Radcliffe Fellows Announced Today and Gloria Steinem

The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study announced its 2010-2011 Fellows today. There are 48 Fellows who will be working on their projects at the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University. The projects that I find of particular interest are the one of Susan Landau, who is a distinguished engineer with Sun Microsystems, and who will be working on aspects of cybersecurity, and the one of Joanna Aizenberg, a professor at Harvard and Radcliffe, who will be part of a cluster in bioengineering, applied math, and mathematical biology, working in biomemetics.

I am sure that all the new Radcliffe Fellows, whether from the humanities, creative arts, social sciences, or the sciences, will have an extraordinary year filled with exciting talks, wonderful conversations, new friendships, and new collaborations (on top of their own projects). The Radcliffe Institute is located close to Harvard Square in Cambridge, MA, an intellectual and lively mecca.

My Radcliffe Fellowship year was 2005-2006 and I wrote about this incredible year in an essay that can be found on the Radcliffe Institute website (a version of it also was published in ORMS Today, the magazine of the professional society INFORMS). Elaine Chew, whose professional field (in addition to music) also includes operations research, was a Radcliffe Fellow in 2007-2008.

I wish that more individuals who work in operations research, management science, as well as in engineering, who conduct interdisciplinary research and who would flourish in the unique environment that is Radcliffe, would apply for this fellowship. Although there is a lot of competition to secure one, nothing ventured -- nothing gained.

Speaking of the Radcliffe Institute (which was formerly known as the Bunting Institute and became the Radcliffe Institute a decade ago), Gloria Steinem, the feminist activist, will be receiving the 2010 Radcliffe Institute Medal in ceremonies associated with Radcliffe Day tomorrow. I was planning on attending Radcliffe Day, since it also serves as a reunion day for Radcliffe Fellows and for graduates of Radcliffe College (which merged with Harvard University) but due to an upcoming international trip will not be able to.

I congratulate the 2010-2011 Radcliffe Institute Fellows and wish them all much success with their projects!