Mathew Rosenblum, chair of the Department of Music in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, is just back from hearing his most personal composition to date performed for an international audience. His clarinet concerto “Lament/Witches’ Sabbath” is a collaboration with American clarinetist David Krakauer, a high school friend of Rosenblum’s from New York City. The Polish National Radio Symphony recently performed the piece in Warsaw and again in Katowice, and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project presented the work at New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall.

The composition tells the story of Rosenblum’s grandmother, Bella Liss, whose family fled Proskurov, Ukraine, in 1919 during that town’s massacre. Every Passover, in the family’s crowded Bronx apartment, Bella would gather Rosenblum and her other grandchildren to relate how she and her six children fled out the back door and got onto a hay cart to make their escape. Before they left, Bella tied the family’s sterling silverware to her legs, underneath her long skirts. As she fled, she stopped in the woods to give birth to Rosenblum’s mother. Eventually, they crossed the border and ended up in Vienna, where Bella sold the silver for tickets to Palestine, where she and her family lived for four years. Sometimes Bella wailed and cried while telling the tale, making it a passionate lament.

The work combines actual recorded Ukrainian and Jewish laments, Bella’s own voice, Krakauer’s clarinet and a strong allusion to Hector Berlioz’ “Symphonie Fantastique,” all in Rosenblum’s microtonal musical language.

“Through the mining of diverse musical and cultural sources … and addressing the universal and timely themes of migration, loss and cultural transformation, the work speaks to diverse audiences, both in the U.S. and internationally,” said Rosenblum.

Hear Rosenblum explain a portion of the composition in a Music at Pitt podcast.

Jeanne Marie Laskas, Distinguished Professor of English in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences and founding director of Pitt’s Center for Creativity, published an essay in The New York Times Magazine on her friendship with Fred Rogers.

Laskas first met Rogers after finishing graduate school and remained friends with him until his death in 2003.

“Fred Rogers’ philosophy guided me to teach in the way that I do now. He gave me the confidence to become a writer,” said Laskas, a New York Times best-selling author of eight books.

During Pitt’s Year of Creativity, Laskas said we can all learn a lot from Fred Rogers. “Fred believed that the creative process was a fundamental function at the core of every human being,” Laskas wrote in her essay.

Her essay appeared in The New York Times Magazine, on shelves Nov. 24. In addition to serving as a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, Laskas is also a correspondent at GQ. Her bylines have also appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic and Esquire.

Catherine Palmer, associate professor in the Department of Communication Science and Disorders at Pitt, has been approved for a $2.23 million funding award by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to study hearing aids’ role in participation in senior communities.

Through this three-year award, Palmer and her team in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences (SHRS) will find out if people are more satisfied with their social participation when more hearing support is available, and if people with hearing loss find their quality of life improves when they have access to hearing help more frequently.

Palmer’s study was selected for PCORI funding through a highly competitive review process in which patients, clinicians and other stakeholders joined clinical scientists to evaluate the proposals. Applications were assessed for scientific merit, how well they will engage patients and other stakeholders and their methodological rigor among other criteria.

Palmer is also director of the SHRS Audiology Program, director of the Center for Audiology and Hearing Aids at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and the current president of the American Academy of Audiology. Other Pitt researchers who will work with Palmer in this study include audiology associate professor Elaine Mormer, occupational therapy associate professor Natalie Leland and physical therapy professor Charity Patterson.

The University of Pittsburgh and UPMC have been selected to create the National Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Family Support. 

Through a $4.3 million grant from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR), the center will serve as a national hub that leverages state-of-the-art research to improve the care, health and quality of life of all persons with disabilities and the families who support them.

The center, which builds upon 30-plus years of Pitt’s efforts in support of caregiving, is directed by Heidi Donovan, professor in the School of Nursing’s Department of Health and Community Systems; Scott Beach, interim director and director of survey research of the University Center for Social and Urban Research; and Bambang Parmanto, professor and chair of Pitt’s Department of Health Information Management in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences.

“The need nationwide for this center is huge. Despite the important role that caregivers provide to our health system, there are still gaps in knowledge in the field of family caregiving,” said Gabriela Prudencio, Hunt Research Director at the National Alliance for Caregiving. “Pitt and UPMC bring over 30 years of extensive research experience in this field and have been leveraging key relationships to translate research into programs and policies.”

The University of Pittsburgh has been named an honoree for the Healthiest Employers Awards.

Since 2009, the Healthiest Employers Awards aim to recognize leaders in corporate wellness across the U.S. The Healthiest Employers company researches over 8,000 employers nationally to assemble trends, challenges and practices to enhance corporate wellness programs. Employers are assessed on their health and wellness programs using six fundamental areas of health programming:

• Culture and leadership commitment
• Foundational components
• Strategic planning
• Communication and marketing
• Programming and interventions
• Reporting and analytics

Assistant Vice Chancellor of University Benefits John Kozar is helping develop Pitt’s health and wellness program for faculty, staff and students. “This honor helps create an awareness of the University’s wellness efforts. It also further supports our designation as a Live Well Allegheny Workplace by the Allegheny County Health Department,” said Kozar.

Vice Chancellor of Human Resources Dave DeJong agrees. “Pitt is dedicated to bringing the best health and wellness services and resources to its faculty, staff and students. As a healthy employer, we are paving the way for other higher education organizations to follow our lead and support their employees in health,” said DeJong.

The University of Pittsburgh was recognized for its dedication and commitment to employee health and wellness as a large employer in the Western Pennsylvania region. One such example is the Wellness for Life program for faculty and staff, which focuses on proactive health management, positive lifestyle choices and physical activity. Pitt employees can visit the on-campus UPMC MyHealth@Work Health and Wellness Center to treat a variety of health issues, partner with a health coach to make healthy lifestyle changes and get in shape and explore Life Solutions services to help balance work and the stresses of daily life.

Lisa Bodnar, professor in Pitt Public Health's Department of Epidemiology, has been named a full member on the National Academy of Medicine's “Committee on Scoping Existing Guidelines for Feeding Recommendations for Infants and Young Children Under Age 2.”

The committee will review existing documents and resources about what to feed and how to feed infants and children from birth up to two years of age, and assess descriptions of best practices for implementation strategies to support communication and dissemination of feeding guidance. They'll then inform stakeholders about the feasibility of consolidating feeding guidelines and/or harmonizing guidance for feeding infants and children up to two years of age, and will make recommendations about communication strategies.

Bodnar’s research focuses on discovering the healthiest weight and dietary patterns for pregnant women and their children. 

Andrea Hergenroeder, associate professor in Pitt’s Department of Physical Therapy, is this year's recipient of the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences Dean’s Distinguished Teaching Award. 

Hergenroeder was selected for creating life-long learning habits in the classroom, using creative and cutting-edge teaching methods and technologies, and developing experiential learning activities that support students through all stages of learning.

Her research interests include physical activity and its role in the prevention and treatment of chronic disease, health promotion in physical therapy practice and measurement of vital signs and clinical responses to exercise among others.

Graduate student Timothy Grebeck began educating those around him about what it was like to have an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) when he was in the seventh grade at a regional school. Diagnosed with ASD at age nine but tired of being bullied, he says he chose as a young teen to devote his life to make sure others like him didn’t suffer the same way. Grebeck (EDUC ’19) is currently a graduate student at Pitt studying childhood and special education in the School of Education and the founder of the advocacy group Talking 4 Autism. Recently he was presented with the 2019 Dick Thornburgh Forum Disability Service Award, at a ceremony in the William Pitt Union Lower Lounge. It’s an annual honor from the Dick Thornburgh Forum on Law & Public Policy.

“Changing the world for the better starts with changing the viewpoint of just one person,” said Ginny Thornburgh, as she handed Grebeck a check for $5,000 for his future work.

Through Talking 4 Autism, Grebeck provides intimate personal presentations about the world of autism to college students and faculty as well as corporate employees. “I expect and encourage people to ask things that are uncomfortable to talk about because that is how we all learn,” he said.

The award ceremony's keynote speaker was Ted Kennedy, Jr., chair of the board of the American Association of People with Disabilities. Listen to Kennedy’s keynote speech.

Lawrence R. John, a clinical instructor for the department of family medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine was recently sworn in as the 170th president of the Pennsylvania Medical Society.

The society is a physician-led organization representing all physicians and medical students throughout the state of Pennsylvania.

John also was elected by the society’s statewide House of Delegates in 2017 to serve one-year terms as vice president (2017-18) and president-elect (2018-19) before assuming the role of president for the 2019-20 term. He is also a family medicine physician affiliated with UPMC St. Margaret.