Newsmakers

Kahn Named President of Joslin Diabetes Center

C. Ronald Kahn took over as president of the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston on Jan. 13. The Mary K. Iacocca Professor of Medicine at the Medical School succeeded Kenneth Quickel Jr. who served as president since 1987. Kahn is the sixth president of the Center, founded in 1898.

Kahn served as research director of Joslin for more than 17 years, during which time research grew from a $2 million to a $25 million program with a staff of more than 220 people. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine for his achievements. He also chaired the congressionally mandated Diabetes Research Working Group to develop national research priorities for reversing the present diabetes epidemic. The disease now affects 16 million Americans.

Joslin is affiliated with CareGroup, the parent company of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and five other Boston area hospitals.

Cohn Wins Literary Studies Prize

Dorrit Cohn, Ernest Bernbaum Professor of Literature Emeritus, has won the Modern Language Association of America’s Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for Comparative Literature Studies.

Cohn won the $1,000 prize for her book, The Distinction of Fiction, published by Johns Hopkins University Press. The prize is awarded annually for an outstanding scholarly work written by a member of the association. The work must involve at least two literatures.

The prize was awarded Dec. 28 at the Association’s annual convention in Chicago.

Radelet Takes Leave for Treasury Post

In January 2000, Steven Radelet will take a leave of absence from the Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID) to assume the position of deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury for Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. Radelet is currently a Fellow at HIID and the director of the Macroeconomics Group.

Radelet has been with HIID for more than 10 years, serving in The Gambia, Indonesia, and Cambridge. He plans to return to his post at HIID in approximately 18 months.

Honoring Nations 2000 Applications Available

Applications are available for the 2000 “Honoring Contributions in the Governance of American Indian Nations” award program, sponsored by The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development at the John F. Kennedy School of Government.

The award, in its second year, recognizes outstanding examples of governance among American Indian nations. Applicants are judged on the basis of the entrant’s effectiveness, significance, transferability, creativity, and sustainability. Of the 16 finalists, eight are awarded “high honors,” accompanied by a $10,000 award, which will allow them to share their success stories with other nations.

Completed applications are due on April 21, 2000. Applications are available by contacting Executive Director for Programs Andrew Lee at (617) 496-6632, or via e-mail at Andrew_Lee@ksg.harvard.edu. Applications may also be downloaded from the Internet at www.ksg.harvard.edu/hpaied.