Silhouette 2023

Jiri Palayekar | Staff Illustrator

HALLIE STOTSKY:

HEALING MINDS, BODIES AND SPIRITS THROUGH YOGA

When Hallie Stotsky graduated from Chatham University as an injured, basketball-wielding studentathlete, the “real world” lacked the structure she was accustomed to.

Stotsky faced a lull coming off her two-year-long injury in her sophomore and junior years. Once her senior basketball season ended and graduation had come and gone, she didn’t know what to do with her life. Then, she found yoga.

“At that time in Pittsburgh, yoga studios [seemed to be] the only places with set schedules,” Stotsky said.

Pitt’s Stress Free Zone coordinator is a yogi of all trades. Working with the SFZ for 7 1/2 years, Stotsky is a 200-level instructor with a decade of experience rooted in traditional Hatha yoga. The Stress Free Zone gives students a physical and mental space to de-stress and practice mindfulness meditation on campus on the third floor of the William Pitt Union. The warmly lit and incense-perfumed room hosts a soft, carpeted floor scattered with royal blue yoga mats, blocks and bolsters.

“The space is about that quiet and peacefulness, then giving you the educational tools of mindfulness meditation to help you when you leave here,” Stotsky said.

Stotsky’s path to this career wasn’t straightforward. In 2009, Stostky graduated from Chatham before heading to Pitt in 2011 for a master’s of education. While working toward her graduate degree, Stotsky noted that yoga quickly became an emotional need and a physical reprieve.

“Yoga really held me together within those two years of graduate school,” Stotsky said. “That's where the bodily practice really became a mental one, too.”

After graduating from Pitt, she returned to Chatham as an assistant director of Student Affairs. During her three years at this job, she also pursued a registered yoga teacher distinction from Yoga Alliance. Stotsky found herself torn between a desire to instruct yoga and a goal of eventually becoming a dean of students.

“Lo and behold, maybe it was luck, maybe it was me putting it out to the universe and it was meant to be. I truly had a crisis. I love working with college students, but I needed to teach yoga,” Stotsky said. “I’m good at it. I can tell it's my passion, and I knew I could make a difference doing it.”

Fate intervened when she landed a part-time position as consultation and outreach coordinator at the SFZ in 2015.

“The door opened to working with college students in the one specific field I’m truly passionate about — helping them help themselves,” Stotsky said.

At her job, Stotsky is dedicated to promoting acces-

sibility and encouraging students of all levels. She also offers a variety of props for those that struggle with difficult poses.

The SFZ offers various workshops, classes and events on topics such as mindfulness meditation, yoga and tools for anxiety management techniques to help

Zone, it’s not a place for unproductivity.

“We have many students that will walk in and say, ‘Can I just take a nap or sit in here?’ and this space is really meant to be an educational setting,” Stotsky said. “I support naps and needing a reprieve, but I'm trying to teach what a purposeful break is.”

Stotsky’s coworkers have also noticed her commitment to helping students. Fatima Mendez Fuentes, a sophomore psychology major and one of the four student employees at the SFZ, said Stotsky “makes it a point to prioritize our well-being, helping us with anything she can.”

“Yoga is one of my favorite things about the space,” she said. “[Stotsky] has been a great mentor in helping us guide ourselves and others through meditation.”

Meg Mayer-Costa met Stotsky when she started as a registered dietician at the Student Health Center in 2015, and remembers her being “very engaging, inquisitive and wonderful to converse with.” Since then, Mayer-Costa and Stotsky have collaborated on various projects, including team training, nutrition and wellness programming across the University.

“Stotsky is exceptionally kind and empathetic,” Mayer-Costa said. “I think she blossoms when engaged in her craft.”

Apart from her commitments at Pitt, Stotsky also spearheads the teacher training program for One Point One Yoga and hosts yoga events for student-athletes — a nod to her Chatham basketball roots. As a mother of two young children, Stotsky balances motherhood with her passion for yoga and working with college kids.

However, she still finds time to innovate at the SFZ. Stotsky is currently working on a campaign to discourage students from doomscrolling on social media when visiting the SFZ, which she said contributes to mental exhaustion.

“Mindfulness is about focusing on the present moment and challenging your brain,” Stotsky said. “It’s not just lounging out and letting your mind daydream while being on your phone.”

She’s also considering starting a yoga therapy program for students dealing with grief, trauma or chronic illness. She added that she looks forward to the SFZ having a larger space so it can offer a broader range of classes, such as chair yoga.

“It's such an easy thing when a student will say, ‘I can't touch my toes. I can't do yoga,’” Stotsky said. “Give them two blocks to put their hands on, and suddenly you've brought the ground closer to them. It's those little shifts if a pose feels really difficult. Using that verbiage to help students feel more comfortable, wherever they are.”

students reduce stress, improve their mental health and find balance in their lives. There’s yoga inversion stations, daylight lamps for those battling seasonal depression and even a laptop with a biofeedback program that helps students identify their stress levels and lower them.

Stotsky emphasized that though it’s a Stress Free

Stotsky said she knows college can be overwhelming, and that students face academic pressure, social challenges and more within a new environment. Stotsky’s goal is to help students navigate these challenges and find peace of mind.

“I know these things can change your life,” Stotsky said. “These practices can meet every single individual, wherever they are.”

story by Jillian Rowan // photos by Ethan Shulman

DANIELLE OBISIE-ORLU: STORIES AND STUDIES OF BELONGING

A single image can move Danielle Obisie-Orlu to write, such as a photo of herself as a toddler next to her four older siblings. She’s wearing a stern look and a onesie that says “I am this big” —a phrase that became the title for one of her most popular poems.

“That toddler opened their eyes and they wanted the world to know that they were aware. It just looks like I’m meaning mugging the camera every single time,” Obisie-Orlu said with a laugh.

As a locally-renowned poet and actress, ObisieOrlu uses her art to tell stories of migration, belonging and empowerment.

“As long as you have this and as long as you have this,” she said, gesturing to her temple and throat, “you are a force to be reckoned with — go ahead.”

Obisie-Orlu was born in Washington, D.C. to Nigerian parents, moved to South Africa at nine months old and returned to the States in 2019 to join Pitt’s Bachelor of Philosophy program.

Growing up in Johannesburg, Obisie-Orlu said she experienced colorism from peers and teachers, including one male student who compared her skin to their pitch-black school shoes.

“I think the tears I expended for that day was also the resolve I built and still have now,” Obisie-Orlu.

“Joburg,” as Obisie-Orlu calls it, is also where she became familiar with “ubuntu,” a Nguni Bantu term that can be translated to “I am because you are.” She said the phrase signifies the recognition of everyone’s humanity that guides her art and research.

Obisie-Orlu is now in the final semester of a prolific undergraduate career, pursuing a BPhil in International and Area Studies as well as a bachelor’s degree in political science with minors in French and sociology and certificates in Transatlantic and African studies.

“If there’s one thing about me — if I think I can take it on, I’ll make the time,” Obisie-Orlu said.

D.C. or New York City seemed like natural fits for college, but she decided on Pitt after learning about the BPhil, a program that allows undergraduates to conduct self-directed research. As part of her BPhil, Obisie-Orlu studies xenophobia toward migrants of African descent in France — the nexus of her six degree paths.

Obisie-Orlu’s decision to attend Pitt also meant that she spent the past three years with her sister Immanuela Obisie-Orlu, who graduated from Pitt last spring to pursue a doctorate in clinical psychology at Northwestern University. Immanuela said she saw remarkable growth in Danielle during that time.

Erin Roussel, former project manager at City of Asylum, said Obisie-Orlu helped define the role and attract future applicants as the second-ever Allegheny County Youth Poet Laureate.

“Not all poets are also extroverts like Danielle. That really helped her take advantage of the role, that she

around her. She was a self-described “fixer” who became the household’s “little detective” for things like missing keys.

“When you have four siblings, you learn about so many different personalities without leaving the house,” Obisie-Orlu said. “You learn about how people think about things, how people craft things, how an instruction means different things to different people.”

Obisie-Orlu eventually took some advice from her mother to focus on her own happiness too, but she continues to help others as a Student Ambassador for the European Studies Center and Global Ties mentor. Obisie-Orlu plans to take plenty of stages throughout her life, whether that be literally as an artist or figuratively as a leader. In fact, she’s planned out the next 30 years of her career. She began drafting the plan during her final year of high school and started to implement it on her 21st birthday, starting with her current research on the intersection of xenophobia and governance.

After graduation, Obisie-Orlu plans to pursue a degree in international and public law, then parlay that into a position at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. She said she dreams of eventually becoming the high commissioner.

“International law is such a beautiful field because it’s ever-developing,” Obisie-Orlu said. “It’s built on the goodwill and determination to cooperate and collaborate on a state level, but also on a grassroots level.”

“I’ve gotten the incredible opportunity to see her gain confidence in her school work, her passions, and leadership abilities,” she said. “She’s incredibly driven and puts so, so much effort into everything she does.”

Obisie-Orlu spent much of her time last year fulfilling the duties of Allegheny County’s Youth Poet Laureate, an honor bestowed through City of Asylum as part of a national network of up-and-coming poets. Through the award, Obisie-Orlu performed poetry at more than two dozen events, and even rubbed elbows with former ambassadors and world leaders — people she said she’d “only dreamed of interacting with as a political science student.”

enjoyed speaking in public,” Roussel said.

Roussel worked with Obisie-Orlu as a poet, but also praised her acting in the 2021 City Theatre production of “The Rivers Don’t Know.” Obisie-Orlu used this experience as inspiration for “Home,” a poem written from the perspective of Khadija, the SomaliBantu refugee who she portrayed in the play.

She absorbed a knack for the spotlight from her sister Shalom, who Obisie-Orlu described as “bold” and willing to take center stage no matter the outcome.

Growing up as the youngest of five had a profound impact on Obisie-Orlu as she strived to make herself heard, but it also encouraged her to help those

After a stint as UN Secretary-General, the 30year plan calls for a “palette cleanser” — becoming President of the United States, Obisie-Orlu said. In the meantime, she’s devoting plenty of attention to the present, and even the past.

In February, she revised a stanza of “Poem for the Expat,” an ode to her future self that she wrote at 15 years old. Obisie-Orlu’s recent changes focus on the transition from statements of hope to ones of determined action throughout the poem.

“Now I know, where there is loss, there is still home within yourself,” Obisie-Orlu said.

story by Jack Troy // photos by Nate Yonamine

MICHAEL ELLISON: THE BIG MAN ON CAMPUS

story by Juliana Morello // photos by Jonathan Guo

Michael Ellison’s nickname has followed him since high school. To his friends, family, coworkers and the students at Pitt, he is “Big Mike” — it’s even on his name tag.

“It’s probably because I’m 6’7”,” Ellison said. “I had a lot of nicknames, but that’s the one that stuck through the whole time. And then when I got here, everyone still called me that to this day. My name tag still says it on there. And everybody loves it. The students crack up when they see that.”

Big Mike works in the Market at Sutherland, making coffee and selling snacks to hungry students. But, Ellison didn’t always work on upper campus — he actually started his career elsewhere.

“I was down in Towers the first 10 years, I did everything,” Ellison said. “I started in the deli, and

then I moved to the dish room, and then I did receiving for three years, and then I did custodian for, like, four. I’ve been at the Market now, for six years. The last two years I’ve been lead store clerk.”

A Pittsburgh native, Ellison lives in Knoxville — a short 15-minute drive from Pitt’s campus. He is a prominent figure at the Market in Sutherland, and typically works from 4:45 p.m. in the afternoon to 1:15 a.m.

He describes his position as including everything from preparing food to working the register — but what helps him stand out is his positive attitude and his warmness toward the students that come in day after day.

“I think I’m pretty well respected, I mean, they always say hi to me, how am I doing today and all

that and they’ll leave like, ‘Oh, I’ll see you later!’” Ellison said. “I just do what I have to do. I try to be a great person, and do what I can and help out when I can, and just do the best that I can do, that’s all. It’s a job, but it’s for the students. It’s all about the students. If the students weren’t here, we wouldn’t have jobs, so it’s about the students.”

Ellison is just one member in a team of dedicated workers in Sutherland, and some of his best relationships are with his coworkers, a few of whom he knew prior to working at Pitt.

Ellison prides himself on remembering every student’s name, but said he’s not the Pitt dining worker who remembers the most — that title goes to his self-described “godbrother,” Eric Daniels.

“He’s better than me at it,” Ellison said. “I try

to remember as much as I can, I’m a little older now. But he’s good at that, and I try to learn from him. I’m pretty good with them, especially when you see them a lot.”

Daniels has worked at Pitt for 17 years and has known Ellison since he was a child, describing him as a gentle giant.

“He’s a big teddy bear,” Daniels said. “He’s a hard worker, he cares, he’s a very nice guy. You know, don’t be alarmed by the height, don’t be afraid of him being 6’7,” once you get to know him, he’s a very good guy.”

Brittany Kirkwood, another worker at the Market, has also known Ellison her whole life. Though she’s now 27 years old, Ellison watched her grow up, long before she worked in Sutherland.

“He’s a friend of my mom’s, they’ve been, like, childhood friends, and then he watched me grow up,” Kirkwood said. “They’ve been friends for a long time, I think they worked at the same bar together, when she was a bartender so long ago — Happy Days, in Mount Oliver. I don’t even think that’s a bar anymore, that’s how long ago it was.”

Kirkwood has worked at Pitt for five years, as both a cook and a cashier. She and Big Mike’s shifts often overlap, and she said he is always willing to lend a hand.

“He’s funny, helpful — very helpful and always there for people,” Kirkwood said. “He’s just a good time all around. He’s a good guy and he’s a good listener too. We basically are here all day together.”

Kirkwood said her favorite memory with Ellison was in July of 2021, when he attended her wedding. Almost two years ago, that

moment solidified for Ellison that Kirkwood had grown up. Ellison’s workplace relationships also proved to be significant when, in 2008, he suffered a heart attack and needed to take some time off of work. It was through his friends and family — some of whom were also his coworkers — that he was able to recover and make his way back to Pitt.

“I got sick back in ‘08, I had a heart attack, so I was off work for a while,” Ellison said. “When I finally got back, you know, it was almost back to normal. But it was hard because I had to learn how to walk again and everything. But with the help of my coworkers and my friends and family, I did it.”

It’s because of his family that Ellison is where he is today. Ellison said his parents were a great influence to him, especially when times are tough.

“My motto is ‘family comes first,’” Ellison said. “My mom, my dad — they just tell me to do the best I can. Do what you can, everything will work out, you know?”

Despite the challenges he’s faced, Ellison does what he can to stay active, outside of work.

“Every once in a while, I try to get out there,” Ellison said. “I’m getting a little too old for it now. I gotta make sure I ain’t got nothing to do the next day, ‘cause I’ll be sore.”

Despite his age, Ellison’s 21 years of service at Pitt have made him proud.

“The years I’ve been here — it’s been good, I’ve been here

21 years, and these last four have been pretty good,” Ellison said. “I’m just glad to be here, enjoying life. It’s been good here. It’s a great company. I just want to move forward and get better, that’s all. We’re here for the kids.”

Ellison and the rest of the Sutherland staff agree that one of the best perks of working at the Market is meeting new students and watching them become acclimated to life in college. The environment is constantly changing, with students coming and going at all hours of the day.

“They’re good kids — there are pretty good kids here at Pitt,” Ellison said.

The workers at Sutherland care deeply about the wellbeing and mental health of the new students, especially because entering into college can be such an unfamiliar and intimidating experience. According to Ellison, the best part of the job is being able to be there for the students moving in, year after year.

“We’re always getting new faces. It’s been really cool. Especially when their parents start bringing them in, and you know, I’ll say, ‘Yeah, we’ll take care of your kids,” Ellison said. “That’s always our motto — we’ll take care of your kids. ‘They need anything, my name is Michael, they call me ‘Big Mike.’ If they need me, I’m here, just ask for me.’”

MATT HAWLEY: CAPTURING THE MOMENTS OF PITT ATHLETICS

If you say the words “fake slide” to anyone who attended Pitt in fall 2021, you’ll probably see a smile come across their face.

In the first quarter of the 2021 ACC football championship game, then-senior quarterback Kenny Pickett made a play that would become one of the most famous moments in school history.

Many watching remember exactly where they were when it happened. Some were on their couches watching the game with their friends or family. Others were at bars, or even in the stands of the Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte.

Matt Hawley, a freelance photographer for Pitt’s varsity teams, was on the sidelines.

“At the time, they only gave us one vest for a photo or video person to be in the team area, and I happened to be the one with it at the moment,” Hawley said. “I didn’t even know he did that at the time. I just saw him running past me and I didn’t know until after the game and everyone was freaking out about it. I was originally like, ‘Great I missed the celebration and everything.’”

Despite capturing this moment and countless others during his time at Pitt, photography wasn’t always Hawley’s calling.

Hawley was born in York, Pennsylvania, into a family of photographers. Not only was his father an avid photographer — so was Hawley’s great-grandmother, Harriette.

In a time when women were often marginalized from the world of business and entrepreneurship, Harriette owned and operated her own portrait pho-

tography studios in both Toledo, Ohio and Marshalltown, Iowa.

Following in his grandmother’s footsteps, Hawley’s father Chris attended the Art Institute of Pittsburgh for photography prior to becoming a firefighter. He always urged his son to try it out at a young age, but Matt never seemed interested.

“He resisted every bit of it. I would give him cameras every year for Christmas and he would never pick them up,” Chris said. “You don’t want to force your kids towards their life, so he had to make the decision.”

Things changed In 2013 when Hawley took a trip to China and felt like he should bring a camera with him. Chris, having visited 55 countries, provided his son with a camera to take on his journey.

Matt began to fall more in love with photography after he enrolled at Pitt that same year — the same school his brother attended.

After starting his time as an undergrad, Hawley became more involved in athletics. Despite not having a plethora of experience in sports prior to his arrival at Pitt, Hawley became a manager for the women’s basketball team and started taking pictures at a number of other athletic events. The Oakland Zoo was part of what initially drew Hawley to the school, and he thought working with the team would be a good way to involve himself in athletics.

Hawley said his time with the basketball team was a major driving force in his decision to pursue a career in athletics. He was able to travel with them and gain experience working directly with the Pitt

athletic department.

“That was definitely a big factor in me getting a foot in the door. Everyone in athletics knew who I was and I knew who they were,” Hawley said. “That was my favorite part of being a student at Pitt.”

During his undergrad years, Hawley worked as a photographer for The Pitt News and freelanced for other publications. After his graduation in 2017, Hawley grew interested in pursuing a career in photography, and figured that Pitt was a natural fit. After a trial photo shoot of a Pitt football game, the athletic department hired Hawley in September 2017 as a freelance photographer.

Joe Lassi, the director of social media for Pitt Athletics, has worked alongside Hawley in a variety of roles. Much like Hawley, Lassi attended Pitt and worked different jobs throughout the athletic department during his time as a student. Lassi emphasized the value of Hawley’s work when it comes to social media and the image of the school as a whole.

“One thing we have really worked on [in marketing and social media] is the Pitt brand and making things stand out more. Before, things were all over the place and we’ve kind of tried to bring everything together,” Lassi said. “Photography is a huge part of that, but even more so, it’s about having photography that represents each individual event authentically."

Lassi said the rapport he and Hawley have built up over the years has allowed the two to work efficiently together.

“I can rely on him as a friend in addition to being one of our freelance photographers because I know him so well and have worked with him for so long,” Lassi said. “We have a very good relationship and it’s pretty informal at times which is nice because it makes things easy.”

Hawley has worked with the athletic department

for eight years and continues to shoot events from all sports at Pitt. Hawley acknowledges that his work is something that few get to experience and doesn’t take it for granted.

“It was cool to be behind the scenes of things because that’s not something that a lot of people get to do,” Hawley said. “I think if fans could see a little behind the scenes they would have a different perspective on the teams they root for.”

Hawley also said working behind the scenes has given him a new perspective on the student-athlete experience. His interactions with the athletes is one of his favorite parts of the job.

“The student-athletes are just regular people like you and me. They listen to the same music, they go to the same restaurants, they hang out with their friends,” Hawley said. “The only difference is that they happen to be more athletically gifted than the rest of us.”

Hawley’s work is seen throughout Pitt football’s highly popular social media platforms and venues such as Acrisure Stadium. But he finds the most pride in the value that the athletes and their families place in his work.

“It really means less to me with where my work is being shown and who sees it, but I care about the student-athletes a lot,” Hawley said. “If I'm doing a good job for the parents, the team and the coaches, that’s what I care about the most.”

With many of Pitt’s student-athletes coming from across the globe, Hawley’s photography helps connect many parents to their kids from thousands of miles away.

“I’ve had parents reach out and thank me because it makes them feel like they’re with their child,” Hawley said. “That makes me feel better than where my work is being used.”

For Chris, he has nothing but admiration for his son’s work.

“I’m very proud of him. Not just because he’s my son, but I look at the types of photographs he takes, and he exceeds anything that I can do,” he said. “He captures the human aspect and that’s incredible. If you can’t tell, I’m incredibly proud of him.”

story by Zach Gibney // photos courtesy of Matt Hawley

photo by Joe Lassi

photo by Joe Lassi

ADITI SRIDHAR: BRINGING A NEW LENS TO SOUTH ASIAN REPRESENTATION

story by Tanya Babbar // photos courtesy of Aditi Sridhar

Aditi Sridhar hopes to bring more South Asian representation to the big screen. She’s looking to break stereotypes and misconceptions about South Asian culture, and to bring herself joy by sharing it.

“I feel like those everyday moments of life and conversations can center South Asian people and don’t have to be all about how they’re Indian,” Sridhar, a senior film major, said. “But that cultural specificity can really center around the work and make it more meaningful, while still telling the universal story.”

After the COVID-19 pandemic, Sridhar began to break into film-making, an industry where connections are key. The relationships Sridhar formed with mentors helped her find the confidence she needed to enter an art-form where South Asians are commonly underrepresented.

She’s also the president of SCENE@Pitt, a club dedicated to students with aspirations of working in the entertainment industry. After becoming president, she set out to help other students trying to get their start in entertainment, so they don’t feel lost like she once did.

“I came into this whole field with no connections, no experience, feeling alone and isolated,” Sridhar said. “I want to find shortcuts for people so that they can find their creative projects faster. So that they can really feel empowered that they can do anything if they just have the tools and resources set in place.”

Laura Stravach, a senior film and media studies major and the business manager of SCENE@Pitt, finds Sridhar’s attitude inspiring. They called Sridhar a “force

of change” within Pitt’s film department.

“She dedicates her time with SCENE developing workshops and working with students which is so cool to see,” Stravach said. “It definitely has set an example for myself and other students on how we should be collaborating and working with each other in classes and outside.”

In March, Sridhar stepped foot into Hollywood to present trophies at the 95th Academy Awards, an opportunity she found through her internships with Warner Brothers and the Academy Gold Rising Program last summer. She was even featured on a “Good Morning America” segment alongside the other students who presented at the Oscars, and the Academy selected her as a member of their Academy Gold Rising Program.

Sridhar said one of her favorite moments of the night was watching the song “Natu Natu” from the film “RRR” make history by becoming the first song from an Indian film to win best original song.

“An Indian song hasn’t been nominated before in that category, and to win in that same year was incredible,” Sridhar said. “People don’t realize how big the Oscars are in a place like India, even though India has the biggest film industry ever, people still regard the Oscars as the ultimate thing. So for them to win was huge for India and huge for South Asians.”

She also recently produced a short film called “PIVOT,” which tells the story of a South Asian dancer who struggles with perfectionism, her future and her complicated relationship with an overbearing partner. As both

classmates and collaborators, those who have worked on Sridhar’s set have treasured the meaningful cultural exchange.

“This has become such an important project to me. The script that Aditi wrote beautifully depicts the everyday, culturally specific moments of her life that can shed new light on elements of representation that often aren’t seen on screen,” said Owen Gambill, a senior film major with an economics minor and a close friend and longtime collaborator of Sridhar’s.

Sridhar is also working on a film titled “Aloo Poori” for her senior thesis. It chronicles the last day of a mother and daughter living together in a small town in Western Pennsylvania.

According to the film’s crowdfunding page on Seed&Spark, which raised more than $9,000, “Aloo Poori is a nostalgic love letter to family traditions and the comfort of home. It confronts the anxieties of missed forgiveness and leaving the ones we depend on most amidst the start of new beginnings.”

The film’s name comes from a dish that her grandmother made for her growing up at her house in India, Sridhar said.

“She would pack it for us and we’d eat it on the plane home, when going back to the U.S. And then [when] she passed away, my mom would also do it,” Sridhar said. “It kind of became like ‘You’re leaving, you’re going on a far journey, here’s the aloo poori, so that you remember us, and so you have something good to eat to remind you of home.’ So I wanted to take that and then contextualize it within a mother-daughter relationship.”

Through her film-making, Sridhar is driven to represent South Asians in an authentic manner. Growing up in Johnstown, which is about an hour from campus, Sridhar said there was a very small South Asian community, and her closest family was 2,000 miles away. To connect with her culture, she spent time choreographing Bollywood dances in basements with her friends and tasting her parents' North and South Indian dishes.

“I’ve always desired to see South Asian families carving space for themselves on screen,” she said. “Sometimes, at least for my family, this came with a deep closeness between myself and my parents, which inevitably kept a balance between my Indian and American identities.”

When she came to Pitt, Sridhar said she was “ready to meet more brown people and really immerse myself in the community.” And while she achieved this goal, which Sridhar said was “exciting,” the more she got into film, the less time she spent with South Asian people, although her stories center South Asian American voices. Sridhar wants other South Asian students to know that they shouldn’t limit themselves in their career paths.

“I'd say you just have to let go of all the ‘What would happen? What will people say? What if I fail?’ and just go for it,” Sridhar said. “I think Indian culture and Bollywood culture allow for this kind of expansion of imagination. I’d say for someone that is South Asian on campus, it's like, just take a film class and see what you can do.”

Contributing reporting by Carissa Canzona.

LIANN TSOUKAS: THE ‘MOST HUGGED PROFESSOR’ IN PITT HISTORY

story by Livia Daggett // photos by Romita Das

In the minds of her students and colleagues, Liann Tsoukas’ kindness is what sets her apart. Marcus Rediker, a distinguished professor of Atlantic History and Tsoukas’ colleague, even called her the “most hugged professor” at graduation events.

Tsoukas is in her 22nd year as a teaching professor and works closely with students on a daily basis. She started her career teaching history at Washington University in St. Louis, but has found her home at Pitt. Tsoukas says she finds Pitt students “open-minded, willing to let things happen and really appreciative of effort put in on their behalf.”

The effort she puts in has not gone unnoticed by Tsoukas’ students and colleagues. She received the Pitt's School of Arts and Sciences Student Choice Award in 2004 and later the prestigious Bellet Award in 2013. Since then, Tsoukas has continued to take on new challenges at the University, including contributing to designing the new sports studies certificate and most recently writing an upcoming book with colleague Robb Ruck on Mal Goode, a Pitt grad who became the first Black television correspondent on national news in the 1960s.

Tsoukas is not just a friend and mentor to past teaching assistant Cordelia Brazile, a seventh-year history doctoral candidate, but she also served as a reference when Brazile adopted her dog Teddy. When Tsoukas’ daughters overheard her phone call with the animal rescue, they thought she was serving as a reference for an actual child for how warmly Tsoukas spoke of Brazile. Now, Tsoukas and Teddy are best of friends and see each other often.

“Even popular with animals — that’s Liann Tsoukas,” Brazile said. “She’ll do anything for anyone. She’ll be there for you in a heartbeat, and that’s what makes her so special.”

What makes Tsoukas the “heart and soul of our department,” as Rediker called her, is the effort she puts into designing and teaching exceptional courses for students. Tsoukas has taught

some classes nearly every year in her 22 years at Pitt, but she makes sure no two semesters of the same course are unchanged.

Tsoukas said she designs all her content with her students and their experiences in mind, approaching the teaching process with humility.

“I cannot reach them or give them frameworks for understanding that matter to them unless I understand them, what they see, what they hear, what they feel, what their challenges are, what engages them and interests them. So I'm on a constant mission to do that,” Tsoukas said.

Teaching history specifically, Tsoukas said, demands emphasizing “the human experience” and connecting historical events, particularly those from “buried voices,” to present-day student life.

“The most important thing to me is it's a human narrative. And one thing we can relate to is other humans, and there are a lot of experiences that are not part of the traditional record — joys, tragedies, satisfaction, pain, love, everything that we relate to,” Tsoukas said.

Human stories inform Tsoukas’ specialty in African American history. She wrote her 1998 dissertation on the cooperation between Black and white activists in the 1930s fighting to end the lynching crisis of Black Americans, which she called a “breakthrough” moment in activist history.

“Learning a lot more about the Black American historical narrative shaped my viewpoint of our country and what it is, and what citizenship means at certain times and places,” Tsoukas said.

This sensitivity translates to what Tsoukas’ students take from her classes. George Begler, a senior history and political science double major, has taken multiple classes with Tsoukas, including his history capstone, and learned more from Tsoukas than just history.

“She’s really able to emphasize civic duty, and voting, and why it’s so important for us to be good citizens and learn about the world around us,” Begler said.

Before becoming a teacher, Tsoukas earned her bachelor’s in American Studies at Amherst College, a small liberal arts college in Massachusetts. She recalls loving the small classes and the interdisciplinary liberal arts mentality — a philosophy she consciously brings to Pitt, a large STEM school, by emphasizing “that liberal arts ethic… which is close attention to students,” Tsoukas said.

Tsoukas’ liberal arts perspective also informs her philosophy of producing well-rounded students who are not just intellectually educated in history, but also prepared for life after college. As a mother of three and a person with many roles around Pitt, Tsoukas models for her students that they can live “satisfying and full lives,” Tsoukas said.

On campus, Tsoukas’ life is already quite full. Brazile said since she first met Tsoukas in 2017, the professor has taken on more and more responsibilities. She advises history majors and recently became an assistant dean for the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, allowing her to assist students outside of the history department. She also played an integral role in helping colleagues and students adapt to online learning during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Brazile recalls Tsoukas guided TAs and instructors, “making sure we were checking in on kids”

out of concern for their mental health.

As an assistant dean, Tsoukas is keenly aware of the long-needed changes taking place in academia. She thinks the academic world is “expanding definitions of what it is and should be.”

“I think we're all trying to move the university forward, move education forward, make its mission broader and more enveloping,” Tsoukas said. Though there is still progress to be made, she said, much has changed since she entered academia.

“I think that students walk into classrooms and don't assume a gender with a professor or an instructor, or a chancellor or a provost,” Tsoukas said. “The way their generation sees things is refreshingly wonderful. I think there are still problems, but at least we now have tools and vocabulary for understanding them.”

Tsoukas’ sensitivity and enthusiasm for teaching serve as inspiration to her students. The quality of her teaching helps students see a future in the profession — what Rediker called “the gift of the committed teacher.”

“Inspiration is maybe the greatest gift a professor can give to the student — to want to know, and to want to become a self-educating person,” Rediker said. “People want to become teachers after they see an excellent example of teaching.”

Brazile also said when she thinks about how she wants to teach her classes, Tsoukas is “exactly who I think of.”

Tsoukas knows that teaching doesn’t always produce immediate results — and she’s just fine with that.

“We have to build connections in the short term to be successful in the class. But then you hope that…in the long term, it's felt in other arenas of their lives, and that's being super cheesy, but I actually believe it,” Tsoukas said. “I think I can approach my teaching and students the way I do is because I really do believe in it.”

STEFFAN TRIPLETT: ‘FEARLESS’ WRITER, INSPIRING EDUCATOR

Steffan Triplett favored his English classes growing up, often spending days sitting at an old typewriter in his garage writing short stories. At the time, he was unaware of the years he’d later dedicate to writing and the passion he’d hold for creative nonfiction.

“The idea of being a writer as a career or as anything beyond liking it in school was something that was not legible to my family or to me as a kid,” Triplett said. “We didn’t know any writers. I didn’t know how one became a writer and that never seemed like a possibility.”

After years of hard work, Triplett achieved the seemingly impossible. His first book “Bad Forecast” is set for release in 2024 by the publisher Essay Press. He said the book is a hybrid collection of essays and poems that ties together many topics and themes, such as the tornado that hit his hometown in 2011, grief and race.

“I wanted to do something that felt unique to me and that only I could write it the way I could write it,” Triplett said. “It’s maybe weirder in its form, but I like that it's going to be my first book.”

An essay Triplett had published in the Spring 2022 edition of the Iowa Review titled “Inclemency” is featured in his forthcoming book and is currently nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Triplett completed his MFA in Nonfiction from the University of Pittsburgh in 2018, and got hired as an adjunct professor immediately after. Triplett said he decided to pursue nonfiction because he enjoyed the challenge of having to stick to the truth and found himself excited by the “depth” of the genre.

“I wanted to explore the bounds of the genre, whether that was learning a bit more about journalism or learning more about lyric essays and hybrid texts,” Triplett said.

Pitt promoted Triplett to a visiting lecturer in 2019, and to a teaching assistant professor in the Writing Program in 2022. Triplett currently teaches “Introduction to Journalism and Nonfiction” and occasionally teaches “Introduction to Creative Writing.” He said he also had the opportunity to teach a course titled “Studio in African American Poetics” this semester.

“It’s a multi-genre, multi-disciplinary creative class where we read Black poets and Black writers,” Triplett said. “The students all form creative responses every

week and share them with each other, then work on a big final project in relation to what we read and the class theme, which is emergency.”

Leah Mensch, a Pitt alum currently earning their MFA at the University of Arizona, met Triplett during their first year of college when they took Triplett’s “Introduction to Journalism and Nonfiction” course in the spring of 2018. Mensch said they entered the class not knowing that the genre of creative nonfiction existed, and left inspired to pursue it as a career.

“It was reading his writing that made me really want to become a writer,” Mensch said. “It made me want to be able to do something really meaningful with my truth.”

Mensch said Triplett continued to mentor them until they graduated from Pitt, and that he taught Mensch to trust their instincts and abilities as a writer. Mensch also said no matter what type of essay they tried to write or what point they tried to articulate, Triplett always took them seriously as a writer, which is something he does with all his students.

“Steffan teaches his students how to be fearless writers because he’s a fearless writer,” Mensch said. “And I think that he implemented that in me really early.”

Now that “Bad Forecast” is on the way to publication, Triplett said he’s begun working on a memoir — though it hasn’t been picked up yet. According to Triplett, this memoir is told through a series of essays that navigate coming to terms with sexuality while highlighting the various forms of media that contributed toward his own understanding of it.

“I’m trying to write a book that would’ve helped me navigate sexuality and fear when I was growing up,” Triplett said. “That’s what I’m striving for.”

Triplett said it’s difficult to write about and inhabit the headspace of growing up fearful and avoidant of one’s sexuality, but he sees that difficulty as a sign that he should pursue the subject.

“It feels really vulnerable and raw in a way that even my previous writing doesn’t,” Triplett said.

After graduating high school in 2010, Triplett at-

tended Washington University in St. Louis on the John B. Ervin Scholarship — a historically Black scholarship, according to Triplett — where he earned a degree in psychology. Triplett decided to pick up a minor in creative writing after a conversation with James E. McLeod, the leader of Triplett’s scholarship program and the dean of Washington University’s College of Arts and Sciences at the time.

“When I told him that I liked writing essays he said, ‘A lot of students don’t come into my office and say ‘oh, I like to write,’ so you should stick with that and take a writing course each semester,’ and I liked the sound of that,” Triplett said.

Historically, white men accounted for most of the nonfiction writers getting published, so he aims to highlight texts from writers with a diverse range of backgrounds in his courses.

“I’m very invested in thinking about the histories of nonfiction as a Black genre and thinking about and highlighting Black nonfiction writers in the past and present,” Triplett said.

In 2020, Triplett received the opportunity to become the assistant director of Pitt’s Center for African American Poetry and Poetics, also known as CAAPP. As the assistant director of CAAPP, Triplett said he serves as the day-to-day liaison and manager between people at Pitt and the center. He oversees communications with community partners and helps organize, run and plan all of CAAPP’s event programming.

“We do our CAAPP Black studies series every semester in which we bring in various Black poets, writers and artists to campus or virtual events,” Triplett said.

“We also, each semester, do various events with our community partners.”

Triplett said he also runs the CAAPP book prize that’s held each year with Autumn House Press. Triplett helps organize submissions and leads the team that reads those submissions and passes them on to the judge.

Dawn Lundy Martin, the director of CAAPP and Toi Derricotte Endowed Chair in English, said she immediately noticed Triplett’s leadership skills in the classroom and his insightful approach to poetry when he took her poetry workshop as a grad student.

“I was thinking about how exciting and interesting it is that a nonfiction writer is able to take up poetry and make it his own in such a short period of time,” Martin said.

Martin said Triplett has played a major role in creating CAAPP’s “astounding” online archive of past events, and that the two do weekly check-ins where they bring their ideas together to ensure the work they’re doing reflects the current sociopolitical moment in a distinct way.

“We’re always also speaking to the conditions in which we exist as humans and as Americans in this particular moment,” Martin said. “Our work is not just floating off in some intellectual or abstract creative sphere, so working with Steffan has really been key to the development of that.”

Triplett said he wants his work to show that nonfiction is an exciting and flexible genre for all types of writers. He said he holds similar goals in the classroom, ensuring that his students know there is room for them in the genre even if it doesn’t always seem like it.

"You can always show up to a page and write something in a way that's slightly different than another writer could,” Triplett said. “I think that’s the exciting part about nonfiction — the approach.”

Editor’s Note: Leah Mensch is a former opinions editor at The Pitt News.

story by Donata Massimiani // photos by Amaya Lobato

WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA ABORTION CLINICS AND ADVOCATES: ‘WE CAN’T DO THIS WORK ALONE’

story by Grace DeLallo // photos by Romita Das

Caity Bell is one of the first people patients talk to when they schedule an abortion. Bell, a phone flex at Allegheny Reproductive Health Center, said they’ve experienced a wide range of cases at their job.

“I’ve unfortunately had a number of calls where people are in active domestic violence situations happening at that moment… Without getting too specific, people who are being followed around by somebody who is chasing them around their house — it can get pretty scary,” Bell said.

But there are “happy, heartening moments" too.

“People who I’m able to help get them access when they wouldn’t be able to otherwise, especially with other patients that we’re seeing traveling from other states — Florida, Texas, Georgia, South Carolina … We’ve seen patients from almost every state south or midwest of us,” Bell said. “The heartening thing for me is seeing the network of support that has come out of the post-Roe decision.”

Bell is one of the many people across Western Pennsylvania — advocates, providers, lawyers, students and more — working to provide and improve abortion access, a procedure that has become increasingly complicated after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade over the summer. Two clinics in the Pittsburgh area in particular — Planned Parenthood of Western Pennsylvania and ARHC — are grappling with an influx of patients arriving from states with bans.

Sydney Etheredge, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Western Pennsylvania, noted that there are only two abortion clinics west of Harrisburg. At the best of times, she said it’s an “inconvenience” for women, but at the worst of times, it’s “life or death.”

Etheredge, a Pitt alumna, started as CEO in January 2022 after spending 10 years in Planned Parenthood’s national office in Washington, D.C. Etheredge earned a master’s degree in health policy from George Washington University, and interned for Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, a U.S. representative from Connecticut, during the passage of the Affordable Care Act. She said these experiences helped her understand the complex challenges facing abortion access — not just in Pennsylvania, but nationwide.

For example, a study from the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists reported that, as of 2017, half of the counties in the country lack a single OBGYN. These areas are home to more than 10 million people requiring gynecological services.

“Through my learnings and studies, what I was

seeing was that sexual reproductive healthcare was incredibly siloed from the rest of the system,” Etheredge said. “It was very disturbing because, when half of the population needs to see an OB-GYN, why is that considered a specialty provider?”

At PPWP, Alex McNeil, the clinic’s abortion service health center manager, said she feels fortunate to work with the “most compassionate, hard-working, brilliant, bravest people you’re ever likely to meet.” While abortion care is safe in Pennsylvania for now, McNeil said she worries about people throughout the country who “aren’t safe.”

“When patients need to travel to Pennsylvania for care, then that is going to put more of a burden on the resources we have here, which then pushes patients into further gestations because of those things like travel and access and availability of appointments,” she said.

According to figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Guttmacher Institute, there were between 620,327 and 930,460 legal abortions in 2020 — the last year the organizations reported a total. However, dozens of clinics across the country stopped offering abortions after the reversal of Roe.

“There are attacks against abortion every day, from courts, to politicians. There are protestors outside of our clinic, terrorist attacks at clinics,” McNeil said. “And every day across the world, abortion providers show up and fight for their patients and provide safe, non-judgemental, essential healthcare.”

People like Raven Kirksey are grateful for staff who are always willing to lend a tissue if a patient needs to cry or joke with them if they need to laugh. Kirksey, a staff member at ARHC, had an abortion at the clinic before starting work there. Her experience with the clinic staff and simplicity of her procedure inspired her to apply for a position at the clinic when the opportunity presented itself about a year ago.

“I can specifically remember walking out [after the

procedure] and I was like ‘Wow, this was an incredible experience for me,’ feeling that love and support,” Kirksey said. “I thought they were the coolest people ever.”

She added that destigmatizing abortions are necessary so everyone gets the health care they need — not just those whose lives are threatened by pregnancy.

“There has to be room for everybody if we want abortion to be completely normalized and destigmatize it,” Kirksey said. “Whatever their reasoning is, it doesn’t matter. If they don’t have a reason, that’s great too. It doesn’t matter. It never mattered to me.”

Students fighting for abortion rights

Students are advocating for abortion access as well. Alexa Pierce, a junior double majoring in political science and law, criminal justice and society, is the president of the Planned Parenthood Generation Action club at Pitt. The club advocates and educates about reproductive issues, as well as supporting local clinics such as PPWP and ARHC.

“Since Roe was overturned in the summer, a lot of the students in the club wanted to get involved in direct action, so a lot of them wanted to donate their time and money or whatever they could, especially if they were in Pittsburgh,” Pierce said. “We helped a lot of students in PPGen get connected to the clinic.”

One of Pierce’s most prominent memories is when

she and other PPGen and pro-choice club presidents from universities around the country spoke with Vice President Kamala Harris in October 2022 about abortion advocacy on campuses post-Roe. They made recommendations to the White House on how they can tailor their efforts to support students.

“I think it's really important to realize that in Pennsylvania we might think that we're lucky, but we're not so far from becoming the next Texas,” Pierce said. “I'm hearing stories from students in Idaho, or in Texas, or other southern states where there's really restrictive abortion laws at the state level. The battle they’re up against is a lot. Some couldn't even start chapters, some were getting pushback from their own University.”

Sara Dixon, the public relations manager at PPWP, is one staff member at the clinic who was first introduced to Planned Parenthood’s work as a young person. She started volunteering at PPWP’s Young Leadership Council in 2017, which she said opened her eyes to issues surrounding sexual and reproductive health care. Dixon said lots of people aren’t informed about how to practice safe sex — which can lead to unintended pregnancies and STIs.

"Planned Parenthood of Western Pennsylvania has three areas of expertise, our sexual and reproductive health care clinics, our sexual education department, which offers comprehensive sex education in schools

and to the greater Western PA communities and our Public Affairs and Advocacy department, which is responsible for disseminating factual and stigma-free information to our supporters, legislators and the public at large," Dixon said.

Legal advocacy

With numerous federal and state laws in place to limit reproductive access, legal experts have found ways to support some of the most vulnerable groups in a post-Roe landscape. Some of these laws include Pennsylvania’s Abortion Control Act  — which establishes a 24-hour waiting period before the procedure, state-mandated counseling and restrictions on insurance — and the Hyde Amendment — which prohibits federal funds from covering abortions, including for people enrolled in Medicaid, Medicare and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Tausha Bonner-Johnson is the Youth Organizer at New Voices for Reproductive Justice, an organization that works to improve the health and well-being of Black women, girls and gender-expansive people. She said Black women, Black birthing people and women of color have never truly had equitable access to abortions, especially due to the Hyde Amendment.

“This [Dobbs decision] was an announcement, but it wasn’t something that turned our community completely upside down, as we were never turned right side up in the first place,” she said.

Bonner-Johnson believes that young people are the future of the abortion rights movement, and that they’re “stepping up and trying to change this world.”

“Young folks are doing exactly what we've been begging people to do,” she said. “They're listening to each other, they are supporting each other, they are standing beside each other, they are standing up for

injustices when it doesn’t affect them.”

The Women’s Law Project, a nonprofit, public interest, legal organization, works to defend and advance the rights of women, girls and LGBTQ+ people in Pennsylvania and beyond. WLP attorneys provide free assistance to all of Pennsylvania’s abortion providers to help them navigate a host of legal issues, and offer youth access assistance as part of a specialty project.

As a staff attorney at WLP, Chris Castro said she provides representation in a way that “centers and honors” younger clients’ ability to make their own decisions surrounding their reproductive health. Post-Roe, Castro said she’s noticed more barriers to abortion that are difficult for young people to overcome, such as longdistance travel and complicated legal systems.

One of these complicated legal systems, Castro said, is judicial bypass — a process that allows teens to not tell their parents or guardians about their pregnancy

by obtaining an order from a judge. Castro said there are other considerations attorneys must make as well depending on the client.

“When you hold multiple identities, and are experiencing multiple forms of oppression based on sex, gender, disability, immigration status, etc, a cookie-cutter approach will not solve everyone's needs,” Castro said. “We don't live single-issue lives.”

Maggie Neely, another lawyer at WLP who works to advance pregnant people’s rights, said she believes achieving social justice is impossible unless people can make decisions for themselves about whether and how to have children — which is impossible without a community of people willing to support one another.

“We can't do this work alone,” Neely said. “We have a really incredible community here in Western Pennsylvania that enables us to do this and to support people and help them get the care that they need.”

KELLEN PETRONE: UNFINISHED VOLLEYBALL BUSINESS

story by Richie Smiechowski // photos by Jonathan Guo

Sitting on Pitt’s sideline every volleyball game day, Kellen Petrone almost never cracks a smile. The associate head coach tightly grips a binder or notebook filled to the brim with game notes, stats and scouting reports.

He’ll get up every few points with comments directed usually at Pitt’s setters — but for the most part, he sits on the edge of his seat with his eyes locked on the match, analyzing his team with the eyes of a former player.

Off the court, Petrone’s demeanor is calm — laidback but still focused, sometimes even stoic. But according to his former player and now assistant coach Kamalani Akeo, he takes his seriousness to a new level between the lines.

“In game, Kellen is really intense,” Akeo said. “We say he likes to worry productively, always preparing us for the worst-case scenario. We know that, no matter what happens in a match or on a road trip, Kellen will be ready for it and prepared to help us through it.”

As the official “team worrier,” Petrone’s close attention to detail and dedication to the program has made him an asset to Pitt volleyball since Dan Fisher hired him in 2014 — just one year after Fisher took the reins as head coach.

“One of the things that stood out the most when I hired him was his interpersonal skills, but after years of coaching with him I can say his biggest strength is his curiosity,” Fisher said. “As good as he is, he is curious and wants to keep improving…I don’t think he has any glaring weaknesses in his skill set.”

Petrone’s background is a bit different than most coaches in the NCAA, considering he never actually played Division I college volleyball. He’s a Pittsburgh lifer, getting his start in volleyball as first team All-WPIAL selection at Pittsburgh Central Catholic in 2004.

Instead of pursuing collegiate volleyball, Petrone elected to stay home and attend Duquesne University, but the volleyball bug wouldn’t go away. He founded the school’s club volleyball team and played on it all four years in college, launching his unlikely career in coaching as a student assistant for the women’s varsity team.

“I always joke that I had three majors at Duquesne,” Petrone said. “Even as a marketing and entrepreneurship major, I spent probably more time in the gym either playing or coaching than I did in class… Right away when I started coaching, I was lucky to coach a high school team at Fox Chapel that was in the state championship that first year. I just got the bug really early.”

After coaching both Fox Chapel High School and Moon Area High School while he was still enrolled at Duquesne, Petrone immediately earned an assistant coaching opportunity at Robert Morris in 2009, just one year after his graduation. Thrown into the fire at just 22

years old, Petrone gained valuable experience as interim head coach for the team amid a fluid coaching situation.

Petrone’s successful tenure earned him his first coaching job outside of the Pittsburgh area at UNC Asheville in 2010. While his stint with the Bulldogs lasted just two years, Petrone learned even more about the nuances of coaching, briefly taking over as interim head coach for the second time in his young career.

“I think that the more successful assistant coaches treat the program as if it’s their own,” Petrone said. “I think the decision making and seeing consequences of your actions is a pretty important lesson to learn early.”

In the year between Asheville and his return to coaching in Pittsburgh, Petrone took what he learned in coaching and applied his business education background into a startup called StatEasy. Even in his break from volleyball, he still couldn’t get away, often pairing video and stats for volleyball teams while still coaching at the club level in his free time.

By then, though, Petrone had garnered a reputation as being one of the area's best club coaches, becoming a target for Fisher, who was still in the early stages of building his staff.

The Pitt head coach first reached out to Petrone in 2014, asking him to start as a volunteer coach. With an established job and his wedding just three months away, he initially shied away.

But after going to one of Fisher’s practices, Petrone quickly changed his mind.

“I went to a practice and I was like, I think something really special could happen here,” Petrone said. “So I quit my job three months before my wedding with my wife’s blessing, and it turns out I was right.”

Petrone didn’t volunteer for long before Fisher and Pitt moved him into a paid position. He started his career with the Panthers as the team’s Director of Operations before officially moving into an assistant coaching role a year later.

With Petrone’s influence on the offensive side of the game, the Panthers surged in 2016, earning their first NCAA tournament berth in 12 years and laying the groundwork for the next few years of success. On an individual level, he guided Akeo to ACC Setter of the Year honors and helped her become one of the best setters in program history.

Now an assistant coach with the Panthers, Akeo is going on her eighth year alongside Petrone. She’s on a similar career trajectory to her former coach, even starting her post-playing career as director of operations.

“We’ve almost been at Pitt for the same amount of time, I think he actually got here a year before I started

as a player,” Akeo said. “Looking back at it now, it’s really cool because we kind of went on the same coaching path, going from a player to Director of Operations to now an assistant coach. He’s been a great mentor to me and I’m grateful to be able to continue to learn from him.”

As a coach, Petrone wears two hats. There’s the one everyone sees — the offensive strategist who prepares meticulously for every opponent and puts his game plan into action on the sidelines alongside Fisher and Akeo.

Then, there’s his recruiting coordinator hat. In the offseason, away from the public eye, Petrone works tirelessly every day prospecting high school players and current college players in the transfer portal.

“Kellen and Dan probably put in the most for recruiting, I couldn’t even express how many players and how much film they watch,” Akeo said. “I know Kellen will go home and answer hundreds of emails every day…Him and Dan are really innovative in the way they recruit.”

According to Petrone, there are key qualities that make up a great recruiter — building relationships and being genuine toward prospective players and their families are at the top of the list.

“A good recruiter has an incredible work ethic, is very organized and has a personality that attracts people to them,” Petrone said. “I do think a good recruiter actually cares about people, so I think sometimes young people in the role will be a little too transactional.”

Even for a coach that has these recruiting skills, program culture and aspirations are also massively important. According to Petrone, that’s what makes Pitt such an enticing spot for players.

“In terms of recruiting here at Pitt, I just really believe in the product we’re selling and the people we’re selling and that makes my job really easy,” Petrone said. “It’s not like I’m a used car salesman who’s just trying to get someone to buy my car. I just really believe in what we’re doing and know that they’ll have a genuine experience here where they can grow athletically and academically.”

So far, Petrone and Fisher are having their best recruiting cycle to date — their 2023 class of high school commitments is ranked No. 8 in the country by PrepVolleyball.com. According to Akeo, it’s no surprise that their success increases year over year.

“Dan and Kellen are always looking to do something new.” Akeo said. “They are always looking for that competitive edge both on the court and in recruiting and that’s a big reason why this program has gone through such a big jump over their tenure. They’re just never satisfied with what everyone else is doing or what

worked for them last year. Recruiting is always changing and their ability to adapt sets them apart from a lot of hard working coaches.”

Looking toward the future, Petrone isn’t sure what’s still in store for him in volleyball. He realizes that he’s in a great spot and enjoys both the recruiting and coaching elements of his job at Pitt — but like any great assistant coach, he has greater aspirations.

“I’m having another kid in May, and my family’s growing so I do want some stability for them,” Petrone said. “My wife has a great job but yeah, of course I want to be a head coach and be able to take what I’ve learned here and at the other programs and implement it in the way that I want to. In terms of when or where I don’t know yet — but I do have aspirations.”

But until then, Petrone is fully invested into Pitt volleyball for as long as his journey allows.

While he works on building next year's class, he can look around his office and see countless mementos signifying his success at Pitt. A collection of hats from each of the Panther’s ACC championships sits above his desk, while two miniature NCAA region champion trophies rest atop a filing cabinet next to a miniature disc golf basket — one of his hobbies away from the court.

“I do feel like there is a sense of unfinished business here,” Petrone said. “Here I am entering year 10 as the associate head coach, and now we feel that the only goal that’s left is for us to win a national championship.”

CHRIS DELUZIO: FROM CATCHER TO CONGRESSMAN

story

Chris Deluzio’s life of service started when he was the catcher on his little league baseball team — a position that, according to his former colleague and longtime family friend, has made him a team player and politician people can count on.

David Hickton, the founder of Pitt’s Institute for Cyber Law, Policy and Security, said he knew Deluzio both as a child and as a colleague, and said Deluzio has kept the same exemplary leadership abilities he had as a catcher on his baseball team.

“He was a catcher when he was a baseball player, and a catcher is kind of like the quarterback in football,” Hickton said. “He's just a natural-born leader at his core.”

Deluzio, who now serves as the U.S. Representative for Pennsylavnia’s 17th Congressional District, said he remembers attending high school and not knowing what he wanted to do with his life. But when the 9/11 attacks happened during his senior year, he came to the same conclusion as so many others around him — he would pursue a life of service to his country.

With his newfound life goal and purpose, Deluzio joined the Naval Academy right out of high school and graduated in 2006 with a degree in political science. Deluzio said the Naval Academy taught him many things, one of which led him to his current position as a congressman.

“I learned a pretty simple lesson when I was at the Naval Academy… the idea that there is something more important than all of us, that's this country,” Deluzio said. “That you ought to put others ahead of yourself, and so those values are things I learned pretty young, and that shaped me today and the way I try to represent our region down in Washington.”

After graduating from the Naval Academy, Deluzio served in the Iraq War, where he said he experienced pride in fighting for his country — a fight he continued to pursue after his three deployments through an extensive law career.

Deluzio, who graduated from Georgetown University's law school in 2013, worked at the Brennan Center for Justice on the Voting Rights and Election Security teams before returning home to work as a policy directory at Pitt Cyber, where he focused on voting rights, election security and the intersection of technology and civil rights.

Hickton said Deluzio’s best characteristics aren’t just seen in the spotlight, but also in all the work he does behind the scenes.

“I've seen the kindness that he's exhibited in the community, I've seen this in the kindness that he's exhibited with his co-workers and I see how kind he is when nobody's watching,” Hickton said.

While Hickton said he misses his former colleague at Pitt Cyber, he is proud of Deluzio’s new

position in Congress and couldn’t think of a better man for the job.

“When he indicated that he had an interest in going into elected office, which didn't surprise me because I remember talking to him about that when he was a young boy, I was all in on that,” Hickton said. “When it developed that there was an opportunity for him to run for Congress, I was 100% in favor of it.”

Deluzio said the principle of serving oth-

ers guides many of his legislative decisions as a U.S. Representative, including one issue close to home — supporting unions. Deluzio, who was a part of the Pitt faculty organizing committee, said the success of the faculty union has continued his belief in the strength of people when they work together.

“I was a proud member of our Pitt faculty organizing committee and we won a pretty resounding victory, and I was really proud of the small role that I played in helping us get the victory for the workers,” Deluzio said. “I'm certainly going to be fighting in Washington for laws that put workers and unions on an equal playing field with our employers.”

For James VanLandingham, a mailer currently on strike from his job at the Pittsburgh PostGazette, Deluzio’s steadfast support of unions was shown not only through his words, but his actions.

At Deluzio’s first State of the Union Address as a Congressman in February, Deluzio invited VanLandingham as his guest, a spot typically given to close family or friends.

“He came to Pittsburgh and he walked our picket line on the North Shore and he is definitely a pro-union man,” VanLandingham said. “After the midterms, he reached out to the Communications Workers of America and said that he wanted a frontline union worker, a striking union worker that's on the front line and living the union life.”

VanLandingham said he was honored by Deluzio’s invitation and that the exposure from a striking worker attending the State of the Union helps people understand “the trials that we are going through as unions against these big corporate monsters.”

“He means what he says and he says what he means,” VanLandingham said. “He doesn't sugarcoat anything.”

Deluzio said his advice for nearly everyone he meets, including all of the young students who are unsure of their next step, is to find their footing in public service.

“Do public services whenever you can,” Deluzio said. “Whether you're someone who's going to pursue a career in public service, or work in a variety of ways when you're doing things to help our community, our region, our country, I think it can be tremendously rewarding, and a source of great pride in your work.”

by Punya Bhasin // photos courtesy of Chris Deluzio

EMAAD KHAN: CHANGING THE WORLD ONE MEDICAL BILL AT A TIME

story by Serena Garcia // photos by Patrick Cavanagh

Emaad Khan knew he wanted to help people ever since he volunteered as an ambulance ride-along during his first year in college at Pitt’s Johnstown campus. Not really thinking anything of it, he decided to volunteer his time to experience what it was like working in the back of an ambulance.

Now a junior biology major at Pitt, Khan is six months into creating and running his nonprofit, Spread the Love Projects, for which he is founder and president. The nonprofit officially began on Aug. 19, 2022, with the mission of helping struggling families pay their medical bills.

Through his experience, Khan found that despite the medical crisis a person may face, they had a deeper concern looming over their shoulder — the cost of the care.

“I just remember this one specific instance where someone got in the ambulance and they were talking and were like ‘Okay, we think we should transport you,’ but like the only thing they were worried about was how much it’s going to cost,” Khan said. “So I was like wow, we just met this person on the worst day of their life, but their concern isn’t ‘Am I going to be okay, is my child going to be okay?’ it’s ‘how much does this cost?’”

Khan said he began forming the idea of a nonprofit around 2020 in his dorm room during the COVID-19 pandemic. Even before the idea began to form, Khan said he and his friends were always trying to see how they could give back to the community or help those in need. In high school, Khan and his friends decided to hand out pizzas to the homeless community on Christmas Eve.

Seeing the struggles that many families face firsthand in those ambulance rides, Khan knew that he wanted to create something to help those struggling. So he created the non-profit Spread the Love Projects.

“Our ultimate mission is to help families that are struggling with pediatric medical bills,” Khan said. “So families that have trouble paying for their child’s medical bills or are struggling in different aspects of their life whether it's paying for rent, paying for a refrigerator because they’re so heavily burdened by their children’s medical bills. That's our overall mission.”

Khan’s background and childhood also impacted his decision to start the nonprofit. His family immigrated to the U.S. from Pakistan in 2010 and have called Pittsburgh home ever since. Throughout his childhood, Khan remembers when his family struggled with health care and the times when he could and

couldn’t see a doctor.

“I just remember, like I never had a pediatrician, like that’s always something that was so weird. I never went to the doctor. I think one time, I tripped or something, and my parents took me to MedExpress. But all my friends had pediatricians and they’d leave for doctors appointments. And I was like it’s odd, I don’t have that. I’d never even been to the dentist,” Khan said. “But then as I grew up, I understood that there were times where we would have health care, there were times where we wouldn’t have health care.”

Khan’s sister, Erza Khan, also shared the importance that both family and their religion, Islam, played in the inspiration behind the nonprofit. Erza Khan serves as the vice president of Spread the Love Projects, and she is a first-year human biology major at Carlow University.

“In Islam, there’s five pillars, and one of the really big pillars is that you have to give a certain percentage of your income and stuff to charity,” Erza Khan said. “I think we watched our parents do that a lot with their faith and everything. My mom has always made it very clear, you have to give back, you have to be grateful and everything. I think that really inspired him to give back more.”

Both Khan and his sister mentioned the importance that their mother played in creating the nonprofit. From a young age, their mother emphasized the importance of giving back to others.

Despite his passion for the nonprofit, Khan faced a few roadblocks along the way. With his young age causing some lawyers to doubt his capabilities, Khan said trying to start the nonprofit became a challenge.

“And for two years, from that 2020 period where I had the idea, I tried to talk to lawyers, go back and forth, and it was just like everyone just treated me like a kid, because I was 18,” Khan said. “But the ageism was so frustrating, so frustrating. So I didn’t really get anywhere with them, until one day I was like okay, I’m just gonna like figure this out myself.”

With Khan having full confidence in his nonprofit, things slowly started falling into place. Khan found an online attorney through LegalZoom to help with creating the nonprofit and had help from his parents regarding paying the various fees that came with licensing and documents.

In March, Khan received the paperwork that Spread the Love Projects had become official, though it wasn’t until this past August when Khan and his

board announced the official start of the nonprofit via Instagram. The announcement post served to introduce themselves, show the public their goal for change and share their slogan “Changing the World One Project at a Time.”

Khan said he worked through the months of March all the way to August, carefully creating and putting together the pieces to create the nonprofit. Finally, after all the delays, Khan saw his idea come to life.

“It was late August we started and I put together a board of individuals, put together a team, and ever since then, everything just kinda blew up all at once. It’s incredible,” Khan said.

With a Board of Directors composed of seven of his friends and fellow college students by his side, Khan’s nonprofit is still growing. But he hopes it will continue expanding through networking and connections. Khan said some of his best memories are seeing people’s reaction to the nonprofit and what he and his team have achieved.

“Sometimes I’ll randomly get messages from people that grew up with me and things of that sort and they are the most touching, kindest words in the world,” Khan said. “Nice kind words that people share with you always keep you going.”

Armaan Virk, a junior supply chain management major at Michigan State University, highlighted Khan’s growth not only with the nonprofit, but as a person as well. Virk serves as the director of communications for Spread the Love Projects and has been a close friend of Khan’s since they first met in third grade. With their close friendship, Virk said he’s seen the nonprofit grow from an idea to where it is now.

“You know, he’s always been a charitable person, we would always, on Christmas Eve, go and donate pizzas to the homeless and things like that,” Virk said. “But just seeing his growth from that into his nonprofit organization now. That was like another huge growth moment in his life.”

As the organization grew, Khan continued to persevere and collect different achievements along the way. He established his first business bank account for the nonprofit and even secured a partnership with lo-

cal hospital system UPMC.

Recently, the nonprofit created their own clothing line to serve as another way to raise money. The clothing line allows the nonprofit to partner with different college and Greek life organizations and run fundraising drives to help raise money for the nonprofit.

Since its founding in August, Spread the Love Projects has already raised $20,000, allocating $5,000 of their funds to UPMC. Khan said he and his team are planning on raising even more to reach their year goal of $100,000.

Aside from their donations to UPMC, Khan said the rest is allocated to families through Spread the Love Projects’ own sector, which allows families in need the ability to apply to receive funding through the nonprofit’s website.

“We want $100,000 by the end of the year, that’s our goal. That’s something we emphasize every single day is to work towards that goal to make the largest impact that we possibly can,” Khan said.

Now with the nonprofit in full swing, Khan’s days are full from start to finish. He takes classes, studies for the MCAT and works on the nonprofit. Still, Khan is able to handle both his school and nonprofit work, something that Virk commends him on.

“He obviously is the busiest out of all of us,” Virk said. “He’s doing as much work as we’re doing throughout the day plus more because he’s meeting with people, interviewing people. It’s truly amazing how much motivation he has.”

As he continues to study for the MCAT and work towards his dream to become a physician, Khan said his hope for the nonprofit is that it will follow him through his journey into his own medical practice and eventually beyond Pittsburgh

“I just want to grow it to astronomical numbers,” Khan said. “Overall, the goal is to help change the world in some way. Just grow it as big as possible to ultimately make like the largest impact we possibly can.”

TRACY LARSON: A VOICE FOR THE YOUTH

When Tracy Larson was growing up, she wasn’t a star student and she struggled to fit in. Her own challenges as a student produced an interest in school psychology and a passion for filling in the gaps left by the public education system.

“During my time in school, I could feel the effects of the school system and how it overlooks kids who struggled and were left behind like me,” Larson said.

After receiving a bachelor’s degree in psychology from La Roche University, Larson got a master’s degree in school psychology in 2005 from Duquesne University. She immediately began working at the Pittsburgh-based program HealthyCHILD.

Today, Larson is the director of Early Childhood Partnerships, located in Pitt’s Office of Child Development. Early Childhood Partnerships, which is a collaboration between Pitt and the community dedicated to assisting children and their families, has recently expanded to include even more community-based partners. ECP also includes the program HealthyCHILD. The program is designed to provide mental, emotional and behavioral health care for young children.

Larson began as a mental health consultant, working directly with teachers and families, which she said was the best part.

“I was getting to spend all of my time in the best part about being a school psychologist, which is in consultation with families and teachers and in classrooms doing direct work and support for students and children,” Larson said.

With her experiences in consultation behind her, Larson is now on the leadership side — right where she wants to be. In addition to her work as the director of HealthyCHILD, Larson is a professor in Pitt’s Teaching, Learning and Leading department.

“Part of the reason I transitioned into this work was because I saw such high needs with these kids,” Larson said. “I also recognized that the majority of the people we were working with, such as teachers or other educational staff, often were overlooking the trauma and other social factors that were impacting these kids’ lives.”

The focus of HealthyCHILD, according to Larson, isn’t about diagnosing — rather, prevention and promotion. Larson works with kids who have negative social determinants of health, such as low socioeconomic status, many of which don’t qualify for a diagnosis and can’t receive assistance from other mental health services. That’s where Healthy-

CHILD steps in. It’s where Larson is invested and hoping to expand across the nation.

“I saw so many kids that needed services and couldn't qualify. So I became very invested in the work and wanted to figure out how we could expand the program like I said, across the region and across the country,” Larson said.

son said.

Larson continuously emphasizes educators and parents’ important position. One of the most important suggestions Larson has for parents with children experiencing challenging behavior is emotional hygiene, or taking care of one’s emotional health. Larson said it’s difficult for adults to understand how to express and process their emotions, only furthering the emotional challenges children face. She says coregulation, which is adjusting one’s behavior when interacting with another to create a regulated state, is crucial for emotional development.

“How do we expect young kids to be able to [express their emotions] at two or three, when we know adults who can't do this, and we live in a

She said Larson’s commitment to improving children’s lives in the community is apparent in everything she does.

“She’s an extremely hard worker who is devoted to the work, mission and vision of HealthyCHILD and the Office of Child Development,” Matsik said. “As a leader, she is driven, passionate, reliable and supportive. As a person, she is caring, kind and jovial. She’s just a joy to be around in any capacity.”

Larson’s strong drive and commitment to the program also means witnessing high levels of poverty, stress and trauma that children in the community experience. Larson’s work has taught her that educators, parents and even Larson herself still struggle to remember the importance of self-care.

“A good portion of my work now is with caregivers and teachers around self-care, and how they can minimize the stress in their lives so that they can be present and responsive to students instead of reacting in ways that they might regret later,” Larson said.

For Larson, this means practicing what she preaches in her own workspace, too. While encouraging and ensuring the teachers and parents she works with understand self-care, she works to make sure her own team, and even her students, aren’t feeling burned out through frequent breaks and teaching what self-care can look like.

“I practice what I preach, though, and so all the things that I'm telling schools they need to do, I do with my team,” Larson said. “We talk about selfcare all the time, we have mindful moment breaks, where we practice mindfulness during our meetings, it’s all about being there for each other.”

The program is currently available throughout Allegheny County and in recently established locations in Philadelphia. Larson’s leadership has not only resulted in the expansion of the program, but also helped her fulfill a lifelong dream of directly affecting the public school system. Larson said she found a lot of the issues had begun with over-diagnosing and ignoring the real reasons behind children’s behavior.

“I started to see teachers wanting to diagnose kids with ADHD,” Larson said. “Every day, someone is claiming this kid has ADHD, and I knew that that wasn't the case. So then I covered the trauma, and then even more recently, have begun looking at the systems and how they're impacting what we're seeing in the classroom.”

Larson expressed frustration with how the current educational system responds to students exhibiting challenging behaviors, such as teaching them to take deep breaths when they are angry, rather than looking for the real reasons why these children are consistently acting out.

“What are we doing to solve the real root causes of some of these problems? Not just the trauma, but the way that this education system is set up, and the way that teachers can work within that system,” Lar-

world where expressing your emotions is not something many people encourage?” Larson said. “We need to talk about that.”

A major component in Larson’s work is teaching children’s educators and parents about how they can help children at home and school, because this is where these kids spend the most time. The key to helping children process the complexities of their emotions, in Larson’s experience, is modeling.

“I always tell parents it’s okay to be angry, it’s okay to show frustration, but use those as learning opportunities,” Larson said. “Talk to your kids about how you're feeling. And then talk to them about what you're going to do to help yourself.”

Molly Matsik, a developmental health care consultant for HealthyCHILD, said she first met Larson when she interviewed for her current position and felt right at home.

“I immediately felt comfortable and at ease with Tracy,” Matsik said. “She was kind, asked thoughtful questions and was a great listener.”

Now in her fifth year at HealthyCHILD, Matsik has shared a close work relationship with Larson, including when Pitt’s Community Engagement Scholarship Forum awarded HealthyCHILD with a Partnership of Distinction Award in March 2020.

Larson’s efforts to maintain this work environment don’t go unnoticed, according to colleague Tomasina Boyd. Boyd is also a DHC with HealthyCHILD, working with kids from birth to 3 years old. She said Larson had an “open-door” policy when the team was in the office pre-pandemic, creating an environment that fostered listening to the needs of her team.

“I would sit in Tracy’s office and I’d often ask, ‘Hey, do you have a minute?’ which would turn into a two-hour discussion.” Boyd said. “Tracy keeps an open-door policy where she has always been there to support both the team and our students, she really leads with empathy and understanding.”

As Larson considered some of her favorite parts of her role at Pitt, she reflected on how much inspiration and pride her students bring not only to her work, but to her life.

“I have amazing students every year, I am so blessed to have a very diverse group.” Larson said. “I get applied developmental psychology students, social work students, even students from other universities, and they bring so many different perspectives and I learn just as much from them as I teach them.”

story by Maria Scanga // photo courtesy of Tracy Larson

ZACHARY HORTON: CHANGING THE GAME

by exposing them to professionals with firsthand experience.

“He gets these designers and artists and people to call into the class so students can ask questions. Recently we played a game in class called Fort. Fort has beautiful artwork,” Krtanjek said. “Zach actually got a hold of the artist and we got to have an open conversation … just talking with the artist about how he does his art for games, how the art kind of informs game design, how mechanics are in the industry.”

He’s also in Horton’s Tabletop Gaming course this semester, where students work on Archipelago. Archipelago’s main narrative is about characters trying to restore an island exploited for its resources. All of the islands, including miniature people, animals and boats, are hand-painted by students after 3-D printing. After analyzing and playing the game, students will give suggestions on how to improve it, as well as design their

own narrative scenarios within the game.

“It’s just a massive student project basically, that I’m really proud of,” Horton said. “Probably [about 100] people have worked on this game system at some point. The first time it’s being played is this semester.”

Krtanjek describes Archipelago as a useful framework for learning.

“The typical gaming class is twofold — an examination of board games both historically and modern, but also game design analysis specifically and game design practice, of how to design these types of things using a framework like Archipelago, so it’s not like we’re starting from scratch,” Krtanjek said.

Islands to explore, a volcano with a “crazy miner,” resources to protect — all of these are part of an adventure that players write themselves.

But the islands are not the main adventure — it’s making the game. It’s “Archipelago,” a miniature 3Dprinted tabletop game that Zachary Horton and his students have been designing and testing together since 2018.

Horton, an associate professor in the English department, founded and directs the Vibrant Media Lab in the Cathedral of Learning and helped make the Digital Narrative and Interactive Design major. He owns Mercury Works, a 3D-printed camera company, and Pandora Games, a boutique game design company. He also created and teaches several courses on game and media, such as “Tabletop Gaming,” “Virtual Reality” and “Game, Story, Play. “

Horton’s interests include photography, film, ecology, games, media and philosophy — just to name a few. Horton wants to help students “critically contextualize” these interests, particularly game studies.

“I love working in topics that students are deeply enmeshed in, but don’t necessarily have a critical vocabulary for or deep understanding of the genealogy or history of those things,” Horton said. “It’s very exciting to me to take that enthusiasm and help students direct that into a deeper understanding of the cultural dynamics.”

Horton said although he studies games, it’s “not all about video games.” He’s also interested in tabletop, analog and hybrid games, their cultural contexts and how they tell stories.

“[I’m] very interested in the difference between tabletop gaming and analog gaming, which is highly social, and video gaming, which is often not very social, but very narrative driven,” Horton said.

Amy Qi, a senior psychology and anthropology major and student in Horton’s Virtual Reality course, said she enjoyed the variety of content the course covers.

“Something that I found very interesting about this course is how Dr. Horton includes all kinds of formats and materials ranging from philosophy readings to vintage video games, to let us engage with virtual reality, the development process of virtual reality,” Qi said. “It has been very fun and also very educational.”

Qi enjoys how Horton makes resources such as cameras and vintage games in the VML available to students.

“For me, I’m not a filmmaking or media studies major. This was something I would never experience if I’m not taking this course,” Qi said. “So I really appreciate that.”

Jagr Krtanjek, a senior computer science and digital narrative and interactive design double major, works directly with Horton with his camera line, as well as on the release of a new game, calling it “a lot of fun.”

Krtanjek also said Horton goes “above and beyond” in preparing students for careers in the game industry

Horton, along with associate professor and director of the composition program Annette Vee, helped create the Digital Narrative and Interactive Design major, a joint major between the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Computing and Information. The major has three tracks — critical making, game design and online media. Horton said it was “exciting” to design a creative, interdisciplinary major for students, one that can provide job opportunities that connect “deeply” with students’ passions.

“Let’s say you're a coder, but you don't want to just, you know, code mind-numbing things for a big corporation,” Horton said. ”How would you engage a greater understanding of narrative and social dynamics and history, all the things humanities are good at in your work, and find an outlet for that? Well, this major allows people to do that. And that's exciting.”

Like Archipelago, the DNID major lets students create their own interdisciplinary path. For Horton, helping students through their adventures is the best thing about teaching.

“What things could be, but aren’t yet — it’s that temporal balancing that is so exciting to me about teaching,” Horton said.

story by Pamela Smith // photos by John Blair