Photo: Simone D. McCourtie/World BankStepping Up
John Lipsky, MA '74, PhD '82, took over the leadership of the International Monetary Fund in May following managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn's arrest in New York and subsequent resignation. Lipsky has been first deputy managing director of the IMF since 2006 but planned to leave the post in late August, when his five-year term came to an end. He will serve as interim chair while the Fund's executive board seeks a permanent successor for Strauss-Kahn and has agreed to remain as a special adviser through the G-20 Summit in November. Simone D. McCourtie/World Bank
Photo: Kyle Terada/Stanfordphoto.com
Kick Starters
Cardinal women's soccer was well represented at the FIFA World Cup in Germany this summer. Playing for the United States in her second World Cup appearance, goalkeeper Nicole Barnhart, '04, was joined by former Stanford and Olympic teammate Rachel Buehler, '07, a co-captain of the U.S. squad, and Kelley O'Hara, '10. Ali Riley, '10, led the New Zealand team, and Teresa Noyola, '12, and Alina Garciamendez, '13, played for "Las Tricolores" of Mexico.
INQUIRING MINDS
Kevin Hand. Photo: Courtesy Kevin HandFour Stanford grads were among the 14 young scientists, adventurers and storytellers chosen by the National Geographic Society for its 2011 Emerging Explorers program: environmental scientist Jennifer Burney, PhD '07; astrobiologist Kevin Hand, MS '02, PhD '07; ecologist Sasha Kramer, PhD '06; and ornithologist and conservationist Çağan Şekercioğlu, PhD '03. The program includes a $10,000 award to support the recipient's research. Burney's focus is global food security and climate change mitigation; Hand explores Earth's most forbidding environments to understand how organisms survive there; Kramer's focus is on improving sanitation in Haiti; and Şekercioğlu studies the causes and consequences of vanishing bird populations around the globe.
"[On a space walk] it's a quarter inch of Plexiglas between you and the rest of the universe and you look down and see our planet zoom by at 17,500 miles an hour and the cosmos in front of you."
—Endeavor astronaut Col. Michael Fincke, MS '90, who set a new U.S. record for time spent in space (380 days) during the shuttle program's penultimate mission.
