Page 32 - Roberta Brown News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Date Time Joyce Wong Elected to National Academy of Inventors Joyce Wong’s career as an inventor began with-and was inspired by-a pair of painful personal events. While she was pursuing her PhD at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), her grandfather succumbed to cancer and, shortly thereafter, her father suffered a nonfatal heart attack. “At the time, I was working with biomaterials and studying their interactions with cells,” says Wong, a Boston University College of Engineering professor of biomedical engineering and materials science and engineering. “I remember thinking, �...

Twitter Facebook The new Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee formed last fall by Boston University’s Board of Trustees—charged with overseeing BU’s efforts to identify and eliminate systemic racism on campus—has begun meeting, with a pair of veteran trustees, and School of Law alums, spearheading the group’s efforts to improve the University’s culture in diversity, equity, and inclusion. Two driving forces behind BU’s decision to launch the committee are the painfully disproportionate impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on people of color, and last year’s racial p...

Twitter Facebook In a wide-ranging, hour-long conversation over Zoom on a recent morning, Robert A. Brown, in the midst of his 16th, and by far most challenging, year as Boston University president, talks about what he learned from the past fall semester—and what lessons he hopes can be applied to the University’s current spring session and beyond. All topics were on the table, from hybrid teaching and learning to COVID-19 testing and vaccines to the challenge of bringing more faculty and staff back to campus after a year of mostly working from home and even to whether online learni...

Twitter Facebook Jon Westling, a motorcycle-riding scholar of medieval European history, onetime Freedom Rider, and president emeritus of Boston University, died last week at age 77. Westling’s career at BU spanned 46 years and included several top leadership posts, although his most lasting avocation was teaching students about the history of Europe. He came to the University in 1974 to work on a project to produce films for the US Bicentennial. While that project never materialized, John Silber (Hon.’95), then BU president, took notice of the 32-year-old and drew him into his admi...

long racial reckoning in America. At the ugly end of a presidency that seemed to embrace white supremacy. And just days after a violent insurrection on Capitol Hill that saw the Confederate battle flag waved in the halls of Congress.  “For me, it makes MLK Day feel like more than just our annual celebration,” says Katherine Kennedy, director of the Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground, which is hosting the event. “It’s a true remembrance of what MLK stood for, fought for, died for. And, especially for those of us who have lived long enough to have been a part of that, it’s a pre...