Cover Story
A Fresh Perspective for the Guggenheim
As chief curator at the Guggenheim, Naomi Beckwith asks us to rethink how we see art.
Fall 2022
Features
When Erin Gilchrist started digging through hundreds of 16 mm film and VHS recordings of Northwestern musical performances, she discovered some unexpected gems. Take the Second Annual Hoffnung Festival, a spoof of classical music concerts that in April 1980 featured a Northwestern University Symphonic Wind Ensemble performance on three vacuums, a floor cleaner and four rifles. “That was not at all what I expected,” says Gilchrist, a digital curation and metadata assistant.
Voices
Is the era of the foreign correspondent over? That’s the premise behind a new media venture spearheaded by Justin Smith, the former Bloomberg Media chief executive, and Ben Smith, the former editor of BuzzFeed.
Members of the Northwestern community share the technological advancements — from tissue engineering and stem cell therapies to machine learning and more — that could affect life as we know it.
After 19 years of incarceration, Corzell Cole was released from Stateville Correctional Center in March 2022. He and his lead attorney, Shelisa Thomas ’19, reflect on their work together and Cole’s goals for the future.
Lucy London, a senior performance studies major from Petaluma, Calif., turned resignation into action, working toward environmental justice on campus and beyond.
Discovery
In the summer, you can find Elsa Godtfredsen in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado scouting for bees and other pollinators, testing soil moisture levels, gathering seeds and carefully monitoring the health of local alpine wildflowers. A doctoral student in Northwestern’s plant biology and conservation program, she’s been running a multiyear experiment to see how early snowmelt (one sign of a warming planet) will affect wildflowers — and, by extension, the broader ecosystems upon which we all rely.
News
Take a spin around the globe — from France to Spain, Italy, Qatar and South Korea — and see how Northwestern athletes are competing in cycling, field hockey, basketball and more.
How has COVID-19 impacted the respiratory health of millennials for the long haul? A new study by Northwestern University and the American Lung Association will follow 4,000 adults over the next five years to find out.
Alumni
Northwestern Intersections is an award-winning podcast from the Northwestern Alumni Association featuring alumni who share the key experiences that have propelled them in their life’s work. The podcast, which has highlighted more than 120 alumni of all ages, degrees and backgrounds so far, is releasing new episodes this fall.
In the tough-to-crack world of Hollywood, screenwriter Joe Hauler fosters creativity, connections and community with Northwestern University Entertainment Alliance-West, the Los Angeles–based club for alumni in the entertainment industry. He helps guide the club by blending educational programs with networking events and performance opportunities, such as the popular Storytellers live event series, which has empowered more than 60 alumni to craft and present over 150 stories on stage.
Impact
A new student film incubator at Northwestern’s School of Communication is shining a light on how mental health is depicted in TV, movies and other media. The initiative was made possible by a grant from the Pritzker Pucker Family Foundation and Jessy Pucker ’19.
What student hub is 50 years old? Find out which famous buildings on campus are marking anniversaries this year.
University-wide research institutes and centers (URICs) are a fundamentally important and vibrant nexus of innovation and discovery at Northwestern. Continued investments in these hubs have strengthened the work of faculty and students who seek to benefit humankind through advancements in fields ranging from medicine and engineering to nanotechnology and materials science.
People
As executive producer of ‘Ted Lasso,’ Liza Katzer ’08 is involved in nearly every aspect of making the hit AppleTV+ series. And while the success of 'Ted Lasso' has led to a lot of other opportunities, the senior vice president of Doozer Productions remains keenly aware of the challenges she faced in her early-career years and the lessons she’s learned along the way.
A self-taught filmmaker, Angelo Madsen Minax ’12 MFA says he “sort of tripped into filmmaking through activism.” Six years after earning his bachelor’s in fine arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Minax was keeping busy — editing videos full-time for Beyondmedia Education, a social justice organization that provides media tools to underserved youth; working odd jobs at coffee shops; and playing in a couple of bands. While on tour with a bluegrass band, “we made a feature documentary about 21 transgender musicians in the U.S.
David Ellis ’93 JD is not only the youngest-serving justice on the Illinois Appellate Court — he’s also a bestselling crime novelist. Inspired by the courtroom drama he’s observed throughout his career, Ellis has written a number of bestsellers and says he owes his legal and writing success to his law school experience.
After watching the footage of George Floyd’s murder, digital artist Lo Harris drew a digital art piece to express her frustration with police killings of Black people. Her artwork took Instagram by storm — and now she’s encouraging others to raise their voices too.
After learning how to bake alongside a Parisian chef during her study abroad year, Melanie Moss launched Mini Melanie, a direct-to-consumer bakery in New York City delivering custom cakes, cake pops, brownies, truffles and more nationwide. Since then, Moss has appeared on popular Food Network shows Chopped and Beat Bobby Flay — and she’s not stopping there.
Musician Charlie Williams, aka Larkhall, is a U.K.-based new media artist whose piano compositions are brought to life with musically reactive visual displays. These dancing algorithms are coded by Williams himself, a Bienen School of Music alum and self-taught coder who has found unique ways to combine his creative and technical talents.
Grace Lightner ’13 was cleaning out her grandmother’s house in Ohio with her mother, Lorraine Stewart ’80, ’81 MS, when she stumbled upon a box of preserved wedding dresses belonging to Stewart and her sister. Stewart immediately teared up, and in that moment, inspiration struck.
