Milton Magazine, Spring 2006 by Milton Academy

Milton Magazine

Spring 2006

Science Milton alumni at work in scientiďŹ c enterprise today are a group with diverse and fascinating interests, both in research and in applied sciences.

Contents

Features: On Science Cover: Drawing by Clara Richardson ’71. Electric eels use their electric ﬁeld to detect objects in their environment. Pen and ink for signage at the Indianapolis Zoo. © 1988 Clara L. Richardson.

4 Milton Oceanographers on Global Warming Why does public awareness often lag behind good science? Gregory Mone

8 Solving a Problem You Can’t See Pushing knowledge ahead requires as much imagination as rigorous analysis Caitlin O’Neil ’89

10 Mind Reader Probing the mysteries of the brain related to our ability to speak Caitlin O’Neil ’89

12 Active Science for a Modern Age Creativity, innovation and hands-on experiences bring the joy of discovery to children and adults Caitlin O’Neil ’89

16 Mergers and Acquisitions: Three Women Working at Junctures of Two Fields A science illustrator, an archeometrist and an academician: lives at a series of intersections Cathleen Everett

20 Recent Graduates Make Tracks in Science From Europe to Asia, four energized Miltonians define success for themselves Cathleen Everett

25 Pro Bonum Publicum: Working at the Nexus of Science and Public Policy Sorting out what’s true, what’s possible and what’s practical, as we make choices Heather Sullivan

29 With a “Hand” in Developing the New New Thing Three agents affecting the public’s use of new technologies Cathleen Everett

Departments Science at Milton 31 Genetics Class Uses HIV Epidemic as Model Using up-to-date technology and realworld applications to study genetics through HIV

33 Independent Milton Scientists Fired up about science, asking questions and making discoveries on their own Rod Skinner ’72

36 The Head of School The Vision Within Reach: A Milton Academy Distinguished for Creating Leaders in Science Robin Robertson

42 Faculty Perspective At the Heart of Science Is the Question Michael Edgar

43 Faculty Perspective Search for Treasure: After Turbulent Decades, Finding Family in Cambodia William Moore

43 Post Script Executive Service Corps: Making Nonprofits Work Sandy Batchelder ’50

50 In•Sight 52 On Centre News and notes from the campus and beyond

58 Sports Gregory White

59 Class Notes 64 Make Plans to return for Graduates’ Weekend June 16–17, 2006

Editor Cathleen Everett Associate Editor Erin Hoodlet Photography Michael Dwyer, Milton Academy Archives, Nicki Pardo, Martha Stewart, Greg White Design Moore & Associates Milton Magazine is published twice a year by Milton Academy. Editorial and business offices are located at Milton Academy where change-of-address notifications should be sent. As an institution committed to diversity, Milton Academy welcomes the opportunity to admit academically qualified students of any gender, race, color, handicapped status, sexual orientation, religion, national or ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs and activities generally available to its students. It does not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, color, handicapped status, sexual orientation, religion, national or ethnic origin in the administration of its educational policies, admission policies, scholarship programs, and athletic or other school-administered activities. Printed on Recycled Paper

Spring 2006

On Science “Science is for everyone,” one of our graduates insisted. Science is “wondrous,” “inescapable,” “rooted in what is known and always directed toward what is not known,” said others. As the graduates we interviewed pointed out, many of the major, controversial issues of the day are scientific in nature—stem cell research, global warming, the theory of evolution, for example. Scientific enterprise of all kinds is a defining feature of our age. Students as well as practitioners like science because it affects lives. Science questions confront us daily: from the momentous—about the destiny of our small planet—to the personal, such as the advisability of using a new drug to solve a medical problem. Yet writer Jim Holt contends in The New York Times Magazine, “that the great ruck of ordinary Americans…are merely uninterested in, or perhaps bored by, science. Only one in five has bothered to take a physics course. Three out of four haven’t heard that the universe is expanding. Nearly half, according to a recent survey, seem to believe that God created man in his present form within the last 10,000 years. Less than 10 percent of adult Americans, it is estimated, are in possession of basic science literacy.” As individuals and as citizens we are making decisions daily, of action and inaction. We need to know basic scientific principles and to understand the scientific process. As another graduate put it, “the main point of science is to test ideas with experiments rather than just to believe on faith.”

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The educational establishment is catching up with the crucial need to teach science more effectively. Milton is reinvigorating the science experience as well, building on a great base: we have always emphasized asking great questions, engaging with peers in dialogue, and defending opinions rigorously. Milton’s new initiatives in science, outlined in this issue, are aimed at making the experience of science gripping, shaping both effective citizens and leading scientists. A scan of Milton alumni at work in scientific enterprise today brings to light a group with diverse and fascinating interests. Some are research scientists, some are applied scientists; the group includes engineers, designers and educators. One career led to another in a number of cases. For all these graduates, science is dynamic and exciting; their understanding of science gives them a valuable approach to negotiating our world.

Cathleen D. Everett

Drawings on this page by Clara Richardson ’71. Please see page 16. 3

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Carin Ashjian ’78 Bonnie Epstein ’90 Nathalie Goodkin ’95

Milton oceanographers on

Global Warming

Carin Ashjian ’78

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“I think it’s crucial for the public to be science literate. The research in which I’m most interested (how human activity affects the world around us) requires that individuals make changes in their behavior in order to ameliorate the problem. We can’t expect individuals to make changes unless they understand why they are doing so.” —Bonnie Epstein

he home of biologist Carin Ashjian’s research efforts, the port of Barrow, Alaska, is drowning. Melting Arctic ice is producing more severe ocean storms, sending larger waves crashing onto the shores of the low-lying communities, swamping roads and eroding the landscape. Carin, Class of 1978, is an associate scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute studying biological oceanography, particularly in polar regions (Arctic and Antarctic). She’s currently leading a Barrow-based project that is exploring how climate change is affecting the migration and feeding patterns of bowhead whales, a traditional food source for the indigenous Inupiat people. In Barrow, she says, climate change seems very real.

novel State of Fear sparks debate. Generally, though, the reality of climate change hasn’t quite hit home. A 2005 survey by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) reveals that only 52 percent of Americans are even aware of the fact that the vast majority of scientists think that climate change is real. According to several Milton alumni working in the field, this disconnect between scientists and the public stems from the politicization of the issue, a general science literacy problem in the United States, and the fact that the two camps just aren’t speaking the same language.

electrons are smaller than atoms. In terms of climate change, literacy is a major problem, says Bonnie Epstein, Class of 1990, who is currently on maternity leave from her position as a principal investigator for the New England Aquarium. “I think it’s crucial for the public to be science literate,” Bonnie says. “The research in which I’m most interested (how human activity affects the world around us) requires that individuals make changes in their behavior in order to ameliorate the problem. We can’t expect individuals to make changes unless they understand why they are doing so.”

Our science literacy problem has been well documented—a 2004 National Science Foundation report found that 50 percent of U.S. citizens don’t know that

In other words, you can’t expect the average consumer to do her part in saving the environment by switching from a gas-guzzling SUV to a more efficient hybrid if she doesn’t understand why excess fossil fuel consumption is bad in the first place. If she isn’t familiar with the prevailing wisdom—that the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere has trapped excess heat near Earth’s surface, which may be triggering a warming trend that is changing climate worldwide—then she won’t see any reason to make the trade. (Except of course for high prices at the pump.)

“For those kinds of communities the effect of climate change is pretty obvious,” Carin says. “For us down here we say, oh, we have a colder winter, you know, but surely the fossil fuels aren’t really doing anything. Up there they’re far more cognizant of the fact that things are changing. They’re interested in figuring out why.” For most Americans, the threat isn’t so immediate. The public conversation turns to climate change during hurricane season or in the midst of a few unseasonably warm winter days. Occasionally, a globalwarming-related entertainment event like the disaster movie The Day After Tomorrow or Michael Crichton’s highly contentious

Bonnie Epstein ’90

After earning her Ph.D. in oceanography, Bonnie decided not to pursue a career in pure research. She briefly taught highschool science, and lectured at the college level while pursuing her graduate studies. 5

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Later, when an opportunity to head the Newport, Rhode Island, branch of the New England Aquarium opened up, she took it. She saw the museum environment as a good way to educate the general public. “I wanted to spread the basic information about oceanography,” she says. “I felt most people really lack understanding about the way things work.” While museums have the advantage of capturing a broad audience, Bonnie insists that for young people, the classroom is still the ultimate opportunity. The problem, of course, is that students do move on and might never take another science course again. Nathalie Goodkin, Class of 1995, who is pursuing a Ph.D. in chemical oceanography through a joint program at MIT and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, says that the number of sciencebased debates in the country today—global warming, stem cells, evolution—makes the right education all the more important. Students should acquire an understanding of the underlying facts and ideas, but there’s more to it than that. “Getting students comfortable with reading and having conversations about science, science policy and even technology at the high-school level is critical,” she says. “This way they can make educated decisions later in life when voting and deciding what is important to their lives.” Postgraduate education is trickier. While there’s no shortage of places for the inquisitive adult to research climate change—museums, television, magazines, newspapers and the Internet—it’s often hard to discern the good sources from the bad. Bonnie cautions: “With the Web, as with books, it is so important to consider your source. The printed word may also have an agenda, be out of date, carelessly researched, etc.”

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data. What happens when you say that to people who work in worlds that are more absolute is that they say, ‘Well, he doesn’t really know.’”

Nathalie Goodkin ’95

At the same time, there’s also some evidence that this rift between science and the public has less to do with literacy than public relations; it may be that scientists just need to do a better job of informing people of the prevailing thinking on global warming. The 2005 PIPA study reveals that 65 percent more people would be willing to absorb the costs of combating climate change if they were aware of a scientific consensus on the issue. The sad part is that the consensus does exist. A large population of the United States just doesn’t know about it. Politicians certainly aren’t helping the situation. Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma frequently trots out “experts” of questionable scientific standing to challenge the reality of climate change, including the novelist Michael Crichton—a medical doctor. And Carin cites the Bush administration’s refusal to accept that climate change could be exacerbated by man’s activities as a major contributing factor. “They say, ‘Oh, well, it’s a natural cycle.’ Yes, there is a natural cycle, but it seems that things are happening much more quickly now than they have in the past and this is probably our contribution.” But Nathalie suggests that it might not just be politics; the training of scientists could also be partially to blame. “The biggest problem I’ve seen in educating the public about science is that scientists are trained to speak in very specific ways,” she says. “Here is my data and these are the best conclusions that I can draw from this

This sort of intellectual honesty can prevent scientists from fully convincing a lay audience. “In general we always tend to be more cautious. I think that works to our disadvantage,” Carin says. “There’s a real mismatch between the way we talk and what the public needs to hear in order to be convinced.” She points to one of the most contentious issues of the day—evolution—as another example. The “evolution is just a theory” argument of the creationist and intelligentdesign camps reveals a massive misunderstanding of how science works. To a scientist, a theory is a very powerful thing. There’s still a certain degree of uncertainty, but it’s been massively reduced by evidence. “Maybe we should change it to the principle of evolution instead of the theory,” Carin jokes. Another possible solution, Nathalie suggests, would be training scientists to be better communicators—giving them crash courses in public relations, perhaps. “I think that scientists need to do a better job of learning how to communicate what they’re doing in a manner that’s going to be different than the way they communicate with their peers, but is both effective and honest,” Nathalie says. Currently, the opposite is the case: scientists are taught to speak only to each other. Bonnie says that one of the factors that pushed her away from a career in research was the fact that her advisors were practically teaching her how not to communicate her ideas. “They were actually training me to be incomprehensible to all but the few people who specialized in my field,” she recalls.

Choosing a Career in Science

Learning this research language is absolutely necessary if one wants to be published, so Bonnie hardly faults her advisors, but she still felt as though she was heading in the wrong direction. Now, at the Aquarium, Bonnie considers herself to be a kind of translator: she oversees the content and message of many of its exhibits, ensuring that they’ll be both interesting and comprehensible to the general public. Nathalie recently started speaking with an adult-education program in Bermuda—where she’s studying a 230year-old coral head as a way of charting how sea surface temperatures have changed over time—about teaching science classes to adults. And Carin has made her own efforts at educational outreach, including describing her research on climate change at a landlocked middle school in New Hampshire. Recently she also wrote an article for Oceanus, a Woods Hole publication aimed at the lay reader, on her experiences studying zooplankton in Alaska. But this is effectively extra-credit work. She has to find her own time for these projects—a reality that Carin sometimes finds frustrating. “There’s a great push for us to communicate our results. We’re mandated to do so, and not just to our peers but to a broader audience. But in the days of shrinking budgets it’s not often that you get sufficient resources to do that extensively.” Still, in a country in which so many people aren’t aware, don’t understand or— for political reasons—refuse to accept the reality of climate change, these small efforts may be just what we need. Someday, through the work of people like Bonnie, Carin and Nathalie, scientists and the public just might find a common tongue. Gregory Mone

When Nathalie Goodkin was editor of The Milton Paper, she harbored hopes of becoming a writer, not a geochemist. So, how did she end up where she is now, taking X-rays of a 230-year-old coral head in Bermuda to study climate? One major factor, she says, was an experience she had in her last weeks at Milton. As she recalls, honors biology teacher Lindy Eyster set up a black-box experiment, assigning different groups a small container wrapped in paper, then asking them to determine what was inside. “We wrote our essay saying there was a baby rattle in the box,” Nathalie says. Dr. Eyster’s response proved more thought-provoking to Nathalie than the experiment itself. “Pretend the object in the box is something you have never seen before,” Dr. Eyster suggested. “How would you have approached this differently?” This taught Nathalie that science is really about “asking and answering questions beyond your realm of current experience and knowledge—that was what triggered me to pursue science in college.” Carin Ashjian found her way into science for the simplest reason of all: “I took a biology class in college and liked it.” Her particular area of expertise is zooplankton ecology, but it touches on a range of disciplines. For instance, climate change alters oceanographic conditions, which in turn can lead to shifts in the distribution of zooplankton—a favorite food source for bowhead whales. If those aggregations of zooplankton move, so do the whales, forcing the indigenous Inupiat people to adjust their hunting forays, often leading them to travel further and longer in increasingly dangerous Arctic sea conditions. Carin credits Milton with piquing her interest in subjects like astronomy, and, just as important, with giving her the strong background in the humanities that allowed her to focus specifically on science in college. Not to mention, she says, that Milton gave her the distinct advantage of knowing how to study before she got to college.

Bonnie Epstein says she has always been interested in science, and remembers how several Milton experiences strengthened her love for the subject— she recalls one faculty member rigging a fire extinguisher to a skateboard to demonstrate the concept of action and reaction. In chemistry, she remembers an instance when her teacher, Judy Bodnick, poured water into a cup, and then tipped it upside down. No water emerged, and after the class offered explanations as to what had happened, Mrs. Bodnick revealed that she had used a material that combines with water to create a gel. “The lesson there was that when you see the impossible,” Bonnie says, “you don’t have all the information.” These days, as an investigator at the New England Aquarium, Bonnie is also a kind of teacher, and might even inspire a few potential scientists herself. “I think science is so interesting and wonderful that if it’s taught correctly, you cannot help but love it.”

Nathalie Goodkin ’95

Milton Magazine

Richard Kornbluth ’66 Perry Miller ’62

Solving a Problem You Can’t

e’ve all done it: come home to a dark house and searched to find the light switch. Richard Kornbluth ’66 is looking for a different sort of switch, one that will turn on the body’s immune system to fight tumors and infectious disease. He studies how our body’s T cells (a kind of white blood cell) activate macrophages (in Greek, “big eater”) to fight HIV, AIDS, and cancerous tumors. His HIV vaccine has stimulated an immune response in mice and is now being tested on macaque monkeys through a grant from the National Institutes of Health. Richard has also tested a similar vaccine for malaria—“It’s a DNA vaccine that doesn’t have to be refrigerated. A stable shelf life is crucial for these kinds of vaccines.”—and a vaccine that appears to cure mice of tumors for the rest of their lives. He expects the latter to come to human trials in one or two years.

In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn explains how ideas like the sun revolving around the earth were changed, how paradigms shifted. It’s important to be creative in science. You can’t get ahead following the exciting thoughts of others. Often the most exciting ideas are not new, but old.” For the origin of his work, Richard looks to Nobel laureate Ilya Mechnikov, who discovered the macrophage at the turn of the 19th century. Today, Richard works to take his findings from the laboratory to the real

While his scientific training includes an M.D. from New York Medical College and a Ph.D. in pathology from Columbia University, Richard says he learned to be an independent thinker sitting at a Harkness table at Milton. “In A. O. Smith’s English class, I knew I couldn’t get away with giving a trite answer. I had to think for myself. Science is filled with bandwagons and trends that stifle original thought. Richard Kornbluth ’66

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See world. “I answer questions that push knowledge ahead; [I do] science based on the idea that you can do good work on problems that are just a few steps away from human application. I often hear scientists say, ‘When we finally understand all the steps in this pathway, we’ll be able to solve this problem.’ But I don’t think we need all the steps, just the key steps that give us a tool to solve the problem.” But while practicality is paramount for Richard, the pure joy of discovery remains important too. As an associate professor of medicine at the University of California, San Diego, he cultivates an exploratory mindset in his students. “The basic thrill of science is to ask a question about something that you can’t see or touch but know is real, and get an answer. Often I have high-school students imagine an invisible cave in the blackboard. You can throw a basketball at the board and into the hole and it comes right back. Then take three steps back, throw the ball, and it comes right back. But when you take a step to the left, the ball comes back over your left shoulder. When you take a step to the center, the ball comes back in the center. When you take a step to the right, the ball comes back over your right shoulder. Then the students begin to reason: Maybe the

basketball is bouncing against a curved wall in the cave. They have gained knowledge and certainty about something they can’t see. The thrill of science is to work on something that you can’t see, but that you can change. When you get a consistent answer about something you cannot see and then others can duplicate your results, it becomes real for everyone.” When results are inconclusive, however, all is not lost. Uncertainty, says Richard, is part of the scientific equation. “Students should be comfortable with the fact that there are many things that no one knows, yet some unknown facts are vital and need to be discovered. They should be interested in finding out unknowns. They should be able to cope with complexity, contradictions, and uncertainty. I read an obituary in the New York Times of a man who studied creativity. He found that very creative people are able to keep contradictory ideas in their heads for very long periods of time. Less-creative people are determined to find a solution to a problem; if they can’t decide something quickly, they give up and throw the problem away. But if you stay with it, you will come to see what’s difficult about it. The problem will simplify itself, and you will move closer to finding the answer.” Caitlin O’Neil ’89

Code Runner Try keeping up with breakthroughs in medicine and computer science and you’re in for a marathon. But try to combine the two? Perry Miller ’62 pulls off the feat as the director of the Center for Medical Informatics at the Yale University School of Medicine. The Center, a group of 40 faculty, staff, programmers, postdoctoral fellows and graduate students, focuses on the creative use of computers in clinical medicine, molecular biology, neuroscience and other areas of biomedical research. After getting his Ph.D. in computer science at MIT and M.D. at the University of Miami, he discovered that he didn’t want “to be at a bench doing experiments.” He found a career that combined his love of computers and his interest in medicine in the emerging field of biomedical informatics. At first Perry’s work was focused on using computers to help doctors with patient care. “Genomics didn’t exist,” says Perry. “The sequencing of the human genome was not possible or imagined.” With the mapping of the human genome, however, Perry turned his attention to analysis of the genome in the context of health and now works to relate it back to clini-

cal medicine, including risks, prognosis, and treatment of disease. “In general we’re trying to understand where genes are, what they do, and the underlying molecular mechanisms. We’re looking at the genetic basis for life and for disease.” Today, Perry finds himself leading the pack at the crossroads of medical and computer science, solving the very human mysteries of our genetic code.

Perry Miller ’62

Milton Magazine

Ned T. Sahin ’94

orrelating the mind with the brain is like trying to unite body and soul: it’s hard to know where one ends and the other begins. But the links are there, and Ned T. Sahin ’94 is searching for them. As a Ph.D. candidate in cognitive neuroscience at Harvard University and a scholar at the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital, Ned is investigating how our brains allow us to speak. Using brain imaging and more invasive electrical recordings, Ned is tracing the neural circuits for language and grammar in Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area, two regions long known to be involved in language.

Mind

Milton Magazine

“The brain imaging technique fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) essentially allows us to take pictures of thoughts,” says Ned. “We can now ask scientifically about questions that until recently were only the domain of philosophers. I have always wanted to stay close to biology and ask how the actual machinery of the brain allows us to act and think the way we do, and these techniques allow me to be a biologist and still study topics relevant to the daily lives of humans as social beings such as language, emotions, dreams and decisions.” From an early age, Ned felt the need to know how things work. “I would take apart electronic devices looking for the ‘magic’ inside that made them work, often destroying them in the process,” he says.

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By the time he applied to Milton, he’d already decided he wanted to study neuroscience. “It’s a hard technical science and also a realm where I can study questions very relevant to the human condition.” He credits his classes at Milton, particularly honors biology, as a strong foundation for his future scientific studies, but says, “at the same time, much of what I learned came from my activities beyond the curriculum, seeing how ‘real science’ is done. Much as pre-med students often shadow doctors, I did summer internships in Boston-area neuroscience labs starting after my Class II year at Milton.” Since then he has continued to immerse himself in research environments where theories become realities. In his role as senior technologist at Tiax LLC, a collaborative research and development firm, Ned is working on a wearable sensor that can predict and prevent stress in United States Army soldiers. The System for Evaluating Neurological Stress with Objective and Remote Sensors (SENSORS) will likely be a lightweight, under-helmet skullcap that measures the sleepiness, brain activity, perspiration and blood pressure of sol-

diers in simulated battle situations. The resulting biomedical data, broadcast wirelessly to a remote location for real-time evaluation, will allow the Army to understand how stress, workload and mental state affect soldiers’ performance and decision-making skills and then help it determine how best to train and protect soldiers. In addition, SENSORS may be used someday to monitor levels of stress and sleep deprivation in high-risk professions such as emergency medicine and commercial aviation. Based on his own research experience, Ned believes that science students at all levels should get a hands-on opportunity to test their knowledge. “I read an opinion piece where someone said that if we taught soccer the way we teach science, grade-school children would go through several years studying the basic physics of an idealized sphere. Then they would learn about the quirks of a sphere with dimples and panels like a soccer ball. Next they would learn about projectile motion and write equations describing the path of a kicked ball. They would also have courses on game strategy, probably in high school, along with the mathematics of scorekeeping and statistics of winning probabilities given certain scores and strategies. In college they would watch videos of actual games, and write essays about how they could do better. For final projects they would play at being a coach

of a recorded game and decide what to do. Finally, in graduate school, the few “soccer students” left would get on a field and kick their first ball themselves. For their Ph.D. theses they would play a single game of soccer. Then they would seek jobs as fulltime soccer players on professional teams and be expected to go to the World Cup in six years, or be fired. Clearly this is not how it works! Teaching science and keeping students interested takes more apprentice-style instruction and real-time feedback. As early as possible, students should get the thrill of adding some new piece of knowledge to the pool, and should realize that increasingly complex and cutting-edge information is not just in textbooks but it is out there, ready to be incorporated into the realm of things we understand.” Ned is working to increase that realm by looking back into the mind, a circular loop of investigation and understanding that will ultimately reveal the mysterious conversation between mind and body. Caitlin O’Neil ’89

Ned T. Sahin ’94

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Genevieve Atwood ’64 Julie Strong ’90 Walter Smith ’77 David Rabkin ’79

afety goggles aren’t enough anymore. Today’s science students will need an explorer’s pack for the adventures they’ll be undertaking. For while learning begins at a desk, the path of discovery leads out of the classroom and into the landscapes and labs of our world. Today, lectures and experiments are only the start of the conversation. From geology to physics to biotechnology, these alumni are pioneering the frontier of science education.

Thinking Outside the Classroom One of a science teacher’s greatest challenges is relating abstract concepts back to the world around us. For Genevieve Atwood ’64, the solution is clear: send students out to find the connections. A former three-term Utah state legislator, state geologist, and director of the Utah

Active Science for a Modern Age 12

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Geological Survey, Genevieve is currently chief education officer of Earth Science Education, a not-for-profit organization that encourages teachers to use local geology in their lesson plans and inspire students to explore their world. “Earth science is one of the sciences most easily made boring,” says Genevieve. “A box of rocks with labels seems pointless if a teacher doesn’t know how to make it relevant for students. The local resources aren’t always obvious, but teachers need to find ways to get outside and use the landscape to teach their lessons.” In order to teach excitement, teachers need to experience it themselves. Genevieve practices what she preaches. She recently defended her doctoral research on coastal processes of the Great

says Julie. “It reminds you how to learn. It’s important to remember what it feels like, because children are in that state constantly.”

Genevieve Atwood ’64

Salt Lake. “Periodically I’ll be on Antelope Island, watching buffalo grazing on the shoreline, and think, ‘I am so lucky.’ I was lucky not to get discouraged. I could have been derailed a thousand times.” She also shared her vision with a Utah elementary school, creating seven walkable field trips for kindergarten through sixthgrade classes that tie into the core curriculum. “So many parents tell me about how much their child loved making a science project about minerals and the rock that each child loves the most is the one that he found himself.” Genevieve believes most children love science, but teachers don’t always encourage that love. “When I go into a classroom, I often start by asking, ‘Who likes science?’ In third grade, everyone’s hands go up. In sixth grade, it’s only half the class. By junior high, it’s uncool to like science. We’re taking the joy of science away from students. Jacques Barzun, the father of a Milton classmate of mine, Isabel Barzun, wrote a book called Science: The Glorious Entertainment. It is glorious.” And that, says Genevieve, is what we need to communicate to students.

Julie was working on her Ph.D. in immunology at the University of California, San Francisco, when she realized that she missed the debates and discussions of the classroom. In her third year of graduate school, she started volunteering as a science advisor for Science and Health Education Partnerships, a collaboration between the University of California, San Francisco, and the San Francisco Unified School District. Back in the classroom, she was hooked on teaching. “You get to do science and see teenagers’ faces light up. That’s what I was looking for, that moment of excitement. Students are doing experiments for the first and second time, not the thousandth.” Scientists of all levels covet such moments of discovery, but getting students to that “aha” moment often means looking beyond the classroom’s four walls. Julie’s most innovative course is the senior elective, Biotechnology Research, which sends students out into the world to test out what they’ve learned. Students practice cutting-edge lab techniques and then put them to use in independent projects with research mentors at nearby Stanford University and Silicon Valley biotechnology companies. Julie’s students have studied lipid metabolism; polymorphism in strains of mice; and the effect of antibiotics on bacterial ribosomes. At Nektar, a local company working on inhaled drug

On the Cutting Edge As a Milton student, Dr. Julie Strong ’90 took a similar exploratory approach to her science classes. “I wanted the chance to figure things out on my own, with teachers available as resources.” As a teacher at the Menlo School in Atherton, California, Julie is paying her experience forward, helping her students navigate everything from freshman physics to AP biology. “The classroom teaches you humility,”

Julie Strong ’90

delivery, students studied how drugs cross from the lungs into the blood stream. “High school is the time to try stuff out,” says Julie. “It’s an opportunity for immersion. One student I had told me that after taking the class, he knew that he didn’t want to go into biology.” Which is okay by Julie, who wants to make sure her students give science a chance.

Walter Smith ’77

I Feel a Song Coming On Walter Smith ’77, associate professor of physics at Haverford College, had no doubt that he would have a career in science, but physics wasn’t his first choice. He thought he’d be a chemist, but after a summer working in a chemistry lab he discovered he didn’t have the hands for it. “It’s ironic because the kind of science I do now requires tweezer-level manual dexterity.” His undergraduate students are heavily involved in his work on nanoscale electronic circuits that self-assemble from molecular components and that can be imaged only with an atomic force microscope. “It’s important to try to bring into the classroom things that are going on in research, such as the way that scientists use their understanding of a simple system like a mass on a spring to design better probes for scanned microscopes,” says Walter. “The students don’t have to fully understand the research, but they can see how science connects to the real world.” To create a classroom where students feel comfortable asking questions, Walter and his wife, Marian McKenzie, began writing

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David Rabkin ’79

songs about physics. It goes a little like this: After he has introduced a major topic and lectured on it for a few weeks, Walter takes out his ukulele and sings a song. “It’s a capstone experience. [The songs] are only two to three minutes long. I try to do them in the middle of class, but sometimes at the end. Then it’s fun to hear the students talking about it as they leave class.” They may walk to the cafeteria humming “The Photon and the Wave” to the tune of “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off,” by George and Ira Gershwin, or “The Bravais Lattices Song,” to the tune of “I

Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General,” from Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance. A member of the Milton Glee Club and the Wesleyan University chorale, Walter found his footing as a solo performer doing children’s musicals while he was a postdoctoral fellow in Austin, Texas. His physics songs have caught on within academia, inspiring his colleagues (a physics professor and a computer science professor) to sing songs in class and his students to pen lyrics of their own. The entire effort is documented on the Web site

PhysicsSongs.org, a collection of recordings, lyrics, music and links. Walter also keeps in touch with four or five other professors across the nation who are writing physics songs. “Most people assume the songs are just a mnemonic device, a memory aid for formulas. But, if you could really boil physics down into a song, physics would be easier to teach and learn than it is,” says Walter. “The songs’ main educational value lies in the way they change the classroom atmosphere and make me more approachable. They get students thinking with a new part of their brain.” By approaching the subject from a new direction, the songs create an atmosphere of discovery, which can hook students better than a catchy tune.

Twenty Questions: Questions and More Questions

Walter Smith with an atomic force microscope at Haverford College

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David Rabkin ’79 was last seen speeding down Centre Street on the recumbent tricycle that he and classmate Justin Aborn constructed during their independent study. While he has since hung up the trike in his parents’ garage, he hasn’t forgotten its lesson: having the chance to do it yourself can make the difference between engagement and indifference. As vice president for technologies at the Museum of Science, Boston, David is spearheading its transformation into a museum of science and technology and creating a new vision for technology education. Now five years into his new role, David has already created interactive exhibits and programs to jump-start children’s and adults’ thinking about the technology around them.

Technology as Tool In the Age of iPod, it’s tempting to rely on whiz-bang 3-D simulations and number-crunching databases to get students excited about science. The trick is to incorporate computers into the classroom without turning students from active participants into passive observers.

In one exhibit, the museum set up an operating room for a “gummy-wormectomy,” which allowed visitors to undertake training for laparoscopic surgery using a full-scale model and handling real surgical tools. “If you just put tools in a display case, people don’t know what to think and probably won’t,” David says. “But let them suture with a real surgical stapler and the questions start to flow. Who thought this up? How did they know it would work? Did things go wrong at first? Is it risky today? When the conversation takes off, you know you’re doing something right. Most days, we’re not in environments designed to help us find questions. But if you’ve been in a place like our museum, you’ll be better equipped to ask questions for yourself about whatever new technology shows up in the news or in your life.” While visitors are tied up in surgery, David is busy forging partnerships with local companies, universities, labs and hospitals like the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital. “We partnered on a presentation around brain research. They were using a technology that could image brain activity in millisecond slices. (A functional MRI can be a one- to twosecond exposure.) They were studying things like facial recognition. Very interesting to me, perhaps, but what’s the hook? How could we use this to engage visitors? So I asked the researchers, ‘Have you told your subjects any jokes?’ And they cracked up because they had. ‘That’s it!’ I said. ‘There’s our hook.’”

When Julie Strong’s (’90) school opened a new building a year ago that integrated classroom and lab space, she had to think about how to teach more effectively. “We have six to eight computers available to each class. They could gather all their data that way, and have the computers crunch the numbers. But I don’t think we should be seduced by technology and all the bells and whistles. It can take away busy work and let you focus on critical thinking, but then there’s something about a hollow cylinder and a solid cylinder rolling down a ramp: one goes faster, and it’s powerful for kids to see that for themselves. You don’t necessarily need to rely on fancy simulations.”

David hopes the conversations about science and technology will reach beyond the museum’s walls and into the city around it. “When visitors come to Boston, they know things are happening at Harvard and MIT, but they have no access to it. We want the museum to be a place where tourists and locals alike get an understandable, up-to-date window on the science and technology in Boston that will change their lives. We want them to see it, touch it, and meet the people who make it happen. Scientists, business people, government regulators, environmentalists, the media—they all have diverse views, diverse values, and diverse ways of thinking. You can’t understand the implications of technology unless you are open to all of these viewpoints. Education about science

“Computers in the classroom should be used with caution,” says Walter Smith ’77. “Some educational tools become playthings without enhancing understanding. For example, an applet on the Web that demonstrates a piece of physics. Alone, it’s minimally useful, but paired with guided questions, it can be used to engage students in active thinking. We need to keep students engaged. Class can’t become a videogame experience.” “If computers are the experience, they can be great tools,” says David Rabkin ’79. “If they are a substitute for experience, they can be dangerous. They can simulate things you could never do otherwise, which is great. But if you can’t link what you do on a computer to the real world, then you can’t apply your learning in the real world.” In other words, computers are another tool—a powerful one—to stimulate thinking, not replace it.

means cultivating an attitude toward science. ‘It’s interesting. I can do it.’ We want to create a comfort.” Like a well-tended culture, that comfort with technology can yield a growing curiosity about science and technology that leads to…more questions. And questions are at the heart of good science. Caitlin O’Neil ’89

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Clara Richardson ’71 Anne Reynolds Skinner ’57 Amity Appell Doolittle ’83

Mergers and acquisitions: Three women working at junctures of two fields Clara Richardson ’71 Scientiﬁc Illustrator, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago “As an artist, trained as a scientist, before I start to draw I try to understand what the researchers need to communicate.” With years of study and experience both in zoology and in art, Clara Richardson ’71 is a natural science illustrator with the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. The Field Museum is both an esteemed research institute and a library of specimens. For 20 years she has helped document the findings of researchers in evolutionary biology. For the last three years Clara has been involved in a study of the scale patterns of snakes and lizards. Field Museum scientist Maureen Kearney has found evolutionary information in the patterns of head scales on these reptiles, and Clara has drawn the intricately detailed heads. “Any illustration is edited information. You present what you want people to see; you direct their focus,” she says. When the

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specimen is of a certain size, Clara uses a Swiss microscope with a mirror attached to see exactly what she needs to represent. The microscope and mirror have their own distortion. A digital camera can be helpful as well, but again, it also allows a certain distortion. “The specimen is threedimensional; I have to manipulate it in a number of ways to see what needs to be seen. I draw everything two times: the first time reflects my personal understanding of what I’m looking at. The second reflects the effort to communicate what is there. For instance, in the first effort I will ‘place the scales where they live.’ In the second effort you’ll see a weighted line that defines the actual space. Restricting yourself to the line is sometimes useful for clarity. In other illustrations I’ve used dots or shading, rather than lines, to communicate shape.” Prior to her work with Maureen Kearney, Clara worked with Harold Voris, an expert in sea snakes, mapping what landforms in Southeast Asia looked like during the last ice age. Some of the maps are on the Field Museum Web site at http://www.field-

museum.org/research_collections/zoology/ zoo_sites/seamaps/default.htm. Dr. Voris was determined to make the maps available to any scientist who wanted to use them, and they have seen a great deal of use. The Field Museum has had requests from biologists and anthropologists all over the world studying the migration of animals. As a Class II student at Milton, Clara studied Latin, Greek, French, history and English. She was a linguist—neither a scientist nor an artist. After high school, as a result of some volunteer work that involved handling live animals, she found herself at the University of Wisconsin preparing, she thought, for a hands-on career with animals. Her zoology major, however, was decidedly academic. Having taken neither chemistry nor physics, she found both essential to understanding “whole organisms”—animals and plants. Above: Clara Richardson’s drawing of the growth of a bryozoan colony, showing communication between individuals. Pen and ink for S. Lidgard; published in Paleobiology 15(3); © 1989 The Field Museum.

“Science literacy is crucial: Thinking ‘in science’ means reading critically. It means understanding in your gut that statistics can be made to lie. It means understanding that when you say ‘humans discovered agriculture five to ten thousand years ago,’ that is still a small piece in the history of humans. It means understanding how salad dressing is made. “The value of Milton was how much was demanded of all of us, how much critical thinking was a part of life at Milton. “You can’t have the science conversation without the content, though. I was forced to face a whole new academic endeavor in my life, but if you learn how to learn you continue to do that in your life.”

Anne Reynolds Skinner ’57 Clara Richardson ’71 with her daughter, Kate Simpson

After graduation, Clara had a chance meeting with an illustration teacher whose dictum was “there is no such thing as talent, only practice.” That idea provoked her to take classes that landed her an illustration internship at the Field Museum. Ultimately, this training and her own determination helped her arrive at the skill that, as she says, “is most native to me. Drawing is how I learn.” Clara’s opinions about science and children or teenagers reflect her having “found” science as a young adult. “The earlier children learn how to think in the world of science, the better. The earlier they see the connections across physics, chemistry and biology, the better. I can’t imagine how wonderful it would have been to speak the language of science the way I could speak the language of languages.

Archaeometrist, Williams College Growing up near the Peabody Museum in New Haven, Anne Skinner ’57 feasted early and often on her interest in archaeology and paleontology, ”but it was a long time,” she said, “before I could find the niche that combined chemistry and archaeology—archaeometry.” Now at Williams College, researching and teaching applications of science to archaeology, Anne reflects on how much her professional life has depended upon asking questions (“not worrying about whether you look stupid”), and seeking connections. Physical chemistry was what she pursued (“the kind of chemistry that uses a lot of math, rather than makes new molecules”), always contacting archaeologists along her route to “see what might develop.” After earning her Ph.D., for example, she spent a postdoctoral year at University College, London, looking at molecular markers for evolutionary trees.

Anne Reynolds Skinner ’57

Anne’s persistence and curiosity netted her several breakthrough points: At Simon Fraser University, where the archaeology and chemistry departments had extensive contacts, she developed a project looking at whether some flint artifacts had been heated. From an archaeological researcher at Williams she learned about archaeometry, the field that applies physical science (not just chemistry) to archaeology. Attending a meeting at Brookhaven National Laboratory resulted in getting her research career going with a technique called electron spin resonance (ESR), which can date fossils and artifacts. “Normal chemical bonds contain two electrons,” Anne explains. “When ionizing radiation (α, β, γ ) hits materials, it can break a stable chemical bond, leaving single electrons. Fundamentally, ESR counts the number of single electrons in a sample. So if I can calculate how much radiation has been hitting my sample in an average year, and I know the total number of single electrons, I can calculate the age of the sample. In principle, the technique would work on fossil hominin teeth, but since I have to grind up the sample to study it, no one is offering me anything like that!” During a year at Oxford, with archaeometrists she had met at the Brookhaven, she set about learning the archaeology she needed. “This work requires knowing geology, physics and some biology as 17

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well—very interdisciplinary. The ESR technique was still new and I was able to make a major contribution (a singleauthor paper in Nature) in large part because I was not an archaeologist. Archaeologists, focused on obtaining dates, have neither the skills nor the time to look at the fundamental bases of the technique. For me to do ‘methods’ projects plays to my strength, my training in how to design a good experiment.”

them, because he made them come alive. He encouraged us to do our own experiments. I tried to make rock candy as a crystallization experiment. It failed, but the idea that one could do something other than what was in the book was crucial. Later he helped me with a project for the Westinghouse science fair, on building an interferometer.

By the late 1980s Anne realized that to continue to play a significant role in the field she needed outside funding to supplement what Williams College contributes to faculty for research. A National Science Foundation grant secured her an ESR spectrometer, and then, with a geologist colleague, she obtained an NSF grant to pay for research expenses. “As a result, by 15 years ago I had the sort of professional life [at Williams] that most young scientists achieve approximately 20 years younger!

“Frankly, if he hadn’t been so enthusiastic it might have been hard to maintain an interest in science at Milton in the 1950s. As the science building was the only one used by both genders at that time, any girl who professed an interest in science was assumed by her peers to be actually looking for an excuse to visit the boys’ side of the street. To be fair, similar forces were at work in my college experience. Thanks to the confidence that Harry Stubbs had given me, I kept my science focus despite the dean’s concern that this wasn’t really appropriate, and the lack of classmates for conversation about my work.

“What really set me on my current path was the teaching of Harry Stubbs at Milton. I can still remember (after 50 years) some of the concepts as he taught

“Science is like a language. You have to have some memorization, to learn the vocabulary, but you have to get beyond that to make the subject alive. In lan-

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Digital painting by Clara Richardson for M. Thayer of Stenomalium helmsi (Cameron 1945), a rove beetle species occurring widely around the southern part of the world (New Zealand, Australia, Chile, Argentina, and some subantarctic islands). © 2002 The Field Museum.

guages that means reading literature even if you don’t know all the words. In science that means introducing students to research, to the idea that although not everything is known, that which is unknown today may well be known tomorrow. High school is a critical time for developing new scientists. College (and graduate school) can give students skills, but if they arrive at college already ‘knowing’ that science is boring, or too difficult, then they won’t even explore it.”

Amity Appell Doolittle ’83 Associate Research Scientist and Program Director, Tropical Resources Institute, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies Amity Doolittle ’83 and the graduate students taking her Environmental Justice course confronted the news about Hurricane Katrina during their first week of class. Determined to maximize the extraordinary learning opportunity, and to gather data that might be valuable right away—and certainly would be in the future—Amity found funding to go with her students to New Orleans and Houston and got to work. First, the students prepared readings on the environmental history of the area; on the pace and shape of urban renewal projects and levee construction policies; on the economy of the area and the political history. Then the team went south—a group of environmental studies students who themselves were also candidates in public health, law, international relations, and business. Their classbased inquiry was aimed at understanding the processes at play that encouraged the political and economic elite in New Orleans to ignore the scientific evidence of the folly of developing a city below sea level. Research on environmental issues is inherently interdisciplinary, and Amity’s academic research has always involved a balance, she says, between the study of the environment and of people (different cultures, different worldviews, different experiences). Her college concentration was biological anthropology (according to McGraw-Hill.com, the study of human biological variation in time and space; includes evolution, genetics, growth and development, and primatology). She brings to the field a family background in anthropology, and roots in northern

than a category three classification. Social scientists tracked the poverty and disenfranchisement among the population. These issues were written about extensively, but there was no political action. It is rare that good science leads to good policy initiatives. As we are seeing, the choices that have to be made even now are extremely difficult.”

Amity Appell Doolittle ’83

Maine, where she was extremely comfortable and content in the natural world. She earned her master’s and Ph.D. in environmental sciences from Yale’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, where she now directs the school’s Tropical Resources Institute (TRI). TRI supports student research projects aimed at practical solutions to conservation and management of resources in the tropics. Amity mentors about 40 master’s students on the design of their research projects, helps place them in research sites around the world and supervises the publication of their data. From copper mining and organic aquaculture in Ecuador to the politics of mangrove conservation in Kenya, Amity’s students also address the crucial balance between natural science and social science.

Amity’s team in New Orleans sought key information about responses; among other things, they searched for the reasons that help did not reach what they knew was a large Hispanic population. They surfaced key information by following the data they were uncovering in interviews with speed and flexibility, a response unlikely, if not impossible, from encumbered bureaucracies such as FEMA. With her students, Amity has begun a content analysis of the hurricane media coverage. Analyzing 8,000 articles from the New York Times, Times Picayune, Houston Chronicle, Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post, she hopes to answer a number of questions such as, how much the media coverage drove the federal response and how did it characterize the racial issues? Teaching and mentoring researchers is gratifying, Amity feels. Her teaching approach developed out of her own experience as a learner, as well as the observa-

tion of techniques in her children’s elementary school. Their learning—comparable to Amity’s project in New Orleans—was inquiry-based: learning content in realworld context. That approach stimulates more analysis; a greater willingness to explore; a recognition that each of the investigators sees things differently, and a willingness to talk about that; powerful problem-solving and negotiation efforts. “I want my graduate students to engage in the reading, to take it off the pages and apply it. Students always lead the class discussions—we rotate who’s in charge of organizing the discussions. To encourage engagement with their material at different levels, they present their findings in numerous ways, including poster presentations that ultimately travel to professional conferences, and of course formal research papers.” Amity’s experience in science academia with researchers, writers, professors and graduate students drives her to a conclusion: “Universities need multiple tracks. They need researchers, and good ones. They also need professors who give knowledge, skills and tools to the ‘clients,’ the students. I enjoy mentoring students, but within the traditional, tenure-based system, there’s no incentive for faculty to do that.” Cathleen Everett

“Every environmental problem has to be understood from a social point of view. There’s a triangle, and the points are power (or politics), wealth (economics) and meaning (culture)—and they all come together around natural resources. Any conservation program aimed at a single point of view will collapse of its own weight. The challenge of science today is to bridge the divide between natural and social sciences. Neither academics nor policymakers have done it yet; it’s overwhelming, complex, messy, organic. Thinking of what steps are right is hard. “Just consider New Orleans. Brilliant scientists wrote about the instability of the levees in the face of a hurricane higher

Amity Appell Doolittle ’83 and her daughter, Eliza (reading), in Malaysia, speaking with neighbors

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Aaron Raphel ’96 Daniel Jacobs ’01 Laurie Richmond ’98 Molly Perkins ’00

Recent Graduates Make Tracks in Science Fresh opinions about what matters in science education

“In science, the most interesting stuff is happening at the interfaces between disciplines. There’s a blurring of traditional divisions. Think about nanotechnology, for example—a combination of chemistry, materials science and physics. Right now at Apple, I get to work at the intersection of business, engineering and design.”

Aaron Raphel ’96 Global Supply Manager, iPod Worldwide Operations, Apple Computer, Inc. “Apple is a company that cares a lot about the form and function of our products,” Aaron says. “On the form side, we spend a lot of time thinking about the ‘engineering’ of color, gloss, texture, material and shape. On the function side, we have to control the mechanical, electrical, thermal and chemical properties of our products so that they work well for our customers. Engineers and designers develop all of the detailed specifications. I’m a member of the operations team, which is responsible for the tactical execution of the product.” Aaron’s group—iPod global supply management—works with the design team to identify best-in-class suppliers, predominantly in Asia, who manufacture all of the plastic and metal enclosure parts of the product. The pieces of Aaron’s puzzle include meeting iPod’s quality, volume and cost needs. 20

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Aaron enjoys working on the execution side of engineering: the “glue” between design and manufacturing. “I’ve always been fascinated by how things worked,” Aaron says, tracking his interest in engineering. He loved science and math through his 13 years at Milton and still remembers certain honors physics demonstrations, chemistry labs and “honors bio” projects. After Milton he thought chemical engineering would be his focus, but he found he was more interested in physical, mechanical areas. “MIT exposed me to a lot of things I didn’t even know about. During freshman year, I took an introductory materials science course that highlighted current engineering challenges. We learned about fuel cells, threedimensional printing, biological implants and metallic superalloys. I was hooked.”

product design to supply chain management to operations strategy and global manufacturing. The experience turned Aaron to the confluence of engineering (manufacturing) and business, and ultimately to Apple, where he is excited to work today. “My rule,” Aaron says, “is that I’ll keep doing something I enjoy until I stop learning, and then I’ll start looking for the next exciting opportunity.”

After college, Aaron joined Surface Logix, a biotechnology start-up company developing some novel approaches to drug development and testing. The company continues to grow, with its first drug recently passing Phase I clinical trials. Aaron used this entrepreneurial experience as a springboard to learn more about business—specifically, operations—in MIT’s Leaders for Manufacturing (LFM) program. This program between MIT’s School of Engineering and Sloan School of Management, covers everything from Aaron Raphel ’96

Science Teaching/Science Learning: Messages from Aaron No one is really teaching engineering in high school, even though that’s where some of the most interesting careers are. At MIT I committed to engineering without any real understanding of what that meant. Fortunately, things seem to be changing with the various robotics competitions for high-school students. We need more of these applied challenges where students can use their technical skills to start solving realworld problems. After graduating with my B.S. from MIT, I spent several years teaching a materials science/engineering class at The Saturday Course [at Milton Academy]. This forced me to figure out what would engage children. Engaging them was the priority. The bonus would then be if they stayed engaged, learned something, and left with some inspiration. You need to answer the question, “Why is anyone interested in this? If I know the answer to this, what does that mean for instances where I don’t know the answer?” Connect the experimentation to current-day research.

“In college, once I took Introduction to Mechatronics, I knew that I had found the specialization that would stick: it taught mechanical engineering students how to work with electrical circuitry and software—to build robots and mechanical systems.”

Daniel Jacobs ’01 Master’s candidate, mechanical engineering, Stanford University Today, Daniel spends most of his time at Stanford’s Robotic Locomotion laboratory, or the LOCOLab as it is locally known. An accomplished jazz musician at Milton, and an athlete who played basketball and ran track, Daniel is intrigued by the work of this lab, which, he says, “is to develop the mechanical and electrical systems necessary to test theories of locomotion.” Daniel is a master’s candidate in the design division of Stanford’s department of mechanical engineering.

Finally, answer the question, “Why do we care?” They should understand, “if I study this, I can affect people’s lives.” By introducing fourth, fifth and sixth graders to the world of materials (really just a combination of chemistry, physics and some biology), I could help them understand some of the ways that science affects our daily lives. As manufacturing jobs move to lower-cost regions, the U.S. economy will become increasingly dependent on ideas and innovation. This will require better education in science and engineering. We need people with real-world experience as teachers, but teachers are undervalued and underpaid. We should, at least, make it possible for scientists working on real problems to come to school, to show the applications of their work. Globalization affects all countries, not just the United States. Jobs move to places where there never were jobs. It’s an issue of thermodynamics: the world will move to a more stable situation. Then you have the kinetic question: How fast will it happen?

“The robots we are working on are biomimetic: They mimic animals—how animals move, and specifically, in the current project, how to create and control a quadrupedal gallop. “While small robots have successfully been designed to move at high speeds in terms of body lengths per second,” Daniel says, “we are working on a large-scale machine designed to gallop at around six meters per second (12 miles per hour). The different scale presents numerous challenges, such as power delivery, energy efficiency and shock absorption. We want to design and build a machine with the capability to traverse difficult terrain, to deal with positive or negative obstacles such as divots or bumps, just as animals in this type of environment would—like horses and mountain goats—easily and quickly.”

Daniel Jacobs ’01

Daniel’s main thrust this year is to develop his own research, and he is interested in foot design as it relates to locomotion. “Right now, the machine we are working on is around 180 pounds, 5–6 feet long and when it contacts the ground experiences between 8g and 9g of acceleration. Unfortunately, in the early design stages, the feet were neglected. Until this point, the focus had been more on getting the legs coordinated, and controlling the thrusting system that powers the liftoff. Now, there’s a need to work on stabilization, getting some control. The current foot design is a simple aluminum hemisphere, covered in a piece of bike tire for extra traction. However, in both humans and animals the foot plays an essential part in reducing the shock from ground contact. When you jump and then land, your tendons dampen the shock and help you stabilize. But this robot is rigid aluminum. Not only does the large shock prematurely wear on the body of the machine, the large shocks can also saturate the sensors causing an error between the calculated and actual position of the vehicle in flight, which can cause instability of the system. For us, instability means a heavy and expensive machine hits the ground at high speed. By designing a biomimetic foot that can function more closely to the actual foot of quadrupeds, I hope to increase the stability of the machine and extend the lifetime of the components.” Thinking about these challenges helps him understand the problems in the field and the opportunities for his doctoral the21

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Science Teaching/Science Learning: Messages from Daniel Plan carefully so that you can look broadly, so you can choose well, but not too early. I would advise against narrowing down before you have a sense of the scope and the many interesting ways to go in science.

my college physics labs easy. In her class we covered a ton of material, did our own projects, and even mentored ninth graders. Our goal, she said, was to figure out how we would get them to think about science.

Milton was good about plenty of handson projects, which are important, and Dr. Eyster, in honors biology, pushed us, stretched us well beyond those elementary-type lab reports. She stretched us to apply the scientific method to lots of open-ended science projects. That made

Depending upon the person, if he or she wants to specialize early, AP science options might be beneficial. Having AP science behind you may give you more flexibility in getting in to specialty areas earlier.

sis. Daniel prepared for what he knew would be a career in some aspect of math and science by purposefully shaping the broadest high-school experience possible. Not only did he love the time-consuming interests of jazz and athletics, he doubled up on languages, and took AP math. He figured that taking the three major sciences would position him adequately to be accepted at a good engineering school, his goal; but in view of the specialization that was inevitable later on, he wanted breadth. He used the same rubric at Stanford, being careful to take general preparatory

A galloping quadruped developed by the Robotic Locomotion Laboratory at Stanford University, whose director is Ken Waldron, Ph.D. 22

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courses, while he looked carefully around the departments, learning what professors were working on what problems and projects. Ultimately, his introductory course in mechatronics hit the right nerve, and he’s been happy every since. “One reason mechatronics is great,” Daniel says, “is that it is very broad and interdisciplinary. It demands that you bring several threads together: mechanical design, hardware design and circuitry, and software in the creation of something amazing.”

“Conservation biology develops the methodologies to protect natural systems while considering the role that humans play in the natural world. Many conservation biologists are driven by the belief that decisions about the natural world should be based on the best scientific information. They study the ecological, economic, and social aspects or of a natural system to inform managers and policy makers about its inner workings.”

Laurie Richmond ’98 Master’s candidate, conservation biology, University of Minnesota Fellow, MacArthur Program, Interdisciplinary Center for Global Change The notion of focusing her science on environmental justice and communitybased science began during a semester in Ecuador. It crystallized after college graduation while Laurie was working at the environmental office of a Native American tribe in northern New Mexico: Taos Pueblo. Laurie was the water-quality specialist there and helped organize the water-quality monitoring program. There she learned how cultural, economic and political concerns play an important role in environmental monitoring and management. “Working at Taos opened my eyes to new directions you could go in science,” Laurie says. “At Milton and Middlebury, I developed a set of environmental ‘ideals’ about how conservation should work. When I began working with local communities, some of these worldviews were shattered. I observed that environmental issues are just one part of people’s livelihood and concern. I also began to learn how environmental science can help people and communities protect their natural resources and consequently their health. Certain communities did not always have access to the funds and technical expertise to examine and remediate important environmental concerns. I am interested in defining scientific study so it provides technical information and is directed at communities that normally do not have access to those resources—specifically, in creating scientific partnerships with native American and Alaska native communities.” As a first-year student in the conservation biology Ph.D. program at the University of Minnesota, Laurie is in the fisheries and wildlife track. Minnesota attracted her because she is able to work closely with a

professor who has extensive experience working with tribes in northern Minnesota on fisheries issues. “I am interested in fish population dynamics and the science behind the management of sustainable fisheries—how environmental change affects fish populations that are economically and culturally valuable. I would like to form partnerships with Alaska Native communities to explore how climate variability affects populations of the Pacific halibut. I would like to combine scientific inquiry into how halibut have responded to climate change in the past (through an analysis of the fish’s calcium parts, called otoliths) with indigenous knowledge about changes both in the fishery and climate over time. The shape and direction of my research should respond to what communities could use in their decision making.”

Laurie Richmond ’98

Science Teaching/Science Learning: Messages from Laurie Both Milton and Middlebury taught me how to analyze and communicate, especially in science. At Milton, I developed these skills through advanced lab reports and essay-like, thoughtprovoking tests. Scientific communication is an important aspect of science education. Students can forget techniques and technical aspects of a scientific subject, or relearn these details when they need to, but the ability to analyze scientific information and communicate it effectively will be invaluable in whatever aspect of science they pursue. The approach to science should be to concentrate on the scientific method, as Milton does. Students need to learn the theory or the concept, use experiments to help understand it, frame questions and test them, practice the testing, see things in action, learn to describe what they see, and understand how the concept works in the real world—come the full circle.

Two trends in the way society perceives science concern me. The first is that public figures show a disdain for science and shy away from using scientific information as a fundamental base for decision making. The second concern is in the other direction: the public accepts “scientific information,” as fact. In fact, scientific information can easily be misconstrued. Students appreciate the scientific method’s importance in seeking objective information, as well as questioning information, and considering sources of bias or manipulation. People should ask about study design, political motivation, time frame of the study or sample size. United States politicians have been dismissing scientific evidence on global warming, worsening the problem. Other nations, beyond accepting or rejecting global warming as scientific fact, have begun programs of global warming preparedness—preparing for the potential consequences such as rising sea levels and increases in tropical storms.

Laurie’s graduate work is funded through a fellowship with the University of Minnesota’s Interdisciplinary Center for Global Change (ICGC). An interdisciplinary and cross-cultural group of faculty and graduate students, they study global change, especially in the developing world—including issues such as peace, conflict, security, social and environmental change, justice, human rights, development and international cooperation. Laurie brings a scientist’s approach to the discussion that includes students of economics, political science, history, gender studies, law and public policy. “The differences in how we approach and speak about the same problems are fascinating,” Laurie says. “This type of education that fosters interdisciplinary communication is very important. We are experiencing problems that span disciplines and require communication among disciplines, and individuals who can ‘speak the language’ of several different fields. “My traditional education at Milton and then at Middlebury gave me a strong base to support a career in the general direction of science, Laurie says. “However, the decision to do more community-based science and to think about the role of environmental science in the developing world stemmed from my experiences outside the classroom.”

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“Molecular biology was the first area of science that I could see myself doing, the first time I could imagine work I could do that would make a real-world difference. I’m in molecular biology because of the disease and human welfare aspect of it.”

Molly Perkins ’00 Fellow, Oxford-NIH Graduate Partnership in Biomedical Science After a year working at Cold Spring Harbor, Molly Perkins is a molecular biologist in the Oxford-NIH Graduate Partnership in Biomedical Science. She is working at Oxford for two years and will follow that with two years at NIH in Bethesda, Maryland. “I study HIV and its interaction with another virus, GB virus C,” Molly explains. “GBV-C (also called hepatitis G virus) is related to hepatitis C but doesn’t seem to cause any disease. People who are infected with HIV-1 and GBV-C at the same time tend to do better than people who only have HIV. Individuals who have both viruses tend to have lower HIV viral loads and higher helper T cell counts, and they tend to have longer survival than people who have HIV but not GBV-C. Scientists are trying to figure out what causes this effect.” With other scientists, Molly is investigating the nature of the interaction between the two viruses. Little is known about this

Science Teaching/Science Learning: Messages from Molly Our labs at Milton were focused on really teaching you the scientific process rigorously. That was the most valuable lesson. You can learn specific techniques in college, but that scientific approach to rigor and logic is invaluable. Science is a different way of thinking. All my teachers at Milton were good at motivating the idea of the scientific method. Some things are known. That is, you can keep asking “why?” about them, and there’s an answer. There’s a power to the scientific method that can be shown in these answers; it’s sort of pure. Knowledge of the scientific method is a key awareness. The need for it comes up in every aspect of life. People don’t

virus. It has the same causal agents as HIV and roughly 2 percent of Americans have it right now. Mechanistically, what is happening between the two viruses? Do they infect the same cell? That would affect the disease pathway. Inflammation has an effect on disease. Does this virus affect inflammation? Does GBV-C affect the immune response? “These questions might lead eventually to a drug that could mimic the action of GBV-C,” Molly says, “and doctors are also considering a trial where they would deliberately infect HIV patients with GBV-C to try to induce this beneficial effect.” Entering high school, Molly “loved math and hated science.” Physics turned her around. In fact, she claims that she owes passing her first-year advanced chemistry course at Harvard to taking Physics II at Milton with Tom Sando. “He was militant about teaching thermodynamics; he felt that was the province and responsibility of physics teachers. That came to bear on my life exactly one year later in chemistry.

Molly Perkins ’00

Milton Magazine

“Then,” Molly says, “the molecular focus of biology hooked me. I like molecular biology because it’s so complicated. Milton was more focused on molecular biology than the AP course is, or than other highschool programs are, and that’s what the

seem to understand what’s known, the implications of that, and what’s not known. They don’t seem to know what certain basic processes are. If more people knew and applied the scientific method, the public debate about some of the most controversial issues would be different. Keep an honors track for serious science students. The challenge aspect of science is very important. If all things are easier, they’re easier to ignore. I got 76 percent on my electrostatics lab in honors physics; who would have thought that the lab would be my work environment today?

focus of biology at Harvard was for me. I was extremely well prepared for Harvard biology, where they start with genetics, and I was comfortable with that. I know that the labs Diane Gilbert-Diamond (Milton science department) is doing in molecular biology are the ones I was doing at Harvard, researching my thesis. During her freshman year in college, Molly began thinking she would go into applied math, or history and politics. Then, during the spring semester, she took genetics and never stopped taking biology. “I finished my molecular biology courses early, because of the good preparation at Milton, and therefore could take graduate courses in immunology while I was still an undergrad, and then go right on to Cold Spring Harbor.” From Cold Spring Harbor Molly sought out a place in the Oxford-NIH program because “my interest,” she says, “is disease driven, human welfare driven; this is the aspect of science that is thrilling to me.” Cathleen Everett

Elizabeth Grossman ’88 Kirk Emerson ’69 Linn Gould ’76

“Writing in 1799 to a young student whom he was mentoring, the patriot [Thomas Jefferson] advised the man to study science and urged him to reject the ‘doctrine which the present despots of the earth are inculcating.’ That there is nothing new to be learned. He concluded by saying opposition to ‘freedom and science would be such a monstrous phenomenon as I cannot place among possible things in this age and this country.’” —October 2005, Scientific American, “Science Abuse: Subverting Scientific Knowledge for Short-term Gain”

Pro Bonum Publicum:

Working at the Nexus of Science and Public Policy Science news drives headlines on a daily basis, whether the issue is the Kyoto Protocol, avian flu, gene mapping, or genetically modified food. Reactions to opportunities, crises or economic realities often show leaders in reactive mode. These three Milton grads are among those with the scientific and social expertise to gather information, evaluate and act, helping leaders make effective, broadly beneficial choices, in the face of real-world considerations.

Elizabeth Grossman ’88 Staff Director, Subcommittee on Research, Committee on Science, U.S. House of Representatives The Committee on Science began in January 1959, born of a House-Senate leadership initiative to promote American strength in science and technology, a bold response to the 1957 launch of Sputnik. In 2001, Representative Sherwood L. Boehlert became chairman of the Committee on Science. He pledged to

“build the Science Committee into a significant force within the Congress” and “to ensure that we have a healthy, sustainable, and productive R&D establishment—one that educates students, increases human knowledge, strengthens U.S. competitiveness and contributes to the well-being of the nation and the world.” To ensure that the Science Committee had access to the expertise to tackle the technical questions before it, Chairman Boehlert hired staff with scientific backgrounds, such as Elizabeth, who has a Ph.D. in physics.

Today, Elizabeth directs a subcommittee with broad jurisdiction: It handles issues related to education, basic research and the health of the U.S. academic research enterprise. It oversees the National Science Foundation and the science and technology programs of the Department of Homeland Security; it also reviews science and math education, computer security, government-wide research and development initiatives such as information technology and nanotechnology, and fire and earthquake mitigation efforts.

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Elizabeth was able to see National Science Foundation–supported research on glaciers, volcanoes, climate change, the origins of the universe, and penguins. “That trip was a unique opportunity,” Elizabeth stresses. “More often, I go to see universities, science museums, and government research facilities within the United States.” Last summer, she visited various institutions in Massachusetts, where she saw automated vessels to map the sea floor, heard about storybooks that show second graders what engineers do (from designing buildings to purifying water), and learned about research on how to use proteins from spinach to generate solar power more efficiently.

Elizabeth Grossman ’88

How do you wrap your arms around everything from nanotechnology to firstgrade math to communications for first responders? You don’t. Elizabeth explains, “We have two jobs: looking ahead and avoiding crises.” A primary task for the Committee is thinking about how to determine federal priorities and what the federal investment should be. “Critical issues for the Science Committee include innovation and competitiveness, because there’s a fundamental connection between science and technology and America’s economic and national security,” Elizabeth says. “I’m part of a nerdy, political family,” she adds. “After Milton, I went to Swarthmore, where I got a physics major with a math minor.” At the University of Chicago, Elizabeth—who says she likes physicists and mathematicians and thinks calculus is “beautiful”—completed a doctorate in computational physics. “[Doctoral work] trains you to be a research professor, but I would not have been good at that. What’s fun to me is learning how to tackle a problem and then moving on.” “I started thinking,” Elizabeth says, “‘I can write. I’ve been trained to think analytically. Yet I actually like science and scientists, and I want to continue to be part of the scientific community.’” So she came to Washington, D.C., where she worked at the National Academies, a

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private, nonprofit organization that brings together committees of scientific experts to advise the federal government on critical national issues. At the National Academies, one of her projects was working on a post-9/11 report titled “Making the Nation Safer: the Role of Science and Technology in Countering Terrorism.” Ideas in the report were incorporated into the legislation that established the Department of Homeland Security, and so she moved from the National Academies to the Committee on Science to help with congressional oversight of the new department. Working for Congress is an exciting, if exhausting, experience. There are so many topics to tackle each day, even before the email or phone call with the newest urgent request. “To do this job, I need to be good at trying to understand, analyze, and explain something I knew nothing about 10 minutes ago,” says Elizabeth. Mainly, Elizabeth spends her days talking to people, to learn what the exciting future opportunities are in science and technology and whether existing federal programs are working well. “Mostly the people who know these things come to me,” says Elizabeth, “but sometimes I get to travel to see them.” For example, in January, Chairman Boehlert led a congressional delegation, including staff, to view federal science programs in Antarctica (see photo). There,

“I love talking to scientists and educators about what they do, and how the federal government can help them do it better,” says Elizabeth, “but I don’t miss being a scientist.” “I work for Congress now,” Elizabeth says. “I know the pros and cons of consensus. Congress is a bunch of people who have different needs and goals and are constrained by funding. In science, people try to figure out what’s true. Here, we’re trying to figure out what’s possible—what works best within the constraints of money, time, goals and other priorities.” All full committee and subcommittee hearings and markups are Webcast live on the committee Web site: www.house.gov/science.

Kirk Emerson ’69 Director, U.S. Institute for Environmental Conﬂict Resolution “The best we can do as leaders is affect policies that will improve overall decision making,” says Kirk Emerson ’69, a native West Virginian and director of the U.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution of the Morris K. Udall Foundation. “Many people that end up in the field of conflict resolution,” Kirk notes, “have a winding career path. They are motivated by bringing folks together.” Kirk’s interest in science was once limited to a Milton biology class and it broadened somewhat to include psychology at Princeton. She sees her early investigations, involved with children, as the beginnings of her interest in how an individual interacts with his environment.

Linn Gould ’76: Founder, Erda Environmental Services, Inc. Linn Gould (M.S., M.P.H.) is the owner and operator of Erda Environmental Services, Inc., an environmental consulting firm, that has specialized in risk assessment/management services and environmental policy issues since its inception in 1991. Since the completion of her M.P.H. in 2003, she has expanded Erda’s services to solve problems that cross both the public health and environmental health sectors. Her recent work has focused on the social causes of health including environmental justice, sustainability, the effects of income inequality on health, health inequities associated with obesity, the built environment, and tobacco use and control. Linn and three other colleagues recently launched a nonprofit organization called the Population Health Project, which develops and teaches middle-school and high-school curricula on the root causes of health inequalities. “My overarching goal,” says Linn, “is to promote equality among all people. I’ve internalized that ideal over my lifetime: I have a great-great-grandfather, William Lloyd Garrison, who was an abolitionist. My parents have been involved with the struggle for equal rights for women as well as land conservation. My focus is on promoting health equality for all.” In 1991, Linn founded Erda, a Seattlebased environmental consultancy firm named for the Nordic goddess of the earth. Linn, whose first master’s is in soil science, focused in her early career on environmental issues in the Pacific Northwest—working with industry and governmental agencies to remediate contaminated waste sites and addressing emerging environmental policy issues. “But the bigger picture always bothered me and I wasn’t sure that I was improving the world.” In her travels through developing countries, Linn saw that many of the world’s environmental problems were caused by poverty and resource conflicts. In addition, environmental degradation was often exacerbated by those most adversely affected by it, resulting in a downward spiral of increased poverty and depleted resources. “People often didn’t have the choice or

power to act differently,” Linn says. “Even though it was clear that desertification was the cause of many of their problems, they needed wood for their fires. Their choice was survival.” Linn was interested in addressing the root causes of the link between poor health and environmental degradation. “I needed to understand the connection between our environment and population health. That led me to get a second master’s in public health. Our society talks about individual choice and responsibility as the cause of good and bad health outcomes. I wanted to learn about the root causes of health inequalities (political, social, and economic) in populations, otherwise referred to as ‘social determinants of health.’ This interest led me to my current work on environmental justice: Why are low-income people and minorities disproportionately exposed to contamination and what can be done to change this problem?” Environmental justice is defined by the Environmental Protection Agency as “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of color, national origin or income with respect to development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations and policies.” Linn considers public health, public policy and social justice to be inseparable. “How can society give people better choices?” Linn suggests that some choices people make are not choices at all: If a disadvantaged community has no access to sidewalks, parks, and healthy, affordable food destinations, it’s harder and less inviting to go for a walk, and therefore stay healthy. If school lunches are not healthful and soda machines line the walls of your school, the environment encourages, and almost ensures, poor decision making. She says that in the 1970s, social justice was dropped from the mainstream environmental agenda, therefore low-income and minority communities lost their power to participate and collaborate in decisions that were affecting their communities.

Linn and three other colleagues recently launched a nonprofit organization called the Population Health Project, whose mission is to raise awareness of the root causes of health inequalities and to develop strategies to create societal conditions favorable to health for all. They develop and teach middle-school and high-school curricula on the root causes of health inequalities. “Our goal is to teach students to think critically and to take action as part of their coursework. We ask them to make connections between low income and obesity, discrimination and stress—to understand how social, economic, and political forces shape health outcomes and the need for policy change to help individuals take responsibility for their behavior. We give students a framework, a set of questions that allows them to incorporate the consideration of health inequalities into other subjects they are already studying.” “Understanding science,” says Linn, “gives me the credibility and confidence to advocate for change.”

Linn Gould ’76

Milton Magazine

agencies or interests. The institute provides a neutral place inside the federal government but “outside the Beltway” where public and private interests can reach common ground. Resolving conflicts related to the environment, natural resources, and public lands involves using a range of methods. Unlike traditional litigation, in which a judge or jury imposes judgments or make determinations, alternative methods of assisted negotiation—facilitation, mediation, conflict assessment—allow all stakeholders in a dispute to reach a mutually satisfactory agreement on their own terms.

Kirk Emerson ’69

Later, Kirk earned a master’s in environmental and urban planning at MIT, where she studied participatory planning and citizen development in community planning. In Bucks County, Pennsylvania, she worked in environmental planning before becoming director of countywide planning. “Dealing with what is known about the impact of development, natural systems, ecosystems and critical habitat, I became increasingly interested in helping people address differences in opinion about how to conserve or protect the environment,” Kirk recalls. She trained as a community mediator and gained experience in mediating land use and development disputes. “I worked on water supply and wells going dry and traffic patterns around schools. Then I went back to school at Indiana University for a doctorate in political science and public policy. I needed the analytic tools to work with my background in applied social sciences.” Having moved with her husband to Tucson, Kirk became a visiting scholar at the Udall Center for Public Policy at the University of Arizona. In 1998, Congress created the U.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution (ECR) to assist parties in resolving environmental conflicts around the country that involve federal

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“We’re a democracy. Turmoil and conflict are natural, particularly when you have the environment at stake,” Kirk says. “When people are making decisions that might be irrevocable, you hope that they might not swing back and forth with political fortunes. Our work contributes to not having the pendulum swing quite so far. One of the benefits of this work is that you can introduce information and knowledge that might not otherwise be considered. Both the quality and durability of outcomes are bound to be improved. “We do assessment upfront,” Kirk says. “A lot of the work is getting ready to get people to the table—convening work. That allows the parties to own the process, and the odds are increased that they are going to be successful.” The institute also provides assistance in consensus-based processes, such as negotiated rule-making, community-based collaborations and policy dialogues. The goal here is to engage representatives from groups affected by proposed federal policies or actions to help formulate, revise, or implement them. “These are very complex problems. The science is not always neat and tidy. There’s a lot of distrust of science as well as government. There’s a real need for trustworthy, transparent institutions to facilitate these complex conversations. We’re facing very different kinds of issues than we did when our rivers were burning back in the 1960s, and we faced the loss of species from known sources (like DDT). Now we have much more complex, cross-boundary issues.

“I would hope that science teachers would see the opportunities to teach students not only about the science, but also about the intersection between science and community. I’d hope that they might role-play— encourage students to take on different interests through perspective training— and think about what it means for a saw mill to close down or a landfill to be cited in a minority neighborhood. “For those going into science, there’s a lot to learn about educating and communicating. You really need the scientific community to honor and reward those who are the peacemakers.” Kirk has overseen the strategic direction, organizational development and program administration of the institute since its inception. She oversees the selection of cases and projects, devoting most of her time to early case consultation, process design and facilitation of interagency conflicts. In addition, Kirk works with federal agencies in developing other ECR programs through strategic planning, training, system design and program evaluation. Prior to her work at the U.S. Institute, Kirk developed and coordinated the environmental conflict resolution program at the University of Arizona’s Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy, where she conducted research, taught, and directed several conflict management and public involvement projects involving water resources, endangered species, and western range policies. She has taught graduate and undergraduate courses on conflict resolution and environmental law and has written on environmental mediation, land use law and environmental policy. She received the William Anderson Award from the American Political Science Association for her dissertation on regulatory takings and state property rights laws in 1998. Kirk says that listening well is the most important part of successful mediation. “The parties need to do the negotiations,” she says. “We’re just the midwives.” Some information in this story is courtesy of http://www.ecr.gov/. Heather Sullivan

Nick Ulman ’84 Gil Kliman ’76 Brendan Traw ’87

With a “hand” in developing the

new new thing “I work with start-up companies and inventors in many different areas of technology who want to patent core technology.” —Nick Ulman ’84 Woodside IP Group

“I most enjoy being on the front edge of new technology waves, looking over the horizon for non-obvious opportunities.” —Gil Kliman ’76 Interwest Partners, Menlo Park, CA

“My work with Intel is about making sure there is a clear technological strategy for developing business—the Intel business that intersects with consumers.” —Brendan Traw ’87 Intel Fellow and CTO

t home in the storied land of technological exploration and innovation, Silicon Valley, Gil Kliman ’76, Nick Ulman ’84 and Brendan Traw ’87 are each agents who enable change, working where science and business converge. For Gil Kliman, M.D., now a venture capitalist with Interwest Partners in Menlo Park, California, interest in technological innovation came during his opthamology fellowship at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. At that time, the late 1980s, researchers at Mass Eye and Ear were exploring new uses of lasers in eye surgery. “I liked surgery,” Gil says, “and I liked helping to develop new technologies. I enjoyed looking at the unsolved problems of the eye and addressing how you figure out something new that is safe, effective and reliable.” In Boston, after his medical training, Gil divided his time between eye surgery and consulting in venture capital before heading to business school at Stanford to focus full time on medical technology development. “Over the past 20 years,” Gil states on Interwest’s Web site, “I have had the privilege of diverse life experiences as a practicing physician, startup company founder, and technology venture capitalist.” A partner at Interwest for 10 years, Gil has been a backer of a number of breakthrough technological advances that couple life sciences with new technology. Epocrates, for instance, is a comprehensive and up-todate, software-based reference for drug prescribing, disease diagnosis and laboratory test information, that physicians access on mobile handheld devices like PDAs and cellphones. Interwest has also been a major investor for IntraLase, an eye

laser company with a technology that makes LASIK vision surgery safer and more accurate by using ultrashort pulsed laser energy instead of the manual cutting tool with a metal blade used in traditional LASIK procedures. Spinal Dynamics is a third example of these life science/technology investment ideas supported by Interwest. The company developed one of the first artificial disks for spine surgery, where instead of the old-fashioned method of fusing together vertebral bones around collapsed disks, the Spinal Dynamics technology replaces the damaged disk with a mobile artificial one that moves just like the original. “There’s an old saying in Silicon Valley that the best way to predict the future is to invent it,” Gil says. “I first was inspired by invention at Milton, learning about scientists and inventors. Now, 30 years later, having backgrounds both in science and business helps me pick which inventions will be major drivers of the future of healthcare.” Today, at Woodside IP Group, Nick Ulman applies his understanding of physics and engineering, as well as his ability to write about complicated inventions, to produce patent applications and provide product development consultation for inventors and start-up firms. Nick’s science trajectory includes earning a B.S.E. in electrical engineering at Princeton, followed by a Ph.D. in physics at MIT, and postdoctoral study at Stanford in electrical engineering. Nick was a staff scientist in the Ginzton Laboratory at Stanford University where he developed silicon microfabrication techniques for biological applications. He was a founder and chief technology officer 29

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Brendan Traw ’87

Gil Kliman ’76

Nick Ulman ’84

of Proteomic Systems, Inc. Reflecting on whether his skills and interests had changed over time, he described his own pathway from Milton in 1984 to the present, in simple summary, as “a slow oscillation from practical gadgets, toward science research, back to technology, and now leaning to business.”

things. The first task is to talk with the technical people to understand what the invention is, and what it does, and then to understand the patentable part of it: discerning what is new, relative to what has been around for some time. Success with that depends upon asking the proper questions. You can waste plenty of time writing at length about something that is interesting, but is not patentable. I like this work because I get involved in a lot of different things. I keep abreast of new developments, the latest, hottest things.”

system architecture, cryptography and networking,” as the Web site notes, Brendan says he had been “working in that space that brings together the stickiest of issues: Internet privacy of movies and music brings together technology, law and public policy. That was a great springboard to my current role, which rather than focusing on a specific technological area, covers a range of technologies important to Intel’s business. While it is important that people work in specific areas of science, the way for me to be most successful at Intel is to bridge the sciences with other areas and with how it relates to people’s lives.”

Nick explains that he works in many different areas of new technology, but one example would be his work with microelectro-mechanical systems (MEMS). MEMS is described at www.memsnet.org as “the integration of mechanical elements, sensors, actuators, and electronics on a common silicon substrate through microfabrication technology. MEMS promises to revolutionize nearly every product category by…making possible the realization of complete systems-on-a-chip. MEMS is an enabling technology allowing the development of smart products, augmenting the computational ability of microelectronics with the perception and control capabilities of microsensors and microactuators and expanding the space of possible designs and applications.” Toward a layperson’s understanding of this technology, advances in the design of accelerometers—the tiny machines that trigger airbags—depend upon MEMS technology, as do digital light processors (DLP’s) that provide the display in digital televisions. “I’m most effective,” Nick says, “when understanding physics and technology is important, and when the need is to describe something very clearly. I’ve always enjoyed describing technical

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Brendan Traw is an Intel Fellow. “Intel Fellows,” according to the company’s Web site “are selected for their technical leadership and outstanding contributions to the company and the industry.” Brendan joined Intel immediately after earning his Ph.D. in computer information science from the University of Pennsylvania and, after 10 years with the company, is responsible for the architecture of Intel’s consumer PC and consumer electronics platforms as CTO of Intel’s Digital Home Group. He explains that his role now represents a migration toward guiding business development—understanding the consumer landscape and the emergent technology well enough to identify the strategically superior approach to product development. “I did spend time as a specialist,” Brendan says. He previously led the Intel team that developed Digital Transmission Content Protection (DTCP), the basis for content protection in today’s digital home networks. Brendan explains that even that work was interdisciplinary. “An expert in

Looking back from a straight-line academic trajectory from Milton through a B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania to his ten-year career at Intel, Brendan says he always had an interest in the natural world. “I was always collecting things, looking for insights, trying to figure out what was happening in the world around me—so I had a sense I would do something in science. By the time I was a teenager, engineering and computing was a hobby. I took AP Pascal from Mr. Seigfried and spent time with him out of class. So even when Milton’s science facilities weren’t that great, we had access to faculty members who were clearly experts, and were just as curious as we were. These sorts of experiences shaped me and helped light a fire. Today I apply the same critical thinking skills that I learned at Milton—in the humanities and in the sciences.” Cathleen Everett

Science at Milton

Genetics Class Usess HIV Epidemic as Model “N

ot many high schools have taken this approach in genetics,” says Diane Gilbert-Diamond, of the science department. Normally colleges and universities would take a model such as HIV and study the fundamentals of molecular genetics through it. “Molecular genetics is such a broad field, and using HIV is a way to find a common thread and allow students to become experts on a topic during the semester,” Diane says.

mon in Caucasians. For this study, Dr. Walker’s lab provided DNA samples, and the students tested the CCR5 genotype for three “subjects,” using a technique called

“I liked learning about lab procedures in relation to the study of HIV, and then being able to see firsthand how those procedures are used daily in labs such as the ones at Mass General Hospital,” said Ilana Klarman, one of Diane’s students in the course’s introductory year.

Funded by a curriculum development grant, Diane designed the course using research facilities of the Partners AIDS Research Center in Charlestown, Massachusetts, where renowned geneticist Dr. Bruce Walker, a Milton parent, bases his research. There, after extensive reading and research, Diane, assisted by lab members, developed lab experiments for students. She introduced the course at Milton in 2003–2004. “One lab in this course focuses on the gene CCR5, which codes for a receptor on helper T cells. Researchers have found that people carrying a deletion in their CCR5 genes are less likely to contract HIV,” Diane explains. The double CCR5 mutation is extremely rare, but more com-

the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). In order to do this technique, the class used state-of-the-art equipment, including a thermocycler machine. Diane explains that “using tools and procedures like this, realworld applications of the science that they’re learning, adds relevance to the course; students understand the implications of the findings.”

“This course aims to teach high-school students the fundamentals of molecular genetics through focusing on HIV,” Diane says. “It also aims to increase students’ interest and motivation to learn biology, while giving them a greater understanding of one of the greatest health issues facing the world. The course provides an excellent opportunity for students to understand the connection between fundamental scientific research and technology, as well as science and society,” Diane says. Diane Gilbert-Diamond

Milton Magazine

Linking scientific research and social issues is brilliant, said Chrissy Hobbs, another of the course’s charter members. “Knowing that what you’re learning has applications in the real world, knowing that people are still studying what you are learning about—or knowing that the next time you read about HIV-AIDS you’ll be better informed on the subject—is amazing. Not only did we learn about human genetics, but we also learned about the genetics of a retrovirus and about the human immune system,” Chrissy added.

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Linking research and social issues can be an effective way to enforce the practical and vital role of science in the world, Diane believes. Using HIV, a major social and health crisis with which students are already familiar, also gives them a context that can make concepts easier to grasp. “Another important thing we’ve done in this course is to use HIV to look at evolution; the most difficult thing about developing a vaccine is that the disease is so variable,” Diane explains. In a computerbased lab, students examine the sequences of HIV in a single person to see how the virus has mutated over time to escape that patient’s immune system.

“One of the main things that I want the students to learn,” Diane notes, “is that in order to solve a problem like HIV, scientists need to understand the genetics of the disease on a fundamental level. Our current therapies against HIV were developed from this fundamental scientific understanding of the virus and human biology. And that’s true with many diseases. I want the students to realize that what they are learning now can help them to develop the solutions of the future.”

Science at Milton

very year, Milton students, usually in Classes I or II, find their imaginations and intellects so fired they elect to do an independent study in science. This winter we caught up with four of those students: Wiley Caine, Kathryn Evans, Amanda Faulkner and Hannah Gallo, all Class of 2006. Although their projects are different, all four students share common ground when they speak of science. They point to particular moments when science took hold of their thinking. For Hannah, that moment was the research topic she did on sustainable forestry at the Maine Coast Semester. She remembers making over 80 phone calls and conducting more than 20 face-to-face interviews as part of her research. “You became devoted to your topic.” Her presentation of her findings to the rest of the school was “a big pivotal moment. I had never applied myself that much; I had never known so much about a topic before. It felt good.” Wiley’s inspiration started at Milton in Tony Domizio’s

Methods in Scientific Research class, which “really got me into inquiry,” Wiley says. Coupled with his family’s longtime interest in environmental matters, Wiley’s inquiry led to research on environmentally sound buildings. Amanda’s curiosity about fish farming grew straight out of her experience in California this past summer as Milton’s S.E.A. Scholar (an opportunity provided by the Roger Hallowell ’28 Memorial Fund). There she found the study of marine life so fascinating that she changed her Milton course schedule to include an independent project on fish farming. Kathryn has lived her whole life “across the street from water,” so she has had a lifelong curiosity about marine life. On any given day, she says, “you can find me in hip waders mucking around in the marshes.” Two Milton experiences led to her project of dissecting marine organisms: the dogfish dissection in Marine Biology and her participation in the Blue Lobster Bowl marine science competition at MIT. The only Class II student on the Milton team, Kathryn found the competition eye-opening: “There I realized the extent of marine science. I wanted to learn more.”

Independent Milton Scientists

Milton Magazine

Wiley Caine ’06

Hannah Gallo ’06

“When a politician asks, ‘Do you know absolutely?’ any good scientist will say ‘no,’ even if he believes it or can show it. It’s an art form to communicate science at that level; scientists who can hold their own with pols are rare. I will be interested to see when science and politics really collide in my life. In fact, it would be amazing to combine the two.”

All four note the support they have felt from the Milton science faculty. Science teachers passing through the labs will invariably stop to ask them what they are working on. They can become so excited about a student’s research that they leave pertinent articles or books in that student’s mailbox. “It’s contagious,” says Kathryn. “The faculty have such a personal admiration for science that it’s infectious. They’re so willing to help you foster your own passion.” Wiley concurs, “You learn that science is collaborative. People get invested in what you are doing.”

—Wiley Caine

Milton Magazine

The Milton science department spawned the habits of mind that have helped guide these students in their research. The department inculcates a healthy skepticism in its students. Nothing is certain in science; everything demands fresh, independent, and open-minded scrutiny. “Teachers encourage you to question, to discover for yourself,” says Kathryn. “Test it. Figure out why it worked.” “I love the science department,” declares Hannah. DYOs (the Do Your Own research projects that are a staple of Milton’s science courses) significantly shaped Amanda’s way of thinking. “You had to figure things out yourself. You were really on your own.

I liked that.” In Environmental Science, Wiley learned that environmental science, and by extension, all science, “is global, not simple. You see more and more connections as you go on. You learn that nothing exists in isolation.” Each of these students is engaged in a seminal Milton experience based in science. Wherever their careers take them, their intense and early connection with the scientific process will affect the sophistication and skill they can apply to decoding their world. It will affect what kind of leaders they are likely to become. Amanda, for instance, is interested in the social science of science. She began exploring marine policy and maritime history in her U.S. history paper on the Barbary Wars. She has investigated the economics as well as the science of fish farming. She understands, through firsthand research, the challenge in balancing economics and conservation. Scientists have “all the facts, but it is simply not possible to do all that the facts tell us to do.” Amanda may pursue a combined major of environmental policy and economics. After a semester of dissecting squids, skates, rays, and mussels in order to compare the evolution of different organisms in phyla, Kathryn might continue her study of marine organisms. She is fascinated by the giant squid and by the as-yetundiscovered creatures of the oceans’

“Teachers encourage you to question, to discover for yourself,” says Kathryn. “Test it. Figure out why it worked.” “I love the science department,” declares Hannah. DYOs (the Do Your Own research projects that are a staple of Milton’s science courses) significantly shaped Amanda’s way of thinking. “You had to figure things out yourself. You were really on your own. I liked that.”

deepest waters; she could see herself following a career of “conservation and discovery” where, after finding these creatures, she works to preserve their environment. She could also envision a life of rescuing stranded marine life while working for an organization like the Cape Cod Straining Network. She will work to increase public awareness of “the vastness of the water around us. Similar to our ignorance about space, we don’t know what we don’t know. We have to connect people to the effects of global warming, glacier recession and water pollution.” In short, she sees the “drastic” need to bring understanding of science to everybody. Wiley calls his independent study—a full proposal for building an environmentally sound science building at Milton—“a culminating science experience.” He has observed that “the social action part of it” grabs him. “Talking with people who have the same passion (for environmentalism) that I do has been great.” He has talked intensively with LEED architects, town officials, science teachers, administrators, and the director of the Charles River Watershed Association. Wiley has learned that science “does not end, nor does it begin, in the classroom.” The very uncertainty that must lie at the heart of science makes it difficult for scientists to score

Kathryn Evans ’06

Amanda Faulkner ’06

points in the arena of public policy. “When a politician asks, ‘Do you know absolutely?’ any good scientist will say ‘no,’ even if he believes it or can show it. It’s an art form to communicate science at that level; scientists who can hold their own with pols are rare. I will be interested to see when science and politics really collide in my life. In fact, it would be amazing to combine the two.”

plex world. “There’s theoretical physics, chaos theory, the theory of everything. Is it ever real? You can’t test it. Then you have cloning and the manipulation of DNA. Nanotechnology. It’s uncharted territory and people are scared. More and more people are reactionary about science. They have half-formed gut feelings they can’t suppress.” Hannah also notes the uneasy relationships among science, religion, and morality. On the one hand, “science and religion need to be separated, because science cannot function fully in the shadow of moral implications.” At the same time, environmental science, Hannah’s favorite field, “is an interesting mix of morals and efficient science.” Reconciling these forces is “one of the biggest things I struggle with.” This dynamic tension may animate her adult life.

Hannah’s work includes three related studies on forestry. In the fall she studied primary and secondary growth in a 225square-meter plot near the Lower School. This winter, through the University of New Hampshire, she is investigating ultraviolet rays and ozone depletion as indicated by white pines. Finally, this spring she researches sustainable forestry in Massachusetts. External factors have played significant parts in each phase of her studies—land development changed secondary growth patterns in the plot; numerous human factors have led to ozone depletion; sustainable forestry is as much a matter of policy as science. Hannah is gravitating toward environmental law. “Public policy is where I can make the difference. Many people are better at science than I am. Law allows me to use my ability to persuade. I can help make things happen that will use and aid science.” Communicators who know science, she feels, will need to help the public navigate and understand an increasingly com-

These four highly energized, thoughtful, pragmatic seniors are not at all afraid of the hard questions, and have become exactly the sort of bold, knowledgeable, clear-eyed thinkers our science department hopes to produce. Rod Skinner ’72

Milton Magazine

The Head of School

The vision within reach: A Milton Academy distinguished for creating leaders in science

o the curious, questioning, inventive Milton intellectual climate, add a teaching and learning program that capitalizes on the best research about science education. At Milton, where faculty use the Socratic method because it is in their bones, that proven process of inquiry, testing, analysis and debate around the Harkness table will characterize not only every humanities classroom, but every science classroom. Science learning, like actual work in science, thrives on critical thinking and dialogue: raising questions and testing them to determine knowledge. The image of the scientist alone in his or her lab, working out the answers, has been superseded. The more realistic image is scientists engaged “around the table” with a research group, sharing findings, shaping hypotheses, devising experiments that might expose answers, and theorizing what the implications of certain answers might be. Careers in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology rely on integrating experimentation with the conceptualization; internalizing ideas through hands-on experience; using experience to ask more and better questions.

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From a reconstruction of the curriculum, to a focus on inquiry-based teaching, to a new building that surrounds students with the best possible learning environment— and is a work of science itself—science at Milton is poised to become a center of excellence, not only here, but among secondary schools everywhere. The need for renewal in science is all around us: recent surveys reveal Americans’ disturbing lack of knowledge about basic scientific concepts—their inability or reluctance to use science as a resource for crucial decisions. As a nation we are not preparing the number or quality of scientists and engineers that the world needs. The urgency of examining the role educators play in engaging students with science is clear. Pursuing academic excellence in every discipline, over time and as benchmarks change, is Milton’s long-standing tradition. Time and again, the Milton community has enjoyed taking up a challenge, looking through a new lens, and making bold moves. Over the past three years, the Academy has considered what, how, where, why and to whom we teach science. We examined students’ general experience with science

at Milton, and surveyed recent graduates for their opinions. We assessed the opportunities for students who arrived here as science buffs, as well as those who gained momentum once they encountered science at Milton. We have taken into account the significant changes in the way scientists “do” science today, and the profound, ongoing impact of technological and communication advances. Milton began this effort in 2002 with a trustee advisory committee’s yearlong review of the science curriculum. The committee, chaired by Warren McFarlan ’55, included members of our science faculty, along with scientists, researchers, and experts on science education. The advisory committee’s recommendations, which drew not only upon our own studies, but also upon the findings of the National Research Council and the National Academy of Sciences, stimulated a significant revision of science curriculum. A separate faculty committee then worked with a well-recognized science master planner, Art Lidsky of Dover, Lidsky and Craig, to determine the impact of new curricular goals, and to identify what physical spaces would best facilitate leading-

Located at the center of campus, in the footprint of the current science building, the new building will be concrete and glass—transparent, exciting, inviting to one and all. Three light-filled floors on the north side of the building and three on the south are separated by an airy atrium for science exhibits for all to share. Science, in all its diversity and intrigue, is observable from the inside and the outside— rather than being walled in—drawing in even those who are even remotely curious.

edge teaching and learning. Based on the clear goals this group defined for a new science building, Peter Rose and Peter Guggenheimer of Rose + Guggenheimer Studio designed an inspirational academic building for science, which also happens to be about science. A core set of principles underlies the curriculum, pedagogy and building design. These are principles that—added to the rich intellectual environment that is Milton Academy—will distinguish science at Milton. It will attract students from across the nation for whom science is most important and draw into science students who had been unaware of its power and excitement. The new science building creates space to put theory into action: • Inquiry-based method of teaching and learning • Integration of the classroom and laboratory • Use of technology to create data, not just find data • Collaborative learning: the environment for work in groups Robin Robertson

Milton Magazine

Caroline Saltonstall Gymnasium

New science building

Schwarz Student Center

The building itself is a work of science. It â&#x20AC;&#x153;breathesâ&#x20AC;?; that is, the structure is designed to help heat and cool itself. The central atrium area works as a chimney drawing air in, up, and out: cool air from outside through the operable windows and near-ground openings; warm air from the thermal mass of the concrete building itself. Since air in science buildings can only cycle through the building once (rather than being recycled), drawing on cool air from the outside during the warm days and on warm air from the mass of the building during colder days, saves energy that would be spent on heating and cooling. All of the mechanicals and ductwork form a central spine on the ceiling, making it possible to reconfigure the walls to form different-sized classrooms and laboratories over time. Interior stairways across the atrium, reminiscent of an Escher drawing, are glass with glass rails.

Milton Magazine

Drawing on as much natural light as possible, from above and from each side, this building relies less on fluorescent lighting than more typical academic buildings. Each classroom has computer-controlled shades designed to admit light but keep heat out; they descend as necessary, based on the weather and sun conditions.

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The theme of transparency, openness and light surrounding the exploration of science is evident in this view from south to north. Laboratories and classrooms are integrated and each classroom will be acoustically sealed. Each faculty member has his own classroom/laboratory; in addition, three common laboratories will support work that needs specialized

techniques or equipment, and long-term experiments by individuals and classes. Socratic dialogue around the Harkness table, enriched by hands-on work throughout the learning process, with technological tools close at hand, makes science learning exciting, effective and enduring.

Milton Magazine

Faculty Perspective At the Heart of Science Is the Question Michael Edgar, Chair, Science Department

hen I took my first job teaching biology 16 years ago, I was certain that it was short-term. My plan, after a year, was to move on to veterinary school. I found my calling, however, and have taught biology since that time. My certainty at that young age came from a dual passion: for teaching students, and for biology. I not only don’t regret that decision, I am more excited about the teaching of science than ever—about the direction of science education. Actually, a teacher figured prominently in my decision making. Bill George taught me botany and AP biology at Georgetown Day School in Washington, D.C., Bill’s passion for science and interest in my learning was the catalyst for a commitment that has lasted. I was fortunate to work with Bill as a colleague for 10 years at Georgetown Day School. I credit Bill as my mentor in those early years of teaching, and I hope I will fill a similar role in a student’s life.

How best, then, to prepare students— either for an informed life, or for a career in science? Rather than trying to master all the details, we should equip students with the tools of understanding. Then, teaching biology is about epistemology as well as about the natural world. At the heart of science is the question. The work of a scientist is to ask the questions that they can ultimately answer. The work of science educators is threefold: generate interest, stimulate inquiry and assist students to gain knowledge. Our job is to create a rich and engaging landscape in which their ability to learn is enhanced, and in which they flourish.

Advances in molecular biology have changed the nature of biology as a discipline. Historically known as a descriptive science, biology is now clearly a predictive science. Biologists’ greater understanding of the lower levels of organization reverberates to the higher levels of organization, including populations and ecosystems. The information that could be covered in a high-school biology course has increased at a dizzying pace.

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Technology, always hand-in-hand with science, is now indispensable, whether you are using tools for presentation, simulation, gathering information, viewing images, processing data, or acquiring data with probeware. Technology that helps students answer questions they could not otherwise, or that serves as a catalyst for more questions, should be at students’ and faculty’s fingertips. Not only must faculty be aware enough of the latest applications to use them creatively in the curriculum, but they must also have appropriate technology at hand for the serendipitous “learning moments” that surface. Milton students love to ask questions, they love to challenge opinions, and they’re eager to test someone else’s results or conclusions. They are fearless. Working with them on science in spaces that facilitate the most successful, advanced science pedagogy is an exciting and rewarding adventure every day. I feel fortunate to be part of the deepening of Milton’s commitment to science, and my love of teaching is affirmed each time I step into a classroom filled with Milton students.

Michael Edgar with student

The science classroom must be a space that allows students and teachers to inquire in various ways about the science they are exploring: through class discussions, through laboratory work, and through technology. These three components must be seamlessly integrated. Students need to move back and forth between these modes, looking at a question in various ways.

Faculty Perspective Search for Treasure: After turbulent decades, finding family in Cambodia William Moore, English Department

had the extraordinary opportunity to accompany Amy Sanford (Milton Class of ’90), with her life partner Liesel Fenner, on Amy’s first return to her native Cambodia. Amy left Phnom Penh 30 years ago with her adopting American mother, leaving behind her father, Ly Kim Long (Dean of La Faculté des lettres of Phnom Penh University), who was killed soon after during the Khmer Rouge period. Amy grew up in East Milton in the home of her mother, Barbara Sanford, and her grandparents, and subsequently attended Milton Academy, where her academic advisor,

from Class III on, was my wife, the late Nina Seidenman. As life would have it, Nina, and Amy’s beloved grandfather, “Skee” Sanford, died in the same year, 2001, and I picked up the thread of this narrative telling Amy that I didn’t want our relationship to end, and if ever she decided to go back to Cambodia, I’d go with her. Amy recently discovered she had relatives who had survived the Pol Pot era and, contacting a very enthusiastic first cousin, began organizing the return trip that came to fruition last March.

In the craziness of arriving at Phnom Penh airport, we suddenly spotted a number of excited Cambodians leaning into the customs clearance room. One figure slowly waved a postersized headshot of Amy. Steering a heavily laden baggage cart, I followed the siphoning of this very animated crowd toward the outer hall and the street, my camera for the moment dangling helplessly. There they were at last, not a couple of cousins as we had thought, but about 15 relatives surrounding Amy, the women crying and embracing her while making a kind of sound one associates with pain and collective grief. Over the course of the next three weeks, I took a number of group shots of Amy surrounded by her hospitable cousins and their families. It was like documenting a revelation. Photographs by William Moore

Milton Magazine

Everything after 4 p.m. in Cambodia begins to turn gold, and because the sky will eventually go indigo, and guards will come deferentially to urge you away, you scramble down temple galleries in the failing light to glimpse endless rooms upon endless rooms, haunted once by monks and aristocrats, but now aligned in labyrinthine patterns for your astonished camera lens. International money often shores up these crumbling walls. But still the tirelessly waiting jungle takes back its own, and because what does Nature know from great art, itself being the supreme artist who creates and destroys; it takes a moneyed effort to wrest back these architectural wonders from the roots of the kapok trees.

We walked out together behind Cousin Kryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s house, where there is a deep indentation in the soil and a fast-dwindling pond. The trees planted in a line mirror themselves in this greenish water, and beyond them you think you are glimpsing Indiana or Kansas during the Dust Bowl. An endless flat plain stretches out to a distant line of trees over the chalky, brown clods of parched earth. In a month, this entire scene will be intensely green with the planted rice and the return of the rains. In the meantime, all these subtle browns, maroons, beiges, grays mottle the paysage, and your spirit rises on a breeze and you are vibrant with light and the supreme feeling of being alive.

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Every time we went to visit at the family house in Tma Goul, Amy’s aunt would be the first to come out to greet us in her tiny slippers, smiling beatifically, ushering us like chicks into the living room where we would be presented with water, sugar cane, and sweet rice. She might then go about her task of preparing colorful herbal compounds, or arranging the table-bed for

A “busy-ness of surface” defines the experience of the small shops lining the streets of Cambodian cities, fantastic piles of things, advertising in Khmer and English, whatnot all over the walls. Through the lens, however, every aspect of the Cambodian cityscape and landscape takes on a naturally aesthetic appeal, and I’m beginning to think it’s a question of “reading” the “busy-

the afternoon naps. There was a warmth and dignity about her every gesture, and diminutive though she was, she occupied space with the spirit of a royal palm. She was a person to whom you never wanted to say goodbye, and I thought how much more precious old ones are in a land that has known terror and mayhem.

ness.” For in that seeming chaos you will always find the Khmer sense of order in arrangement. The way fish are carefully strung in tight rows to dry, or fruit and canned goods stacked in perfect pyramids, all belie an imposition of order on the world, and these signs of arrangement against the wash of background disorder, and sometimes just plain litter, is very exciting visually.

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Down in front of the royal palace, we were eating lotus seeds from the green flower pods, when the first limbless beggar was wheeled up by one of his relatives, right under our noses, asking for money. The shock of it was palpable amongst the Americans. The youngish victim had neither arms nor legs, evidently blown off by a mine, and silently stared at no one in particular, with weary, bloodshot eyes. Sophal immediately hauled out his wallet and gave the man’s relative a bill, saying under his breath to me, “They cannot make money because they cannot work.” Recovering slightly, we drifted across the large green public park under the most beautiful evening light, down to the banks of the Tonlé Sap River.

Minutes before we were to leave Phnom Penh for the airport, a call came through from the Olympic Stadium, a famous site we’d visited a few days prior to “re-take” a photograph her father took of Amy 30 years ago. We had then fortuitously run into a former roommate of Amy’s birth mother, a lively woman who works in the orphanage school at the Stadium. The Stadium people called to say they’d found a snapshot of Amy’s birth mother! Breathlessly we rushed up to a dark office to be handed a fragile image. And there she was, at the top of a pyramid of volleyball players—in fact, the Cambodian National Volleyball Team—her arm raised as if to hurl her hat off in victory, a glorious smile on her face. It had undoubtedly been taken in the early ’70s.

Milton Magazine

Our experience of Cambodia was about wonderful people who have survived terrible things with their humanity intact. Amy’s first contact was her first cousin Ly Sokkim, a successful rice merchant, who is raising in her own home Ly Dalen, the daughter of a relative. We saw a lot of this charming little girl, who was just about the age of Amy when she left Cambodia. Intrepid and curious, Dalen accompanied us on

many of our travels—along dusty roads to Sisophon, into scary, abandoned temples, and finally to fancy Phnom Penh restaurants, where we savored dishes featuring prahok (salted fermented fish). Little Dalen’s newly found cousin, Amy from America, may have “spoke funny,” but she could be crazy in ways that a child could completely understand.

Our translator, Ngut Sophal, who regales me at night with imitations of us Americans, complete with intonations and gestures, has become a fast friend. We board together wherever we go, except in Battambang, where he stayed with his family, his handsome mother, diffident sisters, and brother Sopheap, a kickbox champion. Sophal’s the real thing. A young Cambodian, 25,

trained as a schoolteacher, who makes $25 a month in his parttime job. He sometimes dreams of getting into the tourist industry. With Siem Reap becoming so much a part of the Southeast Asian tourist package, this is no surprise, but you can imagine how we feel when this charming, teacherly young man wants to leave education for business.

Our hotel in Siem Reap was a place one could only dream of retiring to. Must be part of my colonial past (!), but picture a low building with a foyer done in mahogany and gorgeous Cambodian silk wall hangings. You turn left out the front door and stroll into a garden with carp in a green, green pool, and beyond, the open-air dining room done in a deep electric

pink. It’s both stimulating and seductive as a color, so that anything that happens in there takes on that ineffable quality of “wow!” Imagine your scrambled eggs coming at you served by a beautiful young Cambodian woman in a lime-green silk blouse and dark gold sarong, and you can see that breakfast took on a whole new meaning.

Co-travelers: Featured here from left are Ngut Sophal, Bill Moore, Amy Sanford, and Amy’s life partner, Liesel Fenner.

Milton Magazine

Post Script Post Script is a department that opens windows into the lives and experiences of your fellow Milton alumni. Graduates may author the pieces, or they may react to our interview questions. Opinions, memories, explorations, reactions to political or educational issues are all fair game. We believe you will find your Milton peers informative, provocative and entertaining. Please email us with your reactions and your ideas at cathy_everett@milton.edu.

Executive Service Corps: Making nonprofits work Sandy Batchelder ’50

t is Sunday evening with dinnertime approaching and I am struggling to finish an overdue consulting report. I need to finish the Sunday papers and watch Desperate Housewives, but the DVR can record the show if necessary. Inadequate typing skills don’t help—the “Backspace” and “Delete” keys are being used heavily. My wife is shaking her head and muttering about whether I should retire again and see if I can get it right this time. The report is addressed to the board of a dysfunctional nonprofit agency that I have been working with for a year as an Executive Service Corps (ESC) volunteer consultant. The agency has a great mission and is a household name, but their programs are a mess and only the strong support of better-organized institutions with whom they collaborate keeps them going. The problem is poor leadership and a weak board. The executive director, who helped found the agency more than 30 years ago, has a terrific personality and communication skills, but is content to let an inexperienced subordinate run operations. The board, which consists of nice people with little management experience, is unable to confront the issue of retiring the executive director.

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Six months ago, my teammate and I delivered a consulting report to the board that made a number of recommendations to improve the governance of the agency and thereby its performance. The board approved the report (without enthusiasm) but nothing much happened in spite of our efforts to coach them on implementing our recommendations. The board chair has been treating us like hostile aliens for bringing up the subject of retiring the executive director. I am trying to write a final report to the board on what the consulting project accomplished that strikes a delicate balance between telling the truth and telling them what they want to hear. Sounds like the case history of a failed consulting project? A waste of time that I could have spent on tennis, yoga or the piano? I don’t think so, for a number of reasons. First, not all of the more than 50 nonprofit consulting projects that I have worked on for ESC over the past 10 years have had such bad results. In most cases, we have successfully persuaded the client agencies to strengthen their boards, set up effective committee structures, increase board meeting productivity, address leadership issues, and improve governance, along with facilitating board retreats and helping them to develop good strategic plans—all increasing their ability to raise money, recruit volunteers and fulfill their missions. Although we never bat 1.000 in

Sandy Batchelder ’50

getting the client to implement our recommendations, we are always working with good people doing good things for others.

carry the flag on consulting assignments or at cocktail parties if someone is foolish enough to ask what I am doing with the rest of my life.

Second, problem-solving skills developed as a lawyer are easily transferable to nonprofit consulting. I enjoy listening to our clients, gaining their trust, identifying important issues, recommending solutions and advocating for their implementation—basically what I did as a corporate lawyer at Goodwin Procter for 37 years. Nonprofits often come to ESC for help in one area only to find out that the real problem is elsewhere. Dealing with these organizational puzzles is good exercise for my aged brain cells.

Finally, there is the matter of values. I believe that those of us who have been blessed with skills, a good (i.e., Milton) education or assets have a responsibility to help those who are less fortunate. If this means less time on the golf course and more time helping a small homeless shelter to succeed, so be it. I had a good career at Goodwin Procter and have great respect for the firm, but what I enjoyed most was extracurricular work leading the local Red Cross organization through a major reorganization in the 1980s to improve its effectiveness. I find it easy to identify with the missions of my nonprofit clients, whether it is suicide prevention, reading for the blind, prevention of drunk driving, a community foundation, a music school, charter schools, a children’s theater, or producing a state science fair. Caring about people who care passionately about what they are doing for others is easy. Taking too long on Sunday writing a report for an agency that you really want to help—even though the agency may have trouble following your advice—is easy, as well.

Third, I have always liked teamwork and being part of a successful organization, starting at Milton and continuing at Goodwin Procter. Our consultants almost always work in teams for training purposes and to avoid political errors. I want ESC to be successful because I believe in its mission: by helping nonprofits resolve their organizational problems and become more effective, more people who need help will get it and donors will get a better return on their investment. ESC is the largest management consulting organization in New England devoted to serving nonprofits and has recruited a pool of over 150 experienced volunteer consultants to handle 80–100 projects per year, but it is not well known. I have been honored to serve on its board and recently as board chair, and I am happy to

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Inâ&#x20AC;˘Sight

Milton Magazine

Dr. Albert Navez, Milton science department faculty from 1937â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1949, in his laboratory

Milton Magazine

OnCentre

Campus alive with provocative, talented, accomplished guests this year Pulitzer Prize–Winning Poet Paul Muldoon Seeks “Revelation” Paul Muldoon, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Moy Sand and Gravel (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), among 25 volumes of poetry and nine collections, visited Milton as part of the Bingham Visiting Writers Series on November 2 and 3, 2005. In a Straus Library question-andanswer session, Mr. Muldoon told students that his goal— regardless of the form of writing—is that some revelation will have taken place during the reading of a piece. Borrowing Keats’s and Wordsworth’s words, he mentioned “negative capability” or “wise passiveness” as states in which a reader may experience revelation. Mr. Muldoon told students that he often sits to write with only an image in his head. He cited John Donne’s metaphysical conceit in “The Flea” as a successful execution of what might look an odd beginning. (Donne’s “flea” is a metaphor for love or, more particularly, a “marriage bed,” affected by the flea having bitten both lovers.) He also said that, as a writer, you must be both a writer and a fictional reader, considering how the real reader might respond to your work. You must allow for a clarity of understanding on the

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reader’s part. “A wise wag once said, ‘Any fool can be difficult. It takes absolutely nothing to make no sense.’” He hinted, though, that overthinking—at least early on—can be a detriment to a poem’s originality and beauty: “Allow the poem to have its way with you,” he said. In a King Theatre reading, Mr. Muldoon read poems, including “Sonogram,” “The Loaf” and “Cradle Song,” which in title echoes fellow Irishman W. B. Yeats’s poem, “A Cradle Song.” Paul Muldoon was born in Northern Ireland and moved to the United States in 1987. He joined the Princeton faculty as a lecturer in 1990 and was named a full professor in 1995. He directed the university’s Program in Creative Writing from 1993 until 2002. In 1999, he was elected to serve also as a professor of poetry at the University of Oxford. “Muldoon takes some honest-toGod reading,” wrote Peter Davison in The New York Times Review of Books. “All good poets deserve attentive readers, but Muldoon needs you to be skeptical, needs you to forget what you know (but not what he knows) and remember what he wants you to.”

A fellow of both the Royal Society of Literature and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Muldoon was given an American Academy of Arts and Letters award in literature in 1996. His other awards include the 1994 T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry and the 1997 Irish Times Poetry Prize. “The man is a maker and finder of patterns,” according to a review in The Economist. “It begins with an authentically personal grammar; as T. S. Eliot is founded on rhythm, so certain constructions and tenses—even the pluperfect—are Muldoon. These then find issuance in rhyme, of which Mr. Muldoon is the outstanding contemporary practitioner. Rhyme not as convention or swank, but as the expression of a naturally crystallizing imagination. The effect is of a great web of connections, a cracking glaze which seems to run ahead of you as you read.” Muldoon’s other collections are New Weather (1973), Mules (1977), Why Brownlee Left (1980), Quoof (1983), Meeting the British (1987), Madoc: A Mystery (1990), The Annals of Chile (1994), Hay (1998) and Poems 1968–1998 (2001). He also has published drama, literary criticism, translation and children’s literature. His work has been the subject of readings, lectures, conference papers, and theses by students and scholars.

Established in 1987 by the Bingham Family—Barry, Edith and Emily ’83—the Bingham Visiting Writers Series brings writers, historians and journalists to speak and work with students and faculty at Milton. Other recent series lecturers have included novelist Zadie Smith, poet Michael Harper, novelist John Wideman and novelist Sarah Bynum ’90. For more on Paul Muldoon, or to hear recordings of his poems, visit his Web site www.paulmuldoon.net.

The Change in Arctic Climate: Professor James McCarthy of Harvard Discusses the Implications At a December 14 assembly, Dr. James J. McCarthy talked with students about the rapid climate change in the Arctic and the implications for the polar bear. Professor McCarthy is Alexander Agassiz Professor of Biological Oceanography and from 1982 until 2002 was the director of Harvard University’s Museum of Comparative Zoology. He holds faculty appointments in Harvard’s biology and earth science departments, and he is the head tutor for degrees in environmental science and public policy.

James McCarthy

Adam Rothman ’89

Wu Man

Martin Espada

Professor and Author Adam Rothman ’89 Visits Milton as Heyburn Speaker in History

In reviewing Professor Rothman’s book, Mr. Ball notes that “even as Adam [Rothman] makes arguments about economic forces and political deal-making he returns regularly to the lived experience of the people who by choice or by coercion shaped the Deep South.”

program in the foothills of the Berkshires, What It Takes to Pull Me Through: Why Teenagers Get in Trouble and How Four of Them Got Out.

a contributing editor at U.S. News and a visiting scholar at Ithaca College’s Park School of Communications.

Adam Rothman, Milton Academy Class of 1989, associate professor of American history at Georgetown University, and author of the recently published Slave Country, visited Milton on November 30 as the 2005–2006 Henry R. Heyburn ’39 Lecture in History Speaker. Reviewed in the Fall 2005 edition of Milton Magazine by Academic Dean David Ball ’88, Slave Country looks at how the institution of slavery flourished in the early national United States. “The slave population more than tripled in the 50 years after independence,” Mr. Ball summarizes. Slave Country focuses on the Deep South, “where the growth and evolution of slavery was most pronounced,” he writes. Professor Rothman states that by 1820, the region that included Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama had emerged as “the leading edge of a dynamic, expansive slave regime incorporated politically into the United States and firmly tied to the transatlantic system of commodity exchange.” He argues that “contingent global forces, concrete policies pursued by governments and countless small choices made by thousands of individuals” drove the expansion of slavery.

Professor Rothman’s courses at Georgetown indicate the area of his scholarship within American history: History of the Atlantic World; History of New Orleans; Society and Politics in Jeffersonian America; and Slavery and Abolition in the Atlantic World, for example. Professor Rothman earned M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in American history from Columbia University. He did his undergraduate work at Yale, and graduated in 1993 magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, with Distinction in the Major.

Talbot Speaker, David Marcus, Probes Risks That Teenagers Face David L. Marcus, who shared a Pulitzer Prize, spent a year as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard, and worked as a high-school teacher before publishing a book about American teenagers, talked with Milton students as the 2006 Samuel S. Talbot. II ’65 Memorial Speaker. Mr. Marcus spent four years researching his book, which tells the story of a group of teenagers who were sent to a therapeutic

As an education correspondent for U.S. News & World Report, Mr. Marcus wrestled with questions about what goes on in teenagers’ heads, on their computers, and among their friends while reporting on the welter of pressures American teenagers face—a resurgent drug culture, proliferating temptations and threats online, and skyrocketing suicide rates (three times higher than in the 1960s). While uncovering what drove these students and their parents to the Academy at Swift River, Mr. Marcus opens the black box of the teenage mind. As he reveals the intense, dramatic process that sets (most of) these students right, he weaves an absorbing tale and charts a path to hope that any child, any parent, whether or not in crisis, can take. David L. Marcus has been a foreign correspondent and education reporter for U.S. News & World Report, the Boston Globe, Miami Herald, and Dallas Morning News, where he shared a Pulitzer Prize for a series of articles on violence against women around the world. After a 24-year career in journalism, he spent a year as a high-school teacher in western Massachusetts, where he lives. He is now

Milton Welcomes Chinese Pipa Virtuoso, Wu Man On Thursday, November 17, traditional Chinese Pipa virtuoso, Wu Man, visited the Academy as the Melissa Dilworth Gold ’61 Visiting Artist. The day included performances by Wu Man and workshops that discussed the Pipa instrument and its relationship with traditional Asian music and Western music.

Celebrating the Life of Martin Luther King Poet and Professor of Latino Poetry and Creative Writing, Martin Espada, who is also Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where he teaches creative writing, Latino poetry and the work of Pablo Neruda, spoke to Milton students on January 11 as the 2006 Martin Luther King speaker. Martin Espada received the American Book Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His other honors include the PEN/Revson Fellowship and the Paterson Poetry Prize. Martin Espada’s poems have been acclaimed by writers such as Julia Alvarez and Barbara Kingsolver, among others.

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It’s “Do, Discuss, Do” as Fifth Graders Become Engineers When the wheel on the Lego car goes left, and they want it to go right, the fifth graders turn to Gary Shrager, science specialist for the Lower School. “Well,” Gary says, “there’s a secret to finding out why.” “What is it?” they want to know. He replies, “The secret is, THINK!” For six weeks, children in the Lower School’s fifth grade work on a collaborative unit with Gary and Bridget Sitkoff, technology specialist. The unit combines Gary’s engineering concepts with the computer programming that Bridget has been working on with the fifth graders. Children learn how to program selfbuilt Lego cars with LOGO programming language so that the cars will perform a variety of tasks. For example, the children try to build and program a “snow plow” that will have the ability to clear the “snow” (small Styrofoam pieces) from a “driveway” (a black-outlined space on a large whiteboard). Students start with a problem to solve and then use tools, what they know, what they discover, and what they

Ready to test

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deduce, as well as their imagination, to get the job done. Bridget explains, “Although the students have had some experience with LOGO in the fourth grade, this is one of the first times that they really have exposure to computer language. They’re starting to grasp that the computer will do exactly what you program it to do and only that, whereas a person will make allowances and fill in the gaps.” “The great part about this unit,” Gary explains, “is that at this age the students are such concrete thinkers and here they get to marry that with the idea of the abstract. There are often several ways to accomplish the same thing…and the cool part is watching them solve the openended, messy stuff.” Bridget agrees and elaborates that “a directive like ‘clear the snow’ is so much more open-ended than ‘drive five feet and stop.’” Gary adds that “it’s the bizarre ideas that the students come up with that just blow you out of the water. Sometimes they’ll just use brute force—for example, programming the plow to clear the entire surface area knowing that

Working on the programming

it will eventually clear the ‘driveway.’ But sometimes the problem is too large for that and they’ll need to apply a more delicate treatment and a more efficient method.” As far as sharing ideas and asking questions, the students— who are generally working in pairs—are instructed to first ask their partners, then ask other classmates, and finally ask the teachers. Bridget explains that “in this unit [the teachers] don’t need to correct and adjust as much because the students will see what happens—what’s wrong, what’s not working—and they can often adjust or self-correct. For example, if the car is turning off to one side the students can tell that it might be the friction of the wheel against the body of the car, or that maybe the programming is off.” Bridget and Gary agree that the successes in a project like this are quite visible; it’s easy to recognize the cars that are working properly, so the children are naturally able to see what worked and how. Though neither want the students who have the quickest success using all their time to teach others, both Bridget and Gary share the theory that when a student grasps something and then teaches it to someone else, he or she tends to retain it longer.

However, as Gary enthusiastically explains, failure is important in this unit. “We talk a lot about the value of failure. No one will go through without failing…a lot of times! Someone who fails will know the value of designing/ testing, redesigning/retesting— it’s part of the process. [The students] will realize what they did wrong the first time and they’ll learn several things instead of just one. The students that fail the most will actually build up a reservoir of solutions that will help them in their future tasks.” In addition to planning, constructing and programming the cars, the students write in their journals at the end of class about their successes and—more important—about the problems they encountered. “The students each keep a copy of all their simpler programs,” Bridget explains, “so that when it comes time to tackle a larger problem they can use what they’ve created and learned, making the bigger tasks seem less daunting.” And do the students enjoy the unit? “Oh, they’re fanatical about it!” Gary exclaims. “They’re always asking, ‘Is it today?’ They love it. And I think it’s true for any of us that when we actually learn something, really learn it, we love it.”

What Are the Components of Sludge? Eighth Graders Solve the Problem If your teacher gave you an unmarked glass container filled with clear liquid and asked you to determine its contents, would you know where to begin? Eighth-grade students in Kelly Marshall’s Introduction to Physical Science encounter this challenge in Kelly’s “sludge” unit. She gives her students a vial containing five “mystery” substances, and through a combination of methods—including boiling and fractional crystallization—the students separate, mass and identify each of the components. Using laboratory techniques to solve open-ended problems prepares students for the questions they will encounter in Upper School physics, chemistry and biology classes. Before beginning, the students make it clear that they understand the question by preparing a pre-lab that includes a procedure. As Kelly explains, “This experiment tests everything the students have learned up to this point—lab skills, separating sub-

stances, identifying substances; but the biggest thing it tests is whether they can think all the way through an experiment before they do it.” Their class experience thus far proves to be essential as the students carefully attempt to separate each of the five substances (isopropanol, potassium nitrate, sand, sodium chloride and water) without damaging, boiling off or diluting any. By testing for characteristic properties, such as flammability, density, solubility and boiling point, the students consider what they’ve learned about the materials and deduce just what this “sludge” is. After working on the experiment with their lab partners, the students share the data they have collected with the other groups. “One thing we aim for is precision in our data,” Kelly notes. “We try to come up with similar data across the board, but among eighth graders this can sometimes be difficult. The greatest thing about this class, though, is that [the students] often learn more from their mistakes than they do from their

“One thing we aim for is precision in our data,” says Kelly Marshall, who teaches Introduction to Physical Science.

‘What would happen if we did it this way?’ They really want to know about what they’re learning.” Kelly’s classroom integrates a discussion area with the laboratory tables and equipment. In this sort of back-and-forth environment, Kelly’s sludge unit—as were the preparatory units—is much more effective. Students move seamlessly between discussion and hands-on lab work while working at their own pace.

data.” Once the data has been collected and shared, each pair of partners will write up a conclusion and will then discuss their findings with the rest of the class. “The cool thing is that [the students] will ask questions that go beyond what we’ve just learned in the lab. They’ll propose more ideas; they’ll ask,

Kelly’s main objective with her eighth graders is “to just get them excited about science. Honestly, if that’s all they get out of it, they’ll go into the Upper School eager and ready to learn. They will have been exposed to the basic skills—how to write a lab report, conversions, significant equations—but I really just want them to love science, and I want them to know how relevant science is to all aspects of everyday life.”

Will they separate each of the ﬁve substances without damaging, boiling off, or diluting any?

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Alumni Authors Recently published works Dollars & Sense II: Lessons from Good, Cost-Effective Small Schools Barbara Kent Lawrence, Ed.D. ’61 Dollars & Sense II is the in-depth continuation of the initial work, Dollars & Sense, which includes 30 years of research on the educational and social benefits of small schools. Both works, authored by Dr. Barbara Kent Lawrence ’61, present the findings that good small schools are not only affordable and sustainable, but that investing tax dollars in such institutions is fiscally responsible. Compared to their larger counterparts, these small schools graduate a higher percentage of students, have lower rates of violence and disciplinary problems, and send more students on to postsecondary education. Dollars & Sense II proves that good small schools are being built and operated cost-effectively; it lays out practical strategies for cost-effectiveness that have been field-tested by schools; and it reports analysis of data from over 3,000 school construction projects. This book deepens the evidence that these schools are not only successful, but can also be more affordable than larger schools in similar districts. Barbara’s work outlines the practicality of the small schools of which she is such a proponent then fills in the details by highlighting 16 thriving small schools from around the country. Sharing the details and photographs of these educational institutes, Barbara breathes life into the statistics and gives names and faces to the reasons that good small schools are an essential part of the educational system. By including school

mottos such as “One student at a time” (the Metropolitan Regional and Technical Center— Providence, Rhode Island) and “Service to all relations” (the Star School—Flagstaff, Arizona), Barbara affirms the individual attention that a good small school can provide. Barbara has also written and lectured about the affect of culture on aspirations, issues affecting small schools, and schoolcommunity facilities. The audience for these publications includes other professionals in the field, as well as advocates

for small schools: students, parents, teachers, school officials, policymakers and community members. After graduating from Milton, Barbara received her B.A. in anthropology from Bennington College, M.A. in sociology from New York University, and an Ed.D. in administration, training, and policy studies from Boston University. She has taught in Washington, D.C., Connecticut, and Maine, and at Boston University and Lesley University in Massachusetts.

Growing Up Global: The Changing Transitions to Adulthood in Developing Countries Cynthia B. Lloyd, Ph.D. ’60 Edited by Population Council researcher Dr. Cynthia Lloyd ’60, Growing Up Global examines the lives and circumstances of 86 percent of the world’s young people—nearly 1.5 billion individuals—who live in developing nations. The book is based upon the findings of a National Academy of Sciences panel on Transitions to Adulthood in Developing Countries, which Cynthia chaired. The passage from childhood to adulthood is a momentous social, psychological, economic, and biological change for anyone. Adolescence, for those growing up in developing countries with limited resources, can mean even greater challenges. The nature and quality of young people’s adult lives depend greatly on how successfully they navigate this critical period. The panel found that, compared to 20 years ago, young people are entering adolescence in better health and reaching puberty earlier. They are also more likely to attend school, to postpone entering the labor force, and to delay marriage and childbearing. However, disparate circumstances across regions mean that the experiences of today’s young people vary enormously. The primary common factors of a healthy and “successful” transition into adulthood are adequate schooling and good health, which are essential in their own right. The panel deemed poverty as the greatest barrier to making a successful transition to adulthood. Poverty and poor school quality reduce school enrollments, encourage dropout, and compromise learning, and school is

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seen as the most transforming agent in society after the family. The unhealthy behaviors that young people might adopt at this stage—smoking, the use of alcohol and illicit drugs—also have critical implications for their future health and mortality. However, the panel found that one of the riskiest behaviors for a young person, particularly in places where HIV/AIDS is widespread, is unprotected sex. These factors that affect the maturing process of a young person are significant, impossible to ignore, and difficult to overcome. The Growing Up Global panel concludes, however, that substantial investments in the health and schooling of young people worldwide would position them to participate constructively in shaping their own and their countries’ future. The book asserts that “globalization, trends toward greater democratization, rising school enrollment, and greater access to media have all increased opportunities for

young people to become active and involved members of their communities.” Cynthia—one of the population field’s leading experts on transitions to adulthood in developing countries—says that she “is excited about the opportunity to use the findings from the book to contribute to the development of policies and programs for young people around the developing world—policies that can enhance their chances of becoming ‘successful’ adults, able to support themselves and their families and have a reasonable quality of life.” Cynthia is the director of social science research in the Policy Research Division at the Population Council. Prior to her work there she was chief of the fertility and family planning studies section of the United Nations Population Division and an assistant professor of economics at Barnard College, Columbia University.

Duck and Goose Tad Hills ’81 In Tad Hills’s most recent children’s book, Duck and Goose, the title characters encounter what they believe to be a large, spotted egg. Each of them vies for ownership of the egg, Duck claiming that he “saw it first,” and Goose noting that he “touched it first.” As they try to determine which of them is better suited to take care of the egg, they come to appreciate each other’s strengths and realize that the best way to get anything done is by sharing and cooperating. Their attempts at hatching the egg come to a halt when a blue bird friend drops by and asks if she can play with them and their big, rubber ball! Tad brings to life the ideas of cooperation, sharing and resolving differences through his inviting and colorful illustrations that attract and hold young readers’ attention. The dialogue between Duck and Goose and the images that Tad creates are filled with humor that rings true with any child who has had to negotiate

with a peer or sibling. Tad’s charming artistry is clear and bold enough for a young person to follow, but also includes elemental details that necessitate a closer look, such as the “No Honking—$5 Fine” and “No Ducks Beyond This Point” signs conjured in the characters’ thought bubbles. A review from Publishers Weekly says of the book, “Hills pictures the cartoonish characters against a sky blue and summer green landscape that provides a theatrical backdrop to the argument. This mini-drama implies that a plaything can be more fun for two and shows how even stubborn characters can cooperate.” Tad has written and illustrated several other children’s books, which include My Fuzzy Friends and Knock Knock! Who’s There? He also describes himself as “a painter, an actor, and an obsessive Halloween costume maker.” Tad now resides in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife and their two children.

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Sports The Triple Threat of Goodwin House What do you get when you cross the captain of the hockey and soccer teams, a basketball point guard who plays football and runs track, and a hockey goalie who is a 20time national karate champion? The answer is the trio of Goodwin House: Keith Nelson ’06, Winston Tuggle ’06 and Bryan Mountain ’07, three roommates who play eight sports at Milton. Keith Nelson, Class I, is captain of both the varsity soccer squad and the varsity hockey team. Winston Tuggle, Class I, is a force to be reckoned with on the football field in the fall, basketball court in the winter and track in the spring. Bryan Mountain, Class II, starts as Milton’s varsity hockey goalie, plays cornerback for the Mustang football team, and will run track this spring with his roommate, Winston. He has also trained in karate for 12 years, winning 20 national championships. Milton Magazine caught up with the boys to get their perspective on athletics. Is there a difference in how you play different sports? Do you need the same mindset to be successful in each one? Bryan: The way I prepare for a game is different in football than it is for hockey. Football has to be played with a lot of adrenaline and it involves a physical warmup. For hockey, especially because I’m a goalie, I have to be relaxed before and during the game. Before I get on the ice, I use a visualization technique to prepare. Winston: I agree with Bryan. With football, I need to pump myself up and get my adrenaline going. I listen to music in the locker room that will make me a little crazy. With basketball, I need to be calm. I’m a point guard, so I have to be in control on the court in order to make the right decisions. Before a game, I listen to a little R&B and use visualization techniques like 58

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Bryan does for hockey. I visualize the best game I ever played and that allows me to focus on what I need to do. Keith: I think you definitely need to have the same mindset to be successful in hockey and soccer. The difference in the two sports is that soccer is a 90-minute game where you run for 90 straight minutes. Hockey is a 60-minute game and the intensity is more spread out. You’ve had plenty of coaches. What do you think makes a coach great? Do you have a favorite coach? Bryan: The main reason I came to Milton was the superior academics, but I also wanted to come because of Coach [Paul] Cannata. I knew he was someone I wanted to play for. Although we’ve hit a speed bump this year, he still pushes forward and develops his players. That’s what makes a coach great. Winston: A good coach wants to make everyone on the team a better player so each member of the team can move to the next level. My amateur basketball league coach, Kalon Jenkins, stands out as a great coach. I’ve been playing for him since the fourth grade and he’s always worked on making me a better player and a better person. Keith: I’ve liked a lot of my coaches, so I can’t just name one. I think a great coach is someone who cares more about the individual than about the wins and losses. A great coach focuses on the development of the players. What makes a great teammate? Bryan: A teammate needs to be coachable. If an athlete does things his own way and doesn’t change, that hurts the team. My dad (and coach for ten years) always says, “Even if the coach is wrong, he is always right.” I also

Keith Nelson ’06, Winston Tuggle ’06 and Bryan Mountain ’07

feel that a good teammate is willing to lay everything on the line for the team—someone who has enough pride in himself and passion for the game that he can put the team first. Winston: The one thing I can’t stand is teammates not working hard, whether at practice or on game day. A good teammate should always give his best to help make the team better. Having personal goals is important, but I like playing with someone who has team goals as well. Keith: Selflessness. A great teammate is someone who always puts the team above himself, and that goes way beyond the playing field. Tell me a highlight of your athletic career. Bryan: The highlight in my athletic experience wouldn’t be in hockey, football or track. I also do karate and have been training for 12 years. I’ve won 20 national championships and have won the past five years straight in four different categories. One year, my brother, Kyle, and I traveled to a tournament in Iowa. Our team went into quadruple overtime and we ended the day winning a silver medal and three gold medals. Winston: This past summer, the team I’ve played on since the fourth grade went to Orlando for the 17 and under All National Championships. Our team placed 10th out of 165 teams, which was the best finish by any Massachusetts team. Seeing a team I’ve been a part of for so long do so well was great.

Keith: When I was 14, I played for the New Jersey Rockets in a national travel hockey league and we won the Nationals. We won the final game by a score of 9 to 1, which was a record for the biggest winning margin in the tournament’s history. How do you balance the demands of being an athlete and a student at Milton, where academics are tough? Bryan: You don’t really have a choice; but there are so many resources at Milton that it makes it easier. The academic schedule allows for time during the day to study, so it makes it possible to practice and still get your work done. Winston: The one spring when I didn’t play a sport was the hardest semester for me, academically. Playing a sport makes me more focused, so I actually do better in the classroom. Keith: I think Milton gives you the opportunity to excel at both academics and athletics by the way the day is shaped. When I attended another school before I transferred to Milton, I had to choose between sports and academics. At Milton, the day is designed so I can do both successfully. Winston will play football and basketball at Trinity College next year. Keith is still deciding which college to attend, but plans on playing college hockey. Bryan will return to the Academy in the fall for his senior year. He plans to continue playing football, hockey and track. Gregory White

Class Notes 1932

1958

At 92, Lewis Perry is golfing but not skiing. He regrets not getting back for reunions.

Bloomfield. Her two sisters already resided there, but her big move was a tough decision. She is hoping to meet mah jong players and book lovers!

highlights. All three of their sons and two grandchildren were with them for Christmas.

1935

1943

Rose Weld Baldwin’s granddaughter, Naja Baldwin ’05, graduated last spring from Milton. Rose believes the high point in Naja’s time at Milton was the instruction from and friendship with faculty member Bryan Cheney (Visual Arts). Naja is studying at the Art Institute in Milan.

We learned as we went to press that Joan Simpkins Clarke died on January 29. Before her death, Joan sent a note reporting that she and her husband were active, albeit at a slower pace. They enjoyed their 14 grandchildren, ages 6 to 27, as well as their travel—via automobile, plane, cruise ship or riverboat— to places they were interested in exploring. Joan served as a Class Agent for Milton for many years.

Emery Bradley Goff and husband, Bill Carhart, are enjoying the small college town of Farmington, Maine, despite the slump in the antiques business and her second broken hip. Due to a fall at the Brimfield flea market, Emery has half of a new hip but still plans to cross-country ski this winter. Their six grandchildren, with the addition in August of daughter Katrina’s second child, Alexander, are a joy. “Classmates—come visit!”

Peter Marlow was recognized by inclusion in the Queen’s Honors list for his work in historic restoration in Northern Ireland. Peter was granted an Honorary Order of the British Empire recognizing his services. (The “Honorary” designation accompanies honors given to nonBritish citizens.) From the time of his moving to Northern Ireland, and until his retirement, he worked for the National Trust in Northern Ireland and was in charge of the historical integrity of properties there. He is Chairman of the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society.

1954

1959

When Elizabeth Biddle Barrett’s husband retires at the end of September, they will move to the Dover, Massachusetts, area to be nearer to their children and seven grandchildren. They will miss the pleasure of singing with the Oratorio Society of New York, with three concerts yearly in Carnegie Hall, but hope to find another chorus to take its place.

Joe Bradley retired in June after 25 years in special-education teaching. He lives in Ossipee, New Hampshire, where he works part time for a community cable television station and maintains his 10-year association with the Partners with Haiti missions assistance program. He and his wife, Trish, will celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary in August. His daughter, Gwen, works in London, England, as a physical therapist and his other daughter, Evie, is an operating room nurse in New London, New Hampshire. Both have been married for four years.

1940 This past year, Frederick Kempner and his wife, Natalie, had the great experience of walking the Camino de Santiago in Spain.

1941 Mary Cornelia Aldis Porter moved to a nifty retirement community and keeps busy with her three children and six grandchildren (including one set of twins). She reads, gets plenty of exercise, and does civic work, including devoting her heart and soul to the Democratic Party.

1942 Gloria Gram has many fond memories of her days as both a boarding and day student at Milton. She entered Milton on many different academic levels due to three years of school in Europe and remarks, “It was quite an achievement for the teachers to help me through graduation…[Milton] saved me and put me on the path to a teaching career.” Janet Cruikshank McCawley moved from Martha’s Vineyard to her home state, Connecticut, where she lives at the Seabury Retirement Community in

After reading the Fall 2005 issue of Milton Magazine, John Goodhue was reminded of his Class IV talk on “The Guillotine” in Warren Hall, presided over by Mr. Hunt. Another fond memory of Milton is his receiving the George Wigglesworth Chase Memorial Prize at the end of his Class II year. John and his wife, Charlotte, live in New Hampshire.

1945 Phil Dickson and wife, Suzzi, are planning a December move from Vero Beach, Florida, to Bethesda, Maryland. They have encountered three hurricanes and while they had some problems, did not suffer as much as many others.

1948 The surviving members of the 1948 bridge club—Lucius Wilmerding, John Belash and George Harris—held a reunion in January 2006. Joe Powell and his wife took a marvelous cruise off the coast of Australia. Snorkeling over the Great Barrier Reef, taking hikes (seeing kangaroos!) and spending two days in Sydney were

1952

1955 Paul Robinson reports, “We had a very successful 50th reunion with over 50 classmates, both Boys School and Girls School folks, in attendance. Our reunion gift topped one million dollars, the largest in Milton’s 50th reunion class giving history.” Paul is enjoying semiretirement, taking up painting and keeping his golf handicap at 15. His daughter Samantha was married on August 20, 2005, to a “delightful young man who also plays golf.” His other daughter, Allegra, rents villas in Tuscany. If you are interested, contact Paul.

Don’t Miss the Party From annual receptions and networking nights to young alumni gatherings and other regional programs, events will take place in dozens of cities across the country this year. Go to www.milton.edu and click on “alumni” for details and updates.

Milton Magazine

Stoky Turns 100!

Milton celebrates on April 1, 2006

1964

Herbert G. Stokinger, beloved teacher, coach and director of physical education and athletics at Milton during five decades, will officially turn 100 on March 24, 2006. A birthday celebration on Saturday, April 1, 2006, at noon in the Fitzgibbons Athletic and Convocation Center will cele-

brate this milestone. Save-thedate cards were mailed in January. If you did not receive one but would like to be included, please contact Cathie Farrington at 617-898-2379 or email cathie_farrington@milton.edu to receive an invitation. We don’t want to leave anyone out.

Nicholas Hinch reports, “one year until retirement from flying, or should I say the next career…anyone need a good, experienced pilot?” He enjoys life in Colorado and travels worldwide, which he will miss after retirement. In July, he and his wife spent some summer days with Ed Schwartz on the Cape—“a great time with great friends.”

minors. She is in touch with Liberty Wightman Berry and Faith Morrow Williams and says “let it be known that I have a guest room!”

1966

Steve Parker reports of his children, “Katy is now ensconced in New York City with Bank of America and off the payroll— yes!—and Harrison enters sixth grade at a private school as I incur new schooling costs.” He remarks, “Some in the class just never get beyond that 35-year-old point. Still raising family, and— I know—it’s my own fault.” Deborah Webster Rogers moved from a house to a condo shortly before her husband Ivor’s death in September 2002. This move has turned out well because her daughter, Beth, a flight attendant in Minneapolis, helped her to paint and transform her condo, which now resembles a “chic pad.” Her other daughter, Ellen, lives in Milton with her husband, John Kirby. Deborah is still acting, recently in You Can’t Take It With You. In November 2004, Deborah retired from her position at ChildServe after nearly 20 years of 10-hour night shifts caring for disabled 60

Bray ’89 is exploring going to China to teach elementary school in one of the larger cities with wife, Heidi Johnson, and son, Jonas. After nearly 20 years of working as a fundraising development professional in nonprofit organizations, Dina has joined the firm GrahamPelton Consulting, Inc., based in New Jersey. She is a senior manager in the regional office in Boston. Bob’s firm, The Bray Group, continues to grow its executive search business and has brought on new Bray team members. Bob and Dina happily celebrated their eighth wedding anniversary on November 26, 2005.

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1962 The past year has been full of travel and change for the Bray/ McCarley clan, reports Dina B. Roberts. In March, she and her husband, Bob Bray ’56, made a tennis “pilgrimage” to Pinehurst, North Carolina. Sarah Bray ’95 traveled to Tuscany for six months to work on an organic farm with a group called Spanocchia. At the same time Diana McCarley ’99 left for South Korea for six months to teach English to children of all ages in a language school in Seoul. In September, Page McCarley ’96 moved from New York City to Denver to begin a master’s program in psychology at the University of Denver. Neil

Catherine Cinelli Henriquez, her husband, Rogelio, and their four daughters have lived in Panama City, Panama, since 1970. Their three older daughters are married, and they have three grandsons and one granddaughter. Their youngest daughter, Carolina (20), is a junior at Villanova University. Rogelio and Catherine have embarked on a new project—the construction of a community for retirees in Boquete, Panama. See the Web site boquetelegacyrealestate.com (Boquete Country Club) for more information.

1967 Anna Hayes married Christopher Packard, of Newton Centre, Massachusetts, on August 15, 2005, in a family ceremony at Anna’s mother’s house in North Brooklin, Maine. Anna’s son, Andrew Connard (12), was the

best man, and her niece, Jennifer Taylor ’00, was the maid of honor. Anna and Chris spend most of their time in Newton but are working on a house in Blue Hill, Maine, where they may be found from time to time. Since retiring, Carolyn Stetson has been busy traveling, volunteering for Trenton, New Jersey’s cultural institutions, working for peace, and has had lots of fun catching up with all her Milton friends.

1972 Alida Jay Boye lives in Oslo, Norway, where she works in the publications department at Oslo University and is running a project to save the ancient libraries of Timbuktu. For more information, type “Alida Boye/ Timbuktu” into a Google search. The Oddfellows Playhouse Alida founded while at Wesleyan is still going strong.

1976 Kathryn Moseley Kristofik’s Web site that she has developed for five years, GOCITYKIDS, was “acquired” by Nickelodeon in October. Daughter Nina is a high-school junior with a 4.1 GPA and stage manager for the school’s renowned theater department. Son James is in seventh grade and displaying a talent for cartooning and a penchant for mischief! Peter McKillop moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, to take a position as head of corporate communications for the retail division of Bank of America.

1977 Yoshi Belash exclaims “2004– 2005 goes into the books as a crazy year of travel, rugby and seven-year-old twins.” He traveled with his rugby team, the Boston Brahmins, to Dublin in ’04, and to the Bahamas and Arizona in ’05. His list of family travels includes Paris, Bilbao, Biarritz, the Pyrenees, Foix and Barcelona. He accompanied his

wife, Kate, to a conference on World Citizenship in Bali where they met with Archbishop Desmond Tutu. They hope to bring the children when they attend a follow-up conference there in May 2006. Yoshi also visited Berlin and Dresden and then attended a family reunion in an ancestral castle in Saxony. His work as a trustee and education committee member at Zoo New England and its two zoos continues, and he is pleased to see exhibits and programs expanding despite trying economic times. Thomas Chase and his wife, Joanne, are enjoying watching their twins, Haley and Nate, at seventh-grade dances. The children groan whenever the DJ plays all those “old” songs, and really grimace if Thomas and Joanne threaten to dance! Gretchen (8) cannot wait for her chance to dance, but her parents can! “Life is good in the Northwest—come visit!”

1978 Susie Morril runs Midnight Sky Farm outside of Eugene, Oregon, where she raises Labrador Retrievers and endurance racing horses. In July, Ellen Starbird, her husband, Frank Sammartino, their son, Frank (7), and Ellen’s father and mother, Anne Frederick Starbird ’52, traveled to China to adopt their daughter ChenLu Claire Starbird Sammartino. Lulu (4) is happy and lots of fun. Frank is a fabulous big brother, and Ellen is enjoying eight months away from work to be with them.

1981 Mary Ann Hopkins lives in New York and is a surgeon at NYU. She still works with Doctors Without Borders and was in the Democratic Republic of Congo in February 2005. You can read an interview with her at doctorswithoutborders.com; search by her name.

1982 John Feldman changed law firms and is with Reed Smith in their Washington, D.C., office. He practices advertising and intellectual property law.

1983 Jonathan Garside lives in St. Louis with his wife and their two sons, Charlie (9) and Henry (7). He enjoys his work as a trial lawyer, defending product liability and class action lawsuits in Missouri and Illinois. He serves on the board at the boys’ school, getting another view of what it takes to maintain excellence in independent education.

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1984 Caroline Fitzgibbons, her husband, Tad, and son, Harrison, are thrilled to announce the arrival of Julia Yi Fitzgibbons Smith, born October 1, 2004, in Guangdong, China, and adopted August 17, 2005.

1985 Alison Churchill Flaggert and her husband, James, are pleased to welcome Winthrop “Win” Hallowell Flaggert born July 7, 2005. They live in Seattle, where Alison recently ran into Stacey Crawshaw-Lewis.

1979 Linda Terhune says “life with three active children is fun and busy. Charlie (6), Henry (8) and Carrick (12) make sure I stay young.” A freelance editor and writer, she also works at Purdue University. Though she gets back to Boston frequently, living is cheap and easy in the Midwest. “It is the best of both worlds to call both locales home.”

A Milton tradition continues as Caroline Putnam (Class of 2018) begins kindergarten at Milton. She sits with dad, Ted Putnam ’87, and grandmother, Heather McCusker Putnam ’61.

Caroline Fitzgibbons ’84, her husband, Tad Smith, and their son, Harrison Fitzgibbons Smith, welcome the newest addition to their family, Julia Yi Fitzgibbons Smith.

Daniel Thompson’s new book, Understanding Audio: Getting the Most Out of Your Project or Professional Recording Studio, was released last spring by Berklee Press/Hal Leonard. The textbook is already being adopted or con-

sidered for adoption by college and university recording arts programs across the country and abroad and has received several five-star reviews on Amazon.

1986 Wendy Millet works for the Nature Conservancy and lives in the San Francisco Bay area where she hikes, bikes and plays ice hockey a couple of times a week. She volunteers with Net Impact, Save the Redwoods League, and Personal Ponies, and visits with Milton friends whenever she can. Christopher Perry and his wife, Sylvia, have two children, Simon (born June 9, 2002) and Ginger (born July 2, 2005). Christopher is a trusts and estates lawyer at Choate, Hall and Stewart in Boston.

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A fourth generation begins at Milton as Caroline Putnam (Class of 2018!) begins kindergarten at Milton. Her dad, Ted Putnam ’87, and her grandmother, Heather McCusker Putnam ’61, joined her for a photo to celebrate her first day. Caroline’s great-grandmothers, Harriet Aycock McCusker ’32 and Anne Gallagher Putnam ’34, are also Milton alumnae.

1987 Kate McNay Koch lives in Peru, Vermont, with her husband, Bill, and children, Mehana (5) and Will (3). She remarks, “I am an NPR addict and it always cracks me up when I hear Austan Goolsbee on Marketplace!”

1990 Claire Hughes Johnson and Jesse Johnson welcomed their first child, Chloe, on November 11, 2005. The family lives in the Bay Area fairly near to Google, where both Claire and Jesse work. John Sweeney serves as senior account manager for the American Red Cross Biomedical Services—Alabama/Central Gulf Coast Region. John and his wife, Mary Virginia, and their two children, James (6) and Ella (2), live in Birmingham. He would love to catch up with former classmates and looks forward to future reunions.

1991 Fipp Avlon is a columnist and associate editor of the New York Sun.

1992 David Kahan and his wife, Lori Harrison-Kahan, are pleased to report that their son, Cuyler, was born on July 27, 2005. Ryan Plotner and his wife, Gretchen, celebrated the birth of their first child—a son, Mason Murphy Plotner—on October 7, 2005.

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1994 Whitfield Growdon is an OB/GYN resident in Boston and is hanging out with Christina Skiadas ’95 and Leslie Garret.

1995 Zandra Pappas celebrated her birthday in New York in December. Joining her were Milton friends Sam Shaw, Alex Millet ’91, Tim Pappas ’92, Jess Meyer and Alice duBois. Genevieve Groom Pillemer and Daniel Pillemer are proud to announce their marriage on September 24, 2005, in Hyannisport, Massachusetts. The ceremony took place at Gen’s parents’ summer home with a reception following at the Hyannisport Club. Gen and Daniel live in New York City.

Several Milton alumni joined Zandra Pappas ’95 to celebrate her birthday in New York in December. From left: Sam Shaw ’95, Alex Millet ’91, Zandra Pappas ’95, Tim Pappas ’92, Jess Meyer ’95 and Alice duBois ’95.

Dhruv Prasad is a first-year M.B.A. student at the Wharton School in Philadelphia where he is one year behind Rob Isaacs and Keisha Belinfanti.

1996 Haven Ley and Sinan Kurtoglu serendipitously ran into each other over coffee in a café in Tirana, Albania, in September. Haven was in town working with the United States Agency for International Development while Sinan had moved to town that very day to follow up on some business opportunities. They had a great time catching up and taking in the local sights. Haven will be back in town in January to check up on Sinan’s sure-to-be thriving enterprises!

Haven Ley ’96 and Sinan Kurtoglu ’96 are pictured in a café in Tirana, Albania, in September.

Michael O’Brien married Beth Varone in a ceremony in Seekonk, Massachusetts. Michael Connolly was a groomsman. Chris Bonacci, Peter Huoppi and Dan Grosso also attended.

1997 Jeff Cooper says “hello” to everyone from California. He and Betsy Carroll were married in Santa Clara, California—many Milton family and friends were there. Jeff is at Stanford working on his third degree there. He has been at Stanford for nine

Many Milton alumni attended the wedding of Jeff Cooper ’97 and Betsy Carroll. Pictured from left to right are: Ethan Kurzweil ’97, Jeff Cooper ’97, Betsy Carroll, John Cooper ’61, Bette Cooper ’61, Alexandra Cooper ’02, Molly Padien-Havens ’97; in front is Web Marquez ’97. Also in attendance was Judy Banning ’45.

straight years but knows there are worse places to get stuck than northern California! He was sorry to miss the San Francisco gathering, but hopes to make it to a Milton event soon. Patty Murphy sent updates on several members of the Class of 1997: Katie Wade has lived in Madrid for the past three years. She just finished her master’s in translation at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and has also been a project manager for the Spanish Publishing Group, where she translates, edits and manages. This fall she is also working for the Dartmouth program in Madrid. Esther Freeman spent the last three years living in London while completing her doctorate on HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. This fall she finally moved back to Boston to start at Harvard Medical School. Sarah Case returned from performing in the National Tour of the Broadway musical Contact. This summer she also performed in Carousel with Reagle Theatre in Boston. For the past two years Rollin Simmons worked as a specialeducation teacher in Acton, Massachusetts, finished her master’s degree in special education at Lesley University, and worked as a cantorial soloist in several synagogues in the Boston area. This summer Rollin moved to Israel for a year to begin a five-year program to become a cantor. Debbie Accetta graduated from Mount Sinai Medical School in New York in May and is now living in Chicago, where she has started her internship in pediatrics at the University of Chicago. Patty Murphy graduated from NYU Law School in May and moved back to Boston, where she is living on Beacon Hill and working as a litigation associate at Goodwin Procter.

Laura Ford has lived in New York for the past four years. She is an associate editor at Random House and a member of the Central Park Track Club.

1998 Torrey Androski is finishing her graduate degree in public administration at American University in Washington, D.C. Sara Leventhal was married on September 10, 2005, to Peter Fleiss, whom she met in college. Victoria Eitine was her witness. Sarah and Peter recently moved to Boston. Diana Potter attended Sara Leventhal’s wedding and enjoyed catching up with Victoria Eitine, Rebecca Leventhal ’00 and Amanda Burrage ’00. In October, Diana joined Emily Sussman in a re-visit to David Smith’s nonfiction writing class. Emily is living in Cape Cod and working as a full-time reporter and photographer for the Provincetown Banner. After dabbling in magazine and grant writing in Maine, Diana now lives in France, where she is studying and teaching English. She invites anyone in the Paris area to contact her at potter.diana@gmail.com. Jorge Ramallo is a medical student, and class president, at the University of Virginia. Fellow classmates report that Millie Grinstead is also attending UVA as a law student.

2000 Jennie Bartlett lives in Washington, D.C. where she works for LISC, a nonprofit community development and housing finance agency, and lives just down the street from Drew Konove. Shannon Gulliver is at Columbia University Medical School in New York City having spent a year earning a master’s degree in art history at Cambridge University, UK. She sees Prue Hyman and Armen Sarkis ’99 every weekend, and sees Drew Konove, Molly Epstein, Merrill Feather and Josh Pressman frequently—“we are a tight Milton crowd!”

all up to cheer As Mr. Field urged for his era and ours, “All up to sing for Milton.” Bequests, the songs of gratitude for “the School that we hold most dear…,” help assure Milton’s strength for all time. You can make a bequest to Milton by including the School in your will, naming us as a beneficiary of your retirement plan, or in a variety of other ways. For information on how to make a bequest and sample bequest language, please call 617-899-2376 or email (suzie_greenup@milton.edu) Suzie Hurd Greenup ’75 in the Development Office.

2001

2005

Rob Donovan graduated from the film school at USC in May 2005. He lives in Culver City and is pursuing a career in filmmaking.

Jon LaRochelle worked at an orphanage in Oaxaca, Mexico, and is headed to Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, next year.

Jason Simon graduated from Hamilton College and lives in Chicago. He is working in commercial real-estate brokerage with Grubb and Ellis. Tze-Cheng Chun spent the past summer backpacking in Southeast Asia. She is a senior at Columbia University double majoring in American studies and dance. This is her second year as manager of the Columbia Bartending Agency, which employs over 200 Columbia student bartenders. Tze also manages the Columbia School of Mixology, teaching over a thousand students a year the fine art of mixing drinks. She still loves dance and recently performed at Dance Theater Workshop in New York and produces Columbia’s largest dance showcase.

Deaths 1925 1933 1934 1935 1937 1938 1940 1942 1943 1946 1949 1956 1959 1961 1976

Norman D. Vaughan Paul V. Harper, Jr. Marion Donald Means Donald H. Gordon John Bentinck-Smith Robert M. Ewing Katharine Ladd Fales Kingsbury Browne, Jr. Robert L. Day II Joan Simpkins Clarke Charles Colby Hewitt, Jr. Mary E. Porter Francine Jupp Buckner Bennett O. Poor John C. Pappas, Jr. James Sinclair Armstrong, Jr. Katherine Smith O’Brien

Milton Magazine

Graduates’ Weekend 2006:

Don’t Miss It On the long and sunny days of June 16 and 17

Be prepared to listen, learn and laugh—to eat well, have fun, and see old friends. Find out, firsthand, what new opinions, ideas and adventures your classmates have to share. Reconnect and enjoy the Milton of today. On June 16 and 17, we will celebrate reunions with alumni whose class years end in 1 or 6. Since Graduates’ Weekend will be in June, Milton can offer an exciting and expanded array of activities. For example, • Relax with Caribbean tunes while feasting at a lobsterbake and outdoor family festival. • Keep the conversations rolling at individual class cocktail parties after the lobsterbake. • Engage your mind in Milton Classrooms taught by Milton faculty. • Take a position on the field for the annual 20th vs. 25th reunion softball game. • Treat yourself to artistic performances by talented Milton students. • Explore the old, the new, and the restored spaces with student guides. • Catch up in your Reunion Class Headquarters—each class will have its own place to hold planned and impromptu gatherings throughout the weekend. • Play alumni soccer and lacrosse with teammates and legends of the past. • Relive your days at Milton (almost) by staying overnight in the Milton houses. • Share the big plans for Milton science as Head of School Robin Robertson reveals Milton’s hopes and dreams. • Find out what’s glowing in the night sky at the Ayer Observatory. • Resurrect your favorites from the Milton album at the Alumni Glee Club Sing. • Honor the graduates whom we have lost, at the Memorial Chapel Service.

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Special events on Friday night: • For Classes 1931 through 1961, the Dare to Be True Dinner will feature Jack Reardon ’56, Executive Director of the Harvard Alumni Association, on the role of Milton’s challenging motto in his life • For Classes 1966 through 2001, a party in the Schwarz Student Center, complete with Southern food and live music For the latest reunion information or to register, go to the “alumni” pages at www.milton.edu, or call Laura Barrow in the alumni relations office at 617-898-2385.

Milton Academy Board of Trustees, 2006

Julia W. Bennett ’79 Norwell, Massachusetts Bradley M. Bloom Wellesley, Massachusetts William T. Burgin ’61 Dover, Massachusetts James M. Fitzgibbons ’52 Emeritus Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts Austan D. Goolsbee ’87 Chicago, Illinois Victoria Hall Graham ’81 New York, New York Margaret Jewett Greer ’47 Emerita Chevy Chase, Maryland Antonia Monroe Grumbach ’61 Secretary New York, New York J. Tomilson Hill ’66 New York, New York

Franklin W. Hobbs IV ’65 President New York, New York

John P. Reardon ’56 Vice President Cohasset, Massachusetts

Barbara Hostetter Boston, Massachusetts

John S. Reidy ’56 Boston, Massachusetts

Ogden M. Hunnewell ’70 Vice President Brookline, Massachusetts

Kevin Reilly Jr. ’73 Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Harold W. Janeway ’54 Emeritus Webster, New Hampshire Lisa A. Jones ’84 Newton, Massachusetts George A. Kellner Vice President New York, New York F. Warren McFarlan ’55 Belmont, Massachusetts Carol Smith Miller Boston, Massachusetts

Robin Robertson Head of School Milton, Massachusetts H. Marshall Schwarz ’54 Emeritus New York, New York Karan Sheldon ’73 Milton, Massachusetts Frederick G. Sykes ’65 Rye, New York Jide J. Zeitlin ’81 Treasurer New York, New York

Tracy Pun Palandjian ’89 Belmont, Massachusetts Richard C. Perry ’73 New York, New York

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