FOR ALUMNI AND FRIENDS OF USC DANA AND DAVID DORNSIFE COLLEGE OF LETTERS, ARTS AND SCIENCES

SPRING / SUMMER 2018 MAGAZINE

The Travel Issue TROTTINGGLOBE- Exploration enriches life and learning, expanding our world view. CONTRIBUTOR

Peter Mancall Divisional Dean for the Humanities, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities and Linda and Harlan Martens Director of the Early Modern Studies Institute

“He’s eaten a toad and a half for breakfast,” is one of no less than 228 popular — and often colorful — descriptions of drunkenness used by colo- nialists in 18th-century North America. “This is a sign of just how common excessive drinking was in North America during this period,” Peter Mancall, told a German television crew. The professor of history and anthropology was being interviewed for Terra X, a weekly series on Germany’s biggest public broadcast chan- nel, ZDF. The program attracts some 5 million viewers. Mancall was answering questions on the impact of alcohol trade on native cultures in North America — a field in which he has long been a leading expert. Comparing Native Americans’ radically different relation- ship with alcohol to that of European settlers, Mancall concluded that it is an ines- capable fact that alcohol was an agent of empire building in North America, harming Native American communi- ties and leading to accidents, violence and even murder. “No one can claim the Europeans were unaware of what was happening,” he said, “but the forces of colonialism overpowered the indigenous voices of protest.”

2 MANCALL PORTRAIT BY PETER ZHAOYU ZHOU INTERVIEW PHOTO BY MIKE GLIER SPRING / SUMMER 2018 A Mind for Travel 2 From the Dean Travel is education. We seek distance from our everyday lives not only to find new Contents 4 COVER STORY experiences, but to view from a different vantage the world we think we under- Luggage stickers are the classic SENIOR ASSOCIATE DEAN stand. Whether the journey leads to hidden ruins or towering skyscrapers, we learn symbol of a well-traveled person. FOR STRATEGIC INITIATIVES AND COMMUNICATION something new and valuable about ourselves and the world we inhabit. Lance Ignon 5 SOCIAL DORNSIFE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Each year, dozens of USC Dornsife undergraduates embark on Problems Without Flags of many nations adorn the Darrin S. Joy Passports, Maymester and other travel experiences that complement their coursework. Engaging directly with different people and cultures, these students explore themes Von KleinSmid Center colonnade, MANAGING EDITOR such as peacebuilding in Colombia or contemporary art in Senegal, among many other a reminder that USC plays home to Susan Bell opportunities. students from all around the globe. ART DIRECTOR / PRODUCTION MANAGER At USC Dornsife, travel doesn’t require a boarding pass. We continually make the journey Letty Avila to the frontiers of knowledge. Our faculty push the limits of convergent bioscience as they 6 FROM THE HEART OF USC WRITERS AND EDITORS develop ways to predict and prevent diseases. Our historians guide us back in time to provide Science and cinema join forces; Michelle Boston a means of critically informing the public discourse of the 21st century. Our social scientists Your weight may be tied to where Emily Gersema bring us into diverse communities, helping us work with them on relevant issues including you live; Sexism in sports persists; Jim Key Course aims to make Los Angeles Laura Paisley immigration and economic inequality. And all of our scholars set out searching not only for answers, but for deeper questions. more elder-friendly. DESIGNER Exploration is what the liberal arts and sciences are all about. We challenge assumptions. Matthew Savino We make surprising connections. We learn to pave our own paths through the great 7 Curriculum VIDEOGRAPHER AND PHOTOGRAPHER unknown. Mike Glier And at the end of our travels, we return to the comfort of homes we know so well. 8 Archive COMMUNICATIONS ASSISTANT But new parts of our minds have been opened — and that opens new possibilities. THE TRAVEL ISSUE 10 Deann Webb Profile Amber D. Miller CONTRIBUTORS Dean of USC Dornsife 20 13 Lexicon Orli Belman, Ian Chaffee, Joanna Clay, Bill Dotson, Greg Hardesty, Anna H. Bing Dean’s Chair Dan Knapp, Stephen Koenig, Eric Lindberg, Maria Budisavljevic 14 Oparnica Simic, Zen Vuong BookpackingEducational in Louisiana. Examining Voyage culture in Cuba. Excavating artifacts in Greece. Exploring hip hop in Paris. In The Field USC DORNSIFE ADMINISTRATION Students reap travel’s educational rewards — benefiting from a tradition stretching back to ancient times.By Susan Bell 18 Amber D. Miller, Dean • Stephen Bradforth, Divisional Dean for Natural Our World Sciences and Mathematics • Steven Finkel, College Dean of Graduate and 26 48 Professional Education • Lance Ignon, Senior Associate Dean For Strategic Legacy Initiatives and Communication • Andrew Lakoff, Divisional Dean for Social 49 Sciences • Peter Mancall, Divisional Dean for the Humanities • Eddie Sartin, PersonalDigital and cultural legacyHumanity meets cutting-edge research technology, enabling the documentation and preservation Faculty News Senior Associate Dean for Advancement • Andrew Stott, College Dean of of Byzantine murals in Eastern Orthodox churches. By Laura Paisley Undergraduate Education 50 DORNSIFE FAMILY USC DORNSIFE BOARD OF COUNCILORS 30 Family secrets shed light on a finan- Robert D. Beyer, Chair • Wendy Abrams • Robert Alvarado • William cial crisis; Alumna helps refugees Barkett • Leslie Berger • Susan Casden • Richard S. Flores • Shane Foley • read; Discarded pulp makes for Lisa Goldman • Jana Waring Greer • Pierre Habis • Yossie Hollander • ImmigrationTraveling is central to the rootsHome of the American experience. So what does it mean when we make our home tasty nutrition; Math grad wields Janice Bryant Howroyd • Martin Irani • Dan James • Stephen G. Johnson • By Michelle Boston the power of numbers. Suzanne Nora Johnson • Bettina Kallins • Yoon Kim • Samuel King • across borders, learning a new culture while honoring where we come from? Arthur Lev • Kathy Leventhal • Robert Osher • Gerald Papazian • 36 50 Andrew Perlman • Lawrence Piro • Kelly Porter • Michael Reilly • Harry Faculty Canon Robinson • Stephanie Booth Shafran • Carole Shammas • Kumarakulasingam “Suri” Suriyakumar 52 HolocaustA Final survivor Pinchas Farewell Gutter’s final visit to his homeland is a haunting reminder of family lost and a life he might Alumni News USC DORNSIFE MAGAZINE have lived. He captures his personal saga in virtual reality for future generations. By Michelle Boston 54 Published twice a year by the USC Dornsife Office of Communication Alumni and at the University of Southern California. © 2018 USC Dornsife College. The diverse opinions expressed in USC Dornsife Magazine do not necessarily 40 ILLUSTRATION BY MATTHEW SAVINO represent the views of the editors, USC Dornsife administration or Student Canon USC. USC Dornsife Magazine welcomes comments from its readers to 58 [email protected] or USC Dornsife Magazine, 1150 S. Olive St. IntrepidFrom explorers ofWhence the modern age, marine scientistsWe travel Came the world’s oceans to understand the mysteries of — Remembering T2400, Los Angeles, CA 90015. PHOTO BY MIKE GLIER MIKE BY PHOTO and threats to — Earth’s fount of life. By Darrin S. Joy 60 IN MY OPINION 44 NFL Hall of Famer gives his thoughts on winning leadership.

AlumnusThe William “Bill”Man Altaffer has Who’svisited every country Been in the world —Everywhere many not just once. From North Korea to the North Pole, Sweden to the Sahara, Tipperary to Timbuktu, he’s seen it all. By Susan Bell SOCIAL DORNSIFE

Twitter On Campus @KUSCGail: A very proud moment for @ClassicalKUSC: “I WAS THERE” our beloved former intern is CoverIn days gone by, travelers Story @USC Valedictorian! Congrats collected commemorative Rose Campion! Commencement stickers from each stop along about to begin in Alumni Park. #KnockEmDead the way to their destination, adorning their luggage with @cheltfestivals: If you love the them. The practice kept an @Marvel, you’ll love The Science easily visible record of their of Marvel. Join #InfinityWar scientific advisor @asymptotia journey and silently proclaimed as he explores what happens that the bag’s owner was a when the worlds of science and worldly-wise person. comic books collide. Luggage stickers arose in the mid-19th century as a way @JodyAVallejo: Felicidades to my compa and @CSII_USC for hotels to ensure travelers’ @PERE_USC Director bags weren’t lost on their way @Prof_MPastor who was awarded from the train or shipyard the @USC Associates Award for to lodgings. Beginning some- Creativity in #Research for “his courage in addressing soci- time around the turn of the etal challenges & his unflagging 20th century and carrying commitment to #greatergood.” through to the early 1960s — the so-called “golden age @MortezDehghani: RT Nature- of travel” — hotels used the HumanBehaviour: So cool that we got the cover! @JoeEHoover stickers as advertisements, @MarlonMooijman @USC_Research often designing them to @USCDornsife mirror travel posters of the day and eagerly affixing them @uscwrigleyinst: Thank you to the 500+ divers who retrieved to the sturdy suitcases and about 2 TONS of marine trash trunks in use at the time. in today’s Avalon Underwater As luggage makers began to Cleanup. It was a great day. use lighter, softer materials, #catalina #uscdornsife the stickers began to fade @SFeakins: on how University from mainstream use. Their leadership can set the stage adhesive properties and for public engagement from paper composition proved @USCDornsife Dean Amber less than ideal for use on the Miller via @ConversationUS @_scicomm #SciEngage flexible, synthetic surfaces of #Leshner Fellows the newer bags. In their stead, airlines and other travel suppliers turned to austere identification tags, forgoing CONNECT WITH USC DORNSIFE creative design in favor of Check us out on your favorite social media sites. We welcome a strictly utilitarian motif. your posts and tweets for pos- And yet, to this day nothing Strolling beneath the colonnade of the Von KleinSmid Center for International and Public Affairs on the sible inclusion in the next issue speaks to the idea — the University Park campus serves as a powerful reminder that you don’t necessarily have to leave USC to travel — of USC Dornsife Magazine. romance — of travel quite as at least metaphorically. Simply look upwards to the more than 100 international flags that proudly hang there dornsife.usc.edu/facebook clearly as the luggage labels to reflect on the fact that the university is home to students from all over the world. Become a fan and get updates of old affixed to a classic The tradition dates back to 2006, when USC began using the center’s flagpoles to display banners from the countries in your news feed. leather suitcase. Though represented by the university’s international students. The building’s 107 flagpoles, however, haven’t always been enough — time may have made their dornsife.usc.edu/twitter in Fall 2013, for example, USC admitted students from 115 different countries. Follow our tweets for the use impractical, and selfies By sharing their ideas, scholarship and culture, including their food, music and traditions, international students add latest USC Dornsife news. become the new marker stating diversity and enrich the experience of others on campus, increasing understanding and inspiring empathy in ways similar “I was there,” the legacy of the GLIER MIKE BY PHOTO to those we encounter when we travel. The friendships sparked by these precious exchanges can be lifelong, breaking down dornsife.usc.edu/youtube Watch the latest videos from luggage sticker as a symbol borders and sparking the desire to explore other cultures that we may otherwise never have dreamed of visiting. of global travel and a cosmo- the USC Dornsife community. politan view remains stead- dornsife.usc.edu/instagram fastly intact. —D.S.J. Follow our feed for snapshots of the #DornsifeLife.

4 Spring / Summer 2018 5 FROM THE HEART OF USC

Viewpoint GESM 120 EXPERT OPINIONS HEAD FOR THE HILLS Instructor: Ian Culbertson, ILLUSTRATION COURTESY OF CHARLES STEWART SMITH COLLECTION, GIFT OF MRS. CHARLES STEWART SMITH, CHARLES STEWART SMITH JR., AND HOWARD CASWELL SMITH, IN MEMORY OF CHARLES STEWART SMITH, 1914; CULBERTSON PHOTO BY MIKE GLIER Curriculum lecturer “One in four U.S. women returns to USC science and cinematic arts students join forces to find answers in biology. work within two Lights! Camera! Science!By Darrin S. Joy weeks of delivering an infant, a statistic Raymond Stevens looks for opportunity — particularly any artists, but between specialists in different fields. that boggles the mind: that may improve the human condition. “The Bridge Institute is trying to bring all of these multiple That is not enough To encourage collaboration and hasten scientific advances, disciplines together, not just art and science, but different time to fully physically Stevens, director of the Bridge Institute at the USC Michelson sciences as well as science and engineering,” said Tedlock. Center for Convergent Bioscience, challenged experts from Stevens, himself something of an embodiment of conver- recover even from the a wide variety of fields to work together and propose projects gent science — he is Provost Professor of Biological In the age of smartphones, most uncomplicated bridging those fields and addressing intractable problems in Sciences, Chemistry, Neurology, Physiology and Biophysics, USC students are reconnecting of deliveries, let alone bioscience. and Chemical Engineering and Materials Science — sees with nature by hiking every establish a caretaking One proposal in particular stood out — the Bridge Arts the joint efforts of artists and sciences as not just helpful, weekend in the Santa Monica and Science Alliance. but necessary. Mountains for a new Department routine and bond of Physical Education course with a newborn.” The brainchild of Kyle McClary, a fourth-year Ph.D. “At first I thought this initiative was going to be student studying chemistry in Stevens’ lab, and Evan about teaching scientists to use digital art tools for data taught by USC Dornsife lecturer DARBY SAXBE, assistant profes- Ian Culbertson, a former marine sor of psychology, in a Jan. 23 Tedlock, an MFA student in USC’s School of Cinematic integration analysis,” he said. But the summer gave him an biologist and backpacking guide. Slate op-ed on the lack of mental- Arts, the project brings cinematic arts students together with “aha moment” when he heard an artist describe science in a physical health care integration to science and engineering students — both undergraduates completely new and clearer way. Culberston, who also teaches support new parents. and graduates — to encourage them to develop collaborative “I now ask the cinema students, ‘Why just make another a course on exercise and stress ventures. film when you can do both – make a film and help to under- management, emphasizes being The initiative has spawned nearly a dozen projects, stand a disease or develop a new medicine?’ ” present not only on the hikes, “Such behavior but also in our everyday lives. was not considered from a virtual reality method of managing Hiking can be a way for stu- unlawful or wrong pain to a documentary dents to manage their stress and in the medieval on the opioid crisis, and anxiety. Research shows that period unless one from animation shorts — being connected with nature can including two produced in have spiritual benefits that may powerful man transcend that treadmill run. harassed a woman the Bridge Undergraduate Science program — to an Students also gain outdoor who belonged to interactive 3D exploration skills. Culbertson teaches navi- another powerful of human cells. gation, preparing for emergen- man.” “The core of our mission cies and what to do when lost. LISA BITEL, Dean’s professor of is that we want artists to With all the required course- Religion and professor of religion learn from scientists and work, hiking might seem like a and history, in a Jan. 16 op-ed scientists to learn from curious addition to a schedule, in The Conversation on the but Sarah Van Orman, USC’s common occurrence of sexual artists,” McClary said. harassment in medieval times. As the teams work associate provost of student together, they teach each health, says don’t write it off. other the ins and outs of “I hear from students that “Latino elites’ efforts their fields. The objective it’s hard to give themselves to infuse their commu- is a better understanding permission to take time away nities with resources are of the science and to from ‘important stuff’ like make science more compre- studying,” she said. “This gives important, but they students permission to take alone cannot hensible. “One of the biggest care of themselves.” —J.C. solve widespread efforts … is to break down PHOTO COURTESY KYLE MCCLARY social and economic some of this language that Although made in 1800, this ink inequalities.” is just so inaccessible and drawing of a tranquil mountain JODY AGIUS VALLEJO, associate to reframe it in a way that landscape by Japanese artist professor of sociology and American is more intuitive, using Kawabata Gyokusho evokes the studies and ethnicity, in a Nov. 6 more recent Japanese concept of op-ed in The Conversation on the metaphor and storytelling,” ways that American Latino elites McClary said. shinrin-yoku — literally “ forest are actively involved in growing a That’s true not just bathing” — which may be regarded Latino middle class. between scientists and as a form of nature therapy.

6 Spring / Summer 2018 7 FROM THE HEART OF USC

SPATIAL SCIENCES Recognition

Institute for Environmental Studies, says she’s proud of the Archive competitors’ successes. Sustainable Success “We launched the competition to support the institute’s Prize winners turn ideas to protect the planet into goal to not only deepen understanding of our environment, growing businesses. but to develop practical solutions for preserving it,” Puentes said. “So we’re incredibly proud and grateful to hear stories of success … from students in programs throughout the university.” —J.K. IGOR KUKAVICA Fellow, American Mathematical Society Kukavica, professor of math- SONGBIRD ILLUSTRATION BY LETTY AVILA;KUKAVICA PHOTO COURTESY OF IGOR KUKAVICA; LEWIS PHOTO COURTESY OF ROBIN COSTE LEWIS; NGUYEN PHOTO COURTESY OF VIET THANH NGUYEN THANH VIET OF COURTESY PHOTO NGUYEN LEWIS; COSTE ROBIN OF COURTESY PHOTO LEWIS KUKAVICA; IGOR OF COURTESY PHOTO AVILA;KUKAVICA LETTY BY ILLUSTRATION SONGBIRD ematics, has been elected a fellow of the American Mathematical Birds, Brains, Babble Society for his many contributions Songbirds learning to sing may give clues as to how to nonlinear partial differen- tial equations, as well as his babies learn to speak. mentoring of Ph.D. students and his general service to the A study of songbirds by USC Dornsife scientists might mathematical profession. help explain how people learn complex behaviors, such as speech. “One hypothesis to explain speech development is that the sound of a word creates a memory, or mental template,” says Sarah Bottjer, professor of biological sciences and psych- ology. “That template becomes the internal recording a baby Since being named a finalist in the USC Wrigley Sustain- uses, as its goal, to say the word.” ability Prize competition last year, USC Dornsife alumnus While attempting to speak, a baby’s brain may compare Kevin Kassel received $100,000 in early funding to help the sound it utters to its mental template of the word. The change the way people access clean water. His company, outcome of that evaluation may be relayed to neural circuits ROBIN COSTE LEWIS Aqus, will soon have vending machines in drought-stricken responsible for generating motor commands (mouth move- Fellow, Ford Foundation Lewis, writer in residence, was areas of sub-Saharan Africa that will disperse water for a ment and breathing) to produce sound. When the sound is named an Art of Change fellow quarter of the price elsewhere. a match, the neural circuitry to make that sound is strength- by the Ford Foundation. Lewis, And Noah Snyder, the head of Interphase Materials ened. When it’s not, it’s recognized as an error that corres- poet laureate for the City of — the team that won last year’s competition — received ponds with an attempt to correct the neural circuitry. Los Angeles, is one of 25 visionary a $750,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy The study supported the hypothesis, finding that when artists and cultural leaders to receive the honor. to support his fledgling company’s work to improve power young zebra finches produced sounds that mimicked plant efficiency. The company has a second contract with the the sounds they had memorized, the part of their brains U.S. Navy and is working on a project in Canada, as well. responsible for learning motor skills saw an increase in neural Both entrepreneurs credit their participation in the first activity. USC Wrigley Sustainability Prize, an entrepreneurial “Perhaps the way people learn how to make other precise competition supporting environmental ideas with market skilled movements can be explained by the same process,” potential, as a key factor in their successes. said Bottjer, who plans to conduct more research to address Kassel, who founded Aqus to change the way people that question. —J.K. VALK MAP The Valks created the illus- he had extensively explored the collection and analysis and how with great precision and access clean water and to eliminate the need to boil it Holland, 1714 tration of North and South western coast of North America. dramatically these techniques accuracy using a variety of or purchase it in a bottle, says the insight he gained from For millennia, maps have cap- American continents for inclu- Before that, California had been have changed since 1714,” sensors and satellites, often competing for the prize helped his victory in an even bigger, tured the imagination of people sion in their atlas, Nova Totius correctly identified as mainland. explains Darren Ruddell, referred to as geospatial tech- VIET THANH NGUYEN international competition for entrepreneurs last year. Fellow, MacArthur Foundation intrigued by thoughts of adven- Geographica Telluris Projecto. Even after Jesuit missionary associate professor (teaching) nologies,” Ruddell said. ILLUSTRATION BY GERALDO AND LEONARDO VALK Aqus was one of just nine startups, selected from about Nguyen, University Professor ture, travel and discovery. Their illustration was based Father Eusebio Francisco Kino of spatial sciences. “In a mere It took an edict from Spain’s 300, to receive $100,000 in equity investments — and of English, American Studies Throughout history, however, on previously published maps walked from what is now New 300 years, the methods used King Ferdinand in 1747 to con- coaching from Silicon Valley professionals — through the and Ethnicity and Comparative certain maps have been known by renowned cartographers Mexico to the Northern Cali- to capture data and create vince the world that California Vatican-sponsored Laudato Si Challenge, a global initiative Literature, and Aerol Arnold Chair of English, was one of to be seriously flawed. Nicolas Sanson and Hugo Allard. fornia coast in the early 1700s maps have changed in unprec- was not an island and put an to find, fund and incubate companies that are solving the The Dutch mapmaking team Other famous mapmakers — thereby proving that the edented ways. end to the publication of maps 24 fellows selected by the John world’s biggest problems. D. and Catherine T. MacArthur of Geraldo Valk and his son of the time — including John area was part of the mainland “While the origins of the Valk supporting the theory of an “Getting the awesome insight and feedback on our busi- Foundation, which recognizes Leonardo perpetuated one of Speed and Vincenzo Coronelli — many cartographers refused map are attributed to a friar insular California. ness model and strategy — from such an incredible group “talented individuals who have the most notable cartographic — published similar maps con- to depict California as anything that sketched notes in a journal The Valk map was reproduced of people — was a rare opportunity,” says Kassel, who shown extraordinary originality mistakes in history by depicting taining the same error. other than an island. while sailing along the West for more than a decade; how- and dedication in their creative earned a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies from pursuits and a marked capacity California as an island on their Many scholars trace this carto- “What I find interesting Coast from 1602–03, today, ever, only a few copies survive, USC Dornsife in 2017 and another in business adminis- for self-direction.” The fellow- 1714 map, America aurea pars graphic error to the 1592 claims about the 1714 Valk map relates data about features on the sur- including this one, curated by tration this year from USC Marshall School of Business. ship is known informally as the altera mundi. by navigator Juan de la Fuca that to the methods used for data face of the Earth are collected the USC Libraries. —D.K. Chase Puentes, program assistant for the USC Wrigley “genius grant.”

8 Spring / Summer 2018 9 FROM THE HEART OF USC

ARIANNA OZZANTO

For Arianna Ozzanto, a college management and strategy. she took on the position of quality of students and faculty education was never an option “I was always kind of terri- chief financial officer, and was expertise — in the business Profile — it was a certainty. fied of economics because I in the role when the Screen community. Her baby boomer mother and was in Advanced Placement Actors Guild and the American She is also helping to launch her father, a first-generation economics in high school and Federation of Television and a new Women in Economics Italian American who grew up I didn’t really have a grasp Radio Artists voted to become group to offer support for in Chicago during the Great of it,” Ozzanto said. But, her one organization in 2012. undergraduate and graduate Depression, instilled in college class struck a chord Ozzanto the idea that she could with her. be or do anything, as long as “I fell in love with econo- she took the right steps. mics. It came easily to me. I “My parents were great had an understanding of it and “I fell in love with economics proponents of financial respon- I couldn’t really tell you why. It sibility and independence,” felt like it was this natural fit,” … I couldn’t really tell she said, and in their minds, she said. education was a sound means The change so close to her you why. It felt like it was to achieve that. “College was senior year meant she had to never a choice for me. It was make up for lost time. this natural fit.” inevitable.” So, while her peers were Now Ozzanto, who earned her taking less intensive electives, bachelor’s degree in economics Ozzanto was taking calculus The merger gave Ozzanto the women majoring in economics from USC Dornsife in 1999, is and advanced statistics. “But, opportunity to work through at USC Dornsife. As a woman making her own financial deci- that was what I needed to get the process of bringing the in the financial world, Ozzanto sions — and on a much larger me through in four years,” unions together, integrating has seen firsthand how the scale. She is chief financial she said. policies and procedures as landscape is dominated by officer of the Screen Actors well as the cultures of the two men, though she said she’s Guild–American Federation NUMBERS GAME organizations, which she said never let that get in her way. of Television and Radio Artists Throughout her time at USC, was a rewarding and challen- However, she wants to support (SAG-AFTRA), the union repre- Ozzanto worked in a campus ging experience. After 14 years, the next generation of women senting actors, broadcast office that administered she still finds her position to interested in entering the field. journalists, recording artists, research grants. It helped be satisfying. “We have some really great stunt performers, voiceover her get a sense of what “I really like the fact that women involved in the group,” artists and other media working in accounting and I’m a piece of the pie that helps she said. “We’re thinking back professionals. finance was all about. That contribute to the betterment to when we were students — experience coupled with her of people. We’re fighting for what we would have benefited THE NATURAL economics degree served her performers, broadcasters, from.” Ozzanto followed her interest in well, she said. for better wages and working She has been delighted to finance, starting as a business Out of college, Ozzanto conditions. Although I don’t see a large turnout of young major at USC. But, she found worked her way up through get directly involved with the women at the economics the focus of the program wasn’t a few positions as a financial negotiation process, part department events she has quite right for her. analyst, including stints at of what I do helps the organi- attended on campus recently, “I initially thought that I’d be 20th Century Fox and at an zation move that forward,” and she is happy to offer her interested in marketing and insurance company. Then a she said. advice to them, or to anyone then figured out that it wasn’t budget analyst position opened starting out in a new industry. for me. The creative juices up at the Screen Actors Guild. THE NEXT GENERATION Find something you like, weren’t flowing as much as I “At the time, those jobs were Ozzanto has also been active she said. That will carry you thought that they would need kind of a luxury to have. A lot back on campus. She is a through. There’s nothing worse to in order to make a career of companies weren’t really member of the Economics than having to go to a job, day out of that,” she said. hiring people who just focused Leadership Council at after day after day, that you So, the second semester of on the budget,” Ozzanto said. USC Dornsife, which supports don’t like, or doing something her junior year she made a It was a perfect fit. Ozzanto the mission of the Department that you’re not completely decision to alter her path and steadily made her way up of Economics. Made up of satisfied with, she added.

PHOTO BY MIKE GLIER MIKE BY PHOTO switched her major to econo- through positions at the com- economics professionals, the “You’re going be working Arianna Ozzanto ’99 is chief mics. She was inspired by a pany, expanding her role from group provides mentorship and for 40 years, at least, and you financial officer of the Screen class she had taken on busi- finance and accounting to real internship opportunities for should like it,” she said. “If you Actors Guild-American ness economics — the study of estate, residual processing majors and helps to raise the find something you like, every- Federation of Television and issues faced by corporations and union membership, among profile of the department — thing else will fall into place. Radio Artists. such as business organization, other responsibilities. In 2009, already known for its high I’m living proof of that.” —M.B.

10 Spring / Summer 2018 11 FROM THE HEART OF USC

Word GENDER STUDIES IN THE NEWS QUOTABLES NONBINARY “I want students nän'bīnərē/ adjective / 1. Not Lexicon relating to, composed of, today to … or involving just two things. appreciate the GeneticUSC Dornsife scientists studying Ringleader genes linked to memory loss find that one may play a more important role 1.1 Denoting or relating to importance of the than previously understood. By Emily Gersema a gender or sexual identity issues around the that is not defined in terms of constitutional tension traditional binary oppositions such as male and female or between national homosexual and heterosexual. security and civil 2 Relating to, using or denoting liberties.” a system of numerical nota- SUSAN KAMEI, managing tion that does not have director of the spatial sciences institute and lecturer, in a Feb. 19 2 as a base. Los Angeles Times feature about Origin: From the French non- her history course, USC’s first, and Latin nōn, and the Latin on internment of Japanese and

12 Spring / Summer 2018 13 FROM THE HEART OF USC

CENTER FOR ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RESEARCH care about women’s sports, who can and will express genuine SOCIAL CONTAGION enthusiasm, rather than gender-bland sexism, when they In The Field Datar and co-author Nancy Sexism Anew? report on women’s sports.” —I.C. Nicosia at RAND studied Despite surging participation, women’s sports still military families to assess receive markedly less media attention than men’s. whether living in communities 21%–38% with greater obesity increased Obesity rates among U.S. counties range from 21 percent to 38 percent. their risk of being overweight Energy Mini-Storage or obese. Military families, USC Dornsife chemists find efficient hybrid molecules The old real estate adage of they reasoned, cannot choose that could support renewable energies. “location, location, location” where they live — rather, they may also apply to obesity. are assigned to installations. Scientists have long searched for the next generation of A study by USC Dornsife and “We found that the families materials that can catalyze a revolution in renewable energy the RAND Corp., published in In the United States, obesity assigned to installations in increases medical costs by harvesting and storage. the journal JAMA Pediatrics, counties with higher obesity One candidate appears to be metal-organic frameworks suggests that people who $1,429 per person over costs rates were more likely to be for someone with normal — small, flexible, ultra-thin, super-porous crystalline struc- move to an area with a high overweight or obese than tures. Unfortunately, their biggest drawback has been their weight (in 2008 dollars). 17 percent of children in the U.S. are obese. obesity rate are likely to those assigned to installations lack of conductivity. become overweight or obese 17% in counties with lower rates of Now, however, USC Dornsife scientists have found that themselves. The researchers obesity,” Datar said. metal-organic frameworks can conduct electricity in the say this may be due, in part, To assess whether shared same way metals do. This finding opens the door for these to social contagion. environments could explain molecules to one day efficiently store renewable energy at a “Social contagion in obesity these results, the researchers very large scale. means that if more people accounted for extensive data Tennis great John McEnroe recently claimed that women’s “The natural porosity of the metal-organic framework around you are obese, then on the food and activity champion Serena Williams wouldn’t even be a “top 700” makes it ideal for reducing the mass of material, allowing for that may increase your own opportunities in the county men’s player. His comment exemplified how women’s lighter, more compact devices,” said Brent Melot, associate chances of becoming obese,” $1,429 and neighborhood such sports receive little attention unless it is filtered through a professor of chemistry. said Ashlesha Datar, senior ½ as gyms, restaurants and dismissive male gaze. Gabilan Assistant Professor of Chemistry Smaranda economist and director of grocery stores. While mainstream broadcast coverage now treats Marinescu pointed to the promise inherent in the material’s the program on children and “We cannot say for sure that women’s games more seriously, much of that coverage is still multifaceted nature. “Metallic conductivity in tandem with families at the Center for 1 in 3 we accounted for everything being relegated to the sidelines, according to an ongoing, other catalytic properties would add to its potential for Economic and Social Research that might influence eating decades-long study by USC Dornsife researchers. renewable energy production and storage,” she said. at USC Dornsife. and exercise behaviors,” Led by Michael Messner, professor of sociology and Earth receives more energy from one hour of sunlight Research shows that living Datar explained. “But we One in three adults One half of children gender studies, the research team found that airtime than is consumed in one year, but much is wasted for lack of in certain communities carries did account for things that in a typical U.S. who are obese in for women’s sports on Los Angeles-based network affili- storage. The same is true for most other renewable energies. a higher risk of obesity than researchers in this field typi- county is obese. kindergarten remain ates has remained flat or declined since the study began The intermittent nature of these energies — no solar energy living in other communities. cally measure and found that obese in their teens. tracking in the late 1980s. at night or wind energy during periods of calm — also One possibility may be simply shared environments did Even off-season men’s sports received more airtime than requires efficient storage to overcome. that people with similar 2x not play a critical role in in-season coverage of women’s sports. If scientists and industries could one day regularly interests and backgrounds explaining our results.” The sexism is now subtler, too, said study lead author and reproduce the capability demonstrated by Marinescu, tend to locate in similar areas. Nicosia concurred. “Although Ph.D. student Michela Musto. “It seems at first that it’s it would go a long way toward making solar energy an Another explanation may be 30% we could not measure social respectful, but if you compare the framing with men’s sports, enduring and more permanent resource. —I.C. that people living in the same contagion directly,” she said, women are talked about in a much more boring way.” community are all influenced “our findings support a role for The researchers noted that the sparse coverage of women’s by the shared environment, social contagion in obesity.” sports is out of step with another simultaneous trend: a surge and the presence or lack of Americans consume on average 30 percent of U.S. of female athletes since the 1970s, when Title IX became things such as opportunities 22 teaspoons of sugar sweeteners elementary school kids, HIGHER RISK OFF BASE law, prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex for for exercising and healthy per day — twice the limit ages 5 to 14, experience The scientists also found that programs that receive federal funds. eating. recommended by the World Health obesity. the link between the county’s The study found there are few women in sports media A third explanation may be Organization. obesity rate and overweight or roles that may influence coverage decisions: 95 percent of that obesity is transmitted obesity in military families was the anchors, co-anchors and analysts covered by the research Obesity cost the U.S. $147 billion each year (2008 dollars). through social influence. stronger among families living were male. “Assessing the relative off base and those who had “I do believe that part of the move toward greater respect importance of these explana- lived there longer. and equity for women’s sports in the media will involve tions has been a challenging “This finding suggests that getting more women into newspaper sports desks, radio and task and yet is important for families with greater exposure TV commentary,” said Messner. “However, I also think that designing effective policies to $147 BILLION to obese communities face employers, when they hire new people, should seek to hire address obesity,” Datar said. increased risk,” Datar said. reporters and commentators — women or men — who really

14 Spring / Summer 2018 15 FROM THE HEART OF USC FROM THE HEART OF USC

Numbers Spotlight CLIMATE CHANGE GAME-CHANGER? “We can harness the power of maps and geography to USC Dornsife scientists at the tell the stories of the needs of older adults in Los Angeles,” USC Loker Hydrocarbon Research Working Toward an Swift said. —O.B. Institute have unlocked a new, more efficient pathway for FoundUSC Dornsife Brain and Creativity in Institute Translation scientists map brain responses to stories in three different converting methane — a potent languages, finding some common responses. gas contributing to climate By Ian Chaffee Elder-Friendly L.A. change — directly into basic Students in spatial sciences course map out ways to chemicals for manufacturing USC Dornsife’s Brain and make the city a friendlier place for an aging population. Community Cohort plastics, agricultural chemicals Creativity Institute. Community college students learn research skills and pharmaceuticals. This simple to better understand the ecology of the subseafloor. method of converting methane The researchers sorted directly to olefin would replace through millions of blog what are traditionally difficult, posts of personal stories Community college student Raquel Diaz jumped at the SEBERO QUINTERO ’18 expensive and inefficient using software developed chance to help grow and describe a recently discovered life Economics and Italian major processes that add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. at the USC Institute for form. The opportunity was part of the Community College Creative Technologies. The Cultivation Cohort (C4) program offered by USC Dornsife’s posts, all in English, were Center for Dark Energy Biosphere Investigations (C-DEBI). “I would have been narrowed down to 40 stories In the C4 program, Diaz was part of a team of commu- making good money, about personal topics such as nity college students learning state-of-the-art scientific but it wasn’t really divorce or telling a lie. techniques ranging from DNA sequencing to analytical what I wanted to do. The stories were then chemistry. Their mission was to use the methods they I wanted to go to 60% translated into Mandarin learned to characterize a new bacterial species isolated in The amount of global growth Chinese and Farsi, and 2013 by USC Dornsife postdoctoral fellow Roman Barco. college.” in human-caused atmospheric Sebero Quintero finds his methane emissions during this read by American, Chinese Students in C4, who hail from community colleges around and Iranian participants Which bus stops have benches? Where can I get a free flu Los Angeles and the United States, are tasked with learning own way. century that the United States Heading straight into the may be solely responsible for. in their native languages shot? What is my emergency evacuation plan? everything there is to know about this new marine microbe. United States Air Force when while their brains were Students in the new course “Age-Friendly L.A.,” a Wicked Their findings will help scientists better understand the ecol- he finished high school, Sebero scanned using MRI. Problems Practicum sponsored by USC Provost Michael ogy of the ocean’s subseafloor, a little understood ecosystem. was the first in his family to join Using state-of-the-art Quick, aim to provide answers to these questions and others Jan Amend, C-DEBI director and professor of Earth the military. The number of steps it He was deployed in Afghanistan machine learning and text- in the hopes of making Los Angeles a better place to grow sciences and biological sciences, oversees the C4 program. and Kuwait as a mechanic, then originally took to convert analysis techniques, the old. Using interactive maps, they’re developing a website and For many community college students, getting scientific lab methane to olefin. The built runways, hospitals and number has since declined researchers were able to mobile app to tell layered stories about aging in Los Angeles experience can be a challenge, negatively influencing their bridges as part of the Rapid to two steps, reverse engineer the data that can serve as a valuable resource for community leaders prospects for studying science down the line, he said. Engineer Deployable Heavy and now from these brain scans to and residents. “One of the big hurdles that community college students Operational Repair Squadron Engineer squadron. the Loker determine the story the Los Angeles County is home to one of the world’s largest face when they try to transfer to four-year schools is they Hydro-carbon When he finished his Air Research reader was processing. In concentrations of older adults, a population that is expected don’t have the research experience,” he said. Force commitment, Quintero Institute team effect, the neuroscientists to almost double by 2030. Connecting with mentors who followed a path similar was offered a training slot in is the first to make it were able to read the parti- City officials, students, professors, seniors and other to hers helped Diaz cement her future plans. Admitted to military contracting with a happen with a single six-figure signing bonus. He cipants’ minds as they were stakeholders gathered for this first-of-its-kind charrette, a Ramapo College in Mahwah, New Jersey, she began email- chose instead to become a catalyst based on a class reading. solution-design practice common in the field of architecture, ing professors about working in their labs. She’s also thinking of crystals called zeolites. first-generation college student In the case of each lan- to address housing, transportation, engagement and other ahead to the possibility of attending graduate school. at USC Dornsife. guage, reading each story measures that affect quality of life for older adults. “Before C4, I didn’t understand everything that went into Known around campus as resulted in unique patterns “We are going to be able to use all this information grad school,” she said. “Now it’s more concrete because I can “Sabbi,” Quintero enrolled at USC Dornsife as a junior in In what appears to be a first for neuroscience, USC Dornsife of activations in the “default mode network” of the brain, an and the incredible interdisciplinary work here to be able to see how I can actually get there.” —M.B. Fall of 2016. Now he leads the researchers have found patterns of brain activation when interconnected system of various brain regions. actually think of real, meaningful actions that will make USC Veterans Association as people find meaning in stories, regardless of their language. The default mode network was originally thought to be differences in the lives of Angelenos going forward,” said president. 1985 Using functional MRI, the scientists mapped brain responses a sort of autopilot for the resting brain, only active when Ashley Stracke, director of neighborhood services for Mayor Quintero’s aspirations include The year USC’s first Nobel Prize law school and possibly the winner, George Olah, initially to narratives in three different languages — English, Farsi someone is not engaged in externally directed thinking. Eric Garcetti. USC Marshall School of Business converted methane to olefin. and Mandarin Chinese. Ongoing studies, including this one, suggest that the default PHOTO BY QUINTERO SEBERO QUINTERO The goal of the semester-long course is to gather students Master of Business for Veterans The study reveals the possibility that narrative story- mode network actually is working behind the scenes to from USC Dornsife’s Spatial Sciences Institute, the program. He sees entrepre- telling can trigger better self-awareness and empathy for continually find meaning in narrative. It may serve as an USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, the Keck neurship in his future, and said others, regardless of the language or origin of the person autobiographical memory retrieval function that influences School of Medicine of USC and the USC Price School his USC VA presidency may be another “Sabbi first” that leads being exposed to it. our thinking and understanding of the past, the future, of Public Policy to examine life-span aging, health and to greater things. “Even given these fundamental differences in language, ourselves and our relationship to others. social policy problems using graphic and visual representa- “People tell me I’m a good which can be read in a different direction or contain a com- “One of the biggest mysteries of neuroscience is how we tions that policymakers, professionals and researchers can politician,” he said. “Down the 86xThe number of times more than pletely different alphabet altogether, there is something create meaning out of the world. Stories are deep-rooted in understand and use. road I may run for elected office. We’ll see.” CO2 that methane traps heat universal about what occurs in the brain at the point when we the core of our nature and help us create this meaning,” said Jennifer Swift, associate professor (teaching) of spatial and warms the planet over a are processing narratives,” said Morteza Dehghani, assistant Assistant Professor (Research) of Psychology Jonas Kaplan, sciences, co-leads the course with Caroline Cicero, instruc- 20-year horizon. professor of psychology and computer science, a researcher at also of the Brain and Creativity Institute. tional assistant professor at the USC Leonard Davis School.

16 Spring / Summer 2018 17 FROM THE HEART OF USC Our World

STUDENTS Brazil FACULTY France STUDENTS London STUDENT Pakistan FACULTY Vietnam ALUMNI Los Angeles Darkness fell and a chill descended over the cobbled streets of London’s East End as Afro-Brazilian Culture the group of 10 undergraduates Converging on a Cure Students learn about the cultures of Brazil and Portuguese-speaking Africa. retraced the last steps of the Tech solutions target cancer globally. female victims of notorious Students traveled to Brazil to learn about its shared history with Portuguese-speaking Africa by serial killer Jack the Ripper. Dean’s Professor of Biological Sciences Peter Kuhn, a found- immersing themselves in Brazil’s language, literature, religion, arts and food through the Maymester Led by Lindsay O’Neill, ing member of the USC Michelson Center for Convergent course “Cultures of Brazil and Lusophone Africa.” assistant professor (teaching) Bioscience, told an international oncology conference in “Culture is hard to understand just by reading about it,” said Ellen Oliveira, associate professor of history, the cohort had Sophomore Kayla Soren Vietnam how internet-based technologies being developed (teaching) of Spanish and Portuguese, who led the course. “I wanted students to live the culture — travelled to the the city for a founded the International at USC can connect and help patients globally. to see it, taste it, smell it. To experience everyday life rather than sit in a classroom and talk about it.” seven-day stay as the culmina- Student Environmental Coali- Speaking in Ho Chi Minh City at the first Vietnam When freelance journalist and The students began their journey in Salvador, Brazil’s first capital under Portuguese rule. tion of her course “Sex and the tion (ISEC), a network spanning Multidisciplinary Oncology Conference, hosted by alumnus Dan Johnson began Serving as a slave port in the colonial era, Salvador has a heavy African influence and is a center of City, Constructing Gender in 30 countries that helps young the Salt Cancer Initiative, Kuhn, professor of medicine teaching a literacy course Afro-Brazilian culture. Slaves from Africa brought their traditions, including the Candomblé religion, Nicholas Warner wants to figure out how matter behaves at London, 1700 to 1900.” people raise awareness about at Keck School of Medicine of USC and professor of for adults at The Midnight which is still part of the fabric of Salvador today. the most extreme frontier of the universe. The professor of The students explored how our planet. ISEC supports biomedical engineering, and aerospace and mechanical Mission in Los Angeles’ Skid Students visited two Candomblé temples in the city and spoke with one of the church mothers to learn physics and astronomy and mathematics at USC Dornsife changing fashions and public representatives, shares their engineering at USC Viterbi School of Engineering, Row, the reading materials more about the religion’s significance. received a prestigious grant from the European Research and private spaces structured, ideas, gauges their success and explained how USC’s Convergent Science Initiative – he was given to use for Students also toured the city and took classes in Brazilian cooking and capoeira, a style of martial Council (ERC) to study the black hole information expressed and defined gender sees if positive results can be Cancer (CSI-Cancer), a multidisciplinary project that instruction were designed arts that combines acrobatics, music and dance. They studied Brazilian music, attended the Balé paradox, a problem first revealed by Warner’s friend and expectations. replicated. quantifies how cancer evolves over time, forecasts how an for middle-schoolers. Folclórico da Bahia, a troupe that performs folk dances of African origin, and former mentor the late Stephen Hawking. Exploring places that were To Soren, it’s exciting to see individual’s cancer will progress and measures health. Johnson got the idea to took a walking tour of Salvador street art with Black holes are defined by their immense gravitational the purview of the female the unexpected enthusiasm CSI-Cancer project CancerBase, an international retool them and reached out artist Eder Muniz, whose fields — fields that are powerful enough to trap light as sex, the group visited London from developing nations. cancer-mapping initiative that enables patients to use to writers he knew and writers vibrant murals color the well as matter. Since black holes collapse upon themselves, department stores and took For example, Pakistan’s ISEC social media to securely and anonymously share their he admired. He pulled toge- streets of Salvador. everything gets so compressed that modern understandings afternoon tea at The Orangery. chapter has more than 300 cancer data, helps patients better understand the progres- ther a collection of essays, PAKISTAN PHOTO COURTESY OF KAYLA SOREN; VIETNAM PHOTO BY PHUOC VAN NGUYEN VAN PHUOC BY PHOTO VIETNAM SOREN; KAYLA OF COURTESY PHOTO PAKISTAN The students stayed with host families of physics also collapse. To gain an understanding of typ- members at 15 universities. sion of their own treatment and cancer, and compare their short stories and other texts in Salvador. Psychology major Jazmin Lopez “When you make a black hole, you’ve essentially erased ically male settings, they toured They’ve already shown prog- journeys. It also enables researchers to gather basic cancer that he thought would be had studied Portuguese for a year at from the outside any information about how you made it,” Eton College, the elite boys’ ress, planting 25,000 trees in data in real time, potentially speeding up cancer research. more relevant to his students USC Dornsife prior to the trip, but Warner said. boarding school, and lunched the capital, Karachi. In June, because they touch on the living with a host family ramped up According to the current laws of physics, however, infor- at Simpson’s Tavern, an 18th- the Indo-Pak Climate Peace neighborhood where they live her fluency. mation must always be conserved, even in black holes. This century chophouse that Action Conference in Pakistan, and experiences that mirror “My Portuguese was so much better toward the end includes information about matter, such as its composition, remains a bastion of masculinity. organized by ISEC, brought their day-to-day lives. The of the trip,” she said, “because we were actually living, mass and position. In the 1980s, Hawking realized that O’Neill noted that 18th- and Indian and Pakistani environ- result is The Skid Row Reader. breathing and sleeping Brazilian Portuguese.” black holes evaporate through a process known as Hawking 19th-century London is a mentalists together to collab- Johnson’s wish is that For the second leg of their tour in Brazil, the class radiation. But, this process would destroy the information rich source of inspiration for orate, aiming to overcome the textbook can help his travelled to São Paulo, one of the world’s most populous that the black hole conserved. This discrepancy is called the gender studies. As the United long-held tensions between students find dignity — and cities. Students explored different neighborhoods black hole information paradox. MUNIZ EDER OF COURTESY PHOTO BRAZIL Kingdom’s capital experienced the neighboring nations. hope — in their struggle. including downtown São Paulo Warner likens the problem to forensic science — trying unprecedented growth, its Soren, an environmental “It just seemed like an and the Japanese district, to reconstruct a crime scene from blood spatters and finger- burgeoning suburbs meant studies and international obvious choice to work towards home to the largest Japanese prints. The formation and evaporation of a black hole men were increasingly moving relations major, tries to weave creating a body of work these population outside of Japan. erases everything from the crime scene, something quantum outside the home as they ISEC into her studies. She’s men could really sink their They also visited the Immi- mechanics forbids. traveled into the city to work. hoping to do a semester in teeth into,” said Johnson, who gration Museum and Abraço Warner started working on the problem in 2007 using “This transformed expecta- Washington, D.C., pursue social earned his bachelor’s in history Cultural, a nongovern- string theory. The new five-year ERC Advanced grant will tions for each gender, influen- entrepreneurship and study in 2008. mental organization that help him move his studies forward. cing people’s family lives, work in South America. supports refugees through “I think we have a huge chunk of the puzzle in our experiences, and sense of self,” “Without the environment, cultural exchange. approach,” he said. she said. nothing else matters,” she said.

18 Spring / Summer 2018 19 Educational Voyage

Bookpacking in Louisiana. Examining art and culture in Cuba. Digging up ancient artifacts in Greece. Exploring hip hop culture in Paris. USC Dornsife students reap the educational rewards of travel — benefiting from a tradition that stretches back as far as ancient times.By Susan Bell

Max Novak will never forget the moment he pulled a Poseidon once stood. bronze Hellenic sword out of the ground. He was able to travel to Greece as one of the first “It’s one thing to see it cleaned up … in a museum,” the recipients of three annual $5,000 Kallins Hellenic Studies classics and art history major said, “but another to pull Summer Fellowships, which offer a new opportunity for it out of the ground … covered in dirt and thousands of undergraduate and graduate research and travel through years old.” the Classics Department. The award is open to anyone Novak, who graduated in 2017, achieved this remark- who has taken a course in classics, regardless of their able feat last summer during an archaeological dig in the declared major, as a way to encourage students to study Greek city of Thebes where a sanctuary to the Greek god Greek history where it unfolded.

20 Spring / Summer 2018 21 Novak’s participation in archaeological digs reinforced had seen the Colosseum,” said Mancall. his interest in archaeology and material culture, he said. Indeed, travel became a prerequisite for holding any He’s now studying for his master’s in a program combining position of power and prestige within the British Empire — classical art and archaeology at the University of Oxford. power, Mancall noted, that was not just about economic or After spending a year in Greece as a graduate student, military might, but about cultural superiority. Greg Thalmann, professor of classics and comparative litera- “One had to prove one knew the world in order to come ture, knows firsthand the value travel brings to education. home and be part of the class of people that would govern “It was a transformative year, traveling all over Greece, and shape the world,” he said. then working on an excavation,” he said. “I really under- While the ostentatious displays of wealth associated stand how enriching this kind of experience can be for with these voyages no longer play a role in modern-day students because of what it did for me.” educational travel, in many other ways the Grand Tour Thalmann believes that having that visual and tactile was a precursor to USC Dornsife’s PWP and Maymester experience with history helps students become better courses: Young people were accompanied by tutors, scholars, better citizens and better human beings. or well-informed guides, just as USC Dornsife students “One of the things that humanities do best is give travel with their professors while also drawing on the students an understanding of people who are not them, knowledge of local experts. who are different, whether it’s through literature, arts or The Grand Tour also offered participants the opportu- history,” he said. “It makes us more ready to be empathetic nity to perfect a foreign language or to learn a new one. with people different from ourselves.” The opportunity to cultivate contacts — what today we The idea that travel plays a vital role not only in a well- call networking — was another draw. rounded education, but in creating a well-rounded human “One expanded one’s circle of associates, which invari- being, is not new. In fact, we can trace it as far back as the ably brought advantages later in life,” Mancall said. “Those Roman Empire, when elite Romans serving as governors bonds are powerful, and you still see this in the modern of distant provinces took young aristocrats with them to world — with our own Trojan family, for instance.” gain experience. By the second century B.C., powerful In return, there was an expectation that those on the and wealthy Romans were traveling to Athens to study Grand Tour should record their observations and experi- philosophy. ences, which could then be passed on to society at large By 400 A.D., the value of travel in expanding the to improve its welfare. This seeing, recording and sharing mind is so widely accepted that Saint Augustine of Hippo with others is, as Mancall points out, the basis of modern makes the still oft-quoted quip that “the world is a book, scholarship. and those who do not travel read only a page.” Skip to Young people on a Grand Tour didn’t even behave so 17th-century Europe and we see the dawn of the Grand differently from students today. Just as 21st-century students Tour — a widely-practiced custom that will endure for snap selfies next to tourist landmarks, young men on a two centuries in which young members of the European Grand Tour had their portraits painted against backdrops of aristocracy and members of the wealthy landed classes iconic monuments. And just as modern explorers bring back embark on lengthy and lavish voyages to explore the cultural souvenirs from a trip, those on the Grand Tour brought patrimony of classical antiquity and the Renaissance. back cultural artifacts to display in their stately homes. Fast forward to the 21st century. The desire to help The popularity of the Grand Tour declined with the students reap the rich rewards of travel sparks the devel- democratization of travel in the mid-19th century, but its opment of USC Dornsife’s innovative Problems Without influence persists today. Passports (PWP) and Maymester programs, which take However, Mancall notes, while modern study abroad students on learning experiences across the globe. Here, programs share similarities with the traditions they grew USC Dornsife faculty and students describe the benefits out of, there are also important differences. It is a side of Paris that Hill says is hidden in plain of these programs and trace the historical antecedents that “Unlike the time of the Grand Tour, where it was sight, but which tourists usually miss because they are so inspired them. almost always those from an elite class traveling abroad, focused on seeing the established landmarks. “Travel opens the mind, not just Travel teaches us to respect other people and cultures at USC Dornsife we are trying to broaden the benefits As well as examining the history of cultural movement and creates a fuller education for our students, making of a liberal arts education to as wide a population as within the larger framework of the African diaspora, them responsible world citizens, argues Peter Mancall, possible,” he said. “With our extensive financial aid, we students are invited to think about how hip-hop culture, intellectually, but in ways that will help VIBRANT CITY Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities and want to make it possible for those who might not other- cultural objects and artifacts, and practitioners, move back Students on Edwin Hill's professor of history and anthropology at USC Dornsife. wise be able to afford to see a different place, to go there as and forth between the United States and France. Maymester course “Global “While we recognize that we can provide a great educa- part of a class. That opens up new opportunities that are Hill traces this exchange back to the Jazz Age and the students handle the challenges they’ll Ciphas — Hip-hop Circles tion on campus in Los Angeles, there’s a much wider world good for our students and good for society.” many African-American musicians, dancers and writers Around the World” discover out there,” he said. “Travel opens the mind, not just intel- who traveled to Paris, which was viewed as a space of encounter for the rest of their lives.” an unexpected side to lectually, but in ways that will help students handle the PARIS THROUGH ANOTHER LENS refuge, creativity and growth. Paris culture. challenges they’ll encounter for the rest of their lives.” Most first-time visitors to Paris focus on the French capital’s “There’s definitely a lineage there, a special relationship much-romanticized tourist triumvirate: the holy grail of that exists between African Americans and France,” from the august towers of the National Library of France, THE GRAND TOUR the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre and the Champs-Élysées. said Hill, whose book Black Soundscapes White Stages: helps students begin to identify different genres, influences A noted authority on travel in the early modern era, Edwin Hill, associate professor of French and Italian and The Meaning of Francophone Sound in the Black Atlantic (Johns and styles. Mancall points to 17th-, 18th- and 19th-century Europe American studies and ethnicity, introduces his students Hopkins University Press, 2013) explores this period. “People might dance in the cipha, or exchange rhymes and and the legacy of the Grand Tour as the defining historical to a very different side of the City of Lights. “What’s interesting today is that you discover that hip- pass the mike around the circle,” Hill said. “It’s something example of a travel-based educational rite of passage. Students on Hill’s Maymester course “Global Ciphas — hop is its own international global language that allows that you see a lot in African diasporic cultural forms, that “No British person, for instance, could claim to be educated Hip-hop Circles Around the World” venture off the beaten people to communicate across countries, across oceans, coming together to form a circle and that being a special, during this period unless they had seen Italy, France and track to discover the vibrant creativity of Paris street art and across continents,” he said. Visiting bastions of the Paris even spiritual, place for the performance and shared creation Greece, had gone to the places where the ancients walked, the French capital’s unexpectedly dynamic hip-hop scene. hip-hop scene like Djoon, a small club a stone’s throw of culture.”

22 ILLUSTRATIONS BY ANDREA COBB FOR USC DORNSIFE MAGAZINE Spring / Summer 2018 23 A firm believer in the importance of travel, Hill says the They formed a close bond with Ollie, their young scuba- experience of being able to live and study abroad as a student diving, Afro-Cuban guide, who spoke perfect English, changed his life. which he learned from listening to rap music. “The students noticed how well-informed and political he was,” Gomez said. “They asked, ‘Will you ever leave Cuba?’ And he replied, ‘No, this is the moment to be here.’ ” The Allure of Travel by Susan Bell “We live in a very divided world, in a very BOOKS IN THE BIG EASY AUTHOR AND ACCIDENTAL GLOBE-TROTTER GEOFF DYER TALKS Another groundbreaking Maymester takes students to ABOUT WHY TRAVEL HAS BEEN SO CENTRAL TO HIS WRITING. divided nation, and only by stepping into Louisiana for “Bookpacking ‘The Big Easy’: A Cultural and Literary Journey.” Ironically for a writer whose highly successful literary career is so Award-winning British filmmaker and presenter Andrew largely inspired by travel, Geoff Dyer got off to rather a slow start other peoples’ cultures can we break out of Chater of English is the creator of the bookpacking in exploring the world. concept, an innovative form of literary travel in which Nothing predestined Dyer, USC Dornsife writer in residence, to the molds we have set for ourselves.” novels serve as portals through which participants explore be a traveler. In fact, the reason travel has been so important to his regional history and culture. writing life, he says, is because it was not in his nature, or indeed his The idea — a new, holistic approach to studying the genes, to travel. “It altered my understanding of the world, and my under- humanities — grew out of something Chater has been doing Dyer’s working-class parents, a sheet-metal worker and a school standing of my place in the world,” he said. “It transforms all his life: traveling with novels that are set in, or somehow lunch lady, barely left their hometown of Cheltenham, England. your understanding of other people and it makes you care strongly linked to, the places he visits. “My parents both died without ever having been on an airplane,” about the world in a new and really personal way. You read “What I find as I travel with books is that the book informs he said. “I didn’t get on an airplane until I was 22. We just never the news differently because you know people, and you know the place and the place informs the book,” he said. Chater, went anywhere, except occasionally on one of those dismal English how events are going to affect their lives.” who picked Louisiana as the destination for his first seaside holidays. We never liked them.” USC Dornsife bookpacking course because of its extraor- However, at the age of 8 or 9, Dyer’s parents did take him on a BRIDGE BUILDING IN CUBA dinarily vibrant and diverse literary culture, encourages memorable outing to Heathrow, “not to catch a plane, but just to One such trip was USC Dornsife’s Maymester “Visualizing students to use novels almost as guidebooks, so that litera- look at them” — an experience he found thrilling. Did he dream Cuba: Arts, Politics and Society in Today’s Cuba,” which ture, history, geography, politics, and social studies combine about boarding one and flying away? enabled USC students from diverse majors to see through into a unified course of study. “It was just so out of the question. I loved planes, but it never felt stereotypes about the island nation and its people. Chater’s selection of novels for the course reflected a within grasp, really. So, it wasn’t a frustrating thing, this trip; it was Led by Ivette Gomez, assistant professor (teaching) of cultural gumbo, including works that addressed the just a completely satisfactory end in itself.” “I’m more of a writer about places,” he demurs from his spartan A WRITER’S GUIDE TO TRAVEL Spanish, the course allowed students to immerse themselves region’s Creole, Cajun, rural white Protestant, Catholic His other early exposure to travel came from a maternal aunt, office in the USC Dornsife English Department. “I can’t think of • Be responsible — take care of in Cuba’s vibrant culture while analyzing its visual arts, and African-American roots. In New Orleans, the students a beauty who married a self-made millionaire and sailed on the anything that’s been more important to me as a writer than place.” your travel documents. literature and music. read Walker Percy’s existential novel The Moviegoer and Queen Elizabeth 2’s maiden voyage to America, then sent her young But Dyer concedes that the journey can be as important as the The students explored Old Havana, rode in vintage John Kennedy Toole’s rambunctious comedic romp, nephew brochures from Arizona’s Grand Canyon and Painted Desert. destination. • Give yourself to the place as American cars along the Malecón, Havana’s fabled seafront A Confederacy of Dunces. Students visited Baton Rouge, “So, some sense of another world was there,” Dyer said. “Quite often, it might happen that some incidental experience much as possible — be fully promenade, and experienced the beauty of the country’s where they studied Robert Penn Warren’s tale of a corrupt But it wasn’t until he arrived at what is known in Britain as his “gap you’re having in the course of getting to a place is more important present. architecture. They visited Ernest Hemingway’s house, Southern politician in All the King’s Men. They then spent year” — the period many British, and now an increasing number of than what happens in the place itself,” he says. discussed Cuba’s upcoming elections with a Cuban political time in Lafayette and Cajun country, where they met American, students take off between high school and university to This is the central conceit that informs the collection of essays • Take notes so you don’t forget science professor and met a female Afro-Cuban rap duo. Ernest J. Gaines, author of the classic A Lesson Before travel overseas — that Dyer finally set foot on foreign soil. That he about trips to diverse, exotic destinations contained in Dyer’s book your experiences. Meeting journalists, artists, doctors, religious leaders, Dying, set in the rural black South. did so at all was only because a horrified high school English teacher White Sands: Experiences from the Outside World (Pantheon, faculty, writers and musicians, students were able to explore The course began in Grand Isle, an island off southern pushed him to venture beyond British shores after discovering 2016). It is often the act of getting there that turns out to provide • Don’t waste time taking selfies. issues related to international relations between Cuba and the Louisiana that is the setting for Kate Chopin’s late 19th- Dyer intended to spend the entire year working in an office in the fascinating insight, the humorous anecdote, the philosophical U.S. and to learn more about Cuba’s universal health-care century novella The Awakening. Students stayed in a tradi- Cheltenham, his hometown on the edge of the Cotswolds. revelation, while the final destination, more often than not, ends up • Ideally, learn another language. system and high literacy levels. tional wooden fisherman’s house on stilts overlooking the The result was a somewhat arduous tour of Europe, squeezed into being something of a disappointment. Staying in casas particulares (private homes) with Cuban Gulf and followed in the steps of the book’s unorthodox a Mini Cooper with two friends. Nevertheless, Dyer admits that he still loves the feeling associ- families enabled students to get to know their hosts and heroine, Edna Pontellier, as they ambled along the sandy “I only went away for three weeks, so I really didn’t make the most ated with a sense of arrival. familiarize themselves with the Cuban way of life. path that leads through the dunes and down to the sea. of it,” he says regretfully of his own gap year — a rite of passage he “Not just that ‘Phew, I don’t have to carry my bags anymore,’ “They immediately experienced the friendliness and English major Olivia Jones described how, when the is now convinced is highly beneficial. but that sense of convergence that makes you feel this is what hospitality of the Cuban people,” said Gomez, who grew students reached New Orleans, bookpacking informed a “Despite it now being fashionable to deride it, if I were an makes life worth living.” up in Havana. “Many students told me, ‘This is not what deeper understanding of the city, its history and its culture. employer and heard somebody had spent their gap year in Southeast Our planet is a pretty sensational place, he argues. It would I expected.’” “We had become part of that dialogue, part of the story Asia, I would still think it’s quite an impressive thing to do,” he simply be an incredible waste not to explore it. Indeed, the students were shocked to discover that the of New Orleans,” she wrote in her course blog, “our books said. “It requires a certain amount of intelligence and common Dyer warns against living as if we’re immortal, with endless time reality of Cuba is very different from the way it is often shedding light in corners of the city that would have other- sense, and in terms of broadening the mind, it’s just fantastic.” to travel, without awareness that things change. Once accessible His own experience may have been too brief, but it served to give destinations may become impossible to visit (Syria, for example),

portrayed by politicians and media. wise been overlooked.” DYER GEOFF OF COURTESY PHOTO DYER Economics major Nicholas Mockabee ’17 was struck not If there is one thing Chater says he wants students to Dyer the travel bug. The following year, he tackled Greece. Since then and our tolerance and endurance for challenging travel conditions only by the lack of any visible military presence, something develop from this bookpacking experience, and indeed all he hasn’t looked back, describing travel as “an unalloyed positive.” usually diminishes with age. (One can imagine that Dyer, who is very many students had expected to see, but also that Cubans USC Dornsife’s travel programs, it is a spirit of empathy. His desire to travel is, he says, intimately bound up with being a writer. tall, might no longer willingly tolerate the cramped conditions of the embraced their American visitors with open arms. “We live in a very divided world, in a very divided nation, “After The Color of Memory [Jonathan Cape, 1989], my first novel, economy seats of his youth.) “I had this preconceived notion that the Cuban people and only by stepping into other peoples’ cultures can we break I didn’t really have that much more to say about Britain. So, travel “But the major danger of not traveling, I think, is that kind of didn’t like Americans, that we just didn’t get along because out of the molds we have set for ourselves,” he said. “It’s only has given me the experience to write about,” he said. “I want to have narrow-mindedness and suspicion of the larger world, because of the whole Cold War situation, but it wasn’t like that at by walking alongside people of different cultures, whether been everywhere in the world at least once by the time I die.” actually, one of the amazing things, given the huge disparities of all,” he said. fictional characters or people we meet on our journeys, that While Dyer’s dryly humorous writing is inspired by travel, he’s income, is just how honest people are,” Dyer said. Indeed, Gomez said the students were surprised to find they we are able to appreciate their lives and learn to truly engage quick to point out that he would never describe himself as a travel “Generally, we don’t actually have that much to fear from each had so much in common, especially with younger Cubans. with each other.” writer, per se. other, and travel alerts you to that. It cannot but be a good thing.”

24 Spring / Summer 2018 25 DIGITAL HUMANITY

Nestled among the cedar forests of the Troodos Mountains of Cyprus is an enchanting collection of Greek Orthodox churches and monasteries dating from the late Byzantine Empire. Most of the dozen or so medieval churches seem modest from the outside — small, stone structures supporting pitched timber roofs with flat-hooked tiles. The real treasure is revealed inside, where, beneath low ceilings and bathed in

Personal and cultural legacy meets cutting-edge research technology, enabling the documentation muted light, the walls are adorned with richly colored paintings and beautifully and preservation of Byzantine murals in Eastern Orthodox churches. By Laura Paisley ornate murals. Containing some of the best preserved examples of Byzantine and post-Byzantine art, 10 of these churches have been deemed a UNESCO World Heritage site.

26 Spring / Summer 2018 27 with our past and our traditions, going back to our roots able to combine all this over in Cyprus,” Panos Vasiloudes said. “We felt it was a project generations.” where we can relate, and it could help us as a family connect Working in the painted our history and religion to our lives right now.” churches was also a very Their funding allowed Zuckerman and his team to return personal experience for anos Vasiloudes has clear memories to Cyprus for three weeks last summer to undertake Tyus, whose degree is in the laborious but exciting task of documenting the archaeology. P church interiors. His team included Marilyn Lundberg, “It’s kind of magical of visiting the churches as a boy in Cyprus. associate director of USC’s West Semitic Research because they are religious Project, his brother Kenneth Zuckerman, also an associate sites,” he said. “And you on the project, and two undergraduate student researchers: don’t have to be religious He grew up mere miles away, in a small village Alleluia Tyus, who graduated from USC Dornsife in to understand what I’m Fall 2017, and Thomas Zhang, then a sophomore at talking about because if have mastered is called Reflectance Transformation USC Viterbi School of Engineering. you visit enough of them, Imaging (RTI). By synthesizing multiple images taken They were also joined by a team of researchers and you realize how important in the center of the island called Pera Orinis. from a fixed camera position at different light angles, imaging specialists from The Cyprus Institute’s Research they were to the culture, RTI creates a dynamic digital version of an object, Center for Science and Technology in Archaeology through religion.” rendering even the most subtle of textures in microscopic and Culture led by Nikolas Bakirtsis, the Director of Upon entering a new “All the churches in the Troodos Mountains, detail. Another innovation involves making spherical the Andreas Pittas Art Characterization Laboratories, church, Tyus would won- images with a Panoscan camera. The digital camera sits on and including Ropertos Georgiou, Thanasis Koutoupas and der to himself how many a tripod in the middle of the room and captures 360-degree, Mia Trentin. In the project, made possible with the collab- people it took to build, they were a destination and an emotional floor-to-ceiling images. The camera’s fisheye lens creates oration of the Cyprus Department of Antiquities, the groups how many important images that convey relational space, as if the viewer is made both Panoscan spherical images and RTI details. people must have spoken actually standing in the room. One spherical panorama “The advantage of a Panoscan image is that the image- there, how many lives were pilgrimage place for all of us,” he said. “There photograph requires a pass of seven to 15 minutes, resulting data is recorded in a continuous pass as a single image,” changed in those rooms. in an extremely high-resolution image. Zuckerman said. “The image is, for the most part, seamless He would begin to feel “It really redefines how you look at this stuff,” Zuckerman and therefore far more accurate than other spherical pano- an energy that made the was always a certain pride that we had these said, adding that his research team was the first to apply ramas, which are tiled from individual frames that need church come alive for him. these techniques to cultural heritage targets. considerable interpolation. We like it because what you see “It wasn’t just a building “The RTI images are transformed into textures that is what you get, and what you get is what you saw — it’s not anymore — they weren’t reveal artistic brush techniques, individual brush strokes overly tweaked.” just sites. They were old, historic places to visit.” and other details impossible to see in any other fashion,” The team captured a combination of RTI pictures people’s lives and heritage,” he said, “while the Panoscan images put you inside the and more than 100 Panoscan images from nine different he said. churches, allowing you to turn and look in any direction churches and one cave shrine. The student interns focused Little did he know back then that he and his and see the many images and the physical relationships on using the RTI technology to illustrate particular STUDENT RESEARCH CONTINUES they have with one another.” details of the paintings but participated in all aspects of Back at USC last fall and spring, the students helped process the work. all the images from Cyprus and built a website and database future wife, Helen, who now live in Florida, MEETING OF MINDS “To my knowledge, our USC/CI team is the first to to display their work. The results were entered in the univer- Helen and Panos Vasiloudes learned of Zuckerman’s apply these imaging approaches to any of the churches in sity’s Undergraduate Symposium for Scholarly and Creative research in Cyprus through their connection to USC, where Cyprus — or to churches anywhere else, for that matter,” Work. The project, which included another undergraduate would reconnect with the painted churches two of their four children are enrolled. Panos Vasiloudes, Zuckerman said. intern, Rachel Kartin, is a great pairing of technology and a physician, said learning about Zuckerman’s work had directed student research, Zuckerman said. For instance, touched him deeply because of his own childhood visits to Zhang’s computer engineering skills are enabling him to use of his childhood in a personal way nearly four those churches many years ago. the images to build three-dimensional models of the churches. The couple began communicating with Zuckerman, and The project won the Interdisciplinary Award in the Humani- the three soon agreed to meet. Zuckerman told them about ties for Zhang and Kartin last April. decades later. CULTURAL PRESERVATIONIST his intention to document the remainder of the painted Bruce Zuckerman also has a connection to the holy sites. churches and showed the couple some of the images he had A MORAL OBLIGATION A professor of religion and linguistics at USC Dornsife, already taken. Last Christmas, the Vasiloudeses felt the call of their PRESERVATION he has devoted a 38-year career to preserving ancient “I thought it would be interesting to hear what Mediterranean home and returned to spend 10 days in Ultra-high resolution imaging artifacts and cultural history, worldwide. As director of [Zuckerman] did,” said Helen Vasiloudes, an artist with a Cyprus. They strolled through the old streets of Nicosia, techniques create a richly USC Dornsife’s West Semitic Research and InscriptiFact background in education. “But once Bruce showed us the the island’s capital, and visited monasteries, wineries and detailed digital record of Projects, he and his team of researchers have painstakingly scale of what he was working on — the level you can take an olive oil mill. ancient Cypriot church artwork. documented hundreds of precious antiquities, including it to — we thought, ‘How impressive!’ ” “We enjoyed the old traditions, and we connected with ancient biblical texts and Dead Sea Scrolls. The images on Zuckerman’s computer allowed them to our friends and our roots,” Panos Vasiloudes said. “And Two years ago, Zuckerman’s team went to Cyprus see what kinds of paint were used, and the style of particular that made us even more firm believers that we have a to work on a pilot project in collaboration with The Cyprus painters and iconographers, she said. It was even possible to HISTORY’S HUMAN FACE moral obligation to preserve our culture and our heritage.” Institute. They visited a few of the painted churches in see how original paintings had been painted over. One day, the Vasiloudes family joined the researchers at Though it’s also about more than Cypriot history, the Troodos Mountains to investigate how to document “It was so fascinating to us,” Helen Vasiloudes said. one of the churches. Visiting as an adult, Panos Vasiloudes Helen Vasiloudes pointed out. It’s about human history, their remarkable interiors and powerful iconography using “It took that entire religious, cultural background for us to experienced what he described as a humanistic and and preserving cultures and artifacts of the past around specialized cameras. a totally different level.” emotional journey back to his roots. the world. Zuckerman and his colleagues have pioneered the For the Vasiloudes family, helping to fund this research “It was a different feeling, especially going back with our “There are so many other cultures that people need to use of sophisticated digital photography to uncover and seemed only natural. children and walking through the stones and the church,” be exploring and understanding,” she said. “I think what preserve the past. One novel imaging technique they “What was important for us is the ability to connect he said. “I felt a sense of pride, honor and privilege, being Bruce is doing is just the tip of the iceberg.”

28 PHOTOS COURTESY OF MARILYN LUNDBERG Spring / Summer 2018 29 Immigration is central to the roots of the American experience. So what does it mean when we make our home across borders, learning a new culture while honoring where we come from?

By Michelle Boston Traveling Home

As a Palestinian child growing up in Libya, Moh El-Naggar a common thread remains — creating a better life for would play among the ruins of Leptis Magna on the themselves and their families. coast. Anywhere else, the ancient Roman city — Nearly 20 years later, El-Naggar, Robert D. Beyer (’81) a UNESCO World Heritage site perched on the Early Career Chair in Natural Sciences and associate Mediterranean Sea — would undoubtedly have been professor of physics, biological sciences and chemistry a tourist draw. But in the mostly closed country ruled at at USC Dornsife, continues to call the United States home. the time by Muammar Gaddafi, it was the backdrop for After earning his bachelor’s degree, he moved west, kicking around a soccer ball or playing hide-and-seek where the climate was more like that of his hometown, with friends. and the population was more in tune with his image of El-Naggar remembers that despite the challenges of the America. He earned a Ph.D. in engineering and applied ruling regime, he had a very happy childhood. With seven science from Caltech. people under one roof in his hometown of Tripoli, every- He now runs a lab at USC Dornsife studying, among one was either laughing or arguing. “Either way, it was other things, the potential for microbes to enable new always exciting,” he said. renewable energy technologies. In 2013, President Barack When the time came for college, El-Naggar traded one Obama acknowledged El-Naggar’s innovative research at the bustling city for another, leaving Tripoli for Cairo. But frontiers of science and technology by bestowing on him the after one semester, the Egyptian government denied his Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. visa to study for reasons that were never made clear to him. El-Naggar’s immigration to the United States from So, he weighed his options and decided to move to Africa embodies the ideals of the American Dream: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, to attend Lehigh University. coming to a country founded on democracy where citizens With family friends nearby, his parents felt safe sending are encouraged to pursue success under a banner of idealism off their youngest where loved ones could look after him. that advocates for liberty, equality and opportunity. However, the sleepy college town with a population that And that, of course, is the main draw for many immigrants barely pushed 70,000 was a shock to his system. who want to make the U.S. their home, said Manuel Pastor, AMONG THE RUINS “It was a wonderful place, but I was used to dense, Turpanjian Chair in Civil Society and Social Change and In his childhood home in Libya, urban areas with millions of people,” El-Naggar said. professor of sociology and American studies and ethnicity. Moh El-Naggar, associate It was also nothing like the images he had seen of America Pastor directs the Center for the Study of Immigrant professor of physics, biological in the movies. Integration (CSII) at USC Dornsife, which studies how sciences and chemistry, Despite the jolt of an unfamiliar setting, the move to support newcomers to America by finding ways to would play among the ruins was also a dream come true — he was living in America encourage their economic mobility, civic participation and of the ancient Roman city and studying science and engineering. positive social reception. of Leptis Magna. Some people pack a bag and head out across borders “People come to the United States because it’s a place in search of discovery. For many, that journey means finding of economic opportunity,” he said. “There’s also tradition- home. Sometimes it’s in the spirit of adventure. Or often, ally a sense that you can become American not just as with El-Naggar, the move is guided by necessity. because of blood and soil, but by accepting a certain set Whether their motivation stems from politics, civil unrest, of principles and values around democracy, accountability economic instability, a natural disaster or sheer adventure, and responsibility.”

30 ILLUSTRATIONS BY DOUGLAS JONES FOR USC DORNSIFE MAGAZINE Spring / Summer 2018 31 IMMIGRATION BY THE NUMBERS SPLIT CITY As a sociologist and self-proclaimed “data nerd,” Pastor As someone who has made a home in both the U.S. and spends a lot of his time looking at immigration statistics. Mexico, USC Dornsife student Enrique Licon has been What he has noticed in the past few years is that much of inspired to help flip the narrative by pursuing a career what he hears in the news does not reflect what the data in politics. actually shows. Licon was born in the Texas border town of El Paso “The national debate about immigration is, for any- to an American mother and a Mexican father. Shortly body who knows the numbers, really misplaced,” Pastor after his birth, Licon, currently an economics and political explained. science major, moved less than 10 miles south into Juárez, Mexico. He spent the majority of his youth making the drive across the border to attend school in El Paso. He would leave the “If I run for office in Mexico dense metropolis of Juárez before sunrise. His commute would take him through the Chihuahuan Desert along the or the United States, it would be border of Texas up to the international crossing, where he could make out El Paso’s cityscape carved into the basin to help out the community.” surrounded by low mountains. The experience of growing up in Juárez and attending school in El Paso has given Licon a valuable perspective on the current issues surrounding the relationship between A large part of the conversation has centered around the U.S. and Mexico. With the negative depictions of the idea that illegal immigrants are coming in droves Mexicans emanating from Washington, D.C., he said he to the U.S., taking jobs and resources from citizens. The works hard to be a positive representation of Mexicans as reality, Pastor said, is that the undocumented population a reminder that there are real people being affected by the declined in the United States from 2007 to 2009 and harsh rhetoric and unforgiving immigration policies. has been pretty much stable since then. A Pew Research Licon sought an education at USC because he found Center study estimates that around two-thirds of the programs that would help him achieve his goals, partic- undocumented population has called the U.S. home for at ularly through the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics, least a decade. where he is currently on staff. He has taken full advantage This group also tends to boost the economy in a number of the institute’s internship programs, working at two of ways, Pastor said. For instance, they pay more in taxes different political consulting firms and participating in a than they receive. “Undocumented immigrants pay about civic engagement teaching internship. There, he and other $6 billion a year into Social Security, which is money that USC Dornsife students led Los Angeles-area high-school they will never be able to get back. students in a program designing a community improvement “So the image of somebody who just crossed the border plan. He has also interned in U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s needs to be shifted in favor of reality, which is someone Washington, D.C., office, working with her education and who probably has pretty deep roots in the United States,” drug caucus teams. Pastor said. Further, when it comes to immigrants from “Since I’ve been at USC, I’ve been taught by people who Mexico, more Mexicans are actually leaving the U.S. have worked on presidential campaigns and a very famous than arriving. economist. I appreciate the opportunity, and plan to make “The fact is that the era of mass illegal immigration is the most of it,” he said. over,” Pastor said. Now in his senior year, Licon is considering attending With the current national debate, he sees a parallel to the law school — after a stint working a full-time job after DAILY COMMUTE rhetoric on immigration that took place in California in the graduation. His ultimate goal is a career in politics, either Student Enrique Licon traveled early ’90s, when voters passed Proposition 187. The ballot in Mexico or the U.S. daily back and forth across initiative sought to strip undocumented people of social “If I run for office in Mexico or the United States, the border between his home and educational services (although virtually all of it was it would be to help out the community,” Licon said, “to be in Juárez, Mexico, and his eventually struck down in court). He connects Californians’ a voice for the people.” school in El Paso, Texas, where unease then to a shift in demographics, which mirrors the Community and culture are enduring elements of he was born. current shift in the U.S. population. childhood that help construct who we become and how Between 1980 and 2000, minorities became the we shape the course of our lives. This is especially true for majority in California, he explained, which is roughly the those like Licon who crossed borders at a young age. same demographic change that the U.S. is slated to go Indeed, nothing could be truer for Karen Tongson, who through between 2000 and 2050. continues to explore what cross-cultural experiences mean for “If you think about demographic anxiety, economic immigrant communities — and for herself. uncertainty and polarized politics, California was the poster child for what you see going on in the United States A POP OF CULTURE as a whole right now,” Pastor said. “Indeed, you could say Two experiences were pivotal in shaping Tongson’s child- that the U.S. just had its Prop 187 moment.” hood and possibly the trajectory of her career. The dual narratives of immigrants at once taking jobs At the age of 10, she and her mother and stepfather and using up welfare resources doesn’t really add up. moved from the Philippines to Riverside, California, “It’s hard to do both of those things at the same time,” at the time a predominantly white community. Her unfami- Pastor said. “These ideas are being driven by an emotional liar appearance and darker skin tone piqued the interest of reaction to the change in our country.” the children in her neighborhood.

32 Spring / Summer 2018 33 She remembers very distinctly one afternoon when a countries eventually settled,” Tongson said. “Karaoke gives large group of kids surrounded her on her lawn. us a sense of the connection that people who have left home “What are you? What’s your religion?” they probed. forge with one another through the music they miss and want Tongson, who is now associate professor of English, to perform again to conjure those feelings of home, as well as gender studies and American studies and ethnicity at new bonds.” USC Dornsife, explained she was from Manila, a large city in the Philippines. “Do they have toilets there?” one child asked. “I never sensed that these popular objects An academic from the start, she set off for the public library to procure a picture book that showed the mega- lopolis with its skyscrapers, which, she pointed out, were were trash or less than significant, of course equipped with toilets. The other significant experience was her own personal especially because they were so formative entrée into American popular culture. Though she already spoke English in addition to her native Tagalog, and to my own educational experiences …” grew up watching American television in the Philippines — “CHiPs, Charlie’s Angels, Little House on the Prairie, you name it,” she said — once she was in the U.S., those programs became a significant cultural translator for her. BEYOND THE MELTING POT “Sesame Street. The Electric Company. Those shows Looking at these spaces where immigrants allow the helped me learn how to read,” Tongson said. “For me, the cultures of their birth countries and their adopted cult- sense of education, of knowledge, of worlds being opened ures to overlap reveals what it means to be American, up came through popular culture as a conduit.” Pastor posits. Now, Tongson studies and teaches popular culture, Intrinsic to CSII’s definition of immigrant integration examining how it relates to immigrant communities. is the encouragement of integration over assimilation — Her research also extends to race, gender and sexuality a new take on the traditional idea of America as a cultural studies; literature and critical theory; Los Angeles, melting pot. the Southern California region and the Pacific Rim; and “Assimilation means disappearing into the melting contemporary food cultures. pot like crayons becoming one color,” Pastor explained. But it was her early interactions that heavily influenced “Increasingly that’s not what communities want to do. And her approach to her academic examination of pop culture. it’s not what young people want to do.” “I never sensed that these popular objects were trash Rather than a place where newcomers are absorbed into or less than significant, especially because they were American society, instead their differences are celebrated so formative to my own educational experiences and and woven into the fabric of American culture to create my own capacity to move through different worlds,” something much more dynamic. Tongson explained. “Pop culture reveals, in many “Think of it like this,” Pastor said. “Hamburgers are respects, our desires in ways that the documents of official good, but do we want everyone to just eat hamburgers? culture don’t.” Or, do we want to make sure that we encourage a In fact, Tongson’s first name has its own pop culture phenomenon like the Korean taco truck?” referring to origin. Hailing from a family of musicians going back several the L.A.-bred Korean-Mexican taco sensation. “That is a generations in the Philippines — including her mother — phenomenon of fusion, and not of assimilation.” she was named after Karen Carpenter. Many said Tongson’s Encouraging diversity also breeds innovation, especially mother’s singing voice resembles that of the musical icon. when it comes to scientific discovery, El-Naggar points SING A SONG Tongson has a forthcoming book about Carpenter and out. His own experience allowed him to work with Karen Tongson, associate her music as part of the brother sister duo the Carpenters. top researchers in the U.S., which has been a longtime professor of English, gender Their Southern California sound holds a special place in the leader in the fields of science, technology, engineering and studies and American studies musical culture of the Philippines to this day, Tongson said. mathematics. and ethnicity, found that “The Carpenters’ music was incredibly popular when But that position has been fueled by the free flow Karaoke and pop culture helped I was a child, but it’s remained enduringly so, especially in of information — that is, scientists who move to the her transition to life in the the Philippines,” she said. “I’m never there for longer than U.S. to work in labs — and federal support of scholarship. United States after migrating 24 hours without hearing a Carpenters song on the radio Right now, restrictions on immigration are weakening one from the Philippines. or having it play somewhere publicly with people singing of those pillars. along. It taps into my earliest memories of sound, of music, “Many talented scientists are choosing to stay where they of being with my family and my extended family in the are or going to other countries that they might perceive as Philippines.” being friendlier,” El-Naggar said. “That’s fantastic for those It also connects her to her life as an adolescent trans- countries but it also could mean that it would have a negative ported from Manila to L.A.’s suburbs, not far from where impact on the quality of our scientific production over the the Carpenters made their music. The experience of music next few years.” crossing cultures to bring together immigrant communi- The United States gains tremendously from the inno- ties is the topic of another book Tongson is currently at vation, the hard work, and the energy of immigrants, work on. The book examines karaoke culture. agreed Pastor. “Karaoke draws out for us the connections between places “The U.S. has this tremendous advantage of being in the Pacific Rim and the cultures and communities of big a place where people feel like they can experiment and cities on the West Coast where many immigrants from those realize their dreams.”

34 Spring / Summer 2018 35 A FINAL FAREWELL For Pinchas Gutter, visiting his homeland is a haunting reminder of the family he lost and the life he might have lived. He returns one last time to say goodbye and capture his personal saga in virtual reality for future generations.

By Michelle Boston As an 11-year-old boy in Poland, Pinchas Gutter’s world was blown apart. His early years were idyllic. He was born in the bustling city of Lodz in 1932 to a deeply observant Jewish family of winemakers. As a child, Gutter remembers joyfully playing in the park with his twin sister, Sabina. In their family’s apartment, his grandfather would set aside coins for him to give to the hungry who might knock on their door, observing the Jewish tradition of tzedakah, charity for those who are less fortunate. Then, in 1939, the German army occupied his hometown during an invasion that marked the beginning of World War II. So Gutter’s father sent him, his mother and his sister to safety in Warsaw, where he would soon join them. But instead of finding relief from the Nazi threat, they were made to live in the city’s Jewish ghetto. In 1943, after sur- viving years of hardship that included the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Gutter and his family were rounded up and taken to the Majdanek concentration camp. Gutter recounts the experience of being crammed into a boxcar with his family and hundreds of other Jews for the hours-long train trip from Warsaw to Majdanek in the virtual reality film The Last Goodbye.The documentary was co-produced by USC Shoah Foundation — the Institute for Visual History and Education at USC Dornsife. The film chronicles Gutter’s final visit to the camp, which is now a museum with well-preserved remnants from its darkest days. By wearing a special audio-visual headset, the audience experiences the trip — and most important, Gutter’s testimony as he tours Majdanek’s barracks, showers, crematorium and more — in room- scale, 360-degree virtual reality. “My father found a space for us [where] we were reasonably safe, and he kind of surrounded us with his hands,” Gutter, now 86 years old, explains in the film as viewers are invited to inspect a train car that was used to bring Jews to the concentration camp. “I always imagined that [his arms were the] wings of an angel because he kept us together. My mother, my twin sister and I, we were like one, and I don’t remember how long we rode.” Their small circle of safety was severed once they arrived at the camp, recalls Gutter as he stands near a barbed-wire fence on the camp grounds. Men, women and children HAUNTING MEMORY were separated. Gutter remembers spotting his sister in The poster for The Last Good- the distance as she made a beeline for their mother. bye features a golden braid “As she was running, I was watching the beautiful gold — the final memory Pinchas braid that she had. She made it to my mother and she remain unedited to ensure the integrity of the accounts. which tens of thousands of individual high-resolution photos The institute is currently considering where the film might be FILMING AT MAJDANEK Gutter has of his twin sister, hugged her,” Gutter said. This was partly a safeguard against Holocaust deniers, who capture a space and are then digitally stitched together made available to viewers as part of a permanent installation. Holocaust survivor Pinchas Sabina, killed at Majdanek That was the last time he saw his family. They perished often pounce on the slightest opportunity to sow unreason- — FOUNDATION SHOAH USC OF COURTESY POSTER AND PHOTO so that the viewer can actually walk around and explore it The film expands on the USC Shoah Foundation’s Gutter stands in front of a death camp. in the gas chambers of Majdanek. able doubts, explained Stephen Smith, the institute’s Andrew in virtual reality. Dimensions in Testimony initiative, a collection of inter- green screen as USC Shoah Foundation Executive PREVIOUS PAGE PHOTO COURTESY OF GETTY IMAGES GETTY OF COURTESY PHOTO PAGE PREVIOUS Gutter shares his story because he believes it is impor- J. and Erna Finci Viterbi Executive Director Chair at the HISTORY THE INSTITUTE FOR VISUAL The results are striking and deeply emotional. To hear active biographies that allow people to have conversations with tant for others to hear about these painful episodes USC Shoah Foundation — The Institute for Visual History Gutter describe his plight as the viewer walks by his side pre-recorded video images of Holocaust survivors and other Director Stephen Smith in human history firsthand from the people who experi- and Education. in the stark location where it took place is heart wrenching. witnesses to genocide. Gutter was the inaugural survivor to (in a gray hoodie) works enced them. “We filmed The Last Goodbye in this same spirit of When he stands next to the barbed-wire fence, a brilliant provide his likeness and life story for Dimensions in Testimony. with the film crew during the “It cannot be left to academics and historians to try and fidelity,” said Smith. “We made sure, for instance, that green field stretching into the distance, we can imagine that Gutter, who lives in Toronto, has led university students shooting of The Last Goodbye. cut it up and then give their subjective view of what actually Pinchas narrated his experience while physically on site at last moment of seeing his mother and his sister in what must on tours of Majdanek as a Holocaust educator for many years. The crew is on the sorting happened,” he said. Individual stories illustrate the nuance of Majdanek, rather than just in front of a green screen, and have been an endless sea of unfamiliar faces. But the trip in 2016 to share his story for the film is the last grounds of the Majdanek death events as they unfolded for each person and for each family, in we agonized over how to accurately capture the sinister He tries to conjure his sister’s face, but it is something that time he will return, he says, though the power of the place in camp in Poland, where Gutter keeping with USC Shoah Foundation’s mission. essence of the camp, mindful that it has since been turned has long ago escaped his memory. “I cannot remember any- his memories can never be erased. lost both parents and his USC Shoah Foundation is committed to preserving inter- into a museum.” AND EDUCATION thing about her except for that golden braid,” he said. “To say farewell to Majdanek would be impossible,” only sibling. views with survivors and other witnesses of the Holocaust The technical elements of the filming were incredibly The Last Goodbye premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival he tells viewers in The Last Goodbye. “Majdanek is part of me. and other genocides so they can be used for education and detailed. Scenes were shot in one of two ways, either using a in 2017 and screened at the Venice Film Festival and the Future My family is here. My father, my mother, my sister, Sabina, action. The institute’s Visual History Archive holds about 360-degree camera allowing viewers the ability to stand and of StoryTelling Festival. In February, the Advanced Imaging they are here. And I will always be here. Majdanek lives 55,000 testimonies, which in their full-length forms look around a space, or using photogrammetry, a technique in Society honored it with a Lumiere Award Special Jury Prize. in me.”

38 Spring / Summer 2018 39 FROM WHENCE WE CAME

Intrepid explorers of the modern age, marine scientists travel the world’s oceans to understand the mysteries of — and threats to — Earth’s fount of life.

By Darrin S. Joy

As animals began to leave Earth’s oceans about 400 million He worked for a year before finding his true direction, years ago to conquer dry land, they carried with them some of enrolling at the University of Miami, Coral Gables, to their ancestral homeland. Millions of generations of diverse finish his bachelor’s degree in biology. While there, he gained lifeforms that followed, evolving across the eons, preserved his first experience performing research at sea, taking that remnant of the seas as a vital part of their physiology. weekend oceanographic cruises off the Atlantic coast of It was, quite literally, in their blood — the life-sustaining South Florida with a graduate student mentor. fluid mirrors the ocean’s composition in many ways. “He would drag me along to do all his routine analysis When humans emerged onto the evolutionary scene, while he was out playing in the sea-grass beds,” Capone said. perhaps it was this vestige of life’s crucible coursing through “I’d be doing Winkler titrations,” a method for measuring their veins, combined with an overdeveloped sense of dissolved oxygen in water. But he loved the science. “It was curiosity, that led them back to their familial home to explore, fascinating.” understand and, perchance, conquer once again the seas. After completing his undergraduate studies, he enrolled For some, their sense of purpose and adventure is fueled as a graduate student at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel by their need to understand the complexities of the ocean, School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. While there, pulling from it answers that may help humans hold their he met Linda Duguay, who would become his life partner place on the planet. That need also requires a love of — or at and spouse of nearly 40 years. (Duguay is associate professor least a tolerance for — travel. (research) of biological sciences, director of the USC Sea Grant Program and director of research for the Wrigley JOURNEY TO THE SEA Institute for Environmental Studies at USC Dornsife.) Douglas Capone’s interest in the ocean dates from his Over the years, Capone has participated in numerous childhood. “I grew up in a coastal town in New Jersey,” he oceanographic research cruises, taking samples from points said, “and so all my young life, I was fishing and swimming around the globe to study the biogeochemistry and ecology TESTING THE WATERS and surfing.” of microscopic algae called phytoplankton. Scientists aboard research But his professional relationship with the sea would He has become a renowned expert on the role these vessels sample the ocean to ripen when he ventured to college and graduate school. organisms play in nitrogen fixation — the process of pulling gain clues to the interplay of The son of first-generation immigrants who encouraged nitrogen gas from the environment and converting it to a climate, chemistry and life. him to pursue medicine, he spent three years at Seton biologically useful form. Nitrogen is often the nutrient in Hall as a pre-med student — until he realized the health lowest supply in many of the world’s ocean surface waters. profession was not for him and dropped out to hitchhike His research has shown that nitrogen fixation may also across the United States. He next traveled to Hawaii and affect how well some marine microbes are able to remove surfed, then returned to the mainland and hitchhiked carbon dioxide, the most abundant greenhouse gas, from from California to Panama, where the money dried up. the atmosphere and produce oxygen in exchange. “My parents helped me out and I came back home,” “You know, 50 percent of the oxygen that’s in the atmo- said Capone, who is now William and Julie Wrigley Chair sphere is coming from photosynthesis in the oceans,” Capone in Environmental Studies and professor of biological sciences said. And since oxygen production and carbon dioxide fixa- at USC Dornsife. tion are “two sides of the same coin,” he notes, understanding

40 ILLUSTRATIONS BY GREG MABLY FOR USC DORNSIFE MAGAZINE Spring / Summer 2018 41 how nitrogen fixation works — and how humans are help scientists who are working to find solutions to the affecting that process through pollution and other factors mounting problems stemming from climate change. — could lead to answers about how to better reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and thereby limit climate change. RAISING REEFS Carly Kenkel’s research takes her to the sites of some of Earth’s most stunningly diverse and vibrant biological communities, coral reefs — where she is witness to tragedy. “There is something majestic Few ecosystems show the disastrous results of global warming more clearly than these “rainforests of the sea,” about being out on the open water.” as she calls them. Kenkel, Gabilan Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences at USC Dornsife, first felt the call of the sea as an under- ALL WORK AND NO PLAY graduate at Southampton College in Long Island, New York Studies such as Capone’s require voyages to various regions City (later absorbed by the State University of New York at in the open ocean and around coastal and reef systems to Stony Brook). She worked for a while at a marine mammal pull samples of water and sediments. Despite being referred rescue facility but wanted something “more intellectually to as “cruises,” these travels do not include time relaxing in challenging.” deck chairs. After interning in a few labs, she landed at Mote Marine “I think it’s really amusing that we call them ‘research Laboratory and Aquarium in Sarasota, Florida, where she cruises’ because there’s definitely nothing cruise-like about made her first foray into the biology of corals, studying the them,” said Naomi Levine, Gabilan Assistant Professor of ecology of microbes that live among them. But there was so Biological Sciences and Earth Sciences at USC Dornsife. much more. As an undergraduate at Princeton University in New “The analogy is that reefs are like the rainforests of the Jersey, Levine was a self-described “hard-rock geologist,” sea,” she said. “They’re the foundation of the biodiversity a term more literal than whimsical, as it refers to her because you need that three dimensional structure to have studies in geological sciences. A course in the biogeochem- habitat for all of the animals that live on the reef.” istry of the oceans sparked her interest in marine geology, She later enrolled in a Ph.D. program at The University of but it wasn’t until her doctoral work through Woods Hole Texas at Austin and has since taken research cruises to reef Oceanographic Institute’s Joint Program in Oceanography systems such as Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, Micronesian with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that she atolls, systems off the Florida Keys and the Flower Garden sailed on her first scientific cruises. Banks in the Gulf of Mexico. For about two years, she would fly to Bermuda, prepare Reef spawning counts among her favorite experiences. her work and head out to sea for a week of sample collec- Like most immobile sea organisms, corals must release their tion, return to Bermuda to analyze samples, and fly back reproductive cells, called gametes, into the water and hope to Massachusetts for two weeks. they find counterparts from the same species. “So, it’d be two weeks in Bermuda, two weeks at home, “They have to synchronize their reproductive time, and two weeks in Bermuda, two weeks at home,” she recalled. it’s done according to lunar cycles and temperature,” she said. “Everyone would say, ‘Wow, you have the most glamorous Some release their gametes in a trickle, others “like a nuclear Ph.D., you’re going to Bermuda,’ but I didn’t actually have explosion,” Kenkel said. “The entire colony just knows, and time to enjoy the island.” it’s just like a sneeze or something and they just all release. It’s Adding to the challenge of the grueling schedule, stunning to see.” Levine is prone to seasickness. But these marine gardens are experiencing a phenomenon “My first [cruise] was in February, and February in the known as “bleaching” caused by rising ocean temperatures Atlantic is not a particularly fun time. So, it was throw up driven by global warming. Bleaching turns the coral white in the sink, analyze samples, throw up in the sink, analyze and can lead to their complete die off, leaving behind dead samples,” she said, the memory drawing a fleeting look of white skeletons. discomfort to her expression. Kenkel and other scientists are fighting back, looking for MENAGERIE Despite this, Levine loves going to sea. “There is some- ways to farm corals in controlled environments and trans- The “rainforests of the sea,” thing majestic about being out on the open water. The plant them into the wild. By studying coral genetics, their coral reef systems play home experience of being on research boats and experiencing the relationship with various microbes and other factors, to diverse life forms of all ocean up close is such a formative and crucial experience Kenkel hopes to understand how some species handle shapes and sizes. for an oceanographer,” she said. changes in temperature better than others. The work will help Her graduate research centered on developing compu- these coral farmers raise and transplant specimens that survive tational models of how the ocean changes over time and and even thrive despite increasing environmental stresses. how microbes are affected by climate change, particu- larly with respect to the cycling of carbon throughout the FOUNT OF LIFE environment. The work, ongoing in her USC Dornsife Kenkel’s work, and that of Levine, Capone and other lab, earned her prestigious and highly competitive grant scientists studying the world’s oceans, may prove crucial awards from the Simons Foundation and the Alfred P. to the persistence of life as we know it. Species such as corals Sloan Foundation. and phytoplankton, and their interaction with the chemistry As the work she and Capone are doing demonstrates, of the sea and atmosphere, lie at the foundation of Earth’s the biology of marine microbes and climate change are global ecosystem. They are the keystone to the future. As goes intertwined. Levine’s models could help researchers better their health and that of the oceans — the ancestral home to understand how the two are interconnected, which may all life on Earth — so goes the health of the entire planet.

42 Spring / Summer 2018 43 The Man Who’s Been

One of the world’s most traveled people, alumnus William “Bill” Altaffer has visited every country in the world — many not just once, but multiple times. From North Korea to the North Pole, Sweden to the Sahara, Tipperary to Timbuktu, he’s seen it all.

By Susan Bell

In the 1990s, when alumnus William “Bill” Altaffer hadn’t Altaffer has feasted on boiled cobra washed down quite finished visiting all the countries of the world, he trav- with warm snake’s blood from a street stall in Bangkok. eled to French Guiana. After a trip to Devil’s Island, he and He’s polished off a plate of baked crocodile skewered on a friend decided to check out the fiercely guarded Guiana a Masai sword at the open-air Carnivore Restaurant in Space Center, a French rocket-launching base at Kourou. Nairobi. And, he has sampled stir-fried dried yak with mint Pulling off the main road, Altaffer turned down into a grassy leaves, a local delicacy, in Shangri-La, Tibet. clearing surrounded by impenetrable jungle. Looming up He has returned from dinner to his hotel room in the Gobi ahead was a guard tower topped by a machine gun. Desert to find it invaded by thousands of yellow butterflies, Altaffer, a retired high school teacher and movie extra spent a wakeful night peering through slits in the walls of a who has appeared in more than 120 films, recounts what cave to observe lions and elephants drink at a watering hole happened next. in Kenya, and been lulled to sleep by the sound of yak grazing “I look at my buddy, Kevin, and say, ‘Do you have a Costco outside a Mongolian yurt. card?’ So, he gives me his Costco card and we pull up to the When Altaffer’s son asked him recently whether there’s gate, and the guard comes down with the AK-47, sticks it a country that he’s only been to once, Altaffer said he had in our faces and says, ‘Yeah?’ And I go, ‘We’re members of to think about it. During the last century, he visited every Costco,’ and I hand him both our cards. And so he looks at country. Since then, he has been to every territory, enclave, them and then he turns them over and there are our names exclave, colony and disputed area, as well as more than and our pictures. And I said, ‘You know, we’re both members 900 islands. He has surfed and skied on all seven conti- of Costco.’ Then he leans in and he goes, ‘Pull on in.’ And we nents and has exhausted 12 passports and 130 visas. He’s went on in and we gave ourselves a tour of this missile base.” been to North Korea a dozen times and has visited all 92 of One of the world’s most traveled people, Altaffer is an Russia’s states, made three trips to Antarctica and voyaged to accomplished raconteur. He tells this story with polished the North Pole on a Russian icebreaker. insouciance at the slide shows he gives across Southern “The world’s my house,” he said. “And I can’t imagine California to rapt audiences eager to hear the adventures somebody having a house where they haven’t been up in of a man who has spent his life journeying to the farthest- the attic or down in the cellar. But now I’m getting into flung corners of the globe. the closets. I’m getting into the drawers. I’m going into all

44 Spring / Summer 2018 45 the little nooks and crannies of the world.” “Goddard would come down to the fraternity house and A longtime member of the The Adventurers’ Club of climb this 100-foot-tall palm tree in the backyard with his Los Angeles and the Travelers’ Century Club, Altaffer bare hands, and then he’d sit there in the fronds at the top, has twice topped MostTraveledPeople.com’s list (he is swaying about,” Altaffer said. currently ranked fourth) and holds the world record for “The guy was amazing. He went down the Nile for a year visiting the most UNESCO World Heritage Sites. in a kayak by himself. I’m a tourist compared to him.” “Nobody’s even close to this,” he boasts of the latter achievement. “I think that shows more of how much you’ve traveled the world than if you just hit an airport and left.” Altaffer frowns on those who he says “treat travel like a grocery list,” just checking countries off. e all have something in common. “Unfortunately, these country collectors, or ‘touch- and-goers’ as they’re sometimes called, just put their foot People just want to feed their children, down from a train and then say they’ve been in Mongolia,” he said. “That’s pretty pathetic.” Instead, Altaffer visits places repeatedly, meeting people, give the best they can to them and writing articles about his experiences and trying to hit every UNESCO site, until, as he says, “I get it right.” take care of the Earth.” Altaffer says the initial inspiration to become a world traveler came from his father, an L.A. dentist beset by wanderlust who took his family on world trips. After earning his bachelor’s degree in history in 1967 Altaffer’s first taste of adventure came at age 6, when the and his master’s degree in 1970, Altaffer moved to cruise ship on which he was traveling with his parents hit an Mammoth, California, where he taught skiing for three iceberg in fog and sank off the coast of Alaska. decades and joined luxury L.A. travel agency Hemphill Such a disaster at a tender age failed to deter him from Harris as a tour manager. a life of travel, however. Now, Altaffer creates his own tours. His “Hero Cities “It didn’t bother me much,” he says phlegmatically of the Soviet Union” takes World War II buffs to all about the doomed cruise, in which all passengers and crew 13 so-called “Hero Cities” of the former Soviet Union (“I were safely rescued from the shipwreck. “We just got into don’t even think Putin’s been to all of them,” he says). He the lifeboats.” escorts lovers of the bizarre to Tuva, Russia, the site of a The following year, at age 7, he sailed down the Panama national throat-singing contest and offers a trans-Pacific Canal on a freighter. trip on a Russian freighter from Chile to New Guinea, By the 1960s, he had traveled to Russia. In the ’70s, while his journey across the North Caucasus takes travelers he was one of the first tourists admitted into China. In the on a pony express of 30 taxis from Sochi to the Caspian Sea. ’80s, he landed on the Forbidden Isle of Niihau in Hawaii. The only travel-related jitters that Altaffer will admit to In the 1990s, he was the first American, he believes, to are triggered by the parking at Los Angeles International lead a tour to the remote Yemeni island of Socotra, a tiny Airport. prehistoric archipelago that shelters 700 species found “If you’re afraid of traveling somewhere, well then you nowhere else on Earth. might as well just stay home,” he says. “If you’re scared, In 2005, he made the front page of the Los Angeles Times as a dog will bite you, but if you’re not afraid, it won’t. That’s one of the first five American tourists to enter North Korea. the way you’ve got to be with people. You can’t fake it.” More recently, he traveled to Mount Athos, site of a Greek Altaffer believes that working as a teacher in inner- Orthodox monastery from which women have been banned city schools in L.A. while attending USC as a graduate for more than a thousand years. student helped him develop the street smarts he uses when Altaffer says he doesn’t have a favorite country, but he traveling. does have two lists of favorite places. One he dubs “The “I could probably walk into a group of ISIS soldiers Swim-Up Bar List.” It includes Mauritius, the Maldives, sitting around a campfire and make it work.” Thailand, the Seychelles, Sri Lanka, and Mexico. His The key is respect and recognizing the common “Historical/Cultural List” includes Russia, China, Libya, humanity in people no matter where you are or whom India, Peru, Egypt, Greece, and the United Kingdom. you’re talking to. Despite all the traveling he did as a youngster, Altaffer “We all have something in common,” he said. “People says he didn’t really appreciate travel until his late teens. just want to feed their children, give the best they can to By then he was majoring in history at USC Dornsife, them and take care of the Earth.” where an anthropology class he took with Professor Ivan Travel, Altaffer says, broadens one’s understanding and OFF THE BEATEN TRACK Alexievich Lopatin inspired him to travel the world. increases empathy. Bill Altaffer’s travels have taken Altaffer was so inspired by Lopatin’s tales of living with “There isn’t a person alive in the world today whose country him from the world’s iconic indigenous tribes in Siberia that he has made 25 trips of his own I haven’t visited. I could be at the supermarket checkout and landmarks to the most obscure to Russia, visiting every tribe featured in his professor’s lectures. I ask the guy bagging groceries where he’s from and he’ll go, corners of the planet, from Another mentor was USC Dornsife alumnus and legen- ‘Ethiopia,’ and I’ll say, ‘Where in Ethiopia?’ and he’ll say, the Great Wall of China to the dary traveler John Goddard ’55. The anthropology graduate ‘Gondar,’ and I’ll say ‘I’ve been to Gondar,’ and suddenly fabled Mount Athos monastery was the first man to explore the entire length of the River he’s got a big smile on his face. in Greece; from witnessing Nile and the River Congo. The pair met when Goddard “Not to travel is to miss out on the good fortune of being thousands of butterflies in the gave a talk at Altaffer’s high school. At USC, Altaffer joined alive,” Altaffer said. “We live on this Earth, we might as Gobi Desert to eating baked Sigma Chi, Goddard’s fraternity. well go out and see it.” crocodile in Nairobi.

46 ILLUSTRATIONS BY MATTHEW SAVINO FOR USC DORNSIFE MAGAZINE CARMEN SILVA-CORVALÁN HONORS

Faculty News Judenverfolgung im Protektorat VITALY KRESIN, professor of Böhmen/Mähren. Lokale Initia- physics and astronomy, was Legacy University Professor ANTONIO tiven, zentrale Entscheidungen, elected a fellow of the American Esteemed Elections DAMASIO, David Dornsife Chair jüdische Antworten 1939-1945 Physics Society. in Neuroscience and profes- (Wallstein Verlag, 2016). The sor of psychology, philosophy book also received a prize for IGOR KUKAVICA, professor of for Two Scientists and neurology, was awarded most outstanding German mathematics, was elected a USC Dornsife professors are recognized by their the first international Freud studies in humanities and social fellow of the American Mathema peers, who elect them to prestigious fellowships. Medal by the Royal Netherlands science in 2017 by the Börsenver- tical Society. Academy of Arts and Sciences, ein des Deutschen Buchhandels, Two USC Dornsife scientists the Breukvlakken Foundation, the the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung, the VG ROBIN COSTE LEWIS, writer have been elected fellows of Dutch Psychoanalytic Associa- WORT and the German Foreign in residence was named an Art the American Association for tion, the Dutch Association of Office. Gruner was also named to of Change fellow by the Ford the Advancement of Science, Psychoanalytical Psychotherapy the academic committee of the Foundation. an honor awarded to AAAS and the Psychoanalytic Funds United States Holocaust Memo- members by their peers. Foundation. rial Museum. STEVEN LOPEZ, professor of Xiaojiang Chen, prof- psychology and social work, essor of biological sciences JAHAN DAWLATY, associate ROBERT GURALNICK, pro- was awarded the inaugural and chemistry, and Karl professor of chemistry, received fessor of mathematics, was Martha Bernal Award for the Christe, professor (research) the 2018 Journal of Physical awarded the 2018 Frank Nelson Advancement of Diversity of chemistry, were among Chemistry B Lectureship Award Cole Prize in Algebra from the Training and Education in Clinical a total of five USC faculty from the American Chemical American Mathematical Society. Psychology from the American Xiaojiang Chen members elected to the Society’s Journal of Physical Psychological Association. prestigious fellowship. Chemistry and Physical Chem- BRUCE HERRING, assistant Founded in 1848, the istry Division. professor of biological sciences, JESSICA MARGLIN, Ruth nonprofit AAAS is the was awarded a 2018 Memory and Ziegler Early Career Chair in world’s largest general scien- SARAH FEAKINS, associate Cognitive Disorders Award from Jewish Studies and assistant tific society. The group professor of Earth sciences, the McKnight Endowment Fund professor of religion, was began its fellows tradition was named a 2018–19 AAAS Alan for Neuroscience. awarded the 2018 National in 1874 and publishes the I. Leshner Leadership Institute Jewish Book Award in Sephardic journal Science. Public Engagement Fellow by PIERRETTE HONDAGNEU- Culture for Across Legal Lines: This year, 396 members the American Association for SOTELO, Florence Everline Jews and Muslims in Modern will be named fellows in the Advancement of Science. Professor of Sociology and Morocco (Yale University Press, recognition of their scien- Feakins also was named one of professor of sociology, was 2016). The book also earned an tifically or socially distin- six Ocean Discovery Lecturers for named a 2017–18 Weather- honorable mention for the 2017 guished efforts to advance the 2018–19 academic year by the head Fellow by the School of Peter Gonville Stein Book Award science or its applications. International Ocean Discovery Advanced Research. from the American Society for Karl Christe Christe, who arrived at Program. Legal History. USC Dornsife in 1994, CLIFFORD JOHNSON, profes- was recognized for his contributions to the field of synth- JENNIFER GREENHILL, associ- sor of physics and astronomy, VIET THANH NGUYEN, Aerol etic inorganic chemistry, particularly in high energy CHEN BY PETER ZHAOYU ZHOU;CHRISTE PHOTO COURTESY OF CHRISTE OF COURTESY PHOTO ZHOU;CHRISTE ZHAOYU PETER BY CHEN ate professor of art history, was was awarded the 2018 Klopsteg Arnold Chair of English and density materials. His research encompasses both basic From the 1970s to the Silva-Corvalán’s original field recordings made by Silva- then returned in 1992 to record everything from friendships and named a Winterthur Research Memorial Lecture Award by the professor of English, American scientific knowledge and advanced applications, and aims early ’90s, Professor Emerita recordings. They are freely Corvalán during visits to the follow-up conversations with dating to their experiences at Fellow for her project “The Com- American Association of Physics studies and ethnicity and com- to “advance the state of the art and strive for spectacular of Spanish, Portuguese and accessible online via the homes of Spanish speakers many of the original speakers. L.A.-area schools. mercial Imagination: American Teachers. parative literature, was named breakthroughs, rather than settling for small incremental Linguistics Carmen Silva- USC Digital Library’s Spanish and bilingual adults and The 63 hours of West In addition to offering a fascin- Illustration and the Materialities a 2017 fellow of the MacArthur improvements,” according to his webpage. Corvalán, then a doctoral Sociolinguistics Collection. children in East Los Angeles Los Angeles and San Fernando ating record of how Spanish was of the Market, 1890-1930.” ARIE KAPTEYN, professor Foundation, known informally PHOTO COURTESY OF USC ARCHIVES UNIVERSITY Chen joined the USC Dornsife chemistry faculty student and later a professor at Previous support from and other Southern California Valley recordings capture spoken in Mexican- American (research) of economics and as the “genius grant.” He also in 2004. Among the reasons for his election are his USC Dornsife, visited the homes USC Dornsife’s Del Amo Fund neighborhoods. the perspectives of Mexican- communities during this time, WOLF GRUNER, Shapell-Guerin director of the Center for received the 2017 Sofitel Prize for contributions to the field of structural molecular biology, of Spanish speakers and bilin- and the USC Libraries’ L.A. The 93 hours of Chilean American adults and teenagers the recordings also offer Chair in Jewish Studies, profes- Economic and Social Research, Best Foreign Book. particularly for understanding viral and cellular DNA gual adults, children and teens Murillo Hispanic Heritage recordings feature 36 speakers from these areas in the tantalizing glimpses of many sor of history and director of was awarded the 2017 Pierson replication and genomic mutations. Chen has done in Los Angeles, recording their Endowment, plus a grant from spanning many age groups and late 1970s. Silva-Corvalán’s facets of daily life for groups the Center for Advanced Geno- Medal by the Mr. N. G. Pierson Professor Emerita of landmark work on tumor viruses, including HPV and everyday conversations. As the Latin Americanist Research social backgrounds. They offer research, which was supported like bilingual teens and recent cide Research, was awarded Foundation for his work on Comparative Literature Epstein-Barr virus, oncogenes, and important DNA part of her field research, she Resources Project, made the a rich record of daily experi- by the National Science Founda- Mexican-American immigrants. the Sybil Halpern Milton Book individual welfare and for and Gender Studies GLORIA modifying enzymes, aiming to find answers to important also traveled to Santiago, Chile, process possible. ences and ways of speaking in tion and USC Faculty Research —B.D and S.B. Prize from the German Studies contributions to policy and the ORENSTEIN received a 2018 questions in cancer biology and immunology. and to Covarrubias, Spain, to The recordings, which had neighborhoods and commu- grants, offers particular Association for best book on establishment of high-quality Lifetime Achievement Award from The new fellows were presented with a certificate and do the same. been preserved on 40-year-old nities throughout Santiago. insights into code switching Carmen Silva-Corvalán (left) Nazi Germany and the Holocaust institutes for economic research the Women’s Caucus for Art. a gold and blue rosette pin representing science and engi- Now, the USC Libraries audiocassettes, complement Silva-Corvalán collected a between English and Spanish, conducting field research in published in either 2015 or 2016. and doctoral education. neering on Feb. 17 at the 2018 AAAS Annual Meeting in

has digitized 156 hours of previously digitized audio first set of recordings in 1978 as bilingual teens discuss East Los Angeles in 1983. He received the honor for Die Continued on page 52. Austin, Texas. —Z.V.

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Penguin Random House / Antonio Saori Katada examines the DIGITAL Damasio, University Professor, relations between the BRICS DNA David Dornsife Chair in Neurosci- countries (Brazil, Russia, India, Primate Pedagogy ence and professor of psychology, China, and South Africa) and Primatologist Craig Stanford challenges us to let apes guide our inquiry into what philosophy and neurology, presents the United States. it means to be human. a landmark reflection that spans the biological and social sciences, DISRUPTION Staging political coups, waging wars over territory, passing AND THE CHALLENGES offering a new way to understand FOR GLOBAL GOVERNANCE on cultural traditions to younger generations, ruthlessly strat- the world and our place in it. THE DIALOGUES: PETER F. COWHEY • JONATHAN D. ARONSON egizing for resources — including sexual partners. Sound like Conversations about the familiar human behaviors? Well, they are. But they’re also DIGITAL DNA: Disruption Nature of the Universe behaviors we share with wild chimpanzees. and the Challenges for Global MIT Press / In this graphic novel, Craig Stanford, professor of biological sciences and anthro- Governance Oxford University Professor of Physics and Astron- pology, has been studying chimps for more than 25 years. His Press / Professor of Communica- omy Clifford Johnson invites us book, The New Chimpanzee: A Twenty-First-Century Portrait of tion and International Relations to eavesdrop on a series of nine Our Closest Kin (Harvard University Press, 2018), synthesizes Jonathan D. Aronson and conversations about “the nature his own pioneering research with that of all six other major co-author Peter F. Cowhey examine of the universe.” NATURE AND CULTURE IN research studies done to date. In it, Stanford portrays a complex opportunities and challenges in the THE EARLY MODERN ATLANTIC and even more human-like ape than the one celebrated British primatologist and anthropolo- fast-changing global economy and University of Pennsylvania Press / gist Jane Goodall popularized more than a half century ago. lay out strategies to promote robust Andrew W. Mellon Professor “The book contains what we’ve learned for the last 20 years about wild chimps,” Stanford growth while addressing risk. INLAND SHIFT: Race, Space, of the Humanities, Linda and said. “By extension, this knowledge helps us realize who we are, because we’ve always used and Capital in Inland Southern Harlan Martens Director of the them as a window onto ourselves.” California University of California Early Modern Studies Institute and Recent discoveries about wild chimpanzees have dramatically reshaped our understanding Press / Assistant Professor of Professor of History and Anthro- of these great apes and their kinship with humans. Divided into 10 chapters, each one American Studies and Ethnicity pology Peter Mancall reveals concentrating on a different theme, Stanford’s book explains what the past two decades Downtown Colorado Springs, Colorado, circa 1915, where Alice Echols’ infamous grandfather owned a building and loan association. Juan De Lara uses the growth how Europeans and Native of chimpanzee field research have taught us about the origins of human social behavior, of Southern California’s logistics Americans thought about a the nature of aggression and communication and the divergence of humans and apes from economy to examine how modern rapidly changing natural world a common ancestor more than 6 million years ago. The result is a work that adds to our capitalism was shaped by and AMERICAN GRAND STRATEGY in the century after Christopher knowledge of chimpanzees’ political intelligence, sexual power plays, violent ambition, Family Secrets, Hidden Histories helped to transform the region’s AND EAST ASIAN SECURITY IN Columbus’ voyages. cultural diversity and adaptability. —S.B.

Shortfall by Alice Echols peels away the layers of a hidden family history, in the geographies of race and class. ZHOU ZHAOYU PETER BY PHOTO ECHOLS ECHOLS; ALICE OF COURTESY PHOTO SPRINGS COLORADO DOWNTOWN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY process exposing a new form of financial corruption in 20th-century America. VISUAL VOYAGES: Images of Cambridge University Press / Latin American Nature from Maria Crutcher Professor in Inter- One evening years ago, Alice Echols learned some shocking Columbus to Darwin Yale Univer- national Relations and Professor news from her father: Her maternal grandfather, Walter sity Press / Through an examination of International Relations, Busi- Davis, had been a notorious white-collar criminal. The owner of maps, illustrated manuscripts, ness, and East Asian Languages of the biggest building and loan association in Colorado still lifes and landscape paintings, and Cultures David C. Kang Springs, Colorado, Davis went on the lam in 1932 before Associate Professor of Art History suggests that East Asia is in sync authorities discovered his business was in the red an astounding and History Daniela Bleichmar with the American desire to share $1.25 million — nearly $22 million in today’s dollars. establishes Latin America as a burdens and that the region may Echols, Barbra Streisand Professor of Contemporary critical site for scientific and artistic be more stable than believed. Gender Studies and professor of history and gender studies exploration, affirming that region’s STATE OF RESISTANCE: at USC Dornsife, spent 10 years uncovering the details of transformation and that of Europe FLASH! Photography, Writing, What California’s Dizzying as vitally connected histories. and Surprising Illumination Descent and Remarkable

the scandal through an archive of family correspondence, RELATIONS MEDIA USC OF COURTESY PHOTO STANFORD a 200-page FBI file, and research in archives across America. Oxford University Press / In a lively Resurgence Mean for America’s Her book Shortfall: Family Secrets, Financial Collapse, and a Hidden History of American history of flash photography from Future The New Press / Turpanjian Banking (New Press, 2017) tells the story of the cratering of the building and loan industry the mid-19th century to the present Chair in Civil Society and Social in microcosm through the firestorm that erupted in Colorado Springs when all its building day, Provost Professor of Art History Change and Professor of Sociol- and loan agencies failed. The Depression-era failure of the industry, once a key component of and English Kate Flint shows how ogy and American Studies and America’s financial landscape, is not well-known. flash photography has been used Ethnicity Manuel Pastor makes “My task was to figure what my grandparents’ story could tell me about how capitalism to reveal social deprivation and the case for honestly engaging operated on the ground,” Echols said. poverty, the representation of race racial anxiety to address our Her book uncovers the malfeasance that the building and loan industry covered up, and and everyday life. THE BRICS AND COLLECTIVE economic and generational provides a crucial counter-narrative to the usual celebration of Main Street finance. Shortfall FINANCIAL STATECRAFT challenges. reveals that the supposed virtues of Main Street lending — its intimacy and small scale — Oxford University Press / Writing were no guarantees against fraud. THE STRANGE ORDER with co-authors Cynthia Roberts “The book is a cautionary tale about the perils of forgetting those episodes when capitalism OF THINGS: Life, Feeling, and Leslie Elliott Armijo, Associate runs amok.” —L.P. and the Making of Cultures Professor of International Relations

50 Spring / Summer 2018 51 TROJANALITY TROJANALITY

JOHN POLLINI, USC Associates degree Doctor of Science, honoris ROBERT ENGLISH (B.A., work toward improving methods Professor in Art History and causa from the Chinese University geography, ’89) has accepted a of husbandry, release and life cycle professor of art history and of Hong Kong for his contribu- position as an administrative law monitoring of the endangered Big Success Through Big Data history, was named a Morpho- tions to computational studies on judge for the California Depart- coho salmon. A Small Act of Kindness Brett Crosby ’95 has spent nearly two decades riding the wave of information mata Fellow by the University of chemistry research. ment of Social Services, Los Inspired by her Hungarian refugee grandmother’s welcome to the United States more technology, originating Google Analytics and launching a startup. Cologne, Germany. Angeles Region. AARON WILKES (B.A., political than 60 years ago, Sofia Deak ’17 is helping refugees feel at home in a foreign language. TRAVIS WILLIAMS, associate science, ’94) was promoted to the In May 1995, as graduation approached for international GEORGE SANCHEZ, professor professor of chemistry, was SANDRA TSING LOH (MPW, rank of colonel in the U.S. Army. relations and political science double major Brett Crosby, of American studies and eth- awarded a 2018 Thieme Chemistry ’89) starred in the Yuletide play the inevitable question kept coming up among his friends: nicity and history, was elected Journals Award by the editorial she penned, Sugar Plum Fairy, 2000s What are you going to do now? Some were applying to vice president of the Organization board members of SYNTHESIS, at the South Coast Repertory in ANTHONY MARRA (B.A., graduate school while others were researching companies of American Historians and will be- SYNLETT and SYNFACTS for his December 2017. English, ’08) received the Simp- and applying for their first big job. come president-elect in 2019 and research in synthetic organic son Family Literary Prize, which Crosby saw it a little differently. Someone started those serve as president from 2020–21. chemistry. KATHLEEN STERLING (B.A., includes a $50,000 award. companies, he reasoned. Let’s be those guys. political science, ’81) has been This entrepreneurial spirit helped fuel a small company DARBY SAXBE, assistant pro- named one of the “Most Inspira- 2010s called Urchin Software Corporation, which he co-founded fessor of psychology, received Alumni News tional Women of the Valley” by ALEXANDRA “LEXI” MARTEN in 1997. Urchin became so adept at analyzing web statistics a Distinguished Scientific Award United Chamber of Commerce. (B.A., international relations, that it caught the attention of Google, which scooped up the company in 2005, when for Early Career Contributions 1970s ’13) has been appointed to the Crosby was 32. Urchin’s statistical software became the basis of Google Analytics. from the American Psychology MARK DARRAH (B.A., inter- MARC TRUDEAU (B.S., bio- White House as a confidential “My head of sales at the time said, ‘It was like we were playing Triple-A baseball Association for her work in health disciplinary studies, ’79) logical sciences, ’80) was or- assistant in the Office of Manage- and the Yankees called and said hey, we’re going to be in the World Series, do you guys psychology. delivered the Carl G. and Gladys dained as the auxiliary bishop of ment and Budget. know how to pitch?’ It did feel like that because we suddenly went from the backwaters L. Herrington Distinguished the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. of a small company to center stage at one of the largest and most important companies in SATOKO SHIMAZAKI, associ- Lecture at Rogers State University the world.” ate professor of East Asian in Claremore, OK. His presentation REBECCA UDELL (B.A., Marriages Crosby stayed on for close to a decade as Google’s director of product marketing, languages and cultures, was titled “Tales and Thoughts of psychology, ’87) has been and Births working on everything from the mobile advertising product to Google+, Chrome, received the 2018 John Whitney the Extraordinary Common.” promoted to clinical director of ASHTON ARNDT (B.A., Gmail, Docs and Drive. He watched the company grow from 2,500 people, when Hall Book Prize from the Associa- The Haven at College at USC, an psychology, ’12) and SHER- Google had just gone public, to upwards of 100,000 employees when he left in 2014. tion for Asian Studies for her book, CHRISTOPHER DEERING on-campus addiction treatment WOOD EGBERT (B.S., environ- Crosby, who now lives in Manhattan Beach, California, with his wife and two daugh- Edo Kabuki in Transition: From (B.A., political science, ’74) center for students. mental studies, ’13) married on ters, has moved on to FinTech (Financial Technologies) as chief operating officer and co- the Worlds of the Samurai to the became interim dean at the George Nov. 4, 2017, at the Four Seasons founder of PeerStreet, an online platform for investing in real estate debt. He speaks at Vengeful Female Ghost (Columbia Washington University College of 1990s Biltmore in Santa Barbara, CA. USC often, including classes in USC Dornsife’s Department of Economics and others in University Press, 2016). Professional Studies in February. DOUGLAS COST (B.A., the USC Marshall School of Business. English, ’95) received his Ph.D. BRAD GORESKI (B.A., art his- Crosby emphasizes to undergraduates that the entrepreneurial environment, particu- RAYMOND STEVENS, Provost GERALDINE KNATZ (M.S., in cross-cultural education and tory, ’07) married Gary Janetti larly in Los Angeles, has never been better. The city is home to venture capitalist firms that Professor of Biological Sci- environmental engineering, futures studies from the Univer- on Dec. 26, 2017, in the Caribbean are competing with the Silicon Valley firms in a real way now, he said. ences, Chemistry, Neurology, ’77; Ph.D., biological sciences, sity of Alaska Fairbanks, where aboard the Seaborn Sojourn. “In my view, there’s never been a better time to be an entrepreneur in L.A.,” Physiology and Biophysics, ’79) joined the Dewberry board he also began a new position Sofia Deak vividly remembers the story her grandmother told every Thanksgiving about he said. —L.P. and Chemical Engineering and of directors. as an assistant professor in the CHESTER BARRY FERNANDO what happened when she and her son, Deak’s father, arrived in the United States as refugees Materials Science, received The School of Education. (B.A., economics, ’04) and from Hungary. It was Thanksgiving 1956, and mother and son were welcomed with a Protein Society’s 2018 Stein and DAVID JOEL TRACHTENBERG KATRICE FERNANDO (B.S., traditional holiday dinner. That act of kindness and inclusion made a huge difference for Moore Award. (B.A., international relations, NICOLE FLIER (B.A., political kinesiology, ’07) welcomed them. “It was something they remembered for 60 years,” Deak said. ’78) was confirmed by the U.S. science, ’92) was crowned Daisy their second son, Quincy Cole, Noting that California has the largest refugee population in the U.S., Deak, who gradu- Professor Emerita of Inter- Senate to be deputy undersecre- Diva for the sixth consecutive year on Jan. 20, 2018. ated in 2017 with a degree in international relations (global business), is determined to help. national Relations JUDITH tary of defense for policy. for raising more than $30,000 in As refugee numbers spiked last year, Deak launched a program with Students Organize TICKNER received the Ole R. raffle donations for the Boca Raton JENNIFER GROSKY (B.A., for Syria at USC to send students to San Diego — home to the largest Syrian refugee popula- Holsti Distinguished Scholar Award 1980s Regional Hospital. political science and psychol- tion in the nation — to do in-home, one-on-one English language tutoring. The USC tutors from the International Studies COLIN COULSON-THOMAS ogy, ’97) and PETER KNUDSEN tailor lessons to the refugees’ specific needs. Association. (M.A., international rela- CROSBY BRETT OF COURTESY PHOTOS Former USC Song Girl AUDREA (B.A., English, ’01) married Recalling her grandmother’s story, Deak notes that while doing something relatively tions, ’82) received the 2018 CSR HARRIS (B.A., psychology, and welcomed daughter Rachel small, like providing an English tutoring program for a couple of hours every week, might ARIEH WARSHEL, Distin- Lifetime Achievement Award at the ’93) was hired as the new spirit Knudsen in 2017. seem inconsequential, it does have an enduring impact. guished Professor, Dana and CSR Leadership Summit in New advisor at USC in October 2017. PHOTO BY MARK RIVARD MARK BY PHOTO “Being able to help someone feel comfortable in their new home is a long-lasting gift you David Dornsife Chair in Chem- Delhi. This award is given to those TIARA MARTINEZ (B.A., can give someone,” she said. istry and Professor of Chem- who have made significant contri- ERIC STURM (B.S., biological history, ’06) married Steven Deak spent last summer working at a school for refugee children on the Greek island istry, Biological Sciences, butions and exhibited noteworthy sciences, ’91) was awarded the Montes on Dec. 15, 2017, of Kyos. Biochemistry, and Chemical leadership in the corporate social Department of Commerce Bronze in Los Angeles, CA. “It was a very difficult job, but it was probably the best thing I’ve ever done,” she said. Engineering and Materials responsibility sector. Medal by the National Oceanic and “It made me know that I want to continue working with refugees in an educational setting

Science, received the honorary Atmospheric Administration for his Continued on page 56. for the rest of my life.” —S.B.

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follows the lives of four young African-American girl copes while University of California Press / African-American girls known as challenged to survive in a family Rachel Middleman (M.A., art the “Babies” growing up in the ravaged by substance abuse. history, ’06; Ph.D., art history, ’10) vortex of the turbulent change shows that woman-made erotic Pulp Nonfiction of the 1960s and becoming young art was integral to the profound Kaitlin Mogentale ’15 is turning formerly discarded waste adults in the decadent and changes that took place in from juice bars into healthy, high-fiber foods. destructive ’80s. American art during the 1960s, THE from the crumbling of modernist aesthetics and the expanding field FORGOTTEN of art practice to the emergence FOUR METAPHORS OF COMANCHE CAPTIVE Five Star FRONT of the feminist art movement. Patron-Client Relationships MODERNISM: From Der Sturm Publishing / Combining historical in Counter Insurgency

to the Société Anonyme fiction with western adventure, WALTER C. LADWIG III University of Minnesota Press / D. László Conhaim (B.A., Focusing on the recurring meta- humanities, ’92) chronicles the THE FORGOTTEN FRONT: phors of piano, glass, water and tale of a former captive who Patron-Client Relationships in home, Jenny Anger (B.A., Fine endures forced separation from Counterinsurgency Cambridge Arts and German, ’86) inter- her child, unwanted psychiatric University Press / Walter C. weaves a historical analysis of Der SPINELESS: The Science of care and finally the deadly conse- Ladwig III (B.A., economics Sturm and Société Anonyme with Jellyfish and the Art of Growing quences of her quest. and international relations, ’98) an aesthetic analysis of the meta- a Backbone Riverhead Books / uses case studies to examine phors that shaped their practices, Blending personal memoir with the contemporary and historical reconceiving modernism itself. distillations of research, Juli challenges that arise when the PLAYING THE GAME: Berwald (Ph.D., ocean science, U.S. attempts to assist another Create Your Legacy and ’98) transports readers into the government in counterinsurgency. Preserve Your Estate for world of jellyfish and reveals why Future Generations Morgan

they are more important to our WRITING ON THE MOVE James Publishing / Paul Remack understanding of the planet than (M.A., history, ’77) prepares As carrot after carrot disappeared into her friend’s counter- San Francisco Eats we could ever imagine. people for the game of wealth top juicer, Kaitlin Mogentale stared with her mouth agape Kimberley Lovato ’90 publishes a mouthwatering guide to her beloved adoptive transfer and distribution, enabling

THROUGH A Migrant “Through a Trauma Lens harvests the wisdom of those committed to building a truly inclusive, at the growing pile of shredded pulp. The USC Dornsife trauma-informed treatment infrastructure in the United States. On these pages, readers meet positive exemplars who have turned pervasive trauma into transformed relationships, both VIVIAN BARNETT BROWN Women city’s most intriguing restaurants, markets and artisanal food shops. within and beyond their organizations. The book will appeal to those seeking to grow towards them to pass on their fortune organizational change as part of the broader movement for health equity and social justice.” and Nancy D. Campbell, PhD, professor of science and technology studies at Rensselaer environmental studies major had visited trendy Los Angeles Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, and coauthor with Elizabeth Ettorre of Gendering Addiction: The Politics of Drug Treatment in a Neurochemical World (2011) the Value “Dr. Brown has produced a volume worthy of a prominent place on the bookshelves of health DEAD MAN LAUNCH Starboard- intact so that future generations care program administrators and providers. Progressing methodically from a description of the of Literacy research base for relating trauma histories to current health care issues, Dr. Brown details the TRAUMA juice bars many times, but she never realized how much of principles and practices that can guide the conduct of trauma-informed treatment services, as well as describing issues and strategies for the all-important task of achieving the adoption of trauma-informed treatment by existing systems of care.” Side / Set in 1968, the latest may enjoy it. Barry S. Brown, professor (adjunct), University of North Carolina at Wilmington “Want to taste the prize-winning pie of a 12-time World Pizza “Dr. Vivian Brown is the doyenne of ‘change champions.’ In Through a Trauma Lens, she makes the fruits and vegetables ended up in the trash. vivid the intersecting impacts of substance abuse, AIDS, mental illness, cognitive impairment and the reverberating contribution of trauma. Her concept of the burden of treatment—both for

clients and providers—is brilliant. Her emphasis on safety bears notice by any program or agency LENS novel by John J. Gobbell (B.A., serving any client group.” Champion? Eat your homework at America’s only independent Margaret Gatz, PhD, professor of psychology, University of Southern California “What if we could use this pulp to create healthy snacks Through a Trauma Lens aims to understand and highlight successful examples of health, mental health, substance abuse treatment, and other service delivery systems that have implemented REBECCA WHERE THE anROADS integrated trauma-informed service ALLmodel. This innovative END: volume draws on the author’s humanities, ’60) follows a sole first-hand experience working alongside a number of local and state organizations as well as LORIMER LEONARD cheese school? Track down the home of the Mission-style burrito?” a nationwide survey of notable trauma-informed models. Structured around illustrative case VIVIAN BARNETT BROWN that are high in fiber and nutritional value?” she asked. studies, chapters that correspond to stage of adoption, and strategies for cultivating staff support, this valuable new resource includes examples and strategies to be applied in any Photographytreatment and or service setting. Anthropol- witness to the sinking of the Soviet Vivian Barnett Brown, Ph.D. is the founder and former CEO of Prototypes: Centers for THROUGH A This is the intriguing exhortation — appetite- and curiosity- Innovation in Health, Mental Health and Social Services, a multi-facility, multi-service non-profit The moment led Mogentale to launch Pulp Pantry, agency with services located throughout Southern California. Dr. Brown has more than 40 years of experience developing innovative, community-based services, including: community mental ogy in the Kalaharihealth centers; community health programs;Harvard substance abuse treatment services; mental health Union’s ballistic missile submarine WRITING ON THE MOVE: and specialized co-occurring disorders treatment; trauma-informed and trauma-specific services; whetting in equal measure — that appears on the back cover of domestic violence prevention and intervention services; HIV/AIDS outreach, prevention, and TRAUMA a startup that uses discarded pulp to create grain-free, treatment services; and services for incarcerated women and recently released men, women, University Pressand youth. / Ilisa Barbash and subsequent finger pointing Migrant Women and the Value TRAUMA COUNSELING LENS alumna Kimberley Lovato’s new book, Unique Eats and Eateries of Cover image: © Shutterstock TRANSFORMING high-fiber foods like granola, seed and veggie crisps and HEALTH AND BEHAVIORAL (M.A., visual anthropology,ISBN 978-1-138-64895-1 ’92) drags the world toward nuclear of Literacy University of Pittsburgh HEALTH SYSTEMS San Francisco (Reedy Press, 2017). Lovato, a food-lover by nature www.routledge.com/mentalhealth baking flours. The 24-year-old alumna’s products have 9 781138 648951 Routledge titles are available as eBook editions in a range of digital formats and a San Franciscan by choice, says that when the opportunity tells the story of Raytheon co- holocaust. Press / Rebecca Lorimer Leonard already landed in select stores. came along to write a food guide to her beloved adoptive city, she founder Laurence Marshall and THROUGH A TRAUMA LENS: (B.A., English, ’02) shows how Another problem that inspired her vocation is the food didn’t hesitate. his family’s influential anthropo- Transforming Health and multilingual migrant women both insecurity and nutrition issues she witnessed at a local “What intrigued me about this project was that it was not a review of restaurants,” logical expeditions to Southwest Behavioral Health Systems succeed and struggle as they write elementary school. Every meal featured highly processed she said. “It’s really about the stories behind the restaurants.” Africa during the 1950s. Routledge / Vivian Brown among their languages and around food with low nutritional value. The result is a nontraditional restaurant and travel guide that features a feast of delec- (Ph.D., clinical psychology, ’66) the world. THE INFINITE FUTURE Penguin / “They weren’t used to eating vegetables,” she said. “They’d table tidbits about the city’s most celebrated eateries, as well as many of its more secret highlights examples of health, Set in Brazil, Idaho and outer come into the garden and they’d never seen a fresh carrot or culinary destinations. Lovato has succeeded in marinating these diverse ingredients to mental health, substance abuse space, the latest novel by current a fresh tomato.” LOVATO PHOTO COURTESY OF REEDY PRESS REEDY OF COURTESY PHOTO LOVATO create a delicious smorgasbord of “90 palate-pleasing bites” of San Francisco food lore — treatment and other service creative writing and literature Mogentale is hopeful that she can build Pulp Pantry into a delivery systems that have imple- doctoral student Tim Wirkus from cioppino to hangtown fry. RUELAS GUS BY PHOTO MOGENTALE sustainable brand and gateway to get kids excited about fruits Lovato, who majored in international relations with a French minor, said her USC Dornsife mented an integrated trauma- finds an obsessive librarian, and vegetables. education helped her career as a writer. informed service model. a down-at-heel author and a For now, she is focused on perfecting a handful of core “I had a fairly sheltered upbringing, and going to USC opened my eyes to people from THE HOUSE AT VIRGIL STREET: disgraced historian hunting for products and building her presence in L.A. She is still all over the world — different cultures, music and food.” A Young Poet’s Memoir of a mystical, life-changing book. the main engine of the operation, spending her weekends For Lovato, San Francisco is a place where food and memory are inextricably linked. Los Angeles Xuala / Writing under working on the business. “It’s hard,” she wrote, “not to be hypnotized by a city that buzzes at this level of culinary the name Alice L. Malindy, Linda She feels lucky to have graduated with no student debt velocity.” —S.B. CLARETTA STREET Brown Bear / G. Hamilton (B.A., history, ’76) thanks to the Mork Family Scholarship. TELL US ABOUT YOUR BOOK Write to USC Dornsife Magazine, 1150 S. Olive Street T2400, Los Angeles, CA 90015 Colette D. Barris (B.A., geography provides a road map for troubled RADICAL EROTICISM: Women, “Now I can actually focus on building my business and or [email protected] and planning and urban studies, ’81) youth, showing how a young Art, and Sex in the 1960s putting money into that effort.” E.L.—

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STEPHEN VOSSMEYER (B.A., BRIAN EDGE (B.S., biologi- MARTIN MILLER (B.A., biologi- social sciences, ’02) married cal sciences, ’91) Alpharetta, cal sciences, ’50) West Covina, Just Keep Swimming Taylor Radvany on April 21, 2018. GA (4/12/2018) at age 48; sports CA (4/20/2018) at age 92; worked Olympic hopeful Sarah Urke ’16, who suffered a serious concussion, aims to broaden enthusiast. for the National Park Service for The Numbers Ninja awareness on addressing brain injuries. 25 years as a park naturalist; Bradley Rava ’16 uses math and data analysis skills to tell stories that could positively impact society. In Memoriam EDWARD P. GERICH (B.A., passionate educator of parks; WILLIAM ALDACUSHION (B.A., chemistry, ’47) San Luis Obispo, merit badge counselor for the Boy Alumnus Bradley Rava revels He is currently considering how to refine formulas used by economics,’67; M.B.A.,’69) CA (4/10/2018) at age 92; founded Scouts of America. in unearthing valuable secrets companies like ESPN to predict the winner of a sporting Vienna, VA (3/30/2018) at age 72; Hi-Craft Metal Products; enjoyed hidden in massive data sets. event as the game unfolds. USC Trojan Marching Band alum- restoring vintage cars; golf JOHN WESLEY ROBB (Ph.D., Where others might see only “There is a lot of math, and the math is incredibly nus; lover of music and performing enthusiast. philosophy, ’52) Seattle, WA reams of numbers, Rava sees important, but there is also a huge element of creativity,” arts; worked at IBM. (2/22/2018) at age 98; Distin- a story waiting to be told, Rava said. “That’s what separates people who might be good JOSEPH R. HENDERSON (B.A., guished Emeritus Professor of drawing inspiration from at analyzing data from those who can use data to tell a story ANTHONY LEE ASH (Ph.D., economics, ’63) of Santa Paula, Religion at USC Dornsife; taught at finding patterns that reveal and make some kind of meaningful impact on society.” philosophy, ’66) Abilene, TX CA (5/16/18) at age 76; practiced USC for 33 years; twice received something about the world His ability to pull valuable information from big data sets (12/6/2017) at age 86; professor for law for 50 years; enjoyed collecting Award for Excellence in Teaching; around him. caught the eye of the National Science Foundation, which more than 60 years; completed art, playing tennis, exploring the volunteered with Ethics Commit- Rava, who earned his bach- granted him a three-year research fellowship that covers his video series Walking with C.S. world and taking long walks with tee at University of Washington, elor’s degree in applied and computational mathematics, is tuition at USC and provides other perks, like conference Lewis; avid outdoorsman; com- his golden retriever. Swedish Medical Center and now a first-year Ph.D. student in statistics at USC Marshall funding and access to a powerful quantum computer. pleted 13 marathons. Northwest Hospital. School of Business. He’s still narrowing down his interests, which include AMALIA KATSIGEANIS He recently crunched the numbers on more than 4,000 machine learning, network analysis and high-dimensional CARL WARREN BAKER JR. (B.A., zoology, ’46) Calexico, CA ROBERT S. RODDICK III (B.A., horse races to determine whether being assigned to a specific statistics. But Rava said he was drawn to applied math and (B.A., psychology, ’53) Las (5/13/2018) at age 92; physician; history, ’71) San Bernardino, CA stall at the starting line can influence the chances of statistics in general because of their usefulness in virtually Vegas, NV (11/13/2017) at age 87; former mayor of Calexico; helped (3/10/2018) at age 68; enlisted in the winning. His research, part of a class project during a fellow- every field, from biology and neuroscience to economics served in the Korean War and rose launch a methadone clinic in California National Guard; attorney ship at Yale University, revealed that three of the four tracks and business. to the rank of Lt. Commander in Calexico; former California Woman at Inland Counties Legal Services he analyzed had “draw bias” — industry lingo for advanta- “Everybody needs math,” he said. “It’s an underlying the U.S. Naval Reserves; an avid of the Year in 1991. where he helped families in need of geous or unfavorable starting positions. language that we can use to describe processes around us. golfer, bridge and backgammon public assistance benefits. He has used his analytic skills to study the likelihood It’s cool to be able to jump into a new field and find some- player; loved to travel. LAWANDA KATZMAN- that a cybercriminal might target a specific company. thing useful using that language.” —E.L. STAENBERG (Ph.D., psych- LILLIAN BROWN VOGEL (B.A., BERNARD BARBER (Ph.D., ology, ’72) Beverly Hills, CA zoology, ’32; M.A., psychology, philosophy, ’63) Phoenix, AZ (4/7/2018) at age 86; joined USC as ’32) Ukiah, CA (12/19/2017) at age (3/12/2018) at age 89. an adjunct professor; established a 108; member of Mental Health private psychology practice. Advocacy Board and American ERNEST R. BIRNBAUM (M.A., Association of University Women; chemistry, ’58) Bronx, NY WILLIAM R. KENNON (B.A., avid reader and lover of poetry; (3/21/2018) at age 84; retired political science, ’70, J.D., ‘73) published What’s My Secret: Memo- A sharp kick to the head was all it took to derail her Olympic dreams. chemistry professor at St. John’s Santa Ana, CA (4/14/18) at age 70; ries and Reflections of a Long Life. Sarah Urke had trained for years to rise through the ranks of competitive synchro- University; member of American successful lawyer. nized swimming. But at age 16, a debilitating concussion knocked her out of the pool Chemical Society and the Royal H. ELWOOD WISSMAN (B.A., — and threatened her ability to walk and study. She dropped out of school to receive Society of Chemistry. FRANK R. MANZANO (B.A., sociology, ’47) Santa Barbara, medical care and therapy. international relations, ’56) of CA (4/8/2018) at age 92; served “I wasn’t sure I’d ever get back to being a student again, let alone be able to get out MARIAN G. CANNON (B.A., Gunnison, CO (5/5/18) at age 91; as pastor to several Methodist of bed and work out,” Urke said. international relations, ’45) enjoyed camping, fishing and trav- congregations in Southern Her persistence paid off, and after two years, Urke recovered and was accepted to Glendale, CA (4/17/18) at age 94; eling; former secretary to General California and Arizona. USC Dornsife. She studied human biology with minors in dance medicine and health-care worked in the State Department in Dwight D. Eisenhower. studies, with an emphasis on pre-physical therapy, thanks to a Mork Family Scholarship. Washington; accomplished writer; ALVA FUMIHIKO YANO (M.A., She graduated in 2016, and today the 24-year-old is pursuing a doctorate in physical therapy loving and dedicated wife, mother, EVANGELINE MAYNARD (B.A., physics, ’58) Berkeley, CA at Columbia University. grandmother and friend. international relations, ’60; RAVA BRADLEY OF COURTESY PHOTO (3/13/2018) at age 84; faculty She is also a fervent advocate for concussion awareness, running an information M.A., international relations, member in Department of Physics and support website and consulting for top-flight synchronized swimming teams on MARCIA FAN COHEN (Ph.D., ’64) of Palos Verdes Estates, CA at Cal State Long Beach; enjoyed concussion safety. Her goal is to increase knowledge of how to prevent and respond to psychology,’71) Los Alamitos, CA (5/10/18) at age 81; published teaching and research; studied PHOTO BY EMILY BERL concussions, particularly in sports that don’t receive much attention in the current debate (2/26/2018) at age 86; created The Rain Must Fall and Mind Your theoretical nuclear and particle over head trauma among athletes. a school psychology program for Chopsticks; loved reading, traveling, physics; avid reader of Jane “A concussion can really change a kid’s life,” she said. Los Angeles Unified School District; music and spending time Austen and Shakespeare. Urke envisions a clinical career in neurorehabilitation and physical therapy. developed and hosted a talk radio with family. “I love to work with patients and help them improve,” she said. “Bringing quality show; worked on the early devel- of life back to these people would be an incredibly fulfilling career.” E.L.— opment of Sesame Street.

56 Spring / Summer 2018 57 DORNSIFE FAMILY

REMEMBERING

ALVIN RUDISILL, Emeritus Associate Professor of Religion and a longtime USC chaplain, died on Feb. 21. He was 89. Rudisill joined USC as campus pastor in 1962 before being named university chaplain in 1969. He was a counselor to four USC presidents, and his role over- seeing community outreach and programs in the 1980s and ’90s reshaped USC’s relationship with its surrounding community.

When then-USC President Emeritus Professor of Political FAMILY SCHMIDHAUSER THE OF COURTESY PHOTO SCHMIDHAUSER HSIA; JANICE OF COURTESY PHOTO RUDISILL SIMIC; OPARNICA BUDISAVLJEVIC MARIA OF COURTESY PHOTO SIMIC James Zumberge asked him to Science JOHN SCHMIDHAUSER oversee community relations at died on Feb. 21. He was 96. the university in the mid-1980s, After a two-year term in Rudisill quickly developed three Congress, Schmidhauser joined main goals: building trust with the USC Dornsife in 1973 as chair of community, creating a diverse the Political Science Department. staff and developing patience. During his 19-year career at the “If we were serious about a university, he received the USC partnership, we had to really listen Raubenheimer Outstanding to the community and establish Senior Faculty Award and the some rapport with them,” Rudisill Golden Key award for compara- said in a 1994 interview. He and his tive research. team created the United Neighbor- Jeb Barnes, professor of poli- hood Council to improve the lives tical science, said Schmidhauser, of people working or living near one of the nation’s leading USC’s University Park Campus. scholars of judicial politics, “was Rudisill’s primary field of a major architect of the field of scholarship was church history, judicial behavior and a model but he also developed expertise social scientist. He was decades in medical ethics. He drew on his ahead of his time.” knowledge of concerns surround- Bill Gluba, who worked on ing human experimentation and Schmidhauser’s successful A Scholar and a Gentleman fetal, neonatal and child bioethics campaign for Congress said, An expert on Eastern Europe and the Balkans, Andrei Simic of anthropology was while serving on several medical “He was warning those who frequently tapped for his expertise, which he lent to several landmark court cases. review boards at USC. would listen about climate Throughout his career, he also change before the phrase was Andrei Simic, professor of anthropology, died on Dec. 26, 2017, in Phoenix. He was 87. explored issues involving peace, even coined.” Simic’s primary focus was the Balkans and Eastern Europe, but he had many other areas multiethnic and transnational For Alison Dundes Renteln, of interest, including Latin American Studies, ethnicity and nationalism, post-communist relationships, and the role of professor of political science, A Life of Purpose society, Euro-American ethnic groups, popular culture, social gerontology, and visual institutions and communities in anthropology, public policy Fondly nicknamed “J. Wesley God” by generations of students clamoring to take his popular “Human Values” anthropology with a focus on film production and film analysis. inner cities. and law, and scores of his other ROBB PHOTO COURTESY OF USC ARCHIVES UNIVERSITY course, the beloved professor of religion was instrumental in bringing Martin Luther King Jr. to speak at USC. “Andrei was one of a kind, an old soul, a scholar and gentleman from a world now past, former colleagues and students but hardly passé,” said Jennifer Cool, assistant professor (teaching) of anthropology. “Beloved at USC, Schmidhauser was a true Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Religion John Wesley Robb died on Feb. 22. He was 98. by generations — many of his students continued to visit him in office hours decades after star and “a perfect gentleman An alumnus who taught at USC Dornsife for 33 years, “Wes” Robb was an admired teacher and mentor, twice receiving graduation — Andrei always had time for a good conversation, whether in Spanish, French, who made everyone feel that his the USC Associates Award for Excellence in Teaching. Among his most popular courses, “Human Values in a Modern Russian, Serbo-Croatian, or English.” or her view mattered. Society” was dubbed by many as “Wes Robb Teaches the Truth.” Simic was a prolific researcher and writer who published several books and numerous “He was a charismatic and Lydia Robb said her father was a very strong supporter of academic freedom and the First Amendment. In the late 1950s, For more than three decades. articles in academic journals and a wide variety of other publications. brilliant leader, and a great he sponsored Martin Luther King Jr. to speak at USC, despite concerns that King’s appearance might spark unrest, she said. J. Wesley Robb, seen here In addition to his written work, he was credited and involved in the production of colleague and great mentor,” The event was peaceful. in the 1980s, was a revered 27 ethnographic films, including his two major film projects, 1987’s “Ziveli: Medicine for the Renteln said. “He was just a gem.” Many of Wes Robb’s former students helped establish the J. Wesley Robb Endowed Scholarship, which is awarded to teacher and mentor. More than Heart” and 2004’s “The Children of Lazo’s Grove.” USC Dornsife juniors who demonstrate significant moral leadership in the campus community, a commitment to human 9,000 students took one of his Said Craig Stanford, professor of biological sciences and anthropology: “Above all else, values and a deep concern for others. seminars or his highly popular he was a truly beloved teacher who served USC students for decades, and a gentleman of the “This is Wes Robb’s legacy,” said Donald Miller, Leonard K. Firestone Professor of Religion and former chair of religion, “Human Values in a Modern first order. His intellect, wit and kind nature will be missed by all who knew him.” “challenging students to … discover values that are deep rooted and live a life of purpose.” Society” course.

58 Spring / Summer 2018 59 IN MY OPINION

USC embodies a successful culture of diversity that develops winners in life. The deans and professors, head and assistant coaches, and teaching and graduate assistants framed and shaped this remarkable culture as living examples. These programs lit in me a passion to take a leader- ship role in making the world a safer place, both locally and globally. My studies with exceptional leaders in international relations led me into a second career (following 10 years in the NFL) advocating missile defense to defend over a billion people in 41 countries around the world. My JEP experience motivated me to work with the USC Dornsife program in 2004 to create Youth Impact Program, a col- laboration that has changed thousands of inner-city children’s lives throughout the United States. With hundreds of student athletes, teachers and Marines as trusted leaders, the program has raised average grade-school On WinningNonprofit founder and former NFL linebacker Riki test scores by more than 20 percent in math, English comp- Ellison ’83 finds diversity and culture are key to winning. osition, reading and vocabulary, and science. And although test results are important, the trust, relationship building and Life is competitive — it is not fair, and not everyone is leadership development that are fostered through the a winner. program are far more valuable in changing lives and making Winning requires building trust to enable diverse a global impact. minds to reach beyond their limits and achieve exceptional We will fight on to expand our Youth Impact Program, feats. With increasing trust, varied experiences, skills and building on the lessons learned from its beginnings knowledge can coalesce to produce a winning culture that at USC. supports courageous decisions based on values — in other We as a community, as a nation and as Trojans have a USC Michelson Center: words, winning leadership. responsibility to enable winning. With our love of USC — Strong leaders were an important presence in my life, for what it is, what it has done, and what it must continue From Bench to Bedside starting with my mother, who in 1968 left New Zealand to do to keep producing winners — we share an enduring World-class scientists and engineers have moved into as a single parent with my sister and me on a teaching responsibility to cherish and protect the university’s PHOTO BY CENTER MIEKE GLIER MICHELSON scholarship to USC. A diverse array of American leaders exceptional culture. Michelson Hall, a new hub for research, drug discovery followed, including war veterans, employers, coaches and “Our Alma Mater dear, looks up to you. Fight On and and device development. The collaborative minds within teachers, who took leadership roles in my life and showed win for ol’ SC!” the USC Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience me that resilience, determination and faith — not entitle- already are developing new cancer diagnostic tests, ment or material wealth — were the source of character, Riki Ellison’s football career includes two Rose Bowls and a an app that anticipates heart failure and new therapies of honor. It had to be earned. national championship with the USC Trojans, and three Super for drug-resistant infections. Among the earliest For me, the world-class USC Dornsife School of Bowl wins as an NFL linebacker. He founded two nonprofit USC Michelson Center projects, scientists and engineers International Relations and Joint Educational Project organizations, the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance and the are collaborating to develop the world’s first 3-D model (JEP), along with the USC football program, were Youth Impact Program, after retiring from football. He earned of the pancreatic beta cell as a major step toward finding “competitive cauldrons” that imparted in me, my class- a bachelor’s degree in international relations from USC Dornsife a cure for diabetes. mates and my teammates a culture of winning leadership. in 1983.

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Life Moment FRED RYAN ’77

No Fake News Here PHOTO BY SUSAN BELL SUSAN BY PHOTO Alumnus Fred Ryan, CEO and Publisher of The Washington Post, takes a break to read USC Dornsife Magazine at the newspaper’s D.C. headquarters.