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NAMES AND FACES

ACCLAIM

Jorge A. Lazareff, associate professor of surgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine and director of pediatric neurosurgery at Mattel Children’s Hospital, was selected to hold the newly established Geri and Richard Brawerman Chair in Pediatric Neurosurgery. He will provide leadership in innovative biomedical and psychosocial research of brain metabolism and neurobiology, with the goal of successfully treating disorders of the developing central nervous system and protecting surrounding brain and spinal cord function.... Eva L. Baker, professor of educational psychology and social methods in the Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, has been voted president-elect of the 22,700-member American Educational Research Association. Her term will begin in 2006 after a year of service as president-elect. She is director of the Center for the Study of Evaluation and co-director of the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing.... Helene Brown, director of community applications for the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center and longtime advocate for cancer research and prevention, was honored at the first annual Minerva Awards. She was among four California women recognized for dedicating their lives to positive change and making a difference in the lives of Californians.... Ann R. Karagozian, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, has been elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society “for extensive contributions in the fluid mechanics of combustion systems, including the study of jets in crossflow, strained flames distorted by complex flows, acoustically driven reactive cavity flows and detonation phenomena.” ... Fernando Torres-Gil, associate dean and professor of social welfare and public policy in the School of Public Affairs, was honored April 22 with the Betty and James E. Birren Senior Scholar Award for lifetime achievement in the fields of geriatrics and gerontology. He is director of the school’s Center for Policy Research on Aging and is an expert in the fields of health and long-term care, the politics of aging, social policy, ethnicity and disability.

IN MEMORIAM

Vinton Dearing, 84, professor of English and a leading member of the team of scholars responsible for “The Works of John Dryden,” which established UCLA as a center for Dryden studies, died April 6 after a brief illness.

Dearing got involved int he massive Dryden project in 1949 as a junior member of the UCLA faculty. By the time the last volume was completed in 2002 when he was in his 80s, he was the project's editor-in-chief.

"The California Dryden" as it became known, is the most complete collection of Dryden's works in existence, said Alan Roper, one of about 18 scholars who contributed to the project over the years. It includes the full text of all Dryden's poems, plays and prose.

For the last years of the Dryden project, Dearing was the sole editor. He did fundraising as well as editing and writing commentary for the final four volumes.

Dearing was also a biblical scholar who taught "The Bible as Literature" at UCLA for about 40 years. He wrote several books on the subject, including "The Great Physician: The Life of Jesus Christ in light of Modern Spiritual Healing" (2003).

During his years on the faculty of UCLA, Dearing earned a Guggenheim and a Fulbright fellowship. He retired in 1991, became a professor emeritus and maintained an office on campus until his death.

Dearing is survived by his wife, Marion, a daughter, a son, and three grandchildren.

Milton H. Miller, professor emeritus of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the David Geffen School of Medicine, former chair of psychiatry at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and a longtime champion of mental health care for poor and minority communities, died April 20 following a long illness. He was 77.

At the time of his death, Miller served as deputy medical director for the County of Los Angeles Department of Mental Health, professor emeritus of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and chair of psychiatry at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.

"Dr. Miller had a lifelong vision that mental health services must be available for public patients and that these services need to be supported by the academic resources of the University," said Dr. Peter Whybrow, director of the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute and Judson Braun Professor and executive chair of psychiatry and biobehavorial sciences at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. "He worked tirelessly to ensure that patients with limited resources would have access to state-of-the-art treatment, and he urged clinicians working in such systems to take a personal responsibility in ensuring that this would occur."

Over his distinguished career, Miller trained thousands of psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and nurses from the United States and around the world. Many of his past students are current leaders in mental health administration and teaching.

Miller is survived by his wife, Harriet; his sons, Bruce and Jeffrey; his daughter, Marcie; and nine grandchildren.

James Q. Simmons III, who founded a groundbreaking inpatient program for severely mentally disturbed children and adolescents at NPI, died April 8 of cancer. He was 79.

Simmons established the institute's program in 1962, when child psychiatry was still a relatively new field, to provide comprehensive evaluation and treatment for children and teenagers whose mental disorders were severe enough to warrant hospitalization.

He also helped devise and promote more humane, state-of-the-art services for children who were diagnosed as mentally retarded or autistic and established one of the nation's first interdisciplinary training programs for professionals who worked with them.

He was a masterful clinician who participated with Dr. Ivar Lovaas in early, groundbreaking studies on new treatments for autism, a multifaceted developmental disability. The methods Simmons helped devise allowed more children with autism to live at home and attend school and eventually led to approaches that form what McCracken called the mainstay of behavioral treatment for autism today.

Simmons is survived by his wife of 50 years, Beverly; four children, Jeff, Lori, Lisa and Steven; and five grandchildren.