Brandeis National Committee

Last year, we had an incredible tour of Professor Steve Van Hooser’s lab! Our BNC Members were captivated as Professor Van Hooser and his student shared their groundbreaking research and insights. It was a fantastic opportunity to hear about their work and gain insight into their impact research!

To learn more about the work Professor Van Hooser is doing visit his bio and lab pages.
https://www.brandeis.edu/biology/faculty/van-hooser-stephen.html
https://www.vhlab.org

Last year, we marked an incredible milestone with our 75th anniversary! From nostalgic memories to exciting new beginnings, it was a weekend filled with laughter, learning, and a deep appreciation for the countless members who have shaped our community.

A heartfelt thank you to all our members who celebrated with us, shared their favorite moments, or contributed to our journey. Here’s to many more years of exploration, knowledge, connection, and support of Brandeis and it's Libraries!

Enjoy photos from our library tour!

In case you missed it, the Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program is hosting a webinar to unpack the Israel-Hamas war.

We hope you can join us. Register here: https://apply.gps.brandeis.edu/register/?id=92e1d38e-edcc-4f21-b170-bd50c9f4d079

Brandeis has honored Dr. David R. Liu with the Jacob and Louise Gabbay Award for his groundbreaking gene-editing research. Dr. Liu’s innovations, like prime and base editing, are revolutionizing medicine by precisely correcting genetic mutations that cause diseases. His work is not just theoretical—it's already saving lives in clinical trials and impacting research globally. Don’t miss Liu’s public lecture on Nov. 13 here at Brandeis. Stay tuned for more details!

Dr. David Liu Receives the 2024 Gabbay Award in Biotechnology and Medicine Brandeis University has named David R. Liu, an internationally recognized chemical biologist, as the 26th Jacob and Louise Gabbay Award recipient for his pioneering research in gene editing, which has the potential to cure inherited disease and has already had a positive impact on patients in clin...

Congratulations to composer Amy Williams, the winner of the Henri Lazarof International Commission Prize! Awarded by Brandeis University, this prestigious prize honors the late classical composer Henri Lazarof, MFA’59. Amy's commissioned work for string trio will make its world premiere at Brandeis University's Slosberg Recital Hall on May 4, 2025. Stay tuned for an unforgettable musical experience!

Fifth Annual Henri Lazarof International Commission Prize Henri Lazarof once said, “The world is big enough for all kinds of composers. … I try to always write for new instrumental forces — to search out the limits of the performer and one’s own limits as a composer.” The Henri Lazarof International Commission Prize will provide support to compos...

Julieanna Richardson ’76, H’16, founder of The HistoryMakers, shares in her 2022 TED Talk how her journey from feeling erased in history to creating the world's largest video archive of African American experiences was transformative. Growing up, she saw American history as “white,” but discovering Black contributions during her Brandeis years ignited her passion. After a successful legal career and a stint in cable, Richardson launched The HistoryMakers in 2000, capturing over 3,300 stories of Black lives and preserving them in the Library of Congress. Her Brandeis education, she says, was crucial in shaping her mission to document and celebrate Black history.

The Brandeis Questionnaire “As a little Black girl, I did not know that American history had anything to do with someone who looked like me,” Julieanna Richardson ’76, H’16, founder of the oral-history archive The History- Makers, recalls in the video of her 2022 TED Talk.

In case you missed it, Brandeis' Orientation Core Team is ready for the class of 2028. Read more here.

Orientation Core Team ready to wow the Class of 2028 The Orientation Core Team is the dedicated trio in charge of designing a program that offers the newest Brandeisians a warm welcome, and prepares them to hit the ground running when the fall semester starts August 28.

Stress is everywhere in our modern lives. We often feel overwhelmed by work, family, social relationships, technology, and political and political unrest. But, while we can’t control what happens around us, we can control how we respond to stress in our lives. Mindfulness can help us ignite our inner resources to respond to stress more effectively and to infuse our lives with greater awareness, enthusiasm, and joy.

Register today to learn how.

An Introduction to Mindfulness with Kelly Weisberg, Ph.D., J.D. Stress is everywhere in our modern lives. We often feel overwhelmed by work, family, social relationships, technology, and political and political unrest. Stress leads us to feel anger, anxiety, and depression, and experience physical symptoms such as insomnia, loss of appetite or overeating, panic....

If you missed this year's Scifest, no worries, we have some highlights.

Another summer of science: SciFest 2024 Every summer, the Brandeis Division of Science becomes a dynamic hub for student research. Undergraduates spend more than two months embedded in faculty members’ labs, where they collaborate with professors, graduate students, and their peers on innovative research projects. Their efforts culminat...

BNC is invited to participate in Alumni College, Friday, September 27, 9 a.m.- 4 p.m. at Brandeis. Explore a range of topics featuring Brandeis faculty and alumni experts. Sessions are in-person. Registration is $30 per person and includes access to events throughout Alumni Weekend.

Opening Plenary: On the Front Lines: Media, Law & Democracy
Friday, September 27, 9:00 AM - 10:15 AM
Join us for a conversation with David McCraw, lead newsroom lawyer for the New York Times, whose legal mastery helped shape the Times's coverage of Donald Trump and January 6th; Harvey Weinstein and ; national security, Wikileaks and Edward Snowden.

Register today!
https://bit.ly/BrandeisAlumniWeekend

In case you missed it, senior fellow at Brandeis’ Crown Center for Middle East Studies, Khalil Shikaki, is not losing hope for peace and is using polls to show us why.

‘We Must Not Lose Hope’ But that’s exactly what pollster Khalil Shikaki, senior fellow at Brandeis’ Crown Center for Middle East Studies, is doing: surveying Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank during the Israel-Hamas war.

**NEW EASY REGISTRATION PAGE!**

Come together with fellow lawyers for exhilarating conversation that will help strengthen your memory into retirement.

For attorneys who miss the intense, intellectual stimulation of discussing issues of legal significance, this is a unique opportunity to participate in diverse conversations with attorneys from around the country.

The group is open to men and women. Potential topics include recent U. S. Supreme Court decisions, appellate cases, pending litigation of significance to the country, as well as non-constitutional issues, including legal-political cross-over issues. There’s no end to topics of contemporary and historical importance to discuss and debate.

The group is led by Paul Fisher, a retired mediator/arbitrator/attorney.

Registration Fee: $25 donation to BNC's Legacy of Louis Fund



Reserve your spot today!
https://bit.ly/BNCNationalLawGroupandMensCurrentEvents

Did you here? Neuroscientist Frances Chance, GSAS MS’97, PhD’00, a principal member of the technical staff at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, is studying the dragonfly’s amazing interception skills at the neural circuit level.

How To Intercept Weapons, at Dragonfly Speed If you’ve ever watched a dragonfly zig and zag over a pond in search of dinner, you know how fast these gauzy-winged insects can move. In less than half the time it takes a human eye to blink, a dragonfly calculates the coordinates of where its prey is headed and gets there in time to sn**ch it up...

English professor Ramie Targoff casts light on four overlooked female writers of the Renaissance.

Rooms of Their Own In the late 1590s, Elizabeth Cary, a member of the English bourgeoisie, wanted to give her well-traveled great-uncle a present. So she set about translating the nearly 100 French texts that supplemented the maps in the world’s first modern atlas, published in 1570, writing her translations out in ...

Read how Zachary Curtis is geeking.

Geeking Out With...Zachary Curtis Brandeis combines the resources of a world-class research university with the personal attention of a liberal arts setting. The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences offers 17 doctoral programs and more than 40 master's and postbaccalaureate programs.

In case you missed it, Sixth-year English PhD student Nayoung Kim was the first Brandeis Graduate School of Arts and Sciences student to complete a non-traditional dissertation. Read more here.

The Personal is Analytical: Nayoung Kim Breaks New Dissertation Ground With Website Brandeis combines the resources of a world-class research university with the personal attention of a liberal arts setting. The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences offers 17 doctoral programs and more than 40 master's and postbaccalaureate programs.

Don't forget! Join us on campus today for our annual Scifest.

In case you missed it, read how Brandeis students in the Advocacy for Policy Change course are making a difference by learning how to lobby to pass bills at the Massachusetts State House.

Lobbying for change: Brandeis students take action in advocacy course Each spring, Brandeis students vie for a spot in Advocacy for Policy Change, a course that gives them the opportunity to lobby for the passage of a bill at the Massachusetts State House. 

Did you hear? Brandeis Journalism students were in the field reporting stories from the Brookline Village community.

Journalism students partner with alumnus to produce in-depth local reporting On Thursday evenings throughout the spring 2024 semester, a group of Brandeis University students piled into a van, battled evening rush hour along Route 9, and then fanned out in Brookline Village to cover the community. They put their classroom learning into practice while also helping to reimagin...

In case you missed it, Professor Christensen draws comparisons of ancient and modern Olympics.

Lessons from the Ancient Olympics

Did you hear? Fiona Stewart ’25, a rising senior is in laser-focus testing the genetic machinery inside E. coli.

Did you hear? The Rose Art Museum is opening the Hugh Hayden: Home Work exhibition on September 25, 2024.

Fall Rose Art Museum Opening Celebration
Wednesday, Sep. 25, 2024, 6 – 8 p.m.
Register now: https://bit.ly/HughHayden

The Pop art revolution of the 1960s was a radical break from art world norms. Pop artists felt that the art exhibited in museums or taught at schools did not represent the real world. Roy Lichtenstein once mused, “Pop art looks out into the world. It doesn’t look like a painting of something, it looks like the thing itself.”

In this virtual talk, Dr. Gannit Ankori, Henry and Lois Foster Director and Chief Curator, along with Ella Amouyal, Fisher Summer Intern in American Art, will provide a sneak peek of the upcoming exhibition, Lichtenstein100, and trace the links between the development of Pop art and the Rose Art Museum’s pioneering acquisitions of the early 1960s.

August 14, 2024, 7 p.m.
Register today!

The Birth of Pop and the Rose In this virtual talk, Dr. Gannit Ankori, Henry and Lois Foster Director and Chief Curator, along with Ella Amouyal, Fisher Summer Intern in American Art, will provide a sneak peek of the upcoming exhibition, "Lichtenstein100," and trace the links between the development of Pop art and the Rose Art M...

Planning to be in the metro Boston area this August 8th? Stop by campus to see the research our students are doing.

SciFest XIII
Thursday, Aug. 8, 2024, 1 – 3 p.m.

Do you have children (or grandkids) between the ages of 5 and 10 and looking for some outdoor fun, stop by the Drake playground and join the Rose Art Museum and Waltham Public Library for Storytime in the Park. Participants will explore art and science as they read stories about nature and make vivid blue cyanotype prints using plant cuttings and sunlight.

August 6, 2024, 12 p.m.
Drake Playground, Waltham MA

Create Date: Botanical Prints Join the Rose Art Museum and Waltham Public Library for Storytime in the Park at Drake Playground. Participants will explore art and science as they read stories about nature and make vivid blue cyanotype prints using plant cuttings and sunlight.

While some of us are checking the weather for relief from the extreme temperatures this summer, one student is studying how fruit flies sense temperature.

Highlighting just some of the research being done on campus this summer, such as that of Ava Towle '26, who is studying how fruit flies sense temperature by looking at special proteins called G-Protein Coupled Receptors in a lab at the Shapiro Science Center.

This photo is a part of our “Scene at Brandeis” series, a recurring feature highlighting the work of Brandeis staff photographers.

📸: Gaelen Morse/Staff photographer

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Image description: A diptych photo where the left image is that of biology student Ava Towle ’26 looking into a microscope at a lab in the Shapiro Science Center. The right image has a blue hue and we see macro shots of fruit flies.
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Do you remember the popular video game Lunar Landing? Did you know our very own Professor Jim Storer was the creator? Read the interview about the discovery of a bug in the 55-year-old game.

55-year-old bug found in 'Lunar Landing,' the most popular video game from the 70's An ancient text-based video game, Lunar Landing, has finally been found to have a bug after almost six decades.

Is it possible to achieve cooperation among the three major civilizations in the Middle East? Professor Nader Habibi gives his perspective on how Arabs, Turks, and Iranians can manage their rivalries and move toward political and economic cooperation.

Arabs, Turks, Iranians: Prospects for Cooperation and Prevention of Conflict - Nader Habibi - Panorama This research deals with the potential for cooperation and reducing hostilities in the Middle East. While most people think about the Arab-Israeli conflict when they hear about conflicts in the Middle East, there are also many tensions and risks of conflict between other countries in the region that...