News & Notes

Art Museum director leaves

Susan Taylor will leave her position as director of the Princeton University Art Museum at the end of the academic year. She has held the position since 2000.

Taylor supervised the founding of new curatorial departments in areas such as modern and contemporary art and American art. She also expanded the museum’s collection and increased interaction between the museum and students and faculty outside of traditional venues.

During Taylor’s tenure, the museum showcased a variety of notable exhibitions, opened a monograph series and created the first thorough handbook of the permanent collection. She worked with artists like Sol LeWitt, Magdalena Abakanowicz and Jim Isermann under a program for commissioned work in public places on campus. Abakanowicz’s artwork is in front of the museum.

In conjunction with Senior University Counsel Lorraine Sciarra, Taylor settled a dispute with the Italian government over the ownership of 15 works of ancient art in the museum. The Italian government agreed to lend the works to the museum and grant Princeton students extraordinary access to Italian archaeological sites.

Before the announcement, Taylor was officially on leave from the museum until June 30. Rebecca Sender, the museum’s associate director, is currently serving as acting director. A committee will look for the museum’s next director.

U. mathematicians honored

Last month the American Mathematical Society (AMS) honored two University mathematics professors and a 2007 alumnus at the annual Joint Mathematics Meeting in San Diego, Calif.
Professor Manjul Bhargava received the Frank Nelson Cole Prize in Number Theory for his work on composition laws and his contributions to the work of renowned mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss. He has previously been awarded the Clay Mathematics Institute’s Research Award and the SASTRA Ramanujan Prize. In 2002, Bhargava was named one of Popular Science’s “Brilliant 10.”

Professor Charles Fefferman received the Maxime Bocher Memorial Prize, honoring his analysis work with the Whitney extension problem. Fefferman has previously received the Alan T. Waterman Award by the National Science Foundation, the Salem Prize and the Bergman Prize. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1979.

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Nathan Kaplan ’07 received the Frank and Brennie Morgan Prize for Outstanding Research in Mathematics by an Undergraduate Student, which honored his four research papers on algebraic number theory. The AMS, the Mathematical Society of America and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics jointly presented the prize.

Kaplan graduated with high honors from the University and won the mathematics department’s Peter Greenberg prize. He is currently conducting graduate work at Cambridge University, and next fall he will pursue a Ph.D. in mathematics at Harvard on a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship.

U. names new associate ombudsman

The University will welcome new associate ombudsman D.A. Graham later this month. Graham is leaving his two-year post as university ombudsman at San Diego State University (SDSU).

The University Ombuds Office is “a neutral, confidential, independent and informal resource where any member of the Princeton University community can discuss a complaint, conflict, or problem,” according to its website. Complaints filed to the office are confidential, with an exception “in cases that involve an imminent risk of serious harm.”

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Graham told SDSUniverse, an SDSU news agency, that his experience at SDSU has “been wonderful ... Specifically, I enjoyed working for student needs and achieving monumental mediations and significant policy changes as well. This decision was a hard one.”

Though Graham’s duties as associate ombudsman will parallel those fulfilled in his previous position, he will conduct more trainings and workshops than he did at SDSU. Graham will join Ombuds Officer Camilo Azcarate and Associate Ombudsman Nicholas Diehl at the Princeton Ombuds Office.

Architecture Award

Architect J. Robert Hillier ’59 was awarded the Michael Graves Lifetime Achievement Award at the annual meeting of the American Institute of Architects on Jan. 12, according to The Paramus Post.

Hillier is the founder and president of RMJM Hillier, a Princeton-based firm. He has over 38 years of experience in his field and his firm has collected more than 250 design awards over the years. Hillier is also an adjunct professor at the University’s architecture school.

The award is named for Michael Graves, a Princeton professor emeritus who has designed numerous buildings in New Jersey, including Alexander House in Princeton. Graves is the principal of the Michael Graves and Associates architecture firm and received the American Institute’s national gold medal in 2001.

The American Institute of Architects is an organization that assists architects in serving public needs and educates the public about the role of architecture in American society. It is headquartered in Washington, D.C., and consists of nearly 300 chapters and 70,000 members. Two thousand of them are based in New Jersey.