Newsmakers

Venky Narayanamurti, former Dean of Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Science and former Belfer Center Science, Technology, and Public Policy Director, has received the National Academy of Engineering’s prestigious Arthur M. Bueche Award. Narayanamurti was honored for “seminal contributions to condensed matter physics and visionary leadership of multidisciplinary research in industry, academia, and national labs that generated research and engineering advances.”

Belfer Center International Council member and Executive Vice President and CIO for Liberty Mutual Neeti Bhalla has been named an Aspen Institute Finance Leaders Fellow for 2018. She is one of 22 senior leaders who will participate in a two-year fellowship and “chart the course for the global finance industry’s future in a way that builds a more prosperous and just world for all.”

Belfer Center Senior Fellow Paula Dobriansky was the 2018 Australian American Leadership Dialogue Honoree for 26 years of dedication to the AALD mission—a forum for Australian and American leaders “to confront the compelling issues of the day and in the process build lasting relationships.”

Science, Technology, and Public Policy Co-Director and former Science Advisor to President Obama John P. Holdren has been honored by the President of Tsinghua University as a Tsinghua Visiting Distinguished Professor. Holdren, who has led collaborative research projects between the Belfer Center and Tsinghua for a number of years, will take part in activities at the University several times a year.

Harvard Distinguished Service Professor Joseph Nye and former Ambassador Richard Armitage concluded their fourth bi-partisan study on the future of the U.S.-Japan alliance and released their report through the Center for Strategic and International Studies in October. Titled “More Important than Ever,” the study found that the U.S. has “no better ally than Japan,” but that renewing the alliance will require “tough decisions and sustained implementation.”

Professor Sheila Jasanoff has been awarded the Albert O. Hirschman Prize, the Social Science Research Council’s highest honor. Council President Alondra Nelson said, “Illuminating the pathways between law, science, and policy in modern democracies has been Jasanoff’s life’s work. She is an intellectual leader who has made singular contributions to building the empirical groundwork for a new field, and also to cultivating its theoretical and institutional frameworks.”

Senior Fellow Susan Rice, former National Security Advisor and Ambassador to the United Nations, is the recipient of the 2018 Cyrus A. Ansary Medal for her “lifelong commitment to leadership and service.” This top honor for members of the American University community was presented at AU’s 37th Annual President’s Circle Celebration in October.