Photo: Brett HallPULITZER-WINNING POET
The 2013 Pulitzer prize for poetry was awarded to Sharon Olds, '64, for Stag's Leap (Alfred A. Knopf). The majority of the poems in the collection—Olds's 12th—were written in the late '90s, immediately following the dissolution of her 32-year marriage. She held off publishing them for more than a decade, she said in an interview with the Concord Monitor, to allow her now grown children to absorb the impact of the divorce. "This was the book of her career," said Carol Ann Duffy, chair of the judging panel. "There is a grace and chivalry in her grief that marks her out as being a world-class poet." Among the other 2013 winners, Adam Johnson, associate professor of English, received the award for fiction for The Orphan Master's Son (Random House).
Photo: Courtesy the United States Department of Justice'TRAILBLAZING' JUDGE
In a unanimous vote, the Senate confirmed Sri Srinivasan, '89, JD '95, MBA '95, to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. In a statement, President Obama described Srinivasan, the first federal appeals court judge of South Asian descent, as "a trailblazer who personifies the best of America." Having worked in the Justice Department under both Republican and Democratic presidents (from 2002 to 2007 as assistant to the solicitor general and from 2011 to 2013 as principal deputy solicitor general), he has engendered bipartisan support. And, according to a New Yorker piece by Jeffrey Toobin, many in Washington believe he's a shoo-in for a seat on the Supreme Court before the end of Obama's term.
Photo: Courtesy U.S. Military HIV Research Program
GLOBAL HEALTH HERO
Col. Nelson Michael, MD/PhD '86, received the U.S. Army Hero of Military Medicine award for his leadership in global health. As director of the U.S. Military HIV Research Program (MHRP) at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, he has overseen clinical vaccine and ther-apeutic studies at six sites in the United States, Africa and Asia, as well as prevention, care and treatment programs in the communities where MHRP research is conducted. The nonprofit Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine sponsors the award to support medical research and education at the Uniformed Services University, where Michael is a professor of medicine.
"Some of us know and accept our sexuality right away and some need more time to cook. I should know—I baked for 33 years." —NBA center Jason Collins, '01, coming out in Sports Illustrated as the first openly gay athlete playing in a major American team sport.
