People

Spotlight

Name: Tom Dommermuth.

Position: Project manager for PeopleSoft Human Resources Management System in the Office of Information Technology. Managing a staff of two people who do programming work for PeopleSoft. Helping to keep the system up-to-date with fixes, new features and changes suggested by users. Supporting people who use ReportNet, a new system for producing reports.

Quote: “I love the perks of being able to work at Princeton, especially the plays and the lectures here. There is so much to do and see on campus. And I’m secretary of the Princeton University Golf League, so I get to play a lot of golf.”

Other interests: Watching movies, especially science fiction and fantasy films. Reading about U.S. history.

People

Suraiya Baluch, a psychologist who most recently served as associate director of counseling services at Barnard College, has been appointed director of Princeton’s Sexual Harassment/Assault Advising, Resources and Education (SHARE) office.

The SHARE office, which is part of University Health Services, serves students, faculty and staff who have experienced verbal and physical sexual harassment, relationship violence, sexual assault or harassment based on sexual orientation.

At Barnard, the women’s college affiliated with Columbia University, Baluch joined the counseling center in September 1999 as a staff psychologist and was named associate director in February 2004. She also served as a clinical supervisor for Columbia and Barnard’s Rape Crisis/Anti-Violence Support Center and as an adviser to Columbia’s Sexual Violence Prevention and Response Program.

Before joining the Barnard staff, Baluch was a staff psychologist and coordinator of disability services at Pace University’s counseling center. She also was an instructor in Brooklyn College’s graduate program in guidance and counseling.

Baluch holds bachelor’s degrees in psychology and religion from Rutgers University, a master’s degree in psychological counseling from Columbia and a Ph.D. in counseling psychology from Fordham University.

Briefs

Princeton chemist Edward C. Taylor has been named a recipient of the 2006 Heroes of Chemistry award from the American Chemical Society for his contributions to the development of a groundbreaking cancer drug.

Taylor, the A. Barton Hepburn Professor of Organic Chemistry Emeritus, is one of 24 scientists to be honored as “chemical innovators whose work has led to the welfare and progress of humanity” over the past decade, according to the society. The Heroes of Chemistry awards were presented at the American Chemical Society’s national meeting Sept. 10 in San Francisco.

Taylor was cited for his role in the discovery of Alimta, a cancer drug developed by Eli Lilly and Co. Alimta, in combination with the drug cisplatin, is the only drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of malignant pleural mesothelioma, a deadly form of cancer that often is caused by asbestos exposure. Alimta does not cure mesothelioma, but has proven to extend patients’ lives and greatly reduce their pain.

In the 1980s, Taylor began a long-term collaboration with scientists at Lilly that resulted in several potential drugs. The compound that became Alimta was conceived and synthesized in Taylor’s lab in 1989. Lilly licensed rights to the drug from Princeton and conducted more than a decade of additional development and clinical trials before receiving FDA approval in 2004.

Alimta also has been approved as a second-line treatment for non-small-cell lung cancer, and research is under way to test the drug’s effectiveness in fighting other tumors, such as small-cell lung cancer and head and neck cancer.

Two Lilly researchers, Homer Pearce and Chuan Shih, also are among this year’s Heroes of Chemistry award winners. The awards program was established in 1996 by the American Chemical Society, which is the world’s largest scientific society.

Taylor joined the Princeton faculty in 1954 and transferred to emeritus status in 1997. He has written more than 450 scientific papers and a number of books, holds 52 U.S. patents and is co-editor of the series “The Chemistry of Heterocyclic Compounds.” He has won numerous awards and prizes, including the American Chemical Society Award for Creative Work in Synthetic Organic Chemistry, the International Award in Heterocyclic Chemistry, the Gowland Hopkins Medal, the Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award of the American Chemical Society and the Thomas Alva Edison Patent Award for Invention.

 

The Combustion Institute has awarded its 2006 Alfred Egerton Gold Medal to Chung K. (Ed) Law, Princeton’s Robert Goddard Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.

The award honors Law’s “distinguished, continuing and encouraging contributions to the field of combustion.” Law has conducted fundamental research on combustion for more than 30 years with major contributions to the science of how fuels burn and important advances in propulsion, energy and the environment.

Law has been a faculty member at Princeton since 1988. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2002 and served as president of the Combustion Institute, the major scientific society in his field, from 2000 to 2004. This year he also delivered the plenary lectures at the 50th Anniversary of the Japanese Combustion Society and at the Biennial International Combustion Symposium.