Cover Story
Change of Heart
Sadiya Khan helped develop a tool to predict and prevent cardiovascular disease.
Fall 2026
Voices
The natural world has long served as humanity’s pharmacy, says chemistry professor Karl Scheidt. Largely discovered through trial and error, the medicinal benefits of plants, fungi, bacteria and animals have been crucial to our survival and will continue to provide inspiration for new medical advances.
From the value of community to the importance of going at your own pace, faculty reflect on the valuable lessons students have taught them.
Anne-Sophie Lacombe García ’25 spent eight months in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, working with Broadway Across Borders to produce the musical Be More Chill. She was selected for the Buffett Post-Baccalaureate Fellowship, established in 2025 by Northwestern’s Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Affairs.
Discovery
Northwestern researchers are using an old-school video game to aid in stroke recovery, with sensors to measure the speed and strength of electrical signals traveling through the participant’s nerves in their arm muscles. The new type of therapy saw improvement in patients’ arm range of motion, which continued one month after ending the therapy.
Innovation
Angel Mendoza ’26 and Matt Martinez ’26 developed OnSight, a sensor analytics platform to improve gym management and organization. The data helps gym managers know when to schedule maintenance, avoid equipment breakdowns and optimize machine placement.
Warehouse inventory errors can be costly and ruin client relationships. Student startup HaptE is using AI to improve warehouse efficiency.
News
A student at Northwestern in the early 1920s, Sybil Bauer set 23 world records in women’s backstroke and was the first woman to break a men’s world record in swimming. One of the greatest athletes of her time, Bauer’s career was cut short when she died of cancer at age 23.
Mung Chiang, former president of Purdue University, took the reins as Northwestern’s 18th president on July 1, 2026, following an extensive global search led by representatives of Northwestern’s Board of Trustees and select faculty, staff, students and alumni. Chiang has built a reputation as an innovative researcher, an award-winning educator and an exceptional leader in higher education.
College roommates Mateo Garcia-Bryce ’26, Jackson Heller ’26 and Luca Hirsch ’26 created the Prattic, a stand-up comedy space in the attic of their off-campus house. For 16 months, they welcomed over 100 performers, from first-timers to seasoned stand-up acts, and countless students to their shows every Monday night.
Northwestern student Aanya Dhruv has been active in environmental advocacy since high school. When she learned that officials in her hometown were proposing to rezone a beloved nature preserve for a multifamily residential development, she launched a campaign to rally her neighbors and protect the green space.
My Northwestern Direction
Ebony Baity Campbell ’05 MS shares the origins of her career and passion for public service. As deputy chief of resident services programs for the Chicago Housing Authority, she connects families to lifechanging resources, including the very program that gave her family a new opportunity when she was a child.
Impact
For many veterans, the decision to pursue an MBA and select the right program can be financially daunting and create a sense of isolation. That’s why in 2025 Kellogg launched the Matt Caldwell Veterans Program to give veterans the tools to build successful civilian careers.
Launched in 2025, the Institute for Adolescent Mental Health and Well-Being brings together scholars and campus leaders to study young adult psychology and translate discoveries into programming. A defining feature of the institute is its strategic partnership with Northwestern’s Division of Student Affairs, which will launch a survey of students to assess mental health and track risk and resilience over time.
The Simpson Querrey Brain Health Institute (SQ-Brain), a new initiative at Northwestern, envisions a future where brain health can be continuously monitored, measured and modified across a person’s lifespan. The institute brings together physicians, scientists and engineers at the intersection of their fields to facilitate cross-boundary discoveries that address fundamental questions hindering brain health research.
People
The 13th season of American Horror Story premieres this fall. Several alumni have featured prominently in the award-winning FX series.
Chicago-based puzzle maker Sandy Weisz ’98 turned his hobby into a career when he founded the Mystery League, a puzzle-hunt company, in 2014. He discusses what led him to start making puzzles for a living, including the online daily word game Raddle.
Though they were oceans away from Afghanistan, Iman Sediqe’s family kept their cultural heritage alive in their Midwestern home through traditional recipes and “Afghanified” American dishes. Now, Sediqe ’14 MA, ’19 PhD shares her family’s rich culinary history with thousands on her social media, which she collectively calls Imanistan.
Former Wildcats women’s basketball player Clarissa Flores ’01 opened Level Sporting Club, a sports bar dedicated to women’s sports, in Chicago’s Wrigleyville neighborhood.
In her 30s, Jourdann Lubliner ’10 noticed a change in her New York City social scene as friends navigated big life events and social time with other couples became difficult to schedule. So Lubliner created Doubles Social, an app that matches couples with other twosomes for new platonic connections.
Sara Levine ’92 weaves biting humor together with explorations of loneliness in her second novel, The Hitch, released in January. In this quirky family drama, yogurt company owner Rose Cutler is tasked to figure out how to cure her nephew when he insists he’s been possessed by a corgi.
Every spring, nine Northwestern alums gather to talk baseball and reminisce on the good old days with the Vulture League, a fantasy baseball league they started at Northwestern in 1986. Carl Brownell ’86 shares the group’s origins and how they’ve stuck it out for 40 years and counting.
As president of one of the nation’s top public media organizations, Duchesne Drew ’94 MS oversees MPR News and music offerings, which reach more than 800,000 radio listeners combined each week. Minnesota has regularly found itself in the national spotlight in recent years, and Drew says part of his mission at MPR is to help stitch together his beleaguered yet resilient community.
On Sept. 11, 2001, Ian Kerrigan ’00 was meeting with fellow Peace Corps health volunteers in southern Togo in West Africa when a colleague said, “Hey, turn on the radio!” Kerrigan’s outsider perspective on that tragic day’s events help inform his work as senior vice president for exhibitions at the 9/11 Memorial & Museum in New York City.
Olivia Worley ’20 began penning thrillers when she moved to New York City in 2021. She studied theater at Northwestern but found her passion in writing, publishing five books in three years.
