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

November 23, 2011

Tiger of the Week: Arthur Levinson *77

(Office of Communications)

Conventional wisdom suggested it would take more than one person to fill the shoes of the late Apple chairman and CEO Steve Jobs. Last week, the technology giant confirmed that view, naming former Genentech CEO Arthur Levinson *77 as its non-executive chairman. Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, will continue the role he took over in August, less than two months before Jobs’ death.

Levinson, who stepped down as the Genentech CEO in 2009, has been an Apple board member since 2000 and previously served as co-lead director with another Princetonian, Avon CEO Andrea Jung ’79. Reuters columnist Robert Cyran said that Levinson was a “solid choice” to lead the Apple board because he “developed a good reputation for dealing with headstrong researchers” in his previous job.

After earning a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Princeton in 1977, Levinson joined Genentech as a research scientist in 1980. He became the CEO in 1995, and in his 14 years at the helm, he led the biotech company through a remarkable period of growth, eventually overseeing its merger with pharmaceutical giant Roche in 2008-09. The website Glassdoor.com once named him the country’s “nicest” CEO (based on ratings by employees), and Genentech has consistently ranked at or near the top of Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For.” In 2006, Levinson received the James Madison Medal, Princeton’s top honor for graduate alumni.

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November 16, 2011

Tiger of the Week: Andrew Hurwitz '68

(Arizona Supreme Court)

After graduating from Yale Law School in 1972, Andrew Hurwitz ’68 learned about the federal court system as a law clerk in district court, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and ultimately, the Supreme Court, where he worked for Justice Potter Stewart. Now, the longtime litigator and current Arizona Supreme Court justice could be headed back to the federal courts. Earlier this month, President Barack Obama nominated Hurwitz to serve on the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, based in San Francisco.

In a news release announcing the nomination, Obama expressed confidence in Hurwitz’s “ability, integrity, and independence” as a justice. “Justice Hurwitz has proven himself to be not only a first-rate legal mind but a faithful public servant,” he said.

While Hurwitz has worked primarily in law, he also has served in state government as chief of staff to two Arizona governors, Bruce Babbitt (from 1980-83) and Rose Mofford (1988). He was appointed to the state’s Supreme Court in 2003.

Hurwitz’s interest in the law was firmly in place by the time he left Princeton. He served as president of the Pre-Law Society and wrote his thesis about the jurisprudence of Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, with Professor Walter Murphy serving as his adviser.

In other judicial news, alumna Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ’87 was confirmed on an 89-6 vote in the U.S. Senate Nov. 15, paving the way for her to begin work as a district court judge in northern California. Gonzalez Rogers was highlighted as PAW’s Tiger of the Week on July 20, 2011.

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.

November 9, 2011

Tiger of the Week: Palmer Heenan '43

Palmer Heenan '43 (Courtesy Sara Eaton Martin/GrossePointePatch)

Palmer Heenan ’43 turns 90 years old next month, but he has no plans to retire. The residents of Grosse Pointe Park, Mich., reinforced that choice on Tuesday, electing Heenan to his 15th two-year term as mayor of the Detroit suburb.

Heenan, who ran unopposed for the 13th consecutive time, told PAW on Monday that he’s having as much fun as ever in a job that offers no pay but plenty of satisfaction.

A lawyer by profession, Heenan first ran for office in his early 60s. He leans on conservative principles – and twice served as a delegate to the Republican National Convention – but in local politics, he says, partisanship takes a back seat to finding solutions to local issues.

Grosse Pointe Park has about 12,000 residents, and Heenan is happy to brag about the town, from its beautiful architecture and municipal services to its public ice rink. He admits that critics may view him as “old fashioned” or “dull,” but he’s quick to add that his town has the lowest average age among its neighboring communities – a sign that it has been a hospitable place for families with young children.

The last 28 years have not been all work and no play for Heenan. An avid golfer, the mayor won four club championships at the Country Club of Detroit in younger days, and he regularly shoots his age – or better – on the course.

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November 2, 2011

Tiger of the Week: Patrick Gerland *06

(Courtesy Patrick Gerland *06)

Earlier this week, according to United Nations demographers, the world’s population reached an estimated 7 billion people – a figure that drew significant attention from the media both as a current event and a milepost in the larger trend of global population growth.

Behind the scenes, Patrick Gerland *06 played a significant role in the work that led to the UN’s estimate. Gerland, a native of France, received his Ph.D. in population studies from Princeton before joining the demographic estimates and projections section of the UN Population Division.

Princeton has a long history in international demography, Gerland notes, including the influential work of Frank W. Notestein, who created the University’s Office of Population Research in the 1930s and later served as the founding director of the UN Population Division.

At the UN, Gerland specializes in demography for Africa and Asia, two regions in which population counts can be difficult to assess, due to incomplete birth and death records. “The information that exists is often very limited,” he explains. “You depend primarily on surveys and censuses to give you snapshots.” Demographers do their best to fill in the blanks and sort through contradictory information, using a “mixture of detective work and statistical modeling,” he says.

In addition to making current estimates, demographers explore “what if” scenarios, aiding other UN groups that explore policy issues in everything from energy use to education. But the field’s popular appeal seems to spike when national or global populations reach milestones.

“People are human,” Gerland says. “They like round numbers.”

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October 26, 2011

Tigers of the Week: Alex Gansa '84 and Howard Gordon '84

After graduating from Princeton, Alex Gansa ’84 and Howard Gordon ’84 went to Los Angeles together, looking for work as television writers. Twenty-seven years later, the frequent collaborators are back together as executive producers of the Showtime drama series Homeland – a spy thriller about a CIA agent trying to determine if a former American soldier and prisoner of war is working to aid foreign terrorists.

The show, which stars Claire Danes and Damian Lewis, was inspired by an Israeli series about prisoners of war. Homeland received promising ratings and positive reviews when it debuted in early October. Entertainment Weekly gave it an A-, calling it “the most serious yet entertaining, sly yet not ‘cool’ drama” of the fall season,” and TV Guide said the espionage-themed series may be TV’s “first post-post-9/11 show.”

Gordon, best known for his work as a writer and producer on 24 and The X-Files, said the show has received high marks from at least one intelligence insider. “I think we were expecting our CIA consultant to say our draft was horse[crap],” Gordon said in an interview with The Hill, “but she was surprised by how authentic it was.”

Gansa, who also wrote for 24 and produced seasons of Numb3rs and The X-Files, told The New York Times that the killing of Osama bin Laden may have opened new avenues for fiction about counterterrorism. “This is precisely the atmosphere in which the best spy shows are told,” he said. “The world has become more gray, and it’s harder to know who to trust. A spy show in which there are clear black hats and white hats is going to devolve quickly into being boring.”

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.

October 19, 2011

Tigers of the Week: Stephen Cassell '86, Adam Yarinsky 87, and Kim Yao 97

Stephen Cassell '86, Kim Yao *97, and Adam Yarinsky *87 (Photo: Lajos Geenen)

Working together as leaders of the New York-based firm Architecture Research Office (ARO), Stephen Cassell ’86, Adam Yarinsky *87, and Kim Yao *97 have developed a striking portfolio of public spaces, arts institutions, private residences, and university buildings – including the award-winning addition to Princeton’s School of Architecture. Earlier this year, ARO was selected to receive one of America’s most prestigious architecture prizes, the National Design Award for Architecture. The Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum will present the award Oct. 20.

According to the award citation, the firm has made its mark with proposals that address a broad range of challenges: “From a prototype for 1,000-square-foot low-income sustainable housing to a proposal to reinvent the role of ecology and infrastructure in New York, ARO uses design to unite the conceptual and the pragmatic within a strong, coherent vision.”

ARO earned acclaim for its contributions to an American Institute of Architects Latrobe Prize Fellowship project that examined the effects of rising sea levels on the harbor around New York City. The team’s designs were featured in a 2010 exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

VIDEO: Yarinsky explains ARO's work at a Museum of Modern Art open house.

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.

October 12, 2011

Tiger of the Week: Alice P. Gast *84

Alice P. Gast *84 is the president of Lehigh University and a science envoy for the U.S. Department of State. But this week, she made news for work related to her original expertise, as a chemical engineer.

Beginning in 2008, Gast chaired a panel of experts organized by the National Research Council and the National Academy of Sciences to review evidence from the 2001 anthrax attacks that killed five people and sickened 17 others. In a report released in February, the committee found that while the FBI had linked the anthrax spores used in the attack to a U.S. Army laboratory, that link was “not as conclusive as stated.” Based on its investigation, the committee concluded that it was “not possible to reach a definitive conclusion” about the origins of the anthrax from scientific evidence alone.

Those findings did not attract a great deal of attention – The New York Times placed its story on page A14 – but a new study in the Journal of Bioterrorism and Biodefense has put Gast’s committee back in the spotlight. According to a paper by three research scientists, there are distinctive chemicals in the anthrax spores used by the attacker, and the presence of those chemicals refutes some of the findings that the FBI cited in closing the case.

This time, the Times story ran on the front page. (A joint investigation by PBS Frontline, McClatchy Newspapers, and ProPublica also examined the scientific angle.) Gast, quoted in the Times, said that the recent research paper “points out connections that deserve further consideration.”

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.

October 5, 2011

Tiger of the Week: Peter Gott '57

(Courtesy United Features Syndicate)

In the last five years, Peter Gott ’57 has retired twice – first from his work as a general internist in 2006 and again late last month from his nationally syndicated medical advice column. Gott, better known as “Dr. Gott,” began writing for a local newspaper in 1967, and since launching his syndicated column in 1984, he’s dispensed a distinctive blend of home remedies and advice to readers of some 400 U.S. newspapers.

In that time, Gott drew a loyal following, as Nashua (N.H.) Telegraph editor Nick Pappas learned when he tried to bump the column in favor of Sudoku five years ago. Pappas wrote:

“[I] wasn’t prepared to engage Dr. Gott disciples about the value of a daily syndicated health column that at various times has advocated using Vicks VapoRub on toenail fungus, placing a bar of soap under the sheets to prevent leg cramps, or rubbing castor oil on sore joints.

“When one upset caller referred to me as a ‘whippersnapper,’ I knew I was in trouble.”

The Telegraph reversed its decision, giving readers five more years of ointment lore and other homespun advice. Pappas remarked that Dr. Gott fans were “the nicest, most polite group of disappointed readers” he’d ever encountered.

While Gott’s column has disappeared from print, the doctor is still fielding questions on a daily basis online through the website AskDrGottMD.com. The self-proclaimed “technophobe” has found that his tips read just as well on the Web. In a recent post titled “New beginnings,” he urged readers to keep sending their questions. “I’m here to stay by using a different venue,” he wrote, “and value every letter I receive.”

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.

September 28, 2011

Tiger of the Week: Daphne Oz '08

(Courtesy ABC)

Daphne Oz ’08 got an early start in her career as a healthy-eating expert: She published her first book, The Dorm Room Diet, before starting her junior year at Princeton. Now, at age 25, she is expanding her reach to national television as a cast member on “The Chew,” ABC’s new food-themed daytime talk show, which premiered Sept. 26.

While promoting The Dorm Room Diet, Oz, the daughter of cardiologist, author, and TV host Mehmet Oz, realized that she enjoyed television and began to consider it as a career path.

In an interview with the Bergen Record this week, Oz conceded that she was lucky to have a father who could share his knowledge about health and wellness at the dinner table – not to mention lessons from the media world. “At the same time, I have such huge shoes to fill,” she said. “[He]’s quite the role model to live up to.”

After its first day on the air, “The Chew” drew mixed reviews. David Hinkley of the New York Daily News said the show “felt overstuffed,” and Sandra Gonzalez of Entertainment Weekly’s PopWatch wrote that “while it certainly made me hungry, I’m not sure I’ll be lunching with this show every day.” But Joe Crea, TV critic for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, had a more positive take on the debut’s ambitious menu: “Americans love to cook, or at least eat, but they want their information, quick, light and in easy-to-digest morsels,” Crea wrote. “On that level (and at least on the first go around) ‘The Chew’ delivered a smorgasbord of small, tasty bites.”

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.

September 21, 2011

Tiger of the Week: Peter Hessler '92

(Courtesy the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation)

When author and freelance journalist Peter Hessler ’92 received the surprise call notifying him that he’d won the MacArthur fellowship, the reporter in him took over. He jotted down notes, names, and phone numbers on a pad near the phone. But afterward, he could barely make sense of what he’d written. “It’s disorienting,” Hessler told PAW. “You wonder if it’s real.”

For the lucky few who receive the $500,000 no-strings-attached MacArthur fellowship, the award can mean many things, like more time to do research and freedom to take risks. Hessler said that in his case, the timing was particularly fortuitous. Next month, he and his wife, journalist Leslie T. Chang, will move to Cairo, Egypt, with their twin daughters. Having the backing of the MacArthur fellowship should help in their transition to new surroundings.

Hessler and Chang had decided to move to Egypt before the “Arab spring” uprisings that have significantly reshaped the country’s outlook. Hessler, whose previous reporting has focused on China, said he is attracted to places in transition that also have deep history. “The present plays off [history] in so many different ways,” he said. “As a writer, it gives you different directions.”

Continue reading Tiger of the Week: Peter Hessler '92 …

September 14, 2011

Tiger of the Week: Bill Dietrich '60

Bill Dietrich '60 (Courtesy Carnegie Mellon University)

In the history of Pittsburgh, two names top the list of local industrialists-turned-philanthropists. They happen to be linked in the name of one of the city’s top universities, Carnegie Mellon.

Last week Bill Dietrich ’60, former steel-industry executive and longtime Carnegie Mellon trustee, made a gift to the school that will make “Dietrich” an enduring name on campus as well. He pledged $265 million for a fund that would be made available after his death.

In announcing the gift, Carnegie Mellon president Jared L. Cohon called it “truly historic,” noting that “even taking into account the time value of money, this gift is larger than the one Andrew Carnegie made in establishing this university in 1900.” Carnegie Mellon has a wide range of plans for the fund, which is the 14th-largest donation ever made to an institution of higher education, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education. It will support global initiatives, research, and new academic initiatives for both undergraduates and graduate students.

Dietrich, speaking on a webcast Sept. 7, said that the gift was inspired by his mother, Marianna Brown Dietrich. (Carnegie Mellon’s college of humanities and social sciences will be renamed in her honor.) The Pittsburgh-area native also joked about his choice to attend Princeton, motivated in part by an article in the World Book Encyclopedia. “Underneath a picture of Blair Arch, the article began, ‘Princeton has sent more Rhodes scholars to Oxford than any other American university,’” he said. “I never bothered to read the rest of the article. Hell, I didn’t even know that Princeton was in New Jersey.”

Dietrich did not go on to win the Rhodes, but he received his A.B. in history and went on to a successful career for Dietrich Industries, a family company that produced steel and building products, paving the way for his remarkable bequest to Carnegie Mellon.

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.

September 7, 2011

Tiger of the Week: Jim Lee '86

Jim Lee '86 (Victor Ha)

Relaunching some of the world’s most beloved comic-book heroes requires careful planning, attention to detail, captivating storylines, and extraordinary artwork. Oh, and free pizza, too.

For Jim Lee ’86, co-publisher of DC Comics and the artist behind the new Justice League series that hit stores Aug. 31, last week was the culmination of all of the above. After helping to lead the company’s effort to attract new readers, he delivered pizza to fans who had camped out at Manhattan’s Mid Town Comics for Justice League 1’s midnight release.

Lee, the illustrator behind legendary titles such as X-Men I, has high hopes for reinvigorating Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, and others by paring down their extensive “continuity” – the long list of storylines that the characters have collected in more than 70 years on the shelves. As he explained to NPR’s Melissa Block, “We’re sort of shortening and simplifying the backstory so that new readers can jump in and understand what’s going on from the very first issue. … When a book is up to issue 900-something, you don’t feel like you can kind of jump in and really understand what’s going on right off the bat.”

So far, reviewers and readers have been divided, but from a publicity standpoint, the relaunch has been a success, with The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, Wired, and several other media outlets covering the story. And according to Rich Johnston of the blog “Bleeding Cool,” Lee was the right artist for the job. While comics aficionados may be accustomed to Lee’s style, Johnston wrote, “for the unfamiliar eye it simply looks glorious.”

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.