Online Exclusives
Although Generation Z — kids born after 1996 — is in some ways just forming its identity, the group is already shaping our society, says Northwestern anthropologist Shalini Shankar. In her new book, Beeline: What Spelling Bees Reveal About Generation Z’s New Path to Success, Shankar interviews spelling bee participants and their parents to understand what insights the competition can offer into the characteristics of Gen Z.
When he was 13, Balu Natarajan ’92, ’96 MD, ’99 GME became the first child of South Asian immigrants to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee by correctly spelling the word “milieu.” “When I was competing, I had no idea that I was representing a community,” Natarajan says. “I quickly learned that the victory was embraced by the Indian community in particular.
The number of people crossing the border is at an all-time high, and the U.S. needs these policies to curb the flow of migrants crossing the southern border.
Marla Paul, the blogger behind the Instagram feed @rebellewithmarla, photographs street fashion in Chicago. She scouts the sidewalks for distinctively stylish humans or critters, then shares their outfits and personal fashion stories.
Alzheimer’s disease is most commonly diagnosed in people over age 65. That, says molecular biosciences professor Richard Morimoto, offers a critical clue to understanding Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases.
If you drove around Kabul, Afghanistan, in 2012, you couldn’t miss the billboards promoting Kabul Dreams, the country’s first rock band. “Seeing the images of three rockers all around Kabul wasn’t something many people expected,” says Alykhan Kaba ’18 MBA, who at the time was working in Kabul for a telecom company that sponsored the band.
“Kids notice race. That’s a good thing.” Curiosity and awareness are key components of psychologist Onnie Rogers’ research, which examines how children between 7 and 13 years old develop their identities.
Developmental psychologist Onnie Rogers examines how kids and adolescents make sense of their identities. A former collegiate gymnast and a mother of two young children, Rogers now has a front-row seat to kids’ identity development both at work and after hours.
Longtime audio engineer and professor Benj Kanters now focuses on hearing conservation.
Educator Jessica Stovall ’14 MA features prominently in Steve James’ 10-part documentary series America to Me, which follows a dozen students through life at suburban Chicago’s Oak Park and River Forest High School. James began filming the project in 2015 as a way to explore how students, teachers and staff are addressing decades-long racial and educational inequities.
