David LowMarine scientist and educator Ellen Prager ’84 is the author of Sex, Drugs, and Sea Slime: The Oceans’ Oddest Creatures and Why They Matter, just published by University of Chicago Press. She introduces the reader to a variety of fascinating and often strange creatures that live in the depths of the ocean—from tiny but voracious arrow worms whose rapacious ways may lead to death by overeating, to the lobsters that battle rivals or seduce mates with their urine, to the sea’s masters of disguise, the octopuses. Prager examines the ways these sea inhabitants interact as predators, prey, or potential mates.…
Stephen K. Friedman ’91 has been promoted to president of MTV. Since the fall of 2008, he has been general manager, and he will now oversee MTV, MTV2, mtvU, MTV.com, MTV Hits and MTV Jams. During Friedman’s tenure, MTV has had five consecutive quarters of growth, and launched such successful shows as Teen Mom, 16 and Pregnant, Life as Liz, and the upcoming Teen Wolf. He joined MTV in 1998 and started MTV’s strategic partnerships and public affairs department. As general manager, he launched mtvU, the channel dedicated to college students, in 2004, and helped shape the channel’s Emmy Award-winning…
Noah Hutton ’09 has directed and scored a new documentary, More to Live For, which was shown recently at the Dallas International Film Festival. According to Glenn Hunter in the Dallas-based D Magazine, the film focuses on “three cancer victims searching for the bone-marrow transplants that could save their lives. The three are Dallas entertainment-insurance executive James Chippendale; Nigerian athlete Seun Adebiyi; and multiple-Grammy-Award-winning saxophone player Michael Brecker, who eventually died. Brecker’s widow, Susan Brecker, and Chippendale co-produced the film, which is intended to raise awareness about the importance of bone-marrow donation.” Hutton is currently a creative director at Couple…
Cynthia Rockwell“Executive VP of Acquisitions & Production for Sony Pictures Classics, Dylan Leiner has spent his career traveling to Cannes, Milan and other international film festivals looking for material to acquire. For roughly 15 years, he's also been a member of an informal floating soccer game,” writes Michelle Kung for the March 25, 2011, Wall Street Journal. On April 23, Leiner and a friend, Jeffrey Saunders, founder of CinemaCapital and a former professional soccer player, will bring a version of that floating game of film professionals and more to New York City. Their organization, NYFEST—New York Film and Entertainment Soccer Tournament—will…
In late December, Denise Jefferson Casper ’90 was confirmed to a United States District Court Judgeship in Massachusetts. She had been nominated last April by President Obama, and an American Bar Association panel had rated her as "unanimously well qualified'' for this lifetime appointment. Casper was previously the Deputy District Attorney for the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office, overseeing the daily operations of one of the largest district attorney's offices in New England. Prior to that position, Casper taught legal writing at Boston University School of Law. She had served as an Assistant United States Attorney in Boston from 1999 to…
Olivia DrakeIn March, Steven Katz ’96, M.D., chaired the inaugural New England Sarcoma Symposium, a joint effort between the Roger Williams Cancer Center in Providence, R.I., and the Kristen Ann Carr Fund. Additionally, Dr. Katz received the first Murray Brennan Research Award. He is the Director of Surgical Immunotherapy and Society of Surgical Oncology Fellowship Director at the Roger Williams Medical Center and assistant professor of surgery at Boston University. His clinical practice focuses on soft tissue sarcoma, gastrointestinal stromal tumor, melanoma, and liver mestastases. His prior and present research focus is on manipulating the immune system to treat patients with…
Rosemary Ostfeld ’10, MA ’11, an E&ES and biology major, is a semi-finalist for Sierra Club’s “Best Internship on Earth.” The winner will spend the summer video-blogging on different Sierra Club outings sponsored by the club’s Inner City Outings, Building Bridges to the Outdoors, and Volunteer Vacations programs. A four-year member of Wesleyan's Outing Club and former house manager of OutHouse, Ostfeld also developed and led an outdoor program for Snow Elementary School in Middletown. She says that Suzanne O’Connell, associate professor of earth and environmental sciences and director of service learning, encouraged her to apply for the internship with…
Lynn Chen ’98 writes on the blog, Thick Dumpling Skin, which she co-founded with Lisa Lee: "If you read my food blog, you know that I struggled with binge eating and anorexia for many years. Although it’s no longer a real day-to-day battle for me, I remember the feelings all too well and thought I would share with you what my eating disorder looked like. "I binged probably once a week for most of my late-twenties. It started off as my “cheat day” – I was in the midst of my trying-every-diet-under-the-sun phase and I liked the idea of a…
Toby Twining MA ’06 has released a new album of his musical compositions, Eurydice (Cantaloupe Music), which represents the next wave of Western harmony and a capella music. Eurydice began as a score for Sarah Ruhl’s play of the same name, directed by Blanka Zizka and produced for the Wilma Theatre in Philadelphia in 2008. The play reinterprets the classic myth of Orpheus, telling the story from Eurydice’s point of view and including a reunion with her father in the underworld. Composing for four singers and a cello, Twining found this underworld setting to be the perfect environment—quirky, funny and…
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