People
Lithium is the lightest metal on the periodic table and can charge quickly into a variety of electrode materials, making it uniquely valuable for batteries. Lilac Solutions aims to deliver a sustainable solution to the global lithium-supply problem.
Broadway actor Adam Kantor ’08 co-founded StoryCourse, which mixes food and theater, creating “a multisensory, delicious, profound, moving experience,” says Kantor. He and his StoryCourse team are now developing at-home interactive theatrical culinary experiences.
Rosa Li grew up drinking her Chinese grandmother’s herbal tonics. Li loved the health benefits — including reduced stress and increased immunity, “but they did not have the most approachable taste.”
Following leads from England to Australia to Mexico, Jim Berkenstadt ’78 traveled the world looking for Jimmie Nicol, the drummer who subbed for the Beatles’ Ringo Starr for two weeks in 1964, at the height of Beatlemania — then disappeared.
Jenny Shi’s award-winning, feature-length documentary follows the disappearance of Yingying Zhang and her family’s search for justice. Shi spent two years working on the film, Finding Yingying, which won the South by Southwest Film Festival 2020 Documentary Feature Special Jury Prize for Breakthrough Voice.
Alice Foeller, owner of the online marketing company SiteInSight and president of the Northland Area Business Association, is co-founder of Elevate Northland, a community development corporation. With help from Columbus-area backers, including Roger Blackwell ’66 PhD, the social enterprise plans to open a facility this summer that will include event space, a shared commercial kitchen, flexible offices, artist studios and a retail area where vendors can sell handmade goods from kiosks.
When Bud Welch lost his 23-year-old daughter, Julie, in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, he was consumed by grief at the loss of his only daughter and rage toward the perpetrator, Timothy McVeigh.
After performing at opera festivals around Europe, tenor Chase Henry Hopkins ’12 wanted to create the same musical atmosphere in his hometown, Edwardsville, Ill. So in 2018 he founded Opera Edwardsville to develop performances, arts education and community collaborations through live opera.
Danny M. Cohen ’06 MA, ’11 PhD, an associate professor in both the School of Education and Social Policy and the Crown Family Center for Jewish and Israel Studies, teaches social change, human rights and Holocaust history.
Many wine lovers struggle with a sensitivity to sulfites — preservatives used in food and beverages. James Kornacki drew from his research experience in the lab and created Üllo, a polymer technology to remove free sulfites from wine and restore it to its original, from-the-vintner purity and taste.
