The Daily Princetonian
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Tuesday february 4, 2014
Pogrebniak’s work ethic praised Dobkin known for maintaining photo blog CHURCHILL Continued from page 1
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niors, built a program called “Project Nightcrawler: easy access to transport schedules,” which provided information about public transport routes along with
“She was inquisitive. She wanted to learn, and when you are eight, nine and ten that’s not a typical age we see students.” Pam Crawford
Mathematics department chair, jacksonville university
corresponding schedules and prices. “I’m surprised at how well it worked and how fast it was,” Kernighan said. “She seems to get an enormous amount done. Her time man-
agement skills are off scale as far as I can see. It’s amazing how she can do all kinds of things and maintain sanity and a perfectly normal life.” Pogrebniak also made an impression on professors outside of Princeton, including Pam Crawford, chair of the mathematics department at Jacksonville University, who taught her from 20022003, when Pogrebniak was eight years old. “We enjoyed having her in class,” Crawford said. “She interacted well with the other students. She was a good student. She was inquisitive. She was bright. She wanted to learn, and when you’re eight, nine and ten, that’s not a typical age we see students.” Crawford said she was thrilled to hear the news of Pogrebniak’s scholarship and recalled having Pogrebniak in a precalculus class. “I remember one of the students in the precalc class, after about a month, said to me, ‘So that’s not your daughter in our class?’ and I said, ‘No, that’s a student,’ ” Crawford explained. On campus, Pogrebniak is very involved with Wilson College, serving as a residential college adviser during her junior and senior years. She is also a peer tutor.
“Katherine is a remarkable student on several fronts: she is wildly intelligent and, working at the intersection of computer science and medicine, she belongs to a new generation of young women who will no doubt help shape the future of both fields,” Master of Wilson College and English professor Eduardo Cadava said. She is also heavily involved with Community House, a tutoring center on campus, both as a tutor and the Community Outreach Chair. “I enjoy mentoring younger students, especially women in math and sciences. We’ve come a long way with getting them more interested,” Pogrebniak said. “I organized science experiments there to keep them interested outside the classroom. I enjoy it and am passionate about it. Hopefully I can do that at Cambridge.” Pogrebniak has also been honored with the Princeton Class of 1939 Scholar Award and the Princeton Accenture Prize for Computer Science in 2013. She is Vice President of Princeton’s chapter of Tau Beta Pi, a national engineering honor society, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, an academic honor society.
News & Notes Bernanke to join Brookings Institution After stepping down from his former position as chairman of the Federal Reserve last Friday, former Princeton professor Ben Bernanke joined the Brookings Institution as a distinguished fellow in residence in the economic studies program. Bernanke had served as chairman of the Federal Reserve since 2006. During
his tenure, he oversaw the administration’s response to the 2007-09 financial crisis and tried to foster recovery by buying large numbers of bonds. Bernanke had served as a tenured professor in Princeton’s economics department, chairing the department from 1996 until he left in 2002 to join the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve. He ultimately left his position in 2005 but returned to Princ-
eton to speak at the Baccalaureate ceremony for the Class of 2013. At the Brookings Institute, Bernanke plans to write a book about his time at the Federal Reserve. The Brookings Institution announced that he would also contribute to an initiative on government economic policy. Janet Yellen, former vice chair of the Federal Reserve, succeeded Bernanke as chairman on Monday.
DOBKIN
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university, so if you ask him about a member of the faculty, he knows who that person is, he knows their achievements, he knows their concerns, he knows what their sense of humor is like, and to get to know an entire faculty like ours personally like he did is really what makes Princeton a strong place,” he explained. He added that Dobkin’s legacy would be the lineup of faculty he assembled during his term as dean. “As you know, David likes to think of himself as a collector and he collects lots of things, and he sometimes talks about himself as having collected faculty,” Eisgruber said, referring to Dobkin’s penchant for collecting everyday objects, which was featured in a University exhibition. “The principal legacy is the set of people that are here on this campus, that have either been recruited, which is visible, and retained, which is pretty much invisible, during David’s time on this faculty.” Eisgruber noted that other policies that Dobkin has put in place include a successful retirement plan, more familyfriendly policies and new initiatives around diversity. Dobkin could not be
reached for comment Monday. He’s out of the office until Feb. 11, according to an automated email response. At Monday’s faculty meeting, Eisgruber said that Dobkin was currently in the Virgin Islands. He plans to take a sabbatical for a year after the end of his term on June 30 and will return to his position as the Phillip Y. Goldman ’86 Professor in Computer Science at the start of the 2015-16 academic year. The search committee for the new dean of the faculty will be headed by Leora Batnitzky, the chair of the Department of Religion. The other faculty members serving on the committee are chemistry professor Robert Cava; Wilson School professor Christina Davis; mathematics professor Weinan E; associate classics professor Brooke Holmes; history department chair William Jordan; electrical engineering professor Antoine Kahn; and chair of the department of civil and environmental engineering James Smith. The search committee will look for a candidate who can help increase the diversity of the University’s faculty, Eisgruber explained. Eisgruber noted that a joint trusteefaculty committee last year identified increased diversity
as a major need for the University and added that he is fully committed to pursuing that objective. University Spokesperson Martin Mbugua explained that the University expects Dobkin’s successor to take office by July 1 of this year, in time for the start of the next academic year, and that there would be no need for an interim dean of the faculty while the search committee makes its selection. Eisgruber added that Dobkin was always someone he could turn to for advice throughout his term as dean of the faculty. “One of the things I would always count on David for was wise advice about how best to deal with a problem in ways that treated everybody respectfully and appropriately, that was true to the sensitivities of the faculty,” Eisgruber said. “Because David knew people so well, it was always possible to turn to him and say, ‘David, here’s a tough question. I have to find a constructive way to talk to people about this. Can you give me some advice about how to present this issue, so people don’t become defensive and we can have a good conversation?’ David was always forthcoming with his advice and virtually always right.”
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