People
As new “widowed besties,” Annie Kuo and Matthew Becker discovered unexpected commonalities as Northwestern grads and parents of young children. They started dating in February 2022 and have been together ever since, carrying the love they have for their late spouses with the new love they’ve found.
No work day is predictable for Alexa Carreno ’13 and her fiancé, Jeremy McKay. The Denver, Colo.–based legal partners are the co-founders of Environmental and Animal Defense (eaDefense), a nonprofit law firm providing accessible legal services focused on environmental justice and animal rights.
Growing up in the Bay Area, Emma Steinberg bonded with her dad over all kinds of local sports teams. And now, after a role with the San Francisco 49ers — and an Emmy win — she has joined the San Francisco Giants as a digital content producer.
In 1973, two Northwestern students assembled the cast and crew of Northwestern’s first-ever Mee-Ow Show, originally conceptualized as a new outlet for creatives who felt limited by existing campus performance options. Half a century later, the show — and its ever-growing repertoire of successful alumni, from Julia Louis-Dreyfus ’82, ’07 H to Seth Meyers ’96, ’16 H — is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a spring 2024 reunion.
Whether you know her as NPR radio host Margaret Jo on Saturday Night Live or Cady Heron’s mom in Mean Girls, odds are you know — and love — Ana Gasteyer’s work. Last May, the actor, comedian and singer returned to campus and sat down with Northwestern Magazine’s Clare Milliken to discuss her own career and tips for aspiring artists.
Racheli Galay ’07 DMA is a founding member of Quartetoukan, a Jewish-Arab quartet whose music reflects the multicultural, multilingual society in Israel. A classically trained cellist who specializes in Jewish music, Galay has toured Israel, Germany and Spain with Quartetoukan since 2012, performing songs in Arabic, Hebrew, English and Yiddish that promote harmony and peace.
After booking his biggest acting role yet, Charlie Oh ’16 felt an itch to be part of something that better reflected the contemporary Asian American experience. He wrote a play about a Korean family on an all-American road trip, incorporating themes of identity, assimilation and legacy.
Kyra Kyles ’98, ’98 MS is CEO of YR Media, an educational center for aspiring music producers, podcasters, journalists and multimedia content creators. Kyles opened a new YR Media regional facility in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood, offering training programs, paid internships and state-of-the-art audio and video production technology to young people from Chicago, Detroit and other Midwestern cities.
Tim Hunter ’68 MD, a retired radiologist and professor emeritus who lives in Tucson, Ariz., has written the weekly “Sky Spy” column in the Arizona Daily Star for more than 15 years. He recently compiled his columns into a book, The Sky at Night.
Kevin Hoban ‘09 and Jordan Simkovic ‘09 make music as Captain & Cat, a musical duo producing educational songs and videos for kids. The duo recently won the 2022 John Lennon Songwriting Contest Grand Prize.
