Trojan Family Magazine Spring 2013 by University of Southern California

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uscTrojan SPRING 2013

F A M I L Y

HEALTH

ENSURED HOW AFFORDABLE IS THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT?

Where

Trojan Tradition meets Latino Culture Be part of their success. Contribute to the legacy. Join us today in The Campaign for USC.

USC Latino Alumni Association Gabriela Martinez (B.S. Business Administration ’11) and Alexandra Ruelas (B.A. Neuroscience ’10, Master of Arts in Teaching ’11)

Get involved. Call us at (213) 740-4735.

latinoalumni@usc.edu  www.usc.edu/latinoalumni

inside [ FEATURES ]

Planet Without Apes

Health Ensured

My Room, My USC

Back in the Game

By Robert Perkins

By Suzanne Wu

By Alicia Di Rado

By Robin Heffler

Great apes are plummeting toward extinction in our lifetimes.

Efficiencies are critical to the success of the Affordable Care Act.

Take a peek into the personal space of three USC frosh.

The doctors who treat Trojan athletes help weekend warriors, too.

13 Passion for Paperbacks

By Teresa Lara

Piccolo Lewis promotes literacy the best way he knows how: Giving away thousands of books for children.

14 Sibling Success

By Robin Heffler

The Ruiz brothers show that hard work and determination pay off.

30 Academic Activist

By Robin Heffler

Hortensia Amaro fosters research at USC that helps families in disenfranchised areas realize their dreams.

03 President’s Page

09 Campaign for USC

USC’s renowned online education programs blaze a new path while maintaining standards of academic rigor, integrity and quality.

A new tradition draws on a proud past, and a chat with USC Dornsife Dean Steve Kay

05 Media Bytes

News from the USC Alumni Association

USC in the news and the social mediasphere

06 Trojan Beat

37 Family Ties 42 Class Notes Who’s doing what and where

USC Village gets a thumbs up, California’s declining birth rates and online engineering is tops

On the cover: Illustration by Michael Glenwood

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editor's note The quarterly magazine of the University of Southern California

At the Crossroads

EDITOR

Alicia Di Rado SENIOR EDITOR

Diane Krieger MANAGING EDITOR

Mary Modina

ART DIRECTOR

Sheharazad P. Fleming DESIGN AND PRODUCTION

Russell Ono Dongyi Wu

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Flags at the Von KleinSmid Center represent the homelands of all USC students.

I WAS WALKING ACROSS CAMPUS ON A FRIDAY afternoon, deep in thought, when a roar of laughter startled me back to the here and now. Turns out a campus crowd was watching a joint performance by quick-witted actors from USC and Princeton University. Students from two of the universities’ most popular improv comedy troupes were performing together in front of Bovard, and I was lucky enough to stumble upon it. But was it luck, or a sign of the times? When I recently rejoined USC after seven years away from the university — now as editor of USC Trojan Family Magazine — I was quickly struck by the growing, vibrant energy that draws brilliant minds here. USC students from the East Coast and Southwest mingle with classmates from East Asia and South America in our dorms and classrooms; professors hailing from China to Serbia have shared their excitement with me about USC’s creative environment and the achievements possible in LA. At the same time, we’re holding conferences in South Korea, England and beyond. Our alums run successful enterprises around the world. The old city of Troy, a gateway to the Mediterranean, was a crossroads for ideas and cultures that spurred society’s development. Our modern Troy on the Pacific Rim is poised to be the same today. I hope you’ll follow along in the pages of our magazine as it happens.

Allison Engel Robin Heffler Timothy O. Knight Daniel Lacovara Teresa Lara Ross M. Levine Carl Marziali Annette Moore Robert Perkins Christina Schweighofer Lauren Walser Susan L. Wampler Suzanne Wu

ADVERTISING MANAGER

Mary Modina | modina@usc.edu CIRCULATION MANAGER

Vickie Kebler

USC Trojan Family Magazine 3434 South Grand Avenue CAL 140, First Floor Los Angeles, CA 90089-2818 magazines@usc.edu | (213) 740-2684 USC Trojan Family Magazine (ISSN 87507927) is published four times a year, in March, June, September and December, by USC University Communications.

ALICIA DI RADO EDITORIAL DIRECTOR U S C U N I V E R S I T Y C O M M U N I C AT I O N S

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president's page BY C. L. MAX NIKIAS

When we talk about the human community at the core of a great university, an important question quickly arises: What will be the role of technology in teaching? And from this, an even more speciﬁc question follows: Will digital and immersive media make the physical campus obsolete?

P H OTO B Y D I E T M A R Q U I S TO R F

USC President C. L. Max Nikias greets faculty at his annual State of the University address.

Academic leaders have explored these questions in considerable depth — and with impassioned debate. Many claim that online lecture halls will eventually replace traditional universities, and that our present model of a university will undergo even more change. They foresee faculty who reach millions of individuals around the world, with students attending courses at their convenience. Some cheer these changes, while others sound an alarm: Are we seeing the demise of the traditional university? This question will continue to spark heated discussion, but as the future rapidly becomes the present, I want to turn your attention to the model created by USC, a model that we’ve refined over several decades with quiet industry and determination. Indeed, our community has seen tremendous success in the area of online learning. Without question, USC’s faculty has developed a global online graduate education enterprise that blazes a new path and draws on timeless values and timely innovations. It expands educational access broadly, while maintaining our all-important standards of academic rigor, integrity and quality. Consider these numbers: Total annual revenues for online USC professional, graduate and continuing education programs are expected to exceed $100 million this year — a figure that is unprecedented for a top American research university. Today, online education at USC reaches 5,000 remote students through master’s level degree programs and executive education programs. Within the next five years, we expect to double our enrollment and degree offerings. These metrics are impressive and the outside world is taking notice. U.S. News & World Report ranked the USC Viterbi School of Engineering first

in the nation among online graduate engineering programs and online computer information technology programs. These rankings recognize excellence in a range of areas, including peer reputation, student engagement and faculty credentials. In addition, our USC Rossier School of Education and our USC School of Social Work have developed distinguished online graduate programs, thanks to the stellar leadership of their deans. These programs are dynamic and flexible, while meeting very real needs in our society. For example, spouses of military service members are able to pursue quality graduate education in social work, despite the prospect of frequent relocation. While popular with students, these programs have also drawn the attention of trustees and faculty at our peer institutions. They want to study our model and grasp the principles that have guided our growth. We tell them at USC our programs are imaginative and bold. Our faculty has eagerly experimented with models that extend our reach, and yet never compromise the value and quality of a USC degree. We also tell them that USC will not franchise its distinctive undergraduate experience, either online or through satellite campuses abroad. The ages between 17 and 22, which coincide with the traditional undergraduate experience, represent a corridor of transformation where much of a student’s identity and lifelong affiliations are formed. Technology will enhance that experience, but never displace it. USC’s focus, therefore, remains on master’s and graduate programs, along with executive and continuing education. Technology makes distance irrelevant, and students can learn new skills to build their careers while working and living anywhere on the planet. It also allows them to move from obsolete industries to new ones. The world will certainly change, and technology’s place in education will continue to evolve. USC will grow with these changes and adapt with this evolution, but remain firmly rooted in its foundation of excellence. ●

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media bytes FACULTY SOUND BYTES “My vision of the future is that digital medicine will help us live easier, and hopefully it will be harder to die.” LESLIE SA XON — Keck School of Medicine, BBC News (U.K.) bit.ly/digmedicine

“We’re training ourselves to check our messages every couple minutes. People are constantly looking down to check their phones. They can’t stop.” K A R E N N O R T H — USC Annenberg School,

Social Trojans

Asian News International bit.ly/media-desires

USC SWIPES FOR THE HOMELESS ensures that students’ unused dining dollars go to people who need meals. Last fall, the nonprofit organization worked with USC Hospitality to collect more than $21,000 from students who donated their extra dining dollars after the last day of finals. Proceeds provided 2,300 pounds of food for the Los Angeles Mission.

“Every time they put out a new [James] Bond ﬁlm it’s a very delicate dance and could go wrong very easily. You have to make him seem powerful in the world we live in now.” RICHARD JEWELL —

USC School of Cinematic Arts, Los Angeles Times bit.ly/Bondfi lm

FACEBOOK “Yes we can” — L I C I E N “I love you all @ USC stay positive stand strong” — R AY E Z I O N M C C OY

“Many ports on the West Coast are in denial as to their tsunami hazard.” C O S TA S S Y N O L A K I S —

P H OTO B Y D I E T M A R Q U I S TO R F ; T I R E B I T E R P H OTO B Y G I A N N A A R D I T TO

USC Viterbi School,

Tirebiter and friend USC Auxiliary Services’ Gianna Arditto posted a photo of her pooch, Dita, next to famed USC mascot George Tirebiter.

Associated Press bit.ly/tsunami-resistant

“No one said ‘Wow!’ like Huell Howser — everything about California turned him into a kid on Christmas morning.” MARTIN K APLAN —

USC Annenberg School, Los Angeles Times bit.ly/Huell_Howser

For the Record: The photo of the Endeavour (Media Bytes, Winter 2012, p. 5) was taken by Gretchen B. Lees.

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trojan beat

A PLACE IN THE SUN USC architecture students are constructing a “net-zero” solar home on the South Lawn behind Watt Hall. Net-zero means it produces as much energy as it consumes. It also produces no carbon emissions. The Craftsman-style bungalow — featuring louvered exterior walls, an interior “green wall” of plant material and a bathroom with retractable skylights for an outdoor shower — is Team USC’s entry in the 2013 Solar Decathlon, an international competition sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy. The house will travel to Irvine, Calif., in October for judging.

WANTED: CALIFORNIA BABIES A sharp decline in California’s child population, coupled with a tidal wave of retiring baby boomers, threatens the state’s future prosperity, according to a new study by the USC Price School of Public Policy. The economic role of a child born in 2015 will be nearly twice that of a child born in 1985, says USC Price demographer Dowell Myers, the study’s author. Similar demographic upheaval is occurring in New York, Illinois, Michigan and Massachusetts.

Medical Mystery Americans die earlier than people from other high-income democracies, according to a report released by a National Research Council panel of the National Academies. Of the 17 countries examined, the U.S. leads in deaths from all causes. “No single factor can fully explain the health disadvantage we have in the United States,” says Eileen Crimmins, the AARP Chair in Gerontology at the USC Davis School of Gerontology and a member of the 10-person panel that compiled the report. “The problem is not limited to people who are poor or uninsured. Even Americans with health insurance, higher incomes, college education and healthy behaviors — such as not smoking — seem to be sicker than their counterparts in other countries.” American health is poorer than in peer countries at every stage of life — from birth to our senior years.

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FROM WASTE TO WONDER DRUGS

FULL OF FULBRIGHTS

USC chemists have developed a way to transform a useless, ozonedestroying greenhouse gas into chemicals critical to producing lifesaving pharmaceuticals. G. K. Surya Prakash led a USC Dornsife team that included Nobelist George Olah in pinning down the precise conditions needed to coax harmful fluoroform — a waste byproduct of manufacturing nonstick Teflon — into harmless fluorine, which Prakash calls “the kingpin of drug discovery.” The method, now being patented, was described in Science.

USC is among the top 40 research institutions in the country to cultivate Fulbright Student Grant recipients, according to a list compiled by the Fulbright Program, the U.S. government’s flagship international educational exchange program. Eleven current or recently graduated Trojans are fellows during the 2012-13 year. These “Fulbrighters” are pursuing independent study, conducting research or teaching in Brazil, Bulgaria, Israel, Korea, Mexico, the Philippines, South Africa and Spain.

Philanthropist Glorya Kaufman has been elected to the USC Board of Trustees.

USC Viterbi professor Solomon Golomb received the National Medal of Science Feb. 1 from President Barack Obama.

BEST ONLINE ENGINEERING The USC Viterbi School of Engineering garnered the No. 1 slot in two categories in the latest U.S. News & World Report rankings. The school received top honors in the Online Graduate Engineering Programs and Online Computer Information Technology Programs (computer science) rankings. The Distance Education Network at USC Viterbi, one of the first of its kind, offers more than 40 online engineering master’s degrees, graduate certificates and continuing education programs to students around the world.

Campaign Progress

USC Village Gets Go-ahead The Los Angeles City Council unanimously approved a major urban revitalization project in December, clearing the way for redevelopment of large parcels of university-owned land over the next 20 years. When completed, USC Village will feature a full-service grocery store, shops and restaurants, space for farmers’ markets, festivals and outdoor concerts, and housing for up to 3,000 students. USC Village is expected to return $1.1 billion in economic impact, bringing new businesses and 12,000 jobs — 8,000 of them permanent — to the neighborhood. “I am enormously proud to be part of a university that will bring thousands of good jobs, badly needed shops and restaurants, and a new center of community life to our neighborhood,” says Thomas S. Sayles, senior vice president for USC University Relations. More than 800 community members filled the Los Angeles City Hall council chambers and rotunda to show their support when the council gave its go-ahead.

The $6 billion Campaign for USC depends on the fundraising initiatives of USC schools and academic units. Already launched are eﬀorts by the Keck School of Medicine of USC, the Ostrow School of Dentistry of USC, the USC Athletic Department, the Division of Biokinesiology and Physical Therapy, the USC Price School of Public Policy, the USC Thornton School of Music and the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. Three more schools will launch initiatives this spring. USC Marshall School of Business USC Leventhal School of Accounting March 28 Goal: $400 million USC Viterbi School of Engineering April 25 Goal: $500 million USC School of Pharmacy June 4 Goal: $100 million

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Give today. It doesn’t matter what year you were born or what year you graduated from USC. We all share a love for cardinal and gold. Participate today. Tat’s how families thrive! https://giveto.usc.edu

the campaign for the University of Southern California FA S R E G N A T R O J A E

Please call or make a gift online: USC Oﬃce of Annual Giving (213) 740-7500 Toll Free: 877 GIVE USC https://giveto.usc.edu

[ AN ENDURING LEGACY ]

A New Tradition with a Proud Past The Widney Society recognizes the generosity that drives the Campaign for the University of Southern California.

THEY COME TOGETHER IN THE SPIRIT OF

principal USC founder Judge Robert Maclay Widney, their devotion to USC ensuring the future of the university and its role in California and the world. Now these USC donors and supporters have a name that suits their heritage: the Widney Society. Te Widney Society honors USC benefactors who’ve given or pledged $1 million or more to the university, and its members officially met for the first time in November 2012. Te society underscores the importance of major donors to the $6 billion Campaign for the University of Southern California, USC’s largest and most ambitious fundraising effort to date. Held outside Widney Alumni House, the university’s original building, the inaugural gala brought together some 350 Widney Society members and guests. Te program celebrated the five attributes of the ideal Trojan — faithful, scholarly, skillful, courageous and ambitious — as inscribed on the Trojan Shrine. ●

1 Mrs. Niki C. Nikias, USC President C. L. Max Nikias, Eva Hsieh, Trustee Ming Hsieh, Gail Garner Roski and Board of Trustees Chairman Edward P. Roski Jr. 2 The Widney Alumni House is lit for the gala. 3 Alice Schoenfeld continues her generous support both as a donor and faculty member. 4 Trustee Rick Caruso shows his Trojan spirit. 5 Longtime Trojan backer Herbert Nootbar, a USC great-grandfather, gives his stamp of approval. Photos by Steve Cohn and Dietmar Quistorf

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Steve Kay became the 21st dean of the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences in 2012. An acclaimed biologist, Kay also has an entrepreneurial side: He’s founded several biotechnology companies. He recently talked with USC Trojan Family Magazine about his new role and USC Dornsife’s future.

Why come to USC? The president and the provost are really building a new kind of university. It’s a university with a fire in its belly. They understand that the classical silos of academia no longer best serve the interests of a university that’s going to have a huge impact on the world. But perhaps the clincher was when I came to visit and sat down in the Tutor Center and started talking with our vibrant and dynamic students. What are you most excited about in your role as dean? It’s the fact that we have so much ability to effect change in society. We can effect that change in three fantastic ways — through the creation of knowledge, the transmission of knowledge and the translation of that knowledge for public benefit. Whether it’s in history, economics or chemistry, we are developing a major footprint among the world’s elite universities. What really excites me is this mixture of a liberal arts ethos within the context of a major research university, an engine for discovery. What are your top priorities for USC Dornsife’s $750 million fundraising initiative, recently launched as part of the $6 billion Campaign for the University of Southern California? It is incredibly visionary of the president to understand that, for us to be a world-renowned institution, we need

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Building Knowledge That Matters foundational fiscal resources. Dana and David Dornsife’s transformational gift was the first step into the future for this college. Our initiative aims to magnify the impact of their initial gift. Where USC Dornsife is going to play a real role in the future is in large-scale programs that will enable the university to be a leader in emerging areas of scholarship. Those areas are interdisciplinary by nature, and they encompass things like quantitative biology, which is going to be a foundation for modern medicine. They encompass new ways to approach the social sciences so that we can understand economics and policy and the decision-making that occurs in healthy, viable societies. We need to support the humanities, because the humanities bring so much into context. How can classical book learning be combined with technology to help us understand what it means to be human? In addition, for USC to move forward as an elite university we need to significantly strengthen our PhD programs. This is often misinterpreted as just training the next generation of college professors, but it’s more than that. It’s about ensuring a vibrant research enterprise that keeps America competitive. What is your vision for USC Dornsife over the next five years? I want to know that USC Dornsife will have had a positive impact on the world, whether it’s contributing to solutions for climate change, finding the next cancer cure or helping place the human endeavor in the rich context of the history of literature and culture. I want us to be recognized as the leading institution on the Pacific Rim for the creation and transmission of knowledge. And I’d love nothing more than to stop a student on Childs Way and ask, “Why did you come to USC?” And for that student to say, “I came to USC because that’s where USC Dornsife is.” ●

P H OTO B Y M A X S . G E R B E R

STEVE KAY:

“Whether it’s in history, economics or chemistry, we are developing a major footprint among the world’s elite universities.”

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[ ONE FOR THE BOOKS ]

A PASSION FOR POETRY PROSE AND PAPERBACKS BY TERESA LARA

Piccolo Lewis donates more than nine tons of books to encourage young readers. DON’T ASK PICCOLO Lewis how many books he’s given away in his lifetime. He’s only recently started counting, but the number is probably in the hundreds of thousands. Lewis is an entrepreneur. A community leader. An education advocate. And when it comes to books, he’s also a philanthropist. He’s the Piccolo behind Piccolo’s Books and the One Dollar Bookstore, with locations sprinkled around Southern California. Piccolo’s Books recently donated 25,000 books for South Los Angeles and Boyle Heights elementary schools through USC’s Civic Engagement Book Drive, in partnership with the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. Books will ﬁll new classroom libraries and promote reading in the USC Family of Schools. A man of faith and believer in goodwill,

Lewis made savvy investments that today enable him to run his bookstores almost as a charity. His mission: aﬀordable literacy. “Oftentimes classroom libraries are the ﬁrst to be cut,” Lewis says. “We’re happy to do what we can to supplement knowledge libraries.” He’s donated to communities as far away as Kenya and Ghana. His generous donation means the book drive might be able to stock home libraries for hundreds of families, too, building a culture of learning. Te book drive runs until mid-to-late April. Last year, more than 8,000 new and gently used children’s books were donated and dispersed to the USC Family of Schools. More books are always needed. Te drive runs in conjunction with the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, which

is sponsored and hosted by USC. Te April 20-21 event will feature live entertainment, arts and talks, all aimed at bringing together people who create books and people who love to read them. Lewis is one of those book lovers. When asked why he donated the books to USC’s drive, his answer was simple. “Tey asked,” he says. “As much as I respect the digital realm, I believe we need to preserve the written word. Browsing books and turning pages is an irreplaceable learning and tangible experience — especially for children. Tis donation is a great way to get books to families and schools who need them the most.” ● To donate books or see a list of donation sites, visit bit.ly/2013BookDrive or contact Kim Tomas-Barrios at thomasba@usc.edu.

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[ ACADEMIC ATTITUDE ]

All in the Family

Jonathan ’02, left, and Jesse Ruiz ’12 hit the books in secondary school and at USC.

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THE RUIZ BROTHERS SHOW HARD WORK PAYS OFF.

AT AN EARLY AGE, Jonathan Ruiz ’02 became his family’s education pioneer — although he could hardly have known it at the time. Ruiz’s parents moved to Los Angeles from rural Mexico, and though they never had the chance to go to school, they knew the importance of education for their own children. “Tey always said that they didn’t want to see us in the kinds of jobs they had, working in factories,” he says. It’s a story shared by countless first-generation Americans and first-generation college students at USC — including Jonathan’s youngest brother, Jesse Ruiz ’12. Te Ruiz brothers’ path to college started when Jonathan was in fifth grade. His teacher at 28th Street Elementary School, near USC, gave the class a unique assignment: Apply for admission to a college-prep program run by USC. In the Pre-College Enrichment Academy, part of the university’s Neighborhood Academic Initiative (NAI), his parents saw an opportunity they couldn’t pass up, despite imminent plans for a move back to their homeland. “Mom pressed Dad to wait on their plans to return to Mexico,” says Jonathan, the eldest of three boys, “and I applied on the last day at the last minute. Tey were excited about the promise of a full scholarship at USC if I did well in the program.” Trough the academy, NAI’s flagship program, middle and high school students from low-income neighborhoods get extensive academic training and support that lead to college success. Jonathan was accepted, entered the academy’s second class and found the work so demanding that he had no time for distractions. “We spent the first two hours of class at USC, where we studied language arts, English and college-study skills before being bused to our own schools,” he says. “We also had tutoring after school and Saturday school.” Academy participants are called “scholars,” a title that pushed Jonathan’s expectations of himself. Equally important was the guidance his parents received from NAI’s Family Development Institute about how to support their sons’ academic and personal growth. “For the first time, we had a desk, a place on which to do our homework,” he says. “Tey also learned how to be involved in our lives in general, including health and nutrition.”

His hard work paid off when he was accepted to USC. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English and a minor in philosophy. Today, he is the director of business development at an El Monte, Calif., publishing company that provides resources nationwide to help English learners with state standardized tests. “I’ve come full circle,” Jonathan says. “I started off as an English learner because my folks only spoke Spanish at home initially. Also, I was the first one in my family to go to college, and it raised expectations for everyone in the family.” A decade later, brother Jesse followed in Jonathan’s footsteps. “I was in fourth grade when Jonathan graduated from USC, and I saw how proud and filled with joy my parents were that day,” Jesse says. “I wanted to do the same for them. His going through NAI was an example of how I could do it.” After acceptance into the academy, the younger Ruiz felt at home. “I was finally surrounded by people who enjoyed learning and were going somewhere important in life,” he says. “Te academy was more than just a support group. It was a family that I knew would push me to the finish line: getting into a good college.” In spring 2012, Jesse Ruiz graduated from USC with a bachelor’s degree in international relations and French and a minor in public health. Like Jonathan, Jesse has paid forward his academy training. He volunteered as a tutor and mentor to younger NAI scholars at James A. Foshay Learning Center and traveled to Tailand to teach children English. He also helped build a library during his trip, an experience that spurred his postgraduate studies in international relations and nongovernmental organizations. In addition, the Ruiz family’s middle son, Giovanni, who did not attend the academy, received a bachelor’s degree in marketing from California State University, Dominguez Hills. Te Ruiz brothers’ experiences and desire to give to others reflect the values of their parents, the academy and the university. As the academy boosts the next generation of college students and their families, Jonathan says, it’s “always emphasizing the idea of coming back and helping the community.” ● To learn more about USC’s role in our neighborhoods, visit communities.usc.edu.

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PLANET WITHOUT APES USC biologist Craig Stanford wants to keep the great apes from vanishing from the face of the earth. BY ROBERT PERKINS

YOU WOULDN’T STAND BY and watch a family member suﬀer without trying to help. Neither will USC biologist Craig Stanford. With the great apes — our closest evolutionary cousins — facing extinction, Stanford is passionately advocating for them before they disappear. Te four species of great apes — chimpanzees, orangutans, bonobos and gorillas — are being decimated through disease, loss of habitat, political instability and even consumption as “bushmeat.” Already endangered, they could disappear within our lifetimes, says Stanford, who recently published the book Planet Without Apes and hit the media circuit to bring attention to apes’ plight. “Allowing them to die,” he says, “would be like allowing one’s extended family to die.” Stanford, co-director of the USC Jane Goodall Research Center and professor of biological sciences at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, should know. He’s studied primates on three continents over the past 25 years. He launched his career with renowned anthropologist Jane Goodall in East Africa in 1990 thanks to a simple letter. While living in a rice paddy in Asia and completing doctoral work at the University of California, Berkeley, Stanford wrote to Goodall, asking to work with her. “I did not even expect to hear back — it was my message in a bottle,” Stanford says. “Instead, when I returned to the U.S. months later, her reply was in my mailbox, inviting me to come to Gombe to work with her. I always tell my students that you never know what good things may come from a letter sent with a dream.” Stanford was one of the few foreign researchers allowed in the area since several college students were kidnapped there in the 1970s. Now he ﬁgures he’s spent about seven years in all in remote bush camps throughout the world. Tese days, though, he spends more time in the U.S., working with students and collaborating on research. Planet Without Apes, published by Harvard

“After

millennia of coexisting with people, great apes face an onslaught of trouble that has caused them to plummet toward extinction across their ranges in Africa and Asia.”

– CRAIG STANFORD

University Press in 2012, is Stanford’s 15th book. It not only makes the great ape crisis understandable to the average reader, but it also proposes tangible solutions that could give apes a chance. “Treats to great ape survival are complex but urgent, so expert advocates like Craig are very valuable for education and conservation eﬀorts,” says Maureen McCarthy, one of Stanford’s graduate students who studies chimpanzees in Uganda (see sidebar below). One interesting tidbit Stanford spotlights: Cell phones are part of the problem for great apes. Certain capacitors for electronic devices such as cell phones are built using tantalum, an element extracted from the mineral coltan. Eighty percent of the world’s coltan supply is mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in the heart of the remaining habitat of eastern lowland gorillas. With the world hungry for electronics, miners in the region are extracting ore — and destroying and polluting gorilla habitat. Some also hunt the apes for food. Black-market operations export ape meat all over the world, where wealthy emigrant populations that ate bushmeat as a traditional food now pay top dollar for it as a delicacy, Stanford says. Stanford proposes encouraging an ape-centered ecotourism industry that employs locals, using tourist dollars to give the apes’ neighbors a tangible stake in conservation. Gorilla-trekking has given African governments and local people an economic incentive to protect the apes. Ecotourism has almost halted poaching in some areas, as it has made the animals more valuable alive than dead. Coupled with tough import/export regulations to combat the thriving black-market trade in bushmeat, ecotourism may oﬀer apes a lifeline. “Tere are many people dedicating their lives to protecting great apes and their habitat,” Stanford says. “I wrote Planet Without Apes because we continue to need to raise awareness. I’m always amazed at how many people have no idea the perilous state that all the great apes are currently in.” ●

FIELD NOTES: Nine thousand miles from campus, a USC grad student tries to save endangered chimpanzees. “The highlight of my day often comes when I stumble upon a fresh pile of chimpanzee dung,” Maureen McCarthy, USC PhD student, writes in her expedition blog on Scientific American’s website. Yes, McCarthy, one of USC biologist Craig Stanford’s students, is in Uganda collecting primate excrement. It may not sound glamorous, but McCarthy analyzes the DNA in her samples and uses it to track migration patterns of individual chimps in isolated patches of forest. Her goal is to shed light on how chimps migrate and, more importantly, whether they migrate between forest fragments at all. It’s a question that urgently demands an answer. Most researchers have studied chimpanzees in protected forest reserves, which, by comparison, are vast and unbroken. But increasing numbers of chimps live in dwindling fragments of forest sometimes only a few acres big. That degraded habitat leads to bitter conflicts with human neighbors and may mean a shrinking genetic pool, along with growing challenges related to traveling and finding food. “Habitat loss and fragmentation are among the leading causes of the decline of endangered chimpanzees. By better understanding how chimpanzees cope with habitat loss, we can find better strategies to aid their conservation,” McCarthy says. Trojans around the world can follow McCarthy’s expedition at: dornsife.usc.edu/panoramic-perspectives

HEALTH ENSURED HOW AFFORDABLE IS THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT? By Suzanne Wu | Illustrations by Michael Glenwood

The proportion of the national debt tied to health care costs keeps increasing, raising concerns about competitiveness and national security.

AT THE FORMER CLINIC OF PHARMACIST Steven Chen PharmD ’89, patients could get in-suite pedicures and valet parking. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Beverly Hills doesn’t just have a reputation for being posh — it’s actually where “Posh Spice” of the Spice Girls, Victoria Beckham, gave birth to her daughter. Compare that to one of Chen’s first experiences with a patient after he moved to the Weingart Center, a safety-net clinic on Los Angeles’ Skid Row. While Chen was encouraging him to eat more vegetables, the patient cut him off. “He said, ‘Do you realize no one around here has a refrigerator?’ ” Chen recalls. The experience got Chen thinking about the sometimes-faulty assumptions that health care providers make about their patients. From years of looking at hospital charts, he’d come to believe that too many people end up in emergency rooms or hospitals for a simple reason: They don’t know how to take their prescriptions or are on the wrong ones. “For every dollar spent on medications in the U.S., another dollar is wasted on corrective actions for problems caused by medications,” Chen says, citing data from the Institute of Medicine and the New England Healthcare Institute. It was a problem familiar to Kathleen Johnson PharmD ’78 of the USC School of Pharmacy. A few years earlier, Johnson began embedding USC pharmacists in local safetynet clinics. These clinics serve the worst off, people who delay care until their conditions are out of control. Pharmacists found patients who’d been prescribed diabetes medications — and didn’t know they had diabetes. Other patients had chronic diseases that could be managed with daily treatment, yet they only popped a few pills when they felt sick. In these clinics, Johnson and Chen began to completely transform what it means to see your pharmacist. The USC pharmacists looked for dangerous drug interactions and wrote new prescriptions (legal in many states including California if the medical facility agrees to it). They ordered lab tests, changed dosages as needed and took people off ineffective medications. They also got to know their patients, identifying those who’d failed to control their chronic disease over a dangerously long time. The pharmacists called them at home to check on symptoms, and they helped people find ways to get medication for less. The result: Nearly half of the toughest dia-

betic patients lowered their blood sugar within six months. Diabetic patients working with a USC clinical pharmacist are four times more likely than similar patients to reduce their blood sugar to recommended levels. The program’s success — and potential to save money — is precisely the kind of experiment sought under the Affordable Care Act, the 2010 federal law that overhauls the U.S. health care system. Last year, as part of the new law, the federal government set aside $1 billion to fund experiments that could lower health care costs. USC economist Geoffrey Joyce teamed with Chen and Johnson to apply for a grant, with the pharmacists overseeing the program and the economist tracking outcomes. USC’s proposal was one of only about 100 projects funded nationally. If projections hold, savings from the clinics will exceed $43 million over three years. Says Joyce: “It’s trying to provide more scientific evidence that coordinated care and addressing chronic disease can both improve care and save money.” CUTTING COSTS These kinds of targeted fi xes to the health care system might seem small — especially compared to the $2.7 trillion spent on health care in the U.S. every year — but they’re critical if the Affordable Care Act is going to save money, says Leonard D. Schaeffer, founding chairman and CEO of WellPoint, one of the nation’s largest health insurers, and namesake of the USC Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics. The center is housed jointly at the USC Price School of Public Policy and the USC School of Pharmacy. U.S. health care costs doubled over the last decade, growing three times faster than wages and vastly outpacing inflation. The proportion of the national debt tied to health care costs keeps increasing, raising concerns about competitiveness and national security. Against this backdrop, the Affordable Care Act is poised to go into full effect in 2014. The law includes several methods to cut costs. Chief among them: Make it easy to shop online for insurance through new health insurance exchanges. “For the first time, all Californians will be able to make an apples-to-apples comparison of their health plan choices in 2014,” Peter V. Lee, JD ’93, executive director of the California Health Benefit Exchange, told the Los Angeles Times.

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“Politically, it’s very diﬃcult to go into the health care system and say ‘x’ percent of it is waste, and pick those pieces out. Every cost cut is someone’s income or someone’s treatment.” LEONARD D. SCHAEFFER FOUNDING CHAIRMAN AND CEO, WELLPOINT JUDGE ROBERT MACLAY WIDNEY CHAIR

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Along with subsidies and the insurance mandate — which will force most Americans to get health coverage — this saves money two ways. It increases the number of young adults (who require less health care) in the health insurance pool and allows people to see a doctor regularly, which reduces expensive emergency care. But true cost savings are unclear. “We expect a bump — a pretty significant bump — in utilization, and that’s going to push costs up,” says Michael Cousineau, research associate professor of preventive medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. When people who’ve gone years without medical care finally get insurance, he explains, they tend to need a lot of services. Massachusetts may be a test case. The state provided near-universal health care to residents in 2006, and spends 15 percent more per person on health care than the national average — although spending might be even higher without the system. A 2008 experiment in Oregon — which allowed 10,000 low-income residents into Medicaid by lottery — yielded similar evidence. Greater access to health care saved the state no money, though users spent less out of pocket for care. Health insurance, it turns out, allows people to use more health care, which then costs more, says Dana Goldman, director of the USC Schaeffer Center and Norman Topping/ National Medical Enterprises Chair in Medicine and Public Policy. “When people get sick and don’t have health care, they don’t get treated, and then they die. And that’s cheap.” It’s difficult to decide between necessary care and excessive care, and not just at the end of life. In graduate school, economist Neeraj Sood of the USC Schaeffer Center developed a rash and insisted on a referral to a dermatologist. His primary care physician relented, but the next available appointment was in three months. Sood was furious at first, but three months later, his rash had disappeared on its own. Sood’s example points to the challenge policymakers face in discouraging consumers from unnecessary, costly treatments. There’s evidence that price influences patients’ choices when purchasing drugs, but buying health care doesn’t work the same way as buying a flat-screen television or even a necessity like food. For one thing, insured patients don’t see the full price tag of their treatment. Patients also generally lack the knowledge to make informed comparative decisions about health care, and the sick or injured often are terrified and desperate. “People are not about to negotiate when they’re sick,” Schaeffer says. Instead, they rely on their physicians’ advice.

REWARDS FOR SMART CARE In study after study, economists have found that physicians respond to economic incentives. When insurers stopped reimbursing as much for cesarean sections, the C-section rate fell. “If you talk to any obstetrician, they’ll say, ‘I would never make a decision about whether to do a C-section based on how much I get paid.’ Yet overall, we know that’s exactly what happens,” Goldman says. To discourage needless tests and procedures, the Affordable Care Act rewards coordinated treatment through “accountable care organizations,” another potential costsaving measure. Nationwide, more than 120 such organizations of doctors and hospitals now receive a fi xed annual lump sum of federal funds instead of payment every time they order another test. The organizations risk losing money if they go over budget, swallowing the cost if they order, say, too many tests. But if they deny you a necessary procedure and you need more complex treatment later, it could cost the organization more. “Now, all of a sudden, doctors have a new financial incentive to manage their patients’ care to actually keep them out of the hospital,” says health economist Glenn Melnick of the USC Price School. Crucially, the accountable care organizations will also keep some of the savings if they’re under budget, and this might predispose them to cut salaries or withhold care. That’s sort of the point, but it’s a controversial one. “Private companies should focus on delivering care efficiently, while government should protect the vulnerable,” says Darius Lakdawalla, USC Schaeffer Center’s director of research. “In an ideal world, efficient care delivery means everyone gets appropriate care at a competitive price, but it remains to be seen whether the Affordable Care Act will allow for greater efficiency in the marketplace.” The law also changes how safety-net hospitals and community clinics are reimbursed. Right now the government gives them money to help treat uninsured people who can’t pay, but much of that funding will soon be used to pay for the new insurance expansion. In Southern California, many of the uninsured are undocumented immigrants, and they remain without coverage under health care reform. “We have a burden of making sure we have a system in place to take care of those who remain uninsured,” Cousineau says. Some newly insured who’ve used the public hospital and clinic system may now have a choice and some may opt for the private system over public hospitals. Says Cousineau: “The fear is that the newly insured patients will leave the system and the funding will

“You have very little idea as a lay consumer how good your treatment is, or even if it was the right choice.” NEERAJ SOOD DIRECTOR OF INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMS, USC SCHAEFFER CENTER

Insurance is meant to be an equalizer, using the comparatively smaller costs of caring for the healthy to balance out the potentially ruinous expenses of others.

be diminished, leaving the safety-net health care system without the resources needed to take care of the residually uninsured.” THE PRICE OF LIFE At graduation, nearly all American medical students swear an oath that forbids “considerations of religion, nationality, race, party politics or social standing” to intervene between a physician’s responsibility to a patient. Medicine shares a commitment to alleviating suffering, whether among the rich or poor. Yet can we afford it? This depends on our view of the cost of life and health. Discussions about the health care system are almost never about health care. “They’re about social values. They’re about religious values. They’re about economic consequences. And in the United States, they’re almost always about the role of government,” Schaeffer says. “We think we’re talking about health care, but it’s really about this other constellation of issues.” Goldman points to HIV as an example of the folly of looking only at health care costs, not health care outcomes. In the early 1990s, treating HIV was cheap. But to an economist, HIV had an infinite cost, “because no matter how much money you spent, AIDS was basically a death sentence,” Goldman explains. Then, in the mid-1990s, highly active antiretroviral drugs arrived. They cost about $15,000 a year and made HIV a chronic illness. From an economist’s perspective, spending $15,000 to save a life “is an incredibly good deal to society,” Goldman says. “But to policymakers and others, they said, ‘This is a terrible thing! We can’t afford this! They’re the most expensive drugs ever!’ So they tried to ration them because they think they’re expensive. “They weren’t looking at the price of the health we’re buying. They’re looking at the price of the drug.”

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Drugs work. Medical treatments save lives. The U.S., which spends more on cancer treatment than any other country, also has the best cancer survival rates. When the Affordable Care Act goes into effect, 30 million more Americans can get health coverage, including the childless working poor and people with pre-existing conditions. This isn’t trivial. As Julie Zissimopoulos explains, insurance is meant to be an equalizer, using the comparatively smaller costs of caring for the healthy to balance out the potentially ruinous expenses of others. “That’s what health insurance is supposed to do: protect against those extremes,” says Zissimopoulos, associate director of the USC Schaeffer Center. But then there’s the reality of finite resources, and the distinct possibility that health reform will fail to stem rising costs. The law, Schaeffer says, is “very artfully done. Assuming everything goes according to plan, the law shouldn’t raise costs. But some of the significant things that are supposed to happen probably won’t.” Prime among them, he says: 14 tax increases lobbyists aim to repeal. Health care costs are expected to account for half the national debt by 2040. The Affordable Care Act has an even tighter deadline to stem costs before more drastic measures loom, including across-the-board health care cuts. At that point, centuries of accumulated ethics might falter in the face of politics, money and the toughest calculation of all: the cold cash value of a human life. ● Editor’s note: Kathleen Johnson PharmD ’78, chair of the Titus Family Department of Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Economics & Policy at USC, died after an accident in 2012; her daughter Kimberly started the PharmD program at the USC School of Pharmacy that same autumn.

“Social justice is more essential in this market than any other market. But it’s delusional to hold on to the idea that health insurance saves money.” DARIUS LAKDAWALLA DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH, USC SCHAEFFER CENTER QUINTILES CHAIR IN PHARMACEUTICAL DEVELOPMENT AND REGULATORY INNOVATION

most needy: No signiﬁcant diﬀerence. Already covered by Medicaid. working poor, lower middle class: Can receive government-subsidized health insurance with low premiums.

more affluent: Little diﬀerence. Can already aﬀord private insurance or get it through employer. Some may pay less through an insurance exchange.

retirees: May see lower costs through Medicare.

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i“My a room oom iss a gathering place.” lace.”

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My Room, My USC WE INVITED STUDENTS TO TELL US about their USC residential housing experiences in a 2012 contest, and they didn’t disappoint. Three USC freshmen give us a peek into what makes their rooms a home away from home.

Michael Pheffer Hall: North Residential College Major: Art Home: Indiana Design style: Eclectic Nickname for his ﬂoor: “The Penthouse Penthouse” Longest he’s stayed awake: “For 24 hours — for my art project.” How quickly he gained the “freshman 15”: Joining crew fall semester kept the weight oﬀ. “I think I gained more weight over winter break than at college.” His ritual: “I get up and make my bed. It just makes your room seem cleaner.” Room hang-up: Carelessly spilled food or drink. “Someone got chocolate on the sofa. But I couldn’t be mad because I got it out with a Tide to Go pen.” Most special thing in the room: “There’s a bag of Skittles in my room. When I was little, my mom used to have to bribe me with Skittles to get out of the car to go to preschool. Well, she hid Skittles in my dorm room so I found them a week later when I moved in.” Another hidden bag popped up in the sock drawer. Why live in North: “I heard it was the most social.” Signs of his USC spirit: Tickets and wristbands from USC football games

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Shivanti Kariyawasam Hall: Pardee Tower Major: Human development and aging Home: California Favorite study spot: Von KleinSmid Center Library. “You feel so happy to be in there. There’s candy and nice people.” Nickname for her hall: “The Sorority Floor” or “The Theater Floor” Longest she’s stayed awake: 23 hours. “I wasn’t planning to stay up that late. I stayed up until 2 a.m. talking to a high school friend and couldn’t go to sleep. My friends had to ﬁnish some work so I went to Leavey [Library] with them and stayed up till 5:30 a.m. I fell asleep there.” How quickly she gained the “freshman 15”: “When I went home on break, people said, ‘Shivanti, you look so good.’ But my mom said, ‘You need to work out more.’ ” Floor bond: “The fact that there are a lot of theater majors has brought the rest of us together. But having a lot of theater majors around makes me wish I could sing.” Why live in Pardee: It’s not known for partying, but not antisocial, either. Signs of her USC spirit: Traveler plush toy and a USC blanket made by her grandmother

Did you know? USC students can choose to live on themed floors ranging from cinema to creative writing.

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i“My m room oom iss my y secret hideaway.” ideaway.”

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P H OTO B Y M E I K O TA K E C H I A R Q U I L L O S

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“My room is my creative nook.”

Briahna Hendey Hall: Birnkrant Residential College Major: Biochemistry (pre-med) Home: California Memorable hall activity: The Tchaikovsky Spectacular at the Hollywood Bowl Nickname for her floor: “BK7” Longest she’s stayed awake: About 48 hours. “I waited until the day before to write a 12-page paper for Russian Thought and Civilization.” Surprising class: “Russian Civ — it fit into my schedule and I ended up loving it.” How quickly she gained the “freshman 15”: “I’m working on avoiding it.” Residence hall bond: Thursday night facultymaster dinners in EVK dining hall. “There’s better food and they have good speakers. They have ice cream and various kinds of cake.” Her ritual: “I try to make my bed every day because it’s something I haven’t done up to this point.” Trips around LA: The Santa Monica Pier, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the La Brea Tar Pits Why live in Birnkrant: During her Explore USC program for freshmen at USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, “everyone was pro-Birnkrant. It’s about working hard and playing hard.” Signs of her USC spirit: USC foam finger, USC pins (gift from grandma) and Traveler plush toy

Did you know? USC residential colleges’ living-learning communities are based on British and Ivy League models.

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[ CAMPUS CATALYST ]

Academic Activist

Hortensia Amaro’s immigrant experience spurs a devotion to solving public health problems of the disenfranchised.

By Robin Heffler • Photo by Dietmar Quistorf AT AGE 9, HORTENSIA AMARO fled Cuba for Miami with her two brothers and parents, who sought the freedom they lost after Fidel Castro’s revolution. But with immigration also came lessons in financial struggle and discrimination. Upon relocating to Los Angeles, the formerly middle-income family moved into public housing. Several years later, as she entered seventh grade, Amaro was initially placed in classes for low-achieving students based on results of an IQ test given in fourth grade — when she spoke no English. “I learned early on that you got punished in school if you spoke Spanish, and there was a lot of stigma around that, as well as being poor,” says Amaro, who joined the USC faculty in 2012. “When we saw television and advertising, the images didn’t reflect me, my family or our experience.” But with support from her family and teachers, she turned her experiences into a positive. She would soon excel in school and blaze a research trail across psychology, public health and social work. “It spurred my interest in understanding how individuals and families adapt to and function under difficult conditions, and a desire to improve their lives,” says Amaro, who also credits growing up during the civil rights and women’s rights movements of the 1960s and ’70s. Today, she brings a passion for science and “scholarly informed advocacy” to USC and families in need nationwide.

trauma. She also studies health gaps among disenfranchised populations, including Latinas, African-American women and those reentering communities after incarceration. Her career path began at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she pursued a doctorate in psychology. She studied barriers to alcoholism treatment among California women and factors affecting Mexican-American women’s reproductive attitudes and behaviors. When her mentors connected her with research under way at Boston University studying the impact of mothers’ drug use on newborns, she was intrigued. She moved east to join the research team. Of the many women she interviewed, one study participant she met at a Boston hospital particularly influenced her career path: a heroin addict who had been engaged in sex work to pay for her habit and had gotten pregnant. “She was waiting to hear if the baby she delivered was HIV-positive. At the time, there was severe stigma and discrimination toward people with HIV; people were dying from AIDS in huge numbers and she didn’t have much information or support. It made me think, I don’t want to spend my life producing research that just gets filed in a library.” Then the work became personal. “Several weeks later, my younger brother was diagnosed with AIDS,” she says. “So, I decided to shift my research focus from describing problems to developing and testing prevention approaches.”

Roots in reality Amaro is USC’s ﬁrst associate vice provost for community research initiatives and Dean’s Professor of Social Work and Preventive Medicine. For three decades she’s deeply contributed to knowledge about HIV prevention and treatment of substance abuse and

Finding answers Among her contributions is her discovery that female drug users are more likely to overcome addiction when their mental health and trauma issues, such as domestic violence, are treated at the same time. One such eﬀort is the Boston Consortium Model,

an integrated treatment approach she developed that’s recognized nationwide. Amaro also developed numerous substance-abuse treatment programs in Boston. One of these, the Entre Familia (Spanish for “within the family”) residential treatment program for Latinas and their children, is housed in a city building named after her. While the program has helped thousands of Latino families, Amaro thinks back to one participant: a teachers’ aide whose addiction to heroin threatened her marriage and custody of her children. Three years after the woman and her children went through the program, she had earned a teaching certificate and was working as a teacher, Amaro says. “Her children were happy, well-adjusted and doing well in school, and her marriage was on solid ground.” Commitment to community At USC, Amaro wants to take her communitybased research to a new level, she says, building on the university’s “long history of engagement with the community and a perspective that its welfare and the community’s are intertwined.” She plans to expand USC’s ability to bring together experts from different fields to conduct research in the community, including better assessing what communities need and using hard evidence to discover whether programs work so they can be broadly shared. She’s especially interested in fostering research at USC that can improve conditions in poor neighborhoods, such as lack of economic opportunity, education quality and access to medical care, as well as family and community safety. Her ultimate goal: “To have science serve society by developing tested solutions that help with real-life problems.” ●

Hortensia Amaro ACADEMIC HOME:

USC School of Social Work PRIOR POST:

Northeastern University; distinguished professor and associate dean at the Bouvé College of Health Sciences and founding director of the Institute on Urban Health Research SOME OF HER ACCLAIM:

Elected to the Institute of Medicine; honored with the American Psycho– logical Association’s Ernest R. Hilgard Lifetime Achievement Award and James Jones Lifetime Achievement Award IN HER OWN WORDS:

“I haven’t listened to those who early on told me that what I wanted to do was not feasible. Instead, I followed my own instincts. I also had a stable home and some fantastic teachers who encouraged and believed in me. My end goal is to conduct research that enables us to foster the realization of dreams and potential in children, youth and families in disenfranchised communities.”

PHOTO BY

[ KECK MEDICAL CENTER OF USC ]

Tumua Anae ’10 returned to training after surgery.

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GETTING BACK IN THE GAME BY ROBIN HEFFLER

P H OTO B Y M I C H E L B E K H A Z I

Orthopaedic specialists give new life to pro athletes and weekend warriors.

NOT LONG AFTER SHE SWAM her ﬁrst race at age 8, Tumua Anae ’10 set a lofty goal: competing in the Olympics. At the time, she didn’t realize her chance would come not in swimming but in water polo. But her Olympic dream was threatened in 2009 when she hurt her shoulder during water polo practice at USC. “It was painful to swim, to rotate my arm around, and it was stiff, taking a lot of icing, resting and some days of sitting out practice,” says Anae, a three-time, first-team All-American and member of USC’s 2010 NCAA championship team. “I was playing through the pain, but it was affecting my performance because I couldn’t practice enough.” On her trainer’s advice, she visited George “Rick” Hatch, assistant professor of orthopaedic surgery at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. Hatch is one of the faculty surgeons in the USC Center for Sports Medicine, and these orthopaedic surgeons are the official team doctors of USC Trojan Athletics. He treats injuries in competitive athletes and weekend warriors alike. Hatch aimed to boost Anae’s movement and eliminate the pain. Using tiny, precise tools and an arthroscope — a flexible tube fitted with a miniature camera and light — he operated through small incisions and sewed Anae’s torn labrum, a ring of cartilage, back onto her shoulder socket. Three months later, Anae started training full time for the Olympics. “Six months after surgery, I could play water polo again and do everything else I was doing before, including volleyball, lifeguarding and other outdoor activities I enjoy, all without pain,” she says. “The surgery was vital for me to make the Olympic team.” As goalie, Anae helped the U.S. bring home the women’s water polo gold medal from London in 2012. Today, she’s training for the July world cham-

pionships and is considering committing to the 2016 Olympics team.

Quicker healing time Anae is one of the lucky ones. Among athletes who hurt their shoulders through overhead motions, like throwing, swimming, spiking balls or swinging a racquet, some of the more routine surgeries fail to help, Hatch says. “Sometimes after surgery, they can lose range of motion, and for certain types of injuries, even with surgery, a signiﬁcant percentage can’t return to throwing again,” says Hatch, who treats players on USC’s football, men’s and women’s water polo, women’s soccer and women’s basketball teams. “By doing the surgery arthroscopically and with minimally invasive techniques, we can reduce the trauma to the joint as well as limit the amount of suture material used. Excess suture material can limit shoulder motion and injure cartilage. Te newer techniques also provide faster healing, which means people can get back to their sport sooner.” Patients also benefit from having experienced surgeons based at an academic medical center. “We have faculty who can cover almost any sports medicine problem — including complex conditions and revisions — and use the most advanced procedures and conduct research on new ones,” says C. Thomas Vangsness Jr., professor of orthopaedic surgery, who oversees sports medicine education at the Keck School and is the team doctor for Trojan basketball. Since 1997, he’s co-directed the USC Center for Sports Medicine alongside James E. Tibone. One recent addition to the program is prominent orthopaedic surgeon Seth Gamradt, who has served as a team physician for athletes at UCLA and the New York Giants, as well as U.S. Women’s Soccer. “USC has a history of great athletes and an excellent sports medicine program,” he says. “As faculty physicians, we

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“The first time I was able to play catch with my middle boy, I started crying when I could lift my glove with my left arm.” — MARK CHRISTENSEN

The right care For Mark Christensen, 44, playing kickball with his young sons before school one day led to a broken arm that refused to heal even after two surgeries. As a result, his photography business suffered because he couldn’t carry the 60 pounds of equipment he needed. “He was frustrated and very pessimistic when I met him,” says USC surgeon Reza Omid, who performed Christensen’s third surgery in 2011. “I cleaned up the ends of the bones to remove the fibrous tissue from two surgeries that could have prevented healing, and used a very large plate and stronger screws because he’s a big guy — 6 feet 6 inches and 280 pounds — which probably contributed to why the other surgeries didn’t work.” Today, Christensen is busy with a new cooking business and can comfortably carry equipment when he has occasional photo assignments. But he’s most grateful for the boost in his personal life. “Not having use of my left arm for three years affected doing things with my family,” he says. “The first time I was able to play catch with my middle boy, I started crying when I could lift my glove with my left arm.” ● Learn more at ortho.usc.edu or call 800-USC-CARE.

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New Leader Drives Research to Help Patients Jay R. Lieberman, a leading authority on total joint replacement and hip preservation, is the new chair of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. An internationally recognized surgeon and researcher, Lieberman joined USC from the University of Connecticut Health Center. He is known for his pioneering research into using gene therapy to promote bone healing, including work funded by the National Institutes of Health. Under Lieberman’s leadership, the New England Musculoskeletal Institute “garnered a national reputation for its clinical excellence in orthopaedic surgery,” says Carmen A. Puliafito, dean of the Keck School. During Lieberman’s time as director, the institute’s faculty grew dramatically, and he led development of new programs in sports medicine and joint preservation and replacement. At USC, Lieberman is expanding the orthopaedic surgery department’s services for patients, nurturing innovative research programs and expanding educational opportunities for young resident physicians. In addition to his expertise in total hip and knee replacement, he has a special interest in the management of osteonecrosis — bone death — in the hip and knee. “USC has a long tradition of excellence,” Lieberman says. “I look forward to the department not only providing superb clinical care, but also developing new therapies and procedures that will benefit our patients.”— RH

L I E B E R M A N A N D S U M P H OTO S B Y P H I L I P C H A N N I N G

can draw on research findings to continually improve treatments for everyone from elite athletes to neighborhood basketball league players.” Last year, the center’s surgeons repaired torn cartilage and other soft tissue in the shoulder and knee and fixed dislocated shoulders and bone fractures in more than 300 athletes. Shaun Cooley is a repeat customer. After Cooley shattered his elbow snowboarding in Utah in 2006, doctors at a nearby hospital told him that even with surgery his arm bones might detach again in 10 or 20 years, he says. So Cooley, now 33 and a software engineering manager, followed the recommendation of a friend and flew home to Los Angeles to see Hatch. After surgery to install plates and screws that hold the bones together, Cooley was able to snowboard again on the toughest terrain. He felt back to himself again. When he tore a knee ligament five years later in an ice hockey game, Cooley returned to Hatch for surgery. “The next March I hiked up Mount Whitney to prove that my knee was good again,” he says. “I had no problems with my knee, but I was out of breath because I had put on a few pounds during the recovery period.”

The Right Rehab Means Surgical Success EVEN WHEN SURGERY goes perfectly, ath-

letes will never get back to competing the way they want to if their joints stay stiﬀ and their muscles remain weak after injury and inactivity, says James E. Tibone, co-director of the USC Center for Sports Medicine and medical director for USC’s Athletic Department. That’s why patients and physicians rely on their physical therapy partners. At USC Physical Therapy Associates, faculty from the Division of Biokinesiology and Physical Therapy assess each patient after surgery and design a rehabilitation program tailored to patients’ sports injuries and goals. “After taking a whole-body perspective, we focus on form and technique, trying to ﬁgure out what caused the injury and correcting it so that they don’t reinjure themselves,” says Jonathan Sum ’01, DPT ’05, instructor of clinical physical therapy and

director of the faculty practice. “Then we work on specific exercises related to their surgery.” Besides traditional techniques for stretching muscles and ligaments and increasing joints’ range of motion, physical therapists offer innovative techniques such as biofeedback to retrain tendons that surgeons take from one part of the body and transfer to another to repair injury. They also have helpful technology, such as machines that measure muscles’ power output and a gravity-fighting treadmill that enables patients to exercise injured joints and muscles with less stress from body weight. The physical therapists see most postsurgical patients on the Health Sciences Campus, but also see some sports medicine patients at a new clinic on the University Park Campus. ●

From the top: Seth Gamradt, George “Rick” Hatch, Reza Omid, James E. Tibone and C. Thomas Vangsness Jr.

Physical therapists like Jonathan Sum ’01, DPT ’05 design rehabilitation programs for recovery after surgery.

The USC Alumni Association proudly announces the recipients of the 2013 USC Alumni Awards

Asa V. Call Alumni Achievement Award

F R A N K F E RT I T TA ’ 8 4 Chairman and CEO, Fertitta Entertainment and Station Casinos

Alumni Merit Awards G E R A L D I N E K N AT Z M S ’ 7 7 , P h D ’ 7 9 Executive Director, Port of Los Angeles M A R K R I D L E Y- T H O M A S P h D ’ 8 9 Supervisor, Los Angeles County, 2nd District SCOTT SASSA ’81 President, Hearst Entertainment & Syndication

Young Alumni Merit Award REBECCA SONI ’09 Six-time Olympic medalist in swimming

Alumni Service Awards BARBARA COTLER ’60 Member, USC Athletics Board of Counselors; executive board member, Spirit of Troy LINDA GIVVIN ’70 Past president, Town and Gown of USC; member, USC Alumni Association Board of Governors J E R RY N E E LY ’ 5 8 Member, USC Board of Trustees; mentor, USC Marshall School of Business

April 27, 2013 - Westin Bonaventure Hotel, Los Angeles http://alumni.usc.edu/awards

family ties

[NEWS FROM THE USC ALUMNI ASSOCIATION]

From Marshall to Mixed Martial Arts What inspired you to attend USC? The first visit to USC was basically all it took. I remember walking through campus as a high school freshman on our way to the Coliseum and experiencing, for the first time, a world-class college atmosphere. Add in the outstanding reputation of USC Marshall, and the decision to attend USC was an easy one.

P H OTO B Y A R T S T R E I B E R , C O U R T E S Y O F S TAT I O N C A S I N O S

A conversation with Frank Fertitta Frank Fertitta III ’84 is the 2013 recipient of the Asa V. Call Alumni Achievement Award, USC’s highest alumni honor. The Las Vegas-based graduate of the USC Marshall School of Business is chairman and CEO of Fertitta Entertainment, a resort and casino development and management company, as well as Station Casinos. He and his brother, Lorenzo, also own Zuffa LLC, which operates the highly successful Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) — the world’s major mixed martial arts promotion firm. Last fall, Fertitta and his wife, Jill, contributed a naming gift that will fund a new undergraduate instructional building at USC Marshall and establish an endowed chair in business. Fertitta spoke with the USC Alumni Association’s Timothy O. Knight.

How did your USC education prepare you to serve as the chairman and CEO of Fertitta Entertainment and Station Casinos? USC Marshall provided a “real-world” business education that taught me how to apply critical thinking and other business tools to help grow our family business. I still rely on business principles I learned at USC to run our businesses today. Fortune magazine named Station Casinos one of the “100 Best Companies to Work For.” How would you sum up your corporate philosophy? Our corporate philosophy is a very simple one that I learned early on from my father: Treat all of your team members the same way that you would want to be treated — with dignity and respect. We have worked very hard to maintain a family culture, even though we have grown from 90 employees to nearly 12,000. In addition, we have always maintained an open-door policy for all of our team members, and we value and welcome their input and ideas. What’s the secret of your successful partnership with your brother, Lorenzo? Communication, mutual respect and trust. We talk numerous times a day and never let egos get in the way. What is truly important to both of us is getting to the right answer for the companies. Your gift with Jill will transform the educational environment at USC Marshall. What sparked your desire to give back to USC? My father taught us at a very early age the importance of giving back to your community, with a special emphasis on education. I am thankful for the outstanding education I received and I am very happy to be able to give back to the school. A university is only as strong as the alumni who support it. Your daughter Kelley-Ann is a 2012 Trojan graduate. What advice did you give her about attending your alma mater? No advice was necessary. USC was her first and only choice for college since the time she was a little girl. I did tell her I thought it was a great choice, though. ●

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Trojans Reconnect at Reunion Weekend ABOUT 1,100 ALUMNI from the classes of 1962, 1972, 1982, 1987 and 2002 and their guests attended Reunion Weekend 2012, the USC Alumni Association’s celebration of Trojan Family ties. Kicked off by a welcome and address from USC Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Elizabeth Garrett, the event featured academic lectures, deans’ receptions and campus tours. “Reunion Weekend was a great opportunity to reconnect with my alma mater and old friends,” Michael Cooper ’02 says. “It seemed like 10 years had flown by and we are already excited about our next reunion! I look forward to what my fellow 2002 Trojans can accomplish between now and our 20th.” This year’s reunion celebration, held Nov. 9 and 10, included a firstever dinner that brought together graduates from the five reunion classes. The All-Class Reunion Dinner, a new highlight of the 2 annual reunion, included a talk 1 97 by USC President C. L. Max Nikias, who hailed alumni as “a living symbol of the power of the Trojan Family.” The festivities continued at five class reunion after-parties.

1962

TIMOTHY O. KNIGHT

19 8 7

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SEE MORE REUNION WEEKEND 2012 PHOTOS AT

usc.edu/13u

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Alumni SCene Featuring Trojans altruistic, proud, enduring and global

1. Troy Camp-aign USC’s Troy Camp held its 41st annual “Pass the Can” fundraiser, a tradition at the Homecoming football game in which 500 volunteers — including former camp counselors — pass empty milk jugs through the Coliseum aisles during halftime. Proceeds go to Troy Camp, a student-run charity that provides local children with free summer camp followed by a year of mentoring and learning.

2. A Legacy of Pride Te USC Lambda LGBT Alumni Association celebrated its 20th anniversary Nov. 2. More than 100 lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Trojans and friends attended, including the group’s student scholarship recipients. Four of the six Trojans who founded USC Lambda on Nov. 12, 1992 are shown, from left to right: Stanley E.

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spring 2013

Harris (founder); Richard W. Eckardt JD ’66 (founder); USC Alumni Association Board of Governors President Mitchell Lew ’83, MD ’87; Donald L. Gabard MS ’78, MPA ’88, PhD ’90 (founder); Amy A. Ross PhD ’86 (founder); and Tomas J. Peterson MBA ’90, who in 1999 established the group’s ﬁrst named scholarship, the Tomas J. Peterson Scholarship in Business Administration.

3. Paciﬁc Overtures In late 2012, the USC Alumni Association hosted a series of Trojan Family Receptions in Asia with USC Marshall School of Business Dean James G. Ellis (center), who spoke about developments at USC and within the USC Marshall School. Te receptions took place in Jakarta, Indonesia (Dec. 17); Shanghai (Dec. 19); and Taipei, Taiwan (Dec. 21). At the Taipei reception, nearly 100 attendees were graduates of USC Marshall’s Global

Executive MBA program. Ellis (center) welcomed, from left, Michael Chiu MBA ’09, Emmet Hsu ’85, Memphis Han ’96, MBA ’09 and Ying-Hui (Angela) Li MS ’91.

4. Super Seniors More than 300 members of the university and alumni communities honored USC’s vibrant senior alumni at the 2012 Half Century Trojans (HCT) Hall of Fame Luncheon on Oct. 16. Five USC alumni received Hall of Fame Awards recognizing their outstanding achievements, and former HCT President Seymour Canter ’55 received the Distinguished Service Award. From left to right: HCT President Dann V. Angeloﬀ ’58, MBA ’63; Hall of Fame honorees Burton Karson ’56, MA ’59, DMA ’64, Sorrell Trope ’47, LLB ’49, Willa O’Day Olsen PhD ’58, MD ’62, Melvin F. Baron PharmD ’57, MPA ’73 and Fred V. Keenan ’37; and Canter. ●

P H OTO S B Y R O B I N L A I R D, S T E P H E N B L A H A , G E O R G E C . L I N , TO M Q U E A L LY

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class notes Lizette Salas ’11 was only 7 when her father showed her a proper golf swing. Being head mechanic at the public Azusa Greens Golf Course had some perks, and Ramon Salas made sure his kids learned to play. But Lizette, his youngest, was special. One day, head pro Jerry Herrera offered to coach the girl. Unable to pay for lessons, Ramon bartered his services as a handyman. Pretty soon Lizette was unwelcome at her dad’s friendly Thursday game with the rest of the grounds crew. “When I started taking their money, they didn’t let me play anymore,” recalls Salas, 23, who would go on to win the national championship as a USC freshman, captain the team her senior year and become a four-time All-American — the first in Trojan golf history. Salas made it to the 2012 LPGA tour a year out of college, climbing from 240th in the world to 89th over the course of the season. She finished as the 51st biggest earner on tour. Salas is one of 11 Trojans on the LPGA tour, the most players from any university. “That says a lot about the program and about Coach Andrea,” she says, referring to USC women’s golf head coach Andrea Gaston, now in her 17th year with the Trojans. Her meteoric rise has made news. She’s been featured in media from The New York Times to ESPN, not just because she’s a terrific young golfer but because of her inspirational story. The daughter of Mexican immigrants and first in her family to attend college, Salas speaks lovingly of a father who was “my caddie, my chauffeur, my coach, my everything” and a mother who was “big on education and kept my head in the books.” Salas first shared her personal story at the 2011 graduation ceremony for USC student athletes. “Where I come from,” she told the large Galen Center crowd, “people don’t expect much of a person — especially a young Latina. There were countless times I was told that I wasn’t going to make it.” She’s succeeded, and now she helps others. Salas trains and mentors some 80 other youngsters through San Gabriel Junior Golf, a group founded by her father and Herrera, the Azusa Greens golf pro. Asked how learning golf benefits low-income kids, Salas responds with passion: “Golf teaches so much! It teaches discipline, concentration, proper etiquette. You have to be quiet; you have shake a player’s hand after you’re done; boys have to take off their hats; everything has to be neat and tucked in. It motivates them, too, and gives them self-confidence.” The Southern California native who came to USC on a golf scholarship and majored in sociology is no less passionate about her alma mater. “If it wasn’t for USC, if it wasn’t for my Trojan Family, I wouldn’t be on tour today and living my dream,” she says. “It’s just a great place to learn and grow up.” Her regret: missing out on the new John McKay Center. “I’m so jealous,” she says with a laugh. “The fitness center, the rehab center. I wouldn’t mind getting injured right now. The underwater treadmill. That would be fun!”

Lizette of the Links

DIANE KRIEGER

U S C T R O JA N FA M I LY M AG A Z I N E

spring 2013

1940s Leo Pearlstein ’42 has published three books on marketing and food promotion and is celebrating his 63rd year in public relations with the marketing agency he founded, Lee & Associates Inc. He lives in Los Angeles. 1960s Hal C. Browder DDS ’61, ME ’74 was recently elected president of the board of the California Wildlife Foundation. He lives in Coarsegold, Calif. Oliver R. Bishop ’63 published his autobiography, Eight Decades (And More), relating his early years during the Great Depression and following his three careers as an officer in the military, a city manager of four cities and a state official. He is retired and lives with his wife in Westmont, Ill. David R. Brown ’63 recently published A Layman’s Guide to Ecclesiastes, an e-book that offers verse-by-verse commentary and study guides for the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes. He lives in Wheaton, Md. Cal Lewis MD ’64 attended PitchFest in Las Vegas earlier this year to pitch to filmmakers his 2005 book about his father’s capture and imprisonment during World War II, Wake Island: The Story of a Civilian POW at Niigata, Japan 1941-1945. He lives in Spring Creek, Nev. Steven J. Harris ’67 received the Legacy Award from the Plank Center for Leadership in Public Relations for his leadership in public relations. After more than 40 years in automotive communications, he retired as vice president, global communications at General Motors in 2009 and is currently a partner at McGinn and Company in Arlington, Va. Mirko Blesich ’69 has formed Blesich Sports & Entertainment, a Beverly Hills, Calif., agency serving the business interests of professional athletes and entertainers.

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alumni proﬁle ’11

alumni proﬁle ’98

1970s Howard Pearlstein ’72 of Los Angeles is celebrating his 41st year in public relations with his family-owned public relations agency, Lee & Associates Inc. David Burback ’73 recently joined the commercial real estate company Transwestern as executive vice president and managing director, responsible for the brokerage service lines in Southern California’s Inland Empire. Joe W. Conner ’73 is the founder of consulting company JWC Development Systems, which helps students, their families and schools strengthen student skills in science, technology, engineering, math and medicine. He is a professor in the Natural Sciences Division at Pasadena (Calif.) City College. George Teitel ’73 of Tucson, Ariz., was conferred the Order of the Rising Sun from the government of Japan for his lifelong contributions to the enhancement of friendship between the U.S. and Japan.

P H OTO B Y M I K E S H A P P E R A N D B R I A N VA N C E / M OT O R T R E N D

George McFetridge MPA ’76 published his second novel, The White Rose, a wartime love story based on the world’s first female fighter pilot ace. McFetridge published the book under the pen name Mary Ann Cook. He is a deputy district attorney in Orange County, Calif., and lives with his wife in Lake Forest, Calif. Margaret Jane Radin JD ’76 is the author of Boilerplate: The Fine Print, Vanishing Rights, and the Rule of Law. She is the Henry King Ransom Professor of Law at the University of Michigan and the William Benjamin Scott and Luna M. Scott Professor of Law, Emerita, at Stanford University. Daniel Robbins MM ’76 appeared with the Rapides Symphony Orchestra in Alexandria, La., last fall as a guest lecturer. He gave a presentation on how music influences films. He lives in Lakewood, Calif. Michael Levine ’77 directed the feature film 1000 to 1: The Cory Weismann Story, a drama about a Gettysburg College basketball player who, as a freshman, suffered a major stroke. Levine lives in Simi Valley, Calif.

Racing the Dream Edward Loh ’98 is all about speed. And he’s driven. One day he’s flying to the Motor Show in Paris, the next day he’s zipping around the back roads of Seville, Spain, in a Bugatti Veyron Super Sport. He’s putting out a magazine a month, pushing his team to finish a book about car designer Carroll Shelby and tweeting a mile a minute for his publication. “The goal is not to make the most money,” Loh says, talking so fast he drops words, “but to live the most interesting life.” Loh, 37, has the boyish, buttoned-down appearance of a prep school student. “I look like an engineer from Toyota,” he admits. Truth is, he’s the editor-in-chief of Motor Trend magazine, an El Segundo, Calif.-based publication with a printed monthly circulation of more than a million. It’s been a surprising career for a man who, after high school in Camarillo, Calif., set out to become a physician and enrolled in USC’s Baccalaureate/MD program. So what happened? He spent much of his college time taking sports photos for the Daily Trojan. He would shoot games at the Coliseum, run to campus, develop 15 rolls of film, clip and print. “It was addicting,” he says. “I was on the field for football games; there’s a guy from Sports Illustrated on my right, a guy from the LA Times on my left.” After graduating from USC with a biology major and a business minor, Loh instructed high schoolers in Pasadena, Calif., through Teach for America. Those two years turned out to be pivotal. “I remember telling my students to follow their dreams,” he says, “and realizing, I’m not following mine.” Loh’s big break came in 2001 when a USC alum needed a photographer and writer for a small, family-owned publication in Orange County called Import Racer! “Next thing I know I was hired as associate editor,” Loh says. Four years later, Loh switched to Road & Track, then to Sport Compact Car and, in 2007, to Motor Trend, which named him editor-in-chief in 2011. The fascination with the hectic world of journalism, with access to celebrities and big events, seduced Loh. Now he’s proud to report that he’s had well-known car collector Jay Leno on the phone and that he’s chatted with model Amber Valletta about a Tesla review. “This is so bizarre,” Loh says, squeezing his eyes shut. “What planet am I on?” It’s been a fast career. So fast that Loh, who will fearlessly slam down his foot to make a Veyron go 180 mph or more, admits: “It scares me.” Follow Loh on Twitter at @edloh. CHRISTINA SCHWEIGHOFER

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Te USC Alumni Association proudly thanks all the participants and sponsors who for