Recently in Tiger of the Week

Michelle Obama ’85 has inspired American women with her poise, her sense of style, and, well, her arms. Count Catherine Mallette ’84 in that last group. Mallette, the features editor for the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, looked at the first lady’s toned biceps and triceps and wondered what was stopping her from getting the same results at the gym. And, as she notes in a recent column, “the more I thought about her, the more I realized she and I have a lot in common.” Both are Princeton alumni, both have two kids and busy schedules. The main difference, Mallette surmised, was that she did not have the benefit of a personal trainer. So in December, she hired one and got to work.

The first session was grueling, and by the second round of weightlifting exercises, Mallette writes, she was struggling to raise her arms:

“I thought to myself: ‘You are trapped in a manhole. Water is climbing up and you will drown if you cannot reach up and punch that cover off. You are going to die if you can’t move your arm up.’

“I closed my eyes and put every ounce of energy into trying to lift my right arm.

“‘You can do it.’ I told myself. ‘You can do it.’

“I couldn’t do it.”

But the workouts have improved in the last few weeks, and Mallette is optimistic that she’ll be able to take her arms “from Jell-O to Michelle O.” Read more from her story at Star-Telegram.com.

(Photo courtesy of the Star-Telegram.)

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.

Psychologist Daniel Gilbert *85’s research on what makes us happy has earned the Harvard professor a range of admirers in academia and beyond, along with a spot on The New York Times best-sellers list (and a recent profile in PAW). This week, Gilbert debuted in a new role as the host of the PBS miniseries “This Emotional Life,” a six-hour look at emotional health that ranges from improving social relationships to becoming more positive and resilient. The third and final program airs tonight.

“This Emotional Life” has received positive reviews: The New York Times said Gilbert “makes a genial host,” and The Seattle Times chose Monday’s installment as its top TV pick of the night. Those who missed the first two parts are in luck, according to The Boston Globe: ” ‘This Emotional Life’ is a thoughtful and worthwhile program,” the Globe said. “But if you’re only going to watch part of it, the last night is the one that might actually make you happier.”

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.

When Harvard graduate student Zachory Berta ’07 first spotted the planet known as GJ 1214b, it was just a tiny blip dimming the light from a star in the Ophiuchus constellation. But the blip passed the star regularly — every 1.6 days. Berta and his colleagues at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics’ MEarth Project, led by professor David Charbonneau, soon confirmed that it was a planet, a “super-Earth” located 40 light-years away. (A super-Earth is a planet between one and ten times the mass of the Earth.)

“It was exciting,” Berta told PAW. “I was half optimist, half skeptic up until that point.” The discovery, made in May and published last week in the journal Nature, has earned headlines in The New York Times, Time, and hundreds of other news outlets.

There are more than 400 known planets outside our solar system, so finding a new one is not always big news. But GJ 1214b is notable for several reasons: It is relatively small (2.7 times the size of Earth), it’s likely to have water on its surface, and future studies may confirm that it is the first super-Earth with an atmosphere (though, as Charbonneau said in a news release, “that atmosphere probably won’t be hospitable to life as we know it”; the astronomers estimate the planet’s temperature to be about 400 degrees Fahrenheit).

The new super-Earth also is relatively close to our solar system, and the Harvard team has made a proposal for additional study, using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. “It’s an ideal system to follow up with,” Berta said. “We can learn a lot more [about GJ 1214b].”

Berta is now in his second year as a Ph.D. student, and his interest in astrophysics as a career began at Princeton, where he studied under renowned researchers like David Spergel ’82. For his senior thesis, Berta mapped clusters of galaxies, using images from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. He wrote about the project in the July 18, 2007, issue of PAW.

(Photo by Frank Wojciechowski)

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.

Jesse Liebman ’03 did not come to Princeton planning to be an actor. In fact, the classics major didn't walk onto a campus stage until his sophomore year, when he auditioned for the Triangle Club. He would go on to write, direct, and act in Triangle shows, and since graduation, he has honed his acting skills in theatrical productions and at the New Actors Workshop in New York.

This Friday, Liebman's career takes a new turn with the release of the movie Did You Hear About the Morgans?, a romantic comedy starring Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker. Liebman plays the assistant to Grant's character and finds himself in a budding romance with the assistant to Parker's character, played by Elisabeth Moss. One of Liebman's classmates alerted us to the actor's latest role, and Liebman spoke with PAW's Brett Tomlinson Dec. 15, the day after the New York premiere of Did You Hear About the Morgans?.

Is this your first major role in a feature film?

"It is both the first role and my first major role -- the first in many ways. Otherwise, I've done entirely theater work since graduating from college."

What have been your other recent highlights as an actor?

"This year has been great because I co-directed and co-starred in a version of Waiting for Godot that I was able to perform in Paris twice. So it's been a very rewarding year with new experiences both in theater and in film."

You were a member of the Triangle Club at Princeton. Was there anything specific from that experience that inspired you to pursue acting professionally?

"In the back of my mind, I always wanted 'acting training.' I don't think I said that I wanted to be an actor, but I wanted to go through the training process. And Triangle was that type of training process. Triangle has not only this great tradition of performing arts, but each class has its own energy, most represented in the Freshman Week show. ... It just seemed like everyone was having so much fun. The collaborative energy and the level of professionalism really stood out."

What began with a chance encounter on an airplane could end with an acceptance speech at the Academy Awards. Author Walter Kirn ’83, in a recent interview with Studio 360 host Kurt Andersen, said that making small talk with the man in the seat next to him — a constantly roaming business consultant — provided the inspiration for the lead character in Kirn’s 2001 novel Up in the Air. Last week, director Jason Reitman released his film adaptation of the book, starring George Clooney, and reviewers praised the movie, with more than a few noting its potential as an Oscar nominee for best picture.

Those who have followed Kirn’s career may recall that he has some sour memories of his days as a Princeton undergraduate (most vividly described in his 2009 memoir Lost in the Meritocracy). But PAW’s Tiger of the Week is designed to honor noteworthy alumni; love of alma mater is not a prerequisite.

Reitman and colleague Sheldon Turner wrote the screenplay for Up in the Air, and Kirn spent time on the set in a consulting role. That opened the door for another role — an on-screen cameo in which the author portrays one of Clooney’s business associates.

“That was a worst-case scenario for me in which I had to sit next to George Clooney, providing an objective comparison between our faces for my own girlfriend,” Kirn joked in the Studio 360 interview. “I never want to appear on screen again.”

Read about other alumni books that have become movies in PAW’s online feature From printed page to silver screen.

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.

George Parros ’03, right, with stylist Vincent Vu at his 2007 Locks of Love haircut. (Courtesy the Anaheim Ducks)

Anaheim Ducks right wing George Parros ’03 seems to embrace contrasts. He didn’t let his Ivy League pedigree prevent him from becoming a rough-and-tumble enforcer in the NHL. (“I know, I should be in a blue blazer and ascot,” Parros joked in a 2008 PAW interview.) And he’s not letting his tough on-ice persona get in the way of his charitable side.

The long-haired, mustachioed Parros, known affectionately as “the ’Stache,” grows his locks out each year and then donates the hair to Locks of Love, a charity that makes wigs for children who are undergoing cancer treatment. (His next big haircut is scheduled for Dec. 14.) Last week, Parros also launched a line of ’Stache Gear T-shirts and hats, on sale at Ducks games. Proceeds benefit the Childhood Leukemia Foundation and the Garth Brooks Teammates for Kids Foundation, and in its first weekend, the project raised $7,500.

Parros told ESPN.com that the hair-and-mustache mania has roots in his pre-professional days. “All my coaches in high school and college wouldn’t let me grow my hair out,” he said. “So my first year in pro hockey, I let my hair grow out. It was getting long around Christmas and someone told me about Locks of Love at the time. I figured if I was going to cut if off, I might as well do something good with it. And it kind of started from there.”

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.

Members of the Class of 1983 may remember Jeffrey Herbst ’83 as a standout student in the Woodrow Wilson School. Alumni from more recent classes might recall Herbst as a distinguished professor of politics and international affairs and a prominent expert on sub-Saharan Africa. Students and alumni of Colgate University will soon know Herbst in another capacity: president. Colgate announced last week that Herbst has been named the school’s 16th president and will begin his new job in the summer of 2010.

Herbst, most recently the provost and executive vice president for academic affairs and a professor of political science at Miami University in Ohio, was a member of Princeton’s faculty from 1994 to 2005. He held several leadership positions during that time, including chairman of the politics department from 2000 to 2005.

When Herbst’s appointment at Colgate was announced, he received high praise from William G. Bowen *58, Princeton’s president during Herbst’s undergraduate days. “I worked closely with Jeff when he was at Princeton, so I know first-hand how capable he is — as a scholar, as a teacher, and as a highly collegial leader,” Bowen said in a news release. “This is, in my view, a stellar appointment.”

(Photo by Andy Daddio/Courtesy Colgate University)

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.

If you ask Dr. Lachlan Forrow ’78 about Dr. Albert Schweitzer, you’re likely to hear an enthusiastic response about the late Nobel laureate’s extraordinary range of talents, from his work as a young theologian to his campaign against nuclear weapons near the end of his life. But it is Schweitzer’s most famous contribution — as a doctor, tending to underserved patients in Lambaréné, Gabon — that has helped to shape Forrow’s career.

Dr. Lachlan Forrow ’78, pictured with a portrait of Dr. Albert Schweitzer. (Courtesy Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center)

Forrow, a philosophy major at Princeton, traveled to Gabon in 1982, taking a break from his studies at Harvard Medical School to work for three months in the hospital that Schweitzer founded. The brief fellowship was a challenging experience that left a lasting impression.

Nearly a decade later, as board member of the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship, Forrow helped launch a program for U.S. Schweitzer Fellows — aspiring medical professionals who would help to address unmet needs in American cities. In the last 18 years, the program’s annual cohort has grown from 12 fellows to 250, and Forrow, now president of the fellowship group, aims to double that number in the next five years.

“Schweitzer started his hospital in Lambaréné, but he said that everyone has his or her own Lambaréné,” Forrow said. “When they find it, it’s very fulfilling. … We’re trying to help people find their Lambaréné.”

This fall, in the peak season for college applications, several high school seniors who attended Princeton’s Summer Journalism Program (SJP) will be getting a little extra help as they try to earn admission to some of the nation’s best universities. SJP staff remain in contact to assist students in the college application process, and if history is a guide, the SJP graduates should fare well: Four program alumni currently are enrolled at Princeton, and others have gone on to elite schools like Harvard, Yale, and Stanford.

The nomination for our Tigers of the Week — the SJP directors, pictured from left, Richard Just ’01, Greg Mancini ’01, Rich Tucker ’01, and Michael Koike ’01 — came from a program alumna, Tasnim Shamma ’11, a Daily Princetonian senior writer who said that without SJP, she never would have applied to Princeton.

Just, Mancini, Tucker, and Koike, four friends who worked together on The Daily Princetonian staff, created SJP after graduation in an effort to diversify college and professional newsrooms by giving students from low-income backgrounds a chance to explore and study journalism in a 10-day summer seminar. All student expenses, including travel costs, are paid by donors (mostly Princeton alumni).

Pianist Robert Taub ’77 has a deep knowledge of Beethoven’s piano sonatas, both as a musician and a music scholar. In the mid-1990s, he performed all 32 sonatas in a three-year span. Earlier this year, he authored a book called Playing the Beethoven Piano Sonatas, which Library Journal called “a close, careful reading of every aspect of performance from fingering to tempo.”

Taub majored in music at Princeton, earned a doctorate from Julliard, and has returned to teach courses on campus in recent years. His latest project is a comprehensive collection of the 32 Beethoven piano sonatas — the first in more than 100 years from the venerable publisher G. Schirmer — that will encapsulate the works in two volumes of annotated sheet music and 10 CDs that feature Taub playing the sonatas. He told James Barron ’77, the secretary for his class, that the new collection sums up many years of playing and studying the sonatas. By citing Beethoven’s own fingerings and markings, Taub said he is attempting “to portray an artistic vision that transcends the little black dots on the page.”

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.

Author Jonathan Safran Foer ’99 earned acclaim for the captivating prose in his first two novels, Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. His newest work, the nonfiction book Eating Animals, is drawing a different sort of attention for its controversial, compelling take on, well, eating meat. Foer’s route to vegetarianism is described in an excerpt published in the food issue of The New York Times Magazine earlier this month. (In it, he briefly mentions wrestling with the morality of eating meat during his time as a philosophy major at Princeton.)

Foer shared some of his views during a recent edition of Larry King Live, and The Huffington Post has launched a series of essays responding to Eating Animals. Aaron Gross, founder of the advocacy group Farm Forward, wrote the introduction, describing the book as “part personal journey, part modern muckraking and a surprisingly candid and empathetic book on food.” Actress Natalie Portman followed with a review in which she said the book changed her “from a 20-year vegetarian to a vegan activist.”

(Photo courtesy Wikipedia)

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.

Peter Orszag ’91, director of the Office of Management and Budget, ranked No. 5 on GQ’s list of the most powerful people in Washington, D.C., published last week. (Other Princeton alumni on the list include Robert Mueller ’66, No. 19; Richard Holbrooke *70, No. 21; and Edward Yingling ’70, No. 24). The reason for Orszag’s high ranking, according to GQ: “For every must-have on Obama’s domestic agenda — cap and trade, saner immigration policies, educational reform — the pressure’s on Orszag to make sure it can’t be branded as, er, ‘socialism.’ ” The respect Orszag built while head of the Congressional Budget Office, the magazine added, has made him “extremely influential with centrists” in Congress.

This month, Orszag has been trying to wield a different sort of influence around Washington. The avid runner lauched the OMB Pedometer Challenge, an effort to help his co-workers in the federal government burn off extra calories. Federal employees who volunteer to wear pedometers and out-step the OMB director have a chance to win prizes, including free lunches and a “happy healthy hour” for the winning team. “When you measure something and have a competition surrounding it,” Orszag explained in a White House video, “it creates a strong incentive to do more of it.” Better health, he added, may be the “ultimate prize.”

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.