P E O P L E

Spotlight

Name: Nishat Abbas.

Position: Support staff member in the Office of Visa Services, part of the Office of the General Counsel. Working with faculty members from other countries who are invited to teach and conduct research at Princeton each year. Making sure they complete the proper paperwork for their visas.

Quote: "The best part of my job is interacting with highly qualified and world renowned scholars from all over the world."

Other interests: Cooking and spending time with her husband and her 17-year-old son, whom she's currently helping with his college search and application process.

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Briefs

John Conway, the John von Neumann Professor in Applied and Computational Mathematics, has been named the recipient of the Priestly Award by Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa.

Conway, a world renowned mathematician, taught at the University of Cambridge for 25 years before joining the Princeton faculty in 1987. His fascination with games and puzzles has led him to important discoveries in areas of mathematics from number theory to geometry. He also is well known as the inventor of the Game of Life, in which checker-like objects replicate themselves and form patterns on a grid.

The award honors a distinguished scientist who has made discoveries contributing to the welfare of mankind. It is a memorial to Joseph Priestly, a Pennsylvania scientist and scholar who discovered oxygen.

Susan Fiske, professor of psychology, has been elected president-elect of the American Psychological Society. Her selection means that the society will be led by a Princeton professor for a second consecutive year. The current president is John Darley, the Dorman Warren Professor of Psychology. Fiske's term begins in June 2002.

Fiske has been at Princeton since 2000. Her research addresses how stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination are encouraged or discouraged by social relationships, such as cooperation, competition and power.

The American Psychological Society, which has 15,000 members, promotes, protects and advances the interests of scientifically oriented psychology in research, application and the improvement of human welfare.

Joyce Carol Oates, the Roger Berlind '52 Professor in the Humanities, received the Public Humanities Award from the New Jersey Council of the Humanities this fall. Her short story collection, "Faithless: Tales of Transgression," won the Distinguished eBook Award for Fiction at the 2001 Frankfurt Book Fair.
 

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November 12, 2001
Vol. 91, No. 9
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Contents

Science
• Tilghman tells high school students of bright future in science
• Time travel: Truth not always stranger than science fiction
• Earth's light show is a clue to finding habitable neighbors

Classroom
• Freshman seminar looks at clothing as a social force

Campus
• Tilghman charges groups with planning for future
• By the numbers: Nassau Hall

People
• People/Briefs
• United Way drive begins Nov. 15