Mara Keisling, NCTE’s Executive Director, has been named the “Person of the Year” by the Harvard University Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, and Supporters Alliance hcs.harvard.edu/queer). Along with the annual award comes the invitation to present the Papadopoulos Lecture at Harvard, which she will give on May 9. Past winners include Colonel Margarethe Cammermeyer and California State Senator Sheila Kuehl.

Mara also spoke last month at a rally celebrating changes at Harvard University to include gender identity to their non-discrimination policies. The cake in the photo was part of those celebrations. Mara is no stranger to the Harvard campus, having done her graduate work in American Government at the school.

The Papadopoulos Lectures are named for Nicholas Papadopoulos, who received both his Masters degree and his Ph.D. degrees in engineering from Harvard University. Paul McLoughlin, Assistant Dean of Harvard College, says, “Nick was a top student during his tenure here who completed his thesis on multiperson organization—or the theory that people collect different information when making decisions and to optimize decisions in a team, one should capitalize on multiple perspectives . . .. We should learn from his work that we can accomplish more as a community when we listen to each other and incorporate multiple perspectives in the work that we do and the life that we live.” After Nick’s death from complications of AIDS in 1994, his mother created a fund in his name at Harvard to support lectures about gay and lesbian studies or of interest to the gay and lesbian communities at the school.

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