Marc Safran's Wife Plays Key Role in Murder Case Investigation

Marc Safran's wife, Dr. Mary Jumbelic, played a key role in cracking a murder case in Upstate New York. Accordiing to Syracuse.com: 

Dr. Robert Neulander and his wife, Leslie, took a fruit basket to an ill friend from Jewish temple in September 2012.  

Two days later, Leslie Neulander was dead. The story was a tragic slip and fall in the shower.  

That ill friend was former Onondaga County Medical Examiner Dr. Mary Jumbelic. She led the ME's office for 11 years before retiring in 2009. 

As it turned out, Jumbelic became the impetus for the investigation that ultimately led to Dr. Neulander's murder trial and conviction  Thursday.  

The death was initially ruled accidental by Jumbelic's replacement, Dr. Robert Stoppacher. But District Attorney William Fitzpatrick credited Jumbelic for getting the ball rolling again before he contacted nationally-renowned experts.

Free Performance by Princeton University Pianists Ensemble in NYC on May 3

The Princeton Alumni of the Arts is proud to present the Princeton University Pianists Ensemble in concert at Steinway Hall in New York on Sunday, May 3, at 7:30 pm. The address is 1155 Avenue of the Americas.  Admission is free, but seating is limited, so please sign here: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/1555844

Steven and Sharon Lieberman to be Honored by Yeshivat Chevevi Torah

Classmates Steven and Sharon Lieberman will be honored by Yeshivat Chovevei Torah on May 18 during the YCT Annual Tribute Dinner in New York. Steven Lieberman is the chairman of the YCT board of directors. the YCT website states,

Mr. Lieberman is a partner at the firm of Rothwell, Figg, Ernst & Manbeck in Washington, D.C.  He specializes in intellectual property and constitutional law and his current clients include The New York Times Company, Dow Jones, Fox, McGraw-Hill, NBC, CBS and Time Warner.  Mr. Lieberman has also devoted a substantial portion of his practice for the past 25 years to pro bono work on behalf of the Jewish community. Mr. Lieberman has served on the Board of YCT since its founding. 

Alex Silverman Pens Crossword Puzzle for the NY Times

Today's New York Times ran a crossword puzzle created by Alex Silverman. A Times "Wordplay" piece about the puzzle said in part,

Beatles songs are a lovely way to start the week. Alex Silverman appears to be making his debut in The New York Times today with a theme that reconfigures songs by the FAB FOUR as the favorites of people for whom the songs would be appropriate.

I was impressed that Mr. Silverman was able to stack these songs — we have two double stacks, an additional 15 stretching across the center and a shaded revealer at 32- and the end of 35-Across — although I also felt that it didn’t quite have that Monday smoothness that I appreciate in, say, a Lynn Lempel or Andrea Carla Michaels puzzle. (You see me looking at you, northeast, don’t you?) I had BIOME instead of BIOTA at first, neither of which felt like a Monday word. I wasn’t thrilled with L BAR crossing NBAER. I wish the grid didn’t begin with an abbreviation like SYST and end with NEUR and ERNS.

In a Facebook comment about the puzzle and Times's thinking about it, Silverman wrote, "The blog posters talk about this as being my 'debut' puzzle--which I suppose it is, but I have no idea what I would do as an encore.

Robert Klitzman Considers Airline Pilots as Medical Patients

Professor of clinical psychiatry Rober Klitzman wrote an essay for CNN on March 31 reflecting on the issues of reporting and confidentiality involving patients such as airline pilots. This piece, "What If My Patient is a Pilot?", reflected issues raised by the recent deliberate crash of a Germanwings jet by its co-pilot. Klitzman wrote,

The FAA requires that pilots self-report any diagnoses. But health care professionals have no obligation to notify anyone. They may know that a pilot has a medical problem that is poorly or not treated and may endanger passengers, but these providers have no obligation to do anything about it.

These issues are crucial, given that Andreas Lubitz deliberately crashed the Germanwings Flight 9525, killing 150 passengers. We still don't know why he committed suicide-murder, but the latest reports indicate he was treated for suicidal tendencies before getting his pilot license.

The Germanwings disaster has demonstrated that current standards of medical and psychiatric evaluation are inadequate. The FAA requires only that pilots fill out a psychological questionnaire, asking whether they have had psychological symptoms. But pilots are not assessed in person by a psychiatrist. Such face-to-face assessments can provide crucial information that self-report forms might miss, partly because pilots might answer inaccurately.

PAW Highlights Yadin Kaufmann's Middle East Investments

The April 1 issue of the Princeton Alumni Weekly featured Yadin Kaufmann in an article titled, "Yadin Kaufmann '80: Building High-Tech Bridges." The article discussed Kaumann's success in mentoring Palestinian entrepreneurs from the West Bank. The article states,

So last year he started the Palestinian Internship Program, which offers high-tech professionals the opportunity to polish their skills and expand their contacts by working for Israeli and multinational companies. The program — which started with eight interns, most of whom came from the West Bank — is the first to place Palestinians in internships with tech companies in Israel.

Kaufmann, a New Yorker who emigrated to Israel in 1985, worked for several years at Israel’s first venture-capital fund, Athena Venture Partners. He now runs Sadara Ventures, the first investment fund to focus on Palestinian technology companies, which he co-founded with a Palestinian partner, Saed Nashef. The firm is looking to cultivate “the WebMDs and the Booking.coms of the Mideast” and give Palestinian professionals the chance to build their businesses at home, rather than having to emigrate to tech sectors overseas, says Kaufmann, who lives near Tel Aviv with his wife, Lori Banov Kaufmann ’81.