TRAN SLA TOR BECAME EXPERT ON SUBJECT

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30760, 26 May 1965, Page 2

TRAN SLA TOR BECAME EXPERT ON SUBJECT

More by chance than design Mrs Kirsti Hille became well informed on the effects and problems connected with alcohol. She undertook translations for the quarterly journal of Central Alcohol Studies, Rutgers University (New Jersey), and she could not help picking up a great deal of knowledge on the subject, as she worked.

“1 understand it very much better now,” said Mrs Hille in Christchurch this week. In fact it has become quite an interest of her own. Norwegian born, and conversant with all the Scandinavian languages, as well as French, German and English, Mrs Hille does translations and resumes (“abstracts”) of scientific papers and studies by members of medical and biological professions, for the Journal. This was a central clearing house for information on the subject, Mrs Hille

explained. Topics include the effects of alcohol on rats and cats, studying problems which deal directly on alcoholism, and effects of drugs used in its treatment

Can Be Followed Her translation work is ideally suited to her life, in which there is a great deal of travelling. “It can folow me around,” she said.

She and her husband, Professor E. Hille, a retired

mathmetician, have arrived for a two-week visit to New Zealand, after spending four months in Canberra, where Professor Hille lectured at the National University. “There seems to be a worldwide shortage of mathmeticiians, so although my husband

is retired, he is often invited to lecture at universities,” his wife said. Next week Professor Hille will lecture at the University of Canterbury. The couple have travelled a great deal over the years, and until their two sons grew up, they accompanied their parents, and went to school in a number of different countries. One is a biologist, and the other a linguist. Although she has lived mainly in the United States since her marriage, Mrs Hille has had frequent opportunities to revisit her native land during trips to various parts of the world.

One favourite hobby Mrs

Hille cannot pursue while she is travelling, is her weaving. “At home (in New Haven, Connecticut), I have a loom —it can’t travel with me, and I sometimes feel lonely without it,” she added, though she loves travelling. She likes to make up her own designs for the cushion covers, curtains, and other fabrics that she weaves. “I am very much an experimenter—but I get a great deal of fun out of it I’m a firm believer in occasional escapes from reality, she said, laughing as she described one of her latest experiments—transposing modern paintings into woven fabrics.