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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEContact: Justin Harmon 609/258-5732
Date: December 15, 1997Princeton to Honor Alumni at Annual Gathering
PRINCETON, N.J. -- Two alumni will receive special honors at Princeton Universityís Alumni Day on February 21, 1998: biologist Eric Lander, Class of 1978, and pianist Charles Rosen, a member of the Class of 1948 who also holds a 1951 Princeton PhD.
Lander will receive the Woodrow Wilson Award, given to an undergraduate alumnus or alumna distinguished "in the nationís service." He is director of the Whitehead Institute/MIT Center for Genome Research, which is supported by the National Center for Human Genome Research. His group has produced the first genetic maps of the human and mouse genomes.
A mathematics major at Princeton, Lander was a Pyne Prize winner, Rhodes Scholar and class valedictorian. After earning his PhD at Oxford University, he joined the faculty at Harvard Business School. Applying his interest in mathematics to the life sciences, he taught himself biology and molecular biology, and won a 1987 MacArthur Fellowship.
Rosen will be awarded the James Madison Medal, recognizing an alumnus or alumna of the graduate school "who has had a distinguished career, advanced the cause of graduate education or achieved a record of outstanding public service."
Professor of Music and Social Thought at the University of Chicago, Rosen is known particularly for his interpretations of Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann and Liszt. At Princeton, he majored in Modern Languages and Literatures, the field in which he earned his PhD.
Both award winners will give public presentations on Alumni Day in Richardson Auditorium, Alexander Hall. At 10:30 a.m., Lander will speak on "Human Genetics and Human Society: What Does the 21st Century Hold?" At 4:15 p.m., Rosen will give a recital, the program to include Mozartís Minuet in D, Gigue in A Minor and Rondo in A Minor, and "Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Handel" by Brahms.
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