A study co-written by Thayer School of Engineering professor Richard Greenwald was used as evidence in New York City's recent decision to disallow the use of metal bats at high school baseball games. The ban, which the City Council passed last month over a veto by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, was supported by those claiming that the higher swing speeds and increased flexibility of metal bats result in dangerous ball trajectories. Although his 2002 study did show that the metal bats performed better and resulted in faster moving balls, Greenwald told the Washington Post that more research on the issue is needed to prove that the bats pose a safety risk. Greenwald currently also serves as the executive director of the National Institute for Sports Science and Safety.
Dr. Stephen P. Spielberg was reappointed as Dean of Dartmouth Medical School for a second four-year term of duty, which begins on July 1st. College President James Wright made the decision after a review process by faculty, administrators and students. Since joining DMS in 2003, Spielberg has played a role in such successful initiatives as reaching out to the Veterans Association Hospital for collaboration in research and teaching, creating an online assessment of medical students throughout the clinical clerkships and advocating the needs of ill children in clinical trials. He is credited with starting a number of interdisciplinary programs involving the Tuck School of Business and the Thayer School of Engineering and has worked on the Global Health Initiative. Spielberg, a pharmacologist and pediatrician, graduated from Princeton University in 1966 and received his PhD and MD from the University of Chicago in 1971 and 1973 respectively.
Ebba Koch presented her lecture "The Complete Taj Mahal" to a crowded room of students, professors and community members as part of the Rudelson Lecture Series Tuesday afternoon. Koch, a professor at the Institute of Art History in Vienna, Austria, is the world's leading expert of the Taj Mahal and Mughal art and architecture. Her lecture featured a slideshow, which highlighted her more than 20 years of research in India studying the Taj Mahal and its architect, Shah Jehan. Some of Koch's major accomplishments include the reconstruction of the Taj Mahal's entire complex and the collaboration of the first complete documentation of the Taj Mahal. The Rudelson family endowed this lecture series to annually bring one of the world's leading experts in Asian or Middle Eastern art history or visual arts to Dartmouth in 1983.
