ALUMNI ON TAP // THE AUTISM SEX BIAS // ART AND SOUL

THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE SPRING 2017

YVONNE ORJI AT THE GATES THE CO-STAR OF HBO’S INSECURE IS ON THE VERGE OF BREAKING THROUGH TO THE BIG TIME. An illustration by Corcoran professor and children’s book creator Juana Medina

gw magazine / Spring 2017 GW MAGAZINE SPRING 2017 A MAGAZINE FOR ALUMNI AND FRIENDS CONTENTS

[Features] 28 / A Line by Line Perspective Sometimes things don’t work out. Colombian-born Corcoran professor Juana Medina knows this as well as anyone. But the children’s book illustrator and author also knows that sometimes they do, and that's enough to keep her cheery in the face of gloom. / By Matthew Stoss /

36 / The Autism Sex Bias Boys are diagnosed with autism at more than four times the rate of girls. Scientists are trying to figure out why, but this much is becoming clear: All that we think we know about autism is only half the story. / By Kristen Mitchell /

42 / Yvonne Orji at the Gates The alumna and co-star of HBO’s Insecure is on the verge of breaking through to the big time. / By Ruth Steinhardt /

48 / Drink at George’s A by-no-means-complete guide to GW alums working to make every hour happy. / By Matthew Stoss /

[Departments] On the cover: 4 / Postmarks Photo by William Atkins 7 / GW News

60 / Alumni News

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Be Informed | Be Connected | Be Notified gwtoday.gwu.edu Spring 2017 Volume 27, Issue 2 “Diet Coke is probably Speaking of drinks (p. 48), what’s your go-to beverage? tearing a hole in my stomach. “Nitro stout. I don’t even The robust want to think flavors and managing editor // Danny Freedman, BA ’01 about what dense, smooth the bourbon’s texture—it’s like assistant editor // Matthew Stoss doing.” settling into a pillow of beer.” photo editor // William Atkins “Horchata, from a SoCal taco truck at university photographer // Logan Werlinger approximately 1am. It is the drink of its “Club soda with design // GW Marketing & Creative Services time and place.” apple cider vinegar. Every morning.” art director // Dominic N. Abbate, BA ’09, MBA ’15 “Thai ice tea, art director // John McGlasson, BA ’00, MFA ’03 because it’s practically a contributor // Keith Harriston (senior managing editor), GW Today dessert.”

contributor // Kurtis Hiatt, GW Today “A glass of viognier. Good ones are more vibrant and rich contributor // Julyssa Lopez, GW Today than most white wines, plus ordering it makes me feel like contributor // Kristen Mitchell, GW Today “Sicilian white wines. a sophisticated fancy lady. Sicily is known mostly ‘Vee-own-yay, please.’” contributor // Ruth Steinhardt, GW Today for reds, but I think the whites are refreshing intern // Rebecca Manikkam, GWSB ’17 and surprisingly affordable.” “I fell in love with rosé on a spring- time trip to Paris—brings back great memories!” Steven Knapp president of the university

Matthew R. Manfra Lorraine Voles, BA ’81 interim vice president for development and alumni relations vice president for external relations

Sarah Gegenheimer Baldassaro Leah Rosen, BBA ’96, MTA ’02 associate vice president for communications associate vice president for marketing and creative services

“A cool, crisp glass of sauvignon Rachel Muir “Moscow mule. I love the flavor blanc on a warm spring day” executive director for editorial services and the ritual of the copper mug.”

GW Magazine (ISSN 2162-6464) is published three times per year by GW’s Division of External Relations, Rice Hall 5th floor, Washington, D.C. 20052. Phone: 202-994-5709; email: [email protected].

© 2017 The George Washington Opinions expressed in postmaster Please send change-of-address notices to GW Magazine, University. The George these pages are those of GW Alumni Records Office, 2033 K St., NW, Suite 300, Washington, Washington University is an the individuals and do not D.C. 20052. Notices can also be sent via alumni.gwu.edu/update, email equal opportunity/affirmative necessarily reflect official to [email protected], or 202-994-3569. Periodicals postage paid at action institution. positions of the university. Washington, D.C., and additional mailing offices.

gwmagazine.com / 3 POSTMARKS

In Consideration of Ethics I enjoyed reading the article about Harry Reid and appreciate the candid portrayal of him presented. No doubt, he has been extremely successful politically. At the same time, as a professor of ethics, I am hopeful that no professor at the George Washington University is teaching students the tactics that he employed in his career. You equate him to Machiavelli for his “brazen intervention in Nevada’s Republican primaries,” using Las Vegas Mayor Jan Jones for his own political purposes, and doing everything he could to “stack the deck in his favor.” For him to say in 2005 that the so-called nuclear option floated by Republicans “has threatened to break the Senate rules, violate over 200 years of Senate tradition and impair the ability of Democrats and Republicans to work together …” and [then] do that very thing when he was in power in 2013 is an act of hypocrisy that did overturn 200 years of Senate tradition. Until our society decides once again to uphold integrity, and the other means by which we interact with other people, we will continue to have a polarized country of Machiavellis, whether Democrat or Republican. When there was only one Machiavelli, his tactics may have succeeded. When many choose to live and work that way, we all suffer. A Reid Eric B. Dent, MBA ’86, PhD ’97 Awakening The fall issue’s profile of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, JD ’64 (“Rumble & Sway”), attracted a good bit of attention, including details from the story being picked up in articles by Roll Call and the Washington Examiner. The story elicited some strong feelings. For instance, that’s a portion of the issue’s cover there, on the right, cut out and taped to the bottom of one reader’s trash can. A selection of other letters, edited for clarity and space, follows. —Eds.

4 / gw magazine / Spring 2017 Honesty, Unfiltered GW’s Football Years A View From Behind the Scenes Profound thanks to Charles Babington for I received my GW Magazine yesterday and I just read your piece on the National his insightful and comprehensive article am impressed with Matthew Stoss’ pulling Museum of African American History (“Out paying tribute to Harry Reid’s 30 years in the together of so many important strands of of the Margins”), and wanted to compliment U.S. Senate. The photo taken by Gabriella GW football history (“One Day in January”). you on a wonderful alumni profile of Michèle Demczuk, BA ’13, of Reid seated at his desk Using the Sun Bowl story as the focal point, Gates-Moresi. I have been thrilled to work under a portrait of humorist Mark Twain with quotes from Ray Looney, BA ’59, and alongside her the last two years. speaks volumes for the kind of man Reid is. Mike Sommer, BA ’59, MA ’64, MD ’70, What caused me pause, however, is how I was honored to attend President Knapp’s RES ’75, was genius. I think he accurately many GW alumni work at NMAAHC who farewell dinner for Sen. Reid. It was held on captured the rollercoaster evolution to were not mentioned. Dozens of us, including the same evening that the African American that point, the following decline and many recent graduates of the Museum museum held its grand gala opening and, unceremonious end. Studies Program, have spent years working before Reid attended that stellar event, he Most alums do not even know that GW on the museum, cataloging objects; traveling spent time with fellow law school alumni to ever had a football team. After all, there have to authenticate and document pieces; reflect on his time at GW’s law school and been a zillion graduates in the last 50 years! installing dozens of cases; interfacing with on his 30-year Senate career. But what I will You have told the story in a way that will donors; writing labels; and performing hours remember forever was his complete honesty. engage and surprise them. Thanks for a job and hours of research on the collections to Unlike other politicians who claim to well done. tell their stories to the world. retire to spend more time with their families, John Whiting, BA ’62 Young alums are very rarely profiled/ Reid said that was anything but the truth. featured in stories like these (a challenge As much as he adored his wife and family, I also see in the other non-GW alumni spending more time with them was hardly Further Proof publications I receive). Especially in a field the best reason for leaving the U.S. Senate. I had heard rumors of the school having a like museums, it creates this perceived We laughed and heartedly applauded his football team in the early years, before my experience gap that makes it difficult for complete honesty, his delightful sense time. I was really happy to see the article in current students to conceive of themselves in of humor and acerbic wit, which, much the fall issue and, coincidentally, last year I similar roles or understand a career pathway like Twain, left his audience amused and had traveled with the University of Miami to those positions. As someone making a appreciative of this “consummate insider Hurricanes (my wife is a proud alumna) career in the museum field, it is daunting to player, patient listener, keeper of colleagues’ to El Paso to attend the annual Sun Bowl. enter, especially in a place like D.C., where wish lists and his ‘grind-it-out’ work ethic,” I had recalled that GWU had been there the Smithsonian seems almost untouchable as Babington described him. Thank you, GW many years ago from a note in a press guide for entry-level positions. Alumni publications Magazine for publishing the best portrait of distributed in the Smith Center, talking about could really help bridge that gap! Reid ever, one I intend on keeping. the school’s athletic achievements. In walking Ayla Amon, MA ’12 Kathy A. Megyeri, MEd ’69, MA ’62 through the El Paso Convention Center and seeing the cheerleaders, marching band and attending a pre-game pep rally, I looked up A Wedge of Partisanship and noticed among the flags flying was [one All Write! I was somewhat dismayed when I read your for GW’s 1957 Sun Bowl victory]. I proudly article on Sen. Harry Reid. While the senator took a picture of it to prove to my wife that we, We want to hear from you, too. may have been a fighter, as you point out, he too, had a great college football team once. Contact us through our website, gwmagazine.com, on Twitter was not an effective leader and remains one Howard S. Toland, BA ’78 of the prime reasons that our government (@TheGWMagazine) or send a note to: does not always function as it should. GW Magazine In fact, most impartial observers of the Potential for a Wider Footprint 2121 Eye Street, NW Senate would conclude that Harry Reid was I enjoyed the article by Matthew Stoss about Suite 501 probably the worst Senate leader in history. the two graduates who designed a new type Washington, DC 20052 He showed nothing but contempt for Senate of shoe that allows easier access by the foot, [email protected] foes, pursued personal vendettas and used and does not require bending over for lacing the Senate floor to attack those he disagreed up (“A Shoe in Transition”). Please include your name, degree/ with. … More than any other individual, They mentioned that it was intended for year, address and a daytime phone Harry Reid contributed to the current-era athletes. I am a special education teacher for number. partisanship and dysfunction of the U.S. children with developmental disabilities, and Letters may be edited for clarity and Senate. But, even though Harry Reid is not I have a son who also has a developmental space. leaving the Senate better than he found it, at disability. Over the years, I’ve seen that many least he is leaving. of my students are not able to tie their shoes, Barry Cox, BS ’66 and struggle even with getting them on. The type of shoes these two men were describing would be ideal for that part of the population, as well. Jeff Lea, BA ’86

gwmagazine.com / 5

GWFrom the Archives ______NEWS 14 5 questions______19 George Welcomes______20 BookShelves ______22 sports ______24

[administration] University’s 17th President Announced

Thomas LeBlanc, executive vice president and provost at the University of Miami, begins Aug. 1, fueled by belief that higher ed is the nation’s “strongest force for social mobility.” // By Kurtis Hiatt WILLIAM ATKINS

gwmagazine.com / 7 GW NEWS

he story of his life, Thomas LeBlanc admissions and financial aid. “In Dr. LeBlanc, we saw a person who will says, is one defined by education. He holds a Bachelor of Science in computer elevate GW’s academic excellence, enhance “At age 5, I left home to go to school, science from the State University of New York the student experience and ensure that the and every step of the way I never took and a Master of Science and PhD in computer university remains a diverse and inclusive a break,” he said in January at his first science from the University of Wisconsin. partner with every segment of the university public audience at GW, outlining an “To come to a place as distinguished and local communities,” she said at the unbowed, decadeslong trajectory through as George Washington University at this announcement. high school, college, graduate school moment in time, in this great city, is not only Board of Trustees Chair Nelson Carbonell, and a career in teaching and university a great honor, it’s a great challenge” and, BS ’85, said that in making reference calls administration. He’s moved straight Dr. LeBlanc said at the announcement event, about Dr. LeBlanc, he repeatedly got the through, he said, “because I love it.” “an incredibly exciting adventure.” impression that Dr. LeBlanc “was someone “I believe in the transformative power He will succeed President Steven Knapp, who in the computer science world we call of higher education in the United States. I who announced last year that he will be WYSIWYG: what you see is what you get.” believe we have the best system of higher stepping down when his contract expires at Dr. LeBlanc—who also served as interim education in the world. And I believe it is the end of July, after a decade at the helm. president of the University of Miami in 2015 the strongest force for social mobility in the The appointment of Dr. LeBlanc concludes and rose through the academic ranks at United States,” he said. “And that’s what gets a monthslong process led by a search the University of Rochester in faculty and me up in the morning, being a part of that.” committee—comprising members of the administrative roles—said he always knew Starting in August, Dr. LeBlanc will be board and the faculty, and a representative of it would take an “incredible opportunity” to waking up to a new chapter in that story the alumni, staff and student bodies—which leave his current job. as GW’s 17th president, after his hire was unanimously recommended his hire. “When they called about GW, the first unanimously approved by the GW Board of The search team had worked in thing I thought was, ‘This is one of those Trustees on Jan. 6. consultation with an elected faculty incredible opportunities,’” he said. Dr. LeBlanc currently serves as executive committee and the Faculty Senate’s executive And as he prepares to move into the vice president, provost and a professor committee, as well as soliciting wider presidency, Dr. LeBlanc made a pledge: that of computer science and electrical and community input during more than 30 he will spend a lot of time listening. computer engineering at the University of town-hall-style events. Feedback during this “I don’t come in with a master plan Miami. He is both the chief academic officer process helped shape a presidential profile template that I’ve applied in all my previous and the chief budget officer, responsible for used to advertise the position. jobs,” he said. “... I believe every institution the university’s 11 schools and colleges, the In the end, board of trustees member and has its own unique characteristics, library system, the division of student affairs, chair of the search committee Madeleine traditions, histories and community, and the division of continuing and international Jacobs, BS ’68, HON ’03, said Dr. LeBlanc all of those things help define best future education, and undergraduate education, “fits this profile to the letter.” pathways for the institution.”

Thomas LeBlanc addresses an audience at Betts Theatre in January, at the announcement that he will be GW’s next president. WILLIAM ATKINS

8 / gw magazine / Spring 2017 U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, MA ’92 (D-Ill.)

[graduation] and advises the Army chief of staff and the secretary of the Army on medical issues. Mr. Baron, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Sen. Tammy Duckworth to journalist, joined The Washington Post in 2013 and manages its news operation. During his time at The Washington Post, the Headline Commencement newspaper has won Pulitzers for coverage of secret surveillance by the National Security Agency, the food stamps program The alumna will be joined by the U.S. Army surgeon general, also an in America, security lapses in the U.S. alumna, and by The Washington Post’s executive editor Secret Service and a project detailing every killing by a police officer nationwide in 2015. Purple Heart recipient and U.S. Sen. Iraqi Freedom. She was a member of the Previously, he was editor of The Boston Globe Tammy Duckworth, MA ’92, will deliver the Reserve Forces for 23 years before retiring in when the newspaper investigated the cover university’s commencement address before 2014, becoming an advocate for people with up of widespread sexual abuse by Catholic an audience of 25,000 graduates and friends disabilities while recovering from combat priests that inspired the film Spotlight. and family members May 21 on the National wounds she received after her Black Hawk He also was executive editor of the Miami Mall. helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled Herald and worked at The New York Times She’ll be honored alongside Lt. Gen. grenade in 2004. She lost both legs in the and the Los Angeles Times. Nadja West, MD ’88, the U.S. Army surgeon attack. general and commanding general of the U.S. Dr. West, a three-star Army Medical Command, and Washington general, is the highest- Post Executive Editor Marty Baron. Each of ranking black woman in the three will receive an honorary Doctor of U.S. Army history and the Public Service degree. highest-ranking woman Calling Sen. Duckworth (D-Ill.) one to graduate from West of GW’s “most distinguished alumni,” Point. A combat veteran university President Steven Knapp says she who formerly served “embodies a spirit of service and sacrifice as the U.S. Joint Staff that has inspired our many GW veterans and surgeon, she now oversees our university as a whole.” the Army’s 150,000 medical She was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2016 service members and civilians after serving two terms in the U.S. House of as well as its hospitals and clinics, Representatives. Sen. Duckworth is a former assistant left Lt. Gen. Nadja secretary of the Department of Veterans West, MD ’88 Affairs and was among the first Army women right Marty Baron

DUCKWORTH: COURTESY TAMMY DUCKWORTH / WEST: LOGAN WERLINGER / BARON: COURTESY THE WASHINGTON POST to fly combat missions during Operation

gwmagazine.com / 9 GW NEWS

[sports] Day festivities and last year’s massive snow storm because of international competitions. And for the past two years, Poland’s national skating championship has fallen during finals ‘I’d Love To, week. “It’s really hard,” Ms. Kaminski says. “I don’t know exactly how I do it all the time. But I’m in I’m just always busy, I like being busy.” In January, she missed the first two weeks of class while competing in the 2017 Iceland.’ European Championships in the Czech Republic, the last contest of her season. A sophomore juggles classes, She finished 30th, after falling just before the end of her routine. “Obviously, I wasn’t social life and the international pleased,” she says. But the years of competing figure skating circuit as she have emboldened her to brush off mistakes reaches for a degree and a spot and move forward, on and off the ice. in the 2018 Olympics. “Skating has taught me an abundant // By Kristen Mitchell amount about perseverance and working hard, and I think that has blended with One could conceivably sit next to Colette challenges in my personal life.” Kaminski in class all semester and never In May, Ms. Kaminski begins months know she is a world-class athlete—she would of intensive training back in Minnesota— never bring it up. The pair of bright white but extending through the fall 2017 semester, well-worn figure skates in the bottom of her which she plans to miss—all with an eye bag tells a different story. So do the dazzling toward making the cut for February’s costumes tucked away in her dorm room Winter Olympics in South Korea. closet. In September, she’ll skate in a The international affairs and political qualifying competition in science major is also a figure skater for the Oberstdorf, Germany, Polish national team. It’s a time-consuming alongside other side of her life—10 to 15 hours a week athletes from small practicing at D.C.-area rinks and, this past federations. The top fall, traveling to Europe nearly every month six finishers go on to for competitions—that she tends to keep the Olympics. private, even from friends. Sophomore Callahan Vertin “One of my friends last year texted me has known Ms. Kaminski since and asked if I wanted to grab lunch, and I was freshman year of high school, and like, ‘I’d love to, but I’m in Iceland,’” says often acts as a hype man for her Ms. Kaminski, who goes by CoCo. friend, being the one to bring up She grew up the youngest of four in Ms. Kaminski’s skating chops to Minnetonka Beach, Minn., a place where new acquaintances. everyone learns to skate, she says. Her “Nobody really knows what father is from Poland, which makes her a she is doing because she’s not dual citizen. In fall 2013, the Polish Figure posting about it,” she says. Skating Association contacted her about But as the Winter joining the program. Games inch closer, she’s For college, she was looking for a more noticing her friend opening relaxed local skating culture and proximity up about her training and her to international airports. skating career. “I think she’s “I wanted to have a normal enough college finally starting to realize that experience, and I wanted to get away from she could really make it to the home, and I wanted to try something new Olympics,” Ms. Vertin says. and get a fresh start, skating-wise and school- Talk of the Olympics makes her wise,” she says. “So that was kind of a give nervous, Ms. Kaminsky says. But and a take, but it has worked out well.” she’s willing to allow that if she trains Chasing her ambitions—including, soon, well and nails her routine in Germany, vying for a spot in the 2018 Olympics— she has a shot. comes at the sacrifice of some aspects of “It’s doable,” she says. “I would say it’s college life, though. She missed Inauguration doable.” WERLINGERLOGAN

10 / gw magazine / Spring 2017 [Music] of the group was performing “We ate pizza and talked the song live on TBS’ Full about our feelings surrounding Frontal with Samantha Bee. The the election and the march,” Ms. Geller says. The Viral group also recorded a professional- “Girl stuff.” quality version of the track, with all On the day of the march, the choir moved proceeds from it going to women’s nonprofit through the crush of protesters, assembling Voice of organizations. several times to sing. “It’s been surreal,” says junior Juliette “It’s always crazy until you start singing, the Women’s Geller, the Sirens’ publicity manager. “It all and then you channel all that energy into happened so quickly.” the music,” says Madison Sherman, the March Ms. Lim wrote Sirens’ musical “Quiet” to deal with the Watch the GW Sirens perform director. Looking emotional trauma of an “Quiet” on TBS’ Full Frontal. at the audience, The GW Sirens comprised half of abusive relationship, but Visit go.gwu.edu/sirensquiet. she was jolted by never released it, she the intensity of the the group behind a protest song told The Washington response. “We saw heard 15 million times Post. After the election of Donald Trump women crying, men crying—people were so // By Ruth Steinhardt in November, she began to see a broader moved.” In the wake of the Women’s March on application for her song as a source of During one of those performances, Washington in January, a song called “Quiet” healing and a call to action for women upset filmmaker Alma Har’el was nearby and arose as a kind of unofficial anthem. Video of by the political climate. started recording video on her phone. an a cappella choir of pink-hatted women— She arranged “Quiet” for an all-female a “This song and its sentiment made me cry half of them GW students—quickly caught cappella choir and planned to perform it in tears of relief the whole time I was filming fire on the internet. “flash mobs” at the women’s march, the day it,” she wrote in her Facebook post that went Fronted by musician Connie Lim (known after inauguration. viral. “The beauty and the harmony of their professionally as MILCK), the video of the Ms. Lim, who is based in Los Angeles, voices captured for me how women can come all-female GW Sirens singing with the D.C.- reached out to the Sirens after finding their together to find their voice.” area women’s group Capital website. Over the next few For the singers, “Quiet” has resonance Blend has notched 15 million weeks, the group adapted both global and personal. views on Facebook alone. and refined the arrangement, “[Ms. Lim] always told us to think about Celebrities like Harry Potter practicing with Ms. Lim over who we were singing for and why we were actress Emma Watson featured Skype. The Sirens and Capital there,” Ms. Sherman says. “We were singing it on their social media streams. Blend finally met her in person for our moms, for our sisters, for the people

ILLUSTRATION: DOMINIC N. ABBATE / HAT PHOTOGRAPH: WILLIAM ATKINS By the next week, a smaller version two days before the march. who helped us get here.”

gwmagazine.com / 11 GW NEWS

“Now I am asking ... that we offer our support and friendship to our international students, faculty members and staff who are rightly concerned about their and their families’ future in a nation that, in its proudest moments, has opened its doors to the hopes and aspirations of all people.” –President Steven Knapp, in a Jan. 30 letter to the GW community—including its more than 4,000 students who hail from some 130 countries— addressing President Donald Trump’s initial executive order restricting travel to the United States, later blocked by the courts. In March, as Mr. Trump issued a revised order, the university announced that it had joined the more than 100 colleges and universities in the #YouAreWelcomeHere campaign, including putting up posters around campus that read “You Are Welcome Here” in multiple languages.

[science] seeded doubt with a paucity of skeptics. “Unfortunately climate change was very early on framed as just climate Belief in Climate Change warming,” Dr. Mann says. “If someone has a big snowstorm with a new record- low temperature, they may look at climate Hinges on Local Forecast change and think, ‘Oh, that can’t be right.’” A new study finds that local weather may play December in the journal Proceedings of the For the study, researchers looked an important role in determining Americans’ National Academy of Sciences. at data from more than 18,000 local belief in climate change: People who recently “One of the greatest challenges to weather stations across the country experienced record-low temperatures are communicating scientific findings about and temperatures recorded there. That less likely to believe the Earth is warming climate change is the cognitive disconnect information was compared to survey-based compared to those who have experienced between local and global events,” estimates of the beliefs of people living record highs, researchers found. Dr. Mann says. “It is easy to assume that what nearby. “The idea here is that individuals make you experience at home must be happening The authors note that differentiating decisions about climate change not just based elsewhere.” between the terms “weather,” which they on what they read in the news, but what they Experts say climate change will have define as the temperatures of a short period experience,” says GW geography professor a diverse set of effects. It may cause of time, like a season, and “climate,” average Michael Mann, a co-author of the study. some regions to get cooler in the short temperatures over two or three decades, The research, conducted by scientists run while others grow warmer, but past may be helpful in communicating more at several institutions, was published in characterizations of the global shift have effectively. —Kristen Mitchell

12 / gw magazine / Spring 2017 [Art] Hand-drawn “fundred” dollar bills—455,820 of them and counting—from around the country fill the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design’s rotunda in March for the opening of the “Fundred Reserve,” an exhibition organized by Mel Chin, the William Wilson Corcoran Visiting Professor of Community Engagement. The show is an outgrowth his Fundred Dollar Bill Project, which aims to raise awareness of the threat of lead

WILLIAM ATKINS poisoning in children.

gwmagazine.com / 13 GW NEWS

Belva Ann Lockwood, long ago spurned by GW and now celebrated, waged a historic battle for the presidency at a time when she wasn’t even allowed to vote.

More than a century before Hillary Clinton vied to make history in November as the first female president of the United States, a [From the archives] woman named Belva Ann Lockwood fought to become the first to appear on a ballot. Running the first full U.S. presidential campaign as a female candidate might, in fact, have been the least of Ms. Lockwood’s ‘We shall never accomplishments. She petitioned a president for her law degree, supported her family with her own legal business at a time when it was almost unheard of for a woman to do have equal rights so, and became the first woman to practice law before the U.S. Supreme Court. The GW Law School now gives out an annual award in until we take them, her name to celebrate the accomplishments of alumnae. Hers was a remarkable legal career—and it began at a college that would become GW. nor respect until Ms. Lockwood was a 36-year-old widow with a daughter when she moved to Washington, D.C., in 1866. She came, as she later wrote in an autobiographical article for we command it.’ Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine, “for no other purpose than to see what was being done at this great political centre,—this seething

// By Ruth Steinhardt pot,—to learn something of the practical LIBRARY OF CONGRESS / PHOTOGRAPH BY HARRIS & EWING

14 / gw magazine / Spring 2017 workings of the machinery of government, SIR, In response, Ms. Stow wrote to and to see what the great men and women of You are, or you are not, President of Ms. Lockwood nominating her as the the country felt and thought.” National Equal Rights Party’s candidate She took a job as a teacher and, during her the National University Law School. for president. She accepted. free afternoons, “listened to the debates in If you are its President, I desire to say The campaign might, like Ms. Stow’s, Congress and the arguments in the United to you that I have passed through the have been considered political theater. States Supreme Court, investigated the local Newspapers, established politicians curriculum of study in this school, government of the District [and] visited her and even fellow women’s rights activists public buildings.” and am entitled to, and demand, my objected to her “nasal” voice, her clothes, Following a lifelong passion for the law, diploma. If you are not its President, her hairstyle and her habit of riding a she eventually applied for admittance to the then I ask that you take your name from tricycle to get from place to place. Groups entering law class at the Columbian College of dozens of young men in bonnets, dresses of Arts and Sciences. Then-President George its papers, and not hold out to the world and parasols showed up at political rallies W. Samson would eventually respond to her to be what you are not. to mock her and her supporters. request as follows. Very respectfully, Still, Ms. Lockwood treated her own Belva A. Lockwood candidacy as a serious one. Her speeches, according to biographer Jill Norgen, She never received a direct reply—but a tended to focus on major economic issues week later, her diploma arrived in the mail. rather than those specific to women—a Madam,—The Faculty of Columbian Now the second woman attorney admitted practice which led Susan B. Anthony to College have considered your request to the bar in Washington, she opened her declare her positions “too much like a to be admitted to the Law Department own practice. By 1879, thanks to what one rehash of the men’s speeches.” But she reporter called “an unconscionable deal of also advocated for progressive causes of this institution, and, after due lobbying,” she was the first woman admitted like equal pay, citizenship for Native consultation, have considered that such to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court, Americans and, of course, universal admission would not be expedient, as it and a year later she became the first woman suffrage. to argue a case there. She was not the first woman to run for would be likely to distract the attention In 1884, Ms. Lockwood wrote to president. That record goes to Victoria of the young men. progressive newspaper owner Marietta Stow, Woodhull, who sought the office alongside who was running as an independent for running mate Frederick Douglass in 1872. governor of California as a kind of political But historians do not agree as to whether theater to demonstrate the irony of women’s Ms. Woodhull’s name actually appeared Ms. Lockwood was “chagrined,” but inability to vote. The letter was supportive on any nationwide ballots or whether she not deterred. The National University Law and passionate. received any votes. (She also would have School, which would later merge with GW, been just 34 on Inauguration Day of 1873— opened its classes to women the next year, too young to hold presidential office.) and Ms. Lockwood accepted an invitation to … If women in the States are not On Election Day, Ms. Lockwood had attend. permitted to vote, there is no law convinced electors to pledge to her in Of the 15 women who initially against their being voted for, and if at least seven states, including New matriculated, she would be one of only two Hampshire, California, Maryland, to complete the full course of the law degree. elected, filling the highest office in the New York and Oregon. She would end But male students still complained, some gift of the people. up getting nearly 5,000 votes, while declaring that they would not graduate with Democrat Grover Cleveland clinched the victory. women. Two of the present political parties Soon Ms. Lockwood and her only Belva Lockwood would continue to remaining female classmate were barred which have candidates in the field crusade for women’s rights until her from attending lectures. As commencement believe in woman suffrage. It would death in 1917, missing by three years the neared, she wrote, “it became evident that have been well had some of the ratification of the 19th Amendment and we were not to receive our diplomas, nor be the legal right of American women to candidates been women. There is permitted to appear on the stage with the vote. Toward the end of Ms. Lockwood’s young men at graduation.” no use in attempting to avoid the life, a journalist asked whether she still Without that diploma, Ms. Lockwood would inevitable. believed that a woman could be president. be unable to gain admission to the D.C. bar. She answered: “If [a woman] demonstrates “For a time I yielded quite ungracefully that she is fitted to be president she will to the inevitable,” she wrote. But by 1873 … It is quite time that we had our some day occupy the White House. It will she was no longer willing to wait. She wrote own party; our own platform, and our be entirely on her own merits, however. to U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant, then own nominees. We shall never have No movement can place her there simply because she is a woman. It will come if president ex officio of the National University equal rights until we take them, nor Law School. she proves herself mentally fit for the respect until we command it. position.”

gwmagazine.com / 15 GW NEWS

[presidential history] National Historical Publications & Records Commission. The software archives not only the text of a post on a social media platform like Twitter, Flickr or Tumblr, but also the metadata—time of posting, number of likes Saving or retweets—associated with that post. The GW Libraries team started by using the U.S. Digital Registry to compile a comprehensive list of accounts constituting “This is part of the government’s social media presence, Wisps including agencies, offices and public figures. American history. The results were overwhelming. The first harvest covered almost 3,000 accounts and If someone in the captured more than 5.5 million tweets. future wanted of Web Part of the complexity of the project lies in ensuring its durability. Historians now use to research this Project aims to archive the physical artifacts like letters and documents to recapture a lost past, Mr. Kerchner points period, if they didn’t social media presence of the out. But few such relics will be accessible to Obama administration researchers in the future. know about the This winter, as a new U.S. president was “You don’t even have to think that far government’s web preparing to set up shop in D.C., the ahead,” he says. “What if you had data stored GW Libraries were working to preserve on diskettes from 15 years ago? How would presence—long gone an ephemeral portion of the outgoing you even read that now?” president’s administration: the floods of Even the language by which we by then—they would material posted on social media by federal understand social media is in constant be missing a huge entities. evolution. The effort is part of the End of Term “In five years,” Ms. Wrubel says, “will part of our history.” Presidential Harvest 2016, or EOT, a people understand what it means to click the collaborative volunteer project to preserve public U.S. government websites. Partners include the Internet Archive, the Library of Congress, the U.S. Government Publishing Office and libraries at the University of North Texas and Stanford University. “This is part of American history,” says Laura Wrubel, software development librarian at the GW Libraries. “If someone in the future wanted to research this period, if they didn’t know about the government’s web presence—long gone by then—they would be missing a huge part of our history.” 5.5 MILLION This is the third EOT, with previous harvests at the end of George W. Bush’s second term in 2008 and at the end of Barack TWEETS Obama’s first term in 2012. But it’s the first preservation effort to include social media. “The government doesn’t consider all of their social media to be part of the federal ‘heart’ on Twitter? It used to be a star. We’re record,” says Daniel Kerchner, senior starting to see questions like that.” software developer at the GW Libraries. In this case, data collected by the EOT “They have an obligation to capture some will be stored digitally on the Internet of it, but even so, that doesn’t mean it would Archive, which will have to evolve to stay be available to researchers or to the general accessible. public.” “That’s one advantage of working with The GW Libraries’ major innovation partners like the Internet Archive who are is open-source software called Social strong in this area,” Mr. Kerchner says. Feed Manager, developed as a prototype “They’ve been around for 20 years or so, in 2012 and improved since 2014 with a and their reason for existing is to make web grant from the U.S. National Archives’ history available.” —Ruth Steinhardt

16 / gw magazine / Spring 2017 [RESEARCH BRIEFS] A FACEBOOK CONSUMPTION PLASMA-THRUSTING FOR LEMURS OF LOW-CALORIE INTO THE FINAL A team of biologists and computer scientists has developed a facial-recognition system SWEETENERS UP FRONTIER The number of children in the United States Technology created at GW soon could be capable of identifying individual lemurs in consuming food and drinks that contain powering the next generation of space the wild. The system, called LemurFaceID, low-calorie sweeteners jumped by 200 exploration. Vector Space Systems, a could be a boon to conservation efforts and percent—to 25 percent of kids, up from 8.7 microsatellite space launch company, in to evolutionary studies, which require long- percent—between 1999 and 2012, according December licensed the inch-long plasma term data that, in the past, has meant lemurs to a new study by researchers at the Milken thrusters created by engineering professor needed to be trapped and tagged, says Institute School of Public Health. About 41 Michael Keidar and researchers in his lab, Rachel Jacobs, a biological anthropologist percent of adults—a 54 percent increase— which allow for more-efficient propulsion and at GW’s Center for the Advanced Study of reported consuming low-calorie sweeteners, control of the cost-effective and increasingly Human Paleobiology. which may be linked to diabetes and obesity. popular class of miniature satellites. Vector The researchers say the findings suggest plans to develop the thrusters that parents may not realize the terms “light” for commercialization, or “no added sugar” may mean that a product while GW engineers will contains a low-calorie sweetener. continue to improve the technology.

The jump in the percentage of U.S. kids who consume food and drinks with STOCK.COM/IJDEMA SATELLITE: COURTESY / VECTOR low-calorie 1999 2012 sweeteners LEMUR: i

gwmagazine.com / 17 GW NEWS IN BRIEF

SCIENCE & ENGINEERING HALL

Officials cut the ELLIOTT SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS ribbon on GW’s Institute for Korean Studies in January. The institute, FULBRIGHT AWARDS created through The university announced in March support from the that the Clark Charitable Foundation Academy for Korean The number of has made an $8 million gift to expand a Studies, aims to Fulbright awards scholarship program that offers select strengthen the given to GW engineering students financial assistance existing Korean undergrad and and opportunities for professional studies program graduate students development, leadership training and while promoting for 2016-17. networking. The Clark Engineering Washington’s first Korean humanities Scholars Program began in 2011 with an research center and fostering links $8 million gift from A. James Clark, a GW dedicated to Winston to other fields, trustee emeritus and the founder of Clark Churchill opened in like business and Enterprises, who died in 2015. October on the first engineering. floor of Gelman Library. The National Churchill Library and Center, constructed with Sean Murphy, the funds donated by the Patricia Roberts Harris International Churchill Research Professor of Society, is open to the RICE HALL Law, was reelected in public and will focus November to a five- primarily on hosting year term on the United programming and Nations International scholarly discussions Aristide J. Collins Jr., Law Commission, on leadership through GW’s vice president for among 33 others from the lens of the World development and alumni around the world. War II-era British prime relations as well as secretary minister. of the university, will chair a GW’s ranking among working group coordinating the transition for incoming mid-sized schools LAW SCHOOL in producing Peace university President GELMAN LIBRARY Corps volunteers, Thomas LeBlanc. The new marking its 11th responsibilities mean that consecutive year in Mr. Collins will return full- the top five. Currently, time to the board of trustees 45 GW alumni serve in office as vice president the Peace Corps; 1,232 and secretary. Matthew have served since its R. Manfra, who became founding in 1961. associate vice president for alumni relations in 2015, will serve as interim vice president for the Division of Development and Alumni Relations.

18 / gw magazine / Spring 2017 [5 Questions] building a team composed of clinicians and population scientists to focus in particular on people who are at a high risk of developing cancer. For example, investigators at the ... On the War on Cancer Cancer Center are evaluating the diabetes drug metformin to see if it can prevent the Medical oncologist Eduardo Sotomayor is microorganisms that live within us— the development of some cancers. In terms of the director of the new GW Cancer Center. microbiome—which can influence cancer secondary prevention, for people who have Established last year as a nucleus of all cancer- development. This field is in its infancy. already had cancer, we are trying to find related activity, from research to clinical care— biomarkers that can identify patients at high set up by the School of Medicine and Health Should the emphasis now be on a cure, risk for developing secondary malignancies. Sciences, GW Hospital, the GW Medical treatment or prevention? Faculty Associates (an independent physician Prevention is going to be the answer. If You got into this research not through group) and the Milken Institute School of you imagine cancer being a book with 20 cancer, but through immunology. What Public Health—the center opened in December chapters, what we’re doing now is focusing was it that got you hooked? at the top of Science and Engineering Hall, on the last chapter: diagnosis and When I was at University of Miami, my where floor-to-ceiling windows open a bird’s- treatment. For example, in mentor, Diana Lopez, was working on how eye view of the city. Dr. Sotomayor launched a 50-year old patient with the immune system recognized breast his career studying cancer immunotherapy— melanoma, his cancer started cancer in animal models. The potential efforts to kickstart an immune system stymied long before, when his skin was there, so I was intrigued. And it by cancer—which he continues as he expands got exposed to sun every day was a great opportunity because it was GW’s work into new directions, from the without protection. Plus, no an empty field: Ninety percent of the microbiome to one-stop patient care. (This society has the resources to scientific community did not believe in interview has been edited for space and clarity.) make investments only in cancer cancer immunology. So I said, “OK, I diagnosis and treatment. want to do that. It’s a challenge.” Congrats on the new space. This must It’s going to get more The way immunotherapy feel like a very tangible expression of the and more expensive, is working now for some commitment to the cancer center. so we need to be patients, it exceeds It’s a great space. One thing I like about this more aggressive my expectations by a building is that we have engineers, chemists, in terms of thousand percent. I mean, anthropologists, the School of Public Health, prevention. metastatic lung cancer— and we are establishing collaborations when I was a fellow, with them. One of the most exciting is this Are there it was chemotherapy synergy that we found with engineers that’s clinical and or hospice. Now it’s allowing us to think differently. They are basic science immunotherapy. For always willing to learn. They say, what is things that me, though, it’s like the cancer? How are cancers divided? How many can be done for pendulum is moving too cancer cells are in the tumor? And then they prevention? far. We’re abandoning start to talk about physics, the space, how Oh yes, there targeted therapy and not having more malignant cells in a confined are different types paying attention to other space actually made metastasis easier, not of prevention. For emerging areas, like the more difficult—I had the wrong concept. So primary prevention, microbiome. I think there now we are working with physicists to try aimed at avoiding should be a parallel growth to answer important biological questions. disease in the first of immunotherapy with That’s the beauty of being in this building. place, we are other strategies. It’s sort of like the United Nations: we talk So this is the beginning different languages … [but] when we get of a new era. We will make together we can identify problems and work progress as we understand together toward a common goal. more about the mechanisms. Eduardo But also we need to be What’s the focus of the center? Sotomayor careful about unleashing We are focusing on four scientific programs. the immune system against One is cancer immunotherapy. The second cancer, because it can cause problem is cancer biology, which involves significant collateral damage the genetics, epigenetics, signaling and and hurt patients. genomics of cancer. The third problem is — Danny Freedman, cancer engineering and technology. The BA ’01 fourth is microbial oncology. With that, we are interested in viruses and other microbes,

MICHAEL LEONG but also we are trying to understand the

gwmagazine.com / 19 GW NEWS

headliners at university events “For those guys, it cost them money, fame and stature. It took their lives and careers in a GEORGE WELCOMES direction they didn’t have to go.” Michael Wilbon, co-host of ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption, discussing the iconic image “We are one-third of the court. of Tommy Smith’s and John “The press plays We look like we are there to Carlos’ black-gloved raised stay—and anyone who has fists from the winner’s podium observed an argument knows during the 1968 Olympics. He a healthy role in that my newest colleagues are spoke in February as part of a not shrinking violets.” panel—with Kevin Merida, an ESPN senior vice president U.S. Supreme Court Justice and editor of The Undefeated, democracy, no Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the and Jason Reid, the magazine’s second woman to serve on the senior NFL writer—on black court, saying that the presence athletes and activism. The event question about it. of female colleagues Elena was moderated by Washington Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor Post reporter and journalism “makes a great difference.” She professor Cheryl W. Thompson, But they’re not the spoke at GW in February with and sponsored by GW’s NPR’s Nina Totenberg, which Association of Black Journalists, was co-sponsored by the the Office of Diversity, Inclusion only game in town Newseum and the Supreme and Equity, and the School of Court Fellows Media and Public Affairs. SPICER: LOGAN WERLINGER / GINSBURG: WILLIAM ATKINS / WILBON: HARRISON JONES anymore.” Association. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, on President Donald Trump’s ability to communicate directly to the public via social media. Mr. Spicer spoke in January with School of Media and Public Affairs Director Frank Sesno as part of a forum on Mr. Trump’s relationship with the media.

Michael Ruth Bader Wilbon Ginsburg

Sean Spicer

“The law is bigger than any one “You young people [POLITICS] person’s tweet. The law is bigger than any one person’s rhetoric.” are about to inherit In the first months of the year, CNN hosted Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), this mess if we a series of live, prime-time town halls at GW on the authority of the continue to kick it that brought in some of the biggest names in politics. Here’s a brief look at what they said: legislative and judicial branches down the road. So to keep the executive branch in check. She spoke in December you got to solve it.” with U.S. Sens. James Lankford Political analyst and former (R-Okla.) and Chris Coons Obama campaign pollster (D-Del.) on a panel moderated Cornell Belcher, addressing “We judge people on who

KLOBUCHAR,BELCHER: WERLINGER LOGAN by CNN Chief Political a largely student audience they are, not where your Correspondent Dana Bash, about the need for a national BA ’93, and SMPA Director grandfather came from or conversation about race, racial your religion,” U.S. Sen. Frank Sesno. politics and tribalism. He and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said, SMPA Director Frank Sesno discussing immigration and discussed Mr. Belcher’s new what he saw as divisive rhet- book, A Black Man in the White House, in which he oric. “That is a principle that argues that the Obama we have got to fight for, that’s presidency triggered “What we have to do is find a a fundamental principle.”

RYAN,GRAHAM, MCCAIN: WILLIAM AKTINS / SANDERS,CRUZ : HARRISON JONES HARRISON : SANDERS,CRUZ / AKTINS WILLIAM MCCAIN: RYAN,GRAHAM, a rise in racial way that you can get right with aversion. the law, and we’re going to do this in a good way so that the rug doesn’t get pulled out from under you, and your family gets separated,” Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said in response to an audience mem- ber who said she was brought to the U.S. from Mexico at age 11 and gained protection under “Government control an Obama-era program. With messed this all up,” U.S. Cornell her young daughter beside Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex- Belcher her, she asked if he thought as) said in a discussion she should be deported. about health care and the Affordable Care Act. “I want to put you in charge of our health care, not the government.”

Asked about the issue of sanctuary cities, U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said the government should be cracking down “Vladimir Putin is not a on them, withholding fed- Amy friend to democracy. He Klobuchar eral funds if necessary. is a crook,” said U.S. Sen. “When laws are passed, Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). federal laws that apply “I wish our president, who I to the United States of want to help, would stand up America, municipalities to Putin and say, ‘An attack cannot exempt them- on one party in America is selves,” he said. an attack on all of us.’”

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showcasing new books by gw professors and alumni and quickly rose up the economic and social ladder; Kyung can’t seem to escape their shadow or to even know what he would do BOOKSHELVES if he did escape. That alienation manifests itself in his inability to succeed at work, in his marriage and as a father. He is further doomed by having grown up without role models of good parenting. “It makes for pretty good fiction,” Ms. Yun says of the psychological confusion Writing In (and Of) the Dark and desperation in Shelter. The fiction, however, was rooted in fact. Living in Massachusetts in 2007, she was struck In her dark and disquieting novel, Shelter, professor Jung Yun by a tragic home invasion in Cheshire, displays a professional fidelity to trauma. Conn., during which a mother and her two /By Menachem Wecker, MA ’09 / daughters were raped and murdered, while the father survived. From the start, Jung Yun’s novel Shelter parents afforded him growing up. Living “I became very obsessive about that takes readers to a dark place, and very early with a distinct sense of responsibility for particular case. It was quite terrible,” on, that setting becomes scarier and more one’s immigrant parents’ sacrifice is familiar Ms. Yun says. “I didn’t understand that kind violent. Ms. Yun, a GW assistant English to Ms. Yun, who immigrated to Fargo, N.D., of violence and personal tragedy. The idea professor who describes herself as a late- from Korea at age 4 with her mother and of the father surviving this horrific crime blooming writer, penned the first lines of the sister (to join her father who and moving on with his life, I didn’t get how novel in 2004; she left the book for several had come a year prior), anyone could do that.” That final question, years, and then came back to it in 2010. This but her character she adds, “was the thread that pulled long “incubation period,” imagining such struggles with a host together all of these random paragraphs” tragic characters, changed the way she of other challenges. that she’d written several years earlier. views the craft of writing. Kyung’s Without spoiling the novel’s ending, “I always thought it was such a cliché parents—the victims Ms. Yun leads her characters to a place when people talked about characters of a grisly crime— that felt organic for them. “It was the best taking over, but in many ways it felt like came with nothing possible version of events that could have they did,” she says. “I got to know these happened to this particular family,” she says, characters very well. They started to feel noting it came together more quickly than like people to me.” the beginning or middle of the novel. “At the Shelter centers on Kyung, a young Jung Yun end, it felt like I was translating,” she says. father who cannot seem to capitalize Ms. Yun writes first thing in the morning, on any aspect of his life or on the before going to campus to teach. (She finds advantages that his Korean writing like going to the gym; if she puts it off to the end of the day, it doesn’t end up happening.) And, after, she’s able to switch off that mental focus. Stepping away from her dark and difficult subjects is important. “If my brain were constantly humming with the things that I think about and explore in my fiction, that wouldn’t make for a particularly happy life,” she says. As she begins her next writing project, Ms. Yun hopes to avoid recharting the same Shelter: A Novel territory, but she’s also not going completely (Picador, 2016) afield. “I know what my interests are, and By Jung Yun, those themes are likely to be present in my assistant writing throughout my career,” she says. professor of “Fortunately, there are infinite ways of English combining those interests into new stories and characters.” At GW, Ms. Yun tells her students that writers need to find their own stories and then disappear into their work. “We’re creators, not puppeteers,” she

says. “No one should see our strings.” YUN: LOGAN WERLINGER / BOOK COVER: WILLIAM ATKINS

22 / gw magazine / Spring 2017 My Elizabeth (Glitterati, 2016) Pillar of Fire: A Biography of China’s Future Defenseless Under the Night: By Firooz Zahedi, BA ’76 Stephen S. Wise (Texas Tech (Polity Press, 2016) The Roosevelt Years and the In this coffee table book, the University Press, 2015) By David Shambaugh, BA ’78, Origins of Homeland Security photographer shares candid By A. James Rudin, BA ’55 professor of political science (Oxford University Press, 2016) images from his 35-year Rabbi Rudin admits some may and international affairs By Matthew Dallek, associate friendship with Elizabeth see “chutzpah” in his referring “This is a relatively short professor of political Taylor—backstage on Broadway, to Stephen Wise, a renowned book about a Big Topic,” management globetrotting, making lunch at Reform rabbi, by first name, but Dr. Shambaugh begins the Today, it’s hard to go through a home—who he met in the ’70s, biographers come to “live” with preface. To date, he notes, U.S. airport without thinking when she dated his cousin, the their subjects over many years. only democratic countries about the Department of Iranian ambassador to the U.S. The late Dr. Wise (1874-1949) still have ever developed modern Homeland Security. This book In the book, Mr. Zahedi recalls haunted the rabbinical school economies. As China aims to transports readers back to the a Corcoran professor holding Rabbi Rudin attended beginning get there another way, will infancy of the department’s up a Washington Post photo of in 1955. “His spirit permeated its authoritarian government predecessor, the Office of Civilian Mr. Zahedi playing hooky to the school,” he writes. An ardent survive in tact or collapse Defense. When President take Ms. Taylor to the National Zionist and friend to several trying? Or will the nation bend Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered Gallery. “Having fun, are we?” presidents, Dr. Wise became so to meet the economic goal? his famous “date which will live he asked. well known that the U.S. Postal Dr. Shambaugh unpacks these in infamy” speech, following the Service delivered letters to him possible futures—“one of the Pearl Harbor attacks, his wife that were addressed simply to key global uncertainties,” he was assistant director of the “Rabbi USA.” writes—which promise to OCD. Eleanor Roosevelt, and reverberate for decades. the OCD director, New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, often fought about the office’s mandate. Both were forced to resign, and the office eventually shuttered but paved the way for the DHS.

Fair Labor Lawyer: The Remarkable Life of New Deal Attorney and Supreme Court Advocate Bessie Margolin (LSU Press, 2016) By Marlene Trestman, JD ’81 Bessie Margolin (1909-96) was almost as unlikely as a unicorn. She grew up in an orphanage and went on to become a Jewish attorney in the South, which was known for neither an abundance of women nor Jewish lawyers, let alone both. Ms. Margolin would argue many cases before the Supreme Court, and she had a hand in everything from the Nuremberg tribunals for Nazi war crimes to child labor and minimum wage laws to equal- pay employment laws. This book rescues its subject, a friend and mentor of the author’s, from “undeserved obscurity.” ALL COVERS: WILLIAM ATKINS

gwmagazine.com / 23 GW NEWS SPORTS

New men’s tennis coach David Macpherson

24 / gw magazine / Spring 2017 [tennis] had a rapport by the time they became teammates on the Kansas City Explorers, a World Team Tennis league team, in July 2005. That, Mr. Macpherson says, is when the idea of him coaching the Bryan brothers first came about. Courting a Pro “I realized that maybe coaching was my better calling than playing,” New men’s tennis coach David Macpherson coached an American Mr. Macpherson says. “[The Bryan doubles team to 15 Grand Slam titles and an Olympic gold medal. brothers] were incredible people to be // By Marcus Helton associated with, and I learned a lot from them and hopefully they learned a little from me.” After more than 30 years spent playing continue coaching high-level players, and to Now, Mr. Macpherson is passing along and coaching tennis professionally, David be able to enjoy more time at home with his that knowledge to a new group of players “Macca” Macpherson was ready for a change. family.” as he takes over a program that has won So when the GW men’s tennis head coaching In an interview with Tennis Now, Bob three straight Atlantic 10 championships job opened up last summer, he seized the Bryan described Mr. Macpherson as and five of the last six. His players are opportunity. still the brothers’ “loyal friend” and said intrigued by his pro pedigree. “I just reached a point in my life where there’s “no one better,” while Mike Bryan “That’s OK that he never coached I just wanted to branch into something said Mr. Macpherson was a “very calming a college team,” says senior Julius different—something new,” says the 49-year- influence” on them. Tverijonas, GW’s top singles player. “Of old Mr. Macpherson, who was hired in Mr. Macpherson also coached stars Roger course, it’s different than coaching a few August. “I have a lot of close friends in the Federer and Stanislas Wawrinka to the 2014 professional players, because he has to D.C. area, so it’s somewhere that I’ve always Davis Cup title and he was named World manage the student-athletes and a big wanted to possibly live. I had a meeting Team Tennis Coach of the Year. team of people, so that’s way different.” with [Athletic Director Patrick Nero] and As a professional doubles player Mr. Tverijonas is a 6-foot-1 Lithuanian [Assistant Athletic Director Nicole Early] from 1985 to 2003, the left-handed and two-time first-team all-conference and just really kind of fell in love with the Mr. Macpherson collected 288 career selection. This season, he’s been ranked program and the school.” victories and 16 Association of Tennis as high as 118th by the Intercollegiate Mr. Macpherson, a Tasmania, Australia, Professionals tour titles, getting ranked as Tennis Association. Last year, he went 18- native, spent the past 11 years as coach of high as 11th. He finished with more than 12 in singles, and while playing all but one the standout American doubles tandem of $1.7 million in career earnings. match at No. 1 doubles, he went 22-6 with partner Danil Zelenkov, who graduated. This season, the Colonials also return juniors Chris Reynolds and Chris Fletcher, both of whom were All-A-10 “I couldn’t have been any happier with the performers in 2015-16. Mr. Reynolds went 20-9 in singles last year to lead the team young men that I got to come in and work in wins. with right away. We hit it off, we’ve bonded, Indeed, coaching at the college level has presented a new set of challenges and I know them all so well now after six or for Mr. Macpherson—academics and recruiting aren’t considerations on the seven months with them.” pro circuit—but he says his players have helped to ease the transition. “It’s an evolving process—just incremental improvement for each Bob and Mike Bryan. He helped the Bryan “When you’re young, your dreams are player and then bonding as a team,” brothers, who are identical twins, to an of being a player,” Mr. Macpherson says. “I Mr. Macpherson says. “But I think we’re Olympic gold medal in 2012 in London, 15 played to the best of my ability until I was off to a really, really strong start, and we Grand Slam championships and 87 career about 35 and had sort of a decent career in have a great nucleus.” titles. The brothers—who, at 38, are retiring doubles but never reached the heights that I But Mr. Macpherson isn’t totally out from Davis Cup competition after 14 years would have liked, but I had a good career as of the pro game. He’s tutoring American of representing the United States—finished a player.” pro John Isner—famous for playing the ranked No. 1 in the world 10 times. Two years after retiring as a player, he longest match in pro history, an 11-hour, “As tough as it is to part ways, it is also an turned to coaching, hooking up with the 5-minute win over Frenchman Nicolas exciting time for him,” the Bryan brothers Bryan brothers. Mr. Macpherson knew them Mahut at Wimbledon in 2010—on the wrote on their Facebook page in August. from his playing days, facing the brothers side, even accompanying Mr. Isner to the “… It is a great opportunity for Macca to four times during his career. The trio already Australian Open in January.

gwmagazine.com / 25 GW NEWS

[swimming & diving] It Went Swimmingly GW wins its first A-10 championship in program history In February, the GW men’s swimming and diving team won its first Atlantic 10 championship in program history—the A-10 has sponsored swimming since the 1978-79 season—besting seven teams and amassing 562.5 points during the four-day meet. La Salle finished second with 528 points.

OTHER GW GOLD MOST OUTSTANDING MOST OUTSTANDING MEDALISTS PERFORMER: ROOKIE PERFORMER: Junior Gustav Hokfelt won the 200- yard backstroke and set an A-10 record ANDREA BOLOGNESI MORITZ FATH with a time of 1:42.70. He also won the The senior from Cuveglio, Italy, won seven The freshman from Haslach, Germany, 100-yard backstroke with another A-10 gold medals—three individual and four relay— won two gold medals and became the first record time of 46.94. and set two conference records* en route to GW swimmer to be named MORP since earning his second straight invitation to the 2006 when David Zenk won that and Most Junior Adam Drury won the 100-yard NCAA championships. It’s also his second Outstanding Performer. freestyle and set a GW record with a straight MOP honor, becoming the first GW time of 44.34. swimmer to win back-to-back MOPs since 200-YARD FREESTYLE David Zenk in 2008 and 2009. 1:37.35 The team of Mr. Hokfelt, Mr. 500-YARD FREESTYLE Bolognesi, Mr. Drury and sophomore 100-YARD BUTTERFLY 4:25.01 Alex Auster won the 200-yard 46.91 SECONDS* freestyle relay and set a GW record 100-YARD BREASTSTROKE with a time of 1:20.19. 52:24 The team of Mr. Hokfelt, Mr. 200-YARD BREASTROKE Bolognesi, freshman Emils Pone and 1 MINUTE, 57.59 SECONDS COACH OF THE YEAR: Mr. Auster won the 200-yard medley 200-YARD FREESTYLE RELAY relay and set an A-10 record with a JAMES WINCHESTER time of 1:27.53. 1:20.19 The second-year coach and two- 200-YARD MEDLEY time NCAA Assistant of the The team of , freshman RELAY Mr. Drury Year honorable mention is Max Forstenhaeusler, Mr. Bolognesi 1:27.53* the first GW coach since and Mr. Hokfelt won the 400-yard 400-YARD 2011 (and third ever) to freestyle relay and set a GW record FREESTYLE be named the A-10’s top with a time of 2:58.72. RELAY coach. 2:58.72 The team of Mr. Hokfelt, Mr. 400-YARD Bolognesi, senior Ben Fitch and Mr. MEDLEY RELAY Forstenhaeusler won the 400-yard 3:13.63 medley relay and set a GW record with a time of 3:13.63.

Moritz Fath Adam Drury ATHLETICS COMMUNICATIONS

26 / gw magazine / Spring 2017 [cross country] I think part of what really attracted me to the [exercise science] major is I’ve always been involved in some kind of sport my entire life. So the human body has always been A Q&A with fascinating to me; going through injuries and prevention and stuff, and the fact that there’s so many things we don’t know about how our Miranda bodies work and we use them on a daily basis. So my goal with my degree is I would love DiBiasio Now that I’m a little to be able to work one-on-one with clients, doing both exercise and nutrition planning, The cross country and track star bit older—and really because the nutrition aspect of sports and is a three-time all-conference since my time here in activity is something that I find really, really selection and among the best fascinating as well. women’s distance runners in GW college—I think How much do you tinker with your history. I’ve kind of workout routine? Now that I’m a little bit older—and really GW junior women’s distance runner gotten into since my time here in college—I think I’ve Miranda DiBiasio was drawn to D.C. from a groove kind of gotten into a groove where I know the suburbs of Cleveland three years ago what I need to do to find success, because by her older sister Olivia, who is a senior at where what I’ve been doing has been working. But I American University, where she also runs would say that all throughout high track. I know school and at the beginning Since then, Miranda has become one of my college career, of the Atlantic 10’s top runners—she’s a what it took some time. three-time all-conference pick—while setting I need It took some trial three GW records en route to becoming runs with different one of the best women’s distance runners in to do things and what the program’s six-year history. This winter, kind of stuff I Ms. DiBiasio chatted with GW Magazine to find needed to do to about her career and future plans. success, really keep myself healthy, and also What appealed to you about GW and because just with furthering D.C.? my own education I knew that I wanted to go away from what I’ve about the importance home—I wanted to get out of Ohio and of certain nutritional change things up a little bit—and I was a been doing aspects and preventive little hesitant about going in a different has been training and sleep—it all kind of direction from [Olivia] because I wanted to ties together. It’s always kind of a stay relatively close to somebody. I’ve always working” work in progress. been somebody who really likes the city; I’m not somebody who’s very fond of rural areas. What do you do when you’re So I was attracted to D.C. because it had that not running long distances? city lifestyle but also because my sister was [Laughs] It’s so sad that it seems here. like that’s such a tough question. I really love to spend time with family How long have you been running and friends. Sometimes there’s really competitively and what got you into nothing better than just, like, curling up the sport? in a ball with some of my best friends Since about seventh grade. I played other and just watching a movie or just sports throughout elementary and middle doing something very low-key and school but I kind of found my niche in relaxing. I think I sometimes have a distance running through those sports. little bit of trouble getting myself Everything seemed to be difficult for me to actually relax—I’m a very except for the running, so this is what came high-strung person—so having naturally to me and I kind of stuck with it. that time that really forces me Miranda DiBiasio to unwind is really nice. What do you want to be when you grow —Marcus Helton

ATHLETICS COMMUNICATIONS up? Any post-graduation plans?

gwmagazine.com / 27 LineA byLine Perspective

Sometimes things don’t work out. Colombian-born Corcoran professor Juana Medina knows this as well as anyone. But the children’s book illustrator and author also knows that sometimes they do, and that’s enough to keep her cheery in the face of gloom. Story Matthew Stoss

28 / gw magazine / Spring 2017 JUANA MEDINA JUANA

gwmagazine.com / 29 Juana Medina thinks we’re printers or traffic jams. go, ‘Um, bye, I hope there’s not a bomb,’” “They drive me absolutely crazy,” she Ms. Medina says. “I guess I won’t lose my completely says. mind over this printer.” The point the Colombian-born Today, Ms. Medina is an increasingly doomed. Ms. Medina is making—other than that acclaimed children’s book illustrator and we should heed the climatologists’ augurs author. Her work has been celebrated, of calamity—is that things can and do bug notably, by The New York Times and The “I think we’re completely doomed!” her. She admits that her disposition does Washington Post, and she’s collaborated with The 36-year-old adjunct professor at the lean sunny, but it’s not because of some U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera, Corcoran School for the Arts and Design smiling-blind Panglossian optimism. It’s a while winning the top award in children’s (she mostly teaches animation) has been choice based on life experiences that cover literature for Latino and Latina authors. politely accused of excessive cheer. Now, to every extreme, and those experiences have She has a nice life with her partner, George prove that she’s not just all free cake and afforded her that which is so elusive for so Mason University poetry professor Sally rescue puppies, she’s veered into a dire many people: perspective. Keith, in Northwest D.C., where the couple aside on how we’re not doing enough to stop “I think about days where I remember is raising adopted twin boys, Agustin and climate change. being paged at the hospital, where I was an Julian. Ms. Medina says that if we don’t watch it, intern, saying, ‘There’s a bomb threat. Leave But in 2002, Ms. Medina was a 22-year- we’re all going to be broiled in your patients. Go out the door,’ and feeling old immigrant physical therapist, embarking our own atmosphere and die like there’s no way on what would become a 10-year, $40,000 with warm, pink centers on I’m going to fight for permanent U.S. residency after civil the blanched hellscape of what leave this cancer war, economic instability and intolerance used to be a really nice place. survivor alone in pushed her away from her beloved Colombia.

She also doesn’t care for her wheelchair and The way Ms. Medina tells that part of her MEDINA JUANA

30 / gw magazine / Spring 2017 story, it all sounds pretty immiserating. Her Her lines are clean, confident and stutter- draws the way she does, saying, “It’s just father died in an accidental fire when she free. They’re inky streamlets that ebb and the way it comes out,” and comparing it to a was an infant. She came of age around the bloat with a tilt of her pen, and after so much spider walking in ink. But she cites Argentine time authorities killed billionaire drug lord drawing, she often skips penciling and goes cartoonist Quino, Dutch illustrator Dick Pablo Escobar. Insurrectionists kidnapped brazenly for ink. Bruna, the late New Yorker cartoonist Saul her congresswoman aunt for seven years. “Her line doesn’t look like somebody Steinberg and the 19th-century French Her step-cousin survived a bombing of her else’s line,” says Hilary Price, who created painter and caricaturist Honoré Daumier apartment complex only because she wasn’t the comic strip Rhymes with Orange and among her influences. home for the explosion. War, in concert with with whom Ms. Medina interned while in art The breeze of Ms. Medina’s line and the drug cartels, helped drive her stepfather’s school. “It doesn’t look like, ‘Oh, this reminds her lighthearted, absurdist humor are medical supply company out of business and me of this other artist.’ So what I feel like I what appealed to Ms. Medina’s editor at hastened her and her family’s emigration. respond to … is a sense of authenticity.” Candlewick Press, Mary Lee Donovan. A lot of it is objectively awful—she says Of the seven elements of art—color, form, A major children’s publishing house and she saw dead bodies and that she still has line, shape, space, texture and value—line the home of two-time Newbery Medalist nightmares—but, she insists, not all of it might be the most personal. It has a lot in Kate DiCamillo, Candlewick put out the was. Or even most of it. Not for her. Not, common with a fingerprint. Certainly there second and most acclaimed of Ms. Medina’s she knows, compared to other Colombian are those rare artist chameleons who can three outings as an author-illustrator, Juana children. Ms. Medina had a large, loving pass off alien styles, but everyone has the & Lucas, in September 2016. Viking Press family, anchored by her mother and expressional equivalent of a standing heart published her two other solo efforts: 1 Big grandparents. Her grandfather was a well- rate. Salad: A Delicious Counting Book and ABC to-do neurosurgeon and her grandmother, “Drawing is such an immediate act,” Pasta: An Entertaining Alphabet. a woodworker, built some of her husband’s says Renée Foulks, the drawing department “I never cease to be amazed by medical supplies. The family had the means chair at the Pennsylvania Academy of the artists who, with just these simple to send Ms. Medina to a private school, where Fine Arts, the oldest art school in the United gestural drawings, can capture so much she learned English, and to take her on trips States. “You’re not mixing color; you’re emotion, expression and personality,” to the United States. picking up a piece of charcoal or graphite Ms. Donovan says. “Cleary, Juana is a master “I was a lucky child,” Ms. Medina says. “I pencil and you’re making a mark. It’s at that.” grew up in a family that was very optimistic going right from your brain, through your and giving, and I think I was shielded from emotional core, right through your hand, and many things.” boom, it’s there. There is a Colombia that exists outside There’s been a misunderstanding. “In that immediacy, there’s a great deal Pablo Escobar biopics, mafia films and Quintessential Juana is not excessive cheer; about [an artist’s] emotional state, their narco TV series and it follows Juana Medina it’s pragmatic cheer. Her life is complicated concerns, their loves, their joys, their anger.” like a happy shadow. It’s the Colombia that and sometimes contradictory—she left The ease and air of Ms. Medina’s she grew up in, smelling fresh fruit and Colombia, yet adores it—but it left her with a unforgiving style—using fewer lines, the tropical rain, visiting her grandfather’s nuanced perspective that’s informed as much power of which is predicated on fluidity, library, hearing Spanish everywhere and by empathy as reason. It’s become the fount makes it hard to hide mistakes and playing fútbol around Bogotá, a city of 8 of her optimism, preserving her and fueling underscores just how much work it takes to million tucked in a green crook of the Andes the happy daydream fancy of her art. maintain the illusion of ease—comes from a mountains. The approach doesn’t work for lot of places, some more tangible than others. “That’s exactly why I wanted the book in everything—existential threats to the Ms. Medina struggles to explain why she Colombia: to show a different reality about planet, for example—but it’s not bad when the country,” Ms. Medina says. confronted with low toner, a thousand idiots This is the Colombia of Juana & Lucas, baffled by the alternate merge or some Ms. Medina’s 88-page autobiographical early philistine who insists: I could draw that. chapter book and love letter to her home and childhood. It’s illustrated in ink and watercolor and written in bluntly funny and Simple-looking art is counterintuitive. It heartfelt prose filled with similes—“She’s looks easy, but making it look easy is actually frowning like a hippo just sat on her really hard. toes.”—that read like Raymond Chandler in “I think the one I get the most is, ‘Oh my Wonderland. gosh, that’s going to take you two minutes to The wistful story follows a little girl do. What’s so hard about three traces that named Juana, her day-to-day life in Bogotá you do in 10 seconds?’” Ms. Medina says. and her amusing, everyman struggle to learn “The truth is it has taken me 30-something English in preparation for a trip with her years of training to get to do it in 10 seconds.” grandparents to a fictional amusement park, Ms. Medina draws daily and has since a Disney World stand-in called “Spaceland.” elementary school, when she doodled on Lucas is her dog and best friend. paper and other less-authorized surfaces, The New York Times described Juana & COVER: COURTESY COVER: CANDLEWICK PRESS caricaturing life and especially her teachers. Lucas as a “giant hug,” and the book won the She describes her routine as “relentless” and Juana Medina’s award- 2017 Pura Belpré Award. Established in 1996, the reason she can distill a form or action to winning autobiographical the honor goes to the Latino or Latina author its essence with a couple of wrist-flick strokes early chapter book, and illustrator whose work best “celebrates Juana & Lucas JUANA & LUCAS and a splotch of watercolor. the Latino cultural experience” in children’s

gwmagazine.com / 31 “Her line doesn’t look like somebody else’s line. It doesn’t look like, ‘Oh, this reminds me of this other artist.’ So what I feel like I respond to ... is a sense of authenticity.” ILLUSTRATION: JUANA MEDINA / ILLUSTRATION PHOTO: WILLIAM ATKINS

32 / gw magazine / Spring 2017 ILLUSTRATION: JUANA MEDINA JUANA ILLUSTRATION:

gwmagazine.com / 33

literature. There are two sequels planned to Ms. Medina started at the Corcoran Society, and working part-time in the Juana & Lucas, the first of which is scheduled before transferring to the Rhode Island school’s student affairs office. for a 2019 release. School of Design, where she found a home She also supplemented her income with Colombia is integral to the plot and and started to believe she could turn art into international freelance illustration jobs, the success of Juana & Lucas, which a living. starting in 2007. Her step-cousin, the one Candlewick editorial director Mary RISD, she says, was a humbling who years earlier survived the apartment Lee Donovan describes as a steady experience. The other undergrad students— bombing, was in the Colombian publishing seller relative to its niche, which many all of whom were years younger than her, industry and acted as a quasi-agent. The publishers questioned. Most insisted not to mention from another world—seemed work had to come from abroad because that Ms. Medina shift the setting to a so much more advanced. They awed her. Ms. Medina’s student visa forbade her from more familiar and demographically (also The assignments awed her. Among the working anywhere off RISD’s campus in the financially) ecumenical setting like a U.S. earliest she remembers is having to draw United States. immigrant neighborhood or even Mexico, 500 thumbnails of some boring everyday Ms. Medina’s first paid art gig in the U.S. because the main character, a plump, pig- object like a screw or a nail. The directions: was an internship with Rhymes with Orange tailed girl who loves sports and detests skirts, “Explore” the thing through “contrast.” writer/illustrator Hilary Price. They met at would look “so cute” in a big sombrero. “I had never taken myself seriously when a National Cartoonists Society conference Ms. Medina rebuffed them. Ms. Donovan and it came to art,” Ms. Medina says. “That level in New Orleans, where Ms. Medina received Candlewick never asked. of discipline made me take it very serious. … her cartooning scholarship. “So much of her story is about where There was a solemnity about it.” “She was showing me some of her thesis she lives and particularly her life,” Ms. Medina graduated from RISD in project,” Ms. Price says, “and I mean it was Ms. Donovan says. “It seems like it would 2010 at age 29 with a BFA in graphic design, really clear that she was really, really good at just be flattening her story, trying to take her covering tuition with mini scholarships, using the simplest lines with such vitality to out of the environment that has helped shape including one from the National Cartoonists create these wonderful cartoons and these who she is.” wonderful stories. So when she told me that A part of that involved learning English. she was looking around for an internship, I The experience became the plot of Juana was like, ‘Oh my god, yes. I’ve never done this & Lucas and even gave Ms. Medina greater before but, absolutely, I want to spend time depth and verisimilitude as a children’s with you and get access to your creativity.’” writer. The two bonded over time “There’s something about spent in Ms. Price’s converted the combination of being a toothbrush factory studio in child,” Ms. Donovan says, “and using a Somerville, Mass. They remain good second language to try to describe some friends, and Ms. Price—who has art of those things. There’s just something by Ms. Medina hanging in her dining room quintessentially childlike about that. A child and guest bedroom—later tried to help doesn’t always know the proper Ms. Medina get permanent U.S. terminology or the dictionary word residency by getting the Cartoonists to describe something, so they have Society to vouch for her in a letter. to use a lot of other words to convey In December 2012, Ms. Medina, after that because they don’t have that paying her lawyer in installments to mitigate toolbox.” the untenably high cost of a citizenship Ms. Medina’s move into the children’s battle, beat back the forces of darkest book industry was gradual and bureaucracy to win her green card. largely dictated by the constraints “Sometimes I feel: Was I crazy?” of a life lived immigration Ms. Medina says. “Why did I want to lawyer to immigration lawyer stay that badly? And the reality is, being and visa to visa. The frustrating, expensive, Colombian and being gay, there were so heartbreaking and onerous odyssey is many things that just made me feel like, detailed in Ms. Medina’s March 2016 ‘Forget it, I have to try. I really Fusion.net graphic essay “I Juana have to see how it goes,’ because I Live in America.” really didn’t feel like I could make When she got to the United my life in Colombia the way I could make it States in 2002 at age 22 to be here.” with her family, which had established itself Ms. Medina credits that excessive/ with the help of a relative who owned a pragmatic cheer she’s accused of having as trucking business, Ms. Medina planned to her “mechanism of self-preservation.” It’s continue in physical therapy. But, she says, kept her going and kept Colombia, despite her Colombian alma mater refused to mail the problems that forced her to leave, a well- her transcripts, insisting instead she retrieve loved and well-missed place. And when there them in person. This, obviously, would be are blips of doom—printers, traffic, the end impossible. She abandoned that career path of the world—the perspective she’s gleaned from life kicks in. and took some classes for fun at Georgetown left Juana Medina at work in her University, where a professor encouraged her studio in Northwest D.C. “Isn’t there enough gloom already in the

MEDINA: WILLIAM ATKINS / ILLUSTRATION PHOTO: JUANA MEDINA to pursue a formal art education. world?” she says.

gwmagazine.com / 35 THE AUTISM SEX BIAS

36 / gw magazine / Spring 2017 STORY BY Kristen Mitchell hen Frances was born, she was an undersized but easy baby—healthy, happy, social. Boys are diagnosed with As she got older, she was slow to roll over, to crawl and to take her autism at more than four first steps. She didn’t always respond to her name. And while she could times the rate of girls. seem somewhat disinterested in the people around her, she was consumed with Henry Scientists are trying to the octopus from the kids show The Wiggles. And it was a stuffed Henry toy that finally, figure out why, but this at age 3½, coaxed out her first word—a full phrase, actually: Frances had excitedly just much is becoming clear: opened the gift when her mom teasingly claimed the doll as her own. Frances screamed: “Henry! That’s my Henry.” All that we think we Her father, Kevin Pelphrey, was a recently minted PhD in psychology from the know about autism University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, working as a postdoc studying cognitive is only half the story. neuroscience at Duke. He’d often discussed

ILLUSTRATION: MCGLASSON JOHN his daughter and her struggles with his

gwmagazine.com / 37 co-workers, a group that included autism researchers, but the possibility of autism never surfaced. It also never came up with any of the multiple specialists he took Frances to see. Frances’ development was slightly delayed, he was told, but she would catch up. Then when Frances was 4 years old, a psychologist for the first time suggested autism as an explanation. “I had a degree in child psychology, and I was willing to accept the answer, ‘She’ll grow out of it,’ because I liked hearing that,” Dr. Pelphrey says. But fathers can be forgiven a little wishful denial. And physicians are reminded over and over in their training that when they hear hoofbeats, look for a horse not a zebra— that an ailment is likely the garden-variety thing, not the exotic exception. A girl with autism was a zebra. Today, boys in the U.S. are affected at four-and-a-half times the rate of girls: 1 in I HAD A DEGREE IN 42 versus 1 in 189, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As a result, for decades it’s been the boys with CHILD PSYCHOLOGY, autism who overwhelmingly are the ones enrolled in studies, and it’s boys for whom treatments and interventions are designed. Now researchers are realizing that the AND I WAS WILLING textbook definition of autism—the repetitive behaviors, impaired communication and social interactions—might pertain only to TO ACCEPT THE ANSWER, boys, too. Shortly after the suggestion that Frances may have autism, Dr. Pelphrey took her for a day of testing at Yale University’s Child Study Center. After evaluations by a psychologist, ‘SHE’LL GROW a social worker and a speech pathologist, she was officially diagnosed with autism. The mysteries surrounding her condition and the meandering path to a diagnosis OUT OF IT' eventually would become the driving force of Dr. Pelphrey’s career. He was studying the human brain and how it comprehends other humans, but “never really cared about its application. It was just knowledge for knowledge’s sake,” he said in an emotional speech at GW in October, eyes red with stifled tears. “[I]t was my daughter Frances that shaped my career into something that’s been incredibly, incredibly valuable for me.” Kevin Pelphrey Dr. Pelphrey became a professor at the Yale Child Study Center, where Frances WILLIAM ATKINS

38 / gw magazine / Spring 2017 was diagnosed, and the founding director although he does tend to shy from social Today Dr. Werling studies how typically of a center for developmental neuroscience interactions, Dr. Pelphrey says, and to speak developing boys and girls are different on at Yale. Then last year, he came to GW to in a “direct and precise,” almost scholarly a genetic level, and how those differences launch its Autism and Neurodevelopmental cadence. relate to autism. The underdiagnosis of girls Disorders Institute and to fill a new endowed Coming off the spectrum is rare, but makes her work difficult. professorship (the Carbonell Family studies have shown that an early jump on “Inherently, the work that we’re doing Professor in Autism and Neurodevelopmental therapy can give kids with ASD critical is challenged by the fact that the samples Disorders), bringing along $20 million in developmental and social boosts, and we have available to us are more biased grants, including a $15 million grant from the American Academy of Pediatrics toward boys than they should be,” she says. the National Institutes of Health to mine the recommends screening children as early as “Hopefully, time will fix that.” conundrum of girls with autism. 18 months old in order to get them into the Funding for studies focused on sex and “He’s now really known as the go-to treatment pipeline. gender differences in people with autism person in the field,” says Lisa Gilotty, a But girls, historically, have not had the is on the rise. In 2015, some of the top program chief at the NIH’s National Institute benefit of that early and often life-changing organizations funding autism research of Mental Health who oversees autism intervention because their symptoms go designated more than $6.4 million for research, including Dr. Pelphrey’s grant. overlooked. 11 projects on sex differences, compared His unprecedented explorations into the Girls with ASD tend to have better social to slightly more than $300,000 on two brains of kids with autism now lead him to skills and often are less disruptive than projects in 2008, according to an analysis believe that the boy-to-girl ratio is probably boys with ASD, and even their typically by Spectrum, an autism news site that is an more like 2 to 1, instead of 4.5 to 1, and that developing male peers, Dr. Pelphrey says. editorially independent wing of the Simons what we think we know about autism is Frances, for instance, has always sustained Foundation Autism Research Initiative. certainly only half the story. The differences good eye contact, while difficulty with that is Dr. Pelphrey predicts it will take at in autism between the sexes, he says, is considered one of the hallmark red flags of least another decade for the information “actually very fundamental to what autism is.” ASD. Instead, he says, for Frances and some about girls with ASD to match the mass of other girls with autism, difficulty regulating information available about boys with ASD. emotions is more of a distinguishing feature. Part of the obstacle in gathering that FRANCES PELPHREY IS NOW 13 and, in a lot of Obsessive lining up or ordering of objects has been the way autism is diagnosed. Most ways, is a typical middle-schooler. She’s in is common, too, but may be more apparent children with autism are diagnosed through love with Zac Efron, she likes her music loud in boys because of the inanimate objects, like observation and an intensive, hourslong oral and she’s inseparable from her phone. cars and trains, that a boy might be more exam with their parents, who are questioned Dr. Pelphrey has said that 10 years earlier, prone to play with, Dr. Pelphrey says. about their child’s behavior. Answers are when doctors were stymied by her symptoms “If a girl is more likely to be interested scored on a scale and plugged into a formula and inclined to wait it out, they would have in dolls and is lining up dolls, it looks more to determine where on the spectrum a child been more proactive were she a boy. The typical because she’s lining up social objects might be. problem is that time in those first years is when really she is just lining them up like The infinitely individualized nature crucial. they’re dominos,” he says. of autism has so far eluded any singular His son Lowell, the youngest of three The issue of girls with autism being biological signature—a gene, a chemical biological kids (he and his wife, Annie, have underidentified by doctors and teachers and disruptor, a brain wave—that can be five children altogether), was 1½ when he little-understood by researchers became a screened for. Instead there’s a growing list came to the attention of doctors. He was self-perpetuating cycle. of promising biomarkers, each indicative of about to participate in a control group made Donna Werling, a postdoctoral researcher some piece of the autism equation, for some up of the typically developing siblings of at the University of California-San Francisco, people with autism. children with autism when Yale researchers worked in Dr. Pelphrey’s Yale lab a decade ago It’s an effort to understand autism from discovered Lowell wasn’t making as an undergraduate. “At that time, everyone the inside out, and the intellectual abyss of appropriate eye contact for his age. He was would report there was a sex bias in autism the brain and genetics offers an opportunity diagnosed with Pervasive Developmental diagnosis,” she says, “but they would go on to for scientists of just about any stripe to Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified, or PDD- use that as an excuse not to include girls.” bring their chops. There is no scientifically NOS, a gray area under the autism umbrella in which a person typically has social or communication impairments but not all of the features of the more defined subgroups. He began an intense weekly regimen of 32 hours of behavioral therapy and after four years, Lowell, now 8, was no longer considered to be on the autism spectrum,

gwmagazine.com / 39 agreed-upon cause of autism, and people on heightened activity in areas of the brain that the spectrum range from those with severe aren’t typically involved in processing that language and mental impairments to those kind of visual data. It was almost as if the who live and thrive independently. brains of the unaffected siblings had found Dr. Pelphrey got involved as a side an alternate route, compensating for deficits project while he was a postdoc at UNC; he by circumventing them. was working in developmental psychology, “Development is an active process,” building a wearable camera for infants that Dr. Pelphrey says of the brain, drawing would track the direction of their gaze. an analogy to rivers carving through a A mentor, UNC professor Joe Piven, By The Numbers landscape. “It’s not just an unfolding plan; who heads the Carolina Institute for it’s not just the unfolding of a preconceived Some top funders of autism Developmental Disabilities, suggested he use destiny. And with that, you’ve got the research, including the NIH and the tool to study people with autism. Autism Speaks, in recent years opportunity for flexibility. This one gene The result, in 2002, was the first study— have ramped up their spending is pushing you, but the rest of your body is albeit a very small one—to compare the eye for studies exploring sex and constantly trying to get back [on track.]” movements of five adult males with autism gender differences in people with Exploring this kind of issue through the and five without as they looked at a photo of autism, according to an analysis by engines of genetics and brain imaging at another person’s face, which has been cited Spectrum, an autism news site. once was an intensely powerful tool—one 900 times in the years since. autism researcher, who was not part of While the path of movement for the the study, told a reporter at the time that control group generally formed a triangle using them to reach this finding was “nearly across the eyes, nose and mouth, the eyes of 2008 unprecedented.” the group with autism tended to roam less- The next step for Dr. Pelphrey would be revealing facial features, like an ear or chin, to add people and time. He wants to build a Dr. Pelphrey and his colleagues wrote. The data set that might even be considered, in findings, they said, could point to a reason $300,000 his words—those of a man who scraps daily why people with autism experience difficulty 2 PROJECTS with the love, the pain, the elation and the with facial perception and with reading a biological wonder of autism—“a national person’s affect, or it may be the result of a treasure.” broader information-processing issue. Dr. Pelphrey was still primarily interested, though, in more broadly EVENTUALLY, HE HAS SAID, “I would like for understanding the so-called “social brain,” anyone in the D.C. area who Googles ‘autism’ the parts that process things like facial to see that they have a place to come that has expressions, posture, movement—the everything they need.” nonverbal signaling we absorb and use to That place, a 10,000-square-foot clinical make sense of other people. center that Dr. Pelphrey’s institute is building Occasionally that veered into autism 2015 at GW’s Virginia Science and Technology research over the years, including, in a Campus in Ashburn, is expected to open in big way, in 2010. Dr. Pelphrey and a team the fall. It will be a place for diagnosis and from Yale compared the brain activity of therapy, with specialists onhand from mental kids and teens with autism with that of health and medicine to nursing, occupational their unaffected siblings and of typically therapy and speech and hearing sciences, developing kids as each group watched a working together, as well as with clinical and video of familiar human movement, like research partners from Children’s National someone playing pat-a-cake. Health System. They found brain regions where there was Also planned are training opportunities reduced activity only in the autism group, $6.4 million for graduate students and undergrads, and a and they found areas of the brain where 11 PROJECTS second location in Monroe Hall on the Foggy both the autism group and their unaffected Bottom Campus. siblings had reduced activity—indicative, The idea is to take what’s learned in the they suggested, of some shared genetic risk lab—from a molecular level on up—and for neurodevelopmental disorders. use that to build more targeted autism But most intriguing: Only among treatments and interventions for use in the the unaffected siblings, they also found clinic. When one of those works, or doesn’t,

40 / gw magazine / Spring 2017 the team will break it down to its molecular could not distinguish a girl with autism from level again to figure out why, and then push a typically developing girl. that knowledge into even-more-tailored “This was incredibly important for us treatments and, possibly, translate it outward to understand, because it might be that into efforts to influence public policy. everything we thought we knew, really, At the moment, though, it’s the basic was specific to boys,” Dr. Pelphrey said last science that’s giving the young institute year during a public lecture through the its oomph and confident stride into a Interactive Autism Network. competitive field. “We’re doing a great job of characterizing “Kevin has always been very innovative,” Boys in the U.S. are affected at the neurocircuitry that’s disrupted in boys. says Dr. Piven, the mentor from his days at four-and-a-half times the rate of girls: 1 in Our whole field should be proud of that,” he UNC. “He’s not doing the 10th study of some 42 versus 1 in 189, according to the Centers said. “But we’ve overlooked the girls.” idea, he’s often doing the first study.” for Disease Control and Prevention. As Still, the findings could have enormous In 2012, Dr. Pelphrey, while still at Yale, a result, for decades it’s been the boys implications for diagnosing boys with was awarded a five-year, $15 million grant with autism who overwhelmingly are the autism and getting them earlier access to from the National Institutes of Health to ones enrolled in studies, and it’s boys treatments. It also gets researchers one lead a network of researchers in trying to for whom treatments and interventions step deeper into the fog of the girl question. understand the nature of autism in girls and are designed. Now researchers are They’re hunting now for the equivalent how it differs from that of boys. It was part realizing that the textbook definition of biomarkers in girls. But if girls are somehow of a $100 million assault on autism’s vagaries autism—the repetitive behaviors, impaired being shielded, or even compensating for that year by the NIH, funding nine centers communication and social interactions— autism’s deficits, the answers stand to benefit and networks, with Dr. Pelphrey’s the only might pertain only to boys, too. both sexes. one exploring sex differences. Entering the final year of the grant, which Since then, Dr. Pelphrey—along with Dr. Pelphrey hopes to renew, he’s anxious to collaborators at Harvard University, Seattle begin tracking the study group through the Children’s Hospital, the University of transition into adolescence and adulthood, California-Los Angeles, the University of and to see how the childhood data bears out Southern California, Yale and, now, GW—is over time. building what the team of researchers is Similar to the all-absorbing brains of calling an unparalleled study sample: 250 newborns and toddlers, and the emphasis girls with autism and 250 boys, 100 each of on early intervention for them, he says, sisters and brothers of people with autism, neurologists are finding that adolescence and 100 each of typically developing girls and brings a second window of brain plasticity boys, all within the range of 6 to 17 years old. and potential growth. “You’ve got this They’ve been stratified by their massive reorganization in the brain as well observable, behavioral characteristics; as this reorganization of societal demands,” they’ve had extensive brain imaging; their Dr. Pelphrey says. “So it’s a time when you genomes are being sequenced and their gene HE WANTS TO BUILD A can either get worse or be doing better. We’re expression—the turning on or off of a gene, hoping to understand how that transition and when—is being analyzed. DATA SET THAT MIGHT EVEN happens.” So far they’ve used that data to generate And whether he’s looking for them or not, some 50 peer-reviewed articles, which have BE CONSIDERED, IN HIS similar changes will be underway at home, been cited nearly 2,000 times. Among them too, as Frances transitions into adolescence. is a 2016 study that found brain imaging WORDS—THOSE OF A MAN Fixations with children’s TV shows can predict which kids with autism will have given way to fixations with boys, and benefit from one of the only evidence-based WHO SCRAPS DAILY WITH requests for him to print out photos of Zac therapies, called pivotal response treatment. Efron for her. The answer is always no. Another study, published in 2016 by THE LOVE, THE PAIN, THE But he’s come to appreciate her bare Dr. Pelphrey and others, turned again to honesty, and that it keeps open a window that brain activity in the regions responsible ELATION AND THE BIOLOGICAL might be abruptly shut for other fathers of for processing biological motion. The teenage girls. researchers found that they could look at WONDER OF AUTISM— “Growing up, my sister never discussed that brain circuit and predict with 76 percent boys with our dad,” Dr. Pelphrey says. accuracy who was affected by ASD—but “A NATIONAL TREASURE.” “Frances tells me more than I want to know. it only worked on the boys. The technique It’s cute.”

gwmagazine.com / 41

at theates

Alumna Yvonne Orji is a co-star on HBO’s Insecure and on the verge of breaking through to the big time.

Yvonne Association Orji might STORY Ruth Steinhardt for Campus be about to Activities, a slightly break her neck, PHOTOS William Atkins circus-like affair and it will be partly connecting performers GW Magazine’s fault. with college activity coordinators The star of HBO’s Insecure is using who might want to book them. Before this a photographer’s shoulder as leverage to clamber up a low, interview, she delivered a funny, casual talk to a cavernous slippery wall in the Baltimore Convention Center, determined hall of enthusiastic college students. Then she spent an hour to get the raked angle of an alcove as a photo backdrop. meeting and taking pictures with fans, hugging, laughing and “I have a tendency to art-direct,” says Ms. Orji, BA ’05, maintaining the same warm older-sisterly ease throughout. MPH ’08. After an outdoor photoshoot proved to be too cold, She doesn’t seem tired. she spotted this large trapezoidal niche in the convention An observer asks nervously: Is she sure she doesn’t want at center’s spacious upper hall—“That’d look cool!”—and now, least to take her shoes off? It’s a fair question. A less-proficient after animatedly brainstorming angles and poses, she’s ready wearer could sprain an ankle just taking a step in the three- to go for it. inch sequined pumps she’s rocking. Proposing to scramble up

Ms. Orji is in Baltimore for a conference by the National a wall in them, even a low wall, seems like asking for trouble.

gwmagazine.com / 43 review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes. Adapted from creator Issa Rae’s web series, Misadventures of an Awkward Black Girl, “ ” Insecure arrives at a moment when a number of highly acclaimed and beloved television shows—including network hits Jane the Nope! Virgin, Black-ish and Fresh Off the Boat, and cable series Broad City and Atlanta—are Ms. Orji says cheerfully. She drafts a couple exploring stories outside the dominant of supporters, braces herself and pushes off. (white, male) paradigm. At the top of her precarious rise she appears For Ms. Orji, there’s never been a more suspended, for an instant, in a cinematic important time to showcase diverse voices. freeze-frame: tipped forward, arms “The current climate around immigration outstretched for balance, knees bent, like a and race is instilling this unnecessary fear,” leggy Chaplin in heels. Ms. Orji says. “Media has the power to reinforce and change cultures and minds; that’s what art is supposed to do. You find At this moment, Yvonne Orji is on the verge yourself in and identify with art, regardless in more than one sense. This convention is of what it looks like. I kind of bristle when taking place on a Monday: On Thursday, people talk about ‘target audiences.’ I she’ll attend the NAACP Image Awards understand from a marketing point of after being nominated for outstanding view you have to segment your audience. supporting actress in a comedy series. The But I know how many black people watch previous week, she filmed a guest spot on Seinfeld.” the hit network comedy-drama Jane the On Insecure, Ms. Orji plays Molly, a Virgin. In between, she gave a TEDx talk smart, stylish, driven corporate lawyer in Wilmington, Del., and attended the NBA whose romantic travails seem inversely All-Star Game in New Orleans. There, she proportionate to her professional success. recorded a podcast, “Ball Girl Magic,” and, The best friend of Ms. Rae’s eponymous lead she says, Golden State Warriors star Kevin character Issa, Molly could, in a less deft Durant approached her to say he’s a fan show, read as a romantic comedy sidekick of Insecure. (Durant is not the only high- cliché: the ambitious career girl who can’t profile viewer, apparently: Ms. Orji posted hold down a man. an Instagram photo of Barack Obama from “In some ways she is that ’90s rom-com the White House Christmas Party last year, role, the best friend who’s perpetually reporting that he told her and other Insecure single,” Variety television critic Sonia Saraiya cast members that he watched the show, says of Molly. “But she’s also a really well- “loved what [they] were doing,” and “H[E]LD rounded character. She’s complex. She has OUR HANDS” (capital letters Ms. Orji’s). A issues of her own she’s trying to deal with.” few weeks from now, she’ll begin work on the “Yvonne brings a lot of humor to Molly, second season of Insecure. and as a character she has that, but she’s also “It’s surreal,” says Ms. Orji, 33. “If I seem dealing with some stuff that’s very dark and chill about it, it’s because I’m grateful and very painful,” says Prentice Penny, executive I’m in awe. I believed in this, I prayed for it, producer of Insecure. “She doesn’t have ill I wanted it, but it’s crazy that I’m actually intentions when she makes these mistakes, here.” but she can’t get out of her own way.” Her determination to climb the wall, heels Of the show’s primary characters, Molly and all, is not a bad metaphor for Ms. Orji’s may struggle with the most extreme conflicts career, in which she’s followed her principles between her public and private selves, but not always the expected path. After between her desires and the expectations graduating from GW, she turned her back she’s internalized. She breaks up with a on a medical career to pursue comedy. Now man she likes because he works at a rental she is the second lead on a hit television show, car agency and never went to college; with an NAACP Image Award nomination she frightens off another by assuming a and an online comedy pilot of her own under commitment after three casual dates. Dating, her belt. for Molly, is a second job, though the laser- And how did she get here? Not without focused intensity that seems to have brought taking a few leaps of faith. her corporate success doesn’t serve her well when it comes to relationships. Nor is her professional life uncomplicated. Insecure, which centers on the lives of young “She’s like the Will Smith of corporate,” Issa black professionals in Los Angeles, is a bona narrates in the pilot episode. “White people fide hit. It garnered 100 percent positive lo-o-ove Molly; black people also lo-o-ove reviews in its first season, according to media Molly.” But that love comes with conditions.

44 / gw magazine / Spring 2017 I’m grateful and I’m in awe. I believed in this, I prayed for it, I wanted it, but it’s crazy that I’m actually here.

gwmagazine.com / 45 In her predominantly white office, Molly doctor.” Orji’s nerves a little less raw. has to constantly code-switch, adapting her Ms. Orji’s parents emigrated from Nigeria “The more and more I walked the stage behavior and her cultural markers to the to settle in Maryland when she was 6. Like and came out and did it, the easier it was,” expectations of her white peers. With her many immigrant parents, she says, they she says. best friend, Molly can be her funny, candid, had high—and traditional—expectations of Still, Ms. Orji wasn’t quite prepared to judgmental self, criticizing or affirming Issa’s their daughter. Throughout her adolescence, buck 20 years of expectations. She dutifully decisions, lamenting her own, wearing an Ms. Orji was content to share those completed her master’s, even traveling to old t-shirt and gorging on junk food. But at aspirations, getting high grades and never post-conflict Liberia to work on HIV and teen her firm, where she is the only prominent questioning her eventual medical career. “I pregnancy prevention for six months. black presence, she has to be perfectly was the good girl,” she says. “It was literally the ultimate stalling tailored, flawlessly groomed, and endure But not long after arriving at GW, she mechanism,” she says. “Like, sure, I’ll go to a her coworkers’ microaggressions with the began to get clues that becoming a physician war-torn country! Just don’t make me tell my nonthreatening smile of a happy android. might not be in the cards. parents I don’t want to be a doctor.” “I came away from the first season “Everything about organic chemistry, When her contract in Liberia expired, she thinking ‘This is a breakout star,’” along with the fact that I don’t like blood or flew home. It was 2009, and the recession Ms. Saraiya says of Ms. Orji’s performance. incisions, let me know I probably wouldn’t be made job-hunting difficult. But for Ms. Orji, “Part of what I love about her portrayal of good at being a doctor,” Ms. Orji says. the stagnant job market was a gift: If she Molly is the way she takes on code-switching, Still, she wasn’t ready to buck both her couldn’t get hired in public health, she had which can feel like a very private and even a parents’ expectations and her own long- carte blanche to try something new. She told shameful process—to admit to the world that standing intentions. She gritted her teeth and her parents she wanted to move to New York you have to adopt different personas in order stayed the course, graduating with a major City and try making stand-up comedy her not to feel oppressed all the time. So to see an in sociology and a double minor in biology career. actor take that on is impressive.” and public health. She switched from medical They accepted her decision, but were In an early episode, Molly tries to tactfully school to a public health graduate program worried. So was Ms. Orji. “I didn’t know if it intervene with a gregarious young associate as a compromise, and it was as a graduate was a thing I could live off, but I knew it was who refuses to downplay her blackness to student at GW that she made the decision something I was good at, and I knew it scared suit the firm’s buttoned-down atmosphere. that would shape her future: a jokey entry in the crap out of me,” she said. “So I thought it “If you want to be successful here, you gotta the Miss Nigeria in America Pageant. was important to let that manifest a little.” know when to switch it up a little bit,” Molly Ms. Orji had never done a pageant before. The next few years were tenuous, taken up tells her. The associate, understandably, When, weeks before the competition, she with what Ms. Orji calls “the hustle.” In New takes offense: “I didn’t ‘switch it up’ when I received an entry form that asked, among York, she wrote, networked and took every was named editor of the law review.” other things, for her “talent,” she was chance to perform. She spent a few months As Molly predicts, however, her white stumped: “I don’t have a talent! I just bought as an artist in residence at the University of bosses don’t think the associate is “adjusting a dress! I thought this was supposed to be Richmond, teaching acting to undergraduate to the culture.” Soon, she’s been fired— easy!” students. When she got an opportunity to although not before the higher-ups ask Molly One thing Ms. Orji did know how to do intern with the writing staff of Love That to ask her to tone it down. Molly declines was talk. Since her childhood, she says, Girl!, a TV One series starring Tatyana Ali, with the necessary adroitness, but privately she’d talked to herself in the mirror, playing she moved to Los Angeles. There, she wrote, resents that she is expected to be the “black different parts, asking herself questions and directed and produced the online pilot of translator.” answering them. She liked telling stories. First Gen, a semi-autobiographical sitcom Ms. Orji’s large, vivid features have the And she found it easy—if not compulsive—to about a Nigerian-American girl who gives eloquence of a silent film ingenue’s. In that make people laugh. up medical school to become a comic. And, scene, as she listens to her white boss’s A devout born-again Christian, Orji with First Gen as an icebreaker, she struck awkward request, her smile barely slips, prayed about it. “And all I heard was up a friendship on Twitter with a writer and but her eyes communicate the dismay and ‘Comedy,’” she says. actress named Issa Rae. exasperation she feels on her own behalf, She wrote a five-minute set based on the concern she feels on the associate’s, her own immigrant-family experience. The and the resignation—even, perhaps, the writing part was easy: Ms. Orji liked to write, “Chemistry is one of those things that’s complacency—of someone who’s been even opting into an optional 50-page paper weird to quantify: Issa and Yvonne just click,” proved right. as an undergraduate so she could graduate says Prentice Penny, Insecure’s showrunner. “She had to seem like she was doing with honors. But the performing part was “They understand how to give each other nothing,” Mr. Penny says. “Any reaction at new, and Ms. Orji says she was “terrified” as space to be funny, and when to pivot to the all would be overselling it. The audience is she stepped onto the stage. straight man role. It’s almost instinctive.” with her; she doesn’t need to be visibly upset, “I honestly did not want to do comedy,” Their characters’ relationship is essential because the audience is upset for her. So that she says. “I was immensely afraid of it, to Insecure’s appeal. Issa and Molly have a was one of those scenes where we were in because I was afraid of rejection.” loving, complicated, lived-in rapport that the room, watching on the monitors, and we Her fears didn’t manifest: The material combines friendship’s intimate shorthand felt like we really got that specific thing we was a hit. The thrill of the performance with the no-nonsense frankness of sisters— wanted.” lingered in the back of Ms. Orji’s mind, and and with the quickfire rhythm of two good a few months later she entered the D.C.’s comedians bouncing off each other. Funniest College Students competition. She “There’s an intimacy and a humor they For much of her life, Yvonne Orji had a more won the GW round and went on to do a set at bring to that friendship that isn’t like much predictable career path in mind than acting: the DC Improv comedy club. Each time, the else on TV, and for the viewer it feels like

“I was absolutely 100 percent going to be a pull of the stage got a little stronger and Ms. a privilege to be included in that,” says

46 / gw magazine / Spring 2017 Sonia Saraiya, the Variety TV critic. “The “That’s natural for stand-up performers,” arc of the show is about Issa and Molly, not says Mr. Penny. “When you’re onstage, it’s about them and some guy. It speaks a lot very physical. You’re playing to the back row, to the importance of female friendships, to the entire room. In television, the camera and especially to the importance of female is right there. If you arch an eyebrow, it friendships in this very specific world of There were a lot of seems gigantic.” black women who are college-educated.” As a stage performer, Ms. Orji is Ms. Rae and Ms. Orji, too, bonded over firsts on this show: particularly “big—big eyes, big hands,” she their shared position in the entertainment says. “The first few weeks of shooting was industry. “We had this mutual bond as black about the writers dialing me back and reeling girls in L.A. trying to be content creators,” It was Issa’s first me in. We had to find a balance.” Ms. Orji says. And when Insecure was picked In fact, she came to enjoy the process and up by HBO, Ms. Rae called her directly. the new skills it has afforded her. “Comedy’s “She said, ‘You’ll still have to audition, time being greenlit, low-hanging fruit for me, so I wanted to be but I think you’d be cool for this part,’” able to tap into drama,” she says. “I always Ms. Orji remembers. “I was just grateful to love those moments when I get to channel her for thinking of me.” it was my first different levels and emotions.” In fact, Ms. Orji admits, hiring her would But she still enjoys the chance to flex her be a risk. Despite her years of hustling in the major role, it was comic muscles. In one of the pilot’s funniest world of comedy and the viral success of First beats, after a climactic argument with Issa, Gen, which had attracted Oscar-nominated Molly tries to storm out of her best friend’s actor (and fellow Nigerian) David Oyelowo [director] Melina car—and is thwarted by the automatic as a producer, she had just two named acting lock. Ms. Orji improvised the moment, an credits on her résumé. opportunity she says she rarely gets on the “I hadn’t even done my Dick Wolf,” [Matsoukas]’s meticulously scripted show. she says, referring to the producer of the “I thought, what would be the most popular Law & Order franchise, on which epic fail for Molly at this very heightened many actors appear at the beginning of their first time doing moment?” she says. “Oh, getting stuck in the careers as crooks, witnesses and murder car. And it made it to the pilot!” victims. television. We all And even with Ms. Rae’s backing, the audition process was grueling. “I On the edge of the alcove in the Baltimore think we brought her back four times,” had the ability, Convention Center, it looks like another epic Mr. Penny recalls. “And every single time fail could be imminent. Hovering mid-lunge, she’d get better and make more interesting perilous heels a-twinkle, Ms. Orji is poised choices. I thought, if she’s doing this in an but we might not either to crash or to triumph. She pushes off, audition, with basically no direction, how wobbles, springs forward— great is she going to be when she has a have been given —and makes it. Without having chance to play with it?” compromised her choice of footwear. Months after that first call from Ms. Rae, “When the big stuff you envisioned for Ms. Orji finally got the news. She had the the opportunity to yourself starts manifesting, you’re almost part. like, ‘Is this really happening?’” Ms. Orji says “One thing I really appreciate about HBO, of this moment in her career: her show and about Issa, is that they want to provide advance. renewed, her first awards season under her opportunity,” she says. “There were a lot of belt, strangers recognizing her at the grocery firsts on this show: It was Issa’s store. “It’s like when you get a first time being greenlit, it was my report card: ‘Oh my god, I didn’t first major role, it was [director] fail?’ Melina [Matsoukas]’s first time “When you’re in the struggle, doing television. We all had the all you can think of is rising ability, but we might not have above it, what’s on the other been given the opportunity to side,” she says. “When you advance.” start walking on the other side of it, it’s hard to believe you’re walking in what you prayed Ms. Orji’s comedy background for. Everybody doesn’t get to was part of the reason she experience this moment. It was cast as Molly. “The blows my mind.” writers wanted somebody who Safely established on the wall understood comic timing,” in Baltimore, ready to shoot her she says. But it had its flip side. magazine cover, Ms. Orji dusts Accustomed to using the whole off her blazer, shakes out her stage as a comic, she had to adapt Yvonne Orji (left) and her Insecure hair, flashes a grin.

COURTESY HBO to television acting. co-star Issa Rae “No problem,” she says.

gwmagazine.com / 47 A BY-NO-MEANS-COMPLETE GUIDE TO GW ALUMS WORKING TO MAKE EVERY HOUR HAPPY This article was LONG FERMENTING.

We SCOURED and SEARCHED to compile A LIST

of GW COMMUNITY MEMBERS paying the bills by

MAKING OUR DRINKS. We found BREWERS, one CIDERIST,

DISTILLERS, VINTNERS, OWNERS, ENTREPRENEURS,

FOUNDERS and even ONE GUY who used

to refuel NUCLEAR AIRCRAFT CARRIERS.

THESE ARE some of their stories.

gwmagazine.com / 49 WOMEN IN was there, they hired probably another five Virginia, primarily refueling nuclear aircraft women, just in that time. So I’ve seen change carriers—a process that takes about four BREWING already. The brewing department staff is years and is performed halfway through a eight people, and two of them are women carrier’s 50-year lifespan. HIGHLAND BREWING COMPANY here at Highland, which is In 2014, Mr. Franklin, ASHEVILLE, N.C. awesome. a home brewer since 1996, quit his job to pursue a two- Hollie Stephenson, BA ’03, is the ranking What do you think decade-old dream and help brewer at Highland Brewing Company, a about how women, found Sugar Creek Brewing large, regional brewery in Asheville, N.C., traditionally, have been Co. in Charlotte, becoming making 45,000 barrels a year for multistate portrayed in beer- its head brewer. distribution. She formerly worked at Stone related media? The two fields—nuclear Brewing Co., a national brewery based in Maybe it’s not as [bad] as engineering and beer San Diego. bikinis and wet hair and making—are not as An ex-health and biomedical research spring break and all that, unrelated as they seem. lobbyist, Ms. Stephenson switched careers but how many women do you “I still have all these in 2011 at age 30 after getting a certificate actually see drinking beer in 500-gallon, up to in practical brewing in England. An IPA these commercials? That aren’t 3,000-gallon tanks,” enthusiast, she chatted with us about some object? Or see them, Mr. Franklin says, “but being the rare female brewmaster, how period? Or they aren’t some now they’re full of beer, the industry has changed since the days of object of a bar flirtation? whereas all the tanks I Old Milwaukee’s Swedish bikini team and dealt with before … they whether she’d ever like to strike You’ve worked contained, usually, some out on her own. exclusively at type of radioactive liquid waste.” established breweries, one At the shipyard, Mr. Franklin worked Is the industry national and one regional. Do on the carriers Dwight D. Eisenhower, Carl changing? you have plans to start your Vinson, Theodore Roosevelt, Abraham Just in the time own? Lincoln, Nimitz and Enterprise. The I’ve been in When I first got into this and eighth U.S. vessel to hold that name and beer, I’ve seen a started learning about beer commissioned in 1961, the Enterprise was the lot more young and first started working world’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. women being at Stone, I thought that Mr. Franklin started Sugar Creek with able to enter. My was my end goal. But then I a friend who had left the shipyard years predecessors … have realized that I like being at big earlier. They had money saved and had been horror stories about breweries. And operating your involved in business together, spending years getting laughed out own place is a lot of risk for, flipping and renting houses as a side hustle. of places, before potentially, not much reward At the brewery, Mr. Franklin works on the proliferation in a market that’s becoming yeast-centric Belgian and Belgian-inspired of schools that more and more crowded. beers, and he says brewing’s confluence of offered brewing … At Highland, I’ve been science and art is suited to his analytical educations. So able to put my own recipes in sort of creativity. And again, the leap from [let’s say] you’ve bottles. They’ve given me a refueling 1,200-foot nuclear aircraft carriers got a woman who lot of creative control over the to making beer? Not that far. randomly walks into a beer. For example, Highland hadn’t Accidentally blowing stuff up is a hazard brewery and asks if they released a new year-round beer in in both fields (one kind of explosion being can start helping you, 15 years, and [in 2016] we released considerably less survivable than the other), and you’ve got your dude three new core beers [the Highland and a lot of the equipment and processes are with the gut and the beard IPA (last year’s No. 2 seller), Highland basically the same. walking in, and somehow, Pilsner, the Mandarina IPA], all of “When you refuel a carrier, they can you know, he has the look— which were my recipes. So I’m getting shut down the reactor, but it’s still creating the credibility. But now that the best sides of it. heat until you get all that old fuel out,” there are so many brewing Mr. Franklin says. “So you have to put all programs, I think women the systems in place that take the place of have something to show for it the ship’s systems and keep the reactor safe when they walk in. THE NUCLEAR while you’re taking apart the ship. “All of those systems, they look very It sounds like there’s OPTION similar and they operate very similar to what been a leveling of the we have in the brewery. Everything I dealt playing field. SUGAR CREEK BREWING CO. with was stainless steel tanks, stainless steel I was probably, maybe, the CHARLOTTE, N.C. pipe, some flexible hoses that are almost third or fourth woman that identical to the beer hoses—the brewers had ever worked on the For 13 years, Todd Franklin, hoses that we drag around—inch-and-a-half brewery floor at Stone. And CERT ’14, worked as a nuclear engineer or two-inch hoses, centrifugal pumps and in the three years that I at Newport News Shipbuilding in solenoid valves.” TAP HANDLE: WILLIAM ATKINS / FRANKLIN: COURTESTY TODD FRANKLIN

50 / gw magazine / Spring 2017 “I WANTED TO CREATE SOMETHING THAT I HAD LIVING ABROAD BUT WAS UNABLE TO GET STATESIDE.”

ALL THINGS, it’s in the style of international ciders, which Mr. Bennett started making cider in his are less sweet than American iterations—is parents’ garage seven years ago from apple ESPECIALLY that something. juice and yeast. The first batch was “bone RESIDUAL SUGAR, “It’s crisper,” Mr. Bennett says of his cider. dry,” meaning it had no residual sugar. “It has a better balance between the acidity “I really liked it,” Mr. Bennett says. IN MODERATION and the flavor. There’s something about the His friends liked it less. So he added some sweet stuff that’s overwhelming. You can sugar, and just a few months later, he had BROOKS DRY CIDER only have one of them before you get a little the recipe that became Brooks Dry Cider, SAN FRANCISCO sick. So there’s something nice about being now made at a nearby (but undisclosed) able to have more than one cider in a night.” winery from a variety of crushed Brooks Bennett, born in dessert apples. He sold his first California but raised in batch in late 2014, joining a England, developed a growing craft-cider market taste for hard cider that is increasingly offering while growing up people something less sweet overseas and studying than Angry Orchard or abroad in South Africa. Woodchuck. Upon returning to the Today, there about 600 to United States full time, 700 cideries in the United he found it hard to scratch States, according to the U.S. his cider itch. Association of Cider Makers, So he started his own and a law loosening hard cidery. cider regulations, the CIDER “I wanted to create Act, took effect Jan. 1, 2017. something that I had “It’s kind of unbelievable, living abroad but was the growth that’s happened,” unable to get stateside,” Mr. Bennett says. “I don’t says the San Francisco- think anyone could have based Mr. Bennett, seen that. It was like, ‘Oh, BA ’09. wouldn’t it be cool if [cider]

CIDER: WILLIAM ATKINS / BEAR: LUKE DIXON Brooks Dry Cider— became totally normal?’”

gwmagazine.com / 51 usie Selby, MBA ’85, tells a story At this point, Ms. Selby had no tasting about the early days of her DIY room and sold no wine directly to consumers. indie Sonoma County winery and She relied on wine festivals and increasingly her late cat, Bob. effusive reviews from publications like Wine Since those days, she’s had Spectator to get national distribution while her wine served at the White making and storing her wine in a gloomy, House through three presidential rented warehouse that felt haunted. A administrations—Clinton, Bush man allegedly died there in the 1970s, and (W.) and Obama—and at the Ms. Selby says she and her employees heard Sundance Film Festival, developing footsteps and doors slamming while working a modest acquaintance with Robert Redford there late at night. in the process. But Selby Winery remained on tenuous But before all that, around the time she financial footing, and its proprietor, driven supported herself by working at another by self-preservation, continued to work her winery while building her own and sleeping second job at Rabbit Ridge Winery. There, only when time and ambition allowed, over five years, Ms. Selby learned the wine Ms. Selby was an upstart 30-something business and clambered up the Rabbit Ridge woman in yet another male-dominated depth chart from tasting room manager to industry. warehouse manager to cellar master and, SUSIE SELBY Enter Bob, Selby Winery general finally, assistant winemaker. manager, 1994-2013. Ms. Selby had no formal winemaking “I was doing a sales meeting about education, and working at Rabbit Ridge five years ago, and it was a distributor in compensated for that as she built cachet, Arizona whom I had been with forever,” drudging in the cellars and putting away her Ms. Selby says. “I said, ‘Do you have any MBA to lift wine casks and drive a forklift. THE INDIE questions?’ And he said, ‘Well, how’s Bob?’ “I could manage a group of guys—and And I had a cat named Bob. He was this they were all guys—because I had a [crucial] 26-pound Maine coon. He’s no longer with job, and you can’t effectively manage people me, but he was then. I said, ‘Oh my gosh, that if you’re not a key player and if you can’t do WINEMAKER is so sweet that you care about Bob.’ And he all the jobs,” Ms. Selby says. “So I was the said, ‘Is he still your general manager?’ And I first one there in the morning and the last started laughing.” one to leave at night. I would help them fill Wait, it gets better. barrels, crush grapes, rack and clean tanks, WHO MADE “In the old days,” Ms. Selby continues, whatever we were doing.” “they’d say we need to get a discount in She was the only woman there. order to sell your Chardonnay, and I’d say, “The owner was very, very good to me,” ‘Well, let me talk to Bob and get back to Ms. Selby says. “... He wasn’t sexist at all, IT TO THE you,’” Ms. Selby says. “And I’d come home and you still don’t see that many women on a and go, ‘Do I want to give them a discount?’ forklift or women doing that type of manual or whatever, and I’d call them back and say, work in wine country.” ‘You know, I’m really sorry, but Bob said Rabbit Ridge, in a very direct way, also is WHITE absolutely not.’ And so I had this pretend GM the reason her Chardonnays and Sauvignon named Bob who was my cat.” Blancs went to Washington. [laughing] One day in 1999, a guy who happened “My problem in a male-dominated to be the White House’s director of food HOUSE industry is I really don’t have typical male and beverage walked in for a tasting. characteristics,” Ms. Selby says. “I’m non- Ms. Selby emceed the usher’s wine flight confrontational. I’m emotional. I just have and answered his questions before going [traditionally] strong female characteristics; above and beyond and giving him a Susie Selby, MBA ’85, I always have. And it doesn’t make me the personal cellar tour. During that hour started her winery in greatest businessperson in the world—it and a half, Ms. Selby tactfully, if not a bit probably makes me a better winemaker. opportunistically, plugged the wine she made 1994 and for five years Once my dad passed away, there’s never at her then-fledgling haunted warehouse she worked at another been male involvement because I’ve avoided winery. winery just to keep hers partners and investors. So all I’ve ever had as “I didn’t realize who he was, and he a partner is my poor deceased cat, Bob, but came into the tasting room and was just a going. he ruled with an iron fist.” wonderful man,” Ms. Selby says. “He was Paw. Iron paw. Whatever. Anyway. interested in learning, and I asked him to Ms. Selby founded Selby Winery in 1994 come back so I could teach him more about with her father, David, a noted spine surgeon wine since he just had this new dream job. and lifetime wine buff who left as patrimony, And when I got a call from the White House, among other things, a love of wine. When I had no idea why they were ordering it.” Dr. Selby died in 1997, it forced Ms. Selby to The phone call came within six months

scramble. or so, and since then, Selby wine has been WINE BOTTLE: WILLIAM ATKINS / SELBY: MICHAEL ZAGARIS

52 / gw magazine / Spring 2017 poured for foreign leaders—including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair—as well as at Mr. Obama’s 49th birthday party. Ms. Selby says the Clintons and Bushes liked the Chardonnay, while the Obamas favored the Sauvignon Blanc. Years later, INSTITUTIONAL Ms. Selby went on a White House tour with KNOWLEDGE: The that usher, Daniel Shanks, and she asked why alcohol it took he picked her wine. America the longest “I said, ‘Do you always do this for your to conquer PAGE 80 winemakers?’” Ms. Selby says. “And he said, ‘No… you spent an hour and a half teaching me about wine, and it just was a big unsolicited act of kindness I’m happy I could repay some day.’” In 2000, Ms. Selby quit Rabbit Ridge to go full time at her winery. A few years later, she opened a new tasting room in a little box of a house she bought in downtown Healdsburg, Calif.—with a new, un-haunted production house just a few blocks down the road. At its high point, Selby Winery produced 28,000 cases of wine a year, but Susie Selby received now successful, Ms. Selby has scaled back this letter after the to 13,000 cases a year and picked up golf. White House served her Four summers in and she’s yet to break Chardonnay on a night 100, but she’s never sold out her indie when President George soul, eschewing all would-be business W. Bush hosted British partners after her father, except, of Prime Minister Tony Blair course, for Bob. for dinner.

Susie Selby in her winery’s production house in Healdsburg, Calif. AN OLD ITALIAN WINE RECIPE TURNS INTO… A CRAFT BREWERY?

QUATTRO GOOMBA’S ALDIE, VA.

Today, there are, according to the Brewers Association, more than 5,000 breweries in the United States, well-surpassing the pre-Prohibition high of 4,131 set in 1873. Jay DeCianno, MBA ’03, surveyed the market and decided there was room for one more. Ethan Applen is an owner “We’re on the tip of the iceberg,” and founder of Lakes says Mr. DeCianno, a co-founder and & Legends Brewing in co-owner of Quattro Goomba’s Winery Minneapolis. and Quattro Goomba’s Brewery in Aldie, Va. “We always say that.” From 2014 to 2015, 433 craft breweries opened in the United FINDING HIS Legends States, and, just since 2012, the & Lakes number of craft breweries has more than BELGIAN NICHE also dabbles doubled as laws passed after Prohibition’s with fruit- repeal in 1933, now antiquated, get LAKES & LEGENDS infused beers overturned in the blessed name of the free BREWING COMPANY as well as with market and job creation. MINNEAPOLIS saisons, which The wiping away of one such law come in seasonal allowed Mr. DeCianno to open Quattro Ethan Applen worked in business variations like Goomba’s Brewery in 2015. He hired development at Disney and Warner Bros. rosemary-juniper a home brewer who had worked in his for almost 20 years and, not surprisingly, and cucumber- winery tasting room to make the beer. took a market-based approach to opening mint. After a career designing weapons his brewery, Lakes & Legends Brewing “Those have systems for Marine Corps tanks, Company in Minneapolis. been some of our Mr. DeCianno and his partners opened “When you’re starting anything,” says most popular beers,” Quattro Goomba’s winery in 2008. Mr. Applen who spent four years at GW Mr. Applen says. Mr. DeCianno used a centuries-old before bolting home to California in 1996 to “We’ve learned that recipe from his Italian family to get it chase the dot-com boom, “it needs to address people are looking started, making the wine in his basement a problem or a need.” for alternatives, and and, starting in 2006, selling it in a Mr. Applen and his partners researched sometimes they are local Northern Virginia shop. Demand Minneapolis’ demographics (education and those IPA drinkers convinced him to open a tasting room. income levels, median house prices), its who are still looking to But he always had his eye on the geography (where weren’t there breweries?) find different beers.” expanding craft beer industry. Now he’s and, most importantly, its beers. Is market got the two-fer: a winery and a brewery. If They found that, just like the rest of the research punk rock? you count his pizzeria, which operates out country, India pale ales were No. 1, and in the Mr. Applen admits of the brewery, it’s the three-fer. APPLEN: COURTESTY ETHAN APPLEN / OTHERS: WILLIAM ATKINS process, determined the problem they would that it’s not. But he Mr. DeCianno says that while solve—the need they would address. also says that as the the West Coast craft beer scene “You’ve either got to have the best IPA craft-beer industry can be crowded, there still is plenty or the cheapest IPA because there’s already grows, there will be all of (tap) room in the East. 50 local IPAs in our market plus however kinds. “We’re far from saturated in this many international or national brands,” “There is room area, and there’s plenty of space, Mr. Applen says. “I think that this makes the for many different but you’ve got to manage it,” business that much harder. Some guys do it, things,” he says. “I he says. “You can’t just say, but I always say, ‘Look, we’ve got great IPAs think it’s just that ‘I’m gonna put in a hundred- here in Minnesota, so why make another?’” craft brewing is barrel brewhouse, and we’re So they didn’t, opting to focus on Belgian- still growing and going to move beer and take inspired beers, which also, serendipitously, maturing and over.’ You’ve to manage your aligned with Mr. Applen’s tastes. He had becoming what it’s growth and ease into it, do it home-brewed Belgian beers for years. gonna be.” all organically.”

54 / gw magazine / Spring 2017 “PEOPLE JUST WEREN’T EXPECTING TO FIND DRAFT BEER. THE PEOPLE WE WOULD SELL OUR BEER TO ARE LIKE ‘ARE YOU SURE THIS IS A GOOD IDEA? EVERYONE ELSE IS IN BOTTLES.’”

ON TAP AT MACHU Mr. Giammatteo says, has helped introduce Germans and Italians that immigrated draft beer to Ollantaytambo, the dusty post-World War II, and the same sort of PICCHU valley town of 2,500 where the brewery sits heritage can be found in Argentina and in an earthen villa under terracotta tiles. Chile—more of an Anglo-mixed heritage,” SACRED VALLEY Mr. Giammatteo says industrially bottled Mr. Giammatteo says. “Those people BREWING COMPANY beer is the norm in Peru because of limited tend to have had more brewing history or OLLANTAYTAMBO, PERU space in centuries-old buildings and the experience.” high cost of even low-tech equipment like Mr. Giammatteo says he got involved There’s a probably a screenplay—something refrigeration. Even at Sacred Valley Brewing, with the brewery as a consultant, came to a in the mode of Casablanca, but with freer must-haves like electricity aren’t always crossroads and just couldn’t let go. travel and less world war—to be written reliable. “I was also being asked to read over about Joe Giammatteo, BS ’05, and his “People just weren’t expecting to find résumés for potential head brewers,” he decision to help start a brewery in a little draft beer,” he says. “The people we would says, “and I was like, ‘Shoot, I can’t choose Peruvian village that sits 30 miles away from sell our beer to are like ‘Are you sure this is a somebody. I want to do it myself.’” Machu Picchu. good idea? Everyone else is in bottles.’” Sacred Valley Brewing Company Peruvian craft beer is barely in its (Cerveceria del Valle Sagrado in español) infancy, with fewer than 50 breweries opened on Halloween 2014 and in the years in existence. Even beer itself, since has become a veritable Rick’s Cafe, according to Mr. Giammatteo, serving locals, tourists and expats in a hand- doesn’t have a footprint because built outpost. the Spanish, a people with a “We’re a weird oasis,” says Mr. scant brewing tradition, Giammatteo, who, inspired by a backpacking settled Peru. trip through Peru, left a job at Oakshire “In Brazil, Brewing in Eugene, Ore., to learn Spanish there are a lot of and open Sacred Valley with childhood friend and native Peruvian Juan Mayorga (both attended high school in Bethesda, Md.). Sacred STOCK.COM/MPHILLIPS007 / GIAMMATTEO: COURTESTY JOE GIAMMATTEO Valley, BEER GLASS: i

Joe Giammatteo is a co- founder of Sacred Valley Brewing in Peru. He’s also the head brewer.

gwmagazine.com / 55 Steven Mirassou is the proprietor of Steven Kent Winery in Livermore, Calif. He also is the winemaker. MICHAEL ZAGARIS MICHAEL

56 / gw magazine / Spring 2017 STEVEN MIRASSOU Bordeaux varieties—Cabernet thesis on Willa Cather, got a master’s degree Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, in literature from New York University and Malbec, Merlot and Petit rereads The Great Gatsby on occasion, just to Verdot—about 40 miles see if he can find anything new in there. He is southeast of Oakland and about attuned to his winemaking ancestors, going all 40 miles inland from Santa the way back to the Mirassou patriarch, Pierre THE MIRASSOU Clara County where Mr. Pellier, in 1854, and nurses an immanent Mirassou’s ancestors in 1854 connection to what he now feels is a birthright. planted some of California’s Mr. Mirassou grew up playing in his first vineyards. Steven Kent— family’s vineyards and in their tasting rooms REDEMPTION the first and middle names decorated with pictures of dead Mirassou of Mr. Mirassou and his vintners. Those pictures now hang in his father—is a venture toward Steven Kent tasting room. And although Twenty years ago, sixth-generation a kind of atonement for what, in Steven Kent makes six wines, he designated winemaker Steven Mirassou confronted hindsight, seems more like a just one—his best, the $165 bottle—to selling out than a selling of the represent the Mirassou heritage. It’s a his lineage. Today, he defines it. family name. Bordeaux blend he dubbed Lineage. “The family had an opportunity “I don’t think I thought about Lineage to take advantage of certain situations at first as a way to redeem the family,” that it didn’t end up taking advantage Mr. Mirassou says. “I think it’s related to of,” Mr. Mirassou says. “When I think my thoughts of what ultimately happened about what the family accomplished over to Mirassou over the 150-some-odd years time, it’s sort of bittersweet in a way. The that it was in existence. I look at Lineage first mover—the first company into a certain as a separate thing now. Lineage is about industry usually has a gigantic advantage the Mirassou family from six generations teven Mirassou, BA ’86, is the over the people that come after them. We had forward, moving with, hopefully, a very Mirassou of that mass-produced an opportunity as a family to do significantly focused idea and a focused plan about what $10 wine you’ve seen everywhere, better and more in the business than what we it’s capable of accomplishing.” the one with the yellow label ended up doing.” For a while, it looked like and the Art Nouveau sun, that’s Mr. Mirassou admits that it’s strange Mr. Mirassou wouldn’t end up in wine. He kept cheaply and plenteously on to see his name on a bottle of wine says no one in the family pushed suburban supermarket shelves. that he didn’t make and that he the business on him, and it wasn’t That is not Mr. Mirassou’s doesn’t endorse, except to say that until his late 20s, spurred by wine. It hasn’t been since 2002, it’s fine for the price. The wine conversations with his father, that when his cousins sold the name Mr. Mirassou makes today starts he decided to start making wine. to Gallo—another patrician California at $65 and goes up to $165 for his Then, for Christmas in 1994, his wine family—and today the wine in those flagship. Mr. Mirassou’s mission father gave him that 70-year-old Mirassou bottles has nothing, other than today, which, when he talks about it, bottle, passed down from Mr. the name, to do with the wine the Mirassou sounds more like divine obligation, is Mirassou’s grandfather. It contained family made for five generations. to grow fruit in one great region and a California Angelica, a fortified “You can only have so many Gallo-labeled make one great wine. dessert-style white wine. bottles, so they buy other brands, like “If you are in the area that can Mr. Mirassou later recorked the Louis Martini, like Mirassou, so they could produce that kind of fruit,” says empty bottle so he could revisit have more facings on the store shelves,” Mr. Mirassou of the Livermore the smell of that wine. Mr. Mirassou says. Valley, “and you don’t choose “It just bespoke of time,” Between the selling of the family wine to do that, I think you’ve he says of the wine, which business and now, Mr. Mirassou has left wasted an opportunity, tasted like roasted nuts, the wine industry and returned. As a young wasted resources. And, if saddle leather, brandy, man, a romantic enamored with the East you want to be dramatic cherries and vanilla. “You Coast, he wanted to teach literature at a fancy about it, you’ve committed can smell the work that college and write novels. Two mind-numbing a little bit of a sin because went into the wine. It real jobs later (one in software and one in you’re supposed to take was just a very romantic municipal street sweeping) and one near- what you have and, as a moment for me at that religious experience drinking a 70-year-old winemaker, help to marshal point in time, and it was dessert wine from his grandfather’s private and shepherd this beautiful, one of those things that store, he’s back and trying to rewrite and, in a fragile thing to its ultimate said, ‘If you can feel [that sense, redeem his family’s oenological legacy. quality destiny. And if you way] about a simple “I wanted to get back to that original take shortcuts and you wine like this that was impulse, which was to make one great wine— don’t do that, you’re sinning not expensive and not one world-class wine, one iconic wine,” against something that highly regarded from a Mr. Mirassou says. “Or at least aspire to that.” should have been the goal.” production standpoint, In 1996, Mr. Mirassou and his father Mr. Mirassou’s grasp of then maybe you should be founded Steven Kent Winery in the the sentimental is firm. He looking at getting back in

WILLIAM ATKINS Livermore Valley, a wine region suited for wrote his undergraduate the business as an adult.’”

gwmagazine.com / 57 Julie Verratti is a co-owner/founder of Denizens Brewing Co. in WAITING IS Silver Spring, Md. THE HARDEST (AND MOST EXPENSIVE) THE BEER LOBBY that would have overturned the state supreme PART court’s 2003 pro-gay marriage ruling. Starting in fall 2013, Ms. Verratti loosed DENIZENS BREWING CO. BLACK BUTTON DISTILLING SILVER SPRING, MD. her lobbying fury on Montgomery County, ROCHESTER, N.Y. first going after a law that prevented production breweries without restaurants The dry pall of Prohibition still hangs over from having taprooms. That fell on July 1, Jason Barrett opened Black Button Distilling the American booze industry, even 84 2014, along with another law that forbade in 2014 in Rochester, N.Y., years after it years after the 21st Amendment dispirited booze merchants from self-distributing. became clear that he couldn’t go into the teetotalers everywhere. Ms. Verratti took that one down, too, 95-year-old family business—making high- States passed a web of regulatory laws crediting her experience in Massachusetts. end men’s suit buttons from water buffalo after Prohibition’s repeal, and many, just “That whole effort was about lobbying and horns—because he’s color blind. vestigial at this point, remain in effect today, getting legislators to change their mind in the “There was always a joke that if I did take frustrating would-be entrepreneurs and face of opposition,” says Ms. Verratti, who also over the family business,” Mr. Barrett says, retarding an industry that even politicians has testified before Congress in an effort to “we’d have to switch to only making black see as economically invincible. reduce federal excise taxes on craft breweries. buttons.” Julie Verratti, JD ’10, business Last year, Denizens produced 1,550 Mr. Barrett, who studied for an MBA development director and co-proprietor of barrels of beer—its most popular is the at GW before leaving early to open his Denizens Brewing Co. in Silver Spring, Md., is Southside Rye IPA; DBC also dabbles in sour distillery, talked with us about the agony of familiar with these laws. The former beer—up about 400 from the year before, opening a business predicated on waiting home brewer has fought them, and hosted Chelsea Clinton, who stopped years to sell your signature product. (Spoiler: changing two in Maryland that by during her mother’s 2016 presidential It worked out. Black Button took home a enabled her to more easily open her campaign. silver medal for its bourbon at the 2016 brewery and, subsequently, others to Owned by Ms. Verratti, her wife Emily American Craft Spirits Awards.) open theirs. Bruno and head brewer Jeff Ramirez, “There was no one working on Denizens also is one of the few majority- Bourbon takes years to mature. Is this but me,” Ms. Verratti says. “I female-owned breweries in the country and the wait terrifying? don’t think anyone was even thinking the only one in Maryland. And if not for a That creates a big cash-flow problem. How do about it.” little lobbying, Denizens, with its taproom you keep the lights on? How do you pay rent if Ms. Verratti is a veteran of the U.S. and self-distribution, may not have existed. you don’t have product to sell? And so, I guess Small Business Administration and “We would have been able to open the I could have taken two years, made whiskey a former field operative and lobbyist brewery and operate,” Ms. Verratti says, “but … and waited to come out. Then we would for MassEquality, which pushed to we wouldn’t have gotten our bank loan and be just a bourbon operation. But since we get same-sex marriage legalized in probably wouldn’t have been as successful needed positive cash flow, we started making Massachusetts and fought would-be as we have been because there were so many vodka and gin and moonshine, all of which

amendments to the state constitution restrictions on our model.” only take about two weeks to make. VERRATTI: COURTESTY JULIE VERRATTI / BOTTLE: WILLIAM ATKINS

58 / gw magazine / Spring 2017 ROOTS, RYE, “bizarre” and “wonderful.” “LISTEN. “In the moment, you feel like you’re in BOURBON communion with these people in 1830,” THIS IS Mr. Williams says of drinking Coppersea’s IMPORTANT COPPERSEA DISTILLING spirits. WEST PARK, N.Y. Among Coppersea’s roots-distilling STUFF, AND hallmarks is malting its own grain. The vast, Christopher Briar Williams, BA ’99, is of vast majority of distillers (and brewers) rely I REALLY the uncontroversial view that major whiskey on outsourced malt, which is grain that’s had distilleries—those multinational behemoths its starch converted to sugar by kickstarting NEED TO that each year produce millions of cases via the sprouting process. The sugar is then large-scale mechanized methods—make fermented into alcohol. GET IT good whiskey. Mr. Williams says that to give Coppersea’s Accepting that premise, it makes sense whiskey a “provenance,” they wanted it to RIGHT that his Coppersea Distilling in New York’s be entirely from the Hudson River Valley. Hudson River Valley went a different To ensure that, the distillery gets its grain BECAUSE I direction: “heritage” distilling. exclusively from the region. Then they malt “Why would we try to replicate their it themselves through “floor malting,” a SOLD MY process? Even on a small scale,” says Mr. labor-intensive practice largely killed off by HOUSE, Williams, Coppersea’s chief distiller, the Industrial Revolution. Aptly named, floor referring to the big name brands. “Why don’t malting is predicated on germinating the CASHED we try to find out what’s been lost? Why don’t grain on, surprise, a floor. Normally, malting we go back to the source material?—to the is done in a big vat. Floor malting involves IN MY original way they made whiskey in America turning the grain by hand with a shovel and try to understand what was so good that regularly for days. 401K, TOOK they decided they needed to scale it up to the “It’s really one of the most ancient forms level that it’s at now.” of biotech,” Mr. Williams says. “It’s a very EVERY At Coppersea, which specializes in simple, elegant process they’ve been doing bourbon and rye whiskey and opened for, really, thousands of years. Well, we said, PENNY I in 2012, Mr. Williams and his partners ‘How difficult can it be?’ And it turns out, it’s conducted a bit of alcohol archaeology to its own art form in and of itself.” HAD.” reconstruct lost methods. They searched While considering Coppersea’s philosophy 19th-century gazetteers and studied and methodology, it’s tempting to imagine its traditional-minded European and Mexican staff as the distilling equivalent of Civil War And you don’t even know if it’s distillers, while relying on good ol’ fashioned reenactors. So here Mr. Williams offers a going to taste good. trial and error to necromance disused caveat to the romance. That’s always frustrating on the bourbon techniques from beyond the grave. “We’re not like steampunks,” he says, with because, if you make a tweak in production, Coppersea’s diligence has led to, among a laugh. “We’re not going to work in period we can get the preliminary results in about other discoveries, the resurrection of dress. We have a direct-fired still, but we use six months, but we won’t really know the full green malt whiskey, a spirit made from propane because the fire is important, not effect it has on the final product for two to wet malt—dried malt is S.O.P.—and was the method of getting the fire. What we like four years. common, Mr. Williams says, in 1600s and to say is we make whiskey in the spirit of 1700s Scotland. He described making it traditional distillers.” Were you worried that the as “incredibly onerous” and the taste as bourbon might be awful? I don’t know that we were ever in danger of Christopher Briar Williams making a bad one. It was researched well is the chief distiller at enough that it wasn’t going to be a bad one; Coppersea Distilling in West it just wouldn’t have lived up to our goals and Park, N.Y. our expectations. I knew enough about the process when we got into this that we weren’t going to make something unpalatable. It was a question of whether it was going to be bland, good or great.

Your research included five distilling conferences and a master of distilling certificate. Did industry types find that excessive? They just looked at me like I’m crazy. And I’m like, “Listen. This is important stuff, and I really need to get it right because I sold my house, cashed in my 401K, took every penny

WILLIAMS: COURTESTY CHRISTOPHER BRIAR WILLIAMS I had.”

gwmagazine.com / 59 Alumni profiles ... class notes ... artists’ quarterAlumni news

p. 67// p. 69// p. 71// p. 72// Gosbee’s Packing A Vision of Chefs Goodbye for Oxford the Future D’oeuvre The president An alumnus A new surgery Honey bees and of the Alumni becomes the for the farsight- knife-wielding Association second ever ed might be the snakes: pay- looks back on GW-affiliated biggest thing ing homage to his term Rhodes scholar since LASIK chefs’ tattoos ALUMNI NEWS

[film] Transcendent Blues

Scott Rosenbaum, BA ’91, spent nearly a decade making his documentary, Sidemen: Long Road to Glory. Along the way he became a custodian of the legacy of three old bluesmen—and their friend. // By Matthew Stoss GETTY IMAGES/SMALLZ & RASKIND

60 / gw magazine / Spring 2017 Alumni news Alumni news CLASS NOTES // 60s & EARLIER Thomas A. Cseh, BA ’67, MA ’73, was appointed regional director for Andrews International’s Latin America operations, which are based in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. Andrews International is a private security and consulting firm. Ira Spar, MD ’68, RES ’75, authored Civil War Hospital Newspapers: Histories and Excerpts of Nine Union Publications (McFarland & Company, July 2015). The book examines the founding and development of internal Union hospital newspapers, written and published by patients, during the Civil War. Dr. Spar, a Vietnam veteran, serves on the board of the Society of Civil War Surgeons and is president of the Hartford (Conn.) Medical Society. Paul Spencer Sochaczewski, BA ’69, authored Distant Greens: Golf, Life and Surprising Serendipity On and Off the Fairway (Explorer’s Eye Press, August 2016), a collection of travel stories about golf courses that explores the reasons people love the game. // 70s Alan S. Nadel, BS ’71, JD ’76, a partner at the intellectual property law firm of Panitch Schwarze Belisario & Nadel LLP in Philadelphia, was recognized in the 2017 edition of The Best Lawyers in America. Gary S. Horan, MHSA ’73, was recognized in September by the Commerce and Industry Association of New Jersey with a Best Practice Award, which honors business leaders in New Jersey. Mr. Horan is the president and CEO of Trinitas Regional Medical Center, one of only three hospitals in New Jersey to be recognized. Bruce Merwin, BA ’73, partner at Thompson & Knight LLP, was recognized in the 2016 edition of Texas Super Lawyers and in the 2017 edition of The Best Lawyers in America for construction law and real estate law. Robert L. Sloan, MA ’73, is a former president and CEO of Washington, D.C.’s Sibley Memorial Hospital, where a 22-foot clock tower was named in his honor. Mr. Sloan led Sibley for 27 years. Howard L. Williams, LLM ’75, partner at Brooks Pierce, was recognized in the 2017 edition of The Best Lawyers in America. Gary Kirkbride, MURP ’76, an urban planner in Dewberry’s Fairfax, Va., office, was appointed chairman of the Northern Virginia Conservation Trust board. The organization advocates for public land and appropriate land use. Phyllis Chestang, MBA ’77, has authored more than 50 books, most recently ways into a three-hour conversation on his nth cup of coffee and describing how Changes: Principles of Social Change about his labor-of-love-and-anguish he, just some guy from Long Island, a Wall (CreateSpace, June 2016) and Wooden documentary blues film, Scott Street trader-turned-filmmaker, came to Nickels, Principles of Corporate Finance (Phyllis Chestang, April 2016). The books Rosenbaum’s blood-caffeine level be a custodian of the legacies of three dead are available on Amazon. She is pursuing is pushing what would be the legal bluesmen: pianist Joseph “Pinetop” Perkins, her PhD in management and decision limit, if New York City saw fit to have drummer Willie “Big Eyes” Smith and sciences. one. guitarist Hubert Sumlin. George Brent Mickum IV, BA ’78, is general counsel for ERP Compliant Fuels CONRAD KOCHEK The 47-year-old 1991 GW grad is “The one thing they said to me over and

gwmagazine.com / 61 Alumni news

over,” Mr. Rosenbaum says, “just in casual conversation, in a formal interview or just sitting in a hotel room at 3 in the morning after a show, was they just want their legacy to be passed on. And that’s why, when they passed, it made this whole thing certainly a lot more important, and in a way, a burden.” Mr. Rosenbaum’s sturdy, tattooed form is in a swivel chair at the head of an office table as the surrounding Flatiron neighborhood goes dark on the first week of 2017. He’s looking through black-frame glasses and sitting like a drummer because he is one, in a room that’s basically a terrarium for an increasingly common species of human that’s defined by conference calls. “Now, I could have blown it off,” he continues. “But not really.” This all started when Mr. Rosenbaum got Mr. Perkins, Mr. Smith and Mr. Sumlin to appear in his first feature-length film, The Perfect Age of Rock ‘n’ Roll, which starred Peter Fonda and came out in 2009. Steve Conte of the New York Dolls scored the film. A working relationship with the old bluesmen evolved into a friendship, and later, Mr. Rosenbaum, inspired by Martin Scorsese’s The Last Waltz, a concert film featuring the Band, started making a concert film of his own about Mr. Perkins, Mr. Smith and Mr. Sumlin, who played in the bands of legendary Chicago bluesman Muddy Waters and/or Howlin’ Wolf. Toni Ann Mamary, Mr. Sumlin’s longtime acquaintances, agents and managers. He Eight arduous years later, that film, manager and caretaker. “How do I put it? even helped book, put on and finance the Sidemen: Long Road to Glory, has morphed Just to hear his voice, to hear him play—and four concerts featured in the film—they cost twice, first from a concert film to a concert Scott’s photography—it was just ethereal to about $60,000—once sitting in on drums film interspersed with interviews and then me.” during a performance of “Built For Comfort,” to its current, final incarnation: a straight Since its debut, Sidemen has been a Howlin’ Wolf song. documentary. Access to the musicians shown at more than two dozen film and But through all of it, Mr. Rosenbaum became (they were often tightly controlled by music festivals, including Bonnaroo friends with Mr. Perkins, Mr. Smith and handlers) and then their deaths in 2011— and Glastonbury, as the indefatigable Mr. Sumlin. He accompanied them to Mr. Smith was 75; Mr. Sumlin was 80; Mr. Rosenbaum has fought for funding, for the Grammys and stayed up with them Mr. Perkins was 97—forced the format distribution and to keep dying promises to in hotels after gigs, talking blues and switch. three old men. telling stories all night. Mr. Smith hugged “Looking back on it, we made a much “From the beginning, I could feel this Mr. Rosenbaum whenever they met, better film that we would have made if we guy’s mission,” Mr. Sharrard says. “Even just and by the end, Mr. Rosenbaum visited did the concert [film],” Mr. Rosenbaum says. talking to him on the phone, I could feel the Mr. Sumlin in the hospital and stood “It wouldn’t have been a film that transcends mission in his voice.” graveside at Mr. Perkins’s funeral. blues audiences.” Sidemen has consumed Mr. Rosenbaum’s “We had some pretty incredible The 77-minute movie is narrated by 40s, his creativity and about $150,000 of experiences over a short period of time,” comedian Marc Maron and features his bank account, leaving hairline cracks in Mr. Rosenbaum says. “It was just a moment interviews with Joe Perry, Bonnie Raitt, his sanity. He is the director. He is a co- in time that I’ll never forget. It was just one of Warren Haynes, Joe Bonamassa, Derek writer and co-producer. He is the principal those times when the universe opens up and Trucks, Greg Allman and Greg Allman Band photographer, sound guy, lighting guy, you know you’re in the middle of something guitarist Scott Sharrard, among other rock researcher, interviewer, fact checker, unique and special, and you’re enjoying it. stars. Sidemen premiered in 2016 at South financier, marketer—hell, even caterer. He’s And then, it was gone.” By Southwest, where it was well-received by traveled the planet, first to shoot the film critics, spectators and those who knew the and then to promote it and screen it, talking bluesmen best. with dozens and dozens of musicians over The sideman, in the argot of musicians, is a

“I saw Hubert coming alive again,” says four years as well as the bluesmen’s families, guy who backs the guy. Some guys transcend PERKINS: JEROME BRUNET / SUMLIN: SANDRO MILLER

62 / gw magazine / Spring 2017 Alumni news CLASS NOTES

LLC, Seneca Coal Resources LLC and Seminole Coal Resources LLC. These from left Pinetop Perkins, companies operate metallurgical coal Hubert Sumlin, Willie “Big mines in the United States and abroad. Eyes” Smith He has practiced law for 32 years in Washington, D.C., as a partner in several large law firms and also worked for the U.S. Senate, Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice. Mr. Jagger and Mr. Richards paid for Paul Ried, MBA ’78, president of Paul R. his funeral—and he came the closest Ried Financial Group, LLC, in Bellevue, to breaking out of the sideman caste. Wash., was named one of America’s Top Ultimately, though, his quiet disposition 200 wealth advisors for 2016 by Forbes. and lifelong reliance on others, notably Ali Eskandarian, BS ’79, PhD ’87, and Jennifer Chub, PhD ’09, authored Logic Howlin’ Wolf, to survive day to day held and Algebraic Structures in Quantum him back. Computing and Information (Cambridge University Press, February 2016), “He was so sweet,” which explores themes ranging from Mr. Rosenbaum says. “It was like sitting the philosophical examination of the with your grandfather.” foundations of physics and quantum logic to the exploitation of the methods and Mr. Sumlin joined Howlin’ Wolf’s structures of operator theory, category band—known for its pure, rhythmic theory and knot theory in an effort to gain power, one-chord songs and treating insight into the fundamental questions in quantum theory and logic. every instrument like a drum—as its Chris Formant, MBA ’79, authored lead guitarist in 1955. He developed a Bright Midnight (Astor + Blue, November father-son relationship with the man 2016), a thriller that follows Gantry Elliot, who was born Chester Burnett and died an investigative writer for Rolling Stone and a relic of the rock and roll era, as he at age 65 in 1976, and between 1955 and uncovers the truth behind the mysterious then, Mr. Sumlin would conjure the death of six iconic rock stars. riffs to some of Wolf’s most iconic songs, especially “Killing Floor” and “Smokestack Lightnin’.” // 80s Jimi Hendrix made a frenetic cover of Richard Carson, MA ’80, a professor of economics in the University of California- “Killing Floor” a mainstay of his live sets, San Diego Division of Social Sciences, and “Smokestack Lightnin’” is a blues was named a fellow at the American Association for the Advancement of standard thanks to a dark and smooth Science. driving Sumlin riff that’s as virile as any Eric Federing, BA ’82, directed press the label that can be a pejorative to tetchier finger-picked by man or god. That’s probably information center operations at the musicians, but it’s rare. Jimmy Page started why Viagra featured the song in a 2011 2016 Democratic National Convention as a studio guitarist before becoming his commercial. in Philadelphia. This was Mr. Federing’s sixth convention as the press information own entity in Led Zeppelin, cultivating a star In Sidemen, Bonnie Raitt says that Mr. center operations director and seventh value equal to that of frontman Robert Plant. Sumlin’s guitar solo in “Three Hundred convention in PIC ops management. Similarly, Keith Richards would probably Pounds of Joy” may be the greatest ever. Maria Rodriguez, BBA ’82, president object if someone called him Mick Jagger’s “Hubert Sumlin, he was the key man and co-founder of the Washington, D.C.-based public relations firm sideman. in the Howlin’ Wolf band, which is one of Vanguard Communications, was Mr. Page and Mr. Richards are exceptions. the greatest bands in the history of electric inducted into the National Capital Public Relations Hall of Fame in Willie Smith, Pinetop Perkins and Hubert blues,” Mr. Wald says. “One of the things September. Sumlin are the rule. that’s tricky about that is that it was not a Nip Rogers, BA ’83, MFA ’87, held an art “They’re always the reality of any kind band about instrumental soloists. It was a show, “A New Hello,” at A Point of View of music,” says Elijah Wald, a blues and band about backing Wolf and just having this Gallery in Lake Placid, N.Y. The show, folk musician and historian who authored, incredibly funky, joint-rhythmic attack—and which opened in October, featured pages from his personal journals and work from among other books, Escaping the Delta Sumlin, he was the key guy.” time spent in Malaysia, Kenya and the (HarperCollins, 2004), which uses legendary Neither Mr. Perkins nor Mr. Smith, while Adirondacks. Delta bluesman Robert Johnson as an entrée prolific and members of various iterations Michael Chua, BS ’85, a bridge engineer, was promoted to senior associate at STOCK.COM/ORDERFINISHEDART i to blues history. “I mean, the names that you of Muddy Waters’s band, are as highly Dewberry’s Fairfax, Va., office. know are the handful of front people, but the regarded as Mr. Sumlin—although they did Philip Gentry, BA ’85, the dental music that people were actually listening to win Grammys while Mr. Sumlin came up consultant to GW athletics, was appointed and dancing to was the music of the sidemen. empty on four nominations. And despite the to the dean’s faculty at the University of The sidemen are the reality of any scene. No. 43 spot on Rolling Stone’s “100 Greatest Maryland School of Dentistry, where he is a clinical assistant professor. He has been The front people are just the people who are Guitarists” list, Mr. Sumlin’s also not in in private practice for more than 27 years remembered and collect the checks.” the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Campaigns in Arlington, Va. Of the three blues musicians Scott have been and are being waged to change Steven Wyman, BA ’85, put together “The Rosenbaum profiles in his documentary, that, but Mr. Perkins and Mr. Smith remain Confluence of the Corcoran and GW and the Ripples Felt Far Away in Maine,” an Sidemen: Long Road to Glory, en bloc with the thousands of sidemen art show that will run from May 18 to Oct.

JEROME BRUNET / LIBERTY BELL: Mr. Sumlin is the most acclaimed— wiped faceless by the fat shadows of their

gwmagazine.com / 63 Alumni news

“We had some pretty incredible experiences over a short period of time. It was just a moment in time that I’ll never forget. It was just one

above Hubert of those times when Sumlin (left) and Howlin’ the universe opens up Wolf in 1964 below Pinetop and you know you’re Perkins and Scott Rosenbaum in the middle of in 2010 something unique and special, and you’re enjoying it. And then, it was gone.”

frontmen. a nine-month span in 2011, leaving 13 but never had the confidence, support “In a sense, they’re underrated as Mr. Rosenbaum with a flagging, cash-poor or wherewithal to pursue. He says he knew individuals,” Mr. Wald says. “The work they passion film just 40 percent done. about dozen people killed in the World Trade did? Not so much.” “I think it was almost haunting Scott,” Center attacks and that he walked through says close friend Jasin Cadic, a Sidemen co- the towers no less than an hour before the writer and co-producer who is the lead singer first plane hit. To get Sidemen: Long Road to Glory funded, of Panzie, a New York-based goth-metal band “I said, ‘I’ve thought about doing this for made and distributed, it feels like Scott known for its theatrical live show. “He had my whole life, and you know, if something Rosenbaum’s been pushing a snow boulder promised them that he would tell their story like that doesn’t point out that tomorrow barefoot up a volcano on the hottest day … and Scott was doing this mostly by himself is promised to no one, then nothing will,’” in July—but it’s also hailing and the snow at that point.” Mr. Rosenbaum says. “So I said, ‘I’m going to boulder costs half a million dollars, eight Mr. Rosenbaum’s only formal filmmaking write that screenplay that I always wanted to years of your life and the favorite chamber of training consists of brief stints working write, even if it’s nothing but toilet paper.’” your heart. with, first, the late Broadway director Gene In the years after 9/11, First, the self-taught filmmaker couldn’t Frankel and then Spike Lee. A friend of a Mr. Rosenbaum spent his sunrises writing make The Last Waltz-style “grand finale” friend in the movie business got the script a screenplay in a downtown New York deli. WOLF: BRIAN SMITH / PERKINS AND ROSNEBAUM: COURTESY SCOTT ROSENBAUM concert film he wanted because he, that would be The Perfect Age of Rock ‘n’ Roll Then, at 7:15 a.m., he would go to work as a ’ admittedly, as an upstart industry prole, into Mr. Lee’s hands. He liked it and took Wall Street trader at Troster Singer, since lacked the directorial and financial prestige Mr. Rosenbaum to Italy as an assistant during absorbed by Goldman Sachs. He was driven to lure the name-brand rock stars he wanted the filming of 2008’s Miracle at St. Anna. by regret and purpose. He still is. It’s just that to help him fete Pinetop Perkins, Willie Mr. Rosenbaum quit Wall Street in the purpose comes from somewhere else. Smith and Hubert Sumlin. 2005 after 9/11 inspired him to chase the Pinetop Perkins, Willie Smith and Hubert

Then those bluesmen all died in filmmaking career he’d wanted since age Sumlin are just shy of Greek myths to Mr. SUMLIN AND HOWLIN

64 / gw magazine / Spring 2017 Alumni news CLASS NOTES

15 at Thos. Moser in Freeport, Maine. The show features the work of Corcoran and Rosenbaum—Classical heroes given souls by Southard, who also manages Tim Reynolds, GW graduates and teachers who have spent time in Maine and may have taught the witching hour pluck of a Mississippi Delta the lead guitarist in the Dave Matthews Band, or learned at one of the state’s seasonal low E string. Magic and mystery are helixed “because he’s not going to make a lot of money art schools. The show also includes Maine thick in blues history, and even though most on a documentary, and his ego has been artists who showed work at the Corcoran. of that comes from the self-promotion of smacked around because of all of this.” David Poyer, BA ’86, authored Onslaught: the early 20th-century itinerant bluesmen Mr. Cadic also knew Mr. Rosenbaum was not The War with China—The Opening Battle (St. Martin’s Press, December 2016), a and the hardline-but-mystical Christian just another guy looking to exploit the fame and novel. The most recent entry in a long- religious culture that rejected them, the name of an old bluesman. And in 2012, when running series, it chronicles Capt. Dan Lenson’s latest challenge as the U.S. Navy stories of devil’s music and Faustian bargains a lack of resources and money got Sidemen struggles to hold Taiwan, Korea and Japan remain alluring. They certainly are to Mr. stuffed in a box, Mr. Cadic reminded him. against a massive Chinese offensive and Rosenbaum. “I think he would’ve felt sad if he didn’t prevent the country’s domination of Asia and the Western Pacific. He found the blues just before middle finish the film,” Mr. Cadic says. “And I think school through the British rock bands who these guys entrusted what became the last Lisa Darsonval-Amador, BAccy ’87, is the founder of Santa Barbara built their sounds on an Americana armature three years of their lives to him.” Matchmaking, a discreet, upscale dating of 12 bars and dominant sevenths. From Mr. Cadic rallied Mr. Rosenbaum after service in California. The company offers matchmaking, date-coaching and events there, Mr. Rosenbaum reverse engineered the deaths of Mr. Perkins, Mr. Smith and for attractive, successful, commitment- what would become a blood-felt reverence for Mr. Sumlin to finish the documentary and minded singles who are “great catches” the music and its musicians that went beyond came on board as a co-writer and co-producer, and able to be very selective about whom they date but have not found a match the draw of the darkly embellished histories joining a crew that also included Tony Grazia, through conventional dating. of Robert Johnson and Skip James. a legit Hollywood producer who worked for Randolph E. Gross, BA ’87, completed When Mr. Rosenbaum saw Muddy Waters Relativity studios and has served as a mentor his PhD in nursing science at the City perform “Mannish Boy”—the impossible-to- to Mr. Rosenbaum. Mr. Rosenbaum just University of New York Graduate Center in New York City. His dissertation, “Warmth turn-up-too-loud version off the “Hard Again” calls him the “adult in the room.” They also & Competence Traits: Perceptions of album opens Sidemen—in The Last Waltz, hired Bo Mehrad as editor and then went Female and Male Nurse Stereotypes,” Mr. Rosenbaum’s blues devotion clarified. about making the missing 60 percent in real examined the stereotypes and major barriers to the recruitment of intelligent “I was just blown away,” he says. time, doing research and traveling to film and compassionate women and men into As a student of music history and as interviews. They landed Marc Maron—who the nursing field. a musician, Mr. Rosenbaum knew what they knew, as fans of Mr. Maron’s WTF David Hildebrand, PhD ’87, was one happened to a lot of older sidemen, not podcast, loves the blues—to narrate and of 17 scholars awarded a three-month residential fellowship for the 2016-17 just the ones who played blues. They were they got most of Mr. Rosenbaum’s rock star academic year at Mount Vernon’s Fred ripped off and used, not paid by promoters interview wish list. They filled in the blanks W. Smith National Library for the Study or bandleaders and thrown out when with archival footage when they couldn’t of George Washington. His research topic is titled “Interpreting their frontmen faded, fell away or died. It make it work with rock ‘n’ roll royalty like Washington through Music: happened to Mr. Perkins and Mr. Sumlin. Eric Clapton and Keith Richards, and paid Continued Studies of Sources “They would just be living in these for the footage as well as the licensing fees and Applications.” housing developments … and people would for the documentary’s music with a $225,000 Camille W. Hill, JD ’88, of Bond, Schoeneck & King know that they were there, and they would go Kickstarter campaign. PLLC, was recognized in in and just steal [stuff],” Mr. Rosenbaum says. The final distribution details are the 2017 edition of The Best Lawyers in America. “They were truly babes-in-the-woods-type still being worked out for Sidemen, but She specializes in musicians where the only thing that really Mr. Rosenbaum says the film will be out in late commercial bankruptcy had focus in their minds was the art and summer or early fall. and reorganizations, creditors’ rights, and playing. They couldn’t really manage on a “This is a relatively short journey, although banking and commercial day-to-day basis and they had all kinds of it feels long to me,” Mr. Rosenbaum says of the transactions. people who either took care of them or took eight years he’s put into Sidemen, during which Michael DeWitt, BA ’89, was appointed advantage of them, and it was pretty sad.” he’s made money by directing commercials. senior vice president and regional director of the Community Preservation Hugh Southard, the owner of Charlotte- (His wife, Elyssa, owns Revival Boutique, a Corporation, a nonprofit specializing based Blue Mountain Artists, was the agent of vintage clothing store on Long Island.) “But in lending to multifamily projects that Mr. Perkins, Mr. Smith and Mr. Sumlin and compared to their five, six, seven decades revitalize neighborhoods. He will head the Buffalo, N.Y., office. said the musicians, especially Mr. Perkins, in the music business getting kicked, being Lori Sheerin, MA Ed ’89, launched Autism were initially suspicious of Mr. Rosenbaum. disrespected, not getting paid and all the Services of Southern Colorado in June Mr. Southard also had questions about Mr. slights they’ve suffered, it’s not.” 2016. The agency provides DIR/IDI PLAY Rosenbaum’s motives, wondering if he was The three-hour conversation is about done. Project Autism therapy. Other services include early intervention, developmental doing it for ego or money. Mr. Rosenbaum’s Mr. Rosenbaum’s third-floor office, standing therapy, consultation and advocacy. respect for the bluesmen and drive to make half a block from the site of two razed Madison Alan G. Petersen, MFS ’89, a crime the film, even at great personal expense, Square Gardens, is dark and empty now. He’s scene analyst with the Las Vegas proved he wasn’t—and the fact that making still sitting like a drummer in the terrarium Metropolitan Police Department, received an associate’s degree in commercial an esoteric documentary with no financial swivel chair and drinking coffee. He says don’t photography and a certificate in fire backing probably wasn’t the best way to pad a worry about all this taking so long. investigation from the College of bank account or nurture self-esteem. “No, it’s all good, man. I don’t mind. It’s Southern Nevada. He also became a certified forensic photographer “It couldn’t be money or ego,” says Mr. kind of cathartic.”

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[celebrations] Happy Birthday, George Since 2010, alums across the planet have celebrated George Washington’s birthday. Here’s a by-the-numbers look at George’s big day in 2017.

George—surveyor, general, president, cherry tree enthusiast—was born Feb. 22, 1732, so he just turned 285. More than 1,500 alums in seven countries threw birthday bashes for the university’s namesake. The countries: the United States, Brazil, China, India, Japan, Kazakhstan and the United Kingdom. The celebration spanned 38 cities, 30 domestic and eight abroad, notably Rio de Janeiro, Beijing, Hong Kong, London, Shanghai and Tokyo.

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with the International Association for Identification. The President’s Farewell

Jeremy Gosbee, BA ’98, MBA ’02, looks back on his term

Fellow GW Alumni, PLEASE JOIN US // 90s It’s hard to imagine, but, in a few short weeks, my term as GWAA ANNUAL MEETING Donna Balaguer, BA ’91, principal at Fish president of the GW Alumni Association will come to an & Richardson in Washington, D.C., was end. As we approach this leadership transition, I thought DATE named a “Cybersecurity & Data Privacy I’d share a few of our recent accomplishments. Thursday, June 8, 2017 Trailblazer” by The National Law Journal. TIME Liliane Blom, BA ’91, a digital painter We created the Colonials Helping Colonials Fund, a 6:30-9 p.m. and installation artist, opened $100,000 endowment that will provide financial support PLACE “Pink—A Cherry Blossom Fantasy,” a to GW students pursuing unpaid internships. For more Elliott School of 2,500-square-foot installation, on Dec. information, check out 2 at Visarts in Rockville, Md. The show go.gwu.edu/kacifapp. International Affairs, was recognized on ChristiesRealEstate. We created an outreach program that encourages GWAA City View Room com and CultureSpotMC.com. For more board members to make one-on-one connections with 1957 E St. NW information, visit LilianeBlom.com. students and graduates in an effort to foster greater Washington, D.C., 20052 Ed Moser, MA ’91, authored The Two-Term involvement with alumni and the university. Jinx: Why Most Second-Term Presidents REFRESHMENTS Stumble, and How Some Succeed We have adopted board resolutions to speak out on Yes (CreateSpace, March 2016). The book— behalf of our alumni community (giving grads a bigger FOR MORE INFORMATION which is volume one—is an account of the voice on campus) and to recognize accomplishments alumni.gwu.edu/ presidencies of two-term chief executives across the university. Recently, the GWAA advocated from George Washington to Theodore on campus for mental-health services and the Veterans events Roosevelt. It details how most two- Community Center. termers have had unsuccessful or unlucky second terms. We streamlined the GWAA Grant Program, which provides $30,000 in annual support to campus departments and student organizations looking to create connections with alumni Brian Steuber, BAccy ’92, was admitted as a partner at Moss Adams LLP in Silicon and fund reunion events. For more information, check out go.gwu.edu/gwaagrant. Valley, Calif. We have continued to recognize accomplished and dedicated alumni through our Patricia Barrera, MA ’93, is a victim Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award and Alumni Outstanding Service Awards. In 2016, services specialist at the Portland Police we honored, among others, Baroness Joanna Shields (the U.K. Minister for Internet Safety Bureau and works on cold sexual assault and Security), Metropolitan Museum of Art President Daniel Weiss and U.S. Army Surgeon cases. The position is the result of the General Nadja West. It was the 80th year of the awards. national Sexual Assault Initiative, a grant program intended to address the Your alumni association has been working hard to build a worldwide alumni community, to growing number of sexual assault kits in law-enforcement custody and to provide give it a voice and to develop a culture of philanthropy. All this work was done by volunteer resolutions for victims. members of the GWAA board of directors—a group of talented and dedicated alumni that I’m Adam Low, BBA ’93, was appointed chief tremendously pleased to have worked with these past two years. I thank each of them for all revenue officer of Athletico Physical they’ve contributed on your behalf. Therapy in Oak Brook, Ill. Shirl Hendley, MS ’94, of Chesapeake Beach, Md., was elected to the American At our upcoming annual meeting, I will pass the gavel to my successor, Venessa Perry, Legion Auxiliary Foundation’s board of MPH ’99, but I’ll remain on the GWAA board for one more year as immediate past president. directors during the ALA’s 96th national I look forward to Venessa’s leadership and I hope you’ll join me in supporting her. convention, which was held in Cincinnati from Aug. 26 to Sept. 1. The ALA is a women’s patriotic service organization. Serving as president of your alumni association has been my great honor and pleasure. We Ms. Hendley will serve a three-year term. often say that this is an exciting time at GW, but I can’t help but feel this is especially true Max Klau, BA ’94, is the chief program today. We have so much to look forward to in the years to come: the officer at the New Politics Leadership Academy, a non-partisan, nonprofit arrival of a new president this summer, a bicentennial celebration organization focused on recruiting and STOCK.COM/JAYSONPHOTOGRAPHY i in 2021, and each year, another group of outstanding GW training alumni of service programs—like graduates that will join our worldwide alumni community, now the Peace Corps—to run for political office. Mr. Klau’s first book, Race and Social nearly 280,000-strong. Change: A Quest, A Study, A Call to Action (Jossey-Bass, March 2017), analyzes the dynamics of race and social change by Thank you for your support of our alma mater and your fellow using social science and empiricism. Colonials. Paul C. Harris, JD ’95, a former Virginia legislator—he was the first black With best wishes, Republican elected to the General Assembly since 1891—and senior Justice Department official, was appointed senior vice president at Hampton University (Va.). Jeremy Gosbee, BA ’98, MBA ’02 Darren V. Roman, JD ’96, joined Snell & GW Alumni Association president Wilmer’s Orange County, Calif., office as counsel in its commercial finance group. GOSBEE: WILLIAM ATKINS / POLICE TAPE:

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Kiki McGrath, MA ’97, held an art show in February at the Studio Gallery in Washington, D.C. The exhibition, “Aerial Roots,” was based on the Japanese art of flower arranging and explored the relationship between painting and sculpture. Ms. McGrath is a curator at the Wesley Theological Seminary, also in D.C. Rishi Nangia, BA ’97, BS ’97, launched Syde, a daily fantasy sports mobile app that lets sports fans pit athletes against each other in pre-selected one-on-one matchups. It takes less than 10 seconds, doesn’t require drafting a team and pays cash if you win. Calvin K. Woo, JD ’98, an attorney at Verrill Dana in Westport, Conn., was recognized in the 2016 edition of New England Super Lawyers and Rising Stars for his work in business litigation. Heath Brown, MA ’99, PhD ’05, authored Immigrants and Electoral Politics (Cornell University Press, November 2016), which explores the voting behavior [scholarships] and power of immigrants as well as the role of immigrant-serving nonprofit organizations in electoral politics. Dr. Brown is an assistant professor of public policy at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in the City University of New York. One for the Kim Gatling, JD ’99, a partner at Smith Moore Leatherwood and based in the firm’s Greensboro, N.C., office, was elected to the North Carolina Humanities Council. She will serve a three-year term. AnnaLisa Nash, BA ’99, the North Dakota Rhodes manager of Global Trade and Compliance for Bobcat/Doosan, was selected as one of Prairie Business magazine’s top 40 Alumnus prepares to head to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar business professionals under 40. // By Kurtis Hiatt // 00s At 22, Josh Pickar has graduated early from He studied at GW Law for a year before Juan Carlos Flamand, BA ’00, JD ’03, high school, blitzed through GW in two transferring to the University of Chicago. joined Hammond Law Group, PLLC, where years and is in his final year of law school There, he has worked with the International he will manage the firm’s Phoenix office. at the University of Chicago. Service trips Refugee Assistance Project, advocating He represents employers and foreign nationals in immigration matters. abroad, fluency in a handful of languages successfully for an LGBT Iraqi refugee’s and academic honors fill his résumé. Now relocation to the U.S., after the refugee was Andrew Kaver, BA ’00, joined the Los Angeles office of DR Welch. Mr. Kaver he’ll need to find room for one more: Rhodes assaulted by his family and exiled. He was specializes in business transactions Scholar. granted asylum in August. for the firm’s clients, which include government officials, municipalities and In November, Mr. Pickar, BA ’14, was Mr. Pickar speaks fluent Russian, French marijuana dispensaries. among the 32 men and women in the and Spanish, and he’s learning German, Kevin Rubin, BBA ’00, MS ’01, was named U.S.—and just the second ever with a GW Italian and Arabic, translating an initial a partner at Boyd Collar Nolen & Tuggle, a affiliation—selected for the prestigious interest in grammar and the systems of divorce and family law firm in Atlanta. scholarship, which covers all expenses to language into a means for understanding Soneyet Muhammad, BBA ’02, is the study at the University of Oxford in England. other cultures. director of education at Clarifi, a nonprofit devoted to providing financial-consulting When he arrives in the fall, he plans to “In order to be an effective policy services to low-income families pursue a Master of Philosophy degree in or lawmaker, you have to be able to throughout the Greater Delaware Valley. international relations. communicate with other people,” he says. Kurt M. Saunders, LLM ’02, a professor of At GW, Mr. Pickar majored in “So I hope to be able to use languages to business law at California State University, authored Intellectual Property Law: Legal international affairs with a concentration in work on international treaties or negotiation Aspects of Innovation and Competition security policy. He picked up practical insight and better understand why different (West Academic, May 2016). The textbook as an intern in then-U.S. Sen. John Kerry’s countries feel a certain way about policies covers the principal areas of intellectual property protection: trade secrets, office, where he researched environmental from the U.S.” patents, copyrights, trademarks and the policy and racial discrimination. He dreams, someday, of applying all this right of publicity as well as treatment of legal protection for other valuable “It was the first time that I really got to as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations intangibles and international intellectual work in policy and understand how what or as secretary of state. property issues. you’re studying affects the real world, and it “Lofty goals,” he says. Darin Early, BBA ’03, is president of the was just a really useful experience,” says But first, finishing law school, passing the Rhode Island Commerce Corporation, a quasi-government agency that invests JEAN LACHAT JEAN Mr. Pickar, a Lexington, Mass., native. bar exam and packing for Oxford.

gwmagazine.com / 69 I AM Alumni news ADVANCING THE GLOBAL ECONOMY Support students like Erjon by making your annual gift today. - Erjon Baballari, GWSB ’18

campaign.gwu.edu/students Alumni news Alumni news CLASS NOTES

taxpayer dollars in the state to grow the economy by luring businesses and real [health] residency at GW Hospital in 2000, and she’s estate development. worked in the field ever since. She was born Tricia Parker, BA ’03, was named a staff in India but grew up in Bowie, Md., after writer at New Eastside News in Chicago A Vision of the and a copy editor at Schiffer Publishing. A her parents immigrated to the United States book she edited, Leadership Dubai Style, Future in 1967. The Raindrop Inlay is the biggest was selected by Emirates Airline as one of development since LASIK was introduced in its 10 featured in-flight audiobooks. the late 1990s, Dr. Rose says. That procedure Christopher Wyrod, MA ’03, was rids patients of astigmatism, an imperfection appointed deputy country representative Alumna Shilpa Rose is helping to for the Asia Foundation in Indonesia in the curvature of the cornea that can make after completing six years of service make reading glasses obsolete. objects both near and far appear blurry and with the U.S. Agency for International // By Andrew Faught distorted. Development in Myanmar and Sri Lanka. “We really haven’t had anything, up until Conor Yunits, BA ’03, joined the public relations agency Solomon McCown as vice Every year, millions of Americans embark now, to help us with reading,” Dr. Rose says president. Mr. Yunits handles government on a middle-age rite of passage: buying their of the Raindrop. “It’s a safe, relatively easy affairs accounts, issues management and crisis work. Solomon McCown has offices first pair of reading glasses. procedure to get rid of reading glasses. in New York and Boston. Around age 40, lenses of the human eyes “All of our patients are reading Eric R. Daleo, BA ’04, was named harden, while ocular muscles lose elasticity. immediately, as in five minutes after the assistant executive director of New “The first thing you notice is it’s hard to procedure,” she adds. “It could take up to Jersey Transit, where he leads the Capital Planning and Programs Department and focus on things close up: medicine bottles, three months to really see the final effects, oversees staff charged with planning, the computer screen, your phone, texts,” but patients are getting off the table and project management, construction says Shilpa Rose, BA ’92, MD ’96, RES ’00, reading things that they haven’t read before.” management, grant administration and compliance, local programs and an ophthalmologist with Eye Associates of During FDA trials, 373 patients received budgeting responsibilities. Washington, D.C., and Whitten Laser Eye. Raindrop implants. Only four were removed, Shirley Neely McCulloch, CERT ’04, is a “You pull your arm away, and eventually your after patients complained of hazy vision. volunteer with the Global Health Service arm isn’t long enough.” To help prevent scarring and rejection by Partnership, which works with the Peace Corps to place U.S. health professionals Fortunately, relief is in sight. the body, patients are administered three alongside local counterparts to improve Dr. Rose is among the first doctors to perform months of steroid drops, Dr. Rose says. the quality of medical and nursing a new treatment for farsightedness—or But as people age and the lenses of the eyes education. Previously, she worked as a midwife lecturer at Southern Africa presbyopia—called the Raindrop Near continue to harden, patients could ultimately Nazarene University in Manzini, Swaziland. Vision Inlay, a surgery recently developed develop cataracts, which would require Mathew J. Todaro, BA ’04, was one of by ReVision Optics, Inc., a privately held doctors to remove the lense inside the eye and 14 Verrill Dana attorneys honored at corporation in Southern California. perform cataract surgery, Dr. Rose says. The the 2016 Maine Supreme Judicial Court Katahdin Council Recognition event at Since the FDA approved the procedure Raindrop Inlay, however, can stay in place. the Cumberland County Courthouse in in June 2016, Dr. Rose and colleague Mark Dr. Rose and Dr. Whitten are the Portland, Maine. The recognition is for Whitten (who in 1999 gained fame when he only doctors performing the surgery in attorneys who completed 50 hours or more of pro bono service. performed another laser eye surgery, LASIK, Washington, D.C., and, Dr. Rose says, David Zhang, BA ’05, JD ’09, was named on golfer Tiger Woods) have performed insurance companies do not cover the partner at Ropes & Gray’s Shanghai about 50 Raindrop procedures, and surgeons procedure, which costs between $3,500 and office. He advises clients on internal across the country have performed more $5,500. investigations, due diligence and compliance programs, with a focus on than a thousand. “My passion is talking to patients and anti-corruption and anti-bribery matters The 10-minute operation involves counseling them and educating them,” she in China. inserting an implant into the corneal says of her work. “It’s really exciting to see Joanie Twersky, BA ’06, was selected as stroma—the fibrous, transparent portion how people’s lives change. I’m excited to be part of LEAD Atlanta’s 2017 cohort. LEAD Atlanta is an eight-month leadership above the pupil—of a person’s non-dominant part of something new, development and community education eye. The implant is two millimeters thick. innovative and safe.” program targeted at young professionals With the Raindrop procedure, doctors use in metro Atlanta. Ms. Twersky is the senior marketing manager at AT&T Foundry. a laser to create a flap in the cornea, under Tara L. Pellerito, BA ’07, MS ’16, and Jess which the implant, made of 80 percent water M. Boyle, BS ’16, were married on Oct. 14, and a gel base, is laid. The implant, which 1 2016. They live and work in New York. resembles a contact lens, doesn’t restore 20/20 James P. Youngs, JD ’07, was selected as vision, but the FDA reports that 92 percent of an Upstate New York Super Lawyer Rising 2 Star for 2016. Mr. Youngs is an associate at patients are able to see with 20/40 vision or Hancock Estabrook, LLP. better at near distances after the operation. Darren E. Tromblay, MA ’07, co- “Given the prevalence of presbyopia and authored Securing U.S. Innovation: The the aging of the Baby Boomer population, the Challenge of Preserving a Competitive need for near-vision correction will likely rise 1) A laser creates Advantage in the Creation of Knowledge flap in the cornea. (Rowman & Littlefield, August 2016). Mr. in the coming years,” William Maisel, deputy Tromblay, a strategic intelligence analyst director of the FDA’s Center for Devices and 2) The Raindrop with the FBI, also authored The U.S. Radiological Health, said last year. insert is placed Domestic Intelligence Enterprise: History, under the flap. Development, and Operations (Taylor & Dr. Rose completed her ophthalmology Francis, August 2015).

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[Books] Indelible Ink

A new book pays homage to chefs’ tattoos. // By Ruth Steinhardt WENDY MACNAUGHTON, COURTESY BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING

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Jamie O. Bosket, MA ’08, was named president and CEO of the Virginia ot everyone would choose to Tattoos (Bloomsbury, October 2016), a Historical Society in Richmond, Va. He formerly served as vice president for guest celebrate their chosen profession compendium of cooks’ body art assembled by experience at Mount Vernon. with a massive tattoo of a boar Isaac Fitzgerald, BA ’05, and illustrated by April Michelle Davis, MPS ’08, authored fighting an octopus. But one chef, San Francisco artist Wendy MacNaughton. A Princess in Disguise (Iguana Books, wanting to “represent one of the “Working in a kitchen is hard. You get August 2016), a YA novel that follows classic food combinations: surf and turf,” did burned and scarred, you mess up and hurt Princess Margaret, who, on the night of her 16th birthday, runs away before having just that. yourself—it’s not for the weak of heart,” to marry a stranger and goes on a soul- His is one of dozens of stories in Knives Mr. Fitzgerald says. searching quest. & Ink: Chefs and the Stories Behind Their A tattoo, he suggests, can Frida Matute, BA ’08, founded Indy Talk Shop, an educational toy company that is launching its first product: a playbox for children aged 18 to 36 months. The toy pairs original stories with an interactive play experience. For more information on the playbox and its Kickstarter, visit www. IndyTalkShop.com. Patti Kelly Ralabate, EdD ’08, authored Your UDL Lesson Planner: The Step-by- Step Guide for Teaching All Learners (Brookes Publishing, January 2016), which introduces educators to an instructional design framework—universal design for learning (UDL)—that’s based on neuroscience. Gary Nuzzi Jr., BA ’08, and Megan Whittemore, BA ’08, MPS ’10, were married Nov. 12, 2016, at the Arts Club of Washington. Mr. Nuzzi is the vice president at Adfero, a communications firm, and Ms. Whittemore is the communications director for U.S. Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.). Davie Yarborough, BA ’08, MEd ’10, joined The Pennington School in Pennington, N.J., where she teaches communications skills and English. Jenny Abreu, MTA ’09, celebrated two years as founder and chief experience officer of Forever Etched Events, LLC, a boutique meeting and event planning and production firm based in Washington, D.C. Bethany Lee Crudele, BA ’09, and John Darryl Jones Jr. were married Aug. 12, 2016, in Atlanta. Ms. Crudele is a writer and producer for “CNN Newsroom” with Carol Costello. Mr. Jones is a sales representative with Momar Inc., a specialty manufacturer of general maintenance and sanitation chemicals. Michael M. Denci, BA ’09, an associate at Thompson & Knight, was recognized in the 2016 edition of New York Metro Rising Stars. Emily Geise, BA ’08, and Blade Smith, BA ’09, were married Oct. 22, 2016, in Easton, Md. // 10s Chris Hickman, PhD ’10, Michael Todd Landis, PhD ’11, and Patrick Funiciello, PhD ’15, are professors at Tarleton State University, a member of the Texas A&M system, in Stephenville, Texas. Laura Rocklyn, MFA ’10, played the Ghost of Christmas Past in a stage production of A Christmas Carol at the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company in Baltimore. Abby Whalen, BA ’10, had her article “A Temporary Taming of the Wild West” published in the summer edition of Great Plains Quarterly. Chrishon McManus, BA ’11, and Claire WENDY MACNAUGHTON, COURTESY BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING

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symbolize acceptance of, ownership over, just be 2 Pen, 2 Ink,” Mr. Fitzgerald says. or even a form of collaboration with that Alongside “Meanwhile in San Francisco,” pain. And ink can also be a kind of password, Ms. MacNaughton had also worked on a a permanent visible distinction that sets its project illustrating bars in San Francisco’s wearer apart as a member of the brotherhood Mission district. Remembering his own time of chefs. sharing tattoo stories in bars and restaurants, “It’s almost a way of saying, ‘I’m Mr. Fitzgerald thought that chefs might be the not going to the front of the house,’” perfect subject for the duo’s next joint venture. Mr. Fitzgerald says, using the industry term But this time around, they found they would for the dining area, where waiters and hosts have to do a little more digging than simply are more likely to be held to the aesthetic asking the Internet for submissions. “Chefs preferences of the customer. A visible tattoo, aren’t just hanging out on [social networking he says, declares, “‘I’m dedicating myself to sites],” Mr. Fitzgerald says. being back here [in the kitchen].’” Knowing that cooks’ schedules could Basically, he says with a laugh, “Chefs are be erratic and their downtimes few and far badasses.” between, he adapted his story-collecting Mr. Fitzgerald, now editor of BuzzFeed technique to suit their needs. He reached Books, has long been fascinated with tattoos. out to cooks he knew and When he was a sophomore in high school, an used his contacts in the adviser promised him and a group of friends industry to arrange that he would pay for their first tattoo if they interviews with graduated high school. Mr. Fitzgerald was friends of friends. the only one of the group to graduate, and Sometimes, he would the adviser paid up. Mr. Fitzgerald opted for be in the room with a Celtic tree of life inside a tribal sun on his his subjects. Other right shoulder. times, chefs texted It came out looking more like the Spider- him tattoo stories and Man symbol, he says, but its significance photographs when they outweighs its visual drawbacks. “It ain’t were on their cigarette cute,” he admits. “But I’ll never cover it.” breaks. Mr. Fitzgerald traces the beginning of “It’s about respecting his interest in chefs’ ink to his time working people’s time,” he says. at a San Francisco bar. There, during quiet “These are people who, daylight hours, he remembered gathering when they make food, are stories from his colleagues in the front and working on their art.” back of the house to kill time. Like its predecessor, It was a skill he would put to use Knives & Ink is illustrated for Knives & Ink, the second published not by photographs but collaboration between him and by Ms. MacNaughton’s lively, Ms. MacNaughton. Mr. Fitzgerald first graceful drawings. Her work, encountered Ms. MacNaughton’s work at Mr. Fitzgerald says, puts both books in online culture magazine The Rumpus, where a unique, almost “alchemical” position: he was managing editor. He was particularly forms of art interpreting and paying taken with her series “Meanwhile in San homage to other forms of art. Francisco,” which featured quick, evocative “It’s Wendy’s art representing the sketches of characters she encountered, tattoo artist’s art representing the accompanied by their own words. chef’s art,” he says. The two discovered a shared The two plan to work together fascination with tattoos. Their first again, though their next project project together was a blog that collected is not yet settled. For the moment, readers’ stories and photos of their Mr. Fitzgerald is focusing on his own ink, which Mr. Fitzgerald curated upcoming young adult novel, Confessions and Ms. MacNaughton illustrated. The of a Former Former Fat Kid, adapted from an collection became their first book, Pen & Ink autobiographical essay he wrote for BuzzFeed (Bloomsbury, October 2014). in 2016. In his young self’s complicated When publishers asked them to relationship with his body, Mr. Fitzgerald sees do a second book, Mr. Fitzgerald and an echo of the reasons he and his subjects have Ms. MacNaughton agreed that they wanted gotten tattoos. to do more than simply repeating the “It’s about walking down that path” to self-

process: “It was important to us that it not acceptance, he says. WENDY MACNAUGHTON, COURTESY BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING

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Hepper, BS ’12, were married Aug. 13, 2016. Tracy Neal, MS ’11, in August, was interviewed on Atlanta Business Radio. Ms. Neal has two companies (Tracy Neal & Company and TrustIntellect) and a nonprofit, which helps single-parent entrepreneurs. He wanted two Corinne Spychala, BAccy ’11, married Tyler prominent Iranian Jones on June 11, 2016, in Buffalo, N.Y. David V. Baxter, MA ’12, and his wife, Americans to take Lori Baxter, welcomed their first child, a son, Noe Owen, on June 21, 2016. Mr. the stage in case he Baxter and his wife finished a one-year won. He wanted us assignment directing a medical clinic in remote southern Belize and will be to … demonstrate relocating to Laos in September for an initial two-year assignment with Handicap the other side of International. what immigrants Mary P. Moore, JD ’12, an associate in Bond, Schoeneck & King’s Rochester, N.Y., can bring to the office, was recognized on the 2016 Upstate country. New York Super Lawyers Rising Stars list, in the field of business litigation. Adam Shores, MPS ’12, was appointed — explaining to Dallas-based D Magazine how she ended up on stage at the Anousheh Ansari, MS ’92, to the Grayslake (Ill.) Village board of Academy Awards on Feb. 26, accepting the Oscar for best foreign-language film on behalf of Iranian trustees. He will serve the remainder of an filmmaker Asghar Farhadi. The director of The Salesman boycotted the event in response to President Donald unexpired term and will run for election to Trump’s initial executive order restricting travel from seven majority-Muslim countries. Ms. Ansari, the CEO of a full four-year term in April 2017. Prodea Systems, in 2006 became the first Iranian and first Muslim woman in space. She appeared alongside Katie Weigel, MA ’12, and Nick Pettet, former NASA scientist Firouz Naderi and read a statement by Mr. Farhadi. “Dividing the world into the ‘us’ and MA ’14, were married June 25, 2016. ‘our enemies’ categories creates fear,” she read aloud, “a deceitful justification for aggression and war.” Kevin Alan Brown, MFA ’14, played the Ghost of Christmas Present and the Ghost of Christmas Yet-To-Come in a stage of production of A Christmas Carol at the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company in Baltimore. Tessa Larson, MA ’15, was a part of a four-woman group that canoed from Northeast Minnesota to the Hudson Bay in Canada, creating artwork along the way UPCOMING EVENTS for a research project. The trip, dubbed “Journey 4 Renewal,” also was a mission OPEN TO ALL ALUMNI to raise money for Grand Marais, Minn.’s Wilderness Canoe Base, part of the Lake Wapogasset Lutheran Bible Camp. Michelle Manikkam, BS ’15, a recipient of the National Institutes of Health Postbaccalaureate Intramural Research 26 / APRIL/ WASHINGTON, D.C. Training Award, presented on the work done on the high-throughput screening Children’s author Hena Khan, MA ’97, shares her experiences team in the Tuberculosis Research Section. She emphasized the declining writing books that represent American Muslims and promote efficacy of the current treatment regimen religious and cultural understanding due to drug resistance and the gravity of tuberculosis’ impact across the globe. Oscar Lopez, JD ’16, joined Polsinelli as an associate in the national firm’s Phoenix office. Mr. Lopez will practice in the corporate and transactions area. 1-30 / JUNE/ NATIONWIDE GW Out and Allied Alumni Network celebrates LGBT Pride at gathering in various cities. For more: go.gwu.edu/ AND WHAT ABOUT YOU? gwcelebratespride17 Submit your own class note, book or Artists’ Quarter update: email [email protected] For more on these events mail Alumni News Section and others, visit GW Magazine alumni.gwu.edu/events 2121 Eye Street, NW Suite 501 Washington, DC 20052

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it’s a whole different ballgame. At the state level, you’re dealing with state issues. When you get to Congress, you’re dealing with, not only the United States—which is the most powerful country in the world economically and militarily—you’re dealing with all the nations and also dealing with world problems, international and foreign relations, and everything from committees on China to Asia to Russia. I mean, it’s just immense information. But it’s very stimulating and intellectually interesting.

On voting for Donald Trump: I was over in Japan two weeks before the election and Trump made some very strong statements against the Japanese, that they should help pay for the troops, and secondly, they should defend themselves. And so I got over there and they were very strongly against Trump. And I went with a Democrat [Politics] is to use the expertise the former members from Pennsylvania who’s also a former have to help educate the public, including [congressman], so he took the position college and high school students, and also to of defending Secretary of State [Hillary] A Stearns work in ways to start discussions and forums Clinton and I took the position of talking about civic responsibility and the importance about Trump. And I said to them when they Talking To of our Constitution and our Bill of Rights. asked me if I was going to vote for Trump, I said yes because I’m voting for Republicans, On the USAFMC being bipartisan: and secondly, I said, believe it or not, Trump Former U.S. representative talks Everybody does not bring his particular can win if he wins the Rust Belt states—I about politics and his other, very ideology. They bring a willingness to listen mean Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania exclusive alumni association and to compromise … for the purpose of a and Ohio. And so at this point, I look pretty bigger goal. So you’re saying, “Why don’t prophetic because that’s exactly what Cliff Stearns, BS ’63, spent 24 years in the you have that in Congress?” Well, you have happened. House of Representatives, sponsoring 292 to get elected every two years, and the bills and leading high-profile investigations way Congress has been structured, and On why Donald Trump won: into Planned Parenthood’s financials and a with the internet and immense amounts I think Trump’s message was “If you’re fed up half-billion-dollar Obama administration of information—there’s huge amount of with Washington and you want change and deal with failed solar-technology company partisanship and there is rankling about you want somebody that’s been successful Solyndra. things that should be thought out and passed. in his business, you should elect me.” And But after leaving Congress in January Secretary of State Clinton’s message was 2013—Ted Yoho defeated him in a On how gerrymandering undercuts “We’re all family, let’s be together, let’s get primary—the conservative Republican from bipartisanship: along, and I’ll bring everybody together.” Florida’s 6th district is staying involved. When a person runs for Congress, almost And for people out here, a lot of the real He immediately joined the U.S. Association 95 percent of them get reelected because estate has not come back from the 2007 for Former Members of Congress, and in they just vote a certain way. They’re going [recession]. A lot of people are working July, started a two-year term as president to get reelected, so it’s probably, out of 435 two jobs. There are a lot of people who of the alumni organization, which is joined [House seats], there’s probably only about are scared and there’s not the high level of voluntarily and costs $250 in yearly dues. 30 congressional districts, possibly 40, that manufacturing jobs anymore. So I think Mr. Stearns, whose book Life in the are, shall we say, swing districts. … And so Trump’s message—forgetting his personality Marble Palace: In Praise of Folly came out that makes it that Republicans or forgetting the things that in November, chatted with GW Magazine, continue to hew to the came out during the campaign— offering insight on Congress and American Republican line and Democrats his message about change and politics. The interview has been edited for hew to the Democratic line. “I’m gonna change it, I’m gonna space and clarity. shake things up” appealed to a On just how hard it is to be lot of conservative Democrats On the U.S. Association of Former a congressman: and a lot of people who were out Members of Congress: There’s so much you have to of work. So I think when you We have about 500 [former] House members learn. I’ve had state senators that look at the message, his message and 100 senators as members, and its mission once they get to the federal level, had a stronger ring than hers. STEARNS: COURTESY CLIFF STEARNS / BOOK: COURTESY CLIFF STEARNS

76 / gw magazine / Spring 2017 ALUMNI NEWS

IN MEMORIAM

Cecil Cooper, BS ’49, Nancy Carolyn Mitchell Mustafa, program. She had a lifelong love for managing skills during two long (Nov. 10, 2015, Chicago), originally BA ’61, MA ’64, (Nov. 6, 2016, 76) all animals. terms as department chair. He loved a machinist at General Electric, was active in the League of Women France, especially Paris. Albert Willard Bellais, MFA ’70, served in Italy during World War II Voters, where she taught as an (Oct. 20, 2016, Savannah, Ga., 82), a William Christenberry (Nov. 28, and went on to teach at Case Western adjunct professor. In her retirement, U.S. Navy veteran, was an associate 2016, Washington, D.C., 80) was an Reserve University’s Department she gardened and traveled while professor in Montgomery College’s accomplished photographer known of Biochemistry. He also was an dedicating herself to the Christian Speech and Drama Department for his work depicting the rural accomplished stained-glass artisan. Science Church. Her father in Rockville, Md., for 29 years. He South, especially Hale County in disapproved of the “hillbilly” music Elizabeth Kline “Betty” acted in commercials, TV shows Alabama. He taught at the Corcoran of Hank Williams and Johnny Cash Grinnell, BA ’51, (Oct. 26, 2016, (Simon & Simon) and movies (Enemy School of the Arts and Design for that she loved as a teenager. Arlington, Va., 88) was a member of the People, Major League II and 40 years and became a professor of the Little Falls Presbyterian Robert M. Jimeson, Jr., MS Guarding Tess) and also sung in the emeritus in 2008. He was awarded a Church, Rock Spring Garden Club, ’64, (July 31, 2016, Vienna, Va., 95) Gay Men’s Chorus of D.C. Guggenheim fellowship in 1984, and Neighbors Club, National Society invented Methacoal, a unique and his work is owned by many public Annemarie Maguire, JD ’79, of Arts & Letters, Kappa Kappa more easily transportable mixture institutions, including the Museum (Sept. 21, 2016, Washington, D.C., Gamma and the Corinthian Yacht of coal and methane. During World of Modern Art and the Whitney in 63) worked for several government Club. A woman of strong faith and a War II, he worked for the aircraft- New York, the Menil Collection in agencies, including the National homemaker, she painted, gardened manufacturing company Glenn L. Houston and the Stedelijk Museum Labor Relations Board, the D.C. and loved boating. Martin and helped design the B-26 Amsterdam. Metropolitan Police Department, Marauder. He owned many patents Charles G. Wellso, MD ’53, the U.S. Department of State and the James Oliver Horton (Feb. 20, and enjoyed studying, teaching and (March 30, 2016, Mount Vernon, U.S. Department of Treasury, where 2017, 73) was the Benjamin Banneker discussing science and religion. Iowa, 87) was a surgeon with the she received the Secretary’s Honor Professor of American Studies 2nd Armored Division in Germany Lawrence Winkler, EdD ’65, Award. Known for her quick wit, she and History at GW and historian during World War II and later served (Dec. 14, 2016, Annapolis, Md., was a storyteller, played piano and emeritus of the Smithsonian as a psychiatrist at a U.S. Army 89), a U.S. Navy veteran, was a GW loved her cats. Institution’s National Museum of hospital in France. A psychiatrist Professor Emeritus of Counseling American History. A leading scholar Paul Schapiro, BA ’80, (June 3, for many decades after the war, he and taught at GW from 1967 to 1992. of African American social history, 2016, 58), an accountant, was an avid loved gaudy Welsh pottery, playing He enjoyed flying and golf. he authored many books and held bicyclist and very involved with the the trumpet and a good read in several high-level governmental Thomas V. Vakerics, JD ’68, Napa County (Calif.) Democratic English or French. At home, a book appointments, including an (June 15, 2016, Reston, Va., 72) was Committee and the American was always within reach and, often, a appointment by President Bill an expert on antitrust matters and Canyon Lions Club. He won the piece of cheese. Clinton to serve on the Abraham authored Antitrust Basics (New York 2014 Bicycle Commuter of the Year Lincoln Bicentennial Commission. Stephen J. Korcheck, BA ’54, Law Publishing Company, 1985) and Award, which is presented by the MA ’66, EdD ’70, (Aug. 26, 2016, Antidumping, Countervailing Duty Napa County Bicycle Coalition. Bradenton, Fla., 84), spent parts and Other Trade Actions, a major Tiffany Topcik, BBA ’88, of four seasons from 1954 to 1959 legal treatise on international trade (Feb. 2, 2016, Highland Park, Ill., CORRECTION as a catcher with the Washington law. He traveled extensively to China, 49) was an accomplished travel Senators before going on to serve Korea and Japan and developed a The fall issue mistakenly executive and had served as an as president of the State College of respect for the craftsmanship of reported the death of Jack V. adjunct faculty member at the New Florida, Manatee-Sarasota, from Japanese woodblock prints, netsukes Cohen, BA ’63, JD ’66, based York University Tisch School of 1980 to 1997. Also drafted by the and snuff bottles. on erroneous information. Mr. Hospitality. She loved travel, the San Francisco 49ers, he coached the Cohen, who called to notify us of George Carlisle Gatje, MS ’69, outdoors and her dog, Reggie. GW baseball team from 1966 to 1970 the error, took our goof in stride (Sept. 15, 2015, Norfolk, Va., 84), and is a member of the Athletics Debra Saunders-White, and recalled the words of Mark spent 31 years in the U.S. Navy, Hall of Fame. Dr. Korcheck and his EdD ’04, (Nov. 26, 2016, Hampton, Twain, when the author once retired as a captain and went on to wife enjoyed tending to their rose Va., 59) was the first permanent found himself in a similar position become the head of Western Branch and butterfly gardens, playing golf, female chancellor of North Carolina and told a journalist: “The report High School’s math department. He traveling, and spoiling their dog Central University in Durham, of my death was an exaggeration.” was a lifelong learner and educator Andy. N.C. During her three-and-half-a- We regret the error. who enjoyed reading and travel. year tenure, NCCU was named the Gene Guarilia, BS ’59, (Nov. 20, Susan J. Goode, BA ’69, 2016 Historically Black College or 2016, Duryea, Pa., 79), a 6-foot- (May 27, 2016, Charlottesville, Va., University of the Year by HBCU 5 small forward, played for the 70) established Pidgeon Hill Farm, Digest. Boston Celtics from 1959 to 1963 a riding school in Berryville, Va., and won four NBA championships where she taught horsemanship for before becoming a teacher and If you’d like to see your 15 years. Ms. Goode also worked at Faculty, Staff, Trustees basketball coach in the Pittston (Pa.) friend or family member the University of Virginia Medical Area School District. At GW, he James Franklin Burks (Nov. 1, mentioned on this page, Center in the psychiatric and averaged 17 rebounds a game. For 2016, Washington, D.C., 86) was please write to us at epilepsy department, where she was many years, he also played bass for a professor emeritus of Romance a pivotal part of the epilepsy surgery [email protected] and the Heartbeats, Sidestreet and the languages and literatures and include a link to their Cadillacs. taught at GW for 34 years. He was obituary, if possible, or respected for his diplomacy and call (202) 994–5709.

gwmagazine.com / 77 Alumni news

upcoming shows by gw professors and alumni The Careful ARTISTS’ QUARTER Aesthetic of Happenstance //By Menachem Wecker, MA ’09

At the Kessmann home, it’s not unusual to find parts of cardboard boxes lying around. For years, Dean Kessmann, associate professor of photography, has cut color codes out of boxes, scanned them and printed them in large scale, up to 24 feet long. So when his daughter was collecting Box Tops for Education, it seemed natural that he’d help. “One day, my wife asked, ‘Are these yours?’” showing him some box tops. Mr. Kessmann said no, he’d cut them out for his daughter. “Those aren’t what she needs,” he was told. All cardboard boxes, it seems, aren’t created equal. Many of Mr. Kessmann’s projects might sound initially like child’s play, but they’re sophisticated meditations on ephemeral, often overlooked things. Mr. Kessmann always has his eyes and ears open, and he finds inspiration in unlikely places. Mr. Kessmann’s commute to work, for example, is artistic fodder. When he moved from St. Louis to Washington 15 years ago to teach at GW, he began taking public transportation to work for the first time. He would read magazines on the Metro, and he’d often roll them up to carry them. That’s when he noticed the inadvertent patterns of color on the fore-edges, opposite the spines. “These austere linear abstractions are the unintended consequence of carefully designed documents, the byproduct of a painstakingly controlled internal organization,” Mr. Kessmann writes in an artist statement for a series called Cover to Cover. In the works, he clamped magazines with enormous clips and scanned the fore- edges. The resulting scans look like literary barcodes, or a colorful timeline laid out on a long landscape-oriented page. In this and other series, Mr. Kessmann chose to self-impose restrictions on the project. With the color codes, which resulted in two related projects, Utilitarian Abstraction and Details: Utilitarian Abstraction, he expanded the image as much as he could until the visual field approached something recognizable in above “Curry (2013),” from Monochrome Fields, part of the permanent the product packaging, like an illustration or collection of The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. top right “Fiber One text. He wanted to keep the works abstract, 90-Calorie Brownies (2016)” from Details: Utilitarian Abstraction bottom right and he decided to “allow the subject matter to “Art Review International Edition, V.1 N.2, 2003 (front),” from Cover to Cover

determine the final compositions.” KESSMANN DEAN

78 / gw magazine / Spring 2017 Alumni news

These current projects were funded while in “Architectural Intersections,” he paralyzing.” He carefully considers whether by D.C. Commission on the Arts and photographed the places where the walls of an initial idea is worth pursuing and then Humanities, the Columbian College of Arts his house meet the ceilings. His series “A Year approaches his subjects in a conceptual way and Sciences and the Franz and Virginia at a Glance” averaged all of the covers in a without excluding the aesthetic potential Bader Fund. Mr. Kessmann appreciates particular year of several art publications— of the work. “Many of these ideas come the ways that his projects build upon the such as ARTnews, Artforum and Modern about through my daily routine.” The series conscious decisions of graphic designers, Painters; the result has a ghost-like quality. “Between Here and There,” for example, which he appropriates to call attention to Some of his current work centers on was a six-year project done between other the ways in which “the graphic design and empty layouts of Microsoft Word and Excel projects, in which Mr. Kessmann took photos printing industries have usurped the visual documents, where viewers can just make out on his walk to and from work each day. language of fine art, and vice versa.” scrolling navigation bars and the outlines That’s something he tells his students In another recent project, “Monochrome of cells, but not the broader context of web regularly. It is often fun to make art, but Fields,” Mr. Kessmann scanned blank sheets browsers or top-level navigation panes. it’s also work. “In order to have an artistic of paper and heightened the contrast to create “Anything is an option,” he says of his practice,” he tells his students, “one must abstract works, often with stunning palettes, artistic process, “which can be, at times, practice being an artist.” TOP: RICHARD SPRENGELER / BOTTOM: COURTESY DEAN KESSMANN

gwmagazine.com / 79 Wisdom and how-tos from experts in the gw community INSTITUTIONAL KNOWLEDGE

Americans mastered beer- and liquor- “Our knowledge of winemaking and [LIBATION] making early, but wine took us a while. grape-growing is just at a peak right now,” Thomas Jefferson, perhaps the nation’s says Mr. Stengel, general manager at most famous failed vinter, tried for decades Wardman Wines in Northeast D.C. He also Wine-ing to grow European grapes in Virginia, his spent 12 years in fine dining, including seven efforts submarined by an all-but-microscopic as the executive chef at Willow in Arlington, insect called phylloxera. Va. Down Hundreds of years later, Jefferson stands With that in mind, we asked Mr. Stengel, avenged. who’s pursuing a Master of Wine designation Today, there are more than 8,000 U.S. (an exclusive certificate that’s basically a An expert offers a primer on wineries that help drive a $35 billion industry PhD of wine and held by only 356 people) the alcohol it took America the and a golden age of American wine—so says to impart to us a little wine knowledge. He longest to conquer Nick Stengel, MPA ’01. obliged. —Matthew Stoss

1900 That’s about when Americans figured out how to grow European grapes here, but it’s only been in recent decades that American wine has rated globally. Before that, especially after World War II, a lot of American wine tended BACK TO THOMAS JEFFERSON to be blended “jug” wine falsely FOR A MOMENT A MULTITASKING GLASS labeled with the name of some There are many options—including the Thomas Jefferson loved Madeira, a famous wine region, like Burgundy. champagne flute, the only functional sweet Portuguese wine named for Most of this wine, however, was value of which is successfully holding the volcanic archipelago where it Italian-style because it was immigrant liquid. A standard 12-ounce glass originates. Jefferson tried to make it Italians in California making it. will cover all your wine-drinking (and here but, of course, failed. Madeira wine-smelling) needs. was perfect for the pre-refrigeration ‘A QUICK TRIP TO VINEGAR’ Colonial era because, well, it is not a “I just like one that’s big enough to dainty wine. stick my nose into so I can get the In the absence of modern winemaking “Ships would pull into Madeira, take techniques (including a knowledge smell going and big enough to swirl all the rocks out of the bottom of of bacteria and yeasts), it didn’t take it around without spilling it all their boat that they used for ballast, long for wine to go bad. over the place,” Mr. Stengel says. “There are old shipping records load in barrels of Madeira and from the 13th century in England that ship them to India,” Mr. Stengel WHERE U.S WINE COMES FROM refer to wine that was brought into says. “Then bring them back and the country between the harvest and About 90 percent of it is Californian. Christmas as just ‘wine,’” Mr. Stengel sell them for twice the price because Washington state, New York, says. “After that, it was called ‘reek [the wine] had been properly Pennsylvania and Oregon are the wine’ because it went bad that fast.” abused.” next biggest wine-producing states. So people “fortified” it with brandy, The best winemaking regions tend to LAST THING which acted as a preservative. be northern and coastal (temperate climates, distinct seasons) and are “They would drink dry wine for WINE LABELS ARE long established. But there is an three months of the year,” Mr. upstart: the Southwest. MOSTLY USELESS Stengel says, “but otherwise they Some are earnest. “They’re making some really added brandy or put in pine pitch Most aren’t, thanks to interesting stuff—good Merlot, as a preservative—it tasted exactly corporate marketers No. good Cabernets,” Mr. Stengel says. like what you think it tasted like.” convinced that poetry 1 “They get a lot of sun, and it’s dry sells. And even the earnest labels aren’t enough where they don’t have mold that reliable because problems. I think it’s an up-and- palettes are like coming area.” snowflakes: all different.

Of Note No. Texas is No. 10 on 10 the list of top wine- producing states. SHIP: ISTOCK.COM/ MACROVECTOR, BOTTLES: ISTOCK.COM/ SUNSHINE_ART, VINEYARD: ISTOCK.COM/ IRALU

80 / gw magazine / Spring 2017 WE MAKE FUTURES

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