People
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.
After graduating from Northwestern with an undergraduate business degree, Alan Tripp ’37 worked in broadcasting and advertising, at one point running his own ad agency. Now, from his retirement home in Bryn Mawr, Pa., the 102-year-old has achieved a lifelong dream with the release of Senior Song Book — a mix of ’40s- and ’50s-style tunes with modern lyrics that he calls “grown-up music.”
John Stoops performed with Second City and then joined Boom Chicago, a comedy club and improv group founded by Northwestern alumni in Amsterdam. Now Stoops runs The Revival, a theater and education company that focuses on improvisational skills.
Tiffany Walden and Morgan Elise Johnson knew if they wanted to see media coverage that did their Chicago-area communities justice, they would have to do it themselves. So they co-founded the Triibe.
