Voices
Anne-Sophie Lacombe García ’25 spent eight months in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, working with Broadway Across Borders to produce the musical Be More Chill. She was selected for the Buffett Post-Baccalaureate Fellowship, established in 2025 by Northwestern’s Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Affairs.
From the value of community to the importance of going at your own pace, faculty reflect on the valuable lessons students have taught them.
The natural world has long served as humanity’s pharmacy, says chemistry professor Karl Scheidt. Largely discovered through trial and error, the medicinal benefits of plants, fungi, bacteria and animals have been crucial to our survival and will continue to provide inspiration for new medical advances.
Jake Lyons ’22 started playing the online game GeoGuessr in high school but didn’t get serious about it until his junior year at Northwestern. Today, he’s turned his hobby into a career as a professional GeoGuessr player, tournament broadcaster and content creator.
From discovering up-and-coming artists to forming new friendships, alumni recount their special experiences at Northwestern’s spring music festival.
Accurate diagnosis is the foundation of effective medical care, yet hundreds of thousands of Americans are harmed each year by misdiagnosis. Improving outcomes will require not just better technology but a renewed emphasis on bedside skills, observation and human connection.
Current students reflect on the alumni they’d most like to meet, including writers, royalty, game developers and others.
People and organizations are most capable of real change when faced with crisis, says communications executive Bradley Akubuiro ’11. He speaks from personal and professional experience.
Comedian Jenny Hagel ’09 MFA loves to give advice, so much she made a show about it, touring the country with Jenny Hagel Gives Advice, an interactive comedy where she and a guest answer audience questions. After her performance at Chicago’s Lincoln Lodge in September, Northwestern Magazine asked her for tips for making people laugh.
Across engineering, medicine, communications technology and more, faculty share why conducting basic science research is fundamentally important, opening paths to medical breakthroughs and innovation.
