Human Ecology Magazine, Vol. 47 No. 1, Spring 2019

HumanEcology COLLEGE OF HUMAN ECOLOGY CORNELL UNIVERSITY VOLUME 47 NUMBER 1 SPRING 2019

INSIDE: HUMECATHON Problem-solving through multidisciplinary perspectives Feature: D+EA – The Present and Future Research: Locating the brain’s taste center Student Life: Senior profiles and Commencement Alumni: Supporting the College through giving

MAKE AN IMPACT

Explore how you can transform lives today. human.cornell.edu/alumni/give

When you support the College of Human Ecology, you support the intellectually curious students and faculty who seek to improve lives in communities around the world through their research and engagement.

“Financial aid made Cornell a reality for me, and a summer research stipend opened my eyes to the power of research to help other people. Rather than choosing my internships based on short-term financial gain, I was able to use each summer as a time to find purpose and direction. I look forward to honoring those who made this possible by doing my part as a future alumna and lifelong member of the Human Ecology Family.”

– Hailey Brace ’19

CONTENTS

2

Features

MESSAGE FROM THE DEAN

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3

HUMECATHON

Bob Handelman; Cornell Marketing Group; Mark Vorreuter ; Provided

INSIDE CHE

32

On the cover:

The first annual HumEcathon brought together students from across the College’s majors to solve a real-world problem using their multidisciplinary perspectives.

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35

THE PRESENT AND FUTURE Design + Environmental Analysis

ALUMNI

Through multidisciplinary training that goes beyond the traditional design education, D+EA is tackling problems from a people, process and place perspective to create strategic sustainable and healthy futures by design.

44 DOMAINS

A close up look at a ‘cloud light’ hanging in the College of Human Ecology Commons. Custom-built in New Zealand and made from a recyclable mesh netting, the lights are intended to make the space more intimate.

Cover photos: Bob Handelman, Daniel Chamberlain

Human Ecology Volume 47 | Number 1 | Spring 2019 ISSN 1530-706

— M E S S A G E

F R O M

T H E

D E A N —

Published by the New York State College of Human Ecology at Cornell University

Designer Soontira Sutanont Writers Dan Aloi, E.C. Barrett, Stephen D’Angelo, Sheri Hall, Amanda K. Jaros, Susan Kelley, Lisa Lennox Reprints Permission is granted to reproduce material appearing in this magazine upon notification of the editor, provided that full acknowledgment is made of the source and no change is made without approval.

Printed in U.S.A. on FSC certified paper Third-class postage paid at Ithaca, N.Y. Change of Address To ensure uninterrupted delivery, write to Cornell University, College of Human Ecology, Box HE, Ithaca, NY 14853-4401, with old and new addresses. ©2019 Cornell University Diversity and inclusion are part of Cornell University’s heritage. We are a recognized employer and educator valuing AA/EEO, Protected Veterans, and Individuals with Disabilities.

07/1 24,255 QMC College Administration Interim Dean Rachel Dunifon Associate Deans Margaret Frey Karl Pillemer Assistant Deans Sandy Dhimitri Craig Higgins Amy Meckeler Jennifer Rouin Visit us online human.cornell.edu

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

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his time of the year is an especially exciting time to produce the Human Ecology magazine. Our spring issue is one brimming with outstanding content and also comes with an enormous feeling of pride having just celebrated Commencement and Reunion and taken a moment to reflect on another impressive academic year. There is much to share!

Inside, you will read about the amazing work of our faculty, students and alumni.

We feature fascinating research taking place across the College, including leveraging technology to locate the taste center of Dunifon the brain and cutting-edge design work that impacts the way we think about built environments – from houses to wearable technology to health care facilities. Further, we look at the outstanding work of our students, from a hackathon-style competition that brought together undergraduates from across all disciplines of the College, to an exhibit that tells the story of female empowerment through fashion. And, of course, we feature some of the amazing careers of our alumni and the impact of student mentorship, scholarships and other giving.

I am so impressed and inspired by the mission and work of the College of Human Ecology and am equally motivated by the vote of confidence from our generous supporters. Thanks to your support, we are able to invest in faculty, enhance our students’ experiences, provide summer internships for students, and much more.

Always evolving as a College, I am also delighted to report that the final phase of the MVR Hall renovation is on schedule, and we are already thinking about next year at this time when the project is complete, and staff and faculty are moved in, and we will be enjoying the new, collaboration-focused spaces. The profile of our faculty is also changing. This year, we hired 17 new faculty, all top in their fields. We launched a new major in Health Care Policy and an online Executive Master of Health Administration.

Additionally, more students than ever are taking advantage of experiences beyond the classroom, domestically and around the globe.

With all these advancements, we continue to reach for more. I look forward to the work we are doing to continue to lead the University in undergraduate students participating in research, to increase opportunities for students (inside and outside the labs and classrooms), to further enhance our investment in faculty, and to build prominence in our fields.

I am grateful for our alumni and other partners who are engaged in what we are seeking to accomplish! I hope you enjoy this issue and have a wonderful summer.

Sincerely,

Rachel Dunifon Interim Dean Cornell Marketing Group

Editor Stephen D’ Angelo

ENGAGEMENT

Presenters: Darrick Hamilton and Timothy Nelson

Conference spotlights equality of opportunity for children As inequality continues to grow in the United States and around the world, a national conference at Cornell Oct. 25-26, 2018 shined a spotlight on how to create equality of opportunity for children.

“An Equal Start: Policy and Practice to Promote Equality of Opportunity for Children” was the focus of the sixth biennial Urie Bronfenbrenner Conference, featuring a multidisciplinary mix of scholars from more than a dozen institutions and programs.

“We will be hearing some of the latest and most exciting research focused on policies and programs that enhance opportunities and promote equality for children,” said Rachel Dunifon, interim dean of the College of Human Ecology and conference co-organizer. “The papers presented here will certainly reflect Urie Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model of human development, which emphasized the multiple layers of influence that come together to support individual development.”

The conference convened a collection of leading researchers in an effort to cultivate interdisciplinary perspectives and consider micro-, meso- and macro-level interventions that best build opportunities for children to have an equal start in life.

Engagement

The conference’s major topic areas included innovations in transfer programs for children, making the safety net work for families, education and equality of opportunity, and multigenerational influences of child development. Research centered on policy and practice in families, schools, neighborhoods, and programs.

Presentations were organized and structured to help move the field forward in terms of how scholars think holistically about promoting equality for children.

“We charged the presenters with answering the question: What does it take to equalize opportunity for children? We asked them to be bold, and they did not disappoint,” said Laura Tach, associate professor of Policy Analysis and Management and conference coorganizer. “They showcased cutting-edge policies and programs, from behavioral ‘nudges’ to improve parenting to ‘baby trusts’ that reduce intergenerational wealth inequality. Collectively, they showed us how social science can inform policy and practice in ways that are both innovative and evidence-based.”

The conference series and the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research are named for Urie Bronfenbrenner (19172005), the renowned developmental psychologist who taught at Cornell for more than 50 years and developed the ecological systems theory.

“This system, this ecological perspective from Bronfenbrenner, may give us another avenue to think about policies and practices that may improve children’s lives, and make a difference in some of their trajectories,” said Gary Evans, an environmental and developmental psychologist and the Elizabeth Lee Vincent Professor at the College of Human Ecology. “That, of course, is why all of us are here.”

BCTR takes the “bench to bedside” model of the medical sciences and applies it to the social sciences – training faculty and students in research-practice partnerships; carrying out applied, engaged research; and building research collaborations with policymakers and practitioners.

Papers from the conference will be published by the American Psychological Association.

– Stephen D’Angelo

Cornell Marketing Group

New Cornell Footprint in NYC Cornell University Cooperative Extension-NYC Programs (CUCE-NYC) is creating new opportunities for collaboration in New York City through new office spaces. In January, CUCE-NYC moved their administrative operations into the historic General Electric building at 570 Lexington Ave. in midtown Manhattan, creating a new program hub. They also opened a new program office in the South Bronx.

At the midtown Manhattan location, the school of Industrial and Labor Relations is the lead occupant of the space. It also houses eight other Cornell colleges, units or programs including the Practicing Medicine: Health Care Culture and Careers, formally known as Urban Semester.

“It’s tremendous that all of these programs with long-standing partnerships are together,” said Jennifer Tiffany, executive director of CUCE-NYC. “It sparks informal conversations that surface shared interests and collaborative possibilities. The office also serves as a central space to host meetings with our Cornell colleagues from other locations. It’s neat to bring them to one place where they see activity from lot of different Cornell departments happening.”

Cornell President Martha E. Pollack said the new space

“will support expanded opportunities for faculty research, student learning and public engagement, all in a wonderful new space that encourages collaboration across many disciplines.”

The GE Building boasts of impressive architecture, Tiffany said. The 50-story skyscraper was built in 1931. It is a classic example of Art Deco style with complicated masonry work and decorations denoting electricity such as lightening bolts.

The building is on the National Registry of Historic Places.

In addition to moving its administrative offices to midtown, CUCE-NYC opened a new office in the Bronx to give CCE educators more clear access to the programs and people they serve. “The Bronx office is adjacent to a major transportation hub and the location is closer to many program delivery sites and participants,” Tiffany said. CUCE-NYC’s office in Jamaica, Queens, which supports programming throughout Queens and Brooklyn, will also move into a renovated space in the coming year.

The new and renovated offices have shared work stations and meeting rooms of all sizes. “We are making a culture change around how we think about and use space,” Tiffany said.

– Sheri Hall HUMAN ECOLOGY 3

Max Kelly ’20

Thanks to grants from Engaged Cornell, two Cornell researchers are working on projects that help to connect their youth research and learning to local communities.

ACT for Youth Director Jane Powers Ph.D. ’85 received a $5,000 Engaged Opportunity Grant to work with undergraduate design students and two Tompkins County organizations on interior designs for a new youth homeless shelter.

And Max Kelly ’20, an undergraduate Human Biology Health and Society major and research assistant with ACT for Youth, received a $1,000 grant to analyze how gender and sexual identity affect youth’s access to health care.

The grants are part of a university-wide program to build community engagement by creating partnerships between students, Jane Powers

faculty and local organizations.

The project led by Powers in collaboration with Design + Environmental Analysis (D+EA) Professor Gary Evans brought together undergraduate design students and local youth who experience unstable housing to design an emergency shelter for homeless youth.

First, Cornell students conducted focus groups and interviews with homeless youth to better understand what prevents them from using emergency shelters. “The youth discussed barriers, most of which have are also present in the literature about why youth don’t use emergency shelters,” Powers said. They included too many rules, lack of safety, privacy, and choice. The youth said that services such as medical and dental care, showers, clothes, tutoring, job training and access to computers would encourage them to use an emergency shelter.

Powers’ research assistants shared their findings with D+EA students, who created design guidelines that explain the needs and goals of a new emergency shelter. The students recommended the space be colorful and comfortable, and include showers, lockable spaces, a social or recreation area and a media space or library.

Students then shared the design guidelines with two local groups building the new

Doris lecture charts mental disorders across life span, celebrates Eckenrode career

Avshalom Caspi ’83, Ph.D. ’86 4 SPRING 2019

shelter: Tompkins County Action, a local non-profit that serves low income families, and the Learning Web, a community-based youth mentoring organization.

For the second project, Kelly is taking a careful look at access to health care for youth because there is a significant increase in the rate of sexually-transmitted diseases among adolescents in New York State. And there is little evidence about how gender and sexual identity affect access to medical care for youth.

Kelly interviewed 19 people ages 18 to 26 to ask questions about their gender identity, sexual orientation and health. He is still analyzing the data, but has identified some emerging trends. For example, he has found that when medical providers don’t understand gender fluidity, it may affect how they communicate about referrals related to sexual health. He also found that youth demonstrate fluidity in their behaviors and who they are attracted to, even if they don’t identify as a different gender or sexual identity.

“I am currently trying to develop a model on how each individual demonstrates fluidity in any facet relating to sexual health,” he said. “I am also interested in using the experience to educate others on how students can conduct translational, engaged research. In the next year, I will be exploring how we can bring graduate research advising into the undergraduate student population to encourage others to take on equity research projects.”

– Sheri Hall

Focusing on youth mental health is “actually a lifelong investment” in improving the overall population’s health and wellbeing, said Avshalom Caspi ’83, Ph.D. ’86, in the annual John Doris Memorial Lecture.

The talk, sponsored by the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research, was held April 25.

The event also honored Professor John Eckenrode, professor in the Department of Human Development and the founding director of the Bronfenbrenner Center, whose Cornell career has spanned more than 35 years.

“It is impossible to fully capture the many ways that John has contributed to the College [of Human Ecology], the impact that he has had, and the way that he has moved the College forward in essential and innovative ways,” said Rachel Dunifon, interim dean of the College of Human Ecology. “We are so grateful that he chose to spend his career at Cornell.”

Caspi is a professor of psychology and

Heather Ainsworth ; Provided

Engaged Cornell grants support BCTR youth research

Engagement

Wethington and Pillemer

Elaine Wethington elected AAAS fellow, retires

Cornell Marketing Group; Heather Ainsworth

Professor Elaine Wethington, a medical sociologist who made meaningful contributions to translational research at Cornell, retired in December after more than 30 years at the University.

Wethington was a professor of Human Development, sociology and gerontology in medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and an associate director of the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research. She also served as a co-director and pilot core director of Cornell’s Edward R. Roybal Center, the Translational Research Institute on Pain in Later Life (TRIPLL).

Wethington’s research focused on social relationships and isolation among older adults and the role of stressful life events in affecting mental and physical health across the life course. She also conducted ground-breaking research on developing measures of stressor exposure throughout her career. “[Throughout her career], she has made major scientific contributions in a number of areas, including discovering better ways of linking research

neuroscience at Duke University, and professor of personality development at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College, London.

In his talk, “Charting Mental Disorders From Childhood to Midlife: Lessons for Nosology, Etiology, Intervention and Public Understanding of Mental Disorders,” Caspi discussed findings from the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study, one of the longest current studies of mental disorders. Caspi joined the study in the late 1980s, shortly after completing his Ph.D. The data and subsequent findings have helped researchers see and better understand how mental disorders evolve from childhood to midlife, Caspi said. This includes emerging details on when mental disorders develop, how common they are and how they diversify with time.

According to Caspi, this greater understanding has important implications on prevention, underscoring the importance

to solve problems in real-world settings,” said Karl Pillemer, professor of human development and gerontology and senior associate dean for research and outreach in the College of Human Ecology. “There are not many of us who deserve the term ‘irreplaceable,’ but Elaine is one of them.”

Capping off a prominent career, Wethington was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest general scientific society, in November. She was recognized within her selection as fellow for distinguished contributions to medical sociology, focusing on the social aspects of physical and mental illnesses, their epidemiology and rigorous measurement, and for making her findings translatable to diverse audiences, including patients and the public.

“I am very grateful for the support of my colleagues in Human Development, Sociology, and Weill Cornell Medicine,” Wethington said. “I also drew inspiration from the students of Cornell University. Their enthusiasm for the work that I and other researchers on the sociology of health and aging has been a constant source of inspiration for me since I began teaching here.”

– Sheri Hall and Stephen D’Angelo

of targeting prevention in early life. This is due to growing evidence that young people who experience mental disorders tend to develop noninfectious and neurodegenerative diseases as they age.

If this evidence is accurate, treating mental disorders serves two essential public health goals.

“First, the treating of mental disorders – the most prevalent health problem in the first part of the life course – offers an opportunity to prevent disability among young people to enhance their well-being and their capacity to drive the economy and to shoulder the burden of the elderly,” he said, pointing out the perfect From left, Chris Wildeman, director of the demographic storm: increased life span Bronfenbrenner Center and PAM professor; and an aging population, combined with John Eckenrode, Avshalom Caspi ’83, Ph.D. ’86; lowering birth rates. and Jane Powers, director of ACT for Youth.

“Second,” he said, “treating mental disorders may actually be a target for slowing aging and preventing age-related diseases, not only for increasing life span but for increasing health span – that is, years lived without disability, which is our ultimate goal.”

– Stephen D’Angelo HUMAN ECOLOGY 5

HONORS

Professors and students receive awards for their passion, impact and legacy Anthony Burrow receives Engaged Scholar Prize

Burrow

vital to ensuring Cornell Cooperative Extension and New York State 4-H can deliver high-quality, research-based programs that meet the complex issues young people and communities face today,” Mead said.

By using a community-engaged learning pedagogy with his students, Burrow has them reflect on the realworld implications of what they’ve learned. Through this practice, Burrow is mentoring the students in his lab and facilitating healthy collaborations with community partners.

The program provides third-year undergraduates the opportunity to learn how applied research interventions to help young people are developed in collaboration with experts in youth practice. Scholars then apply their new skills to community projects of their choice.

“Tony’s approach to his scholarship and his work with students is truly helping undergraduates learn how to apply their scholarship in the larger world, embrace leadership roles, and have a positive impact on realworld problems,” said Andrew Turner, director of NYS 4-H Youth Development. “His research and scholarship on youth purpose, combined with his ability to arouse the curiosity and passion of students and extension community-based educators, have been a driving force in the birth of this successful model of community engagement.”

The Engaged Scholar Prize carries an award of $30,000 to expand and deepen community-engaged activities through support to essential participants, including community partners, the faculty member and Cornell undergraduate, graduate or professional students.

– Stephen D’Angelo

“Eventually, we want all Cornell students to go off and do great things in the places they most want to do them – as teachers, civil servants, doctors, what have you. But we should also want them to know that they can contribute in meaningful ways to the communities that host them. They can think about their nearest neighbors and how to contribute to and enhance the lives of the people living closest to them as well. Through my teaching, I simply want students to gain practice thinking this way while they are here, so that it is a familiar way to approach the world wherever they end up next.”

– Anthony Burrow 6 SPRING FALL 2017 2019

Cornell Marketing Group

Anthony Burrow, associate professor of Human Development in the College of Human Ecology, is the recipient of Cornell’s fourth annual Engaged Scholar Prize, Vice Provost for Engagement and Land-Grant Affairs Katherine A. McComas announced in January.

Administered by the Office of Engagement Initiatives, the prize recognizes a faculty member’s innovative approach to community-engaged scholarship that inspires students, colleagues and community partners alike.

“For me, the real honor of this award is that it recognizes the engagement aspect of learning,” said Burrow, who directs the Program for Research on Youth Development and Engagement (PRYDE) and is an affiliate of the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research.

“It serves as a reminder that a solely classroom-based education is incomplete, as lectures cannot replace actual observation or participation in the topics I cover,” Burrow said. “Students learn the most about the world – and will eventually contribute more to it – by thoughtfully interacting with more of it.”

Burrow’s research focuses on topics related to youth purpose, identity processes and race-related experiences encountered by ethnic minority adolescents and young adults. His work examines the role of purpose in the lives of young people and how a sense of purpose can promote positive adjustment and development.

“Dr. Burrow’s scholarship is an ideal mix of science and engagement,” said Karl Pillemer, the Hazel E. Reed Professor of Human Development and senior associate dean for research and outreach in the College of Human Ecology.

“Since arriving at Cornell, he has taken his careerlong research program on youth purpose and applied it in real-world contexts with outstanding results.”

Burrow was instrumental in securing funding for PRYDE, through which he has spread awareness of the importance of purpose for young people, Pillemer said. PRYDE, based in the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research, aims to make the New York State 4-H Youth Development Program a “living laboratory” for research and evaluation, using science to determine the best ways of promoting optimal youth development in the state.

As program director, Burrow is developing opportunities and approaches to involve his colleagues and their students in community-engaged research practice and partnerships. In his partnership with the 4-H Youth Development Program, he is working with the Cornell Cooperative Extension network to understand and improve the lives of youth in New York state.

“Through my personal involvement on the PRYDE Work Team, I have witnessed a deeper, more vibrant and meaningful level of collaboration with campus faculty – and this can be directly attributed to Tony’s leadership and vision for PRYDE,” said June Mead, association issue leader for Children, Youth and Families at Cornell Cooperative Extension – Broome County.

“These opportunities for campus-county connections are energizing and

Engagement

Moseley receives George D. Levy Award

Provided

Jeanne Moseley, director of the Global Health Program and senior lecturer in the Division of Nutritional Sciences, has been awarded Cornell University’s George D. Levy Faculty Award. The honor, part of Engaged Cornell, recognizes a faculty member whose collaborative efforts within the community have resulted in exemplary and sustained community-engaged projects. Moseley was honored for her leadership of the division’s Tanzania Summer Program, which she helped create in 2007. Katherine McComas, vice provost for engagement and land-grant affairs, named Moseley the 2019 recipient in December.

Since joining the division’s Global Health Program in 2006 as a program coordinator, Moseley has worked closely with faculty and staff in the division and in other Cornell colleges to develop global service learning and internship programs to promote student engagement in global and public health. She is currently responsible for the direct administration and implementation of Global Health partnerships and summer programs in the Dominican Republic, Tanzania and Zambia.

“Jeanne is an enthusiastic, collaborative and dedicated colleague who cares deeply for her students, her colleagues and for the sustained development of meaningful and reciprocal partnerships,” said Dr. Rachel Manongi, associate professor in the Institute of Public Health at Kilimanjaro Christian Medical University College (KCMUCo) in Tanzania, which partners with the Global Health Program to enhance the cross-cultural competence of Tanzanian medical students and Cornell undergraduates.

“Over the last 11 years, we have worked together closely, along with other KCMUCo and Cornell University faculty, to build a collaborative partnership and program, in which we engage equal numbers of Cornell undergraduate and KCMUCo medical students in shared learning on global health policy each year,” Manongi said.

The division’s Global Health Program offers students from any field of study the opportunity to explore and apply global health knowledge through experiential learning on Cornell’s Ithaca campus and abroad, where they are

“Jeanne is an enthusiastic, collaborative and dedicated colleague, who cares deeply for her students, her colleagues and for the sustained development of meaningful and reciprocal partnerships.”

– Dr. Rachel Manongi, associate professor, the Institute of Public Health at KCMUCo

challenged to integrate and extend their academic knowledge in an applied public health setting so that they might better understand the complexity of global and public health issues.

“The work that Jeanne has done over the past 10 years to engage students in meaningful crosscultural collaboration and impactful service learning through this program speaks to her commitment to the engaged partnership with KCMUCo,” said Lyndsey Dyer ’19, who participated in the Tanzania Summer Program in 2017 as an undergraduate.

“Jeanne’s engagement in professional and personal relationships with stakeholders in the Tanzania Global Health Program, such as nongovernmental organization directors, KCMUCo faculty and homestay families, is the thread that allows for continued student engagement both in Tanzania and at Cornell after students return from their experience,” Dyer said.

The George D. Levy Faculty Award, administered by the Office of Engagement Initiatives, supports a faculty member whose courses, research and other activities best demonstrate collaborative decisionmaking that incorporates community voice and reciprocity into the design; implementation and evaluation of the project, community capacity building; integrating engaged student learning outcomes into course design and delivery; and planning for sustaining the community partnership.

– Stephen D’Angelo

Moseley at KCMUCo HUMAN ECOLOGY 7

Alan D. Mathios Research and Service Grant Recipients

Fall Semester

Estrada

8 SPRING FALL 2017 2019

Gupta

Chen

Li

Steinberg

Agaronnik

Nicole Agaronnik ‘19, nutritional sciences major from Brooklyn, NY, received the funds to present her work at Obesity Week, an international conference hosted by The Obesity Society (TOS) and the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASBMS).

Lia Chen ’19, human development major from Moorpark, CA, received the funds for a senior honors project to examine underlying neural mechanisms of healthy aging in older adults by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) as a central research tool.

Jessica Estrada ’19, apparel design major from Pinehurst, TX, received the funds for a research project to identify the apparel needs of perimenopausal adult women who use an ostomy bag.

Elena Gupta ’19, human biology, health, and society major from Ithaca, NY, received the funds in support of the International Women’s Day Conference at Cornell University.

Chiamaka Ijebuonwu ’20, human biology, health, and society major from Larenceville, GA, will use the funds in support of a multi-tier service project to help expand nutritional education, healthy snack options, and protein options for patients at the Ithaca Free Clinic, with a data analysis component following the project.

Rebecca Li ’19, human development major from Bayside, NY, will use the funds for a research project that takes a preliminary step towards linking how children’s beliefs about the self may influence their achievement and goal-directed behavior, and whether these beliefs differ between low and high SES children Stephanie Steinberg ‘19, human development major from Merrick, NY, will use the funds for a project to explore unaddressed questions regarding the role of the cerebellum in cognitive tasks such as attention and memory, using neuroimaging (fMRI) and neuropsychological assessment.

The awardees proposed promising projects that seek to understand memory and cognition, develop innovative garments, disseminate ground-breaking research, and organize students to promote gender equality and empowerment.

The Human Ecology Alumni Association awards the Alan D. Mathios Research and Service Grant bi-annually to qualified undergraduate students in the College to help further the awardees’ academic interests, research, outreach, career preparation, professional development, and commitment to public service.

Renamed in 2017 in honor of Dean Alan Mathios’ service to the College and the Cornell community, the grant recognizes students who seek to apply innovative solutions to improving the lives of others.

– Stephen D’Angelo

Mark Vorreuter

The Human Ecology Alumni Association recently named seven College of Human Ecology student recipients of the Alan D. Mathios Research and Service Grants for the Fall semester.

The provided grants fund undergraduate Human Ecology students’ research and service activities that further the mission of the College to improve lives by exploring and shaping human connections to natural, social, and built environments.

“The Human Ecology Alumni Association is proud to support the work of these outstanding Human Ecology students,” said Torey Cummings and Dana Weiner, co-chairs of the Career Networking Committee of the Association. “The students are using their grant money for research and service projects in their fields of study that will have significant and exciting positive impact on the Cornell community and the world.”

Ijebuonwu

Inside CHE

C.C. Chu named fellow of the National Academy of Inventors

C.C. Chu, the Rebecca Q. Morgan ’60 Professor of Fiber Science & Apparel Design, has been named a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). He is one of 148 academic inventors to receive the honor this year.

Chu’s work focuses on biodegradable biomaterials design and development applications, including tissue engineering for human body repair. He has more than 90 U.S. and international patents.

His multidisciplinary work, which spans biomaterial engineering and medical sciences, has applications for the treatment of burns, diseased heart valves and blood vessels, bone repair, gene transfection for gene therapy, drug delivery nanotechnology for cancer therapy, and immunotherapy for cancer patients.

“It is a great honor to be inducted into the National Academy of Inventors, and I am very grateful that NAI recognizes my countless efforts and achievements to develop my research programs at Cornell that not only address the traditional advancement of knowledge via typical academic research, but, more importantly, my research programs that would have real impacts on real people,” Chu said.

He is a recipient of the State University of New York Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities and an inductee to the National Academy of Science’s College of Fellows within the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering. He received the Golden Eagle award from Tamkang University, Taiwan, Republic of China, his alma mater, as the most distinguished alumni in Nov. 2018.

C.C. Chu

Chu is currently collaborating with Hong Kong Baptist University to advance the delivery of Chinese medicine via his lab’s new pseudo-protein biomaterial nanotechnology for the most challenging breast cancer to treat, triple-negative breast cancer.

With the election of the 2018 class of inductees, there are now more than 1,000 NAI Fellows, representing more than 250 research universities and government and nonprofit research institutes. The 2018 Fellows are named inventors on nearly 4,000 issued U.S. patents, bringing the collective patents held by all NAI Fellows to more than 35,000 issued U.S. patents.

“I am very proud to welcome another class of outstanding NAI Fellows, whose collective achievements have helped shape the future and who each day work to improve our world,” said Paul Sanberg, president of NAI. “Each of these new NAI Fellows embodies the academy’s mission through their dedication, creativity and inventive spirit. I look forward to working collaboratively with the new NAI Fellows in growing a global culture of innovation.”

Election to NAI Fellow status is the highest professional distinction accorded solely to academic inventors who have demonstrated a prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development, and the welfare of society.

– Stephen D’Angelo

Mark Vorreuter; Provided

Rice Award in Public Speaking Communicating effectively about research is critical for the translation of study finding into policies and practices that improve the quality of human life. The Elsie Van Buren Rice Award in Public Speaking recognizes Human Ecology undergraduate students who demonstrate outstanding accomplishment in a speech contest held each year. This award was established by Cornell Professor James E. Rice in memory of his wife who died in 1926. This year’s competition featured 10 speakers representing each Human Ecology academic department, who translated findings reported in a research paper by a Human Ecology faculty member in relation to societal issues.

Winners included: Kopal Jha, 1st place; Abigail Lerner, 2nd place; Anita On, 3rd place; Hailey Brace, 4th place; Khanya Collier, 5th place.

HUMAN ECOLOGY 9

CO-RESIDENCE

Living arrangements of ‘Dreamers’ are more complex, less stable, study shows

Percentage of population living with extended family, and not with immediate family

100

80

60

40

20

0

undocumented documented Latinos Latinos

10 SPRING FALL 2017 2019

white

Musick

Hall

Undocumented migrants are less likely to live with immediate family members, and highly likely to live with extended family members. One-quarter share a household with aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and more distant extended kin, compared with 12 percent of documented Latinos and 3 percent of whites. Fewer than 10 percent of whites and AfricanAmericans live alone, compared with 2 percent of undocumented Mexican and Central American migrants.

Dreamers also tend to live in households that are bigger and more complex than their documented or native-born counterparts. The average undocumented migrant resides in a home with 3.1 adults and 2 children – compared with 2.7 adults for similarly-aged documented migrants, and 2.3 adults and one child for native whites.

“Our models reveal that undocumented migrants’ household size, along with counts of adults, children and families, exhibit substantially and significantly higher rates of change across waves than all other legal/racial groups, including documented migrants,” the researchers wrote. “With the exception of changes in household children, these markers of instability remain when household size is held constant.”

According to the researchers, understanding these household dynamics is a critical piece of the broader social context of undocumented life, the household strategies that undocumented immigrants use to get by and the role of legal status in Latino social mobility and integration.

“Our work contributes to a growing literature on the life chances of undocumented immigrants, showing that the precarity and instability associated with lacking authorization impacts not only educational and work outcomes, but increases complexity and instability in living arrangements.”

Musick said.

This line of research is also important for understanding how the effect of legal status extends beyond the unauthorized population to the legal immigrants and U.S.-born citizens to whom they are linked through family and co-residential ties.

“These patterns have potentially lasting effects on social and economic well-being, and are likely to reverberate across generations with implications that spill well beyond the unauthorized population – having direct consequences for their U.S.-born children and less direct but important consequences for the citizens to whom they are linked and communities in which they live,” Hall said.

– Stephen D’Angelo

Cornell Marketing Group; Freepik

Undocumented Mexican and Central American immigrants who came to the United States as children or teens, commonly known as “Dreamers,” live in more complex and less stable households than their documented or native-born counterparts, according to a new study from Cornell researchers.

In “Living Arrangements and Household Complexity among Undocumented Latino Immigrants,” researchers in the College of Human Ecology provided the first national estimates of the family living arrangements for this group. The study compared the composition, size and stability of the households of unauthorized immigrants, documented immigrants and U.S.-born groups, and examined the extent of these groups’ shared family and residential ties.

“We find substantial complexity in the living arrangements of undocumented migrants, who are less likely than other groups to live in simple arrangements with partners and children and much more likely to co-reside with extended family and non-family members,” said co-author Matthew Hall, associate professor of Policy Analysis and Management. “We also find that these households are characterized by greater instability, being most likely to change in size and form over time.”

The study was co-authored with professor Kelly Musick and doctoral student Youngmin Yi, both in the Department of Policy Analysis and Management.

The researchers used nationally representative data from the 1996, 2001, 2004 and 2008 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation, which include sufficiently large samples of Latino immigrants, information about legal status and measures of all relationships among household members.

Results show that undocumented Latinos who were living in the U.S. before age 15 are significantly less likely than documented Latinos, U.S.-born Latinos and whites to be living with just a partner or a partner and children, at 47 percent compared with 55, 52 and 62 percent, respectively. They are also twice as likely to live with nonrelatives than other groups, at 14 percent compared with about 7 percent.

Inside CHE

VIVID LIFE TRANSITIONS

Cornell Marketing Group; Rawpixel

Researchers reset puberty discussion around modern research

Puberty is a universal yet highly individualized process. For many, it happens in slow and steady stages; for others, it goes quickly and dramatically. For all, it is a period of time to endure and get past.

But this life stage, recognized as awkward and uncomfortable, is also an incredibly important and vivid life transition – a transformation in physical growth and cognitive development that can produce long-lasting impacts. And for researchers, it is a crucial avenue for understanding human development, both individually and collectively, over the course of a lifetime.

Though academics today can leverage cutting-edge statistical and imaging techniques to measure maturation, much of our understanding of this pivotal transition is based on 1970s scientific scholarship – devoid of the realities of today’s world.

Jane Mendle, associate professor of human development in the College of Human Ecology, and colleagues have proposed needed revisions to the scientific approach to studying puberty.

Her group’s paper, “Understanding Puberty and Its Measurement: Ideas for Research in a New Generation,” is part of a special issue of the Journal of Research on Adolescence on puberty. It’s the first comprehensive review of the entry into adolescence that’s been published in decades.

“Our focus in this paper is to offer

cognitive and emotional development at the start of puberty is now more in tune with middle childhood.”

Another critical need for modern puberty research is addressing diversity and social context within the literature, as very little research has investigated how the psychological experience of puberty may differ depending on socio-economic status, social context, race, sex and ethnicity. It is likely that the psychological changes associated with puberty are significantly influenced by these identities and background, Mendle said.

Several strategies are recommended by the researchers to address diversity and social context. These include: collaborating with researchers who have knowledge of the population under study; involving members of the community; consulting with individuals from underrepresented backgrounds; considering theoretical frameworks for diverse populations; and making methodological shifts to studies themselves, including increasing the use of open-ended questions and paying close attention to the interpretation and dissemination of data and final results.

“The more we learn on this topic, however, the clearer it is that these factors do play a role in what it means, psychologically, to grow up and enter adolescence,” Mendle said. “We have to be careful about generalizing conclusions and take care to ensure that the experiences of a broad array of kids are well-represented in the research literature.”

Researchers from Penn State University and the University of Michigan contributed to this study, which was supported by the Society for Research on Adolescence and Penn State’s Social Science Research Institute.

new ideas, perspectives for research, and methodological principles to help align the measurement of puberty with meaningful theoretical questions,” the authors wrote.

“We now have much broader public dialogues regarding sex, gender, diversity and the economic circumstances of our country,” Mendle said. “So it means something different to come of age during this particular historical era, both because our society is different and because the actual timing of puberty is earlier.”

Research in this area is just beginning to make sense of these needed changes, Mendle said. For example, foundational survey questions need to be updated to gather the best understanding of what life is like for subjects as individuals. Further, researchers have to view puberty as starting earlier than accepted average age ranges – Stephen D’Angelo have shown. This has implications as it relates to a subject’s psychological maturity.

“One important “We have to be careful aspect is that about generalizing researchers used to conclusions and take care to think of as puberty as the beginning of ensure that the experiences adolescence,” Mendle of a broad array of kids are said. “But because kids well-represented in the are entering puberty research literature.” at younger ages, the – Jane Mendle sorts of challenges they have and their level of

HUMAN ECOLOGY 11

Hands-on, intensive parenting is best, most parents say

Regardless of their education, income or race, most parents say a child-centered, time-intensive approach to parenting is the best way to raise their kids, a Cornell researcher has found.

The findings suggest intensive parenting has become the dominant model for Ishizuka how parents across the socio-economic spectrum feel children should be raised – regardless of whether the parent has the resources to actually do so.

“This points to exceptionally high standards for how parents should raise their kids. It suggests that parents are experiencing significant pressure to spend great amounts of both time and money on children,” said Patrick Ishizuka, the author of “Social Class, Gender, and Contemporary Parenting Standards in the United States,” published in December in Social Forces.

Most parents also said intensive parenting is the ideal approach for both mothers and fathers, and applies to parenting boys and girls, according to the study.

“It’s remarkable just how widespread support is for intensive parenting, in terms of social class and gender,” said Ishizuka, the Frank H.T. Rhodes Postdoctoral Fellow in Policy Analysis and Management.

Researchers in the field have known that parents with low incomes and less education tend to spend less time and money on children than parents with higher incomes and more education. But it hadn’t been clear whether that’s because they lack resources or because they prefer a different approach to childrearing. Ishizuka’s study is the first to directly address the question using a nationally representative survey, by asking parents of different social classes what they consider “good parenting.”

DISCUSSING SELF-HARM Book offers hope to parents of children who self-injure

Parents who discover their children intentionally hurt themselves – by cutting, carving, scratching or burning their skin – often feel guilty and ashamed, assuming they somehow caused their children’s emotional distress.

A new book by experts in self-injury offers parents hope: assurance that they didn’t cause their child’s selfinjuring, and guidance on how they can become key allies in helping their child heal.

“Having a child self-injure can be so hard and feel so dark at times. Our intention was to inform, encourage and support caretakers,” said Janis Whitlock, co-author of “Healing Self-Injury: A Compassionate Guide for Parents and Other Loved Ones.”

The book focuses on life after parents or caregivers 12 SPRING FALL 2017 2019

have discovered their child is involved in non-suicidal self-injury – self-injury that is not intended to end one’s life. The book covers the background and basics of self-injury, why people do it and, most importantly, how parents and loved ones can help their child, their families and themselves.

Commonly known as “cutting,” non-suicidal selfinjury is best understood as a way of coping with stressful emotions and thoughts, the authors say. The relief from the physical pain of a self-injury essentially tricks the brain into perceiving relief from emotional pain too. Self-injury can include such behaviors as embedding objects in the skin and swallowing toxic substances. Most people who self-injure also deal with other mental health challenges. And it is far more common than most people know; between 12 and 37 percent of all teenagers and young adults have selfinjured at some point in their lives.

Parenting is generally not the critical factor in

Mark Vorreuter; Pexels; Vecteezy; Provided

ON RAISING KIDS

Ishizuka analyzed data from more than 3,600 study participants who were parents. The participants read about various scenarios in which a mother or father interacts with a child between the ages of 8 and 10. The vignettes focused on the child’s leisure activities, how the parent speaks to the child and how the family interacts with professionals in institutions like schools or a doctor’s office. The participants then ranked the parent’s behavior from “excellent” to “poor.”

Each scenario described one of two approaches to parenting: concerted cultivation (an intensive parenting approach) or natural growth (a non-intensive parenting approach). In concerted cultivation, parents facilitate their child’s participation in extracurricular activities, play with them at home, ask them about their thoughts and feelings, and respond to misbehavior with discussion and explanations. In contrast, parents taking the natural growth approach set rules for their children’s safety but give them flexibility to play on their own or with friends. Parents are less involved in the children’s activities and give them clear directives with little room for negotiation.

In one vignette, a child complains about being bored after school. In the concerted cultivation condition, the parent suggests they can sign the child up for a sports team or music lessons. In the natural growth condition, the parent suggests the child go outside and play with her friends.

Ishizuka also analyzed whether the participants answered questions differently when the parent was a woman or a man and if the child was a boy or a girl.

The vast majority – 75 percent – of college graduates and non-college graduates rated the concerted cultivation approach as “very good” or “excellent.” But only 32 percent of college graduates and 38 percent of non-college graduates rated the natural growth parenting style “very good” or “excellent.”

The findings imply that parents may struggle to meet these ideals – especially if they have low incomes and education levels.

“These high standards are less compatible with some parents’ resources,” Ishizuka said. “Even though parents with a lower socio-economic status have these ideals, we know that they’re not, on average, engaging in these parenting behaviors as often as college graduates. A lack of time and money could be a factor in shaping their behaviors, given that they have very similar ideals.”

– Susan Kelley

Inside CHE

THE SWEET SPOT

FMRI research helps locate taste center in brain

Mark Vorreuter; Vecteezy

Researchers long ago mapped sight, hearing and other human sensory systems in the brain.

But for taste, which could be considered our most pleasurable sense, precisely where the “gustatory” cortex is and how it works has been a mystery.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and a new method of statistical analysis, Anderson researchers have discovered the taste center in the human brain by uncovering which parts of the brain distinguish different types of tastes.

“We have known that tastes activate the human brain for some time, but not where primary taste types such as sweet, sour, salty and bitter are distinguished,” said Adam Anderson, professor of human development in the College of Human Ecology and senior author of the study, “Distinct Representations of Basic Taste Qualities in the Human Gustatory Cortex,” published March 5 in Nature Communications.

“By using some new techniques that analyze fine-grained activity patterns, we found a specific portion of the insular cortex – an older cortex in the brain hidden behind the neocortex – represents distinct tastes,” Anderson said.

The insular cortex, which separates the frontal and temporal lobes, has long been thought to be the primary sensory area for taste. It also plays a role in other important functions, including visceral and emotional experience.

“The insular cortex represents experiences from inside our bodies,” Anderson said. “So taste is a bit like perceiving our own bodies, which is very different from other external senses such as sight, touch, hearing or smell.”

Previous work has shown a nearby insular region processes information originating from inside the body – from the heart and lungs, for example. In this way, distinct tastes and their associated pleasures may reflect the needs of our body. Taste not only reflects what is on our tongue but also our body’s need for specific nutrients, Anderson said.

The researchers found evidence that could be considered the “sweet” spot in the insula – a specific area where a large ensemble of neurons respond to

causing a child to self-injure; it has more to do with how children perceive themselves and their environment.

“So much of self-injury is giving voice to emotional experiences. It’s a way to take an amorphous, emotional cloud of stuff and focus it and control it,” said Whitlock.

Parents are not only critical allies in setting the stage for a child’s ability to recover and thrive, but are also the most helpful confidants a self-injuring child has – even more useful than peers and therapists, said Whitlock.

“There’s an authentic self – a self that exists from the time the child arrives on the planet – that a parent or caretaker has some connection to,” she said. “There’s something about that relationship that can be a very healing agent in this process.”

sweetness stimulation on the tongue.

“While we identified a potential ‘sweet’ spot, its precise location differed across people and this same spot responded to other tastes, but with distinct patterns of activity,” Anderson said. “To know what people are tasting, we have to take into account not only where in the insula is stimulated, but also how.”

Compared with previous animal studies that show distinct activation clusters of basic tastes in the brain, the new study’s results reveal a more complex taste map in the human brain, Anderson said, where the same insular region represents multiple tastes.

“One of the difficulties in prior work on the connection between the brain and taste specifically is that tastes come with strong associated hedonic responses, like sweet tastes good and bitter bad,” he said. “So we have not known if these taste regions are really dedicated to taste, but rather hedonics or palatability of taste. Our research also identified patterns distinguishing liking from disliking in the insula that were distinct from those representing taste quality.”

By comparing different compounds that result in similar taste quality, like the sweetness of glucose versus sucralose, the study also demonstrated that the insula represents taste quality, for example, “sweet” and not just specific chemicals.

“That we have found a specific region in the insular that distinguishes primary tastes from each other as well as from subjective liking and disliking has provided strong evidence of where and how taste is represented in the human brain,” he said. “While we have long known the cortical areas for our external senses, we now have strong evidence for human gustatory cortex.”

Contributing to the study were Junichi Chikazoe, former postdoctoral researcher in Anderson’s Affect and Cognition Lab; and researchers from Columbia University and the University of Colorado. Funding was provided by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and the Takeda Science Foundation.

– Stephen D’Angelo

She encourages parents to simply bear witness to a child’s perceived emotional wounds, rather than try to fix them. “That’s what a lot of kids in our research said: ‘When my parents can just listen, when they can just be present with me, it makes a big difference.’ It opens the door to a tremendous healing capacity.”

The book also encourages parents to get support for themselves, such as therapy or by confiding in a trusted friend. “We try to validate the number and depth of the hard emotions that will come up for a parent,” she said. “It’s very disconcerting to see wounds on your child’s body or see blood left on a sink.”

By taking care of themselves and finding healthy ways to deal with the emotions related to the child’s self-injury, parents are

modeling how to deal with difficult issues – which is what the children must learn to do for themselves.

“Demonstrate to your child – even if it’s new to you – how Whitlock to be authentic.

That modeling of authenticity, even if it’s messy, awkward or really uncomfortable, is important,” Whitlock said. “It’s in these hard places where you can most easily find the experience of being an authentic person. It’s where the seeds of hope and growth are.”

–Susan Kelley HUMAN ECOLOGY 13

NEW FACULTY

Cindy (Hsin-Liu) Kao

Tamer Uyar

Lin Bian

Assistant Professor Design + Environmental Analysis

Associate Professor Fiber Science & Apparel Design

Assistant Professor Human Development

What is the primary focus of your research?

I direct the Hybrid Body Lab, where we investigate the convergence of technology, culture and design on the body surface. By hybridizing novel materials, electronics, and miniaturized robotics with cultural body decoration practices, our lab investigates how technology can be situated as a culturally meaningful material for crafting our identities. Through these on-body interfaces, we implement applications for self-expression, health and well-being and also for improving our interactions with others and our surrounding environments.

The Uyar Research Group has a main research interest in developing nanofibers, fibrous materials and nanomaterials with novel functionalities for potential applications in textiles, environmental and filtration, health care, food and food packaging, catalysis, sensors, energy, and agriculture.

The Little Thinkers Lab investigates how children reason about the social world. Specifically, we study how children form stereotypes about social categories and how these stereotypes influence their aspirations. We are also interested in understanding how infants and children make sense of interactions between and across social groups.

What attracted you specifically to Cornell’s College of Human Ecology and your department?

I was drawn to the interdisciplinary nature of the College. It was fascinating to see psychologists, designers, neuroscientists, and economists all housed under one roof.

I was also drawn to the human-centric perspective of the College in solving problems. Coming from an engineering background, I was interested in creating technology not only for novelty’s sake but to investigate how it can have a real impact on people’s lives.

My background is in fiber science, and the Department of Fiber Science & Apparel Design has a mission to expand knowledge and create new understandings in areas of fashion and fibrous materials that address enduses for future needs and make an impact on humanity as a whole. So, I will have a chance to collaborate with researchers who have textile, design and fashion backgrounds and the department hopefully will provide me more networking with fiber-based industries.

The College of Human Ecology and the Department of Human Development has been committed to conducting rigorous research to enrich our knowledge about the basic developmental course, to empower students to be active researchers, and to assist the public community to live a happy life. These goals and efforts align extremely well with my career pursuits.

The collegial and supportive atmosphere in the workplace is definitely a plus.

How would you say your research is improving lives, a core mission of Human Ecology?

14 SPRING FALL 2017 2019

The focus of Uyar Research Group is a perfect match with Cornell’s College of Human Ecology’s mission since we are investigating the potential applications of nanofibers and fibrous materials that we are developing in textiles for protective textiles and medical textiles; in environmental/ filtration for water purification, wastewater treatment, and air filtration; in healthcare for controlled/sustained drug release systems and wound dressing and tissue engineering; in food and food; packaging for better food quality and longer shelf-life for food; in catalysis where the reactions take place at ambient conditions; in sensors for detection of toxic materials in water and biosensors; in energy to get renewable energy from water splitting and solar cells; and so on.

My research aims to advance our fundamental understanding of the social connections and social biases existing in our culture and across the world. The results of this work will illustrate the root causes of group inequality and provide insights into the potential remedies correcting the imbalance within and across social groups, which fulfills the goal of “exploring and shaping human connections to social environments.”

Mark Vorreuter

As the interfaces I develop are situated directly on the body surface, they have the potential to influence the way we present ourselves and interact with others in social contexts. I’m interested to explore opportunities to improve face-toface communication through expressive on-body interfaces. These interfaces also have tremendous potential for sensing a wearer’s health conditions and also their reactions to both natural and built environments to inform design decisions.

Inside CHE

MASS INCARCERATION Study: Nearly half of Americans have had a family member jailed, imprisoned

“This survey really shows who the victims of mass incarceration are: the folks who have to manage households and grow up absent a loved one.”

– Christopher Wildeman

Cornell University Marketing Group; Flaticon

Wildeman

Enns

In a groundbreaking Cornell-led study illuminating the extensive scope of mass incarceration in the U.S., nearly 1 in 2 Americans have had a brother or sister, parent, spouse or child spend time in jail or prison – a far higher figure than previously estimated.

The study is the first to accurately measure the share of Americans – 45 percent – who have ever had an immediate family member jailed or imprisoned for one night or more. The researchers had assumed they would find half that rate.

“The core takeaway is family member incarceration is even more common than any of us – all of whom are experts in the field – had anticipated,” said Christopher Wildeman, professor of policy analysis and management in the College of Human Ecology and a co-author of the study, which appeared March 4 in Socius.

“This really is an issue that affects all of society,” added lead author Peter Enns, associate professor of government in the College of Arts and Sciences. Their Cornell co-authors are doctoral candidates Youngmin Yi, M.A. ’16, and Alyssa Goldman ’07, M.A. ’16.

The figures are even higher for African-Americans and people with low education levels; for those groups, nearly 3 in 5 have had an immediate family member incarcerated, the team found. And siblings were the most common immediate family member to be incarcerated, the researchers said – another surprise finding – and a trend about which not much is known.

“Having an immediate family member in prison instead of in the home can have a major effect on a person and can be extremely disruptive,” Enns said.

“This survey really shows who the victims of mass incarceration are: the folks who have to manage households and grow up absent a loved one,” said Wildeman, director of the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research.

More-advantaged groups are not immune to the trend, the study found. While college-educated whites experience family incarceration at a much lower rate than the less-educated and people of color, 1 in 6 – 15 percent – have had that experience. “That breaks pretty sharply from the standard narrative that we’ve heard in the research community and in popular discourse, about how white, college-educated folks are completely insulated from those risks,” Wildeman said. “And, indeed, this provides further evidence that mass incarceration is a profoundly American phenomenon and something that we as a society must confront together.”

Even though all groups are affected, education does somewhat insulate whites from having a family member imprisoned. As their

level of education goes up, their level of incarcerated family members goes down.

But that is much less true for African-Americans; the chances an African-American will have a family member jailed or imprisoned stays about the same even if he or she is well-educated. About 70 percent of people who didn’t finish high school have had a family member incarcerated; the rate is 71 percent for those with a high school equivalent; and 55 percent for those who have a college education.

The research, which grew out of a theme project sponsored by Cornell’s Institute for the Social Sciences, is the first to capture both jail time and prison time for family members. And it represents people who are often overlooked in national surveys – such as young adults, households with a low socio-economic status, those without internet access and Spanish speakers – thanks to the study’s design: participants were able to take the survey online or by phone, in English or in Spanish.

The researchers asked a nationally-representative sample of more than 4,000 people whether members of their immediate family (a parent, sibling, spouse or domestic partner, stepsiblings or foster family) or extended family (including grandparents, grandchildren, cousins, nieces, nephews or in-laws) have ever been held in jail or prison for a night or more, and for how long.

The participants were also asked follow-up questions about their experiences with and opinions of the police and the criminal justice system, health and well-being, civic and political engagement, and drug and alcohol use.

The researchers will dig into that data in later studies – and they invite other researchers to do so as well. They’ve made their data publicly available via Cornell’s Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, of which Enns is executive director, to allow others to both see what else the data show and confirm the findings for themselves.

The researchers hope the study will destigmatize the incarceration of family members.

“I hope that it will help folks see that this is more a structural issue than a behavioral one,” Wildeman said. “And I hope that it would drive home just how much more we can learn when we do the work to get surveys that explicitly focus on crime and criminal justice contact.”

The study was co-written by researchers from Research Triangle International; Washington University, St. Louis; University of California, Berkeley; Rutgers University; and Yale University. It was funded by FWD.us, a nonprofit focusing on immigration and criminal justice.

– Susan Kelley HUMAN ECOLOGY 15

PARTNER IN CARE GIVING

“It is based on extensive evidence that communication training in health care settings has a positive impact on patients.”

– Karl Pillemer

Staff-family communication key to assisted living success

New research by Karl Pillemer, the Hazel E. Reed Professor in the Department of Human Development and senior associate dean for research and outreach in the College of Human Ecology, has demonstrated an effective approach to reduce staff-family conflict in assisted living facilities – an important aspect of ensuring the well-being of residents in care.

“Staff members and relatives of residents can sometimes experience communication problems and interpersonal conflict with one another leading to Pillemer distress on the family side and an increase in burnout and the likelihood of leaving the job on the staff side,” Pillemer said. “In some cases, problems between families and staff can negatively affect the residents’ well-being.”

Although forging partnerships between families and staff in assisted living is desirable, few programs exist that promote such positive relationships. In response to this need, Pillemer and colleagues at the Cornell Institute for Translational Research on Aging developed the Partners in Caregiving in Assisted Living Program (PICAL).

“We designed PICAL to address these problems by enhancing communication skills, fostering empathy between families and staff, and engaging individuals in discussions about how their assisted-living community could help break down barriers between the two groups,” Pillemer said. “It is based on extensive evidence that communication training in health care settings has a positive impact on patients.”

The program was tested in assisted-living centers across eight states where facilities were assigned either to receive the program or to a control group.

PICAL involves two workshop series, one for assisted-living staff and one for residents’ family members. Training, averaging three hours in length, was primarily structured around advanced listening skills, communicating clearly and respectfully, and handling blame, criticism and conflict.

Upon completion of the training, staff and family members met to discuss their concerns, to identify at least one issue for change within the facility and a plan for next steps.

A total of 576 staff members and 295 family members from the control and treatment groups provided survey data on their relationship. Data were collected from the treatment group pre- and post-training to help show its impact.

The findings confirmed that family-staff relationships are sometimes challenging in assisted living, similar to nursing homes, and that an intervention can improve these relationships. Family members and staff reported they felt the program was highly effective and led to improved communication and improved relationships. The study found the strongest effects on staff, who reported a significant reduction in conflicts with family members and lower rates of burnout over the study period. Similar patterns were found for families, although the results did not reach statistical significance.

For Pillemer and PICAL, communication between both parties involved is vital for success.

“Assisted-living communities can enhance the experiences of both families and staff by providing training in communication skills and conflict resolution, which is likely to lead to improved care for residents,” he said. “Such efforts should increase the likelihood that family and staff see themselves as partners – and not as opponents – in the care of their loved ones.”

The study, which was funded by a research grant from the American Seniors Housing Association, was published Oct. 17 in Seniors Housing & Care Journal, where it won the Outstanding Research Paper of the Year award.

– Stephen D’Angelo

ADVANCING NUTRITION

Poor nutrition causes millions of deaths among children each year and costs billions of dollars in lost productivity. Cornell University researchers based in the Division of Nutritional Sciences will collaborate on a new, five-year United States Agency for International Development flagship multi-sectoral nutrition project.

The project, USAID Advancing Nutrition, will bring together international and local organizations from a variety of sectors and disciplines to design, implement and evaluate activities that combat malnutrition.

Katherine Dickin, associate research professor within the Division of Nutritional Sciences, will lead and coordinate the Cornell team. Members will develop the scope and approach for the overall project that will provide technical assistance to build implementation research capacity.

“We will support the project’s aims to scale up and refine multi-sectoral interventions to improve maternal Dickin and child nutrition globally by addressing food systems, 16 SPRING FALL 2017 2019

community-based health and nutrition services, social and behavioral change, gender norms, child development, agriculture, water and sanitation,” Dickin said.

The project’s approach draws together global nutrition experience to help address the root causes of malnutrition and build local capacity, supporting behavior change and strengthening the nutritional health care workers’ environment.

Within the larger initiative, she hopes to build

Cornell University Marketing Group ; Mark Vorreuter; Pexels; Provided

Cornell researchers join five-year USAID nutrition project

Inside CHE

WOMEN IN HEALTH CARE

Third annual symposium talks technology, future of health care

Mark Vorreuter; Freepik; Provided

The Sloan Women in Healthcare Leadership hosted their third annual symposium on March 22 and 23 beginning with a keynote address by Dr. Indu Subaiya ‘95, president and co-founder of Catalyst @ Health 2.0 and senior advisor for the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society.

The symposium, in partnership with the Sloan Program and student organization Women in Healthcare Leadership (WIHL), is dedicated to advancing the influence of women in health care leadership through education, networking and community engagement. This year’s theme was “Technology and the Future of Healthcare.”

“Dr. Subaiya emphasized that care delivery models are changing, with technology as the new foundation,” said Nicole Levine ‘18 MHA ’19, co-chair for the symposium. “In order for technologies to serve the needs of the population, their leadership teams need to be as diverse as their patients.”

Each year, the symposium brings together graduate and undergraduate students from across Cornell and Human Ecology – ranging from backgrounds in health administration to engineering to medicine – to inspire dialogue around subjects pertinent to women at the cutting-edge of health care. The goal is for every attendee to be empowered through thoughtful discussions and interactive sessions, which will create a stronger network of current and aspiring female health care leaders.

“We hoped to give participants two main opportunities: to hear accomplished women discuss their careers and health care industry trends and to engage in dialogue about issues pertinent to supporting women in leadership,” Levine said.

A diverse group of leaders spoke on panels. Specific topics included “Achieving Your Own Vision,” “Expanding Your Influence” and “Driving Disruption.”

“Distinguished speakers shared expertise on exciting, cutting-edge topics, from new insurance models to communication techniques to senior living,” Levine said. “Speakers were encouraging and

country-level capacity to conduct key research and ensure that lessons learned feed into future program and policy decisions.

“In this collaboration, Cornell can shape implementation research that will feedback to improve specific programs and also contribute to global understanding of not just what works, but how, where and why,” Dickin said. “More effective action to improve nutrition will save lives, build communities and contribute to educational attainment and economic development.”

The USAID Advancing Nutrition program’s activities will fall under three goals: using proven, quality nutrition interventions and services equitably and at a large scale; strengthening country commitment and capacity for nutrition programming across different sectors; and generating and

accessible to attendees eager to begin careers in these areas.”

WIHL is an independent, self-governing student organization focused on supporting women graduate students build careers in the health care industry. The organization facilitates networking opportunities with prospective employers, professional development programs, community service involvement and formal and informal social activities to unite graduate students interested in elevating the role of women in health care leadership across programs and campuses.

“It is important to us that leadership opportunities are perceived as inclusive and diverse, and that students entering the workforce are empowered with tools to succeed,” Levine said. “It was rewarding to see students and experienced professionals learn from one another through meaningful conversations about overcoming challenges related to health care, gender, and leadership.”

– Stephen D’Angelo

applying global learning, evidence and innovative practices.

These types of collaborations are essential to improve nutrition around the globe, Dickin said.

“The array of partners in USAID Advancing Nutrition allows us to pull together the best solutions and implementation approaches, ranging from nutrition-specific programs that address malnutrition very directly to nutritionsensitive approaches based in other sectors such as agriculture, water and sanitation, and education that have important influences on nutrition outcomes,” she said.

“Building capacity to ensure a safe and accessible food system and support the food security and nutritional status of families and communities involves so many different influences that working together is the

only way forward. But beyond the project partners, it is collaboration with government, non-governmental organizations, private sector and donor partners that is key to taking action and making real improvements,” Dickin said.

In addition to Cornell, the core implementing partners for USAID Advancing Nutrition include lead organization JSI Research & Training Institute Inc., Helen Keller International, the National Cooperative Business Association, CLUSA International, Save the Children U.S., the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, Results for Development, the Manoff Group, the African Nutrition Leadership Programme at NorthWest University in South Africa and the University of California, Davis.

– Stephen D’Angelo HUMAN ECOLOGY 17

FALL OF COMMUNITIES Reporter paints vivid portrait of opioid epidemic at annual Horowitz lecture

“Opiates are the poster drugs of our time, our culture today, an age dominated by isolation, by fleeting connections, by social media and 24-hour-a-day news, by ideological dogma forcing us into these little bubbles,” said National Book Critics Circle Award-winning journalist Sam Quinones on the origins and impacts of the opioid epidemic Nov. 7 at Call Auditorium.

A former reporter for the Los Angeles Times who has covered immigration, drug trafficking and gang violence, Quinones spoke on his most recent nonfiction book, “Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic.”

Quinones painted a vivid picture of the epidemic that covered not only the rise of drug cartels, but also the medical, cultural and economic factors that stoked the epidemic’s flames and scourged families across the country.

Replacing traffickers from the Far East, drug cartels in Latin America began to become extremely effective and efficient during the 1980s, becoming responsible for 100 percent of heroin distribution in the U.S., he said. At the same time, the prescription pain killer fentanyl, a narcotic derived from the poppy, was becoming more widespread in general medical practice and treatment.

“What we also experienced in the beginnings of that decade was a revolution in pain management in American medicine,” he said, explaining that pain doctors at the time wanted to leverage these drugs as tools to cure pain, with no science to back up claims that they were not addictive. “[Doctors] believed it was almost their medical duty to get more and more doctors using these drugs to resolve patients’ pain … and they were joined by pharmaceutical firms who they viewed at allies.”

According to Quinones, this was accompanied by a shift in cultural self-perception that Americans are entitled to a life free of pain. This was intensified by blockbuster drugs that could solve health problems without a patient taking responsibility for their choices.

“We wanted convenience, easy, we wanted a quick fix, we wanted to go into a doctor’s office and be seen, diagnosed and cured that day,” Quinones said. “So if you ate poorly, there was a blockbuster drug for cholesterol or hypertension. We got trained as a culture in America that we were exceptional and that there was a solution to all of our problems, and

Quinones

when it came to pain and health – that usually came in the form of a pill” rather than the hard work of changing one’s diet or increasing exercise, he said.

When oxycontin was made available in the mid-1990s, advertised to patients as the ultimate non-addictive cure for pain, it was a game-changer. This was further exacerbated by a revolution in the pharmaceutical sales industry that Quinones described as an arms race.

Those addicted to oxycontin but unable to afford their daily habit saw cheaper heroin as a “no-brainer alternative.” Mexican drug cartels saw the opportunity and began trafficking heroin to opioid addicts.

Quinones argued that a primary root of the problem was that America had spent the last 35 years destroying community across the country. It had chased factories out of towns, demolished mom-and-pop shops on Main Street and settled for cheap goods from big box stores. Further, neighborhoods and parks became vacant as parents kept their children indoors fearing they would get hurt, and people lived more protected, isolated lives.

“Yet, this epidemic might be forcing upon us the opposite effect that it has on users,” Quinones said. “It may be forcing on us a return to nuance, to empathy, to discovery of common ground with others we didn’t think we had anything common with.

“Understanding that it is reliance on each other through community, which we’ve done so much to destroy, that we will most likely find our way out of this very dark storm,” he said. “I have faith in my country that on that path lie the solutions.”

The lecture was made possible through the support of Jennifer Koen-Horowitz ’93 and Mark Horowitz and cosponsored by the College of Human Ecology, the Department of Policy Analysis and Management, the Sloan Program in Health Administration and the Cornell Institute for Public Affairs.

– Stephen D’Angelo

FOSTERING COLLABORATION The Annual Upstate Population Workshop took place in the fall at A.D. White House on the Cornell campus, bringing together over 40 population scholars from across upstate New York to share research and discuss common challenges and opportunities in population science.

Including faculty, postdocs and students from the Cornell Population Center (CPC), Syracuse University, the State Universities of New York at Albany and Buffalo, and Rochester University, the half-day event acted as an opportunity for these scholars to discuss common research interests.

“The research presented addressed pressing social demographic issues Musick

18 SPRING FALL 2017 2019

of our day, including new insights into the opioid epidemic, family support networks and aging, racial inequality and children’s life chances and neighborhood influences on health,” said Kelly Musick, professor of Policy Analysis and Management and CPC director. “The workshop fosters a community of population scholars in the region and furthers CPC’s efforts to train and support the next generation of population scholars.”

The CPC is a university-wide center with over 150 faculty, postdoctoral and student affiliates from departments and colleges across campus. It fosters collaboration and

Cornell University Marketing Group; Provided

Upstate Population Workshop fosters scholarly community

Inside CHE

DEEP WOUNDS

Conference discusses depth, breadth of America’s health crisis

Mark Vorreuter

A two-day conference, “Deep Wounds: Social Determinants of Health Inequality,” brought together an interdisciplinary group of scholars who take innovative approaches to studying the social foundations of health inequalities across the United States in November.

“America’s population health crisis is often portrayed primarily as a drug and despair problem for low-educated midlife whites in rural and small town areas,” said Robert Hummer, the Howard W. Odum Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, whose keynote address focused on the wide-ranging causes of a downturn in American life expectancy. “I argue that it is deeper, broader, more demographically diverse, more epidemiologically complex and more institutionalized than what the media portrays and what most policy makers are working on.”

Hosted by Cornell’s Center for the Study of Inequality and cosponsored by the Cornell Population Center and the Cornell Center for Health Equity, the conference built on the idea that individuals are embedded within multiple contexts – geographic, physical, social and policy – that influence health.

Academics at the conference represented eight disciplines including sociology, economics, public policy and public health.

Participants sought to explore the social determinants of health and health-producing behaviors, and to identify the policy levers through which they might be mitigated. Panels examined the role domains such as neighborhood, housing, social networks and work play in health.

William Hobbs, assistant professor of human development, said social networks are important for health, and loneliness increasingly is becoming an issue. He pointed to research findings that suggest online social integration is linked to better health outcomes. “The results show that receiving friend requests online is associated with reduced mortality but initiating friendships is not,” Hobbs said. “Additionally, online

behaviors that indicate face-to-face social activity, such as posting photos, are associated with reduced mortality.”

Hobbs said this research may be an important step in understanding how, on a global scale, online social networks might be adapted to improve modern populations’ social and physical health.

Experts also considered exposure to structural racism, discrimination and stress; choices about health behaviors, including diet and exercise; and examined how health outcomes evolve across the life course.

Elaine Wethington, professor of human development and sociology, said nearly half of all adults in the U.S. aged 65 and older have chronic pain and the “majority of people who have chronic pain are undertreated or ineffectively treated,” she said.

“The Life Course Perspective is a theoretical perspective for studying lives as they unfold over time that is increasingly applied to studying health and health behavior that integrates findings about health disparities from many different disciplines,” she said.

Wethington noted few researchers who study pain use social science perspectives, as opposed to medical or physiological ones, but there are benefits in doing so.

“Incorporation of life history into pain intervention development, and subsequent translation into practice, may be improved by including additional insights from attention to life-course transitions, social determinants and critical periods of development where health Interdisciplinary scholars discussed health inequalities trajectories are set in motion,” she said.

For Hummer, it’s the duty of academics and researchers who dedicate their lives to understanding these issues to help inform public policy and the public itself.

“We need to change the emphasis from individuals and medicine to institutional and social policy-oriented” perspectives, he said. “There is a lot more we can do in terms of publicizing the kinds of issues we have ongoing here and not limiting it to the opioid crisis and middle-aged plights in men mainly in rural areas.”

The conference was organized by associate professors of sociology Erin York Cornwell and Vida Maralani.

– Stephen D’Angelo

innovation in population science through cross-cutting training programs at the undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral levels; seminars and other events that increase the visibility of the population sciences at Cornell; and hands-on mentorship and administrative support for external grant-getting.

The workshop included forums for informal discussion of work-in-progress and common challenges and opportunities in population research. Roundtables on topics including school progression and education outcomes, policy and fertility decisions, caregiving across the life course, provided a forum for graduate students, postdocs, and faculty to discuss work-in-progress. The afternoon panel showcased scholars new to the community.

The Conference is a long-standing collaboration between the Cornell Population Center and the Center for Aging and Policy Studies at Syracuse For further CPC Upstate Population Workshop information, visit University, expanding in recent years to SUNY at Albany and Buffalo and cpc.cornell.edu/seminars-events/upstate-ny-population-workshop the University of Rochester.

– Stephen D’Angelo HUMAN ECOLOGY 19

BUILT ENVIRONMENTS

Industry and academic panelists discuss infrastructure and technology

Kress-Gazit

“We’re trying to take a multidisciplinary approach, which I think Cornell is particularly adept at, to solve a set of social problems around infrastructure,” said Richard Geddes, professor of policy analysis and management, at the “Infrastructure and Technology” event, held this past fall in the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, hosted by the Cornell Program in Infrastructure Policy (CPIP).

“Physical infrastructure is great,” Geddes said, “but we should also focus on the services that are provided by that infrastructure and the economist who sees the underlying value of those services – clean water, energy, heat, lights, transportation, communication services, health care services – that are provided by this fundamental infrastructure.”

Based in the College of Human Ecology, CPIP focuses on using collaborations across campus to improve the delivery, maintenance and operation of physical infrastructure through teaching, research and policy outreach. In partnership with Cornell Engineering and Cornell Tech, the program coordinates with scholars and industry experts across multiple disciplines who share an interest in public policies impacting infrastructure.

Panel speakers were industry specialists in areas including digital infrastructure for the skies, opportunities for infrastructure through robotics, geothermal scalabilities and the digital transformation of cities.

Brian B. Barlow, director of infrastructure for Sidewalk Labs and a member of CPIP’s advisory board, discussed the need for innovation in infrastructure in future developments and his current projects, which envision tomorrow’s infrastructure for cities.

“We set out originally as a thought experiment and asked ourselves, if we were to reimagine how to build a city, how would we do it differently, and it really caused us to rethink why we are where we are,” he said. “To do this, we looked back to the fundamental technology innovations that shaped cities and the impact they had on our physical infrastructure and the way that we organize within a human ecology and sociological perspective.”

Beatty and Geddes

20 SPRING FALL 2017 2019

Mark Vorreuter; Freepik

Barlows

Barlow said the steam engine shrank distance, the electric grid allowed development of the elevator and the capacity to build vertically, and private automobiles shaped cities through vast roads and parking infrastructure.

According to Barlow, the confluence of some key innovations – ubiquitous connectivity, artificial intelligence, low-cost sensors, cameras and robotics and automation – are all leading to what he called the fourth urban revolution: the digitization of built environments and the impact that has on cities, enabling a completely new way to design and organize metropolises that can dramatically improve the quality of life.

“We started really looking at some emerging technologies and what they mean to the urban environment,” he said. “We now have technologies, especially with the advent of ubiquitous access to information and data through 5G [networks], that will begin to converge the digital divide and fundamentally reshape the way cities organize themselves.”

Barlow concluded, “[M]achine learning and AI applied toward industrial automation has really started to change the profit structure of infrastructure.”

This is something for which Thomas O’Rourke, Cornell’s Thomas R. Briggs Professor of Engineering and a member of the program’s advisory board, believes CPIP can generate solutions.

“Cornell is in the business of minds, and these are the minds that we are trying to educate to create ideas that transform the way we do things,” O’Rourke said. “I think there are challenges, and I hope we all put our heads together to try and bring solutions to some of these problems as we work with this wonderful program. It takes technology to provide the tools, but it takes a village to solve the problem – and I think CPIP is the convener for that challenge.”

–Stephen D’Angelo

Inside CHE

Ceci elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Stephen Ceci, the Helen L. Carr Professor of Developmental Psychology in the College of Human Ecology, has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the academy announced April 17.

Membership honors individuals for achievements in academia, business, government and public affairs.

Ceci’s research focuses on understanding real-world problems and settings. His work spans studies of intellectual development, children and the law and women in science. Studies in his lab have explored the role context plays in shaping memory of discrete events, with this research informing the legal understanding of children’s cognitive competency to testify in court, including

translational briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Among other honors, he has received the lifetime achievement award from the American Psychological Association (APA), the Association for Psychological Science’s (APS) Catell Award for lifetime contributions, the American Academy of Forensic Psychology’s lifetime award and the Society for Research in Child Development’s Distinguished Scientific Contributions to Child Development Award; since 2014 he received the Division of Developmental Psychology’s lifetime award and the Division of Educational Psychology’s lifetime award. He serves on numerous editorial boards and has authored approximately 450 articles, books and reviews.

He earned his bachelor’s in psychology in 1973 from the University of Delaware, a master’s in development psychology in 1975 from the University of Pennsylvania and his doctorate in development psychology in 1978 from the University of Exeter, England.

David W. Oxtoby, president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, said of the new class: “With the election of these members, the academy upholds the ideals of research and scholarship, creativity and imagination, intellectual exchange and civil discourse and the relentless pursuit of knowledge in all its forms.”

Newly elected fellows also include former first lady Michelle Obama, former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels and leaders of companies and philanthropic organizations.

The new class will be inducted at a ceremony in October in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

–Stephen D’Angelo

CIPA Consulting Project Receives Cornell Annual Town-Gown Award

Cornell University Marketing Group; Provided

CIPA at the Town-Gown Awards

Focusing on campus-community initiatives led by Cornell students, the 8th annual Cornell Town-Gown Awards (the TOGOs) were held in December in Kulp Auditorium at Ithaca High School.

Martha Pollack, president of Cornell University, led the opening remarks at the ceremony and noted that Cornell was founded to make a difference in the lives of its students, the local community and communities around the world. Engagement is all about having that impact, building those connections and “recognizing that good engagement is good for everyone,” she said.

A partnership that was recognized is one the Cornell Institute for Public Affairs (CIPA) has been integrally involved with – a county-wide task force assessing longterm sustainability of emergency systems throughout Tompkins County.

For the past two years the Emergency

Medical Services (EMS) Task Force of the Tompkins County Council of Governments has worked to assess local EMS provisions, looking at the critical challenges of diminishing volunteers and the increase in state mandates for the training of volunteer EMS responders.

The task force began collaborating with CIPA Lecturer Rebecca Morgenstern Brenner in the spring of 2017. That semester, students in her PADM 5900 consulting course worked with stakeholders throughout the county to assess concern over significant challenges to the long-term sustainability for the county’s EMS. CIPA Lecturer Dan Lamb brought his consulting students onboard in the fall of 2017, and Brenner picked it up again in the spring of 2018, when her consulting students ran focus groups with the different volunteer EMS providers in the county. The project expanded to include Cornell Engineering

Professor Al George and his students, who brought a systems engineering focus to the project by providing a systems assessment.

From a policy perspective, CIPA students investigated the problem and policy implications, developed focus groups and analyzed policy options to develop a solution. From a systems analysis perspective, engineering students made quantitative analyses of possible improvement strategies including service improvement measures and costs.

Over the course of four semesters, twelve students produced four substantive reports: three from CIPA and one from Systems Engineering. Their analyses resulted in the creation and funding of a full time Tompkins County staff position to move forward on their recommendations.

“This has been a great project, involving amazing community partners. It has also been a wonderful opportunity for collaboration between departments and faculty here at Cornell,” Brenner said. “Ultimately, it has resulted in an action plan that the county is adopting.”

Irene Weiser, Town of Caroline Board member and Chair of EMS Task Force, called the students “remarkable, smart and capable” in their analysis and recommendations. Students also worked closely with a variety of other stakeholders, including Tompkins County Department Emergency Response Director Lee Shurtleff and Brian Wilbur from Tompkins County Emergency Response.

–Lisa Lennox HUMAN ECOLOGY 21

MHA

PROGRAM

The College of Human Ecology’s Sloan Program in Health Administration has moved up to be ranked the ninth best health care management program in the nation in the 2019 U.S. News and World Report ranking of health care management programs.

Previously, the Sloan Program was ranked 14th in 2011 and 2015. And only 15 years ago, it was ranked 29th. (Rankings are only published every four years).

“The rankings matter,” said Sloan Director Sean Nicholson.

That’s because more students apply to higher ranked programs, which allows the program to admit even stronger students. And rankings are important to alumni because advanced degrees are like assets, he said. “If people in the health care industry start to think more highly of the program, it may give them a boost in their organization or when they are applying for jobs.”

Sloan leadership has worked to improve the program by creating new courses, hiring strong faculty and improving the educational experience, Nicholson said.

In addition, Sloan administrators touted the strengths of Sloan to health administrators and program directors across the country. “Given the way U.S. News and World Report constructs

Nicholson

the rankings, you have to tell the world about the wonderful things you are doing,” Nicholson said. “We attend conferences and events, meet with other program directors and send out written materials to explain what a great program this is.”

Moving forward, Sloan leaders aim to continue to improve the program and ranking. They are taking a concrete step in that direction with the launch this spring of a new online Executive Master of Health Administration degree, a distance-learning program for health care executives that will allow students to take classes online while continuing in their jobs.

“Bringing 40 executives into the Sloan family will offer networking opportunities to our younger students, help us offer more courses, recruit better teachers and generate scholarship funds to attract more accomplished students,” Nicholson said.

You can learn more about the Sloan Program in Health Administration at human.cornell.edu/sloan.

–Sheri Hall

Kappa Omicron Nu and Human Ecology Alumni Association advising awards announced The Kappa Omicron Nu and Human Ecology Alumni Association advising awards were announced at a senior celebration in the Human Ecology Commons in April.

The Award for Outstanding Advising to Graduate Students was given to Sharon Tennyson, professor of Policy Analysis and Management, a core faculty member of Cornell Institute for Public Affairs and the director of graduate studies in the field of public affairs.

Tennyson, who primarily advises professional master’s students within the Master of Public Administration degree program, was recognized for having a deep knowledge of the graduate system and showing continuous commitment to assisting students to design successful academic graduate experiences. She was said to use advising as an extension of teaching and hopes that she can help students make better use of their varied courses and extracurricular activities to add depth and breadth to their academic experiences.

Tennyson

22 SPRING FALL 2017 2019

Felice

“It is really gratifying to be recognized in this way,” Tennyson said. “Advising graduate students greatly enriches my professional life and I always hope it does the same for my students. Being nominated for the award provides some confirmation that it does.

“I also want to thank KON and HEAA for sponsoring the advising awards,” she continued. “Advising is less visible than teaching or research and so is usually less recognized.”

The Award for Outstanding Advising to Undergraduate Students was presented to Julia Felice, associate director of undergraduate studies in the Division of Nutritional Sciences, where she coordinates the undergraduate advising program for the Nutritional Sciences, Human Biology, Health, and Society, and Global and Public Health Sciences majors.

Felice engages with a wide range of advising in Human Ecology, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the Office of Undergraduate Biology, and is said to be an outstanding mentor. She has also developed a philosophy that she uses to advise Division of Nutritional Sciences students. These pillars include: ensuring that students feel heard, respected and supported as individuals; that they feel empowered to move forward with addressing their issues; and that they feel welcome to engage further with advising and career exploration.

“I’m so very honored to receive this,” Felice said. “My years so far knowing and working with [Human Ecology students] have been a privilege and a joy. In addition to being bright, driven and accomplished, I’ve come to know Human Ecology students as thoughtful, compassionate, selfless and truly committed to promoting human health and well-being around the world.

“It is really really hard to be hopeful and optimistic about the world these days, but so often after talking to [students], that’s exactly how I feel,” she said.

–Stephen D’Angelo

Cornell University Marketing Group ; Mark Vorreuter; Freepik

Sloan Top 10 in 2019 U.S. & World Report Rankings

Featured Story

HUMECATHON

Bob Handelman ; Mark Vorreuter

First annual HumEcathon strengthens College’s interdisciplinary approach The College of Human Ecology’s first annual HumEcathon, a hackathon-style design challenge, took place on April 23 in the College’s Commons. Teams of students, comprised from at least two different Human Ecology majors, were presented a real-world problem and challenged to purpose a solution to an aspect of the issue based on their multidisciplinary perspectives.

“The idea for this came out of the Dean’s Undergraduate Advisory Council, where we were just talking a lot about the need to create opportunities for students in Human Ecology to come together outside of their own majors,” said Rachel Dunifon, interim dean of the College of Human Ecology. “So that’s the goal, to come together and think about how can we use our knowledge and the tools we’ve developed here at Human Ecology to address the really pressing social issues.”

The topic was the opioid crisis. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, more than 130 people die each day as a result of opioid-related overdoses. The U.S. government has declared the opioid epidemic a public health emergency.

Teams were asked to incorporate the distinct perspectives that embody Human Ecology and outline a multipronged approach for addressing some aspect of the opioid epidemic capitalizing on at least two of the diverse disciplines within Human Ecology – nutrition, health, design, fiber science, policy, education, and development.

“Human Ecology aims to motivate an interdisciplinary approach to solving today’s pressing problems,” said Bella Harnick PAM ’21, co-chair of the Student Life Committee of the Dean’s Undergraduate Advisory Council. “To me, the HumEcathon perfectly embodies the ideals of Human Ecology – students and professors from a variety of disciplines working together to improve the everyday lives of humans.”

Sakshi Vasiu HBHS ’20, and coorganizer of the event, said, “We forget that Human Ecology has the word ‘human,’ and that’s what brings us together – by working on problems that humans feel.”

Participants worked in their teams to draft slides of their solutions, then faculty judges rotated amongst the teams to review proposals and provide feedback. Groups then had time to refine their initial thoughts.

Teams came up with a variety of interesting solutions including addressing opioid addiction’s impact on child development though extracurricular mentorship, such as big brother/sister initiatives for children with backgrounds of parental opioid use, policies around taxation of opioid manufacturers, subsidies on alternative medications and ethics training for pharmaceutical companies, and workshops for families, communities and patients to educate them about these medications.

D+EA

PAM

HD

DNS

“Our team was comprised of a Nutritional Science major, Human Development major, Policy Analysis and Management major, Human Biology, Health and Society major, and I’m Global and Public Health,” Matthew Ponticello ’21 said. “I think all of us got to see the different niche parts that FSAD we could contribute to a multidisciplinary team and everyone had a different part that was their strength that they could contribute – everyone had a little piece of knowledge that no one else had, taken from a class they took that the others just were not aware of.”

Building off of the success of the event, organizers plan future HumEcathons that they hope will strengthen the links between the majors within the College and underpin the importance of holistic approaches to societal issues across the country.

“The event’s success and knowledge disseminated really reinforced why I eagerly sought a HumEc education,” Vasiu said, pointing to the College’s mission of improving lives by exploring and shaping human connections to natural, social, and built environments.

“To me, the HumEcathon “It was absolutely inspiring perfectly embodies the ideals to see Human Ecology of Human Ecology – students students work diligently and professors from a variety on this year’s HumEcathon of disciplines working together topic, under the guidance of to improve the everyday lives HumEc’s faculty,” she said. of humans.”

“The presentations clearly demonstrated Human Ecology’s – Bella Harnick PAM ’21 vision and the need to have an interdisciplinary approach to solving societal problems.”

– Stephen D’Angelo HUMAN ECOLOGY 23

Design + Environmental Analysis

by E.C. Barrett

The Department of Design + Environmental Analysis combines innovative design thinking with insightful design research to understand how our daily lives are impacted by the built environment. It is the human-focused mission to create better, more sustainable, and more healing environments through design that makes D+EA unique among other design programs.

Through multidisciplinary training that goes beyond the traditional design education, D+EA is tackling problems from a people, process and place perspective to create strategic, sustainable and healthy futures by design.

Kalantari’s research using augmented intelligence technology

Kao’s wearable technology

24 FALL 2017 SPRING 2019

The Department of Design + Environmental Analysis (D+EA) is not your typical design department. D+EA faculty, students, and alumni are part researchers, designers, and social scientists – focused on tackling real-world problems by looking at the systems involved and using evidence-based design to offer solutions.

For Mardelle Shepley, chair and professor of D+EA, it is the humanfocused mission to create better, more sustainable and more healing environments through design and acute awareness of our social responsibility as designers that makes D+EA unique among other design programs.

“We’re engaged in a celebration of aesthetics and dedication to addressing human needs,” she said. “More so than other design programs, we keep them balanced so that we’re focused on both human needs and aesthetics.”

Shepley thinks that research and creative scholarship inform and inspire one another, and siloing the two is a mistake for students and innovators. To help students understand the benefits of what she calls an “integrated mind,” Shepley created the course Art and Science, in which she tries to convince students that art and science are the same.

“My concern is that people will come to college already labeling themselves as artists or scientists when in reality they are fully capable of doing much more in one or the other fields; they may have incredible talent that they have not been able to express,” she said. “We live in a world with so many big problems. We really can’t afford to limit ourselves in terms of what we can potentially achieve.”

D+EA’s emphasis on design strategy, research and user experience makes the interior design program – the only one in the Ivy League – a stand out as well. Every several years each accredited interior design program need to be re-accredited. The maximum length of accreditation is six years, which is only granted to programs meeting the highest of the Council for Interior Design’s Accreditation standards. D+EA received the full six-year accreditation at the last review.

“The implication is that we are a model for other programs looking for the support of the accrediting process,” Shepley said. Designing an environment is a interdisciplinary endeavor, she explained in addition to the contribution of the client, there are engineers, lighting specialists and multiple other specialists. Thinking of interior design as a system of people working together and the aesthetics of what is being designed usually produces a better outcome.

The same, Shepley said, is true of the outcome achieved by collaborating across disciplines. “The strength of Human Ecology, from my perspective, is that it’s a relatively small college with an incredibly wide range of disciplines and a strong social focus. All of our departments are interdisciplinary, D+EA particularly so. It makes for this highly energetic situation where people are forced to think outside of the box just to understand one another.”

Joining the conversation are three exciting faculty new to the department this year. Saleh Kalantari is an architect interested in humantechnology interactions and augmented intelligence to better simulate the environment and gauge user response to it. Cindy Kao’s wearable technology is both art and technology that can turn skin into an interface with our physical environment. Jay Yoon is an industrial designer who studies emotive response to products and how to design products to make people happier.

“We didn’t look to replace faculty with new faculty hires from identical backgrounds,” Shepley said. “We were looking to hire faculty who were change-makers in the world and at the same time had a significant interest in creating socially responsible design. We don’t have anyone like them. They are helping us move toward the future because they are each looking at the world in different ways.”

Bob Handelman ; Mark Vorreuter; Provided

THE PRESENT AND FUTURE

Approach and impact

Featured Story

“The strength of Human Ecology, from my perspective, is that it’s a relatively small college with an incredibly wide range of disciplines and a strong social focus.

All of our departments are interdisciplinary, D+EA particularly so. It makes for this highly energetic situation where people are forced to think outside of the box just to understand one another.”

– Mardelle Shepley

Ecological design

Provided

The Triakonta system

“The government was recommending poured-in-place concrete after the earthquake in Nepal, which is not a great solution because if they’re not built right they become death traps.

That was the case in Haiti where the people who died were crushed by buildings.”

– John “Jack” Elliott

After a devastating earthquake, such as in Haiti in 2010 that killed over 100,000 people and displaced 300,000 more, survivors are left with the question of what to do with the rubble and how to rebuild. John “Jack” Elliott, associate professor of Design + Environmental Analysis, thinks his Triakonta building system is a sustainable solution for rebuilding efforts that could minimize future destruction caused when the earth shifts.

The Triakonta system consists of 30 faced polyhedron nodes connecting struts of three different lengths to form triangulated structures as simple as a gabled roof building or as complex as a geodesic dome. It is designed for disassembly, relies mostly on renewable materials, is reconfigurable, and the components can be made just about anywhere.

A full-scale, bamboo-based version is being field-tested in the Dominican Republic and Elliott spent spring break putting one together in Nepal as part of the earthquake recovery program for the Phukri Ridge.

“The government was recommending poured-in-place concrete after the earthquake in Nepal,” Elliott said, “which is not a great solution because if they’re not built right they become death traps. That was the case in Haiti where the people who died were crushed by buildings. Even if they don’t fail catastrophically, they aren’t fit to live in after an event like that, and they’re too difficult to take apart so you have all these concrete relics. They consume a lot of fossil fuels and contribute to poor air quality.”

Elliott and Kifle Gebremedhin, professor of biological and environmental engineering at Cornell, are the recipients of a 2019 China Innovation Award from the Cornell China Center to begin a seismic analysis of the Triakonta building system.

“In China they’re building large-scale shake tables that you can put a full-scale building on and test its performance during a simulated earthquake,” he said.

Elliott said the award is seed money to travel to Shanghai University, meet with officials and fabricators to discuss logistics and get a sense of the level of enthusiasm and support. If that goes well they will apply for funding for the second phase: constructing and testing a Triakonta structure in China.

HUMAN ECOLOGY 25

Rana Zadeh

Onsite research at Weill Cornell Medical Center

Zadeh

“We all got the same information but what stood out to each of us was a bit different based on our disciplines, so our projects varied.

Our team’s mission was engaging families around the area in enhancing physical, emotional, spiritual, and social well-being.”

– Rana Zadeh

26 SPRING FALL 2017 2019

Each spring Rana Zadeh, assistant professor of D+EA, teaches Innovations in Healthcare Research & Design, a multidisciplinary, hands-on class that prepares students for accreditation in evidence-based design. In the past, Zadeh has partnered with a community organization, such as a hospital or a senior living facility, and asked students to form consulting teams working on design solutions for those organizations. This year, however, students were asked to think about how to improve palliative and supportive care services for marginalized communities in Tompkins and Cortland counties.

After a site-visit to Brookdale Senior Living, where students had the opportunity to meet with community stakeholders, Zadeh split the class into multidisciplinary teams with a variety of backgrounds. In addition to training them to apply their education in real-world settings, Zadeh’s class offers students an opportunity to practice communicating across disciplinary divides.

“In the beginning they are a little uncomfortable, it might feel a little alienating to sit next to someone from a different discipline, but by the end of the class they are comfortable with each other and have learned to speak the languages of one another’s discipline,” Zadeh said. “When they learn to communicate across disciplines there’s usually this ‘ah-ha’ moment where they realize, oh, I can use this tool from your discipline for solving this problem in my discipline.”

Jared Senador, MHA ’20, took the course specifically to have this collaborative and multidisciplinary experience.

“We all got the same information but what stood out to each of us was a bit different based on our disciplines, so our projects varied,” Senador said. “Our team’s mission was engaging families around the area in enhancing physical, emotional, spiritual and social well-being. I want to work in community outreach in a hospital setting, so when we talked about utilizing the strengths of the community around Ithaca, I thought of how to get the community involved in enhancing the well-being of people in palliative and supportive care.”

Senador suggested adopting something similar to the Friendship Bench project developed in Zimbabwe, where “community grandmothers” help to bridge a gap in mental health treatment by being available for conversation and support. Taking the local weather into account, Senador’s team designed a modified Friendship Bench with waterproof envelopes for pamphlets with information on available services and numbers to call for support.

At the end of the semester each consulting team presented their design solutions to executives from Hospicare & Palliative Care Services, Cayuga Medical Center and CareCompass Network, among others. Students presented designs for collecting and distributing recycled medical equipment, storing medical supplies in centrally located lockers for traveling nurses who have patients throughout the two counties, meditation and mindfulness training for patients and family members, community garden volunteers to enhance patient access to natural areas, a website that could be an information hub for all stakeholders and more.

Zadeh thinks of her role in the classroom as a facilitator for learning and collaboration among the students in the same way that she thinks of D+EA as a facilitator for communication and collaboration across disciplines.

“D+EA is a unique place in terms of its multidisciplinary and systems-thinking approach,” she said. “It’s a department for problem-solving and critical thinking. We are all committed to making a difference and applying our research to improve the world around us. In that sense, it was a real fit for my approach to research and design.”

This year’s class was sponsored by the Systems Engineering program and Cornell Institute for Healthy Futures.

Mark Vorreuter; Provided

Learning in living laboratories

Featured Story

Peditto

Design meets human development Adolescents and young adults (known as AYA’s) facing a life-changing cancer diagnosis have the added difficulty of treatment centers that are not designed to meet their unique needs. As the biology of AYA cancer is so similar to pediatric cancer, AYA cancer patients – who range in age from 15-29 – are often treated in pediatric hospitals surrounded by primary colors, balloons, stuffed animals and sick infants.

Human Behavior and Design Ph.D. student Kathryn Peditto, who successfully defended her dissertation this May, wondered if this was not only a design issue but a development issue as well. How does being surrounded by such age-inappropriate designs impact patient outcome and what can researchers learn from AYA patients to influence more effective design practices?

In order to explore uniquely AYA issues of the built environment, Peditto surveyed over 100 AYA’s who had been treated in facilities nationwide, some who were still in treatment. She identified 22 characteristics that could impact an AYA treatment environment – including motivational message boards and having access to outdoor space and natural light. Of the 22 characteristics, the respondents considered all inadequate.

“With the survey we found that the adequacy of the built environment and your feelings of social support were related to your health-related quality-of-life at a clinical significance,” Peditto said. “That is really exciting because health-related quality life has a billion different factors going into it – primarily whether or not you actually feel sick.

“If we can show that there’s clinical significance to the design of our built environment, that’s an incredible statement. It’s not a medication, it’s not something that is directly physiologically affecting our health-related quality-of-life, and it’s something that designers can control, not doctors.”

Peditto then held a series of design focus groups for fifteen AYA survivors from across the country to discuss their experiences and the design elements they would like to see more of in AYA treatment facilities. Much of what they highlighted related to increased opportunities for social support: comfortable seating for friends and family to feel more at ease while visiting and visitor beds in patient rooms.

Based on her findings, Peditto has developed a set of evidencebased design guidelines presented in terms that should be familiar to designers, architects, practitioners and healthcare administrators alike. She is working with Teen Cancer America, which builds teen lounges and recreational spaces in cancer facilities, to incorporate her research into future lounge designs.

“I am not an architect and would never claim to be an architect, but it’s a great example of the future of design where we’re using research and scholarly evidence to inform the decisions that we make,” she said. “That to me is this exciting gray area between art and science where D+EA is working.”

Peditto said she had difficulty finding the right graduate program at first – one that would allow her to grow her social research skills and apply them to issues of design without having to decide between psychology or systems engineering. When she learned of D+EA, she said, it was an easy choice.

“I love being in a department with both designers and social scientists and people who consider themselves both,” Peditto said. “Working with graduate students who are architects is an incredible opportunity that you don’t get in any other department. It’s a different way of thinking about the world around you. To have those perspectives in your academic cohort – accessible to you at any given time – really makes for a thoughtful, rich, diverse learning experience.”

Provided

New Minor in Healthy Futures The Department of Design + Environmental Analysis and the Cornell Institute for Healthy Futures (CIHF) offered undergraduates university-wide a minor in Healthy Futures for the first time this year.

The minor is a combination of specific courses across design, health care policy and management, and hospitality, an immersion seminar, and an internship. Of the 17 required credit-hours, nine are distributed along tracks designed to get students to take courses outside of their major.

“If you’re a D+EA student pursuing our minor, you’re going to be pushed toward a track that involves more classes outside of D+EA and more in hospitality and health care management,” said Brenda Smith, CIHF Program Manager. “But, if you come into the minor from health care management you’ll follow your track into more design courses and more business courses.”

Smith said the minor offers formal training that exposes students to the key disciplines that will make them more marketable when looking to join the workforce, and the multidisciplinary experience that will help them excel once they do.

During the summer, the minor’s first students will be interning

with Northwell Health, Mather LifeWays, Boston Children’s Hospital and one student will be designing a new wellness space for the Dean of the Cornell Law School. CIHF Program Manager Nikki Cerra said, “The internship allows students to be more versatile and so more likely to get a job. They look better on the application because they might have a degree in design and then this internship in hospitality or health care and are that much more versatile and flexible for the job market.”

Mardelle Shepley, chair and professor of D+EA, explained that hospitality and health care are increasingly overlapping and the minor is designed to prepare students to excel in the changing landscape.

“In health care we’re trying to treat patients as if they were guests and to provide environments that are supportive and nurturing,” she said. “In hospitality, there’s an emphasis on wellness and services that can support the wellness of their clients. The minor focuses on these intersections and it prepares students to go out in the world with a more unique perspective than if they’d been siloed in one program or the other. When you partner with people from different backgrounds, you’re more likely to problem-solve in creative ways.”

HUMAN ECOLOGY 27

WOMEN EMPOWERED Exhibit chronicles women’s empowerment through fashion

28 SPRING FALL 2017 2019

Local 1199 cap from “Union Power, Soul Power”

Current and alumni Big Red women’s hockey players

AOC’s campaign shoes

“Fashion is a highly visible and forceful medium that commands attention and communicates possibilities.”

– Denise Green

Cornell University Marketing Group

Articles of clothing worn by suffragettes, a circus trapeze artist’s outfit and a WWII Naval Reserve uniform to shoes worn during a winning Congressional campaign in the 2018 midterm elections, prominent women and everyday unsung heroes were featured in “Women Empowered: Fashions From the Frontline,” which ran from Dec. 6 through March 31.

Chronicling how women have strategically used fashion to empower and collectively uplift themselves, the exhibition was part of the 2018 Cornell Council for the Arts Biennial and explored the Biennial theme of “Duration: Passage, Persistence, Survival” through fashion objects. The exhibition was curated by students in Human Ecology’s Department of Fiber Science and Apparel Design and Denise Green, assistant professor of Fiber Science and Apparel Design, faculty adviser on the exhibition.

“Fashion is a highly visible and forceful medium that commands attention and communicates possibilities,” Green said.

Rachel Getman M.A. ’19 said, “I think it’s exciting to see how the understanding of feminism is really expanding. For women in the past, in different waves of feminism, there’s been stigma attached to being a feminist. Today, there is an inclusivity and recognition of women as equals that is allowing people to be aligned with the movement.”

“With that inclusion comes fashion,” Green added. “I think fashion has often been stigmatized as frivolous and antithetical to feminism; this exhibition is showing the opposite – that women throughout history have strategically and persistently used fashion to make statements [that are] political, social and aesthetic.”

Jenny Leigh Du Puis, Ph.D. ’22, said that “from the start, we were tasked with developing the theme for the exhibit, thinking of the overarching materials we would be looking for and how we wanted to organize the space. The themes that we’ve selected are the stage, the arena, the academy, the government, and the street.”

Items on display included two decorative collars that have defined the personal style of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg ’54; a skirt suit worn by former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno ’60; and the gown College of Human Ecology cofounder Martha Van Rensselaer wore when she met with the Queen of Belgium after helping that country rebuild its libraries following WWI. “There are feminists that are very modest and some that are not,” said Lynda May Xepoleas Ph.D. ’22. Her research for the exhibit included interviewing Regina “Reggie” Baker Robbins ’75 and Penney Mapes Cook ’75, who repurposed men’s athletic uniforms when they helped start the first women’s ice hockey team at Cornell.

“These were two extraordinary women who, at the time, didn’t really think that they were even a part of women’s empowerment or the liberation movement,” Xepoleas said. “But it was fascinating to really hear their stories about how they used fashion in their equipment as a way to empower themselves to play a sport that many didn’t think women should be playing.”

Contemporary designs in the exhibit include a hockey jersey signed by four Cornell women who propelled Canada to a gold medal in the 2014 Winter Olympics; an American flag hijab by Haute Hijab creative director Gizelle Begler ’08; and an original design by Rachel Powell ’17 that engages with the #MeToo movement and addresses rape culture.

Earlier this fall, the student co-curators requested the tattered shoes Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wore during her campaign for Congress in New York’s 14th District, the youngest woman ever elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.

“When we think about fashion on the frontline we can think of women who have

Cornell University Marketing Group

Inside CHE

strategically used particular styles, like Ruth Bader Ginsberg, for example, and her judicial collars making a statement, and then on the other hand, we have examples of fashion in this exhibition that their politics come from their wear,” Green said.

“So, we have Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s campaigning shoes, which she probably wasn’t wearing as a fashion statement in and of themselves. But, when she put those shoes on every day and hit the pavement every single day, those shoes were worn all the way through until there were holes in the bottom of them. Those are another type of fashion on the frontline, showing what the work on the frontline actually does to your clothing.”

The curators wanted to show diversity: “every race, every ethnicity, every background,” said Jessica Guadalupe Estrada M.A. ’19. For example, having something worn by OcasioCortez, she said, is “a good demonstration of that fearlessness of what women want to show through their clothing. We’re looking at womankind and empowerment in a different way.”

Estrada said the exhibition “exposes how fashion is a form of protest. I think people underestimate clothing. Even if women don’t see it when they’re wearing it, what they’re wearing says a lot.”

Women achieving firsts is a major thread in the exhibit, including a small quilt made by Liberian seamstresses with commemorative cloth depicting President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s first female head of state. Motherhood also is a theme, with suits worn by the first female governor of Texas, Ann Richards, at her inauguration and by her daughter, Cecile Richards, when she testified before Congress as president of Planned Parenthood in 2015.

Everyday women are an important part of the narrative, with political T-shirts, “pussyhats” from the Women’s March and other emblematic items worn by women to convey solidarity and collective empowerment.

These included items worn by suffragettes in the early 20th century and a gown worn in the 1880s by early advocate of women’s suffrage Olivia Langdon, a local woman wed to writer Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain). Further showcased, a Local 1199 cap from the “Union Power, Soul Power” campaign for health care workers’ rights in 1969, led by Coretta Scott King.

“It’s something that even now is relevant, where there are a lot of women who are working really hard and aren’t getting paid enough,” Akua Kwakwa ’20 said. “The hat is important for me because the people who wore them were not just hospital workers but were also mothers and were also just regular people and you don’t have to be a famous person, or have a lot of money, or know connected people to be able to stand up for what you want, to be able to get what you want.”

According to Kwakwa, she was honored to have been a part of such as an exhibition because it’s a way to show people what she has known all along – that clothes aren’t just pieces of fabric that we own and wear.

“Fashion can speak and fashion can breathe and fashion can hold the energies and memories of those around us and before us,” Kwakwa said. “I hope that when people see this exhibition, they can take a closer look at their wardrobes and give more credit to the clothes that they love.”

Items were loaned to the exhibit from the Texas Fashion Collection, the Hockey Hall of Fame, the Western Reserve Historical Society and private collections, and others are held in Cornell collections – the Human Sexuality Collection, the Kheel Center for Labor Management Documentation and Archives, the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, and the Cornell Costume and Textile Collection.

– Daniel Aloi and Stephen D’Angelo

Denise Green with student curators of the exhibit HUMAN ECOLOGY 29

MAKING GREEN

Students design green for D+EA studio

Elliott

Chair by Juli Leblanc ‘20

the eco design principles of the exhibit largely because of the sourcing of material and finishes, she said.

“All wood used for my projects was North American hardwood so it is grown locally and doesn’t require as much energy for transportation,” she explained. “For these prototypes, wood was collected from already fallen trees and re-purposed. All projects are finished rather simply with linseed oil, which is much less toxic to the environment than epoxy alternatives and sketching/research stages were worked out entirely on recycled paper.”

In order to sustainably source materials for her project, Alyssa Anderson ’20 decided to craft a desk made from all second-hand materials, which take little to no new energy input compared to other ‘sustainable’ materials that still require much energy and unseen costs to create.

“Second-hand material fills an incredibly important role in sustainability that is often overlooked,” she said. “While the world obsesses over designing and producing the ‘new,’ there are millions of objects on this planet already in existence that have been pushed aside, deemed obsolete due to technological advances or changes in fashion.”

Anderson said that from the sourcing of materials to the end result, sustainability has to be considered carefully. The end of a product’s life matters just as much as the birth of it.

“When you remove the wood from its natural environment where it will decompose into nutrients to be fed back into the earth, you have to consider the endpoint of your project,” she said. “Even if that wood had been sitting in a field already fallen and serving no clear purpose, if you are careless with it and let wood chips go into the landfill or make something all glued together or coated in chemical-based paints, you take away its ability to continue adding to life on Earth.”

For Brandon Hoak ‘21, the course and exhibit had an impact on his knowledge, skills and ideas that he said he will take with him throughout his life.

“I learned a great deal from DEA 2422, not only about the material, but about myself,” he said. “This is the first class in which I have felt I have generated something of use and beauty. With this new found confidence and ability to explore, I am now continuing my education in woodworking through my own newly-purchased tools and an independent study with Jack Elliott.

“These experiences combined with learning how to work directly with materials that are so integral to our field of study is imperative to success, and pure fun,” he continued. “It is empowering, eye-opening and a way to sense an extra level of gratitude – we all need – for the products we interact with every day. I hope that D+EA offers more hands-on classes like this one in the future.”

– Stephen D’Angelo Cornell University Marketing Group ; Mark Vorreuter

Design is an intellectual activity, reconciling needs and wants, technologies and materials, costs and benefits, ethics and aesthetics. This is the philosophy that introduces Design + Environmental Analysis students to Professor Jack Elliott’s DEA 2422: Making Green: Introduction to (Sustainable) Product Design studio.

The studio course provides students with an intimate exploration of environmentally and socially responsible design through the making of a set of related artifacts, while considering impacts and implications on persons and non-persons alike.

“Greater consumption by greater numbers is the prevailing trend,” said Elliott, whose research interests are related to the idea of ‘nature inside’ both in a theoretical and a practical sense.

“It is critical that the negative impacts of new products are not only lessened but that they actually contribute to improving the health of the planet.

“If designers are not part of the solution, they are inevitably part of the problem,” he continued. “Many students are aware of this and want to do something about it.”

Elliott expects that after completing the course, students will have a greater understanding of sustainable ethics as a latent part of aesthetic appreciation of design and a focus on various environmental issues pertaining to the studio and the built environment.

“I hope that students develop a deeper appreciation for the act of making,” he said. “It is much more difficult and time-intensive than drawing or modeling, which constitutes most of a design student’s studio experience. However, it is deeply rewarding to bring an idea into physical existence, using your body as well as your mind.”

Culminating a semester of study and work, student’s final projects were put on display within the D+EA Gallery in Martha Van Rensselaer Hall to showcase their creations to the Human Ecology and Cornell communities.

For Juli Leblanc ‘20, the class helped her obtain a very personal and abstract understanding of product design through its exploration of form and medium.

“Each new project began with research about sustainable, local choices and a minimal-impact mentality persisted throughout the progression of the course,” she said. “The environmental focus of the class had an undeniable impact on the resulting project – creating innovative and mindful designs.”

Her main piece, a chair that shapes to the body, fits within

“If designers are not part of the solution, they are inevitably part of the problem.”

– Jack Elliott

30 SPRING FALL 2017 2019

Inside CHE

SENIOR PROFILES Shailen Doshi Cherry Hill, NJ Undergraduate accomplishments/ accolades: Volunteering in the Cornell and Ithaca community as an executive board member of two local non-profit organizations, developing data analysis and research skills as a Research Assistant, serving on the executive board of social fraternity, taking classes in 5 out of the 7 colleges at Cornell.

Plans after graduation: Working as a Strategy Analyst at Accenture.

What you will miss about CHE: I will miss being able to learn from, discuss, and collaborate with the world-class professors in the PAM department on research that is helping to shape our understanding of policy and social change.

Alexina Federhen Bennington, VT Undergraduate accomplishments/ accolades: DEA Alumni and OADI scholarships for summer study at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, internship with Array Architects in NYC, SOURCE award for my lighting design for a mental health center,

Undergraduate accomplishments/ accolades: Joining Absolute A Cappella, curating my own exhibit, Revolution & Restraint, and helping to curate Women Empowered, serving as Vice President of Graphics & Branding of the Cornell Fashion Industry Network, acting as co-president of Her Campus Cornell, writing for the Cornell Daily Sun’s Opinion Section and Thread magazine.

Plans after graduation: Working as a Global Digital Content Coordinator for Converse in Boston, MA.

Briana Lui Queens, NY

What you will miss about CHE: I will miss the opportunities and support from friends, professors and administrators. I’ve found that Human Ecology has enabled me to reach all of

Undergraduate accomplishments/ accolades: Hunter R. Rawlings III Cornell Presidential Research Scholar, Research Assistant in the Wells Lab, Chair of the Welcome Weekend Committee, Marketing Co-Chair of the College of Human Ecology Dean’s Undergraduate Advisory Council, Class Councils, Convocation Committee, Kappa Omicron Nu, Health Policy and Gerontology minors, Dean’s List.

Pexels; Provided

Plans after graduation: Working as a research assistant at Weill Cornell Medicine during my gap year before attending medical school.

What you will miss about CHE: I will miss all the meaningful relationships I have built in Human Ecology and at Cornell. I am so grateful for all of my mentors and colleagues who played a pivotal role in shaping my college experience and making it an unforgettable four years.

Monica and Howard Kahn Scholarship, and my honors thesis on Assessing Evidence-Based Design for Mental and Behavioral Health Facilities. I was very active in the CU community, serving as Secretary of the Student Assembly Finance Commission, VP Public Relations for Cayuga’s Watchers, VP Risk Management for Alpha Phi, and student representative for the Cornell Coalition on Mental Health . I am thrilled to graduate with honors and a Minor in Healthy Futures.

Plans after graduation: Working at CBT Architects in Boston as an Interior Designer.

What you will miss about CHE: I will miss working with some amazing professors (shout out to Rhonda Gilmore, Mardelle Shepley, and Gary Evans), exploring new challenges, and those late nights in the studio.

Tori Pietsch Groton, MA my goals as long as I was willing to put in the work to achieve them! I have always felt supported and encouraged throughout my time at Cornell, and I’m really going to miss being at a school that has provided opportunities for me at every turn.

Undergraduate Advisory Council, Co-President of Project Generations, College of Human Ecology Student Ambassador, Student Assistant in Hans Bethe House, Gerontology Minor, Nutrition and Health Minor, Dean’s List.

Plans after graduation: Gap year before applying to medical school. In the long term, I hope to become a geriatrician.

Belinda Tang San Jose, CA Undergraduate accomplishments/ accolades: Senior Career Assistant in Human Ecology’s Career Exploration Center, Lab Manager in Healthy Aging Lab, Research Assistant in Affect and Cognition Lab, Kappa Omicron Nu, Co-Chair of Marketing for Human Ecology Dean’s

What you will miss about CHE: I will miss dearly the tight-knit nature of the Human Ecology community. Additionally, I will also miss the mentorship I have received from the Human Ecology’s Advising and Counseling staff, specifically Deanne Maxwell and Darryl Scott.

I also want to give special thanks to Professor Eve De Rosa for introducing me to the world of research and to Professor Corinna Löckenhoff for continuously helping me navigate the field of gerontology.

HUMAN ECOLOGY 31

32 SPRING FALL 2017 2019

Mark Vorreuter

Commencement

HUMAN ECOLOGY 33

“When I think about my own role and other grad student’s roles, they often teach research skills that you can’t learn about in a class...we cover something that cannot be covered by any other pillars in the system.”

– Julia Nolte

Graduate students help undergraduates thrive at Human Ecology

Graduate students are skilled partners in carrying out research, interpreting data, leading labs, developing new ideas and assisting in teaching – all enriching the undergraduate experience. They help create and maintain much of the innovative environment that makes Cornell and the College of Human Ecology an ideal place for undergraduates to thrive.

Julia Nolte entered Cornell in 2017 to obtain a Ph.D. in developmental psychology. Her research interests span risk perception, decision making, lifespan development and health. She is currently researching tailoring health and risk information to the processing preferences of different age and patient groups. This work has earned her the 2017 Margaret Holmes-Rovner Award for Decision Psychology and Shared Decision Making.

Nolte said that a role she has seen graduate students play as lab leaders is that they often recruit undergraduates into the lab. From there, the interaction is very hands on – helping drive forward research and providing undergraduates with their first taste of academic studies within higher education.

“I have worked with Professor Valerie Reyna as a team leader in her lab for two years, the Health and Decision Making Team. I had my own team of undergrads – 10 to 15 depending on the semester – who I worked with very closely,” she said. “I now work with Professor Corinna Löckenhoff, and the team I work with now focuses on the specific project I’m currently pursuing.”

According to Nolte, the undergraduates in the two labs were interested in health and decision-making research and are hoping to go onto grad schools around psychology or health care. Within these teams, Nolte, similar to other graduate students leading labs across the College and University, would meet with students every week, assign readings she believed was important for students and their understanding of the work the lab was doing, and organize

The Healthy Aging Laboratory

discussions around both.

“When I think about my own role and other grad student’s roles, they often teach research skills that you can’t learn about in a class,” Nolte said. “It’s not a standard setting, so undergraduate students learn all of these skills that cannot be learned from a textbook, and we cover something that cannot be covered by any other pillars in the system.”

This can include the intricate aspects of interpreting data to developing and running a study. Further, Nolte and fellow graduate students help advise and guide undergraduates through aspects of their degree, including grant proposals and honor theses that play a capstone role in an undergraduate’s young academic career.

Students undertaking an honors thesis usually have a graduate student assigned to them and interact very closely to work out the focus of the thesis, the design and so on. According to Nolte, she most recently supported two students in developing grant proposals to fund their thesis or summer project. Close one-on-one mentorship complemented and added to the feedback students received from their professor, and included Nolte helping fine tune the defense of their research.

For Nolte, the evolution of these undergrads within academia is a key example of the impact graduate students have as a pillar of a program, college or university as a whole.

“I’ve seen people come in not having any experience, and they get taught about stats and certain programs used to run studies and now they are Ph.D. students,” Nolte said.

“I’ve seen undergrads be [authors] on papers and present in conferences. It’s really amazing to think that they come in to the lab, say in their junior year, and then by the end of their college experience, they are an author on a paper. I think from a very short time, they benefit so much from their close relationship with graduate students.”

– Stephen D’Angelo

Increasing graduate fellowship funding is one of Human Ecology’s top priorities because of its importance to the college’s continued success. For more information on how you can show your support though gift giving, contact Kathleen Johnston, development associate, at kea29@cornell.edu.

34 SPRING 2019

Bob Handelman; Cornell University Marketing Group; Mark Vorreuter

VITAL PILLARS

Alumni

HEAA

PRESIDENT’S CORNER The Human Ecology Alumni Association Board of Directors had a very busy and productive winter and spring. Here are some of the highlights from the past year.

Peck, Drayer, Pitaro and Casanova

Fireside Chat: Drayer and Pitaro

Dunifon and Nicole Agaronnik ’19

In January, we were pleased to host Jimmy Pitaro, ’91, President ESPN & CoChair Disney Media Networks for a fireside chat with fellow alum and HEAA Board Member, Lisa Drayer, ’96. Dean Rachel Dunifon introduced our speakers to over 150 students and alumni who gathered in NYC for this event.

“Access and authenticity, that’s what people want from brands today,” Jimmy responded when asked about the future of the ESPN brand, a sentiment that offers our students an opportunity and responsibility for their own contributions as they set forth on their careers in the future.

The Board was thrilled, and very proud, to facilitate and present the 2019 Human Ecology Achievement Awards. On April 15, 2019 The Outstanding Senior Award was presented to Nicole Agaronnik ’19 during a program at the Senior Celebration. At Reunion, June 8, 2019, the Helen Bull Vandervort Alumni Achievement Award was presented to Cynthia B. Green ’79, Ph.D. and the Recent Alumni Achievement Award was presented to Gizelle Begler ’08. Congratulations again to all of our nominees and winners!

PAM freshman and sophomore students participated in an immersive Finance Field Trip to NYC, March 7-8, exposing them to career possibilities in finance and providing the opportunity to network with alums. The field trip started on Thursday afternoon with tours of MSD Capital with Jeremy Herz ’98, LiquidNet with incoming HEAA Board Member Cheryl Knopp ’92, and followed by a networking reception in the evening for students and alumni. Office tours continued on Friday with visits to Innovatus Capital Partners with David Schiff ’93, RBC Capital Markets with HEAA Board Member Michael Siegel ’97, and Federal Reserve Bank with Michael Held ’92.

Did you hear from us? Are you getting our eNews emails? If not, email us at heaad@cornell.edu with your name and email address, and we will add you to list.

Bob Handelman; Mark Vorreuter; Provided

Have a great summer!

Finance Field Trip to NYC

Rachel Casanova ’95 David Peck ’91 Co-presidents Human Ecology Alumni Association Board

As a graduate of Human Ecology, you are a member of the College’s Alumni Association. You are represented by our HEAA Board – volunteers from around the country who are working on your behalf to support the interests of our alumni association and the College.

HUMAN ECOLOGY 35

INTREPID FOOTSTEPS The distinguished career of Margaret Mukherjee ’56 spans decades and the globe

36 SPRING 2019

Mukherjee margaret.away@yahoo.com

develop critical thinking coursework for the university there.

This led to her teaching critical thinking coursework in China, Korea, and Austria, where she worked with faculty members on the methodology of teaching based on her research, talking with people in the field, and the experience of living in various countries.

Rather than just lecturing students and assuming they are absorbing the information, Mukherjee encouraged faculty to think of learning as a process.

“So many times we teach as we have been taught and people who haven’t been exposed to other forms of teaching will revert to lecturing,” she said. “There’s a place for lectures, but faculty need to understand that students need to process information on their own. If we could integrate everything we’ve ever heard, we’d all be amazing people, but that’s not how it works.”

In 2012, she spent a semester in Romania as a Fulbright Scholar.

She then served as a Fulbright Specialist and spent three months in Vietnam leading workshops in teaching and research methodology.

Her second Fulbright Specialist opportunity took her to Azerbaijan in 2015, where she worked with professors and graduate students on the development of their research projects.

These days, Mukherjee is gearing up to co-teach a spring course at the Brandeis Osher Lifetime Learning Institute (BOLLI) on the psychological, cultural, and historical aspects of why we dress the way we do.

As for future projects, she would like to write about growing up on a farm and how that impacts the attributes and abilities of those who do. When asked, Mukherjee credited the pursuit of lifelong learning and new experiences for her longevity, adding that she has been blessed with excellent physical health.

“I want other 84-year-olds, like myself, to feel alive, explore new ideas, and to continue to learn and give to society,” she said.

“I continue to be on a journey, and I love it.”

May we all follow in such intrepid footsteps.

– E.C. Barrett

As a guest lecturer at Vietnam National University

Freepik ; Provided; Vectorstock

With a career spanning six decades, Margaret Reed Mukherjee ’56 has traveled the world as a global educator and Fulbright scholar, been on the forefront of women breaking into the highest ranks of academic leadership, mentored academics across the globe, and continues to teach and develop innovative approaches to pedagogy and research methodology.

Mukherjee grew up on a farm in upstate New York, where she attended a one-room schoolhouse, and first encountered Cornell through the extension service that helped modernize the family farm.

“Living on a farm is such preparation for life,” Mukherjee said.

“Everyone is a member of a team and worked together to get things done on the farm. It was a wonderful and challenging experience and my parents were role models for my sister and I.” Her parents connected with the Cornell Cooperative Extension service and were receptive to learning and adapting, and Cornell brought significant changes to the farm. “The extension people were paramount to my family,” she said. “I think that’s why my sister Barbara and I went to Cornell.”

Mukherjee studied Home Economics and Education. She said Human Ecology provided her with diverse opportunities to learn and experience the world that have proven foundational to her lifelong interest in global education. After graduating, she traveled to Turkey as part of the International Farm Youth Exchange Program, living with host families for six months.

“I had never been outside of New York State, let alone the country,” she said. “There was a great push to understand other cultures, and the best way to understand other cultures is to go and live and work with them.”

In 1961, Mukherjee earned a Masters in Textiles, Clothing and Related Arts from Michigan State. She met and married her husband Benoy (Ben), an engineering student originally from India, while at Michigan State, and moved to New Jersey where she started teaching at Montclair State University.

When her two sons were in preschool and second grade, Mukherjee began a doctoral program at Rutgers University, an hour commute both ways, and in 1978 received her Ph.D. in Urban Planning, Policy, and Development.

“It was important for me that I utilize my talents and do what I was able to do,” she said. “There wasn’t a great deal of support programs or staff for women who wanted to continue education, so we were sort of on our own, but I had amazing support from a group of women friends who stepped right in.”

After her doctorate, her teaching focus shifted to research methodology, eventually writing a textbook on the subject with two colleagues.

When Montclair began encouraging female faculty to apply to serve in the administration on a part-time basis while keeping faculty rank, she became a special assistant to the dean of her school. She then served as director of graduate studies, as Montclair sought university status, and eventually served as dean, developing computerized processes for admissions and matriculation in the graduate school.

After returning to her department to teach full-time, she was looking for other exciting challenges and applied for a grant through the State Department providing three years of faculty exchange at a university in Ukraine. In 1991, she lived in Ukraine working to

Alumni

AN EDUCATED, ENLIGHTENED HUMANITY

Cornell University Marketing Group; Mark Vorreuter

Evalyn Edwards Milman ’60 strengthens Human Ecology, Cornell mission through philanthropy Evalyn Edwards Milman ’60, believes in educating young people and has spent her life doing just that. “I’ve always enjoyed and gotten satisfaction in relating what I’ve learned,” she said. She knows she was privileged to attend Cornell and loves “giving back to society and seeing young people grow.”

Milman was inspired by her teachers in Long Beach, Long Island, where she grew up as a promising student, skipping several grades. She worked hard to make it to Cornell and entered the College of Home Economics at age 16. A variety of classes were offered at the time, though Milman admits that some were “certainly not like the classes today. They were still offering classes called Ironing Shirts and Removing Stains.” Aside from the traditional home economics offerings, Milman gained a broad education studying topics like government, comparative religions, and the infamous romp-n-stomp American folk literature course, for which Peter Yarrow was a teacher’s assistant. Milman focused her studies on early child development and was able to work in the nursery school the College operated at the time, earning valuable experience. The well-rounded coursework helped prepare her to pursue her goal of teaching. After graduation, she earned a Master of Arts in Early Childhood Development from Columbia University.

She taught nursery school for many years.

Later, after raising her children, she earned a Master of Arts in Art History at Hunter College in Manhattan. This led to years of work as a curator for an art museum, a teacher of art history at a community college, and a docent at another art museum. “I’ve had five careers,” Milman said laughing. “And they’ve all involved some kind of education. I guess I started with nursery school and ended up at the university level.” For many years, Milman also operated a successful tour company which took visitors all over the northeast to explore historic homes, museums, and cultural landmarks. She immersed her clients in the arts as she led them to fascinating places.

Milman met her husband, Stephen Milman, ’58, M.B.A. ’59, while at Cornell. Over the years, the two found great value in donating to many programs. Milman believes in “giving where every penny counts towards furthering Cornell’s mission and education.” The Johnson Museum of Art is a particular love. She takes great pride in the Museum’s collection, curators, and education department, and serves on the Museum Advisory

Council. Along with providing funding for the Museum’s school programs that supports student learning in grades pre-K through 12, linking to curricula in art, social studies, language arts, music, science, math and time periods, she recently helped fund the Museum’s latest Handbook of the Collections. “We have a great understanding of the importance of books in people’s lives,” she said. The Milmans’ connections to the University Library led to patronage of collections and exhibits, and then to the endowment of the Stephen E. and Evalyn Edwards Milman Directorship of Rare and Manuscript Collections. For the College of Arts and Sciences, they endow the Stephen and Evalyn Milman Professorship in American Studies. Additionally, because of Stephen’s love of baseball, the Milmans sponsored an extremely popular seminar class titled Baseball and American Culture.

“I’ve never lost my love for the College of Human Ecology,” she says. “Though the school has changed names and they’ve broadened their outlook, they’ve kept their uniqueness.”

Her passion for education in general and Human Ecology in particular led to support in many facets. She created the Evalyn Edwards Milman Assistant Professorship in Early Childhood Development, a position that sustains up-and-coming scholars at the College.

The fellowship is currently held by Lin Bian, assistant professor of Human Development and principal investigator of the Little Thinkers Lab at Cornell. And recently, Milman worked with the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research (BCTR), which “expands, strengthens, and speeds the connections between research, policy, and practice to enhance human development and well-being.” She endowed the Evalyn Edwards Milman ’60 BCTR Faculty Fellowship, a program which links research with real community needs.

These are just a few of the programs, events, and schools Milman supports. And Cornell is not the only beneficiary of her philanthropy. She gives generously to the New York Philharmonic, The Metropolitan Opera, Teachers College, and others.

As she approaches the 60th anniversary of her graduation, Milman’s love of Cornell continues to grow. “I believe in education and an enlightened humanity, which we need so very desperately today. And I’m proud of Cornell’s record.”

– Amanda K. Jaros

“I believe in education and an enlightened humanity, which we need so very desperately today. And I’m proud of Cornell’s record.”

– Evalyn Edwards Milman ’60

HUMAN ECOLOGY 37

2019 Sloan Alumni Association Award Recent Alumni Award

Dr. Shravan Subramanyam M.H.A. ’05

Dr. Shravan Subramanyam has over 15 years of corporate and health care experience, and is currently Managing Director, India and Neighboring Markets at Roche – the world’s largest biotech company, the global leader in cancer drugs, and a pioneer in personalized health care.

At Roche, Dr. Subramanyam leads a team of more than 400 focused on the invitro diagnostics market covering India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal. He is also a member of the Roche Diagnostics’ Asia-Pacific Leadership Team and a board member of Roche Pharma India.

A physician described to have a passion for diagnostics, he is a committed advocate in promoting ‘personalized health care’ and the use of technology in medicine.

His career spans leadership roles in global pharma and diagnostics

organizations, including Novartis, Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics and Ehrlich Laboratory. Interested in tech startups, he is a co-founder and advisor to Business Mobility, a 3D simulations company specializing in medical device training.

In addition to a master’s degree in Health Administration from the Sloan Program at Cornell University, he holds a degree in medicine from Madras Medical College. At Cornell, Dr. Subramanyam has served on the Sloan Alumni Association Board of Directors and was also the recipient of the Sloan Leadership Award.

Dr. Subramanyam is also an active voice at various industry bodies such as CII & NATHEALTH, and recently took over as the president of the Swiss-Indian Chamber of Commerce. Recently, he was named in Economic Times’ 40 Under Forty List of “India’s Hottest Business Leaders 2018.”

Jay Yedvab M.P.A. ’62

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During his career of 40 years, Jay Yedvab served as an administrator in health care facilities and hospitals across the United States and Canada. This includes roles as CEO of Mt. Zion Hospital in San Francisco and Bergen Pine County Hospital in New Jersey, and the position of Administrator of the Baycrest Hospital in Toronto, Ontario.

Upon completion of his bachelor’s degree from Alfred University, he worked as a lab technician in Syracuse. In 1960, he applied to the Sloan Program where he earned a Master of Public Affairs in 1962. He was a member of the fourth graduating class and a founder of the Sloan Alumni Association.

At Cornell, he learned that he loved the challenge of managing health care facilities – which he considers the most complex organizations in the world.

Yedvab continues to be actively involved in the support of the Sloan Program, its students, alumni, and on-going academic mission – manifesting in a variety of impactful ways. This includes serving in

leadership positions on the Sloan Alumni Association Board, mentoring dozens of Sloan students, and helping Sloan graduates navigate the early stages of their career through internships and hires.

Further, Yedvab gives annually to the Sloan Program through donations to the Alumni Scholarship and Student Aid. Recently, he provided further contributions in addition to his annual giving, including funding the Jay Okun Yedvab Meeting Room in the Sloan Suite over the next five years, as well as organizing the Yedvab Prize, the annual capstone award for second year Sloan students.

Outside of his service to the Sloan Program, Yedvab has also provided scholarships to Alfred University, and serves on the Consent & Capacity Board and the St. Alban’s Boys & Girls Club Board.

His son, Josh, attended the program as well and met his wife, Lauren, also a Sloan student, while at Cornell. They both completed their M.H.A. from Sloan in 1994.

Provided

Outstanding Achievement Award

Alumni

INFORMED CHOICES Roberta Larson Duyff M.S. ’73 an authority on food and nutrition facts

Food and nutrition consultant, author, and speaker, Roberta Larson Duyff M.S. ’73, RDN, FAND, is a leading expert in the field of nutrition education and communication, authoring nationally-recognized nutrition books for the public. This includes all five editions of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Complete Food and Nutrition Guide. The 800-page fifth edition won the 2018 National Health Information

Awards Best of Show Gold Award for Duyff’s evidence-based coverage of a broad range of health and nutrition issues and reader accessibility.

“I weave in the nutrient information and give enough science to explain the reasons why to make certain choices, and I’m especially focused on how to make healthy food taste great, how to make eating healthy easy, and how to make healthy choices in different situations,” Duyff said. “It’s a very positive approach. There are very few no’s in the book, unless it’s for a medical condition or a food safety issue.”

The latest edition also includes more information on agriculture and sustainability as consumers have become increasingly interested in where their food comes from.

In addition to her busy schedule working to develop nutrition and culinary curriculum, writing textbooks for high school students, as well as books for children, Duyff volunteers her time in support of cultural exchange programs.

Along with husband, Phil, she is a host parent to exchange students from China, Czech Republic, Indonesia, and Saudi Arabia, among others, and she is part of a team providing scholarship support for inner city teenagers to study abroad.

Recently, Duyff joined the food committee of Welcome Neighbor STL, working with Syrian refugee women in St. Louis to develop professional culinary and food service skills and businesses.

Duyff said her appreciation of cultural exchange took root during her time at Cornell and recalled a Thanksgiving meal she hosted for around thirty international students at the old MVR apartment.

“I made a turkey with dressing and mashed potatoes and asked everyone to bring a harvest dish from their country. It was a wonderful meal. There was a piano and we shared harvest songs we’d learned growing up. It was fabulous,” Duyff said.

“So many of the people that I knew and spent my time with while in Human Ecology were from Latin America, Asia, and Africa. I think it had a huge impact on the way I see the world.”

– E.C. Barrett

LIFELONG FRIENDS

Freepik ; Provided

Nancy Parmet Cook ’85 and Jolie Fries Singer ’85 build boutique luxury jewelry brand Summer camp friends and freshman roommates, Nancy Parmet Cook ’85 and Jolie Fries Singer ’85 combine their business experience, creative talent, and lifelong friendship to create high-end, handmade jewelry as co-owners of the luxury jewelry brand Eleanor Stone NYC. For the last three years, they have teamed up to reimagine antique and vintage jewels into one-of-a-kind leather cuff bracelets, and modernize family heirlooms through their Bespoke Collection.

Cook was a corporate marketing executive with an M.B.A. and a career that took her from Procter & Gamble to Philip Morris to HBO. Eventually she left the corporate world to raise her children, Jack, DJ, and Chloe, with her husband Jim. Inspired by her grandmother Eleanor’s love of antiques, Cook began giving new life to antique and vintage jewels by remaking them into leather bracelets. When friends started buying pieces off her wrists, she knew she was onto something and decided to take her hobby to a new level.

Singer, after earning a Masters of Public Health, had a successful career in health care management, mostly spent at New YorkPresbyterian Hospital where she was responsible for strategic planning, employee communications, and internal branding. In November 2016, after raising her daughter Jillian ’19 – a senior Communication major in CALS – in Manhattan, Singer was ready to start a new chapter. She moved to Westchester, got engaged, and, as luck would have it, was now 15 minutes from Cook. The stars were definitely aligned.

“I had always loved fashion and art, and grew up in a family of antique collectors, so it was a perfect fit at the perfect time,” Singer said.

Cook and Singer are passionate about Eleanor Stone NYC’s philanthropic projects and give back to a long list of charities.

They recently launched their Purple Dreams Collection, with twenty percent of sales being donated to the Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement and the Alzheimer’s Association, a cause close to their hearts.

“One of the best parts about being friends and business partners is that we completely trust each other, something that is beyond critical for any partnership,” Cook said.

“And, we have great yin and yang. I’m good at some things while Nancy’s good at others,” Singer added.

Both agree that one benefit of running a business with a close friend is helping each other find the right work/life balance and being there to pick up the slack when one of them needs to focus attention on something else.

“The biggest challenge in starting a business like this after we’ve both had successful corporate careers is trying to pull back and say we don’t want to do everything,” Cook said. “If we had tried to do this when we were younger, it would have been more of a grind with self-imposed pressure to make it as big as possible. But, that’s not our goal.”

Singer added, “We love being able to create beautiful designs and make customers happy, while at the same time, doing it in a meaningful way. I would never have thought I’d be doing this, and with a best friend. I consider myself very lucky.”

Cook echoed this sentiment. “The path you start on may not be the same one you end up taking. Always remain open to all the possibilities.”

– E.C. Barrett HUMAN ECOLOGY 39

PROTECTING CONSUMERS Lexie Sachs ’09 informs and helps us make smart product decisions through Good Housekeeping Institute role

As trends in consumer priorities shift and Americans increasingly turn to the internet to do their shopping, it can be challenging to know which products fulfill marketing promises while offering the best value. In her role as associate director of the Textiles, Paper and Plastics Lab for the Good Housekeeping Institute, Lexie Sachs FSAD ’09 combines her skills as a research scientist and a creative communicator to help consumers make informed decisions about where to spend their money and which products to avoid.

For Sachs there is no such thing as an average day. In any given week, she meets with manufacturers about new products, tests products for safety and performance in her lab, writes for the Good Housekeeping website, and works with various editorial teams to put together the Good Housekeeping magazine.

She loves the variety of her work and being able to improve lives through consumer advocacy. On a lab day, she might be testing children’s clothing and costumes for flammability, bras and workout clothing for stretch and shrinkage, sheets and towels for softness and durability.

40 SPRING 2019

“Consumers need to be aware and understand who is making product recommendations.”

– Lexie Sachs

Provided

Lexie Sachs at the Good Housekeeping Institute

Two trends Sachs sees growing in popularity are wellness products and products marketed as sustainable. Those claims, she explained, are sometimes false, such as workout clothes that purported to burn more calories – a claim she debunked in her lab. “If it sounds too good to be true, it likely is, so I’ll test it.”

Sachs recently completed testing yoga mats that manufacturers marketed as better for the environment. Not one mat lived up to their sustainability hype.

“Take recyclability: you can’t put the mat on the curb or take it to your recycling center because they aren’t set up to recycle that material,” she said. “Technically the material was recyclable but the consumer doesn’t have access to the ability to recycle it. There were biodegradable mats that can biodegrade in a lab setting, but not in landfill conditions. It’s frustrating, as someone who understands these claims, that shoppers are frequently misled into paying more.”

In addition to the Good Housekeeping platforms, Sachs has weighed in on everything from sheets and backpacks to mattresses and luggage as an expert consultant for the New York Times, Good Morning America, The Dr. Oz Show, Inside Edition, NBC News and Fox. Sachs said that she wishes more consumers understood the differing quality of online reviews. “Consumers need to be aware and understand who is making product recommendations. Let’s say you’re shopping online and looking for reviews. You’ll see claims that products have been tested, but it could just be one editor who called for a pillow, slept on it one night, and wrote a review saying they tested the product.”

Sachs has been reviewing weighted blankets, which she says have become increasingly popular without much testing as to their effectiveness and safety. “Two children have died in recent years, so when we see safety issues involving children we want to make sure our readers are aware of the risks and know how to use them properly.”

Sachs met her husband Andrew ’01, Hotel Administration, in her freshman year when he was living in Ithaca. They live in Long Island with their daughters, four-year-old Bayla and one-year-old Joanna (Jojo for short). Outside of work she spends most of her time with her family. She hopes to bring her daughters to Ithaca this summer for Jojo’s first visit.

Sachs, who worked in Professor Anil Netravali’s lab, said she loves coming back to Cornell to meet with former professors to discuss their research. “Now that I’m in the industry and doing research on my own, to be able to come back and see all of the new and exciting innovations that are happening in the fiber science department and share them with colleagues is always so impressive.”

– E.C. Barrett

Alumni

DRIVEN LEADER

Piper Titus Kline ’03 credits Cornell for her philosophy as a business owner, operator

Provided; Vecteezy

“Imagine the most amazing gift that is simultaneously the largest burden you’ve ever carried,” Piper Titus Kline HD ’03 said, describing her role as Chief Financial Officer of Page Trucking Company. based in Weedsport, NY. Kline’s father founded the company in the 70s and her mother resurrected it from the brink of closure in the early aughts after Kline’s father passed away in 1999, the night Kline graduated from high school.

“It’s a gift to have a business that has infrastructure, processes, and talented people in place, but it’s a ‘more-machine,’” she said.

“As it continues to grow it needs more and more. As a leader, it’s challenging to know what that means and how best to respond.”

One conversation is all it takes to know that Kline appreciates a challenge. She arrived at Cornell after a freshman year at another institution, where she left with a 4.3 GPA that felt too easy to achieve.

“I came to Cornell and it was a whole new level of brilliant minds, both on the peer level and the professor level, and I had to focus on catching up with everyone else,” she said. “What I was learning was rocking my world.”

Kline said her time at Cornell gave her a love of life-long learning and evoking change in people and systems that is fundamental to how she operates as a business owner.

“The day I think I know more than the people around me is the day I need to have a serious reality check, because that’s not what I want for myself,” she said. “I want to surround myself with brilliant people. Being at Cornell showed me the value of that.”

Since taking over as CFO in 2012, the family business that began as a transporter of bulk industrial products has expanded to $100 million in revenue last year, with seven new related businesses, 220 employees, and around 400 independent contractors.

In addition to supporting Cornell philanthropically, Kline has volunteered her time through the Just Juniors Event and Professor Robert Sternberg’s leadership course, sharing her experience

“I want to surround myself with brilliant people.

Being at Cornell showed me the value of that.”

– Piper Titus Kline HD ’03

as a business owner and her thoughts on the importance of authenticity, compassion, and an intense work ethic to undergraduates.

Last year Page Trucking underwent what Kline calls a hard reset, responding to the dramatic changes ten years of growth had created. She encouraged employees at all levels to rethink what work-life balance means, emphasizing that giving one hundred percent to the company is not sustainable, both for their personal lives and for the well-being of the company.

“Think of yourself as a glass of water,” she said. “If you’re always operating at 100% you’re never pouring water out of your glass, teaching anyone else or involving them in your processes. You’re also never creating space and room to grow, to add water to your proverbial glass.”

Kline and her husband Brian have two daughters, 18-month-old Eleanor and three-year-old Olive. When she is home with them she focuses on being present, whether preparing dinner, playing mermaid, or making up stories at bedtime.

Laughing, Kline said she was surprised to find that her skills as a successful business owner who works with people all day long (the line outside of her office is a near-constant three or four deep) did not necessarily translate to parenting, but she’s finding her rhythm.

“You’re trying to balance work demands with a new dimension to your life, which is insanely more important, while simultaneously not more important than making payroll and all of the metrics you run through as a business owner, ” she said.

“My mother taught me that as a leader, you need to practice grace and compassion – without letting people take advantage of you – so that you can earn people’s trust through respect and consistency. I think it’s the same thing with parenting – you earn their trust and respect through consistency.”

– E.C. Barrett

HUMAN ECOLOGY 41

ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND ENTERPRISE

Julie Waxman ’91 is reinventing the chocolate chip cookie much so that they rented space in Ithaca and operated the business throughout their senior year.

After leaving Ithaca, Waxman spent a decade working as a buyer for Saks Fifth Avenue and then a merchandise manager at Macy’s developing product lines.

When she started a family, she shifted to doing consultant work and continuing to closely follow market trends, all the while searching for the next step in her career.

The “aha moment” for her new enterprise came when Waxman was with her daughter in a bakery and noticed the intensely-colored rainbow bagels. “I love desserts and I love color,” Waxman said.

“The trend in desserts was, and still is, color.” Everything from cakes to cupcakes to Rice Krispie Treats are made in bright colors. Thinking back to her cookie selling days at Cornell, she searched the internet for chocolate chip cookies, “The only thing in 2016 that I saw was a brown cookie,” Waxman said. “In cookies, the only color to be found was in macarons, which are expensive, almond-

RISKS AND REWARDS Jeffrey Wald ’95 CIPA ’96 helps the next generation with the ins and outs of startups

Entrepreneur and co-founder of software company WorkMarket, Jeff Wald ’95, MPA CIPA ’96, has built up and sold several technology companies, advises and invests in startups, and regularly speaks to entrepreneurial groups, accelerators, and startups about the ins and outs of the startup world and the future of labor markets.

After graduating from Cornell, Wald earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and worked as an investment banker with JP Morgan and investment firm GlenRock, where he had the opportunity to meet a host of entrepreneurs, including frequent collaborator Jeff Leventhal.

“I was just so enamored with the idea of somebody taking the risk and all the things inherent in that risk to try to bring something 42 SPRING 2019

based, and very different, and sugar cookies, which are very labor intensive. I knew I had a great concept, and a great recipe from my days at Cornell that just needed some tweaking.”

Waxman baked thousands of cookies to perfect the recipe and magical colors of her product. She then delivered 500 colorful bags of free cookies to her contacts all around New York City. She included a menu in those bags and “75 percent of people ordered within six months,” Waxman says. “It was the craziest return on my investment.” Instead of posting flyers like in 1991, she posted on Instagram. With immediate re-posts by several Instagram Influencers, the opening of the first kiosk in Manhattan, and a video by Insider Media that went viral, Baked in Color was off and running.

“Aside from the rainbow cookie, it’s so much about customization,” Waxman says.

A large part of Baked in Color’s business comes from university and corporate clients, as well as special events such as fashion shows and weddings, all who order custom-colored cookies.

Julie Dugoff Waxman ’91

“We’re shipping cookies to the Master’s Tournament through ESPN,” Waxman said, “And I’m really hoping to take the brand to the next level with another big sports collaboration, like with Madison Square Garden.”

Waxman is constantly networking and expanding the possibilities for Baked in Color.

But it all comes back to the cookie. Waxman sees how her cookies make people happy.

“Our cookies are delicious and beautiful; they make people happy.”

– Amanda K. Jaros

new to market, to try to do something better,” he said. “To me, that was the epitome of the American ideal, this notion of: I’m going to go out on my own because I think there’s a better way this can be done and I’ll take the risk and I’ll reap the reward for that risk.”

One key lesson he shares with early-career Jeffrey Wald ’95 entrepreneurs: failure is not only an option when venturing into the world of startups, it is the highest probability outcome.

“When it happens, it’s not some massive indictment against you,” he explained. “You’ve got to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and get back in and try again, and again, and again.”

That is exactly what Wald did when SpinBack, a company

Provided

Julie Dugoff Waxman ’91, wonders why anyone would eat a boring generic chocolate chip cookie when they could eat one in color. Waxman, the founder and owner of Baked in Color, is changing the way people think about chocolate chip cookies.

Every day, Baked in Color bakes vibrantly-colored cookies to sell in their shops and ship around the country. From rainbows to sports teams to holidays, any combination of color is possible with these cookies.

Baked in Color is only a few years old, but Waxman has always had entrepreneurship in her bones. During her time at Cornell, Waxman took a business class called Entrepreneurship and Enterprise, which required her to develop a product and a business plan, and strategize how to execute that plan. She and her two partners created a cookie delivery business; they took orders and delivered warm cookies and a quart of milk to customers’ doors. In 1991 preinternet time, Waxman and her partners spread the word by posting flyers all over campus.

The concept was a hit – so

Alumni

EXTENSIVE DEDICATION Dr. Cynthia Cuffie ’74 elected Cornell Trustee

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Two new alumni representatives were recently elected to the Cornell University Board of Trustees. Among those includes Cynthia Cuffie ’74 who begins her four-year term on July 1.

After obtaining her B.A. in Nutritional Sciences from Human Ecology, Cuffie completed medical school at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (now within Rutgers), followed by an endocrinology fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

During her 26-year career, Cuffie led drug development within the pharmaceutical industry to treat conditions from hypercholesterolemia to brain tumors. She currently presides over Aspire Educational Associates Corporation, an organization she founded to offer career and leadership development.

“The College was very warm and the professors were invested in our success,” she recalled. “That type of environment was perfect for me to thrive.”

According to Cuffie, “As a world-class institution founded on the principles of “any study … any person,” Cornell has the opportunity to lead in translating cutting-edge research into practical applications that can be used to address societal issues.”

A first-generation college graduate, she has invested time and resources to help similar Cornell students navigate the daunting combination of academic, financial and social situations. The Cuffie Funds support the academic excellence and professional development of underrepresented minority undergraduate students in the College of Human Ecology.

Over the years, she has been extensively dedicated to alumni service at Cornell, including the Human Ecology Dean’s Advisory Council from 2008 to 2011, where she served as Chair of Diversity Initiatives from 2009 to 2011, and the President’s Council of Cornell Women between 2012 and 2018, among many other roles.

“Having the privilege to be a steward of the Cornell experience for the next generation [is] an honor,” she said.

– Stephen D’Angelo

he founded with Leventhal in 2006, failed in 2007 and nearly bankrupted him. Wald said at the time he was unprepared for that kind of failure.

“I think it’s important that those of us who have failed talk about the experience,” he said. “People have too-negative an association with failure and those who have failed, and that certainly applied to me when SpinBack fell apart. I didn’t know how to deal with it or what to do. The shame of having failed was challenging. I hope that others who go through it can take some comfort from the lessons of those of us who have been down that road.”

SpinBack was rebuilt in 2010 with the support of Wald and Leventhal and sold to Buddy Media in 2011, which was subsequently sold to Salesforce for around $800 million.

Founded in May of 2010 and acquired by ADP in 2018, WorkMarket is an enterprise software platform that enables corporations to efficiently and compliantly organize, manage, and pay freelancer labor.

Wald described the role of a founder as setting the vision of where

Cynthia Cuffie ’74

“Having the privilege to be a steward of the Cornell experience for the next generation [is] an honor.”

– Cynthia Cuffie ’74

the company is heading, setting the path that will bring it to that end point, raising money, and building a solid team, but, he said, the day-to-day of a startup founder is often focused on much more mundane problem-solving.

“In the early days, and this is something I say at a lot of conferences, the most important thing I’ll do on any given day is plunging the toilet,” he said. “WorkMarket is a big company now, but in the beginning we were twenty people in a very rundown, very gritty, grimy building in Chelsea and there’d be cockroaches and mice and the toilet would back up a lot due to old plumbing.”

Now in the Garment District near Penn Station, there are around 160 members of the WorkMarket team.

In addition to serving as WorkMarket president and his speaking schedule, Wald is currently writing a book, The End of Jobs: The Rise of the Agile Company and the On-Demand Worker, which he expects to be out by the end of the year.

– E.C. Barrett HUMAN ECOLOGY 43

Domains

MVR RENOVATIONS Building phase begins

Ground floor, Research Suite and Office Space: March, 2019

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Auditorium: March, 2019

MVR Community Hard Hat Tour

Bob Handelman; Flaticon; Mark Vorreuter

The MVR Renovations continue, though great progress is being made.

Construction and contractor personnel have officially completed the demolition phase of the renovations and now have begun work on the building phase, which is seeing upgrades to building utility and infrastructure systems as well as improvements in connectivity, circulation, space layout, and functionality.

Plans are currently on schedule, with the reopening of MVR Hall set for late summer 2020.

Over the summer of 2018, the renovations required vacating two-thirds of the building, temporarily relocating around 200 faculty and staff. They were asked to take what they needed, being mindful of the limits of their temporary spaces, and leave the rest. There was a lot left.

Human Ecology Facilities and Operations department teamed up with Sedgwick Business Interiors, which maintains Human Ecology’s warehouse inventory, to stage a 1,000 square foot viewing area for seven weekends throughout September and October. The furniture was offered first to the state contract campus community at Cornell, then the wider Cornell community, and finally to everyone. Around 215 people claimed over 5,000 square feet of furniture, diverting it from the landfill and boosting the impact of smaller community organizations by increasing their resources.

Among the bigger furniture takes was the underfunded Odessa-Montour Central School, which received multiple truckloads of desks and chairs, and P-TECH, a new TST BOCES program that gives students the opportunity to earn a Regents diploma and associate degree in applied sciences from Tompkins Cortland Community College.

– Stephen D’Angelo

Terry Horner ’92, PhD ’98 DEGREES: Bachelor of Science and Doctor of Philosophy, Nutritional Sciences POSITION: Assistant Director, Government Accountability Office

IF SOMETHING CAN ENTER YOUR BODY THROUGH THE ENVIRONMENT AND HARM OR AFFECT YOU, I’M INTERESTED IN ADDRESSING IT I am committed to the idea of applying knowledge to improve the human condition. Human Ecology is so integrative, and that’s colored what I do.

advising lawmakers on health policy.

Learn more about the College of Human Ecology at human.cornell.edu

Martha Van Rensselaer Hall Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853

Nonprofit Org. U.S. Postage Paid Cornell University

Professor Clara Straight, whose work and teaching focused on housing and design, turns 100 in August. Joining the College’s faculty in 1948, she taught courses in visual design for 36 years, with emphasis on visual sensitivity aimed at helping students create aesthetic form, and was promoted to full professor in 1973. She currently resides in Kirksville, Missouri on her family farm. Many of her paintings can still be found in offices and meeting rooms around MVR Hall.

Photo courtesy of Jim McCarty/Rural Missouri

This year also marks the 50th anniversary of the renaming of the New York State College of Home Economics to the College of Human Ecology, paving the way for the cutting-edge, multidisciplinary research the College is known for today. With the transformation to its new title, Dean David Knapp stated, “The time is now at hand to direct past traditions of problem-solving toward a new focus. The basic mission of [Human Ecology] is to improve the quality of life.”