In Recognition

Genevieve Bell ’90 (above), a professor at the Australian National University and director of its 3A Institute, has been named the inaugural Engelbart Distinguished Fellow by SRI International for her work on technology, artificial intelligence, and culture. A cultural anthropologist, technologist, and futurist, Bell works at the intersection of cultural practice and technology development. The fellowship recognizes “visionaries who are disrupting the traditional way we interact with and view technology.”

Karoline Shair ’90 has been named senior vice president, general counsel, and corporate secretary of Akouos, a precision genetic medicine company developing gene therapies to restore and preserve hearing. Shair has more than 20 years of experience in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, most recently with the biotechnology firm Biogen. A chemistry major, she holds a Ph.D. in chemistry from Yale University and a J.D. from Boston College Law School.

Aleydis Van de Moortel, Ph.D. ’97, has been awarded the University of Tennessee Chancellor’s Professorship, the highest faculty honor the university confers. The Lindsay Young Professor and head of the classics department, de Moortel is the first faculty member in her department to receive this distinction. Her work focuses on the rise and decline of complex societies in the Bronze Age Aegean. She currently co-directs the Mitrou Archaeological Project in Central Greece.

A neuroscientist in the speech and hearing sciences department at Indiana University Bloomington, Brielle Stark ’12 (above) received an American Speech-Language- Hearing Foundation New Investigators Research Grant. Awarded to early-career researchers, the grant is in support of Stark’s work on the speaking abilities of people with aphasia, which affects nearly two million people in the U.S. Most often caused by a stroke, aphasia can also be caused by a traumatic brain injury and other acquired brain injuries and diseases.

Susan Rotroff ’68 (above) has been named the 2020 recipient of the Aristeia Award for Distinguished Alumni/ae of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (ASCSA) in recognition of her work with Hellenistic pottery and her support of the ASCSA community through her mentorship and consultancy. A professor emerita in the department of classics at Washington University in St. Louis, Rotroff focuses her research on Greek art and archaeology, ancient ceramics, and ancient Athens.

Ann Malester ’73 has been inducted into the LMG Life Sciences Hall of Fame in recognition of her outstanding legal work in the life sciences sector. A partner in Weil Gotshal & Manges (Washington, D.C. office), Malester specializes in antitrust counseling and litigation and shepherds multibillion-dollar transactions through antitrust review. A history major at Bryn Mawr, she received her J.D. from the George Washington University Law School.

Megan Grehl ’08 (above) and her eponymous studio are carving out a name in the world of design. Among the recent kudos are an Architectural Design feature on a 5,000-square-foot renovation in New York’s iconic Apthorp building; a win on Bravo TV’s "Best Room Wins" program; and Moooi Through the Eyes of Megan Grehl, an exhibition at Milan’s 2018 Salone de Mobile, for which she collaborated with the legendary Dutch product designer Marcel Wanders. “Bryn Mawr honed my critical thinking to analyze and question everything,” she says.

Basic Witch, a short film written by Lauren Cannon '07, is slated for screening at this year’s Women’s Film Festival in Philadelphia. Directed by Yoko Okumura, from Cannon’s script, and produced by Laura Noxon, it is a frank and funny film about consent and sexual relationships, in which a woman uses an enchanted pumpkin spice latte to share her experience of the previous night with her partner. As of press date, the festival, originally scheduled for March, has been postponed until June.

Author and historian Jessica B. Harris ’68 (above) has been awarded the James Beard Foundation 2020 Lifetime Achievement Award. “I am humbled, honored, and more than a little astonished to receive this singular award,” she says. “I am mindful that while my name is on it, it is also meant for those African Americans in the hospitality world in the past who labored unheralded, un-thanked, and for too many centuries unpaid or underpaid. I hope that this extraordinary honor heralds the beginning of a new era when all Americans can sit down and fully participate at the nation’s table and none of us are strangers at the feast.” A culinary historian, Harris is the author, editor, and translator of 18 books. Her 12 works on food document the foodways of the African diaspora, a topic on which she is considered a ranking expert. Her other works include My Soul Looks Back: A Memoir and the forthcoming Vintage Postcards from the African World, a work presenting images of the foodways and celebrations of the African Atlantic world.

ELLE Magazine has named Jiajia Fei ’08 (above) one of “The Power Players Moving the Art World Forward.” Founder of the first digital art agency and consulting director of digital at New York’s Jewish Museum, Fei decided against a conventional artworld career and opted instead to use emerging digital technologies to make art more accessible to a wider audience. “Twenty years ago, the question was ‘Do we need a website?’” she says. “A decade later, it was ‘Do we need to be on social media?’ And now it’s ‘Should we start a podcast or video series?’”

Kristal Sotomayor ’08, a Philadelphia-based documentary filmmaker and festival programmer, has been named a 2020 International Documentary Association Magazine editorial fellow. The fellowship program provides opportunities for writers from underserved and underrepresented communities. Sotomayor serves as programming director for the Philadelphia Latino Film Festival and communications and outreach coordinator at Scribe Video Center.