In Memoriam

Radha Subramanyam ’92  MA, ’96  PhD, New York City, Jan.  5, 2026, at age 55. Born and raised in New Delhi, Subramanyam moved to the U.S. to attend Northwestern, where she earned both a master’s degree and a doctorate in radio/television/film. She taught at Vassar College and New York University before transitioning into media research. She worked at MTV Networks, Yahoo, Nielsen and iHeartMedia, where she was president of insights, research and data analytics. She joined the CBS Television Network in 2017 and was promoted within 18 months to chief research and analytics officer for CBS Corp. and president of CBS Vision. She oversaw day-to-day research operations for CBS, including audience measurement, program and ad analytics, and marketing research. Subramanyam is survived by her husband, Joseph Walser ’97 PhD, and children Tara and River. 

Photo Credit: Michele Crowe/CBS 

Elbert Kimbrough ’62, Eldridge, Iowa, Jan. 2, 2026, at age 87. Kimbrough and his identical twin, Albert Kimbrough ’62, were high school football stars in Galesburg, Ill., before coming to Northwestern. Elbert earned All–Big Ten and All-American accolades as a standout wide receiver for coach Ara Parseghian’s Wildcats. He then played for seven seasons in the NFL, six of those as a starting safety for the San Francisco 49ers. After his football career, Kimbrough worked as a businessman, insurance agent and entrepreneur. In retirement he took up substitute teaching. He was married to his childhood sweetheart, Sherri Lynn Jackson, and they spent 50 years together before she died in 2009. His twin brother died in 2024. Kimbrough is survived by his children, Brant, Dee Dee, Channing, Whitney and Amber; eight grandchildren; three great-grandchildren; his sister, Patricia; and many nieces and nephews. 

Bruce Dold ’77, ’78 MS, La Grange Park, Ill., Dec. 3, 2025, at age 70. A Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, Dold had a four-decade career at the Chicago Tribune. He started in 1978 as a reporter for the Suburban Trib, an affiliated Tribune publication, before moving to the flagship newspaper, where he continued to cover politics. He joined the Tribune editorial board in 1990 and won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994 for editorial writing for his series on the murder of a 3-year-old boy and the failure of the Illinois child-welfare system. The editorials catalyzed new state legislation to protect Illinois children from child abuse and neglect. Dold became editorial page editor in 2000, and his editorial board won a Pulitzer in 2003 and earned finalist honors in 2009, 2010 and 2011. He also guided the Tribune editorial board to its first endorsement of a Democratic candidate for president, Barack Obama ’06 H, in 2008. Dold later became both editor-in-chief and publisher, a role that required him to balance business interests and journalism in the digital media age. A music lover, Dold had a record collection numbering in the thousands. He was also an avid golfer. As a student, Dold hosted a jazz show on WNUR and wrote about music for The Daily Northwestern. Dold chaired Northwestern Magazine’s editorial advisory board for nearly two decades. He is survived by his wife, Eileen; two daughters, Megan Dold ’07 and Kristen; five grandchildren; and two sisters, Lisa and Catherine. 

Photo Credit: E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune 

Adam Goodkind ’23 PhD, CERT, Scarborough, Maine, Oct. 30, 2025, at age 41. At age 9, Goodkind was diagnosed with neurofibromatosis Type 2 (NF2), an uncurable, rare genetic disease that causes tumors throughout the nervous system. He participated in multiple trials for NF2 treatments. After pursuing rabbinical studies, Goodkind embarked on a career in finance, working at J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs. He developed a passion for computational linguistics — which combines linguistic theory with algorithms to analyze, model and generate human language — and went back to school to earn a doctorate in human-computer interaction at Northwestern. Goodkind applied his skill set to health care, developing communication technologies for people with autism and providing guidance on the programming of auditory devices for deaf people. He is survived by his wife, Shaina; his son, Sammy; his parents, Barbara and Kenneth; his stepfather, Michael; and his sister, Laura. 

Susan Stoner Jones ’63, Naples, Fla., Oct. 15, 2025, at age 84. Generous gifts from Susan and her husband, University Trustee Dan Jones ’61, over many years have benefited Northwestern Libraries, Athletics and Recreation, and other areas across the University. Susan graduated from Northwestern in 1963 with a degree in art history and was a member of the Pi Beta Phi sorority. She then moved to New York to pursue a degree in nursing at Columbia University, where she met Dan. Susan completed her nursing degree in 1966 and worked as a nurse before leaving the field to raise three children and assist with the family’s newspaper archiving business, NewsBank. In the first few months, Susan worked in the couple’s bedroom, creating microfiche masters to preserve newspaper articles, and ultimately transforming the company into a leading provider of digitized newspaper articles that provides online archives of thousands of newspapers, broadcast transcripts and other publications. The Joneses’ two daughters, Kathryn “Katie” Cavanagh ’91 and Meredith “Maggie” Jones, are both NewsBank executives. Their son, Daniel, served as president of NewsBank’s consumer division before his passing in January 2024. The Joneses have been devoted Northwestern Wildcats fans for decades, supporting the University’s student-athletes through the Otto Graham Society. The couple established the Dan and Susan Jones Family Head Football Coach endowment in 2006 and gifted more than $32 million in databases to Northwestern’s library system. They also served as co-chairs of the Florida Regional Campaign Committee, Gift Planning Campaign Committee and Libraries Campaign Committee for We Will. The Campaign for Northwestern. Susan was a longtime leader of the NU Club of Greater Naples and a member of the Women’s Board of Northwestern University and served on her 45th, 50th and 55th Reunion Committees. She is survived by her husband, her daughters and eight grandchildren.

Read the full obituary for Susan Stoner Jones.

Harry J. Pearce ’67 JD, ’98 H, Bloomfield Hills, Mich., Oct. 14, 2025, at age 83. After serving in the U.S. Air Force Judge Advocate General Corps, Pearce joined his father’s law firm, where he handled product liability cases for large automakers. In the mid-1980s he joined General Motors (GM) as associate general counsel. He won a defamation lawsuit against NBC in 1993, during which he proved that NBC’s Dateline had rigged a crash test of a GM pickup truck, causing its fuel tank to erupt in flames. His demonstration helped catapult him to vice chairman of GM in 1996. He helped launch one of the first modern electric vehicles and led the development of the OnStar Automatic Crash Response system. After a leukemia diagnosis in 1998, he retired from GM in 2001. A stem cell transplant from his brother, William Pearce ’62, ’64 MS, ’67 PhD, ’71 JD, saved Harry’s life. A member of Northwestern’s Board of Trustees since 2000, Harry received an Alumni Merit Award in 1991. His wife died in 2006 and his brother in 2021. He is survived by his longtime companion, Susan Kilbride; children Shannon, Susan and Harry Mark Pearce ’99 MS; eight grandchildren, including George Baker ’16; and a great-granddaughter. 

James “Jim” Mitchell ’78 MS, Carrollton, Texas, Oct. 7, 2025, at age 71. A 41-year veteran of The Dallas Morning News (The News), Mitchell was a business journalist, specializing in social, political and financial trends. After earning his master’s degree at Northwestern, he began his journalism career at the Times-Union in Rochester, N.Y. In 1984 he joined The News as a business news reporter and then joined the paper’s editorial board in 1998. Described by his colleagues as someone “on the vanguard of a new era of business [reporting] in the 1980s,” Mitchell wrote editorials about U.S. politics, energy independence, immigration, the racial wealth gap, privacy and cybersecurity, economic inequality, and crime and punishment, among other topics. Mitchell met Nelson Mandela while traveling in South Africa, a moment he considered the most memorable of his career. Described by his colleagues as man of “deep conscience and empathy, a truth seeker and fact finder,” Mitchell retired as a senior editorial writer at The News in 2025. He is survived by his wife, Verna, and their son, Matthew. 

Photo Credit: Courtesy of The Dallas Morning News