TOWERVIEW > FEBRUARY 2018 | VOL. 19 | ISSUE 3
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CHRONIC
Leaders • Pioneers • Icons
People who are making a difference at Duke
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‘That’s just how life goes’
Sophomore Bryan Rusch isn’t letting life in a wheelchair dull his shine
Special to The Chronicle Bryan Rusch studied abroad in Morocco with Daniela Flamini, who was inspired by Bryan’s courage and positive attitude in the face of adversity.
By Daniela Flamini Contributing Reporter
One of the most peculiar things I have ever witnessed happened in the small, winding alleyways of Fez, Morocco, while I was studying abroad there with the Duke in the Arab World program. Our group of 14 students followed our tour guide to the entrance of one of the famous Fez tanneries—a place where leather gets washed and dyed—and promptly began climbing the neverending staircase that led us to the stunning view of the basins of dye on the building’s roof. For Bryan Rusch, one of two males on the trip and the only one in a wheelchair, this situation presented a problem he was used to encountering. “The world just isn’t made for me,” the sophomore told me one day after class as our Moroccan friend Meriam pushed his chair onto a rough street curb. But before he could say anything that day at the tannery, a large Moroccan man sitting at a nearby shop saw our group and identified Bryan’s problem quickly. He came over, lifted Bryan up from his chair and threw him over his shoulders, taking him all the way up to the top of the building, where he sat Bryan down in a traditional
Moroccan leather poof that had been handmade and dyed right in the shop. “A lot of the times, when it came to assistance, people would just unquestionably assist, which was kind of unique,” Bryan told me when we talked about the incident months later in his Swift apartment on Duke’s campus. “That man just walked up that rat’s nest of a building and threw me down on the poof, which is why I ended up buying two poofs.” For the tannery’s owner, it was a dream to have an immobile customer sitting right among the leather poofs—the tannery’s most expensive products. He began his fantastic bartering, his insistence a trademark of Fez salesmen. And no matter how absurd his prices or how annoying his urging, Bryan had no choice but to sit there and take it, since walking away wasn’t an option. Eventually, the price was lowered enough for Bryan to buy one. The array of obstacles and difficult situations that Bryan has had to go through because of his disease, muscular spinal atrophy, have not always resulted in new furniture and a funny story. Bryan—the youngest of three boys—has an older brother with the same condition but to a worse degree, so Bryan grew up knowing that his life would be difficult and full of challenges.
Spinal muscular atrophy is a neuromuscular degenerative disease in which one of the genes maintaining muscle mass is completely gone. The backup gene produces about 20 percent of what the main one does, but forms of the disease vary greatly. Bryan is Type 3, which means he will stop being able to walk at some point, but has yet to entirely lose the ability. “I don’t fit into the normal stuff,” he said. “I’m a little weird.” Weird is a harsh way to put it, but Bryan isn’t fond of bragging. He’s extraordinarily clever and realistic, which is how he copes with the frustrating aspects of his life. He recalled that on his first day on the playground when he was in kindergarten, he approached other kids by saying “Hello, I’m Bryan, I have this disease…I can’t run as fast as you, but I still want to play games with you.” Sure enough, he’d play, but not without some devious strategizing. “I couldn’t chase the kids as fast, so I would wait on the steps of the playground and ask everyone to hold up,” he said. “They’d all come up to me worried that something was wrong, and then I’d get them and say, ‘Tag, you’re it now.’” Bryan had to switch schools several times throughout his youth, though he never had to leave his home in Jacksonville, North Carolina. He “got the military experience without ever having to move,” as his father was a communications officer in the Marine Corps for 27 years and his mother was a nurse who would pick up whatever job she could find at Bryan’s school, from librarian to teaching aid, so she could be close to Bryan and take care of him and his brother. Oddly enough, Bryan’s school changes lined up perfectly with his changes in ability—when he began to use a wheelchair in fourth grade, he switched schools. When puberty hit and his center of mass changed in middle school, he switched schools again. This time, he was no longer able to be competitive in sports. “First day of P.E. in sixth grade was terrible,” he remembered. Bryan had to adapt to deteriorating levels of strength in unfamiliar places surrounded by new people, which meant that others’ perceptions of him often didn’t align with his own perceptions of himself. “I felt more like the Bryan I used to know, not the Bryan that all these kids were just
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meeting,” he said. By high school, when Bryan once again started somewhere new, he could no longer stand up, get out of chairs or endure walking as easily as he could before. While I was interviewing him, I was impressed by how nonchalantly and kindly Bryan spoke about the physical deterioration he had to go through at such a young age. When I asked him if these changes had been difficult, like the moment he realized he had to get a wheelchair, he told me that it had all felt incredibly normal. “To have something like this, it’s a complete other life—it’s a degenerative, incurable, deadly disease,” he said. “So even at an early age, I understood that that’s just how life goes.” But things got more difficult than that. At the end of his senior year of high school, Bryan suffered an ankle injury from which he hasn’t been able to fully recover, and losing a large part of his independence has been extremely painful and frustrating. His disposition would completely change from cheery and positive to confused and disheartened when we’d go from talking about his youth to speaking about the last two years of his life. Bryan became permanently stuck to his wheelchair about a week before Orientation at Duke, and his first year brought a bout of reflection that made him feel angry for the first time in his life. “I came to the realization that my life has just not been fun,” he explained. “I slowly came to terms with how terrifying everything was, not just life in general but what I’d lived through and what I was running away from.” He began to realize how hard he’d tried to deny the fact that he was losing ability and that his strength was clearly deteriorating. He could no longer avoid the threat of never being able to walk again, something particularly difficult to wrestle with in college. “Everything was gone. Even walking was gone,” he said. “I no longer had anything to hold onto that was stable—every morning I’d wake up and not know how far I’d be able to walk. I still don’t.” Bryan felt disabled for the first time at Duke. No one would sit with him in the front handicapped row of Page Auditorium during orientation programs, and it would be nearly See Bryan on Page 8
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WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2018 | 3
Running on ‘Lefkotime’
After the Nobel Prize, Robert Lefkowitz is still going 120 mph at age 74 By Yuexuan Chen Contributing Reporter
“Turbobob” is the license plate on the 2012 Nobel laureate’s car. Dr. Robert Lefkowitz has been using the special plate since the mid-1980s when he bought his first fast car—a red 1986 Porsche 944 Turbo— as a reward to himself for successfully cloning the beta-adrenergic receptor, determining its amino acid sequence, and revealing the existence of what would turn out to be the largest family of cell receptors. After having his Porsche for a decade or so, Lefkowitz traded it in for a BMW M3, which was not turbo-charged. This left Lefkowitz with a tough question. Should he keep his vanity plate, “Turbobob”? “I put it to the group during a lab meeting, and the consensus was that the ‘turbo’ referred to me, not the car, so that I could keep it,” Lefkowitz said. “And so I did, and I have it to this day even though I’ve never had another turbo-charged car.” Pre-Nobel or post-Nobel, Lefkowitz has no intention of slowing down. A scientific giant The 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was shared between Lefkowitz and his mentee Brian Kobilka for their ground-breaking research on G proteincoupled receptors (GPCRs). For Duke, where Lefkowitz has worked since the 1970s, it was the University’s first Nobel. Lefkowitz is also a member of nearly every prestigious chemistry or medicine institute out there, and has too many titles and major scientific awards to list. The award that stands out the most is, of course, the Nobel. It’s a recognition of his decades of commitment to researching receptors, which led to discoveries that form the basis of an estimated 40
percent of all prescription drugs. His humble personality makes it easy to forget that the GCPRs he discovered regulate almost all known processes in humans. “In fact, over the last decade or so, we’ve actually discovered whole new mechanisms by which the receptors work and, accordingly, a whole new way to make drugs,” he said. Fifty years ago there was no way of studying receptors, and people doubted they even existed. Lefkowitz’s research revealed what this huge family of receptors look like. Many drugs— including antihistamines and beta blockers—are based on his team’s work and used the techniques they developed. An article published in Nature magazine in Oct. 2017 called “Trends in GPCR drug discovery” said that 34 percent of all drugs approved by the FDA act on 108 unique GPCR targets. In addition, “drugs that target GPCRs also account for 27 percent of the global market share of therapeutic drugs, with aggregated sales for 2011–2015 of about $890 billion” and “56 percent of GPCRs that are yet to be explored in clinical trials have broad untapped therapeutic potential, particularly in genetic and immune system disorders.” ‘Lefkotime’ Minjung Choi, a Ph.D. candidate in biochemistry who joined Lefkowitz’s lab in 2013, described herself as a tortoise and Lefkowitz as a “cheetah on steroids.” “If she thinks I’m a cheetah on steroids now, she hasn’t seen anything,” Lefkowitz said. “Trust me, she has not seen anything. Nobody who works with me currently has seen what I was like in my prime.” When asked about his sprint-paced marathon of life, Lefkowitz said, “It’s just who I am.”
“Everybody’s different, and I basically only have one speed,” he said. “It used to be 160 mph, but now it’s about 120.” “He is in the lab doing now what he did 10, 15, 20, 30 years ago,” said Dr. Howard Rockman, cardiologist at Duke and friend of Lefkowitz. “That’s him.” If it wasn’t for age getting to him, he would still be at 160 today. The average person’s life is at 20-60 mph, but “Lefkoville” runs on “Lefkotime”—which he defines as “sooner rather than later.” Lefkotime is, to the average person, the speed of light. But relative to him, alluding to Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, Lefkotime is a peaceful speed, no different than the speed of
you or me. “I do a lot of pestering because very few people are keeping up with Lefkotime,” he said. Living in Lefkotime means that everyone else on the outside seems slow. “Sometimes if my trainees don’t do a task in a timely way, for example writing a draft of a paper, I might start writing it and quite literally shame them into getting going,” he said. “I hadn’t done that in years. Why? I have just as much reason to do it as ever because they still drag their heels sometimes… There’s a paper I’ve been really pestering my guys to write, but it’s just not happening on Lefkotime. It’s not even any version of Lefkotime. So over this See Lefkowitz on Page 7
Special to The Chronicle Lefkowitz lives his life full speed ahead, with a “Turbobob” license plate on his car and a 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry in his office.
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INTRODUCING THE CHRONICLE 18 Editor’s Note: Explaining the choices By Adam Beyer Digital Strategy Director
One thing I have learned from my almost four years at Duke is that we have no shortage of amazing people. Practically every day, I feel like I find out about someone who, whether through their scholarship, service, involvement or personality, is making an indelible impact on this complex and dynamic place. I have come to the realization that it is likely impossible to understand the life of this community without looking at the lives of its individuals—well-
known or otherwise. At The Chronicle, we write about Duke constantly, as we seek to shed light on how this community works and tell the stories of the people who compose it. This year, we decided to launch “The Chronicle 18,” an initiative we hope will highlight some of the community members shaping this University. Divided among three categories— pioneers, leaders and icons—our selections, based
on suggestions from our readers, are all individuals or groups defining what it means to be a member of the Duke community in 2018. On Wednesday, you will see our selections in print and online. We hope you take time to read through our profiles, consider their significance to Duke and reflect on your experience as a part of this community. Duke is and is becoming Duke because of the amazing people all around us.
pioneers Kelsey Graywill The University has placed a particular priority on interdisciplinary study in recent years—and senior Kelsey Graywill’s academic path embodies that emphasis. This intersection of science and humanity is displayed through her selfdesigned evolutionary neuroaesthetics Program II major as well as the gallery in the new Rubenstein Arts building that she put together. Graywill’s ingenuity is also shaping recent efforts by a coalition of students to reform Duke’s independent housing model. She is a resident of Sherwood independent house and recently signed on to an open letter calling for reforming the University’s housing model, being the only non-resident assistant in an independent house to do so. She created visualizations of three alternate models of housing that Duke could adopt— linking houses on West to East Campus, matching students with independent houses allowing them to rank their preferences and a random assignment model where students could select roommates either before or after assignment.
Faculty Union In late 2016, adjunct faculty at Duke voted to be represented by the Service Employees International Union in collective bargaining negotiations. Less than a year later, the Duke Faculty Union reached an agreement with the University to improve working conditions. The union includes approximately 275 non-regularrank, non-tenure-track faculty from the Trinity College of Arts and Sciences, the Center for Documentary Studies and the Graduate School. The unionization push drew support from prominent figures, including mayor pro tempore Jillian Johnson, Trinity ’03. After the successful vote, the union spent about a year negotiating with the University. Sticking points included getting teachers access to laptops and office space, as well as giving faculty members a better way to address discrimination and ensure academic freedom. In July 2017, the union finalized a tentative agreement with the University, which was ratified in August. In a letter to the union’s members, its negotiating committee celebrated agreements on issues like compensation, course assignments and grievance procedures. “With the contract, everyone in our bargaining unit will receive a pay increase. Many people will receive longer contracts,” the letter reads. The contract lasts for three years, at which point it could be renewed or negotiations could begin anew.
Marissa Young
Chronicle File Photo
Geraldine Dawson Geraldine Dawson, director of the Duke Center for Autism and Brain Development, has spent her career spearheading research on autism spectrum disorder. Her work focuses on the early detection and treatment of autism and the impact of interventions on the developing brain. Early on, she discovered that autism symptoms could be detected before the age of one, which has opened up a new field of research on infant diagnosis. Some of her key contributions include revolutionizing the use of electrophysiological techniques in studying cognitive function in young children with autism and demonstrating the link between maternal depression and infants’ early brain activity and stress responses. She also helped develop
Matt Rascoff
For the first time in nearly two decades, Duke has a new varsity sport. But without the efforts of head coach Marissa Young, it’s unlikely that Blue Devil softball would have been able to establish the University’s 27th athletic program in the span of less than four years. After a dominant career at the University of Michigan where she won both Big Ten Pitcher and Player of the Year in addition to earning All-American honors in three straight seasons, Young coached in the Wolverine State for five years before winding up at North Carolina as an assistant. Now, she’s made the the Early Start Denver Model, the first comprehensive behavioral intervention for toddlers with autism. At Duke, Dawson has continued to explore early detection, intervention and brain plasticity through partnerships with faculty across campus. Beyond her research pursuits, Dawson is president of the International Society for Autism Research and serves as a member of the NIH Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee. Dawson has published more than 225 articles and 10 books focused on the early detection and treatment of autism as well as brain development. She served as the first chief science officer of Autism Speaks—an advocacy organization— where she oversaw nearly $30 million in annual research funding. She is a past president of the International Society for Autism Research.
Photo by Bre Bradham
President Vincent Price made it clear early in his presidency that digital learning and education is a priority for him. Matthew Rascoff is perhaps the individual most likely to shape digital education at the University for not only faculty, students and administrators, but also for alumni and online learners. Despite only coming to Duke a year ago, Matthew Rascoff, associate vice provost for digital education and innovation, said that he has gotten to know the University pretty well at this
journey down Tobacco Road to begin a new venture on her own. Thanks to Young, Duke’s inaugural softball roster features 17 players—most of whom will be joined by a 2018 13thranked recruiting class that includes a trio of players all ranked among the top 80 in the nation. More importantly, however, Young played a key role in coordinating the construction of the softball team’s new digs on East Campus. In late September, less than a year and a half after Young helped break ground on Duke Softball Stadium, she stood in nearly the same spot as President Vincent Price tossed out the first pitch, announcing the start of a new venture in Blue Devil athletics. John Sampson—Robert H., M.D. and Gloria Wilkins professor of neurosurgery— has dedicated much of his work to combatting brain tumors by harnessing the power of the immune system. In 2003, Sampson co-authored a study showing that a modified version of poliovirus
Photo by Charles York
point. He noted that Duke possesses a certain nimbleness, creativity and willingness to experiment that makes it stand out from peer universities. In his role, Rascoff looks to take advantage of that willingness to experiment in order to forge new paths for educational technology and digital learning. From re-imagining learning technologies to designing training for faculty on apps, his team is working on discipline-specific tools to meet both the pedagogical needs of faculty and the access that students demand. He is also trying to incorporate more voices into the process of researching and developing new educational technologies. Prior to Rascoff ’s appointment, the digital education and innovation team had not had student interns working alongside its administrative team for seven years. Now, he is working student team members to regain their valuable perspectives.
John Sampson could be effective in targeting cancer cells in the brain. After several experiments, Sampson appeared on CBS’ 60 Minutes in 2015 for his work, which was showing success in clinical trials. The therapy even showed promise for destroying glioblastoma, one of the deadliest forms of brain cancer. Because of this, the poliovirus treatment was awarded breakthrough status by the Food and Drug Administration, which expedites the approval process to make the treatment widely available. When then-Vice President Joe Biden visited Duke in 2016 as part of his cancer moonshot initiative, Biden met with Sampson and Matthias Gromeier, professor of neurosurgery and another member of the poliovirus team. Currently, much of Sampson’s research is focused on developing a glioblastoma vaccine using dendritic cells, one component of the immune system. In April 2017, his lab published a paper exploring a new treatment that extended the mean survival time of glioblastoma patients from the typical 14.6 months to 41.1 months. Sampson’s presence at Duke and in the scientific community are wide-ranging, as he serves as chair of the department of neurosurgery and also holds appointments in the departments of immunology, radiation oncology, pathology and orthopedic surgery. He is also a member of the Society of Neurological Surgeons and was named to the National Academy of Medicine in 2017.
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Photo by Sujal Manohar
By Riyanka Ganguly Contributing Writer
I am constantly inspired by Elizabeth’s leadership capabilities. Not only is her passion genuine, but she is dogged and courageous—two qualities often lacking in female leaders. She believes wholeheartedly in her cause and her ability to affect change. That is what makes her so successful. After never serving in DSG prior to her senior year, she became vice president of equity and outreach with full faith in her ability to excel, which undoubtedly has proven to be true. Within DSG, she is admired for her strong statements in the Senate and lauded for her work with the Define American Initiative, through which she led a group of both undocumented and documented students to lobby in Washington, D.C. for the rights of undocumented students. She often labels herself as “not a politician,” but her candor and her courage is what I find to be missing in politics today, both on campus and off.
Vincent Price In the first year of his presidency at Duke, Vincent Price has already made a mark on Durham and the Duke community. Prior to coming to Duke, Price served as provost at the University of Pennsylvania, and was the Steven H. Chaffee professor of communication and a professor of political science. Now, in addition to serving as the 10th president of the University, he is the Walter Hines Page professor of public policy and political science. The school year began with Price’s decision to remove the controversial Robert E. Lee statue from the Chapel’s entrance in mid-August and the establishment of the Commission on Memory and History two weeks later. Only a few weeks after this action, Price made a show of support to students in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program when he sent a letter to the White House, in which he urged President Donald Trump not to repeal or undermine DACA. During the first three months of his presidency, he announced his decision to increase the minimum wage of Duke employees from $13 to $15 by 2019. In the fall, Price also released a statement that expressed Duke’s opposition to the newest tax plan, reassuring graduate students that the University will continue to fight against legislative proposals that threaten its values.
Photo by Bre Bradham
Photo by Neal Vaidya
Elizabeth Barahona
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2018 | 5
Christine Lee Christine Lee has a passion for improving the lives of Asian American students on campus. The senior from Memphis, Tennessee currently serves as president of the Asian Students Association. One of her biggest projects has been pushing Duke to create an Asian American studies program, and she helped form the Asian American Studies Working Group in pursuit of this goal. Although the program has not yet been created, Duke Student Government passed a resolution in support of a “fully operational department, tenure-
leaders
William Darity Jr. William Darity Jr., Samuel DuBois Cook professor of public policy, is known for his work on inequality. He was recognized by Politico in 2017 as one of the top 50 political thinkers for his proposal to create a federal job guarantee for anyone above 18 years of age to reduce involuntary unemployment and poverty. He has been a strong advocate for the concept—known as the National Investment Employment Corps—and is motivated by his interest in the intersection of poverty and unemployment. He shared the honor with Darrick Hamilton, associate director of the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity, of which Darity is the director. Darity has also served as chair of the African and African American studies department and was the founding director of the Research Network on Racial and Ethnic Inequality. He’s
Photo by Sanjeev Dasgupta
published several books and served as the editor-in-chief for the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Other recent work includes a study on childhood violence, and he is the co-investigator on a recent five-year, $2.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study the effects of religion on African Americans’ health. Darity lives in Durham and plays the harmonica with a local blues band.
Steve Schewel
Photo by Bre Bradham
Steve Schewel went from being president of Duke’s student government association to mayor of the city of Durham. Schewel first came to Durham as a Duke undergraduate, graduating magna cum laude from Trinity in 1973 and earning his Ph.D in education from the University in 1982. His involvement on campus did not stop there. He began teaching at Duke through the Hart Leadership program in 2000 and instructed courses on leadership and political participation in the Sanford School of Public Policy as a visiting assistant professor.
In Durham, Schewel founded the Independent Weekly and published the paper for 30 years before he sold it in 2012. Following a stint on the Durham Public Schools’ Board of Education, he was elected to the Durham City Council in 2011. Six years later, he emerged from a field of candidates to fill the shoes of retiring mayor Bill Bell. He was inaugurated in December 2017, and nominated one of his former students— city council member Jillian Johnson—to be his mayor pro tempore. Now, the two-time Duke graduate and former professor is a couple months into his term as mayor, making his mark on the city and continuing to influence the Duke campus.
track faculty and an academic major” dedicated to the subject. Lee—who is pursuing a major in public policy and minors in Asian and Middle Eastern studies and history— has also been heavily involved in other organizations dedicated to empowering Asian Americans. She works as a program coordinator for the East Coast Asian American Student Union and has served as director of the Triangle Area Asian American Student Conference for the past two years. In her last semester at Duke, Lee said she hopes to work on preserving the memories of marginalized groups on campus and making sure students can learn about them.
Rashmi Joglekar Graduate and professional students outnumber Duke’s undergraduate population—a fact often forgotten on a campus that emphasizes the undergraduate experience. Leading and advocating for this population can be difficult when the needs are so diverse and the population is so diffuse. Rashmi Joglekar, a fourth-year Ph.D. student in the Nicholas School of the Environment, serves as president of the Graduate and Professional Student Council. She is also a student in the Integrated Toxicology and Environmental Health Program and previously served as vice president of GPSC. During her term, Joglekar has focused on unifying the graduate and professional student population and making their issues understood by administrators. Her election came during a contentious time, after the failed graduate student unionization push. “I think the most important lesson that we learned last year is that the students do want to have a voice, and they do want to build this relationship with administrators to a point where if they ask for things, they’re actually heard and listened to,” she told The Chronicle after she was elected. With administrative support, she helped lead the creation of a GPSC food pantry to serve graduate students in need. Joglekar was also behind efforts to restructure the financial relationship between GPSC and Duke University Union. The changes reduce the money spent by GPSC for DUU services and allow it to use the funds elsewhere. She also played a role in advocating against proposed tax changes that would have negatively impacted graduate students.
Photo by Neal Vaidya
Rahul GS and James Zhou
Contributing Writer
room, Rahul would stare at his screen without blinking, moving only to poke his keyboard or smear his finger against the trackpad to craft the perfect meme. Rahul would hold the record for the highest “like” per meme ratio as well as the most memes surpassing one thousand “likes.” James Zhou was my roommate freshman year. In high school, he was a dominant player in Quizbowl, an academic competition. Playing for Hinsdale Central, he specialized in poetry and history. A “neg” is when someone answers incorrectly and the team incurs a five-point penalty. According to the Quizbowl Wiki, James’s personal record was 26 negs.
icons
Peaches
Photo by Carolyn Chang
By Will Ye The Facebook group “Duke Memes for Gothicc Teens” is famous around campus, but do students know two of its most influential users? Sophomore Rahul GS posted his first meme February 18, 2017. It was a pretty bad meme actually, something to do with spending food points at vending machines. I didn’t think it deserved how many “likes” it got, but I threw him a pity “like” regardless. Still, Rahul had real potential, and he lived up to it. Rahul would eventually become a meme powerhouse. Spending months completely still in his
Photo by Sujal Manohar
Peaches, a calico cat living near Keohane, cannot in enroll in classes or carry a Duke card. She can’t cheer on the basketball team in Cameron or visit West Union. But with a 24/7 fully-heated cat house and the love of almost everyone who knows her, she’s as much a part of campus as anyone else. Although she has also been known as “Pepper,” “Angel” and “Sunny,” the name Peaches stuck after senior Anna Li created a Facebook group dedicated to the cat. Li set up the group, called “Caretakers of Peaches (The Calico Cat),” after worrying about the cat during the winter. She also helped create a GoFundMe page to raise money for vet visits and vaccinations, which led to Peaches’ cameo in People Magazine’s pet pages. Now, Peaches is living the high life in her heated home behind Few Quadrangle, with frequent student visitors stopping to rub her belly between classes. Spending time with the outgoing calico is a way for students to relieve stress, especially when they are missing their own pets back home. “A lot of people have told me that Peaches is just as therapeutic as CAPS for them,” Li said. But Peaches also has a slight manipulative streak. “She’ll run up to you and then roll onto her back and have you give her a belly rub,” Li said. “It’s really hard to turn away from this cute, fluffy animal.”
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6 | WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2018
There’s little doubt about which undergraduate is the most recognizable on campus. Grayson Allen is more than a Duke student or a basketball player. Although he dislikes being the center of attention, he’s a constant topic of conversation among peers, fans and adversaries and a unifying force students can rally around in Cameron Indoor Stadium. The captains of the Duke’s men’s basketball team are always put on a pedestal, and Allen’s
Michael Gustafson
star turn in the second half of that 2015 title game and carried his success into a breakout sophomore season. But his career has had pitfalls as well. Nationally vilified for three tripping incidents and hampered by several injuries last year, Allen’s production Chronicle File Photo on the floor dropped dramatically. Allen’s numbers have status is magnified since he does not share remained somewhat it with anybody else. For a program relying inconsistent this more than ever on one-and-dones, Allen season and his play has has been a rare constant. been overshadowed by He is the only senior on the Blue Devils’ younger teammates, roster and the only active varsity athlete but Allen is still the in any sport who has won a team national unquestioned leader championship at Duke. Allen enjoyed his of the team.
Grayson Allen
Michael “Big Mike” Eubanks When Michael “Big Mike” Eubanks pulls up to the bus stop, he welcomes each student with a smile and an enthusiastic greeting. Eubanks has been a Duke bus driver for nine years and received a Duke Student Government award in April 2017 for his contribution and impact on the University community. Having been a vegetarian for around 25 years, Eubanks prioritizes his health so that he can carry out his job to the best of his ability. In May 2016, students raised $1,560 in a GoFundMe to recognize his service to the University and provide extra funding to Eubanks, who had to leave town to care for his mother-in-law undergoing dialysis treatment.
Abby Johnston Duke’s mission statement for athletics is centered around the educational value of sports, promoting character traits for success later in life and an expectation for high-level performance in competition and the classroom. In a decade at Duke, Abby Johnston has checked all those boxes. As an undergraduate, she was the Blue Devils’ first national champion diver and an Olympic silver medalist in 2012 in London in the 3-meter synchronized springboard. After graduating in 2013, she remained in Durham to enroll in medical school in 2014.
The Duke meme group would see many setbacks, not unlike Quizbowl negs. From minor decisions to larger controversies, these setbacks didn’t make it easy to moderate such a large group. However, James would always be there, providing invaluable input and wise choices. There’s no doubt that James shaped the meme group more than anyone gives him credit for. He’s living proof that you could neg all day, but still win the tournament. Despite James’s massive role in the growth of the meme group, he was eventually removed from his moderator position due to him unblocking spammers. He continues to advise us, just from a distance.
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With that extra cash, Eubanks was able to drive from Durham to Pennsylvania to support his wife and her mother. Eubanks’ motto of “life’s good,” alongside his signature “L” hand signal with which he welcomes his bus riders, encompasses his positive outlook on life and reflects his positive impact on the Duke community.
Although her college eligibility in a Duke uniform ended by the time she became a medical student, Johnston’s diving career was not over. She kept training while balancing a grueling course load for two years to qualify for the 2016 Rio Olympics, where she finished 12th in the individual 3-meter springboard. Johnston officially announced her retirement from diving three weeks ago and is in the middle of her fourth and final year of medical school. She has said that diving and medicine are both her passions, and she left her mark at Duke in each field. As she finishes her competitive athletic career and nears the end of her lengthy Duke education, it would be hard to find somebody who has more aptly exemplified Duke’s ideal student-athlete.
Photo by Bre Bradham
Michael Gustafson, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, is an icon in the Pratt School of Engineering. Gustafson first came to Duke as an undergraduate, earning his bachelor of science in engineering in 1993. He stayed in Durham for his M.S. (’98) and Ph.D. (‘99). But even after earning three degrees from Duke, he couldn’t get away. Gustafson planted his roots in Durham and received his first appointment as a Duke faculty member in 2005. As an associate professor of the practice, one of his primary interests is undergraduate course development. The navy veteran is well-known among Pratt students for his passion for teaching first-years in Computational Methods in Engineering, and he’s taught more than 5,000 students during his time at Duke. In addition to his pedagogical presence on campus, Gustafson—affectionately called Dr. G—is also well-known by students in online meme groups. He’s been the subject of a handful of memes on the Duke Memes for Gothicc Teens page, and even contributed a few of his own. A t-shirt bearing a graphic of his face and the caption “started from the bottom floor of Teer” has also become popular in Pratt. The professor is popular for his commitment to his students, which was recognized by the University when he was given the the McDonald Award for Excellence in Mentoring and Advising in 2005.
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The Chronicle
LEFKOWITZ FROM PAGE 3
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center of his office—the jersey presented to him by Coach K and the Nobel Prize.
‘Backup plan? No, absolutely no’ Dr. Ralph Snyderman, former dean of the School of Medicine and Lefkowitz’s best friend of 40 years, said Lefkowitz had that “fire in the belly to go all the way [with his research].” The researcher was never distracted by the offers to be a dean or a chair—his laser focus was on his receptors. “Bob, if nothing else, is incredibly persistent,” Snyderman said. “If he gets onto something he does not stop, and that’s one of the reasons he won the Nobel Prize.” Lefkowitz’s focus stems back to age eight when his family The mentor His ability to make time for students and mentees comes from his physician became his role model. focus and discipline, rejecting everything outside his priorities. “Backup plan? No, absolutely no,” Lefkowitz said. “Never a plan B “I guess he learned the art of saying no,” Choi said. or a plan C. I was going to be a doctor, a practicing physician and that Choi said that Lefkowitz never cancels meetings, usually never wavered. It was my calling.” The Vietnam War steered Lefkowitz away from being a cardiologist replies to emails in half an hour and always makes himself and into research for the National Institutes of Health. He served at the available to his mentees. “I feel a very deep responsibility for anybody who works for me NIH from 1968 to 1970 as a commissioned officer in the United States for whom I’m a mentor,” Lefkowitz said. “It’s much the same thing I Public Health Service to fulfill his draft obligation. feel for my children and my friends.” “It was an abject failure for 18 out of 24 months,” Lefkowitz said. Choi also described her nearly six years in the “Lefkolab”— “I was quite convinced I was not cut out for research.” Lefkowitz’s website is lefkolab.org—as being the most formative years of her life. ‘He’s the easiest guy in the world to talk to’ In September 2012, Choi made plans to do research with At almost 75 years old, Lefkowitz still works full time, getting into Lefkowitz. Once the call about the Nobel Prize came in October, his office at 10 a.m. and leaving at 6:30 p.m. each day. He wakes up at 6 a.m., reads the New York Times for 45 Choi was worried that Lefkowitz would change his plans because of the Prize. He didn’t, and Choi is graduating next spring—and minutes, works out in his home gym for an hour, meditates, getting married. showers and has breakfast. “[Choi’s] having two weddings—one in Korea and one in India— After work, he eats dinner with his wife, and then gets back to work but I’ve added a third,” Lefkowitz said. “We’re going to have a wedding again after dinner, keeping an eye on a muted CNN. He finally goes to here during a lab meeting where I will be the officiator. Of course, sleep around 10 p.m. after reading some non-work-related books. that’s the most important one.” “The basement of my home is equipped as a gym and it’s at the Rockman noted that what makes Lefkowitz stand out from his level of a professional exercise club,” he said. “The only time I use the colleagues is his devotion to his trainees. treadmill, which is my favorite machine, is on the weekends.” “He probably has the most total number of trainees,” Rockman His weekends are scattered with more workouts, time with friends and catching up with his kids by phone or FaceTime. He refers to said. “He maintains contact with almost all of them.” Lefkowitz has trained generations of scientists, many of whom are his weekend workout of using the elliptical, treadmill and recumbent world-renowned and making their own discoveries. bike as his “mixed grill.” He doesn’t run outside anymore, but he and The angle of his office door shows his availability. An open door Snyderman used to run together six days a week—a 10k during the is an invite in, a partially closed one means you should think twice week, and 10 to 15 miles each day on the weekend. “He’s the easiest guy in the world to talk to,” Snyderman said. “So about it. A closed door says you should talk to the secretary and set something up for a few hours later. we got to be friends.” It’s not that he has extra time on his hands—he makes time for Now that both of them are in their 70s, they’ve traded in the these meetings by continuously interrupting himself. weekend runs for Sunday coffees. “Everybody is interrupting everybody,” Lefkowitz said. “I’m used “We meet at my house every Sunday for two hours and during the summer, we’ll sit in rocking chairs on my porch,” Snyderman to dealing with that fragmented kind of time thing.” said. “We’ll sit for two hours sipping our coffee, talking about There’s never a slow day in Lefkoville. “Donna [former secretary for Lefkowitz for 42 years] said that usual things—how you’re doing, how’s your life, Duke, Duke you’ll have some days where you’ll have not a lot to do, and it’s been a athletics and politics.” year now and I’m waiting for that day,” said Joanne Bisson, his current Lefkowitz’s intensity and passion for science shines through even administrative assistant. “What was she talking about?” in his exercise regimen. “You may think I’m a little compulsive as I document my People who work in his lab are not the only ones he makes time for. exercise data each day,” Snyderman said. “But whatever I do, Senior Young Re Song, a residential assistant in a first-year dorm, Lefkowitz does 10 times more. Bob records everything possible that scheduled for his residents to have lunch with Lefkowitz. After the can be measured and keeps it in a journal that he constantly refers one-hour luncheon, first-year Connor Passe described Lefkowitz as to so he can check how he’s doing… Bob and I say we’re exactly alike except he’s 10 times me.” “a nice grandpa”. “It’s so cool that one of [Lefkowitz’s] favorite memories is Lefkowitz keeps an actual lab notebook to log his workout data. when he came out onto the court in Cameron [Indoor Stadium] Each notebook lasts him 2.5 years. and people started chanting ‘he’s so smart, he’s so smart, he’s so “I’m going to continue doing what I’m doing, and I’m still smart,’” Passe said. every bit as enthusiastic as ever,” Lefkowitz said. “To me, it’s like Lefkowitz’s two favorite things are hung up side-by-side in the my treadmill.” At age 74, Lefkowitz’s best pace is a 10-minute mile on his treadmill for relatively short distances. He and Snyderman used to run eight-minute miles for long distances and six to seven-minute paces for races. “So I’ve slowed down, but as I say to the people outside the rocket ship, it looks like I’m still moving at light speed,” Lefkowitz said. past weekend I wrote the introduction and sent it to them.” Lefkotime is so fast that even the most hardworking and brightest researchers can’t help but disappoint occasionally. But that disappointment is neither personal nor offensive. Choi explained that Lefkowitz’s high expectations do not mean he expects everyone to be like him, he just wants to bring the best out of everyone. “[Lefkowitz] always says he wishes that everyone in their time in his lab achieves their personal best in their life,” Choi said.
Special to The Chronicle Lefkowitz and Snyderman used to run together six days a week, but now they meet for coffee instead.
really. Well, why not? I guess it’s just not who I was. “ He met his first wife Arna when they were 15 and 13,at summer camp. They started dating when he was 17, got married at 20 and had their first child at 21. They share five children and are both remarried. “At some level, I made a choice. It didn’t feel that way. I always felt like I was just doing [my thing], just being me,” he said. “In other words, if I had to do it all over again, I think I probably would do it the same way.” Lefkowitz has lived life with few regrets. “There have been things that happened to me in my life—divorce, etcetera —that I wish perhaps had not happened.” he said. “But no, I have no real regrets.” “Sometimes when I’m leaving for work in the morning, my wife will say to me ‘what’s cooking in your day today?’” Lefkowitz said. “I’ll think about it, and then as I’m getting up to leave, I say ‘I’m off to be the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Bob.’” Lefkowitz only takes one true vacation a year—a week at the beach with his wife Lynn Tilley, their kids and their grandkids. He and Tilley enjoy traveling together for his work. Lefkowitz rarely goes out of his way to travel unless it’s work related. He’s never visited Poland where his grandparents are from, but he’s excited to visit this year for a scientific conference. His grandparents immigrated to the U.S. in the early 1900s, but many of his relatives perished in the Holocaust. “Also this is going to be difficult, but it’s something I’ve had on my bucket list for a long time,” Lefkowitz said. “We’re going to visit Auschwitz, the concentration camp.”
‘The most authentic me I can be’ Lefkowitz has reached the pinnacle of his field. Now, his professional goals are “fightin’ the good fight, doin’ the good science and having fun mentoring my people.” His personal goal is to “be the most authentic me I can be.” Lefkowitz said that the older he gets, the less need he feels to impress people and put on airs. Instead, he wants to enjoy the wisdom he has gained over the years. “I would say this is the most comfortable I’ve been in my own skin, not that it was ever particularly uncomfortable,” he said. “I kind of like being me. I enjoy it. I find myself a fun person to be around. I enjoy myself. It’s kind of fun. I enjoy playing Bob Lefkowitz in this movie we’re all making every day.” He noted the speed at which modern science is developing. Lefkowitz said that he has little doubt that 50 years from now practitioners will be surprised at today’s practices, like bypass surgery. ‘Time’ for a personal life “I would love, one of my fantasies, would be after I’m dead and But no one’s life can be all optimism and on Lefkotime—not even gone, every 25, 50 years, I could come back just for a day or two just a Nobel Prize winner’s. to see what was going on in science and medicine and how it moved Even someone with an uncanny level of discipline and focus has forward,” Lefkowitz said. “That’d be a cool thing.” parts of life he can’t control. “I’m extremely focused in my professional and personal life,” Nobel Prize—now what? Lefkowitz said. “I think [the Nobel Prize] is a really nice validation of a lifetime of He lost focus only in times of extreme emotional stress—his work,” Lefkowitz said. “Everybody likes to feel appreciated… But I’ve 1989 divorce and his 1994 coronary artery bypass surgery, which he never taken it too seriously.” described as the “two main crises of my adult life.” Nobel or not, Lefkowitz is going to keep running on “Lefkotime” “I was just hanging on, trying to get through the day,” Lefkowitz in the “Lefkolab.” said. “Fortunately those days passed.” He made a pact with himself after he won that he would not let There have been times in his life where he has done things he didn’t the prize change how he lives his life. The scientist has absolutely think he could accomplish, like coming to grips with challenging no plans to retire. He was recently in a car accident that totaled personal circumstances like his divorce. his car, but it’s for certain that he’s keeping his license place How did he finally come to a place of total acceptance? “Turbobob” for his new car. “Time,” he said. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute funds most of his research. With his dedication to his research, Lefkowitz didn’t have as much The funding renewal every five years is an extremely rigorous process, time to spend with his five kids as he might have liked. and the “Nobel Prize is no guarantee of success.” In 2021, he’ll have Special to The Chronicle “When I look back on it, yeah, I was not like one of these fathers the option to not stand for review and take a five-year phase out. If he “This was the first time seeing [Snyderman] since the [Nobel] who was at every little league game, but I did some of them of course,” stands for review, he’ll have funding until he’s 89. announcement that morning. He’s my closest friend.”—Lefkowitz he said. “The question is—do I have regrets about it? I would say not “We’ll see what happens,” he said.
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BRYAN FROM PAGE 2 impossible to insert himself fluidly or naturally into conversation at events. However, he quickly found companionship in Tommaso Babucci, an international student from Milan who is also in Bryan’s class and lived in Pegram with him their first year. They met casually at Marketplace and bonded over how alien they felt at Duke—Bryan because he couldn’t walk, Tommaso because he couldn’t adapt easily to American culture. “He was stuck with his bad legs, and I was stuck with my accent,” Tommaso said. Since Bryan’s handicapped room in Pegram was absolutely giant, Tommaso had practically moved in by the end of their first year. He recalled that even his passport and visa were in one of Bryan’s drawers. Now, the two of them practically finish each other’s sentences and remember all their adventures at Duke together just as any other
Special to The Chronicle Bryan tried out a traditional Moroccan leather poof while abroad.
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college kids would. They embrace how much they stand out, something that’s been easier for them to do together, and they have the kind of hilarious and heartwarming relationship that makes you hope in humanity a little more. Tommaso told me that he’s even begun to “move like a wheelchair,” in that he’ll take pathways that are handicap accessible even when Bryan isn’t around, just out of habit. The two have been to Iceland, Italy and Tokyo together, and their plans for spring break are no less ambitious. Tommaso carries Bryan up the stairs to Central Campus apartments whenever they go to a party together, and Bryan fills in Tommaso’s stories to ensure that his faulty English doesn’t ruin or omit any important details. When I went to their apartment to interview them and try Tommaso’s incredibly delicious chili—the guy can cook—we ended up speaking at length about how Bryan is perceived so differently by people at Duke. Tommaso gets frustrated by how people pity Bryan and can’t look at him without seeing his wheelchair. “I eventually stopped seeing it,” Tommaso said as Bryan poured him tea. “But people see it so much.” Bryan, an avid reader and introspective teenager, believes that he represents a physical manifestation of human brokenness that people cannot come to terms with, that people are afraid of encountering. He read me a long quote from the Class of 2020 summer reading—“Just Mercy” by Bryan Stevenson—that had spoken to him on a deep level: “We are all broken by something. We have all hurt someone and have been hurt. We all share the condition of brokenness even if our brokenness is not equivalent. But our brokenness is also the source of our common humanity, the basis for our shared search for comfort, meaning and healing. Our shared vulnerability and imperfection nurtures and sustains our capacity for compassion. We have a choice. We can embrace our humanness, which means embracing our broken natures
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Special to The Chronicle Despite having spinal muscular atrophy, a neuromuscular degenerative disease, Bryan refuses to miss out on any of life’s experiences—like riding a camel.
and the compassion that remains our best hope for healing. Or we can deny our brokenness, forswear compassion, and as a result, deny our own humanity.” I don’t know if Bryan is right that his brokenness scares people away. I think, on a simpler level, many just don’t know how to approach someone whose life is so obviously different. But I do know that I’m grateful to have someone like him in my life. Bryan is thoughtful, intelligent, kind and patient. He is curious, clever, realistic and a startling reminder that yes, life is difficult, but hey, that’s just how it goes. He’s read half the world’s history books because he literally has a backpack on wheels, and he often ends up sitting alone in the handicapped section, doing his reading. While other kids were playing sports in their spare time, Bryan taught himself bits of Arabic and Icelandic. He hates depending on others for help and is reluctant to ask for assistance, but he responds to my texts within milliseconds whenever I need something from him.
I don’t think Bryan is brave for what he has gone through because he hasn’t really had a choice for most of it. But I don’t think he cares to be brave—he’s just really trying his best to be human. And turns out it takes fantastic courage to face one’s own fallible and flawed humanity, and Bryan does that every single morning when he wakes up and walks into the shower. The fact that he keeps getting up, despite not knowing how far he’ll go or whether anyone will talk to him, makes him courageously human. Bryan refuses to miss out on any of life’s experiences, even if that means going through discomfort and physical pain because he understands that it’s all part of the package. His wheelchair may scare some away, but getting to know Bryan and watching him conquer Morocco has been nothing short of an absolute honor for me. Because it’s nice to know that when life throws you a deadly, incurable, degenerative disease, you can still get someone as absolutely fantastic as Bryan Rusch.