Securing the Cloud | A Game to Remember | Weighing in on Obesity
MIAMI THE UNIVE RSITY OF MIAMI MAGAZINE | SUMME R 2013
Inside the Coral Crisis With coral reefs in peril around the globe, Miami scientists get creative to keep these complex ecosystems from dying out.
UM’s $1 billion milestone is making history. The University of Miami’s $1.6 billion Momentum2 campaign has raised upwards of a billion dollars from more than 100,000 donors, including thousands of loyal alumni. This marks the second time that UM has achieved this impressive milestone.
Momentous Achievement Your generous support provides life-changing opportunities for bright young scholars, state-of-the-art educational resources, leading-edge health care, pioneering research, innovative community-building, and much more. Thanks to you, we are transforming not only the University we all love, but the future we all share.
For more information about Momentum2: The Breakthrough Campaign for the University of Miami, visit miami.edu/momentum2.
Contents miami.edu/miami-magazine
Volume 19 Number 3 | Summer 2013
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University Journal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 R+D Update . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Bottom Lines
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Peak Performance
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Faculty Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 On Course . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Student Spotlight
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Alumni Digest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Class Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 In Memoriam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 DateBook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Big Picture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
F E A T U R E S
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How Safe Is Your Cyber Bunker? A new lab in the Department of Computer Engineering is tackling the kind of virtual security threats that keep world leaders up at night.
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Weighing Their Options With growing awareness of obesity’s devastating costs, UM programs are giving young people creative and scientifically credible ways of battling the bulge before it’s too late.
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A Coral Imperative A look at how marine scientists at UM are leading the race to restore endangered reefs—and why they say failure is not an option.
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Getting Creative with Sea Creatures Science and art unite in the lab of alumnus Colin Foord, B.S. ’04.
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Playing for JFK Most people remember where they were on November 22, 1963. UM football great George Mira, ’66, remembers his every move on the fateful day after that.
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P.28 On the cover: Ricordea florida, a soft coral native to South Florida that can morph into a rainbow of colors, is one of the many species being raised in the Miami lab of Coral Morphologic, co-founded by Colin Foord, B.S. ’04. COVER PHOTO BY CORAL MORPHOLOGIC / COLIN FOORD, B.S. ’O4
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COMMENTS AND OPINIONS FROM UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI ALUMNI AND FRIENDS
How to Be an Artist | Rooms with a Viewpoint | Cycling against Cancer
MIAMI THE UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI MAGAZINE | SPRING 2012
other students, but those days were quite memorable for me.
Dottie Mayol, B.G.S.C. ’98 Fort Myers, Florida
Everest Is Educational
UM creates an Office of Civic and Community Engagement to help students and faculty build bridges from the classroom into the community.
Putting the U in Community
Medical Melodramas I learned of Libby Tanner’s passing in the Spring 2013 issue (“Early Human Sexuality Educator”). I knew this kind, intelligent woman from my time as a young secretary/faculty support staffer at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine and later as secretary for the chair of Family Medicine from 1978 to 1985. Libby (Arkin) Tanner, A.B. ’48, was indeed setting new standards in the Department of Epidemiology and the Department of Family Medicine. Although I can’t be certain she arranged for it, I was called on twice to “role play” for the cause of research and educational medicine. Once I played a young mother of two being told at her family physician’s desk that she had terminal cancer! The second time I was seated before a big circle of medical students and acted as a depressed, almost suicidal female; I remember one student getting very heated about my “story.” I don’t know if the videos that were made of these exercises were used again to help educate
I received my Ph.D. in physics from the University. In the Spring 2013 issue, I saw a photograph of an alumnus ascending Mount Everest (“’Cane in the Act”). I summited Everest in 2008. The more interesting part of the story, however, was my collaboration with the students
Media such as Edutopia, Walter Magazine, and LEARN NC covered the initiative. I am very passionate about the integration of technology in education, and this project was a great example of what could be done. As a closing note, the magazine looks great!
Ciprian “Chip” Popoviciu, M.S. ’95, Ph.D. ’98 Raleigh, North Carolina
Loved Letter
I enjoy every issue of your fine, informative publication. So much to be proud and supportive of at the U would remain unknown to us now-outof-towners without such outreach. As a youth growing up in the vicinity of Coconut Grove and Coral Gables in the late ’50s and early ’60s, I recall that the University was commonly referred to as the “U” Chip Popoviciu, M.S. ’95, Ph.D. ’98, on Everest in 2008 well before the split-U of Martin Gifted and Talented logo was proposed (“Brand Magnet Middle School in Ambition,” Fall 2012), which Raleigh, North Carolina. My underscores its brilliance (its whole expedition was intecompanion split-M seems grated in their curriculum. to have fallen into obscuThat project yielded amazrity). “I’m goin’ over to the ing examples of creativity by U” or “It’s across from the both students and teachers. U” were common references
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long before the introduction of the logo. This was back in the day when the antenna on everyone’s car seen over at Jimmy’s Hurricane, Paley’s Big Wheel, or Hot Shoppes drive-in restaurants all sported miniature red/black hurricane flags. The split U institutionalizes long-standing “Miamuh” conversational tradition in beautiful fashion.
Robert Usherson Pineda, Florida
Paperless, Please Can I get the magazine online instead of as a hard copy? I’m going paperless in all aspects of my life.
Roniel Vallejo, ’07 Miami, Florida Editor’s Note: Yes! Elect your preferences at miami.edu/ miami-magazine or email a request to miami.editor@ miami.edu.
GR8-PL8! Not! Now that the U is the centerpiece of UM’s visual identity program, perhaps it is time to seriously consider revamping the UM license plate to include the U. Back in the dark ages, when I attended what was then known as “Suntan U,” the hurricane flags were the big symbol. Now, far more than Sebastian, the split U is the symbol representing UM nationally. It is finally time for a change!
Kenneth Damian, B.Ed. ’63 Delray Beach, Florida Editor’s Note: A new U license plate is on its way to
the DMV. To find out how to order yours, see the ad on the back of this magazine.
Keeping Score After reviewing the Spring 2012 edition of the University Journal, it is my hope that the editor and staff will present a more fair and balanced publication in your next edition. Now that the publication has emphasized highly known Democrats (“Obama’s Energizing Visit,” “A President’s Day to Remember”), it would be in the interest of the University to showcase a few Republican
national leaders. Congratulations on Gaspar González’s great story in the same issue about Pancho Segura, ’45, along with Gardnar “Gar” Mulloy (“Looking Back: He Played His Way into Tennis History”). As one who attended the U after service in the U.S. Navy, I was fortunate to letter on the tennis team. I graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1952 and retired from the practice of law in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, after 50-plus years.
J. Scott Calkins, B.B.A. ’49 Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
CORRECTION We regret printing an inaccurate phone number for the Ron Fraser Wizard Fund in our Spring 2013 story on the late baseball coach. The correct number is 305-284-9517.
WRITE TO US Letters should be fewer than 300 words and may be edited for length and clarity. Please include contact information. WRITE TO: Inbox, Miami, P.O. Box 248105, Coral Gables, FL 33124 EMAIL: miami.editor@miami.edu.
MIAMI
The University of Miami Magazine
Assistant Vice President for Communications and Marketing
Todd Ellenberg Editor
Robin Shear Director of Creative Services and Art Director
Scott Fricker
Graphic Designer
Sau Ping Choi
Production Manager
Angie Villanueva, A.B. ’12 Editorial Contributors
Julia Berg Meredith Camel, M.F.A. ’12 Gaspar González Adriana Grant Jason Fitzroy Jeffers Robert C. Jones Jr. Robert Powell Copy Editor
Jana Bielecki
From the Editor
President
Donna E. Shalala Vice President for University Communications
Reeling in Our Fears
Jacqueline R. Menendez, A.B. ’83
“Is this the year?” It’s the silent question I ask each June as my colleagues and I gather for our University of Miami rite of summer: the annual Emergency Information Hotline Meeting. Will this be the year a drastic event triggers the crisis-communication protocol we know by heart? Is this the season I’ll be thrust into a bunker-style command center to address anxious parents in the face of a hurricane, or worse? I certainly hope not. So far, during my five years here, I’ve come close to staffing the hotline just once—for last year’s Hurricane Isaac, which, though deadly elsewhere, fizzled locally. While I breathe a sigh of relief each time our little corner scrapes by disaster-free for another year—particularly in recent months as we witnessed a bounty of real-world menaces bent on outdoing even Hollywood’s appetite for imaginary destruction—my feelings of good fortune are compounded by knowing that the University’s proactive emergency network has thought of everything, even zombies. Last year, for its new “Point of Dispensing” plan, UM launched a simulated exercise designed to efficiently distribute more than 100,000 doses of medical countermeasures. “To engage students,” organizers wrote, “the exercise will incorporate a popular theme: zombies!” Of course no level of emergency management strategizing can eliminate risk altogether. Even if it could, Ben Franklin’s well-known caution comes to mind: “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” But planning for super storms, health crises, and, yes, even zombies is just part of the University’s comprehensive approach to creating the safest possible campus for students and staff alike. Similarly, the feature stories in this issue highlight people and programs focused on slaying monsters of our own making. They prep for potentially disastrous cyber attacks, race to the scene of avoidable epidemics like childhood obesity, and wield science to outsmart pernicious environmental destruction. Yet another article, by Gaspar González, flashes back in time to reflect on how a tragedy unaverted continues to shape our national psyche 50 years after the fact. So from our campus to your home, wishing you a safe and zombie-free summer. —Robin Shear, editor
Senior Vice President for University Advancement and External Affairs
Sergio M. Gonzalez
Associate Vice President of Alumni Relations
Donna A. Arbide, M.B.A. ’95
Miami is published by the University of Miami Division of University Communications. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. Distributed free of charge to alumni and friends of the University. Postmaster and others, please send change of address notification to Miami, Office of Alumni Relations, P.O. Box 248053, Coral Gables, Florida 33124-3410; telephone 305-284-2872. Contributions of articles, photographs, and artwork are welcome; however, Miami accepts no responsibility for unsolicited items. The comments and opinions expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect those of the University of Miami or the staff of Miami. Copyright ©2013, University of Miami. An Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.
www.miami.edu/miami-magazine
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NEWS, PEOPLE, CULTURE, AND RESEARCH FROM CAMPUS AND BEYOND
Making the Grad Birds, brains, and thousands of newly minted ’Canes awarded diplomas
ANDREW INNERARITY
for a combined 90 years of devoted service to UM. “I have a need to leave something behind for future generations,” said Juan Pablo Ruiz, student speaker for the School of Business Administration and College of Engineering commencement exercise. Juan Pablo Ruiz, left, addresses fellow graduates; Zo Gilzene and Ruiz earned a bachelor Samantha Benjamin, right, take part in 2013 Senior Mwambo. of science in biomedical engineering with a double graduates on May 9 at Gusman Concert major in creative writing. Hall. Sporting his colorful Kente stole, As an undergraduate, he Alounso “Zo” Gilzene, a classics and reliconducted stem cell research gion major, posted on Facebook the next and was lead author on a day: “Just graduated! These four years paper published in a top acaat the U have honestly been the most demic journal. The Fulbright fulfilling and rewarding years of my life!” Scholar is now headed to Award-winning basketball coach Tanzania to research the Jim Larrañaga received thunderous disease-spreading tsetse fly applause as he took the podium to before fulfilling his commitaddress graduates at the May 10 afterment as a National Institutes noon ceremony. Quoting Confucius, of Health Oxford-Cambridge he said: “Choose a job you love, and Scholar. you’ll never have to work a day in “I had a really long career your life.” Commencement speakGraduates Winston Bernard, Sam Hammerman, and Matt as a skater and accomers at UM’s five other ceremonies Moskowitz celebrate their final appearance as Sebastian the plished almost everything included trustee Hilarie Bass, J.D. Ibis with President Shalala at the ceremony for the School of I wanted to in the sport. ’81, president of the international law Business Administration and College of Engineering. But I knew there were other firm Greenberg Traurig; Miller School things in life that I wanted of Medicine scientist Sylvia Daunert, and university librarian, and Andy S. to accomplish, like getting a college professor and Lucille P. Markey Chair Gomez, assistant provost for planning, degree,” said Jennifer Rodriguez, the of the Department of Biochemistry and institutional research, and assessment speed skater who competed in four Molecular Biology; physician Helene D. and senior fellow at the Institute for Olympic Winter Games, winning two Gayle, president and CEO of CARE USA, Cuban and Cuban-American studies, bronze medals in 2002. On May 10 Honorary Doctor of Science; Alberto who retired after 20 years at UM. Cuban she accepted her diploma, receiving a Ibargüen, president and CEO of the John Heritage Collection director Esperanza bachelor’s degree in exercise physiolS. and James L. Knight Foundation, Bravo de Varona, inaugural holder of ogy from the School of Education and Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters; a chair named in her honor, and CHC Human Development. and trustee Stuart Miller, J.D. ’82, CEO reference librarian and bibliographer UM’s annual Senior Mwambo and a director of Lennar Corporation, Lesbia Orta Varona, A.B. ’72, both of Ceremony, an African rite of passage who advised newly minted UM alumni whom retired in June, were recognized launched in 1992, honored black to “learn, incorporate, and evolve.” 4 MIAMI Summer 2013 miami.edu/miami-magazine
ANDREW INNERARITY
More than 3,300 students received degrees from the University of Miami in May, including 21 military veterans, 36 student-athletes from nine sports, several Fulbright Scholars, and three students who portrayed mascot Sebastian the Ibis during their college careers. Commencement exercises for UM’s 11 schools and colleges plus its graduate school took place from May 9 to 11 in the BankUnited Center. President’s Medals went to faculty member William D. Walker, former dean of libraries
R+D Update metabolism is an important pathway of late-onset Alzheimer’s disease in African-Americans. Read more about the study at tinyurl.com/m3d9yd3.
Indigenous Health Alert
PTSD Prevention? The discovery of a genetic link related to fear expression may lead to a strategy for preventing and treating post-traumatic stress disorder, which occurs in some individuals after exposure to a devastating event. Currently there is no approved pharmacological preventive treatment for PTSD. Claes Wahlestedt, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and associate dean for Therapeutic Innovation at the Miller School of Medicine, and Shaun Brothers, research assistant professor, led the study, which was published in the June 5 issue of Science Translational Medicine. Read more at tinyurl.com/n7t9jds.
Brain Gains UM’s new neuroscience building on the Coral Gables campus boasts an fMRI magnet for human brain scan images. The high-tech tool can assist researchers with projects ranging from developing computer programs
and algorithms that mimic brain function to demonstrating how our brains process music. Another acquisition supercharging UM’s research capacity is the Center for Computational Science’s new IBM-built Pegasus supercomputer, which came online this spring. It can perform 160 trillion floating-point operations per second—that’s five times faster and more powerful than the Pegasus the center acquired three years ago. The new machine’s Intel processing units, called Phi, were made available only to UM and a handful of other institutions. Nick Tsinoremas, the center’s founding director, says that with both the original Pegasus and its ramped-up big brother,
UM may rank among the top 500 supercomputing sites in the world and top ten academic sites with the most powerful supercomputers.
In Guatemala indigenous populations are more likely than others to live in poverty. School of Communication associate professor Victoria Orrego Dunleavy and Ph.D. candidate Jasmine Phillips are studying attitudes and
Alzheimer’s Gene ID’d A new gene associated with Alzheimer’s disease in African-Americans was identified by researchers at the Miller School of Medicine in collaboration with a national team. The gene was found to “substantially and equally influence risk of lateonset Alzheimer’s disease in African-Americans,” according to the study, published April 10 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Margaret A. Pericak-Vance, director of the John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, the Dr. John T. Macdonald Foundation Professor of Human Genomics, and one of the senior authors, leads the analysis group for the Alzheimer’s Disease Genetics Consortium, which is responsible for the paper. These findings suggest lipid
opinions about HIV/AIDS among urban youth, ages 18 to 24, in the Tz’utuil Mayan community of Santiago Atitlán. Their project includes creating an awareness and prevention campaign based on culturally appropriate forms of communication and current knowledge of and beliefs about the disease. This is the first study of its kind to assess the population’s understanding specifically about HIV/AIDS in this conservative, religious town situated in Guatemala’s Western Highlands. The school’s Knight Center for International Media will track the study’s progress online at knight.miami.edu.
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Maddow’s Moment
UM President Donna E. Shalala and MSNBC host Rachel Maddow discuss national defense, health care. JC RIDLEY
As host of her own political news and opinion show on MSNBC, Rachel Maddow gets to ask the tough questions. That dynamic shifted a bit when UM President Donna E. Shalala spent a Sunday afternoon engaging the former Rhodes Scholar and self-professed political junkie in a conversation that ranged from drones to health care. The discussion, presented this past March in association with Books & Books, drew around 900 people, many of them students, to the BankUnited Center Fieldhouse on the Coral Gables campus. Maddow pointed to the nation’s immense defense industry, military expenditures, and secret drone warfare as some of the reasons she believes the United States has been in a perpetual state of war. She said her biggest concern is that “war has become easy for us,” a point made in her New York Times best-selling book Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power. Maddow also criticized the treatment of veterans returning to the U.S. from battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan, noting that the difficulties they face in receiving compensation benefits because of a backlog of claims “should be solvable.” Before concluding her visit, she advised students interested in activism to choose causes in which they can make measurable progress. During spring semester, students had the chance to hear from many other prominent thinkers, activists, and
ANDREW INNERARITY
Popular commentator talks with UM president, students
Jane Goodall, Hon. ’93, talks to student press.
artists, including noted primatologist Jane Goodall, Hon. ’93, autism advocate Temple Grandin, musician Will Allen, ’71, Hon. ’12 Steve Miller, Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez, urban farmer Will Allen, ’71, Hon. ’12, developer and Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross, photographer Mary Ellen Mark, leading evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, Bravo TV’s Andy Cohen, and Venezuelan political strategist Juan José Rendon.
New Trustee Members Named At its May meeting, the UM Board of Trustees announced the election of three new trustee members to one-year terms. Allan M. Herbert, B.B.A. ’55, M.B.A. ’58, was named a trustee. Roger A. Saunders, A.B. ’51, was named an alumni trustee. And Jenna Winchester was appointed the new student trustee. Herbert, who owns the Richmond Hotel in Miami Beach with his wife, Patricia McBride Herbert, B.B.A. ’57, is the former president of Financial Indemnity automobile insurance 6 MIAMI Summer 2013 miami.edu/miami-magazine
Herbert
Saunders
Winchester
company in Burbank, California. The Herberts are major supporters of the University including the Wellness Center, which is named for them. Saunders,
managing director of Saunders Family Enterprises Inc., is the founder and former chairman, president, and CEO of Boston-based Saunders Hotel Group. Winchester, a third-year law school student, is Student Bar Association president for the 2013-14 academic year; she is a member of the Entertainment and Sports Law Society and Miami Law Women. UM’s Board of Trustees currently consists of 72 voting members and 19 emeriti (retired) members.
Bottom Lines
“Where does the egg come out of the hen?” Renowned primatologist Jane Goodall, Hon. ’93, during her “Reason for Hope” lecture at the UM BankUnited Center on April 29, recalling, with humor, the kind of field research she was conducting in earnest at the age of 4.
“We need lawyers who are thinking about changes in the legal profession and what that means for … educating people for the world of 10 to 20 years from now.” School of Law Dean Patricia D. White, in The National Jurist’s January 2013 cover story, in which the magazine announced that a poll of White’s peers ranked her the most influential woman in legal education in the U.S.
“In the autism community, she is simply a rock star.”
Michael Alessandri, executive director of the UM-NSU Center for Autism and Related Disabilities, introducing Colorado State University professor of animal science and autism advocate Temple Grandin, who delivered an address at UM’s BankUnited Center on January 31 titled “Different Kinds of Minds.”
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Students, alumni, and faculty awarded Fulbright grants to study, teach, and conduct research in nine different countries for the 2013-14 academic year
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Student Music Awards bestowed on Frost School of Music ensembles, soloists, arrangers, composers, and engineers by DownBeat magazine in 2013
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Years in a row UM has earned Charity Navigator’s highest rating for sound fiscal management and commitment to accountability and transparency
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Super Bowls South Florida would need to host in a year to match UM’s $6.1 billion community impact, according to a 2012 report by Bendixen & Amandi International—a figure that’s up 24 percent over the previous report in 2007
1000+
New Hurricane Club members as of June— more than double the new-member goal for the whole year. Total membership in the 41-year-old Student-Athlete Excellence Fund is expected to top 6,000 by year’s end.
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Naval Alliance After natural disasters like the 2011 tsunamis in Japan and the earthquake in Haiti in 2010, the U.S. Navy is often among the first responders to deploy life-saving supplies and medical aid. Frequently assisting such well-orchestrated humanitarian maneuvers are unseen objects orbiting the Earth at altitudes of up to 490 miles. With ultrapowerful cameras and radar sensors, these satellites provide real-time imagery of the distressed regions. The Center for Southeastern Tropical Advanced Remote Sensing (CSTARS), operated by the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, aids such efforts by helping the Navy to collect, process, and furnish data and imagery from as many as 16 satellites. To help CSTARS continue its important work while expanding the scope of its studies, the Office of Naval Research
than 50 previous ONR contracts he’s received since coming to UM in 1990 because it allows data collection and distribution, as well as equipment acquisition, for a variety of research purposes— from supporting disaster response efforts to investigating the winds and waves generated by typhoons and hurricanes to determining the impact of melting and freezing ice in the Arctic. The CSTARS collects radar images from the Arctic to keep track of latter activity is part changes there. Colorization enables scientists to better highlight of a collaborative the varied features of the ice.
“ Our goal is to create a large archive of historic and new satellite data over the Arctic as far back as the early 1990s.” recently awarded the center a threeyear, $16.5 million contract. Hans Graber, executive director of CSTARS and a professor of applied marine physics at Rosenstiel, says the new contract differs from more
study in which CSTARS is helping the Navy monitor shrinkage of the Arctic’s marginal ice zone due to warming weather conditions. The initiative includes tracking instrumental buoys through ice-infested waters to provide
near-real-time information about the water under the ice and the distribution of ice types on the surface. “We’re starting to collect more data than ever before on the Arctic,” says Graber. “Our goal is to create a large archive of historic and new satellite data over the Arctic as far back as the early 1990s. This accumulated remote sensing data will play a critical role in helping researchers to construct climate models and for the Navy to improve its ice forecast.”
Global Health, Forensics Victories Extracurricular competition is part of academic life at the University of Miami. This spring was no exception. M.B.A. students Jason Siem and Nilam Singh and M.D./M.B.A. candidates Karan Srivastava, Onyi Ugorji, and Chaitanya Vadlamudi placed third among 24 collegiate teams addressing the issue of world sanitation and its impact on China’s foreign aid policy at Emory University’s Global Health Case Competition in March. Competing teams included The Johns Hopkins 8 MIAMI Summer 2013 miami.edu/miami-magazine
Winning UM debate duo Ryden Butler and Ali Jessani
University (first place), Yale (second place), Boston University, Georgetown, and the National University of
Singapore. Nailing another major contest in March was the UM Debate Team. Then-sophomores Ryden Butler and Ali Jessani won the National Tournament for Delta Sigma Rho-Tau Kappa Alpha, the National Forensics and Debate Honorary, arguing that the U.S. government should provide better funding for universities and colleges. UM last won this tournament in 1996.
COURTESY CSTARS
$16.5 million U.S. Navy contract boosts satellite station
Peak Performance UM women’s tennis beat Florida State 4-1 to clinch its first Atlantic Coast Conference championship.
SAM ROBERTS/THEACC .COM
discus (third place) and shot put (first place), as well as men’s field MVP.
Everett’s Legacy
Women’s tennis delivered its first ACC championship at the Cone-Kenfield Tennis Center in North Carolina in April. The team went on to its fifth consecutive appearance in the NCAA quarterfinals, closing the season with a No. 8 ranking. Head coach Paige Yaroshuk-Tews and All-ACC freshman Stephanie Wagner earned International Tennis Association regional awards.
Field of Dreams Tearing his medial collateral ligament and meniscus before the start of the 2012 track season couldn’t stop talented thrower Isaiah Simmons. The 5-foot-11, 260-pound redshirt freshman from Virginia rebounded from six months of rehab ready to compete. In his first collegiate meet, his shot put throw of 58’ 7.5” broke the Miami record set by current New England Patriots defensive lineman Vince Wilfork, ’06, in 2001. At the 2013 ACC Outdoor Championships, Simmons secured Miami records in the shot put (61’ 11.75”),
CHERYL TREWORGY/PRETTY SPORTY
hammer throw (168’ 10”), and discus (178’ 6”), earning All-ACC honors in men’s “Isaiah has shown tremendous poise and competed his heart out.” —Coach Amy Deem
JC RIDLEY
Women’s Tennis Makes History
Deja Webster, who is battling Stage III Hodgkin’s lymphoma, became the first local youth recognized by the University of Miami in conjunction with the Austen Everett Foundation. In February
play one soccer match for the U, she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Though she remained on the team through 2009, her cancer aggressively returned. She launched the Austen Everett Foundation (austeneverettfoundation. org) to help children who are fighting cancer and to involve athletes in their recovery. On October 14, 2012, two months to the day after Everett’s death at age 25, the Hurricanes played a “Kick for the Cure” fundraiser match for her foundation. At the game, UM President Donna E. Shalala and Athletic Director Blake James presented Everett’s family with her posthumous degree.
Academic Scores “I have a tough character and my sport has taught me how to compete against long odds and enormous obstacles.” —Austen Everett, A.B. ’11
Webster spent two days as an honorary Hurricane. She practiced with women’s basketball and got to witness her team’s 68-42 win over Virginia Tech from the bench and inside the locker room. “Everyone was so friendly, so nice, so full of spirit,” she recalls. Austen Everett was a goalkeeper at the University of CaliforniaSanta Barbara before transferring to Miami in 2007. Before she could
According to the NCAA’s Academic Progress Rate statistics, two teams— women’s golf and women’s cross country—earned perfect scores of 1,000 based on academic results for the 2008-09, 2009-10, 201011 and 2011-12 academic years. Recognized for being among the top 10 percent in APR were men’s basketball, women’s cross country (second consecutive year), and women’s golf (third consecutive year). Every Hurricanes program registered an APR score of at least 945, and no team is subject to penalty. UM had 38 student-athletes from 16 teams selected for 20122013 All-ACC Academic teams.
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How to Be a Good Politician Initiative helps prepare first-time public servants “In the movie The Candidate,” says former commissioner Katy Sorenson, “Robert Redford plays a man who runs for the United States Senate, and the movie is about the process of getting there—the campaign, all the madness
legislation; working with their administration; addressing constituent concerns and budgets; and, of course, handling media relations. Her initiative’s annual Leaders of Excellence class covers these and other topics. Since 2011, 36 local
Katy Sorenson, second from right, started The Good Government Initiative at UM to help recently elected officials like Miami Beach Commissioner Jorge Exposito, A.B. ’77, center, avoid political pitfalls.
he has to go through, the logistics, the compromises. Then, at the end, when he’s finally won the election, it dawns on him that he’s a senator. And the question is, ‘What do we do now?’ That’s the question all elected officials face as soon as they take office.” Sorenson, who served on the MiamiDade Commission from 1994 to 2010, is committed to giving political newcomers the kind of guidance she says they sorely need but rarely get. Lauded for her ethics and reformminded agenda, she left public office after her fourth term to launch The Good Government Initiative at the University of Miami, a partnership with UM with start-up funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Sorenson rattles off some of the areas that can challenge freshmen and seasoned politicians alike: understanding rules and ethics; drafting and passing
and state elected officials from throughout Florida have benefited from the training. “It was an exceptional course,” says Jorge Exposito, A.B. ’77, a Miami Beach commissioner since 2009 who took the
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inaugural class. “Not only did it allow me to meet with others facing similar situations; we received a gamut of information and heard from UM ethics professors, ex-politicians, and city attorneys.” With Florida’s strict Sunshine Law, Sorenson makes sure to include just one official per municipality per session. Miami-Dade School Board member Carlos Curbelo, B.B.A. ’02, M.P.A. ’12, participated last year and was pleasantly surprised. “The program makes elected officials more aware of the community they are serving,” he says. “Lessons in budgeting and financing helped me gain a broader understanding of our school system’s operations, and the session on diversity and inclusion made me a better person.” Sorenson knows firsthand how tough her students’ jobs can be. “They have to learn all of these skills while navigating the political minefields of their particular office,” she says. “The best comparison to being elected I’ve heard is having a baby. You go through hours of labor, birth, and recovery at the hospital. Then, when you’re ready to leave, they hand you your baby and say, ‘Good luck.’ You have to start making decisions— important decisions—right away.” The 2013 Leaders of Excellence class kicked off in June with a keynote address by Glenda Hood, Orlando’s first female mayor, who served from 1992 to 2003. Learn more at goodgov.net.
Citation for Service The University of Miami was included on the member list of the 2013 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll. Launched in 2006, the honor roll annually recognizes institutions around the United States that achieve meaningful, measureable outcomes in the communities they serve. At UM the Office of Civic and Community Engagement and the William R. Butler Center for Volunteer Service and Leadership Development are among the key boosters for organizing and promoting such service opportunities both in and out of the classroom. The University was one of 18 member institutions in the Florida Campus Compact, a network of more than 50 college and university presidents committed to promoting active citizenship, selected for the honor roll members list this year.
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Faculty Files
At Home in the World If you spot a man at the School of Architecture sporting a fuchsia dress shirt or a tangerine tunic, it’s probably assistant professor John Onyango. “I like bright colors,” says the dapper Nairobi native. “In Kenya we dress up. That’s what’s expected.” Onyango may follow fashion, but he’s no conformist. The son of Kenya’s first African surveyor, Onyango grew up with his 23 siblings in a small rural homestead that often sheltered up to 50 relatives. “My father told us education was the most important thing,” recalls Onyango, who earned his
M.Arch. degree at the University of Notre Dame and a Ph.D. from the University of Glasgow. “He told us that was our inheritance.” The inheritance went far. Onyango’s globetrotting architectural career took him from Northern Ireland to New Jersey, the United Arab Emirates to Atlanta. “Most Kenyans don’t tend to live abroad,” says Onyango. But he and his wife, who’s from Costa Rica, love to travel. He names Marrakech and Morocco among their most memorable trips. The international adventures continued when the
couple moved to Miami, their infant son in tow, two years ago for Onyango’s faculty appointment. An expert on environmental systems and construction technology, Onyango is currently studying how to adapt living spaces to help people affected by age-related conditions such as dementia. “A lot of times people with dementia tend to have difficulty with the built environment,” he explains. “Their senses don’t work well. This can make them agitated or angry. We work on finding ways in which nursing homes can be made more comfortable.” One project is a remote sensor
that would monitor and adjust climate control to address increased sensitivity to temperature change, a common senior complaint, he says. This October, Onyango will bring to Miami for the first time the ZEMCH 2013 International Conference, a forum he helped launch in Scotland on building mass-customized low- to zero-energy/CO2 emission homes. “Sustainable” is how Onyango describes his favorite architectural style. “People say glass buildings look sleek, but I don’t look at it that way. I see energy consumption.” —Robin Shear
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UniversityJournal
Frost School Dedicates Weeks Music Quadrangle The generosity of trustee emerita Marta Weeks-Wulf has not only enabled students to attend the Frost School of Music, it has given them the facilities to study, practice, and perform their craft. On May 16 it was the Frost School’s turn to give back. At a ceremony held in a facility that exists because of her largesse, the school dedicated the Marta S. Weeks Music Quadrangle. Envisioned as a four-sided plaza, the quadrangle, designed by architect Yann R. Weymouth, will become “the heart of the Frost School as Marta is the heart of the Frost School,” Dean Shelton “Shelly” Berg said at the dedication event inside the L. Austin Weeks Center for Recording and Performance. The quad’s distinctive feature will be a granite centerpiece with a seal inscribed with the words, “The Spirit of Marta Weeks is the Spirit of Music.”
JENNY ABREU
Philanthropist on hand for celebration
New buildings slated to rise around the square include the Patricia Louise Frost Music Studios, currently A rendering shows the music quadrangle named in honor of UM Trustee under construcEmeritus Marta S. Weeks-Wulf, seen far left, with Dean Shelly Berg. tion, as well as the 200-seat Recital Hall and the Center for not there to share in the moment and Experiential Music. said of the gathering spot named in her Weeks-Wulf expressed sorrow that honor: “I hope it will be a place her late husband, L. Austin Weeks, was of peace.”
On Course University of Miami parent Mark Coe was so bullish on the idea of starting a student-run investment fund at the School of Business Administration that he gave the school a double gift in 2011: He donated seed money to launch just such a fund, and he and his then-freshman daughter, Breana, collaborated with Andrea Heuson, a professor of finance at the school, and Brian Barrett, an associate professor of finance, to create a curriculum for students to manage the money. “I saw it as an opportunity to give back to the University and attract students to the school,” says Coe, president of Coe Capital Management, which manages the Intrinsic Edge Hedge Funds. Heuson and Barrett already were working to establish a student-run fund, so Coe’s gift was timely. Within six months, they had 18 undergraduates and two M.B.A. students involved in the Student-Managed Investment Fund, named Category 5 Fund. Investing began in January. Now, through a foursemester series of classes, students act as teams of analysts, researching specific industry sectors. Each team member writes a valuation report on a company in the sector, and the team writes a group analysis of the industry. Upper-level students serve as portfolio managers and mentors. Using a template Coe 12 MIAMI Summer 2013 miami.edu/miami-magazine
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Category 5 Fund
provided for evaluating each company’s investment potential, the team makes its recommendations to the class, which then decides where to invest. “We want the first thing students do each morning to be looking at the stocks,” says Heuson. The objective, naturally, is to develop a moneymaking fund with strong returns. But for participants, the hands-on learning experience is its own reward. As Coe notes, “They’ll begin to appreciate the responsibility of real investment decisions with real consequences.” (Adapted from BusinessMiami article by Jackie Salo)
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Student Spotlight Born with a congenital heart disease called aortic stenosis, James Schlender was advised as a youth to avoid strenuous sports. So he poured his energy into playing the fiddle. By age 13 the Montana native had won two National Old Time Fiddle Championships. He describes the competition process as “high stress” but remembers fondly the experiences he had jamming with friends and well-known artists among the late-night crowd. Now an incoming junior at the Frost School of Music, he has placed among the Top Ten Fiddlers each time he has entered the prestigious Grand Master Fiddle Championship in Nashville, Tennessee, held during the International Bluegrass Music Association’s weeklong awards show and festival. “This competition is known for being one of the best and hardest,” Schlender explains. “I was competing against adults exclusively in this contest, so that was a difficulty.” Schlender also trained early in classical and jazz styles. He was concertmaster of the Montana All-State Orchestra and performed throughout high school in a swing-style band called the String Jumpers. At the Frost School he’s exploring his expansive talents with everyone from violin professor Glenn Basham to saxophone improv guru Gary Keller. Other masters he’s worked with in Miami
Fiddler on the Move When it comes to music, James Schlender follows his heart.
include artist-in-residence violinist/composer Mark O’Connor, Bobby McFerrin, Chick Corea, and the school’s Henry Mancini Institute director, Terence Blanchard. The laid-back Schlender never tires of performing. “Improvising is my favorite. It allows me to express myself in an emotional manner,” he says. At UM he plays in jazz and classical chamber ensembles, as well as in the Frost Symphony Orchestra. Outside of school, he belongs to a violin/guitar jazz duo, a ten-piece band, and an acoustic Americana trio called Avocado Estate that he founded with master’s students Joy Adams (cello/fiddle/vocals) and Geoff Saunders (banjo/ bass/vocals). After a few weeks of teaching fiddle back home, Schlender looks forward to reuniting with his Avocado Estate bandmates before fall semester—first in Boston as an intern at the Mark O’Connor/Berklee College of Music Summer String Program, where Adams and Saunders are teaching, and then on a tour of the Northeast to promote the group’s progressive bluegrass sound. That’s not bad for a 19-year-old who two summers ago suffered a stroke during an otherwise successful heart surgery. Schlender says the stroke affected a small portion of his prefrontal lobe but none of his musical acuity. “It’s such a blessing,” he says. —Julia Berg
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ILLUSTRATION BY SCOTT FRICKER
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More and more, big businesses are trusting UM’s new cyber-security lab in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering to safeguard their cloud-based assets. BY ROBERT POWELL
HowSafeIsYour CyberBunker? “ Sisyphean.”
The word comes up a lot when talking to Eric Rozier and Saman Zonouz. The two assistant professors in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering work hard to keep digital information safe. They spend their days (and many of their nights, too) thinking of all the potential ways a hacker could access sensitive stuff—corporate plans, ATM personal identification numbers, just about anything stored electronically—and then designing systems to shield the data from compromise. Built into their efforts is the realization that no matter how sophisticated their protective puzzles, someone at some point is eventually going to crack the codes. So they’ll have to come up with newer, safer systems. Again and again and again. miami.edu/miami-magazine Summer 2013 MIAMI 15
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“Systems fail,” says Rozier. “There’s no stopping that. We can’t build systems that don’t fail. What we can build is a system that fails less. But they’re still going to fail.” And they can fail in more ways than the human mind can possibly track, enabling information to be compromised, stolen, or hijacked. On a recent visit to Rozier’s office, he and Zonouz spent ten minutes tossing off just a few of the ways even the most secure systems are thwarted. They talked of malware and spyware and organized spam attacks that can shut down a computer server. They brought up computers loaded with military-grade encryption that were compromised by software sneaked onto free memory sticks left in a basket at the front desk of a corporation. Otherwise savvy and cautious people picked up the memory sticks—after all, who doesn’t want a freebie, and who thinks of a free gizmo as a potential threat? But inserted into their computer’s USB slots, those innocuous-looking sticks became sudden security disasters. Zonouz smiles softly when he recalls a “chocolate attack” on the CIA a few years ago. As a test, researchers walked around CIA headquarters in Virginia with a box of chocolates. They asked people’s passwords in exchange for a sweet snack. These CIA guys should have known better, yet something like 80 percent of them revealed their passwords. For candy! There is no end to the ways systems can be penetrated—so many ways, in
Assistant professor Saman Zonouz, right, works with Ph.D. candidate Gabriel Salles-Loustau on network security models that address both accidental failures and cyber attacks.
So the goal becomes survivability. Rather than building a system that can never fail, build one that can operate even when compromised, says Rozier. He points to a bulky, oblong, humming mainframe in the corner of his office on the top floor of the McArthur Engineering Building. It’s packed with
Rozier says. “Having a system that can tolerate failures and attacks. Having a system that can still survive even in the presence of faults.” And these days survivability amounts to survival. In the computer age, it’s hard to imagine many issues more important or complex than cyber
“ Fault tolerance is about survivability—having a system that can tolerate failures and attacks, that can survive even in the presence of faults.” fact, that the idea of stopping these threats can seem impossible. And Rozier and Zonouz admit it is impossible, if you want data that’s easily accessible, searchable, and usable. If you’re willing to give up usability, security is less of a problem. Picture a black box with no lines entering the box and no lines running out. That box is secure. Any data in it is safe, but not very useful. If you want to get at the data with some degree of user-friendliness, you’ll have to accept some level of vulnerability and get comfortable with the inevitability of compromise.
45 terabytes of disk space. Broken down, the computer is a stack of several hard drives, all intertwined in complex algorithms to thwart hackers or malware or any other potential system failure. If one drive fails, the others kick in to replicate lost information. Even if a backup drive fails while backing up a previously failed drive, the other drives will know how to respond. Adaptability is the key. “Fault tolerance” is the lingo attached to this adaptability, and it happens to be Rozier’s specialty. “Fault tolerance is about survivability,”
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security, whether that protection is for a government, a multibillion-dollar Internet retailer, or an individual. (Rozier and Zonouz both admit they’ve had to replace personal credit cards after the company’s account information was hacked by a virtual predator.) Understandably, the corporate world is interested in the cyber-security research being done at the University of Miami. A number of private companies have entered into partnerships with Rozier and Zonouz in search of better solutions. Rozier considers the partnerships
Zonouz. “Their algorithms are pretty novel.” Their efforts are giving Fortinet more sophisticated options for keeping their clients’ data safe yet searchable and accessible. With the advent of cloud computing, more and more data is being stored on gigabytes of space rented from massive computer servers that are being run by independent companies like Amazon, Dropbox, and others. It makes sense for companies to use these cloud servers— data storage is ridiculously cheaper, for one thing—but the very design of the cloud makes it that much harder for
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symbiotic. “A research institution like ours has the freedom, the capacity, and the assets to do things the profit-driven private sector can’t,” he explains. “We have the time to spend asking the whatifs. What is the next big question? When we partner with industry, they are able to support our work.” One of the companies supporting Rozier and Zonouz’s work in a big way is Fortinet. The California-based Internetsecurity provider has funded the creation of the new Fortinet Cyber Security Laboratory, which the two will direct. “The College of Engineering greatly
David Redberg, front, and assistant professor Eric Rozier go over details about the cyber security lab Redberg’s employer, Fortinet, has helped build at the College of Engineering.
appreciates Fortinet’s generous funding of this laboratory, which is an endorsement of the college’s primary mission: to educate tomorrow’s technology leaders for career success,” says Dean James M. Tien. “The challenges of these real-world cyber-security projects will provide students with the vital framework for integrating concepts learned from a multitude of academic topics into viable solutions.” Providing on-the-ground technical assistance is David Redberg, a product manager at Fortinet, which offers security technologies that can be adapted to protect mom-and-pop start-ups or Fortune 500 companies. “They have some pretty cool ways to do encryption,” Redberg says of Rozier and
a private company to protect the data it’s paying to store. In their work with companies in Silicon Valley, Rozier and Zonouz have to devise innovative workarounds for the shortcuts and methods cloud servers employ to make the data as accessible as possible. Sometimes this added protection is for legal reasons alone. A hospital, for instance, is required by law to safeguard all patient medical records stored on the cloud. And financial firms offloading their records to private servers must guarantee that years of emails and other old data can be accessed, just to comply with legal regulations. One way of doing this, explains Rozier, is by creating a series of encrypted queries that even the cloud
can’t figure out. “The cloud doesn’t know the searches are related,” explains Rozier, so it can’t give access to wouldbe hackers through “side channels.” Such algorithms are not easy to create. Both Rozier and Zonouz speak of long hours spent in crunching numbers and trying to conjure up new, as-yetunheard-of threats (and more time spent impressing on clients just how dangerous these theoretical threats might be). “Government and industry tend to react to things only after the disaster,” says Rozier. “And that’s one of the toughest things we do: convincing someone it’s a problem before it happens.” Half-sipped bottles of diet cola litter Rozier’s desk. Challenges like the fluidity of international borders keep both engineers working 80 to 100 hours a week. Regulations that might protect data in the United States are irrelevant in a backwater nation. Hackers concentrated in one nation may route their attacks through a second country to mask their origins and make their identities harder to trace. With the globe so connected, when stock markets in Japan are rocked by a currency collapse on a small Mediterranean island, the importance of Rozier and Zonouz’s work is hard to overstate. It’s why companies like Fortinet are willing to cover generous start-up costs and send technical assistance from across the U.S. to get their equipment in place. The cyber lab will put UM students at the forefront of the next wave of international security issues. “I’m excited by the challenge,” says Zonouz. “Security is not only trying to think of possible threats; it’s also competing against the hackers, against other human beings. For every solution, there’s a real person on the other end trying to devise a way around that solution.” It’s like a game of chess, he explains. He’s always thinking five or six moves into the future. And, painfully, he never knows for sure if his moves will be effective. “It’s made me pessimistic,” he admits. “Even when I’m driving down the road now, I’m thinking, ‘Is this driver going to swerve into my lane? Is my car going to get a flat tire?’ I’m always thinking of potential threats. Always.” miami.edu/miami-magazine Summer 2013 MIAMI 17
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Creative programming aims to put the kibosh on kids’ expanding waistlines and confront a national epidemic.
BY ROBERT POWELL PHOTOS BY DONNA VICTOR
Weighing Their Options Ask Giovannie Somarriba what his favorite food is, and he doesn’t know where to begin. “Truthfully, that’s tough for me to answer. I love almost everything,” says the 12-year-old. But press on, and he’ll admit to a few specifics. Ice cream? Sure, cookie dough from Edy’s or anything at Carvel. And Pepsi is great—it has a more pleasing fizz than Coke, something he demonstrated in a school science project. Ask him why his mother felt he was carrying a bit too much weight at a young age—an assessment Giovannie agrees with—and he’ll get to talking about his grandfather, and goat curry, and Jamaican pastries, and an unending parade of good stuff that’s impossibly hard to turn down. “He’s probably the biggest reason I put on weight,” Giovannie says. “I’ve told him that I’m trying to eat better, or eat smarter, but he still wants me to enjoy everything. If I say, ‘No,’ he’s like, ‘Are you sick?’ I feel like I have to fight against him in a small way.”
Gabriel A. Somarriba, standing, guides 12-yearold Giovannie Somarriba (no relation) through an exercise regimen as part of the Department of Pediatrics’ Crunchtime program to prevent childhood obesity.
Giovannie’s eating issue is mild. He’s an active kid, roaming the midfield and defense for his soccer team and sometimes even stepping into the net. “I’m a pretty good goalie,” he says. He also enjoys vegetables, especially broccoli. “I’m a pretty unusual kid in that way.” Giovannie is not alarmingly big either; kids never made fun of him in school. It’s just that his love for food and its constant availability, both within the family and in modern American fast-food culture, inspired him and his mother to check out Crunchtime, a proactive anti-obesity initiative of the Miller School of Medicine. Two times a week, for an initial period of three months, Giovannie visited what basically looks like a gym assembled on the fifth floor of the Batchelor Children’s Research Institute. Under the watchful eye of an exercise physiologist, he spent an hour and a half each session cycling through the three basic components of physical fitness: flexibility, strength, and aerobics. miami.edu/miami-magazine Summer 2013 MIAMI 19
Policy Center’s Nutrition and Physical Activity Initiative, co-chaired by UM’s own President Donna E. Shalala, calls obesity “the most urgent public health problem in America today.” Since 1980, obesity rates among American children have almost tripled, and the numbers continue to rise. Some 32 percent of young people from toddler to age 20 in the United States are considered overweight (defined as in the 85th to 94th percentile for their age group). Seventeen percent of those are clinically obese (in the 95th percentile and above). But statistics don’t tell the full story. In studying obesity in chronically ill populations of kids, Miller found that when she compared their data to that of a control group of purportedly healthy kids (children who surpassed national standards for such measuring sticks as aerobic activity, or how fit the heart is), she found poor test results in the “healthy” kids too. Miller School pediatrician Tracie Miller, top left, created Crunchtime to help kids get a grip on good health. Registered dietician Sabrina Candelaria provides nutrition counseling for Crunchtime kids.
In any given session, there might be treadmill runs or 20 intense minutes on a stationary bike/video game hybrid apparatus. He worked his shoulders, biceps, and thigh muscles on the kinds of resistance machines found at a typical gym. He twisted and leaned through a series of stretches designed to keep his growing frame limber. Everything, from his daily weight to his strength to his mood, was charted as part of his overall monitoring by a team of professionals in tune with the specifics of obesity and its related chronic illnesses. “We know how much we can push the kids,” says Miller School professor of pediatrics Tracie Miller, director of the Division of Pediatric Clinical Research, associate chair of pediatrics for clinical research, and founder of Crunchtime. “But my philosophy is, especially for some kids who are not just a little overweight but obese, we need to jump in hard and fast to get them on the right track.”
Participants range in age from 5 to 30 and run the gamut from weightconscious boys like Giovannie to more at-risk patients, like the 14-year-old girl who came to the program at more than 225 pounds. She battles a host of serious medical threats, including high cholesterol and a predilection for adult-onset diabetes. It’s the most critical cases, the heaviest kids, who inspired Crunchtime’s creation a decade ago. Obesity rates in America, particularly among children, have risen to the point where they can be labeled with red-siren words like “crisis” and “epidemic.” A June 2012 report from the Bipartisan
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“Our philosophy is everyone is at risk,” says Miller. Still, the crisis remains particularly prevalent in poor and minority communities, as well as some of the immigrant enclaves found throughout South Florida. “In Miami we see children coming from other countries where being overweight is seen as good,” Miller says. “In developing nations where food was scarce, people ate whenever food
was available. In the United States food is plentiful, though the options aren’t always the healthiest.” Researchers have found that the body mass index (BMI) of Haitian-born children who move to the United States increases almost 4 percent each year, making these youngsters as likely to become overweight as other American minority children. In the Crunchtime program, children—and, just as important, parents or other family members—meet once a week with a dietitian to review the fundamentals of healthy eating. “It’s amazing what people don’t know,” Miller says. “They’ll tell us they don’t drink sugary drinks, only Gatorade—as if that’s low-calorie! It doesn’t have bubbles, so it must not have calories, right? But it’s almost as sugary as soda. That’s an extra 700 calories a day!” The structured workouts, which seem typical of the kind of training at a neighborhood gym, also help address a growing educational gap. Crunchtime’s exercise physiologist, Gabriel A.
Somarriba, a physical therapist at the Miller School, says demonstrating the value of physical activity in day-to-day life has become increasingly necessary in a world with fewer gym classes in schools and fewer cogent examples of the benefits of exercise. “When I was growing up, we had P.E. [physical education] in school every day,” he says. “Nowadays kids are telling me they go outside maybe once every two weeks. So we’ve had to take on the education role kids used to receive during school.” Giovannie managed to stick with Crunchtime for its full three-month intensive phase before transitioning to maintenance. He now visits the Miller School campus every other week. As he winds closer to the end of the nine-month program, he’ll visit once every three weeks. This schedule enables Crunchtime professionals to recalibrate his regimen as needed as they continue to evaluate his self-directed level of exercise, and whether he’s eating more sensibly based on the personal nutrition plan outlined by staff for him and his family.
The goal isn’t to have Giovannie join a gym or go on a diet, per se, says Miller, but to help him fold the core principles of healthy living into his daily routine. So far so good: Giovannie’s weight has held steady for months—a stellar outcome for a growing boy. Giovannie is still playing soccer and says he feels more coordinated–and stronger–than before Crunchtime. He can run around his block several times without stopping; before the program, he couldn’t lap the block even once. “His grandfather had open-heart surgery,” says Giovannie’s mother, Wendy Zacca. “Five arteries were blocked. [Giovannie’s] sister had open-heart surgery too. Now she has to live with a mechanical pump, and she’s only 31 years old. I’ve struggled with weight issues myself since I was young. I didn’t want that to be an issue for Giovannie. It’s so hard as it is for young people, so I’m glad we found Crunchtime. He learned a lot about nutrition and exercise. It caused him to come out a little bit better, a little more secure with himself.”
ROSE Program Aims to Nip Obesity in the Bud As a boy, Howard N. Rose was obese. their alma mater was best equipped to But unlike his dad, who died of a heart establish the multidisciplinary program, attack at 63, Rose had an early epiphwhich combines approaches from psyany that may have saved his life. He chology, education, nutrition, athletics, started swimming. “The fat just melted and medicine. “UM came out with flying away,” recalls Rose, B.S. ’51, M.S. ’52, colors because of its accent on interdiswho swam varsity at the U and earned ciplinary research,” says Rose, who jogs, his M.D. from Chicago Medical School. hits the gym, and tends to his prize-winTo help young people discover ning garden regularly. what he has known since the 1940s— Overseeing the ROSE Program is psythat exercising and eating right feel The Roses discuss their new program with chology professor Patrice G. Saab from great—Rose pledged $100,000 a year UM President Donna E. Shalala, center. the College of Arts and Sciences. Saab, for the next decade to UM to develop an experienced researcher in this field, is a healthy-lifestyle initiative for children called the “ROSE” training a core group of UM students as “near-peer” health Program: Reaching Overweight/Obese Students Everywhere. ambassadors who will conduct outreach at select Miami“Adults are set in their ways,” says Rose, 82, a retired Dade County schools this fall. In a separate clinical setting, ophthalmologist who has been a Volunteer in Medicine in kids identified as overweight or obese and their parents Jacksonville, Florida, for nine years. “We see many obese, will be offered free, individualized counseling sessions and hypertensive Type 2 diabetics. We adjust their meds and healthy-lifestyle guidance. Intervention-related activities try to direct their lifestyles without good results, so we’re and information will be available online. Tracking outcomes going after the children.” and collecting research data is also critical to the program, After exploring several Florida universities, he and his which Rose hopes will become a national model for “stemwife of 60 years, retired educator Muriel Rose, ’52, decided ming the tide of obesity.” —Robin Shear
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Fifteen years after this magazine asked the question, ‘Are Our Reefs Dying?’ the answer is clear. Now UM scientists are tackling a new question: How can we save them?
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Associate professor Diego Lirman, Ph.D. ’97, has propagated healthy stocks of staghorn coral via nurseries within Biscayne National Park.
ive
BY JASON FITZROY JEFFERS PHOTOS BY STEPHANIE SCHOPMEYER
THE MARKS ON THE KITCHEN-SINK-SIZE BASIN OF SEAWATER read 31°. 900 ppm. The first number is the water’s Celsius temperature, the second its acidity level. Together the measures simulate extreme conditions predicted for marine life off Florida’s coast and throughout the tropics by the turn of the next century. From his open-air, sun-baked space on Virginia Key, Christopher Langdon keeps a close watch on how the corals in this and a dozen or so other basins scribbled with equally cryptic calculations are faring. Some of them, it seems, are not long for this world. “Lots of coral biologists are making predictions about what’s going to happen in 100 years,” says Langdon, a professor at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science and co-founder of the South Florida Corals and Climate Change Laboratory. “They’re basing that on experiments where only one variable has been manipulated— temperature—and more recently pH. But almost none have looked at what happens when both conditions change. I don’t have the answers yet, but that’s the direction my lab is taking. Maybe some coral species will prove to be more resistant than others, but the ones that I’ve looked at such as Acropora cervicorni and Porites porites [staghorn and finger coral] are really taking it on the chin.” miami.edu/miami-magazine Summer 2013 MIAMI 23
Langdon is just one of the scientists at the Rosenstiel School whose coral research and restoration studies are deepening our understanding of how numerous factors—many rooted in human activity, such as overfishing, burning of fossil fuels, and continued deforestation—affect the health of coral reefs in Florida and around the world. Their work will be further supported and enhanced with the completion later this year of the new Alfred C. Glassell, Jr. Surge-Structure-Atmosphere Interaction Building and Laboratory and adjoining Marine Life Sciences Building, funded by a $15 million grant from the National Institute for Standards and Technology and $5 million gift from
critical, reefs such as the Great Florida Reef, which runs the length of the Florida Keys, protect us land dwellers— and the land itself—from the torrential impact of hurricanes and other storms. “It’s a living sea wall, and if it was gone, all that land would pretty quickly wash away,” says Langdon. “It’s completely self-sustaining and repairs itself. You can imagine what it would cost the Army Corps of Engineers to build a sea wall from here to Key West. The reef is doing that by itself, and all we have to do is take some precautions and it might be here forever.” Langdon’s colleague Andrew C. Baker, Ph.D. ’99, associate professor of marine biology and fisheries, is mak-
finding a scientific solution to the killer phenomenon of coral bleaching. Changes in water conditions caused by any number of manmade or naturally occurring events, from farm runoff to El Niño storm systems, can disrupt the delicate housing arrangements between coral and their colorful algae tenants. Periods of warming or increased acidification can serve as a sort of eviction notice for the zooxanthellae, who are expelled en masse from their calcified landlord. The term “coral bleaching” refers to the suddenly pale look of the reef at the site of the algae exodus. Baker’s lab wants to know what may help certain corals better handle such situations of extreme duress.
“ There are very few major universities in the world that are as close to coral reefs as we are.” ing valuable discoveries about coral’s symbiotic relationship with a one-celled creature key to its survival. Employing advanced genetic testing, Baker and the students in his lab examine the DNA of coral polyps and their plant-based symbiotic feeding partners in the genus zooxanthellae in hopes of
“We now think that under certain circumstances, corals can switch or shuffle different types of algae and, in so doing, respond to changes in their environment,” says Baker. “It’s kind of like adapting but in very fast ecological time as opposed to long-term Darwinian natural selection.” DONNA VICTOR
Glassell’s family in his memory. The marine facility will give Langdon and his colleagues significantly more aquaria space and unite their labs under one roof for the first time. “There are very few major universities in the world that are as close to coral reefs as we are,” says Langdon. “We’re really ideally placed for this work, and this building should give us one of the best facilities in the world for coral studies.” The school’s scholarship of reef systems, often called the rainforests of the seas, dates back to the days of its founder, F. G. Walton Smith, who wrote a popular guide to identifying Atlantic corals. But during the past decade, mainstream attention to the field has skyrocketed. Still, there remains a lack of widespread awareness of just how important coral reefs are to us. According to Langdon, Florida’s reefs represent nearly $6 billion of the state’s annual economy. That’s because they serve as the breeding ground for much of the marine life that supports Florida’s fishing industry. They also are responsible for our clear blue waters, which lure tourists the world over. Perhaps most
Alyson Venti, right, a Ph.D. candidate in the lab of Professor Chris Langdon, left, is studying calcification rates to better understand how coral ecosystems respond to climate change.
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Ph.D. candidate Paul Jones, left, in the lab of Andrew Baker, Ph.D. ’99, right, is using DNA to learn which coral and algae partners would fare best under harsher climate conditions.
In these dire straits, time is of the essence. If the “bleached” coral doesn’t regain access to nutrients in time, it starves to death. Ph.D. candidate Erica Towle was awarded a research grant by the Mohamed bin Zayed Conservation Fund to hunt for signs of resilience in the DNA of Acropora cervicornis, staghorn coral, before it’s too late. She says more than 80 percent of the world’s staghorn population has disappeared in just 30 years due to disease, climate change, and human-related factors; it is now on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species. “The staghorn coral used to be one of the dominant reef builders in the Florida Reef Tract,” she says. Another genetic study Baker conducted with Ph.D. students appeared in the Proceedings of the Royal Society. It determined that coral species tend to have “preferences in their algal partners” but also appear to be able to take new algal partners “in response to environmental changes,” says doctoral
candidate Rachel Silverstein. According to another study published by lead author Ross Cunning, also a Ph.D. candidate in Baker’s lab, the more symbiotic algae a coral reef is inhabited by, the more vulnerable the reef is to the impact of bleaching. Together these key insights may prove immensely beneficial to coral restoration efforts. Ultimately they may enable Baker’s lab to produce a genetically formulated “inoculation” of zooxanthellae that would make coral more resilient to future change. Baker points out that this solution would be impractical on a massive, global scale but could be enormously helpful in nursing degraded reefs or maintaining coral nurseries. Associate professor Diego Lirman, Ph.D. ’97, who runs the Benthic Ecology Lab at Rosenstiel, has been perfecting the science behind coral restoration methods for years. His nursery is located in Biscayne National Park just 45 minutes from campus by boat. So far it has been tremendously successful,
growing within two years from 6 meters of collected wild coral to 260 meters of coral available for transportation to ailing reefs. But promising as these results seem—and Lirman is quick to credit the work of coral nursery pioneer and Rosenstiel School partner Ken Nedimyer, president of the Coral Restoration Foundation—coral nurseries won’t outpace the damage being wrought on our reefs, he says. “Can the coral reforestation we’re doing solve the problem?” asks Lirman. “No. But what we’re doing is re-establishing populations in places where there are no longer viable reproductive corals. We’re bridging the gap. Hopefully they will become sexually reproductive populations that eventually contribute to restoration of the species.” Baker and Langdon echo Lirman’s sense of urgency and perspective. However crucial and groundbreaking their work is, they recognize it as one step toward the collective awareness and effort that will be needed to save our reef systems. To that end, a delegation of more than 25 Rosenstiel School faculty and students attended the Olympics of coral research, the International Coral Reef Symposium, last July in Cairns, Australia, conferring with investigators from around the globe on the latest, most promising advances and issues in coral research. “The idea is that we have to reduce the damage of all the things we can control,” says Langdon. “It’s like first aid— it’s not going to solve the problem, but it’s going to buy you time to get other help. It’s what we can do today.” In that spirit of informed caution and cautious optimism, their work continues. “I could be pessimistic for half a dozen reasons,” says Baker. “Having said that, we haven’t documented a single case of a coral species going extinct yet, so currently all the pieces of our jigsaw puzzle are still there. I’m fairly confident that within my own lifetime we’ll come up with some sort of solution. The question is, how much of the natural world will we have left to save when the solution comes?” miami.edu/miami-magazine Summer 2013 MIAMI 25
Lights, camera, and underwater action inspire Coral Morphologic.
Biological Art as Eco Learning Tool BY ADRIANA GRANT
Colin Foord’s halo of stock-straight hair looks electrified. Surrounded by glowing tanks of what appear to be neon-colored vegetables preserved in fluid, the whip-smart University of Miami graduate resembles a mad scientist. In a sense, he is. Foord, B.S. ’04, is intent on preserving and propagating fluorescent soft corals as well as their stony counterparts from an aquarium-lit warehouse just miles from their natural habitat of Biscayne Bay.
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Soft corals are the more flamboyantlooking denizens, mimicking everything from frilly kale dosed with dye and deep-orange Frisbees to purple dahlias and hot pink clusters of human fingers. (See CoralMorphologic.com for videos.) Foord’s five-year-old company, Coral Morphologic LLC—launched with his friend Jared McKay, a musician, and incorporated with help from UM’s Launch Pad at Toppel Career Center—not only cultivates these native sea creatures but produces films about them that have been shown at Art Basel Miami Beach and the Sundance Film Festival, among other prestigious venues. Coral Morphologic’s warehouse-based aquaculture system, located in Miami’s historic Overtown neighborhood, comprises more than 3,000 gallons of seawater teeming with color-saturated corals. The anemone-like organisms are living colonies whose Day-Glo hues thrive in the lab’s blue light. While diving in and 26 MIAMI Summer 2013 www.miami.edu/miami-magazine miami.edu/miami-magazine
PHOTOS: CORAL MORPHOLOGIC / COLIN FOORD, B.S. ’O4
Clockwise from center: Close-ups shot with specialized filters expose the coral’s natural fluorescence. Larger-than-life screenings transform delicate sea creatures into cinematic extravaganzas. Colin Foord, B.S. ’04, gives a glimpse of his colorful aquaculture lab.
around Miami, Foord has even discovered two new species of soft corals, known as zoanthids. Foord and McKay, best friends since middle school in New Hampshire, sell their thriving lab-raised corals all over the world to support Coral Morphologic’s hybrid endeavors of art, education, and research. Foord manages day-to-day scientific operations, caring for his crop of plantlike animals by making minute adjustments to water chemistry, temperature, quality of light, and nutrition. His dual major in marine science and biology, along with a minor in chemistry, gave him the background he needed to both nurture these highly sensitive creatures and understand the complex ecosystem to which they belong. “Jared and I feel we have an obligation to help ensure that corals will continue to thrive through the 21st century and beyond,” says Foord. “It is the corals’ innate ability to morph, adapt, clone, evolve, [live symbiotically], and reproduce that inspires us to create and share our works.” As a student, Foord’s donation of a 100-gallon reef aquarium to UM’s Marine Science Program helped pave
the way for the founding of the UM Aquarium Club a few years later. Today Foord is still sharing his equipment and expertise with UM students. “Working with Colin has been awesome in terms of professional development,” says marine science major Max Ivers, one of five UM students currently interning at Coral Morphologic. “Colin has showed me how to go from a small operation to a professional organization.”
Marine conservationist Dan DiResta, Ph.D. ’83, a senior lecturer in biology at UM and director of PRISM–Advanced Program for Integrated Science and Math, remembers Foord as an enthusiastic student especially keen on experiential learning. “He’s been a really great alum, keeping in touch with the school, donating his own equipment and some of his critters, and giving alums experience in his lab,” says DiResta. “He’s increasing our knowledge of these creatures. And these films he makes are just beautiful.” In the films Foord and McKay produce, the movement of the soft corals is accelerated just enough for the human eye to apprehend the hypnotic swaying of tentacles, frills, and finger-like protrusions. The appendages wave through the water and seem to shiver in the current. Moody lighting accentuates the corals’ intense hues, while McKay’s ambient music tracks and soft background sounds pulse with the mesmerizing motion. In addition to screenings at film festivals, art fairs, and even rock clubs, Coral Morphologic’s work will soon be on display at the Miami International Airport, as part of Aqua/Cultural Transformation, a project that received a $150,000 Knight Foundation Challenge Grant. The idea, says Foord, is to showcase coral as a live art form representative of Miami’s native coral reefs and to present the city as a cultural and geographical conduit to the coral-rich Caribbean. By bringing soft corals to light in stunning, unexpected ways, Foord hopes to grab people on a visceral level during their everyday lives. “Global reefs can be restored through coral aquaculture initiatives,” he says, “and in doing so, humanity will be influenced toward a more logical future. In the decades to come, symbiosis between corals and humans will be essential for our collective survival.”
www.miami.edu/miami-magazine miami.edu/miami-magazine Summer 2013 MIAMI 27
B Y G A S PA R G O N Z Á L E Z
George Mira, star quarterback for the University of Miami, was in his dorm room listening to the radio when he heard the news. His teammate Pat Ratesic was walking across campus. In a trainer’s room in Gainesville, 350 miles away, Hagood Clarke was getting his bum ankle taped. It was Friday afternoon, November 22, 1963. John F. Kennedy, the president of the United States, had been killed in Dallas. “A girl came running up to me and told me,” remembers Ratesic, B.Ed. ’65. “I couldn’t believe it; I thought it was a joke.” It wasn’t, of course. As the afternoon wore on, the terrible details unfolded. Kennedy was dead. A worker at the Texas School Book Depository, Lee Harvey Oswald, had been identified as the suspected shooter and arrested. Lyndon Johnson was the new president. The future had been altered, but there was still the matter of the future as it had been imagined up to that moment, including a full slate of college football games the next day. November 23, the Saturday before Thanksgiving,
was rivalry day, with marquee games like Oklahoma vs. Nebraska, Penn State vs. Pitt, UCLA vs. USC—and UM vs. the University of Florida Gators. “That was the game every year,” says Mira, ’66, speaking from his South Miami-Dade home. Nick Spinelli, B.Ed. ’65, a receiver on the 1963 team, notes, “You started talking about playing that game Day One—and you kept talking about it.” The Hurricanes had one assistant
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coach who made sure of that: “Walt Kichefski,” says Spinelli. “It didn’t matter who we were playing. He’d be walking the sidelines every game, talking about beating ‘The Gator.’” In 1962 the ’Canes had finished 7-4 and Mira, the Key West native known as “The Matador” for his Spanish lineage and gutsy play, had finished fifth in the Heisman Trophy balloting. As a result, Head Coach Andy Gustafson’s ’Canes were expected to do big things in 1963. Instead, they were limping toward their scheduled matchup with Florida with a 3-4 record. That would only make beating The Gator that much sweeter. If the game happened at all. “Everything was in chaos,” recalls Mira, “the whole University—the whole country.” That afternoon, dozens of colleges (and most professional sports leagues) announced they would postpone or cancel their weekend games. Some, notably Oklahoma and Nebraska, said they would play. The National Collegiate Athletic Association told member schools the decision would be left to them.
COURTESY UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI ARCHIVES AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
In Miami there was “a lot of talk about not playing,” says Mira. Miami Mayor Robert King High’s office fielded hundreds of calls demanding the game be canceled out of respect to Kennedy’s memory. UM President Henry King Stanford initially agreed to play the game and then nearly changed his mind at the last minute (under pressure, it was said, from the mayor). In the end, it was decided the game would go on—as a tribute to Kennedy, who had addressed the Bay of Pigs Veterans at the Orange Bowl in 1962 and attended the New Year’s Day game there in 1963. “They felt the president would want it that way,” says Mira. “And he probably would have.” He pauses. “It was tough.” Friday night, as was the custom then, the ’Canes checked into a hotel across the street from campus, “just so no one would go and get themselves in trouble the night before the game,” explains Mira. The hotel, though, provided no escape from the tragedy in Dallas. “We were in our rooms, watching TV, worried about what might happen to the country,” recounts Ratesic, a retired high school principal. “That’s when our line coach [Ed Kensler] came by and said, ‘Listen, this guy Johnson is going to take over, and he’s a good guy.’” Clarke, a former running back for the Gators, remembers his team flying down to Miami aboard a DC-6 that night, talking about what had happened and, like many, wondering why. Clarke had actually had a brief encounter with Kennedy at the New Year’s Day 1963 Orange Bowl. Clarke, there to watch Alabama and Oklahoma play, walked over to a refreshment stand near a side entrance. “All of a sudden,” he says, “a limousine pulls up, and it’s President Kennedy.” What strikes Clarke all these years later was how informal the whole thing
was. “The guy holding the Coca-Colas says, ‘Hi, Jack. How ya doing?’ And the president walks past us, smiles, and says, ‘Fine.’ It’s not like he had a lot of people around, protecting him.” He doesn’t say, “Can you imagine?” But you can hear it in his voice. The days of running into presidents that way were over. Despite calls to cancel the game, the next night nearly 58,000 fans streamed into the Orange Bowl. It was a decidedly nontraditional start to a rivalry game. The two school bands entered the stadium from the same direction, joined in one formation, and bowed their heads as a priest offered a prayer for the nation’s first Catholic president. Then they played the national anthem. The game also proved memorable. In the second quarter, the ’Canes ran a fake field-goal attempt with Mira as the holder; when the ball was snapped, The Matador sprung to his feet and delivered a strike to receiver Hoyt Sparks, B.Ed. ’65, for a touchdown. In the second half, the Gators staged a drive that ended with fullback Larry Dupree plowing into the end zone just before the ball squirted from his hands. “He did not break the plane [before fumbling],” remarks Mira when asked. Nevertheless, it counted. A short while later, a 70-yard touchdown run
by Clarke gave the Gators a lead. “We ran a little inside reverse, and the play was just wide open,” says Clarke. Down by two scores late in the game, the ’Canes didn’t quit. They staged an 82-yard drive, punctuated by Mira’s pass to running back (and future Oakland Raiders great) Pete Banaszak, B.Ed. ’66, for a 15-yard score. “Everybody on that team busted their butt,” says Mira, who went on to the pros. That made it Florida 27, UM 21. But from then on, there was only frustration for the ’Canes. Two controversial calls—one on an onside kick, the other on an apparent fumble—allowed the Gators to keep the ball and end UM’s hopes. On a day when it seemed the whole world had stopped, the ’Canes hadn’t so much lost as run out of chances. After the game, the team gathered in the locker room. Mira, still wearing his uniform and the raw emotions of the past 24 hours, told reporters he would have liked to have written a happier ending. It was not the weekend for it. The University of Miami Hurricanes are scheduled to play a home game against the University of Florida Gators on Saturday, September 7.
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Alumni Digest
Honoring the Past, Sustaining the Future Paula Alvarez, M.B.A. ’98, and Carlos Alvarez, B.S.E.E. ’81, M.B.A. ’86, M.S.I.E. ’86, support the College of Engineering, School of Business Administration, Miller School of Medicine, and Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Opening Doors through Education Is it possible to be successful and love what you do? The answer is clear when you meet Carlos and Paula Alvarez. He is general manager for the Americas at a technology company, she is director of corporate accounts for a pharmaceutical company, and both credit their University of Miami education for opening doors to a rewarding career. As alumni who’ve given back to their alma mater for 12 consecutive years, Carlos and Paula Alvarez create opportunities for generations of Hurricanes paving their own way to happiness and success. To celebrate our alumni community of loyal annual donors, the University of Miami is proud to announce the launch of the Loyalty Society. Membership in the Loyalty Society means being part of a special group of alumni donors who are dedicated to shaping the future of the U. Alumni donors are welcomed into this society upon their second consecutive fiscal year of making a gift to the University of Miami.
Any gift to the University of Miami is fully tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. 30 MIAMI Summer 2013 miami.edu/miami-magazine
Join the Loyalty Society today. Members receive invitations to events and a special membership packet! Contact: Leana Cianfoni Office of Annual Giving University of Miami 305-284-6923 annualgiving@miami.edu www.miami.edu/annualgiving
Alumni Digest
NEWS AND EVENTS OF INTEREST TO UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI ALUMNI
School Spirit Shines on Multimedia Site
HURRICANESPORTS.COM
Calling all ’Canes to become part of the Stories of U experience
Clockwise from above, Patrina Allen, B.S.N. ’00, David Finch, B.M. ’99, and Roselee Roberts, A.B. ’64, share their Inspired by U stories of success.
When the University of Miami Alumni Association decided to engage alumni with a campaign called Stories of U, the staff had an inkling it would resonate. But what if it didn’t? What if inviting ’Canes to talk informally on camera
have self-posted roughly 160 photos and 55 written narratives there as well. Though Tejera says their stories are very diverse, she’s also spotted a common thread: “Most of the alumni interviewed for Stories of U talk about
“ Most of the alumni interviewed talk about the feeling of coming to a family.” about their time at the U was met only with awkward silence? Thankfully, says marketing and finance director Marlen Tejera, that’s been far from the case. Since the idea was born, the impromptu Stories of U studio has been set up around the nation—at alumni networkers, in living rooms, even on a paddleboard off the waters of Miami Beach—all in the pursuit of hearing the history of UM as told by ’Canes near and far, young and old. So far, Tejera’s small staff has edited down thousands of hours of footage to produce 300 three-minute videos for the StoriesofU.com site. Meanwhile, alumni, faculty, and friends of the University
the feeling of coming to a family, the UM family.” Those first-person accounts range from UM’s first black athletes, who blazed the way for integration in collegiate sports and beyond (UM Sports Hall of Famer Ray Bellamy, A.B. ’70, M.A. ’72, and MacArthur Fellows
award winner Will Allen, ’71, Hon. ’12, to name a couple), to women who broke the mold to enter nontraditional careers (like Hillene Lustig, B.B.A. ’55, at the time one of the few women in accounting at UM, and aerospace and defense expert Roselee Roberts, A.B. ’64). Some stories address overcoming illness: David Finch, B.M. ’99, for one, received a diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome later in life and went on to write a New York Times best-seller. Others are about rising to greatness from tough surroundings, like Deloitte CEO Joseph Echevarria, B.B.A. ’78. Still others, including track Olympian Patrina Allen, B.S.N. ’00, and Omar Soliman, B.B.A. ’04, who started the 50-franchise business College Hunks Hauling Junk while still at UM, are about the drive to succeed. Encouraged by this positive response, the UM Alumni Association is curating Inspired by U, a video gallery of some of the most stirring stories collected so far. Tejera hopes the project will encourage many more ’Canes to come forward. “We’re calling out for all submissions,” she says, “and particularly those with an international perspective as we look ahead to launching our Universe of U component in 2014.” To submit photos, stories, or videos, visit StoriesofU.com. To receive more information, call 305-284-2872 or 1-866-UMALUMS (862-5867), or email alumni@miami.edu.
Logo Motion You may have noticed that your UM Alumni Association has a new logo. Show your UMAA pride by requesting a free decal of the updated look. Visit miami.edu/alumnidecal or call 1-866-UMALUMS.
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Alumni Digest
A Horse Named Shalala Shalala powers down the track for a win at Aqueduct in April.
M.B.A. ’07, and his father, the legendary trainer Nick Zito—are anxious to see what their youngest horse, 2-year-old Hurricane Ray, can do. The odds are good he’ll perform, Zito figures, because he is named after football great Ray Lewis II and his son, Ray Lewis III, who signed with the 2013 Hurricanes football recruiting class. “The University of Miami is where I met a lot of my friends and my wife,” says Alex Zito, a market research analyst in the Chicago area, “and it gives
u Elegant spaces available to alumni and the community for meetings, intimate gatherings and celebrations. • More than 9,500 sq. ft. of indoor event space • More than 4,000 sq. ft. of outdoor event space • Room and furniture configurations can change for maximum flexibility
• High-end finishes throughout • State-of-the-art acoustic and audiovisual equipment • Conveniently located on the University of Miami’s Coral Gables campus • Available to the public
6200 San Amaro Drive Coral Gables, FL 33146
32 MIAMI Summer 2013 miami.edu/miami-magazine
305-284-1934 www6.miami.edu/alumnicenter
ADAM COGLIANESE / NEW YORK RACING ASSOCIATION
With a swiftness and fortitude characteristic of her namesake, Shalala powered up in the final stretch to clinch a decisive victory at New York’s prestigious Aqueduct racetrack. The April win was a first for the filly, who has been racing for less than a year. “The tricky thing about naming racehorses,” says Alex Zito, B.B.A. ’04, M.B.A. ’06, “is that if you name one after someone you know personally, you feel bad if the horse doesn’t do well.” Zito, managing partner of Hurricane Boys Racing Stable, doesn’t know Donna E. Shalala personally, but he had to take a leap of faith when naming one of his horses after the president of his beloved alma mater. All horses fully owned by Hurricane Boys, in fact, have names that honor ’Canes past and present. And every jockey who rides them is clad in orange, green, and white. Zito and his Hurricane Boys partners—wife Erin Vayo Zito, B.S. ’04,
me a lot of opportunities in the business world now.” Both husband and wife were freshmen in 2001, a football national championship year. From victories celebrated to relationships cultivated through the years, there are many reasons these alumni keep the U in their hearts—and, they hope, in the winner’s circle. —Meredith Camel, M.F.A. ’12
Citi Executive Helps Put ’Canes on Career Path
JOHN MAROLAKOS /HECHLER PHOTOGRAPHERS
HELP HIRE A ’CANE!
Citi ’Canes reconnect with UM President Donna E. Shalala, center, at an alumni event in New York City; from left, analysts Jose Barreto, B.S.B.A. ’12, Naveen Kirpalani, B.S.B.A. ’11, and Mariana Ortiz, A.B. ’12; assistant vice president Erin Redoutey, B.B.A. ’08; analyst Michael Gotterer, B.S.B.A. ’12; Bill Fisse; associate Elena Anisimova, M.B.A. ’12; and analyst Alexa McCanick, B.B.A. ’10, M.B.A. ’12.
During 33 years as a human resources executive with Citigroup in Manhattan, Bill Fisse, B.B.A. ’75, M.B.A. ’77, has helped his employer make countless new hires. Among those, increasingly, are ’Canes. Thanks to the fruitful relationship Fisse helped to forge between his alma mater and Citi, over 50 UM alumni have joined the financial giant in just the past few years. These employees are so proud of their connection that they’ve branded themselves “Citi ’Canes.” “The University of Miami has emerged as one of eight to ten targeted schools in the U.S. where we can find the right profile of student to come to a complex, global environment like Citi,” says Fisse, managing director and global head of HR for Citi Transaction Services. “The alumni we hire as analysts and associates do exceedingly well in a competitive market. They are distinguishing themselves.” Fisse, who speaks regularly at Toppel Career Center and School of Business Administration events, sees a bright future for UM’s already-strong relationship with Citi, which was named Toppel Career Center’s 2012-13 For-Profit
Employer of the Year. “The evolution of the U brand is phenomenal,” he says. “This is about deepening the
As an alumnus, you can help your company tap into UM’s deep and diverse talent pool. To recruit the U’s top-notch talent: n Post internship and job opportunities to the HireACane.com website and/or email listings to alumni@miami.edu. n Join the UM Alumni Association group on LinkedIn, miami.edu/alumni/career/ linkedin.htm, and post your job or start a discussion about your employment opportunity. This group is open only to UM alumni, students, and staff. n Find more employer-related resources at miami.edu/alumni/career, or contact Adlar Garcia, director of Alumni Programs, Alumni Education, and Alumni Career Services, at 1-866-UMALUMS or a.garcia29@miami.edu.
partnership between UM and Citi in multiple ways to yield a mutual return on investment.”
International Impact
The University of Miami Alumni Association’s Impact of U Tour is bringing UM President Donna E. Shalala to 15 cities over two years to discuss how each of us continues to have an impact on building the next great American research university. Besides domestic stops in L.A., Broward County, New York, Boston, and Washington, D.C., the tour’s first international touchdown took place in Bogotá, Colombia, on April 11. Nearly 100 alumni, parents, and friends of the U attended the Impact of U–Bogotá event, pictured here.
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Alumni Digest
An endowed chair, education center, and award were all named after University of Miami trustee and benefactor James W. McLamore. Now there’s also a giving society named in memory of the beneficent Burger King co-founder, who died in 1996 at age 70. The James W. McLamore Society, which is replacing the President’s Circle, will launch in the fall to recognize a group of generous donors who make annual gifts of $1,000 or more. These civic and community leaders will receive invitations to exclusive University events, access to a personal liaison to assist with all University-related matters, public recognition events to honor their support, and more. “We are honored that the University of Miami has renamed the President’s Circle as the James W. McLamore Society,” says Nancy N. McLamore. “The University meant so much to my husband, and I know how proud our four children are of the University’s accomplishments, given Jim’s role as chair of the first capital campaign.” Another society kicking off this fall, known as the Royal Palm Society,
Strategic Plan Update The UM Alumni Association launched a website to highlight outcomes from its two-year strategic planning process, which included surveying thousands of alumni. Visit miami.edu/ alumni/umaa/alumnisurvey.htm to learn about the seven resulting focus areas.
RICHARD PATTERSON
In Praise of Donors
James W. McLamore
honors annual donors who support the University with gifts ranging from $100 to $999. Just as the main entrance to the Coral Gables campus is adorned with these regal palm trees, the Royal Palm Society welcomes individuals into the collective circle of supporters who are expanding opportunities at UM through annual giving. A third but no less significant group of donors is already being recognized for continuity of commitment to the U through the recently created Loyalty Society. Because the University knows annual contributions of any amount have a significant impact on its rise in excellence over time, the UM Alumni Association wants to show gratitude for gifts of any amount to any area of the institution during at least the past two fiscal years (June 1 to May 31). Donors eligible for the Loyalty Society will receive a membership packet, which includes a membership card and decal, as well as invitations to donor recognition receptions and other special events. “The addition of these three annual giving societies makes it apparent that the University places a high value on each and every gift—and a high priority on properly expressing our gratitude in response to gifts of all
34 MIAMI Summer 2013 miami.edu/miami-magazine
sizes,” says Troy Odom, executive director of Annual Giving at the University of Miami. To learn about the results of this year’s Annual Giving challenges such as the GOLDstein Family Challenge for young alumni, visit miami.edu/ annualgiving. For more information about Annual Giving opportunities, contact Troy Odom, 305-284-2667 or t.odom@miami.edu. Sherra Payne, B.S.Ed. ’85, M.S.Ed. ’92, and Todd Payne, A.B. ’84, J.D. ’89, have been Loyalty Society members since 1992.
Class Notes Samuel R. Wasserson, A.B. ’56, a certified specialist in family law, is now of counsel to the Law Offices of Marc E. Grossman Inc. in California. Eugene A. Shinn, B.S. ’57, had his memoir/autobiography, Bootstrap Geologist, published by University Press of Florida in April 2013. Sanford Aranoff, B.S. ’58, is an adjunct associate professor of mathematics, Rider University, New Jersey. His self-published titles include Finite and Infinite Mathematics: Sets, Numbers, Lines, Equations, Probability (2011); Rational Thinking, Government Policies, Science, and Living (2010); and Teaching and Helping Students Think and Do Better (2007). William M. Shernoff, B.B.A. ’59, received a Distinguished Alumni Award in 2012 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he earned his J.D. Among his groundbreaking cases: the 1974 Egan vs. Mutual of Omaha, which led to a new branch of law known as bad-faith insurance law, and a $5 billion settlement of Holocaust insurance claims against Italian and German insurance companies refusing to pay on life insurance policies of those murdered by the Nazis. A documentary, On Moral Grounds, was made about the latter case.
1960s
Barry M. Sherbal, B.B.A. ’64, received a five-year volunteer service award from the Oasis Senior Enrichment Program of the Levine Jewish Community Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. Ken Chamberlain, B.B.A. ’65, recently visited his 111th country: Honduras. He is continuing his career as a public speaker about
the Titanic. A member of the Titanic Historical Society, he has studied the topic for more than 50 years and met ten survivors. John E. Penick, B.S. ’66, M.A. ’69, received the National Science Teachers Association’s most prestigious honor, the Robert H. Carleton Award. A science educator whose career began in an urban Miami high school, Penick is professor emeritus at North Carolina State University. His education projects have received more than $6 million in external funding. Andris A. “Andy” Zoltners, B.S. ’67, whose ZS Associates sales and marketing consulting firm has offices on three continents, received the 2012 Marvin Jolson Award for Best Contribution to the Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management for his article “Breaking the Sales Force Incentive Addiction: A Balanced Approach to Sales Force Effectiveness.” Lester Langer, B.B.A. ’68, J.D. ’71, served as a judge with the Eleventh Judicial Circuit Court of Florida for 20 years. Retired from the bench, he works as a certified civil and appellate mediator at The Reyes Law Firm P.A. in Coral Gables. Richard J. Suarez, B.M. ’68, M.M. ’70, J.D. ’81, a judge for the Third District Court of Appeal for Miami-Dade and Monroe counties, won his merit retention vote in the November 2012 general election. Barry Geltner, M.A. ’69, selfpublished his novel It’s Him! about a Miami doctor involved in a fatal car accident. Marilyn Smith Van Houten, B.S.N. ’69, celebrated the 25th anniversary of her company, Rehab Case Management. A survivor of breast cancer, she is also passionate about performing with the Heroine Choir, which also provides
Citizen ’Cane Gaining a Voice in the White House Racquel Russell’s journey to the White House began in her uncle’s Bronx, New York, home. One summer day in 1993, the 13-year-old was made to watch a Congressional proceeding on C-SPAN in which then-U.S. Senator Carol Moseley Braun argued against legislation to continue patenting the Confederate flag as the insignia of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. “It was a David vs. Goliath story,” says Russell, B.S.C. ’00. “Here was this lone black woman, fighting against this bill that had passed every year before. I just thought there was no way she could win.” But Braun did prevail, convincing the Senate to reject the patent renewal application. “It made me realize that someone who looked like me could accomplish something that was so great,” recalls Russell. “And ever since that moment, I knew I wanted to work in the political arena to help give a voice to those who have no voice.” As deputy assistant to the president for urban affairs and economic mobility, Russell leads a team that focuses on matters of utmost importance for urban communities and struggling families across America, including place-based initiatives and policies related to nutrition, health care, and opportunities for women. “This job was made for me,” says Russell, a political science and speech communication major who went on to George Washington University Law School. “Helping President Obama to realize his vision for the country is something that 20 or 30 years from now I’m going to look back on and pinch myself to make sure I was a part of it.” But before Russell could become a lightning rod for the powerless, she had to learn to speak up for herself. Early on at the White House, she says, “I did everything I could not to stand out, to keep my head down and not step on any toes.” Yet Russell soon understood the disservice she and other young female staffers she’d seen exhibiting similar behavior had been doing themselves and their boss. “We were there to be a voice,” she says. “It wasn’t about us. It was about advancing the agenda of the president.” Now every day brings a new experience, says Russell, adding that UM prepared her well. “It was on this campus that I learned how to resolve conflict, manage a crisis while juggling many balls in the air, and become a good communicator. Each day in the White House I apply these lessons and skills.” —Robert C. Jones Jr. miami.edu/miami-magazine Summer 2013 MIAMI 35
ANDREW INNERARITY
1950s
Class Notes support, fundraising, education, and fun for breast cancer survivors in South Florida.
1970s
Dianne (Rothstein) Collins, A.B. ’70, won a Global eBook Award for New-Age Non-Fiction and a Silver Medal eLit Award for Self-Help in 2012 for her book Do You QuantumThink: New Thinking that Will Rock Your World (SelectBooks Inc., 2011). She says last year’s book signing and lecture at the Newman Alumni Center drew a standing-room-only crowd. R. Fred Lewis, J.D. ’72, a Florida Supreme Court Justice, won his merit retention vote in the November 2012 general election. Salvador A. Jurado, B.S.C.E. ’73, M.S.C.E. ’76, was presented with the College of Engineering Alumni Association’s Alumnus of Distinction Award for 2012. The owner of Building Components Group in South Florida also serves on the UM President’s Council and the college’s Visiting Committee while co-chairing the college’s Momentum2 capital campaign. His three sons are UM engineering alumni. Laura Larson, B.M. ’73, principal flutist in the Flint Symphony
Orchestra in Michigan, has released her new CD, Jinju, a collection of classical works for flute she recorded during the past 30 years. Barbara (Brumme) Garwood, A.B. ’74, was featured in the book Military Fly Moms (Tannenbaum Publishing, 2012). Stationed at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, in 1979, she was accepted into pilot training, becoming one of the first 50 female military pilots. In the Air Force Reserve she flew the KC-135E tanker aircraft during Operation Desert Storm. She is now an international captain for American Airlines. A co-founder of Women Military Aviators, Inc., Garwood has two grown children and lives with her husband in Carlsbad, California. Marc D. Gellman, A.B. ’74, M.S. ’80, Ph.D. ’84, is editor-in-chief of the four-volume Encyclopedia of Behavioral Medicine (Springer, 2013). He is a research associate professor in the Department of Psychology, University of Miami. Cindy Salzman Amar, B.Ed. ’75, M.Ed. ’78, has retired after 32 years as an elementary school teacher and guidance counselor. She self-published her first children’s book, Tommy’s Discovery, in 2012.
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36 MIAMI Summer 2013 miami.edu/miami-magazine
Roney J. Mateu, B.Arch. ’76, won the Miami Chapter of the American Institute of Architects’ 2012 Firm of the Year Award. Cheryl K. Bernstein, B.S.N. ’77, received the Allied Health Professionals Recognition Award from the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology in 2013. She is director of the Bernstein Clinical Research Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. Philip Kellerman, B.Ed. ’77, received the Mexican-American Council’s Champion of Farmworkers Award in Tampa, Florida, in 2012. His Harvest of Hope Foundation, founded in 1997, has distributed more than $1 million for aid, medical services, and education to migrant farmworkers and their families. Patricia San Pedro, B.F.A. ’78, won a Suncoast Emmy Award for her latest documentary, The Cancer Dancer, about her cancer diagnosis, double mastectomy, chemotherapy, and reconstructive surgeries. Discovery Familia in the United States and Discovery Home & Health in Latin America aired the movie during Breast Cancer Awareness month. She dedicated the Emmy, her fourth such honor, to the Positively Pat support group she created. Maria Lorts Sachs, J.D. ’78, was re-elected in 2012 to the Florida Senate, District 34, representing parts of Palm Beach and Broward counties. Deborah A. Himelhoch, B.S. ’79, was appointed a clinical assistant professor of orthodontics and dentofacial orthopedics for the Boston University Henry M. Goldman School of Dentistry. She has a staff appointment at Franciscan Hospital for Children in Boston and supervises residents. Her private orthodontics and pediatric dentistry practice is in Framingham, Massachusetts. Michael A. Lampert, A.B. ’79, a Florida Bar board-certified tax lawyer in West Palm Beach, was
elected chair of the Florida Bar’s tax section. Cara Pasquale, A.B. ’79, M.B.A. ’83, serves on the board of directors for Project Stable, an equestrian and farm program for special-needs children. She is director of business development at a civil engineering firm in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
1980s
Mitchell Kaplan, M.S.Ed. ’80, owner of five Books & Books independent bookstores and a creator of the Miami Book Fair International, was awarded the National Book Foundation’s 2011 Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community. Michael F. Ball, A.B. ’81, of McCormick Barstow LLP Attorneys at Law in Fresno, California, is on Thomson Reuters and San Francisco Magazine’s 2012 list of “Top 100 Northern California Super Lawyers.” Gregg L. Friedman, B.S. ’81, M.D. ’85, won the Physicians Practice magazine National Writers Search for his article about his daughter’s survival of a rare subglottic hemangioma tumor that was treated by doctors from the UM Miller School of Medicine. The piece ran in October 2012. Marilyn Milian, A.B. ’81, of television’s The People’s Court, and Alex E. Ferrer, J.D. ’86, of the Judge Alex TV show, took part in a UM School of Law panel discussion at Storer Auditorium, moderated by essayist, law professor, and author Thane Rosenbaum, J.D. ’86. Catherine Vogel, J.D. ’81, was elected in 2012 as State Attorney for the 16th Judicial Circuit of Florida covering Monroe County. Kevin M. Emas, J.D. ’82, a judge for the Third District Court of Appeal for Miami-Dade and Monroe counties, won his merit retention vote in the November 2012 general election. John J. Fumero, A.B. ’83, J.D.
’87, was elected by his peers to Florida Trend Magazine’s “Legal Elite 2012.” He is a managing partner of Sundstrom, Friedman and Fumero, LLP. Lee A. Sweetapple, A.B. ’83, of Marshall, Virginia, self-published Key West Revenge in 2012. His book is about retired intelligence officers trying to save an old friend kidnapped and framed for a bombing. Robert W. Trigueros, B.B.A. ’83, was a business executive for more than 25 years. A longtime volunteer for children’s charitable organizations, in 2008 he became a national ride manager for the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation, which holds 40 Ride For Kids motorcycle fundraiser events around the United States. He encourages alumni to get involved. Laurie Young, B.B.A. ’83, a partner in the litigation group of Adams and Reese, was among the “Women of the Year” of 2012 named by New Orleans CityBusiness, which recognizes 50 women who have helped move the region forward. Sheryl M. Hartman, Ph.D. ’84, a psychology professor recognized by Miami Dade College for excellence in teaching and research, was named to the Freedom Tower Endowed Teaching Chair. Through her teaching and counseling, Hartman has helped thousands of students in their academic pursuits, careers, and personal lives. She also serves as a faculty trainer. John R. O’Connor, B.B.A. ’84, was promoted to the rank of major general in the U.S. Army, where he is head of logistics for U.S. Army Forces Command. Donna Ballman, J.D. ’86, has a new book out titled Stand Up for Yourself Without Getting Fired (Career Press, 2012). Karen Havice, A.B. ’87, an attorney in Florida, self-published Peanut the Tiny Horse for early readers under the pen name L.K. Havice. Her husband, J. Lancaster “Lank”
Havice, J.D. ’75, contributed to the book. Perry E. Thurston Jr., J.D. ’87, was re-elected to the Florida House of Representatives and is Minority Leader, 2012-14. Joe Garcia, A.B. ’88, J.D. ’91, was sworn in this past January as a U.S. Representative for Florida’s 26th congressional district, covering western Miami-Dade County and the Florida Keys. He will serve on the Natural Resources Committee and on the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary, which addresses legislation related to immigration reform. Anne Grealy, M.B.A. ’88, was promoted to executive director of state government affairs at FirstEnergy in Akron, Ohio.
1990s
Diana Brooks, B.S.C. ’91, cofounder/managing partner of VSBrooks Advertising in Coral Gables, is chair of the board of directors for the nonprofit agency Feeding South Florida, the state’s largest food bank. Marc Hochman, B.S.C. ’91, is the morning host on AM 790 and FM 104.3 The Ticket, an ESPN radio affiliate in Miami. He joined the station in 2004 and last year became permanent host of the weekday 6 to 10 a.m. morning show, “Hochman & Zaslow.” Ileana Musa, B.B.A. ’91, is an international credit and banking executive at Bank of America, where she leads a global team that provides credit and banking solutions to high-net-worth clients in international markets. Néstor Rodriguez, B.M. ’91, was hired as president of the Classical South Florida public radio broadcasting organization (89.7-FM). Ivan F. Fernandez, J.D. ’92, a judge for the Third District Court of Appeal for Miami-Dade and Monroe counties, won his merit retention vote in the November 2012 general election. Bill Galvano, J.D. ’92, was elected
Citizen ’Cane Insuring a Strong Connection John Calles, A.B. ’89, J.D. ’92, isn’t one to waste time. He met the love of his life in high school. As a University of Miami student, he also worked in his father’s insurance agency, still managing to earn degrees with honors in English and then law. So it’s no surprise that before his term as president of the UM Alumni Association had even begun this past June 1, Calles was already reaching out to his newest constituents. Speaking at commencement ceremonies this past May and back in 2011, he urged recent graduates to stay in touch with the U, praised them for buying 2013 commemorative tassels to help fund scholarships, and told one group of newly minted alumni: “You are now part of a legacy of excellence in every field of study and work.” That legacy of excellence rings true for Calles. After practicing insurance law for seven years, he returned to the family business as part of a succession and expansion plan that resulted in the creation of a full-service financial planning firm with 25 agents and employees. Though Calles became president of Calles Financial in 2001, his father has stayed on at the company he founded in 1976. “Working with my dad has been a blessing,” says Calles. “I got my first paychecks from him and grew up in his business. He likes to joke that I’m his boss, but he says if I do something wrong, he’ll disinherit me.” Family is important to Calles. He and his wife, Jeanette Gonzalez-Calles, A.B. ’92, M.S.Ed. ’95, a research associate at the Diabetes Research Institute, met on a blind date as teens. They married more than 20 years ago and have two sons, 14 and 19. Calles, a leader in his church as well, says his passion for shaping institutions came at UM, where he was involved with student council during the student-led push for a wellness center. “That was a very special moment,” he recalls. “We decided to tax ourselves for something that would be for future generations at UM to enjoy,” he says. Calles expresses that same forward-thinking enthusiasm when discussing his two-year term as president. “We want to see our alumni involved as soon as they graduate and for many years to come, so we are designing programs to add value to this relationship,” he says. “Energizing our alumni base will also bring some of our ‘lost alumni’ back into the fold so they can re-engage with the U. We have some exciting times ahead, and I am glad I can be part of them by serving my alma mater.” —Robin Shear miami.edu/miami-magazine Summer 2013 MIAMI 37
Class Notes to the Florida State Senate, District 26, in 2012 after serving in the House of Representatives from 2002 to 2010. Lesley C. (Ellenberg) Homer, B.S. ’92, a biosafety officer in the Regional Biocontainment Lab at the University of Pittsburgh, was awarded the Richard C. Knudsen Memorial Publication Award from the American Biological Safety Association for the publication, “Engineering and work practice controls for
the use of anesthetic gases during BSL-3 rabbit studies,” published in Applied Biosafety. She and husband John have a 2-year-old son named Christian. Sarvi S. Nalwa, B.S. ’92, brought her daughter, Mira, to visit campus this spring and showed her the UM brick she dedicated in the Newman Alumni Center Courtyard. Nalwa is an otolaryngologist at Dean Health System in Madison, Wisconsin. Irwin Raij, B.B.A. ’92, led the team
CAROLYN NICHOLS
’C A N E I N T H E AC T
This spring, Mary Dailey, B.B.A. ’84, came out swinging in Antalya, Turkey, representing the United States at the 2013 International Tennis Federation Seniors World Team Championship. She placed third in the U.S. Lenglen Cup (Women’s 35). Since retiring as Florida Atlantic University’s head tennis coach in 2008, Dailey has won five world doubles titles. Learn more about her competitive streak at miami.univmiami.net/ category/cane-in-the-act.
38 MIAMI Summer 2013 miami.edu/miami-magazine
that represented Guggenheim Baseball Management in its record-setting $2 billion acquisition of the Los Angeles Dodgers last summer. He then represented Governor Andrew Cuomo and the State of New York in efforts to keep the Buffalo Bills in town and determine the appropriate redevelopment of the Bills’ stadium. Raij, a third-generation Hurricane and Iron Arrow member, is a partner with Foley & Lardner LLP and co-chair of the firm’s sports industry team. He spoke at the 2013 Iron Arrow luncheon for new members. Leyza F. Blanco, A.B. ’93, J.D. ’96, was honored with a 2012 Key Partner Award from the South Florida Business Journal and LINQ Financial Group. Jeffrey H. Minde, J.D. ’93, of the Southern Palm Zen Group of Boca Raton, Florida, was recently ordained a Senior Soto Zen Monk. Winston Warrior, B.B.A. ’93, M.B.A. ’96, of Atlanta, released the album Lifeology 101…Back 2 School (Vintage R&B, 2012). Ron Berkowitz, B.S.C. ’94, of Berk Communications; Jonathan Vilma, B.B.A. ’04, of the New Orleans Saints; D. J. Williams, ’06, of the Denver Broncos; and Jonathan Beason, ’06, of the Carolina Panthers opened the Miami outpost of Manhattan-based restaurant Brother Jimmy’s BBQ. Paul Nicholas, M.B.A. ’94, plays public defender Linden Delroy on the NBC series Law and Order: SVU. This is his eighth season on the show. Nicholas, who attended UM as Paul Robinson, is also active as a director and actor in stage productions. Erik B. Christiansen, B.A.M. ’96, has a new book, Channeling the Past: Politicizing History in Postwar America (The University of Wisconsin Press, 2013). Andrew Blackwell Cogar, B.Arch ’96, a principal and shareholder with the Georgia-based architecture and planning firm Historical Concepts and a member of the
American Institute of Architects and Congress for the New Urbanism, has been appointed to the board of directors for the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art. Steven R. Kozlowski, J.D. ’96, is one of the producers of the film Any Day Now, starring Alan Cumming.
Gregor J. “Greg” Schwinghammer Jr., J.D. ’96, was appointed by Florida Governor Rick Scott to the state’s Fifteenth Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission; his term runs through July 1, 2016. An AV-rated shareholder at Gunster law firm who resides in West Palm Beach, Florida, he served as a U.S. Army Armored Cavalry officer in Germany and Kuwait. Jeffry Padin, Ph.D. ’97, was on Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s TEAM X, which helped in the conceptual design of NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Mission. He works in the Engineer Space Systems Engineer Vehicle Concepts Department at The Aerospace Corporation in El Segundo, California. Elaine Jones, J.D. ’98, was named head coach of women’s lacrosse at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia. This is the Lancers’ first season as a member of the Big South Conference. Jones was previously a head coach at the University of California Davis. Lisa A. Melamed, A.B. ’98, was promoted to general counsel for the Laser Spine Institute in Tampa, Florida. J.D. Patterson Jr., M.P.A. ’98, a Miami native and 30-year veteran of the Miami-Dade Police Department, was named MiamiDade police director in February. He had been the acting director since November 2012. Reince Priebus, J.D. ’98, was re-elected as chairman of the Republican National Committee. Thomas J. “Tom” Rooney, J.D. ’99, was re-elected to the U.S. House of Representatives for District 17 of Florida’s west coast. Corey Schwartz, B.B.A. ’99, was
invited to be on the panel “The Future Stars of Real Estate: Top Producers Under 40” by the Miami Association of Realtors. He is with RE Max Advance Realty.
2000s
Frank Artiles, LL.M.P. ’01, was re-elected to the Florida House of Representatives in 2012. John L. Evans Jr., M.B.A. ’01, is executive director of Janus Labs at Janus Capital Group, based in Denver. He is the author of The Focinar: A Genuine Persuasion System (Focinar Communications, 2011) and The Book of WOW, on how to drive extreme client loyalty. Stacie Krupa, M.F.A. ’01 (painting), Andy Gambrell, M.F.A. ’06 (painting), Bethany Pelle, B.F.A. ’07 (ceramics), Lucinda Linderman, M.F.A. ’10 (sculpture), and Rob Stern, ’04 (glass), were among the visual artists whose work was presented during the University of Miami 2012 Alumni Exhibition held from September to October at the College of Arts and Sciences Gallery on the Coral Gables campus. Maryann (Tatum) Tobin, A.B. ’01, M.F.A. ’04, Ph.D. ’09, was named to Phi Delta Kappa International’s 2012-13 class of Emerging Leaders, for individuals under 40 who excel in academics and leadership in education. She is a professor of reading education at Nova Southeastern University in Davie, Florida. Her husband, Nathaniel Tobin, J.D. ’06, is an associate at The Barthet Firm in Miami. Lori Berman, LL.M.E. ’02, was re-elected to the Florida House of Representatives and is Democratic Deputy Whip, 2012-14. Christopher B. Tillson, J.D. ’02, a partner in the Miami office of law firm K&L Gates LLP, was among the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, South Florida chapter’s “40 Under 40 Outstanding Lawyers” of Miami-Dade County for 2012. Denise Grimsley, M.B.A. ’03,
was elected to the Florida State Senate, District 21, in 2012, after serving from 2004 to 2012 in the Florida House of Representatives. In 2012 she also was named UF/ Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Champion, Florida Home Builders Association Champion of Housing, and the Florida Cattleman’s Association’s Legislator of the Year. Cristian Macelaru, B.M. ’03, was promoted to associate conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra in November 2012 after serving as assistant conductor during the 2011-12 season. He made his Chicago Symphony subscription debut as a replacement for Pierre Boulez in February 2012 and won the prestigious 2012 Sir Georg Solti Emerging Conductor Award. Daniel Clausen, A.B. ’04, released his first novel, The Ghosts of Nagasaki. It draws on his years teaching English in Japan following graduation. Jetheda Hernandez, M.M. ’04, was among the Leading Women 2012 honorees selected for career achievement by Baltimore’s The Daily Record. She is director of marketing and development for the National Association of Consumer Advocates in Washington, D.C., and is on the board of directors for the organization Girls Can. Vanessa Lane, B.S.C. ’04, is a public relations and events manager for Miami-based Norwegian Cruise Lines. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Ed.D. ’04, was re-elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2012 for District 27, South Florida. David Kassler, D.M.A. ’05, euphonium artist, performed the world premiere of his composition Heartland Songs with Giulio Draghi, D.M.A. ’07, for a guest recital at the University of Brazil. He also was invited to play the Midwest Conference of the International Tuba and Euphonium Association at Illinois State University this past May.
Citizen ’Cane Upwardly Mobile: Elevator Boy to Hotelier By age 14, Roger A. Saunders, A.B. ’51, was moving up in the hotel business. Employed by his father, he ran the elevator in Boston’s Metropolitan Hotel and drove it like a car. Steering the manual lift to a precise landing, Saunders would open clanking, cage-like doors by hand to usher in well-heeled travelers. Hotels have been in Roger Saunders’ blood since his father’s purchase of the Metropolitan in 1939. So enamored of hotels is the founder of the Saunders Hotel Group that he lives in one for part of the year, enjoying views of the swan boats and Boston Common. Newbury College’s school of hotel and restaurant management is even named for him. Saunders and his sons share a passion for their hotel group’s six independently run properties in Boston and New England, with another under construction. Three generations of Saunders play roles in the business, from CEO to intern. Roger Saunders sees himself as advisor, attending quarterly meetings with hoteliers and visiting the staff personally. “I like seeing them and they like seeing me,” he says. “The housekeepers, the cooks, the managers—it’s like family.” The affable and dapper 84-year-old earned his psychology degree from the University of Miami on the G.I. Bill. In addition to serving as a civilian aide to the secretary of the Army and a newly elected alumni member of the UM Board of Trustees, Saunders is chairman of his family’s rock-star property, a 214-room beaux-arts-style hotel in Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood. The 11-story Lenox Hotel, completed in 1900, was the city’s first guesthouse constructed with an elevator— an invention that ushered in skyscrapers and a new era of luxury accommodations. On April 15, Saunders was in the lobby of the Lenox, just 100 feet from the site of the Boston Marathon bombing. He says the revolving door sustained damage from the crush of people trying to vacate Boylston Street, and he recounts how police, FBI, and ATF personnel made the hotel their headquarters, leaving generous tips for hotel staff upon their departure. But not only did his staff continue reporting to work despite a block-wide quarantine, they donated those gratuities to the One Fund to support families of those injured or killed in the blast. “This is the hospitality business,” he says with a smile. Last year, in a nod to his early rise as a lift operator, Saunders gave a donation to name the Newman Alumni Center’s elevators. —Adriana Grant miami.edu/miami-magazine Summer 2013 MIAMI 39
Class Notes Bradford J. Ames, B.B.A. ’07, formerly of Goldman, Sachs & Co., is the CFO for Banyan Finance in Delray Beach, Florida, which helps to fund medical services for the underinsured and uninsured. Sara (Mow) Gallo, B.S. ’07, and Michael T. Gallo, B.S.E.E. ’06, were married in Connecticut in 2011, in the wake of a record-setting winter storm and power outage. They reside in Hill, Connecticut. Michael is operations manager for EPS Inc., an electrical power systems contractor, and Sara is a physician assistant in family medicine at Middlesex Hospital Primary Care—Cromwell. Monique Faggans, B.Arch. ’07, released her debut album, Limitless, as part of The Sounds of Zamar gospel ensemble. Alix Paige, B.F.A. ’08, is a New York City-based performer who recently appeared in her own
cabaret show, A Paige on Men: Songs of Love, Lust, and Loss and in Man of La Mancha with Terrence Mann at Connecticut Repertory Theatre. She belongs to the USO Liberty Belles, who perform internationally for veterans and active-duty military. She and her boyfriend Dodd live with their rescue Shih-Tzu Maybel. Ashley (Davidson) Rodriguez, B.S.C. ’08, is an account manager at Fish Consulting in Hollywood, Florida. Monica F. Valdes, B.S.C. ’08, works in Alternative Series and Late Night Programming for ABC Entertainment Group. She supports the head of the department on all upcoming and current reality series, and has been the Dancing with the Stars point-person for the past five seasons. Four years ago she was accepted into the ABC Studios Production Associates Program. A native of Miami, Valdes lives in Los Angeles. Darryl Sharpton, B.B.A. ’09,
a linebacker for the Houston Texans, donated the $2,500 check for charity he received for the “Community Player of the Month Award” from a local Galveston business to his childhood athletics program, the Liberty City Optimist Club.
2010s
Bryan Llenas, B.S.C. ’10, a reporter and multimedia producer for Fox News Latino, covered the 2012 Republican National Convention. He was hired by the New York City-based network in 2010 following an internship through the School of Communication’s NY Experience Program. Ryan Farrell, M.F.A. ’11, was commissioned by Lan & Tam Airlines to create a solo installation during the Art Basel Miami Beach fair in 2012. He is an adjunct instructor at Broward College and the University of Miami.
Marlow Svatek, A.B. ’11, was awarded the Leo Nevas Youth Human Rights Award by the United Nations Association. She is a Peace Corps volunteer in Burkina Faso, with plans to attend University of Chicago Law School next fall. David Farah, B.S.C. ’12, won a SunCoast Emmy in Student Production for Resolution, about the making of the music video for his song of the same name. The video also stars Megan Kinney, B.M. ’12. Farah is pursuing a music career in McLean, Virginia. His first album is Too Dark to Fly. Michael Galea, B.Arch. ’12, and Catherine O’Sullivan, B.Arch. ’12, launched Wee Rock Toy Co., a line of all-natural rocking toys. Christopher Perez, B.S.H.S. ’12, and Mayra Perez married on December 8, 2012, in Key West. Their wedding colors were orange and green.
Build Your
Hurricane Heritage Make a UM education part of your family tradition
There’s no greater expression of Hurricane pride than when alumni show interest in sending their children and grandchildren to the U. The UM Alumni Association returns the favor by offering these information sessions exclusively for legacy applicants during Alumni Weekend and Homecoming. Undergraduate Legacy Admission Forum
Graduate Legacy Admission Forum
Friday, November 8, 2013 2 p.m. (campus walking tour begins at 1 p.m.)
Friday, November 8, 2013 4 p.m.
Storer Auditorium School of Business Administration 5250 University Drive Coral Gables, Florida
Storer Auditorium School of Business Administration 5250 University Drive Coral Gables, Florida
RSVP by October 31, 2013 to alumni@miami.edu, 305-284-2872, or miami.edu/alumniweekend.
40 MIAMI Summer 2013 miami.edu/miami-magazine
In Memoriam* Harold Lewis Dorn, A.B. ’40 William W. Arden Sr., B.B.A. ’48 Donald F. Gardner, B.B.A. ’48 Paula Alterman Kaplan, A.B. ’48 Carl H. Rolnick, B.B.A. ’48 Carl W. Rose, B.B.A. ’48, J.D. ’51 George A. Winner, B.B.A. ’48 Carl M. Bresko, B.S. ’49 Betty Berke Kravitz, A.B. ’49 Tobe R. Levy, A.B. ’49 Robert L. Bloomberg, J.D. ’50 Jack Lloyd Brasington Sr., B.B.A. ’50 Vitie A. Drake, B.B.A. ’50 Fred Gold, B.B.A. ’50 Leona S. Goldweber, B.Ed. ’50, M.Ed. ’55 Arthur J. Levin, B.B.A. ’50 Gerald Harvey Olin, B.B.A. ’50 Joseph R. Pace, B.M. ’50 James R. Parker, B.S.M.E. ’50, B.S.E.E. ’50 Reason P. Tomberlin Jr., B.S.E.S. ’50, B.S.M.E. ’50 Bobby E. William, J.D. ’50 Frederick J. Zacharias, B.B.A. ’50, J.D. ’55 Joseph F. Carbone, B.S. ’51 Roland L. Gleason, B.B.A. ’51 Thomas M. Hamilton, A.B. ’51 Dominick J. Nunziato, B.S.I.E. ’51 Irene Redstone, J.D. ’51 Clifford B. Selwood Jr., J.D. ’51 Robert V. Wolfe, J.D. ’51
Sidney Lee Gilman, A.B. ’52 Robert B. Swidler, B.B.A. ’52, J.D. ’55 Creigh W. Taylor Jr., B.B.A. ’52 Robert Jarrett Wells, B.M. ’52 Robert Rice Collins, B.B.A. ’53 William Dale Hadley, B.B.A. ’53 Burton R. Levey, A.B. ’53, J.D. ’55 Ernest William Rodrigues, B.S.I.E. ’53 Esther Romanoff Kazer, M.Ed. ’54 Neil Robert Levin, B.B.A. ’54 Joeline W. L. McClister, B.S. ’54 John F. McGee Jr., A.B. ’54 James T. Carson, B.B.A. ’55 Marvin King, B.B.A. ’55 Harvey L. Lerer, B.B.A. ’55 George Von Hilsheimer, A.B. ’55 Harold Bruce Dinberg, A.B. ’56 William Wayne Ketch, B.B.A. ’56 Johnnie White Taylor, A.B. ’56 Roland E. Washburn, B.B.A. ’56 Robert Samuel Wilson, B.M. ’56 David Richard Wise, B.B.A. ’56 Paul Lyon Day, B.B.A. ’57 Sarah Ann Kline, A.B. ’57 John A. Renner, B.Arch. ’57 David Lloyd Wood, B.S.M.E. ’57 Steven M. Brociner, B.B.A. ’58 Kay Chilcutt Gunter, A.B. ’58 Frank M. Schachner, B.Ed. ’58 Samuel Sokol, B.S.E.E. ’58 Robert G. Bennett, B.B.A. ’58, J.D. ’63
Helped Pick U Colors Faye Weintraub Simon, A.B. ’29, the youngest of eight children, was born and raised in Waynesboro, Georgia. She transferred to the University of Miami in 1926, becoming one of the first ’Canes. Relatives say she paid her way through school by grading papers for UM’s first president, Bowman Foster Ashe. She also has been credited with helping select the school colors of orange and green. After graduating in 1929, she taught high school in Miami Beach and Miami for 30 years before serving nine years as a school administrator. She died on August 25, 2012 at the age of 103.
Principal Set Tone of Excellence Rosann P. Sidener, B.M. ’78, M.M. ’87, was passionate about music and education. As principal of Miami Beach Senior High since 2007, she knew almost all 2,400 of her students by name. And they knew her as “Doc.” After earning music degrees at the University of Miami, Sidener, who married longtime Frost School of Music faculty Whit Sidener in 1983, earned her doctorate in education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Within four years of joining Beach High, she helped raise the school’s academic performance from a “D” to an “A” rating and its graduation rate from 63 to 75 percent. She oversaw the school’s massive physical renovation and introduced a new culture of achievement through the International Baccalaureate School and Scholars Academy; she even implemented student uniforms—all while earning the respect of students, colleagues, and community members. In 2012 a bus lane at her school was named Rosann Sidener Way, and the Florida Association of School Administrators selected her 2012 Florida Principal of the Year. Sidener began her teaching career in Miami-Dade County in 1977. She died on April 15, two years after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer. A celebration of her life was held on campus in June, following her husband’s retirement.
Martin J. Nash B.B.A. ’58, J.D. ’61 Maurice Randal Cain, B.S.M.E. ’59 Rudolph Vincent Cantarini, B.S.C.E. ’59 Donald E. Godette, B.B.A. ’59 James E. Shively, B.B.A. ’59 Mildred McKnight Vaughan, B.S.N. ’59 Mr. John A.H. White, B.B.A. ’59 William P. Seemann, B.B.A. ’60 Michael J. Osman, B.B.A. ’60, J.D. ’63 Edward C. Sawyer, A.B. ’60, J.D. ’66 Arden M. Siegendorf, B.B.A. ’60, J.D. ’63 William James Doerer, B.B.A. ’61 Camelia G. Eisenhart, M.Ed. ’61 Melvin F. Frankel, A.B. ’61, J.D. ’64 Kenneth Delano Hoff, B.B.A. ’61
Joseph N. Loglisci, B.B.A. ’61 John J. Santell Jr., A.B. ’61 Robert J. Staal, J.D. ’61 John F. Chagnon, A.B. ’62 Alfred Bradford Hale, M.B.A. ’62 William Richard Hynes, B.B.A. ’62 Gary Brand Rovin, A.B. ’62, J.D. ’65 Roger Gene Heim, A.B. ’63 Philip K. Shankweiler, B.M. ’63 William C. Sherrill, B.B.A. ’63 Charles L. Holiber, B.B.A. ’64 Joseph A. Miklasz, B.B.A. ’64 Enrique Jose Salas, B.B.A. ’64 Grant F. Spinner, B.B.A. ’64 Arwyn Diane Kelly, A.B. ’65 William J. Wermeling, B.B.A. ’65 Peter J. Fisher, A.B. ’66 William P. Harris Jr., J.D. ’66 Rodrigo Jurado, M.D. ’66 Siomara Savio Balmori, B.Ed. ’67
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In Memoriam
Cuba’s Chronicler in Exile Cuban exile, celebrated historian, and father of a U.S. congresswoman, Enrique Ros, B.B.A. ’69, was born Enrique Emilio Ros y Perez in Cienfuegos, Cuba. He became one of the leaders of the fight against Fidel Castro in 1959 and 1960 as a coordinator of the Christian Democratic Movement. He soon escaped to Miami and through his 19 books chronicled the anti-Castro movement as well as the lives of Cuban-Americans and exiles alike. His daughter, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Ed.D. ’04, was the first Cuban-American and the first Hispanic woman elected to the U.S. Congress. Ros was working on his 20th book, about Cuban independence hero Antonio Maceo, when he passed away on April 10 of respiratory complications. He was 89.
Frances M. Kaufman, B.S.N. ’67 Martha T. Moor, B.Ed. ’67 Norma Hamilton Schmidt, A.B. ’67 Martin Edward Zweig, M.B.A. ’67 Rose Roseman Jacobson, B.Ed. ’68
Michael E. Lubin, B.B.A. ’68 Dolores Lamanna Magure, B.Ed. ’68 Richard William Smith, B.S. ’68 James Robert Triay, B.Ed. ’68 Earl Deigaard Brown, B.S.E.E. ’69 Carol Forbes Oare, B.B.A. ’69
Make a Note of It. Send Us Your News. Enjoy reading about your classmates in Class Notes? Share some news about yourself in a future issue of Miami magazine. Complete this form and return it to:
Donald Joseph Patrican, A.B. ’69 Enrique E. Ros, B.B.A. ’69 Etta Silkes Rossi, A.B. ’69 A. Matthew Miller, B.B.A. ’70 Jeffrey Michael Schaffer, A.B. ’70 General J. “G.J.” Wheeler, Ed.D. ’70 James W. Brotherton, B.Arch. ’71 David Robert Guskind, B.Ed. ’71 Frederick Moses Schrock, J.D. ’71 Clemente Vazquez-Bello, A.B. ’71, J.D. ’74 Ruth P. Beiler, M.Ed. ’72 Ronald Stephen Chassner, B.S. ’72, M.D. ’76 James Edwin Foster, J.D. ’72 Lauren Sue Frisbee, B.Ed. ’72 Millicent B. Rogers, M.Ed. ’72 Warren Charles Siddall, B.B.A. ’72 Daniel D. Fragnito, B.B.A. ’73 Charles Joseph Krtausch, B.B.A. ’73 Paul T. Whitfield, B.B.A. ’73 Patricia Hochwalt Wynne, M.Ed. ’73 Richard F. Hayes, J.D. ’74 Joseph B. Kyle Jr., M.Ed. ’74 Mitchell Reid Bloomberg, J.D. ’75 Marvin H. Coffee Sr., M.Ed. ’75
Richard S. Taylor Jr., J.D. ’76 Teresa A. Pellino, B.S.N. ’77 Rosann Powell Sidener, B.M. ’78, M.M. ’87 Ricardo A. Guggenheim, B.S. ’81, M.D. ’85 Gordon D. Kinder III, J.D. ’82 James V. Thompkins, A.B. ’82 George F. Johnson, M.P.A. ’83 Jim D. Zollo, B.B.A. ’87 Norman L. Burrows, M.B.A. ’88 C. Everett Koop, D.H.L. ’91 Jeffrey Lance Fruman, B.B.A. ’92 Rachel Steamer, A.B. ’94 Stephen S. Tantama, B.S. ’98, M.D. ’01 Carol Ann Kennedy, B.B.A. ’99 Bernarda Strauss, M.D. ’00 Laura Legra, B.S.C. ’04 Xavier Alonzo Warnell, M.A. ’06 Jillian Blyth Miller, B.S.N. ’07 Jordan Liebhaber, B.S.Ed. ’08 *As of May 26, 2013 We diligently research each name in the “In Memoriam” section. If you spot an error, please notify us so we can correct our records.
Name/Degree/Year Graduated
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Class Notes Miami magazine University of Miami Post Office Box 248053 Coral Gables, Florida 33124 Or submit online at miamialumni.net or via email: alumni@miami.edu
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DateBook
ALUMNI EVENT INFORMATION 305-284-2872 OR 1-866-UMALUMS SPORTS TICKETS 305-284-CANES OR 1-800-GO-CANES MIAMI.EDU/ALUMNI *For complete Hurricane sports schedules, visit hurricanesports.com Events are on the Coral Gables campus unless otherwise noted
Unknown Artist, “Mola,” on view in ArtLab @ The Lowe
SEPTEMBER
Through February 9, 2014 Lowe Art
19 President Shalala Impact of U
Museum Terrestrial
AUGUST Through August Summer
Through April 27, 2014 Lowe Art Museum ArtLab @
Ring Theatre Cloud 9 28 Football UM vs. University
Through October 13 Lowe
20 Eighth Annual Alumni Legacy
Art Museum Pan American
Reception 30 Football Florida Atlantic
ALUMNI LEADERSHIP Board of Directors Executive Committee
John Calles, A.B. ’89, J.D. ’92, President Dany Garcia, B.B.A. ’92, Immediate Past President Brenda K. Yester, B.B.A. ’90, President-elect Devang B. Desai, A.B. ’97, J.D. ’03, Vice President Victoria Corrigan Fine, B.S. ’80, M.B.A. ’81, Vice President Frank Jimenez, B.S. ’87, Vice President Oti Roberts, B.B.A. ’03, Vice President Linda Steckley, M.B.A. ’87, Vice President Donna A. Arbide, M.B.A. ’95, Executive Director
Alumni Trustees
T. Kendall “Ken” Hunt, B.B.A ’65 William Koenigsberg, B.B.A. ’77 Roger Saunders, A.B. ’51
Regional Directors
Guillermo de Aranzabal Agudo, M.B.A. ’84 Robert Cohen, B.B.A. ’84 Larry King, Jr., A.B. ’83, M.B.A. ’93 Kourtney Ratliff, B.B.A. ’03 Alex C. Rodriguez, B.B.A. ’86 Erica Zohar, A.B. ’92
Directors
Taghreed Al-Saraj, B.F.A. ’00, M.S.Ed. ’01 Teresita I. Blanca, B.B.A. ’82, M.B.A. ’83 Suzanne M. Block, A.B. ’81 James J. Blosser, B.B.A. ’60, J.D. ’65 Victoria A. Colon, M.B.A. ’98
University vs. UM, Sun Life Stadium, Miami Gardens, Florida*
Santiago Corrada, A.B. 86, M.S.Ed. ’91 Jorge Duyos, B.S.I.E. ’85, M.S.I.E. ’88 Martin J. Ganderson, B.B.A. ’73 Cynthia Hudson, A.B. ’84, M.A. ’97 Camilo Lopez III, M.B.A. ’82 Noelia Moreno, B.B.A. ’86, J.D. ’89 John Pittaluga, B.S.M.E. ’83 Andrew F. Potter, M.B.A. ’04 Winston Warrior, B.B.A. ’93, M.B.A. ’96
Faculty Representatives
Robert F. Moore, Associate Chair, Department of Teaching and Learning Richard Williamson, Chair, Faculty Senate
Student Representatives Bhumi Patel
Alumni Network Clubs
Tour Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 21 Football Savannah State vs. UM, Sun Life Stadium, Miami Gardens, Florida
locations around United States
Modernism: Avant-Garde Art in Latin America and the United States
vs. UM, Sun Life Stadium, Miami Gardens, Florida
Paradises: Imagery from the Voyages of Captain James Cook
The Lowe—From Ancient Art to Modern Molas: Recurring Themes in Indigenous Panamá
Sendoffs Various dates and
7 Football University of Florida
Atlanta Jane Snecinski, B.M. ’74, M.B.A. ’82, janeski30@hotmail.com Austin Lori Luza, B.B.A. ’94, M.S.Ed. ’95, lori@texasbluelime.com Boston Ryan Magee, B.S.B.E. ’08, rpmcane@gmail.com Broward Jason Haber, A.B. ’03, haber.jason@gmail.com Chicago David Panitch, B.B.A. ’80, david@rtg-inc.com Cincinnati Karin Johnson, B.S.C. ’08, karinj13@aol.com Cleveland Diego Perilla, B.S. ’06, M.P.A. ’10, diegoperilla002@gmail.com Dallas TBD Denver John Victor, B.B.A. ’06, td4j@aol.com Detroit Shannon Bartlett, B.S.B.A. ’12, s.bartlett4@umiami.edu Houston Michael Williams, B.B.A.
25 to October 5 Jerry Herman
of South Florida, Tampa, Florida
30 Alumni Board of Directors
Meeting New York City
4-6 Family Weekend 2013 5 UM Advancement Pregame
Celebration Sun Life Stadium, Miami Gardens, Florida 5 Football Georgia Tech vs. UM, Sun Life Stadium, Miami Gardens, Florida
10-27 Jerry Herman Ring Theatre Metamorphoses 17 Football UM vs. North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
22 President Shalala Impact of U
Tour Chicago, Illinois 25 Miller School of Medicine Parents Council Meeting Miami, Florida
OCTOBER 4 Parents Council Meeting 4 President’s Council Meeting 4-November 1 Festival Miami,
November 7-10 Alumni Weekend and
Homecoming
Frost School of Music
’01, michael.williams@aig.com Indianapolis Jordan Miller, B.S. ’07, jordymiller@gmail.com Jacksonville Merissa Amkraut, B.M. ’02, merissaum@aol.com Las Vegas Hal Moskowitz, B.B.A. ’69, vegashal@yahoo.com London Zaviear Lue, B.B.A. ’06, mszlue@gmail.com, and Gustavo Pifano, B.B.A. ’08, g.pifano@ gmail.com Los Angeles Chad Fisher, A.B. ’00, canesinsocal@gmail.com Louisville Michael Friedman, B.B.A. ’74, mfriedman@sustainablemgt.com Nashville Mark Block, B.S.C. ’99, theblockagency@yahoo.com New Jersey Michael Solomon, B.B.A ’98, J.D. ’01, solomon.michael@ gmail.com New York Asgar Ali, B.B.A. ’05, asgaraali@gmail.com Orlando Roger Jeffery, B.S.C.E. ’76, rogerlynnjeffery@aol.com Palm Beach Matthew Kamula, A.B. ’86, J.D. ’89, mkamula@kamulalawgroup.com Philadelphia Richard Month, B.S. ’03, M.D. ’06, rcmonth@gmail.com Phoenix Kathleen George, J.D. ’88, Kathleen_m_george@yahoo.com Portland Iraida Babilonia Hermann, B.B.A ’08, ibhermann@yahoo.com Richmond Matt Roberts, M.M. ’97, mroberts@poolemahoney.com San Diego James Mullaly, B.S.B.E. ’07, james.mullaly@gmail.com San Francisco TBD Sarasota Chris Clayton, B.S.C. ’94, cclayton12@aol.com Savannah Tom Farnkoff, B.B.A. ’69, farneey1946@hargray.com Seattle Christian Hasenoehrl, M.S. ’95, M.B.A. ’95, seattlecanes@gmail.com Southwest Florida Molly Caldaro, A.B. ’05, m.mcguire@umiami.edu
More at miami.edu/calendar
CALL FOR NOMINATIONS To nominate an alumnus for the UM Alumni Association’s Board of Directors, complete the online form at miami.edu/alumni/ umaa/board/nominationform.htm. For more information, contact Erica Arroyo, B.S.C. ’03, M.A.L.S. ’08, senior director, Alumni Programs, at 305-284-1724 or earroyo@miami.edu. St. Louis Nick Turner, B.B.A. ’12, nt@dpmunited.com Tampa TBD Washington, D.C. Donald Wine II, J.D. ’07, president@dccanes.com
Special Interest Groups
Black Alumni Society Vanessa Lerouge, B.S.C. ’03, v.lerouge@umiami.edu Band of the Hour Joseph E. Bagierek, B.M. ’03, M.B.A. ’07, jbagierek@gmail.com Public Health Alumni Association TBD, President TBD, President-Elect UM Sports Hall of Fame K.C. Jones, ’97, jonesest@msn.com
Schools and Colleges Groups
College of Engineering Alfonso D. Dager, B.S.C.P.E. ’07, alfonsodager@gmail.com, and Tamara Ali, B.S.I.E. ’04, M.B.A. ’06, M.S.I.E. ’09, t.ali@umiami.edu School of Law Jaret L. Davis, A.B. ’96, J.D. ’99, davisj@gtlaw.com, and Patricia A. Redmond, A.B. ’75, J.D.’79, predmond@stearnsweaver.com
Miller School of Medicine Jeffrey S. Block, M.D. ’82, docblock@bellsouth.net School of Nursing & Health Studies Jennifer A. Lopez, B.S.N. ’09, Jalopez86@gmail.com, and Sonique Sailsman, B.S.N. ’00, ssailsma@hotmail.com Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science Erica Towle, B.S.M.A.S. ’10, etowle@rsmas.miami.edu Alumni records of the University of Miami are kept strictly confidential. Directory information is released only to other members of the alumni community unless an alumnus or alumna has requested complete privacy. On a very limited occasion and only at the approval of the UM Alumni Association Board of Directors, directory information is shared with outside vendors who are in a joint relationship with the University. Should you not wish to release your name to any outside vendor and/or other members of the UM alumni community, please notify the Office of Alumni Relations in writing at P.O. Box 248053, Coral Gables, Florida 33124-3410.
miami.edu/miami-magazine Summer 2013 MIAMI 43
Big Picture A SNAPSHOT OF THE U TODAY
The Next Stage
ANDREW INNERARITY
UM President Donna E. Shalala and her buddy, Sebastian the Ibis, lead thousands of Spring 2013 graduates in a rousing ’Canes spell-out cheer.
44 MIAMI Summer 2013 miami.edu/miami-magazine
As a member of the University of Miami community, you’re a rock star whose noteworthy talents have propelled the U to the top of the charts. Join us as we celebrate your place in history at Alumni Weekend and Homecoming 2013! THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 9
✪
✪
eunion Celebration for the R Class of 1963 ✪H omecoming Concert FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8
udrey R. Finkelstein A UM Experience ✪C ampus Walking Tours ✪L egacy Admission Forums ✪ R eunion Celebrations for the Classes of 1988 and 2003 ✪ Hurricane Howl ✪A lumni Avenue ✪
FOR MORE INFORMATION, CALL US AT 1-866-UMALUMS OR 305-284-2872, EMAIL ALUMNIWEEKEND@MIAMI.EDU, OR VISIT MIAMI.EDU/ALUMNIWEEKEND.
M Alumni Association Pregame U Celebration ✪H omecoming Game: Virginia Tech University vs. University of Miami SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 10
7th Annual Golden Ibis Society 3 Celebration Brunch (Special Induction of the Classes of 1962 and 1963) ✪S tudent Activities Center Tours ✪
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1cane UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI
It’s cool to be a ’Cane, so why not flash the U wherever you go! The new University of Miami license plate, available in early 2014 at any Florida tag agency for just $25 above the cost of a regular plate, prides your ride while helping to fund scholarships for UM students. The only requirement is that you must be a Florida resident with a vehicle registered in the state.
Get the new University of Miami license plate! www.miami.edu/alumni