INSIDE: REBOUND COLLEGE MAGAZINE • The Front Lines • The Class of 2020 Vs. the Pandemic • Gardener of the Sea • Cycles of Life • The Global Coach Spring 2021 HOMEPAGE Nobel in Gold — While speaking on the phone with her sister, Sarah Doudna, Jennifer Doudna ’85 holds up the gold medallion stamped with the profile of Alfred Nobel that represents the Nobel Prize. The photo was taken on Dec. 8, 2020, following a presentation ceremony in Berkeley, California, during which Doudna officially received her 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Normally, Nobel recipients receive their awards in Stockholm, from the hand of the king of Sweden, but due to the pandemic, all presentations were made locally. —AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, Pool 1 COVID Clinic — One of the many changes at Pomona during the pandemic is the creation of an on-campus clinic in Rembrandt Hall focusing on COVID-19 issues. The clinic, managed by Hamilton Health Box, is staffed by two nurses—Stephanie Garcia-Barragan (left), who oversees the new health protocols for people on campus, and her assistant, Sarai Sanchez-Salas (right). —Photo by Jeff Hing Spring 2021 Pomona College Magazine 3 At the Museum — Titled “In Our Care: Institutional History in Material Form,” this exhibition is one of the first on display at the new Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College. The exhibition was curated by Sam Chan ’22, Noor Tamari ’22 and Kali Tindell-Griffin ’22 as a summer research project under the supervision and partnership of museum director Victoria Sancho Lobis and Claire Nettleton, academic curator. Though the pandemic has made in-person visits to the museum impossible, the staff has been able to offer virtual tours of the show, which will remain in place until July. —Photo by Jeff Hing 4 Pomona College Magazine 5 Nice Kitty — No, that’s not someone’s pet tabby hiding in the brush near Bridges Auditorium or scampering across the campus green. It’s a bobcat, another example of the local wildlife that has found its way onto the Pomona College campus during the College’s yearlong closure. The photos were taken by a local resident, 12-year-old David Lonardi, who spotted the bobcat while trying out his new camera near campus. 6 Spring 2021 Pomona College Magazine STRAY THOUGHTS PomonaCOLLEGE MAGAZINE SPRING 2021• VOLUME 57, NO. 1 Passages EDITOR/DESIGNER ur lives are mostly continuity. Days blur into a seamless river of time, broken Mark Wood ([email protected]) Oonly by a handful of true discontinuities that stand like dams against the flow of years, shunting our lives onto new and radically different courses. ASSISTANT EDITOR Robyn Norwood ([email protected]) Some of these are matters of fate and circumstance. Winning the lottery, getting a dream job, getting fired, losing a loved one. This year we’ve all been shaken by one ASSISTANT EDITOR of the most disruptive of all—a pandemic. Carla Guererro ([email protected]) Other disruptions take the form of cultural milestones—rites of passage in the BOOK EDITOR course of a modern life. Starting school, leaving home, graduating, getting a job, Sneha Abraham ([email protected]) getting married, having a baby. These transitions seem almost sacramental. They CONTRIBUTORS INSIDE PCM transform our lives, but they also make us feel part of something bigger than our- Alissa Greenberg (“Cycles of Life”) is a writer based in selves. We look forward to them with equal parts anticipation and fear because they Berkeley, California, who reports at the intersection be- tween science, art, business and culture. Her work has ap- promise both possibility and uncertainty. They also remind us that the clock is tick- peared in The Washington Post, The Guardian and The ing inexorably on our lives. Atlantic, among others. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately because I now find myself on the brink Michelle Hiskey (“The [Basketball] World According to Rebound of another of life’s sacramental passages—the one called retirement. By the time you Voigt”) is a writer based in Decatur, Georgia, who covers read this, I will be at home, readjusting to a new life. And though I do feel some sports, the South, religion and mental health. A Pulitzer DEPARTMENTS Prize finalist, she has written for The New York Times and FEATURES trepidation and wistfulness, I’m also excited about the prospect of focusing all my Atlanta Journal-Constitution. time and energy on my own writing and art, not to mention catching up on a lot of reading and, once this pandemic is done, having more freedom to travel. Ramin Skibba (“Gardener of the Sea”) is an astrophysicist Homepage 1 I’ve gotten plenty of advice from friends who’ve walked this path before me, turned science writer and freelance journalist based in San The Front Line mostly about not repeating their mistakes. There are plenty of mistakes to be made, Diego. His work has appeared in Scientific American, The Right from the start, Sagehens have been on the front lines Stray Thoughts Atlantic, WIRED and other publications. 8 and I’m sure I’ll invent a few of my own. The best advice I’ve gotten, though, came of the fight against COVID-19, and they’re still battling. 22 from Professor Emeritus Richard Fass, who took my elbow one day and said with a CONTRIBUTING STAFF Lupe Castaneda Letter Box 10 wink: “Just remember: It’s a process.” Jeff Hing Which, I suppose, makes it like every other great milestone in life. Covid Update 11 But I have to say that leaving this job is a bigger transition than most. I’m now in SUBMISSIONS AND CHANGES: The Class of 2020 Vs. the Pandemic For class notes, address changes, photos and birth or death The pandemic denied members of the Class of 2020 their final hurrah on campus, my 23rd year at Pomona—the longest I’ve ever worked or lived anywhere. This issue notices, email: [email protected]; phone: (909) 607-8129; Pomoniana of Pomona College Magazine is the 65th I’ve had the privilege of designing and over- or fax: 909-621-8535. For other editorial matters or submissions, but that was just the start. What followed was a test of resilience and resourcefulness. 12 phone: 909-621-8158, email [email protected] or mail to Pomona 28 seeing as either managing editor or executive editor. That number, I was surprised to College Magazine, 550 N. College Ave., Claremont, CA 91711. Artifact discover, accounts for more than a third of the total since the very first PCM rolled Magazine policies are available at: 15 www.pomona.edu/magazine/guidelines. off a press back in October 1963. Booktalk To that, I can only add: Thank you for putting up with me for so long. POMONA COLLEGE MAGAZINE Gardener of the Sea 16 When you retire, there are lots of sentimental “lasts’ to get through. This is one is published three times a year. Copyright 2021 by Pomona Gator Halpern ’12 and Coral Vita are playing a major role in expanding College, 550 North College Ave., Claremont, CA 91711. How To of them—the last one of these little essays I’ll ever write. Over the years, I’ve penned coral farming and reef restoration efforts in the face of global warming. 20 POMONA COLLEGE 36 lots of them, usually about my take on something relevant to the magazine’s theme. is an independent liberal arts college located in Claremont, Notice Board In many of them, I’ve shared personal recollections and reflections from my own California. Established in 1887, it is the founding member of The 50 life—from childhood memories to the trials of parenthood to, in this case, saying Claremont Colleges. Class Notes goodbye to a career that I’ve mostly loved. I’ve done this, at the risk of oversharing, PRESIDENT Cycles of Life 52 G. Gabrielle Starr because I’ve always believed the universal is in the individual. I hope some of what Katie Hall ’09 loved her seven-year adventure in pro cycling, I’ve written about my own life has resonated with yours. Obituaries NON-DISCRIMINATION POLICY 57 Twenty-three years ago, in the very first of these little missives, I promised you a Pomona College complies with all applicable state and but she has no qualms about turning the page and moving on. 40 federal civil rights laws prohibiting discrimination in magazine that would respect your intelligence, and I noted that PCM’s mission education and the workplace. This policy of non- In Memoriam 62 should be to “inform, entertain and sometimes disturb. Like an old friend, it should discrimination covers admission, access and service in be reliable, but it should frequently surprise you. It should make you think. In the Pomona College programs and activities, as well as hiring, promotion, compensation, benefits and all other terms Time Out 64 Pomona tradition, it should challenge you.” and conditions of employment at Pomona College. The [Basketball] World That charge is one that I now leave, with a high degree of confidence, for PCM’s According to Voigt next editor. 46 Will Voigt ’98 has built a career on a love of basketball —MW and a willingness to go wherever it takes him. magazine.pomona.edu 8 Spring 2021 Pomona College Magazine 9 LETTER BOX COVID UPDATE Remembering Bill Wirtz We would like to recognize the legacy of Emeri- tus Professor William “Bill” Wirtz, who recently passed away in Norco, California, at 83 years old. Bill provided invaluable experience-based learning to generations of Pomona College students that brought the natural world into focus for all and inspired many of us to continue on in biology and ecology careers.