In Brief

• William J. Donelan, executive vice president and chief operating officer of the Duke University Health System and vice chancellor for health affairs, retired in September after a thirty-six-year career in which he helped guide the development of both the medical center and the health system.
• Erich Jarvis, an associate professor of neurobiology whose research focuses on the brain mechanisms of vocal learning in songbirds and humans, was among thirteen researchers nationwide named to receive a 2005 National Institutes of Health Director's Pioneer Award, which provides an unrestricted grant of $500,000 per year for five years. The award "encourages highly innovative approaches to biomedical research."
• Duke men's basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski has been named head coach of the U.S.A. men's basketball team for the 2008 Olympic Games in China.
• The Fuqua School of Business has signed an exchange agreement with Tsinghua University's School of Economics and Management in Beijing, China. Under the three-year agreement, up to three students from the M.B.A. program of SEM will take courses at the Fuqua School for one semester, and an equal number of Fuqua students will take M.B.A. courses at SEM for one semester.
• Nobel laureate Peter C. Agre, vice chancellor of science and technology, and James O. McNamara, chair of neurobiology, have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine.
• Kimberly J. Jenkins '76, a Duke trustee, has been appointed executive-in-residence for the Pratt School of Engineering's Master of Engineering Management program. Jenkins, who is the former president of the Internet Policy Institute, the founder, chairman, and president of nonprofit Highway 1, and the founder of Microsoft's education division, has served on a volunteer basis as a mentor to M.E.M. students and faculty members.
• The threat of nuclear and radiation-based "dirty-bomb" terrorist attacks has prompted the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to fund a $22.25-million radiologic anti-terrorism center at Duke Medical Center. The center's immediate tasks are creating a rapid and inexpensive screening test to gauge a person's exposure level and developing new drugs that treat radiation's most toxic effects.
• The Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center received $35 million from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in support of its programs in cancer research and patient care. The award is issued to top-tier cancer centers through the NCI's "Core" grant, a five-year funding mechanism that supports select cancer centers and their infrastructures.