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Anthony Lake *69 *74’s career has included service at the State Department, a four-year stretch as President Bill Clinton’s national security adviser, and more than a decade of teaching at Georgetown University. In March, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced Lake’s next post: executive director of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

Lake brings substantial experience to the job. He has served for nine years on the board of the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, and he has been chairman of the Marshall Legacy Institute, an organization that alleviates suffering and nurtures stability in war-torn countries by establishing affordable and sustainable programs to remove landmines and assist survivors.

Lake’s appointment has drawn support from the diplomatic community. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice said Lake “will bring extraordinary experience, strategic vision, passion and energy to UNICEF’s essential work,” and UNICEF’s current executive director, Ann Veneman, said that Lake’s “abilities and extensive experience, including on the Board of the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, well-equip him to lead the global agenda for children.” Lake’s term begins May 1.

(Photo courtesy of Georgetown University)

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March 30 marked a homecoming for Sally Blount ’83, the next dean of Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. Blount, an engineering systems and Woodrow Wilson School major at Princeton, received her Ph.D. from Kellogg, and in her introductory meeting with students, she shared her excitement for the new job, which she will begin in July. Finance professor Janice Eberly, chairwoman of the dean search committee, also was upbeat, saying that Blount “is ready to take Kellogg to the next level.”

Blount, a former consultant with the Boston Consulting Group, has taught at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and New York University’s Stern School of Business. Most recently, she served as the vice dean at Stern, overseeing innovations in the undergraduate business curriculum and setting records as a fund-raiser.

Kellogg ranked third in Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s latest list of top business schools — behind the University of Chicago and Harvard — and the magazine gave the new dean high marks in an April 1 feature story:

“Blount is a bold choice for Kellogg — a master fund-raiser at a time when Kellogg’s endowment sustained annual losses of 26 percent in 2009 and a curriculum innovator with a global bent and extensive international experience at a time when Kellogg is seeking to continue extending its global reach.”

(Photo courtesy of New York University, Stern School of Business)

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Distinguished mathematician John Tate *50, who has been selected to receive the 2010 Abel Prize from the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, has left a lasting mark on the theory of numbers. In fact, more than a dozen important mathematical concepts bear his name, including the Tate conjecture, the Tate module, Tate cohomology, the Tate duality theorem, Barsotti-Tate groups, the Tate motive, and Tate’s algorithm.

As University of Oxford professor Marcus du Sautoy wrote, “[M]athematicians have coined a new concept: the Tate index, defined as the time it takes to give a talk on number theory before you mention the name Tate. In general this is a very small number.”

Tate’s revolutionary thinking began with his Ph.D. work at Princeton. His dissertation, or “Tate’s thesis,” continues to be a lecture topic in college-level courses.

Headlines from the March 20 Gridiron Club dinner — a Washington tradition in which reporters spoof the nation’s politicians — highlighted the return of former President Bill Clinton, who delivered stories and one-liners as one of the event’s featured speakers. But the club’s 125th-anniversary celebration also included key contributions from three Princetonians: from left, David Wiessler ’64, Kathy Kiely ’77, and Todd Purdum ’82.

Weissler, a retired editor from Thomson Reuters, served as the show’s music chairman. Kiely, a reporter for USA Today, produced the night’s Democratic skit. And Purdum, national editor at Vanity Fair, capped the evening with a musical number called “There is a ’Bama-hood of Man,” to the tune of “Brotherhood of Man” from the musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

Princeton’s a cappella scene can claim at least partial credit for molding the musical talents of the alumni journalists — Purdum was president of the Katzenjammers as an undergraduate. And, as Kiely quipped in an e-mail to PAW, no Whiffenpoof songs were allowed in this year’s Gridiron program.

(Photo by Julia Malone)

Do you have a nominee for Tiger of the Week? Let us know. All alumni qualify. PAW’s Tiger of the Week is selected by our staff, with help from readers like you.

Last week, the National Science Foundation selected Subhash Khot *03 to receive the Alan T. Waterman Award, a prestigious grant of $500,000 over three years that supports one outstanding researcher under the age of 36. Khot, who earned a Ph.D. from Princeton’s computer science department and now works as an associate professor at New York University’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, joins UCLA professor Terence Tao *96 as the second Princeton alumnus to win the honor in the last three years. (Past winners also include Edward Witten *76 and Charles Fefferman *69.)

Khot is a theoretical computer scientist whose interests include the fundamental phenomenon of “computationally intractable” problems — computational problems that cannot be solved quickly. “He courageously tackles some of the most challenging computational problems, all the while advancing computer security, with vast consequences for the broader security of our personal identities, commercial interests, societal institutions … even for national security as a whole,” said Arden L. Bement Jr., director of the National Science Foundation.

Broderick Johnson ’90 and Andrew Kosove ’92, two of the three producers of the Oscar-nominated film The Blind Side, never made it to the Academy Awards podium Sunday night. But the star of their movie, Sandra Bullock, won the award for Best Actress, providing another boost for a production that already has been a surprise hit at the box office. The film, based on the story of NFL lineman Michael Oher, was adapted from a book by Michael Lewis ’82.

Johnson, in an interview with CNBC’s Darren Rovell last week, said that from the start, he believed the movie would be an “excellent family broad-release film that could appeal to both men and women.” His instinct was correct: Adjusted for inflation, The Blind Side’s $249 million gross ranks fourth all-time among sports movies, behind three films from the Rocky series.

Johnson and Kosove, two economics majors who met while doing a community-service project at Princeton, founded Alcon Entertainment in 1997 and have been producing wide-release films for more than a decade. They scored their first hit with the family film My Dog Skip in 2000, and since then, their productions have ranged from the screwball comedy Dude, Where’s My Car? to the teen favorite The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.

Below, watch a video of Johnson and Kosove on CNBC.

Since January’s earthquake in Haiti, the lack of stable shelter has been a serious problem for people in and around Port-au-Prince. Miami-based architect and urban planner Andrés Duany ’71 has designed one solution. According to a recent Miami Herald story, Duany has created a simple, inexpensive, and sturdy “Hatian Cabin” that could provide long-term housing for tens of thousands of Haitians. Made with lightweight and fireproof composite panels, the cabins provide sleeping space for up to eight people and can withstand an earthquake or a Category 5 hurricane, Duany told the newspaper. InnoVida Holdings, a Florida-based company, said it will donate 1,000 of the prefabricated homes to Haiti. The company also has raised $15 million in investment capital to build a factory in Haiti and produce 10,000 houses per year.

Duany and his wife, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk ’72, have been pioneers of New Urbanism, an international movement that seeks to end suburban sprawl and urban disinvestment. In addition to his Haitian Cabin, Duany designed and built affordable housing for New Orleans’ Bywater neighborhood in 2008, aiding the area’s reconstruction after Hurricane Katrina.

(Photo courtesy Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co.)

Do you have a nominee for Tiger of the Week? Let us know. All alumni qualify. PAW’s Tiger of the Week is selected by our staff, with help from readers like you.

Dan Feyer ’99, right, with brother Stephen ’03 at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. (Photo by Gretchen Margaroli)

Solving a Sunday crossword puzzle is hard enough. Try doing it on stage, in front of hundreds of spectators — in under eight minutes. Impossible? Not for Dan Feyer ’99. And that’s why he is the new American Crossword Puzzle Tournament champion.

Feyer, a music major at Princeton who now plays piano accompaniment for off-Broadway musical theater productions in New York, got hooked on crossword competition after seeing the documentary Wordplay on PBS three years ago. He’s quickly climbed the ranks of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, winning top honors in just his third year as a contestant.

The secret to success is practice, Feyer told PAW. He solves up to 20 puzzles per day and has been known to complete 10 or more during a half-hour subway ride to work.

This year marked the first time that Feyer reached the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament final, a three-person onstage showdown. Contestants wear headphones that play white noise, to block out the commentators and crowd noise. When Feyer marked his final letter, he double-checked the puzzle, turned to the judges, and said, “Done.”

“It was very exciting, but I wasn’t entirely sure that I’d gotten everything right,” he said. “So when I finished I was kind of looking around for someone to give me a thumbs-up or a nod or something.” After a brief pause, that affirmation came. Feyer smiled and took off his headphones.

Feyer, who earned $5,000 for his victory, is not the only Princetonian word whiz. He was joined by two other alumni in the top 10, Kiran Kedlaya *97 and Stella (Daily) Zawistowski ’00, who finished sixth and seventh, respectively.

Below, watch a YouTube video of the tournament final (or view a high-resolution version here).

Michael Burlingame ’64 traces his passion for Civil War history back to a freshman-year course on the subject at Princeton, taught by David Herbert Donald, and his latest work, the two-volume biography Abraham Lincoln: A Life, included research compiled over the course of three decades. Last week, on Lincoln's birthday, the author and historian was rewarded for his longtime devotion to the field when his Lincoln biography received the 2010 Lincoln Prize, a $50,000 award that is one of the most prestigious honors in Civil War studies.

The prize is sponsored by Gettysburg College and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and Lewis Lehrman, co-chairman of the Gilder Lehrman Institute, called Burlingame's book "a landmark of American historical scholarship." "Every member of the literate general public, interested in Abraham Lincoln, is surely indebted to Burlingame for his tireless research into archives and newspapers never before examined," Lehrman said.

Burlingame, the Chancellor Naomi B. Lynn Distinguished Chair of Lincoln Studies at the University of Illinois at Springfield, joins a list of distinguished Lincoln Prize winners that includes Donald, Burlingame's mentor during his Ph.D. studies at Johns Hopkins; Princeton emeritus history professor James McPherson; documentary filmmaker Ken Burns; and historian Doris Kearns Goodwin.

Do you have a nominee for Tiger of the Week? Let us know. All alumni qualify. PAW's Tiger of the Week is selected by our staff, with help from readers like you.

In Jared Schutz Polis ’96’s first year in Congress, CNN cameras followed the Colorado Democrat for an online series called “Freshman Year.” (Utah Republican Jason Chaffetz also was profiled.) In the series, viewers saw behind-the-scenes moments, like Polis checking in with constituents via Facebook, filming the introductory video for his Web site, and winning a “Congressional Jeopardy” game against fellow representatives.

Now, early in his second year, Polis has been keeping his name in the news with his work in Washington and at home in Colorado. One of the few openly-gay members of Congress, he has been a leading voice in the push to end the military’s don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy, and late last month he introduced the Student Non-Discrimination Act, a bill that Polis said “puts [lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender] students on an equal footing with their peers, so they can attend school and get a quality education, free from fear.” He compared the bill to Title VI, which provided the same sort of protection for minority students in the 1960s, and Title IX, which helped put women on equal footing in the ’70s.

Polis also has proven his skills as a fundraiser: The Denver Post reported that in 2009, his political action committee gave more than $400,000 to Democratic members of Congress in swing districts and national political campaign groups, “writing checks for fellow freshmen representatives at a rate that rivals the fundraising clout of even Speaker Nancy Pelosi.”

(Courtesy PicApp.com)

Georgetown’s Jan. 30 men’s basketball contest against Duke brought a big-game atmosphere to Washington, D.C. More than 20,000 fans came to the Verizon Center, including President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, who watched from the front row as coach John Thompson III ’88’s Hoyas took a 13-point lead before halftime and held on to win 89-77.

Thompson told the AP afterward that he was “extremely happy that the president was there. … But we were more nervous about the guys sitting on the other bench.”

With the victory over Duke, Thompson now has 200 wins as a collegiate head coach — an impressive figure considering that he’s only in his 10th season. Princeton can claim at least a small part in Thompson’s coaching record. After playing for the Tigers and serving as an assistant to Pete Carril and Bill Carmody, Thompson won 68 games and three Ivy League titles in four seasons as Princeton’s head coach, from 2000-04.

Do you have a nominee for Tiger of the Week? Let us know. All alumni qualify. PAW’s Tiger of the Week is selected by our staff, with help from readers like you.

Few people in the travel and tourism industry know more about Haiti than Adam Goldstein ’81, the president and CEO of Royal Caribbean International, which owns and operates a resort at Labadee, on the country’s north coast. And when the disastrous earthquake struck near Port-au-Prince Jan. 12, few were better equipped to send relief supplies to the Haitians affected.

Since Jan. 15, four of the company’s cruise ships have unloaded 40 to 60 pallets of water and food with each visit, Goldstein said in a recent interview with NPR. The supplies are being distributed by Food for the Poor, a local non-governmental organization. Royal Caribbean has pledged at least $1 million in humanitarian aid, and Goldstein has posted updates about the relief effort on his blog.

The cruise line also has continued to bring tourists to Labadee, which was unaffected by the earthquake. That decision drew some criticism, but Goldstein said the Haitian government supported the day trips. As he told NPR, “We actually felt it was a pretty easy decision once we realized that the physical site at our property at Labadee was unaffected by the earthquake, and second, after the Haitian government made it clear that they wanted to continue to have our ships visit, both for the economic benefit that they normally bring, as well as the humanitarian aspect of delivering relief supplies.” Net proceeds from the Labadee visits are being donated to the aid effort, Goldstein said.

(Photo courtesy of Royal Caribbean)

Do you have a nominee for Tiger of the Week? Let us know. All alumni qualify. PAW’s Tiger of the Week is selected by our staff, with help from readers like you.