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Honored
November/December 2012
Computer science and mathematics
professor Daniel Spielman ’92 won a MacArthur Fellowship this year. Spielman
does theoretical research aimed at developing “error-correcting codes” to aid
in the transmission of digital data. Spielman was one of 23 winners of the 2012 fellowships, which provide $500,000
over five years to people “who show exceptional creativity in their work.”
The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
conferred the Wilbur Lucius Cross Medal on four alumni on October 11: ecologist John Aber ’71, ’73MFS, ’76PhD, provost and vice president of the University of
New Hampshire; historian Alfred McCoy ’77PhD of the University of Wisconsin;
biologist and DNA-sequencing entrepreneur Jonathan Rothberg ’91PhD; and
linguist Sarah Grey Thomason ’68PhD of the University of Michigan.

Remembered
Phil Moriarty, the Yale swimming and
diving coach who coached athletes to collegiate championships and Olympic
medals, died on August 18. He was 98. He began coaching in 1939, and by his retirement
in 1976 had coached his teams to 11 Eastern Intercollegiate Swim League championships
and a 195–25 dual-meet record. John Lapides ’72, former president of the Yale
Swimming Association, told the Yale
Daily News that Moriarty was a
source of guidance both inside and outside the pool.
Richard Warren ’59, curator of Yale’s
Historical Sound Recordings Collection for 42 years, died on October 7, at the
age of 75, after a stroke. Warren compiled the definitive discography of the
works of composer Charles Ives, Class of 1898, and he worked on the reissue of
historic recordings, including some of composer Cole Porter ’13.  |