Newsmakers

Hassan Abbas, a Belfer Center senior advisor, was named to the Quaid-i-Azam chair at Columbia University in November. He will hold this professorship jointly at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) and South Asia Institute at the School of Arts and Science.

Ashton B. Carter, on leave from the Belfer Center's board of directors to serve as under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology, and logistics, was named in November by Secretary of Defense William Gates to co-lead a special Pentagon task force with Lt. Gen. John Paxton that will look for new ways to counter the threat of homemade bombs in Afghanistan.

Paula Dobriansky, a Belfer Center adjunct senior fellow, was named senior vice president and head of government affairs for the Americas in February at Thomson Reuters' Markets Division, the financial and media operations of Thomson Reuters. Belfer Center Board Member

Niall Ferguson's book The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of theWorld was voted#1 in "The People's Choice:Carnegie Council's Top Tenfor 2009." The book emphasizesthat the economies of China and America"are so entwined that neither can afford tolet the other fail." In addition, "Chimerica," aword coined by Ferguson and Moritz Schulariskin late 2006, was named a buzzword of2009 by the New York Times.

Azeem Ibrahim, an International Security Program research fellow, received in November both the St. Andrew's Society's Distinguished Citizens Award for 2009 and an honorary doctorate of letters from Glasgow Caledonian University. In the fall, he also received the Insider Elite International Executive of the Year Award and was commended by the UK Prime Minister for his work on the Social Mobility Task Force.

Ernest May, a member of the Belfer Center's board of directors until he passed away in June 2009, was named in Newsweek's list of "Noteworthy People Who Died in 2009."

Vali Nasr, a former senior fellow with the Dubai Initiative, was named a senior adviser to Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

James Schlesinger, chair of the Belfer Center International Council, was named by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in November to chair a new Energy Advisory Council established to advise its Energy and National Security Program.

Robert Stavins, a member of the Belfer Center's board of directors and director of the Harvard Environmental Economics Program, was inducted as a fellow into the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists in January.

StephenWalt, a member of the Belfer Center's board of directors, along with John Mearsheimer, ranked second on Pulse's "Top 20 Global Thinkers of 2009." Pulse said: "The impact that these two individuals have had in shifting the debate on the U.S. relationship with Israel in the past few years is palpable in the new, more focused, activism it has inspired, directly challenging the institutions responsible for sustaining Israeli rejectionism. Walt's blog is an essential daily stop for anyone with interest in U.S. foreign policy."

Eight current and former Belfer Center faculty and fellows were named in ForeignPolicy's "Top 100 Global Thinkers," which it released in December. Lawrence Summers ranked 14th for "being the brains behind Obama's economic policy."

Robert Zoellick ranked number 33 with Dominique Strauss-Kahn for "using the crisis in service of a good cause: helping the world's poor." John P. Holdren and Steven Chu were ranked number 34 for "putting cutting edge science back into power." Niall Ferguson ranked 56^th for "his intelligent, incessant questioning of dogma." FrancisFukuyama was ranked number 65 for "creating a foreign- policy paradigm that has defined almost two decades of argument." Samantha Power was ranked 80 for "moving from moral authority to government authority on human rights." Peter Singer was number 82 for "asking what happens when you remove the human element from war." Emily Oster was named ninety-ninth for "her creative research into what really helps the poor."