Recognition

Sally Van de Water ’97 was one of two English-language announcers for the sport of weightlifting and the first woman to emcee weightlifting at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. The emcee, Van de Water explains, “verbally runs the meet—calling the next athlete, announcing weight changes, etc. It requires awareness of several things at once, knowing the rules of the sport, and, especially internationally, proficiency with a microphone and confidence saying all the athlete’s names.” Van de Water, an arts administrator and folklorist, has been a volunteer referee and technical official for USA Weightlifting since 2004 and co-owns a weightlifting gym in Highland Park, N.J., with her husband, Michael McKenna. “Weightlifting is one of those ‘isn’t it funny where life takes you?’ adventures that surprise and delight,” Van de Water says.

Marie A. Bernard ’72 has been named the National Institutes of Health’s next Chief Officer for Scientific Workforce Diversity. She will lead NIH’s effort to promote diversity, inclusiveness, and equity throughout the biomedical research enterprise. “I am very grateful for my Bryn Mawr education,” Bernard notes, “as it led me to my current role. My eyes were opened to the wonders of science in Ernst Berliner’s introductory chemistry class. The pursuit of science, and opening opportunities in the field to others, has been my passion since.”

Isabel Montañez ’81 has received the 2021 University of California-Davis Prize for Undergraduate Teaching and Scholarly Achievement. Montañez is a renowned paleoclimatologist and field geologist who specializes in reconstructing past climate change in the context of interactions between continents, oceans, the atmosphere, and life on Earth. “She is the kind of professor whose work transforms the lives of her students,” said Ari Kelman, interim dean of UC Davis’ College of Letters and Science.

Princess Jefferson ’20 is among the inaugural recipients of the Marshall-Motley Scholar award. Established by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the Marshall-Motley Scholar program provides a full law-school scholarship for tuition, room, board, and incidentals to alleviate the debt burden that can prevent future lawyers from pursuing a career in racial justice. In return, the scholars commit to serving as civil rights lawyers based in the South and to engaging in a law practice focused on achieving racial justice for eight years following the conclusion of their fellowship.

A newly discovered mineral has been named priscillagrewite-(Y), in honor of Priscilla Grew ’62, geology professor emerita at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The new mineral is a member of the Garnet Group, rich in zirconium and yttrium, and was discovered in pyrometamorphic rocks (rocks heated by natural combustion of hydrocarbons) in the Transjordan plateau, close to Amman, Jordan. These rocks are the source of green stone beads known from Neolithic archeological sites in the Near East. The naming honors Grew’s contributions to metamorphic petrology and geoarchaeology.