Cover Story
The Morty Years
As Northwestern’s president, Morty Schapiro created lasting change.
Spring 2022
Voices
The advance of science and technology has brought remarkable gains over the last two centuries. But how do we measure the importance of research and the return on R&D investment?
The Northwestern community shares tips for tricky situations.
My players inspire me the most. These young women come in as 17- and 18-year-olds and leave as leaders with a degree from Northwestern.
Innovation
Julius Lucks, a professor of chemical and biological engineering, and postdoctoral fellow Khalid Alam and doctoral candidate Kirsten Jung created a device to test water for 17 different contaminants. The technology, nicknamed ROSALIND in honor of DNA pioneer Rosalind Franklin, can assess water safety and quality with just a single drop.
At just 22 years old, Casey Grage ’19 became CEO of Hubly Surgical, a startup set on revolutionizing neurosurgery. Hubly invented a lightweight neurosurgical drill that Grage says offers key advantages over conventional drills used to access to the brain in cases of stroke, aneurysm, trauma or other emergencies.
Confidence Udegbue cooked up the idea for a kombucha cocktail long before he arrived at Northwestern. He was moonlighting in San Francisco as a personal trainer at the time and regularly heard his clients say they wanted a healthier way to drink alcohol while staying fit.
News
The Human Longevity Laboratory is just one part of the ambitious, multicenter Potocsnak Longevity Institute, whose goal is to build on Northwestern’s ongoing research in the rapidly advancing science of aging. “The biological processes that drive aging may be malleable,” says Douglas Vaughan, director of the institute and chair of the Department of Medicine at Feinberg, “and we think we can slow that process down, delay it, even theoretically reverse it.”
Undergraduates have taken on an expanded role at the Block Museum. The student associates now lead public and private tours, facilitate art discussions and even add acquisitions to the museum’s collection.
In the 1970s, Northwestern anthropologist Stuart Struever ’60 MA led an archaeology field school along the banks of the Illinois River, offering students a hands-on experience to discover evidence of ancient civilizations at the historic Koster Site.
Northwestern researchers are part of global teams studying antibiotic resistance in Pakistan, climate change in Japan, the effect of cobalt mining on communities in the Democratic Republic of Congo, mysterious strands in the Milky Way and more.
Alumni
Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, many small businesses, including those owned by Northwestern alumni, have faced challenging circumstances and uncertain futures. In June 2020 the Northwestern Alumni Association (NAA) launched the Northwestern Alumni-Owned Small Business Directory to help connect and support fellow Wildcats.
Determined to help other Latinx and first-generation college students like her, Xiomara Contreras ’17 became a mentor for the NAA’s Affinity Leaders and Learners (ALL) Mentorship Program. The program matches students to alumni with similar backgrounds, experiences and identities.
My Northwestern Direction
At Northwestern, Eric Huang was finally surrounded by people with whom he had mutual respect and genuine camaraderie — good people who wouldn’t let him quit.
Impact
In just a few months, Morton Schapiro will step down as president of Northwestern after 13 years at the helm. During President Schapiro’s tenure, the Evanston and Chicago campuses were transformed by more than 50 major construction projects and the creation of 17 new research institutes and centers.
Louis A. Simpson ’58 was a big believer in giving everyone access to education.
Tech giant IBM has made a generous gift to endow two computer science professorships in Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering in honor of Virginia M. “Ginni” Rometty ʼ79, ʼ15 H, the first woman to lead the company.
People
In December 2021, former Northwestern diving captain Yohan Eskrick-Parkinson ’22 joined Jamaican diver Yona Knight-Wisdom on Jamaica’s first-ever synchronized diving team. The duo finished second in the 3-meter synchro at the Scottish National and Open Diving Championships in Edinburgh.
As an associate producer at The Washington Post, Chris Vazquez ’21, ’21 MS is part of a three-person team tasked with creating content for the publication’s TikTok channel. Every day, Vazquez scripts, records and edits short videos offering a comedic take on current events, ranging from mask mandates to inflation to President Joe Biden’s approval rating.
Jenny Hagel ’09 MFA has been nominated for multiple Emmy Awards for her work as a comedy writer for Late Night With Seth Meyers. She has also written for the Golden Globe Awards and shows like truTV’s long-running hit Impractical Jokers.
A year out of Northwestern, Keith Miller ’10 was working at a youth mentoring organization and moonlighting as a model in New York City when he wrote a manuscript focused on Jay, a queer African American young man coming of age in the Deep South in the early 2000s. Now that manuscript is the basis for an animated short film and a two-book deal with Harper Collins.
Born in Karachi, Pakistan, Sumbul Siddiqui and her family immigrated to the U.S. when she was a child and found affordable housing in Cambridge, Mass.
After a treacherous 45-day climb, Chris Bombardier reached the 29,032-foot summit of Mount Everest in May 2017. It was numbingly cold, but Bombardier felt nothing but pride in what he had accomplished for the hemophilia community: He became the first person with the bleeding disorder to climb the world’s tallest mountain, knowing full well that an accident on the ascent could lead to a dire situation.
As a child, Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate was surrounded by music, theater and his Chickasaw culture. His father, who is Chickasaw, is a classically trained pianist, and his mother, who is Manx Irish, was a dancer and choreographer — so it was little wonder that Tate immersed himself in music.
After honing his acting and vocal skills at Northwestern, Lukas Arnold ’17 went viral on TikTok for his spot-on celebrity impressions. Now he’s pursuing a career in stand-up comedy — and leaving his 2.4 million TikTok followers in stitches.
