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People & Profiles

As a James Beard Award–winning journalist for New York Magazine, Sierra Tishgart ’12 ate at some of New York City’s finest restaurants, but she wanted to cook better meals at home and realized she needed different pots and pans. Frustrated by the potential expense and unsure about what cookware she needed and why, Tishgart set out to create her own line of kitchenware, Great Jones.

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sierra tishgart great jones cookware
Rosanna Hertz, author of Random Families, interviewed more than 350 children, their parents and gamete donors to explore how they used cultural narratives about genes and genetics to understand their relationship to their immediate families and donor networks.

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random families cover

Nod of Approval

Summer 2019
Phil Sklar co-founded the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum, which opened its doors near Milwaukee’s Historic Third Ward this past February. More than 6,500 bobbleheads are featured on location, a display so large that Guinness World Records may name it the largest bobblehead collection by this summer.

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phil sklar founder national bobblehead hall of fame and museum
When you’re the child of two Holocaust survivors, as I am, the enormity of that event stays with you forever. And yet, because it’s your own parents who suffered so greatly, you find it difficult — if not impossible — to talk to them about it.

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elie wiesel
Oklahoma highway patrolman Clinton Riggs was a student at the Northwestern Traffic Institute, now the Center for Public Safety, in 1939 when he created the yield sign as a class assignment. His goal was to improve public safety and determine liability in an accident.

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clinton riggs first yield sign
Meet the three accomplished alumnae who will receive the Northwestern Alumni Association’s highest honor, the Northwestern Alumni Medal, in October. They will join a select group of 103 alumni — from innovative entrepreneurs and Supreme Court justices to award-winning writers and a Nobel Prize recipient — who have received this award since 1932.

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alumni medalist lisa franchetti
Benjamin Dreyer, author of Dreyer’s English, talks about finding the voice for his best-selling book on Twitter. The Random House copy chief also discusses his writing pet peeves and reveals what he learned about editing from working on scripts.

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benjamin dreyer
Drowning is the leading cause of accidental death for kids between the ages of 1 and 4, with more than 3,000 children drowning every year. Shocked by those statistics, mother and swim coach Michelle Lang penned a guide to teach parents simple techniques to keep their children safe in the water.

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girl near water
John Paul Stevens '47 JD, '77 H, one of the longest-serving justices on the Supreme Court and one of Northwestern Pritzker School of Law’s most prominent graduates, died July 16. He was 99.

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john paul stevens cubs jersey
Lillian Hoodes ’13 MA is helping to fix a common problem for environmentally aware hikers: how to pack nutritious food when headed out on the trail. Hoodes is co-founder and CEO of TrailFork, a company dedicated to providing outdoor adventurers with sustainably packaged and healthy dehydrated food.

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lilian hoodes trailfork