Emory Magazine / Autumn 2015

AUTUMN 2015

KEEPING emory medical experts explore ways to boost health and happiness in our golden years

26 Celebrating 100 Years

of Emory in Atlanta

32 PhDs: Not Just for

Professors Anymore

36 How a Syrian Refugee Is

Changing Hearts and Minds

The intersection of law & your industry

“

Regulatory and compliance

pressures are affecting everyone now, not just the compliance department. As a leader in the Big Data space, particularly around HR People Information, I have to be adept in compliance

”

to do my job well.

— Eric Martin, Managing Director for Global Bank

Summon your potential with a Juris Master degree The Juris Master (JM) is a customizable 30-credit-hour program that is designed to enhance your knowledge of the law within your chosen profession or industry.

Part-time option and scholarship assistance available.

Learn more at www.law.emory.edu/jm II

magazine A U T U M N 2 0 1 5

AUTUMN 2015

contents

VOL. 91, NUMBER 3

F E AT U R E S

20 Modern Aging From highly technical treatments to deeply personal support, Emory experts are finding new ways to help those facing the universal experience of growing old.

BY GARY GOET TLING

26 Century in the City One hundred years ago (largely thanks to a certain soft drink venture), Emory moved from little Oxford, Georgia, to the bustling business center of the South.

Here’s a glimpse of how the Atlanta campus has evolved since then.

B Y PAIGE PARV IN 9 6 G

32 Doctor Who? How the Laney Graduate School is broadening horizons by connecting graduate students with alumni who have taken their PhDs in different directions.

BY MARIA M. LAMEIRAS

36 Changing Hearts and Minds Heval Mohamed Kelli 15MR turned a job as a dishwasher into a medical degree and a prestigious fellowship with Emory’s renowned cardiology program—but he stays connected to his past.

BY MICHELLE HISKEY

C A M P U S : E M O R Y P H O T O / V I D E O ; S O N G F E S T: K AY H I N T O N

ON THE COVER

Illustration by Beppe Giacobbe

M O R E O N LI N E AT W W W. E M O R Y. E D U/M AG A Z I N E Whole Health The Fuqua Center, part of Emory’s Brain Health Center, focuses on the complex needs of the older adult population challenged by mental health disorders. S T O R Y O N P A G E 2 0 .

Sing Along Learn more about Songfest—a knock-down, drag-out competition among freshman residence halls—in an “Emory Explained” video. S T O R Y O N P A G E 8 .

When Lupus Flares Emory researchers explain recent findings on lupus “flares,” while a colleague describes them firsthand. S T O R Y O N P A G E 19.

AUTUMN 2015

magazine

1

OF NOTE

9 Let the Students Be Your Guide Maddie Clifton 14OX 16C is one of some 260 Emory tour guides, a big job that’s popular for students and important for recruitment efforts.

6

Jimmy Carter Presides over Thirty-fourth Town Hall

7

President James Wagner to Retire

8

10

DOOLEY NOTED

Songfest, the Ultimate Bonding Experience SECRET LIVES

Stephen Bowen, Oxford Dean and Woodworker

13

F A C U LT Y B O O K

Sally Wolff’s A Dark Rose

14

IN CLASS

Learning From the Baltimore Riots

16

OFFICE HOURS

Sidney Perkowitz and Life on Mars

18

RESEARCH

Signs from the Stone Age

REGISTER

9

49 Emory Medalists 2015 Paul McLarty 63C 66L, Cecil Wilson 57C 61M receive the highest alumni honor 50

ALUMNI INK

Historic Places Revisited in Images

54

TRIBUTE

James Fowler, Center for Ethics Founder

56

GIFT GUIDE

Spotlight on Alumni Entrepreneurs

10

6 0

CODA

A Globe-trotting Journalist Gets First Person

12

Editor Paige P. Parvin 96G paige.parvin@emory.edu Associate Editor Maria M. Lameiras maria.lameiras@emory.edu Art Direction Times 3

2

Contributors Pam Auchmutey Susan Carini 04G Carol Clark Gary Goettling Michelle Hiskey Suzanne Kianpour 07OX 09C Michelle Valigursky Kimber Williams

magazine A U T U M N 2 0 1 5

Senior Vice President, Communications and Public Affairs Jerry Lewis Associate Vice President, Marketing and Communications David Johnson

Executive Director, Communication, Marketing and Communications Susan Carini 04G University President James W. Wagner

EMORY MAGAZINE (USPS-175-420) is published quarterly by Emory Division of Communications and Public Affairs, 1762 Clifton Road, Plaza 1000, Atlanta, Georgia 30322. Periodicals postage paid at Atlanta, Georgia, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: send address changes to OFFICE OF ALUMNI AND DEVELOPMENT RECORDS, 1762 Clifton Road, Suite 1000, Atlanta, Georgia 30322.

Emory Magazine is distributed free to all alumni and to parents of undergraduates, as well as to other friends of the university. Address changes may be sent to the Office of Alumni and Development Records, 1762 Clifton Road, Suite 1400, Atlanta, Georgia 30322 or eurec@emory.edu. If you are an individual with a disability and wish to acquire this publication in an alternative format, please contact Paige P. Parvin (address above) or call 404.727.7873. No. 16-EU-EMAG-0027 ©2015, a publication of the Division of Communications and Public Affairs.

T O U R : K AY H I N T O N ; B O W E N : A N N B O R D E N ; B A S K E T: C A R L O S M U S E U M

prelude

The More Things Change During one of this fall’s more entertaining presidential debates, a Republican candidate offered the somewhat dubious assertion that “welders make more money than philosophers,” boldly adding that the country needs more of the former and fewer of the latter.

If the speaker were making the point that the American economy needs a balance of highly skilled, thoughtful workers as well as

Emory researchers in various disciplines are working to expand and improve not only the duration of time we have, but also how we spend it. highly trained, working thinkers, I’m not sure anyone would argue with that. But the comment struck me as interesting for a number of reasons—one being the use of “philosopher” as a job title.

This magazine features a story on Emory PhD graduates who have pursued careers across a remarkable range of fields, including law, medical communications, public health, and museum education. In fact, the Laney Graduate School has created a special program to showcase the job opportunities outside academia that are open to those with doctoral degrees. This trend is not new, but it seems like a good time to brighten the spotlight on the positive, concrete contributions being made in all sectors by the accomplished alumni of universities such as this one.

We may need more welders and

more philosophers, too.

If we step back to look at the bigger picture, the presidential debates serve as a reminder that Emory is facing a profound leadership transition of its own.

University President James Wagner has announced that he will retire at the end of this academic year, ending an era marked by visionary planning, progress, and a commitment to excellence on all fronts. The Emory community will be celebrating President Wagner and the achievements of his tenure in the months ahead. It is a time, as well, to prepare for the anticipation and adjustment that naturally accompany change.

Stepping farther back, we can also see the restless constancy of change at work in the transformation of Emory’s Druid Hills campus during the hundred years since the university moved from Oxford to Atlanta. We mark that anniversary with recognition of the physical evolution that has mirrored Emory’s rise to the top twenty-five universities in the country, according to national rankings.

There may be no stronger evidence for the inevitability of transition than our cover story, which explores aspects of aging from a number of perspectives.

We know that, thanks to health care advances, people are living longer than ever before—but as our years stretch out, is our quality of life keeping pace? From sophisticated neurological techniques, to attention and support for caregivers, to the use of tango

dancing for better mobility (and enjoyment), Emory researchers in various disciplines are working to expand and improve not only the time we have, but also how we spend it.

By chance, another current news headline is echoed in this magazine: The rising tide of refugees fleeing civil war in Syria to Europe and the US. Although Heval Mohamed Kelli 15MR came to Atlanta with his family in 2001 under very different circumstances, he remains deeply connected to his homeland and to those affected by the presentday conflict; the little boy who drowned off the coast of Turkey, and whose image has become a tragic symbol of the crisis, was from Mohamed Kelli’s hometown.

As a Katz Fellow in Preventive Cardiology, Mohamed Kelli is pursuing innovations in cardiac care. As a doctor and Syrian Kurdish refugee, he spends time volunteering at a free health clinic in the immigrant community where his family once lived. Along with more welders and philosophers, we could use more people like him.—P.P.P.

AUTUMN 2015

magazine

3

letters I am a Humphrey Fellow in the Hubert Department of Global Health at Rollins School of Public Health. Before coming here from Burkina Faso for one year of courses and professional development, I worked for more than ten years in the domain of child survival. So, I am more than interested to learn more about the ambitious CHAMPS project at Emory (“Cause of Life,” summer 2015). I’d like to say that we did and are doing a lot of things, but we are not impacting our children’s mortality at our expectation level. So now, we need to think outside the box and innovate.

Coefe Basilia Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso The high-Heel Shoe on page fourteen of the summer 2015 Emory Magazine (“Why Women Rule”) fails on a number of levels, in my opinion, to complement the accompanying essay on Melvin Konner’s new book about women. A photograph of a real highheel shoe without a woman’s foot would’ve more effectively represented one of the many ways in which men have objectified women and women’s culture through history to the point of crippling and maiming them emotionally and physically.

An illustration of a female foot binding in Japan would’ve left no doubt about the reality of this sort of repression. I look forward to reading Dr. Konner’s latest book.

Alan Hull 69C Conyers, Georgia Many thanks for the publication of my article (“CODA: Counting Stars,” summer 2015).

It stirred memories of many of my past medical students, residents, and colleagues, who wrote and called to share them.

Bhagirath Majmudar Professor emeritus, Emory School of Medicine Write to the editors at Emory Magazine, 1762 Clifton Road, Suite 1000, Atlanta, Georgia 30322, or via email at paige.parvin@emory.edu. We reserve the right to edit letters for length and clarity.

The views expressed by the writers do not necessarily reflect the views of the editors or the administrators of Emory University.

4

magazine A U T U M N 2 0 1 5

THE BIG PICTURE P H O T O B Y B R YA N M E LT Z

AUTUMN 2015

magazine

5

of Note

T H E Q U O TA B L E C A R T E R :

Carter on being married for nearly seventy years: “Don’t go to bed mad” Carter recalled how, shortly after leaving the White House, he forgot his wife’s birthday and quickly wrote a card promising to grant any wish she had.

“So she thought it over for a few days, and she said, ‘I think I would like, when I get up in the morning, to have a cup of coffee and a glass of orange juice, delivered by you.’ Now for about thirty years, I take her a cup of coffee and a glass of orange juice, and she repays me with a kiss, and we tell each other we love each other, and that is how we start our day.”

On what national issue every 2016 candidate, regardless of political affiliation, should be aware of in this election cycle

C A R T E R A DV I S E S S T U D E N T S AT T H E ‘ P E A K O F F R E E D OM’ For thirty-four years, former US President Jimmy Carter has joined first-year Emory students for the annual Carter Town Hall—a spirited, no-holds-barred conversation that has become a coveted rite of passage for the university’s newest class.

This year’s event, held September 16, was no exception, as Carter genially tackled every question put to him. But the alwayspopular gathering carried new resonance. In August, the ninety-one-year-old international statesman, Nobel laureate, and human rights advocate announced that he had been diagnosed with metastatic melanoma and would be undergoing treatment at Emory’s Winship Cancer Institute.

Carter took the stage at Woodruff P. E. Center and quickly addressed the diagnosis that he

said, in the minds of many, has relegated him to “a position of illness, infirmity, and age.” To counter that image, he announced that instead of sitting in a chair that had been provided, he would stand to answer questions for the next hour, drawing a roar of support from the crowd of about 1,300 Emory students.

Many expressed gratitude for a rare opportunity—the chance to see someone with Carter’s international experience chat informally about issues large and small.

For Cana McGhee 19C, a freshman majoring in music and math, the Carter Town Hall was a must-see event that held a heightened importance this year. “With the recent news about his health, I felt like, ‘This is something I absolutely need to do,’” she said. “That awareness is definitely there.”

“I would say that the new president should resolve in his or her heart: I will keep my country at peace, and I will be a champion of human rights.

That would be the two things that I would insist on if I had influence on the next president.”

On the advice he wishes he had received before going to college “With the extremely high level of freedom that you will never experience again in your life, and with the turmoil of thoughts and ideas that can come to you from yourself and other people at the university, this is the best time for you to shape the highest possible moral and ethical ideals for yourself for the future.”

TICKER

6

Emory among top US research universities

Creating the ‘medical school of the future’

Emory has been ranked 21st among the nation’s top universities in the new Best Colleges 2016 Guidebook from US News & World Report. The university was listed as 18th among national universities offering the “best value” to students based on a combination of academic quality and the average level of need-based financial aid, and 16th among “best colleges for veterans.”

The American Medical Association recently announced that Emory is among 20 medical schools selected to join its Accelerating Change in Medical Education Consortium. The schools will enhance the innovative work under way to create the medical school of the future and quickly spread these innovations to additional medical schools throughout the US.

magazine A U T U M N 2 0 1 5

ANN BORDEN

Still Standing

W A G N E R : K AY H I N T O N ; T I C K E R : I S T O C K P H O T O. C O M

of Note Emory College of Arts and Sciences Dean Robin Forman said the Carter Town Hall offers “a remarkable opportunity for students to hear directly from someone with the breadth of experience that very few people have ever had—not just as a president, but as an active statesman who is still traveling the world, facing pressing global issues, with an unquenchable thirst to know, access to information, and a willingness to share his insights.”

It’s difficult to imagine “what Emory would be without The Carter Center being part of our university and without his presence,” he added.

“They have both been a very special part of Emory for a long time and I hope they will be for much longer.”

The nonprofit Carter Center is an affiliate of Emory independently governed by a board of trustees that includes appointees from both The Carter Center and Emory, with Emory President James Wagner serving as an exofficio member. Its programs focus on advancing human rights, presenting and resolving conflict, enhancing freedom and democracy, and improving health worldwide.

As an Emory University Distinguished Professor, Carter has maintained a direct relationship with the university, engaging in the lives of Emory faculty and students since he accepted the position in 1982.

At the conclusion of the town hall, Wagner stepped forward to award Carter with the President’s Medal, an honor Wagner said is intended “to recognize those who have, through art and/or intellect, advanced human understanding and the cause of peace.”

Wagner noted that the medal had only been awarded four times during his twelve-year tenure at Emory.

“The partnership that has grown between The Carter Center and Emory University, and myself and Emory University, has been one of the highlights of my life,” Carter said.

Carter holds the record for the longest post-presidential career of any president, winning acclaim for his humanitarian work, including receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor, in 1999, and the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize.

—Kimber Williams

PRESIDENT WAGNER TO RETIRE NEXT YEAR “The time is right, both for me personally and for Emory.”

EMORY UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT JAMES WAGNER

After more than twelve years of leading Emory’s steady progress in academic, research, and health care prominence, President James Wagner has announced that he will retire from the presidency at the end of August 2016.

“The time is right, both for me personally and for Emory,” says Wagner. “I have delighted in the good fortune of being part of this community during a period of tremendous growth in impact, depth, and richness— all grounded in the special character of this place.”

Emory Board of Trustees Chair John Morgan expressed appreciation for Wagner’s stellar leadership in advancing Emory as a destination for the best and brightest students, outstanding faculty and staff, and renowned researchers and health care providers.

“President Wagner’s leadership has firmly established Emory as a great national university in every measure, from the enrollment of superb students, the growth of a world-class community of scholars and researchers, and the expansion of cutting-edge facilities that enable the university to fulfill its highest aspirations,” says Morgan. “Jim exemplifies the very qualities that define Emory, and he has well positioned the university to continue its pursuit of excellence in all aspects of its mission.”

In October, the Board of Trustees announced a selection process to begin the work of identifying Emory’s next president.

The president’s leading role in developing the university’s first vision statement laid the foundation for a ten-

Grant will examine effect of prenatal stressors Elizabeth Corwin, associate dean for research at Emory’s School of Nursing, received a five-year, $3.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to investigate whether the composition of the maternal and infant gut microbiomes are linked to exposure to pre- and postnatal maternal stress, and whether that composition contributes to the brain development and other outcomes for African American infants.

year strategic plan, Where Courageous Inquiry Leads, focused on strengthening faculty distinction, ensuring the highest student quality and enhancing the student experience, and exploring new frontiers in science and technology.

The largest fund-raising campaign in the history of Georgia resulted in the investment of $1.7 billion in support of the university’s initiatives in teaching, research, scholarship, and patient care.

Recruitment efforts during the president’s tenure have been particularly successful, as the university welcomed a world-class and diverse community of scholars and researchers. The same holds true for Emory’s success in recruiting outstanding students and providing resources that will enable them to thrive.

Under Wagner’s leadership, Emory also has accomplished the innovative design and construction of a number of new facilities to support health sciences research, science education, residential life, library resources, and patient care.

NIH continues support for vaccine research The National Institutes of Health has awarded an Emory-led research consortium $15 million over five years for renewal of a grant aimed at better understanding and improving human immune responses to vaccination. The grant builds on the pioneering accomplishments of principal investigator Bali Pulendran and his research team in developing methods to predict the efficacy of vaccination.

AUTUMN 2015

magazine

7

of Note

DOOLE Y NOTED

Come Together

F O R F I R S T-Y E A R S T U D E N T S , S O N G F E S T I S T H E U LT I M AT E B O N D I N G E X P E R I E N C E but the tradition spans at least three decades. and jumping up and down in jubilation.

Five days after moving into the freshFreshman Jacob Letwat 19C from Oxford College Dean for Campus Life Joseph man residence halls on the main campus, Chicago took a moment from high-fiving his Moon was assistant dean for campus life and virtually every member of Emory’s Class director of residence life on the main campus dorm mates to sum up: “It’s been incredible,” of 2019 is packed into the bleachers at the he said. “I never thought, in the span of less Woodruff P. E. Center, bellowing and pounding when Emory appropriated the idea, at the than a week, that I could get this close to suggestion of a staff member, in the early their feet, each striving to drown out the rest. these people.”

1980s. “We were trying to build unity in the It’s time for Songfest.

While year-long bragging rights are halls and wanted students to feel that this For the past several days, freshmen have coveted, who wins isn’t what really matters, was their community,” Moon says. “I guess spent much of their time preparing for this says Kyle Griffith 15L, complex director for it worked.” moment—learning lyrics, practicing dance Turman and Hamilton Holmes. “Ultimately,” This year, when the overall Songfest moves, coordinating with their hall mates— he says, “every single person in this massive winner—Raoul Hall—was announced, in anticipation of a fierce but friendly comcacophony is chanting, ‘We are awesome, Raoul residents surged to their feet, pouring petition that they will always remember.

Superbowl-style onto the gym floor, chanting and we love being at Emory.’ ”—M.M.L. “You can count on your hand how many times the entire Emory community comes to a single event, and this is one of them,” says Ryan Roche 03OX 05C, associate director in charge of first-year halls for the Office of Residence Life. “This is when they celebrate each other and the pride they’ve gained since being on campus.”

The event draws upperclassmen cheering on their old halls, faculty and staff who come to enjoy the spectacle, and alumni who treasure the memory.

“I was in Longstreet last year and we won,” says Kennedy Lewis 18C, who watched from the gym floor sidelines. “It was the most amazing experience, not just because we won, but through all the practices we got close to our hall mates and really got to know each other.”

The precise origins of W E ’ V E G O T S P I R I T: The annual Songfest competition among first-year student residence halls may be a lip-sync contest, but it still helps the freshman class find its voice.

Songfest are not exactly clear,

TICKER

8

Campus most LGBTQ friendly in state

Research funding reaches new high

Emory is the “most LGBTQ-friendly school” in Georgia, according to a review from eCollegeFinder, a website that matches colleges and prospective students. The website based its selections on information from Princeton Review, the Advocate, and other sources.

Researchers at Emory received $572.4 million from external funding agencies in fiscal year 2015, a 9.69 percent increase over last fiscal year.

This marks the largest amount of research funding in Emory’s history and is the sixth-consecutive year that research funding has exceeded $500 million. Federal agencies awarded nearly $375 million, or nearly 66 percent of the total, led by the National Institutes of Health.

magazine A U T U M N 2 0 1 5

STUDENTS

Welcome to Emory

LET ’EM BE DOCTORS N E W G R A N T A I M S TO AT T R A C T AT L A N TA T E E N S TO H E A LT H

S O N G F E S T A N D T O U R : K AY H I N T O N ; Y O U N G D O C T O R A N D T I C K E R : I S T O C K P H O T O. C O M

S TUDENT TOUR GUIDE S P U T O N A G O O D FA C E Giving a tour to a group of fifteen prospective students and parents, Maddie Clifton 14OX 16C (right) hits all the campus highlights, from the Michael C. Carlos Museum F O L L O W M E : Tour guide Maddie Clifton shares her Emory story with prospective students and parents. and the freshman dorms to the Woodruff Library and the dining hall at Dobbs University Center.

“Maddie was very informative, and it was The Savannah native also sprinkles in fun great that she went to both Oxford and Emory facts about her own Emory experience, such and could talk about that,” Austin Ragusa as how she used the writing center to help get says. “You can tell she is really a student here an A on her first college essay, and where her and enjoyed every minute of her experience.” favorite study spot on campus is located.

Joel Dobben 12C, an undergraduate “I love talking to people about what their admission counselor, coordinates the Emory aspirations are, what they are looking to get Student Ambassador program and served as a out of a college,” says Clifton, who has served tour guide himself as a student. as a tour guide with the Office of Undergradu“We are looking for students who are very ate Admission since her freshman year at adaptable and articulate, who are able to Oxford College. “It is rewarding to see the share their love of the university and think on people you helped recruit on campus and their feet,” says Dobben. have them come up to say, ‘Hey, you were my Students interested in becoming tour tour guide, thank you so much.’ They look to guides apply in the fall and undergo an extenyou as a mentor. That is just so exciting.” sive interview process. It’s a popular job; this A double major in political science and year, 250 students applied for seventy spots. interdisciplinary studies, Clifton tells prospecEach new crop of tour guides is selected to tive students that it was the opportunity to represent a range of academic and extracurricstudy liberal arts and pursue research that ular interests, backgrounds, and experiences. attracted her to Emory. Accepted to both Those chosen receive a manual and ten Emory College and Oxford College, she chose hours of training, shadow an experienced to start at Oxford for the historic campus and guide, and then conduct “buddy tours” with sense of community she felt there. another trainee before they can lead groups “You get the opportunity to tell personal on their own. Within basic parameters, stories on a tour, and it makes you really think they’re encouraged to make the tours their about what you like about your school, what own by letting their personal style and experiyou don’t like about your school, and what ences shine. kinds of students you want at your school,” “We want visitors to come away feeling Clifton says. “Finding your fit is the most that they engaged with a friendly community,” important thing.”

Dobben says. “For these students to take the High school senior Austin Ragusa and his time to participate in this program shows the father, Mark Ragusa, were on Clifton’s tour degree to which they love this place and have on an October morning. No strangers to the an affinity for their community.”—M.M.L. process, it was their seventh college tour.

Journalism professor inducted into Hall of Fame Hank Klibanoff, James M. Cox Jr. Professor of Journalism, was inducted into the Atlanta Press Club Hall of Fame this fall for his accomplishments as a journalist and director of the Georgia Civil Rights Cold Cases Project at Emory.

Klibanoff received a Pulitzer Prize for history in 2007 for his book The Race Beat, which he coathored with Gene Roberts.

of Note

Call it future-proofing.

Emory’s School of Medicine, in collaboration with Emory College, Atlanta Public Schools, and the Atlanta Area Health Education Center, has received a three-year, $1.8 million grant from the US Department of Health and Human Services to get high-school students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds engaged with career opportunities in health professions.

The new initiative, Emory Pipeline Collaborative (EPiC), aims to prepare students from five Atlanta high schools for entry into health professions by increasing academic achievement, improving college readiness, strengthening social support, and broadening student awareness of pathways to health careers. The project is an expansion of Emory’s Pipeline Program, which began in 2007.

“Nationally, there is a lack of minority and low socioeconomic applicants applying to health sciences degree programs,” says Robert Lee, associate dean and director of multicultural medical student affairs at the School of Medicine.

“Funding opportunities such as this one are vital because they support our ongoing efforts to address the educational barriers and social needs of high school students and increase their exposure and access to health sciences at a pivotal time.”

Oxford Organic Farm growing fast Established last year, the Oxford Organic Farm was ranked 17th in the Top 30 Sustainable College-Run Farms ranking recently released by College Values Online (CVO). CVO ranked each farm based on qualities such as total size, organic certification, sales to campus dining halls, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) offerings, academic courses, and sales to off-campus venues.

AUTUMN 2015

magazine

9

of Note

SECRET LIVES

STEPHEN BOWEN D AY J O B : Dean, Oxford College

As a young boy, Oxford Dean Stephen Bowen would borrow tools from his father’s garage to experiment with woodworking. His earliest projects were little boats, propelled by tiny sails he carefully attached with thread nabbed from his mother’s sewing box, to her mild annoyance.

Since then, Bowen has honed his skills and advanced to more ambitious projects, including wooden bowls, inlaid boxes, a full-size boat that’s a reproduction of an 1855 hybrid between a canoe and a kayak, and both period reproduction and contemporary furniture, such as beds for his children. He credits his hobby with his love of opera, developed during long, happy Saturday afternoons spent in his workshop listening to National Public Radio.

Most recently, at the special request of Oxford College Chaplain Lyn Pace 02T 17T, Bowen crafted a table for the Oxford Chapel.

The project was invested with layers of historic significance: His woodworking shop is located in a ground-floor “porch room” that was added in about 1850 to the President’s House, the traditional home of Oxford deans and several

Emory College presidents, including founder Ignatius Few; the table itself was created from a part of a beam salvaged from Phi Gamma Hall, Emory’s oldest academic structure, which Bowen had been storing for a few years. He frequently salvages wood from fallen trees and building repairs. “Nearly everything I’ve made at Oxford came from something local that fell over,” he jokes.

The large Phi Gamma Hall beam that was used for the chapel table is of heart pine, and broad axe marks at regular intervals along each surface show that it was hewn by hand. Bowen chose a simple trestle design for the table, a style that would have been common in the earliest days of the chapel’s use. It was dedicated in a ceremony on September 2.

H I S W O R D S : “There are always new techniques to learn, and wood is just a beautiful

material with which to work. It is a process in which aesthetics and technical aspects of structure are often indistinguishable. Dovetails are a mechanically superior way to join two pieces, and in many contexts are pleasing to the eye, but in others may distract the eye and thus interrupt the flow of the form.

Wood feels and smells good to work with. The smooth action of a very sharp plane iron is very gratifying. For those with day jobs that involve mostly delayed gratification, making something from wood lets you see your progress minute by minute.

Projects like woodworking demand continuous focus or you will make a mistake, so they provided a sometimes welcome distraction from other responsibilities.”—P.P.P.

TICKER

10

New grant to improve patient experience

Faculty named national academy fellows

A $25 million grant from the James M. Cox Foundation will launch new care models at Emory designed to improve patient experiences and outcomes. Prostate cancer care will be the initial clinical focus of the model. The five-year initiative accelerates efforts to create more streamlined and reliable care for patients and families.

The National Academy of Medicine, formerly the Institute of Medicine, has elected Otis W. Brawley (left), professor of medicine, and Keith P. Klugman (right), professor of epidemiology, to its latest class of 70 new members and 10 international members.

magazine A U T U M N 2 0 1 5

B O W E N : A N N B O R D E N ; B R A W L E Y: W O R D P R E S S . C O M ; K L U G M A N : E M O R Y H E A LT H S C I E N C E S

S E C R E T L I F E : Woodworker

of Note Health Hazards Exposed

B I K E : I S T O C K P H O T O. C O M ; P E A C E : E M O R Y P H O T O / V I D E O

S T U DY I N G DA N G E R S IN THE ENVIRONMENT

Emory, in collaboration with the Georgia Institute of Technology, has been awarded an $8.3 million grant by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to establish a National Exposure Assessment Laboratory.

Investigators from both institutions will join a network of laboratories that will measure the impact of environmental chemicals on children’s health. The network is part of the NIH’s restructuring of the National Children’s Study.

“We can no longer study the environment one chemical at a time,” explains Gary Miller, professor and associate dean for research at Rollins School of Public Health. “We must embrace the complexity of our exposures if we are going to get to the root causes of disease. This award gets us one step closer to unraveling the mystery of the exposome.”

The new program builds upon the emerging concept of the exposome—the environmental equivalent of the genome. In 2013, Emory was awarded a center grant entitled HERCULES: Health and Exposome Research Center. The HERCULES Center was designed to support research on the exposome at Emory and Georgia Tech. The new assessment laboratory provides the outstanding resources of HERCULES to investigators across the country engaged in children’s health research.

“Technology advances have become a powerful driver in studying and understanding the start and spread of disease,” says NIH Director Francis Collins. “These projects will expand the toolbox available to researchers to improve our ability to characterize environmental exposures, understand how environmental exposures affect in utero development and function, and bolster the infrastructure for exposure research.”

PEACE OUT ROLLINS S TUDENTS P O P U L AT E T H E P E AC E CO R P S Neither Becca Egner 11MPH nor Paul Fleming 11MPH planned a career in public health when they signed up to be Peace Corps volunteers in the mid-2000s.

Egner planned to become a doctor after her two-year stint in Burkina Faso, and Fleming was going to pursue public policy after his Nicaragua posting. In the Peace Corps, though, both fell in love with the public health field.

As they were considering next steps, Emory’s Rollins School of Public Health offered them two of the first Paul D. Coverdell Fellowships, created to enhance the school’s Masters International program.

“We were brought in to strengthen a program to prepare people who wanted to go into the Peace Corps and also to establish partnerships with local refugee settlements and service agencies in Clarkston to sort of mimic the Peace Corps experience,” says Egner, who won the Emory Humanitarian Award in 2011. “It was an incredible opportunity to continue our Peace Corps experience.”

Since those early days, the Peace Corps presence has grown dramatically at Rollins, and the Clarkston-Rollins connection has matured into a strong collaboration, with students working in eight organizations that serve the refugee community.

As for Egner and

Fleming, they married in June 2013.

Fleming earned a PhD in health behavior, and Egner earned a degree in public health nursing. They are heading to California this fall, where Fleming will do his postdoctoral work at the University of California, San Diego, focusing on HIV in the Latino community. Egner plans to continue in practical public health nursing. Since the founding of the public health program forty years ago, many Returning Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs) have come through Emory.

Rollins has more than eighty RPCVs, and eighty-eight incoming students have expressed an interest in the Masters International Program. RPCVs may apply for the Paul D. Coverdell Fellowship, which was begun in 2011.

—Pam Auchmutey

Emory names new governmental affairs chief

Hauk named first official Emory historian

Cameron Taylor 90C has been named vice president for government and community affairs at Emory. She will serve as the chief governmental affairs officer for the university, including Emory Healthcare. Taylor will continue to be based in Washington, D.C., and will lead a team of five based on Emory’s campus in Atlanta. Taylor joined Emory as director of federal affairs in 2003.

Gary Hauk 91PhD, vice president and deputy to the president, has been appointed as the university’s first official historian, a role he has filled unofficially for many years. In addition to authoring two books about Emory, Hauk is coeditor with Sally Wolff of a collection of essays about the university and the editor of a history of athletics at Emory.

He also launched the history website, emoryhistory.emory.edu.

AUTUMN 2015

magazine

11

of Note

WHAT’S IN A NAME? EMORY’S LITER ARY LIBR ARY A SSUMES A NE W IDENTIT Y

A rose by any other name might smell as sweet, but even Shakespeare would have to admit that it would not offer the breadth and depth of literary resources available in Emory’s newly named Rose Library.

This fall, the Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library (MARBL) was renamed in honor of Stuart A. Rose 76B. Rose was recognized for his ongoing support and recent

significant gift to MARBL, now the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, or the Rose Library.

“Stuart Rose has been a generous supporter, a dedicated alumnus, and a guiding spirit.

His commitment has helped us achieve international renown for the breadth and depth of our collections,” says Rosemary M. Magee 82PhD, director. “We are delighted to celebrate all he has bestowed upon us through the naming of the Rose Library.”

Rose himself is a rare book collector of international acclaim with a distinguished and extensive private library that spans centuries of the arts, literature, and the sciences. “Stuart Rose was educated at Emory and developed as a student a profound love of literature,” says Kevin Young, award-winning poet and professor, and curator of the Rose Library’s literary collections and of its Raymond Danowski Poetry Library. “His support recognizes the central role that engaging with these materials has in a liberal arts education.”

Rose has long championed the connections among rare books and research, teaching, and learning. “No great university can be without a great rare books library,” he says. “It preserves history; it’s what scholars all over the world

are drawn to study. Over the past twenty years, Emory has done more than any other place I know of to develop and enhance its rare book library. I’m very honored to be associated with the people and the collections there.”

Rose’s gift was announced this fall as MARBL opened an expanded and renovated space on the top floor of Emory’s flagship library, the Robert W. Woodruff Library. Over time, Rose has made significant contributions to the library’s literary holdings, including in 2011 a collection of rare editions of works such as a 1653 first edition of Izaak Walton’s The Compleat Angler, held by fewer than twenty libraries in the United States.

In 2013, a gift from Rose made possible Emory’s purchase of a collection of rare manuscripts by some of the world’s great poets, from an unpublished poem by John Clare to drafts of works by Sylvia Path, Ted Hughes, Samuel Beckett, W. B. Yeats, Seamus Heaney, and Derek Mahon. A well-known leader in the Dayton, Ohio, business community, Rose is the former chief executive officer of REX American Resources Corp., a Dayton-based alternative energy investment company.

The holdings of Emory’s Rose Library have become “an interdisciplinary crossroads where people from all different backgrounds, lands, and languages come to engage in research, teaching, and learning,” says Magee.—P.P.P.

Indigenous Beauty celebrated at the Carlos A major exhibition of Native American artwork, Indigenous Beauty: Masterworks of American Indian Art from the Diker Collection, is now on view at the Michael C. Carlos Museum.

The exhibit debuted at the Carlos Museum following showings in Seattle and Fort Worth, and will be on view through January 3, 2016. It is described as providing rare access to many exquisite works from one of the most comprehensive and diverse collections of privately owned Native American art. Some of the objects have never been seen before in public.

12

Not confined to one or even a few regions, the exhibition of 118 masterworks presents objects drawn from a variety of cultures of North American indigenous peoples.

“When this exhibition was offered, we jumped at the chance to showcase so much more than we could on our own,” says Rebecca Stone, Emory’s faculty curator of Art of the Americas, who as site curator is adapting the traveling exhibition to the venue here.

“The high quality and the great diversity of the Diker collection make this a perfect show

magazine A U T U M N 2 0 1 5

for Emory, as a great introduction to the artistry of indigenous people from all regions: the Arctic, Northwest Coast, California/ Great Basin, the Southwest, the Plains, and the Eastern Woodlands,” she explains.

Housed on the third floor of the Carlos, the exhibit is filled with the bright colors, intricate details, and strong silhouettes of painted hides, beadwork, plant-fiber baskets, wooden bowls and masks, and other items.

“There are shaman’s amulets and headdresses, an eight-foot-wide cloth painted

with the Battle of Little Big Horn, and two contemporary glass pieces, to mention just a few of the treasures that will be on view,” Stone says.

F A C U LT Y B O O K

A Dark Rose Blooms PAT I E N T F R I E N D S H I P F I N D S F R U I T I O N I N A N E W B O O K O N E U D O R A W E LT Y

Sally Wolff 76G 83PHD has written a sensitive work of literary criticism in A Dark Rose: Love in Eudora Welty’s Stories and Novels. But she has written something even richer besides.

Wolff—senior editor at the Emory Clinic and former assistant vice president in the Office of the President and associate dean of Emory College—first read Welty when she was twenty-two and remembers, “What impressed me about her work is the subtlety and depth of perception in her fiction.” They met in 1982, the year Emory conferred an honorary degree on Welty.

L I B R A R Y: B R YA N M E LT Z ; M A S K : C A R L O S M U S E U M ; W O L F F : J O H N S Y K E S J R .

COURTING MISS WELTY

The timing was perfect: Wolff was completing a dissertation at Emory on Welty. Her adviser nudged the last star into alignment by inviting Welty to his home. Wolff describes her nervous approach to Welty across a living room: After a decent interval I approached Miss Welty. . . . She spoke softly to me and invited me to sit beside her. . . . I said I had seen a televised interview in which she talked about unusual Southern names that she had heard.

I asked her to say again a long name she had recited that night. She gave it to me in one long rhyming burst: “Ta-li-tha-Ta-bitha-Ta-mil-ity-Jane-Ta-ka-ta-line-Ta-ca-

is concerned. No matter. Quiet observation and the long view are Welty and Wolff ’s old-fashioned, yet skillful, tools. Says Wolff, “The book was in the works for years. Time and reflection brought it to fruition. I waited to publish the full accounting of my friendship with her in this book, which is a tribute to Welty and her fiction.”

LIFTOFF

Welty is a beloved figure in American letters—often remembered as a silver-haired, sharp-eyed Southern storyteller—who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, eight O. Henry prizes, and the Légion d’Honneur.

Wolff points to Welty’s successful writing career despite the long shadow of Faulkner: Faulkner was the prominent Mississippi author at the time she was writing, and he won the Nobel Prize during her career. It was difficult at that time for a writer, especially a female Mississippian, to establish a distinctive fictional voice, but she did so.

That is no small feat.

of Note

ta-line-Ruby-Fisher-Valentine,” and then she added “the last name is Floyd.”

Welty offers another name, this one “ElderBrother-Come-to-Tell-You-All-Your-FriendsAre-Dead-and-Gone.” Caught off guard, Wolff laughs but soon learns that this was a way of conveying news of deaths during the Civil War. In the blink of those sharp eyes, Welty had, says Wolff, “given me perfect samples of her two most famous fictional voices: light and comic . . . but also, by contrast, the haunting and the tragic.”

FINDING MS. WOLFF

After earning a PhD, Wolff stays close to Welty through articles, book chapters, interviews, and lectures. However, she too is drawn to Faulkner, whose presence in her home state Welty once said “was like living near a big mountain.” Wolff reached the scholarly summit when, in 2010, she published an account of a sensational literary discovery: Ledgers of History: William Faulkner, an Almost Forgotten Friendship, and an Antebellum Plantation Diary.

Why did Wolff return to Welty in this volume? As Michael Kreyling reveals in his review of Dark Rose for Project Muse, other critics have preceded Wolff where love in Welty

So, let the secret be out: beyond what Dark Rose reveals of the stories and novels, an entrancing aura of the personal enriches this book. It is about generations of women whose lives are entwined, including Welty and Wolff ’s mothers. This is a book about getting older.

One sees that in “Preface: Reminiscences,” which seems to set the clock hands moving in both directions.

Ultimately, what Wolff learned about Welty’s work fits neatly in chapters one through eleven. What Wolff learned from Welty spills out of the thirteen pages of the preface.

Consider the first time Wolff and Welty go to a restaurant together.

They pass a table of “eight ladies” with “identical coiffures, teased up high in perfectly round, blonde bubble shapes.” Welty points them out, but it is Wolff who describes them as “identical cosmonauts about to ascend into outer space.” How quickly student and teacher became indistinguishable.

RAISING CANES

For Wolff, “In the dark rose image in the novel Losing Battles, I see the dualities of Welty’s personality and recognize her interweaving of these themes and images into highly autobiographical fiction.”

Yet it is the real roses that steal the show.

Wolff visits Welty’s home in Jackson, Mississippi, where she discovers the flowers run riot in the garden. During Welty’s mother’s final years, pests had compromised the roses. In Welty’s dotage, her gardener no longer could wrangle the strong canes, which invaded a neighbor’s yard. During a sticky, mosquitofilled July day, Wolff sets things right, bending the canes back into Welty’s garden. Welty tells her: “You did exactly what my mother would have done—she would have just gone out there and done it!”

The episode concludes in this sparkling moment. “We stood in the dark, cool hallway of her house and talked. She was pensive and quiet. ‘My thanks to you go back many years.’ ” —Susan Carini 04G AUTUMN 2015

magazine

13

of Note IN CL ASS

it to help young people—first as an educator, and now as founder of the Urban Leadership Institute, an organization that supports youth development and success through a range of educational programs. Miller and Jackson will be guiding the Emory students when they visit Baltimore in December for an active learning component and critical assessment that includes meetings with elected officials, city bureau commissioners, and community activists.

QUOTES TO NOTE: “I had already been

INTRODUCTION TO AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES, BALTIMORE RIOTS COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course takes as its point of departure the unrest in Baltimore City in April and May 2015 after the death of Freddie Gray. Using the exceptionally rich heuristic device of the African American studies discipline—an investigative tool that places at its center Africa, black people, and the black experience in the Western hemisphere—we will conduct an examination of a contemporary explosion in an American city.

Drawing from the methods and resources of history, legal theory, sociology, political science, journalism, creative writing, and digital media, the course gives a broad overview to the topics and debates of disciplinary import.

Students will participate fully as researchers and analysts in four broad areas as they investigate the causes and solutions to the widespread civil unrest: education, health care, residential segregation, and mass incarceration. The course also asks the questions: What is the modern intellectual role played

by American students at a premier research institution? What is the relationship between academic research and active social movements, particularly one that has exploded into mass violence and civil unrest?

14

magazine A U T U M N 2 0 1 5

of African American studies and English. He is the author of the 2012 historical memoir My Father’s Name: A Black Virginia Family after the Civil War. In 2010, Jackson completed The Indignant Generation: A Narrative History of African American Writers and Critics, 1934– 1960, the winner of four national awards, including the William Sanders Scarborough Prize from the Modern Language Association and the Black Caucus of the American Library Association prize for nonfiction. He also is the author of the 2002 biography Ralph Ellison: Emergence of Genius, and he publishes essays and creative nonfiction in N+1, American Literary History, Antioch Review, New England Quarterly, and Black Renaissance Noire. Jackson earned a PhD at Stanford University in 1997 and is the recipient of fellowships from the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard University, the Stanford Humanities Center, the Ford Foundation, and the National Humanities Center.

TODAY’S LECTURE: David Miller, cofounder

of the Urban Leadership Institute, has traveled from Baltimore to serve as today’s guest speaker. A Baltimore native who, like Jackson, grew up in a rough neighborhood, Miller tells the students about watching a friend die in his arms after being gunned down by gang members outside a nightclub, and nearly ruining his own life by seeking revenge. He describes how he took his firsthand experience with urban street culture and channeled

“I think one thing a lot of people don’t realize is the speed at which a young African American male can go from elementary school to what we call baby booking. Within walking distance of a Baltimore elementary school is a juvenile detention facility that starts processing people at the age of eight, at a cost of $64 million a year. A lot of times the first time these families can get their children the resources they need is when they get arrested and enter the system.”

STUDENTS SAY: “I think what primarily

makes this course powerful is that we are really living and doing what we talk about in class. The fact that everything we learn culminates in our trip to Baltimore, during which we’ll actually be meeting members of the community, is what motivates me to really understand our coursework, so that it can be tangibly applied.”—Noah Cole 18C “We are engaging in issues that the academy has effectively insulated itself from and by working directly with persons invested in dismantling the systems that have led to the underdevelopment of black America, we are attempting to bridge the gap. Our collective task is an onerous one and, for me, it is personal.”—Deandre Miles 18C

B R YA N M E LT Z

FACULTY CV: Lawrence Jackson is professor

AAS 100

arrested twice by the time I turned eighteen.

The only reason I didn’t go to prison, and the only reason Dr. Jackson didn’t go to prison, is because we grew up in what you would call a community, with a two-parent household and a network of support. I have dedicated most of my professional adult life to helping young men like the ones we grew up with.”

of Note

GOT IT COVERED: EMORY IN THE NEWS “You can really see both his beauty, and the beauty of his writing.”

Before He Got “On the Road” The New York Times announced a new collection of rare materials related to the life and work of Jack Kerouac acquired by Emory’s newly named Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library. The collection includes rare childhood photos, correspondence with Neal Cassady and Allen Ginsberg, and

a number of personal and family photographs labeled in his own hand. “Just looking through it, you can see right away how intimate the material is, how much of his life it covers, from childhood portraits to his early writing, when he’s still ‘John Kerouac,’ ” Kevin Young, the library’s curator of literary collections, told the New York Times.

GOT I T COV ER ED A ND WA DE: E MOR Y PHOTO/ V IDEO; KEROUAC : ROSE LIBR A R Y

New Era for Emory Debate

Heated Debate Emory’s political experts have been on fire, commenting on (and being cited in) hundreds of stories about this fall’s presidential primary season and nationally televised debates.

Ed Lee, senior director of Debate at Emory’s Barkley Forum Center for Debate Education, has been called CNN’s “go-to” debate expert, writing for CNN.com and appear-

ing on camera before and after debates to discuss the Republican and Democratic contenders.

What is a life well-lived? How should we define success or happiness?

What is purpose?

Fox Business, Newsweek and US News & World Report, among many others.

Alan Abramowitz, professor of political science, has been quoted and cited everywhere from the New York Times and Washington Post to NBC News and the Atlantic.

Andra Gillespie, associate professor of political science, has been nearly ubiquitous in national political coverage, being quoted in USA Today, the Washington Post,

For Emory student debaters, it is difficult to imagine a world without Melissa Maxcy Wade 72C 76G 96T 00T, who has served as the primary leader and champion of the university’s winning debate program for more than four decades.

Fortunately, they don’t have to. Wade retired this fall from her position as executive director of the Barkley Forum Center for Debate Education, but she will remain a strong voice in the field as president of the Glenn Pelham Foundation for Debate Education.

Named for the founder of Emory’s Barkley Forum debate team, the Atlanta-based Pelham Foundation works with the university to help grow the Urban Debate League (UDL), the inner-city debate program started by Wade in 1985. She leaves the Barkley Forum in the hands of director Edward Lee, who has been with the team for ten years and participated in the Urban Debate League as a student.

“This is one of the richest careers you could have because you get to hang out with really awesome students who are on their way up,”

Asking the Big Questions The Huffington Post’s senior religion reporter, Jaweed Kaleem, interviewed Gary Laderman, chair

of religious studies, about how Emory challenges students to tackle life’s biggest questions, such as:

Math, Computer Science Are Popular US News & World Report wrote about a spike in enrollment for graduate math and computer science programs, quoting David Borthwick, director of graduate studies in Emory’s Department of Mathematics and Computer Science.

Wade says. “My life is with students, and that’s the thing I’m going to miss the most.”

Since Wade assumed leadership of the Barkley Forum in 1972, Emory team members have won more than twenty national team championships and individual champion speaker awards, including the National Debate Tournament in 2010.

Wade helped found the UDL to offset the inherent inequality in public, urban educational systems. She says there is a rich exchange between the Emory students who coach and those in the UDL; many of the six hundred alumni of the Barkley Forum stay involved.

“Since 1976, when I attended the Barkley Forum high school debate camp, you’ve been my hero and such a deep influence on my thinking and choices,” wrote George Gramling 80C on a special website created for Wade’s retirement. “How could I have known that meeting you and being part of the Barkley Forum at Emory would turn out to be one of the most defining and wonderful experiences of my life?”

AUTUMN 2015

magazine

15

OFFICE HOURS

Sidney Perkowitz

AND LIFE ON MARS

There’s a reason why the term martian became synonymous with creatures from outer space—and it predates Matt Damon by more than a century, although he makes it look pretty good. Of all Earth’s neighbors in the solar system, Mars seems the most likely to support life as we know it.

Sidney Perkowitz, Emory professor emeritus of physics and author of the book Hollywood Science, among others, explores this notion in an essay published in October in the online journal the Conversation. “How Close Are We to Actually Becoming Martians?” notes the collective and long-held fascination with life on the red planet, steadily fueled by sci-fi books and movies, from 1898’s The War of the Worlds to The Martian—in theaters now.

But recent discoveries by real-life NASA scientists, says Perkowitz, indicate that “the science and the fiction around missions to Mars are rapidly converging.” He goes on to illuminate a few pros and cons for anyone considering a visit to the next planet over from the sun.—P.P.P.

M A R S M I S S I O N : CO N S

1

Mars Is Far, Far Away.

Perkowitz reminds us that the only other celestial destination we’ve managed to set foot on is our own moon, which is a mere 250,000 miles away; Mars outdistances us by 140 million on an average day.

NASA scientists have suggested that the journey would take at least eight months, not to mention a toll on the physical and psychological health of the astronauts, says Perkowitz: “Extended time in space under essentially zero gravity has adverse effects, including loss of bone density and muscle strength, which astronauts experienced after months aboard the International Space Station.”

2 The Phones Don’t Work.

Communication with Mars would present a major challenge— greater than any previous space mission, Perkowitz says, with a lag time that could put astronauts at risk in an emergency. “Even at the closest approach of Mars to the Earth, thirty-six million miles, nearly seven minutes would go by before anything said over a radio link could receive a response,” Perkowitz writes. Can you hear me now?

3 It’s No Club Med. Perkowitz calls Mars a “harsh world,” with temperatures averaging -80 degrees Farenheit (that’s cold).

You can’t breathe there. And there’s more, says Perkowitz: Mars’s “thin atmosphere, mostly carbon dioxide, is unbreathable and supports huge dust storms; it is subject to ultraviolet radiation from the sun that may be harmful; and its size and mass give it a gravitational pull that is only 38 percent—which astronauts exploring the surface in heavy protective suits would welcome, but could also further exacerbate bone and muscle problems.” Pack warm.

16

magazine A U T U M N 2 0 1 5

M ARS MISSION: PROS

1

You Can Get a Drink. Following the discovery that there were once oceans on Mars, NASA has reported that there is currently liquid water flowing over parts of the planet. “This discovery increases the odds that there is currently life on Mars—picture microbes, not little green men—while heightening interest in NASA’s proposal to send astronauts there by the 2030s as the next great exploration of space and alien life,” Perkowitz writes.

2 We Have the Moxie. “Mars also has considerable oxygen bound up in its atmospheric CO2,” Perkowitz explains. “In the MOXIE process (Mars OXygen In situ resource utilization Experiment), electricity breaks up CO2 molecules into carbon monoxide and breathable oxygen. NASA proposes to test this oxygen factory aboard a new Mars rover in 2020 and then scale it up for the manned mission.”

3 A New Take on ‘Local Food.’

Using processes that were successfully tested on the International Space Station—allowing astronauts to veg out on the first lettuce ever sprouted in outer space—a team on Mars should be able to grow some of their own food, Perkowitz says. “ ‘Living off the land’ on Mars, though it might affect the local environment, would hugely improve the odds for success of the initial mission—and for eventual settlements there,” he says, adding, “We’re closer to Mars than many may think.”

I S T O C K P H O T O. C O M

of Note

of Note How We’re Wired B R A I N I N I T I AT I V E W I L L S T U DY S E N S O R Y- M O T O R C I R C U I T R Y

W I R E D A N D D ATA : I S T O C K P H O T O. C O M ; L I C H E N : H O L G E R K R I S P, U L M , G E R M A N Y

To move or not to move.

That is the question the brain grapples with routinely as it receives a stimulus, decides whether to direct the body to respond with an action, then sends the appropriate signals to control the behavior. It is a common and fundamental process, but we know little about how the brain actually does it.

“New technology allows us to monitor brain activity at high spatial and temporal resolution, and do so over long periods of time,” says Dieter Jaeger, a neuroscientist in the Department of Biology. “This technology is finally opening the door to address questions related to the circuits involved in coordinating the relationship between neural sensing and physical action.”

Jaeger recently received a grant from the National Institutes of Health BRAIN Initiative to explore these questions about neural circuitry. He shares the $1.7 million award with Garrett Stanley, a neuroscientist in the Emory– Georgia Tech Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME). The BRAIN Initiative (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) was launched

by President Barack Obama in 2014 as part of a widespread effort to gain fundamental insights for treating a range of brain disorders.

Areas of the brain involved in sensory input and movement include the basal ganglia, the thalamus, and the cortex. What’s less clear is how neural activity flows through these areas,

BIG DATA, BIG NEWS N E W PA R T N E R S H I P FINDS S TRENGTH IN NUMBER S

connecting a sensation to a decision to make a movement. Debilitating and difficult to treat neurological disorders like Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, and dystonia are caused by dysfunction of this circuitry.

The Stanley lab specializes in tactile sensing and information processing, while the Jaeger lab is focused on motor and muscle coordination and control. For their BRAIN project, Stanley and Jaeger are combining their two areas of expertise and experimenting with a mouse model. Techniques such as genetic voltage sensing will allow them to gain images of cortical electrical activity, with millisecond precision.

“We understand a lot about the biology of the brain,” Jaeger says. “The challenge now is to move beyond biology to algorithm. We hope that our project will lead to an algorithm for basal ganglia and motor cortical circuits involved in movement control.”

Such an algorithm could generate a computer program to simulate activity of the brain.

“It would be a great tool to test our understanding,” Jaeger says. “It’s important, because without such a tool, many clinical approaches to brain malfunction are groping in the dark.”

Emory will be a health care research partner in the South Big Data Regional Innovation Hub (South BD Hub), directed by the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of North Carolina’s Renaissance Computing Institute. The South BD Hub is part of the National Science Foundation’s four Big Data Regional Innovation Hubs announced in November.

The new initiative aims to build innovative public-private partnerships that address regional challenges through big data analysis. Each of the NSF BD Hubs will engage businesses and research organizations in their region to develop common big data goals that would be impossible for individual members to achieve alone, and develop projects based on regional priorities.

“The technologies proposed for the South BD Hub should further enhance ongoing research collaborations, lead to major advances in biology and biomedical research, and improve access and efficiency of health care delivery in the Southeast,” says Michael Zwick, assistant vice president for research in Emory’s Woodruff Health Sciences Center, who will represent Emory on the South BD Hub Steering Committee.

Learning How Cancer Grows An orange pigment called parietin, found in lichens and rhubarb, may have potential as an anticancer drug, scientists at Emory’s Winship Cancer Institute have discovered. The study results were published in Nature Cell Biology in October.

Parietin, also known as physcion, could slow the growth of and kill human leukemia cells obtained directly from patients without obvious toxicity to human blood cells.

The pigment could also inhibit the growth of human cancer cell lines, derived from lung and head and neck tumors, when grafted into mice.

A team of researchers led

by Jing Chen, Emory professor of hematology and medical oncology, discovered the properties of parietin because they were looking for inhibitors for the metabolic enzyme 6PGD (6-phosphogluconate dehydrogenase). 6PGD is part of the pentose phosphate pathway, which supplies cellular building blocks for rapid growth and has been found in cancer cells.

“This is part of the Warburg effect, the distortion of cancer cells’ metabolism,” says Chen. “We found that 6PGD is an important metabolic branch point in several types of cancer cells.”

AUTUMN 2015

magazine

17

RESEARCH

Signs from the Stone Age A S O P H I S T I C AT E D A N A LY S I S O F A N C I E N T B O N E S A D D S TO D E B AT E OV E R T H E H UM A N D E B U T O F TO O L S —A N D M E AT

B O N I N G U P : Emory anthropologist Jessica Thompson collects evidence at the site of Dikika, Ethiopia, where she led a project that applied rigorous statistical methods to reach new and more definitive conclusions about fossils found there.

18

magazine A U T U M N 2 0 1 5

an emory anthropologist has developed new methods for digging into two key questions about human evolution: When did we start using stone tools and eating meat?

Here’s the latest: Marks on two 3.4 million-year-old animal bones found at the site of Dikika, Ethiopia, were not caused by trampling, according to an extensive analysis led by Jessica Thompson, assistant professor of anthropology.

“Our analysis clearly shows that the marks on these bones are not characteristic of trampling,” says Thompson, lead author of the study. “The best match we have for the marks, using currently available data, would still be butchery with stone tools.”

So why does this matter? The new findings appear to support a previous conclusion published in Nature in 2010. That finding was

sensational, since it potentially pushed back evidence for the use of stone tools, as well as the butchering of large animals, by about eight hundred thousand years. It also has important implications for theories about when we started eating meat. The work sparked a series of debates among scientists about whether the bones could have been trampled instead.

The current study, published in the Journal of Human Evolution, developed new methods of fieldwork and analysis for researchers exploring the origins of tool making and meat eating in our ancestors. Thompson and her coauthors examined the surfaces of a sample of more than four thousand other bones from the same deposits.

They then used statistical methods to compare more than 450 marks found on those bones to experimental (or recreated) trampling marks, and to those on the two specimens in question.

The twelve marks on the two specimens—a long bone from a creature the size of a medium antelope, and a rib bone from an animal closer in size to a buffalo— most closely resemble a combination of purposeful cutting and percussion marks, Thompson says.

“We would really like to understand what caused these marks,” she says. “One of the most important questions in human evolution is when we started eating meat, since meat is considered a likely explanation for how we fed the evolution of our big brains.”

Evidence shows that our genus, Homo, emerged around 2.8 million years ago. Until recently, the earliest known stone tools were 2.6 million years old. Changes had already been occurring in the organization of the brains of the human lineage, but after this time there was also an increase in overall brain size. This increased size has largely been attributed to a higher-quality diet. A leading hypothesis in paleoanthropology is that a diet rich in animal protein combined with marrow fat provided the energy needed to

COUR TE S Y OF JE SSIC A THOMP SON

of Note

of Note fuel the larger human brain. The animal bones in the Dikika site, however, have been reliably dated to long before Homo emerged.

Thompson specializes in the study of what happens to bones after an animal dies.

“Fossil bones can tell you stories, if you know how to interpret them,” she says.

For the recent study, Thompson and her team investigated, with microscopic scrutiny, all nonhominin fossils collected from the Hadar Formation at Dikika. The researchers collected a random sample of fossils from the same deposits as the controversial specimens, as well as nearby deposits.

They measured shapes and sizes of marks on the fossil bones. Then they compared the characteristics of the fossil marks statistically to those reported as being typical of trampling damage.

“The random population sample of the fossils provides context,” Thompson says. “Our analysis shows with statistical certainty that the marks on the

two bones in question were not caused by trampling. While there is abundant evidence that other bones at the site were damaged by trampling, these two bones are outliers. The marks on them still more closely resemble marks made by butchering.”

The Dikika specimens represent a turning point in paleoanthropology, Thompson says.

Her study was covered by a number of national and international media outlets, including Forbes, Archeology Magazine, Live Science, and the Daily Mail.

“If we want to understand when and how our ancestors started eating meat and moving into that ecological niche, we need to refine our search images for the field and apply these new recovery and analytical methods,” Thompson says. “We know that simple stone tools are not unique to humans, but the making of more complex tools, designed for more complex uses, may be uniquely human.”—Carol Clark

L U P U S A N D A N E S T H E S I A : I S T O C K P H O T O. C O M

Exposure to Anesthesia during Infancy May Have Long-term Effects Repeated exposure to anesthesia early in life causes alterations in emotional behavior that may persist long-term, according to a study from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in collaboration with Yerkes National Primate Research Center. Study results were published in the Online First edition of Anesthesiology, the official medical journal of the American Society of Anesthesiologists.

Each year, approximately one million children under age four undergo surgery with general anesthesia, according to the US Food and Drug Administration. Studies have found an association between learning problems and multiple exposures to anesthesia early in life. The Mount Sinai/Yerkes study is the first to address the question of whether repeated postnatal anesthesia exposure, in and of itself, caused long-term behavioral changes in a highly translationally relevant rhesus monkey model, rather than a rodent model.

In the absence of a surgical procedure, researchers found the anesthesiaexposed infants expressed significantly more anxious behaviors overall compared with controls. The study results also demonstrate that alterations in emotional behavior persist at least five months after anesthesia exposure, suggesting long-term effects.

DECODING LUPUS R E S E A R C H E R S S C A N D N A ‘ B A R CO D E S ’ TO S T U D Y A U TO I M M U N E R E S P O N S E

People with systemic lupus erythematosus can experience a variety of symptoms, such as fatigue, joint pain, skin rashes, and kidney problems. Often the symptoms come and go in episodes called flares. In lupus, the immune system goes haywire and produces antibodies that are directed against the body itself.

A team of Emory scientists They obtained blood samples has been investigating some from eight patients experiencfundamental questions about ing lupus flares and compared lupus: Where do the cells that them to eight healthy people produce the self-reactive antiwho had recently been bodies come from? Are they all vaccinated against influenza the same? or tetanus.

Emory researchers Iñaki When the immune system Sanz and Chris Tipton share is responding to something some recent progress on it’s seen before, such as when these questions in an article someone receives a booster published this summer in vaccine, the bar codes of the Nature Immunology. Sanz is antibody-producing cells look a Georgia Research Alliance quite similar to each other.

Eminent Scholar, director A set of just a few antibodyof the Lowance Center for producing cells multiply and Human Immunology, and head expand. By contrast, the of the rheumatology division researchers found that in in the Department of Medicine lupus, many different cells at Emory’s School of Medicine; are producing antibodies.

Tipton is assistant professor “We expected to see an of medicine. expansion of the cells that The immune system can produce autoantibodies, produce many types of antibut instead we saw a very bodies, directed against broad expansion of cells with infectious viruses (good) all types of specificities,” or against human proteins Tipton says. as in lupus (harmful). Each This is different from antibody-secreting cell carries another autoimmune disease, DNA rearrangements that multiple sclerosis, in which the reflect the makeup of its autoantibody-producing cells antibody product. With nextattack a limited set of proteins generation sequencing techfound in the nervous system. nology, scientists can use the While the researchers did DNA to identify and track that not directly investigate the cell, like reading a bar code effects of drugs used to treat on an item in a supermarket. lupus, their findings could Tipton, Sanz, and their guide drug development, colleagues have been using because they precisely define these DNA bar codes to the subsets of antibody-prodeepen our understanding of ducing cells that cause patients immune responses in lupus. the most trouble.

To see a video on these findings, visit www.emory.edu/magazine.

AUTUMN 2015

magazine

19

KEEPING

20

magazine A U T U M N 2 0 1 5

by gary goettling photography by kay hinton

he cooks all the meals, does my laundry, takes me to get my hair done, gets my prescriptions picked up.” Susie Spezia is ticking off the things her daughter, Melissa Faulkner, does for her. Soft-spoken and petite, Spezia has shared her daughter’s Atlanta home for the past two years.

She is ninety-four years old.

as lives get longer, emory researchers seek ways to make them better

M O T H E R LY L OV E

At ninety-four, Susie Spezia is in relatively good health, but she does need help and basic care. She lives with her daughter, Melissa Faulkner, whose knowledge as a nursing professor takes on deeper meaning in her role as her mother’s caregiver. Theirs is an increasingly common arrangement and one subject of Emory research on modern-day aging.

Family caregivers have been around for as long as families have been around. At Emory, their service is the subject of research designed to learn new tools for performing these roles better while mitigating the sometimes enormous stress that comes with providing informal care for an elderly relative. It’s but one aspect of a broad range of collaborative research activities at Emory designed to address the multitude of issues surrounding aging and health.

Spezia spends her days reading, working word puzzles, and, in season, watching baseball. She is in remarkably good health, which makes Faulkner’s job easier. “A lot of individuals have no choice but to be in an institutionalized setting,” Faulkner says. “People like my mother, who are still self-sufficient enough to bathe and feed themselves, don’t need all those services that a traditional nursing home provides.”

Spezia is diabetic, which increases her risk for heart failure, and she’s unsteady on her feet. There’s some numbness in her fingers, the result of nerve damage from diabetes.

She exercises daily by walking a route around the home’s first floor. Steps present a major obstacle. The residence has a second story that she, with much patience and helping hands, has visited just once, out of curiosity. “I haven’t been back again,” she says plainly.

Faulkner takes her mom to medical appointments at the Wesley Woods Outpatient Clinic and to the Emory Eye Clinic for treatment of macular degeneration. It’s familiar territory for Faulkner, who serves on the Emory faculty as a professor in the School of Nursing.

It’s also not the first time Faulkner has found herself in a caregiving situation. As a nurse, she has cared for other people’s family members, and she helped take care of her husband twenty years ago as he battled cancer. Her experience and education lend a skill advantage to her latest caregiving role, but the motivation comes from somewhere else: “You do it out of love for your family member.”

AUTUMN 2015

magazine

21

CARING FOR THE CAREGIVERS

“If you haven’t already had a caregiving experience as an adult, it’s highly likely that you have one coming,” says Sandra Dunbar, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Cardiovascular Nursing and associate dean for academic advancement.

A specialist in cardiovascular disease, she became interested in the role of family caregiving when she noted a relationship between the quality of family care and the ability of cardiac patients to cope with and manage their disease.

“I realized that I can improve patient outcomes if I can improve support to family caregivers,” she says. “So I started looking at what family caregivers need not just in terms of understanding their caregiving role, but how to take care of themselves as caregivers.”

Previous studies had focused on the needs of caregivers of stroke, cancer, and dementia patients, but little had been done to examine the needs of those caring for patients with heart failure.

Dunbar notes that, compared to noncaregiving individuals of the same age, family caregivers of individuals with heart failure exhibit a higher-than-average mortality rate, are prone to symptoms of premature aging, exhibit symptoms of depression, and experience increased stress levels, thus an increased risk for cardiovascular problems of their own.

These risks are amplified when the caregiver is getting along in years, too; it’s not uncommon for people approaching retirement age to find themselves caring for a parent in their eighties or nineties.

“Learning more about what family caregivers need is one of the first steps,” says Dunbar.

“Then we’re trying to devise systems and approaches that will support the family—that’s what our work is about.”

Near the top of the list is a need for caregivers to carve out personal time. Faulkner agrees. “There are times when my husband and I need a little break, and we’ll go out to dinner by ourselves.”

Exercise is another important activity that caregivers should work into their schedules.

“We’ve created a program to help them identify barriers and find ways to incorporate exercise into their weekly routines,” Dunbar explains.

“Physical activity has a lot of positive benefits in terms of reducing cardiovascular risk, helping the family caregiver sleep better, and also improving their own functional status.”

Dunbar’s research also has led to a program that teaches caregivers ways to help their patients feel more autonomous by giving them choices in everyday matters, allowing them a 22

magazine A U T U M N 2 0 1 5

sense of control while still providing support.

“We talk about the burden or the strain of caregiving,” Dunbar continues, “but it can also be enormously satisfying and bring a sense of joy and satisfaction. Helping people focus on those positive aspects is really important, too.”

THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME

No one has ever said, “I can’t wait to get into a nursing home.” Yet, for many years, it was the default option when elderly people showed the first signs of being unable to care for themselves. For those who require a high level of nursing care and medical supervision, a nursing home or similar environment is often the most sensible course.

But a growing number of seniors are opting to “age in place”—whether at their home, a relative’s home, or a retirement community.

Researchers at Emory are exploring ways to adapt the home environment to accommodate the needs of elderly people so they can remain healthy enough to live as independently as possible for as long as possible.

At the Center for Health in Aging (CHA), researchers work with engineers and architects to develop innovative solutions that go beyond standard grab bars and ramps. According to Rebecca Dillard, assistant program director, “It might be something like a special kind of pressure-sensitive carpet or flooring that electronically tracks the movement of people with dementia or mobility impairment, allowing medical staff at a remote monitoring station to tell whether someone has fallen.”

CHA supports a major educational component as well, Dillard adds, that includes a course titled Healthy Aging in the TwentyFirst Century. Developed by Dillard and Madeleine Hackney, assistant professor of medicine in the Department of Medicine, in response to numerous requests from community groups for guest speakers, the two-month course meets for ninety minutes weekly and is offered twice a year at no charge to senior groups throughout metro Atlanta. Classes are taught by Emory faculty and address topics ranging from self-management of chronic disease to proper diet and exercise.

Three years ago, a group of Emory medical students expanded on the idea to create Senior University. Classes addressing elder care and health are taught by the students twice a week over a twelve-week period. Dillard and Hackney serve as faculty advisers. Earlier this year, the National Parkinson Foundation provided a grant to produce a version of Senior University tailored to the health needs of Parkinson’s patients and their caregivers.

THE TIME WILL COME

Through research and practical programs, Sandra Dunbar (right) supports those who are caring for an elderly family member—a situation that she says most of us will experience at some point.

A D VA N C E WA R N I N G

Patients may show indications of Alzheimer’s disease twenty years before they exhibit clinical symptoms. Allan Levey (below) is exploring ways to detect the disease sooner so treatment can begin.

“We talk about the burden or the strain of caregiving, but it can also be enormously satisfying and bring a sense of joy and satisfaction. Helping people focus on those positive aspects is really important, too.” — S A N D R A D U N B A R

An innovative online service developed by Emory researchers provides online support and training for family caregivers of elderly patients with Alzheimer’s or other dementias.

Called Tele-Savvy, the program features informative videos as well as regular one-on-one contact in real time between caregivers and medical experts at Emory through iPads and similar devices. Tele-Savvy, which has been widely copied in other states, is particularly useful for elderly people who live in rural areas and want to remain in their own homes.

Another program technically falls under the rubric of education and senior health, but its participants will tell you that it’s really just a great night out. Hackney, a professional ballroom dancer before she entered academia, had the idea that learning a specially designed tango might help older people with Parkinson’s disease improve their gait and balance. Tango is a partnered dance with a distinct rhythm that’s easy to learn. She created a series of “adapted tango” dance lessons that are offered free of charge at several locations in metro Atlanta. The lessons are open to older adults with mobility problems—including those who use walkers—as well as their family members and caregivers.

Participants also provide valuable data for Hackney’s ongoing research. She conducts various kinesioscopic measurements before and after the classes, and has found that adapted tango is just as effective if not more so than traditional exercises for improving gait and balance—and a lot more fun.

TACKLING THE ‘A’ WORD

As people age, their number-one health concern is a fear of losing their ability to think, reason, and remember. In a word, they worry about developing Alzheimer’s.

Allan Levey understands those concerns, and as director of the Emory Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC), his goals are to characterize the disease’s pathology, discover ways to determine who is and who is not at risk, and develop therapies to prevent the disease.

Any kind of brain insult that causes permanent or progressive injury can lead to dementia: Parkinson’s disease, brain tumor, multiple sclerosis, stroke. But Alzheimer’s is by far the most common.

“Alzheimer’s disease is an age-related condition,” he says. “The older a person gets, the greater the chances are they will develop the disease. By the time someone reaches age eighty-five, the chances are nearly one in two that person will have Alzheimer’s disease.”

AUTUMN 2015

magazine

23

KEEPING SPIRITS UP

Although it is common for elderly adults to become depressed, it should not be considered normal—nor should it go untreated, according to William McDonald, who is researching new treatments for late-life depression.

Like most forms of dementia, Alzheimer’s is progressive. It usually begins with memory loss, typically referred to in its early stages as mild cognitive impairment, but gradually affects higher intellectual abilities such as executive functioning, language, and visuospatial perception In the later stages of Alzheimer’s, people are unable to care for themselves and are completely dependent on others. They may forget how to walk or even how to recognize themselves in a mirror. They lose control of their bodily functions. They end up bedbound and susceptible to infection. Alzheimer’s is the sixth-leading cause of death by itself and the second-leading contributing cause of death.

In studies performed on individuals with the genetic mutation that virtually guarantees they will develop Alzheimer’s, brain imaging studies with PET have revealed a progressive accumulation of amyloids—proteins that accumulate around degenerating brain cells.

“Similarly, if we look at the spinal fluid that bathes the brain, we can see changes in amyloid and other biochemicals beginning about twenty years before the symptoms would start,” Levey notes.

24

magazine A U T U M N 2 0 1 5

That means that by the time a person begins showing clinical symptoms, the disease has already been building up in the brain for about two decades. “This tells us that we have a chance to prevent Alzheimer’s disease if we could detect it twenty years before symptoms begin,” Levey says.

But spinal taps are uncomfortable and time consuming, and PET scans cost thousands of dollars each. Plus, the technology is not readily accessible in many parts of the country. Levey is looking for an inexpensive, simpler alternative along the lines of a routine cholesterol screening or blood test that will allow doctors to quickly and accurately predict in whom and when the disease will begin.

Levey’s and the ADRC’s research is informed by the Healthy Aging Study, which involves a large number of volunteers whose brain health will be monitored over several years in an effort to identify predictive markers for dementia. The data will provide the foundation for testing disease-preventive medicines and help researchers distinguish between early Alzheimer’s symptoms and the early stages of other forms of dementia.

Even though the ADRC work is centered on Alzheimer’s, there will be progress along the way into other brain disorders, says Levey.

“We want to be able to distinguish Alzheimer’s disease from other causes of dementia so we can determine the specific changes associated with one type of dementia versus another. We have to understand the root cause of each of these conditions to be able to detect them, and to then intervene with the appropriate treatment.”

SEARCHING FOR NEW THERAPIES

Facing age-related ailments can have a compounding effect, influencing not only physical but mental health.

“There are a lot of secondary consequences to having depression when you’re older,” says William McDonald, J. B. Fuqua Chair for LateLife Depression; chief, Division of Geriatric Psychiatry; and chief, Treatment Resistant Depression. “It affects your physical health.

You tend to not take good care of yourself. You may stop eating or taking your medications, become inactive, not go to the doctor.”

“Depression affects your physical health. You tend to not take good care of yourself. You may stop eating or taking your medications, become inactive, not go to the doctor.”

—WILLIAM MCDONALD

FI V E B A S I C S FO R HE A LTH AT ANY AGE E AT H E A LT H Y

Fish is better for your health than red meat. And the ageold admonition to eat more vegetables and fruits is true for good medical reasons.

It’s particularly important to reduce your sodium intake to help avoid hypertension and cardiovascular disease. Americans consume twice as much salt as recommended, much of it from prepackaged foods and restaurant meals.

E X E R C I S E YO U R B O DY

Move more, sit less. Even a small amount of exercise is better than none. Walking is wonderful exercise; it requires no special equipment, and you can easily incorporate a little extra walking into your daily routine.

E X E R C I S E YO U R B R A I N

Read. Volunteer. Join a club.

Or make someone’s day the old-fashioned way by writing a letter with pen and paper. The point is to not simply occupy your brain, but to challenge it.

N U R T U R E R E L AT I O N S H I P S

Avoid social isolation by maintaining regular contact with family and friends.

Older adults like to establish routines, so make an important social contact—Sunday dinner with the kids, for example—a regular part of your schedule.

BE SKEPTICAL

TV and the Internet are rife with claims about products that will help you stop aging, boost stamina, shed pounds, and cure whatever ails you.

These claims are often persuasive—and exaggerated, if not outright phony. Buyer beware!

Consult your doctor first before buying a medical “miracle”—it may save you disappointment, money, and sometimes even your health.

Depression should not be considered a normal part of aging, McDonald cautions, noting that its incidence varies among different segments of the elderly population. Overall the frequency of depression in the general senior population ranges between 10 and 20 percent.

Among Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s patients, the numbers rise sharply.

“People need to recognize that depression is a very serious illness in older adults,” he says.

McDonald’s research specializes in neuromodulation therapies for elderly patients. Two widely used treatments are electroconvulsive shock therapy (ECT) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS).

McDonald admits that ECT carries a stigma—unwarranted, in his view, because the procedure has been greatly refined over the past thirty years and bears no resemblance to its brutal portrayal in movies and television.

ECT involves the delivery of small electric currents to the brain, producing changes in the brain chemistry that can quickly reverse symptoms of depression and certain other mental illnesses. The downside is that ECT may produce cognition problems. In addition, the technique is performed under a general anesthetic, which requires recovery time and carries a medical risk of its own.

“ECT can be a very effective treatment for older adults with depression who don’t respond to any other treatment,” says McDonald, noting its 80 percent remission rate. “For a lot of people, ECT is a life-saving treatment.”

McDonald was principal investigator in the development of TMS, another FDA-approved, widely used method for treating depression in older people who have not responded to medication. The technique involves a device placed on the patient’s head that stimulates the prefrontal cortex with electromagnetic impulses.

The painless process takes about forty minutes, during which time the patient sits in a chair and can read or watch TV. Although not as effective as ECT, it does not require anesthesia and is less expensive and easier to perform.

Recently, McDonald wrapped up a study on transcranial direct-current stimulation, where an electromagnetic pulse is delivered to the brain to stimulate areas associated with depression. The technique has been used for years to treat Alzheimer’s and stroke patients, but not depression.

“If it works, it could be an easy, very safe advance that could be done in a clinic setting with relatively little oversight,” McDonald says.

“Given that Emory is very much a leader in treatment-resistant depression, you want to be able to provide as many treatment options as possible.”

HEALTHY AGING STARTS WITH YOUTH

Emory’s Predictive Health Institute (PHI) advocates an approach that reverses the traditional medical paradigm’s reactive emphasis on diagnosing and treating disease, and instead embraces a proactive model emphasizing longterm, sustainable health. In other words, health is not simply the absence of disease; it’s a state of being with its own practices, measures, and attributes. It’s the product of a complex interplay of biological, social, and cultural factors. And it means that staying healthy during one’s senior years is contingent on maintaining health during the younger years.

“Our research is designed to help us better understand and characterize what it means to be healthy,” says Greg Martin, director of the PHI and the Center for Health Discovery and Well Being. “Once we understand this, we’ll be able to recognize deviations that lead to people becoming unhealthy.”

At the heart of the institute’s research efforts is an ongoing study of more than 750 individuals who submit to a battery of tests and examinations each year to ascertain their state of health over time. Participants also select health goals and are assigned a health partner, a member of the Emory staff, who serves as a resource, advocate, and counselor.

Now in its seventh year, the study shares its extensive database with elder-health researchers and other scientists throughout the Emory medical community.

PHI’s holistic, long-term approach to maintaining health at all ages includes an education component: Emory undergraduates are required to take a course in predictive health, and a minor is also available.

“The course brings to students an understanding of health,” says Martin, “particularly how to maintain it over the continuum of their lives so that if they start early, as college students, it will make a difference when they’re seventy, eighty, ninety years old or more.”

AUTUMN 2015

magazine

25

100

century city in the

[

this year, emory celebrates the

100th anniversary

1919

]

of its move from oxford, georgia, to atlanta. here’s a timely take on how the physical campus has shaped up since then.

W

hen they first met more than a hundred years ago, Emory and Atlanta were the perfect young couple: sweet—like soda pop, you might say—and a little shy.

Today, they’re more like a power couple. The town-gown relationship has deepened and bloomed into dozens of thriving partnerships, joint initiatives, and shared resources. Emory has ties to the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Cancer Society, Grady Memorial Hospital, the Georgia Research Alliance, The Carter Center, and Georgia Tech, among many others. As the second-highest private employer in the metro area, with an annual operating budget of $4.6 billion and more than $570 million in research funding, the university’s economic impact on the city is significant.

And, as Emory’s presence in Atlanta has grown, its Druid Hills campus has blossomed into a concrete expression of the bold vision that has sustained the pair for a century.

1888

THE COKE BROTHERS Like many strong, lasting relationships, the one between Emory and Atlanta has its roots in family and business. In 1888, two things happened to make the match: One, Warren Candler became president of his alma mater, Emory College, then a struggling Methodist institution of some 230 students situated in Oxford, Georgia. And two, his brother Asa Candler bought the patent and the “secret formula” for a drink that would become known as Coca-Cola.

Ten years later, Warren Candler left the Emory presidency to become bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, but he remained

devoted to the school; meanwhile, in 1899, Asa was elected to the college’s Board of Trustees, later serving as chair. In 1914, when the Methodist Church’s Southern leadership decided to establish a university in the Southeast, both brothers saw an opportunity. In his famous “Million Dollar Letter” to the church’s Education Commission—conveniently chaired by Warren Candler—Asa pledged the staggering sum of $1 million to further the creation of the new university. The Coca-Cola Company founder sweetened the deal with another gift: seventy-five acres of wooded land about six miles northeast of downtown Atlanta. And with that, little Emory College was headed for the big city.

‘THE OLD GUESS PLACE’ Locally known by the name of the previous owners, the site of the new university underwent rapid transformation, helped along by a sawmill that was constructed right on campus to turn trees into buildings while saving Emory money. The Theology Building (now Pitts Theology Library, below) was the first foundation laid on the Quadrangle, to be joined by law, medicine, and business. By fall 1919, classes in all four schools were in full swing at the Druid Hills campus.

1915

compiled by paige parvin 96g campus photos courtesy of emory university archives at the rose library

26

magazine A U T U M N 2 0 1 5

IF YOU BUILD IT If Emory University wanted to attract students, it needed somewhere to put them. Dormitories Dobbs Hall (left) and Winship Hall were among the first four buildings constructed, along with the Theology Building and the Fishburne Laboratory of Physiology.

1926 TEN IN TEN

GROWTH SPURT When Harvey Cox (left) became president of the university in 1920, the Emory campus boasted a half-dozen buildings, about nine hundred students, and a growing budget deficit, thanks to operating expenses that outstripped income. Cox declared a halt to new construction until the books could be balanced—and was rewarded with more largesse from Asa Candler in the form of both money and land. In 1926, Candler attended the groundbreaking of the university’s first library building (above), which was named for him. Cox led the university for two decades, overseeing considerable expansion of the campus and more than a dozen building projects.

1929

By 1926, Emory had established a foothold in its new hometown.

That year, the Atlanta Journal— precursor to the Atlanta JournalConstitution (AJC)—featured a two-page spread celebrating the university’s first decade in Atlanta and the kickoff of the “$10 Million in Ten Years” fundraising campaign— which was largely derailed by the Great Depression.

The AJC continues to cover Emory developments and events on a regular basis.

1927 EXTRACURRICULARS Student life was picking up in 1927: Emory opened its first swimming pool (above), and Sigma Alpha Epsilon began construction of the first house on fraternity row.

Now the Eagles’ swimming and diving teams (the women are national Division III champs) practice in one of two sparkling Olympic pools; Eagle Row is home to eleven fraternities and a large sorority complex.

THE ORIGINAL OXFORD In 1929, Emory’s historic Oxford campus became a junior college, now Oxford College of Emory University.

1922 HEALTH CARE HISTORY Wesley Memorial Hospital (above), now Emory University Hospital, opened its doors in 1922. Today, more than fifty-five thousand patients pass through it and Emory University Hospital Midtown each year. The facility made global headlines last year when Emory doctors treated the first cases of Ebola virus disease in the US.

1931 AUTUMN 2015

IN SPIRED Glenn Memorial United Methodist Church (left) was completed in 1931 and dedicated as a memorial to Wilbur Fisk Glenn, an Emory College alumnus and a prominent Methodist minister. Today it remains a vibrant Methodist church and a central site for Emory community events and programs.

magazine

27

1946

1937

RESEARCH ROOTS In 1937, a $50,000 donation from CocaCola giant Robert Woodruff established the Winship Center for Neoplastic Diseases, now the Winship Cancer Institute. Woodruff also funded a project through Emory’s medical school to decrease the impact of malaria on farmers around his south Georgia plantation—a largely overlooked effort that would indirectly lead to the establishment of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention next door three decades later, and the relocation of the American Cancer Society headquarters to a building across the street.

MUDVILLE After World War II, Emory’s enrollment more than doubled, obliging the administration to provide this throng of students with somewhere to sleep. In 1946, the university brought in one hundred used trailers, thirty-one prefab buildings, and three former army barracks to stake out what became known as Trailertown—or, perhaps less fondly, Mudville.

1937 BUILDING EXPECTATIONS During the 1940s and 1950s, Emory experienced a period of explosive growth. From 1946 to 1957, President Goodrich C. White 1908C oversaw the construction of some seventeen new facilities—including the Rich Memorial Building, the Alumni Memorial Building (above), the Administration Building, four dorms, six academic buildings, and the university’s first parking deck.

GATEWAY THROUGH TIME The Haygood-Hopkins Memorial Gateway (above), named for two Emory presidents, was dedicated on October 8, 1937. The gate served as the primary entrance to campus until the 1970s, when repeated damage from trucks barreling through it prompted the decision to divert traffic around it. In 2011, the construction of a new roundabout in the center of Emory Village allowed cars to roll through the gate once more— only into campus, not out.

28

magazine A U T U M N 2 0 1 5

PRESIDENTS’ RESIDENCE Built in 1925 for Walter Candler 1907C, the 7,500-square-foot Lullwater House (right) was purchased by Emory in 1958. It was restored in 1963 (and again in 1994) and became the official home of Emory President Sanford S. Atwood, and succeeding presidents, that year. The surrounding 185 acres of lovely Lullwater Preserve remain open to the Emory community, who can enter on foot or bicycle—but only the president’s car is given regular access to the long, sweeping drive.

1958

100

century city in the

STUDENT CENTRAL For more than three decades, an old airplane hangar served as Emory’s gym. The welcome completion of the George W. Woodruff Physical Education Center in 1983 took Emory athletics to a new level. Two years later, the Howard R. Dobbs Jr. University Center (below), which was constructed around the facade and steps of the old Alumni Memorial Building, opened up shop across the street; thereafter, the “WoodPEC” and the “DUC” became student central.

ON THE RISE Under President Atwood’s leadership, a fund-raising campaign in the late 1960s raised $35 million—the foundation for some $150 million in construction during the following decade. The early 1970s brought the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing, the Robert W. Woodruff Library, Gambrell Hall, the Woodruff Health Sciences Center Administration Building (above), Goodrich C. White Hall, and the Chemistry Center, which was renamed for Atwood in 1991.

1979

1975

SPIRITED EDUCATION In 1975, James T. Laney, then dean of Candler School of Theology, helped orchestrate the purchase of all the holdings of the Hartford Theological Seminary—a vast and prestigious collection that would take up most of the Theology Building. Thus the Pitts Theology Library, as well as Cannon Chapel (left) and the new School of Theology building, were born. Laney became Emory president in 1977.

1985 A TOAST TO TRANSFORMATION It’s the stuff of legend: Emory made headlines and history in 1979 when the Woodruff Foundation, led by brothers Robert and George Woodruff, transferred to the university $105 million in Coca-Cola Company stock. “The Gift” transformed Emory’s future and, nearly a century after Asa Candler first bought the soft-drink patent, further strengthened the connection between Emory and its adopted city, where Coca-Cola was (and is) one of the biggest success stories.

DOWN TO BUSINESS In 1996, President William Chace initiated a Campus Master Plan that guided more than twenty new construction projects, with a focus on reducing car traffic and parking in favor of a greener, more walkable central campus. The following year saw the completion of the Goizueta Business School (left).

1977

1996 AUTUMN 2015

magazine

29

2002 WHERE THE ART IS The Donna and Marvin Schwartz Center for Performing Arts (right) was possibly the most long-awaited building on the Emory campus.

Plans for a performing arts center had alternately flamed and sputtered for decades until the stars finally aligned. Completed in 2002, the building’s showpiece is the 825-seat Cherry Logan Emerson Concert Hall, but the Schwartz Center also houses classrooms, rehearsal spaces, and a dance studio.

2005

SOUNDS LIKE A PLAN When Emory President James Wagner announced an ambitious Strategic Plan in 2005, a key supporting effort was a new, ten-year Campus Master Plan that would help the university’s physical growth keep pace with its visionary identity. In his introduction, Wagner identified three guiding principles: superb stewardship of the natural environment, advancement of the community’s intellectual life, and enhancement of the quality of life for students, faculty, staff, and Emory’s neighbors.

look at 2008 MEDICAL MARVEL The School of Medicine opened the James B. Williams Medical Education Building (left), designed to maximize students’ medical education experience and encourage interaction with faculty, other students in the health sciences, and each other.

The university’s policy of “no net loss of forest canopy” maintains that any time a tree is removed, a sufficient number of new trees must be planted to replace or exceed the original forest canopy. The policy is one of the most rigorous of any university in the US, helping BestCollege.com rank Emory in the top ten “greenest universities.”

30

magazine A U T U M N 2 0 1 5

2010 SHINY AND NEW In 2010, the Rollins School of Public Health celebrated the opening of the Claudia Nance Rollins Building (above), which includes 20,000 square feet of laboratory space and renovation of the Grace Crum Rollins Building. That same year saw completion of the Oxford Road Building, with its lecture hall, bookstore, and ever-busy Starbucks; the Office of Undergraduate Admission is located on the top floor.

100

century city in the

MAKING A POINT Emory Point (below), which opened in fall 2012, instantly became a hot spot for the Emory community. Its tempting mix of restaurants, retail, and apartments make it a go-to gathering place for everyone from freshmen to faculty. Phase II is now under way.

2012

2014 NO TICKET TO RIDE Emory’s free Cliff Shuttle system, which runs on a biofuel blend made from the used cooking oil from campus dining, took more than a million car rides off the roadways in 2014.

2014

us NOW now NOW

PURPOSEFUL PROGRESS Characteristic of new construction throughout Emory, the Rita Anne Rollins Building at Candler (left), which opened in 2014, is designed for transparency, fluidity, flexibility, and community.

SAVING WATER Emory’s new WaterHub (below) is an onsite water recycling system that uses eco-engineering processes to clean wastewater for future non-potable uses.

It’s the first of its kind in the US, capable of recycling up to 400,000 gallons a day—nearly 40 percent of Emory’s total campus water needs.

NOT YOUR DAD’S DORM The physical evolution of student housing has supported a cultural transformation, guided by themes designed to engage students at every level of their Emory experience. The newest first-year building is named for the first female graduate of Emory’s law school; the theme for Raoul Hall (above) is social entrepreneurship. The Longstreet-Means dormitory focuses on global cultures, and Alabama Hall celebrates creativity and the arts.

2015

There’s an old Emory joke that instead of an eagle, our mascot should be a crane. Continuous construction has been a hallmark of the university’s progress and growth. What new spaces for learning and living will the next century bring?

WIDE OPEN SPACES This fall saw the opening of the ultra-modern and much-anticipated Sanford S. Atwood Chemistry Center addition (above), as well as the newly renovated and expanded Stuart A. Rose Library (formerly the Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library). From the spacious atrium of Atwood, the center of a new Science Commons, one can see into the laboratories where teams work in free-flowing spaces that encourage collaboration. The Rose Library, perched at the top of Woodruff Library, offers a similar openness and transparency in its research and teaching spaces—not to mention sweeping views of the campus and the Atlanta skyline beyond.

AUTUMN 2015

magazine

31

32

magazine A U T U M N 2 0 1 5

YES, A PHD CAN BE A TICKET TO TENURE. BUT GROWING NUMBERS OF EMORY ALUMNI ARE TAKING THEIR GRADUATE DEGREES ON A RIDE BEYOND THE ACADEMY GATES

W

BY M ARIA M. L AM E I R A S ILLUSTRATIONS BY CHRIS LYONS

DOCTOR WHO?

hen Karen Ventii 08PhD joined the cancer biology program in Emory’s Graduate Division of Biological and Biomedical Sciences more than a decade ago, she wasn’t entirely sure where the experience would lead—nor did she know exactly where she wanted her education to take her. She was simply interested in the field and hopeful that her graduate degree would open up the right doors.

“I enjoyed science and biology and their application to medicine and health, and I knew I wanted to stay in the health field, but I didn’t know how I could parlay that into a career I was passionate about. I didn’t know what niche was for me,” says Ventii.

With the encouragement of her adviser, Professor of Biochemistry Keith Wilkinson, Ventii took every opportunity during her graduate studies to attend networking and career events organized by groups such as Georgia Bio, a nonprofit organization in Atlanta that promotes the interests and growth of the life sciences industry. A seminar featuring a medical writer ignited Ventii’s interest in a career that could combine her love of science, education, and outreach.

“My experience in graduate school allows me to synthesize complex information and understand it in its simplest element,” says Ventii, who now runs Gold Star Communications, a medical communications agency in Atlanta. “That helps me in the medical writing world where, on any given day, you are faced with the challenge of explaining complex medical information at the patient level. It helped make me a better communicator.”

The support and flexibility offered by her PhD adviser was integral to her success in finding her niche, Ventii says. Grateful for that support, she has given workshops on medical writing at Emory.

“It is important for me to be involved, because my path in grad school was very self-motivated, but I recognize that some grad students don’t have the time or resources to help them with that,” she says.

“I love being a medical writer, and I am passionate about telling people to be aware of what’s out there, because they really might find the career of their dreams.”

In higher education, the pinnacle of academic achievement is the PhD, a degree that long has been equated with the prestige of professorship. But as the number of PhD graduates in all fields has risen during the past two decades, the percentage of those finding careers in academia has declined.

The James T. Laney School of Graduate Studies has launched several programs to provide resources to students who are exploring a range of career options.

Among these is Pathways Beyond the Professoriate (PBP), a series that connects students with alumni from a variety of fields who share their career experiences and how they use their advanced degrees in positions current students may not have considered.

“The doctoral degree is, first and foremost, a research degree. The most essential task is always to prepare future researchers—future intellectual leaders—in the field of the degree, and that is where graduate faculty are truly experts,” says Laney Graduate School Dean Lisa Tedesco. “At the same time, faculty members and programs are becoming more aware of and open to the variety of professions that their graduates pursue, and this may affect some aspects of how they train and advise their doctoral students. In many ways, this is where the Laney Graduate School (LGS) is stepping in, by putting together programs like the PBP and others to provide training and guidance in areas where the faculty have limited experience.”

Since it was launched in 2010, PBP has grown from occasional sessions to monthly panels of alumni AUTUMN 2015

magazine

33

“

MEETING ALUMNI WHO HAVE FORGED DIFFERENT CAREER PATHS, LISTENING TO THEIR STORIES AND APPRECIATING THEIR PROFESSIONAL LIVES, KEEPS TEACHING US THAT GRADUATE EDUCATION IS AN ENORMOUSLY VALUABLE RESOURCE — BOTH IN THE LIVES OF THE INDIVIDUAL GRADUATES AND IN THE RICH VARIETY OF PROFESSIONAL SPHERES WHERE THEY MAKE THEIR CONTRIBUTIONS WORLDWIDE. LISA TEDESCO, DEAN, LANEY GRADUATE SCHOOL

49,000 PHD GRADUATES

The number of PhD graduates in all fields rose from 31,355 in 1981 to 49,010 in 2011, according to a “Survey of Earned Doctorates” by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the National Endowment of the Humanities, NASA, and the USDA.

82%

ARE NOT ACADEMICS

Of that total number of graduates, 15,902 had jobs lined up at graduation, and 8,428 had jobs in academia.

>15%

ARE TENURE TRACK

Despite the rising number of PhD graduates in all disciplines, the proportion of science, engineering, and health sciences PhDs holding tenure and tenure-track appointments at academic institutions within three years of receiving their degree declined from a high of 18.6 percent in 2003 to 14.7 percent in 2010.

34

”

speakers that attract capacity crowds of students.

Laney Graduate School also has started offshoot programs such as the Campus Connections professional development series and Mentors on Call, a searchable database that allows graduate students to contact alumni who have volunteered to offer guidance.

“The concept is not unique, but I think we have a more developed and systematic approach than most of our peers,” Tedesco says. “We offer sessions that span the full breadth of the graduate school programs as well as a variety of employment sectors.

We also work hard to contact alumni and develop sessions that pull together perspectives from different fields and professions.”

Armed with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biomedical engineering, Gina Alesi 16PhD entered the cancer biology program in the Graduate Division of Biological and Biomedical Sciences in 2011, confident of her plans to become a researcher and lead her own lab to fight the disease.

At the time—three years after Ventii had completed the same program—the US Congress had recently passed a law that would require a trillion dollars in across-the-board budget cuts beginning in March 2013 if lawmakers could not formulate and pass a plan to reduce the burgeoning federal deficit. As the deadline approached, the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health—each anticipating 5 percent in cuts from their overall budgets—announced they would fund thousands fewer grants and reduce the funding offered to existing grantees.

Scientists and researchers across the country, whose work depended on already-competitive federal funding, began to fear for their programs, and students pursuing advanced degrees in science and research found themselves uncertain about the futures they had planned.

magazine A U T U M N 2 0 1 5

Alesi, recipient of a William and Catherine Rice Endowed Research Award, says it was a talk by her benefactor, William Rice 86PhD, founder of Cylene Pharmaceuticals, that got her thinking about careers outside academia.

“Dr. Rice mentioned that there are many job opportunities for PhDs in government, industry, and business,” says Alesi, who went on to join the Advanced Degree Consulting Club at Laney Graduate School. “I attended a strategic communication workshop to learn more about business and consulting. After attending the workshop, as well as a related PBP session, I learned that I could leverage my PhD experiences to analyze and communicate solutions for complex business problems.”

Now Alesi has an offer to work for a global consulting firm after she graduates in 2016.

“Preparation is necessary to transition into a career outside of academia after earning a PhD,” she says. “It’s invaluable to have PhD alumni come back and share their experiences and knowledge about transitioning into alternative career paths.”

Contemplating that transition can be worrisome for a PhD candidate, says Chris Curfman 00PhD, who earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in chemistry at Virginia Tech before coming to Emory for his doctoral studies.

“My intention then was to become a research professor. I enjoyed teaching a lot and wanted to pursue that path,” Curfman says. “My fallback was going into industry and being a research chemist. Those were the only two ideas I’d entertained.”

About halfway through the program, though, he began to question whether a career centered on fulltime lab research was the best option for him.

“I enjoyed reading and writing about chemistry, learning what others were doing in the field, and teaching and giving presentations, but the day-to-day activity of lab work wasn’t something I was enjoying,” Curfman says.

He began researching postdoctoral positions, but was still unsure about a career in research. He talked with his adviser, Professor Dennis Liotta, who had experience with taking research to market.

“Dennis was very open and encouraging. He is the one who actually asked me if I would like patent law as a possible alternative. He had a lot of experience in that field because of his work, and I saw those activities going on a lot in his group,” Curfman says. “He was very positive about careers in patent law, and he opened the door for me.”

Curfman says Liotta’s willingness to discuss alterative careers with him—and to introduce him to patent attorneys—prepared him for his next step.

In his final year at Emory, Curfman applied and was accepted to law school. He took a job as a science adviser, and then patent agent, while earning a JD. “The goal of Liotta’s group was not just to churn

out more professors; they were trying to make sure students were growing in their knowledge of chemistry and pursuing what was in line with their interests,” says Curfman, who is now a principal with Meunier Carlin and Curfman, one of the largest intellectual property law firms in the Southeast. He specializes in helping companies and universities with the patenting process.

Curfman also is an adjunct professor of patent law at Emory’s School of Law and participates as a speaker and mentor in the BEST (Broadening Experience in Scientific Education) program at LGS, a program sponsored by the National Institutes of Health that “aims to better prepare predoctoral and postdoctoral scientists for the breadth of possible careers in the biomedical research workforce.”

Fulbright postgraduate scholar Chris Brown 16PhD appreciates opportunities, like BEST and Pathways, to gain exposure to alumni who have channeled their interests into successful careers.

Within two years of enrolling at LGS in 2011, Brown’s own scholarly interests completely shifted direction, from purely historical to purposefully practical.

Combining his studies of sports history, urban history, Latin American studies, and sustainability, Brown’s dissertation will use soccer as a lens for examining the history of Manaus, a city at the heart of the Brazilian Amazon. He’ll explore how the evolution of urban soccer fields and spectator venues, games, and social commentary helped shape public policies and cultural dynamics in the city.

“I am really looking to pursue an academic path, but also to make as much of an impact beyond the walls of academia,” says Brown, who is interested in urban and sports planning. “Learning about consulting options through the PBP program was one of the best presentations I have been to, as was one on writing for a nonacademic audience. It makes you realize it is not about turning away from the academic side, but thinking of ways to combine the two.”

Like many students, a personal quest for knowledge and understanding led Leah Wolfson 01C 08PhD to study a particular subject. Her interest in Jewish history and the Holocaust eventually grew into a career in research and faculty development within the context of Holocaust studies.

As senior program officer for University Programs at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, Wolfson conceives and organizes a range of programming and educational opportunities for faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates. She is also involved in one of the Mandel Center’s major research initiatives.

Wolfson started a doctoral program in comparative literature with the intent of teaching, but a challenging academic job market and shifting career

goals prompted her to keep an open mind.

“You go to grad school to become a faculty member; that is the point of the whole process. That is where you get the most support,” Wolfson says.

“I’m glad to see that the PBP program is starting to provide a more structured resource to grad students on all the potential career pathways available to them.

For busy graduate students, it can be difficult to carve out another space to investigate and gain skills to do other things.”

When speaking to graduate students through the PBP program, Amy Fasula 05PhD 05MPH hopes she can impress on them that they don’t have to be absolutely sure of what they want to do when they begin the PhD process.

A behavioral scientist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Fasula works on projects designed to reduce risk and improve sexual health among vulnerable populations—a career made possible by the combination of academic concentrations she was able to pursue while at LGS. “I was interested in women’s studies and sociology and, at the time, there was the Center for Health, Culture, and Society at Emory. You could apply to get funding for one year to take courses in the School of Public Health. That was very attractive to me because it was a place where I could combine my work in sociology with broader academic topics and apply them to a public health realm,” she says.

Fasula credits her PhD adviser, Cathryn Johnson, for allowing her to tailor her comprehensive exams to combine public health applications with her sociology research, and for helping her craft her advanced education in a practical way. She also was able to take advantage of the certificate program to pursue her interest in women’s studies.

“My path was not straight and narrow. In grad school, it can feel like everyone has it all together except you, and I want to share things I have learned along the way that might help others,” she says.

“There are some logistics and things that are hard to navigate and figure out, like how to write a resume for jobs outside of academia, that were practical things I had to figure out myself. I am more than happy to share my experiences and lessons learned.”

PBP is a valuable learning tool not only for students but graduate educators as well, says Tedesco.

“In graduate education, we can sometimes become a bit myopic, since we spend so much of our lives within the academy,” Tedesco says. “Meeting alumni who have forged different career paths, listening to their stories, and appreciating their professional lives keeps teaching us that graduate education is an enormously valuable resource—both in the lives of the individual graduates and in the rich variety of professional spheres where they make their contributions worldwide.”

CHRIS CURFMAN 00PHD

“I enjoyed reading and writing about chemistry and learning about what others were doing in the field, but the day-to-day activity of lab work wasn’t something I was enjoying.”

LEAH WOLFSON 01C 08PHD

“I’m glad to see that the Pathways Beyond the Professoriate program is starting to provide a more structured resource to grad students on all the potential career pathways available.”

KAREN VENTII 08PHD

“My experience in graduate school allows me to synthesize complex information and understand it in its simplest element.

That helps me in the medical writing world.”

AMY FASULA 05PHD 05MPH

“In grad school, it can feel like everyone has it all together except you, and I want to share the things I have learned along the way that might help others.”

AUTUMN 2015

magazine

35

BY MICHELLE HISKEY PHOTOS BY BRYAN MELTZ

HEALING HEARTS H

H

CHANGING MINDS

36

magazine A U T U M N 2 0 1 5

SYRIAN REFUGEE HEVAL MOHAMED KELLI WAS A CLARKSTON TEENAGER WITH DREAMS OF BECOMING A DOCTOR. NOW HIS PATIENT CARE HELPS IMMIGRANTS IN HIS OLD NEIGHBORHOOD AND HIS RESEARCH CONNECTS THEM TO BETTER HEART HEALTH

D

URING THE FALL OF 2001, in a small restaurant kitchen near Emory, Heval Mohamed Kelli 15MR faced a stainless steel contraption knowing that his family’s survival depended on him figuring out how to work it. His manager gave him a hairnet and told him in Arabic, “You have to wear it. It’s required here even if you are only washing dishes.” It was a busy Friday night at the Mediterranean Grill. Mohamed Kelli heard the Emory students and others place their orders in a language he did not understand, and soon the dishes started coming in. Six miles separated him from his family in Clarkston, where the clock was ticking.

The US government would pay for rent for a few months, and then they were on their own in a country where they knew no one. They were more than six thousand miles from Kobane, Syria, where his father’s law practice had made life comfortable enough for his mother to care for him and his younger brother. But they are Kurds, a persecuted minority, and after Syrian police beat up his dad one night in front of the family then put him in prison for three months, the family paid a smuggler to get them out.

They left almost everything they owned behind. Germany took them in on temporary status, where they lived at the

poverty line. In the US, Mohamed Kelli saw people living on the street and knew that it could get worse for his family. His father was too injured to work, his mother had never worked, and his brother was too young to work. They were counting on him, a seventeen-year-old, to make ends meet by washing dishes for five dollars an hour.

“You’ll start from the bottom up,” restaurant manager Essa Yazbak told him.

“You’re going to clean the bathrooms, too.”

H

H

IF TAKING CARE OF YOURSELF is simply a matter of personal choice, many Americans are lousy at getting the foods and exercise that are best for them—and many low-income people and disadvantaged groups have few good choices at all. On a bustling Tuesday at Emory’s Preventive Cardiology Clinic, located near Emory University Hospital’s emergency room, cardiologists Larry Sperling and Arshed Quyyumi are busy trying to prevent the leading cause of death for men and women in the United States. The American Heart Association reports that about 735,000 Americans have a heart attack each year; while 610,000 people die of heart disease (1 in 4 deaths), and coronary heart disease alone costs the country $108.9 billion in health care, medications, and lost productivity. Cardiometabolic diseases, such as diabetes, are on the rise.

AUTUMN 2015

magazine

37

THE CANDY CRUSH OF MEDICINE Mohamed Kelli is creating a smartphone app that he hopes will put better health in patients’ pockets.

In this tsunami of need, simply telling people to bootstrap healthier habits isn’t “moving the needle,” says Quyyumi, codirector of the Emory Clinical Cardiovascular Research Institute. His team’s data, gathered across socioeconomic, racial, and ethnic groups in Atlanta, show that heart problems improve when fresh food, safe places to walk, and other opportunities for healthy living are close by.

One pair of eyes on this data belongs to that former dishwasher. Doctor Mohamed Kelli, as he has been known since graduating from Morehouse School of Medicine in 2012, ended up a mile from the Mediterranean Grill for his residency in internal medicine at Emory School of Medicine.

Last summer he was named a Katz Fellow in Preventive Cardiology, a prestigious award that covers two years of generous salary, benefits, and expenses for research and related travel in anticipation of a career in academic cardiovascular prevention.

“These are young, brilliant cardiovascular specialists, and our goal is to train them as future leaders who will then train others here and globally,” Sperling says.

“The essence of innovation is time,” Mohamed Kelli says. “The Katz Fellowship gives me time for research and funding for my American dream.”

38

magazine A U T U M N 2 0 1 5

One Atlanta neighborhood at highest risk for cardiovascular problems is where Mohamed Kelli and his family landed in the US, along with thousands of refugees from around the world. Clarkston is, according to the federal map promoted

by First Lady Michelle Obama, a food desert, where people—often with limited incomes and transportation options—live more than a mile from fresh, affordable food. Mohamed Kelli is testing ideas to help people from all walks of life make better choices. One is a phone app that helps them keep track of their medical information and sends reminders of nearby assistance that is cheap or free.

“We should create the Candy Crush of medicine,” he says. “People already have relationships with their phones; they are like babies to them. How can we do more with that, to help their smoking cravings go down, or their blood sugar? What if we can remind people to check their blood pressure as often as their car’s tire pressure?”

Simple connections made over and over can change someone’s life. That’s how Mohamed Kelli made it this far.

H

H

IN SEPTEMBER 2015, Mohamed Kelli tucked into a plate of hummus, pita, and falafel at Mediterranean Grill. A week before, UN Ambassador Samantha Power (who grew up near Emory) announced that more than ten thousand Syrian refugees are expected

to enter the US next year. Everyone has seen the iconic image of the crisis—a toddler who washed up on a beach in Turkey.

The little boy was from Kobane, Mohamed Kelli’s hometown, now shattered by ISIS attacks. As Mohamed Kelli talks about coming to America, you can get an idea of what these next refugees will need, and how a small gesture of kindness can make a difference.

That first weekend washing dishes, Mohamed Kelli’s hands and forearms turned from smooth brown to a prunish white. “No one told me about gloves,” he says, laughing. There was so much to soak in about this new country, and strangers were helping his family do just that. Volunteers from All Saints’ Episcopal Church in downtown Atlanta, some of them from Emory, furnished the family’s apartment and helped stock their cupboards. Every Thursday for a year, a volunteer showed up to teach them English. “The only week they missed was Thanksgiving,” Mohamed Kelli recalled. “They were a prime example of what America stands for.” After he and his brother shared their struggles, anonymous church members paid the family’s rent for six months, helped them get a car, and paid the brothers to cut their lawns and babysit their kids.

The family resettled, as most refugees do, in low-income housing and lowperforming schools. “Unless they are surrounded by a support group, most often from a faith community, their lives can literally be a nightmare,” says Barbara Thompson, a close family friend whose Atlanta nonprofit, Solutions for Interrupted Education, helps child survivors of war thrive in the classroom. “Refugees, like the ones coming in from Syria, need small and big strategic interventions. And if you give them that inch, they will make five hundred miles from it for themselves. They will rock their corner of the world.”

Thompson helped connect Mohamed Kelli’s younger brother with a full scholarship to Pace Academy, where he starred on the soccer team and mentioned to a classmate that his brother wanted to be a doctor. The classmate told her dad, Omar Lattouf, a cardiothoracic surgeon and Emory School of Medicine professor with roots in Jordan and Lebanon. Lattouf took an interest in the young man and became a close mentor as Mohamed Kelli graduated with honors in a premed curriculum at Georgia State, helping him get into Morehouse School of Medicine.

H

H

ON A SUNDAY IN MID-OCTOBER, refugees cram into the Clarkston Health Clinic. Quyyumi and other Emory doctors helped establish it earlier this year, and volunteer doctors, nurses, medical students, and undergraduates from Emory’s Prehealth Club help provide free screenings and basic health care.

The front door opens every few minutes, and the clinic quickly runs out of chairs and floor space.

Mohamed Kelli is trying to give each patient enough attention, and repeats medical advice at least three times to each of them and their family members who act as translators. He uses images on his phone screen for emphasis. A woman from Nepal has gingivitis, so he pulls up a photo of hydrogen peroxide and explains how to dilute it. “It’s always in a brown bottle, and THE HEART DOCTORS Mohamed Kelli joins fellow cardiologists and medical mentors Larry Sperling (left) and Arshad Quyyumi (right) to treat patients at the all-too-busy Emory Cardiology Clinic.

“ REFUGEES, LIKE THE ONES COMING IN FROM SYRIA, NEED SMALL AND BIG STRATEGIC INTERVENTIONS. AND IF YOU GIVE THEM THAT INCH, THEY WILL MAKE FIVE HUNDRED MILES FROM IT FOR THEMSELVES. THEY WILL ROCK THEIR CORNER OF THE WORLD.” BARBARA THOMPSON

“Anything short of being president of the World Health Organization would be a disappointment to me,” Lattouf says.

“He is that caliber of guy. He has a heart of gold, a brain of fire, and a never-ending commitment and energy and excitement and positivity.”

The dishwashing finally stopped in medical school, a bittersweet moment for Mohamed Kelli. “For many weekends, my motivation was to read a page for every plate I washed,” he said. “Three hundred plates, three hundred pages.” The steam that condensed on the dishwasher’s stainless steel had served as his whiteboard as he traced, with his fingertip, molecular structures for organic chemistry. The Mediterranean Grill had connected him to many other Emory doctors. When they came in for gyro and falafel, and especially if they spoke Arabic, Mohamed Kelli would grab a coffee and chat them up for career advice.

During medical school, he found another Emory mentor, the adopted father of an Ethiopian boy who had learned English as a second language with him. Allen Dollar is the chief of cardiology at Grady Memorial Hospital, and Mohamed Kelli’s energy and drive match what the field requires. “Cardiology is the fastest pace in all of medicine,” Dollar said. “For people who are tech savvy, like Heval, cardiology is a very, very appealing field.”

you don’t need much,” he says. “It’s going to burn a little bit but it’s good.”

A man from Thailand has diabetes and wants a narcotic prescription to ease the nerve pain in his feet. Mohamed Kelli refuses; he doesn’t want the man to become addicted, and writes a script for a $4 neuropathy drug. “Diabetes is like a dog,” Mohamed Kelli tells the man’s daughter, who translates. “If you don’t control it, it’s going to destroy your whole house.”

Heval means friend in Kurdish, and he inspires others to give as well. In the next room his partner, Saskia Handschin, is fitting refugees with compression stockings that her company usually sells for eighty dollars a pair. Here they are free. “Really, he’s always loved helping people,” says his mom, Saadia Mohamed Kelli, who helped him keep going in college and med school by packing two Kurdish meals for him daily so he would have fresh food to stay healthy. His brother followed a similar path and is training as a general surgery resident at East Tennessee State.

A couple of blocks away from the free clinic is the family’s first home in the US, an apartment that offered a few chairs and bare beds, cupboards empty save for a jar of peanut butter and a refrigerator with a lone carton of milk. In his fourteen years in this country (he became a citizen in 2006), Mohamed Kelli has steadily followed the Middle Eastern saying, “Whoever taught you a letter, you owe him a book.”

As a senior at Clarkston High School,

he began tutoring at the International Community School. He and Lattouf founded a nonprofit, UBeyond, for mentoring young people from underserved backgrounds, and four hundred people showed up at their recent gala. At the Clarkston clinic, he was too busy to notice an Emory senior studying him. “He has great people interactions and really helps people understand,” said Ravila Bhima 14OX 16C, a biology and political science major from Miami. Those skills are important to her dream of building a clinic like this one in her mother’s hometown of Pune, India.

Mohamed Kelli always sees more that can be done, more that he can do. The Clarkston clinic, for instance, could serve more people more efficiently on a cloudbased electronic medical record system.

“It’s free, and it runs great,” he said. All it takes is deciding to make the connection to the opportunity, finding and accepting the help if needed.

“Having someone show you what the opportunity is, how to approach it, and how to get it with confidence, someone who is always pushing you to the next level and thinking about your pathway—it takes someone greater than you to hold your hand,” he says. “It’s not all about hard work.

You need direction. All the opportunities that were available to me were made available because of people in the church, mentors, and the Katz Foundation. Someone like me becoming a cardiologist could only happen in America.”

AUTUMN 2015

magazine

39

[ windows ] OF OPPORTUNITY

If you’ve been touched by the stories in this issue of Emory Magazine, these windows can open up ways for you to turn your inspiration into action. Here you’ll see how you can invest in the people, places, and programs found in these pages and beyond. Gifts to Emory produce powerful, lasting returns; they help create knowledge, advance research, strengthen communities, improve health, and much more.

ENABLING HEALTHY AGING Emory Medicine and Emory Healthcare are on the forefront of research, patient care, and education to ensure the best quality of life as we get older.

PAGE

32

DIVERSIFYING T H E D O C T O R AT E PhD candidates think and seek broadly in their academic pursuits at Laney Graduate School (LGS).

LGS endeavors to help its students explore a breadth of career options through programs like Pathways Beyond the Professoriate, which leverages alumni expertise for the benefit of today’s doctoral students.

To support programs like these, make a gift online at emory.edu/ giving. Give now and designate your Graduate/Laney gift to the Professional Development Support Fund.

For more information on how to support graduate or doctoral programs, contact Katie Busch, assistant dean and senior director of development and alumni relations, 404.727.1521 or kbusch@emory.edu.

40

magazine A U T U M N 2 0 1 5

To learn more about supporting Emory’s VA Nursing Academic Partnership Scholars, contact Amy Dorrill, 404.727.6264 or amy.dorrill@emory.edu.

20 PAGE

D O C T O R AT E : C H R I S LY O N S ; A G I N G : K AY H I N T O N ; K E L L I : B R YA N M E LT Z ; B O W E N : A N N B O R D E N ; T H O M P S O N : K AY H I N T O N ; P R O D U C T S : D O L L A R S H AV E C L U B

For more information about philanthropic opportunities at the Emory Brain Health Center, contact Margery McKay, vice president for development, Woodruff Health Sciences Center, 404.727.5714 or mbmckay@emory.edu.

36 PAGE

TRAINING TOMORROW’S CARDIAC EXPERTS Fellowships for medical professionals allow specialized training and research opportunities that lead to new treatments and discoveries.

The next wave of Emory cardiologists who specialize in preventive heart health receive fellowship training funded by the Atlantabased Abraham J. & Phyllis Katz Foundation. As future leaders, they will train others here and globally.

For more information about supporting preventive cardiology, contact Gabrielle Stearns, director of development, 404.727.2512 or gabrielle.stearns@emory.edu.

PAGE

18 EXPLORING NEW FRONTIERS Emory College’s strategic support of groundbreaking research leads to discoveries that can transform disciplines, such as new fieldwork and analysis techniques in anthropology.

The Emory College Fund for Excellence (ECFE) strengthens faculty and undergraduate students in their quest for new knowledge.

To support ECFE, contact Ben Corley 07C, director of development, 404.727.1157 or bcorley@emory.edu.

PAGE

10 PAGE

I N S P I R I N G C R E AT I V I T Y Oxford College Dean Stephen Bowen demonstrates the wide range of the liberal arts through his professional research as an ichthyologist and his personal creativity as a master woodworker. Support Oxford’s hands-on approach to learning through the Oxford Fund for Excellence.

For more information, contact Kevin Smyrl, senior director of development, 770.784.4637 or kevin.smyrl@emory.edu.

INVESTING IN ENTREPRENEURS

56

Not every Emory entrepreneur comes through Goizueta Business School, but Goizueta offers academic support for aspiring entrepreneurs through electives in entrepreneurial leadership, applied entrepreneurship, and new venture management. To support entrepreneurial programs and student scholarships at Goizueta, make a gift online at emory.edu/ giving. Give now and designate your gift to the Goizueta Business School Fund for Excellence.

To learn more, contact Kore Breault, senior associate director of development, 404.727.1161 or kbreaul@emory.edu.

AUTUMN 2015

magazine

41

from the President

How Close to the Vision?

42

magazine A U T U M N 2 0 1 5

This bodes well for Emory during a year of many transitions.

We are appointing two new cabinet officers and a new dean. We are beginning a new phase of strategic thinking and acting under the leadership of Provost Claire Sterk and Vice Provost Michael Sacks. We are developing a long- James Wagner, President, Emory University term financial plan for Emory Healthcare. We are initiating a strong new plan for communicating the Emory “brand” throughout our nation and the world. We are finding new ways to enhance our partnerships with communities, government, academe, and NGOs. We are beginning to think about and plan for a campaign to find the resources to help meet Emory’s aspirations to play a stronger leadership role in teaching, research, health care, and service to humanity. And did I mention a presidential search?

My point, though, is that despite the changes Emory already has experienced and the changes yet in store, this university community—its alumni, students, faculty, and staff—is blessed with an enduring ethos and consistent vision and aspiration that will carry it forward. That ethos is one of dissatisfaction with the status quo. As many in the Emory community will recall, the university’s great benefactor Robert Woodruff once reminded us that the future belongs to the discontented, to those for whom the future promises something more exciting than what is.

This kind of discontent is not dissatisfied and disgruntled, but energized, aspiring, and visionary.

Vision requires imagination, sober realism, intentionality, and humble openness to discern the direction toward which one is being called. This is difficult enough for an individual to discern, and even more challenging for an institution. But with the right vision, one can move confidently into the future.

Emory will continue to experience change in the year ahead. But I remain certain that one thing that will not change is the university’s bright future, which calls forth aspirational leadership among alumni, students, staff, and faculty. The Emory vision still guides them.

E MORY PHOTO/ VIDEO

Way back when—before there was a Campaign Emory, before there was a strategic plan called “Where Courageous Inquiry Leads,” before there was a recession, before there were plans afoot for new freshman dorms, new research space, new classrooms, and new libraries—way back in fall 2003, the Emory community spent some months hammering out a vision for what Emory both is and should be.

That seems like an eon ago. But that “vision statement” still lives on the Emory website, calling us to be “a destination university internationally recognized as an inquirydriven, ethically engaged, and diverse community, whose members work collaboratively for positive transformation in the world through courageous leadership in teaching, research, scholarship, health care, and social action.”

Twelve years later, it’s worth asking how that statement still lives in our collective vision.

At the end of October, a group of about sixty Emory leaders known as the Administrative Council came together for two days of reflection on just that question. The conversation was rich and lively. From all parts of the institution, these leaders include the cabinet, deans, and directors of all the major divisions—from the museum to campus services, from schools to human resources. They brought not only perspectives focused on their divisions, but also a broad interest in the direction of the university.

Normally we gather for two hours once each semester to share ideas, brainstorm about opportunities, and inform our commitment to build an even better Emory. The last such extended gathering occurred more than a decade ago, at the beginning of the strategic plan whose conclusion and successes we are celebrating this fall.

A lot has happened and a lot has changed in the intervening years. As we transition to a new phase of strategic planning, one thing seems very clear from my vantage point—Emory’s shared vision and guiding principles are held firmly and deeply throughout the institution. The title of our strategic plan, “Where Courageous Inquiry Leads,” took root in our community and helped to shape the growth of the university over the past decade and more.

What may be most remarkable is the way in which that vision has continued to determine our direction through extensive transitions in leadership at many levels. Eight of our nine deans have been appointed in the past decade, and seven of the nine cabinet members are new to their positions. More significantly, more than a third of the Administrative Council consists of women and men who either have come to Emory just in the past two years or have taken on greater responsibility through promotion during that time.

To a significant degree the Emory vision, which our entire community helped to forge in 2003, has helped to shape the leadership of the institution as much as the leadership has shaped the vision.

register Alumni news and class notes

That’s the Spirit It might have rained on our parade during Emory Homecoming Weekend in September, but a little water couldn’t dampen the spirits of alumni and friends— especially those who shared an umbrella with Dooley.

44

Emory Everywhere

49

2015 Emory Medalists

56

Holiday Buying Guide

A T UMME N R 2015 S U M

magazine

43

register

FROM THE EA A

Emory Everywhere

S I N G I N G I N T H E R A I N : Undaunted by a few scattered showers, Indigo Girls Amy Ray 86C and Emily Saliers 85C entertained a crowd of thousands during the 2015 Homecoming Weekend concert on McDonough Field.

P U R V E YO R S O F P R O S E : Nearly fifty Emory alumni authors came to greet guests and sign books at the Decatur Book Festival during Labor Day weekend, including Holley Hewitt Ulbrich 03T (above left), Alumni Distinguished Professor Emerita of Economics at Clemson University and author of Economics Takes a Holiday, and M. L. Malcolm 82C 82G (center), award-winning author of The Cuban Connection.

Homecoming has come and gone, with thousands of classmates and families reuniting on campus amid laughter and fond Emory memories.

Carrying on the proud tradition of service to each other and to our communities, Emory Cares International Service Day further united alumni in service efforts around the globe, with projects in more than fifty cities and several countries. Now, with insight from alumni like you, the Emory Alumni Association (eaa) seeks to contribute to the growth of our evolving institution.

In January, you will be invited to share your thoughts in the next phase of our Alumni Attitude Survey. Your responses will enable us to evaluate future programming and provide resources to best suit your lifelong needs. If you haven’t already done so, please take a moment and register to join the Emory alumni online community. Through this robust forum you’ll be able to connect with classmates, seek new career connections, register to attend chapter activities, post class notes and classified ads, and participate in interactive alumni online groups.

As Emory University embarks on a new strategic phase, we encourage you to consider—and live—the words that have become our alumni motto. Say to yourself, “I’m IN. I’m inspired, involved, and invested in Emory.” Then join us as we take an incredible journey into new opportunities.

Senior Associate Vice President for Alumni Affairs

Upcoming Alumni Events

S U M M E R D O W N S O U T H : Ryan Roche 03OX 05C (above left, from left), Emory Professor of Law Tim Holbrook, and Hoyt Young 64C 67M 72MR socialize at the annual GALA Summer Social hosted

by Emory’s LGBT Alumni at Tin Lizzy’s Cantina in Emory Point in July. Sarah Duke 79A (above right, from left), Veronica Motley, and Olufemi Sowemimo were among those who enjoyed “An Emory Evening in the Lowcountry” in Hilton Head, including a presentation by Charles Howard Candler Professor of Psychology Marshall Duke and a jazz performance by Director of Jazz Studies Gary Motley and the Gary Motley Trio.

12 | 01

Coach Chat: Anna Graham Hunter, career-happiness coach

12 | 01

DC Emory Alumni: Holiday party, 7 to 9 p.m., Prequel

02 | 04 Emory in Your City: South Florida

with Professor Barbara Rothbaum For more, visit alumni.emory.edu/calendar.

44

magazine A U T U M N 2 0 1 5

C O N C E R T: K AY H I N T O N ; B O O K F E S T I VA L : J E N N I F E R C R A B B K Y L E S 9 8 O X 0 0 C ; G A L A : C O U R T E S Y O F G A L A ; L O W C O U N T R Y: K E L L I E M C C A N N P H O T O G R A P H Y

Sarah Craven Cook 95C

register

Class Notes 1950s Greeley Ellis 59L of Covington, who graduated from the US Military Academy in 1953, received the Distinguished Graduate Award in recognition of his public and community service from the West Point Society of Atlanta on March 28.

J. Paul Ferguson 59C 63M of Rome recently received several outstanding awards—the Community Advocacy Award from Georgia Regents University/Medical College of Georgia, the Distinguished Service Award from the National Wilderness Stewardship Alliance Council of Boy Scouts of America, the Dave Threadgill Community Service Award from Leadership Georgia, and the Board of Governors Award from the Heart of the Community Awards of Honor for Rome-Floyd, GA.

1960s Barrett K. Hawks 60BBA 63L of Atlanta, a retired partner of the law firm of Barrett Hawks, serves on the board of the Highlands Center for Life Enrichment, which hosts more than 100 educational programs each season on various topics of current or historical interest.

Hubert L. DuPont 65M of Houston, Texas, received the prestigious University of Texas System’s Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award in August 2015 for the delivery of the highest quality health education during the past 40 years. He was selected from across the nine

universities and six health institutions in the university system.

John F. Morgan Sr. 67OX 69BBA of Hilton Head, S.C., owner and manager of Morgan Timber and South Coast Commercial, was appointed to the board of directors of Post Properties, where he will serve on its Audit and Nominating and Corporate Governance Committees. Morgan is chair of the board of trustees of Emory University.

1970s

Patrick M. Battey 79M 84MR 85MR of Atlanta, a vascular surgeon, was promoted to chief executive officer of Piedmont Atlanta Hospital effective January 1, 2016.

Michael D. Hankin 79C 79G of Glyndon, Md., president and chief executive officer of Brown Advisory and chair of the board of the Waterfront Partnership, received the inaugural Harbor Hero Award on April 16 from the Waterfront Partnership for his dedication to the health of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor and waterfront.

Your Key to Class Notes

Charles T. Bohanan 70OX of Decatur retired in August 2015 as director of standards and awards at TAPPI, an association for the worldwide pulp, paper, packaging, and converting industries.

Edward C. McMillan III 70MBA of Greensboro, N.C., has started three businesses, tutors children and adults, and is an advocate for children’s educational needs.

Tim W. Askew 71C 73T of New Rochelle, N.Y., is the author of the new book, The Poetry of Small Business– An Accidental Entrepreneur’s Search for Meaning.

Christopher D. Keirs 72C of Tomball, Texas, joined the law firm of Blank Rome as a partner in their intellectual property and technology group.

T. Jackson Bedford Jr. 73L of Atlanta is the deputy chief judge of the Fulton County Superior Court.

Dickey S. Shurling Jr. 77OX 79C of Sandersville was named Miner of the Year by the Georgia Mining Association.

Janice S. Heseman 78T of Evansville, Ind., retired from the ministry on July 1 after serving 39 years in the Indiana Conference of the United Methodist Church.

AH: Allied Health B: Goizueta Business School (undergraduate) C: Emory College of Arts and Sciences D: School of Dentistry G: James T. Laney School of Graduate Studies H: Honorary degree L: School of Law M: School of Medicine MBA: Goizueta Business School (graduate) MN: School of Nursing (graduate) MR: Medical resident N: Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing OX: Oxford College PH: Rollins School of Public Health PhD: All doctor of philosophy degrees T: Candler School of Theology

C R O W D F U N D I N G T H AT M AT T E R S

Emory University is excited to offer a new, exciting way for donors to contribute to the success of projects and programs meaningful to them. Momentum, Emory’s official crowdfunding platform, features opportunities to support a wide range of research projects, student initiatives, and campus activities.

Since it launched this summer, successful crowdfunded projects have included scholarships for Candler School of Theology’s YTI Summer Academy; the student newspaper’s efforts to enhance its digital presence; a project

by Emory Libraries to preserve Atlanta’s legacy in the fight against HIV/AIDS; and the work of Jewish studies students to honor those who fought discrimination at Emory between 1948 and 1961.

Give to what gets you going. momentum.emory.edu

AUTUMN 2015

magazine

45

register Thomas G. Stokes Jr. 79OX 81C of Atlanta is president of EpiCity Real Estate Services, a family company that has been owned and operated by four generations.

W ORK I NG I T: COL LE GE Linda Davis Taylor 74C is CEO and chair of Clifford Swan Investment Counsel in Pasadena, Calif., the nation’s oldest investment advisory firm. A frequent speaker on wealth transition, family governance, and philanthropy, Taylor’s recently published first book, The Family of Business: How to Stay Rich for Generations, has garnered critical and popular acclaim. In addition to her investment counsel career, Taylor has more than 25 years of experience in senior leadership positions at Claremont McKenna College, Amherst College, Scripps College, and Emory University. Taylor has served as a trustee for numerous educational and nonprofit organizations and is a cofounder of a private foundation.

interim Fulton County attorney in June 2015. Farrari joined the county attorney’s office in 2009 as a senior attorney in the Risk Management and Revenue Enhancement Division.

Joseph B. Fejes 88BBA of Gainesville, a corporate lawyer, is an ultramarathoner who holds the American record among six-day racers. He broke his own record at a competition in Hungary in May 2015 when he ran 606 miles during a six-day race.

Terry P. Finnerty 89L of Atlanta is an attorney with the law firm of Lewis, Brisbois, Bisgaard, and Smith where his practice focuses on labor and employment law.

Mark H. Manassee 89T of Culver City, Calif., who has served as senior minister at Culver Palms Church of Christ for 10 years, received a doctor of ministry degree in missional leadership from Fuller Theological Seminary. Manassee is an adjunct professor of religion at Pepperdine University in Malibu.

Thomas H. Prol 89OX 91C 97PH of Franklin, N.J., is president-elect of the New Jersey State Bar Association.

Stephen G. Ray 89OX 93C of Vacaville, Calif., who was promoted to major and PCS in the US Air Force, is assigned to Travis Air Force Base as a clinical nurse specialist in the Emergency Department.

WORK IN G I T: OX F O R D

1980s

Angela Walker Franklin 83G 86PHD of West Des Moines, Iowa, is the author of new e-book also available in softcover entitled An Unconventional Journey…

An Unlikely Choice. Franklin is the first woman and first black to serve as president and chief executive officer of Des Moines University.

Richard A. Hunter 83T of Owens Cross Roads, Ala., was appointed the executive director of new church development for the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church.

Mark A. Weinberger 83C of Potomac, Md., global chairman and chief executive officer of EY, received the Joseph C. Donchess Distinguished Service Award from the Wyoming Seminary College preparatory school from which he graduated in 1979. Weinberger is a member of the board of trustees of Emory University.

Elihugh J. Kilgore Jr. 84T of Pulaski, Va., was appointed on July 1 to serve as the Cleveland District superintendent in the Holston Conference of the United Methodist Church.

Reuben A. Guttman 85L of Bethesda, Md., is a partner of the law firm Guttman, Bushchner and Brooks in Washington, D.C. Wayde J. Washburn 85T of LaGrange is pastor of Sandy Creek United Church of Christ in Lafayette, Ala. George H. Cate III 87L of Nashville, Tenn., joined the law firm of Bradley, Arant, Boult, Cummings as a partner in June 2015 after practicing for 28 years with Neal and Harwell. Cate specializes in civil litigation, crisis management and civil and criminal government investigations.

Katherine Arn Clark 87G 92PHD of Pensacola, Fla., announces the publication of her first novel, The Headmaster’s Darlings, with a forward by Pat Conroy.

It was published in August 2015 by Pat Conroy’s Story River Books imprint at the University of South Carolina.

Mitchell H. Fein 87C of Port Washington, N.Y., president of Courageous Group, launched Orcatex Design, an online store that manufactures and distributes surf, resort, and lifestyle footwear for men and women.

Laine R. Kline 87C 90L of Beverly Hills, Calif., is the executive vice president of business affairs for Sony Pictures Entertainment.

Jerolyn Webb Farrari 88L of Tucker was appointed

46

magazine A U T U M N 2 0 1 5

As executive director of the Harvard Microbial Sciences Initiative (MSI), one of Harvard University’s scientific institutes, Karen Lachmayr 95OX 97C promotes interdisciplinary research among scientists across the Boston area. In leading the MSI, one of Harvard’s first interfaculty initiatives, Lachmayr helps foster collaborations among microbial scientists within Harvard and beyond. Involved in the MSI since its earliest days, Lachmayr has been at this post since earning her doctorate in environmental microbiology from Harvard in 2007. The author of numerous publications, she has focused her research on antibiotic resistance in wastewater and marine ecosystems and serves on a science advisory board to the Massachusetts Water Resource Authority.

1990s

Mayo M. Woodward Sr. 90OX 92C of Birmingham, Ala., is managing director and producing complex manager of BB&T Scott and Stringfellow.

Bernard C. Acoca 91C of Seattle, Wash., is the chief marketing officer of L’Oreal Americas.

Charles D. McDonald III 91L of Brentwood, Tenn., a certified financial planner, leads the Trust and Financial Management Department as the senior trust executive for First Farmers and Merchants Bank.

Jefferson B. Prince 91M 92MR of South Hamilton, Mass., received the Dr. E. Augustus Holyoke Memorial Award from the North Shore Medical Center’s medical staff in May 2015. Prince serves as vice chairman of the department of psychiatry at North Shore Medical Center, is an instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and is on staff at Massachusetts General Hospital in the child psychiatry and pediatric psychopharmacology clinics.

Sonia A. Smith 91MN of Foley, Ala., opened Emerald Coast Pediatric Sleep Consultants, a nurse practitionerowned practice specializing in pediatric sleep disorders and treatment.

Kirsten T. White 91MN of Tulsa, Okla., is a neonatal nurse practitioner at St. John Clinic.

Lawrence E. Cooper 92MBA of Wilton, Conn., is director of marketing for Blue Buffalo, a pet food company.

Lisa M. Carlson 93PH of Decatur is associate director of management and operations for the CHAMPS Network at Emory’s Global Health Institute. CHAMPS Network is a new international program funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that seeks to impact causes of childhood mortality in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

Gwendolyn Keyes Fleming 93L of Ashburn, Va., is the principal legal adviser for the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Chris Young 93T of Philadelphia, Miss., is pastor of the Philadelphia First United Methodist Church.

Alan Paul Roy Gregory 94PHD of Austin, Texas, principal at the South East Institute for Theological Education, is the author of Science Fiction Theology: Beauty and the Transformation of the Sublime in which he investigates the troubled relationship between science fiction and Christianity.

David Jolly 94C of Indian Rocks Beach, Fla., is a member of the US House of Representatives who was elected to a two-year term in November 2014.

Lajune Elder Oliver 94C 03MR of Atlanta is the ambulatory medicine assistant program director for quality at the Southeast Permanente Medical Group and the lead physician for the comprehensive weight management program at Kaiser Permanente Georgia.

Sanford A. Wallack 94L of Brookhaven represented the one defendant in the Atlanta Public School cheating trial who was acquitted of all charges.

Jeffrey E. Friedman 95C of Gainesville, Fla., is director of bariatric surgery at the University of Florida Shands Hospital.

Robert C. Goeltz II 95BBA of Hillsborough, Calif., is chief financial officer of CytomX Therapeutics.

Jeffrey S. Reznick 95G 99PHD of Derwood, Md., chief of the History of Medicine Division of the National Library of Medicine of the National Institutes of Health, received the 2015 Archivists and Librarians in the History of the Health Sciences best article award for “Embracing the Future as Stewards of the Past: Charting a Course Forward for Historical Medical Libraries and Archives.” The article appeared in the fall 2014 volume of RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage.

Abby Hope Spatz 95C 00MBA of New York, N.Y., is the chief marketing officer for NYC and Company, New York City’s marketing, tourism, and partnership organization.

W O R K I N G I T: B USI N ESS Dan Gordon 99BA 05MBA was appointed chief operating officer for the city of Atlanta by Mayor Kasim Reed in August. Gordon is responsible for oversight and executive management of the city’s operating departments, including aviation, fire, police, corrections, parks, recreation and cultural affairs, planning and community development, public works, and watershed management. Previously Gordon was senior operating executive at a Roark Capital portfolio company, where he led a national team in optimizing operations. He also held senior operating positions at the Arthur M. Blank Family of Businesses and The Home Depot. He also volunteers in leadership capacities at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and Grady Hospital.

register

ALUMNI BOARD WELCOMES MEMBERS, SUPPORTS STUDENTS

Making Us Proud: Emory Alumni Board Leadership Scholarship recipients (above from left) Lori Gosselin 16PH, Jessica Turner 16T, and Viktoriya Seredyuk 15OX 17C.

W ORK I NG I T: GRAD UAT E

TOM BRODNA X 65OX 68C

Krysia Wrobel Waldron 08G 10PhD is a social-organizational psychologist focusing on self-awareness and interpersonal behavior. For more than 10 years, Waldron has worked to help leaders address challenges, make decisions, and solve complex problems. Her clients have included Intercontinental Hotel Group, Georgia Power, Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, the Fulton County Board of Education, and more. Waldron also teaches executives in private training and at Goizueta Business School on a range of topics, including leadership development, emotional intelligence, coaching skills, group dynamics, and conflict management.

Damon E. Elmore 96L of Lithia Springs, who is president of the board of directors of the Georgia Legal Services Program, has biked across all 159 Georgia counties.

Emily Carrington Heath 96OX 98C of Exeter, N. H., is the senior pastor of the Congregational Church and a writer whose work is regularly featured in the Huffington Post.

Brian J. Freidman 97OX 99C of Cherry Hill, N.J., is the national sales manager for Starlink Telematics with Subaru of America.

Edwin Louis Peak 97M of Aiken, S.C., who specializes in joint replacement of the hip, knee, and shoulder, recently joined the Carolina Musculoskeletal Institute.

The Emory Alumni Board Leadership Scholarship was created in 2007 to recognize students whose actions, beliefs, and passion have improved the community in the arts or sciences, in academics or extracurricular pursuits, or through mentorship, social outreach, or other avenues.

This year’s recipients include Lori Gosselin 16PH, a member of the Theta Alpha Kappa Honor Society and actively collaborates with El Refugio, a hospitality house for families of detainees in Lumpkin, facilitating humanitarian visits with immigrants detained at Stewart Detention Center whose families or friends cannot visit.

Jessica Turner 16T is a leader of the Candler Committee on Race Equality (core), who was the principal organizer of the “die-in” on campus to draw awareness to issues of racial justice in policing and law enforcement.

Viktoriya Seredyuk 15OX 17C, a native of Lviv, Ukraine, served as Volunteer Oxford Project Coordinator for Hunger and Homelessness, and in March 2014, helped orchestrate an interfaith vigil for the people of Ukraine.

Kirt J. Greenburg 98MBA of Wheat Ridge, Colo., is the small and medium enterprise center director at the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, China.

Ken E. Hall 98T of Roswell is the author of the book entitled Stonewall Jackson and Religious Faith in Military Command.

Marc A. Huling 98C of Naples, Fla., a partner with the law firm Roetzel, is president of the Collier County Bar Foundation and president-elect of the Collier County Bar Association.

Xin Dang 99MBA of Parsippany, N.J., is global marketing director of allergy relief with GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare.

Jonathan J. Pritti 99BBA of Port Washington, N.Y., is a director with the Healthcare Group of Houlihan Lokey, an international investment bank.

Matthew B. Shapiro 99C of New York City works in strategic partnerships at Google.

2000s Tolton R. Pace 00C 02PH of Rex won $25,000 on May 26 as a contestant on the television program “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?”

Marie H. Silloway 00EMBA of New York, N.Y., is the chief brand equity and customer experience officer for Godiva Chocolatier.

Christina Sigmon Arnell 01PH of Morganton, N.C., is a consultant with Med Assets.

Paul J. Curley 01C of Bow, N.H., a certified financial adviser, recently relocated to Bow, N.H., with his wife, Danielle, and daughter, Claire Ann.

Join the Team: The Emory Alumni Board (EAB) welcomed eleven new members in September. Under the leadership of incoming EAB President Michele Davis 87C, the board will focus attention this year on supporting access and equity of experience for all students, exploring ways to strengthen connections through key touchpoints in the student-alumni continuum, and working with school alumni boards to advance shared initiatives. New members are (left to right) Corrine Abraham 85N, Laurie Speed 96C 99L, Meredith Ingram 03C 12A 12PH, Rosalie Collado 05B, Liza Evans 14OX 16B, Kareem Maddison 03L, Robert Oh 10B, and Munir Meghjani 08OX 10C. Not pictured: Eva Arkin 76C 80M 84MR, Carlyn Burton 02C 02G, and Doug Torbush 88D 89DR.

W O R K I N G I T: T H EO LO GY Parker Diggory 09T is the new director of religious and spiritual life at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York. Having grown up near Skidmore, this seems like a homecoming, but with a new objective. Diggory said that she is “most looking forward to getting to know the students, and working together to raise awareness about religious and spiritual life.” She also is looking forward to helping “keep questions of faith, tradition, and spirituality in the conversations that happen on campus.” Diggory also is a PhD candidate in Hebrew Bible at Emory.

Qi He 01MBA of Shanghai, China is executive vice president of operations and strategy for ShangPharma.

Julie Hutchings Mayo 01C 02PH of Houston, Texas, is a partner of the global legal practice Norton Rose Fulbright US where she focuses on the development, financing, acquisition, and disposition of energy and infrastructure projects.

Amy Beth Siegel 01L of Wellington, Fla., a partner focusing on workers’ compensation defense in the West Palm Beach office of the law firm of Kelley Kronenberg, was recognized as a Florida Super Lawyer Rising Star. Siegel is serving a three-year term on the Board of Directors for the Susan G. Komen, South Florida Affiliate and received the Susan G. Komen South Florida

AUTUMN 2015

magazine

47

register W ORK I NG I T: L AW Omeed Malik 06L is a managing director and head of Americas Prime Brokerage Distribution at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where he founded and leads the Emerging Manager Program within the Global Equities Department. Malik is charged with selecting the premier hedge fund launches for the firm to partner with to provide financing, business consulting, and capital strategy resources. Prior to joining Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Malik was a senior vice president at MF Global. He also served as a corporate lawyer at Weil, Gotshal & Manges and has worked in the United States Senate and House of Representatives.

Affiliate 2015 Extra Mile Award for Volunteerism.

Maureen A. Sweatman 01T 11MEMBA of Decatur is director of finance and operations at the International Community School.

Lisa Angus 02PH of Happy Valley, Ore., received the Australian-American Health Policy Fellowship from the Commonwealth Fund to study integrated systems of care in Australia. Angus and her partner, Kari B. Greene 02PH, began this work in Australia in September 2015.

Sung Che Lam 02T of Tin Shui Wai, Hong Kong, who is senior pastor at Ward Memorial Methodist Church, was installed for a two-year term as president of the Methodist Church, Hong Kong.

Charles L. Abney III 03MBA of Atlanta, a director, portfolio manager, and member of the Investment Policy Committee with ZWJ Investment Counsel, is chairman of the board of the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.

Colleen R. Fanning 03C of Indianapolis, Ind., who manages GreyMarketWine.com and the Back Room for tastings, was elected to the Indianapolis City-County Council in November.

Susan A. Irick 04N of Cleveland, a nurse and sepsis and pneumonia disease manager at Northeast Georgia Medical Center, was honored by the Sepsis Alliance in September 2015 in New York City as a Sepsis Hero for her work in raising awareness of sepsis.

Adam C. Kramer 04BBA of New York City, N.Y., is an investment analyst at LionEye Capital Management.

Stephanie A. McDuffie 04BBA of Chicago is director of business strategy for Charles Schwab.

Gregg P. Strauss 04C of Charlottesville, Va., joined the University of Virginia School of Law as an associate professor of law. His area of expertise is family law, jurisprudence, and philosophy.

Brian J. Wolfe 04C of Chappaqua, N.Y., is a partner of the law firm Davis Polk in their corporate department where he concentrates his practices on mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, and related matters.

Mary Katherine Bakun Gohman 05MBA of Bronxville, N.Y., is a DVP for North American Integrated Marketing for Coach.

Charles Goodman 05T of Augusta, pastor of Tabernacle Baptist Church where the church has grown from 1,800 to more than 5,000 members under his seven years of leadership, was recognized by the Augusta Metro Chamber of Commerce and Augusta Magazine as one of Augusta’s 10 most outstanding young professionals.

Matthew G. Hoppenstedt 05C of New York City, N.Y., is merchandise manager for men’s shoes in the New York buying office of Ross Stores, a discount retail chain.

Rhiannon L. Hubert 05OX 07C of Atlanta, who was formerly director of orientation and an academic adviser

48

magazine A U T U M N 2 0 1 5

at Emory College, was promoted in July to assistant dean and director of student involvement and leadership at Oxford College where she will oversee the college’s highly regarded leadership programs.

Ryan W. Lennie 05MBA of New Castle, Pa., is a managing director for Wilshire Consulting.

Tam’ra Osborne Powell 05MBA of Atlanta is manager of US advertising at Delta Air Lines.

James Juan Hua Shen 05MEMBA of Shanghai, China, is Head of Controlling–China for Metro Cash and Carry.

Lauren A. Tanenebaum 05C of New York, N.Y., who received a master’s degree in public administration from New York University, manages the implementation of electronic health records software at the Hospital for Special Surgery.

Lauren Fernandez 06MBA 06L of Atlanta is the principal of the Fernandez Company, which provides growth solutions for the food and hospitality industry. Fernandez was named the 2015 Woman of the Year for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society for which she raised more than $100,000.

WORKI N G I T: M EDI CI N E Samuel Funt 10M is a secondyear Medical Oncology Fellow at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, NY. Funt and an Emory School of Medicine classmate, Zwade Marshall 05C 11MBA 11M 12MR, founded the Emory University Pipeline Program, a multi-tiered, interdisciplinary mentorship and health science education program connecting South Atlanta School of Health and Medical Science students with Emory undergraduate, graduate, public health, and medical students. The program has become a model for similar programs around the country. Funt performed his residency at New York Presbyterian Hospital/ Columbia, where he served as chief resident.

Garrett R. Kyle 06MBA of Shanghai, China, is a human resources generalist for Shanghai American School.

Brooke P. Marshall 07C of Raleigh, N.C., is a Peace Corps volunteer working in Malawi where she is helping students apply to universities abroad through the MasterCard Foundation Scholars Program. She even does crowdfunding projects (www.gofundme.com/vf2wg8s) to drum up financial support for the students.

Veronica Mears Meagher 07L of New York, N.Y., is a vice president and assistant general counsel for Goldman Sachs where she focuses on legal matters in the securities division.

Anna E. Altizer 08C 13L of Atlanta is an associate with the law firm of BakerHostetler. Altizer focuses her real estate practice on health care–related leasing and acquisitions, commercial acquisitions, finance, and development.

William S. Cossen Jr. 08C of Decatur, a doctoral candidate in history at Penn State University, is a history teacher at the Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science, and Technology. Cossen became a three-time Jeopardy champion in September 2014.

Jenny L. Evans 08OX 10C of Atlanta is an associate in the Domestic Relations and Family Law Practice Group of the law firm of Davis, Matthews, and Quigley.

Kevvin J. Hankins 08T of Snellville, who is a teacher and youth pastor, is working on a doctoral degree from Liberty University.

Michael J. Rothbart 08BBA of New York, N.Y., is a credit analyst at Oak Hill Advisors, an investment firm. Rothbart

is the chair of the board of United Hatzalah of Israel, a volunteer medical emergency corps based in Jerusalem.

Laura McAlister Summers 08L of Atlanta is an attorney with the law firm of Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak, and Stewart.

Katherine C. Zubko 08PHD of Asheville, N.C., is the author of the book named Dancing Bodies of Devotion: Fluid Gestures in Bharata Natyam. Zubko won an award for scholarly and creative achievement for her research on this subject during the past five years.

Peng Guo 09PHD of Bronx, N.Y., is the codirector of the analytical imaging facility at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He spearheaded two NIH grants and secured funding for the facility in 2013 and 2014.

Jinran Tang 09MBA of Los Angeles, Calif., is an investment analyst with Benson America Investment.

Dan Wang 09MBA 09PH of Franklin Lakes, N.J., was promoted to WW director of clinical research in the Corporate Clinical Development area of Becton Dickinson.

Jolie L. Weber 09EMBA of Kennesaw is the chief executive officer for Wise Foods.

2010s Aderonke Adebiyi 10MBA of Starkville, Miss., will be relocating to Amsterdam to assume new network strategy duties with Delta Air Lines.

Quan Hu 10MBA of Shanghai, China is the chief operating officer of Chetuan.com.

Jongmin Kim 10OX 14C of Kearney, Neb., is an international education enrollment and recruitment specialist at the University of Nebraska at Kearney.

Dametria D. Mustin 10EvMBA of Mableton is the senior sales and marketing manager with Pur Minerals.

Ping Zhang 10MBA of Shanghai, China is a marketing manager with Johnson & Johnson.

Nathan S. Brill 11L of Potomic, Md., is an associate in the Washington office of the law firm of Kelley, Drye, and Warren.

Quadaffi Gaither 11MBA of Smyrna is a consultant with Slalom Consulting.

Ruth Anne Geiger 11OX 13C 15PH of Covington is a farm apprentice at Oxford College. In this role, she will assist Daniel Parson, farmer and educator, in all aspects of the Oxford organic farm operations including field work, marketing, and interacting with student workers.

Y. Grace Ha 11L of Atlanta, an attorney specializing in

W O R K I N G I T: N UR SI NG Barbara E. Crane 78MN is the 2015 recipient of the Barfield Nursing Section Award from the Georgia Public Health Association.

The award recognizes her work in breast cancer genomics, especially through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cooperative agreement, “Enhancing Breast Cancer Genomics through Education, Surveillance, and Policy.” She coauthored a paper with Emory, Georgia CORE, and Georgia Department of Public Health (GDPH) experts on the results of implementing new screening approaches for hereditary breast and ovarian cancers that are now a nationwide model of care. A nurse-midwife for thirty years, Crane is now deputy director for prevention, screening, and treatment in the GDPH’s chronic disease section.

register

Making Lives Better E MOR Y MEDA L I S T S SHOW SUPP OR T, L E A DER SHIP IN T HEIR FIEL D S

COUR TE S Y OF E A A

The emory alumni association welcomed two new members—Paul McLarty 63C 66L and Cecil Wilson 57C 61M—to the ranks of Emory Medalists, recipients of the highest honor bestowed on alumni, this fall.

With more than a combined century of service to Emory and their communities, McLarty and Wilson each have made innumerable contributions to improve the lives of others.

Inspired by Students The needs of students have long inspired McLarty to become a benefactor through scholarship, mentorship, and leadership in law as well as in education.

“We decided several years ago that our giving to Emory would be focused on scholarships,” he says. McLarty and his wife of forty-one years, Ruth, established scholarships at Emory’s School of Law and Emory College, and also contribute to the Emory Alumni Board Leadership Scholarship. “It’s been really great to see kids get benefits from that.”

An undergrad rock star with the band Mac Davis and the Fabulous Cots in the 1960s, McLarty went on to acceptance at Emory Law School. “I decided to put my head into the wind and study, and I discovered the Dean’s List and places I hadn’t spent much time before,” says McLarty, who later became senior partner of the firm McLarty, Robinson and Van Voorhies.

“Through the years, we’ve employed twentysix Emory undergrads as paid interns in our office,” McLarty says. “It’s been great watching them grow up and succeed.”

The Emory chapter of Alpha Tau Omega (ATO) stands as an example to the national fraternity due in great part to McLarty’s involvement and influence. He now serves on the ATO Foundation Board and has served as alumni adviser to the group for twenty-five years. McLarty invested time in rebuilding a previously failing chapter. Today, ATO at Emory consistently wins awards, and “since 2007 we have been our national organization top chapter three times.”

McLarty is a past president of the Emory Alumni Board and remains involved with university activities. He and his wife enjoy continued contact with Emory students.

“It keeps you on your toes,” he says.

A Leader in the Global Medical Field “Being able to treat disease, to help people out, and to solve their problems was a very important part of what I wanted to be involved in,” says Wilson of his career in medicine.

Attending Emory was a family tradition, and Wilson believes his education at Emory was about “scholarship, the question of what you need to know, and how you learn how to find what you need to know.”

Following medical school, with his high school sweetheart-turned-wife Betty Jane Webb Wilson 58C, Wilson embarked on a career in private practice medicine and governance. His experience was marked by pivotal moments. In 1967, the U.S.S. Pueblo was captured by North Korea and its crewmembers imprisoned. Upon their release a year later, Wilson was part of the team that evaluated the crew as they came ashore. Such early experiences with treating posttraumatic stress disorder shaped Wilson’s perspective on the value of health care.

Upon completing navy service in 1971, Wilson established an internal medicine practice in Winter Park, Florida. As his career progressed, “It occurred to me that, as a physician, just seeing patients wasn’t enough. We needed to be involved with the system, the structure,” he says. “I entered the field of organized medicine.”

As incoming president of the American Medical Association (AMA) in 2010, Wilson reported on the passage of the Affordable Care Act. “What it meant was that tens of thousands of people were able to have insurance so they would be able to live longer, be happy, and work well. For me and all of the people involved in the AMA, this was a very important part of our participation,” he says.

Among other leadership roles, Wilson served as president of the World Medical Association, during which he traveled to six continents, sixteen countries, and twenty-six nations, setting an example of leadership and service to communities around the world.

His thoughts on retirement are clear.

“I need to keep doing what I’m doing,” he says.

With more than a combined century of service to Emory and their communities, Paul McLarty (top) and Cecil Wilson each have made innumerable contributions to improve the lives of others.

AUTUMN 2015

magazine

49

register

ALUMNI INK

America the Beautiful george alexander grant is an unknown elder in the field of American landscape photography. As with the work of his contemporaries Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Eliot Porter, and others, millions of people have viewed Grant’s photographs, but few even knew Grant’s name. In Landscapes for the People, Ren Davis 73C and Helen Davis 89G share Grant’s story through his remarkable images and a compelling biography profiling patience, perseverance, dedication, and an unsurpassed love of the natural and historic places that Americans chose to preserve. A Pennsylvania native, Grant was introduced to the parks during summer 1922 and resolved to make parks work and photography his life. In 1929 he received his dream job and spent the next quarter century visiting the four corners of the country to produce images in more than one hundred national parks, monuments, historic sites, battlefields, and other locations. Nearly fifty years after his death, and in concert with the 2016 centennial of the National Park Service, George Grant’s photography is introduced to a new generation of Americans in this elegant book.

B E MY N E I G H B O R : Take an eco-friendly, highstrung, type-A neighbor; a demanding Italian matriarch; men who are the embodiment of the words “more power;” a troop of loving and mischievous kids; and mix in two gay men who are hell-bent on making a home out of a charming, half-million-dollar, one hundred-year-old fixer-upper, and you have Life on Altamont Court. First-time author Trent Pines 03B weaves the tale of the mayhem and mishaps that happen when this potpourri of eccentric characters live within a stone’s throw of each other.

F R E E D O M F L I G H T: The spectacular 1848 escape of William and Ellen Craft from slavery in Macon, Georgia, is a dramatic story in the annals of American history. Ellen Craft, who could pass for white, disguised herself as a gentleman slaveholder and William Craft accompanied her as his “master’s” devoted slave valet. They traveled openly by train, steamship, and carriage to arrive in free Philadelphia on Christmas Day. In Love, Liberation, and Escaping Slavery, Barbara McCaskill 86G 88PhD revisits this dual escape and examines the collaborations and partnerships that characterized the Crafts’ activism for the next thirty years: in Boston, where they were on the run again after the passage of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law; in England; and in Reconstruction-era Georgia.

Borne of the author’s curiosity about the Confederate general buried in his adopted hometown of Gainesville, James Longstreet Before Manassas & After Appomattox by Gordon Sawyer 50G is a historical examination of Longstreet’s life both before and after the Civil War. Called a “must-read” by Richard Pilcher, founding president of the Longstreet Society, who says, “It gives new and well-documented information about his boyhood in Georgia and Alabama, about his decisions in New Orleans, about his dedication to the Republican cause, and about his final years in Gainesville, Georgia.”

H I S T O R I C A L R E CO R D :

50

magazine A U T U M N 2 0 1 5

M O N S T R O U S TA L E : Vampires and werewolves and zombies—oh my!

It’s a monster invasion, and the stinkysmelling creatures in Mind Your Monsters

by Catherine Guthrie Bailey 99C are destroying Wally’s peaceful little town.

They scare the kids, knock over the lampposts, and make a mess of everything.

And no one can stop them—until, fed up, Wally says the magic word, “Please.” Learning good manners has never been as monstrously fun as in the author’s first children’s picture book for children ages four to eight— or “anyone who likes a little please and thank you.”

P R E J U D I C I A L P U N I S H M E N T: Often seen as a political concession to the racial fears of white voters, aggressive policing and draconian sentencing for illegal drug possession and related crimes have led to the imprisonment of millions of African Americans, far in excess of their representation in the population as a whole. In Black Silent Majority: The Rockefeller Drug Laws and the Politics of Punishment, Michael Javen Fortner 01C gives an eye-opening account of how these punitive policies also enjoyed the support of many working-class and middle-class blacks, who were angry about decline and disorder in their communities. Black Silent Majority uncovers the role African Americans played in creating today’s system of mass incarceration.

C H E R I S H E D CO R R E S P O N D E N C E : In the midst of America’s terrifying Pacific War with Japan in 1944, a young navy lieutenant met a pretty university coed at an informal party. They spent the next fourteen evenings together, falling in love in the San Francisco Bay area. Separated by circumstances and the Sierra Nevada Mountains, they stayed connected with love letters as he performed his duties as barracks officer at Naval Air Station, Alameda, and she began her year as president of the senior class at the University of Nevada. Vaughn Davis Bornet 39C 40G was that young lieutenant and the young lady was his future wife, Beth Winchester Bornet. Now in his late nineties, Bornet shares in Lovers in Wartime: 1944 to 1945 more than one hundred and fifty of those love letters plus insightful essays that illustrate the background of chaos and devastation, which always threatened to cut their early love affair short.

W I L D C H I L D : A star athlete in his high school, Ken Hall 98T enjoyed his status and had ambitious plans for his future, but his life was soon to take an unexpected turn. Or two. Or three. And nothing in his sheltered suburban upbringing had prepared him to face adversity. Synced to the soundtrack of the decadent 1970s, One Man Alone tells of Hall’s rebellious days during high school and college and the subsequent, unexpected events that changed everything for him. Hall shares his honest recollections in the hope that it will resonate for teens, parents, and anyone else who has struggled to find a place and purpose in life.

register W ORK I NG I T: PUB L IC H E ALT H Jennifer “Jenny” Albertini 04MPH is the senior HIV/ AIDS technical adviser on the Africa Bureau’s Health Team at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Washington, D.C. In this role, she focuses on how the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) policies get implemented in the field and how African AIDS programs are supported. Albertini has seven years of experience working in the field in Africa, first in Zambia and then in Swaziland. In the Zambia, she was the point-of-contact for male circumcision activities for PEPFAR. In Swaziland she served as the PEPFAR country director and prevention adviser. international commercial arbitration, is the first recipient of the AtlAS Fellowship, which is named in honor of the Atlanta Arbitration Society. Ha will work at the Atlanta Center for International Arbitration and Mediation, a partner with the Georgia State University College of Law at their new facility in downtown where she will host international arbitrations and mediations.

Daniel L. Ledford 11OX 13C of Atlanta is an administrative assistant to the Signature Programs, Student–toAlumni Programs, Career Services, and International Programs teams at the Emory Alumni Association.

Kevin B. McIntosh 11OX 13C of Frederick, Md., is a coordinator specializing in the third-year experience in the Office of Residence Life at Emory University.

Kinsey E. McMurtry 11OX 13C 15PH of Lawrenceville is the health promotion coordinator for Gwinnett, Newton, and Rockdale County Health Departments.

Allison Dwyer Rothbart 11BBA of New York, N.Y., is an interior designer who operates Avenue Design Group, a residential and commercial design firm in New York and East Northport that also provides to stage homes that are on the market.

Jonathan S. Schultz 11PH of Aurora, Colo., who received a doctor of medicine degree on May 15 from the University of Iowa, is a resident in internal medicine and pediatrics at the University of Colorado–Denver.

Brock A. Wester 11PHD of Catonsville, Md., works as a biomedical engineer at Johns Hopkins.

Lauren A. Westin 11EvMBA of Atlanta is director of global digital strategy for Johnson & Johnson.

Rebecca Ludvigsen Anderson 12PH of Atlanta is an epidemiologist with the American Cancer Society.

Philip W. Laird 12MR of Jupiter, Fla., is associated with Retina Care Specialists in Palm Beach Gardens.

C. Kenneth McGill II 12T of Meridian, Miss., is the senior pastor at Andrew Chapel United Methodist Church.

Kathryn Wilkins Brockman 13T of Atlanta was appointed in June 2015 as pastor in charge to the Colbert Comer Circuit of the North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church.

Jennifer L. Capouya 13EMBA of Atlanta is a deputy chief investment officer with SunTrust Bank.

Farah El-Behadli 13BBA of Atlanta is a digital project manager with the Nebo Agency.

Ismael Loera Fernandez 13C has been chosen as one of 30 recipients of the 2015 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans, the premier graduate school fellowship for immigrants and children of

immigrants. Loera Fernandez, who double majored in chemistry and economics at Emory, is pursuing a PhD in chemistry at Rice University in Houston where the Soros Fellowship will support his postgraduate research on synthesizing bismuth carboxylate complexes, which have antibacterial and antiparasitic applications. Loera Fernandez came to the United States at age eleven when his parents made the difficult decision to leave their lives and family in Mexico to try to provide a better life for their family. While at Emory, Loera Fernandez’s status as an undocumented immigrant changed when he became a recipient of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), allowing him to apply to graduate school. His senior thesis at Emory on using the research of Emory faculty to teach chemistry undergraduates earned him magna cum laude honors.

Christina Heddesheimer 13L of Dallas, Texas, a tax attorney, is a senior associate for KPMG’s mergers and acquisitions practice.

Christopher J. Szarke 13T of Ithaca, N.Y., was appointed rector of St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church in Belfast, Maine, on July 7.

James C. Ventrees 13T of Louisville, Ky., is the pastor of Bethany United Methodist Church.

Ajay Uppaluri 14MBA of San Diego, Calif., is a senior consultant with Deloitte Consulting.

Ana Maria Visoiu-Knapp 14PH of Honolulu, Hawaii, is an HIV Partner Services Coordinator for the State of Hawaii Department of Health.

Matthew P. Cavedon 15L 15T of Alexandria, Va., is a constitutional litigator at the Institute for Justice in Arlington.

Marian H. Creasy 15PH of Washington, D.C., is an analyst with Abt Associates in Bethesda, Md. Hyun Ju Gil 15T 16T of Duluth is a Korean teacher at the Johns Creek Korean Church.

AUTUMN 2015

magazine

51

register Jaesung Ryu 15T of Decatur is a resident chaplain at Emory University Hospital.

Peter R. Schwartz 15EMBA of Clarkston is a consultant for the Entertainment, Media, and Communications sector with PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Rui Wu 15MBA of Decatur is a consultant with the Alexander Group.

Kristina Euwer Cossen 18FM is a pediatric endocrinology fellow at Emory University.

DEATHS

am

1930s Harold F. McDuffie Jr. 38C 39G of Knoxville, Tenn., on June 7, 2015. Emory survivors: Winifred Groover McDuffie 51N, Kurt C. McDuffie 71C, and Andrea Sweetman McDuffie 72C. •Marion B. Davis Jr. 39C 42M of Mableton on May 23, 2015.

1940s Jean Johnson Givens 40C 42G 62MN of Decatur on June 1, 2015. Emory survivor: Julianne Givens Goecke 69C 77L.•Juanita C. Schmierer 41N of Sun City, Fla., on May 28, 2015.• Arthur W. Bishop 42BBA of Roswell on July 26, 2015. • R. Linton Cox 42C 46G of Milledgeville on Jan. 7, 2011. • Mary Durham Barfield 43BSN of Augusta on May 7, 2014. • William C. Elam Jr. 43C of Jacksonville, Fla., on May 20, 2015. • Wade P. Huie Jr. 43C of Atlanta on May 30, 2015. • William G. McLees 43D of Dublin on July 4, 2015. • Royce E. Cheek 44OX of Mableton on Jan. 17, 2015.

•Charles Freeman Jr. 44OX of Augusta on July 1, 2015. •William H. Nichols Jr. 44OX of Canton on July 12, 2015. • Edwards C. Whatley 44C 46M of Rome on July 19, 2015. Emory survivor: James C. Whatley 76M 79MR. •Arthur M. Blood 45M of Orlando on July 8, 2015. •Mitchell B. Wells 45D of Canton, Miss., on April 27, 2015. • F. William Dowda 46C 48M of Smyrna on May 15, 2015. •Conrad Kinard 46C 49M of Denton, Texas, on Feb. 19, 2015. •Virginia Ashe Moody 46N of Snellville on Jan. 29, 2015. •Hal L. Dean 47C 48G of Fairfax, Va., on Nov. 1, 2014.

•Harry A. Nix 47BBA of Atlanta on July 11, 2015.

•Basil A. Wapensky 47BBA of Dunwoody on June 9, 2015. Emory survivors: H. Burton Trimble Jr. 44C and Lawrence A. Wapensky 59C.• James H. Williams 47BBA of Decatur on July 12, 2015. •H. Duane Blair 48OX 50C 54M 58MR of Stone Mountain on Aug. 19, 2015. •Delmar E. Bruce 48BBA of Gainesville on July 4, 2015. •Hiram M. Jackson 48D of Milledgeville on June 30. 2015. •Charles S. Quimby 48C of Bradenton, Fla., on Dec. 29, 2014. •Edward G. Roberts 48G of Atlanta on July 29, 2015. •Jane Mallet Settle 48G of Jackson on Dec. 13, 2014. Emory survivor: Nancy E. Settle 75C 79L. •John B. Settle 48BBA of Jackson on May 17, 2015. Emory survivor: Nancy E. Settle 75C 79L. •Louis G. Sherman Jr. 48C of Atlanta on Aug. 17, 2015. Emory survivors: Frederick H. Colen 75L and Frederick H. Colen Jr. 98BBA. •Richard G. Simmons 48OX of Kissimmee, Fla., on March 19, 2013. •Jean Grant Andrews 49G of Philadelphia, Pa., on July 21, 2012. •Solomon K. Brown 49C of Matthews, N.C., on July 9, 2015. •Warren H. Brune 49M of Columbia, S.C., on Dec. 3, 2014. •Olen E. Duncan 49C of Norcross on June 19, 2015. • Denny L. Fringer Jr. 49C of Lynchburg, Va., on May 9, 2015. •Robert P. Swenson 49C 54D of Marietta on July 18, 2015.

52

magazine A U T U M N 2 0 1 5

1950s

1960s

Kenneth A. Howard 50L of Dunwoody on June 26, 2015. • John J. Miller 50T of Lake Junaluska, N.C., on May 11, 2015. •Paul H. Miller 50C of Arlington, Texas, on June 3, 2015. •Benjamin S. Shippen 50L of Atlanta on June 7, 2015. •David K. Switzer 50T of Shreveport, La., on May 1, 2015. •Summie M. Thomas Jr. 50OX of Columbus on June 15, 2015. • Joseph P. Baugus 51BBA of Winterville on Feb. 6, 2015.• Herbert W. Hammond Jr. 51C of Pompano Beach, Fla., on June 29, 2014. • Jack D. Haynes 51OX 53C of Atlanta on May 29, 2015. •Ree Mills Howe 51BSN of Atlanta on July 25, 2015. Emory survivor: Adam Mills Masarek 07C 10L. • A. Burney Huff 51MR of Wooster, Ohio, on July 1, 2015. Emory survivors: Frederick W. Bistline Jr. 72C and Rabun Huff Bistline 72C. •George S. Moore Jr. 51C of McDonough on June 9, 2015. • Jennie Fletcher Wright 51N of Orlando on Feb. 18, 2015. •William S. Dingledine 52FM of Richmond, Va., on Aug. 4, 2014.

•Ernest L. Holley Jr. 52C of Stone Mountain on June 11, 2015. • Ernest C. Hynds Jr. 52C of Athens on Aug. 17, 2015. • Charles E. Jolly Jr. 52BBA of North Little Rock, Ark., on June 13, 2014. • Othniel W. McGehee Sr. 52L of Macon on July 1, 2015. • Alan J. Serrins 52C of Atlanta on May 23, 2015. • John L. Snellgrove 52C of Fairhope, Ala., on June 29, 2015. • Carl L. Welch Jr. 52BBA of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., on Dec. 11, 2014.

•Edward G. Brewer 53C of Atlanta on Dec. 11, 2014.

• Charmione Rose Jones 53G of Deland, Fla., on May 21, 2015. •John D. Kelly 53C of Thomasville on July 8, 2015. Emory survivor: Lee E. Kelly Jr. 50C. • John B. Lastinger 53BBA of Valdosta on May 28, 2015. • Betty Claire Cooper Neill 53G of Thomasville on June 6, 2014. • J. Evans Nichols 53C of Marietta on Aug. 9, 2015. • Frank T. Stoff Jr. 53T of Lakeland, Fla., on June 13, 2015. •James R. Styles 53T of Atlanta on Aug. 13, 2015. Emory survivor: Barbra E. Styles 60C. •Kenneth A. Towe 53C of Gulf Breeze, Fla., on Feb. 25, 2015. • Christopher J. Walker Jr. 53M of Gillsville on May 15, 2015. • James W. Walker Jr. 53L of Carrollton on Jan. 29, 2013. Emory survivors: James W. Walker III 74C 83L, Diane H. Walker 75C, Stephen H, Kahler 78OX 80C 84M 89MR, Caroline W. Kahler 79OX 81C, Michael P. Walker Jr. 99C, Logan K. Walker 03C, Elliot H. Kahler 13C, and Ian J. Kahler 17L. •Jack A. Bell Sr. 54D of Centerville on July 15, 2015. • William H. Granberry 54T of Venice, Fla., on June 18, 2015. • James B. Griffin 54OX 56C of Owasso, Okla., on Aug. 28, 2015. •Joseph J. Hauser 54T of Burlington, N.C., on Dec. 8, 2014.• Lawrence E. Lamb 54FM of San Antonio, Texas, on July 3, 2015. •Spencer F. Maddox Jr. 54C of Gray on July 1, 2015. •Spencer W. Overstreet Jr. 54BBA of Snellville on July 12, 2015. Emory survivor: Michael S. Overstreet 76OX 78BBA. •R. Harold Strader 54T of Hurdle Mills, N.C., on Dec. 29, 2014.

Emory survivor: Carolyn M. Strader 52G.•Charles E. Frazier 55C 58T of Evanston, Ill., on Sept. 17, 2014.

•Robert B. Kirk 55C 57D of St. Petersburg, Fla., on Feb. 5, 2015. •Sale T. Lilly Jr. 55T of Canton, Miss., on May 18, 2015.• L.E. Buzarde Jr. 56G of Dutch John, Utah, on July 20, 2015. •Morton A. Harris 56BBA of Columbus on Aug. 3, 2015. Emory survivors: Wendelin Fay Harris Greenberg 82C and Frank B. Wilensky 65C 68L. •Daniel E. Kirk 56PHD of New London, N.C., on Dec. 13, 2014. •George W. Davis 57M of Nashville, Tenn., on March 11, 2015.• Theodore J. Kopkin 57G of Atlanta on May 30, 2015. •Janice Warren Edwards 58BSN of Kennesaw on Feb. 1, 2015.• Boyce Huffstetler 58T of Mooresville, N.C., on Feb. 9, 2015. •R. Daniel Nable 58D of Atlanta on July 5, 2015. •Donald B. Collins 59C of Williamson on May 14, 2015. •Jewell Y. Croom 59G of Roswell on June 12, 2015.• Leon E. Curry 59C 62M of Metter on June 8, 2015.• Robert C. Gillespie 59T of Evans on June 3, 2015. •Chandler R. Monk 59C of Moultrie on Feb. 8, 2015. • Allen D. Nichols 59BBA of St. Simons Island on May 21, 2015.

Jolyn Hunt Abbott 60OX of Savannah on June 10, 2015. •Tommy D. Gilbert Sr. 60T of Meridian, Miss., on June 17, 2015. •Paul R. Lamb Jr. 60BBA of Macon on May 13, 2015. •John S. Langer Jr. 60D of Hollywood, Fla., on Aug. 15, 2015. •Larry D. Mabile 60DR of San Diego, Calif., on Jan. 25, 2014. •Walter G. Reed 60G of Lancaster, Pa., on Dec. 29, 2014.

Emory survivor: Patsy Woodson Reed 57BSN. •Jerry D. Tate 60G of San Gabriel, Calif., on May 16, 2015. • Edith Munro Bairdain 61PHD of Marietta on June 8, 2015. •James E. Clark Jr. 61C 68D of Franklin, N.C., on July 6, 2015. •Cecil W. Dudley 61T of Covington on July 7, 2015.• William D. Willcox Jr. 61BBA of Fitzgerald on May 17, 2015. •Saul Zigel 61MR of Pikesville, Md., on April 24, 2015. •Nell G. Altizer 62G of Port Townsend, Wash., on June 14, 2015. •Richard M. Hagood 62C 66M 70MR of Powder Springs on June 13, 2015.• Aleck G. Poolos 62T of Marietta on July 24, 2015. •William L. Rhoads 62T of Tallahassee on July 6, 2015. •Mary A. Binns 63G of Atlanta on July 11, 2015.

•Harriett Helton Gaudino 63MN of Wytheville, Va., on Aug. 7, 2015. •Mike Hopkins 63C 65G of Atlanta on April 4, 2015.• William R. Wells 63T of Johnson City, Tenn., on May 20, 2015. •Philip L. Green 64T of Denver, Colo., on Feb. 27, 2015.• Michael E. Lowrey 64FM 65MR of Fort Myers, Fla., on May 14, 2015.

•Robert A. Marshall 64BBA 67L of Duluth on June 13, 2104. Emory survivor: Angela Marshall Pagenstecher 90C. •Robert A. Pardue 64T of Knoxville, Tenn., on April 10, 2015. • James W. Tinney 64T of Urbanna, Va., on April 5, 2015. • Monda S. Wade 64BSN of Toledo, Ohio, on July 28, 2015. • Ardeshir Azar 65MR of Thousand Oaks, Calif., on June 9, 2015. • Larry E. Cook 65T of Valrico, Fla., on Dec. 21, 2014.• Rawson Foreman 65L of Atlanta on June 23, 2015. •Thomas R. Kimball 65C of Fitzgerald on July 11, 2015. •John M. Trent 65G of Landrum, S.C., on Oct. 29, 2009. • Anita C. Henry 66C 68G of Ajijic, Mexico, on March 31, 2015.• Harold W. Lyda 66T of Atlanta on July 1, 2015.• Wood Smethurst 66G of Atlanta on July 14, 2015. Emory survivor: William C. Smethurst 88OX. • John B. Williams III 66T of Murphys, Calif., on April 1, 2015. • Elizabeth G. Benjamin 67MN of Hattiesburg, Miss., on Dec. 24, 2014.• Herbert Gorod 67BBA of Charleston, S.C., on July 10, 2015. Emory survivor: Brianne J. Gorod 02C 02G.• Barron A. Meek 67OX 69C of Lexington, Ky., on June 28, 2015.• Richard F. Plant 67MR of Little Rock, Ark., on June 16, 2015. • J. Ray Blackwelder 68PHD of Kannapolis, N.C., on Jan. 6, 2013. • Douglas A. Bowling 68T of Greer, S.C., on Aug. 19, 2015. • Phyllis Costner Gillikin 68G of Martinsville, Va., on July 25, 2015. • Jeri Lynn Shearouse 68G of Frederick County, Va., on July 21, 2015.

1970s Mary Katherine Easley 70C of Graham, N.C., on June 5, 2015. • Norman E. McSwain Jr. 70MR of New Orleans, La., in August 2015.• C. Henderson Rasberry 70T of Ridgeland, Miss., on June 2, 2015. •Charles E. Whalen Jr. 70C of Gainesville on Jun 21, 2015. •Elynore Clark Cucinell 71MR of Honolulu, Hawaii, on April 15, 2015. • Mary Stuart McAskill Wiggins 71BSN of Kenner, La., on June 29, 2015. • Nancy Lennox Collis 72G of Washington, N.C., on July 3, 2015. Emory survivor: Paul K. Donaldson 08BBA. • Alfred D. Norris 72T of Montgomery, Ala., on Oct. 11, 2012. •Ronald O. Schwartz 72C 75M of Atlanta on July 19, 2015. • Elmer H. Harden Jr. 73M 76MR of McDonough on Aug. 24, 2008. •J. Armand Hotard 73D of Decatur on May 21, 2015. • C. Neil Kelley 73MR of Sautee Nacoochee on June 9, 2015. • Emma Buck Lee 73G of Fayetteville on Jun 17, 2015. • Rudolph McKinley Jr. 73C of Knoxville, Tenn., on April 6, 2014.• Nancy

YOUR FUTURE IS OUR BUSINESS EXPAND YOUR POTENTIAL TODAY

E MORY LEG AC Y PHOTOS: TOM BRODNA X 65OX 68C

EMORY EXECUTIVE EDUCATION equips leaders for the business challenges of today, and tomorrow. Through intensive in-person and online programs, individuals elevate their impact by fine-tuning leadership and business management competencies. Our programs utilize the acclaimed faculty of globally ranked Goizueta Business School as well as key industry experts. Experience the best Goizueta has to offer in one or more of our short, interactive programs.

Learn more about Emory’s innovative and engaging programs at EmoryExecEd.com.

AUTUMN 2015 winter2015_GBS_execed.indd 1

magazine

53

10/12/15 10:34 AM

register

TRIBUTE

Founding Director, Center for Ethics

54

magazine A U T U M N 2 0 1 5

his father’s preaching from an early age—exposure he credited to his emotional awakening and decision to dedicate his life to God. He graduated from Duke University and Drew Theological Seminary and earned a PhD in religion and society at Harvard University in 1971, with a focus in ethics and the sociology of religion. Following postdoctoral studies at the Center for Moral Development at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, he taught at Harvard Divinity School from 1969 to 1975 and at Boston College from 1975 to 1976.

Fowler joined the faculty of Emory’s Candler School of Theology in 1977, where he was named Candler Professor of Theology and Human Development in 1987. While at Emory, he also served as director of the Center for Research on Faith and Moral Development and as an ordained elder in the Western North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church.

Fowler is perhaps most widely recognized for his 1981 book, Stages of Faith. The groundbreaking work, which has become a staple text in theology programs worldwide, describes a developmental process of faith.

“He was the model of what an ethicist should be and how each of us should treat each other,” says Center for Ethics Director Paul Root Wolpe.

At 103, Oldest College Alumnus Myron Steves 34C liked to say he received a lot of credit just for having lived a long time.

Steves died August 29, seven weeks to the day after celebrating his 103rd birthday.

Born in Atlanta in 1912, Steves studied history at Emory, funding his education during the Great Depression working at a library, a movie palace, and the Emory University Hospital emergency room. He graduated in 1934 and began a forty-five-year career in insurance.

Steves was an accomplished whistler and ballroom dancer with his wife, and loved traveling around the world. He swam laps at the Briar Club, a private club in Houston, and worked out at the Pilates studio twice a week until he was 102. When asked about his secret to longevity, he would typically reply, “Well, I haven’t died yet.”

Fey Morris 73C of Chesapeake, Va., on Feb. 15, 2015.

Emory survivors: Maxie Denton Dunnam 58T and Jena Fey Knox 99C. • Robert F. Sullivan Jr. 73OX of Royston on June 16, 2015. Emory survivor: Robert F. Sullivan 46OX 47C 51M. •Terry D. Bilhartz 74G of Napa, Calif., on Dec. 12, 2014. • Patricia Wyatt Pedelty 74BSN of Grayson on June 26, 2015. • Frank Randle Jr. 74L of Germantown, Tenn., on Oct. 6, 2014. • Dale Durham Berns 76G of Wake Forest, N.C., on July 16, 2015. • Lawrence A. Creel 76T of Brandon, Miss., on May 9, 2015. •John F. Doran Jr. 76L of Dacula on March 2, 2013.• Thomas D. Hoard 76MR of Roswell on Aug. 2, 2015. • John J. Kazalski 76A of Boothbay Harbor, Maine, on March 6, 2015. •John F. Papazian 76C 81MBA of Hiawassee on June 5, 2015.

•Helen Caldwell Harriss 77G of Portland, Ore., on June 19, 2015. •Leonard M. Nielsen 77A of Riverside, Ala., on June 15, 2015.• Anne Phillips Hartje 78MBA of Jacksonville, Fla., on July 8, 2015. Emory survivors: Richard H. Hartje 78MBA, Robert A. Hartje 83MBA, and Amelia A. Hartje 19C. • Jerry W. McCant 78PHD of Snow Camp, N.C., on May 17, 2015. • Michael W. Reeves 78PHD of Bostwick on Feb. 25, 2015. •Stanley F. Smith 78OX of Thomasville on April 1, 2015. • Deborah Bledsoe Schuyler 79N of Charlottesville, Va., on Aug. 5, 2015.

FOWLER: EMORY CENTER FOR E THIC S; S T E V E S : C O U R T E S Y O F T H E S T E V E S F A M I LY

former emory center for ethics director James W. Fowler iii, an educator, ethicist, and distinguished theologian who won international acclaim for his pioneering research into faith development and practical theology, died Friday, October 16, after a battle with Alzheimer’s disease. Fowler, Charles Howard Candler Professor Emeritus of Theology and Human Development in Candler School of Theology, was seventy-five.

At Emory, Fowler helped found the Center for Ethics as its first full-time director, serving from 1994 until his retirement in 2005. Today, his impact still resonates at the center through ongoing programs, scholarship, and a legacy of inclusive leadership, says Kathy Kinlaw, who worked alongside Fowler as associate director of the Center for Ethics.

“Jim Fowler made it possible for the university to make the commitment that it has to the growth and vision for the Center for Ethics,” Kinlaw says. “He has impacted generations of scholars as an inspired thinker, friend, and mentor. He was a remarkable leader and human presence and an important personal figure of strength and kindness in the way he went about his work throughout his career,” she says. “His fingerprints are absolutely everywhere, and we are so thankful for this legacy.”

Born in North Carolina, Fowler was the son of a Methodist minister and wrote of being deeply affected by

register

O LD INVEST MENTS ...are like antiques.

They need care and attention to help retain their value. Allow us to review your old insurance policies, 401(k)s and annuities to make sure they are performing to help meet your present and future financial needs.

Mike Butts

Program Manager

404.486.4324 1237 Clairmont Road Decatur, GA 30030

Registered Representative of INVEST Financial Corporation, member FINRA/SIPC. INVEST and its affiliated insurance agencies offer securities, advisory services, and certain insurance products and are not affiliated with Alliance Retirement & Investment Services. Products offered are: • Not insured by the NCUA • not a deposit or other obligation or guaranteed by any credit union • subject to risks including the possible loss of principal amount invested. INVEST does not provide tax or legal advice. 0916.131529 Kling 85L of Dalton on July 10, 2015. •Nicia Mahle Martin 85OX of Covington on Aug. 1, 2015. • Leamon P. McWhorter 85T of Gadsden, Ala., on March 7, 2015.

•Joan Moore Harrison 86MN of Decatur on July 27, 2015. • Bennie Goodson 87A of Montgomery, Ala., on Aug. 17, 2015. • Larry L. Pearson 87T of Jenkinsburg on May 13, 2015. • Constance Demetracopoulos 88G of Decatur on July 15, 2015. • Catharine M. Moscatelli 88L of Alexandria, Va., on Feb. 18, 2015. •Pamela Byrd Womack 88A of Loganville on Jan. 4, 2011.

1990s Suzhanna M. Elam 90M 95MR of Atlanta on July 5, 2015. •Elna T. Phelan 91PH of State College, Pa., on July 31, 2014. • David H. Sholkoff 94C of Long Beach, Calif., on Aug. 14, 2015.• Linda Gary Miller 95A of Hammond, La., on May 6, 2015.• Carolina Papapietro Higginbotham 97C of Trussville, Ala., on June 10, 2015.• Zubin R. Khan 97MBA 97PH of New Rochelle, N.Y., on Dec. 20, 2014. • Rosanne Vendittelli 97A of Saugus, Mass., on Oct. 25, 2014.• Steven Josselson 98C of New City, N.Y., on June 15, 2015. • James Hart III 99BBA of Bronxville, N.Y., on June 8, 2015.

1980s Nilla Dudley Childs 80C of Winston Salem, N.C., on Dec. 25, 2014. • Debra DeBack-Wright 80MN of Tallahassee, Fla., on July 16, 2015. •Henrietta E. Greaver 80C of Atlanta on June 21, 2012. • W. Mansfield Jennings Jr. 80EMBA of Hawkinsville on June 23, 2015. •James D. Reep 80T of Waxhaw, N.C., on May 24, 2015. •Graham L.W. Simpson 80D 82DR of San Diego, Calif., on June 30, 2015. • Susan Aramony Kanelidis 81L of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on

April 8, 2013. Emory survivor: Nick B. Kanelidis 79L. • Jean French Russo 81T of Tampa, Fla., on Oct. 24, 2013. •Steven I. Goldstein 82PHD of Rutland, Mass., on June 26, 2015. • Glenn D. Hall 83MBA of Silver Bay, N.Y., on May 30, 2015. •Jeanne Roe Newbern 83D of Valdosta on May 9, 2015. Emory survivor: Jefferson L. Newbern III 81D 83DR. • Sally Rice Green 84MR of Atlanta on June 28, 2015. •Robert P. Levine 84MR of Seattle, Wash., on Dec. 26, 2014. •Deborah E. Brown 85M of Pacifica, Calif., on July 14, 2015. • Donald A. Brunton 85C of Conyers on Nov. 30, 2013. • Bruce A.

2000s Jonathan S. Bernson 02C of Waban, Mass., on May 25, 2015. Emory survivor: Norman Bernson 63C. •Jessica L. Newsome 09T of LaGrange on May 30, 2015.

2010s Morgan Amanda Fritzlen 12C of Atlanta on June 15, 2015. • Michael E. Capps Jr. 13L of Oviedo, Fla., on June 12, 2015.

A U T U M N

2015

magazine

55

register

Emory Holiday Buying Guide A LUM N I F I N D S U CC E S S I N B U S I N E S S E S F O C U S I N G O N F U N , F O O D, FA S H I O N , A N D F U N C T I O N A L I T Y Saving shaving There are certain things men talk about—sports, women, the hassle of buying razors. Michael Dubin 01C decided to turn his irritation with the “razor-buying experience” into a “no BS” business model that has flipped the shaving business on its head with his outrageously popular Dollar Shave Club (DSC). Dubin launched the membership-based, mail-delivery service in March 2012 with a YouTube video (see it at dollarshaveclub.com) that quickly went viral. The company’s humorous advertising and memberfocused marketing has gained it a loyal following. In addition to several types of razor blades, dsc also sells its own line of non-razor products including Dr. Carver’s Easy Shave Butter, One Wipe Charlie’s personal wipes, Dr. Carver’s Magnanimous Post Shave, Dr. Carver’s Miracle Repair Serum, and, most recently, Boogie’s, a new line of hair styling products. “We’re here to solve problems for guys,” Dubin says. “Men are frustrated. dsc wants to eliminate that frustration.” Products are available at dollarshaveclub.com.

Playtime Eddie Kovel 13B, founder and CEO of Playout, conceptualized Playout: The Game based on a single guiding principle: “Everyone wants to be fit, but few of us enjoy the process of getting there. Playout is based on the idea that we can achieve the results we’ve always wanted if we enjoy the process.

Exercise is meant to be fun,” he says. Kovel designed Playout cards as a pocket-sized solution for a portable and enjoyable exercise routine. Designed for solo or group play, the game also includes a free mobile app to be used with the card game that includes a stopwatch, timer, achievements, score keeping, and game rules. The original Playout game and other Playout merchandise are available at playoutthegame.com.

Good fun Eric Poses 95C grew up playing board game classics like Monopoly, Sorry!, and Trivial Pursuit, as well as poker, chess, backgammon—“I’ll play anything, and I’ll try to turn anything into a game,” he says. Not long after graduating from Emory with a degree in history, he quit his job at an ad agency to work on inventing games of his own. Loaded Questions, a tabletop game designed to test just how well players know each other, is now sold across the country in more than five thousand outlets, including Target, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon. Poses also created the Awkward Family Photos Movie Line Caption Game, and is working on a game called All Life’s Answers. “I’m a tabletop game guy,” he says.

“I’m really impressed with the creativity of video games, but nothing can replace the interaction and conversation that takes place around a board game.” Maybe that’s why Poses, his wife, and their two kids play games for about an hour a day. The original Loaded Question board game, a new party edition, and Poses’s other games are available at loadedquestions.com.

56

magazine A U T U M N 2 0 1 5

Are we there yet?

Seeking a way to entertain her young daughters on long road trip, Kristin Miller Burrell 97L created a spur-of-the-moment game to keep the peace. “The kids were getting antsy, so I made up a word and asked them what did they think it meant.

They both came up with different definitions of the word, and I picked my favorite one, so that player won,” Burrell says.

Tagged with the moniker Redonkulary,

register the game became a tradition shared with family and friends, all of whom loved the silly and hilarious way to pass the time.

Following a lifelong dream, Burrell quit her corporate job and started her own company to bring Redonkulary! The Game of Imag-ilar-ious Words! to market.

The game is available at Redonkulary.com.

Candy is dandy

Making time

All that glitters As a young girl, Alexandra Beth Samit 09B was drawn to pretty things. That early design sensibility was the early precursor to Alexandra Beth Designs, Samit’s blossoming jewelry design business. After graduating from Emory, Samit launched her jewelry-making venture out of her parents’ home, selling her designs to small local retailers. Encouraged by her success, she moved to New York, where she became the youngest member of a soho-based designer collective.

Samit’s full jewelry line is available at alexandrabeth.com.

Owned and run by husband and wife team Stefano Zullian 03MBA and Carla Susi 03MBA, and her sister, Silvana Susi, Araya Artisan Chocolate in Houston specializes in handcrafted chocolates made using all-natural, fair trade, 100 percent single-origin cacao from small farmers in Venezuela, the trio’s home country. After quitting corporate jobs to work in the factory of a close friend and owner of another artisan chocolate maker, they created their own recipes catering to the American palate and opened their first shop in Houston in 2010.

Araya has three locations in the Houston area and ships their confections within the continental US. A full list of treats is available at arayachocolate.com.

Green with envy

Sweet success

Gideon Sarraf 05C has started a spicy revolution with Musashi Foods, his company that offers a line of distinctive sauces that are shaking up tradition and adding something new to spice-lovers’s tables. Mushashi Foods’s product line includes Midori Green Sriracha, a Japanese-inspired, serrano-chile based version of the highly popular Thai red chile and garlic sauce; and Japanese Spicy Mayo. Sarraf ’s Midori Green Sriracha even won a taste test against the iconic godfather of sriracha sauces on the popular website Thrillist, and Sarraf ’s story was featured in a Bloomberg Business video.

Musashi Foods products are available at retail locations and at musashifoods.com.

Grey Ghost Bakery’s founder Katherine Frankstone 83C learned the craft of baking alongside her father. After a career in lending and nonprofit fundraising, Frankstone turned organizational and culinary talents to growing a gourmet business. Using cookie recipes handed down generation after generation, she hopes to evoke the comfort of homemade treats. “Family moments mean everything, and special treats are always at the heart of great memories. I want to recreate that feeling in every bite.” Sold in stores around the country, including Whole Foods Market and the Fresh Market, Grey Ghost Bakery cookies and gift baskets also are available at greyghostbakery.com.

Emory friends Drew Deters 02C, Jay Hartington 01B, and Joe Anto 00B “share a love of adventure, discovery, and living life to its fullest.” Reunited postcollege in New York City, the three of them started RumbaTime with the simple idea of “making time keep up with your life, instead of the other way around.” Deters, a world-class cyclist prior to founding Rumba-Time, saw the need for a watch brand that captured a fun lifestyle, fashion, and economic good sense for those who wanted luxury that came with a modest price point. RumbaTime has more than twenty collections, each named after the New York City locales— iconic spots such as Brooklyn, Gramercy, TriBeCa, Bowery, and NoLIta—that inspire creative timepieces made from a mix of silicone, leather, chain, and fabric. RumbaTime watches are available at rumbatime.com.

Luxury loungewear Founder of the highly popular resort wear line Escapada Living, Natalia Castillo 85C says dedication to style, comfort, and quality is one of the characteristics that has put Escapada at the forefront of resort wear fashion.

“A woman has to feel comfortable and look good for fashion to succeed.”

In 2014, Escapada was named to Inc. Magazine’s list of the 500 fastest-growing private companies in America.

The brand’s line of colorful, islandinspired designs can be found in the

Escapada Signature

Store in Mt. Pleasant,

S.C., resort retail

locations, and online

at escapadaliving.com.

A U T U M N

2015

magazine

57

register The shoe fits Launched in early 2014, Cobbler Union embodies what Daniel Porcelli 03MBA describes as a “passion and obsession” for custom-made items.

“A nice pair of shoes doesn’t just dress you up. It grows you up,” Porcelli says.

Working with artisans in Spain, Porcelli designs Cobbler Union’s line of high-quality calfskin shoes to endure and has harnessed the power of the online retail market to make meticulously handcrafted luxury footwear more affordable. Porcelli’s designs are available in a new retail space in Atlanta’s Inman Park neighborhood and at cobbler-union.com.

In the bag Self-taught designer and Goizueta Business School graduate Melanie Mueller 08MBA says handbag design is in her genes. “My maternal grandmother hand-knitted handbags and sold them in her small town of Calarcá, Colombia, as a side project from her full-time teaching job. I was unaware of this fact until I had already launched Mel Boteri,” says Mueller, who crafted the name of her brand from a shortened form of her German first name and a version of her mother’s maiden name. After working in marketing and business development for a designer in New York City, Mueller was inspired to create a shopping experience driven by personal attention and relationships. After laying the groundwork during her last semester at Emory, she officially launched the brand with her first collection of handbags in fall 2009. Mueller’s designs are available at shop.melboteri.com.

58

magazine A U T U M N 2 0 1 5

Clothes make the man With the mission of creating “the bestlooking, best-fitting, and most reasonably priced shirts to reflect the greatness in each man,” Goizueta Business School students Ryan Walsh 17B and Duncan Cock-Foster 17B established Edward Foster clothing company during their freshman year at Emory. Their goal, to prove they could create affordable, quality shirts geared towards college men. The duo spent a year researching fabrics, embroidery methods, and fits in creating a line of 100 percent cotton oxford, plaid, and chambray shirts in a variety of colors. Officially launched in April, Edward Foster products are available at edwardfosterclothing.com.

Baby, look at you now Friends since their college days, Carolyn Guard 08MBA and Matthew Guard 07MBA and Molly and Ted Fienning dreamed of starting their own business as they pursued corporate and military careers. The idea for Babiators was born on a military base in Beaufort, South Carolina, when Molly Fienning saw her fellow military wives’ kids squinting in the sun while their pilot moms and dads were protected in stylish aviator sunglasses. She shared the idea with her aviator husband and with Matthew and Carolyn Guard, who loved the idea of creating highquality, affordable, safe, durable, and stylish products that let kids be kids and be protected. The company launched in 2011 and Forbes Magazine named Babiators one of America’s 100 Most Promising Companies of 2014. Products for kids birth to teens are available at babiators.com.

More than skin deep Born out of a very personal need to care about what she put on her skin, Sally McClatchey Larsen 75B has grown a tiny, kitchen-based company, Sally B’s Skin Yummies, into a worldwide brand known for handcrafted, small-batch, organic skincare products for the face and body. In 2005, she founded Sally B’s Skin Yummies, and her product line now includes more than twenty nontoxic skin care and makeup products made from “certified organic and natural ingredients that are people- and planet-friendly.” From its base on Miami Circle in Atlanta, the team produces an array of body butters, cleansers, toners, serums, and cosmetics that are available online at sallybskinyummies.com.

Take the lead. Give today.

giving levels founders $1,000*–$2,499 mentors $2,500–$4,999

We invite you to become part of the Wise Heart Society and take the lead among Emory’s most influential annual supporters. Your leadership-level gifts move Emory forward, transforming lives and inspiring others. Your partnership with Emory fuels innovation in science, medicine, academics, and service. annualgiving.emory.edu/WiseHeart

pioneers $5,000–$9,999 i n n o vat o r s $10,000–$24,999 visionaries $25,000+

*$500 for graduates of the last decade

t he l e a d e r s h i p l e a d e r s h i p

a n n u a l a n n u a l

g i v i n g

g i v i n g

Cor prudentis possidebit scientiam.

AUTUMN 2015

W I SE H EA RT s ociety

magazine

59

register

CODA

Citizen of the World six years ago, i could be found roaming the halls of NBC’s Washington bureau—home of Meet the Press—dressed to what twenty-twoyear-old me thought was the nines, living the dream, passing portraits of American journalism greats . . . and pushing a mail cart.

In 2009, I was a recent Emory graduate and an aspiring journalist, but the economy had tanked and times were tough. So I took a job in the mailroom to get my foot in the door.

I had no idea I was on the verge of a career that eventually would span covering President Obama, living in Los Angeles and then Lebanon, working in war zones in the Middle East, covering tear-gas-filled antigovernment protests in Turkey and elections in Mexico, and having a front seat to US diplomatic history with Iran while traveling with US Secretary of State John Kerry.

Before all that, I delivered the mail to the people who reported the news. As the country struggled to recover from financial crisis, any job was a blessing—especially one connected, even by a thread, to my chosen field.

One producer I had interned for at an international network in Washington the summer after graduating told me, “You’ll never get a job in journalism.” She didn’t realize how powerful those words were. Come hell or high water, I would prove her wrong.

When I got the call to interview at NBC, I had just accepted a position as a producer and reporter for a newspaper that covered defense contracting in northern Virginia. I knew nothing about defense contracting, but I could shoot, edit, and report, thanks to the news video class I had taken at Emory.

I wasn’t sure I could actually pull the whole international broadcast journalist thing off.

How many people actually made it? Maybe I should just do something safe, like accounting?

My first internship was in 2008 working for the nbcwashington.com website. My job was to write articles about lifestyle and interview celebrities. My first on-camera interview was with Kevin Costner, when I was twenty-one.

Total dumb luck.

But it wasn’t the star-studded summer that made me overcome my reservations; it was the women I met at NBC News—most notably Savannah Guthrie. My conversation with her sealed the deal. I had taken news reporting, writing, and news video classes in my senior year. What I learned from Dean Foust and 60

magazine A U T U M N 2 0 1 5

Sissel McCarthy was invaluable to the next half decade of my life.

Today, six years, three networks—NBC, Fox, and now BBC—and more than thirty foreign countries later, it’s the combination of the journalism and international studies classes at Emory that helped me reach where I am.

I remember sitting in Carrie Wickham’s Middle East Politics class, listening to her talk about her time in Egypt and teaching us the intricacies of Egypt’s politics. Two years later, I was covering the fall of the country’s long-serving dictator, Hosni Mubarak, and the implications of the wider Arab Spring from Washington.

While I was based in Beirut in summer 2014, I went to Cairo with Secretary Kerry as part of the US press corps. I saw firsthand Egypt’s struggle with its complicated role in the region as they attempted to broker a ceasefire between Hamas in Gaza and Israel. During this trip, I slipped off to Doha, Qatar, for an exclusive BBC interview with exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal. Sitting in his upscale, over-air-conditioned tent, I remembered Kenneth Stein’s class where I’d first learned about this man.

Needless to say, being an American in the Middle East wasn’t always easy, especially in Jerusalem at the time. Living in Lebanon and covering the region meant being on the receiving end of US foreign policy. No single

moment embodied this more than when I was in northern Iraq at a makeshift refugee camp near the Mosul Dam interviewing a Yezidi man whose entire family had been massacred by ISIS. His wife had been taken hostage, and he believed she was in Mosul—not too far from where we were standing, but completely inaccessible since ISIS had taken over. As he sobbed tears of sheer agony, the faint drone of US warplanes could be heard overhead preparing for airstrikes on ISIS positions around the dam. The intersection of my two worlds captured in one instance.

That’s why I asked to be sent to the heart of it all; my education at Emory had me craving this kind of balance. I wanted to be able to experience the other point of view—to know what questions needed to be asked to understand and report on all sides of the story.

The Middle East as a whole is, in many ways, misunderstood by the West, partly because a lot of the people making decisions about the region haven’t actually spent much time there.

After hopscotching around the world, countries start to blend together. It took so much traveling to realize that—regardless of language or customs—we’re really not all that different.

Suzanne Kianpour is Capitol Hill/foreign affairs producer at BBC News in Washington, D.C.

I L L U S T R AT I O N : J A S O N R A I S H

S U Z A N N E K I A N P O U R 07OX 0 9 C T R AV E L S T H E G LO B E A S A B B C J O U R N A L I S T

This is my legacy.

Jennifer Crabb Kyles 98OX 00C Senior Director of Operations, Emory Alumni Association

“I RECENTLY LEARNED how easy it is to support the university with a life insurance policy. I’ve had a policy since my first child was born, but I didn’t realize I could name the school I love as a beneficiary. For me, this gift is less about a legacy and more about giving others an opportunity to have the experiences I did at Oxford College.”

Have you planned your legacy? emory.edu/giftplanning 404.727.8875

AUTUMN 2015

magazine

61

FSC Certification goes here 62

magazine A U T U M N 2 0 1 5

N AT I V E A R T I S T R Y : The exhibit curator and staff at the Michael C. Carlos Museum arrange a colorful work for Indigenous Beauty: Masterworks of American Indian Art from the Diker Collection, on view through January 3.

Finished with this issue of Emory Magazine? Pass along to a friend or colleague!

REC YCLE ME!