranean, North Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa.
With my research, I will explore patterns of human migration and genetic admixture through ancient DNA (aDNA), and examine these data within a framework of anthropology, specifically looking at population-level genomic data in relation to archaeological and osteological information. Genomic information will help to inform us about the reasons behind the considerable amount of cultural change and morphological diversity observed in the Nubians between sequential time periods of occupation.
Ultimately, I hope to demonstrate the utility of interdisciplinary collaboration between anthropology and genetics by using anthropological data to provide a context for genetic inquiry while making genomic analysis an accessible and valuable part of biological anthropology. This research will also continue to scientifically dispel the notion of "race" by illuminating the extent of migration and admixture within Africa as well as between Africa and Europe.
Click here to return to top
|
New Members
New members are the lifeblood of any organization. Please make a special effort to welcome them to EUEC!
In Transition:
Vernon K. Robbins, PhD, Professor of Religion
|
Faculty Activities
Sidney Perkowitz
Candler Professor of Physics Emeritus
|
Walking the Campus with Dianne
Did you figure out where the engraved names of two of our members were in our last photos? They can be found at the School of Medicine's James B. Williams Medical Education Building entrance near the Lawley Fountain and Woodruff Health Sciences Center Administration Building.
According to the Development Office at Woodruff Health Sciences: The pavers were an initiative that was started around 2006. It was called the 1915 Society (the year the Medical School moved to campus), and everyone that made a gift of $1915 or more received a paver. The gifts supported medical education or were allocated to the Fund for Emory Medicine. There were also some other incentives directed to those donors who were building sponsors, and they received a paver as well. The program was discontinued at the end of FY12. However, we've given pavers to some of our significant scholarship donors since 2012. There are quite a few names along the patio/walkway, which might very well include additional emeriti. Note: Upon closer examination of the dates, I'm guessing Stewart R. Roberts, MD, is likely the father of our own Stewart R. Roberts, Jr., MD (?)
On with our walk: Since the weather seems to be a bit unpredictable, let's go indoors for a look at a new area on campus. This place is home to amazing care, amazing technology, and amazing works of art.
Where will you find this on the Emory campus?
Click here to return to top
|
Emory University Emeritus College The Luce Center
825 Houston Mill Road NE #206 Atlanta, GA 30329 |
|
|
|
|
