 |
||
 |
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
The Yale Alumni Magazine is owned and operated by Yale Alumni Publications, Inc., a nonprofit corporation independent of Yale University. The content of the magazine and its website is the responsibility of the editors and does not necessarily reflect the views of Yale or its officers. |
When fossils of feathered dinosaurs were found in China in 1996, perhaps no one was more excited than Yale paleontologist John Ostrom. “I never expected to see anything like this in my lifetime,” Ostrom said at the time. “I literally got weak in the knees.” For Ostrom, who subscribed to the then-derided theory that modern birds were descended from dinosaurs, the discovery was vindication. Experts in his field credit Ostrom, who died on July 16 from complications of Alzheimer’s disease at the age of 77, with forever changing the field of paleontology and renewing worldwide interest in dinosaurs. In the early 1960s, Ostrom set out to prove his view that dinosaurs were actually warm-blooded and intelligent beings whose progeny still roam the earth, not the dim-witted, slow-moving creatures they were thought to be. He made a breakthrough in 1964 with his discovery in Montana of Deinonychus (“terrible claw”), an aggressive carnivore with a high metabolic rate that was the inspiration for the nimble, pack-hunting predators in Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park. Ostrom found more than two dozen similarities between Deinonychus and modern birds. He also noticed that the fossilized skeleton of Archaeopteryx, the earliest known bird, bore an uncanny resemblance to Deinonychus. He began vociferously making the case that Deinonychus was a predecessor to birds such as the flightless ostrich. Ostrom endured years of skepticism from critics before discoveries like those in China backed him up. Born in New York City in 1928 and raised in Schenectady, New York, Ostrom graduated from Union College and earned his PhD at Columbia. He joined the Yale faculty in 1961 and spent the rest of his career there until his retirement in 1992. “He blinded his first students with his brilliance hundreds of times,” says Daniel Brinkman '94MPhil, who worked with Ostrom at the Peabody as a graduate student. “He blinded the last of us with his brilliance at least a dozen.”
Stepping down Richard Benson has announced that this year will be his last as dean of the School of Art. Benson, a MacArthur Award–winning photographer and printer, has been dean of the school since 1996 and oversaw its move to new quarters in Green Hall. He plans to work on a book for the Museum of Modern Art on what he calls “the intertwined history of printing and photography.” Benson is vice chair of the board of directors of Yale Alumni Publications, Inc., which publishes this magazine. Richard Shaw, dean of admissions and financial aid since 1992, resigned this summer to take a similar position at Stanford. In announcing Shaw’s departure, Yale president Rick Levin ’74PhD praised him for his role in increasing the number of applications to Yale College and the percentage of admitted students who enter Yale. Longtime director of undergraduate admissions Margit Dahl '75 is serving as acting dean of admissions.
Honored In July, the research center founded by Sterling Professor Emeritus of Psychology Edward Zigler was renamed in his honor. Zigler established what was then called the Bush Center in Child Development and Social Policy in 1978, with initial funding from the Bush Foundation of Minnesota. Now the center’s director emeritus, Zigler is best known for his role in creating the federal Head Start program.
Remembered Rachel Speight '06 was killed when a car collided with her bicycle on U.S. 60 in Kentucky on June 19. Speight, known to her friends as Ramie, was one of 26 students riding from New Haven to San Francisco on the southern leg of the Habitat Bike Challenge, an annual fund-raiser for Habitat for Humanity led by Yale students. A native of Houston, Speight was a music major and sang with New Blue and the Yale Schola Cantorum. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||
|
||
©1992–2012, Yale Alumni Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. Yale Alumni Magazine, P.O. Box 1905, New Haven, CT 06509-1905, USA. yam@yale.edu |
||