University at Buffalo - The State University of New York

Giovino named chair of health behavior

Professor Gary A. Giovino, a specialist in the patterns, determinates, consequences and control of tobacco use, has been named chair of the Department of Health Behavior, School of Public Health and Health Professions.

He has served as interim chair since 2007.

Giovino has extensive experience in cancer research, prevention and public health. Early in his career he was a researcher at Roswell Park Cancer Institute’s then Department of Cancer Control and Epidemiology. He also spent three years at the University of Rochester as a research associate in its smoking research program.

In 1988 he was hired as an epidemiologist in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Office of Smoking and Health, where he spent 10 years, rising to the position of senior epidemiologist in the agency’s Epidemiology Branch.

Giovino left the CDC in 1999 and returned to Roswell Park to take a position as senior research scientist in the institute’s Department of Cancer Prevention, Epidemiology and Biostatistics. He became director of Roswell’s Tobacco Control Research Program in 2001 and held that position until coming to UB.

Quindlen to speak

Anna Quindlen, Newsweek columnist, social critic and author, will speak at 8 p.m. March 4 in the Center for the Arts, North Campus, as part of UB’s Distinguished Speakers Series.

Quindlen’s Newsweek column, “The Last Word,” is read by millions who value her perspective on events of the day and issues of family, work, education and social justice. A journalist since 1974, she wrote an op-ed column, “Public and Private,” for The New York Times in the early 1990s that earned her a Pulitzer Prize for commentary.

Quindlen is the author of five best-selling novels, including “Black and Blue,” which was featured by Oprah’s Book Club and made into a TV movie, and “One True Thing,” which was made into a feature film starring Meryl Streep, Renee Zellweger and William Hurt. “Rise and Shine” debuted on The New York Times bestsellers list at No. 1.

Tickets are available at the Center for the Arts ticket office and at all ticketmaster locations, including Ticketmaster.com. Discount vouchers are available to members of United University Professions and TIAA-CREF.

Arditti quartet to return to UB

The renowned Arditti String Quartet will return to UB later this month as part of a residency supported by the Robert G. and Carol L. Morris Center for 21st Century Music and the Birge-Cary Chair in Composition in the Department of Music.

The quartet will perform work for contemporary string quartets composed between 1995 and 2008 on Feb. 27 as part of the Slee/Visiting Artist Series. The concert will begin at 8 p.m. in Lippes Concert Hall in Slee Hall, North Campus, with a preconcert talk set for 7:15 p.m. with four of the composers—Brian Ferneyhough, Hilda Paredes, David Felder and James Clarke—whose works the quartet will perform.

As part of the residency, the Arditti quartet also will hold a composer workshop, which will be free and open to the public, at 11 a.m. Feb. 26 in Lippes Concert Hall.

Advance tickets for the Feb. 27 concert are $12 for general admission; $9 for UB faculty and staff and senior citizens; and $5 for students.

Exhibitions to open in UB Art Gallery

Two solo exhibitions, “Ani Hoover: Up Down Around” and “Saya Woolfalk: No Place,” will open on Feb. 26 in the UB Art Gallery in the Center for the Arts with a reception from 5-7 p.m.

Buffalo-based artist Ani Hoover’s lyrical repetition of circles in varying sizes and palettes in her abstract paintings produces fleeting impressions as lustrous pop colors buoyantly dance across the surface, bumping against or overlaid by circles that appear time-worn, reminiscent of urban decay or geological processes.

In this exhibition in the Lightwell Gallery, Hoover will create a series of vertical paintings on 30-foot rolls of synthetic plastic paper called Yupo. The paintings, based on natural cycles of varying lengths that can be interpreted as a day, a year or perhaps a millennium, will unfurl dramatically from ceiling to floor.

New York-based artist Saya Woolfalk is in residence at the UB Art Gallery this semester, working with students in the Department of Theatre and Dance on an installment of her ongoing investigations into “No Place,” a Technicolor society of lush abundance depicted in video, sculptural installations and performance.

During the exhibition run, the gallery will be transformed into a staging area. The public can watch dress rehearsals at scheduled times, and there will be a section of the gallery devoted to the fabrication of props that will be presented on shelves as if they were archeological relics. These objects will be used in the final performance on April 15.

Great Lakes subject of Climate Talks series

“Our Great Lakes, Our Changing Climate” will be the topic of the first session in the spring UB Green Climate Talks, a campus dialogue on important environmental issues presented by the UB Green office.

The session, to be held at 7 p.m. Feb. 19 in the Allen Hall Theater, South Campus, will feature Kerri Bentkowski of the Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper, Jennifer Nalbone of Great Lakes United and Lois New of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Lynda Schneekloth, professor in the School of Architecture and Planning, will serve as moderator.

For more information, contact Jim Simon at 829-3535.