People, papers and presentations

Kathy Collins, vice president for finance, has been elected a trustee of Mount Holyoke College, the nation’s oldest continuing institution of higher education for women. Founded in 1837 in South Hadley, Mass., Mount Holyoke is the first of the Seven Sisters association of liberal arts colleges — the female equivalent of the once predominantly male Ivy League — and the model upon which many other women’s colleges were based. Collins has a Bachelor of Arts degree in urban studies from Mount Holyoke, which is currently celebrating “175 Years of Women of Influence.”

Rice’s public service announcement “Challenging Convention” received a platinum award at the 46th annual WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival. Bill Courtney, director of marketing in Rice’s Office of Public Affairs, worked with Locke Bryan Productions on the video, which was recognized in the category of TV Commercials for Universities/Schools. [Link PSA: http://youtu.be/iEf-YSNB-aw]

Feminist Economics, a peer-reviewed journal based at Rice University, is co-sponsoring an international panel, “Women’s Economic Empowerment and Growth: Opportunities, Challenges and Policy Implications,” May 10 in Cape Town, South Africa. The journal is collaborating with the International Development Research Centre, a public corporation founded by the Canadian government, and the Partnership for Economic Policy, an international, multidonor organization. The journal’s participation grew out of a special-issue workshop it is holding in Cape Town May 10-11 on “Engendering Economic Policy in Africa.” Feminist Economics is the award-winning journal of the International Association for Feminist Economics and provides a forum for dialogue and debate about feminist economic perspectives. The journal’s editor and founder is Diana Strassmann, the Carolyn and Fred McManis Distinguished Professor in the Practice of the Humanities and director of Rice’s Program on Poverty, Justice and Human Capabilities based in the Center for the Study of Women, Gender and Sexuality.

Marcia O’Malley, associate professor of mechanical engineering and materials science and director of Rice’s Mechatronics and Haptic Interfaces Laboratory, has been named director of rehabilitation engineering and senior scientist at TIRR Memorial Hermann Hospital in the Texas Medical Center. O’Malley is also working with scientists at Rice, the University of Houston and UT-Health on a federally funded initiative to develop and validate a noninvasive brain-machine interface that stroke patients can use to control robotic devices for upper-limb rehabilitation.