People
Michelle Kalayjian (photo: John Jameson)
Spotlight
Name: Michelle Kalayjian.
Position: Benefits manager in the Office of Human Resources. Assisting with the administration and development of Princeton’s benefits and work/life programs. Composing and editing benefit plan communications. Providing assistance with resolving benefit issues. Ensuring compliance with federal and state regulations. Helping coordinate the open enrollment process.
Quote: “It’s very rewarding when I’m able to help faculty and staff members resolve benefits issues. I’m very pleased to be working with a hardworking and dedicated team that is committed to provide outstanding support to our faculty and staff members.”
Other interests: Spending time with her husband, Jilber, and their daughter, Gabrielle. Biking and hiking. Traveling to Europe.
2008 Guggenheim Fellowships
Six Princeton faculty and staff members are among 190 artists, scholars and scientists selected for the 2008 Guggenheim Fellowships.
Each Guggenheim Fellow, appointed on the basis of distinguished achievement in the past and exceptional promise for the future, receives a grant to support his or her work. For 2008, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation is distributing awards totaling $8.2 million. The Princeton recipients and their proposed projects are:
• Yacine Aït-Sahalia, the Otto Hack ’03 Professor of Finance and professor of economics, for “The Econometrics of Jumps and Volatility.”
• João Biehl, associate professor of anthropology, for “Transcendental Values and Political Life in Postcolonial Brazil: The Mucker War.”
• Martha Himmelfarb, the William Danforth Professor of Religion, for “Jewish Eschatology and Christian Empire.”
• Sean Keilen, lecturer in English, for “Imitation and Tradition in Renaissance Poetry.”
• Alan Stahl, curator of the University Numismatic Collection, for “The Nexus of Wealth and Power in Medieval Venice.”
• Christian Tomaszewski, lecturer in visual arts and the Lewis Center for the Arts, for fine arts.
Newly elected American Academy of Arts and Sciences fellows
Eleven Princeton faculty members are among 212 newly elected fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Princeton’s inductees are:
• Robert Austin, professor of physics;
• Charles Beitz, the Edwards S. Sanford Professor of Politics;
• Emily Carter, the Arthur W. Marks ’19 Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Applied and Computational Mathematics;
• Sun-Yung Alice Chang, professor of mathematics;
• Pablo Debenedetti, the Class of 1950 Professor in Engineering and Applied Science;
• Elizabeth Diller, professor of architecture;
• John Fleming, the Louis W. Fair-child ’24 Professor of English and Comparative Literature Emeritus;
• Daniel Rodgers, the Henry Charles Lea Professor of History;
• Marlan Scully, lecturer with the rank of professor in mechanical and aerospace engineering and the Princeton Institute for the Science and Technology of Materials;
• Jeffrey Stout, professor of religion; and
• Robert Wuthnow, the Gerhard R. Andlinger ’52 Professor of Social Sciences.
Briefs
Princeton ecologist Simon Levin, who has made major contributions in the areas of biological conservation and ecosystem management, has been selected as a foreign member of the Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, a venerable Italian academic institute.
Founded in 1810, the Venice-based academy brings together leading scholars from around the world with the aim of promoting “the advancement, dissemination and protection of the sciences, literature and arts.”
Levin is Princeton’s George Moffett Professor of Biology and a professor of ecology and environmental biology. He also is director of the University’s Center for BioComplexity and former director of the Princeton Environmental Institute. He joined the Princeton faculty in 1992.
Levin’s honors include the 2007 Distinguished Scientist Award from the American Institute of Biological Sciences, the 2005 Kyoto Prize from the Inamori Foundation of Japan for contributions to environmental science and the 2004 A.H. Heineken Prize for Environmental Sciences from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.
