Alumni

Deborah Rose, M.P.H. ’77, Ph.D. ’89, has been selected by the Association of Yale Alumni (AYA) to receive the Yale Medal, the highest award presented by the AYA and conferred in recognition of outstanding service to the university. Since its inception in 1952, the Yale Medal has been presented to 257 individuals, all of whom not only showed extraordinary devotion to the ideals of the university, but also demonstrated their support of Yale through extensive and exemplary voluntary service on behalf of Yale as a whole or one of its many schools, institutes or programs. Rose has served her class as secretary, class council member and reunion chair. Her dedication extends beyond her class to many areas of the university and the surrounding community, including the Sterling Memorial Library, Jonathan Edwards College and the new Rose Center that houses both the Yale Police Department and the Dixwell Community Center. She initiated computerization of the branch libraries of the New Haven Free Public Library. A longtime supporter of Yale’s initiatives to help revitalize the city of New Haven, Rose has worked since her earliest days at Yale with community outreach programs through Dwight Hall, the Yale-affiliated student-run public service organization.

Robert E. Steele, M.P.H. ’71, Ph.D. ’75, president of the Association of Yale Alumni in Public Health (AYAPH), has received the 2006 Nathan Hale Award for his efforts in establishing a Nathan Hale Scholarship in 2006, which is being named the Association of Yale Alumni in Public Health Board Scholarship. The scholarship will be awarded to a student in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health (EPH). Steele has made fundraising one of the top priorities of the AYAPH board. During his presidency Steele has ensured that the EPH Alumni Fund reaches its goal by writing letters, calling alumni, negotiating with major donors and contributing his own funds.

Christiane Nockels Fabbri, PA-C ’84, received a doctorate in history from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in May 2006. Her dissertation, a survey of medieval and early modern treatises on the plague, analyzes continuity and change in plague medicine from 1348 to 1599. Fabbri was associate director of the Yale Physician Associate Program from 1991 to 2000, and was voted Distinguished Alumna in 2004. She currently practices family medicine in West Haven, Conn., and continues her research on early modern health care. She and her husband, Remo Fabbri Jr., M.D. ’64, look forward to hearing from any alumni visitors when in town.

Justin O. Schechter, M.D., HS ’85, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry, has been appointed by Gov. M. Jodi Rell to serve on the Psychiatric Security Review Board (PSRB) in the state of Connecticut. The PSRB is a state agency to which the Superior Court commits persons who are found not guilty of a crime by reason of mental disease or mental defect. The PSRB reviews the status of acquittees through an administrative hearing process and orders the level of supervision and treatment for the acquittee considered necessary to protect the public. Schechter, who has a special interest in forensic psychiatry, has also been appointed an associate fellow of Silliman College.

Joanne N. Quinones, M.D. ’98, Bryon P. Wenrich, PA ’98, and big sister Elena Sofia proudly announce the arrival of William Carlos Wenrich-Quinones, born December 29, 2005. Quinones is an attending physician in maternal-fetal medicine at Lehigh Valley Hospital in Allentown, Pa., and Wenrich is a cardiothoracic surgery physician assistant at Lankenau Hospital in Wynnewood, Pa. Yale classmates can reach the Wenrich-Quinones clan at jqwenrich@yahoo.com.

Alejandro J. Necochea, M.D. ’04, was married on July 1 to Lauren B. Smith, M.P.A., in Philadelphia. Necochea is a third-year resident in internal medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Smith is a policy analyst fellow with joint appointments at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in Princeton, N.J., and the Center for Health and Wellbeing at Princeton University. The two met in Lima, Peru, Necochea’s hometown, when he was on leave from medical school to study tuberculosis in shantytowns and she was there on a Fulbright scholarship, studying microfinance, the provision of small loans to women entrepreneurs.