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People & Profiles

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.

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John Stoops
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.

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Walden Johnson Tribe
When molecular diagnostics expert Karen Kaul ’84 MD, PhD, ’88 GME ordered reagents and other supplies for her lab at NorthShore University HealthSystem’s Evanston Hospital in early February, she and her team had been following the coronavirus outbreak overseas for weeks. They figured they’d better be prepared, just in case.

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Karen Kaul Hero v2
Desmond Wang reached out to alumni affiliated with the NU Club of Beijing to launch a fundraiser. In less than two weeks, Wang led an international effort that resulted in the donation of more than 5,500 N95 masks and two iPads to Northwestern Memorial Hospital — and a contribution of nearly $14,000 to Northwestern Medicine’s COVID-19 Relief Fund to give the hospital flexibility as its needs evolve.

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PPE donation
On a Saturday afternoon in late March, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, Genevieve Thiers ’04 MMus opens the balcony doors of her home in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood. She sets her iPhone on a music stand and cues up the app that will be her accompaniment.

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Genevieve Thiers Hero
Cassidy Hubbarth expected it to be a normal Sunday. On January 26, the ESPN reporter and host was preparing to leave her New York City home for the network’s Bristol, Conn., studio, when she received a phone call from her friend and colleague Dianna Russini that flipped her day upside down.

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Cassidy Hubbarth 2
Kevin Salwen had a question: How did Richard Jewell, a man who should be lauded as an American hero, become convicted in the court of public opinion and forever remembered as the primary suspect in the Atlanta Olympic bombings? Salwen ’79, a former Wall Street Journal columnist and editor, and his co-author, former US attorney Kent Alexander, spent more than five years digging into that question for their narrative nonfiction book, The Suspect.

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kevin salwen and kent alexander
In the mid-1990s Mike Stanton ’82 MS shared a Pulitzer Prize as a member of the Providence Journal investigative team, a role that put him in constant contact with one of America’s most notorious mayors, Buddy Cianci. The charismatic but felonious architect of the Providence renaissance became the subject of Stanton’s debut book, New York Times best-seller The Prince of Providence (2003).

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mike stanton
Pulitzer Prize–winning author and Northwestern professor of English Natasha Trethewey’s beloved mother died decades ago, and yet her grave, down in Mississippi, remains unmarked by a headstone. The reasons for this are varied and complicated, and they speak to the essence of Trethewey, one of the most acclaimed poets of our time.

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natasha trethewey 1
Kellogg School of Management professor and Apostolic Church of God pastor Nicholas Pearce finds common ground — and inspiration — in the pulpit, the classroom and the boardroom.

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nicholas pearce