Arts & Entertainment
Northwestern alum Aspen Buckingham ’23 and senior economics major Steven Jiang are the creators of Intervallic, a new video game changing the way aspiring musicians can practice their skills. Both musicians, Buckingham and Jiang are making practice into entertainment.
What do a biography of Martin Luther King Jr., an award-winning poetry collection and a bestselling mystery about the dark side of love have in common? They were all written by Northwestern alumni.
With his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and storied career as a writer, actor, director and producer, Garry Marshall ’56 made an indelible mark on American film and TV. His legacy lives on at Northwestern with the donation of the Garry Marshall Papers to University Archives.
Jennifer Keishin Armstrong ’96 has written seven books on pop culture history, including So Fetch: The Making of Mean Girls (And Why We’re Still So Obsessed With It), which comes out this January. Armstrong identifies five TV and movie moments that have influenced today’s popular media.
After learning to DJ during quarantine, Karen Valencia ’15 broke into Chicago’s nightlife scene, bringing reggaeton beats to some of the trendiest clubs. She shares how Northwestern shaped her worldview, what she loves most about DJing and more.
Maryam Keshavarz never dreamed of becoming a filmmaker when she was a Northwestern student in the mid-1990s. The daughter of Iranian immigrants didn’t know that world existed.
The 2023 Northwestern Alumni Medal recipients — Roberta Buffett Elliott ‘54, Chris Galvin ’73, ’77 MBA and Charles S. Modlin Jr. ’83, ’87 MD — are leaders in philanthropy, business and health care.
Members of Knitwestern build community while honing their knitting skills and giving back to local organizations. Open to students and community members alike, the knitting and crocheting club operates on the premise that anyone can learn to knit.
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.
Darsan Swaroop Bellie ’22, who holds a dual degree in jazz studies and physics from Northwestern, is a fellow at the University’s Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA), where he conducts research on gravitational waves, compact objects and cosmology. Merging his seemingly disparate passions, he created the Star Eyes Initiative, a jazz group that uses original compositions to communicate scientific concepts in a digestible way, for audiences of all ages.
