Global
Robert Nowakowski ’92 became the third Northwestern alumnus currently serving as a rear admiral or higher from the University’s Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps. He entered the ranks of the Navy’s senior executives in a tradition-filled ceremony at the Great Lakes Naval Station near Waukegan, Ill.
When Claudia López ’19 PhD began her doctorate in political science at Northwestern in 2011, she was already well known in her native Colombia as an activist, political researcher and fearless investigative reporter. Before López was awarded her degree last June, she had also served four years as a Colombian senator, beat cancer, run as the vice presidential candidate for the Green Alliance Party in 2018, triumphed over stereotypes as a proud lesbian and inspired a new generation of voters.
In its 50th season, the colorful world of Sesame Street is still teaching and entertaining children, thanks in part to a purple pipeline of talent. Many Northwestern alumni have been involved in the show and in the larger Sesame universe, from writing and puppet creation to social impact and fundraising.
Five Northwestern alumni and students share details on their Fulbright research, including river restoration and its impact on local fish populations in the United Kingdom, the evolutionary advances of an extinct family of giant clams in Poland and the burial practices of the ancient Aksumites in Ethiopia.
Crossing the Sahara Desert from the 8th to the 16th centuries, caravans with hundreds of camels carried gold, textiles, jewelry and other goods across the desert. To share this little-known story, the Block Museum of Art has put together Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time — a first-of-its-kind show that celebrates West Africa’s historic and under-recognized global significance and showcases the objects and ideas that were exchanged at the crossroads of Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
Five floors up from the cacophony that is Chicago’s West Loop, inside a stone-still hearing room at the U.S. Department of Justice’s Chicago Immigration Court, where the ratcheted-up nerves and quickened breaths make for the sort of place you do not want to be, Uzoamaka Emeka Nzelibe ’96 is there to get the job done.
For nearly five decades, fog artist Fujiko Nakaya ’57 has presented her ethereal, shape-shifting installations of pure water vapor in an effort to connect humans to nature.
Since returning home to China seven years ago, Bozhong Xue has revitalized the NU Club of Beijing, interviewed prospective students as a member of the Alumni Admission Council, recruited high school students to volunteer for the Northwestern University Symphony Orchestra concert last spring and supported international student scholarships at the Bienen School of Music. For his efforts, Xue received the inaugural Northwestern Alumni Association President’s Award in September.
Three Northwestern professors break down the most important factors in the rise of China’s global influence and the implications for the United States and its standing in the world.
Five Northwestern students share their adventures from a summer abroad, including Shakespeare in marionettes, food culture in Italy, the effects of habitat degradation on Madagascar’s lemurs and assessing stress among Tsimané, an Indigenous group in lowland Bolivia.
