Princeton Alumni Weekly | The Weekly Blog: Tiger of the Week Archives

May 16, 2012

Tiger of the Week: Bill Webster '73

Bill Webster '73 (Photo: Courtesy Bill Webster)

Bill Webster ’73 has done his best to turn “getting the band back together” into a Princeton Reunions tradition. In 2008, the trombonist worked with the Alumni Council to create the Battle of the Alumni Bands, a free concert held on the Friday afternoon of Reunions. On June 1, the event will mark its fifth anniversary, hosting a lineup of musicians whose class years span four decades.

“The concept for Battle of the Alumni Bands is [for each group] to do a 20-minute set — about six songs — so it’s pretty easy to get it together and play in front of your classmates,” Webster told PAW’s Fran Hulette. “You forget what a rush it is playing for people.”

Webster’s inspiration came from personal experience. As an undergraduate — and in the decade following graduation — his band, Webster’s Unabridged, played its blend of Big Band and rock music for alumni audiences at Reunions. Webster continued to reassemble his bandmates at major reunions, a tradition that provided some memorable highlights. Through the Battle, Webster has helped other alumni bands create their own memories on stage.

Read more about the Battle of the Alumni Bands in PAW’s 2012 Reunions Guide, available on campus in late May.

Video: Sounds of Reunions

Chris Hipser ’11’s overview of musical gatherings includes footage from the 2011 Battle of the Alumni Bands.

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.

May 9, 2012

Tigers of the Week: Darya Nachinkina *06 and Alice Zhang '10

Darya Nachinkina *06 (Photo: Courtesy the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowships)

Alice Zhang '10 (Photo: Courtesy the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowships)

Darya Nachinkina *06, a Woodrow Wilson School master’s graduate, was born in Moscow and has devoted her consulting career to helping nonprofit and philanthropic organizations. Alice Zhang ’10, the daughter of a Chinese democracy activist who immigrated to the United States, is a devoted backer of human rights and a budding lab scientist. Last month, both women received support to continue their graduate studies through the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowships, which fund grants for 30 “new Americans” – permanent residents or naturalized citizens born abroad, or children of naturalized citizen parents.

The Soros Fellowships were created and endowed by a pair of Hungarian immigrants who believed that “assisting young new Americans at critical points in their educations was an unmet need,” according to the program’s website.

Nachinkina came to the United States at age 19, completed her undergraduate studies at Harvard, and earned a master’s in public affairs from the Wilson School. Since then, she has worked for consulting firms in the social sector. She also founded Arts for Crafts, a nonprofit that partners with artists to sell their work. Proceeds are then used to purchase craft supplies for Russian orphans. Nachinkina will use the Soros Fellowship to pursue an M.B.A. at MIT’s Sloan School of Management.

Zhang, who was born in the United States, has maintained ties with her family’s homeland. During high school, she helped AIDS orphans in China’s Henan Province. She continued her activism on global AIDS and human rights issues at Princeton and graduated with high honors in molecular biology. Zhang is working toward a joint M.D. and a Ph.D. in biomedical sciences at the UCLA/Caltech Medical Scientist Training Program.

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.

May 2, 2012

Tiger of the Week: Renee Hsia '99

Renee Hsia '99 (Photo: David Gene Photography)

Renee Hsia ’99’s latest research paper was sparked by a seemingly simple question from a friend who had been poring over his hospital bills: What is the typical cost of an appendectomy?

Hsia, an assistant professor at the University of California, San Francisco, and emergency-medicine physician, could not give an answer. But she eventually culled the data from a statewide database of health charges: The median fees to treat “uncomplicated” appendicitis totaled $33,611 – and depending on where a patient went for the procedure, it could cost anywhere from $1,529 to $182,955.

“The fact that there’s variation is not surprising,” Hsia told PAW. “But the range was surprising, even to me.”

Hsia and three co-authors published their findings in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine, and the study drew national media attention last week, with coverage from ABC News, The New York Times, the Associated Press, and others.

While the wildly disparate fees captured the headlines, Hsia said there were other lessons from the research, including one that she observes in her emergency-room shifts. When you’re suffering from something like severe abdominal pain, you’re not exactly in a position to shop around, but the unpredictable costs of health care “make patients fearful to be admitted,” she said.

The problem is most pressing for those with no insurance or subpar coverage, but Hsia adds that even patients with good insurance often pay hefty out-of-pocket fees and can be affected by health-care inefficiencies, which drive up premiums.

Hsia, a Harvard Medical School graduate who also received a master’s degree from the London School of Economics/London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, divides her time between research, clinical work, and teaching. She studies inefficiency and inequity in health care, areas of interest that have roots in her undergraduate courses at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School, where she learned about public policy from the likes of Uwe Reinhardt, Stan Katz, and Lynn White. Hsia shared the Pyne Prize, the University’s highest undergraduate honor, in her senior year at Princeton.

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.

April 25, 2012

Tiger of the Week: Charlotte Rogan '75

Charlotte Rogan '75 (Photo: HBGUSA)

Charlotte Rogan ’75 has written fiction for 25 years, but her first published novel, The Lifeboat, did not reach shelves until earlier this month. The author’s persistence seems to be paying handsome rewards: After earning several positive reviews and a spot on the British bookseller Waterstones’ list of the top debut novels of 2012, The Lifeboat has sailed into the No. 12 position of the New York Times Fiction Best Sellers.

Set in 1914 and narrated by a 22-year-old woman named Grace, the novel tells the story of a group of people who spend three weeks at sea after a mysterious explosion on an ocean liner. The New York Review of Books called the book “an enthralling story of survival at sea,” while The Guardian praised it as “a fascinating portrait of a determined, free-thinking young woman, and an inquiry into the puzzle of personality.”

Rogan majored in architecture at Princeton and worked in construction engineering before discovering her talent for creative writing in her 30s. The Lifeboat emerged over the course of a decade.

“The message to other unpublished writers is to stick with it,” Rogan told PAW’s Katherine Federici Greenwood. “It can happen.”

Read more about Rogan and The Lifeboat in the May 16 issue of PAW.

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.

April 18, 2012

Tiger of the Week: Eric Kuhne *83

Eric Kuhne *83, top, and his firm designed Titanic Belfast, a new exhibition center that opened March 31. (Photos: Ron Kennard/Wikipedia [Kuhne]; Courtesy Civic Arts / Eric R. Kuhne and Associates [Titanic Belfast])

Eric Kuhne *83 and his firm designed Titanic Belfast, a new exhibition center that opened March 31. (Photo: Ron Kennard/Wikipedia)

Architect Eric Kuhne *83 knew that Titanic Belfast was off to a good start the day before its March 31 debut. The exhibition center, designed by Kuhne’s London-based firm, Civic Arts / Eric R. Kuhne and Associates, opened its doors without public notice, and about 4,000 people from the Northern Ireland city came to visit. In the two weeks since, the center has drawn thousands more – about three times the most optimistic estimates, Kuhne said – and attracted widespread media attention as the world marked the 100th anniversary of the Titanic’s tragic sinking.

Kuhne’s work in Belfast began seven years ago with a master plan for the waterfront that once housed one of the world’s premier shipbuilding centers, including the shipyard that built Titanic and its sister ship, Olympic. Titanic Belfast, on the site of that historic yard, aims to be a major tourist destination as well as a public hub for Belfastians and a source of civic pride.

“The shipyard is not about one tragic ship,” Kuhne explained in an interview with PAW. “It’s about 400 years of maritime excellence.”

Continue reading Tiger of the Week: Eric Kuhne *83…

April 11, 2012

Tiger of the Week: Gary Gibbons '78

Gary Gibbons '78, M.D. (Photo: Courtesy Morehouse School of Medicine)

Last week, cardiologist and researcher Gary Gibbons ’78 was selected to lead one of the nation’s most important medical research centers, the Bethesda, Md.-based National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). Gibbons, currently a professor, department chairman, and director of the Cardiovascular Research Institute at the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, is expected to start his new position in the summer.

Gibbons, a leader in work related to cardiovascular health of minority populations, has earned 15 NHLBI-supported grants in the last 15 years and has served on the institute’s advisory council since 2009. In an interview with Science Insider, Gibbons said he aims to ensure “that NHLBI continues its legacy of doing discovery science that advances public health.”

With an annual budget of more than $3 billion, NHLBI is the third largest institute at the National Institutes of Health (behind the National Cancer Institute and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases). In 2007, cardiovascular, lung, and blood diseases accounted for 43 percent of deaths in the United States.

Gibbons majored in psychology at Princeton, graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Medical School, and taught on the medical faculties at Stanford and Harvard before joining Morehouse in 1999. He was nominated for our weekly honor by classmate – and cardiologist – Kenneth Bernhard ’78.

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.

April 4, 2012

Tiger of the Week: H. Bartow Farr III '66

H. Bartow Farr III '66 (Photo: Courtesy Oyez.org)

For Princetonians in Washington, it was a pretty good week. Martin Gruenberg ’75, President Barack Obama’s pick to head the FDIC, finally removed the word “interim” from his job title after the Senate approved his nomination, and two alumni received nominations for new federal posts – Patricia Falcone ’74 in the Office of Science and Technology Policy; and Douglas Griffiths *00 as ambassador to Mozambique.

But the top headliner was Washington-based lawyer H. Bartow Farr III ’66, who played a key role in the closely watched Supreme Court case examining Obama’s 2010 health care law.

Farr’s charge was to argue in favor of upholding the remaining provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, even if the Supreme Court strikes down the disputed health care mandate. The day after Farr’s argument on this “severability” question, a New York Times editorial found his stance to be a compelling one:

“As Mr. Farr made clear, the fate of the mandate should not determine the survival of the other elements of the law — like prohibiting insurers from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions or charging them higher fees — which can operate without the mandate.”

D.C.-area colleague Joseph Onek told The National Law Journal that Farr is a “lawyer’s lawyer, not a political lawyer or even a Washington lawyer,” adding that Farr was determined not to be swayed by political agendas as he prepared his arguments. Farr has argued 30 cases in the Supreme Court, according to the Law Journal article.

Audio: Listen to an excerpt of Farr’s exchange with the Supreme Court justices, published by The Washington Post.

March 28, 2012

Tigers of the Week: Frank Moss '71, Marin Soljačić *00, and Steve Teig '82

Frank Moss '71 (Photo: Webb Chappell) Marin *00 Solja (Photo: Wikipedia)

From left, Frank Moss '71, Marin Soljačić *00, and Steve Teig '82. (Photos: Webb Chappell; Wikipedia; Tabula)

When Technology Review named this year’s “50 most innovative companies” in early March, the list spotlighted familiar names like Apple, Facebook, GM, IBM, and Intel. But also included were several smaller firms, including three new additions that were founded by Princeton alumni:

Bluefin Labs, co-founded by Frank Moss ’71, was hailed for its creative use of social-media data. Its analysis provides advertisers and TV broadcasters with “fine-grained information about audience size and sentiment,” the magazine said. Moss, the former CEO of Tivoli Systems Inc., recently left his post as director of the MIT Media Lab (the subject of his most recent book).

WiTricity, co-founded by Marin Soljačić *00, was one of three transportation companies on the innovative companies list. Its focus is on battery technology, wireless power transmission, and other applications related to electric cars. Soljačić, a theoretical physicist and MIT professor, received a MacArthur fellowship in 2008.

Tabula, led by founder, president, and chief technology officer Steve Teig ’82, has created “chip designs that can reconfigure themselves faster than existing reprogrammable designs,” according to the magazine. Teig started the company in 2003 (a year after he broke Thomas Edison’s record for patents filed by an individual in a single year, according to the Tabula website), and last fall, he won the World Technology Network’s top honor for IT hardware innovation.

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.

March 21, 2012

Tigers of the Week: Josh Hirshfeld '08, Kieran Ledwidge '08, Geoff McDonald '07, Tyler Pines '09, and Evan Younger '08

Miracles of Modern Science: from left, Geoff McDonald '07, Josh Hirshfeld '08, Evan Younger '08, Tyler Pines '09, and Kieran Ledwidge. (Photo: Courtesy Miracles of Modern Science)

Miracles of Modern Science: from left, Geoff McDonald '07, Josh Hirshfeld '08, Evan Younger '08, Tyler Pines '09, and Kieran Ledwidge '08. (Photo: Courtesy Miracles of Modern Science)

Four string instruments, a drum set, and a quintet of Ivy League musicians might not seem like a recipe for a successful rock band, but the Princeton-bred Miracles of Modern Science (profiled by PAW in February 2010) have defied convention and preconceptions to attract a growing contingent of fans in indie-music circles.

The Brooklyn-based group, also known as MOMS, was created on campus by five undergrads, now alumni: Josh Hirshfeld ’08 (mandolin), Kieran Ledwidge ’08 (violin), Geoff McDonald ’07 (cello), Tyler Pines ’09 (drums), and Evan Younger ’08 (vocals/bass). They released their first full-length album, Dog Year, in December 2011, earning praise from Paste Magazine and Consequence of Sound and landing one song on Wired’s Top 100 Songs of 2011.

This month, the group embarked on its most ambitious tour to date, a three-week journey of 15 gigs in 10 states that included a return to the South-by-Southwest festival in Austin, Texas.

Along the way, Ledwidge and his mates have filed entertaining blog posts, chronicling the scenery along the 10-hour drive from Brooklyn to Columbus, Ohio (barns, barns, and “unidentifiable objects on the horizon that turned out to be barns”); preparations for the cold of Chicago (“not so much along Napoleonic lines as bears preparing for the winter”); and sharing couch and floor space in Norman, Okla., with a pair of house cats who “alternated between lovingly curling up with us, and dropping hints that the fate of our sleep rested entirely in their hands.”

Ledwidge saved his most colorful lines to describe a lively show in a converted chapel at Drury University in Springfield, Mo.:

“As we moved into ‘MOMS Away’ to put our set to rest (and I should preface this by saying I was pretty pumped up by this stage, so my recall may be skewed), fixed pews were no match for a determined dancing core who ripped them apart with Hulk-like ease, splintering wood — oak was like matchsticks before the throbbing mass — throwing entire rows skyward in an aerial spectacle of sound and fury, the likes of which could only be dreamed of by Cirque du Soleil, completely obliterating what was otherwise a peaceful establishment of moderate local historic significance in an orgy of unrestrained self-expression. Some of the details are a little hazy. Pretty sure that Hulk thing happened, though.”

Listen to “MOMS Away”:

<a href="http://miraclesofmodernscience.bandcamp.com/track/moms-away">MOMS AWAY! by Miracles of Modern Science</a>

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.

March 14, 2012

Tiger of the Week: Kristin Alyea Epstein '97

Kristin Alyea Epstein '97 (Photo: Courtesy Kristin Alyea Epstein)

Princeton alumni have regional associations from Tampa to Taiwan, so it would stand to reason that there would be a club for Tigers living in the communities near campus – at least that’s what Kristin Alyea Epstein ’97 figured when she and her husband, John ’96, moved back to the Princeton area.

Epstein learned that the local alumni association had fizzled out in the 1990s, but the Alumni Association staff offered to support her if she hoped to revive the group. Though it seemed daunting at first, she decided to try.

Her first meeting, in 2008, drew about 40 people who brought a range of ideas for events and programs. Epstein asked them to sign up for committees on their way out of the room, and to her surprise, everyone did. “People stepped up right away,” she said, “and it’s really amazing how much it’s expanded.”

Over the last four years, the Princeton Area Alumni Association (a.k.a. PA3) has built a presence in community service, career networking, social activities, and educational events like the quarterly PA3 Tiger Talks, which feature guest speakers discussing hot topics ranging from charter schools to climate change. The group also has taken advantage of its proximity to campus, interacting with current undergrads and graduate students to serve as an “introduction to alumni-hood,” Epstein said.

In all, there are now about 50 PA3 events on the calendar each year, and as the alumnus who nominated Epstein wrote, “She has not done this alone, but she has been the locomotive pulling the train.”

The hard work is not without its perks: At the PA3 annual dinner earlier this month (a dinner that drew more than 100 people), Epstein was able to sit next to Harold Shapiro *64, the night’s featured speaker and Princeton’s president during Epstein’s undergraduate days. “When I was an undergraduate,” she said, “I never would have pictured that in a million years.”

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.

March 7, 2012

Tiger of the Week: Eric Lander '78

Eric Lander '78 (Photo: Len Rubenstein/Courtesy the Broad Institute)

Eric Lander ’78, a pioneering biologist best known as a leader of the Human Genome Project, was selected as one of six recipients of the 2012 Dan David Prize on March 1. The award, endowed by the Dan David foundation and based in Israel, honors innovative work in three categories – past, present, and future. Lander will share the $1 million “future” prize with two other genomics trendsetters: David Botstein, director of Princeton’s Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, and J. Craig Venter. The award will be presented in June.

As the prize citation explains, Lander was “a powerful and respected voice in the planning and execution of the genome project”:

“The Center he led contributed much of the data, he pioneered many of the analyses of genome sequence data, and he led in the writing of the landmark publication describing the HGP first as a draft sequence in Nature, 2001 and later as a full sequence in Nature, 2004. This has become the standard human reference sequence.”

Lander, the founding director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, received the University’s Woodrow Wilson Award at Alumni Day in 1998 and has since earned numerous honors, degrees, and other distinctions, including a post as co-chairman of President Barack Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. As an undergraduate, Lander majored in mathematics, wrote PAW’s On the Campus column, and earned a Rhodes scholarship to continue his studies at Oxford.

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.

February 29, 2012

Tiger of the Week: Randall T. Shepard '69

Randall T. Shepard '69 (Photo: Courtesy Indiana Supreme Court)

Randall T. Shepard ’69 was just 38 years old when he was appointed to the Indiana Supreme Court in 1985, and when he was elevated to chief justice less than two years later, he became the youngest state chief justice in the United States. As Shepard approaches retirement next week, he is now Indiana’s longest-serving chief justice, and according to supporters in the Hoosier state, the distinguished jurist will be remembered for leaving a lasting impression during his time in office.

Shepard’s assessment of his work, outlined in the State of Judiciary address delivered in January, included pride in building a collegial atmosphere among the Indiana courts. He also earned distinction for his expertise in judicial ethics, receiving the 2009 Dwight D. Opperman Award for Judicial Excellence, a national honor presented by the American Judicature Society. Under Shepard’s guidance, the Indiana courts have increased transparency, allowing media cameras and webcasts in the appellate courts and beginning a pilot project to explore cameras in trial courtrooms. (The Hoosier State Press Association praised both measures.) Away from the court, he co-chaired a statewide commission on local government reform and a recent research project called Policy Choices for Indiana’s Future.

Shepard received a fond farewell from fellow Princetonian Mitch Daniels ’71, Indiana’s Republican governor, during the State of the State address. Daniels thanked Shepard “for a quarter century of fairness, firmness, and farsightedness on our highest bench.”

The same week, as Shepard delivered his final State of the Judiciary address, The Evansville Courier reported that he “appeared emotional” as he reached a conclusion that summarized his career: “Could there be a better cause, a more worthwhile way to ‘spend and be spent’ in life, than working toward greater justice?”

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.