People & Profiles
At just 28, Selina Fillinger became one of the youngest woman playwrights in Broadway history, and her 2022 show, POTUS, received three Tony Award nominations and has since been produced in theaters across the nation and internationally. Fillinger ’16 came to Northwestern to pursue acting, but a playwriting class with theater professor of instruction Laura Schellhardt ’97 changed her trajectory.
Veteran Lauren Wright Kimball ’05, ’05 MS says it’s been the “privilege of a lifetime” to help create the Military and Family Helpline, a new resource for military veterans and active-duty personnel who live in Nebraska and Iowa. Kimball, who is chief strategy officer at United Way of the Midlands, helped establish the support line in collaboration with the Nebraska Department of Veterans Affairs and Offutt Air Force Base.
By day, Amanda Dunlap edits film trailers for Disney, but by night, she’s a true-crime junkie. Dunlap ’06 took inspiration for her debut novel from stories of real-life “resurrection men,” grave robbers who sold stolen corpses to medical schools in Edinburgh, Scotland, in the early 19th century.
Uncover more about Dunlap’s novel and the history of body-snatching.
Melissa Harris ’02 had just joined the Chicago Tribune as a columnist in 2009 when a colleague recommended she read the 1967 Division Street: America, a book which contains oral histories from 71 Chicagoans interviewed in the late ’60s. Years later, when Harris learned that the audio tapes of the original interviews were being digitized by the Library of Congress, she reached out to Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Mary Schmich, and after some consideration they decided to make a podcast.
The first in his family to go to college, Adam Karr ’93 gained a foundation in behavioral economics at Northwestern and now serves as president and portfolio manager at Orbis Investments and vice chairman of the Northwestern Board of Trustees. He shares why empowering young minds is one of the best investments for the future.
Maria Atanasov, an accomplished business journalist and current president of the NU Club of Southeast Florida, reflects on her time at Northwestern and how she came to be involved with Northwestern’s alumni network.
As an undergrad, Julia Starzyk Kersey ’99 raised money for the American Heart Association through Radiothon, an annual fundraising event in honor of an undergraduate student who died of cardiac arrhythmia. Kersey carries campus tradition with her today as a national marketing and communications director for the American Heart Association.
In December Northwestern art history assistant professor Antawan Byrd ’13 MA, ’22 PhD launched Project a Black Planet at the Art Institute of Chicago, the first major exhibit to examine Pan-Africanism, a cultural movement and ideology that promotes Black unity across Africa and the African diaspora.
Terry Jacobson ’69, ’74 MS and Morrene Panitch Jacobson ’69 In retrospect, it was fortunate that I was unable to get campus housing until my second quarter at Northwestern. Terry and I met in September 1965 in the Men Off Campus (MOC) lounge in Scott Hall.
Photographer and avid birder Collin Porter ’24 spent his days at Northwestern going on early-morning bird walks, during which he spotted 196 unique avian species on the Evanston campus. As he prepares to pursue graduate studies in ecological and evolutionary research and ornithology, he shares his photographs with the hope that they will inspire others to seek out and marvel at the diversity of birds, both on campus and beyond.
