People
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In the mid-1990s Mike Stanton ’82 MS shared a Pulitzer Prize as a member of the Providence Journal investigative team, a role that put him in constant contact with one of America’s most notorious mayors, Buddy Cianci. The charismatic but felonious architect of the Providence renaissance became the subject of Stanton’s debut book, New York Times best-seller The Prince of Providence (2003).
Jon Solomon is preparing for his 31st annual “25-Hour Holiday Radio Show,” his Christmas Day tradition at WPRB-FM, Princeton University’s student-run radio station. Solomon, whose holiday collection includes more than 6,000 songs, has only missed one year since — when he went to the 1996 Rose Bowl to cheer on the Wildcats.
In April 1992 — just a few weeks before graduating from Northwestern with a degree in communication studies — Megan Conway Romano walked into Charlie Trotter’s on Halsted Street in Chicago looking for a job in the world of food. Even though she had no formal training, she eventually landed a position in the kitchen, working for a few hundred dollars a week.
A chance encounter at a used-book store sent Brigid Hughes ’94 on a mission to rescue the forgotten work of a once-celebrated Chicago author. Bette Howland was “one of the significant writers of her generation” in the words of Saul Bellow ’37, ’62 H, but her work had nearly been lost to history when Hughes came across her 1974 memoir, W-3.
Todd Somers ’73 helped direct Northwestern football’s offense as a quarterback for parts of three seasons in the early 1970s. Now, as a longtime Wildcats season ticket holder cheering from the stands, he’s created a new game-day condiment combo: MustKetch.
