Reed College Magazine Winter 2024

REED MAGAZINE

DISCOVERY’S EDGE

Reed scientists revolutionize our understanding of land, sea, space, and the human body.

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From the Editor P H OTO BY N I N A J O H N S O N ’ 9 9

REED MAGAZINE Winter 2024

Volume 103, No. 4

EDITOR Katie Pelletier ’03 ART DIRECTOR Tom Humphrey WRITERS/EDITORS Bennett Campbell Ferguson Cara Nixon CLASS NOTES EDITOR Joanne Hossack ’82 REEDIANA EDITOR Robin Tovey ’97 GRAMMATICAL KAPELLMEISTER Virginia O. Hancock ’62 CREATIVE DIRECTOR Lauren Rennan EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS AND COMMUNICATIONS Sheena McFarland Reed College is an institution of higher education in the liberal arts and sciences devoted to the intrinsic value of intellectual pursuit and governed by the highest standards of scholarly practice, critical thought, and creativity.

Reed Magazine provides news of interest to the Reed community.

Views expressed in the magazine belong to their authors and do not necessarily represent officers, trustees, faculty, alumni, students, administrators, or anyone else at Reed.

Reed Magazine (ISSN 08958564) is published quarterly by the Office of Public Affairs at Reed College. Periodicals postage paid at Portland, Oregon.

Postmaster: Reed Magazine 3203 SE Woodstock Blvd.

Portland, Oregon 97202-8138 503-777-7591 reed.magazine@reed.edu www.reed.edu/reed-magazine

Astronomer Farhan Hasan ’18 performing at Renn Fayre 2018. At Reed, he played bass in a band aptly named Cosmic Radio. In addition to his astronomical pursuits, he still practices music in his spare time.

Where Discovery Lives When we began assembling our issue on Reed scientists, I expected to find groundbreaking research and important discoveries. What I didn’t expect was how often our conversations would drift to music, dance, poetry, and theater.

An interview with scientist and pharmaceutical executive Roger Perlmutter ’73 began with an impromptu discussion of music performance and composition when he noticed my piano in the Zoom background. Though we soon turned to his groundbreaking work in drug development and cellular research, that moment illustrated how connections between scientific and humanist pursuits often emerged in our conversation.

When we talked with biochemist Rachel Klevit ’78, we learned that, as an undergraduate at Reed, she maintained a demanding schedule of attending classes in the morning, spending the afternoon in the ballet studio, and returning to the lab late at night to complete her coursework.

Rachel now credits her ballet training for her precision in the lab.

We talked with art-biology major Ziqi Xie ’23 about her interdisciplinary

degree and how art deepened her understanding of oak trees.

We learned that between calculations nuclear physicist Tess Light ’91 finds time to write award-winning screenplays.

These are not just interesting side notes; when we delved deeper, we found that these scientists are not only expanding human knowledge— they’re showing us how scientific and humanist inquiry illuminate each other, how questions in one domain can unlock answers in another.

For centuries, scientists have struggled to understand processes too vast or too minute for human observation.

Today, Reed alumni, students, and faculty are using new tools and perspectives to bridge these gaps. For this issue, we profiled 19 of them at all career points, from thesis students to recently retired researchers. Their work demonstrates what Reedies have long known: the most profound discoveries often happen where disciplines intersect.

—Katie Pelletier ’03, Editor

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Contents

Steve Sillett ’89 and team measuring the Artemis redwood, which houses a large nest in a fire cavity.

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DISCOVERY’S EDGE

14 Reed scientists revolutionize

our understanding of land, sea, space, and the human body.

LAND 16 Climbing to a New World Botanist Steve Sillett ’89 18 Ghost Trees Prof. Keith Karoly with biology thesis students

SEA 22 In the Classroom and Out at Sea Marine scientist Susan Rickards ’90 25 What Aerosols Can Tell

Us About Climate

Atmospheric chemist Trish Quinn ’82 26 The Polar Pundit Polar expert Kelly Falkner ’83

SPACE 28 Shoot for the Star Heliophysicist Craig DeForest ’89 31 Zooming Out: The Cosmic Web Astronomer Farhan Hasan ’18 32 Vantage Point Astrophysicist Shep Doeleman ’86 33 Zooming In: Stringing

It All Together

String theorist Naomi Gendler ’16 34 Reed Legends at Los Alamos Mark Galassi ’87 and Tess Light ’91 36 Laser Focused LLNL physicist Alison Saunders ’11

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Eliot Circular News from campus

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Beyond the Great Lawn Eye on alumni

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At the President’s Desk

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Reediana Arts, books, culture

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Class Notes News from our classmates

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In Memoriam Honoring classmates, professors, and friends who have died

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Object of Study What we’re looking at in class

BODY 38 The Miracle Worker Cancer researcher Kevan Shokat ’86 PHOTO BY MICHAEL NICHOLS

Editor’s Letter

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42 Our Plastic-Stable Brains Neuroscientist Gina Turrigiano ’84 43 Precision Pointe Biochemist Rachel Klevit ’78 44 On the Future of Medicine Roger Perlmutter ‘73

Cover: Alison Saunders ’11 at the National Ignition Facility. Photo by Blaise Douros, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

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Eliot Circular

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NEWS FROM CAMPUS

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Summer Research Grows Prof. Suzy Renn [biology] can remember in 2006 when just 20 students presented their summer research on the chemistry patio.

This fall, almost 20 years later, a remarkable 125 students gathered in the bright natural light of the Performing Arts Building to showcase their on- and off-campus work completed over the break.

During the annual Summer Research Poster Session, students primarily in the biology, chemistry, computer science, math, physics, and psychology departments presented projects on the environment, molecular architecture, semiconducting, science education, and more.

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Eliot Circular

Environmental Collective Takes Root

New campus initiative unites sustainability, humanities, and student life.

In late September, beneath the fruiting apple trees of the Garden House, community members gathered to commemorate the launch of the new Sustainability and Environmental Justice (SEJ) Collective.

Over 100 people explored the bountiful garden, mingled, and celebrated the collaborative spirit the initiative represents.

The SEJ Collective unites Sustainability at Reed, Environmental Humanities, and Student Life with the goal of building community across disciplines focused on environmental consciousness. The collective is funded in part by the Presidential Discretionary Fund created by Dan Greenberg ’62 and Susan Steinhauser. Sustainability at Reed works to integrate environmental principles into campus operations, with interns working in the garden and orchard, the Swap Shop, the Recycling Center, and the Reed Community Pantry. The Environmental Humanities program, a Mellon-supported initiative run by Prof. Sarah WagnerMcCoy [English and humanities] and Prof.

Kristin Scheible [religion and humanities], connects diverse fields of study to answer urgent questions of social and environmental justice. The program features 14 faculty offering EH classes in ten different departments as of fall 2024.

At the event, attendees shared food and listened to live music, courtesy of the Reed Bluegrass Band. Each attendee planted a clove of garlic in the garden as both a symbolic gesture of new beginnings and a preparation for next spring’s harvest. Prof. Gerri Ondrizek [art] led a natural-dye workshop using plants and flowers grown in the garden by students in her course Art 282: Sculpture in the Expanded Field.

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Students planted garlic in the garden, symbolizing new beginnings and a spring harvest.

The goals of the SEJ Collective focus on learning in and out of the classroom. As of this year, a new sustainability-themed living-learning community has been established at Garden House, where students live in a setting designed to extend their environmental studies beyond the classroom.

With the program comes a new role, the SEJ Scholar, a recent graduate who lives on-site at Garden House. As this year’s scholar, I support environmental

programming and build transdisciplinary connections across academic and extracurricular departments. During my time at Reed, I focused on the intersection of language and environment, and spent three years working on the grounds crew, learning the ecology of campus.

The SEJ launch party was the first event in an inspiring movement on Reed’s campus to center sustainability and environmental consciousness, to forge connections among existing initiatives, and to think critically

Marginalia

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The library saw 159,703 visits last academic year—up 27% from the prior year, and the highest since 2016. Are students still using physical books? Yes! There was a 9% increase in book circulation.

Most checked-out book? Librarian Jim Holmes says that students borrow science texts on reserve most frequently (“typically the most expensive books”), but the top spot goes to Microeconomics

by Austan Goolsbee.

The Cosmic Sandwich Method P H OTO BY O S C A R P U L L I A M ’ 2 5

Students celebrated Hispanic and Latina/o/x/e Heritage Month in Commons with chef Brian Arteaga’s authentic dishes from nine countries and live music

by Mariachi México En La Piel.

I L L U S T R AT I O N S B Y T O M I U M

about what we are sustaining and for whom.

Since the launch party, programming has included talks by visiting scholars, a climate care collective supporting mental health around climate change, and an ongoing ecocinema series hosted by me at Garden House. Moving forward, SEJ plans to provide opportunities for all interested members of the Reed community to get involved with our programming, working towards a more sustainable future, both on and off campus.—Esmé Kaplan-Kinsey ’24

A grand convening in the newly-renovated Aubrey R. Watzek Sports Center encouraged students, staff, and other community members to look torward the future in order to make change in the present—through the medium of a sandwich. For the event, Prof.

Catherine Ming T’ien Duffly [theatre] and Prof. Michael Stevenson Jr. [art] combined their expertise on community performance and social engagement with their interest in the role food can play in creating spaces for public collaboration.

Six paper ingredients (kimchi, avocado, tomato, bacon, sauce, and the final slice of bread) inspried six different writing prompts, all related to various goals and aspirations for Reed, as well as for one’s own future.

Participants wrote their answers on the paper cutouts and assembled them into their cosmic sandwiches before heading over to the real sandwich-making station. The event concluded with a group meditation that allowed for the opportunity to reflect on the experience, and to enjoy a bite of the actual sandwiches, of course.

—Faolan Cadiz ’25

On the main stage: Everybody

by Branden Jacob-Jenkins was produced by the theatre department and directed by Prof.

Catherine Ming T’ien Duffly this fall. The play is an adaptation of a 15th-century morality play in which cast members (whose roles are chosen by lottery at each performance) embark on a journey to understand the meaning of life.

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Eliot Circular

Intention Made Visible Art installation recognized the impact of Eliot Society donors.

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Thinking of ways to honor the members of Reed’s Eliot Society, Kathy Saitas had a question for Gregory MacNaughton ’89 last winter: Was it possible, in a few months’ time, to write all their names—1,261 total— on individual weathergram strips, and then hang them in an art installation?

“I hate to say no to requests like that,” Gregory, education outreach and calligraphy initiative coordinator of the Cooley Gallery, said.

A semester of Scriptorium classes later, Reed’s Pedestrian Bridge (a.k.a. the Bouncy Bridge) was lined with 1,261 weathergrams. Each bore the names of members of the Eliot Society: alumni, parents, and friends of the college who include Reed in their estate plans. The art installation publicly recognized the Eliot Society donors’ collective impact.

“By coming together in the act of tying each of their names on this bridge,” said Kathy, Reed’s long-time senior director of gift planning, “Reed students, staff, faculty, and alumni can collectively remember each estate donor, acknowledge their contributions, and draw inspiration from the fact that they gave of their life’s work to enable ours.” —Amanda Waldroupe ’07

Reedies Celebrate Sports Center Reopening With Open House

The festivities heralded the return of the long-shuttered athletics hub with snacks, swag, and juggling.

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Reedies gathered for an open house to honor the grand reopening of the Aubrey R. Watzek Sports Center, welcoming community members back to a space where they will be able to play basketball, swim, and train for Reed’s beloved intramural sports teams.

“The overwhelming joy and excitement about the sports center’s possibilities for new and expanded wellness opportunities was a highlight during the open house,” stated Director of Athletics Michael Lombardo, Associate Dean of Students

for Health and Well-Being Yasodha Gopal, and Vice President of Student Life Karnell McConnell-Black.

Emphasis on joy: The festivities featured a juggler in a crimson waistcoat, a circling unicyclist, and attendees dancing with a giant, Gumby-esque puppet in a floral-print dress. And visitors had the opportunity to experience the facility, from the ping–pong courts to a gymnasium where people will be able to play badminton, pickleball, soccer, and much more.

Opening week, the sports center

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was immediately busy, with as many as 40 people at a time making use of the weight room. Cardio workouts include treadmills, rowing machines, recumbent bikes, and more.

“Our students have been waiting for this space and experience for quite some time,” Lombardo, Gopal, and McConnell-Black said. “The natural beauty and light fill every space where our community gathers to exercise, play, and meditate, making it a truly inspiring environment.”

—Bennett Campbell Ferguson

President Bilger and Director of Athletics Michael Lombardo in the new gymnasium

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Beyond the Great Lawn

EYE ON ALUMNI

From Central Park to London New Hum 110 book club unites alumni around the world.

Over 600 alumni have begun meeting in monthly book clubs around the world, reading books taught in a course that needs no introduction to Reedies: Humanities 110.

The number of alumni participating in the Hum 110 book club, launched earlier this fall after a year of planning, shattered the expectations of the Alumni Relations & Volunteer Engagement office.

Tess Buchannan ’21, assistant director of Alumni Relations & Volunteer Engagement, said the office originally projected that 200 people would join.

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“The level of excitement is like nothing I have ever seen,” Tess said.

The book clubs will read from a syllabus adapted from Hum 110 as it was taught during the 2023–24 school year. The idea for the book club came from alumni during last year’s Forum for Advancing Reed (FAR).

Participants include transfer students and MALS graduates who didn’t take Hum 110. The oldest participant is a member of the class of 1959. Younger alumni—including from the class of 2024—have signed up.

Generally, clubs will meet once a month. Many are meeting virtually. One club based in New York City met in Central Park; another, in London, met in the

home of one book club member. Some Portland-based groups have met at Reed. To make the course load manageable, alumni will read sections of some books, rather than the entire text.

It will take approximately three years to get through the entire syllabus. Tess said there will be some related programming and events at next year’s Reunions.

In fall 2025, the syllabus for the Mexico City unit will be announced; in fall 2026, clubs are expected to begin reading from the syllabus for the Harlem Renaissance.

Alumni will have access to other course materials, including supplementary readings and video-taped lectures given by Hum 110 faculty.

Alumni Association Nominees The nominating committee of the board of directors of the alumni association proposes the following nominees to serve terms on the Alumni Board beginning July 1, 2025:

Nominee for Alumni Trustee Liz Adams ’79

Nominee for President Katie Rempe ’05

Nominee for Vice-President Laramie Van Duzer Silber ’13

Nominee for Secretary Peter Miller ’06

Nominee for At-Large Director Advait Jukar ’11 Joe Yalowitz ’20 Allison Groves ’99 Caroline Spiggle ’24 Gray Karpel ’08

Nominations Committee for 2025-2026:

The book club, Tess said, is a “unique” offering for alumni, given that it required partnerships among the Alumni Relations office; the Bookstore, which ordered enough books to be available for purchase; Computer User Services, which made electronic course materials available to alumni through password-protected accounts; and, most importantly, the faculty.

Walter Mintz Professor of Greek, Latin, and Ancient Mediterranean Studies and Humanities Nigel Nicholson curated and edited the syllabus and received permission from individual Hum 110 faculty members to share their video-taped lectures with alumni. In the future, it’s likely

that at least one faculty member will offer a webinar-style lecture to book club participants. “The faculty are committed to that and are so excited about it,” Tess said.

In the end, Tess is not surprised that the book club’s launch has been met with resounding enthusiasm.

“It’s very Reedie to its core,” she said.

“Doing homework in your free time and then having intellectual conversations about that—that’s very Reedie!”

—Amanda Waldroupe ’07

Andrei Stephens ’08 Katie Rempe ’05 Michael Axley ‘89 Janan Abdo Stoll ‘78 Jan Carpenter ‘14

Chapter Leadership Council Representatives Peter Miller ’06 Will Huiras ’15 Jim Quinn ’83

Please find additional details on the nominees and petition process on alumni.reed.edu.

Interested in participating in the Hum 110 book club? Go to the Humanities 110 Book Club’s webpage to sign up.

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At the President’s Desk

Renovated Sports Center Is a Community Gathering Place President Bilger, Treasurer Lynn Valenter, Yasodha Gopal, MD, and Michael Lombardo reflect on the space.

By Sheena McFarland

The soft, lantern-like glow emanating from the Aubrey R. Watzek Sports Center’s floor-to-ceiling windows draws students, faculty, and staff to gather as a community and to focus on their holistic wellness.

The redesign of the space centered student feedback and focused on serving every student, not just those who might traditionally use a sports center. That shift can be seen in the inclusive spaces and easier-to-navigate hallways, along with programming that includes activities ranging from meditation to financial literacy to basketball tournaments.

“Our students bring their intellectual vitality and explore their connection to person, place, and planet in this expansive new space that centers equity as we move from wellness to embodied wellbeing,” said Yasodha Gopal, MD, associate dean of student health and well-being, adding that student programming will focus on the eight dimensions of wellness: financial, emotional, relational, professional, intellectual/academic, environmental, physical, and spiritual.

The newly renovated center is a major architectural shift from the previous building, which was

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largely shuttered after an ice storm in 2021 collapsed the roof of the gymnasium. That change didn’t happen by accident, but rather with careful and thoughtful planning.

The more open design of the center complements the neighboring Performing Arts Building and feels like more space, even though the square footage increased only nominally.

“The new sports center really lifted up that side of campus in ways that I think also will contribute to the welcoming environment for students,” President Audrey Bilger said. “We’re really thinking about the space as a well-being center, and my sense is that this building will help connect the community and create more familiarity with our club sports. This re-energized space will open up more opportunities for all of us to get together.”

The reimagining of the Sports Center started with Lorraine Arvin, Reed’s vice president of finance and treasurer, who retired in August 2021, and continued with Lynn Valenter, who took over the position in July 2021. The Board of Trustees approved $25 million for the renovation in February of 2022, with unrestricted bequests from 44 donors, contributing $10.4 million. Reed received just less than $5 million in insurance payments from the roof collapse. Valenter’s “partnership of the possible” and good stewardship of Reed resources, Bilger said, led to the beautiful and multifunctional building that opened on

time and on budget at the beginning of fall semester 2024.

Valenter sees the Sports Center adding many of the intangible qualities that make the Reed campus a place of welcome. “Students will come because they have PE classes or the lantern will draw them in, but the place will invite them to stay,” Valenter said. “And that’s really where we start to find community, not just among likeminded people, but among different-minded people. The space itself can transcend those differences.”

P H OTO BY P E T E E C K E RT / C O U RT E S Y O F F O RT I S C O N S T RU C T I O N

Bilger also sees the sports center as a space that can help students tap into their sense of fun and play while building community with one another.

“It’s clear to me that our students care for one another and they care for the community. It’s second nature for them to do that. So if we offer them places where they can come together, and support one another in connected ways, that will be wonderful,” Bilger said.

Though Reed is known for its academic rigor, students must meet

physical education requirements in order to graduate. Not all students jump at the chance to take PE classes.

But Michael Lombardo, director of Athletics, Fitness, and Outdoor Programs, has seen the power of movement improve students’ lives.

“Students come in, they’re stressed out, and they don’t really want to engage. But then they participate and get involved, and they look completely different when they leave because they’ve had a positive experience. It’s transformative, and I’m excited that

this beautiful facility will draw in even more students to participate beyond just the PE requirement,” Lombardo said.

Bilger looks at the sports center as a source of pride for all of campus to embrace.

“This space will truly be transformational for us,” she said. “We’re excited that this project has been so successful, we’re proud of how it contributes to the beauty of our campus, and we know it will serve our students well now and in the coming decades.”

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The renovated sports center includes a new basketball court where students can shoot hoops and destress

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DISCOVERY’S EDGE

The preamplifier support structure at the National Ignition Facility, just one part of the stadiumsized laser that Alison Saunders ’11 uses for her experimental physics work (see pg. 36).

Reed scientists revolutionize our understanding of land, sea, space, and the human body.

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P H O T O BY D A M I E N J E M I S O N / L AW R E N C E L I V E R M O R E N AT I O N A L L A B R O AT O RY

Scale is everything. Some mysteries require us to look up, toward the cosmos.

Others demand we look down, into microscopic worlds. Still others ask us to look around—at our changing forests, warming oceans, and dynamic bodies.

The scientists featured here pursue understanding across these vast scales, finding unexpected connections between the very large and very small. Their work reveals how tree canopies, ocean spray, black holes, and brain cells alike help tell the story of our universe and our place within it.

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Steve Sillett ’89 (far left), with fellow researchers Marie Antoine (his wife, upper right) and Jim Campbell-Spickler, high up in a 300-foot, 1,500-year-old redwood in Prairie Creek State Park, California. This image forms the center of an 83-image fulltree composite from photographer Michael Nichols for National Geographic, 2008.

Climbing to a New World Could old-growth forest canopies hold the secret to keeping biodiversity, and our planet, intact? Botanist Steve Sillett ’89 has been researching up in the trees to find out.

Steve Sillett ’89 has scaled some of the world’s tallest trees—from the giant sequoias of the Sierra Nevada and the redwoods of northern California to the strangler figs of the Costa Rican cloud forest and the mountain ashes of Tasmania. But his tree climbing started right here at Reed, where he destressed from lab work by ascending the Douglas firs around campus.

Tree climbing became more than a hobby when Steve and a group of friends spent a fall break in the redwoods. There, without equipment, Steve scaled one of the smaller trees and used its branches to jump to another, bigger redwood nearby.

He entered its upper layer, referred to in ecology as the canopy, and, up that high, more than 200 feet off the ground, discovered a whole new world. Steve could see the tops of trees all around him, going for miles, and the ocean in the distance. The canopy was home to an ecosystem of its own, with ferns and lichens and berries growing in pockets of soil on the bark. He felt transformed. “Once you get up into the canopy, you can see that the individual trees are doing so much. I mean, imagine erecting a scaffolding in the sky that lasts for a millennium, and it just continually grows and produces surfaces upon which other organisms can

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LAND Climbing to a New World, continued

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PHOTO BY MARIE ANTOINE

flourish,” Steve says. “It’s just an amazing spectacle.” Steve stuffed some of the plants growing on the tree, called epiphytes, into his shirt pocket, and, when he returned to Reed, showed his findings to his thesis adviser, Prof. Bert Brehm [biology 1962–93]. Bert was horrified to learn Steve had climbed into a redwood’s canopy without ropes and connected him to Oregon State University ecologist Bill Denison, who taught him rudimentary skills in tree climbing. Steve has been climbing trees—safely— ever since.

That venture into the redwood’s canopy would lead to an entire career investigating the unique realm that exists high in the trees.

In particular, Steve’s research, which he’s been conducting at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt (previously Humboldt State University) for the past 30 years, focuses on the biodiversity of old-growth forest canopies. Old-growth forests, safeguarded from logging and other disturbances, have developed over a long period, and, because they’ve remained untouched, contain distinct ecosystems unlike ones seen in younger, unprotected forests. “The old-growth forest is a special place, particularly the canopy—it’s just spellbinding,” Steve says. “There’s a lot of things that go on up there that are kind of missing from the vast majority of our landscapes today because we liquidated all the old growth. So the challenge now is to take the lessons from these ancient trees and try to restore some of these habitat characteristics.”

Steve’s team has been exploring younger forests, too, to compare their characteristics to ancient trees.

They’ve found a huge gap between younger and older trees, not only due to age and time, but also because younger trees now have fewer opportunities to develop those complex ecosystems, due to the climate being drier and hotter than ever before.

Steve Sillett ’89

But the team has also found gaps between ancient trees, too—one will have a garden of epiphytes in its crown, and the one directly next to it will be barren. Part of Steve’s research involves figuring out why that inconsistency occurs, even between trees close in age.

Three decades later, Steve is still climbing trees for his research, even though new laser technology makes it possible to map trees from the ground up into their crowns.

He says the old methods are still valuable for understanding the intricate world of giant trees and the forests they create—up in the canopy, researchers can figure out the specifics of trees’ leaves, bark, epiphytes, and more. And, as the climate worsens, Steve finds the work more important than ever. He hopes other people take on the task of helping to save our earth just as seriously as he does. “I’m real worried about the fate of the planet and the ability of trees to continue to do what they do,” he says. “I think the important thing is that we each try to make a contribution that could be meaningful . . . let’s focus on the task at hand, which is to keep the biodiversity from collapsing, and to keep the planet habitable.”

—Cara Nixon

Ghost Trees Reed biology students have been scouring the Portland area for hybrid oak trees. Their journey could reshape the way we see our ecosystem.

With its labyrinth of banks, edges, ledges, rails, and stairs, Ed Benedict Park is a haven for skaters. Yet when Prof. Keith Karoly [biology] visited in the fall of 2020, he came for the trees—specifically, a row of Oregon white oaks (Quercus garryana) and a row of English oaks (Quercus robur), parted by a nearby street like star-crossed lovers.

PHOTO BY OSCAR PULLIAM ’25

Ziqi Xie ’23 used genetic markers to study oaks for a thesis that fused biology and visual art

By testing genetic markers, Karoly sought to discover whether the two oak species had hybridized. “We had visible acorns, we had first-generation seedlings growing in this area,” Karoly says.

“It looked like the kind of experiment that 40 years ago, if we wanted to know this answer, we would have set it up that way.”

It was perfect—too perfect. Keith determined that every tree on the street was actually an English oak, and that an entire row of non-native trees had been mistakenly labeled as native by Portland Parks personnel. “Little bit of a scandal,” Karoly jokes.

Beyond their contrasting physical traits, the two species are very different for two types of tall, green, and acorn-sprouting trees. Oregon oaks have towered over the Pacific Northwest for centuries, while

English oaks are so synonymous with Britain that they’ve been adopted as a national emblem.

Karoly is well aware of the ways non-native plants can damage their surroundings. “We often find that non-native [plants] don’t exactly provide the same kinds of resources to animals, they don’t have the same interactions with other plants, they may have different responses to environmental change,” he says. “But there is also, to be clear, a pretty straightforward knee-jerk response: ‘That’s a non-native, it doesn’t belong here, get it out of here.’”

Karoly has a different response: He wants to find out if Oregon and English oaks could “birth” a tree that bridged the gap between the native and non-native trees. Over the past five years, he has

enlisted three thesis students in his search for hybrids, though he’s the first to admit that the results haven’t been what he hoped.

“The punchline—we have yet to find any individuals that we can definitely say are hybrid oaks,” Karoly says. “We still don’t have any evidence that the two species are able to hybridize.”

That hasn’t stopped Karoly and his students from looking for answers. The journey they have undertaken is a testament to the Reed principle of intellectual inquiry for the sake of deeper understanding— and their efforts to untangle the morphology and genetics of rival oaks have led to a more nuanced understanding of our city’s ecosystem.

“What has been nice for me is the students were very interested in putting their own imprint on the project,” Karoly says.

“If I had been the only one doing the work from the beginning, it probably would have taken a very different course.”

Morphological Matters

Oregon oaks can grow up to 120 feet and live for hundreds of years—like the Signature Oak at the Oregon Garden, which took root more than 200 years before Lewis and Clark first set foot in the Pacific Northwest.

By contrast, the English oak is inseparable from the European history of migration and conquest. Settlers brought them to New York in the 1700s, displaying an intense attachment to a tree that appears in Shakespeare’s plays and the story of Robin Hood (according to legend, the merry archer concealed himself inside a hollowed-out English oak).

“The Oregon white oak has been here for a long time and has a lot of cultural significance among Indigenous people in the Pacific Northwest,” says Ziqi Xie ’23. “And then there’s the English oak, which has a very high significance to the Europeans, before and during the settlement.”

The possibility of the two species hybridizing caught Karoly’s attention when it was raised on the Native Plant Society of Oregon’s listserv. Subsequently, Sam Aldape ’19

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LAND PHOTO BY OSCAR PULLIAM ’25

Prof. Keith Karoly is still searching for hybrid oaks in Oregon.

Ghost Trees, continued began studying oaks for an independent project, attempting to identify potential hybrids using genetic markers, which are DNA sequences with a known physical location on a chromosome.

Such markers can function as a “paternity test” for plants, albeit not without obstacles. “It can be really hard to get usable DNA out of oaks,” Karoly says. “They have a lot of compounds in their tissues, so when you’re trying to extract the genetic component, you get a lot of these other compounds that create problems for all the work we do in the lab.”

Studying genetic markers isn’t the only way to differentiate species. Morphology— the branch of biology that focuses on the form of living organisms—presents another possibility, one explored by Lenny Blair ’21 in her thesis, “Questioning Quirky Quercus: Examining Possible Oak Hybridization in Portland, OR.” “I had taken courses at Reed where I had done more hiking, versus being in the lab,”

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says Lenny, who grew up as an outdoorsy kid in rural Tennessee. “More of my interest just was with morphology and with the physical aspects of the plants.”

The pandemic provided a rationale for Lenny to focus on morphology. Rather than conduct long hours of lab work while wearing the requisite two protective masks, she was eager to conduct research that would allow her to spend time off-campus taking samples in parks across Portland.

Some scientists believe morphology can be misleading, given its emphasis on physical appearance. “If I had been able to force the issue, I might have tried to do the genetic markers from the start with Lenny,” says Karoly. “But she was very interested in the multivariate statistics side of things, and being able to tackle the project from a morphology standpoint.”

Amid the chaos of the 2020 election, Lenny and Karoly drove around Portland in a van, collecting samples everywhere from Reed College meadow to Lair Hill to

Argay City Park. The morphological traits Lenny studied included the English oaks’ “shiny and dull” leaf adaxial (top) and the Oregon oak’s “short, hairy, dull, light green” leaf abaxial (bottom).

Morphology allowed Lenny to differentiate between species, but proved insufficient to detect hybrids. Yet the research she conducted—and the samples she collected— would inform the work of future Reedies.

“I remember feeling some bit of, I wish I had—not worked a little harder, but been better able to leave something that would allow for future directions,” Lenny says. “I definitely didn’t think that anyone would be doing the DNA aspects of the research so soon after I graduated.”

Comic-Con for Oak Lovers

In her thesis, Lenny included a “Future Directions with This Research” section, noting that since morphology alone wasn’t able to distinguish hybrids and parental species, returning to genetic markers was

a logical next step. That’s the path that Lucy Montgomery ’22 followed with her thesis, “Identifying Oak Hybridization in Portland: A Genetic Approach.”

“I do have a hard time connecting with [science] sometimes,” Lucy says. “It’s so deeply in that academic sphere. But this work was really rooted in the parks and the Portland area—and also had some ecological implications for the parks.”

Lucy set several goals for her thesis, including successful DNA extractions and the testing of possible hybrids in parks and natural areas. “There are so many factors that go into choosing what plant goes where,” she says. “The English oak is an ornamental species, and I don’t want to shoot anyone down [for planting one], but you can’t make an informed decision if you don’t know what you’re planting.”

Using Portland Parks’ tree inventory, Lucy identified potential hybridization hot spots, including the aforementioned Ed Benedict Park. Unfortunately, she didn’t learn until late into her research that Portland Parks had mislabeled the oaks she had been sampling. “It was definitely a setback, for sure,” Lucy says. “It was a moment of reevaluation.”

Despite not discovering any hybrids, Lucy succeeded in identifying interspecies genetic variation and developing suitable markers. In 2022, she brought her research to the International Oak Society Conference in New Mexico—essentially, Comic-Con for oak lovers.

The Oak Society Conference attracts academics, private sector biologists, and general oak fans, some of whom were surprised that so many trees could be incorrectly identified by the parks personnel.

To Karoly, the mislabelings were less of a shock. “It’s not surprising,” he says. “A lot of that work was done by volunteering and [Oregon white oaks and English oaks] are very hard to tell apart.”

The Soul of a Tree

The story of the Oregon white oak and the English oak is the story of two cultures adapting to each other—a story that Ziqi Xie has not only studied, but experienced.

“My biology classes I took in high school were taught in Chinese,” says Ziqi, who grew up in Beijing. “There were some words I

didn’t know [in classes at Reed], but I wasn’t sure whether I didn’t know them because I missed some part of the cultural experience of being in the Pacific Northwest.”

When she began her thesis, Ziqi didn’t just bring the perspective of someone raised in another hemisphere—she brought the perspective of an artist. While her thesis would involve testing genetic markers, she added a visual element: a white-oak hand case containing branches, leaf prints, and oak gall ink writings.

“I was thinking of a 50/50 mix of art and biology,” says Ziqi, who was advised by both Karoly and Prof. Aki Miyoshi [art].

“Because artists who work with biology concepts, maybe they place more value on the artistic representation of those concepts.

But I was more interested in how I can integrate them in a balanced way.”

That balance is felt throughout Ziqi’s thesis, “A Tale of Two Quercus: Storytelling of Evolutionary Genetics and Local Botanical History through Artistic Approach.” She provides a detailed account of the genetic markers she tested, but also images of the hand case, which make sometimes-abstract biological concepts tangible.

to a common cause.

“Speaking with Keith, I always felt like I had someone in my corner,” Lenny says.

“He gave me the perfect amount of independent work and being guided. There were weeks where we wouldn’t meet and it would just be me working, but I always knew if I had some pressing questions, I could email him or go to his office and we would be able to chat.”

All three of Karoly’s oak thesis students continue to study and work in the scientific community. Lenny earned a master’s degree in ecology and evolutionary biology from the University of Helsinki last June, Lucy monitors water quality for the San Francisco Estuary Institute, and Ziqi is pursuing her master’s in biology at Portland State University.

Karoly is considering taking his quest for hybrids beyond the Portland city limits—while preparing to submit a manuscript that collects his, Lucy’s, and Ziqi’s research on genetic markers.

Despite Karoly’s joke about the inability to locate any hybrids becoming a punchline, his students have shown that what is undiscovered can be an opportunity.

The story of the Oregon white oak and the English oak is the story of two cultures adapting to each other—a story that Ziqi Xie ’23 has not only studied, but experienced.

“The idea was putting together the body of the oak in another way,” Ziqi says. “The reason why I made the hand case was to emphasize the history of the oaks—their migration history. I was thinking about how to present this idea of migration in a small piece of art.”

Ziqi’s research didn’t uncover any hybrids, but it wrote an important new chapter in Reed’s oak detective story by taking an interdisciplinary approach, even as she paid homage to those who came before (in a reference to Lenny’s thesis, a section of Ziqi’s is called “Quirky Quercus Morphology”).

Separately, Lenny, Lucy, and Ziqi each have a story to tell about their search for oak hybrids in Portland. Together, their work forms a single narrative how that search has united a trio of Reed students— and how Karoly’s mentorship drew them

“I think the implication of hybridization would be potential backcrossing—sort of a dilution of the garryana genetic hold,” Lucy says. “And I think the implications of no hybridization [in Portland]…I mean, there’s always a possibility.”

Whether that possibility exists or not, Karoly, Lenny, Lucy, and Ziqi have helped us to better understand not only the story of oaks in Portland, but Portland itself.

“I remember Keith telling me about one tree in particular that had seen so much of the city,” Lenny says. “An entire highway had been built next to it and all the other trees around it had been taken down, but this tree was able to remain. That was something that was really exciting: How much the city can change, but these trees, they stand, and they look on, and they’re still there.” —Bennett Campbell Ferguson

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In the Classroom and Out at Sea Susan Rickards ’90 is a science teacher by day and a marine mammal researcher in any spare moment.

Most days, you can find Susan Rickards ’90 engaging a classroom of students at Parker School in Waimea on Hawai‘i Island, inspiring the next generation in the subjects of earth science, biology, and Hawaiian studies. But in her free time, Susan is out on the ocean, conducting research on cetacean species with the nonprofit she cofounded with her friends, the Hawai‘i Marine Mammal Consortium (HMMC).

Susan has studied everything from animal cognition and the endangered gray whales of far east Russia to the humpback whales and spinner dolphin populations of Hawai‘i. Now, through the HMMC, Susan and her colleagues research blacktip reef sharks, assist with whale disentanglement and vessel strikes, conduct whale song research, and more. This fieldwork and her role as a teacher lead to a busy, but fulfilling, double life— one we wanted to know more about.

P H OTO BY J . M O O R E / H I H W N M S / N OA A

As a cofounder of the Hawai’i Marine Mammal Consortium, Susan Rickards ’90 has been conducting vessel-based and shore-based whale research on west Hawai’i Island since 2003.

How do you balance your roles as a researcher and teacher?

I’ve been doing cetacean field research for 30 years. I’d never dreamed of being a teacher. I entered the realm of teaching in 2011 because my children were school-age and I needed a “real job.”

I thought I’d give it a try at what I saw as an awesome K-12 private school, where I wanted to enroll my two kids. And, boy, did I fall in

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SEA In the Classroom and Out at Sea, continued love with teaching. It does get a bit difficult at certain times of the year to juggle both the fieldwork and teaching. But a life overflowing with what you love is hardly something to complain about.

How did growing up in Hawai‘i contribute to your interest in marine mammals?

I was always interested in animals (including humans—well, from a distance) and their behavior. Growing up in Hawai‘i, free-ranging native mammals were few and far between.

I loved bird-watching, but I spent so much time in the water, swimming, surfing, and snorkeling, that it was the fish and marine mammals that really mesmerized me. My mother owned a used bookshop and she fed the passions of all six of her children, bringing me home any books related to the ocean. Her customers would occasionally wonder why there were so few books on sea life on her shelves.

In high school I got an internship, and then a paid position, at Sea Life Park in Hawai‘i, and I was hooked.

What are your favorite parts of your jobs?

As cliché as it sounds, one of my favorite things about field research is being “out in nature,” along with “seeing the unexpected.” Studying free-ranging animals certainly helps teach you patience. It also, invariably, sends you home with more wonderful questions than when you started. As a teacher, I thrive on “wow-ing” students with the awesomeness of the natural world, history, art, language, culture, technology, and themselves. On top of that, a teacher, inherently, must always be learning more. What a gift.

Do you think a liberal arts education at Reed impacted your career in science?

I think my liberal arts education at Reed helps me see the big picture. Not only does it make me a better scientist and teacher, it enhances my personal life. Now that I’m a teacher, I’m

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Susan Rickards ’90

often recommending a liberal arts education to my students looking toward college. A liberal arts education enhances your creativity, your ethics, your communication, and critical thinking skills. Basically, it prepares you for every job you’ll ever have (and some you won’t). I see the school where I now teach as a sort of mini–Reed College. Students blossom here, just like at Reed.

What excites you about the future in your branch of science?

The HMMC is doing long-term research, arguably the most valuable kind of data collection in our constantly and rapidly changing world.

Our most impactful recent scientific publication highlights the effects of changing ocean climate on humpback whale numbers and calving in Hawai‘i, and was just celebrated as one of the 10 most cited papers in the journal Marine Mammal Science. My research continues to focus on marine mammal population and behavioral ecology, with an emphasis on providing information needed to direct policies for long-term protection and conservation of marine species.

Working toward a healthier environment, while both teaching and learning, doesn’t get much more fulfilling.

—Cara Nixon

On a 2008 cruise from Woods Hole, Massachusetts to Tromso, Norway and then up to Svalbard, a team of chemists including Trish Quinn ’82 made aerosol chemical, physical, and optical measurements.

What Aerosols Can Tell Us About Climate Trish Quinn ’82 examines sea spray, dust, and pollutants in our atmosphere to better understand their climate effects.

NOAA

Trish Quinn ’82 has taken dozens of cruises in her life. Not the ones you’re probably thinking, with a water park and karaoke and an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Rather, her cruises have involved investigating atmospheric particulates, called aerosols, over the world’s oceans—naturally occurring ones, like sea salt and dust, and human-made ones like sulfate from power plants, organic carbon from biogenic emissions, and soot from diesel engines—and seeing how they and their properties affect the climate and air quality. For this work, Trish has traveled all over the world by ship as a research chemist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Data on aerosols over the oceans is key for scientists to learn more about where these particulates are warming or cooling the planet. NOAA uses the data to look at the processing of particles in the atmosphere, and modelers often use them to improve their climate simulations of aerosols, too. “There’s not very much data over the ocean, so it’s a pretty unique dataset,” Trish says.

When she first went to college, Trish wouldn’t have thought she’d end up conducting research on month-long boat excursions after graduation. In fact, at first she wanted to be a literature major.

But she fell in love with chemistry, particularly with how objective it was: unlike with writing, you were always either right or wrong. And she enjoyed the element of mystery when faced with a difficult-to-solve problem, and then once it was solved, the storytelling aspect of explaining how you came to your conclusions. After writing her thesis on protein folding under Prof. Phyllis Kosen [chemistry 1981–83], Trish went on to earn her PhD at the University of Washington, and then began working with NOAA. After 35 years, Trish is hoping to stay in the field long enough to continue seeing it advance. In particular, she’s interested

Trish Quinn ’82

in marine cloud brightening, a modification technique that seeks to use aerosols to increase the reflectivity of certain clouds and potentially offset some of the effects of climate change. When aerosols mix into low clouds, they can cause the clouds to brighten and reflect more sunlight into space, which has a cooling effect on the climate. As air quality restrictions become more strict, there’s less concentration of these aerosols in the atmosphere, and though this is healthier for humans and local ecosystems, having fewer aerosols also contributes to climate warming because of their cooling effect. Atmospheric scientists still aren’t sure how much of a cooling effect aerosols have on the climate—it could be anywhere from 0.2 degrees Celsius to 1 degree Celsius— but if the effect is substantial, removing aerosols could rapidly warm the climate.

Marine cloud brightening proposes sending sea salt particles into low-lying clouds within localized areas, in hopes of helping to cool the climate. Trish and a group of 30 other scientists put together a consensus physical science research roadmap for determining how to evaluate marine cloud brightening in the future. In the meantime, Trish is still adding to her list of over 30 ocean adventures—next stop, the tropical eastern Pacific in 2026. —Cara Nixon

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Kelly Falkner ’83 walks with former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Cape Royds, Antarctica, in November 2016, when he visited to learn more about climate effects on the continent.

The Polar Pundit Professor, public servant, and polar expert Kelly Falkner ’83 has a lot to show for her 40-year science career, including her very own Antarctic glacier.

U . S . S TAT E D E PA R T M E N T P H O T O / P U B L I C D O M A I N

Two nautical miles south of Oakley Glacier in the Mountaineer Range of Victoria Land, Antarctica, is an expanse of ice four nautical miles long descending into Lady Newnes Bay. From the cockpit window on her way to McMurdo Station, Kelly Falkner ’83 has only glimpsed the glacier that was named after her, and she’s modest about the honor. “Lots of people have features named for them, and mine is not a mountain or a mountain range, it’s a small glacier,” she says. Her colleagues at the National Science Foundation (NSF) named the ice floe after her in 2008 for her work as director of the Office of Polar Programs. Eventually, Kelly admits with a smile, “I was really happy when it happened.”

Since she was young, Kelly has had this “unfortunate” trait—at least that’s how she puts it—where when someone tells her she can’t do something, she has to go show them she can. When she came to Reed, everyone said organic chemistry was the hardest course to take, but she enrolled and aced it. On long sea excursions at the beginning of her career, she ignored the men who said women didn’t belong on ships. And her over-40-year science career and the Falkner Glacier are two more testaments to the ways she accomplished everything others may have thought she couldn’t.

Her career became defined, in part, by this go-getting quality. After studying chemistry and Russian at Reed, Kelly focused on the analysis of elements oceanographers had yet to study as a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The following years involved her constantly working on the cutting edge of analysis and discovering what new tools could be used to bear on problems in the world’s oceans. In the early ’90s, she pioneered inductively coupled

plasma quadrupole mass spectrometry, an analysis tool that can measure all kinds of trace elements at once.

That work led her to measure the chemical makeup of water all over the world, from the oceans to the Greenland Ice Cap to Lake Baikal to the Black Sea. As a chemical oceanographer, Kelly sampled and analyzed snow, ice, rivers, lakes, seas, and the oceans to better understand geochemical issues occurring in the Arctic, and she testified before Congress about the importance of studying polar regions in relation to climate change. The water flowing from the Arctic affects ocean circulation, and thus the overall climate. In her career as a research scientist, professor, and the first female director of the NSF Office of Polar Programs, Kelly sought to bring attention to the polar regions and their important ties to our changing planet.

While with the Office of Polar Programs, she oversaw science researching and logistics support programs in the Arctic and Antarctic. Kelly completed her public service on assignment to the Office of Science Technology and Cooperation of the State Department, where she crafted science policy—including an expression of the U.S.’s position regarding science cooperation with the Russian government after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, an experience Kelly said was heartbreaking and psychologically difficult. But it was also a full-circle moment, tying back to her Russian studies at Reed.

Now in retirement, Kelly continues to be a go-getter. When we met, she’d just returned from a fivemonth thru-hike on the Appalachian Trail, a trip that can be difficult even for experienced hikers. After the adventure she’s had, Kelly admits that “unfortunate” trait of hers has provided some “very fortunate” benefits. —Cara Nixon

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Shoot for the Star Craig DeForest ’89 is leading NASA’s PUNCH mission to make 3-D observations of an underexplored region of space: the sun and its atmosphere.

N A S A’ S G O D D A R D S PA C E F L I G H T C E N T E R / S . W I E S S I N G E R

An artist’s rendering of the sun releasing a series of powerful flares, as observed

by NASA’s Swift satellite in 2014.

Take a walk. Everything around you—the light streaming in, the trees lining the path, the flowers blooming out of the thicket—is made possible by the sun. It’s the only star that we know can grow food, and the only one we can see clearly in the sky. We live around the sun; we work around the sun; we celebrate each time we make another rotation around the sun.

But most of us hardly think about it.

Craig DeForest ’89, on the other hand, has spent more than half his life thinking about it. “All the richness and poetry of the natural world around us—all of that is driven by this really bizarre system that’s over head every day,” he says. Soon, as the principal investigator on a NASA mission, the Polarimeter to UNify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH), he’ll have the chance to see high-quality images of what he’s been studying: the sun and its environment, known as the heliosphere.

PUNCH is one of NASA’s Small Explorer missions, a program that allows scientists to pursue highly focused space investigations. Craig’s mission will send four suitcase-sized satellites up to low Earth orbit to produce deep-field, continuous, 3-D images of the heliosphere. Specifically, scientists want to better understand how the mass and energy of the sun’s corona—the outermost part of the sun’s atmosphere, which you’ve seen if you’ve ever watched a solar eclipse—become the solar wind.

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SPACE Shoot for the Star, continued

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NASA/GSFC/SOHO/ESA

The solar wind consists of protons and electrons in a state of plasma expanding outward from the sun. It affects everything in the solar system, including Earth, and it’s responsible for the northern lights, as well as the space weather that can disrupt our power grids and satellites. The PUNCH mission is the first time this phenomenon will be tracked continuously across the void, in hopes of better understanding the solar wind, the sun, and their effects on humanity.

The public often pays more attention to space missions that take astronauts to the moon. But Craig says the fact we can’t go to the sun in person doesn’t make it less interesting or less important.

“We are surrounded by an enormous bubble about the size of Pluto’s orbit that protects us from the influence of things that are going on in the galaxy. That is our neighborhood, in the cosmos. It’s immensely larger than the neighborhood you walk down, you know, to go to 7-Eleven or whatever,” he says. “But it is still our neighborhood. And understanding what’s going on in it is important, right?”

PUNCH builds on prior missions, the Solar Mass Ejection Imager (SMEI) and the Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO), which demonstrated that the kind of wide-field imaging PUNCH will accomplish is feasible.

The mission’s scientists have a number of objectives. They want to better understand the solar wind— particularly how it flows, where the corona ends and the solar wind begins, and more about the natural dynamic boundary where the solar wind disconnects from the corona, called the Alfvén zone. But they also want to track and analyze the transient structures that exist in the solar wind.

To better understand these structures, PUNCH will be tracking coronal mass ejections (CMEs) across the solar system in 3-D;

providing the first routine imagery of corotating interaction regions (CIRs); and capturing shocks forming and evolving in the heliosphere with unprecedented detail. CMEs are events in which large clouds of highly magnetized plasma erupt from the corona into space, which can cause radio and magnetic disturbances on Earth. CIRs, on the other hand, are large-scale regions of space that have enhanced density and magnetic field strength.

These structures sweep around the sun with its rotation and typically recur once every 28 days.

Like CMEs, CIRs can cause space weather that impacts Earth. But though CMEs produce stronger magnetic storms, CIRs cause them more often. The final structures, shocks, are sudden, violent changes in the solar wind, which can be caused by solar storms and CIRs. These events can sometimes lead to results that endanger astronauts

in space, interfere with communications, and cause particle radiation showers on Earth.

To meet all of its objectives, PUNCH will need to take pictures of objects a thousand times fainter than the galaxy. This requires engineering a system that will block sunlight enough to take those images. Then the team will have to separate extremely faint visible features of the sky to even see the solar wind. When each image is done being processed, 99.5% of all the light in it will have been removed. “The remaining 0.5% contains the solar wind signal that we care about,” Craig says. “That is a real challenge.”

Craig is well equipped to take on these obstacles, though. He has studied the sun, its corona, and the solar wind for more than 30 years.

His career has included a PhD at Stanford University, where he worked on the multispectral solar

An illustration depicting a coronal mass ejection and its impact on Earth. The blue paths emanating from Earth represent some of its magnetic field lines. The magnetic cloud of plasma coming from the sun can expand to 30 million miles wide by the time it reaches our planet.

P H O T O B Y M AT T R O T H

telescope array; a stint at the Goddard Space Flight Center, helping conduct the Michelson Doppler Imager experiment on the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory mission; and a 25-years-and-counting career at the Southwest Research Institute, where he’s led a number of ground and suborbital instrument development efforts. Through his work, Craig developed the analytic tools that have made the current era of heliospheric imaging possible.

But another key aspect of being a scientist is an ability to communicate the knowledge you gain, which is something Craig takes seriously.

Prior to becoming the principal investigator of PUNCH, he acted as press officer for the Solar Physics Division of the American Astronomical Society, and he has dedicated much of his time to making scientific concepts accessible to wide audiences. So when Craig received the funding for PUNCH, he knew he wanted to leverage the mission for societal benefit and to broaden participation in science, technology, engineering, and math by creating a robust outreach program. “We probe the universe for knowledge, and we communicate that to our fellow man,” Craig explains. “If we lack the ability to communicate to our fellow man, if we neglect the humanities, then we lose the ability to share the knowledge and the nuggets that we find.”

PUNCH is slated to launch in April 2025 from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County, California. Craig says that more than anything, he’s excited to finally see high-quality images of what he’s been studying for so long. “Having the chance to glimpse the interplanetary void,” he says, “and see that the thing we think of as just empty space is a roiling, churning, streaming torrent of material—that is really remarkable.”—Cara Nixon

Zooming Out: The Cosmic Web Farhan Hasan ’18 wants to untangle the mysteries of the distant universe.

If you zoomed out on the entire universe, you’d find a network of interconnected spiderwebs: scattered strands called filaments and mostly empty voids tangled into what scientists call the cosmic web. Farhan Hasan ’18, as a postdoctoral fellow at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI)—the operations hub for the Hubble, Webb, and Roman telescopes—studies how galaxies are influenced by this network.

At Reed, Farhan studied physics and music, participated in community engagement groups, and played bass in a band. He led his life with an interdisciplinary flair, which bled into the rest of his academic career.

While an astronomy PhD student at New Mexico State University, he combined his love for astrophysics with his passion for data analytics as a lead developer on CosmoVis, an opensource 3-D data visualization and analysis software. Recently, he and NMSU colleagues merged their astronomical research with microbiology when they used slime molds to better understand galaxy formation—work

that was featured in Scientific American in August.

Slime molds are single-celled organisms that push out their membranes to explore the space around them, changing course when they find food sources. These organisms, with their weblike formation, have been used in the past for projects like improving railway networks. Now, they’ve been used to map the universe, as Farhan and his team used a slime mold algorithm in a simulation to map connections between galaxies.

“What we found is that you actually are able to identify those large-scale filaments,” Farhan says. “They’re like highways of the universe. That gives us some super interesting insights into how galaxies are actually affected by their surroundings.”

At the STScI, he works with the Hubble and Webb telescopes to study galaxies in the distant universe. It’s the culmination of a lifelong dream—Farhan always enjoyed following clues and solving mysteries. “And physics is like the grandest version of that, right?” he says. —Cara Nixon

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SPACE Vantage Point To see a black hole, Shep Doeleman ’86 needed a telescope the size of a planet. So he built one.

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Shep Doeleman ’86 wants to make one thing clear: He never talked about folding the Earth in half to power Manhattan for a year, contrary to a satirical article published about him in the New Yorker.

“They actually misquoted me,” Shep says good-humoredly. “I think I said something like, ‘If the Earth became a black hole—if you crushed the Earth to the size of a marble— then you could power certain things with it.’”

Shep may not be folding planets like origami, but his actual achievements are more impressive. In 2010, he vowed to capture the first image of a black hole by the end of the decade—and in 2019, he and his team of astronomers fulfilled that ambition, using the virtual Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) to glimpse the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. “Black holes are in literature, art, music, and comic books,” says Shep, who is the EHT’s founding director, a senior astrophysicist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, and a senior research fellow at Harvard. “The reason for that is that they represent the complete unknown. Neutron stars are great.

White dwarves are great. But they don’t inspire songs.”

Shep was featured in the 2020 Netflix documentary The Edge of All We Know—and after capturing the first image of a black hole, he hopes to make the first-ever movie of a black hole. Amid his quest for singularity cinema, he spoke to Reed Magazine about his cosmic career and how Reed has shaped his quest to know the unknowable.

The Event Horizon Telescope has been described as Earth-sized. Can you explain what that means?

It turns out that Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity says that these singularities, these black holes, are the smallest objects that can exist. We’re after the smallest things in the universe and we have to build a telescope that can see them.

The smallest thing a telescope can see in the sky is roughly the wavelength of light you’re observing divided by the size of your telescope.

And if you go through the numbers, you realize you have to build a telescope that’s 10,000 kilometers across in order to image a black hole—like the black hole at the center of our galaxy, which is four million times the mass of our sun.

You can’t make a telescope that big out of one piece of metal. So imagine taking an optical mirror for a normal telescope, smashing it with a ballpeen hammer, and then taking those shards and putting them all over the Earth, orienting those shards so you can make a telescope as large as the Earth itself. And the way we do this is that we use existing radio dishes that are all around the globe [to record radio waves from the black hole], and they all swivel to point to the same black hole at the same time.

How did you become passionate about astrophysics?

When I was 13, I saw my first total solar eclipse—which is something akin to a religious experience. When

What do you want to understand about black holes that you don’t yet?

In movies, there are wormholes, where you get sucked into a black hole and come out somewhere else.

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all the sunlight is blocked, you can see hidden treasures, like the corona.

There was a moment when we didn’t know if we’d be able to see it, because clouds were moving in. But thankfully, just at the moment of totality, the clouds parted and we were gifted with this amazing vision.

Theoretically, those are possible— nobody has disproved those—and if we have any hope of seeing one or understanding if they exist, we want to be looking at a black hole.

Your work has been inspiring at a time when younger generations haven’t experienced many events that create mutual wonderment, like the moon landing.

There is also a connection—not just across the globe spatially, geopolitically—but across time. We feel very connected to Einstein and Karl Schwarzschild and Stephen Hawking and J. Robert Oppenheimer, people who did formative, seminal work on black holes. We use their equations every day and feel a great sense of connection to them. I call it the 100year handshake. We really are comrades with the pioneers who came before.

Zooming In: Stringing It All Together Naomi Gendler ’16 is on her way to finding the most fundamental explanation of our universe.

How did a liberal arts education impact your career as a scientist?

There are some concrete things, like writing proposals: being able to craft a sentence and lay out a narrative that someone can understand, so people can appreciate how the thing you’re proposing to do fits into the larger whole—how it ties into the human experience, how it’s going to advance the field, and how it’s going to address the deep questions we can ask and hope to answer.

One of the things I got from Reed is that there is no one right path. There are many paths between where you are now and where you want to be in the future.

Reed prepares you to be fearless—to jump off cliffs and invent parachutes on the way down.

—Bennett Campbell Ferguson

If you zoomed in super close on anything—say, your shirt or your phone or this very magazine—you’d eventually start to see atoms, electrons, and nuclei made of protons and neutrons. If you zoomed in even more, you’d begin seeing quarks. String theory postulates that if you zoomed in farther than that, you’d find something even more fundamental that makes up all those other particles: little vibrating strings. The different ways those strings vibrate correspond to the different particles and forces that we can see.

That’s how Naomi Gendler ’16 explains string theory. Until string theory, there was no way to combine gravity and quantum mechanics into a single theory useful at probing all energies. But with this solution comes another problem, the biggest complaint about string theory: it’s not testable.

“String theory does make predictions,” Naomi explains, “but not at the energies that we can ever probe with technology we can build.” Her research, as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University, focuses on figuring out which signatures of string theory might be

observable with current experiments.

To do this, Naomi focuses on determining the observable characteristics of axions that come from string theory. Axions are hypothetical particles particularly interesting to physicists because they are considered one of the best candidates for dark matter, a form of matter invisible to current detectors. By writing code that scans through extra-dimensional shapes and computing resulting properties of axions in each possible universe, Naomi seeks to answer: What does string theory have to say about our prospects for detecting axions, and if we do detect axions, what does string theory suggest their properties will be? All hope is not lost for connecting string theory with experiments we can conduct in our lifetime, according to Naomi. Though the task will be difficult, she’s up for the challenge. “I always just wanted to get to the most fundamental explanation of our universe,” Naomi says. “I think that’s what drew me to string theory, because it is the most fundamental explanation we have.” —Cara Nixon

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SPACE Mark Galassi ’87 and Tess Light ’91 are on the frontlines of nuclear nonproliferation.

Tess Light ’91 has a theory about why so many Reedies feel drawn to the deserts of Los Alamos: Despite being over a thousand miles apart, Reed and the birthplace of the atomic bomb share a similarly “quirky and cerebral” sensibility. “It’s definitely not normal, but it’s great,” Tess says.

“Nobody’s going to shy away from a challenging conversation.”

Tess certainly hasn’t. For two decades, she has been a leading scientist in Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Space-Based Nuclear Detonation Detection Program— and in 2021, she was awarded the Los Alamos Global Security Medal, solidifying her place in the field of nuclear nonproliferation.

Mark Galassi ’87, a physicist and computer scientist who has worked in Los Alamos for many years, can relate. In addition to pioneering nonproliferation efforts of his own, he founded the Institute for Computing in Research to mentor summer research students, many of whom come to work at Los Alamos.

The pursuit of tangible good through tireless research brought both Mark and Tess to Los Alamos. This is how their journeys took shape.

Mark Galassi

Mark Galassi’s work is “cosmically important”—just ask Mark Galassi. “I have the opposite of imposter syndrome,” Mark admits, exuding a well-earned confidence.

In addition to being a renowned physicist and computer scientist, he was one of the inaugural winners of the Los Alamos Community Relations Medal, which he received for founding the Institute for Computing in Research, which has mentored hundreds of students.

Manhattan-born Mark was raised in France and Italy, but his father was determined that he attend college in the United States. Then, in the 1982 Selective Guide to Colleges, Mark read a sentence that would lure him to Reed and forever shape his career. “It had this line that read something like, ‘All of them are

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smart, many are geniuses, and most of them want to change the world,’” Mark recalls. He was hooked.

After completing his thesis, “Lagrangian Field Theory of Anisotropic Systems,” written under Prof. Nicholas Wheeler ’55 [physics 1963–2010], and finishing his PhD at Stony Brook University, Mark moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, to work at Los Alamos National Laboratory in the Theoretical Astrophysics group. But he soon shifted to the Space Science and Applications group, where he would remain for most of his career.

Mark has lent his expertise to everything from the HETE (High Energy Transient Explorer) and HETE-2 satellites to the Space-Based Nuclear Detonation Detection Program, on which he collaborated with Tess. Yet he is just as esteemed as a mentor as he is as a research scientist, having founded the Institute for Computing in Research. According to Mark, his students are already challenging the dedication of even senior scientists at Los Alamos. “I bring in a cohort of 10 or 11 students—more than half of them Reed students—and they just crank out solid results all day long,” he says.

When it comes to the subject of his scientific legacy, Mark can be self-deprecating—he’s leery of the “cult of personality” effect associated with his career—but he’s also bullish on the long-term significance of his achievements.

“I think nuclear nonproliferation is extremely important,” he says. “I do like to tell people that when you’re a physicist, you can combine pure research, pure fundamental science, with something that is in the world’s interest.”

Sounds like a matter of cosmic importance.

Tess Light

In Tess Light’s play To Conceive Gods, a scientist named Helen Pario seeks to create the first artificial cell, an achievement that would make her a living deity.

It’s an occupation that mirrors Tess’s work as a senior scientist in Los Alamos

P H OTO BY A D R I A M A L C O L M

Reed Legends at Los Alamos

National Laboratory’s Intelligence and Space Research division. “I’m the world’s most unsuccessful playwright,” Tess deadpans, despite having won the 2017 Julie Harris Playwriting Award and being the 2015 winner of the Arts & Letters Prize for Drama. “I don’t think we need to make too much of that.”

What Tess is unequivocally successful at is her work at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where she is a Laboratory Fellow working in the United States Nuclear Detonation Detection System (USNDS) program. “I’m a very practical person,” says Tess, whose current projects include designing software for next-generation sensors. “My story about why I came here to work on these very practical problems, that jazzes me—doing something that’s immediately tangible and useful.”

Tess’s thesis, written under Prof.

Robert Reynolds [physics 1963–2002, 2006–08], was titled “Reflectance Models of Pluto: Mapping the Surface of the Ninth Planet” (Pluto would not be demoted to dwarf planet until 2006). Despite yearning for scientific pursuits more applied than astrophysics, Tess was baffled when a friend suggested Los Alamos National Laboratory.

“I said, ‘What, are you crazy?’” she recalls. “That’s not making the world a better place. I don’t want to make bombs.

And he laughed at me and said, ‘We do a lot more than that.’” Tess applied to two different groups at Los Alamos, one in Earth and Environmental Sciences and one in the Treaty Monitoring Program, ultimately settling on the latter. Today she represents the electromagnetic pulse sensor development program as its project scientist among the stakeholders of the USNDS, a multiagency program dedicated to detecting nuclear detonations on Earth and in space alike.

“When I go home at Thanksgiving, I can say to my mom, ‘Hey, I work on this thing that matters to you,’” Tess says. “That’s what drew me here. I really believe in it.”

—Bennett Campbell Ferguson

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SPACE

P H O T O B Y B L A I S E D O U R O S / L AW R E N C E L I V E R M O R E N AT I O N A L L A B O R AT O R Y

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Alison Saunders ’11 at the National Ignition Facility, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, in front of a measurement instrument called Dante, which she uses for her laser-driven experiments.

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Laser Focused Alison Saunders ’11 has the biggest laser in the world and a dream: to understand what occurs in the cores of planets and stars.

What happens in the center of a planet or a star? Alison Saunders ’11 is using highpower lasers to find out.

Alison calls herself a laserdriven high-pressure experimental design physicist. At Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, she and a team of scientists use lasers to put metals and other materials in high-pressure environments, under conditions similar to ones found in the cores of planets and stars. Using the largest laser in the world, LLNL’s National Ignition Facility, as well as the Laboratory for Laser Energetics’ OMEGA laser in Rochester, New York, they investigate how these materials react to extreme conditions to better understand the behavior of materials at the centers of large planets and stars. This work has implications for understanding material response to harsh astrophysical environments, too, like figuring out how to design the next generation of spacecraft shielding against micrometeoroids.

LLNL also uses high-power lasers for nuclear fusion research.

Nuclear fusion is when two light atomic nuclei combine to create one heavier nucleus—a process that happens in the hot, high-pressure environments in the cores of stars. Using lasers, scientists attempt to recreate this process, and for years have been hoping to achieve fusion ignition, which is when a controlled fusion reaction creates more energy than was used to spark the reaction.

LLNL achieved ignition for the first time in late 2022, a groundbreaking scientific feat, and has since achieved ignition four more

times. Since fusion reactions don’t release greenhouse gases or radioactive waste, this breakthrough provides new hope of replacing our power sources with clean energy. Though Alison’s work on the same laser aims to understand different high-pressure physical fundamentals, she finds the nuclear fusion project exciting in general for the world of science.

“National labs and large facilities tackle big problems of importance to our nation. Right now, we are using the world’s largest laser to tackle the sustainable energy crisis through demonstration of energy-positive fusion reactions,” she says. “I’m looking forward to seeing what the next large-scale global questions are and how we at the lab will rise to the challenge and lead scientific discovery.”

Originally drawn to physics because of her skeptical nature, Alison at first decided to study the subject at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After a year there, she transferred to Reed and found what she’d been longing for in the physics department: encouraging professors and noncompetitive students. For the first time, in an introductory physics course co-taught by Prof. Darrell Schroeter ’95 [physics] and Prof.

David J. Griffiths [physics 1978– 2009], she felt fully comfortable asking questions. “I found this community of learners at Reed,” Alison says. “It was so fun, because all of us would get together to work on the homework together.

We’d be writing the differential equations up on the board, and it wasn’t competitive. It was really just like, how do we solve this?”

—Cara Nixon

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Chemical brainstorming in the Shokat lab takes many forms, one of which is drawing chemical structures on the safety glass in front of chemical fume hoods while reactions are “cooking.”

The Miracle Worker Dr. Kevan Shokat ’86 isn’t just curing lung cancer. He’s reshaping the way scientists conquer disease.

PHOTO BY NOAH BERGER / UCSF

For many people, the pandemic was the time to bake banana bread and catch up with old friends on Zoom.

For Kevan Shokat ’86, it was the time to hunt for a cure to COVID19 by studying how the virus took over cells.

“To be honest, it was just a great escape,” Kevan says. “When you’re learning new science, you spend all this time reading literature and going down rabbit holes. Doing experiments, getting results from people around the world, that was great fun.”

You might be surprised to hear Kevan characterize a high-stakes endeavor as an escape, but he’s used to shouldering the hopes and fears of people whose life depends on his work. As a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and principal investigator at UC San Francisco, he has devoted his life and research to the relentless pursuit of a monumental goal: curing lung cancer.

It hasn’t been easy—in the past, Kevan’s ideas were doubted and dismissed. But today he is one of the most trusted voices in his field and the winner of the Sjöberg Prize in cancer research from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which honored him for being the first person to block KRAS, one of the mutated proteins that cause most cancer cases.

“I think only 15 years ago, I began really thinking about making drugs,” Kevan says. “Before, I was just studying the biology of

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BODY The Miracle Worker, continued cancer. Then I realized if you really understand [cancer], you should be able to make a drug to turn it off.

That’s when we pivoted.”

That pivot has led to remarkable breakthroughs. Kevan’s research on targeting individual proteins that cause cancer has led to the creation of groundbreaking drugs like sotorasib and adagrasib. “Each step, we’re going as fast as we can, but it still takes a lot,” Kevan says. “There’s a lot of blind alleys.”

At Reed, Kevan was a Phi Beta Kappa chemistry major. At the time, he was legendarily studious; classmates often found him at the library as late as 1 a.m.

“My high school wasn’ t so advanced with science,” says Kevan, who grew up in the Bay Area. “When I got [to Reed], my eyes opened so much. I had a pent-up curiosity that got satisfied when I started taking classes here.”

Kevan opted to pursue a PhD instead of medical school, studying at UC Berkeley until 1991. He subsequently became a Life Sciences Research Foundation Fellow at Stanford University, where he discovered fierce opposition to his ideas about how to fight cancer by manipulating kinases, the special enzymes that can lead to cancer.

While most researchers focus on modifying the genetic structure of cells, Kevan was more interested in blocking kinase signal paths directly.

His adviser at the time told him it was a “stupid idea,” but attempts at dissuading Kevan only strengthened his resolve.

Kevan’s ideas were so divisive that he had difficulty finding a position, but he was ultimately hired as an assistant professor of chemistry at Princeton. “He built really clever tools, multiple tools,” Peter Schultz, Kevan’s PhD adviser, told Reed Magazine in 2012. “Elegant solutions that really picked an important biological problem and used chemistry and molecular science in a way that nobody had ever thought about doing.”

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In 1997, the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America published a paper by Kevan and three collaborators, focusing on their creation of a mutant cell line from a retroviral chicken cancer.

Their research pointed toward one of the foundational beliefs of Kevan’s career: while chemotherapy attacks both healthy and cancerous cells, it is possible to create a drug that attacks the cancerous cells alone.

“In the late ’70s, early ’80s, people didn’t really know where cancer came from,” Kevan says. “People knew that you could get a carcinogen on your skin and you would get a tumor.” What the field learned in the 1980s is that tumors are almost identical to other cells in the human body—and therefore, if drugs could target the differences there could be opportunities to cure cancer.

Kevan has come a long way since the days when his research was disregarded as unrealistic and unorthodox.

Yet despite the accolades he has garnered, he refuses to rest on his laurels, knowing full well that lives depend on the continued progress of his work.

“I think lately, I get an email a day saying, ‘I hear you work with this and my father has been diagnosed with this,’” Kevan says. “I try to point them to clinical trials that are out there that I think have the best chance.”

While Kevan’s research largely focuses on lung cancer, it is theoretically applicable to other cancers, including rare forms of the disease.

He finds it infuriating when others suggest that he’s wasting his time by studying statistically rare cancers.

“If we had only done the most common [cancers], we would have never gotten to the starting line,” Kevan says. “I get so mad when somebody says, ‘That is too rare’ or ‘not an important cancer type.’”

As Kevan tells me about his life and work over coffee at the Olde Paradox Café, his geniality and humility belie his immense achievements and the pressures that come with them.

Kevan talks with students in the lab while they are running experiments. He helps with planning for follow-up experiments and interpreting confusing results.

PHOTO BY NOAH BERGER / UCSF

Yet when the subject of cancers considered “too rare” to study is raised, you feel the force of his steely dedication to conquering one of the greatest scourges of humankind.

“If I can hear a good argument to not do something, that’s fantastic,” Kevan says. “But if somebody tries to dissuade you from it and the argument isn’t strong…just because you’re critical doesn’t mean you’re smart.”

Kevan’s life remains intimately linked to the Reed community. He

received the Vollum Award in 2023, and he is married to Deborah Kamali ’85, who recently became president of the board of trustees. The couple are also the parents of three Reed alumni, Kasra Shokat ’14, Mitra Shokat ’18, and Leila Shokat ’21.

“It was so neat when they picked [Reed],” Kevan says. “It’s very special. Each time, coming to drop them off for the start of term was very fun. It’s great to have those shared experiences.”

For Kevan, the concept of shared experience has expansive meaning.

Through his work, he’s connected to people he may never meet, but who will live and love because of his discoveries. As Kevan likes to say, every drug or treatment begins with somebody who makes a discovery.

For present and future generations, that somebody is him.

—Bennett Campbell Ferguson

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BODY Our PlasticStable Brains Gina Turrigiano ’84 revolutionizes neuroscience with her research on brain plasticity.

Imagine a car that could tune itself up.

This vehicle changes its own oil, rotates its own tires, and checks its own spark plugs, filters, and hoses. Turns out, you don’t have to imagine this kind of machine—it exists, and it’s the one where you used to do the imagining in the first place.

That’s how Gina Turrigiano ’84 thinks about the human brain: like a machine. But unlike a typical, human-made machine, it’s so complex that it’s usually able to tune itself up without outside interference, and keep changes from destabilizing its circuits. This phenomenon is referred to as homeostatic plasticity, and it means that our brains are flexible enough to constantly adapt to new information and other alterations, but simultaneously stable enough to not fall apart. Gina, as the Joseph Levitan Professor of Vision Science at Brandeis University, has been studying the tension between how our brains can remain both plastic and stable for decades. Not only does this research tell us about how the intricate mechanisms of our brains work and interact, but it also helps us learn how these processes can be interfered with, and has implications for better understanding brain differences. Circuits can either be too excitable, leading to problems like epilepsy, or not excitable enough, which can lead to issues in processing sensory information or in cognitive processes.

When Gina first started at Brandeis, she and her lab made a discovery that revolutionized the field of neuroscience, specifically the branch concerned with brain plasticity. What they discovered was synaptic scaling, a form of homeostatic plasticity that allows neurons to adjust the strength of their synapses to stabilize activity. Gina compares synaptic scaling to a thermostat. If the heat (neuronal excitability) is too low, the brain senses

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Gina Turrigiano ’84 at the Life of a Neuron exhibit at the Artechouse in New York City in 2022. In her own work, Gina goes inside the mammalian brain to better understand its plasticity and stability.

this deviation from the norm and dials up the heat (synaptic strength) to restore the system. If the heat (activity) is too high, the opposite occurs. This helps retain balance in your brain when it comes to learning, memory, your senses, and more. Now the Turrigiano Lab investigates the specific functions of homeostatic plasticity and synaptic scaling, like whether these mechanisms act redundantly, and how and why upward firing rate homeostasis occurs only when the brain is awake and downward firing rate homeostasis occurs only when it’s asleep.

Gina was always interested in biology, but she felt her life change in Prof. Dell Rhodes’s [psychology 1975–2006] physiological psychology class while at Reed.

“It was like being struck by lightning,” she says. “It brought together so many aspects of what I was interested in. When I took that class, it was like, oh my god, this is where it all comes together.”

For her thesis, she followed that newfound passion and studied sensory inputs to the cerebellum, commuting on the bus with her lab rats to work with neuroscientist Lee Robertson at the Neurological Sciences Institute, with Prof. Steve Arch [biology 1972–2012] as her on-campus adviser. The cerebellum is the part of the brain that is particularly interested in motor coordination, but it’s also been known to receive all kinds of sensory inputs. Gina wanted to find out through her thesis whether or not olfactory—sense of smell—inputs got sent there, too. “The answer seemed to be yes,” she says.

Though she’s come a long way since transporting lab rats on TriMet, Gina still credits Reed for showing her how to be an effective science communicator, and for informing her teaching style at Brandeis.

“Science is storytelling. When you write a scientific paper, data do not speak for themselves—you have to speak for them,” she says. “What I loved about Reed was being able to get a rigorous disciplinary introduction to this broad swath of human endeavor—that was really, really important for me.” —Cara Nixon

Precision Pointe With the discipline of a ballerina, Rachel Klevit ’78 investigates the proteins implicated in disease.

How are ballet and biochemistry related? Most would probably say they aren’t. But Rachel Klevit ’78, who started her career as a semi-professional ballerina and will end it as a biochemist, disagrees. “I study the molecules of biochemistry in terms of their dynamic behavior, how they move and how their movements give rise to their function,” she explains.

“You could argue a certain choreographic aspect to my own research and the way I like to think about molecules.” In 2021, Rachel was elected to the National Academy of Sciences for her research.

At the University of Washington Klevit Lab, Rachel’s research team studies the guardians of the cell.

Specifically, part of the lab investigates small heat shock proteins, the first responders in a cell when some kind of stress has occurred.

When protein molecules are damaged by this stress, small heat shock proteins triage the unraveling proteins. Understanding this process is key for learning how to maintain a healthy life, but also for finding therapies that may help slow down plaque buildup that leads to neurodegenerative diseases. The other part of the lab works to under-

stand why inherited mutations in BRCA1 and its “sister gene,” BARD1, are associated with high risks for breast and ovarian cancer.

Before she became a scientist, Rachel was a semi-professional ballerina for two years with the Royal Winnipeg and Portland Ballet companies. Even as a student at Reed, she didn’t sacrifice dance in favor of a new passion for science; she simply did both. “They both require high amounts of self-discipline, of self-motivation, of focus, of being willing to practice a thing over and over again until you can do it really well,” Rachel says. That self-discipline paid off—upon graduating, Rachel became the first woman from the Pacific Northwest to earn a Rhodes Scholarship, which she used to earn her PhD in biochemistry from the University of Oxford.

Though she doesn’t dance anymore—“What is it they say? The mind is willing, but the body, not so much, right?”—one could argue Rachel still approaches her work with the precision and grace of someone who does. And she finds being multifaceted makes for better outcomes. “All the best science is interdisciplinary,” she says.

—Cara Nixon

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BODY On the Future of Medicine Roger Perlmutter ‘73 transforms scientific questions into lifesaving treatments.

Every morning, somewhere in America, thousands of people walk into a clinical trial center, volunteering to test a compound that has never before existed in the universe. This extraordinary act of trust weighs heavily on Trustee and former Chair of the Board, Roger Perlmutter ’73.

As a scientist, physician, and one of the pharmaceutical industry’s most successful leaders, he has spent decades developing new medicines, in the process registering dozens of drugs—in a field where skilled researchers can spend entire careers without moving a single drug into clinical trials.

“I feel the burden acutely,” he says.

Volunteering for a clinical trial is “an almost spiritual act, because in most cases, those who volunteer recognize that the trial probably will not benefit them directly. Instead, they volunteer to help advance breakthrough medicines that will benefit someone else. We must take seriously the selflessness that motivates these actions.”

One of the breakthrough medicines that Roger helped bring from the lab into clinical practice was Keytruda™, an immunotherapy developed during his tenure at the biopharmaceutical company Merck & Co. The cancer treatment notably helped control metastatic melanoma in former president Jimmy Carter, who turned 100 in September of this year, a decade after he was first diagnosed with what would have previously been an incurable cancer.

For Roger, successful research requires that hypotheses be set up in a way that enables clear and reliable experimental results. “Rather than asking, ‘How does the brain work?’, one must focus on a specific aspect of brain function that can be measured reliably, building from such studies a more general understanding of brain function,” he says. This rigorous methodology, which he first embraced while a student at Reed, has led to many potent, lifesaving medicines.

Long before Roger was leading pharmaceutical companies, he was a teenager at

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Reed with broad interests in music, poetry, and mechanical engineering (including building a new type of gyrocopter). “If the measure of an education is the amount of change that it produces in one, then I got a great education at Reed: I began college thinking that I might become a poet and emerged a scientist,” Roger says, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

After Reed, he entered the Medical Scientist Training Program at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, earning both MD and PhD degrees. He pursued clinical training at the Massachusetts General Hospital and the University of California, San Francisco and served as a lecturer in biology at Caltech before moving to the University of Washington. There, he and his colleagues focused on mechanisms that permit diversification of immune receptors and the process whereby signals are communicated from these receptors, which reside on the surfaces of lymphocytes, into the interior of the cell.

Their discoveries, outlined in over 100 publications over many years, proved important to cancer biology, in which the same kind of signaling can stimulate

“ To identify a new therapeutic candidate, and then to test it in the clinic, requires the best efforts of hundreds, sometimes thousands of people.” unchecked replication of cancer cells.

Roger and his team then began to make synthetic compounds that could inhibit the signaling process. “It became clear to me that if we could turn down the thermostat on signal transduction, we would very likely be able to control a lot of pathological processes, and that set me off on a pharmaceutical career,” he says.

In the interim Roger had become the founding chair of the Department of Immunology at the University of Washington, which grew to include more

than 300 scientists and trainees. But his belief in the importance of manipulating molecular signals as a means to treat grievous illness led him to leave academia for the pharmaceutical industry, where over the next quarter century, he helped to direct both research and clinical development at Merck & Co. (1997–2001; 2013– 2021) and at Amgen, Inc. (2001–2012).

Roger describes himself simply as a scientist, and takes credit only for having built truly excellent teams. He’s worked with specialists from diverse fields—each

C O U RT E S T Y O F E I KO N / P H O T O BY E R I C S T R A C K E , G O R I L L A C R E AT I V E

with unique concerns, challenges, and vocabularies. For example, “Every scientist is, both by nature and training, conditioned to be deeply skeptical,” he says.

“You look at a graph and think, ‘why is that not true?’ Embracing this skepticism across all disciplines helps avoid superficial thinking about enormously complex biological processes.”

He explains that “to identify a new therapeutic candidate, and then to test it in the clinic, requires the best efforts of hundreds, sometimes thousands of people. No one person knows enough to execute the whole task. Drug development is unambiguously a team sport.”

For the past four years Roger has been engaged in building an even more diverse

team of scientists and engineers with the goal of exploring the internal biochemistry of living cells non-destructively, and in real time. “Renowned physicist Eric Betzig, who shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2014 for the development of super-resolution microscopy, is fond of saying that if you want to study life, you ought to look at living things,” says Roger, “and that is exactly what we are doing.” As chairman, president, and CEO of Eikon Therapeutics, Roger and his colleagues have employed “single-molecule tracking,” which permits measurement of the behavior of individual proteins inside living cells through video recordings at over 100 frames per second, to identify novel drug candidates.

What they’re discovering will rewrite textbooks, he says. And these discoveries offer the potential to develop highly targeted drugs to treat illness.

“Jimmy Carter’s longevity, enabled in no small part by scientific discoveries that led to the development of Keytruda, demonstrate what can be achieved if you have a bit of insight into the biological systems that control life on Earth,” Roger says.

For him, progress comes from turning big questions into testable ones, then bringing together the right minds to pursue the answers—an approach that has led to breakthrough treatments and continues to open new possibilities in medicine.

—Katie Pelletier ’03

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Reediana

BOOKSHELF

Edited by Robin Tovey ’97

Answering Chaos: A Handbook

Seize The Initiative!

Angelina at the Serrano

Hereafter In his second collection of poetry, Alan Felsenthal ’03 moves between the difficult work of mourning and the spirited nature of life. A follow-up to Lowly, this volume is both an elegy for a dear friend and a search for signs of renewal, using both humor and pathos to recover pastoral symbols of sorrow from cliché. (The Song Cave, 2024)

This debut poetry collection by Linera Lucas ’71 is a manual for survival through poetry, a record of how to withstand the necessary and unnecessary traumas of a long life. She encourages us to “read it like a novel, and understand that although many poets are serious and gloomy, I am serious and cheerful, not to say gleeful.” (Kelsay Books, 2024)

Yoram Bauman ‘95 wrote and produced a romantic comedy about democracy, climate action, and sandwiches (think Mr. Smith Goes to Washington crossed with When Harry Met Sally... or Hamilton, but with carbon-tax ballot measures!). It premiered with six sold-out shows at the Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival last summer. See a video of the play at www.Yoram-Com.com.

Braids

Sabor Judío

Freak Show

Polished

The debut cookbook from chef and writer Sonya Sanford ’04 reflects the process of creating something new, and wholly delicious, from the seemingly disconnected strands of a life lived across cultures and places. These recipes are inspired by her experience growing up in a Soviet Jewish immigrant home in the Pacific Northwest, by her adventures in living and cooking in cities along the West Coast, and by her time running Beetroot Market & Deli in Portland. (Independently published, 2023)

This lavishly illustrated cookbook

by Margaret Boyle ’05 and Ilan Stavans celebrates the delicious fusion of two culinary traditions and describes a vibrant history of Jewish immigration to Mexico from 1492 to the present. This collection is the product of two award-winning Jewish Mexican writers who spent a decade gathering recipes and personal narratives from Jewish Mexican households, infusing cultural heritage into this essential culinary record. (University of North Carolina Press, 2024)

In this latest book of poetry, Casey Killingsworth MALS ’07 assembles poems outlining his own freakishness, the odd jobs and shifts that have earned him his living, the difficulty trying to relate to other people, and even how to love. “We are all freaks, the way we dress, the way we conduct ourselves in grocery stores, the way we think about flowers.” (Fernwood Press, 2024)

Through in-depth interviews with first-generation and low-income students across 18 elite institutions, sociologist Melissa Osborne ’13 reveals how the support designed to propel these students forward can unexpectedly reshape their identities, often putting them at odds with their peers and families. Melissa gave a talk at Reed in September, sharing insights from the book and their research on inequality and how organizations shape individual experiences. (University of Chicago Press, 2024)

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Andrea Lambert ’98 has published a new novel. A self-described “queer writer and artist with schizoaffective disorder and long COVID,” she says themes of abjection, mental illness, transgression, and the occult inhabit her work. A previous publication, Dining with a Cursed Bloodline (2021), was a collection of columns she wrote for Entropy magazine’s food section. (Rochak Publishing, 2024)

The Inheritor Prof. Kate Bredeson [theatre] and Thalia Wolff ’22 collaborated on the first English-language translation of a 1968 French play about class inequality and access to higher education. Northwestern University Press published their book in fall 2024. The play uses didacticism and absurdism to convey what it’s like to be a student at an elite institution and not know the many unwritten rules and behaviors that dictate campus culture. Structured around the high-stakes entranceexam preparations of two students, the Inheritor and the Non-Inheritor, the plot explores how their life experiences have positioned them very differently to navigate the university environment. Showcasing a world of privilege where there is no such thing as “good luck,” the play features a boisterous chorus of professors, who in this world are squawking birds; a beheaded knight;

a picnic in the Louvre museum; and a talking record player.

The Inheritor made a forceful statement in May 1968, when the student company Théâtre de l’Aquarium performed it for striking students in Paris during countrywide protests, and, more recently, when students on the Reed campus participated in public staged readings in 2021 and in the 2024–25 academic year. The Inheritor continues to speak to education inequality on campuses across Anglophone countries today. In their separate introductions to the play, professor-student team Bredeson and Wolff draw from their experiences in academia, share the history and context of the Aquarium’s process and 1968 premiere, and discuss what it was like to work on this play with current students. This publication began as a Ruby-Lankford summer grant project for the pair,

and other Reed contributors include Anne Gendler ’81, project editor at Northwestern University Press, and Sizheng Song ’23, the illustrator who drew the cover art.

Wolff is now in graduate school in the theatre education and applied theatre program at Emerson College, and Prof. Bredeson returned this semester from a sabbatical during which she completed four awarded artist residencies, including a prestigious spring fellowship at Loghaven, and worked on a book project supported by a Furthermore foundation grant. Her forthcoming book is a four-volume edited collection of the diaries of Judith Malina (1926–2015), an actress, director, and writer who cofounded with Julian Beck the experimental theatre company The Living Theatre.

Malina, mother to Garrick Beck ’71, and her company performed at Reed in 1969.

The Inheritor A Play Translated by Kate Bredeson and Thalia Wolff

by Théâtre de l’Aquarium

Three on a Match: A Trio of Disaster Handbooks

“At a moment when hot summers, flooding streets, and wildfiresmoke-filled skies are impacting us all, it’s normal to feel anxious about the future and seek tangible ways to help,” says Cate Mingoya-LaFortune ’08. She wrote Climate Action for Busy People (Island Press, 2024) to offer practical ways to meet the advancing crisis. She digs into why our communities are vulnerable to climate threats and provides concrete tasks that you

M AT T H E W M O N T E I T H

“It’s starting to feel like the party we call civilization is just about over. The good news? It’s always felt that way,” Athena Aktipis ’02 reminds us in A Field Guide to the Apocalypse: A

Mostly Serious Guide to Surviving Our Wild Times (Workman Publishing Company, 2024). A cooperation theorist (and zombie expert), Athena explains how we’re hardwired to survive big existential crises. Punctuated by illuminating sidebars and illustrations, the book draws upon historic precedent, evolutionary psychology, and brain science to showcase a powerful hack for “end times” and beyond: cooperating with each other.

PHOTO

Food Activism Today: Sustainability, Climate Change, and Social Justice,

by Don Nonini ’68 and Dorothy Holland (New York University Press, 2024), examines the potential for transforming local food systems under conditions of ecological devastation and political-economic crises.

Based on ethnographic and historical research in North Carolina, the book looks at the ethics of alternative approaches to food production, offering templates for activist solutions in an uncertain future of food provisioning in the U.S.

Cate Mingoya-LaFortune ’08

can do today, alone or with others, in a handful of hours. Drawing from her professional and personal success in climate adaptation and community organizing, Cate lays out a road map for making change at the municipal level for a more equitable distribution of preparedness resources.

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Class Notes Edited by Joanne Hossack ’82

Then and now: hanging outside the Gray Campus Center, 1998. Now photo by Forrest Feist ’27.

1955 70TH REUNION

1960–61

January 2, 2025, is Happy Mew Year for Cats day! Celebrate by dressing your cat up in a mew outfit and a “Happy Mew Year” hat.

to work for the registrar’s office and is still there.

Michael Herz has been circumnavigating San Francisco Bay, gathering stories for a podcast, Once Upon a Bay, slated to launch in fall 2024.

Mike’s latest enterprise was profiled in the San Francisco Chronicle in June in Carl Nolte’s “Native Son” column; you can read about it there or at onceuponabay.org.

1958

1959

February 3 is Doggy Date Night.

Set aside the evening for just you and your dog.

We at Class Notes wish all Reed alumni a celebratory 2025. Mark your calendars for Reunions 2025, June 12–15, and a few more dates . . .

1956–57

Joyce (Willett) Bradley had a wonderful time at her 65th Reed Reunion in 2023, simultaneously with her son Ben Bradley ’88’s 35th reunion.

Many of you will know Ben, as he never left campus. Instead, he went

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Loline Hathaway writes, “I was the dumbest and oldest at Reunions: the others ‘skipped a grade.’ And during a debate over whether marble and calcium carbonate were the same, NO ONE pulled out their phone and googled the answer!”

January 22 is Answer Your Cat’s Questions Day. And your cat probably has a few questions.

1962

Steve Shields, Carol Hurwitz, Sue Hanchett, and Bill Jarrico ’61 got together to celebrate their 84th birthdays in Albany, California.

1963

1964

Angele (Wilking) Blanton writes, “Still working part-time as a small animal veterinarian at a job I have

Janet Vesper Plaisted Buehler, wife of David Buehler MAT ’69.

loved and wanted to do since I was 10 years old. It took 40 years to get there, and I’m not about to let go yet!”

1965 60TH REUNION

February 15 is World Whale Day. Set aside the evening for just you and your whale.

1966

Joseph Feinblatt is the vice-chairman of the Pasadena Arts and Culture Commission.

1967

John Cushing greeted Peter Lomhoff ’66, whom he had last seen in 1971, at a Peace Corps reunion in Portland. They had back-to-back radio broadcasts at KRRC and were both Peace Corps volunteers in Korea.

Here’s what Jonathan Longcore has been up to: AI development at Delta Air Lines 1978–98; sole proprietorship MacOnly consulting 1996–present; network admin at KUNM radio/University of New Mexico 2007–19; first grandson November 2023.

1968

April 4 is World Rat Day. You know what to do.

1969

We were sorry to learn from David Buehler MAT of the loss of his partner, Janet Vesper Plaisted Buehler, who died unexpectedly on September 11, 2022. A graduate of Horace Greeley High School in Chappaqua, New York, Janet taught multitudes of children and young adults for the nearly 60 years she was David’s partner. David moved from Dartmouth, Massachusetts, to Maryland in 2023 in order to be near his son Jake, Jake’s wife Hope, and three grandchildren. David’s goal is to show his film about Joan Baez and David Harris enjoying Reed Kulcher in the ’60s at the American Film Institute in Silver Spring; it’s among many anti-war

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films he released while teaching at Jefferson High School, working on his master’s at Reed, and doing light shows for the Grateful Dead, the Doors, Iron Butterfly, Howlin’ Wolf, and other itinerant artists.

passion. It can help improve character, teach respect, discipline, focus and humility and help us all stay in shape. Fencing is a sport that favors intelligence as well as being in condition. It has a storied history at Reed as one sport where Reed students often excelled over other colleges and other sports.”

1970 55TH REUNION

Judith Lipton writes, “Three children, five grandchildren, coauthored nine books. You can google me. I’m a Distinguished Life Fellow of the APA. I live in Goleta, California, close to my youngest child, Nellie, a veterinarian. My oldest child, born while I was at Reed, lives in Orinda, California, and is a data scientist.”

After teaching fencing again at Paideia 2024, Alan Ridley separately earned board certification as a Moniteur d’Épée from the US Fencing Coaches Association at a workshop in San Diego. This is the third level of coaching in fencing, the fifth level being a fencing master. He also earned an E24 after placing first in the pools, but lost the second direct elimination and placed 11th out of 34 in Vet-70 épée fencing at the Summer National Championships in Columbus, Ohio, on July 2, 2024. He got a high five from Lee Kiefer, the only American to win gold in fencing in the Tokyo Olympics (who won two more gold medals this year in the Paris Olympics). Alan writes, “Fencing can become a lifelong

1971

David Comfort’s 2024 literary journal publications include “Fear and Loathing in the Land of the Free: Jeffersonian Democracy versus Trumpian Tyranny” (The Philosopher, September 2024), “Buried in God: The Medieval Mystic Path to Immortality” (Montréal Review, August 2024), and “The Otherworldly Trinity: Death, Divinity, and Dreams” (Montréal Review, May 2024).

Doug Fenner helped a survey diving team record corals in the National Marine Sanctuary in American Samoa in February. He joined a group led by Conservation International to survey reefs by diving around small islands in Fiji for two weeks in March, recording and photographing corals. The survey was for areas for Marine Protected Areas. In April he went to Guam for a week and Saipan for a week, teaching coral identification, sponsored by NOAA. Matthew Kangas sent us an update from the “latest informal

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1. From left: Steve Shields ’62, Carol Hurwitz ’62, Sue Hanchett ’62, and Bill Jarrico ’61 celebrate their 84th birthdays in Albany, California.

2. Left to right: Matthew Kangas ’71, Roger Lippman ’69, Geoff Robison ’71, and Sara Patton ’71 get together at Geoff’s Seattle home for dinner.

Photo by Sarah Bullock.

3. This medieval mystic illustrates “Buried in God: The Medieval Mystic Path to Immortality” by David Comfort ’71 (Montréal Review, August 2024).

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Class Notes

gathering of the Reed Dining Club,” August 29 at the home of Geoff Robison, situated on Arroyo Beach, Puget Sound. Matthew continues his work as an art critic and art historian. Roger Lippman ’69 is sliding toward retirement from his work in energy conservation across the nation, reinventing himself as a historian of his Seattle neighborhood, Leschi. Geoff is a retired software engineer (Adobe) and has just finished restoring a Ralph Anderson house in Seattle. Sara Patton is a retired clean energy and salmon activist and former executive director of the NW Energy Coalition.

1972

April 9 is National Chicken Little Awareness Day. Celebrate by honing your awareness. Start with the sky. Is it falling? No? Good. Yes? Uh-oh.

1973

Thomas Owen reports, “After a homeless summer, I have a new home in Brookline, Massachusetts, which is a different country from South Boston, my old home. It’s on the 15th floor, so great views, though I tend to edge back from the windows and wonder what winter will be like—looking down on snowstorms. Indeed, living in Southie, I stored food and toilet paper in case of blizzards. Now someone in the lobby remarks, ‘How long will the elevators be out of order this time?’ Something new to stockpile supplies for.”

Barbara (Sanford) Rahder has just published a memoir, Out of Sight! Memoir of a San Francisco Hippie, focused on 1966–74, including her years at Reed (1971–73). It’s available at books.friesenpress.com.

Kathy (Dyson) Roseth’s exhibition Magic Lake was shown at Gallery 110 in Seattle October 3 through November. Magic Lake features imaginary landscapes populated by ducks, coots, Canada geese, herons, and crows, surrounded by

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a web of quilt patterns. The quilt patterns are images from Kathy’s own Quaker/Mennonite tradition, but they illustrate an idea borrowed from the mythology of the Haida Indians, of the “membrane” that “stretches skin-tight and resonant over everything in the world,” and separates the waking from the spirit world; animals pass freely back and forth across the membrane, but humans are “common surface birds” that need animal escorts (Robert Bringhurst, The Black Canoe: Bill Reid and the Spirit of Haida Gwaii, University of Washington Press, 1991). Kathy is familiar with the concept of a transcendent reality from her days working on her Reed thesis about T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, except that Eliot’s vision, which is the Neoplatonic Christian vision, puts humans at the center of the reality, and the Haida version does not.

Seth Wittner got proof on July 22, 2024, that if you work at something for 40 years, you may succeed. He finally got a letter to the editor of the New York Times published on that date. Previously, he’d had letters published in Esquire, the New Yorker, and Vanity Fair. This last publication, however, is known to be incredibly picky. Lest anyone think that writing letters is all that Seth does, he is writing music for solo harp and would like to hear

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from any Reedie who plays at the intermediate or advanced level and might consider adding a short piece to their repertoire.

1974 50TH REUNION

May 13 is Frog Jumping Day! Currently, the record for distance in frog jumping is held by “Rosie the Ribeter,” who set a record of 21 feet, 5¾ inches (in three jumps) in Calaveras County in 1986.

1975–76

May 14 is Dance Like a Chicken Day. Again, you know what to do.

1977

Tom Becker sent us a photo of himself in Reed gear, racewalking the last Reed College 5K FUNd Run/

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1. San Francisco hippie Barbara Sanford Rahder ’73 at the Oregon coast in 1972.

2. Corals! From Doug Fenner ’71.

3. Arrival, oil on canvas, 24 × 18, by Kathy Roseth ’73.

4. Artist Kathy Roseth ’73.

Walk, held in 2019. “I’m still doing it every day!”

1978

Monday, June 16, 2025, is Take Your Cat to Work Day. Not to be confused with . . .

1979

Vera Boals is still hanging with her rescue cats and running a low cost spay-neuter clinic every month. To date, Vera has helped spay or neuter over 4,000 cats.

Christopher Webb has finally returned home to California after 22 years in Germany and almost 5 years in New Mexico.

1980 45TH REUNION

Randy Hardee is happily retired from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Stefanie Voorsanger Hardee ’82 is still working part time as a physical therapist at a local hospital. “The PTO would be a great second or third job for a Reedie,” says Randy. “The autonomy and responsibility are substantial, the opportunity to make a contribution is great, and you’re paid to think critically.”

1981

. . . Friday, June 20, 2025, Take Your Dog to Work Day.

1982

Kirk Parson has retired.

1983

The fifth edition of Donald Asher’s Graduate Admissions Essays has been released.

1984

June 25 is National Catfish Day. Celebrate by creating a fake online identity. Oh, wait.

1985 40TH REUNION

July 10 is Don’t Step on a Bee Day. Always good advice.

1986–89

July 14 is Shark Awareness Day. Just when you thought it was safe!

1990 35TH REUNION

July 16 is World Snake Day and I’ll make a joke up about that later.

1991–92

August 4 is International Owl Awareness Day. Be on the lookout for owls. Especially concrete owls.

1993

Jessica Benjamin and Rikki Nicolae ’98 had a great evening at Porter Square Books, where Cate Mingoya-LaFortune ’08 sat in conversation with David Sittenfeld at a reading of Cate’s new book, Climate Action for Busy People. After the event, Rikki and Jessica visited the Burren Irish Pub and Restaurant in Somerville, Massachusetts, where they discussed books, more books, and Eastern Europe, and identified one person they both dated at Reed.

Catalina Palting Claussen retired from Aldo Leopold Charter School in Silver City, New Mexico.

Catalina cofounded the school in 2005; she taught English, history, and PE over the years and most recently served as internship and youth conservation corps coordinator. After taking a dream trip to France and Spain to see the Eiffel Tower, lock eyes with the Mona Lisa, and immerse herself in the architecture of Antoni Gaudí, she is looking forward to serving in her new role as secondary school coordinator at Lawrence Family Development Charter School in Lawrence, Massachusetts. She looks forward to working with immigrant eighth-graders to realize their academic dreams in private and parochial secondary schools in the Boston area. “There is so much joy in being of service to the community. I’m excited for this new adventure!” Catalina is an empty-nester with both children grown and graduated (Banyan Claussen, Sierra Nevada College class of 2018, and Ajalaa Claussen, University of Southern California class of 2024).

“I feel confident they have the tools to light up their dreams and I look

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1. Tom Becker ’77 racewalks the 2019 Reed FUNd 5K. 1

2. Catalina Claussen ’93 went to Barcelona!

forward to helping others gain a strong foundation too.”

Vijay Shah is reflecting on how his pursuit of justice began twenty years ago, after his seizure at the Democratic National Convention in 2004. To redress the blatant example of racial profiling, he filed a federal lawsuit, which resulted in a jury determining that the Secret Service violated his constitutional rights. “The ordeal turned my life upside down, but Reed made my activism possible.” He reports that our dear college truly inspired him.

1994

Brittney Corrigan’s debut short story collection, The Ghost Town Collectives, won the 2023 Osprey Award for Fiction and was published by Middle Creek Publishing on October 15.

After working for the Multnomah County Library for 29 years, Rachael Short has transferred into her dream job—Special Collections Librarian. She spends her days learning about, taking care of, and sharing a stellar collection of rare books and other delights.

See multcolib.org/jwsc if you are curious.

1995 30TH REUNION

Having made a living for 15 years as “the world’s first and only stand-up economist,” Yoram Bauman is

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Class Notes

increasing the degree of difficulty by trying to make it as a playwright, with a romantic comedy called Seize the Initiative! The play premiered this summer with six soldout shows at the Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival; it hasn’t won a Tony Award (yet!) but Yoram still has lots of people to thank, including Bob Erickson ’60 and Prof.

Noel Netusil [economics] for financial support, Ben Davis ’95 and Nic Warmenhoven ’96 for coming to a stage reading in Seattle, and Nato Green ’97 and Kathleen Worley [theatre 1985–2014] for advice.

1996

Amy Wright Glenn now lives in Asheville, North Carolina, with her 12-year-old son Taber, their amazing 3-year-old golden retriever named Scout, and two leopard geckos, Cricket and Sunny. Amy teaches ELA and social studies to curious and wonderful middle school students at the Odyssey School. She also is the director of the Institute for the Study of Birth, Breath, and Death, which she founded nearly 9 years ago. The institute provides personal and professional training to those called to hold space for the thresholds of life, such as birth and death doulas. Amy maintains an active mindfulness practice (primarily meditation, yoga, and walking) and specializes in teaching yoga for grief. She loves to garden, is active in her local Unitarian Universalist church, and volunteers with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Western North Carolina. She and Taber love to travel (especially to Florida and Utah), hike, play, go to the theater, and listen to books about dragons on Audible together. :) Life is good!

1997–99

September 1 is Pick Your Own Underappreciated Animal and Appreciate It Day.

2000 25TH REUNION

Sean Franzel recently got together with freshman roommates Matt

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Hansen ’99 and Josh Vaughan for the first time since college. They lived in Coleman (R.I.P.) in academic year 1995-96. Josh now lives in Seattle with his wife and two daughters; he is a chemistry professor at the University of Washington and still dabbles with music in his spare time. Matt lives in Philadelphia with his wife, Grace Brannigan; works in genetics research at the University of Pennsylvania; and is the caretaker for one grouchy cat. Sean lives in Columbia, Missouri, with his wife, Rose Metro, and two kids; teaches German at the University of Missouri; plays keyboard in a bossa nova band; and has recently published a book, Writing Time: Studies in Serial Literature, 1780–1850.

2001

September 7 is Pet Rock Day. Pet rocks are easy to care for and like to be dressed up. Celebrate by adopting one or several!

2002

Athena Aktipis has authored her second book, A Field Guide to the Apocalypse: A Mostly Serious Guide to Surviving Our Wild Times.

Athena is also doing an Apocalypse Road Show, and has an NSF grant to study cooperation and conflict in the face of collective risk.

Read more about Athena’s work at athenaaktipis.org.

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2003

In addition to the accolades listed in her Fall 2024 class note, Emilie Raguso has won four first-place California Journalism Awards!

Despite being a one-woman newsroom, Emilie’s news site, the Berkeley Scanner, founded in 2022, has quickly become a sustainable business with 1,300 paying members.

2004 20TH REUNION

Mohamed Anees Ahmed is at the 2-year mark into his first job as an attending physician. He’s at the Optum Washington at Summit View clinic, formerly the Everett Clinic, in Puyallup, Washington.

“Definitely living the dream! I am often in the Portland area to visit my mom and extended family.”

1. Yoram Bauman ’95 with Zadie (10), Teddy (5), and a Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival award for Seize the Initiative!

2. Sean Franzel ’00, Matt Hansen ’99, and Josh Vaughan ’00 get lunch on a day sail to Bainbridge Island, Washington.

3. Cate MingoyaLaFortune ’08 in conversation with David Sittenfeld at a reading of Cate’s new book, Climate Action for Busy People. Photo by Jessica Benjamin ’93.

Erica Naito-Campbell’s biography of her grandfather and self-defined Reed radical Bill Naito ‘49, Portland’s Audacious Champion: How Bill Naito Overcame AntiJapanese Hate and Became an Intrepid Civic Leader, was published in March by Oregon State University Press.

Skye Winspur is living happily in Wisconsin and has embarked on writing a novel about Sweden in the 1720s, when the country ceased to be a great European power.

2005 20TH REUNION

Ryann Liebenthal’s Burdened: Student Debt and the Making of an American Crisis was published by Dey Street on September 10. (“I have only nice things to say about my experience at Reed, don’t worry.”)

2006

Michelle David is continuing to revitalize Portland’s downtown district in producing FATHOM, an underwater immersive art experience. See www.roboocto.com.

2007

September 22 is Elephant Appreciation Day. Celebrate by appreciating the elephant of your choice.

2008

“I’m doing just great,” writes Will Henderson. “Just today I was walking down the street thinking about how nice it would be to hear from you.”

Cate Mingoya-LaFortune was named a 2024 Grist Fixer—an honor that highlights climate leaders bringing unique and innovative solutions to their field, their community, and the world. Cate also has failed to submit other life events like marrying another Reedie (Cole Springate-Combs) a decade ago, having a really cool kid (who is now seven), and moving to Massachusetts where she completed grad school (MIT ’15) and started doing climate adaptation work in

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low-income communities. Cate published her first book, Climate Action for Busy People, this June.

2009

October 8 is World Octopus Day. Octopuses, like Reedies, are known for their intelligence, mobility, and beauty. Also, they can open jars.

Mick Song ’15, Mari Shiratori ’16, Joshua Gancher ’16, Makoto Kelp ’16, Emma Schweitzer ’16, Hans Leier ’16, Kavya Basu ’17, Claire Baker ’18, Tom Eschbach). The couple currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, and can usually be found at Film Forum or in the Bed-Stuy YMCA pool.

2010 15TH REUNION

2017–19

October 15 is Hagfish Day. Hagfish, also known as slime eels, are notorious for their defensive slime and for eating dead or dying fish from the inside out. Celebrate by learning a new skill.

2011–14

October 26 is Worldwide Howl at the Moon Night. AowOOOOOOO– OOOOOOOOOO!

2015 10TH REUNION

November 3 is World Jellyfish Day, also known as World Don’t Step on a Jellyfish Day.

2016

Yelena Erez has completed her PhD in Greek and Latin at Ohio State University. Congratulations, Yelena!

Hannah Looney and Hao Lian were married on June 1, 2024, in the bride’s hometown of Saint Joseph, Missouri (of Jesse James and Pony Express fame). A large flock of Reedies graciously flew in for the occasion (Vania Wang ’15,

1. Hannah Looney ’16 and Hao Lian got married in June!

Photo by Megan Hoppe.

2. Will Henderson ’08 is thinking of you.

November 7 is Hug a Bear Day. You’ll figure something out.

2020 5TH REUNION

Mingus Rae Zoller, a graduate student in MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, has been awarded a Gilliam fellowship, funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, to support her study of Alzheimer’s disease. Read more at picower.mit.edu/news.

2021–24

December 14 is Monkey Day, celebrating all things simian, including apes, tarsiers, lemurs, lorises, and galagos. The Zoo Debrecen in Hungary celebrates Monkey Day by allowing visitors to share meals with tufted capuchins and mantled guerezas. You can celebrate at home by sharing a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey with your housemates.

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In Memoriam Edited by Bennett Campbell Ferguson

Soldier, Scholar, Purveyor of Joy July 25, 2024, in Portland, Oregon, of complications from COVID-19.

In the final years of World War II, hundreds of thousands of Allied troops joined forces to liberate Europe. Among them was Moshe Lenske, whose service was just one chapter in an extraordinary life that impacted Reed, Portland, and the world.

Reedies revered Moshe for his ability to build and sustain communities. “He was like a heat-seeking missile,” says John Sheehy ’82. “He said, ‘We are social animals, and it is almost expected that we would be community minded.’

That was his ethos in life.”

Moshe Doav Lenske was born April 11, 1925, in Portland, Oregon, to Rose Mirviss Lenske and Reuben Lenske. A civil rights lawyer, real estate magnate, and millionaire, Reuben refused to be defined by a single role in life. Moshe— who became a steadfast serviceman, an exuberant Reedie, and a whimsical manufacturer of giant Easter bunnies—proved to be as complex and charismatic as his father.

Moshe, who was the brother of Judy Temko and Aryay Lenske Kalaki, attended Duniway School and Lincoln High. At 19, he was drafted into the U.S. army and assigned to the 9th Armored Medical Division, which held off a German division at the Battle of the Bulge in 1945—a victory that earned Moshe a presidential citation for valor.

After surviving 91 days of battle—and being deployed to Normandy, two months after D-Day—Moshe returned to Portland and enrolled at Reed.

He joined a student body filled with fellow veterans, who

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brought their hard-won life experience to campus.

In Moshe’s recollection, Reed professors treated veterans with unusual deference. “The GIs had seen what life and living was like close up,” Moshe recalled in Comrades of the Quest. “When Prof. Frank Jones [English 1949–56] gave a humanities lecture in the chapel, the following week one of the student vets was allowed to give a rebuttal on the same subject: ‘Hell, no!’”

Moshe co-founded the Reed Union Debating Society and formed friendships with Beat poets Gary Snyder ’51, Phil Whalen ’51, and Lew Welch ’50, with whom he founded the first off-campus Reed housing at 1414 Southeast Lambert Street. “They were all older students at Reed,” says Kathy Saitas, who became close with Moshe. “Before they came to Reed, they all served in World War II, and then they all came to Reed on the GI Bill—and they really bonded over that.”

Through Moshe chose not to write a thesis, he later received an honorary degree and remained a vital part of the Reed community, serving on the alumni board in multiple capacities (he was president from 1979 to 1980) and winning the Babson Society Outstanding Volunteer Award.

While working as a journalist in Israel, Moshe met and married Hilda Gabriel. In Portland, their house became a place of comfort and joy for Jewish students at Reed living far from home. “They seemed to go out of their way to offer a home away from home,” says Paul Levy ’72. “They included us in social activities and generally made things easier at a time when making a long-distance

telephone call was not easy and there was no email.”

Moshe and Hilda were partners in both life and business.

They managed the Western Toy Manufacturing Company, which designed and produced over 50 stuffed animals, including a 14-foot rabbit. “We make a lot of teddy bears, although we’re quite proud of our Oregon beaver, too,” Moshe told The Oregonian in 1977.

Stuffed animals were serious business to Moshe—and so was political activism. Paul Levy first met Moshe during the 1968 campaign to reelect Senator Wayne Morse, an independent who opposed the Vietnam War. “[Moshe] cared about political issues,” Paul says. “He was a liberal, a term which has been in some disrepute over the years, but I think he was proud of it, and so am I.” Whether he was serving as a member of the City Club of Portland or sitting on the board of Wayne Morse Historical Park, Moshe’s commitment to civic engagement endured.

In 1986, Moshe’s mother Rose passed away. Twelve years later, Moshe’s father Reuben, then 99 years old, married his secretary, 73-year-old Shirley Leveton. When they tied the knot, Moshe stood and called out, “I object to this wedding,” much to the surprise of the officiating rabbi.

After Hilda’s death in 2003, Moshe lived in Eugene with his partner, Meredith Burch, who passed away in 2019. From 2021 to 2024, Moshe lived at Cedar Sinai Park, but made two trips to Normandy, first in 2023 for the 79th anniversary of D-Day. “He loved the camaraderie, all those guys in the wheelchairs,” John Sheehy remembers.

PHOTO BY TOM HAUCK

Moshe Lenske ’50

Moshe returned for the 80th anniversary. He and his fellow veterans were flown first-class and honored by President Joe Biden and King Charles III, but Moshe approached the journey humbly, buying a new shirt and a pair of slacks at Bi-Mart in preparation.

“He just needed new clothes,” Kathy Saitas says.

“They didn’t need to be fancy.

He was so proud to be alive and to be able to go back to Normandy and honor those who couldn’t be there. It was the most important thing for him.”

It would be the last time Moshe traveled to Normandy.

He returned to Portland with COVID-19 and shingles, dying on July 25, 2024, at age 99. He is survived by his sister, Judy, and his brother, Aryay.

Moshe was best known as a World War II veteran, but he was a hero throughout his life, staying true to his love of community and his zest for life.

K a t hy S a i t a s l ov i n g l y remembers the persistence of Moshe’s vibrant spirit: “He would say, ‘Kathy, it’s not when I go. It’s if I go.’”

Gail-Marie Shearer ’47 March 6, 2024, in Berkeley, California.

A daughter of the Great Depression who became an advocate for low-income housing projects, Gail was raised in Hawley, Minnesota. Her mother, Mildred Bergheim, was a schoolteacher before she had children, and her father, Martin Bergheim, was a country doctor who died when Gail was 12.

Gail and her younger sister Jeanne-Marie lived with their grandparents while their mother trained as a nurse in Minneapolis. These upheavals happened during the Depression, which had a profound effect on Gail. Her parents lost most of their savings when the Bank of Hawley failed, and later in life, Gail described Franklin Roosevelt as her hero for making sure that her bank accounts were FDIC–insured.

Gail’s mother eventually found work in Portland, Oregon, and Gail earned her bachelor of arts in sociology at Reed.

She subsequently earned a master of sciences in social work from Bryn Mawr College and married James Welles Shearer, with whom she had two sons, James and Peter.

In 1957, the family moved to Livermore, California, where James worked as a physicist at what is now the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). Gail and James ultimately settled on a former chicken ranch in South Livermore, where Gail helped to design an addition to the small farmhouse on the property.

While Gail assumed a traditional homemaker role during the 1960s, she found time to

volunteer as a social worker, with particular interest in low-income housing projects like the Leahy Square project.

After James was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 1983, Gail helped care for him until his death in 1984. The next year, she started renting rooms in her house to LLNL visitors, running a small bedand-breakfast business for 10 years. In 1987, she married another physicist, John Fletcher, who worked at LLNL until his retirement.

Gail had a small vineyard of Syrah grapes installed on her rural property in the southern Livermore “wine country” in 2000. She named it Tazetta Vineyard, after the flowers she enjoyed planting around the yard, and was active in the local grape-growers’ association and the Spinning Wheel Antique Club.

Among other progressive charitable causes, Gail supported the performing arts, donating to the Livermore Valley Opera and Livermore-Amador Symphony, a community orchestra her first husband helped form. And in 2004, she and John also successfully advocated for correcting the mistakes on a mosaic in front of the Livermore Public Library, which was rife with misspellings such as “Eistein,” “Shakespere,” and “Van Gough.”

Gail died at age 98 at the Silverado Memory Care Home. She was predeceased by her second husband, John Fletcher, and is survived by her sons, James Bergheim Shearer and Peter Marston Shearer.

Robert Cahill ’54

June 18, 2024, in Columbus, Ohio.

A campus leader and an active participant in Hawai‘i politics, Robert Stoddart Cahill was born in 1933. He received his undergraduate degree from Reed, where he wrote a thesis titled “The Will to Refrain—A Critique of Irving Babbitt’s Humanism,” and his doctorate in philosophy from the University of Oregon.

His career in academia led him to the University of Hawai‘i, Honolulu, where he was a professor of political science for over 25 years. Robert focused his scholarship and community work on achieving justice for people of color and women. He also loved music and wrote for the guitar, ukulele, and keyboard. He is survived by Eloise Buker, his wife of 49 years, and was predeceased by a son, Christopher Sean Cahill.

Honor Their Memory IN THE SPIRIT OF REED

Andrea Campbell ’60 April 26, 2024, in Portland, Oregon.

Andrea was born July 24, 1939, in New York City.

She grew up in Albany, Oregon, graduated from Albany Union High School, and married Terry Emmons, though the couple later divorced. After attending Reed, Andrea worked as an executive assistant and medical transcriptionist, ultimately serving nearly nine years as a web specialist at Oregon Health and Science University before retiring in 2014. Andrea was also a member of several community support groups, a published poet, and the owner of a long line of beloved cats. She is survived by her daughter, Jane Rekas, and preceded in death by her son, Joshua Stallings.

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In Memoriam

Robert Horsfall ’63 August 8, 2024, in New Westminster, British Columbia.

R o b e r t “ B o b” Bruce Horsfall, who was committed to a lifelong goal to leave the world a better place than he found it, died after a long struggle with dementia and a short one with lung cancer. He came from a family of Reedies, including his parents, Robert Bruce Horsfall Jr. ’30 and Margery Washburn Horsfall ’28, and his paternal grandmother, Carra Elizabeth Huntting Horsfall ’30.

Prior to arriving at Reed, Bob served four years in the U.S. Navy, making him older than many classmates and particularly popular (so he would say) because he was old enough to legally brew beer. His memories of his time at Reed include being assigned a 300-word précis on Gustave Glotz’s The Greek City and receiving corrections written in Farsi from Prof. Amin Banani [humanities 1959–61].

In addition to his studies, Bob was known for racing and fixing motorcycles, playing the banjo, wood carving, and assisting Prof. Les Squier [psychology 1953–88] with elephant learning research at the Portland Zoo. He wrote his thesis, “A Factor Analytic Attempt to Validate Rokeach’s Theory of Belief Systems,” under Prof. William Wiest [psychology 1961–95].

Bob completed his PhD in psychology at Johns Hopkins University. He also led the local Boy Scout troop and worked with a neighborhood action group to improve living conditions in the Druid Hill area of Baltimore, where he and his young family, wife Gayel and son Andy, lived.

In 1970, Bob accepted a position in the geography department at Simon Fraser University

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Steve Knutson ’63

in Canada, where he became a pioneer of cognitive cartography, using his background in psychology and statistics to refine the process of map making, including tactile maps for the blind. He was also the longtime chair of the Animal Care Committee, and worked many hours advising students in the Academic Advice Centre.

While at SFU, Bob also acted as a volunteer and served on multiple boards, including for the Canadian Mental Health Association and the Canadian Association of Geographers. He is survived by his second wife, Camilla, and his son, Andy.

Steve Knutson ’63

April 7, 2024, in Corbett, Oregon.

Student. Musician. Adventurer.

These roles defined Richard Stephen “Steve” Knutson, who graduated from Beaverton High School and entered Reed in the fall of 1959. When not busy writing his thesis, “The Preparation of a Catalyst for Peptide Bond Synthesis,” under Prof. Marshall W. Cronyn [chemistry 1987–90], he played in the string band the Molalla Mudfeet with other Reed students and enjoyed excursions as a member of the Outing Club, including first ascents in the Santiam region of the Cascades and rock climbing routes in the Columbia Gorge.

Leslie Lischka ’64

Steve completed a master’s thesis and the coursework for a PhD in chemistry at Oregon State University, but left to pursue cave exploration and mapping. A five-decade-plus career as a highly respected and admired caver throughout the Western Hemisphere followed.

Steve led many trips into the Oregon Caves at the national monument, which resulted in a detailed map for the National Park Service, and wrote the book Oregon Caves - The Pioneer Exploration and the New Discoveries, which is considered a definitive text.

Steve also worked for the National Park Service to explore caves and study the hydrology of the Green River area of Kentucky (1976–78) and led expeditions to explore and map caves in Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and Peru. He became so prominent as a caver that his discovery of cave burials of the Chachapoya culture of the Northern Andes was documented as the first proof of such pre-Columbian burial rites in “Mummies of the Clouds,” an episode of the History Channel series Digging for the Truth.

In 1962, Steve miraculously survived a 1,000-foot fall down Mt. Hood, an experience that influenced a lifelong interest in the analysis and prevention of accidents and in climbing and

caving technology. He edited the American Caving Accidents series for the National Speleological Society (NSS) from 1976 to 1993, was elected a fellow of the NSS in 1977, and was given the prestigious Lew Bicking Award by the NSS (for “a dedication to the thorough exploration and mapping of a cave or group of caves”) in 1989.

Steve’s graphic account of the traversal and mapping of an underground river cave, the Sumidero of the Rio San Jose de Atima in Honduras, from the August 1988 NSS News, displays the clarity and wit of his vivid writing. From the 1970s until almost the present day, Steve led discovery expeditions to the Marble Mountains Wilderness Area of Northern California. He also co-organized the Klamath Mountains Conservation Task Force in 1973 to work for the preservation of wilderness caves.

Steve participated in Pickathon, the annual bluegrass and old-time music festival near Portland, and played in several string bands over in the Portland area, including Worn Out Shoes, the Good Ol’ Days String Band, and the Back Alley String Band.

He is survived by two nephews, Zachary and Garth Choteau.

The latter wrote, “While strolling the grounds of Reed College (in the 1980s), Steve pointed to a shiny metal object halfway

up the tallest building on campus and said, ‘That’s a piton I left when I scaled that building 20 years ago.’” The piton is still there.—Contributed by Harvey Blau and Joel Davis

Leslie Lischka ’64

March 28, 2021, from complications from ALS and dementia.

Leslie (Lavine) Lischka was a dedicated anthropologist, a systems engineer, and a passionate traveler. Born in 1942 in Philadelphia, Leslie was the eldest of three children and spent her childhood in Chevy Chase, Maryland, where she graduated from Bethesda–Chevy Chase High School.

Leslie’s academic journey began at Reed College, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in math and physics. Her early career saw her working for Digital Equipment Corporation, specializing in assembly language programming. However, Leslie’s passion for anthropology led her to pursue further studies, culminating in a master’s and PhD from the University of Arizona.

In 1967, Leslie married fellow graduate student Joseph Lischka in Tucson, Arizona.

Together, they did anthropological fieldwork in Israel (at Tabun Cave, south of Haifa), El Salvador (at the Chalchuapa Archaeological Zone), and at the highland Maya site of Kaminaljuyu in Guatemala City. Their daughter, Tamara Lischka ’92, was born while they were living in Guatemala.

Leslie and Joseph parted ways in 1974. After receiving her doctorate, Leslie spent a year as an assistant professor of anthropology at Colorado State University. She later transitioned into a successful career as a systems engineer, contributing her expertise to companies such as Martin Marietta and GTE.

Beyond her early anthropological fieldwork, Leslie explored the diverse landscapes of New Zealand and Australia, often with her daughter by her side. During her retirement, she ventured to Tanzania, Malaysia, Mongolia, and Bhutan, continuing to seek out new experiences and cultures. An avid outdoorswoman, Leslie found joy in hiking, backpacking, and cross-country skiing.

In the 1990s, Leslie returned to Portland to be closer to her family and became an active member of several communities. She was deeply involved in Reed alumni activities, and also played a significant role in the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization (IRCO), where she offered not just practical assistance, but meaningful friendships to numerous immigrant families in Portland.

Leslie’s bond with the Wachana family was particularly special. Josephine Wachana, who affectionately referred to Leslie as her “American mom,” recalls the unwavering support Leslie provided, from teaching family members to navigate the complexities of driving in the U.S. to helping read and edit applications for graduate programs and jobs. Leslie’s guidance and care left a lasting impact on the Wachana family and many others in the community.

Leslie is survived by her daughter, Tamara.—Contributed by Tamara Lischka

Karen Oppenheim Mason ’64

April 11, 2024, in Oakland, California.

In her lifetime, Karen Klaber Oppenheim Mason made field-­ changing contributions to demography and population studies

by infusing them with elements of sociology. Born in 1942, she studied sociology at Reed, writing her thesis, “Patterns of Obligation and Behavior in Urban Kinship Systems,” with advising from Prof. Howard D. Jolly [sociology 1949–70]. After graduating, she advanced her education at the University of Chicago, where she worked with Robert “Bill” Hodge ’59, who taught empirical approaches to sociology. She wrote her dissertation on voting in then-recent American presidential elections.

When Karen started working in the sociology department at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, she turned her teaching and research focus to gender and gender inequality and began to truly feel like a demographer. After she and her then-husband Bill Mason moved to North Carolina, she conducted research on women’s labor force participation and fertility at the Research Triangle Institute. The connections between fertility, women’s paid and unpaid work, and childcare became a driving theme in Karen’s research—and when she later joined the University of Michigan faculty, she became a professor and a role model for the growing number of women graduate students in demography.

In the ’90s, Karen became the director of the Population Studies Program at the University of Hawai‘i, ultimately becoming director of the Program on Population at the EastWest Center in Honolulu. She also undertook an ambitious cross-country study about the circumstances governing the effects of women’s power and autonomy on fertility.

In 1999, Karen joined the World Bank as director of the gender and development

program, where her leadership and organizational skills enabled her to foster programs to enhance women’s reproductive autonomy.

She served as program director until 2004, when she returned to the East-West Center as adjunct senior fellow, a position she held until she retired in 2012.

Karen was also a founding co–chair of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population Committee on Gender and Population, served as the Population Association of America president, and received the PAA’s Harriet Presser award, honoring her contributions to the study of gender and demography. In her professional life, she was known as a clear thinker, persuasive writer, and effective leader. In her personal life, she was known for valuing family and friends and enjoying many passions, including cooking, traveling, and making pottery.

Karen died peacefully at home with her husband of 30 years, John Sibert, by her side.

She is survived by John, her son, David, and her stepdaughter, Annika.

Gerald Chakerian ’68 May 1, 2024.

A spirited conversationalist and voracious reader, Gerald was born in 1946. He grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Denver, Colorado, where he made close, lifelong friends. In the mid-’60s, Gerald studied philosophy at Reed, writing his thesis, “Whitehead’s Concept of a ‘Society’: An Essay in Sociological Metaphysics,” under the mentorship of Prof. Bonnie Garlan ’57 [humanities 1965–68]. He then went on to earn his law degree from the University of New Mexico.

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In Memoriam

Gerald worked as a lawyer for the federal government in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C., but felt most at home surrounded by the Sandia Mountains in Albuquerque, and returned there after retirement to settle in the Corrales area. He also participated in community service by giving car rides to those in need, took courses at UNM, and enjoyed traveling, swimming, learning new languages, watching sports and films, and spending time with family and friends. He is survived by his daughter, Joanna, his son, Stephen, and his brother, Armen Chakerian ’63.

Timothy Rowan ’71

August 8, 2024, at his home in Portland, Oregon, surrounded by his family.

Timothy Norman Powers Rowan was a lifelong Democrat, political activist, public servant, and self-described “vast storehouse of knowledge.” He was born in a naval hospital in Honolulu, Hawai‘i, to Norman Powers and Joan Tatham, but spent most of his childhood in Bremerton, Washington.

In high school, Tim discovered his passion for politics through his involvement in the Unitarian Fellowship’s Liberal Religious Youth group (LRY). He quickly took on a leadership role in LRY and became president of the Kitsap County Young Democrats.

It was through LRY that Tim became friends with Sara Patton ’71, Jan Clausen ’71, and several others who would join him at Reed College and who remained lasting friends.

At Reed, Tim chaired the National Vietnam Moratorium Committee and pursued

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a major in political science. His thesis on the Hatch Act, written under Prof. John Stryker [political science 1972–76], was described by an appellate lawyer as a “good brief by a good lawyer,” and remained a source of pride for Tim throughout his life.

Af ter graduating, Tim reconnected with Patti MacRae ’71, who greatly benefitted from Tim’s ability to keep her aging station wagon functioning and appreciated Tim’s love of blues music, his passion for progressive politics, and his kind, generous spirit. The two married in 1979 at their home in Sellwood, where they raised two daughters. They had looked forward to celebrating 45 years of marriage this past September.

Tim began his career in the public sector in 1975, first with the United States Census Bureau and then the State of Oregon’s Employment Division. He was employed by Multnomah County in 1986, and worked in data management for 31 years, primarily in the health department.

Tim rose to the position of information security officer, helping design and implement HIPAA systems still in use today. He was known for his quiet leadership, his dedication to his work, and his love of toy hippos, dozens of which lived on his desk.

After his retirement in 2008, Tim won a seat as a Multnomah County Democratic Party Precinct Committee Person with three write-in votes. He became friends with Moshe Lenske ’50, whom he referred to as his political mentor.

Tim held several elected roles with the party and Oregon’s Third Congressional District, and in 2016, he was elected to serve as a delegate to

the Democratic National Convention to nominate Hillary Clinton. Casting one of the 538 votes in the U.S. Electoral College for the first woman with a serious chance to win the presidency was one of the highlights of Tim’s life.

In 2016, Tim was awarded the Multnomah County Democrats’ Dick Celsi Award for long-term commitment and volunteerism. He also chaired the Platform and Resolutions Committee for the Democratic Party of Oregon—and while his heart disease limited his ability to do many things, he maintained his connections to the local party until the end.

In addition to his wife, Tim is survived by his daughters, Sara and Amelia, and three grandchildren. His family and friends remember his kindness, his ability to fix most broken things, his penchant for Greek fishermen’s caps, and his sense of justice and belief that all people deserve to be respected and embraced.—Contributed by Patti MacRae ‘71

Lisa Betros ’74

April 20, 2024, in Dobbs Ferry, New York, of brain cancer.

Lisa Kahn Betros was born in New York City in 1952 to Anna Lee Falkoff Kahn and Hyman Kahn, and grew up in Dallas, Texas.

From an early age, she was encouraged to explore other cultures and pursue the creative arts. A high school thespian, she memorably played Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, a production of the St. Mark’s School of Texas’s Harlequin Players.

Lisa began her higher education at Reed College, where a yearlong study abroad in

France gave her a lifelong interest in French culture.

After transferring to UC Berkeley, she completed her bachelor’s degree in art practice and art history. She then returned to her favorite city, New York, to pursue a master’s of fine arts at Columbia University.

Throughout her life, Lisa was an artist, painting abstract and representational works, learning about art history, and connecting with other artists.

In her professional life, she worked in nonprofit development and helped raise funds for organizations like the Big Apple Circus, the New York Botanical Garden, and the World Monuments Fund.

For many years, Lisa dedicated time as a volunteer for the Reed College Alumni Association’s New York chapter, and she served as the chapter’s president in 1991. She also enjoyed cooking meals for family, learning about her heritage through genealogy, and discussing Hebrew scriptures with others. Later in life, Lisa met and married Charles Betros, and the two had a 20-year romance, settling in Dobbs Ferry, New York, with many books, two cats, and a garden.

Lisa is survived by Charles.

Rebecca Rach ’79 February 13, 2024, in Vancouver, Washington.

Rebecca “Becky” Rach grew up in Vancouver, Washington. She was one of the top of her class at Hudson’s Bay High School (class of 1975), excelling in German and French.

Becky graduated from Reed College with a degree in international studies, writing her thesis under Prof. Kalesh

Dudharkar [political science 1959–88], and often said her years at Reed were some of the best of her life. Her college pastimes included dancing in the student union with an international folk group.

After graduating, Becky lived in Portland, working in IT and finding job placements for Russian immigrants. She was kind and thoughtful, and she will be missed.—Contributed by Beverly Wanvig

Vincent Berkun ’99

May 16, 2024, in Guilford, Connecticut.

Vincent is remembered by loved ones for his caring nature, brilliant mind, and shrewd sense of humor.

He was born in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1976 and graduated from Guilford High School. Vincent attended Reed College for a period in the late ’90s before ultimately earning his electrical engineering degree from the University of Connecticut. Later, he became a sought-after information t e c h n o l o g y p ro f e s s i o n a l through his successful shoreline business Get Computer Service. Vincent is survived by his son, Isaak, and his parents, Lanna and Michael.

Brian AndrewsLarson ’05 June 10, 2024.

Brian was known for his ability to build, unite, and mentor communities. Born in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, in 1982, he grew up attending the American School and playing basketball. After graduating in 2000, he moved to Portland to attend Reed, but

stayed connected to home by coordinating the Spanish House.

At Reed, Brian wrote his thesis, “Subjective Overachievement and Risky Task Choices: An Issue for Academia or Daily Life?” under the mentorship of Prof. Kathryn C. Oleson [psychology] and graduated with his bachelor’s degree in psychology in 2005. He later worked as a medical and educational researcher, and pursued his nursing degree at Tallahassee Community College.

When he graduated in 2020, his peers gave him the Caring Colleague Award.

Brian went on to work as a registered nurse in telemetry.

He leaves behind many friends with whom he shared his passion for soccer, painting, gaming, good food, memes, the Spanish language, and Latin culture. Brian is survived by his wife, Christine J. Andrews-Larson, and his son, Sebastian M. Andrews-Larson.

Ben Hemenway ’16

October 31, 2023, in Berlin, Germany.

A tenacious scholar and a loyal friend, Ben lived out the Reed ideal of a mind’s unrelenting pursuit of wisdom. At Reed, he wrote his thesis on linguistic alienation in Samuel Beckett’s novellas under Prof. Nathalia King [English]. He then lived in Germany for six years, teaching English as a second language on a Fulbright scholarship and earning a master’s degree in German studies at Humboldt University in Berlin, where he wrote his thesis on the drift of recursive and interlocking metaphors in Walter Benjamin’s writing. Ben was a brilliant writer, conversationalist, and reader, as well as a lover of

aimless walks and bike rides. A kind, incisive, and open presence in this world, he spent too little time here and is sorely missed. —Contributed by Lyle Daniel ’17

Prof. Michael Litt [chemistry 1958–66] Nov. 20, 2023.

Michael “Mike” Litt was a retired professor of molecular and medical genetics and longtime political activist. Born in New York, N.Y., on April 17, 1933, he was raised in New Rochelle, and was an Oberlin College graduate and a Harvard University Ph.D in chemistry. From 1968 to 1998, Mike worked as research professor of molecular and medical genetics at OHSU and contributor to the Human Genome Project. He also inspired many with his tireless advocacy for democracy, progressive candidates, and climate action. Mike was preceded in death by his wife, Ruth H. Litt.

He is survived by his domestic partner, Jeanne Magmer, and his children, Barbara, David, and Fred Litt.

Forthcoming obituaries: Paul Van der Veldt ’47, Alan Carpenter ‘52, Robert Warnock ‘52, Arthur Edmond Worden ’52, Darrell W. Brownawell ’54, Barbara Kamb Marinacci ‘54, Karen Ezekiel ’56, Robert Hoyt ’56, Reuben Sandler ’57, Marrine Lind ’58, Joe Colony ‘59, Miles Jordan ’60, Carl Richard Levin ‘60, Susan F. Mines ‘61, Robert Buckley MAT ’64, Marianne Ott ‘64, Ken Foote ‘65, Naome Dragstedt ‘66, Bobbi Tichenor ‘67, Joseph P. Ciaglia ‘71, Mara Gelbloom ’72, George B. Lane ‘74, Nancy Tivenan ’75, Patricia Goldsmith ‘75, Jeff Falen ‘80, Carolyn Lea Winch ‘95, Prof. Laurens Ruben [biology 1955–92]

Nurture Your Legacy At Reed LEGACY GIFTS made

through your will or trust provide crucial financial support for Reed and influence generations of students. Gifts can be tailored to meet your and your family’s financial and philanthropic goals.

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in the office of gift planning to discuss mutually beneficial and creative ways to make a difference at Reed: giftplanning@reed.edu 503-777-7573 reed.edu/legacyplanning

Art by Lillie Spencer ’25

Object of Study

WHAT WE’RE LOOKING AT IN CLASS

Find the Synchronicity This chart consists of two sets of sixty-four Yijing hexagraphs. One set is arranged in a circular sequence, and the other as a block of eight layers or columns of eight graphs, or perhaps both. This is one of many charts of hexagraphs produced by scholars who studied the revered Yijing text and traditions surrounding it. Those charts differ from each other in the relative position among hexagraphs.

Charts like this one, attributed to Shao Yong (1012-1077), play an important

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part in Chinese 311: Yijing: Text and Tradition. Fragments of recorded description and results of divination were assembled and transformed into a text revered as the “head” of all Chinese classics. Involved in that process was the claim that sages put them into a synchronic system in which every part is intricately connected to all other parts. This chart is an example of efforts to find the synchronicity. Yijing studies used to be a search for the principles mobilized for the encoding

into the system. After more than two millennia of such inquiries, with significant archaeological findings in the second half of the last century, the study of Yijing now includes the efforts to see beyond the synchronic system and find what may be termed the primordial meaning of the earliest layers buried and obstructed by the idea of synchronicity. —Hyong Rhew, Professor of Chinese and Humanities

SAVE THE DATE FOR A SPECTACULAR WEEKEND REUNIONS 2025 | JUNE 12–15 What’s the best time to visit the campus, see your pals, and create new memories together? Save the date for Reunions!

reunions.reed.edu

If your class year ends in a 5 or 10, join your Reunions class committee and help shape your class event. Email alumni@reed.edu to get involved.

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PHOTO BY FORREST FEIST ’27

On a rainy October night, the Weapons of Mass Distraction lit up the Cerf Ampitheatre with their fire-wielding skills.