Cover Story
Saving Africa’s Last Rhinos
Student Saif Bhatti created an acoustic device that can detect poachers’ gunshots.
Spring 2020
Features
For the last 16 years, since my commutation from a death sentence, I’ve resided at Stateville prison in Joliet, Ill. My path to life without parole started when I was young.
Voices
In our increasingly computer-facilitated lives, we are constantly confronted by new threats to our personal privacy. We have learned that our credit cards, electronic home assistants and smartphones are all capable of sharing our personal information with their corporate sponsors.
Deborah Tuerkheimer, a former prosecutor for victims of domestic violence who teaches courses on criminal law, evidence and feminist jurisprudence, prepares law students in the “me too” era.
Student Saif Bhatti relied on Northwestern connections to develop a smart listening device that might slow illegal poaching. After meeting first with his computer science and mechatronics professors, he’s turned to more than a dozen faculty, students and staff at McCormick School of Engineering, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law and the University’s Global Learning Office for support to get the project off the ground.
Northwestern professors and an alumna offer perspectives on beauty and who gets to decide what is beautiful.
Innovation
Morgan Lewis ’18 MS wanted to create a storage solution to keep her guitar safe during “rest mode” — between songs or at breaks during gigs. For her Engineering Design Innovation final project, she created Auxilia, an attachable stand that stays out of the way while the guitarist is playing and deploys automatically when she sets the guitar down.
To help provide students with easy access to medication and other personal care items, a team of entrepreneurs created MedKit Solutions. Pre-med seniors Matthew Urban and Chris Holland, both neuroscience majors, developed the concept with Feinberg School of Medicine first-year student Ashorne Mahenthiran ’19.
News
Last August, Northwestern audiology graduate students made the trek to Nuevo Progreso in western Guatemala to provide comprehensive care for the local residents. Over the course of four more-than-12-hour days, eight students worked alongside four professional audiologists to perform diagnostic testing and hearing-aid fittings.
Northwestern students and professors explore environmental issues around the world. They worked with the Nature Conservancy in the Magdalena River Basin in Colombia, the World Wildlife Fund in Thailand and Homeward Bound in Antarctica.
Alumni
Several alumnae groups make an impact that is felt across Northwestern — through financial support for people and programs, the creation of continuing education programs that share the University’s academic resources with the greater community, and professional opportunities that develop the next generation of women leaders.
Andrea Chen’s global outlook comes from an international childhood, her time at Northwestern and a career that has taken her across the world. A Hong Kong–based corporate strategist for Royal Philips, a global health technology company, Chen reflects on how her cross-cultural upbringing shaped her identity and desire to give back to the University.
My Northwestern Direction
To this day I’m still not sure how I managed, as an RTVF major, to weasel my way into Craig Kinzer’s sophomore acting class. I never even wanted to be an actor, but I knew filmmaking involved working with actors, so I talked my way into the class.
Impact
In 2017 Howard Trienens gave $20 million to transform Trienens Hall, the indoor turf field he helped fund with a leadership gift in 1996, into a world-class developmental facility for Wildcats volleyball, baseball, softball, and men’s and women’s basketball teams. Northwestern Athletics and Recreation celebrated Trienens’ decades of service to and support for Northwestern at the November 2019 dedication.
The Northwestern golf community celebrated the generosity of University Trustee Eric Gleacher ’62 and his wife, Paula, at the November 2019 dedication of the newly renovated Gleacher Golf Center — a premier player development facility for student-athletes.
If you live in the United Kingdom, you now have the opportunity to make tax-efficient gifts to the recently established Northwestern University (USA) Foundation Limited — an officially registered charity in England and Wales.
Greg Berlanti, a writer, producer and director and 1994 School of Communication alumnus, and his husband, former professional soccer player Robbie Rogers, recently made a $2 million gift to the school via the Berlanti Family Foundation. The gift will endow a professorship and help expand opportunities for students interested in writing for the screen and stage.
People
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.”
Northwestern theater alumnus Austin Harvey, an advanced cicerone and curator and co-owner at Beermiscuous, shares his favorite new beer trends.
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.
