F A C U LT Y C A N O N
EDUARDO HERNANDEZ (BA, economics, ’92) cofounded EigenRisk, a technology company specializing in catastrophe and climate change risk analytics and modeling.
From Fishponds to a Nobel
Arieh Warshel intertwines personal life stories with major milestones in Israeli history and his scientific journey to the Nobel Prize.
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GOING REMOTE: HOW THE FLEXIBLE WORK ECONOMY CAN IMPROVE OUR LIVES AND OUR CITIES University of California Press / Matthew Kahn, Provost Professor of Economics and Spatial Sciences, takes readers on a journey through the new remotework economy, revealing how people will configure their lives when they have more freedom to choose where they work and how they live. Kahn explores how the rise of telecommuting will affect workers’ quality of life, companies’ profitability and the economic geography of our cities and suburbs.
ROBERTO LARIOS (BA, Spanish, ’97) was appointed chief executive officer of the Employees Club of California, the third CEO in the organization’s 93-year history. STEPHANIE SYLVESTRE (BA, international relations, ’93) was accepted into Harvard University’s Advanced Leadership Initiative.
2000s
MEGHAN GRAY (BS, geological sciences, ’07) was promoted to the rank of commander in the U.S. Navy in September 2021 and assigned to the USS Charleston. She previously served 14 years in the U.S. Navy as a surface warfare officer.
2010s
KAMERYN CRAIG (BA, sociology, ’10), an Olympic gold and silver medalist in water polo, was recognized by the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors during Dyslexia Awareness Month.
H.D. & BRYHER: AN UNTOLD LOVE STORY OF MODERNISM Oxford University Press / Susan McCabe, professor of English, explores the connection between two queer women, one a poet and the other a historical novelist, living from the late 19th century through the 20th century, who pioneered gender fluidity long before anyone was familiar with the term. The book exposes why literary history has occluded this love story of the world wars and poetic modernism.
JILLIAN (KOVLER) SKINNER (BA, philosophy, politics and law, ’15) joined Dean Mead Orlando as an associate practicing in business litigation and labor and employment law.
Marriages
TERESA CHENG (BA, political science, ’09) and JOEL ULLOA (BA, environmental studies, ’09; BS, public policy, management and planning, ’09) married in July 2021.
In Memoriam
MITCHELL ANDREJICH (BA, sociology, ’09) of Los Angeles, CA (1/23/22) at age 36; worked for
PHOTO COURTESY OF USC UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES
Not many Nobel laureates were born in a kibbutz and spent time there working the fishponds. But that’s what a young Arieh Warshel did in Kibbutz Sde Nahum in Israel. While there, he began exploring the technical world by constructing hot air balloons and parachutes. That early interest eventually took Warshel to the pinnacle in the field of chemistry. Warshel shares many personal recollections, as well as his research, in his autobiography, From Kibbutz Fishponds to The Nobel Prize: Taking Molecular Functions into Cyberspace (World Scientific Publishing, 2021). Warshel, 81, Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, Biochemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, and Quantitative and Computational Biology, and Dana and David Dornsife Chair in Chemistry, received the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2013, together with Michael Levitt and Martin Karplus, for pioneering work in computational modeling of biological molecules. Warshel’s leading-edge research led to the development of new pharmaceuticals, among other breakthroughs. Using computers, he created methods and programs that describe the action of biological molecules by “multiscale models.” Winning the Nobel Prize remains the highlight of his storied career. “It was unbelievable — really exciting,” says Warshel. However, his work at USC Dornsife’s Warshel Center for Multiscale Simulations continues to break ground. For example, his team identified variants of COVID-19 — including the omicron variant, a month or so before it emerged. In April 2017, he opened the Warshel Institute for Computational Biology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong campus in Shenzhen, China. There, he plans to build one of the world’s most advanced computational biology centers. Warshel’s autobiography also recounts his struggles. “I never wrote an important paper that was not rejected first,” he says. “And I’m perhaps the only Nobel laureate whose paper that led to the Nobel Prize was discussed in a promotion process when I was denied tenure.” That denial, from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, where Warshel earned his master’s and doctorate in chemical physics, led him to join USC Dornsife in 1976. He’s been here ever since. —G.H.
1990s
