People & Profiles
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In 13 years as Northwestern University president, Morty Schapiro transformed the campuses, expanded international opportunities and supported faculty research — all while diversifying the student population. The University also faced financial challenges and several controversies, as well as an unprecedented pandemic.
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.
