by Blaine Friedlander, Cornell Chronicle

Cory Doctorow, a best-selling writer and technology blogger-activist, filmmaker Louis Massiah ’77 and award-winning journalist and social activist P. (Palagummi) Sainath have been appointed as Cornell’s A.D. White Professors-at-Large, each for a six-year term ending in 2030.

“The A.D. White Professors-at-Large program is an opportunity for students, faculty and the community to connect with the world’s greatest scholars and artists,” said Robert S. Weiss, professor of molecular genetics in the College of Veterinary Medicine and senior associate dean at the Graduate School. He serves as chair of the A.D. White Professors-at-Large program committee.

“We break down and explore categories like the physical, life and social sciences, arts and humanities with the most-distinguished people in their field as they bring remarkable perspectives to the Cornell campus,” Weiss said.

In addition to the new professors, two current A.D. White Professors will visit campus this fall semester. Robert N. Stavins, M.S. ’80, the A.J. Meyer Professor of Energy and Economic Development at Harvard University’s Kennedy School, will visit Oct. 28-31. Michel Devoret, professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara and chief scientist at Google Quantum AI, will be on campus Nov. 18-22. Their schedules are still being finalized.

White noted the potential for isolation in rural upstate New York,” Weiss said, “the way these distinguished scholars who spend time on campus interact directly with our community today is a powerful, unique and special thing.”

Doctorow, an internationally known fiction writer and technology blogger, is a recognized voice and activist in digital media.

Doctorow’s recent books include “The Bezzle” (2024), a thriller about privatized prison inmates. That follows his “Red Team Blues” (2023), a fictional account of cryptocurrency trickery, and “The Lost Cause,” (2023), a science fiction novel set during a climate emergency.

His nonfiction “The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation” (2023), won the 2024 Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity.

Doctorow holds honorary doctorate degrees from York University (Canada) and Open University (U.K.), where he is a visiting professor. He is a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab research affiliate and a visiting professor of practice at the University of North Carolina’s School of Library and Information Science.

Raymond Craib, the Marie Underhill Noll Professor of History in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S), will serve as Doctorow’s faculty host. Suman Seth, the Marie Underhill Noll Professor of History of Science and chair of the Department of Science and Technology Studies (A&S) will serve as faculty co-host.

Massiah’s breadth of knowledge and film work aim to promote a just society through powerful films.

Winner of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (popularly known as a “genius award”), Massiah is founding director of Scribe Video Center in Philadelphia, a hub for artistic expression. The group is dedicated to empowering underrepresented and emerging filmmakers – and urging them into action as catalysts for social change.

Massiah produced “The Taking of One Liberty Place,” which showed how homeless citizens in 1987 brought a developer to the negotiating table. His award-winning documentaries, “The Bombing of Osage Avenue“ (1986) and “W.E.B. Du Bois – A Biography in in Four Voices” (1996), along with two films for the “Eyes on the Prize II” series (1987), and “A is for Anarchist, B is for Brown” (2002), have been broadcast on PBS and screened at festivals and museums.

In addition to his bachelor’s degree from Cornell, he earned a master’s in visual studies from MIT in 1982.

Mendi Obadike, professor in Performing and Media Arts (A&S) will serve as Massiah’s faculty host. Keith Obadike, professor of art in the College of Architecture, Art and Planning will serve as faculty co-host.

Sainath has devoted his career to justice, equity and inclusion. Based in Mumbai, India, he is the founder and editor of the People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI), an independent multimedia digital platform that brings the stories of rural people and everyday life to bear on contemporary Indian politics.

Sainath’s prize-winning best-seller, “Everybody Loves a Good Drought” (1996), explores rural lives in India. It became Penguin publishing classic in 2012.

As an investigative reporter, teacher and advocate for rural issues, Sainath has won more than 60 national and international reporting awards and fellowships, including the Fukuoka Grand Prize (2021), World Media Summit award (2014), and Amnesty International’s Inaugural Global Human Rights Reporting Prize (2000).

Sainath has taught journalism at the Sophia Polytechnic in Mumbai for more than 20 years, and has held appointments at the University of California, Berkeley, and Princeton University. Sainath received a B.A. from Loyola College in Madras (1977) and an M.A. from Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi (1979).

Sarah Besky, professor of anthropology of work in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations, will serve as Sainath’s faculty host. Neema Kudva, senior associate dean for academic affairs and professor of city and regional planning (AAP) will serve as faculty co-host.

The professorship – named for Andrew Dickson White, the first president of Cornell – started in 1965 during the university’s centennial celebration. Cornell faculty recommended a plan to revive White’s idea to present students with nonresident professors who have achieved international distinction in science, the professions, public affairs, literature and the creative arts.

Among the first A.D. White Professors-at-Large was anthropologist Louis S.B. Leakey, who traced the origin of humanity. Other past professors-at-large include astronaut Mae Jemison, M.D. ‘81; musician Wynton Marsalis; writer Eudora Welty; astrophysicist Kip Thorn; physician Oliver Sacks; Pulitzer Prize winner Toni Morrison, M.A. ‘55; Nobel laureate and geneticist Barbara McClintock, B.S. 1923, M.A. 1925, Ph.D. 1927; and writer and actor John Cleese.

Full story published in the Cornell Chronicle (September 4, 2024)