Human Ecology Magazine, Spring 2018

HumanEcology COLLEGE OF HUMAN ECOLOGY CORNELL UNIVERSITY VOLUME 46 NUMBER 1 SPRING 2018

NEW FACES, NEW SPACES Dean Mathios passes the torch as MVR is set for upgrade

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CONTENTS

2

Features

MESSAGE FROM THE DEAN

24

3

NEW LEADERSHIP

Cornell Marketing Group; Mark Vorreuter ; Provided

INSIDE CHE

On the cover:

Highlighting the New Faces in leadership roles around Human Ecology.

32

31

FROM MVR TO MoMA

ALUMNI

An undergraduate project that originally started within the walls of the Human Ecology Building was recently on display at the Museum of Modern Art.

44 DOMAINS

From deans to department chairs to directors, we showcase the College of Human Ecology’s new leadership, as well as provide news on the renovation of Martha Van Rensselaer Hall.

Cover photos by Dede Hatch, Mark Vorreuter

Human Ecology Volume 46 | Number 1 | Spring 2018 ISSN 1530-706 Published by the New York State College of Human Ecology at Cornell University

Editor Stephen D’ Angelo Designer Soontira Sutanont Writers E.C. Barnett, Jon Craig, Stephen D’Angelo, Nancy Doolittle, Blaine Friedlander. Sheri Hall, Olivia Hall, Amanda K. Jaros, Susan Kelley, Lisa Jervey Lennox, Krishna Ramanujan Reprints Permission is granted to reproduce material appearing in this magazine upon notification of the editor, provided that full acknowledgment is made of the source and no change is made without approval.

Printed in U.S.A. on FSC certified paper Third-class postage paid at Ithaca, N.Y. Change of Address To ensure uninterrupted delivery, write to Cornell University, College of Human Ecology, Box HE, Ithaca, NY 14853-4401, with old and new addresses. ©2018 Cornell University Diversity and inclusion are part of Cornell University’s heritage. We are a recognized employer and educator valuing AA/EEO, Protected Veterans, and Individuals with Disabilities.

5/18 26,561 QMC College Administration Rebecca Q. and James C. Morgan Dean Alan Mathios Associate Deans Rachel Dunifon Margaret Frey Assistant Deans Craig Higgins Amy Meckeler Jennifer Rouin

— M E S S A G E

F R O M

T H E

D E A N —

A

s always, this issue of Human Ecology magazine exemplifies the diverse and important work we do, the exceptional way we do it and the positive result, domestically and around the world.

Here, the College of Human Ecology mission comes to life. For example, we feature advancing research in unlocking nutrition secrets for expectant mothers that may have cognitive benefits for offspring; the real-world impact of our extension programs in New York State; the unique work of students who, recently graduated, find their creation featured in an exhibit within one of the world’s most influential art museums; and, of course, our alumni who are giving back to the College, students and society in so many ways.

This is, sadly, my last message in Human Ecology magazine as dean of the College. The narratives that have come to life in our publications and in the conversations I have had the privilege to have with so many members of the Human Ecology community over my time here have and will continue to inspire me beyond words. And they only scratch the surface when it comes to all of the stories we could tell about the College.

While this chapter comes to a close for me, I am delighted that Rachel Dunifon, professor in the Department of Policy Analysis and senior associate dean for research and outreach in the College, will become interim dean on July 1. As senior associate dean, she has proven her outstanding leadership skills, her deep understanding of the breadth of the college mission, and developed superb collaboration with the leadership teams in the College and in the provost’s office.

The College will be in great hands!

Much has been achieved in my tenure as dean, and that is due to a highquality leadership team and passionate faculty, staff, students, alumni, friends and other partners who believe in our mission. Your ongoing engagement with us will continue our great success.

I hope you enjoy this issue, and please stay in touch.

Visit us online human.cornell.edu

IMPROVING LIVES BY EXPLORING AND SHAPING HUMAN CONNECTIONS TO NATURAL, SOCIAL, AND BUILT ENVIRONMENTS

Mark Vorreuter

Alan Mathios Rebecca Q. and James C. Morgan Dean

Inside CHE

ENGAGEMENT New initiative launched to support vulnerable families This fall, Cornell researchers launched a new Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research initiative: Cornell Project 2Gen, a project focused on developing new approaches to support vulnerable families and disrupt the intergenerational cycle of poverty.

Project 2Gen, led by co-directors Laura Tach and Rachel Dunifon of the College of Human Ecology’s Department of Policy Analysis and Management, focuses on addressing the needs of at-risk children and their parents to capitalize on the strong connection between parents’ well-being and children’s healthy development.

“Project 2Gen takes a two-generational approach to addressing the needs of vulnerable families by supporting research and programs that consider both parents and children,” Dunifon said. “The twogen approach acknowledges that parents’ well-being and children’s well-being are intertwined, and that we really can’t address one without the other.”

The project reflects the mission of the College of Human Ecology, which combines that of a land-grant institution and an Ivy League university, Dunifon said. Through this focus, the project aims to build a vibrant research community and outreach network.

“Project 2Gen is going to be a hub of innovative work that brings together research, practitioners and policymakers, developing and carrying out work in this area, testing new approaches, evaluating their effectiveness, and implementing them locally and throughout the state,” Dunifon said.

Dunifon (middle) , Tach (second from right)

The project, which will promote collaboration between students and faculty members across Cornell, is developing partnerships with community, state, and national organizations and government agencies to support parents and children simultaneously.

Ithaca Mayor Svante Myrick ‘09, who graduated from Cornell with a degree in communications, attended the Oct. 23 symposium that launched the project.

“I want to say thank you for the work you do,” said Myrick, who as a youth took part in the Head Start program, which promotes the school readiness of young children from low-income families through agencies in their local community.

“My siblings and I all had an opportunity to start working at age 16, and we were all able to be successful because of [this type of research and work you are doing], to prove that this isn’t only the big-hearted thing to do, but the hard-headed thing to do.”

– Stephen D’Angelo

Photos: Cornell Marketing Group. Stories adapted from the Cornell Chronicle

Organized chaos spells creativity at Brooklyn school science event A Brooklyn elementary school was transformed into a high-tech laboratory during a Cornell-led science discovery day Oct. 4.

About 300 schoolchildren jammed all corners of Public School 21 as part of the 10th annual 4-H National Youth Science Day, which reached an estimated 100,000 schoolchildren in 50 states.

This year’s interactive learning challenge, Incredible Wearables, was developed by the University of NebraskaLincoln. Youths engineered and built electronic armbands that measured their fitness while exercising.

The PS 21 gymnasium was filled with “wired-up” students jumping rope, spinning hula hoops or running in place.

Fellow youth scientists then monitored and measured heartbeats and number of steps or jumps taken.

In another room sponsored by faculty, staff, and volunteers from Cornell

School children celebrate creating their own fitness armbands

University Cooperative Extension-New York City (CUCE-NYC) and National 4-H Council, the school children explored New York state’s parks using a giant geological map; learned about hydroponics, or growing plants without soil; learned about energy by pedaling a bicycle that produced electricity to power light bulbs and a fan; created bird feeders from pine cones and planted fall bulbs to help pollinators; and learned about sugar levels in juices, beverages and fatty foods.

The goal of the day was to introduce youth to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and encourage them to pursue careers in those fields.

Another interactive exhibit, sponsored by Google, allowed students to wear virtual reality goggles that exposed them to moving undersea images, a dairy farm in Minnesota and other science-based scenes.

Lucinda Randolph-Benjamin, CUCE-NYC extension associate for 4-H youth development, said this year’s combination of high-tech fitness tests and interactive exhibits transformed the flagship Brooklyn school into a “crazy but incredible learning environment.”

– Jon Craig HUMAN ECOLOGY 3

ENGAGEMENT Conference tackles social media literacy in youth

Conference participants

What does the research tell us about how young people use social media? And what can educators do to teach youth how to use social media in productive, positive ways?

These were the questions researchers addressed at an annual conference hosted by the Program for Research on Youth Development and Engagement (PRYDE).

The conference, titled “Media Literacy and Citizenship Development in Youth

and Emerging Young Adults,” was held from November 9 to 11 at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. It included multidisciplinary researchers and media developers from across the nation focused on youth, communications, misinformation, and media use.

Elaine Wethington, professor of Human Development and an associate director of the Bronfenbrenner Center

for Translational Research, organized the conference. She is a medical sociologist whose research focuses on stress, protective mechanisms of social support, aging, and translational research methods.

“There are few topics more urgent to address than the relationship of increased reliance on social media as a means of communication and the impact of the new media on social and political institutions,” Wethington said. “Our long-term goal is to develop new ideas about how to translate research on promoting productive social media use among youth into effective programs that engage youth and emerging adults and their development as informed citizens.”

In addition to invited talks from leading media, communication, and social and developmental psychological researchers, the conference included discussions and group activities about how to teach youth to become positive stewards of social media and the information exchanged on the web.

Moving forward, those ideas will help to inform projects in the Cornell Social Media Lab, a PRYDE collaborator.

– Sheri Hall

Editors Chris Wildeman, Julie Poehlmann-Tynan and Anna Haskins

4 SPRING FALL 2017 2018

More than 2 million U.S. children have a parent in prison – a circumstance that impacts individual children as well as our society on the whole.

The newest book in the Bronfenbrenner Series on the Ecology of Human Development, “When Parents Are Incarcerated: Interdisciplinary Research and Interventions to Support Children,” analyzes how parental incarceration affects children and what can be done to help them.

The book is edited by Christopher Wildeman, professor of Policy Analysis and Management at Cornell, Anna R. Haskins, assistant professor of sociology at Cornell and Julie PoehlmannTynan, a professor in the human development and family studies department at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. It was published by the American Psychological Association.

The book explores the issues of incarceration from a multi-disciplinary perspective. Sociologists and demographers use complex techniques to develop causal analyses with a strong focus on social inequality. Developmental psychologists and family scientists explore how micro-level

family interactions can moderate the consequences of parental incarceration. Criminologists offer important insights into the consequences of parental criminality and incarceration. And practitioners who design and evaluate interventions, review a variety of programs targeting parents, children, and the criminal justice system.

“The interdisciplinary nature of this book is particularly unique and important, as successful solutions to such complicated issues are beyond the scope of a single approach,” Haskins said. “The perspectives of several disciplines are necessary in broadening understandings around the impact of parental incarceration for inequality among children.”

The work in the book was drawn from the “5th Biennial Urie Bronfenbrenner Conference – Minimizing the Collateral Damage: Interventions to Diminish the Consequences of Mass Incarceration for Children.” Held during September 2016, the conference included scholars from a variety of disciplines and more than 12 institutions and programs.

– Sheri Hall

Jesse Meria; Patrick Shanahan

New book examines incarceration’s impact on children and families

Inside CHE

Story adapted from the Cornell Chronicle

High schoolers spawn fish, grow lettuce on NYC school rooftop Atop a roof overlooking Manhattan’s skyline at sundown on Oct. 25, more than 300 public officials and proud parents toured a firstof-its-kind aquaponics greenhouse. The occasion was the grand opening of a collaborative project between students at the Food and Finance High School and Cornell University Cooperative Extension’s New York City Programs (CUCE-NYC).

Philson A.A. Warner, founding director of CUCE-NYC Hydroponics, Aquaculture, Aquaponics Learning Lab, offered lively, personal tours of the newly opened greenhouse. The structure is used to grow lettuce and fish through a natural process that conserves energy and the environment.

Warner designed the 1,664-square-foot greenhouse, which is now part of the New York City Department of Education’s Park West Educational Campus. The project was financed through private donations, the New York City Council and the Manhattan Borough President’s Office.

“The youngsters learn to do more with the sciences,” Warner said of his teenage students, whom he called “Cornell colleagues.”

Eight computers monitor “the weather situation above us,” to help control indoor temperatures, moisture and ideal humidity for growing vegetables, Warner said. “This is what we call a green, green, green greenhouse,” he said, noting it produces “clean, safe, fresh foods. Nothing goes to waste.”

Solar panels help to power the greenhouse.

Heads of lettuce that can take up to 10 weeks to grow outdoors are cultivated in just three weeks at the school on West 50th Street.

Considerable amounts of tasty tilapia are also harvested as part

Philson Warner works with Teishawn W. Florostal Kevelier, a 4H youth development associate.

of the scientific project in the city’s only public culinary arts high school.

About 400 students are enrolled at Food and Finance High School.

The school’s curriculum includes paid internships at restaurants and other food service businesses. The opening of the greenhouse marked the latest expansion of ongoing learning lab programs in a long-standing partnership with Cornell University.

– Jon Craig

Fitzpatrick named Bronfenbrenner Center Milman Fellow

Cornell Marketing Group; Mark Vorreuter

Maria Fitzpatrick

The College of Human Ecology’s Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research (BCTR) is pleased to welcome Maria Fitzpatrick, associate professor of Policy Analysis and Management, as the recipient of the Evalyn Edwards Milman BCTR Faculty Fellowship, a role she will hold through June of 2019.

The Milman Fellowship program helps fulfill the BCTR mission to

expand, strengthen and speed the connections between cutting-edge research and efforts to enhance human development, health and well-being by bringing a faculty member in the College of Human Ecology into the orbit of the BCTR, actively encouraging their engagement with the center and their commitment to its mission and success.

Fitzpatrick’s main area of focus is the economics of education, specifically on early childhood education policies, higher education and teacher compensation, benefits and labor supply.

“I’m honored to have been named the Milman Fellow this year and excited about the opportunities the Fellowship provides both for continuing to conduct my research on the well-being of children and older Americans and for extending my engagement with local communities around important issues for these populations,” Fitzpatrick said.

“For example, in work that’s being made possible by the Fellowship, Chris

Wildeman [professor of Policy Analysis and Management] and I are working to highlight the important role that teachers and schools play in identifying child maltreatment. Longer term, the goal is to work with school districts to use this information to better train and assist teachers in this regard.”

Karl Pillemer, BCTR director at the time of the announcement and Hazel E. Reed Professor in the Department of Human Development said, “The BCTR often supports sociologists and psychologists in these roles, and we were really glad to expand it to an economist who is interested in translating her findings out to the public.”

“One of Maria’s great strengths lies in examining what we can do on a systemic level to encourage better parenting outcomes and reduce child maltreatment. This focus is perfect for the Bronfenbrenner Center, because it goes beyond a single program to fostering policy change at the state and national level.”

– Stephen D’Angelo

HUMAN ECOLOGY 5

HYPERLOOP

The future, reality of high-speed tube travel discussed in NYC

Imagine traveling between New York City and Washington, D.C., in 30 minutes instead of five hours. The technology exists to safely transport commuters in high-speed vacuum tubes. Ten companies are actively pursuing the literal pipe dream – but the development cost and need for public-private coordination is extremely high, according to a panel of experts who spoke at Cornell’s ILR Conference Center Dec. 1.

Journalists got a glimpse into the future of high-speed travel during an Inside Cornell talk in Manhattan that previewed an evening reception by members of the Hyperloop Advanced Research Partnership (HARP), founded about a year ago.

R. Richard Geddes, professor in the Department of Policy Analysis and Management and director of the Cornell Program in Infrastructure Policy, has a key role promoting and coordinating HARP’s goals. Geddes’ research focuses on funding and financing major infrastructure projects in the transportation and water sectors – including innovative public-private partnerships.

“We are ripe for a new mode of transportation to emerge,” he said.

An increasing number of companies and transit systems are reinventing transportation. Hyperloop is a bold but not new concept that is driving interest – domestically and internationally – in highspeed tube transit. In October, Maryland gave permission to begin a hyperloop project there.

Geddes explained that passenger jets need to climb to 30,000 feet for air resistance to be quite low. “The Hyperloop can achieve that at ground level or below ground level.”

Hyperloop travel does not burn as much energy, is safer and is not affected by weather conditions like traditional modes of travel, Geddes added. “Pods moving through tubes would be completely computer-controlled to avoid accidents,” he said.

HARP President Dane Egli, former White House National Security Council director for counterterrorism, said developing high-speed travel through tunnel vacuums will be costly but is inevitable: “It’s

going to bring space travel to Earth.”

Clean, fast and cheaper over the long haul will win out over century-plus-old thinking about how to navigate antiquated, congested roads, runways, rivers and rails, Egli said.

“The technology is there. An element of this is absolutely exciting, like the ‘Jetsons,’” he said, referring to the futuristic 1960s cartoon series.

Egli predicted that so-called Hyperloop systems, already being tested outside Las Vegas and in Colorado, will emerge in key areas of the country in one to three years. “In five to 10 years we will start stringing together a network,” he said.

Given the high density of mass transit users in suburban New York City, Egli said, “Obviously, New York is an ideal location to do it. It begins to close the divides between the haves and have nots.”

Egli and other panelists said with higher-speed transit, the workforce will be able to find more job opportunities longer distances away from their homes and travel to and from work more efficiently. “We are talking about an expensive project,” he said. “We need to find public-private partnerships. In the next three to five years, you’re going to have people looking at this very seriously. All of the experiments have had some level of success.”

Chris Zahas, managing principal of Leland Consulting Group in Portland, Oregon, said there is a lot of secrecy surrounding Hyperloop technology because of competitive trade pressures. “The challenge is which technology wins out,” Zahas said. “The sooner collaboration happens ... the quicker it hits the ground.”

Geddes added, “It’s not really that big a departure from what we have now,” referring to advances in high-speed railroads.

The panelists also hosted an evening event to promote Hyperloop and reach out to new potential partners that attracted top transit visionaries and policy experts who are shaping the future of highspeed tube transportation through public, private and academic partnerships.

– Jon Craig

6 SPRING FALL 2017 2018

Inside Cornell participants

Photos: Daryl Lovell ;Mark Vorreuter; Pexels. Originally published in the Cornell Chronicle

R. Richard Geddes

Inside CHE

OBESITY’S IMPACT

Photo: Mark Vorreuter. Originally published in the Cornell Chronicle

Increasing health care costs varies by state The prevalence of obesity has risen dramatically in the U.S., but there has been little information about the economic impact of this trend for individual states.

John Cawley, professor of Policy Analysis and Management at Cornell’s College of Human Ecology, recently published research that provides new insights on how individual states are affected by the health care costs of obesity. The article is published in the January 2018 issue of Clinical Chemistry, which is devoted to the topic of obesity.

“We have, for the first time, estimated the percentage of health care spending that is devoted to obesity, using microdata for each state,” said Cawley, who co-authored “The Impact of Obesity on Medical Costs and Labor Market Outcomes in the U.S.” with Adam Biener of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and Chad Meyerhoefer of Lehigh University.

Large differences exist across states, Cawley said. “In 2015, states such as Arizona, California, Florida, New York and Pennsylvania devoted five to six percent of their total medical expenditures to treating obesity-related illness, whereas North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin spent more than twice that – over 12 percent of all health care dollars in those states were used to treat obesity-related illness.”

Overall, the authors found the percent of U.S. national medical expenditures devoted to treating obesity-related illness in adults rose from 6.13 percent in 2001 to 7.91 percent in 2015, an increase of 29 percent.

The publication reports results by payer type, including private health insurance companies, Medicare and Medicaid.

“Once again, we find dramatic differences across states in the fraction of Medicaid spending that is devoted to obesityrelated illness,” Cawley said. “For example, over 2001-15, Kentucky and Wisconsin devoted over 20 percent of their Medicaid spending to obesity-related illness. In contrast, in New York, 10.9 percent of Medicaid spending was devoted to obesity-related illness, and the average for the U.S. as a whole was 8.23 percent during that period.”

By analyzing data for 2001-15 from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, a nationally representative survey of Americans’ health care utilization and costs, the authors estimated the percent of health care costs that were associated with adult obesity for the most populous states.

Estimates could not be generated for less populous states because of a scarcity of information about their residents in the data. Previous estimates of the health care costs of obesity by state were not based on microdata for each state but on assumptions about how national costs should be apportioned to different states.

These differences across states are driven by a number of factors, such as differences in obesity prevalence, health care access by obese individuals, how obesity is treated and prices of health care, Cawley said.

John Cawley

– Stephen D’Angelo

HUMAN ECOLOGY 7

FASHION FORWARD Textile pioneer Kinor Jiang is designer-in-residence The College of Human Ecology’s Department of Fiber Science & Apparel Design (FSAD) hosted Kinor Jiang, professor of textiles at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, as the 2018 FSAD Designer in Residence.

On campus as part of the four-week residence, Jiang exhibited some of his creative work in a gallery opening, “Surface Design in Fashion,” and delivered a public lecture “Coating Processes Towards Sustainable Textile and Fashion,” on coating techniques in sustainable textiles and fashion. He also interacted with FSAD students and faculty, gave guest lectures in classes, and provided advice and critiqued student work.

“Kinor Jiang is an internationally acclaimed fashion and textile surface designer,” said Jintu Fan, the Vincent V.C. Woo Professor in Fiber Science and Apparel Design and director of the Cornell Institute of Fashion and Fiber Innovation. “His work explores the frontier of surface design by integrating contemporary Asian arts with advanced fashion and textile technologies. He is particularly known for his extraordinary metallic textiles.”

The residency aims to create an environment for the exchange of forwardthinking and creative ideas around fashion design and fiber science, Fan said.

Jiang’s design research deals with textile effects using physical and chemical treatment technologies. He is renowned internationally for his development of metallizing technology for functional and decorative textiles.

Jiang developed a novel metallizing machine for high-performance metallic textile production. “Metals, alloys and metal oxides are used to coat textiles which create captivating painted hues on the textile surface,” he said.

“The technology is an environmentally-friendly approach for textile dyeing and finishing which applies dry coatings under an anhydrous condition.”

“I have dreamed to come here for many years – Cornell is a famous university and [the FSAD Department] has talented faculty and top students,” Jiang said. “I want to show my ideas and concepts and exchange ideas with both faculty and students. Based on this interactive program, I can learn from my time here, and they can learn from me.”

– Stephen D’Angelo

GO FIGURE

Exhibit examines female form through history

8 SPRING 2018

A costume and textile exhibit at the College of Human Ecology examined how women’s bodies have been manipulated and shaped to fit fashionable silhouettes at different moments through history, from corsets and girdles to diet and exercise.

“Go Figure: The Fashion Silhouette & The Female Form looks at perceptions and representations of Euro-American ideals of beauty through the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries,” said exhibit curator, Rachel Doran FSAD ’19. “Body image is something I’ve always been very interested in, and this exhibit allowed me to explore the intersection of body image and fashion, and so I looked at ways women control their bodies in how they look.”

Doran said her interest in the intersection of body image and fashion began in middle school, hearing and taking part in discussions around body images portrayed in fashion magazines that set unrealistic expectations for girls who are growing into their bodies and selves.

According to Doran, the main switch in trends most

Mark Vorreuter; Provided

Jiang’s gallery opening and public lecture

Inside CHE

DRESS AND BODY Exhibit contemplates oneness or duality

Dress and Body in the Jill Stuart Gallery

Rachel Doran; Mark Vorreuter; Provided

A fashion exhibit in Human Ecology’s Jill Stuart Gallery invited its audience to acknowledge and appreciate the beauty of cultures – their own and others, as well as to celebrate the rediscovery of cultural heritage as an inspiration for creators in all fields.

The exhibition “Dress and Body: Oneness or Duality?” was the creative outcome of a research project by Jooyoung Shin, assistant professor of Fiber Science and Apparel Design, and examined the physical and conceptual relationship between dress and body in various socio-cultural contexts, ultimately to define the ways in which the meaning and the form of dress is perceived and constructed based on different perceptions of body.

“My creative journey began with a question: why have dresses from the East and West evolved into very different shapes?” said Shin. “It could be because both cultures developed very different, distinct perceptions of

the body.”

According to Shin, Eastern and Western cultures have established substantial disparity in their understanding of the body throughout history. For example, Westerners generally believe that the body is not only separate from the mind, but also is relegated to a subordinate position under the mind’s control. In comparison, in Eastern culture the body and mind are inseparable, so they are understood and perceived as one.

“Consequently each Jooyoung Shin culture, with such divergent perspectives, has constructed a distinct dress-body relationship,” Shin said. “The designs in this exhibit represent the visual dynamics between dress and body inspired by the dress-body relationships established in Eastern and Western cultures.”

The exhibit was described as a visual feast that not only invites the audience to acknowledge and appreciate the beauty of cultures, but celebrate the rediscovery of cultural heritage as an inspiration for creators in all fields. It also demonstrated how an abstract concept can manifest in a form of dress with the mix of old and new technologies and materials to broaden the spectrum of creativity and feasibility.

“Inspired by the profoundly distinct dress-body relationships established in Eastern and Western cultures, in this design project, innovative design principles are developed to represent the visual dynamics between dress and body of both cultures simultaneously,” Shin said.

The exhibit ran from Nov. 20 through Jan. 17 and was funded by HLC Group.

– Stephen D’Angelo

recently has been from incredibly thin models to ones who are hyperfit, which does not necessarily make things better, she said.

“In the 1950s, women aimed to have a fuller figure, so people were taking weight gain supplements,” Doran said. “In the 1960s, that flipped around, and a record number of amphetamines were prescribed for weight loss.”

Moving into the 1970s, Doran said fitness became a key attribute of fashion after women began playing more sports through Title IX, leading to a more athletic figure. The fitness craze continued in the 1980s and with the growing popularity of exercise, control of the body continued to revolve around diet and exercise.

“In the 1990s, the ideal figure became even thinner, where the toned ‘’80s babe’ gave way to the waifish, ‘heroin chic’ supermodel of the ’90s – thin was in.”

From the empire waist of the 1800s to low-rise jeans showing off slim abs in the 2000s, Doran says shaping the human body has been critical to fashion changes and illustrates the dynamic nature of socio-cultural conceptions of beauty.

– Stephen D’Angelo

Rachel Doran ’19

HUMAN ECOLOGY 9

UPSTYLE AWARD

Team wins international competition merging fashion, science and technology

– Stephen D’Angelo

10 SPRING 2018

Experience and Motion garments

Team GameWear in the design studio

Neal Reynolds accepts the Upstyle Award in Shanghai

Photos: Cornell University Marketing Group; Mark Vorreuter; Pexels; Provided. Originally published in the Cornell Chronicle

A team of four students – three Cornell University graduate students and one undergraduate from the National University of Colombia – was recently awarded an Upstyle Star Award, taking first prize for their garment concepts using technology and geared toward the fitness and gaming communities.

The first Upstyle Award: International Competition for Fashion, Science and Technology, held in January in Shanghai, China, was open to design professionals who use science and technology to improve people’s lives.

It is the first global scientific and technological innovation competition in the fields of fashion and lifestyle, and aims to promote fashion design, lead intelligent manufacturing, and accelerate the scientific and technological advancement of the fashion industry.

Team GameWear consisted of Cornell graduate students Eric Beaudette and Lina Sanchez Botero in the field of fiber science, graduate student Neal Reynolds in the field of physics, and Jose Mateo Aristizabal, an undergraduate in electrical engineering at the National University of Colombia.

“The development and widespread use of the internet-enabled smartphone has led to a revolution in the way data are integrated into our daily routines,” the team said in its submission to the competition’s jury. “Fitness tracking apps have allowed users to take control of their health, and augmented reality apps such as Pokémon Go have brought joy to millions.”

Through the advent of inexpensive internet-enabled chips and interconnection via the internet of computing devices embedded in everyday objects, Team GameWear saw the opportunity for even greater interaction with one’s environment and clothing.

“We capitalize on this promise by developing two fashion-conscious smart garments based on similar technologies,” the students said. “Our goal was to develop unique, aesthetically striking garments that leverage high-quality optical components, sensors and new microcontroller technologies to deliver reactivity and responsiveness.”

Team GameWear won the concept design category.

The athletic garment, MOTION, a wearable system for exercise monitoring, is designed to be a rugged, comfortable workout companion for the everyday user to enhance their exercise through data. It integrates electronics into the apparel that could be used for interactive games targeting fitness and health, reading data from the heart rate sensor and accelerometers embedded in the fabric.

The fantasy garment, EXPERIENCE, is meant to make the world of gaming seem real. It is aimed at those looking for a garment for festivals, live action role playing and everyday life. It provides a sensation or augmented reality experience for users and has the ability to interact with other smart garments.

“Statistics show that sales of smart wearable accessories, such as the FitBit and Apple Watch, have risen 17.9 percent from 2016 to 2017, presenting promise for the consumer acceptance of smart clothing,” the team said. “We believe these garments will help take fashionable, hightech garments from the runway into the everyday.”

Following the success of the Upstyle Award, the interdisciplinary team is planning to launch a startup focusing on product development, and research and development of wearable technology.

Inside CHE

PERSONAL HEALTH

Cultural background may influence how people view health

“Having gone through all the stages of how scholars publish a paper in a journal, I was able to gain a deeper understanding of what it meant to be a professional.”

– Sam Hee Jin Jeon, HD ’18

Mark Vorreuter; Provided

Clockwise from top: Sam Hee Jin Jeon, Anthony Burrow, Qi Wang

How do you rate your personal health, and how do you think it will change in the future? Research tells us that depending on your cultural background, you may view your health differently.

This was the conclusion that recent Human Development graduate Sam Hee Jin Jeon, HD ’18 made in a research paper published in September in the “Journal of Health Psychology.”

In the paper, Jeon set out to compare how people from different cultures envision their own and others’ future health. He found that Americans rate their own future health more positively than others’, whereas Koreans rate their own and others’ future health similarly.

Jeon’s research was funded by a Human Ecology Summer Research Stipend for Undergraduates. The program provides students with $4,000 to work full-time on a summer research project with a Human Ecology faculty member. Jeon worked with Human Development faculty members Anthony Burrow and Qi Wang.

Burrow studies the concept of purpose in life and how race affects one’s sense of self. Wang researches how people develop socialcognitive skills in the context of culture.

“In this one study, Sam brought together pieces of what he has learned through coursework, past laboratory research and personal experience,” Burrow said. “The result is new knowledge about the diversity of ways people perceive their own health now and downstream, which may offer a glimpse into what they are likely to do to more fully invest in it.”

Jeon, who was born in Korea, became interested in ideas of culture and identity in his youth.

“My past experiences of living in predominantly white neighborhoods in Canada and the United States had the greatest impact on growing my interest in race and culture,” he said. “Even

though teachers and adults kept emphasizing the similarities among races and cultures, I could sense both the transparent and subtle differences that existed among people of diverse backgrounds at schools.”

When applying to colleges, he was attracted to the Department of Human Development because it combined his interests in psychology and medicine in a practical way. “Like the major name suggests, I would be able to learn about how we, as human beings, develop from birth to death in various academic perspectives – not just psychology and biology, but also sociology, anthropology, and other fields; it was essentially majoring in life.”

A course in Cultural Psychology sparked his interest in academic concepts of race and culture. “It was fascinating to see how the patterns of behavior I had detected matched up with specific psychological theories,” he said.

Jeon said working on a research project full-time gave him a good idea of what he wants to do in the future.

“Through this process, I had the opportunity to get a glimpse of what it is like to be a scholar in an academic field,” he said. “Having gone through all the stages of how scholars publish a paper in a journal, I was able to gain a deeper understanding of what it meant to be a professional.

“The fundamental research knowledge I honed will be pivotal for everything I do in the future,” he said. “I hope to continue studying the human body and mind to help promote individuals’ mental and physical health and wellbeing through the life-course.”

– Sheri Hall HUMAN ECOLOGY 11

LINGERING EFFECTS For the past 50 years, researchers have known that girls who get their periods earlier than their peers are more psychologically vulnerable as teenagers.

They have more frequent and severe mental health problems, from depression to anxiety, eating disorders, delinquency, substance abuse and failing or dropping out of school.

But next to nothing was known about how long those problems last.

A new study suggests they could persist for years.

Tracking nearly 8,000 girls from adolescence through their late 20s – far longer than other studies have – Jane Mendle, associate professor of Human Development, says girls who get their periods earlier than peers are likely to experience depression and antisocial behavior well into adulthood. The study, “Age at Menarche, Depression and Antisocial Behavior in Adulthood,” was published in “Pediatrics.”

The average age at which most girls get their periods is now around 12.5 years old.

“It can be very easy for people to dismiss the emotional challenges that come along with growing up as a girl, and say, ‘Oh, it’s just that age; it’s what everyone goes through,’” Mendle said. “But not everyone goes through it, and it’s not just ‘that age.’

And it’s not trivial. It puts these girls on a path from which it is hard to deviate.”

The researchers found the younger the girl began menstruating, the more likely she was to report symptoms of depression.

By the time the study participants were nearly 30 years old, the links between early periods and depression were still clear. And the magnitude of the association was just as strong as it was in adolescence, years before, Mendle said, adding: “To me, that was the most interesting finding: that the effect

“These are real people, with real lives. They’re not just data points. Early puberty is one extra risk factor that seems to be putting them on a different path.”

–Jane Mendle 12 SPRING 2018

lingered at the same strength.”

Earlier-maturing girls in the study also reported more frequent antisocial behaviors as teenagers, with more acting out, rule-breaking and delinquency. And that behavior only got worse as they grew up. That’s the exact opposite pattern normally developing teens display, Mendle said. “Usually people aren’t shoplifting at 25 as much as they do at 15 … But these kids did not show the typical age-related declines in antisocial behavior, and their behaviors got worse.”

Mendle and her co-authors, Rebecca Ryan of Georgetown University and Kirsten M.P. McKone of the University of Pittsburgh, analyzed data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.

The nationally representative study tracked 7,800 women for 14 years (1994-2008), starting when they were between 11 and 21 years old. They were asked the age at which they began menstruating, if they had symptoms of depression and antisocial behavior, and other factors associated with early puberty and mental health problems, such as household income and whether their father was absent.

The age at which most girls get their periods has become younger and younger over the past 50 years. But an even more dramatic, and worrisome, change has occurred in the younger ages at which girls enter puberty and start to develop breasts,

Mendle said. About one-third of American girls are now entering puberty by the age of eight.

Girls who experience puberty earlier than their peers are at risk for mental health problems as teenagers because there’s such a mismatch between how they look and their emotional and cognitive maturity. “What’s tricky is because they look older, they start to get treated like they’re older. But they still have the internal mental workings of their normal chronological age,” Mendle said. Parents tend to grant them more autonomy. They tend to be the targets of sexual harassment and rumors at school. And it can be hard for these girls to maintain their friendships with others who are maturing at a different rate, she added. “It’s that cumulative effect.”

Why do these psychological problems last through adulthood? The researchers hypothesize it’s because the propensity for depression seems to have been sustained over time. “That’s the subject of our next study,” Mendle said.

A lack of understanding about the long-term effects of early puberty is a public health issue, and pediatricians must be aware of how long these psychological problems can last, she said: “These are real people, with real lives.

They’re not just data points. Early puberty is one extra risk factor that seems to be putting them on a different path.”

– Susan Kelley

Illustration: Cornell University Marketing Group. Originally published in the Cornell Chronicle

For girls who mature early, psychological problems last into adulthood

Inside CHE

MOSTLY STRAIGHT

Cornell University Marketing Group; Provided

Research finding sexuality is more shades of grey than black and white

Until 1973, the American Psychiatric Association considered homosexuality a mental health disorder. In the 45 years since then, Americans have grown to understand more about sexuality thanks in part to researchers who have documented the experience of people who are gay, lesbian and bisexual.

Among them is Ritch Savin-Williams, professor emeritus of developmental psychology in the Department of Human Development. Savin-Williams has dedicated his career to advancing the understanding of the sexual development of youth and mental health of non-heterosexual youth. He has written nine books on sexual development. The most recent, “Mostly Straight: Sexual Fluidity Among Men,” explores the concept of a spectrum of sexuality. It was published last fall by Harvard University Press.

“It’s not that people fit into categories like gay, straight or bisexual, but that people fit in different points on a spectrum,” Savin-Williams explained. “That’s what the book is about.”

“Romantic infatuation, love and crushes also play into this concept,” he said. “For most people, the person they want to have sex with is the same gender as the people they fall in love with. But there are other people who want to have sex with one gender and romance with the other. People can be attracted to and fall in love with people of different genders to varying degrees.”

Society tends to be more accepting of the idea that sexuality is fluid for females, Savin-Williams said. That is, we are more willing to believe that a woman can be attracted to both sexes, and that her sexual and romantic preferences may change over time. “I’m trying to show this kind of flexibility is true among men as well,” he said. “Not so long ago, people questioned whether there was such a thing as a bisexual male.”

But opinions are changing. “In the past decade, there has been an amazing increase in the acceptance of nonheterosexual people,” he said. “There is a level of comfort and support across the board regardless of religion, region of the country and education.”

Savin-Williams credits part of the shift in public opinion to social media.

“Mass media helps us to understand that we are not made of the same thing, there are not just straight people and there are not just gay people,” he said. “People who know someone who is not straight are more likely to give that person a break.

They think, ‘I love Jane. She’s not straight? I still love her, even though it goes against my religious beliefs.’”

Today, society is grappling with transgender issues as a more difficult and divisive topic, Savin-Williams said.

“As a society, we are having a more difficult time wrapping our heads around gender issues,” he said. “Research helps us to better understand that, for some people, the body and brain are disconnected. Society will eventually come to understand these are real people, and loving caring people. But right now we’re in a tough period.”

Above all, Savin-Williams wants people – and especially young people – to know that it is okay to be attracted to different genders or have gender identities different from their physical features.

“I hope my work shows people they are not alone in this,” he said. “And that it’s okay if you are not in sync with the traditional perspective.”

– Sheri Hall

“It’s not that people fit into categories like gay, straight or bisexual, but that people fit in different points on a spectrum.”

– Ritch Savin-Williams

HUMAN ECOLOGY 13

POINT OF CARE

Cornell engineers and nutritionists have created a swift solution for a challenging global health problem: a low-cost, rapid test to detect iron and vitamin A deficiencies at the point of care. Their work was published Dec. 4 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Vitamin A and iron deficiency affect more than one-third of the world’s population. Problems resulting from these deficiencies – such as blindness, anemia and death, particularly among children and women – are a major public health challenge,” said Dr. Saurabh Mehta, associate professor of global health, epidemiology and nutrition in the Division of Nutritional Sciences, and a senior author on this new research.

“Doctors and health professionals have sought to reduce the burden of micronutrient deficiencies and their consequences, but it’s difficult since we must detect them early on to have the largest impact,” said Mehta. “Most developing countries don’t have access to the needed, sophisticated tools to enable early diagnosis. This test has the potential to solve that.”

At any given time, about 250 million preschool-age children globally are deficient in vitamin A, according to the World Health Organization. In those regions where childhood deficiencies are prevalent, pregnant women are likely vitamin A deficient and anemic, as well. Annually, up to 500,000 vitamin A-deficient children around the world become blind and about half of those children die within a year, as they become vulnerable to other diseases.

The small, portable diagnostic system about the size of a lunchbox contains a blood sample test strip, like those used by diabetics.

The group found a way to include on the test strip three types of antibodies, which bind to specific biomarkers in the individual’s serum. “The sampling process is similar to picking up iron among 14 SPRING 2018

other metals,” said first author Zhengda Lu, a doctoral candidate in mechanical engineering.

The strip measures concentrations of retinol binding protein (important Saurabh Mehta for eyesight), C-reactive protein (an infection indicator) and the protein ferritin (to find anemia).

The test takes just 15 minutes to complete.

“We must address the micronutrient problem at the individual level – which is a much easier task. The key to solving these micronutrient deficiency problems is early detection and early intervention,” said David Erickson, the Sibley College Professor at Cornell’s Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, a senior author on the paper. “Having information, we can change or supplement diets, if we know who is deficient – and we are more likely to prevent complications, and keep children and women healthy.”

In addition to Lu, Mehta and Erickson, the other authors of “A Rapid Diagnostic Testing Platform for Iron and Vitamin A Deficiency” are Dakota O’Dell, Ph.D. ’16; postdoctoral fellow Balaji Srinivasan; and doctoral candidates Elizabeth Rey, Ruisheng Wang and Sasank Vemulapati.

Funding for this research was provided by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and Nutrition International. Both Mehta and Erickson are fellows at Cornell’s Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future.

– Blaine Friedlander

Photos: Cornell University Marketing Group; Pexels; clipart-library. Originally published in the Cornell Chronicle

Cornell team devises rapid test for vitamin A, iron deficits

Inside CHE

IMPROVING FUTURE LIVES

Photos: Cornell University Marketing Group; Jon Reis; Pexels. Originally published in the Cornell Chronicle

Adequate choline in pregnancy may have cognitive benefits for offspring

When expectant mothers consume sufficient amounts of the nutrient choline during pregnancy, their offspring gain enduring cognitive benefits, a new Cornell study suggests.

Choline – found in egg yolks, lean red meat, fish, poultry, legumes, nuts and cruciferous vegetables – has many functions, but this study focused on its role in prenatal brain development.

The researchers, who published their findings online Dec. 7 in the “Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology,” used a rigorous study design to show cognitive benefits in the offspring of pregnant women who daily consumed close to twice the currently recommended amount of choline during their last trimester.

“In animal models using rodents, there’s widespread agreement that supplementing the maternal diet with additional amounts of this single nutrient has lifelong benefits on offspring cognitive function,” said Marie Caudill, professor of nutritional sciences and the study’s first author. “Our study provides some evidence that a similar result is found in humans.”

The finding is important because choline is in high demand during pregnancy yet most women consume less than the recommended 450 milligrams per day.

“Part of that is due to current dietary trends and practices,” said Richard Canfield, a developmental psychologist in the Division of Nutritional Sciences and the senior author of the study. “There are a lot of choline-rich foods that have a bad reputation these days,” he said. Eggs, for example, are high in cholesterol, and health professionals, including those in the government, have raised caution about pregnant women consuming undercooked eggs, which may deter women from eating them altogether, even though such risks are low for pasteurized or cooked eggs, Canfield said. Red meats are often avoided for their high saturated fat content, and liver is not commonly eaten, he added.

Two previous studies by other research teams had mixed results after examining cognitive effects of maternal choline supplementation, perhaps due to study designs that were not tightly controlled, Caudill said.

In this study, 26 women were randomly divided into two groups and all the women consumed exactly the same diet. Intake of choline and other nutrients were tightly controlled, which was important since the metabolism of choline and its functions can overlap with such nutrients as vitamin B12, folic acid and vitamin B6.

“By ensuring that all the nutrients were provided in equal amounts, we could be confident that the differences in the infants

resulted from their choline intake,” Caudill said. In this study, half the women received 480 mg/day of choline, slightly more than the adequate intake level, and the other half received 930 mg/day.

Canfield and co-author Laura Muscalu, a lecturer in the Department of Psychology at Ithaca College, tested infant information processing speed and visuospatial memory at 4, 7, 10 and 13 months of age. They timed how long each infant took to look toward an image on the periphery of a computer screen, a measure of the time it takes for a cue to produce a motor response.

The test has been shown to correlate with IQ in childhood. Also, research by Canfield and others shows that infants who demonstrate fast processing speeds when young typically continue to be fast as they age.

While offspring in both groups showed cognitive benefits, information processing speeds were significantly faster for the group of expectant mothers who consumed 930 mg/day when compared with the group that took 480 mg/day over the same period.

Though the study has a small sample, it suggests that current recommendations for daily choline intake may not be enough to produce optimal cognitive abilities in offspring, Canfield said. Current choline intake recommendations are based on amounts required to prevent liver dysfunction, and were extrapolated from studies done in men in part because no studies had investigated requirements during pregnancy.

“A prudent approach would be to increase dietary choline intake by consuming more animal source foods during pregnancy – egg yolks, lean red meats, fish and poultry,” said Caudill. “For women who restrict animal-sourced foods, consuming a choline supplement that provides choline at a level comparable to 450 mg/day may be needed.”

This study focuses on choline’s importance during fetal development because the nutrient plays key roles in cell membrane structure and function, DNA methylation and gene expression, and is a precursor to the neurotransmitter acetylcholine.

Co-authors include Barbara Strupp, professor, and Julie Nevins, postdoctoral associate, in the Division of Nutritional Sciences.

The study was funded by the Egg Nutrition Center, the Beef Checkoff, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Institute for the Social Sciences, the Bronfenbrenner Life Course Center, and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

– Krishna Ramanujan

Marie Caudill

Richard Canfield

Barbara Strupp

Julie Nevins

HUMAN ECOLOGY 15

ACCOMPLISHED LEADER The Division of Nutritional Sciences brought Catherine Bertini, former executive director of the United Nations World Food Program, to campus to deliver the Joyce Lindower Wolitzer ’76 and Steven Wolitzer Nutritional Seminar in February. The annual seminar series brings to campus a nationally-renowned speaker, innovator, or leader in the field of nutrition who will broaden the awareness of potential career opportunities for students studying human nutrition.

The lecture, “Maximizing Research Findings by Connecting Research to Policy Change,” highlighted links between the academic and policy worlds that influence and impact change at home and around the globe.

“This year, we are thrilled to be joined by Catherine Bertini who, as a distinguished leader in international organization management, humanitarian action, agricultural development and poverty reduction, has impacted countless lives around the world through her work ensuring individuals and families in dire need have the nutritional resources they required,” said Patricia Cassano, interim director of the Division of Nutritional Sciences.

An accomplished leader in international organization reform, Bertini has had a distinguished career improving the efficiency

and operations of organizations serving poor and hungry people Cassano and Bertini in the United States and around the world.

As executive director of the United Nations World Food Program from 1992 to 2002, Bertini was named World Food Prize laureate in 2003. She is a Rockefeller Foundation fellow and distinguished fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

In addition to the lecture, Bertini met informally with graduate and undergraduate student organizations and one-on-one with Cornell faculty.

Jennifer Rouin, assistant dean for Alumni Affairs and Development at the College of Human Ecology, said “we are so grateful to Joyce and Steven Wolitzer for their generous support endowing this annual lecture to expose students to the incredible breadth of opportunities that exist in the wide-world of nutrition.”

– Stephen D’Angelo

Adapted from the Cornell Chronicle

Wolitzer seminar hosts Catherine Bertini

TOP HONORS

Ziebarth receives Vernon Memorial Award

16 SPRING FALL 2017 2018

natural curiosity as an empirical researcher who wants to know: what do the data tell me?”

The researchers found that these regulations are indeed effective in raising the age of children riding in safety seats. But not all parents are influenced equally: Those already using regular seatbelts tend to switch to safety seats, while those not restraining their children rarely start to do so.

Because, as Ziebarth and Jones confirmed in a prior study, safety seats are not more effective at preventing fatalities than seatbelts for children aged two to six, the laws merely shift compliant parents between equally safe measures and overall do not significantly reduce the likelihood of children dying in a fatal accident.

“I believe this is a good example of relevant public policy research,” said Ziebarth. “It triggers people’s attention and desire to talk about it, as we all care about child safety and most of us have first-hand experience with child safety seats.”

Now he and Jones hope to spark more research and discussion by publishing their work outside of their own field in interdisciplinary journals. “I also hope that

Nicolas Ziebarth

journals will publish zero effect findings more often, which is important for a balanced evaluation of public policy,” he added.

Receiving a best paper award is hardly a new experience for Ziebarth. Since 2010 he has racked up a total of ten awards for research he has co-authored, most recently the prize for the best health economics paper in 2017 by the German Health Economics Association.

“I am very excited and grateful for this wonderful award,” he said. “JPAM is our top field journal and the signature journal of the Association of Public Policy Analysis and Management. Being selected as the number one paper means a lot to us and is a big motivation to continue to work hard on policy-relevant, high-quality research.”

– Olivia Hall

Mark Vorreuter

Nicolas Ziebarth, associate professor of Policy Analysis and Management, and Lauren Jones Ph.D. ’14, assistant professor of consumer sciences at Ohio State University, earned top honors in their field last year.

The co-authors became recipients of the 2017 Raymond Vernon Memorial Award, given annually for the best paper in that year’s volume of the “Journal of Policy Analysis and Management” (JPAM).

The prize committee selected their paper “U.S. Child Safety Seat Laws: Are They Effective and Who Complies?” from among 548 total submissions to JPAM in 2017, fewer than 10 percent of which were published in the journal.

For Ziebarth and Jones, the prize recognizes several years of work motivated by state laws that require children to ride in safety seats for longer periods – an average of 6 years, up from about 2 years in the early 1990s.

“It is an example of a largely overlooked government regulation that has become increasingly stringent,” Ziebarth said. “Few people would question the rationale of such laws because we are talking about child safety. Still, such public policies trigger my

Inside CHE

FRESH AIR

New air quality research to impact next generation

Cornell University Marketing Group; Provided

Laquatra and Tripathii presenting their research

The appearance of R2D2 is perhaps the only giveaway that something is different about the article “Managing Indoor Air Quality in the Child Breathing Zone: Risk Analysis and Mitigation,” published in the March 2018 issue of the “Journal of Architectural Engineering.”

The Star Wars robot rolled out of the toy box and into a scientific experiment thanks to the improvisational creativity of 16-year-old high school student Eeshan Tripathii, who co-authored the paper with his mentor Joseph Laquatra, professor emeritus of Design and Environmental Analysis.

Tripathii’s interest in the topic was first piqued four years ago when he encountered visible smog on a trip to India and subsequently learned that indoor air quality poses a significant risk in the United States, as well. “The prospect of finding a solution is most thrilling,” said Tripathii, a junior at The Dalton School in New York City. “But initially, I was really overwhelmed by the magnitude of the problem.”

So he and his family reached out to Laquatra, who has been happy to draw on his more than three decades of research and extension work on indoor air quality to guide his young protégé through the process of conducting scientific research and publishing its results. Since 2016, the co-authors have corresponded regularly by email, visited each other’s homes near Ithaca and in Montclair, New Jersey, and presented together at a professional conference.

“I have been moved by the importance Eeshan attaches to his work,” Laquatra said. “He displays a thorough understanding of the issues he focuses on and chooses strong methodological approaches

for his analyses. His findings have been solid contributions to knowledge in the field.”

These discoveries are the result of Tripathii’s at-home experiments on the dispersal of air pollutants, such as volatile organic compounds (VOCs) present in paint, treated hardwood and other everyday use products. He found that heavier pollutants tend to settle down into the child breathing zone just above the floor and get re-dispersed as young children – simulated by R2D2 in the study – move about. Not only are children therefore exposed to more polluted air than adults, but they breathe it in at a faster rate per minute and – with their still developing bodies – are physiologically more vulnerable to any adverse effects.

For his initial solution, a smartphone app that uses inexpensive sensors to monitor air quality and sends an alert and remediation instructions when it detects pollutants, Tripathii was named one of five North American finalists in the 2016 Google Science Fair’s “Community Impact” category.

Having read Laquatra’s research on the disproportionate exposure to pollutants in low-income households, Tripathii is now developing prototypes of a cost-effective ventilation system that automatically improves indoor air quality. “Professor Laquatra has been a real source of inspiration,” he said. “He always takes the time to discuss my research, my ideas for solutions, and their potential value in the real world. I want to follow his lead and create solutions that can reach everyone.”

– Olivia Hall HUMAN ECOLOGY 17

NEW ONLINE CERTIFICATE Financial Success for Nonprofits launched by CIPA In November, Human Ecology’s Cornell Institute for Public Affairs (CIPA) launched its first online certificate, “Financial Success for Nonprofits,” to prepare professionals to guide non-profits to financial sustainability amid rapid changes in technology, policy and wealth distribution. The certificate is offered through eCornell.

“This program provides a crucial orientation to today’s nonprofit world. We move beyond numbers to examine perceptions of impact, and what happens when things aren’t going well and leaders have to love an organization enough to make the hard decisions,” said Joseph Grasso, faculty author of the certificate and associate dean for finance, administration and corporate relations at the ILR School.

Financial Success for Nonprofits consists of four courses that can be completed over

two months in three to five hours per week.

It prepares students to use and interpret nonprofit financial statements and ratios; create a realistic budget using good judgment and strategic analysis of programmatic impact; assess opportunities for influence and develop a structured fundraising program; and establish healthy board governance through consensus decision-making, awareness, and fiduciary accountability.

According to the organizers, the certificate is ideal for CEOs, executive directors, new board members, administrators, and program staff from all types of nonprofits, and for lawyers who serve the non-profit sector.

Students who complete the certificate earn a Financial Success for Nonprofits Certificate from the College of Human Ecology.

Joseph Grasso

– Lisa Jervey Lennox

STUDENT SIMULATION

On March 3, Human Ecology’s Cornell Institute for Public Affairs (CIPA) organized and acted as one of 16 international host sites for the 2018 NASPAA-Batten Student Simulation Competition.

The program is an experiential learning opportunity for graduate students in public administration.

The competition calls for students to gather at university sites around the globe on one of two given dates and compete in a one-day immersive simulation of a public policy challenge.

This year, the topic was a pandemic. The Cornell site hosted 31 public policy students from a higher education programs in the northeastern United States.

During the simulation, students played roles that public administration leaders would have to fill should there be an outbreak of a deadly infectious disease. Students worked within the confines of governing bodies to reassess the rules and institutions that govern health policy, public safety, economics, and leadership at the subnational, national, regional, and global levels.

“Competitions like this one take students out of the classroom and pit them against students from other top schools,” said CIPA 18 SPRING 2018

lecturer Rebecca Brenner, who oversaw the logistics for the Cornell simulation site. “They are pushed to their limits, as they will be in real life, with the intensity of the challenge driving new ideas and innovation.”

“They learn things they cannot in the classroom such as how to build traction and consensus for an idea,” she said. “This is practice for the real-world competition that awaits them in their careers, as they work to implement change for a more sustainable global community.”

NASPAA – the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration – is the membership organization of graduate education programs in public policy, public affairs, public administration, and public and nonprofit management. The organization sponsors competitions to support public service education and training.

“It’s an honor to host a competition like this one,” said CIPA Executive Director, Thomas O’Toole. “I also want to express my sincere thanks to Rebecca for submitting a strong proposal to NASPAA.”

Cornell University Marketing Group; Provided

CIPA Hosts ‘Pandemic’ Policy Competition

Inside CHE

GENEROUS DONATION Anonymous gift sends CIPA students to summit

Provided

A generous donation from a Cornell alumnus covered the travel expenses and registration fees for seven CIPA students to attend the annual Entrepreneurship at Cornell Summit in New York City on Nov. 3.

“Because of this alum’s generosity, these students were exposed to cutting edge practices in entrepreneurship,” said CIPA Executive Director Thomas O’Toole. “This experience was particularly important for students pursuing careers in the public and nonprofit sectors, insofar as entrepreneurship has traditionally been ‘owned’ by the private sector. It’s time to change that mentality.”

Vanisha Harma PAM’ 18, one of the seven CIPA students who attended the Summit, found the event highly inspirational. “We were able to interact with young and established entrepreneurs face-to-face and

learn from their real-life success stories,” she said. “For me, the highlight was an interview

by Jennifer Hyman, the CEO and co-founder of Rent-the-Runway.” An online business that promotes renting of clothes rather than buying, Rent-the-Runway aims to bring about a behavioral change in consumers, encouraging them to become more environmentally friendly.

Second-year student Molly Warrington was grateful that an alum came forward to sponsor this event. “If it was not for the generosity of the donor, we would not have been able to attend the Summit,” she said. “It was great to be able to interact with so many impressive individuals from the Cornell community. I left feeling inspired to follow their lead.”

The Summit featured leaders involved in a wide variety of entrepreneurship ventures across the public and private sectors. Cornell

The competition fit with the College’s mission for educating students, said Alan Mathios, Rebecca Q. and James C. Morgan Dean of the College of Human Ecology.

“I’m really excited that NASPAA has chosen Cornell and the College of Human Ecology to help host this competition,” he said.

“The mission statement of Human Ecology is improving lives by exploring and shaping human connections to natural, social, and built environments, and that mission statement is so, so connected with this issue of pandemics. It’s just a natural fit for us to be focused on that.”

During the competition, student teams identified potential solutions and prepared strategy recommendations to present to judges. Students described the competition as an exciting and eyeopening experience that they will inform their professional lives.

“The NASPAA-Batten Student Simulation Competition was a unique and unforgettable experience,” said Sarah Cartagena MPA ’19 who participated in the simulation. “It exposed me to the complexities of real life crisis situations and allowed me to visualize the impact that political decisions can have in the life of real people.”

President Martha Pollack served as the keynote speaker. Other presenters included Liza Landsman, president of Jet.com; J.J. Ramberg, host of MSNBC’s Your Business; and Robert F. Smith, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Vista Equity Partners and winner of the 2017 Cornell Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

– Lisa Jervey Lennox

“Most importantly, this competition taught me the importance of teamwork and patience in unpredictable situations. After completing this simulation, I now feel better prepared to tackle real-life policy issues,” she said.

The Cornell site winners, which included five CIPA students, were Nida Mahmud MPA ’19, Joe VerValin MPA ’18, Bethany Lauren Jones MPA ’19 and Muhammad Saad Arshad (Syracuse) from Team World One, and Sarah Cartagena MPA ’19, Rafia Farooqui MPA ‘18 and Jessica DePasquale (Buffalo State) from Team World Two. Winners at each site moved on to compete against each other for the overall top award, with Team World One winning Third Place overall.

This Simulation Competition was first designed by NASPAA in 2015 to support and encourage more experiential learning in the classroom, especially in the realm of public policy and administration education. In 2016, NASPAA announced a five-year affiliation agreement to partner with the University of Virginia Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy for its Student Simulation Competition.

– Lisa Jervey Lennox HUMAN ECOLOGY 19

LASTING LEGACY

Professorship of Alan Mathios comes to fruition Support of the College of Human Ecology’s faculty has been unrivaled under Alan Mathios’ deanship, which will span more than a decade when he steps down from the role in June 2018. His efforts will leave the College in a strong, competitive position for years to come.

In this spirit, and in recognition of Dean Mathios’ extraordinary leadership, alumni have honored his foresight and dedication to the College by establishing the Alan D. Mathios Professorship of Human Ecology.

Over the past year, a number of alumni have come together to provide the $3 million needed to endow such a professorship, which both acknowledges Mathios’ contributions to Cornell and the College of Human Ecology, and continues the promising legacy of faculty renewal he began a decade ago.

“The Spring 2017 Ezra Magazine had a photo of Dean Alan Mathios with a quote, ‘endowed professorships to me are the gold standard in philanthropy because they allow us to retain and recruit top faculty,’” said Susan Kurz Snyder ’81, Chair of the Dean’s Advisory Council. “That was around the time when several members of the Council were trying to figure out how to honor Alan as he entered his tenth and final year as Dean.”

“We took his words to heart, and set out with an ambitious goal to raise the funds to endow a professorship in his name for the College.”

The professorship places the College in an even stronger position to recruit and retain exceptional faculty – teachers of future global leaders, forward-thinking researchers, multidisciplinary collaborators, and achievers of national and international recognition.

“This would support Alan’s personal passion for teaching and also enable him to reach his goal of establishing ten endowed professorships during his tenure as Dean,” Snyder said. “The outpouring of appreciation and love for Alan was spectacular.”

Alan Mathios

The recent wave of faculty retirements and appointments, unprecedented in number and scope during Mathios’ tenure as dean, not only presents a unique challenge but also an extraordinary opportunity to determine the trajectory of a range of fields at Cornell during the next several decades. This new endowed professorship, in tandem with the recruitment of exceptional new faculty over the last 10 years, will stand as an enduring tribute to all he has accomplished for the College now and far into the future.

Under Mathios’ leadership, the College of Human Ecology has responded to this challenge by hiring 40 new faculty, keeping pace with retirements and created a once-in-ageneration infusion of talent that will define our success and reputation in the years ahead.

“Everyone has the utmost reverence for his accomplishments, passion and devotion to the College, and so all whom were asked to contribute stepped up in an incredible way,” Snyder said. “It is everyone’s hope that this will serve as a legacy to honor Alan in perpetuity for his outstanding and unparalleled contribution to the College.”

– Stephen D’Angelo

SUSTAINABILITY CHAMPION Marianne Arcangeli

Marianne Arcangeli, administrative assistant and student services representative at the College of Human Ecology, has been recognized as the first Cornell University Staff Sustainability Champion for her contributions to sustainable development and social equity on the Cornell campus.

The new Staff Sustainability Champions program, developed by the Employee Assembly and the Campus Sustainability Office, recognizes staff members who exemplify Cornell’s commitment to 20 SPRING FALL 2017 2018

sustainability, showing leadership and initiative to catalyze change for a more sustainable campus and planet. Anyone can submit a nomination at any time, and those recognized will be featured in the Employee Assembly newsletter, on the Sustainable Campus blog and newsletter, and by Career/Life Digest. Every Staff Sustainability Champion will also be considered for the annual Cornell University Partners in Sustainability Awards. Nominations for this program recognize students, faculty and community partners, as well as staff.

Arcangeli coordinated the Winter Blues and Greens cooking demonstrations this year for Human Ecology’s Green Ambassadors and college staff and faculty interested in community well-being and sustainability.

The event, held in the Department of

Nutritional Science’s cooking lab, focused on sustainable cooking techniques and healthy recipes. Arcangeli was responsible for finding the presenters, advertising the series, purchasing food and supplying the attendees with the recipes.

Arcangeli also organized a presentation on local community-supported agriculture models (CSAs) that deliver to Human Ecology. Despite a busy job, including covering for a co-worker out with illness, Arcangeli has been a cheerful and active part of the Green Ambassadors, say those who nominated her.

Arcangeli says her deep commitment to sustainability is inspired by her love for her granddaughters and her respect for the late Angela Stedwell, Human Ecology SUPER Green team member.

– Nancy Doolittle

Cornell University Marketing Group ; Mark Vorreuter

Marianne Arcangeli recognized as first Staff Sustainability Champion

Inside CHE

RECREATIONAL SPACES Designing safer and healthier places

By Mardelle Shepley, professor and chair of Design and Environmental Analysis

I went to college in New York City in the early 1970s. The crime rate was very high during that period and, living as a poor student in underserved neighborhoods, I was personally a victim of violent crime on multiple occasions. Apart from Central Park, welltended greenspace, pocket parks or tree-lined streets were a rare commodity. As students we felt this deficit at our core. Columbia University lies alongside Morningside Park and the possibility that a new gymnasium was going to be built there, and diminish one of Harlem’s amenities, sparked a campus protest that changed the culture of university campuses for decades. What we knew then and still know now is that access to nature is critical to quality of life.

Most of us, when asked to recall our most poignant and pleasant childhood memory, place it in an outdoor setting – hanging out in a makeshift tree fort or eating ice cream on a building stoop in the sun. This affinity for nature is called biophilia. As we evolved, we benefited from focusing on nature. Attending to sources of water and food and environments that helped us avoid saber-toothed tigers were critical to survival.

This evolutionary prerogative has been demonstrated by environmental psychologists who have found that access to nature has stress-reducing effects and increases life satisfaction. But there is another interesting implication. Recent researchers have concluded that the presence of parks and other greenspace may also reduce urban crime.

While people may not think of the physical environment as playing a role in mitigating negative social behaviors, evidence strongly suggests that it does. A multidisciplinary team from the University of Pennsylvania, US Department of Agriculture – Forest Service and Washington State University found that blight remediation of abandoned lots in Philadelphia significantly reduced crime.

And, if saving human life and the reducing the associated personal and societal loss isn’t impetus enough, there are fiscal benefits to reductions in violent crime.

The research team also determined that taxpayer returns on investment for the prevention of firearm violence were $26 for every dollar spent on remediation. Relatedly, the National Institutes of Health estimates that costs for a single murder, such as economic loss of victims, police service, adjudication, and corrections program expenses, are almost $1.3 million.

Mardelle Shepley Some might argue against expenditures on parks and greenspace as these investments are perceived to play less of a role in mitigating violence than social programs. While social initiatives are significant, the contribution of the physical environment cannot be denied. Good public spaces support desirable behaviors and inappropriate public spaces provide the opportunity for criminal behavior. The provision of outdoor amenities is a social program.

The public understands these issues. In a recent study by Cornell University researchers, 80 percent of respondents agreed that the environment had an impact on behavior. In this study researchers found that two-thirds of the respondents who have attractive nature sights in their vicinity also perceived their neighborhood to be a place where people look out for one another. This outcome speaks to the strong relationship between greenspace and social cohesiveness.

Why is greenspace so powerful? The presence of parks suggests that the community is important to the city government and creates civic pride. As a result, parks may contribute to community adhesion.

There are many other reasons. Outdoor recreational spaces provide the opportunity for youth activities in a venue made safe by public surveillance and thereby may deter gang violence. Outdoor gathering spaces provide the opportunity for interaction among neighborhood members, which increases familiarity and mutual investment in well-being. Parks provide the opportunity for exercise, which enhances our mental acuity and may reduce obesity.

Additionally, based on the studies discussed previously, nature may simply have a calming impact on our state of mind. Who can deny the healing effect of a walk through a park? Rock Creek Park in Washington, DC, which is visited more frequently than the White House, is a testimonial to this.

The designers of cities are not interested in producing “just another pretty face.” They want to help change the world and make it a safer and healthier place. To accomplish this goal we must engage in efforts that allow for the remediation of vacant lots, contribute to street tree planting programs, support the maintenance and enhancement of existing greenspaces, and set aside property for the development of future parks. We must hold on tenaciously to our existing parks, both urban and rural, as an investment in the health and well-being of our society.

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This Op-Ed originally ran in the Times Union

HUMAN ECOLOGY 21

NEW FACULTY

New College of Human Ecology faculty for 2017-2018 Fatma Baytar, assistant professor, Department of Fiber Science & Apparel Design Academic focus: Virtual prototyping, human-computer interaction in apparel product development, 3D body scanning, technology-enabled sustainability.

Previous positions: Assistant professor, Iowa State University, 2011-17.

Academic background: B.S., textile engineering, Uludag University, 2000; M.S., textile engineering, Istanbul Technical University, 2003; Ph.D., apparel design, Cornell University, 2011.

Daniel Berry, assistant professor, Division of Nutritional Sciences Academic focus: Obesity and systemic metabolism, with a primary focus on adipose stem cell function and their niche.

Previous positions: Postdoctoral Fellow University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas Texas (June 2012-July 2017).

Academic background: B.S., Biology with a concentration in Environmental Science, State University of New York at Cortland (2005); Ph.D., Molecular Nutrition in the Department of Nutrition at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (2011).

Daniel Casasanto, associate professor, Department of Human Development Academic focus: Cognitive diversity: how language, culture and bodily experience shape our brains and minds.

Previous positions: Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, The New School, New York.

Academic background: 2005 Ph.D. in Brain & Cognitive Sciences Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1996 G.P.D. in Vocal Performance Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University, 1993 B.A. in English Literature and Vocal Performance Oberlin College and Oberlin Conservatory of Music.

Tashara M. Leak, the Lois and Mel Tukman Endowed Assistant Professor, Division of Nutritional Science Academic focus: Child and adolescent nutrition; childhood obesity prevention and treatment; sociocultural and environmental influences on dietary behaviors; public health nutrition and food policy.

Previous positions: Postdoctoral scholar, University of California, Berkeley, 2015-2017.

Academic background: B.A. Romance Languages (Spanish), University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (2007); M.S. Nutrition, Meredith College (2010); and Ph.D. Nutrition, University of Minnesota, Twin-Cities (2015).

Angela Poole, assistant professor, Division of Nutritional Sciences Academic focus: The interplay between diet, host factors, and microbiota and the resulting effects on host physiology.

Academic background: B. S., Engineering & Applied Sciences, California Institute of Technology; Ph.D., Genome Sciences, University of Washington at Seattle.

22 SPRING FALL 2017 2018

Mark Vorreuter

Previous positions: postdoctoral research associate, Cornell; research associate, Pennington Biomedical Research Center.

Inside CHE

IMPACTING NEW YORK STATE Grant to unite Cornell, partners in fight against opioids

116 Dunifon

People die everyday from opioid-related drug overdoes

11.5 m

People misused prescription opioids Tach

Sources: 2016 National Survey on Drug Use and Health

public engagement mission from the start has been about breaking The College of Human Ecology, in down boundaries between academic research and its application to partnership with Cornell Cooperative policy and practice.”

Extension-Tompkins County (CCEShe continued, “This grant supports a true collaborative researchTompkins), has been awarded the William T. Grant Foundation’s practice partnership that brings together faculty and community first Institutional Challenge Grant to respond to increasing rates educators to address a pressing local issue: the opioid epidemic. We of opioid abuse and child maltreatment in low income, rural will not only generate cutting-edge research on this important communities in upstate New York. topic, we will also provide faculty and our community The foundation supports research to improve the partners with the time, funds and skills necessary lives of young people. The award seeks to shift to engage in this type of research collaboration. how research institutions value research and to By doing this, we will pave the way for future encourage them to build sustained research“The vision of the research-practice partnerships to succeed.” practice partnerships with public agencies or grant reflects the mission A committee of faculty and CCE-Tompkins staff nonprofit organizations to reduce inequality in of our College and the will select faculty members to serve as fellows youth outcomes. land-grant mission of and receive mentoring from the partnership leads.

“Typically, universities reward faculty members Cornell University.”

Tach, an associate professor of policy analysis for publishing articles in academic journals,” said – Rachel Dunifon and management, is the first faculty fellow selected Adam Gamoran, foundation president. “This grant under the grant, and will bring her expertise in challenges universities to reward faculty members poverty and social policy to the project. whose research is directed to public service. The To support this work, housed in the Bronfenbrenner winning application will support research on one of our Center for Translational Research, Cornell has committed most vexing social problems, the opioid crisis, in a partnership a postdoctoral fellow for the first half of the award, a faculty that is poised to take action on the basis of the findings.” fellowship, and an undergraduate internship at CCE-Tompkins. The The winning team, led by College of Human Ecology professors College of Human Ecology will also review current support for Rachel Dunifon and Laura Tach and CCE-Tompkins program research-practice partnerships, initiate conversations about how such coordinator Anna Steinkraus, will attempt to understand the work is measured and valued, and build capacity at CCE-Tompkins association between opioid use and child maltreatment rates; to facilitate high-quality evaluation work. examine the role of family drug treatment courts in mitigating child “We are excited to partner with the College of Human Ecology maltreatment; and evaluate evidence-based interventions that may on this project, focusing on the opioid epidemic that has affected reduce the risk of opioid abuse for low-income youth and families. communities all across New York state and the country,” said Findings from each study will be used to improve local practices Steinkraus, a principal investigator on the grant. and programs.

The College of Human Ecology will receive $650,000 over three “We are honored to have been chosen, as the vision of the grant years, with the opportunity to apply for a two-year continuation grant. reflects the mission of our College and the land-grant mission of Cornell University,” Dunifon said. “The College of Human Ecology’s – Stephen D’Angelo

Photos: Mark Vorreuter, Pexels, Provided; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Originally published in the Cornell Chronicle

Steinkraus

HUMAN ECOLOGY 23

NEW LEADERSHIP

Rachel Dunifon

R

achel Dunifon, professor in the Department of Policy Analysis and Management and senior associate dean for research and outreach in the College of Human Ecology, will become interim dean of the College July 1, Provost Michael Kotlikoff announced Jan. 23. Her appointment was approved by the State University of New York Board of Trustees.

Dunifon succeeds Alan D. Mathios, who is stepping down after leading the College as the Rebecca Q. and James C. Morgan dean for two five-year terms, preceded by one year as interim dean and three years as associate dean. Dunifon will serve until June 30, 2020, at which time a permanent dean will be named.

“With her experience guiding the College’s research and outreach efforts, Rachel brings a wealth of leadership experience to the College of Human Ecology,” Kotlikoff said. “Furthermore, Rachel has demonstrated scholarly excellence as a researcher focused on child and family policy, including many projects conducted with community partners outside Cornell. She is widely respected across the College’s faculty, staff and students, and offers a steady administrative hand for the continued growth of the College.”

Mathios reiterated these sentiments. “As senior associate dean, Rachel has proven her outstanding leadership skills, her deep understanding of the breadth of the College mission, and developed superb collaboration with the leadership teams in the College and in the provost’s office,” he said. “The College will be in great hands.”

Dunifon, who joined the Cornell faculty in 2001, is a leading scholar in child and family policy whose research explores the

24 SPRING 2018

development of vulnerable children. Her forthcoming book, “You’ve Always Been There for Me,” explores the lives of children being raised by their grandparents. She is also co-director of Cornell Project 2Gen, a new project housed in the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research that addresses the needs of at-risk children and their parents. Her work has been supported by a William T. Grant Foundation Scholars Award and the National Institutes of Health, and she has published widely in top academic journals.

As senior associate dean, Dunifon oversaw faculty recruitment and development, provided leadership for the College’s outreach and extension programs, and coordinated graduate education in the College. In this role, Dunifon has launched several initiatives to facilitate research and played a key role in several university-wide initiatives related to public engagement and Cornell’s land-grant mission.

Dunifon said she appreciates the opportunity to lead the College of Human Ecology. “Having started as a junior faculty member in the College, I have built my career here and have benefited from the College of Human Ecology’s strong intellectual community,” she said. “The College and its success are very important to me, and I am honored to lead the College over the coming years.”

Dunifon received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Davidson College in 1994. She earned a Ph.D. in human development and social policy from Northwestern University in 1999, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Michigan School of Public Policy.

Cornell University Marketing Group

Interim Dean

Cover Story

IN RACHEL’S WORDS What I love about the College of Human Ecology:

My guiding principles:

This is an incredibly exciting time of growth for Human Ecology.

We are soon to begin the renovation of our historic Martha Van Rensselaer building and are hiring an unprecedented number of faculty. I am energized and excited to lead the College forward as we bring these new spaces and faces into place in support of our mission.

The College of Human Ecology plays a leading role on campus in bringing multiple disciplines together to address society’s most pressing issues and ensuring that students have extraordinary opportunities to apply knowledge outside the classroom. Throughout its history and into the present time, the College focuses on going beyond the walls of the University and engaging with households and families in the state through its extension mission.

First, I want to focus on enhancing the student experience by continuing to support and further provide unique and enriching experiences for our undergraduates. This would include connecting students with institutes and programs such as the Cornell Cooperative Extension internship program and the Program for Research on Youth Development and Engagement.

Second, I want to continue to foster a sense of community that brings students, faculty and staff together to focus on a shared vision that highlights and elevates the College’s contributions to innovation and growth on campus and beyond.

Finally, I want to encourage multidisciplinary and translational research that addresses human health and well-being by engaging with communities throughout New York State as well as outside of the state, domestically and abroad.

This includes supporting our many students working on undergraduate research in Human Ecology (currently the highest rate of all schools and colleges at Cornell), which is vital to our mission.

Our work has three key characteristics: Applied – directly and more swiftly addressing important issues like poverty, inequality, health, and sustainability.

Multidisciplinary – engaging and utilizing insights from disciplines across campus, including synergies like law and psychology, nutrition and engineering, and fiber science and technology.

Innovative – leveraging our approach and outlook in new, unique and creative ways.

All of these come together to benefit students, preparing them for the job market, continuing scholarship and entrepreneurship.

“Rachel has demonstrated scholarly excellence as a researcher focused on child and family policy, including many projects conducted with community partners outside Cornell. She is widely respected across the college’s faculty, staff and students, and offers a steady administrative hand for the continued growth of the College.”

Dede Hatch

– Michael Kotlikoff, Provost, Cornell University

HUMAN ECOLOGY 25

NEW LEADERSHIP

Karl Pillemer

Patricia Cassano

Senior Associate Dean for Research and Outreach

Interim Director Division of Nutritional Sciences

Beginning July 1, Karl Pillemer, the Hazel E. Reed Professor in the Department of Human Development, will begin serving as senior associate dean for research and outreach at Human Ecology – a role vacated

by Professor Rachel Dunifon, who accepted the position of interim dean of the College.

Pillemer brings a wealth of administrative experience to this role, including previous service as associate dean and roles as director of the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research and director of the Cornell Institute for Translational Research on Aging.

This new position means his departure from his role as director of the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research, a post he has held since 2015. He will be succeeded at the Center by Christopher Wildeman, professor of Policy Analysis and Management.

“I am pleased and honored to be invited to fill this role,” Pillemer said.

“Coming to the College was a careerchanging event for me, allowing me to conduct research in real-world settings and endorsing my efforts to create a better marriage of science and service.

This is a great opportunity to give back and to help our incredible cohort of younger faculty to achieve career success.”

Pillemer joined the Department of Human Development in 1990 and is a world-renowned scholar on family and social relationships in later life. He excels at the integration of cutting-edge research and outreach.

26 SPRING FALL 2017 2018

His major interests center on human development over the life course, with a special emphasis on family and social relationships in middle age and beyond.

His current research projects span his interests in aging and the family, longterm and palliative care, developing effective models for translational research, and studies of elder wisdom.

“It’s fantastic to be taking on a position in an organization that is in such a position of strength, but also has room to develop in new ways,” he said. “When I was in graduate school, there were endless debates about ‘basic’ versus ‘applied’ research. The seamless link that’s been forged in our College makes that argument seem tired and obsolete.

“The College is a model for excellence in research that has implications for human problems. It integrates scholars from a range of disciplines; indeed, I don’t think there is another entity with more cross-disciplinary collaboration than Human Ecology,” he said.

“As a sign of these strengths, we attract outstanding graduate students and undergraduates, and maintain a vast array of extension and outreach projects.

Other universities are trying to invent what we have here now, so in Human Ecology, we are way ahead of the curve in terms of radical collaboration, integration of social science and medical research, and translational research models.”

Along with his roles within the College of Human Ecology, Pillemer is also professor of gerontology in Medicine, Division of Geriatrics, Weill Cornell Medical College.

Patricia Cassano, professor in the Division of Nutritional Sciences, took the role of interim director of the Division on March 1, replacing former director Patrick Stover who accepted the role of Vice Chancellor and Dean of Agriculture and Life Science for the Texas A&M System.

“I am honored to have the opportunity to further serve the Division, the College and the University,” said Cassano, who has served as the Division’s Associate Director since 2015.

“I am excited to be working on behalf of the faculty, staff and students in the Division, and I am looking forward to continuing to build and nurture a positive and supportive environment, to strengthen cross-University connections, to build on existing external relationships, and to forge new relationships that bring distinction to Cornell,” she said.

Joining the Division in 1989, Cassano is a chronic disease epidemiologist with interests in nutrition and genetics and specialized expertise in the etiology of respiratory diseases. During her time at Cornell, Cassano has distinguished herself as an administrative leader and an influential epidemiologist.

She is also a professor of healthcare policy and research at Weill Medical College, director of Graduate Studies for the minor field of epidemiology in the Cornell University Graduate School, and leads the WHO/Cochrane/Cornell University Summer Institute for Systematic Reviews in Nutrition for Global Policy Making.

The Division will continue on its positive course under Cassano’s direction, said Dean Alan Mathios, “especially given the depth and breadth of her experience and scholarship and her dedication to the Division, the College and the University.”

Qi Wang

Mardelle Shepley

Chair Human Development

Chair Design + Environmental Design

Qi Wang, professor of Human Development, was named chair of the Department of Human Development and began her five-year term on July 1, 2017. Her appointment follows Professor Charles Brainerd, who spent five-and a-half years at the helm of the department.

Wang, who earned a Ph.D. in psychology from Harvard University, joined Human Ecology in 2000 after a role as a teaching fellow at the Boston-based Ivy League University.

Under Wang’s leadership, the department continues to embrace its ecological tradition to study human development in context. She seeks to enhance its academic distinction, expand its interdisciplinary strength and methodological rigor, and address questions of real-world relevance and fundamental theoretical importance.

“The department will strive for excellence by conducting and disseminating innovative scientific research, increasing outreach efforts to serve the community and society, training first-rate research scientists, educators, and practitioners, and providing an outstanding undergraduate education that prepares students for real-world challenges,” Wang said.

“My main priorities during my time as chair will be to continue to build a world-class faculty, expand our interdisciplinary focus, strengthen resources for research and student training, and increase the national and international visibility of the department.”

Wang’s research examines the mechanisms underlying the development of social cognition in the context of culture.

In 2013, she wrote the book “The Autobiographical Self in Time and Culture,” which is regarded as the definitive work on culture and autobiographical memory. Her research has been published frequently in top psychology journals.

Wang directs the Culture & Social Cognition Lab, where she and her students study a variety of socialcognitive processes, examining their developmental causes and consequences in cultural context. Integrating developmental, cognitive, and sociocultural perspectives, her research examines autobiographical memory, future thinking, self-concept, and emotion knowledge in children and adults and investigates the influence of social media on cognitive functioning and well-being.

Mardelle Shepley, professor in the Department of Design + Environmental Analysis (DEA), accepted the position of chair of the Department starting July 1, 2017.

She will serve a three-year term in the role.

Shepley took over the reins of DEA from Professor Sheila Danko, who served as chair for eight years and has recently moved on into retirement.

“The Department of Design + Environmental Analysis is currently in the process of hiring multiple new faculty due to recent retirements,” said Shepley, who joined the department in 2014. “This is an exciting time for DEA, as the hiring decisions we make now will impact the course of the department for many years to come.”

“Mardelle will add great strength to the leadership team of the College and foster and support the great work that is done in DEA,” said Dean Alan Mathios.

Shepley’s research focuses primarily on the impact of the physical environment on human health and well-being. The constructs of her studies are based on the art and science of design and psychology. As a design practitioner, her research is characterized by its translational contact, meaning it generates data that is readily applicable to practice.

In addition to her research, teaching and chair duties, Shepley is an associate director with the Cornell Institute for Healthy Futures, which combines hospitality, environmental design, and health policy and management into a broad-based platform to improve service in health care, wellness, and senior living.

Previously, she served a professor at Texas A&M University, where she was director of the Center for Health Systems & Design from 2004-2014. Shepley is a fellow in the American Institute of Architects and the American College of Healthcare Architects. She is LEED and EDAC certified, the author of six books, and was the recipient of the 2017 Changemaker award from the Center for Health Design.

Cornell University Marketing Group ; Mark Vorreuter

Cover Story

HUMAN ECOLOGY 27

NEW LEADERSHIP

Chris Wildeman

Kay Obendorf

Director, Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research

Interim Chair Fiber Science & Apparel Design

Christopher Wildeman, professor in the Department of Policy Analysis and Management, will become Director of the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research (BCTR) on July 1.

Wildeman’s research on mass incarceration and child maltreatment has not only advanced research knowledge in these important areas, but also informed programs and policies for vulnerable families, said Rachel Dunifon, the College’s interim dean.

“I know that the BCTR will be in excellent hands under Chris’ leadership,” she said.

Wildeman’s research emphasizes the prevalence, causes, and consequences of parental incarceration and child welfare contact for families in Denmark and the United States.

He has served as associate director of the BCTR since 2016, where he has played a key role in fostering faculty engagement with the Center. He is also co-director of the National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect (NDACAN), a U.S.

28 SPRING 2018

data archive that preserves and distributes child abuse data sets to researchers for analysis and promotes scholarly exchange among researchers in the child maltreatment field.

“In my mind, the BCTR is such an exciting center to direct – and place to be more broadly – because it is where our mission to engage in research for the greater good is most clearly exemplified in the College and maybe even the University,” he said. “With its unique collection of cooperative extension staff, large funded projects, and faculty, it is a place that is both intellectually engaging and socially beneficial.”

Prior to joining Cornell’s faculty in 2014, Wildeman was an associate professor of sociology at Yale University. He received his doctorate degree in sociology and demography from Princeton University in 2008. From 2008 to 2010, he was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholar and postdoctoral affiliate in the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan.

S. Kay Obendorf, Professor Emerita in Fiber Science & Apparel Design, is serving as interim Chair of the Department, beginning April 9.

She follows former chair, Professor Jintu Fan, after six years of his dedicated service. Fan stepped down from the role to devote more time to his research as a faculty member in the Department.

A key goal over the coming months will be to identify the next Chair.

Obendorf’s 50-year career as a wellrespected and innovative mentor, scientist and administrator in the College and her forward-thinking perspective sets a solid foundation for the Department during this leadership transition.

“I am very pleased that Kay Obendorf will serve as interim Chair of the Department over the next several months,” Interim Dean Rachel Dunifon said. “Having served as a faculty member and Department Chair in FSAD and as Senior Associate Dean in the College of Human Ecology, Professor Obendorf brings a wealth of administrative experience and intellectual strength to this role – the College is very fortunate that she is willing to serve in this important leadership position.”

Having earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from Cornell in 1976, Obendorf’s research and teaching interests are in the area of fiber science, chemistry of fibers and films, and protective clothing. She was the department chair for the Department of Textiles and Apparel (now Fiber Science & Apparel Design) from 1985-95 and Senior Associate Dean for the College of Human Ecology (1997-2015).

In 2010, she received the Olney Medal for achievement in textile chemistry from the American Associate of Textile Chemists and Colorists, and in 2013 she was elected as an Honorary Member of The Fiber Society.

Cover Story

Maria Fitzpatrick

Kelly Musick

Director Cornell Institute for Public Affairs

Interim Chair, Policy Analysis and Management

Virginia and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research prior to joining PAM in 2011. She is an internationally-known scholar with expertise in the economics of education, public finance, and labor economics.

“With her strong academic background in areas directly relevant to CIPA and her commitment to the CIPA program and mission, I am confident that Maria will serve as an outstanding director,” Interim Dean Rachel Dunifon said.

At Cornell and within Human Ecology, Fitzpatrick has taught courses in the economics of education for CIPA students as well as courses in microeconomics and the economics of education more broadly.

CIPA’s immediate past director, Sharon Tennyson, professor of Policy Analysis and Management, completed her three-year term last July and returned to teaching and serving as director of graduate studies within the field of Public Affairs at Cornell.

IMPROVING LIVES BY EXPLORING AND SHAPING HUMAN CONNECTIONS TO NATURAL, SOCIAL, AND BUILT ENVIRONMENTS

Kelly Musick, professor of Policy Analysis and Management (PAM), has agreed to serve as interim chair of the department, beginning July 1. She will oversee department administration while the external search for the next chair of the department continues.

Musick, who also serves as the director of the Cornell Population Center, was on the sociology faculty at the University of Southern California before moving to Cornell in 2008.

Her research focuses on family change and social inequality, publishing on women’s childbearing intentions, the quality and stability of cohabiting relationships, social class differences in family formation, and the mechanisms linking family environments and child well-being.

She has taught classes in family demography, population and public policy, and research methods at the graduate and undergraduate levels.

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Maria Fitzpatrick, associate professor of Policy Analysis and Management (PAM) and a member of the Public Affairs Field at Cornell, has been named the new director of the Cornell Institute for Public Affairs (CIPA.) She began her five-year term in March.

“I am honored to have been appointed as director of the Cornell Institute for Public Affairs,” Fitzpatrick said. “The program has a history of providing students with a combination of interdisciplinary academic training and experiential real-world training that prepares them for careers in public service.

“Interacting with current and former CIPA students has been most rewarding, and is much of what motivated me to become more involved as director of CIPA,” she continued. “I look forward to building on that tradition by strengthening the programmatic training and creating even stronger connections to policymaking and public affairs.”

Fitzpatrick has a doctorate degree in economics from the University of

HUMAN ECOLOGY 29

Alex Susskind

Jennifer Rouin

Associate Director Cornell Institute for Healthy Futures

Assistant Dean Alumni Affairs and Development

Professor Alex Susskind has joined the Cornell Institute for Healthy Future (CIHF) as an associate director after a productive stint as a faculty fellow. Susskind, an associate professor at Cornell’s Hotel School, will bring his expertise in food and beverage management and healthy eating to add another dimension to the CIHF portfolio.

The mission of the Cornell Institute for Healthy Futures is to provide a multi-disciplinary platform for integrating hospitality, health management and policy, and design to enhance service excellence in healthcare, wellness, senior living, and related industries.

“When CIHF was announced, I thought it was a perfect way to expand what I do into a new domain – health, hospitality and design are three elements that go well together,” Susskind said. “Until CIHF came to life, we really had no single platform at Cornell where all this came together.”

Susskind joined the faculty at Cornell’s School of Hotel Administration in the Department of Food and Beverage Management in 1998. He earned a doctorate degree in communication, and a master’s degree in business with a concentration in personnel and human relations from Michigan State University. His undergraduate degree is from Purdue University in restaurant, hotel and institutional management.

“When I was given a chance to move into a leadership role at CIHF, I thought I could add value with my focus on the food service side of the business,” Susskind said. “Food service is an important part of both the healthcare and hospitality businesses, and I plan to bring more of that focus to CIHF through my new role.”

Susskind is also a trained chef with a degree in culinary arts from The Culinary Institute of America in New York. Before his career in academia, Susskind was a chef and restaurant operator for both independent and multi-unit restaurant companies in the northeastern and southeastern United States.

Through his research, Susskind is currently examining how customer-service provider interaction with guests and managers influences organizational performance; how technology is influencing the relationship between guests and service-based employees and managers; and how nutrition information provided by restaurants on menus, as required by the Affordable Care Act, is influencing guests’ food in full service restaurants.

On November 1, Jennifer Rouin became Assistant Dean for Alumni Affairs and Development for the College, replacing Marybeth Tarzian who left the role for a new position with the University’s Alumni Affairs and Development Division.

Rouin has served as Human Ecology’s Associate Director of Alumni Affairs and Development since 2015 and the Cornell Annual Fund prior to joining the College.

At the time of her appointment, Dean Alan Mathios said, “I am very excited that Jen will be taking on this position and grateful for the excellent work she has been doing for Human Ecology.”

“Jen’s keen ability to build meaningful and long-lasting relationships with diverse internal and external constituents and manage team members, in combination with her institutional knowledge, academic background and fundraising experience prior to Cornell, have been of great value to the College and will be even more so as she leads the Alumni Affairs and Development team as Assistant Dean.”

Paired with over two decades of development and advancement funding experience, Rouin has a Bachelor of Science degree from St. Lawrence University and an MBA from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

“I am tremendously grateful for this opportunity to advance the mission of the College by involving increasing numbers of alumni, and seeking the resources needed to educate the next generation of students,” said Rouin.

“Our focus for the immediate future will be on supporting the priorities of Interim Dean Dunifon, as well as securing funds for our faculty’s exceptional research, creating naming opportunities in the newly remodeled MVR Building, and further engaging the amazing alumni of the College.”

30 SPRING 2018

Mark Vorreuter, Provided

NEW LEADERSHIP

Alumni

HEAA PRESIDENT’S CORNER

Human Ecology Alumni Association Board members

Greetings Alumni Association Members,

Provided

At the end of this Spring term, new leadership will take the helm at the College and the HEAA Board. As I’m sure you have heard, our beloved Dean Mathios will be stepping down after leading the College for 11 years. Rachel Dunifon, currently a professor in the Department of Policy Analysis and Management and senior associate dean for research and outreach, will succeed Dean Mathios starting on July 1 as interim dean. I hope you will join the Board in welcoming Rachel into this important role for the College.

The leadership of the HEAA Board will also be changing on July 1. My twoyear tenure as the Board President ends, and I will be passing the baton to Rachel Casanova ’95 and David Peck ’91, our current co-Vice Presidents, who will serve as the Board’s co-Presidents for the next two years. Also leaving the Board’s Executive Committee are Adam Rotunda ’96, secretary, and Michael Goodman ’85, treasurer.

Joining the Executive Committee will be Andrea Danziger ‘88, as vice president, Marc Rachman ’86, as secretary, and Seth Lehrman ’91, as treasurer.

I want to personally thank the members of the Executive Committee that I have worked with over the last two years. Their tireless commitment to the College is truly inspiring, and I know that I am leaving the Board in good hands. It has been my privilege to serve on the Board, as president, vice president and Board member over the last 7 years. During that time, I have had the opportunity to witness the tremendous accomplishments the College has made under Dean Mathios’ leadership. I am excited for what lies ahead for the College, its students, faculty and alumni.

As a graduate The HEAA Board thanks you for your loyalty and of Human Ecology, generosity in support of the College, its leadership, you are a member of the students, and faculty.

Reginald H. White ’80, President, Human Ecology Alumni Association Board heaad@cornell.edu

College’s Alumni Association.

You are represented by our HEAA Board--volunteers from around the country who are working on your behalf to support the interests of our alumni association and the College.

HUMAN ECOLOGY 31

From MVR to MoMA

“Our students designers are creative and talented, but they also understand how important it is to go into the data to make effective decisions – that’s magic, that’s the true Human Ecology student.”

– Susan Ashdown

scaled-up versions of thinner women, as opposed to the shapes and contours of real plus-size bodies.

“The problem with the plus-sized market is that because there is so much variation in body size, shape and proportion, the industry doesn’t focus on the subtleties of these characteristics,” Ashdown said. “One plus-size woman can be very differently shaped than another even though the measurements may be similar.”

The solution was to create their own half-scale mannequin, which would allow the designers to develop prototype garment patterns that later can be replicated at full scale through a combination of creative design, technologies and significant research. Wen and Zwanziger analyzed thousands of 3-D body scans of women to define a prototype body size and shape.

They then matched it to a single scan of a pear-shaped, size 24 woman from the FSAD Department’s 3-D body scan database and used it to develop a set of cross-sectional slices that captured the shape and contours of the scan. Next they used the department’s laser cutter to cut half-inch-thick pieces of foam and stacked and glued the layers to create Tolula.

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As sophomores, Brandon Wen FSAD ’15 and Laura Zwanziger FSAD ’15 designed a plus-size dress form for an assignment in their product development course. What originally started as a class project within the walls of the Human Ecology Building was recently on display in a gallery at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Wen and Zwanziger’s plus-size dress form, “Tolula,” was featured in “Items: Is Fashion Modern?” an exhibition at MoMA that ran from October 2017 through the end of January 2018. The display, the museum’s first fashion-focused show since 1944, highlighted the present, past and future of fashion trends, featuring 111 items of clothing and accessories that have had a strong impact on the world in the 20th and 21st centuries.

“With the name Tolula, it was this funny sort of spontaneous decision to name her that – personal and in no way scientific or research-based,” said Wen, who currently is pursuing a master’s of fine arts degree in fashion design from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp in Belgium. “Then it was there on the plaque in the MoMA and it was like, ‘Wow, can you believe that this whole thing that was just an idea we had, not even intending it to be more than a project for a class, blew up in such a way?’”

For Zwanziger, currently a knitwear product developer at Oscar de la Renta in New York City, the opportunity seemed like a dream at first. “We were originally contacted back in February 2017, and both of us thought there must be another ‘MoMA’ or kept thinking that it would all fall through or was too good to be true, and then when we went to the opening together it was so exciting to see her there on display with so many other fashion artifacts,” she said.

The 2013 class assignment, led by Susan Ashdown, Helen G. Canoyer Professor of Fiber Science and Apparel Design, asked students to create half-scale samples of a fictional product line for an underrepresented demographic group. Wen and Zwanziger decided to work with a plus-size design, inspired by the elegance and curves of plus-size models from a nude drawing class. Early on in the project, they faced a barrier: There were few plus-size mannequins to work with, and the few available “full-figured” ones were crudely

32 SPRING 2018

Alumni

Wen and Zwanziger

“It was a wonderful example of the use of innovative technology to support design work,” Ashdown said. “Instead of just scaling up something designed for a different-sized woman, or thinking about clothing as something to disguise a body or make a body look different than it is, the students sought to celebrate shape as it really is.”

“New York Magazine,” “Cosmopolitan,” “Seventeen Magazine,” “Huffington Post” and “The Wall Street Journal” all published articles about their design project. Then, close to four years after the project’s inception, MoMA curators emailed Wen and Zwanziger to ask if they could borrow Tolula for an exhibit that explored issues about fashion and trends.

“A lot of the pieces in the exhibition were very iconic moments in fashion, in recent history, that defined culture or defined fashion for this or that reason,” Wen said. “Tolula [and] a handful of other things were instead made or done to question how things are done, or really push this sort of idea of modernity and what we should be thinking about.”

According to Wen and Zwanziger, in recent years, established companies have moved into the plus-size market but limit women’s options by upscaling a smaller cut into a larger one instead of looking at different body types. This is a major issue in plus-size design as different shapes become differentiated at larger sizes, such as when a size 24 can have a very different bust size depending on body shape.

“There was a recent article in ‘The Wall Street Journal’ about how a lot of smaller startups are having success designing for the plussize market because it has been so underdeveloped in the industry,” Zwanziger said, noting that returns of custom fit and shape-based clothes by plus-size buyers online tend to be much lower than regular returns. “We are seeing a healthier shift in the right direction, but these trends aren’t necessarily changing the ideal of beauty, which is the biggest influence in the fashion industry.”

“Clothing and fashion is ultimately meant to be fun and exciting,” she said. “In terms of a more body positive movement, having products available that are well-designed is what is going to push the industry forward in terms of making fashion and the dress relevant.”

Ashdown said that it is the creative and open minds of students that will help drive change in both social trends in fashion, as well as the industry. And, her department’s philosophy attempts to help this flourish.

“What excites me are the students, because they are so tuned to the changes that are happening in the world, and my energy comes from their energy,” she said. “The one thing that we have tried to do in our department is to make sure, as we teach, that what we’re teaching is not a set of rules on ‘how to be a designer.’ We’re teaching them how to find and develop the unique designer who is within themselves.”

Ashdown said that the accolades and recognition Wen and Zwanziger have received are well-deserved, but their success was driven by their own dedication and long and hard hours in the classroom and studio.

“They were really dedicated to put in that extra time – it was up to them to understand that we couldn’t just make a form, but that we needed to do the research, we needed to understand what we were doing and make it something real that was grounded in the data,” she said. “Our students designers are creative and talented, but they also understand how important it is to go into the data to make effective decisions – that’s magic, that’s the true Human Ecology student.”

– Stephen D’Angelo

Tolula beside other figures in the MoMA

HUMAN ECOLOGY 33

FASHION FOR A CAUSE

A captivated audience experienced fashion, culture and history this fall as Human Ecology’s Cornell Costume & Textile Collection hosted a “fashion for a cause” runway show and silent auction at the Prince George Ballroom in New York City in support of the preservation of the collection.

More than 150 alumni friends, students, faculty, and staff had the opportunity to bid on rare and unique historic garments while enjoying the festivities.

The show highlighted the past and future of fashion through original pieces by current Cornell fashion design students and historical garments recently deaccessioned from the collection. Students, staff and Cornell alumnae modeled garments for auction, while Denise Green, assistant professor of Fiber Science and Apparel Design and director of the collection, contextualized the pieces and designers amid a fashion history timeline.

The auction included “30 women’s ensembles from the 20th century, including designers like Oleg Cassini, Diane Von Furstenberg, Romeo Gigli, Yves St. Laurent, Geoffrey Beene, Donna Karan and Arnold Scaasi,” Green said.

The costume and textile collection, founded just over 100 years ago, advances knowledge of the social, cultural, historical, economic, scientific, technological, and aesthetic aspects of fashion, textiles, and apparel design through exhibition, preservation, research, and teaching.

Since its founding in 1916 by Beulah Blackmore, the first Cornell professor to teach in the area of clothing and textiles, the collection, which now includes more than 10,000 items of apparel, accessories and, flat textiles, has outgrown the collection storage space.

“Over the past year, we have started an inventory of the collection

in order to make recommendations for deaccession to create space for future donations and to be better stewards of the items we have,” Green said. “Funds raised from the auction will support the redesign of the CCTC storage facility, improve climate control conditions, and support the ongoing work of students, faculty and researchers who use the collection.”

The event was made possible by sponsors Kirna Zabête, The Laundress, Célange, Cornell Alumni Affairs and Development, and the College of Human Ecology.

Visit facebook.com/cornellcostume to find more details on the collection.

– Stephen D’Angelo

34 SPRING 2018

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Runway show, auction supports historic costume collection

Alumni

AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY Ary Bobrow ’99 leverages holistic view to strive for global change

For Ary Bobrow ’99, director of the United Nations Office of Project Services in Anglophone West Africa – a portfolio that covers Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone – his motivation has always been giving everyone an equal opportunity.

After graduating from the College of Human Ecology with a major in human service studies, Bobrow, who grew up in Ithaca, traveled to Guatemala where he was involved in a community development project supporting vocational training, education and basic health services.

Returning to the U.S., he completed a master’s degree in social work at Syracuse University and soon began his career with the United Nations, working at the Office for Project Services (UNOPS), where he became a director and established a new hub covering Anglophone West Africa with a specific focus on health infrastructure and renewable energy.

“I really came to understand that what matters is what works – to pay attention to what the data tells us but to also recognize that it’s about more than the technical solution.”

Mark Vorreuter

– Ary Bobrow ’99 “We’re an implementing arm of the United Nations focused on infrastructure, procurement and project management,” he said. “We implement about $1.5 billion worth of projects each year, partnering with governments around the world to deliver services to people in need.”

During the 2014-16 Ebola crisis in West Africa, many health clinics were closed down, hospital staff did not have the resources they needed and patients could not be isolated fast enough, risking exposure to entire health facilities.

Bobrow was tasked with coordinating the UNOPS response and was responsible for upgrading health centers with triage and isolation wards across Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.

“We had to find a solution to better support patients, protect hospital staff and slow the spread of infectious disease – with a very limited budget in some of the most difficult-to-reach areas of the countries,” he explained. “We worked very closely with the ministries of health, the World Bank and other development partners to design resilient infrastructure that met global best practices, were functional for local staff and were within budget.”

This entailed helping design, plan and implement the building of permanent structures around medical facilities, fencing the compound to control access to the hospitals, and providing

Ary Bobrow ’99

basic isolation [areas] so medical staff could test patients without risk of exposing other patients to the infectious virus.

Further, Bobrow worked with the World Health Organization and the World Bank to purchase and deliver medical equipment for hospitals and labs such as medical waste incinerators, ambulances and other items needed to help save lives.

His most recent work is focused on providing off-grid renewable energy to rural communities in Sierra Leone, while at the same time continuing health work in four other countries he supports.

Bobrow believes that if you want to have an impact, you have to look at problems from many perspectives, and that is what he carries with him from his Human Ecology education.

“I had to take courses on economics, survey design, psychology, counseling and evaluation,” he said. “I really came to understand that what matters is what works – to pay attention to what the data tells us but to also recognize that it’s about more than the technical solution.”

“If we had only worked with engineers or architects, I’m convinced we wouldn’t have been able to find effective solutions. … we needed to consult with doctors, epidemiologists, politicians, community leaders, hospital administrators and then to balance the needs, resources and urgency.”

The College of Human Ecology prepared him to bring together various stakeholders while keeping a holistic view in mind, he explained.

As global trends continue to show widening wealth gaps, Bobrow said that if we are going to give people a fair chance to live up to their full potential as human beings, we must step back from using cookie-cutter approaches and focus on co-creating new solutions together.

“The only way forward is to build our future together – finding solutions that work from multiple perspectives and committing to providing a fair chance for everyone,” he said.

– Stephen D’Angelo

HUMAN ECOLOGY 35

Sloan Alumni Association 2018 Alumni Achievement Award

Alexander (Sandy) Williams, Sloan ’63 Since graduating from Cornell, Alexander (Sandy) Williams ’63 had three intertwining careers in health, wellness and medicine – involving a great many adventures, dedication, commitment, and the immense satisfaction of knowing that the work he was doing was making a difference.

The first, as a hospital administrator,

began right after graduation when he joined the Peace Corps and served in Liberia, West Africa. Returning to the United States, he continued his administrator career at the Evanston Hospital in Illinois, the State University Hospital at the Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, the University of Michigan Hospital, the Roosevelt Hospital and its successor The St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in New York, and Episcopal Health Services on Long Island.

His second career involved association management. Early in William’s career, he worked for the American Hospital Association (AHA) in Chicago, and returned there in 1986 to the role of Deputy to the AHA President.

Finally, for his third career, Williams has been a partner in the recruiting firm of Witt Kieffer for the last 27 years. During his time at Witt Kieffer, he specialized in academic medicine, association and international searches to help institutions and organizations find the best health talent to help both individuals and populations.

Throughout his multidisciplinary career, he came to understand that the key to success was learning to work with doctors and to appreciate the medical education process – with all its warts. These lessons stemmed not only from his work in academic medical centers, but also from his multi-year involvement on the board of the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates – an experience that took Williams around the world where he was

deeply involved with the arcane subject of high stakes testing.

As a Sloan student, Williams served as president of the Sloan Student Association, and following graduation, was entrenched within the Sloan community. Doug Brown, executive director of the Sloan Program often invited him to back to campus to meet with the students and speak at colloquiums.

Through his leadership skills and interest in volunteering within the program, Williams became a member of the Sloan Alumni Association Board and then served as its president. During his time on the board, the Sloan Program found a secure a home in the College of Human Ecology.

William’s most recent, and most satisfying involvement with Sloan, was serving in an executive-in-residence role. Within this role, as one of two experienced Sloan alumni assigned to an incoming Sloan class, Williams helped prepare students for the job market over their two years in the program. During his regular campus visits, the Williams mentored students by critiquing résumés, performing mock interviews, and further impacted their careers by helping identify and secure internships, as well as full-time positions, based on the unique career interests of each individual student he worked with.

Thanks to this opportunity, he understands that as good as his experience was as a student, it could never compare with the exceptional academic experience Sloan students receive today.

To provide an opportunity to honor those who have demonstrated such accomplishments, the Sloan Alumni Association (SAA) Board created the Alumni Achievement Award to recognize those who have given of their time to support the Sloan Program and Sloan students, been a significant influence in the health care industry and been recognized for their distinguished career

36 SPRING 2018

2017 Nancy M. Schlichting ’79

2015 Richard F. Southby ’67

2016 Michael W. Azzara ’71

2014 Bernard A. Kershner ’64

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Past Recipients

Alumni

INVESTING IN SUCCESS

Melissa Gradie B.S. ’10, M.P.A. ’11 and Hunter Gradie M.P.A. ’12 give back

Hunter Gradie M.P.A. ’12 and Melissa Gradie B.S. ’10, M.P.A. ’11

Cornell Institute for Public Affairs (CIPA) alumni Hunter Gradie M.P.A. ’12 and Melissa Yee Gradie B.S. ’10, M.P.A. ’11 are a Cornell couple, through and through.

The pair met during a CIPA capstone project, got engaged on campus, married in Sage Chapel, regularly speak with and advise students in Ithaca and New York City, and have recently made a pledge to support expanding career and professional development services offered by the CIPA program.

Hunter, Chief of Staff for the City of New York’s Department of Homeless Services, said he and Melissa feel that while their success is partially due to focus and work ethic, CIPA provided them with resources that propelled them forward and learning experiences that challenged them to become better leaders.

“CIPA provided me with the opportunity to conduct my research and study my interests, while at the same time refining the fundamentals I was looking for: hard skills around statistics, economics, thinking about systems and administration, and how to manage large, complex projects and organizations,” Hunter said.

Melissa, a senior associate at PricewaterhouseCoopers Advisory Services, has used what she learned as an undergraduate at the ILR School and CIPA in her work helping to transform human resource departments and

businesses, and managing people through change.

The Gradies hope their pledge will encourage other alumni to consider how they can offer their time and resources to professional development opportunities for CIPA students.

“We’re excited to see where this all lands and we want to remind our fellow CIPA alumni that there is an opportunity to give back here. It doesn’t have to be just financial, though certainly financial is good. It is also about raising your hand to provide support to our CIPA students,” Hunter said.

Hunter explained that he and Melissa think of their pledge as an investment not only in the students and the program, but in their own future, and encourage other alumni to consider the same.

“Giving back to Cornell benefits not only the individuals who are receiving your financial resources and/or your time to review work, talk with, or mentor, it’s also about giving back to yourself. Any time you can help support or improve the education of the classes coming after you, the better the program – including the alumni – is perceived.

“The degree is worth more when the cohort that is coming out is a desirable cohort. It is our responsibility as alumni to share the knowledge we’ve gained in the working world with the students coming behind us so they can get better jobs, better experience, and provide real exposure to the quality that’s coming out of Cornell, CIPA and Human Ecology.

“We’re excited to see “I say this to alumni a lot: you where this all lands and should see your investment in we want to remind our fellow these students not only as an CIPA alumni that there is an investment in the individual opportunity to give back here.” or the program but also an – Hunter Gradie M.P.A. ’12 investment in yourself. Their success is your success.”

– E.C. Barrett

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STAY IN TOUCH. HUMAN ECOLOGY 37

MILLENNIAL CULTURE Jordana Abraham ’11 praises PAM, CHE for inclusive insights

Samantha Fishbein , Alee

n Kuperman, and Jordana

perspective that she recently shared with other students and alumni. In January, Abraham sat on a panel for a seminar in New York City hosted by the Human Ecology Alumni Association. At the event, “Finding Your Voice: Cornell Women in Media,” Abraham joined two other alumni to inspire women to get involved in the business of media.

“I feel a strong connection to Cornell,” Abraham said. “I was happy to be able to interact with students and people who are interested in pursuing careers in media and share my experiences.”

Betches’ future looks bright. The three cofounders are now working on writing their third book, building an ecommerce app, and expanding into podcasts and other types of media. And it does not stop there. The group is working with Comedy Central to create a new show based on Betches. Abraham says that though she and her colleagues were not business majors and have made some mistakes along the way, she appreciates her time at Cornell for teaching her a strong work ethic.

“It was helpful to go to a place with really high expectations,” Abraham said. “We need that hard working, meticulous [attitude] to make our good idea successful.”

– Amanda K. Jaros

FULFILLING A MISSION

Rae Messer Reilly ’63 makes generous gift to collection Alumna Rae Messer Reilly ’63 has made a generous gift of $200,000 to the Cornell Costume and Textile Collection, a collection administered by the Department of Fiber Science and Apparel Design that advances knowledge, research and teaching of fashion and textiles.

In May 2016, when Reilly’s husband Pete was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer, they began getting their affairs in order. This included a list of organizations they wanted to leave money to and deciding that when the first person passed away, the funds would be distributed all at one time.

“When Pete passed away in November of 2017, we did that, and I wanted to support the Cornell Costume and Textile Collection in some way,” Reilly said.

While a Cornell student, majoring in Textile & Apparel, Reilly was introduced to

ethnographic textiles from the Collection in a class that was given by Elsie McMurray, professor emerita of textiles and apparel.

“That began an interest in me for ethnographic textiles and I continued that interest and used it in my professional and personal life,” she said. “I have very fond memories and strong feelings about Human Ecology, the FSAD Department and Cornell as a whole.”

Reilly worked in retail and the home sewing industry in New York City until finding a home at Iowa State University’s Textiles and Clothing Department as an extension specialist in textiles and clothing, a role she held for 18 years.

A couple of years ago, Reilly had a series of emails with Kate Greder, a volunteer with the Collection and now an FSAD Ph.D. student, whom she had gotten to

Peter Reilly and Rae Messer Reilly ’63

know when Greder worked for Iowa State’s University Museums. They spoke about the Collection and the small budget it had.

“Over the years, my annual gift had been either to FSAD or Design and Environmental Analysis departments,” Reilly said. “So I specified that my next annual gift should be given to the Collection, and when I thought about the bequest, I decided to give it to the Collection as well for the desperately needed renovation to the Collection’s storage space.

“I know how important that’s been for the Iowa State University Collection and how hard it can be to get funds for more practical and unglamorous sorts of projects,” she said. “I feel strongly that if you can’t properly store or preserve and conserve items, whether it’s art or textiles or clothing, a museum or collection quite simply can’t fulfill its mission.”

– Stephen D’Angelo

38 SPRING 2018

Abraham

Provided

When Jordana Abraham, PAM ’11, and her two roommates started a blog in their final year at Cornell, they instantly tapped into a niche in millennial culture. The blog, called “Betches” – an irreverent, comedic commentary on fashion, food, movies, and much more – quickly went viral.

The trio, including Aleen Kuperman, CALS ’11, and Samantha Fishbein, ILR ’11, was approached by a publishing agent to write a book, “Nice is Just a Place in France,” with some of the content.

By the time the book hit the New York Times bestseller list, they had expanded their blog to a website, built a massive social media following, developed their own product line, and essentially created their own media empire.

Abraham credits her Policy Analysis and Management major with giving her the insight to start on this path. “My major lets me think about things in a much more meta, all-inclusive way,” she said. A way that allows her to “weigh the pros and cons when I’m making a business decision or think outside the box.”

Whether it’s where to locate their business offices or which clients to sign with, Abraham says her education from Human Ecology taught her to think about more than just the direct result, but to evaluate where each decision will lead down the road. This insight is one small part of the bigger perspective she gained at Cornell,

Alumni

TRAINING FUTURE DIETITIANS

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Debra Wein ’90 helps educate the next leaders in wellness Debra Wein ’90 is on a mission. The CEO and founder of Wellness Workdays is educating the next generation of leaders in nutrition and wellness, including Cornell and Human Ecology alums, through developing the Wellness Workdays Dietetic Internship (WWDI).

As part of the qualifications to become a registered dietitian, each nutrition student must complete an Accreditation Council for Education in Nutrition and Dietetics approved internship prior to taking the national registered dietitian exam.

Traditionally, dietetic interns were required to complete 1,200 hours working alongside registered dietitians in settings such as hospitals, long-term care facilities and food service management.

With programs like Wein’s, which are fully accredited under the U.S. Department of Education, interns today are able to complete rotations in settings including professional sports teams, health magazines, farm-to-table restaurants, Fortune 500 companies, insurance companies and communications firms.

“When I was completing my dietetic internship in the 1990s, the choices were very limited,” Wein said. “One could choose to focus on clinical nutrition or a program based a little more on community nutrition.

With today’s current understanding of disease prevention, health promotion and worksite wellness, it became apparent to me that internships needed to expand to accommodate the growing body of science and changing industry focus.”

Even though the landscape of nutrition careers has changed over the last 30 years, the fierce competition has not. Because dietetic internships were typically housed in hospitals and universities, spaces were very limited. According to Wein, 50 percent of nutrition students are unable to secure an internship. Because of this, she petitioned the national council to allow her organization, Wellness Workdays, to host an internship and help develop the nation’s future registered dietitians through a new, innovative approach.

The WWDI was approved in 2013 to accept 20 students annually. As part of their internship, students can work with Wellness Workdays staff to implement innovative wellness programs that improve employee health while reducing healthcare costs at worksites including New Balance, Brown

Debra Wein with Wellness Workdays’ dietetic interns

“With today’s current understanding of disease prevention, health promotion, and worksite wellness, it became apparent that internships needed to expand to accommodate the growing body of science and changing industry focus.”

– Debra Wein ’90

Wellness Workdays interns attend a session at orientation

University, MIT, BJ’s Wholesale Club, Putnam Investments, Cabot Corp. and EMD Serono.

With her continued effort to support the ever-growing need in the field, Wein and her team petitioned again in 2016 and were approved to host 95 students annually in three areas of practice: worksite wellness and health promotion, sports nutrition and entrepreneurship, and nutrition communications and marketing. Nutrition students are responding; the WWDI has received more than 250 applications annually since its inception.

Wein’s dedication to Cornell includes her service as a member of the Steering Committee and co-chair of Alumnae Engagement for the President’s Council of Cornell Women and as a member of the College of Human Ecology Dean’s Advisory Council. Now, with an opportunity to serve fellow Human Ecology nutrition students who sit in the same seats in Martha Van

Rensselaer Hall as she did, Wein regularly travels back to campus. She has been invited

by Cornell faculty as well as the student-led Cornell University Dietetic Association to Ithaca to provide insight on navigating the competitive world of dietetic internships and to share career advice.

The Wellness Workdays internship has already hosted and will graduate six Cornell alums. Due to the success of the program, these Cornell alums and other WWDI graduates can be found working as registered dietitians at places such as the Boston Celtics, the Cleveland Indians, Google, WebMD, the Denver Broncos, the Red Sox Foundation, Whitson’s Culinary Group, Shop Rite, Clemson Athletics, Fresh Direct and Optum.

For more information on the internship program, visit wellnessworkdays.com/wwdi – Stephen D’Angelo HUMAN ECOLOGY 39

FIBER FARMING Alumni Helen and Nidia Trejo focus on sustainable fashion

When most people think about making sustainable choices, they think about recycling, driving a fuel-efficient car, or buying local produce. Helen Trejo Ph.D. ’18, M.A. ’14 and Nidia Trejo M.S. ’15, two recent graduates from the Department of Fiber Science & Apparel Design (FSAD), focused their research on another important area − sustainable fashion.

The twin sisters specialize in different fields. Helen is completing her doctorate degree in apparel design this spring and Nidia completed her master’s degree in fiber science in 2015. Last year, they combined their skills to collaborate on the New York Regional Yarn Sourcebook, a directory of fiber farms in New York state.

“The idea is to help increase awareness of the fibers available in New York for designers,” Helen explained. “New York offers a wide variety of natural fibers including wool, alpaca, and even cashmere.

The challenge is finding the farms to source materials from.”

The book includes a description of each farm and fiber quality data, like fiber micron and tensile strength. That’s where Nidia’s work came in. She took the role of measuring the properties of each of the fibers and photographing them at the microscopic level. The project also involved collaboration with Haley Smith, FSAD ’20, who worked on measuring and photographing the fibers. Each page of the Sourcebook also features knit swatches by local knitwear designer Victoria Hantout.

To understand the fiber quality, the team worked together to figure out which New York yarns would work best for a small line of hand-woven scarves. They decided to create two woven scarves using alpaca from Lazy Acre Farm and wool from Ironwood Hill Farm, which are both farms in the Finger Lakes Region. Amanda Denham, who completed a master’s degree in Apparel Design, developed the scarves based on her expertise in weaving.

“Over the course of my research at Cornell, I came to understand the big picture of the fashion supply chain,” Nidia said. “This project taught me about the agricultural aspect of the supply chain.”

Nidia Trejo M.S. ’15

The source book was funded in part by Engaged Cornell, a university-wide program to encourage community engagement locally in Ithaca and across the globe. Researchers from the Parsons School of Design also collaborated on the project.

The Trejo sisters first became interested in fashion by watching their grandmother sew clothing during the 1990s. She previously worked in sewing factories in Los Angeles during the 1970s. In high school, Helen and Nidia took fashion design electives, which led them to major in fashion at the University of California-Davis.

Both sisters recently moved back to California. Nidia is working as a sustainable innovation specialist at Swisstex, a sustainable fabric manufacturing firm. Helen has accepted a position as a STEM Instructional Assistant at Mesa College’s STEM Center in the San Diego Community College District.

Outside of their new jobs, the sisters plan to continue working together. They have launched a social enterprise called Fiber Novation Loops with a mission to support the long-term sustainability of U.S. fiber farms. Their initial project is to build a website and app database that provides information about fiber farms across the U.S. “The goal is to do an extended version of the book that features all of the farms in the United States on a map,” Helen said. “A lot of designers are developing their businesses with an effort to be sustainable. I want to work to support their efforts.”

– Sheri Hall

“This project taught me about the agricultural aspect of the supply chain.”

Visiting Lazy Acre Farm in the Finger Lakes Region

40 SPRING 2018

Provided

– Nidia Trejo

Alumni

RESEARCH TO FRUITION

Joseph C. Cappelleri Ph.D. ’91 credits Cornell, CHE for framework for meaningful life “One of the benefits of Cornell is the type of people it attracts. They tend to be very smart, good, capable people from different fields of study. That is the power of the College of Human Ecology: students and faculty who have a passion for their respective fields and the ability to bring their research to fruition.”

Cappelleri arrived at Cornell to study statistics and biometrics, but decided it was not the best fit for him after his first year.

Minoring in statistics/biometrics instead, he transferred to Human Ecology with the help of Professors Robert Babcock and Trochim.

“The time was June of 1988,” he said. “I ran into Bob Babcock, the graduate field representative, whose door was open. With a big smile on this face, Bob took me down the hall to meet Professor Bill Trochim, who embraced me as his

“That is the power of the College of Human Ecology: students and faculty who have a passion for their respective fields and the ability to bring their research to fruition.”

– Joseph C. Cappelleri, Ph.D. ’91

student, and I got in. I was going to study psychometrics and applied social science research. Bill took me under his wing and he did more than that; he was most generous with his time and giving of his research and the research he thought I would like. Bill Trochim was a phenomenal advisor, is a champion of applied social science research methodology and he still remains my hero.” Based on his doctoral dissertation, he and Trochim have co-authored 11 publications on the regressiondiscontinuity design, which has been used in programs such as “No Child Left Behind.”

Cappelleri says the string of golden opportunities he experienced intimately at Cornell and the continued impact his Cornell education has had on his life motivated his decision to create a seven-figure endowed bequest to be divided equally between the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research and the Department of Policy Analysis and Management.

“The Cornell experience has had a profound, lasting impression on where I am today, how I think, and the opportunities I’ve had in life,” he said. “It opened gateways.

Cornell was an educational mother and father to me. It is my time to give back.”

– E.C. Barrett

Provided

Joseph C. Cappelleri, ’91, has a palpable enthusiasm for learning, research and improving the human condition.

Describing his time at Cornell as a spiritual one, he credits the College of Human Ecology with helping him find his intellectual identity and giving him the framework for a meaningful life.

“I found a foundation and home at Cornell,” Cappelleri said. “Through faculty, students and other associations, I was able to find my intellectual voice. It was the cross-fertilization of being in an intellectual climate, having the right nurturing and supportive environment to bring out the best in me, and a community anchored in the enjoyment of thought, clarity and research for a higher purpose.”

As a statistical scientist, a medical researcher, and an executive director of biostatistics at Pfizer Inc, where he has been for the past 22 years, Cappelleri is considered one of the most prolific researchers in the pharmaceutical industry; he has co-authored approximately 450 publications and 900 external presentations. He is lead author on a book on patient-reported outcomes, co-authored another book on phase 2 clinical trials and co-edited a monograph on health economics and outcomes research. As an adjunct professor, he has served on the faculties at Brown University (biostatistics), Tufts Medical Center (medicine), and the University of Connecticut (statistics), where he has taught a semester-long course on epidemiology.

Cappelleri credits Human Ecology with starting him on the path toward his proudest accomplishments. He is one of the leading researchers behind Viagra and how to measure its efficacy, and his patient-centered approach helped validate the use of Chantix for smoking cessation, Lyrica for neuropathic pain, and Sutent for renal cell carcinoma.

He says that the training he received in the development and validation of measurement scales from Professor William Trochim, his major professor, and Professor Emeritus Richard Darlington had a direct influence on these achievements.

In addition, Cappelleri credits Professor John Eckenrode and research associate Jane Powers for providing a wonderful, memorable research assistantship on the Second National Incidence and Prevalence Study on Child Abuse and Neglect.

“The federal government invested one million dollars of taxpayer money to collect data on the epidemiology of child abuse and neglect in the United States,” he explained. “But no one at the time used the dataset because it was too complicated to analyze correctly. In working with John and Jane, I created a user manual on how to correctly analyze the data and, afterwards, we published a paper in the American Journal of Public Health.

“Almost everyone I came in contact at Cornell with was a lightning rod for bringing out the best of me intellectually, because they were bringing the best of themselves intellectually.

It was a community of sincerity, authenticity, clarity, and some humor – you learn not to take yourself too seriously. Above all, it was a community that wanted to understand and advance the human condition.

HUMAN ECOLOGY 41

HEALTHCARE ENVIRONMENTS Jeffery Neo, Ph.D. ’20 wins Joel Polsky Academic Achievement Award

The American Academy of Interior Designers awarded the 2017 Joel Polsky Academic Achievement Award to Jeffrey Neo Ph.D. ’20 for his master’s thesis examining how spatial design and management approaches can impact hand hygiene and infection control practices in healthcare environments.

Neo, a Ph.D. student in human behavior and design, says he was surprised and honored to receive the award given he does not have training in interior design. He credits the ability to work across disciplines at the College of Human Ecology with offering him different intellectual perspectives.

“My approach is to seek insights and expertise from interdisciplinary fields such as bioethics, healthcare design, and psychology, and then to translate this research into clinical practice to improve patient and health outcomes, in order to generate advances in healthcare design,” Neo said. “The interdisciplinary exposure and training I have received over the years has certainly helped shape my research philosophy.”

For his thesis, Neo studied the relationship between spatial design for visibility and traffic flow and the frequency of hand sanitizing station use in three inpatient units of a community hospital. His research, which included developing electronic motion

sensors to monitor sanitizing station use, found a significant correlation between visibility and traffic flow and frequency of station use.

Neo traces the genesis of his research back to a course he took in his first year of graduate school.

“I took a senior level class, “High Impact Facilities of the 21st Century,” taught by Professor Rana Zadeh,” he said. “Due to the nature of the class, I was able to work on consulting projects for real clients, and view facility design and management from a holistic perspective. A raw idea I had from the class eventually evolved into my M.S. thesis, which was supervised by Professor Zadeh and Professor Sean Nicholson.”

An undergraduate internship with the Health Sciences Authority of Singapore sparked Neo’s interest in health care facilities design, particularly in how a holistic understanding of the social, psychological, and health needs of patients can assist in evidence-based design.

Neo initiated a restroom satisfaction survey, finding that, on a statistically significant level, female and male patients provided different ratings on restroom designs, satisfaction levels, and even on their awareness of health messages and restroom hygiene advisories.

“In my four years at Cornell, I have been continually impressed with the amount of support and help I’ve received from the faculty and staff,” Neo said. “Graduate school and research can be a stressful and at times lonely experience. The constant support and concern from several faculty including “The Professor Mardelle Shepley, my dissertation chair, interdisciplinary Paul Eshelman, and Rhonda Gilmore – just to name exposure and training a few – have kept me motivated over the years.”

I have received over For his doctoral research, Neo is examining and the years has certainly developing innovative strategies in understanding helped shape my how the interaction between communication, psychological and environmental design, may research philosophy.” influence the effectiveness of health-risk information – Jeffrey Neo, in health care environments.

– E.C. Barrett

42 SPRING FALL 2017 2018

Ph.D. ’20

Mark Vorreuter ; Pexels; Provided

Onsite research at Weill Cornell Hospital

Alumni

HD

DEA

Daniel Rosenfeld Long Island, NY

Amira Samiy Silver Spring, MD

Undergraduate accomplishments /accolades: Merrill Presidential Scholar, recognizes students for their academic achievement, leadership ability, and demonstrated potential for contributing to society.

Undergraduate accomplishments/ accolades: Daniel, referred to as “Mr. Research” by Human Development colleagues, has published two papers with Professor Anthony Burrow on identify development through ideas he developed before his sophomore year.

Plans after graduation: Attending graduate school in the fall to continue his education and research.

What you will miss about CHE: The Commons is where I study in between classes, see friends for lunch, and attend so many memorable events – it’s become a place where I really feel at home.

Cornell University Marketing Group; Dede Hatch; Provided

PAM

Plans after graduation: Gensler NYC’s Design Strategist Development Program Fellowship.

SENIOR PROFILES

What you will miss about CHE: DEA is a close-knit community, and graduating means that I am leaving people and a place that I have grown with for four years. I will most miss the professors who made me see that design can be used to solve any problem and who inspired me to be thorough and let passion guide me.

DNS FSAD

Jacqueline Fogarty Charlotte, NC

Sharon Galperin Oradell, NJ

Mandira Talwar Fairport, NY

Undergraduate accomplishments/ accolades: Policy Analysis and Management Outstanding Senior, Dean’s List, Project Assistant for Science and Technology Entry Program in the Engaged Hub, Trip Leader for Alternative Breaks, VP Standards, Chair for Diversity and Inclusion, and Alumni Relations Chair for social sorority.

Plans after graduation: Pursuing a career in the economics or financial industry.

What you will miss about CHE: “There is a unique approach to solving problems here at the CHE. During my time here, I learned the value of analyzing problems logically and efficiently, but what made my education so unique was that I was able to apply my skills to relevant and interdisciplinary problems.”

Undergraduate accomplishments/ accolades: Cornell University Dean’s List, Outstanding Sophomore & Junior in the FSAD Department, two-time YMA Fashion Scholarship Fund Case Study Winner, Barbara L. Kuhlman Fiber Arts Scholar, Research Assistant in the Cornell Costume & Textile Collection; VP of Designers & Models for the Cornell Fashion Collective.

Plans after graduation: Pursuing women’s design in NYC. What you will miss about CHE: What sets Human Ecology apart for me is the community aspect of the college and FSAD department. Taking courses, working in the Costume & Textile Collection, organizing the Cornell Fashion Collective, and interacting with professors and peers all in the same place makes CHE such an important part of my Cornell experience.

Undergraduate accomplishments/ accolades: President of Pre-Professional Association Towards Careers in Health (PATCH), Editor of Cornell Digital Health Review, given Excellence in Tutoring Award for exemplary dedication and commitment to fostering student learning, researcher in the Division of Nutritional Science’s Stover Laboratory.

Plans after graduation: Short term, I would like to attend medical school after graduation. Long term, I would like to practice as an ob/gyn in an urban community.

How has the College of Human Ecology and its programs surprised you?

What has surprised me the most is the pragmatism of Human Ecology’s programs.

The courses I take give me practical knowledge that is useful to me as both a scholar and an everyday person interested in health.

HUMAN ECOLOGY 43

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Amid the bustle of campus, small oases of calm are regularly drawing members of the Cornell community to refuel and refresh their minds. Launched four years ago by Cornell Health, the “Let’s Meditate” program offers free mindfulness meditation in various locations during the semester.

“The program is open to students, faculty and staff of all ages, genders, sizes, shapes and abilities,” said Human Ecology Admissions, Student and Career Development administrative assistant Christie Hillenbrand, who acts as a liaison for weekly Friday meditations at the Human Ecology Career Exploration Center. “We would encourage anyone to participate.” No sign-ups, experience, or special clothing are required.

At each session, a trained facilitator guides participants through exercises to focus the breath, quiet the mind’s chatter, and find a state of calm. “Meditation gives me the opportunity turn down the volume in my head and be aware of my surroundings,” said Kate Greder, a first-year Ph.D. student in Fiber Science and Apparel Design who started to meditate a year ago as a Cornell staff member.

“I generally come out feeling more aware and alert than before.”

This is just one of the many, well-documented mental, physical, cognitive, and emotional benefits of meditation. Studies have also shown regular practice to reduce stress, decrease depression, improve memory and sleep patterns, strengthen the immune system, lower blood pressure, and create deeper levels of relaxations, though many positive effects can be felt immediately.

Greder, for one, is happy to have found this evidence-based tool to increase her wellness. “The sessions have become my gift to myself at the end of the week,” she said. “It is the exact opposite of the rest of the time, when I’m running from place to place and glued to my phone or email. Also, meditation is humbling and that’s valuable to anyone in academia.”

Let’s Meditate at CHE: Fridays, 2 to 2:30 p.m., MVR room 162 (Human Ecology Career Exploration Center). See the Cornell Health website for a full schedule of sessions.

Associates, Inc. At $32 million, the construction value is well within budget. Site mobilization will begin in June with construction underway in August.

This project is the final phase of a complete renovation of MVR. The building was built in 1931, and most major building systems have been untouched since that time. MVR will see repairs to the building envelope, upgrades to building utility and infrastructure systems as well as improvements in connectivity, circulation, space layout, and functionality.

In preparation, faculty and staff in the affected area will be relocated from their MVR offices over the summer. As students return and classes begin in August, Human Ecology classes will be held in other locations throughout campus.

Though there are understandable concerns about disruptions and inconveniences for students, faculty and staff during the construction phase, there is also much enthusiasm about the final product. “The environment they will work in will be much

MVR UPDATE After much anticipation, the final phase of renovations to the College of Human Ecology’s Martha Van Rensselaer Hall (MVR) will begin this summer. The project was bid in March through the New York State bidding process, and the contract was awarded to Andrew R. Mancini 44 SPRING 2018

improved,” said Kristie Mahoney, Director of Facilities and Operations at the College. “We’re going to modernize a classic 1933 building… and everyone is sharing an excitement over the outcome.”

The project is pursuing Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) gold status or better, which is what has been achieved in all previous phases. There is no significant added cost to the project for this. The LEED baseline that the University already requires is close to a gold rating, and the design decisions that were made for the MVR building will take it the rest of the way.

Construction will continue on MVR Hall throughout 2019, with a completion goal of May 2020. By summer 2020, faculty will return to the building and students will be active in the space that fall.

With the news that the contract has been awarded, those in the Human Ecology community can begin to make plans and re-envision their new spaces as the construction process gets underway.

– Amanda K. Jaros

Mark Vorreuter

– Olivia Hall

Ithaca, New York 14853-4401

A clay model design of Martha van Rensselaer Hall (MVR) circa 1930. MVR was designed and constructed as home to the College of Home Economics. The original 199,753 square feet of MVR hall was built in 1931-33 with state appropriations of just under $1 million. Design was performed by William Haugaard of the NY State Dormitory Authority. At the time of occupancy, the original ’33 building provided the College with an Auditorium, a tea room and cafeteria, a reading room, a costume shop, teaching kitchen, gallery, nursery, and student housing.

Photo courtesy of the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library