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

SPRING / SUMMER 2017 MAGAZINE

Te Visionaries Issue THESHOOT MOON Vision is the driving force behind change. USC Dornsife’s world-class scholars demonstrate the power of vision to make a better community, country and world. CONTRIBUTOR

Dieuwertje Kast ’11, ’14 JEP STEM Program Manager

Dieuwertje “DJ” Kast is still haunted by two unforget- table sounds. The first is the glassy tinkle made by shards of candle ice in a thawing Arctic lake. “It’s a strange and beautiful music,” she said. The second is the whining of giant mosquitoes swarm- ing the Arctic in summer. “They’re called the Alaskan state bird for a reason.” Kast spent three weeks using underwater robots to collect specimens from the deep sea off Canada’s west- ern coast, followed by 24 days at an Arctic research station in Alaska. Kast earned a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences and a master’s degree in marine environmental biology from USC Dornsife in 2011 and then a Master of Arts in Teaching from USC Rossier School of Education in 2014. She is now USC Dornsife’s Joint Educational Project (JEP) STEM program manager. She hopes to inspire the teachers she works with at the USC Family of Schools to apply for similar programs. “Sharing these experi- ences with their students enables teachers to tie science to the real world,” Kast said. “And that makes it more relevant to the chal- lenges we face today.”

KAST PHOTO COURTESY OF DIEUWERTJE KAST

ARCTIC SKY PHOTO BY ROEE FUNG

2 SPRING / SUMMER 2017 Te Bold Journey 2 From the Dean When we think of a visionary, we are quick to admire his or her capacity to see Contents 4 a new opportunity and affect great change in the world. But the effort involved — Political Life science Line alumnus named INTERIM ASSISTANT DEAN FOR COMMUNICATION the rigorous process of turning dreams into reality — often goes unnoticed. Rhodes Scholar; Dornsife Dialogues Mira Zimet That oversight pushes a critical piece of the story into the background — series launches; Alumnus EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF PUBLICATIONS / ART DIRECTOR the part where ambition is channeled into action, where setbacks are combatted appointed to USC trustee board. Dan Knapp by resilience. Here is where the visionary deconstructs the abstract ideal and EDITOR-IN-CHIEF rebuilds it as a concrete strategy. This is among the most defining elements of 5 SOCIAL DORNSIFE Darrin S. Joy a dynamic liberal arts mindset. Rallying for inclusion; Light pol- WRITERS AND EDITORS At USC Dornsife, we prepare tomorrow’s leaders to both imagine new possibilities lutes; First-gen students convene. Susan Bell and to excel in a journey that brings these to fruition. Whether it is a fresh perspective Michelle Boston on global ecology that Professor Jan Amend inspires through his studies of the deep 6 FROM THE HEART OF USC Laura Paisley ocean foor, or the artistic innovation of literary talents such as Professor Aimee Bender, Study illuminates gender-related DESIGNERS USC Dornsife is creating pipelines through which every member of our academic community stress differences; Students Letty Avila can contribute to society in a visionary way. share art history lessons; Matthew Pla Savino I have the great pleasure of engaging with our talented faculty and students every day. Scientists seek out the reasons VIDEOGRAPHER AND PHOTOGRAPHER And every day it becomes more clear to me that USC Dornsife has something unique for political stubbornness. Mike Glier to ofer the world. We know that a vision cannot simply unfold — it must be earned. COMMUNICATIONS ASSISTANT Our leading thinkers today make the bold journey to transcend the status quo and lead 7 Curriculum Deann Webb the way in developing knowledge that will inspire tomorrow’s solutions. I hope you will CONTRIBUTORS follow the evolution of these visionary ideas with me in the coming years. 8 Archive Ian Chafee, Joanna Clay, Emily Gersema, Beth Newcomb 10 USC DORNSIFE ADMINISTRATION Amber D. Miller Profle Dean of USC Dornsife Amber D. Miller, Dean • Stephen Bradforth, Divisional Dean for Natural 13 Sciences • Peter C. Mancall, Divisional Dean for the Humanities & Social Anna H. Bing Dean’s Chair Lexicon Sciences • Steven Lamy, Vice Dean for Academic Programs • Donal Manahan, Vice Dean for Students • Stephen Mackey, Vice Dean for Administration 14 In the Field and Finance • Eddie Sartin, Senior Associate Dean for Advancement USC DORNSIFE BOARD OF COUNCILORS 16 Our Community Robert D. Beyer, Chair • Robert Alvarado • William Barkett • Leslie Berger • Susan Casden • Richard S. Flores • Shane Foley • Lisa Goldman • 51 Legacy Jana Waring Greer • Pierre Habis • Yossie Hollander • Janice Bryant Howroyd • Martin Irani • Dan James • Stephen G. Johnson • Suzanne 52 DORNSIFE FAMILY Nora Johnson • Peter YS Kim • Yoon Kim • Samuel King • Arthur Lev • THE VISIONARIES ISSUE Noted faculty recognized; Rare Robert Osher • Gerald Papazian • Lawrence Piro • Kelly Porter • Michael craft offers unique research tools; Reilly • Harry Robinson • Stephanie Booth Shafran • Carole Shammas • Alumnus turns games into a career. Glenn A. Sonnenberg • Kumarakulasingam “Suri” Suriyakumar 18 USC DORNSIFE MAGAZINE 52 Published twice a year by the USC Dornsife Ofce of Communication HTow doe writers Creative bring their creative vision Eye to the page? Five of USC Dornsife’s leading authors, writing across Faculty News at the University of Southern California. © 2017 USC Dornsife College. By Susan Bell LEUT genres of fction, poetry, memoir, criticism and narrative nonfction, unlock the mystery. 54 Te diverse opinions expressed in USC Dornsife Magazine do not neces- Faculty Canon sarily represent the views of the editors, USC Dornsife administration HOLD or USC. USC Dornsife Magazine welcomes comments from its readers to 26 55 [email protected] or USC Dornsife Magazine, 1150 S. Olive St. P Alumni News HO

T2400, Los Angeles, CA 90015 T

O 56 C Te Unconventional Visionary Alumni Canon

O Alumnus Julian Leuthold, founder of the frst conference on how to succeed in foreign markets, attributes his URTESY By Susan Bell success to the approach to life and business he learned from the country he calls his second home. 58 Remembering O

F 30

G 60 IN MY OPINION ET

GLO Entrepreneurs

BA Pattern Recognition L At the USC Image Understanding Laboratory, pioneering research into vision and the mind seeks to reveal how /

U ON THE COVER NIC our brains can recognize new scenes, objects or faces in a fraction of a second. By Susan Bell

O From deepest ocean to farthest RN PR 38 space, exploration is at the core of

OD human nature, and every journey UCTI of discovery begins with a vision.

O Ripple Efects

NS More than 40 USC Dornsife centers and institutes play home to faculty, staf and students who aim to impact the global community through intensive, innovative scholarship. By Susan Bell, Michelle Boston and Laura Paisley SOCIA L DORNSIFE

NEWS AND EVENTS Instagram @USCDornsife Twitter 11.3.16 @cassandrapye: What a power- INTERSECTIONS OF HUMAN house group of young people. SECURITY AND GEOSPATIAL I refuse to be cynical about our INTELLIGENCE features STEVE Life Line NOVEMBER future. #hope #Cerrell2017 LAMY, vice dean for academic programs, retired Army Col. @adelaidemcga: @USCDornsife STEVEN FLEMING, professor of the excited to attend the young 11.21.16 practice of spatial sciences, retired women’s leadership conference Army Gen. DAVID PETRAEUS, this weekend! Can’t wait to hear Judge Widney Professor at the “I want to use this visibility all of the speakers and training! USC Price School of Public Policy to champion progressive and former CIA director, and @drchrisisfree: Thanks to policy reform and anti-racist MICHAEL OROSZ, assistant director 12.4.16 @WarrenZanes for speaking consciousness.” The USC DORNSIFE OFFICE OF of the USC Viterbi School of Alumnus OSCAR DE LOS SANTOS DECEMBER to my class at @USCDornsife COMMUNICATION receives four Engineering’s Information Sciences (B.A., political science, ’15) @usc_english about @tompetty awards from the Los Angeles Press Institute discussing geospatial is named one of 32 American and writing and such Club at the 9th annual NATIONAL intelligence and its role in optimiz- recipients of the 2017 RHODES ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT ing human security. SCHOLARSHIP, which provides 12.8.16 JacobChackoMD: Thanks JOURNALISM AWARDS ceremony GEORGE LUCAS and MELLODY all expenses to study at the @USCDornsife for hosting in Downtown L.A. HOBSON are named AMBAS- University of Oxford in England. us to watch @USC beat #ND. SADORS FOR HUMANITY by the Was confused by liquid falling 1.2.17 USC SHOAH FOUNDATION – THE from grey puffy objects in the INSTITUTE FOR VISUAL HISTORY sky, but still fun! USC triumphs over Penn State in AND EDUCATION. The award

a last-minute, 52-49 win in the JANUARY recognizes those who embody the @PBandJacque: There’s no one 103RD ROSE BOWL. More than 30 institute’s values and mission to I could thank more for helping USC DORNSIFE STUDENTS fill the promote tolerance and mutual LO me make my poli sci dreams

roster, including JUJU SMITH- S ANGE respect. a reality! @christiangrose SCHUSTER, who made seven #MVProfessor catches for 133 yards. L

1.25.17 ES

P @mridleythomas: TY 4 #Fight- 2.1.17 RESS C “Te main aim of the 4Homeless discussion w/ FREDERICK RYAN JR. (B.A., @BobShrum & Marylouise L Trump administration UB AWAR Oates last night at @USC FEBRUARY political science and speech com- and the Western hemisphere 2.3.17-2.4.17 munication, ’77; J.D. ’80), publisher @GroundZeroUSC! and CEO of The Washington Post, ought to be that of the D USC hosts the second annual FIRST- is elected to the USC BOARD OF S IN THIS TOGETHER @sjrodriguez_: I studied poetry physician: Do no harm.” PHO Professor Emeritus of International GENERATION COLLEGE STUDENT TRUSTEES. Viet Thanh Nguyen, Aerol Arnold Chair of English and professor of English and American studies and ethnicity, speaks at a rally for inclusion with [David St. John] while I was T NGUYEN Relations ABRAHAM LOWENTHAL SUMMIT to discuss building commu- O at ’SC! Great dude, great poet.

BY BY and tolerance led by USC professors demonstrating their solidarity with students and staff feeling vulnerable in the current political climate. is one of several speakers at nity in higher education. More than 2.24.17

M Add your ‘like’ to this image and more at Instagram.com/USCDornsife.

OUTLOOK FOR THE TRUMP 300 participants from universities IKE G @DornsifeDC: First students PHO ADMINISTRATION’S FOREIGN across California attended the event The inaugural event in the arrive in DC tomorrow morning! T L O POLICY, a roundtable discussion on the University Park campus. DORNSIFE DIALOGUES series IER; RYAN Looking forward to a great BY BY hosted by the USC DORNSIFE features a discussion of the semester in Washington. M MARCH SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL tenor and evolution of political IKE G discourse. Learn more at dornsife. @DebHarkness: Celebrating RELATIONS. PHO L

usc.edu/dornsifedialogues. IER; #nationallibraryday in my

3.16.17 T O happy place @USCSpeCol C L

“It is … relentless curiosity IG O URTESY H

3.24.17 that leads to a genuine T

POLL CONNECT WITH USC DORNSIFE understanding of the world.” Check us out on your favorite

Globally renowned scholars gather USC DORNSIFE DEAN AMBER D. O UTI Dornsife F FRE social media sites. We welcome for THE FIRST MODERN ECONOMY: MILLER delivers the university O

N your posts and tweets for pos-

GOLDEN AGE HOLLAND AND THE greeting at the 9TH ANNUAL D PHO WORK OF JAN DE VRIES, a Linda USC WOMEN’S LEADERSHIP ERICK RYAN ; KER sible inclusion in the next issue T APRIL and Harlan Martens Economic CONFERENCE. O of USC Dornsife Magazine. BY BEN BANET; A BANET; BEN BY History Forum presented by dornsife.usc.edu/facebook the USC-HUNTINGTON EARLY Become a fan and get updates MODERN STUDIES INSTITUTE. in your news feed. 4.22.17-4.23.17 M EZ PHO For the sixth year, USC hosts THE M dornsife.usc.edu/twitter K H 5.4.17 T Follow our tweets for the O LOS ANGELES TIMES FESTIVAL OF AV C YouTube Light Pollution YouTube A Student’s Story latest USC Dornsife news. O

BOOKS, the largest book festival O NG JOSÉ SARUKHÁN KERMEZ, URTESY in the nation featuring two dozen emeritus professor, National PHO BIG CITY, BRIGHT LIGHTS FIRST IN HER FAMILY dornsife.usc.edu/youtube MAY USC Dornsife faculty and alumni.

University of Mexico, and national T Watch the latest videos from O O Travis Longcore of architecture and spatial sciences and undergrad- When Alina Amkhavong read her letter of acceptance to USC, F J coordinator of the Mexican BY the USC Dornsife community.

O uate Ben Banet are pointing a high-powered camera at the night she cried. She would be the first in her family to attend college. M

Commission for the Knowledge SÉ KER IKE G and Use of Biodiversity, receives sky to understand how light pollution affects marine species “This is something new for our whole family and something we’re dornsife.usc.edu/instagram L the 44TH TYLER PRIZE FOR M along Southern California beaches. Learn more about their work going to go through together,” she said. Learn how USC supports Follow our feed for snapshots IER Z E ENVIRONMENTAL ACHIEVEMENT. at dornsife.usc.edu/light-pollution. first-generation students like Amkhavong at dornsife.usc.edu/first-gen. of the #DornsifeLife.

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Spotlight CORE 102GP LOVE AND ITS REASONS Instructor: David Albertson, Curriculum associate professor of religion StressingFindings from a study led by USC Dornsife’s Di Johnf Towererences of biological sciences may explain how Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s affect men and women differently. By Emily Gersema and Beth Newcomb

Te diferences in how male and female fruit fies resist disease afect more women than men, while Parkinson’s and adapt to oxidative stress may shed new light on how disease and cancer afect more men than women.” age-related diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Tis may be due to diferences in the Lon protease afect men and women diferently. between the sexes. Female fies expressed an extra version HARLAN MARTENS ’70, J.D. ’74 USC Dornsife researchers found that female fruit fies of the protein, which “may help regulate sex-specifc stress LINDA MARTENS ’69 were better able to respond to stress caused by a common resistance,” Tower said. The mysterious experience of Martens Scholars Program oxidant, hydrogen peroxide (produced naturally in the body), Te authors ofered a few possible reasons for the difer- love has occupied a central than males. However, males were better able to adapt to ences in male and female responses to hydrogen peroxide. place in western art and litera- another oxidant, the common herbicide paraquat. For instance, because mitochondria are inherited from ture for centuries. “We have focused in on Both oxidants have been implicated in human diseases. the mother, females may have evolved to better respond David Albertson’s new USC Dornsife because Elevated levels of hydrogen peroxide are found in patients to hydrogen peroxide because it is a normal signaling mol- Thematic Option course, “Love it’s something that is sufering from stroke, heart attack or Alzheimer’s disease. ecule produced by mitochondria. and Its Reasons: Eros and Paraquat can damage the neurons involved in Parkinson’s As for males’ adaptation and resistance to paraquat? Transcendence,” challenges common to both of us, preconceived ideas about love, and so it’s something disease. Males express greater dopamine receptor levels, which Oxidative stress occurs when unstable, uncharged may have helped them adapt to oxidative stress from the romance, eroticism and religion. that we feel strongly molecules called free radicals overwhelm the body’s anti- herbicide. While that response may help them adapt to “Our course tries to broaden about. Tere is such a oxidants, then react with other substances to damage cells low stress, however, it may make them a more vulnerable students’ thinking about love broad spectrum there of or generate abnormal ones. Te damage from this stress target to toxic stress, such as Parkinson’s disease. and their conceptual vocabu- how people can develop accumulates with age. lary about different experienc- Te male and female es of love, desire and ecstasy,” their talents and skills M responses to the stress ARTENSES he said. that the College came seem to difer in part be- Students chart the evolution to be a natural place for cause of a protein called of changing beliefs about love PHO us to invest in USC.” Lon protease that is found and religion through the ages T

O by exploring seminal texts. Harlan Martens ’70, J.D. ’74 in mitochondria, the re- C STEVE BY Are there many kinds of love and his wife, Linda ’69, searchers revealed. “Te pledged $15 million in 2016 Lon protease breaks down or just one? How does love alter for an endowed fund to the boundaries of self? Is sexual proteins that are dam- OH

support scholarships and F N; FRUIT aged by oxidative stress,” desire a property of body or fellowships at USC Dornsife. soul? How can love be both Their donation launches the said John Tower, professor Martens Scholars Program, joyful and painful? These are of biological sciences at L Y some of the questions students which will help top students USC Dornsife. PHO come to USC and support pursue through extensive read- T

Mitochondria, the cell’s O current and future generations C BY ing of texts, both ancient and of students. energy generators, contain

H modern, including works by

The Martenses, who met in their own DNA and are RIST a comparative religion class Plato, Ovid, Augustine, Dante,

inherited from the mother. OPH at USC Dornsife in 1967 and Shakespeare, Goethe, and

Increasingly, they are the ER S. NEW married five years later, have focus of age-related re- Kierkegaard, as well as a range kept USC a central part of their of medieval women mystics. lives. They’ve supported the search.

H “I doubt many USC students AR university through member- “Many human diseases A L BERTS ship in USC Associates, the D think of love as something with involve chronic oxidative , RENSSE naming of Martens Plaza, a history that can be studied in

stress, and mitochondria O

the Linda and Harlan Martens N P are the main source,” faculty research and taught in L

Endowed Director’s Chair for HO AER the classroom,” Albertson said, the USC-Huntington Early Tower said. T O POL Modern Studies Institute, and Also, many of the illnesses PETER BY “but we’re doing both.” —S.B. the Linda and Harlan Martens related to oxidative stress YTEC Economic History Forum. H

have diferent prevalence NIC INSTITUTE Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s iconic The Martenses hope their ZH

rates between men and A 17th-century sculpture, Te latest gift will transform lives. O “We see this gift as a way to women, he said. “For in- YU Ecstasy of Saint Teresa of Ávila, ZHO invest in these students’ hopes stance, Alzheimer’s disease shows the saint in the midst of and dreams,” Linda Martens said. U and diabetes-related heart a mystical, ecstatic experience.

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CREATIVE WRITING AND LITERATURE Recognition

L. FRANK BAUM’S OZ BOOKS “Hollywood embraced science fction storytelling in a less Chicago, 1900 marginalized way than the publishing industry,” Ulin said, IfArchive you’ve ever wedged your City of the Future “so there were fnancial and creative opportunities for sci-f feet into sparkling ruby red Los Angeles has long served as inspiration for some of writers in Los Angeles that didn’t exist elsewhere.” —S.B. slip-ons and whimsically the best science fiction ever produced. clicked your heels together, you clearly relate to the film The Wizard of Oz (1939). SUSAN FORSBURG But fans of the original book Imaging Insight Mentoring Award, Nature — The Wonderful Wizard of A new algorithm for analyzing images could make Forsburg, Gabilan Distin- Oz, published in 1900 — know tracking biomolecules easier and cheaper. guished Professor in Science and Engineering and professor that heroine Dorothy Gale’s of biological sciences, was shoes are actually silver. The Researchers use fuorescent imaging to locate proteins awarded the 2016 Nature addition of color is one of those and other molecules in cells and tissues within organisms. Award for Mentoring in Science. The annual award, which slight changes in the cinematic It can help scientists understand which molecules are adaptation process that results includes a $10,000 prize, involved in cancer or other diseases, which in turn may goes to an outstanding mentor in an iconic slice of pop culture. be useful in diagnosis or in identifying drug targets. who is nominated by his or her Although the movie version is A new imaging process, called Hyper-Spectral Phasor mentees. arguably better known than the analysis (HySP), makes the process faster, less expensive and book to contemporary audi- more reliable. ences, L. Frank Baum’s story Postdoctoral fellow Francesco Cutrale and Scott Fraser, captivated the imagination of FL Elizabeth Garrett Chair in Convergent Bioscience and U scores of children, and also O

R Provost Professor of Biological Sciences, developed HySP O delighted older readers. SC through USC’s Translational Imaging Center, a joint “Baum and his wife moved OP Y I venture of USC Dornsife and USC Viterbi School of from Chicago to Los Angeles M

AGE AGE C Its urban landscape and iconic architecture have served Engineering. in 1912,” says Leo Braudy, time and again as backdrops for dystopian visions of the So far, they’ve used HySP in lab studies. Te scientists ROBERT GURALNICK University Professor and O URTESY future. Te long list of leading science fction writers who hope to test it soon in the clinic with the help of soldiers Fellow, American Association Bing Professor of English and have called the city home includes such stars of the genre whose lungs have been damaged by chemicals and irritants for the Advancement of American Literature. “A little Science O

F FRANCESC as Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick, Robert Heinlein and they may have encountered in combat. It may one day help north of Hollywood Boulevard, The world’s largest general Octavia Butler. these soldiers and other lung patients receive more targeted scientific society elected not far from where The Musso Te place — of course — is Los Angeles, a city long treatment. Guralnick, professor of and Frank Grill now stands, mathematics, a fellow of the

O hailed as one of the world’s great science fction capitals. Cutrale and Fraser see the technology as a giant leap for- they built a home they called CUTRA American Association for “Science Fiction L.A.: Words and World Building in ward for both research and medicine. the Advancement of Science Ozcot. There, Baum dabbled the City of Angels,” a two-day conference organized by “Better, faster, cheaper,” Cutrale said. “Tat’s the payof L (AAAS). The election honors unsuccessfully in the movie E; AAAS members whose efforts

FO William Deverell, professor of history and director of the here.” —D.S.J. business and wrote more Oz RSBURG AN Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West, to advance science or its appli- books as well as other works and David Ulin, assistant professor of the practice of cations in service to society of fantasy.” distinguish them among their English, explored how Southern California’s particular peers and colleagues. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz D LAI LAI blend of high and pop culture made L.A. an incubator of was written as a standalone

PHO the form. book, but pleas from children

T “Los Angeles can be seen as the ‘City of the Future’ O for further Emerald City adven- PETER S BY because so much of the futurism of science fction is set tures compelled Baum to write against the backdrop of the city, or written here,” Deverell additional volumes — 14 in all. said. “Te sheer decentralization of Los Angeles sets After Baum’s death in 1919, ZH it apart as unusual in the world lexicon of cities. Add A other writers invented new Oz O YU to that its reputation for being at the cutting edge of stories, but for many avid read- ZHO popular culture and its iconic architectural landscape, and ers, all of the Wizard’s magic is U; all those things suggest that Los Angeles is, and can be, RONGDAO LAI G Fellow, American Council contained within the covers of URA a trendsetter.” of Learned Societies

Baum’s timeless books. —D.K. L NICK L.A. architectural landmarks have played key roles in The American Council of

P science fction flms, among them Frank Lloyd Wright’s Learned Societies awarded Lai, HO PHO assistant professor of religion, Published in 1917, Te Lost T textile block Ennis House and the 19th-century Bradbury O T BY BY

O a Robert H. N. Ho Family

Princess of Oz is the 11th MIKE BY Building, both of which featured prominently in the movie

JOH Foundation Research Fellowship Oz book penned by L. Frank Blade Runner’s vision of a ruined future. in Buddhist Studies for her new Baum. It centers on Dorothy’s N LIVZEY Hollywood was also a major draw for science fction research project on transna- GL attempt to locate Princess Ozma, IER writers, particularly in the 1950s and ’60s, when mainstream tional lineage networks in 20th- the rightful ruler of Oz. publishers looked down their noses at genre fction. century Chinese Buddhism.

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J ACQ UELLE AMANKONAH

WHERE THE FUTURE IS provides you with the ability creators. Her critical thinking the rollout of new products Amankonah offered this piece When it comes to her career, to do, and I use that lens now skills were an asset. for the YouTube platform. She of advice: Plan out your route Profle Jacquelle Amankonah has when I’m faced with a prob- “This is where the strategic has since become a product to the career that you want been known to go above and lem or a decision.” thinking came in — we had manager and is now driving and build relationships with beyond. The first thing she As a student, Amankonah to think of ways to proactively the vision and execution of people who currently work in does when she wakes up is plunged into professional offer help to millions of users YouTube products that better that field. check her work email before experiences that rounded getting out of bed. out what she was learning in “I’m guilty of working on a the classroom. She interned 24/7 clock,” she admits with for Universal Music Group, a a laugh. “Even though it’s music label, and later worked “When you’re in business, you’re faced such a terrible habit, if you with an entrepreneur helping have that burning desire and to form a number of start- with a number of decisions that call passion, why not send an ups including a digital music email and get things done? label. for you to break down a problem, look It’s a great indicator that “That helped me under- you’re doing something that stand how to go from an really drives you.” idea through execution,” she at it clearly, and then derive a logical Amankonah’s passion and explained. determination are what After earning her master’s conclusion. Tat’s what philosophy drive her career as a global degree in 2012, she began program manager at YouTube. working for BET Networks provides you with the ability to do.” That same laser focus helped in the mobile technologies propel her to a professional department to build applica- at scale including a help center connect video creators and “Break down the specific life that she first envisioned tions for music fans. During of topics to address common their fans. steps you need to follow your for herself as a freshman her 2½ years there, she issues and tutorials.” Amankonah also heads path,” she said. “Don’t sit in college. helped to launch five different After a year, she transi- up YouTube’s Creator Love on an amazing dream you She has always been ahead mobile apps that focused on tioned to the development program, in which YouTube’s have because you think it’s of the curve. Amankonah celebrities and music. side of operations at YouTube, staff collaborates with aspir- unachievable.” began college at age 16, hav- “This was a time when mobile where she created the stra- ing and top YouTube video Plus, she added, as a stu- ing graduated early from high was the new thing that people tegic plan to help popular creators all over the world. Her dent you have a great excuse school. She was intent on were experimenting with, and I video creators continue to travel has taken her to Zurich, to reach out to people in the pursuing a business career in completely immersed myself in grow their success. That Colombia, London and many profession you’re aiming for the entertainment industry. that world,” Amankonah said. included rethinking how places in between. She and her to request an informational As an undergraduate, However, she realized that YouTube communicated with staff learn how best to meet interview. “Pick their brains Amankonah was accepted while she enjoyed working in those creators, formulating the needs and desires of these and find out how they got to into USC’s highly selective the television industry, she best practices for starting a YouTube stars, and take that where they are. That’s a great Business Cinematic Arts Pro- really wanted to be part of a YouTube channel and finding information back to the office way to start if you’re not sure gram, offered jointly through company on the cutting edge ways to showcase successful so they can take action. where to begin.” —M.B. the USC Marshall School of of technology. YouTubers. “It’s really interesting Business and the USC School “I said if I could work any- But during the process, working in a job with a level With unwavering commitment of Cinematic Arts, where she where where the future is, Amankonah realized she of responsibility where you’re and a background in philosophy, PHO focused on entrepreneur- there’s this one online video missed the product develop- impacting so many lives,” she law, music and business,

T ship and the music indus- site called YouTube that I ment side of technology that said. “The decisions that I O Jacquelle Amankonah has BY DAN DAN BY try. Amankonah decided to believe is the future.” she had been involved in at make in the office can affect achieved her ultimate career continue her education at USC Amankonah applied for a BET and with her work at millions of people. It’s all on goal. She is a product manager CL by pursuing a progressive job with the company and told startups. your shoulders. You want to

ARK WIT at YouTube and is driving the master’s degree in philosophy herself she would consider “I missed starting from make sure you’re making the vision and execution of products and law at USC Dornsife, two changing jobs only if she could scratch with an idea, coming right moves.”

H that better connect video creators

W disciplines she knew would work for YouTube. She was up with solutions for custom- That large-scale influence is

- EINBERG and their fans. serve her well. invited to interview with ers and seeing those products also what drives Amankonah. “When you’re in business, Google, which owns YouTube, through their launch,” she said. “The scope of responsibility

CL you’re faced with a number of and, after an intense inter- So she made what’s con- and the level of impact makes ARK P decisions that call for you to view process, was hired. She sidered a big career jump this job extremely enlight-

HO break down a problem, look was elated. at YouTube, moving from ening and that’s what I love T O

GRA at it clearly, and then derive Amankonah started by business to product at the about it,” she said.

PH a logical conclusion,” she working with the team that company. She began as global For students who are working

Y said. “That’s what philosophy provides support to video program manager, overseeing toward their dream career,

10 Spring / Summer 2017 11 FROM THE HEA RT OF USC

Viewpoint G EOLOGICAL SCIENCES EXPERT OPINIONS INCLUSION “Business success /in’kluʒ(ə)n/, /iŋ’kluʒ(ə)n/ noun / Lexicon2. b. Geol., Metall., etc. A solid became a sign of fragment, globule of liquid, or God’s favor, and Cultivating Arts Experts gas bubble enclosed within a nowhere more than Students develop their knowledge of artists and artwork at the J. Paul Getty Museum to share stories about mineral, rock, etc.; a discrete in America did this the masters and their works with art lovers. By Michelle Boston body or particle recognizably ethos achieve such distinct from the substance in matched the techniques which it is embedded. forid expression.” Origin: A borrowing ELLEN WAYLAND-SMITH, that were used by Dutch assistant professor (teaching) masters. from Latin. Etymons: Latin of writing, in a Dec. 14 op-ed in Troughout the course, inclūsiōn-, inclūsiō. The Conversation examining how students studied the artists Usage: Inclusions are small the United States has conjoined particles, liquid droplets or business success and piety. and paintings featured in a room of their choosing bubbles of gas that have been at the museum. Trough trapped inside mineral forma- “Fake news is not research and exchanges tions. Inclusions often record a new phenomenon. with their classmates, they information about the condi- learned how to tell the tions when the mineral that It has been around encloses them formed, since news became story of the artwork in the collection. Tey alternated encoded in features such as a concept 500 years between meeting on campus their shape and chemical ago with the inven- at USC and at the museum makeup. Studying inclusions tion of print — a lot to get acquainted more can provide clues that help closely with their subjects, Earth scientists recreate the longer, in fact, than geological past — whether that verifed, ‘objective’ and to practice their docent presentations, which they be unravelling the history of news, which emerged put to use for the public mountain building, recon- in force a little more during the Getty’s College structing past climate and than a century ago.” Night this spring. seawater chemistry, or even searching for signs of early life. JACOB SOLL, professor of Peter Tokofsky, senior history and accounting, in a public programs specialist Dec. 18 Politico commentary on at the Getty who worked the long history of fake news. with the students in the course, sees a huge beneft “On the contrary, for both the students and their insistence on the community when local A small group of students gathered around a portrait of universities engage with the museum’s collections. In addi- mutual regard is a modestly dressed woman, carefully inspecting her like- tion to connecting with museum goers and learning how to remarkably mature ness. Painted in 1841 by French artist Jean-François Millet, present to a wide range of learners, the interaction nurtures and can be considered the subject — clad in a simple black dress with a delicate, critical thinking. inspirational. Adults white lace collar — stands with her arms crossed, looking “Aside from the beauty of the art, and that it provides a may want to turn to squarely at the viewer. window onto the past, great art provides us material that “What strikes you immediately about this portrait?” is good to think with,” he said. “Art confronts some of our Joshua West, Wilford and Daris these preschoolers as Arielle Murphy asked. Murphy is a senior art history major basic human concerns — storytelling, recording the past, Zinsmeyer Early Career Chair role models when it honing her docent skills in “Art History 490: Docents visualizing mythologies, issues of what humanity chooses in Marine Studies and associate J O comes to perceiving at the Getty Museum,” taught by Hector Reyes, assistant to preserve, and so on. Engagement with art, when S professor of earth sciences and H professor (teaching) of art history. Te course ofers students thoughtfully cultivated, can help us build a better society.” UA WEST environmental studies, researches

and relating to other MUSEU humans.” a chance to become experts on a single room of art at the While gaining specialized knowledge through research the chemical processes operating PHO HENRIKE MOLL, assistant J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center in Los Angeles. is an important part of the process, Reyes hopes students M at the Earth’s surface — an area

PHO professor of psychology, and “Her eyes are her most expressive feature,” noted Aurora will also fnd joy in great works of art — which is what the T known as low-temperature O T BY PETER PETER BY ALLIE KHALULYAN, Ph.D. Morandi, a double major in business administration and museum-going experience is all about. O geochemistry. Understanding BY MIC BY student, in a Nov. 17 op-ed in art history. “Tat to me is always such a great experience, and I want these processes is fundamental The Conversation sharing their

“Tat’s very interesting that you would point that out,” students to start to have that kind of relationship to the H to answering questions ranging ZH research, which suggests children E LL A from how the planet’s carbon cycle

Murphy said. Te portrait was painted in the 19th cent- paintings and the art. Tis is about reorienting their research O can understand others’ views E YU and prefer reciprocity and mutual ury, when painters were looking back to Dutch portraiture focus to think about what a collaborative viewing experience BO works to what determines the ZHO engagement between individuals, ST of the 17th century, she explained. Some of the features would be with people,” Reyes said. “After all, there’s no O characteristics of important N U contrary to previous presumptions. that Morandi called out, such as the rendering of the eyes, single authoritative way to interpret a painting.” natural resources.

12 Spring / Summer 2017 13 FROM THE HEA RT OF USC

EARTH SCIENCES

literature come alive for young students — a beneft she In the Field believes won’t end with the competition. Boosting Literacy “Tese students will now look at reading in a diferent New partnership helps fifth-graders polish their light and have a diferent kind of attachment to stories,” she dramatic reading skills. said. “Tey’re going to read silently to themselves in a difer- ent way. Te voices in their heads will be more expressive and they’re going to understand more. Tat will go with them throughout their lives.” —S.B.

CARBON ISOTOPES Belief and the Brain During photosynthesis, Challenging political beliefs triggers brain regions that the lighter and most common govern personal identity and responses to threats. LEAF LEGACY of carbon’s two stable isotopes, Remarkably resilient, leaf carbon 12, reacts faster and USC Dornsife scientists confrm it: People are hardheaded wax molecules persist for is more likely to be used than about their political beliefs, even when provided with con- millions of years. Their legacy, heavier carbon 13. Dry tradictory evidence. preserved in soils and sedi- climates force plants to be “Political beliefs are like religious beliefs in the respect LEAF WAX MOLECULES: ments, reveals climate history, less picky and use both. that both are part of who you are and important for the social including information about Ten-year-old Joseph Vega had always struggled with circle to which you belong,” said Jonas Kaplan, an assistant past climates that serves as reading. But, the shy ffth-grader was about to embark on professor (research) of psychology at USC Dornsife’s Brain a guide to the future. O a daring mission that required him to summon as much and Creativity Institute (BCI). Nonacosane courage as it would take to perform any of the intrepid To determine which brain networks respond when some- feats undertaken by his hero, James Bond. one holds frmly to a belief, USC Dornsife neuroscientists OH Gripping his text tightly in both hands, Joseph walked compared whether and how much people change their N-Octacosanoic Acid to the microphone at the front of the stage at USC’s Galen minds on nonpolitical and political issues when provided Center and took a deep breath. Tere, before a panel of judges with counterevidence. TIME TRAVELING is not from the forest floor, but Hannah Liddy, both of whom early ancestors began walk- and an audience of more than 100 teachers, mentors, Tey discovered that people were more fexible when Sarah Feakins is a climate beneath the oceans our rivers participated in an international ing on two legs in response to students and family members, he began reading aloud a asked to consider the strength of their belief in nonpolitical detective. Her research allows run into. drilling effort to collect sedi- Serengeti-type open grasslands lengthy passage from J.K. Rowling’s beloved novel Harry statements — for example, “Albert Einstein was the great- her to travel back millions of “Erosion means we don’t get ment cores. encroaching on the forest. Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. est physicist of the 20th century.” years to understand how our a continuous record of the past “There’s long been an idea Joseph was among a dozen ffth-grade students from But when it came to reconsidering their political beliefs, climate has evolved through when we look on land,” Feakins EVOLUTIONARY ANSWERS that grasslands were linked John Mack Elementary near USC’s University Park cam- such as whether the United States should reduce military time and then use that knowl- said. “But if we go out into the In the laboratory, Feakins and to human evolution,” she said. pus participating in a Magical Reading Competition held funding, they would not budge. edge to predict how climate ocean, this gentle rain out of her team extract all organic “But actually we find grasslands on Nov. 12. Te event was organized by USC Dornsife’s Te study found that people who were most resistant to change will affect weather and sediments over time captures matter from the sediments by appeared much earlier than our Joint Educational Project (JEP) ReadersPLUS program in changing their beliefs had more activity in the amygdala vegetation in the future. beautifully those leaf waxes. pumping solvents through them ability to walk upright.” partnership with United Voices of Literacy (UVOL), a non- and the insular cortex, compared with people who were Feakins, associate professor It’s like a layer cake. We can to dissolve the leaf waxes and proft that uses a research-based literacy program to teach more willing to change their minds. of earth sciences, is able to do go back through time and read other molecules. They then pu- DAYS OF FUTURE PAST? basic reading and writing skills using phonics and music. “Understanding when and why people are likely to HYDROGEN ISOTOPES this by studying the waxy mol- layers of history through tens rify compounds that come from Feakins’ research also shows that Te joint efort ofered students instruction and practice change their minds is an urgent objective,” said Sarah Of hydrogen’s two stable ecules that coat plant leaves, of millions of years. We can see marine algae and land plants during a period of global warm- in dramatic oral reading during a four-week, after-school Gimbel, a research scientist at the BCI. “Knowing how isotopes, the lighter protium protecting them from cold how the landscape has shifted to build a picture of the ancient ing in the middle Miocene when course. UVOL volunteers joined USC ReadersPLUS staf to and which statements may persuade people to change their is more likely to evaporate temperatures, bright sunlight as the monsoon rains changed climate system. carbon dioxide levels were high, coach the students as they read aloud from Rowling’s best- political beliefs could be key for society’s progress.” —E.G. from the ocean surface, while and heavy rain. in intensity, and we can see “We take those purified ancient Antarctica was warmer seller. heavier deuterium is the “The remarkable thing about whether the landscape was for- leaf waxes and analyze their and wetter than previously Melanie Alvarez, a senior majoring in cognitive science PLUS frst to fall as rain. Studying these molecules is that they’re est or grassland and what it was isotopic composition,” Feakins thought. This provides clues ft. 4,000 and psychology and the JEP Readers coordinator at resulting hydrogen isotope preserved in soils and in sedi- like as it became wetter or drier explained. “We look at their about how the climate system John Mack Elementary, said she was proud of the students’ patterns in rainfall world- ments under lakes and in the over time.” carbon isotopes, which tell us will operate and vegetation will Researchers drill down progress. wide allows researchers to oceans for millions of years, The 25 million-year-old about the types of plants that respond when the planet warms through 4,000 feet of mud on “As a second-grader, Joseph would barely want to read track water cycle movement. thus allowing us a window into samples that Feakins is were present. We can also up and has less ice than today. the ocean floor to extract core with me one-on-one, so to see him read in front of an P past ecosystems,” she said. currently studying were ex- measure the hydrogen isotopes, “You might wonder: Why does HO sediment samples. Up to 100 audience today was wonderful,” she said. “I think it’s great T

tracted from the Bengal Fan, which tell us about rainfall. We the middle Miocene matter?” O grams of sediment are required BY MIKE MIKE BY for him and all the other ffth-graders to start developing LAYER CAKE a vast deposit of graded sedi- can tease all that information Feakins said. “It’s a good analog to purify 1/1,000 of a gram of that fearlessness and those reading skills now … before As erosion is a key element in ments in the Indian Ocean, by out of these sediment cores.” to where carbon dioxide levels leaf waxes that can then be

GL they transition to middle school.” landscape formation, the best postdoctoral researcher Camilo Feakins’ research challenges are headed. It shows what kind of analyzed for clues to past and IER Christina Koneazny, associate director of administration place to extract that sediment Ponton and graduate student long-held beliefs that humans’ dramatic changes are in store.” future climate evolution. and educational outreach at JEP, said reading aloud helps

14 Spring / Summer 2017 15 FROM THE HEA RT OF USC Our Community

STUDENTS DTLA FACULTY University Park STUDENTS Mid-Wilshire FACULTY AND STAFF South L.A. STAFF Santa Monica USC participated in the national If climate change patterns hold, Warrior Chorus – Arts and the world famous Santa Monica Humanities in Action program, Pier might begin to resemble Crime Finders which trains U.S. Armed Community, Confict and Commonality the lost city of Atlantis in just Using Los Angeles’ innovative GeoHub, researchers visualize where violent crimes Forces veterans to present Report examines the region’s evolving identity and the coalitions that are leading efforts to improve social, 30 years. take place to improve safety for residents. performances based on an- economic and political conditions in the area. The USC Sea Grant program, cient Greek literature. based at USC Dornsife, in When the mayor of Los Angeles considers your research on crime data and public safety Veterans partnered with Katie Bolton stood before a high partnership with the U.S. so valuable that he invites you to work with his team, it’s pretty exciting. university scholars to study school classroom at the Robert Geological Survey and the city Last December, six undergraduates plus Postdoctoral Research Associate Noli Brazil classical texts and connections F. Kennedy Community Schools of Santa Monica, let people see and GIS Project Specialist Beau MacDonald from USC Dornsife’s Spatial Sciences between the ancient world and in Los Angeles. what this would look like last Institute (SSI) presented fndings from the research they had undertaken that fall to contemporary America as they “What are some of the reasons fall through a virtual reality Mayor Eric Garcetti’s Data Team and the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). relate to veterans and the pub- people immigrate?” the installation called the “Owl” Using data from GeoHub — Los Angeles’ new public platform for exploring and lic. Then, the veterans prepared USC Dornsife junior asked. at the Santa Monica Pier. visualizing location-based open data — the student researchers created a mapping performances inspired by A girl raised her hand. “Better Through the viewer, which application that brought together information about crime occurrences with social and scenes from classical plays and economic opportunities?” resembled the coin-operated built-environment features. Tey incorporated variables like unemployment rates, the Greek tragedies. “Right,” Bolton nodded. The binoculars regularly seen at presence of street lights and proximity to public transportation, and then visualized this U.S. Navy veteran John lesson was part of USC Dornsife’s beach piers, beachgoers could data by specifc street segments. Pistone said that studying clas- Teaching International Relations witness in the blink of an eye In their presentation, the SSI team members shared their analysis, which underscored sical Greek works showed just Program, or TIRP. a century’s worth of elevated the importance of connecting place and space to improve public safety. Tey also showed how universal and timeless the Bolton, a double major in NGOs tides advancing on the shore. how their mapping application can uncover important patterns of crime. war experience is. and social change and environ- A 180-degree perspective “We were so impressed with the high quality of work “What fascinates me is that mental studies, is a veteran showed total flooding wrought that SSI has done. Tey have brought us an innova- you look at these stories, they participant in the service- by a combination of both sea- tive approach that will be tremendously useful as the were written thousands of learning program, in which level rise and changing weather Mayor’s ofce, LAPD and other city stakeholders years ago, and the morals and undergraduates visit local high patterns. work to develop policies and strategies to improve the questions that they pose schools to teach interactive les- “While we can’t stop the community safety,” said Brian Buchner, Garcetti’s are still very relevant today,” sons on complex global issues. WARRI inexorable changes to our he said. “I think as long as Lesson topics range from ethics beaches, we do have cutting-

policy director for public safety. O South Los Angeles and its people have been in a state of transition for more than a century. Richard Windisch, an L.A. native, is a junior there’s going to be war, there’s and human rights to globaliza- R C Te area is the site of an immense demographic shift, from majority African American to majority Latino. Researchers at edge science that helps us plan going to be those questions.” tion, climate change and election HO today and adapt to the future,” at USC Dornsife majoring in RUS P USC Dornsife’s Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration (CSII) documented the impact of this change in a recent GeoDesign. He relished put- issues. For their teaching, under- report, “Roots|Raíces Latino Engagement, Place Identities and Shared Futures in South Los Angeles.” said Phyllis Grifman, associate graduates use a combination of HO director of USC Sea Grant. “It’s

ting his learning into practice T Te integration of Latino immigrants in the community has exposed points of confict and commonality for both popula- O through this project. analytical tools, case studies BY tions on a range of issues. important to have a community- “Te opportunity to pres- and activities developed by the JOH “Te new narrative recognizes not just the poverty, history and tensions of the past, but the area’s evolving identity and the based discussion about how to

Center for Active Learning in N adapt, and the Owl helps start

ent a semester’s worth of FL successful black-brown coalitions that are leading signifcant social, economic and political improvements in the area,” said

research to city ofcials International Studies (CALIS). AN Manuel Pastor, co-author of the report, co-director of CSII, Turpanjian Chair in Civil Society and Social Change, and this conversation.” D

CALIS Director Teresa Hudock RICK; B

and partners was a unique M professor of sociology and American studies and ethnicity. experience,” he said. “I was said TIRP provides an excellent URA Racial tensions at times in this recent history of South L.A. have defned the relationship between blacks and Latinos, but L opportunity for students of all OL P

able to see the importance T both groups have much in common, as they cope with issues such as job availability and access to education. Such challenges HO majors to refine their skills in O N of my degree in spatial T could unite rather than divide residents. O PHO sciences and how it can presenting, teaching and engag- LAURA BY Te researchers said many cities around the country are experiencing similar demographic shifts. Tey hailed South L.A. T

ing an audience. O beneft an entire city as well BY as a potential model. “That’s the bigger picture of as improve the understanding M “Similar population changes have taken place — or are presently taking place — in other U.S. cities such as Oakland, IKE G A

what TIRP is — service learning V of Los Angeles’ working parts O Calif., Jackson, Miss., and Orlando, Fla.,” Pastor said. “Te results of our efort to assess the impacts and lessons of these CA

and community engagement,” L IER through the lens of diferent city DO transformations can help Los Angeles and other cities develop and implement strategies that engage residents, reduce confict, departments.” she said. connect them with organizations and services, and provide support that improves equity and opportunity.”

16 Spring / Summer 2017 17 By Susan Bell

ow do writers bring their creative vision to the page? Five of USC Dornsife’s leading authors, writing across genres of fction, poetry, memoir, criticism and narrative nonfction, unlock the mystery.

Early in her writing career, best-selling author Aimee Bender followed the widely accepted wisdom of the day by diligently jotting down ideas whenever — and wherever — they came to her. Te theory, expounded by celebrated writing coaches, was that these notes would work as memory aids, recording inspirational moments, unlocking creativity and making writer’s block a thing of the past. Index cards (small, easily portable) were deemed the perfect tool for the job. Bender, however, bucked the trend. “I tried jotting down notes on index cards for a while,” she confdes, “and it was almost shocking to me, when I’d sit down to write, how much they didn’t give me.”

18 Spring / Summer 2017 19 pre-writing stage as in the actual writing.” trying to fgure out. I keep cycling back to issues of identity, Bender takes the path opposite to Morrison’s, eschewing place, time, memory and mortality because I can never notebooks, outlines and — especially — index cards, resolve them and I don’t think I ever will.” indeed, planning of any sort. Maggie Nelson, who will join USC Dornsife as professor Rather, Bender says she tries to be as open, present and of English in Fall 2017, is another genre-busting writer who receptive to the world as possible. How that vision is processed onto the page is the mysterious alchemy that becomes the act of writing. “ “What I’m always hoping to do is surprise myself and therefore the reader,” Bender said. “I don’t do surrealism to be strange or odd. I do it because it’s the best way I know to hat moment of discovery in the act get an emotion.” For Bender, the essence of creative vision can be distilled of writing is what pushes me forward. into two words: “structure” and “surrender.” “You create a structure so that you can surrender,” she said. Tat sense of mystery is important to me. “Language provides that structure. It is the holder of what is underneath: that inexplicable force that brings artistic im- I get bored if I know too much.” pulse into being.” Indeed, unlike many novelists whose writing focus is largely character or plot, Bender’s fction is primarily driven defes easy classifcation — at once poet, cultural critic, art by language. writer and autobiographer. Te author of fve nonfction “I love words and how they relate to each other, how the books and four books of poetry, her work spans a wide range combination of certain words creates a state of mind or feel- of topics that includes the murder of her aunt, Jane Mixer; ing, or an idea that you haven’t thought of before, and that’s the color blue; queer family; violence in art; and a history of also a big part of how I teach — how certain words create a women poets and painters in 1950s New York. kind of energy, and how remarkable that is. “My process is probably a bit diferent from other “In my view, language is actually your guide to where the writers in that I typically don’t know what the genre of what good material is. If the language has life in it, then that’s I’m working on is going to be until I’ve done a lot of research probably where your story is.” and taken a lot of stabs at writing,” she said. “Tere’s research To channel her unique creative vision, Bender relies on a and then there’s the discovery process once you start putting self-enforced structure that gives her room to surrender. words together on the page.” “My writing improved a lot when I started working on For instance, she began her latest book, Te Argonauts a fairly rigid schedule,” she said. “Previously I’d just writ- (Graywolf Press, 2015), in a personal idiom, but after writing ten whenever I felt like it and it had this kind of boundless, for some time noticed she preferred passages where she had daunting feel. Now there’s a discipline to it and I fnd so much veered more toward cultural criticism and decided to weight comfort in the idea that I don’t have to write a single word. the book in that direction instead. All I have to do is sit there and it does become so boring, and Nelson shares Bender’s obsession with language. so dull, that some kind of resource kicks in and eventually I’ll “I think because I started as a poet, I have a very hard time start making something up.” reading things with sentences I don’t fnd lovely,” she said. For this to work, Bender acknowledges, a certain degree of “In my own writing, I’m impatient with prose that has no faith in one’s creative abilities is necessary. rhythm or music, even if it’s critical writing. In the land of “Te main thing is the confdence to sit down and to create poetry, sound and content are one, and I’ve taken that mes- and to believe that it’s worth my time to sit down, even if I get sage to all kinds of writing that I’ve done.” LITERARY SWEET SPOT “I have a really strong belief that that is where the work nothing done for days on end. Tat’s the hurdle — to think Renowned for her surreal plots and characters, Bender, lives and the work is not necessarily anything that I can it’s worth that investment in my own imagination, in my own A SENSE OF PLACE Distinguished Professor of English and director of the predict or know about in advance. I can’t plan it and I can’t creative process, to sit here.” Nelson, who hails from the Bay Area and moved back to Ph.D. Program in Creative Writing and Literature, is the impose on it.” California after living in New York for many years, says liv- award-winning author of fve magically of-kilter novels DEFYING CLASSIFICATION ing in Los Angeles has a strong infuence on what she terms and volumes of short stories, many imbued with an almost A MYSTERIOUS ALCHEMY Ulin, who in addition to his prolifc career as a literary critic “the metabolism” of her writing. fairy-tale quality. Her best-known work, the 2010 novel In almost 30 years of writing literary criticism, author David is the author or editor of nine books, also prefers to fgure out “I’ve watched how the spaciousness of the place has made Te Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake (Doubleday) features Ulin, assistant professor of the practice of English and former his vision during the writing process rather than mapping it its way into my intellectual life,” she said. TUNING OUT, TUNING IN a heroine, Rose Edelstein, who discovers at age 9 that she book critic of the Los Angeles Times, has talked to hundreds out beforehand. “When I frst moved here from New York and stopped Tuning into creativity some- is endowed with the ability to taste the emotions of the of writers about their creative vision. What struck him most “For me, that moment of discovery in the act of writing taking the subway and started driving, I noticed that instead times involves tuning out cook in everything she eats. is that there is no one, agreed-upon path. Moreover, some is what pushes me forward,” he said. “Tat sense of mystery is of thinking in fragments — which is how the subways work, surrounding distractions. So how does Bender come up with her curious and writers, he found, are adept at talking about their process, important to me. I get bored if I know too much.” where you catch conversations and see diferent things every distinctive creative vision? how they develop a story and the ideas they’re writing about, Ulin believes that his career as a critic plays into his per- minute — I found myself plotting the arc of my books and Certainly not by thinking about writing, something she while others are reticent. sonal creative vision as a writer of fction, poetry and narra- imagining their form as I drove. Tat has allowed me to take fnds most unhelpful, she says. “For instance, Zadie Smith is very articulate about tive nonfction, where he is interested in the places in which on larger projects because I’ve had the mental and physical “It’s actually counterproductive,” she added. “I want to re- what she’s doing and wants to engage in that conversation, genres blur. space to lay them out. move the thinking part from the process as much as possible.” whereas Philip Roth doesn’t want to unpack the mystery “I think they all come from the same well,” he said. “In New York there’s a lot of talking. I’m a loquacious per- Instead, she believes that her best material lies just of the process,” he said. “My understanding is that Toni “Tere’s a great F. Scott Fitzgerald quote to the efect that son and I loved being with all that speech, but in a strange below consciousness in what she describes as a very sweet Morrison maps out everything scrupulously before she all writers have a couple of shattering transformative experi- way it never allowed me to be quiet enough to hear what was spot between the tip of awareness and out of awareness. begins to write, so the discovery occurs as much in the ences that they keep returning to because that’s what they’re going on in my head. Since I’ve been here, I learned how

20 I LLUSTRATIO NS BY JO NATH AN CARL S O N FO R USC DORNSIFE M A G A Z I N E Spring / Summer 2017 21 to pay more attention to following my interests in a more Set in a futuristic vision of L.A., now under martial rule, describing a singlet as a ‘wife-beater,’ to saying ‘knocked expansive way.” Legend depicts USC as a military university. up’ instead of pregnant. I’m interested in how these words Nelson’s sensitivity to place is echoed by New York Times “Downtown is half-fooded, and steel skyscrapers like the come down to us and how they contribute to furthering best-selling novelist Marie Lu ’06. Lauded by critics, Lu has U.S. Bank Tower rise out of a vast lake. Tey’re abandoned, violence against women because the language we use shapes already established herself as a bright star in yet another but people swim over to them to sit on the sides and dangle the world we live in.” genre: young adult fction. their feet in the water,” Lu said. “It was fascinating to take Imagery is crucial to Sinclair and her poetry uses Her creative vision fnds expression in her remarkable what was familiar to me, the streets and buildings that I recurring images of the sea and of the bougainvillea and ability to take the darker elements of real life, either current knew so well from living in L.A., and tweak them to ft a hibiscus that bloom freely in Jamaica. or historical, and project them into the dystopian fantasy dystopian vision.” “A well-crafted image can convey anything,” she said. worlds she builds in her fction — worlds that ofer the Lu also taps into her background as an artist to make “It can convey pain, violence or joy. It can say the thing with- “ possibility to hold up a mirror to reality. detailed drawings of her characters before she starts writing out saying the thing, by showing you. It’s a way to subtly give about them. the reader an invitation into the poem and the meaning of “If I don’t draw them I have trouble understanding who the poem or the ‘why’ of the poem without being pedantic. they are. Tis physical exploration of character also helps me It’s an opportunity for the poet to be painterly.” well-crafted image can convey fgure out the rest of the story.” Te sea is always in the background of Sinclair’s poems, Music is also key to Lu’s creative process. even if it’s never named or mentioned. “Te sea is the anything. It can convey pain, “I have a lot of trouble writing in silence,” she said. “It’s too lyric landscape that I fnd my mind wandering to when distracting, too loud.” I’m entering into a poem,” she said. “I was born in a fsh- She overcomes that loudness by curating playlists tailored ing village right on the beach and the sea is always some- violence or joy. It can say the thing to each novel. She wrote Warcross to electronic music and thing I’m trying to echo, whether rhythmically or metrically, soundtracks from video games and sci-f movies interspersed in my work. without saying the thing, by showing you.” with mood music to help her get into the right frame of mind “Te landscape of memory, of growing up in Jamaica with to write certain scenes. its wild and impenetrable tropical vegetation, is also a rich Lu also travels extensively. A trip to Canada to see the place for me to frame many of my poems. I’m interested in “Writing is my own form of therapy,” Lu said. “It’s my Northern Lights resulted in a rich haul of sensory detail that trying to mirror this natural world on the page.” way of making sense of the world.” she used to good efect in Te Young Elites. As she writes, Sinclair reads her poems aloud because — Lu credits her frst job in the video game industry for “Tere’s just no replacing the feeling of actually standing as she notes — “this is where the words and music combust, kick-starting her creativity and motivation as a writer. in a place to understand it with all my senses,” she said. and the poem’s energy emerges.” It also inspired her latest novel, Warcross, due out from G.P. “In Canada, it was 50 below zero and I could feel the sur- Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers in fall 2017. face of my eyeballs freezing. Ice crystals formed on my lashes, KEEPING THE FAITH Te book explores a dystopian universe dominated by and when I took a breath, it hurt because the air was so cold. If Sinclair grew up under a strict patriarchy, Bender’s a video game that becomes a way of life for its millions I don’t think I would have been able to write those scenes youth was strongly infuenced by the liberating qualities of fans. so successfully without having actually experienced that kind of modern dance. Te daughter of a psychoanalyst and Warcross is set in Tokyo, a city Lu visited last spring and of cold.” a choreographer, her childhood resonated with poetry, found mesmerizing — a quality she was determined to fairy tales, theater, and the intimation from her father recreate in her novel, in which her characters wear contact EXILE AND IDENTITY that the exploration of feelings through words was worth lenses that overlay another reality on top of the real world. Place also occupies a central role in the creative vision pursuing. “I wanted to play with the idea of changing our envi- of Safya Sinclair, a doctoral student in creative writing “Tat combination of psychology and theater was potent ronment so we’re all living in a diferent reality,” she said. and literature at USC Dornsife. An award-winning poet, and compelling to me,” Bender said. “As a result, the “Whatever you want to see can be downloaded into your Sinclair earned a prestigious 2016 Whiting Writers’ Award confict between what’s on the surface and what’s under- vision, so not only do you see looming skyscrapers, you also for her frst full-length collection, Cannibal (University of neath is endlessly interesting to me in terms of how we see dragons fying in the sky or stardust raining down.” Nebraska Press, 2016). navigate each other and ourselves.” Tat might sound like harmless fun, but Lu is intent on Born in Jamaica into a Rastafarian household, Sinclair She has participated in many community outreach exploring the darker side of the moral ambiguities arising says she always felt like an outsider in her native land where projects, from teaching creative writing to underserved from such technological advances. “For instance, those who Rastafarians — a minority — sufer discrimination. elementary students at the USC Family of Schools, to doing walk through a poor neighborhood full of broken windows “My siblings and I always felt some sense of otherness, theater improv with psychiatric patients. and homeless people could download a diferent virtual of being an outsider, something akin to a kind of exile, feeling “It’s been a pleasure for me to try to loosen up the restric- reality overlay, so instead they see clean streets with beautiful like a stranger in your own home, your own body, your own tive thinking around fction in any way I can with my own sidewalks swept clean of problems and sufering. T at’s country.” work and as a teacher,” she said. “It’s exciting for students disturbing for obvious reasons.” For Sinclair, writing poetry was a saving grace, a way to to write something that shocks them or makes them laugh. reason through feelings of exclusion and make sense of them. I think that’s an incredible sense of discovery and openness, SOWING THE SEEDS Using her poetry to shatter stereotypes and engage social so I try to do as much as I can to facilitate that.” Lu studied political science and biology and says those issues, her work explores themes of identity, race, misogyny Bender tells her students to keep faith with the process, subjects still inform her writing today. and exile. that if the story is starting to work it will develop on its own “Te courses I took at USC Dornsife sowed the seeds As part of her thesis, Sinclair is writing a prose memoir terms — if they can let it. Too often, she says, a student writ- WELL OF CREATIVITY for the topics that I choose to write about now,” she said. about growing up as a young Rastafarian woman under ing an interesting story will introduce a major twist because Writers may have widely Her frst series, Legend, envisions what our future might a strict patriarchy. “I realized I wanted to interrogate why I of anxiety over a perceived lack of plot. different processes, but most be like a hundred years from now by taking current issues was being treated diferently than my brother or other boys I “Suddenly the police will arrive, or there’ll be a car crash,” agree that their vision springs and extrapolating from them. knew. Tis idea of womanhood as a place of exile is a constant she said. “It’s ludicrous and almost funny, but you can feel from a deeper place than logical “I thought, ‘What if our two political sides were pushed source of interest for me.” that it comes from this impulse to make something happen thought. to such extremes that we fgured we can’t live with each Sinclair’s research also focuses on the violence of language. in this false way. My wish for my students would be for them other anymore, and the United States splits into two “So many words and expressions in our everyday vernacular not to make choices that feel contrived, but to make choices diferent countries.’ ” are rooted in violence against women,” she said, “from that feel organic.”

22 Spring / Summer 2017 23 Writing Teir Truth by Laura Paisley GOING OUT INTO THE COMMUNITY it was clear that transformation is possible, in spite of all the dif- Bower and Murray were inspired after hearing about a pop-up ficulties and the system being stacked against them,” she said. writing workshop for underserved populations while at a Many of the men say that the experience of writing is cathartic conference on community writing in Denver. They were eager to for them. institute something similar back in Los Angeles. “Watching this in action is really moving,” Artiano said. “They’re “It seemed like something we’d like USC to be doing more of — always eager to hear critiques and at times resist what they feel is going out into the community and bringing the community in,” excessive praise of their work.” Bower said. Bower has observed how meaningful it is for the men to talk She and Murray joined forces with their colleagues Pack and about their experiences and to explore their shifting sense of Emily Artiano, lecturers in the Writing Program, to team teach identity. weekly creative writing sessions for residents of The Francisco “One of the guys talked about how he’s involved in making the Homes. journey from a prison mentality to that of a citizen, a human being. “The men have become wonderful critics for each other, and in And he’s recognized the way that writing plays an essential role in that way it became a genuine writing workshop rather than just that journey.” us being the teachers,” Bower said. The notion of restorative justice is an important aspect of the Eventually, the instructors are hoping to compile the men’s mission of The Francisco Homes. In the context of crime, restor- written work into a printed publication. ative justice strives to bring reconciliation between the parties, working to provide healing and unity to all affected — as individuals A NIGHT OF APPRECIATION … AND THEN SOME when possible, but ultimately as a community. Culminating the six-week workshop with a live reading at the Night “This work has made me much more aware of restorative of Appreciation was, by all accounts, a successful innovation. justice,” Murray said. “I see how much of the general population “We recognized what the men were really interested in was doesn’t consider this approach to crime, and the notion of healing telling their story for an audience,” Bower said. “They talk a lot as opposed to retribution, but it’s a really interesting idea.” about the process of rehumanization, so telling their stories gives them the ability to see themselves in a different light that’s not IMPACT THAT GOES BOTH WAYS “I’ve benefted from defined by the prison identity.” It’s certainly not just the participants for whom the writing work- the opportunity to Murray agreed. shops are meaningful. For Murray, working with this community has release, or put down “These guys all have really unique stories,” he said. “And I impacted him both personally and intellectually. in words, things that think it’s a population that gets totally demonized in the general “I think that to be out there with these guys — to understand and usually just spin around population, so to get out the humanity from behind their stories be comfortable and connect with them — humanizes how I read in my head. But most is really interesting.” research and understand current events now. It’s made me aware of For some of the readers, it was their first time sharing their my own lens, of someone with my education and background. important is the oppor- writing outside of the workshop. David “Smitty” Smith was “I thought I was unbiased, but I realized I was very comfortable tunity to learn and use among them. with how I compartmentalized people. For me as a person, that the lessons to refne a “THE HOLE. THE HOLE IS NOTHING LIKE THE MOVIES OR TV taught on a volunteer basis by Pack and several other faculty Smith, who served more than 28 years in state prison, began realization is really important, and it’s a reminder of how easy writing process.” MAKE IT SEEM. IT’S SO MUCH LESS AND SO MUCH MORE, ALL members from USC Dornsife’s Writing Program. attending the creative writing sessions early on. He appreciated it is to lapse into thinking you know who it is you’re talking to or DAVID “SMITTY” SMITH, AT THE SAME TIME. IT IS ONE OF THE MOST BORING PLACES For the past decade, Associate Professors (Teaching) of Writing the insights the workshops gave him on how to transfer some of reading about.” former prisoner “One of the guys ON EARTH. YOU ARE IN A LITTLE CELL AND IN ISOLATION WITH Stephanie Bower and John Murray have been working with the his feelings into language. Though Bower sometimes dreads the long drive between her house ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO. AND 24 HOURS A DAY, YOU Catholic faith-based organization, located a mile from USC’s “I’ve benefited from the opportunity to release, or put down in and The Francisco Homes, the journey always pays off. talked about how CAN HEAR THE CRIES, SCREAMS, WHIMPERS AND CURSING OF University Park campus. It offers holistic support, a place to live words, things that usually just spin around in my head,” he said. “Every day I feel so glad that I’m there,” she said. “There’s just he’s involved in making THOSE AROUND YOU GOING SLOWLY INSANE. THAT IS, UNTIL and a sense of community for formerly incarcerated individuals “But most important is the opportunity to learn and use the lessons something about being in that space and seeing how appreciative the journey from THE SOUNDS BECOME SO FAMILIAR THEY ARE MERELY BACK- as they attempt to reintegrate into society after lengthy prison to refine a writing process.” they are — seeing the way that words give life to new realities and a prison mentality GROUND NOISE. MY ONLY PROTECTION WAS TO GO INSIDE OF sentences. Murray reflected on how valuable the act of writing can be. new ways of being in the world, and being the audience and the to that of a citizen, MYSELF AND DEEP INTO MY OWN MIND.” Writing classes such as “Writing 340: Writing in the Community,” “I think [working with these men] is a great reminder of what listener for that.” a human being. And co-taught by Bower and Murray, partner students from USC with a luxury it is to write, to be able to articulate and process your Harrison’s words reflect the process of rehumanization that he and On a mild October evening, The Francisco Homes, a social justice community organizations like The Francisco Homes, allowing under- experience and understand yourself better through writing.” his peers have embarked upon. For him, it is ultimately a message of he’s recognized the way nonprofit providing support to former prisoners, held its annual graduates to work directly with those community partners to tell hope and gratitude. that writing plays an Night of Appreciation event. Standing before a full room of donors their stories. BUILDING A NEW IDENTITY “I believe I will spend the rest of my life changing into the man I am essential role in that and friends of the organization, Paul Harrison carefully read from Each spring, the professors bring to their classes a few men from After joining the USC faculty last year, Artiano jumped at the chance supposed to be. Every day is not an adventure — it holds triumphs journey.” a page in his hands as writing teacher Ben Pack (MPW ’12) held the The Francisco Homes to speak about their experiences. Bower said PHO to participate when Bower contacted a few colleagues about the and defeats. To me that is called life. Now I live a life of firsts. The T

STEPHANIE BOWER, associate microphone for him. Harrison candidly reflected on his experiences this has been “tremendously impactful for students.” O creative writing workshops at The Francisco Homes. first time I walked down the street a free man; the first time I ate BY BY professor (teaching) of writing in, and now out of, prison. “The men are very generous with our students and have always Once she began working with the former prisoners, Artiano out; the first time I saw a child; and so many more, each one more M “I’ve never written a thing in my life before,” Harrison said. made such an effort toward them and us,” Murray said. That is why IKE G quickly observed that they were most interested in talking about precious than the last. … What all this means to me is that this is

And he never would have, he added, if not for the creative writing he and his fellow faculty members wanted to donate their own time L their individual transformations. not the ending of my story but just the beginning. Each day is a gift, IER workshops he attended at The Francisco Homes. The classes are and expertise to do something for the men. “I wasn’t expecting their commitment to wanting to make sure and I must always give thanks. And never forget how I got here.”

24 Spring / Summer 2017 25 T H E

Alumnus Julian Leuthold, the visionary founder of GetGlobal — the first conference on how to succeed in foreign markets — attributes his success to the open-minded approach to life and business he learned V from the country he now calls his second home: India. By Susan Bell

I Sandwiched between a group of Afghan goat herders and lifestyle and cultural materials had been so familiar to me a Sikh businessman, Julian Leuthold inched forward in the from a very young age.” long customs line at Delhi airport. It was New Year’s Day After talking his way into a semester of graduate study 2010, and inside the teeming terminal, Christmas carols were at New Delhi’s prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University, still blasting over the loudspeaker system. Leuthold’s circle of friends expanded to include numerous S Leuthold had come to explore the country’s nuclear Indian executives. policy as part of a study abroad program. It was his frst “Tey kept asking me, ‘Julian, why do American compa- trip to India and the culture shock was intense. However, nies come here and make so many mistakes? Why do they the senior, who graduated later that year with a bachelor’s repeat the same errors, time and time again?’” in international relations from USC Dornsife and mar- Leuthold didn’t have a ready answer, but couldn’t get the I keting from USC Marshall School of Business, kept an question out of his head. open heart and mind as he plunged into this unfamiliar As he pondered, he began to recognize a pattern. Companies new world. Tat generosity of spirit has repaid him a thou- going into India assumed there was a subcontinent full of sand times over, most notably in his successful career as people just waiting to buy their products. “And that just the founder and CEO of Geoskope, the company behind isn’t the case,” Leuthold said. “If they want to succeed, they O GetGlobal, the frst conference on how to succeed in foreign need to stop underestimating the sophistication of the markets. country they’re dealing with. American companies need Leuthold traces the germ of the idea for GetGlobal back to get to know Indian society and how it works and fgure to some unexpected observations he made during that study out the best way to meet it — its diverse cultures, structure abroad program. and history — halfway. Instead, I realized, most business N Two factors helped him adapt to his new life. First — executives are just making it up as they go along and Indians unusually for an expat — he didn’t hang out with many easily recognize this.” Americans. Te more he explored, the more Leuthold realized this lack GLOBAL OUTLOOK “All my friends were Indian and I started to feel very com- of cultural and institutional fuency was not limited to India. Alumnus Julian Leuthold fortable because I left behind all my assumptions,” he said. “It’s Brazil, it’s Mexico, it’s the countries of Africa and exemplifies many of the quali- A “I tried to live my life in India the way Indians live theirs.” even Canada. American companies have a really difcult ties of a visionary, among them Second, although no one in his family had ever been to time understanding how things work in most countries,” being a nontraditional thinker. India, his mother and grandmother both had Hindu gurus he said. “Tat isn’t to say that nobody gets it right, but it’s not and Leuthold spent his childhood surrounded by Indian made easy.” books and artifacts. A Brookings Institution report confrmed his worst R “Growing up, I also became familiar with the Tibetan suspicions. “It made plain what I’d been suspecting the diaspora,” he said. “So it was an easy jump for me to entire time: Nobody was pulling together all the necessary understand India on its own terms because the words, participants of trade and investment under one roof.” 26 Y P HOT O BY MARC GOLDSTEIN Spring / Summer 2017 27 Leuthold was determined to change that. In 2011, and feel comfortable enough to say, “I don’t know.” Because later with the help of two of his former USC Dornsife profes- when it came to India or so many other foreign markets, sors, David Karl and Pamela Starr, he founded Geoskope, he knew that most of them didn’t know. a company that grew out of his astute observation that “I thought, maybe they need some music, or a few drinks, businesses with ambitions to expand into foreign markets or a lighthearted atmosphere where openness is encouraged,” lacked a one-stop destination to get their questions answered. he said. All those elements can be found at GetGlobal, which “I realized this was a major opportunity to pull together also owes its style in part to Leuthold’s 2½-year stint work- key participants in international trade and investment and ing for an online magazine owned by Track Entertainment build a conversation about how to compete successfully — organizer of many of Miami’s biggest music festivals. internationally,” Leuthold said. Te gig, which he gave up after transferring to USC in Spring Held in Los Angeles in October 2016, Geoskope’s frst 2006, enabled him to gain invaluable experience in concert GetGlobal conference drew almost 1,000 registered and event management. attendees, including delegations from the United Arab Emirates, Southeast Asia and Colombia, all keen to hear the insights of GetGlobal’s 150 international experts. “Tis was the big experiment,” Leuthold said. “Will they mix?” Te answer was a resounding yes. “THERE’S BEAUTY IN SAYING, “We had former Mexican intelligence ofcials sitting next to a virtual reality game producer and executives from an IT SAYS … organic beverage company.” Leuthold fnds bringing people together immensely satisfying because he says it helps people to grow, question ‘I’M READY TO LEARN.’ ” and see things from diferent viewpoints. “What excites me most about what I’m doing is the “I thought I’d never use that stuf again, but it turns out possibility of being the platform for a conversation on the I’m applying a lot of music festival concepts to GetGlobal,” connection of cultures through trade that’s been going on said Leuthold, who isn’t shy about borrowing ideas from the since tribal Africa but didn’t have a venue until now. Tat rock world to inject an unexpected dose of glamour into the kind of blows my mind when we could be using this conver- usually sober milieu of international business. For its launch sation to build connections and move the world forward in a GetGlobal shook up expectations, boasting a live art show, positive direction.” cool lighting design and a cutting-edge music system. Leuthold was born and raised in L.A., where his father Leuthold’s decision to hold GetGlobal in his hometown is worked in banking and entertainment. Te family moved a strategic one. often, so as a child Leuthold constantly had to make “In D.C., everyone asks me, ‘Why L.A.?’ Te answer is new friends. that we can get away with more in L.A.: more humor, more Tis feeling of being “forever the outsider,” Leuthold glamour. We can break a few rules. It might not ft in D.C., confesses, was his primary motivation for launching his but here it makes sense and our attendees delight in that.” earlier ventures, which later proved to be a model for Initially drawn to USC by its diversity, Leuthold now starting GetGlobal. fnds that the same quality in the international Trojan Family “I did it because I felt like a loner. I was really shy.” Te is of enormous beneft in building his business. Leading irony is not lost on him. Indian economist and alumnus Ajay Shah “couldn’t have He may have been shy, but Leuthold exemplifes many been friendlier,” for instance, when Leuthold reached out. qualities associated with visionaries: He thinks in untra- Asked what stood out for him in the support he received ditional ways; sees opportunities rather than setbacks; from Starr, associate professor (teaching) of international combines elements in unexpected ways to create something relations, and Karl, former lecturer of international relations, new; and is unafraid of failure. Plus, he thinks big. in developing and building his company, Leuthold didn’t He is also exceptionally open — to diversity, to new miss a beat. people and situations, and to new ideas — a character trait “Tey cared,” he said. “And they stuck with me. David he attributes to his time in India. works with me today while Pamela still lends advice.” “What I love most about India is that its diversity Leuthold remembers Starr’s class on security and econo- constantly forces you to keep an open mind. In fact, it’s a mics, which he took his last semester before going to India. necessity to survive there.” “It was a political risk analysis class that tied everything Yet, Leuthold says his career has been driven by a feeling together,” he said. “I wouldn’t be able to do what I’m doing of not knowing what to do next. now without that kind of foundation.” “To me, everybody always looks like they’ve got it all Leuthold’s vision for GetGlobal is ambitious. “One day, CULTURAL IMMERSION mapped out. I’ve never been that way, seldom known what I it will draw 80,000 people to downtown L.A.,” he said with Julian Leuthold visiting the wanted to do past a couple of moves. I just have a feeling of refection his peers are advancing in their careers. and they’re there to see other very serious people talk about a grin. thousand-year-old temples of P what I like and the direction I want to go.” “I want to do that too, but I wouldn’t know how to do HO very serious things. Many of them didn’t want to ask ques- His confdence, however, is tempered by humility.

Khajuraho during his first trip T Rather than panic, he possesses the rare ability to it like they do, so I have to come up with something else,” O tions because they didn’t want to look stupid. Nobody “Te standards in international business, policy and to India in 2010. BY

temporarily withdraw and observe. he said. S rewards an executive for saying, ‘I don’t know.’ But there’s economics are exceptionally high and you can’t just BS your “I go through periods in my life where I’ll take six to nine One strategy included living for a year in Washington, ARA beauty in saying, ‘I don’t know.’ It says, ‘I’m ready for way through that. You have to be tremendously good — H

months, eat ramen, keep a low profle and think about things D.C., where he attended think tank discussions and sought B more. I’m ready to learn.’ ” inside and out — to parade on in with a circus behind you. R O

a lot. Tat sets me of on the next direction.” Taking that clients in the area. WNING Leuthold said he spent time wondering, “Gosh, how Am I there? Absolutely not. It’s an ongoing struggle every time out has been essential, he says, even if he admits that “So here are the VSPs — the very serious people — am I going to ‘out-serious’ the serious people?” Instead, day to make myself better, but I think the process of having stoking it all is the awareness that during these periods of sitting in these really serious places in a very serious town he started to think about what it would take to make people no footholds, no place to rest anything, has helped me.”

28 Spring / Summer 2017 29 At the USC Image Understanding Laboratory, Irving Biederman and the late Bosco Tjan’s pioneering research into vision and the mind seeks to unlock the mystery of how our brains can recognize previously unseen scenes, objects or faces in a fraction of a second.

RECOGNITION

By Susan Bell

30 Spring / Summer 2017 31 the end of a long day, as we put our feet up, reach for the remote control and begin watching TV, we may fnd ourselves confronted with images beyond our expe- rience — such as “Te Upside-Down,” the Atmysterious parallel dimension inhabited by a tulip-headed monster portrayed in the Netfix show Stranger Tings. Tis shadowy world holds up a bizarre mirror to our own, showing us a place of endless darkness and decay, where familiar infrastructure is so overgrown with twisted rope-like tendrils and webs of biological matter as to render it almost unrecognizable. And yet, even though those strange images lie in the realm of the unknown, do we struggle to recognize them? No, we do not. In about a tenth of a second — too quickly for us to even be aware it’s happening — our brains fgure out what we are seeing and make sense of it. Te extraordinary speed and mastery of interpretation that our brains exercise in such situations is the focus of pioneering research by USC Dornsife vision scientists Irving Biederman and the late Bosco Tjan. “It’s the miracle of pattern recognition,” said Biederman, Harold Dornsife Chair in Neurosciences and professor of psychology and computer science. “People can be mis- led into thinking it’s a very easy, simple process because it occurs so quickly and automatically, but the fact is half of our brain is dedicated almost exclusively to vision.” Indeed, Biederman and Tjan’s research is focused not on the eye itself — what most people think of when they hear the word ‘vision’ — but on how the brain achieves vision. Biederman compares the way the eye works to a camera recording images. “Like a camera, the eye doesn’t know what it’s looking at,” he said. “It’s our brain that interprets the image, not the eye.” Biederman directs the Image Understanding Laboratory, which is researching how a scene, object or face can be recognized in a fraction of a second, even when we have never encountered that image previously. His own research explores shape recognition, which pro- vides the major entrée to visual cognition — the process of interpreting and understanding what we see. “Of course, we also get color, texture and movement, but most of what we understand and remember about what we see comes from shape,” he said. “A line drawing of a scene tells us pretty much what we want to know. Te question is, ‘How is that done?’ How is it possible to achieve visual understanding of a scene we’ve never experienced before?” First, we need to overcome a deceptively complex problem: Our retina is two-dimensional while the world is three- dimensional. completely novel and yet we can instantly make sense of “If we represent an object we’re looking at in terms of cylinder both look the same if viewed directly from the SPARKING VISION Biederman invites us to think of a chair and imagine them,” Biederman said. “It would seem to be an impossible geons, then we’re able to recognize what the object is from side. “But even then,” Biederman notes, “a slight change in It is our brains, not our eyes, looking at it, or indeed trying to draw it, from the most feat and yet we do it all the time. A child does it and we do almost any viewpoint.” Tat’s because the components — the orientation of the brick or the cylinder will tell you, ‘Tat’s that are responsible for unusual perspectives. it so easily that we’re hardly aware that it refects an extraor- geons — that make up the object are easily distinguishable the cylinder and that’s the brick.’ ” achieving vision by interpret- “If we rotate that chair it can present an infnite number dinary achievement.” from one another regardless of viewpoint. Ultimately, he says, geons and nonaccidental properties ing what we see. of images, many of which — upside down and viewed from Te characteristics of an object that enable us to do this are what enable us to look at a previously unseen abstract below, for instance — we’ve never experienced before. THE BREAKDOWN — what Biederman terms “nonaccidental properties” — are sculpture and understand its shape. Our brain is able to Yet, with the exception of a few unusual projections of that So how do our brains pull it of? small in number. Tey include points where contours (the break down the various parts that make up the whole into image, we’ll almost always be able to appreciate its three- Te answer, Biederman says, lies in the brain’s ability to lines that mark the edges of an object and form its outline) comprehensible geons and then come up with an interpre- dimensional shape.” decompose complex objects into simple shapes like cylinders, meet and end, like the corner of a table; whether a contour tation in terms of nonaccidental properties and vertices. Tis ability becomes the miracle of pattern recognition: bricks, wedges and cones, which he calls “geons.” is straight or curved, such as a door or a ball; and whether a When we cannot represent the object in terms of its how we’re able to understand scenes never seen before, from “It turns out that you can model most objects in terms of pair of contours are parallel or converging, such as those on simple parts, such as with a nebulous mass, then we viewpoints never viewed before. a very small vocabulary of these simple shapes, numbering an ice cream sandwich or an ice cream cone. will have trouble distinguishing it from another at “Tese scenes and objects are projecting images that are about 30 or 40,” he said. A few exceptions do exist. For instance, a brick and a diferent viewpoints.

32 I LLUSTRATIO NS BY JAM ES STEINBERG FO R USC DORNSIFE M A G A Z I N E Spring / Summer 2017 33 MAPPING THE BRAIN as the relations between them,” he added. “It is the area Te region of the cortex that is responsible for this amazing where objects become scenes.” feat of perception is the lateral occipital complex (LOC), an area of the brain at the border between the occipital and temporal lobes, just above and behind the ears. Given an image, the LOC will not only determine the geons that “HALF OF OUR BRAIN make it up, but also the relationships between them. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which measures changes in blood fow within the brain, made identifying the LOC relatively easy, Biederman said. It IS DEDICATED ALMOST clearly indicated greater activity in that region of the brain when subjects were shown intact images of objects than when shown scrambled versions of those objects. Tat EXCLUSIVELY TO VISION.” knowledge enabled the scientists to concentrate their stud- ies on that area. Research by Biederman and Tjan, who at the time was professor of psychology and co-director of the Dana and A PATHWAY TO PLEASURE David Dornsife Cognitive Neuroimaging Center, showed Biederman’s study of higher-level vision led him to explore that the activation of the LOC does not depend on whether the neural basis of the pleasure we derive from seeing and an object is familiar. Tey tested this by rearranging the understanding, especially something new. geons of familiar objects so that they appeared as novel items, Visual signals travel a pathway from the retina at the similar to rearranging letters of a word to make a non-word. back of the eye, through the optic nerve and along neural “We found that the LOC is activated equally by abstract fbers and cables to the occipital cortex in the back of the sculptures and familiar objects,” Biederman said. brain. Activation of the LOC follows, and then regions at the back of the temporal lobe spark. Tis last area is where UNDERSTANDING SCENES we achieve a rich interpretation of the visual input, be it a In addition to identifying objects, our brain also needs to scene, object or face. make sense of all that we see. Often a single glance is all Interestingly, opioid receptors, which convey nerve signals it takes; however, if faced with a random array of objects, linked to pleasure, are dispersed in a gradient along the entire we may have to look at each individually to gain an appre- visual pathway, with few receptors in the early stages building ciation of the whole scene. For example, a quick glance at a to more and more in the later stages. kitchen is usually enough to immediately understand what “We found that being able to recognize a scene that we we’re looking at, but comprehending a messy collection of specifcally have never seen before gives us more opioid items piled up in a teenager’s closet may require us to look release — and thus more pleasure — than something at each object separately. we can’t recognize or that we’ve seen many times before,” A recent experiment carried out by Tjan, Biederman and Biederman said. Eshed Margalit, who graduated from USC Dornsife in 2016 Tis opioid fx explains the joy and appeal of new with a bachelor’s degree in computational neuroscience and experiences. But why is novelty important to us? Biederman is now pursuing graduate studies in neuroscience at Stanford explains. University, addressed this. Te study showed that separating “When you have a new experience, initially many neurons the geons of an object so they are no longer interacting — are activated. But once the experience is over, the neurons in other words, no longer making up the object but simply that were most strongly activated inhibit the neurons that separated from each other — causes even less activity to occur were only weakly or moderately activated by that experience. in the LOC than for an intact object. Te next time you have the same experience, you get less If we go one step further and scramble the geons into a opioid release. Tis explains why we seek out new experiences. SIGHTLINES mass of random pixels, the LOC shows still less activity. “Don’t feel sorry for the inhibited neurons, though. Tey A single glance is often all In other words, the LOC is working to interpret both the are now freed up to code diferent experiences. It’s a refec- that is needed to understand shape of the parts and the relations between these parts. tion of the brain’s extraordinary capacity to divvy up its a familiarly ordered scene. Similarly, this sensitivity of the LOC to the relations own neural connections, leaving only a minimal number A random array of objects, between parts composing an object is also witnessed with of neurons to code prior experiences and having lots of however, may require us the relations between objects composing a scene. Tus, the neurons in reserve to code new experiences.” to look at each individually LOC shows stronger activation with an image of a hand to comprehend the whole holding a cup than an image of a hand beside a cup. HUMOR AND CREATIVITY picture. “Tis applies generally, not just to hands and cups but Tis desire for novelty is further borne out by Biederman’s to any pair of objects,” Biederman said. “One might have research into the links between vision and creativity. Using thought the opposite, that two things — a hand and a cup Te New Yorker’s popular weekly cartoon caption contest, he — would cause more activity in the brain than essentially is exploring what happens in the brain when it attempts to one thing, a hand holding a cup. But we found that more solve humor challenges. He opted to study humor, he said, activity occurs in the LOC if objects are shown as interact- “because it provides a practical and universal way to explore ing, rather than side-by-side. creativity that can occur in time frames sufciently short “Te LOC is an extraordinary mechanism for giving to be amenable to fMRI analyses. us not only the shapes of parts, but also how they relate “In contrast, visual art may be able to give us the new to each other, and it does the same for scenes, giving us experience we crave, but it can be debatable whether a certain the shapes of the objects making up the scenes as well work of abstract art is creative,” he said. On the other hand,

34 Spring / Summer 2017 35 there is no debate when humor is successful, as the end result — laughter — is pretty much universal. A cartoon contains an incongruous element, something that doesn’t quite ft. “Te caption to the cartoon, to be funny, cannot be obvious but has to link remote concepts that resolve the incongruity in the drawing,” he said. “Because the concepts are remote, their linking will necessarily result in the activation of a great number of intervening neurons with a concomitant and sud- den deluge of opioid activity, causing us to laugh. But once we’ve seen the cartoon and we’ve got the joke, the inhibition of the weakly activated cells by the strongly activated cells reduces the amount of opioid release and thus the pleasure is diminished.” “IF WE REPRESENT AN OBJECT ... IN TERMS OF GEONS, THEN WE’RE ABLE TO RECOGNIZE [IT] FROM ALMOST ANY VIEWPOINT.”

Biederman says this desire for new but interpretable information is a system that makes us “infovores” — eager consumers of information. In earlier research, Biederman and Ori Amir ’15, a former USC Dornsife Ph.D. student now at the University of California, Santa Barbara, studied preferences for viewing simple geons. When presented with a pair of dissimilar geons, say a cylinder on the left and a cone on the right, both 4-month-old infants and college students preferred looking at the geons with non-parallel sides or with curves. Tis correlated with similar studies in the lab that showed how curvy or nonparallel shapes produced higher activity in visual pathway neurons than straight or parallel shapes. “Tat greater activity means we get more opioid release and thus more pleasure from looking at those shapes,” Biederman said. “Our eye movements are not random but, when we are not engaged in a deliberate search, such as the macula, a region near the center of the retina, experience visual crowding when other nearby letters retina. Although not as good as the original central vision, as looking for our car in a parking lot, they are directed degenerates in our later years. As patients lose their high- activate the same receptive feld being employed to perceive this area provides better focus than more peripheral regions. PECULIAR PLEASURES towards entities that will give us more opioid activity — resolution central vision, many develop a preferred retinal a given letter. Tis results in mixed-up shapes, making it Further, Tjan and his team used fMRI to show that Seeing an odd or unexpected a system that is established as early as four months.” locus (PRL). Tis means they have learned to compensate difcult if not impossible to interpret the shapes of letters, training actually changes the way the brain works, interaction between two for their impaired central vision by looking slightly away objects and scenes. improving visual processing in the primary visual cortex, objects stimulates our brains FOCUS ON VISUAL CROWDING from objects on which they wish to focus, thus using the Tjan successfully demonstrated how a training regimen the starting point for visual processing in the brain. to release more opioids, thus Tjan, who died on Dec. 2, 2016, was an international expert on part of the retina with the highest remaining resolution. could reduce visual crowding’s deleterious efects on vision. “Tere are just a few really great mysteries in the world,” giving us increased enjoyment. visual crowding. Postdoctoral and doctoral students in Tjan’s While PRL is helpful, it comes with a major disadvantage: Tjan pioneered the study of PRL in normal subjects with- Biederman said. “Tere is cosmology and dark matter, laboratory are continuing his legacy of pioneering research, visual crowding. Tis occurs because cells in the periphery out macular degeneration so he could understand how the and then there is higher-level vision and the brain. And we aimed in part at bringing hope to macular degeneration of the retina have larger receptive felds than the tightly condition progresses. By deliberately occluding their central have come a long way in explaining how we make sense of patients with impaired vision. packed center. Patients with macular degeneration who vision, he was able to train his test subjects to use a region of what we see, this extraordinary achievement of the brain that About 20 percent of us will fnd our vision degraded use PRL to focus on, say, a given letter on a page, often reasonable clarity or resolution away from the center of the had never been understood before.”

36 Spring / Summer 2017 37 By Susan Bell, Michelle Boston and Laura Paisley

ripple effects rippleripple e effffectsects Ideas are theripple engine of change. Nurtured, refined and convertedeff to action,ects they build to a critical mass, sending shockwaves through the status quo. At USC Dornsife, more than 40 centers and institutes are home to faculty, staff and students who aim to impact the global community through intensive, innovative scholarship in the social sciences, humanities and natural sciences. More important, their visionary work not only results in significant, positive change now, but sets the stage for ongoing progress by giving students the skills to think differently and find their own paths to a brighter future.

38 grounded in the idea of intellectual leadership. original. In most felds — at some time, in some way — “My strategy has always been to have the bravery to spatial sciences will add value. It’s all about collaboration.” say, ‘Tis is the way in which academe needs to evolve and Rather than building a spatial sciences degree, Wilson we’re going to demonstrate that.’ I don’t think you win chose to create a bachelor’s degree in geodesign in part- many accolades by copying. Rather, my vision grew out of nership with USC Price School of Public Policy and the question: How can we build a spatial sciences institute USC School of Architecture. that will be as relevant in its impact fve or 10 years from “Our geodesign degree focuses on collaborative decision- now as it is today?” making and looks to the future rather than the present or the His conclusion? Innovation is the key. past. It is the frst program of its kind in the world and people “Our research and teaching must be both cutting edge are now copying us.” and actionable,” he said. “We want academic programs SSI’s research-based online master’s degree in GIST that provide expertise and training that people can take encourages students to pursue their own interests for their and apply wherever they want, more or less instantly.” thesis projects, attracting people from widely varying Te success of this strategy can be seen in the long list of backgrounds. SSI graduates and faculty who are improving the world in In 2014, SSI launched two online graduate certifcates visionary ways. Graduate student Kelly Wright, for example, — in geospatial leadership and in geospatial intelligence — is using her online training in geographic information science and added a GeoHealth track to Keck School of Medicine and technology (GIST) to fght tungiasis, a painful, of USC’s online MPH degree. A year later, the institute debilitating and disfguring disease that afects the lives of began ofering a new M.S. degree in spatial informatics millions of the world’s poor. with the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. In 2016, Nathan Novak, a 2016 graduate of the GIST master’s SSI launched an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in popula- program, completed a prize-winning thesis project that tion, health and place with Keck School of Medicine and explored how new sensors can help us understand the ecology USC Dornsife’s sociology department, and a new human of sperm whales by using a range of geospatial data to map security and geospatial intelligence minor with the School their movements in the Gulf of Alaska. Novak successfully of International Relations. turned his research into an internship and then a permanent “All these academic programs speak to problem solving, job as a geospatial technologies manager. interdisciplinary opportunities and the future,” Wilson A recipient of a recent grant from the National Endowment said. “Tey all speak to training young men and women, for the Humanities, Yao-Yi Chiang, assistant professor who we have every expectation will go out in the (research) of spatial sciences, is creating map-processing world and make a diference. Tat was our vision from software that libraries can use to automatically catalogue the get-go.” map collections, thereby making the information they Tis vision is also strongly connected to service. Te EARTH PERSPECTIVE contain more accessible to researchers and the public. institute has formed relationships with a range of infu- Spatial sciences enables us “Maps record changes in human societies and our physical ential professional organizations with the view to creating a to see and understand our space over a long period of time. But most of these maps exist series of regular, multiday workshops around specifc prob- world in new ways, whether only on paper sitting in libraries, archives and museums, and lems and places. Wilson’s idea? To bring citizens, experts, through the lens of the past, technology can’t yet fnd them, let alone integrate them auto- students and faculty together to fnd common ground and the present or the future. matically,” Chiang said. “Our work can potentially unlock a suggest solutions — from how to deal with the aftermath of a world of long-term historical information for scholars across major storm or nuclear accident, to working toward creating many felds.” green infrastructure or ending endemic poverty. Wilson illustrates the relevance of spatial sciences by “Tese are major problems, but they’re also opportunities asking interlocutors to think of traditional disciplines as for us to engage and work with our students to help cups of cofee. Spatial science, he says, is the cream. fnd solutions,” Wilson said. “Tat’s the next step: “We’re fguring out when to add a little to the cofee, more community outreach — not just locally, but also and make the sum of the parts bigger and better than the nationally and internationally.” —S.B.

through space and time throughthrough space space and time and time Reverberations through space and time Google Maps on our smartphones to fnd the nearest cofee Captured by the crew of Apollo 17 in 1972, “Te Blue shop, or use the GPS in our cars to navigate an unfamiliar Marble,” a photograph of Earth viewed from 28,000 miles city. Te use of geospatial technology is becoming increas- above, is one of the most reproduced images in history. Its ingly common as spatial scientists forge new contributions enduring popularity lies in the fact that, for the frst time, to our understanding of the world around us through spatial it gave us the possibility of looking at Earth from afar, data acquisition and analysis, modeling, and mapping. Students educated per year by 22% thus seeing it as a whole. Current uses include disaster relief management, urban the Spatial Sciences Institute students166 and graduates of our “It ofered a totally diferent perspective. And that’s planning and ecology, conservation, sustainability, at USC Dornsife. online GIST graduate programs what spatial sciences do — they give us a whole new military intelligence, environmental and human health have won academic awards, perspective on the world,” said John Wilson, professor of care outcomes — even the development of more realistic given conference presentations sociology, civil and environmental engineering, computer video games. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. 1,200 of students in online geospatial information science and or had articles published in science, and architecture. Wilson founded the USC Dornsife Spatial Sciences technology (GIST) graduate programs are either active academic journals. Spatial science is now an indisputable part of our daily Institute (SSI) in 2010, when the discipline was in its rela- military or veterans. lives, something we take for granted when we turn to tive infancy. From the start, his vision for the institute was

40 I LLUSTRATIO NS BY JANICE KUN FO R USC DORNSIFE M A G A Z I N E Spring / Summer 2017 41 outcomes people have in their lives, and then what kinds information in a person’s entire genome into a single variable of policies can help people do better. Tat is really what that can be used to partially predict how much education a economics is about — and we’re trying to use genetics to person’s going to get.” do even better economics.” Te young feld of genoeconomics is still somewhat Only a handful of economists are working with controversial, and Benjamin is careful to point out that genetics, but this brand of research is perfectly at home at individual genes don’t determine behavior or outcome. CESR. Te center, founded three years ago, was conceived “Te efect of any individual gene on behavior is extremely as a place where visionary social science could thrive and small,” Benjamin explained, “but the efects of all the genes where research could be done diferently than in the past. combined on almost any behavior we’re interested in is much “Being in a place where that’s the shared vision is more substantial. It’s the combined information of many pretty rare,” said econometrician Arie Kapteyn, professor genes that has predictive power, and that can be most useful (research) of economics and CESR director. “Tere’s no for social scientists.” restriction on which way you want to go or what you want While the cohort of researchers actively using the available to do. It doesn’t mean that there are no restrictions on genome-wide data in this way is still somewhat limited, resources, but it’s the opportunity to think about your Benjamin says it is growing quickly. vision of what’s really exciting in social science research. “I think across the social sciences, researchers are seeing Ten being able to actually implement it is absolutely the potential for the data, and people are starting to use it fantastic.” in their work and getting excited about it, but right now Te mission of CESR is discovering how people around it’s still a small band of us trying to lay the foundations. the world live, think, interact, age and make important “We’re putting together huge data sets of hundreds of decisions. Te center’s researchers are dedicated to innovation thousands of people — approaching a million people in and combining their analysis to deepen the understanding of our ongoing work on educational attainment — because human behavior in a variety of economic and social contexts. you need those really big sample sizes to accurately detect “What we try to do is mold a disciplinary science in the genetic infuences.” GENETIC ANALYSIS a very broad sense,” Kapteyn said. “Because today’s problems As CESR works to improve social welfare by informing Daniel Benjamin of the in society, they’re really all multidisciplinary.” and infuencing decision making in the public and private Center for Economic and Case in point: Benjamin’s work combining genetics and sectors, big data such as Benjamin’s is a growing part of Social Research projects economics. that process, according to Kapteyn. a vision of how analyzing Te fagship research efort for Benjamin’s CESR “What big data refects is the fact that nowadays there the big data of genetics may research group deals with genes and education. In a 2016 are so many other ways in which we can learn about improve social policy inter- study, the team identifed variants in 74 genes that are behavior,” he said. “As a result, I think we’ll see many vention and life outcomes. associated with educational attainment. In other words, more breakthroughs and gain a much better understanding people who carry more of these variants, on average, of what’s going on in the world and in social science than complete more years of formal schooling. in the past. Benjamin hopes to use this data in a holistic way to create “I think we’re really at the beginning of something pretty a predictive tool. “Rather than just identifying specifc genes,” spectacular. What we are doing is really only scratching the he said, “we’re also creating methods for combining the surface — there’s so much more that can be done.” —L.P.

Reverberations Part of CESR’s Understanding America Study, and conducted in part- of commitment to a candidate, ranking their certainty of choice on a big data, big impact nership with the Los Angeles Times, the Daybreak Poll was one of scale of 0 to 100. The Daybreak Poll was also notable for making its big data,big big data, impact big impact very few to correctly predict the winner of the 2016 presidential raw data sets available to the public. During the election, each day’s big data, big impact area of social science that incorporates genetic data into election.The poll’s methodology focuses on respondents’ intensity updated results could be downloaded from the poll’s data site. When Daniel Benjamin was just beginning his Ph.D. the work that economists do. It is based on the idea that program in economics in 2001, he attended a conference a person’s particular combination of genes is related to with his graduate school advisers. Tey took in a presentation economic behavior and life outcomes such as educational ELECTION FORECAST on neuroeconomics, a nascent feld dealing with how the attainment, fertility, obesity and subjective well-being. human brain goes about making decisions. “Tere’s this rich new source of data that has only 50 Afterward, as they took a stroll outside, they couldn’t become available recently,” said Benjamin, also co-director 47.5 stop talking about what they had learned, how novel and of the Social Science Genetic Association Consortium, E intriguing it was. What would be next, they wondered. which facilitates cooperation among medical researchers, AG 45 What would come after neuroeconomics? geneticists and social scientists. “Te human genome project had just been completed, Collecting genetic data and creating the large data sets 42.5 and we decided that even more fundamental than the brain used by economists and other social scientists have become PERCENT would be genes, and that someday this was going to matter increasingly afordable, and new analytical methods 40 a lot for social science,” said Benjamin, associate professor are getting more and more powerful as these data sets (research) of economics at USC Dornsife’s Center continue to grow. Te big challenge, he said, is fguring 37.5 for Economic and Social Research (CESR). Indeed, out how scientists can leverage this new data to address a 07/10 07/22 08/06 08/21 09/05 09/20 10/05 10/20 11/07 his excitement that day was the foundation of a visionary host of important policy questions. academic path. “We’re ultimately interested in understanding how Fast forward to today. Genoeconomics is now an emerging genes and environments interact to produce the kinds of Trump Clinton

42 Spring / Summer 2017 43 “But most of the ocean is not close to the coasts, and most much water is trapped in those sediments, and the tempera- of it is not at the surface.” ture of the sediments and water at the ocean foor. Te ocean covers roughly 70 percent of the Earth, Tese numbers are incredibly helpful for researchers reaching down an average of two miles. At the bottom, because they provide foundational scientifc information that the sea foor measures another six miles or more deep at helps establish basic understandings of the deep biosphere, its thickest points, making it one of the largest habitats on explained Amend, who collaborated with LaRowe. For Earth — and one of the most difcult to explore. instance, they found that the amount of water estimated to be “It’s a large operation akin to a NASA mission, really,” trapped in marine sediments is almost three times as much as Amend said. that in all glaciers and ice sheets across the continents. And like NASA, C-DEBI has, from its founding in “Marine sediments turn out to be the second largest reser- 2010, sought to expand humanity’s reach into this unex- voir of water after the ocean,” Amend said. “Tey’re a distant plored frontier. Te center’s researchers have made it their second — about fve percent of the amount of ocean water mission to understand this ecosystem, from the muddy — but now we can start asking questions about the exchange sediment to the microorganisms that call the subseafoor of water from the ocean to the sediments as well as the their home. exchange of mass, nutrients, energy, organisms. It’s huge for “We want to fnd out what kind of organisms inhabit those us scientists.” spaces. How are they similar or diferent to organisms that In another important study, C-DEBI researcher Steve we know about from the open ocean or the surface world? D’Hondt of the University of Rhode Island discredited How many are there? How are they distributed? How diverse a long-held understanding of marine sediments. Scientists are these communities?” Amend said. believed that ocean sediments contain no measurable oxygen Because the subseafoor ecosystem is so large, it almost below a few centimeters. Looking at samples from a wide certainly afects the world’s climate, according to Julie Huber, range of locations, D’Hondt found that oxygen was, in fact, C-DEBI associate director and an associate scientist at the still measurable all the way to the rocky basement in some Marine Biological Laboratory in Massachusetts. locations, though not all. “We’re trying to understand the role these microbes Tat’s important because it means the organisms living play in some of the most basic geochemical processes and in those sediments may be oxygen users. “Te type of meta- how they afect the environment of our planet,” she said. bolism they perform is diferent than what we used to think,” C-DEBI is a National Science Foundation–funded Science Amend said. “Tat was a really, really big fnd.” and Technology Center led by 10 scientists, including Amend Looking ahead, Amend said that C-DEBI researchers DEEP DIVE and Huber, representing eight institutions across the United will focus their work on understanding the microbial life Have you ever imagined what is States. It’s also the fagship hub for scientists who study the of the deep biosphere. living beneath the ocean floor? deep biosphere. Te center ofers grants and fellowships, as Tese steps are critical for scientifc discovery, but also The deep biosphere is one of the well as a robust “K to gray” education program that fosters for another reason, said Huber. largest — and least understood STEM education for professionals and novices alike. “It’s the type of science that captures people’s imaginations — ecosystems on the planet. Since its launch, research produced by C-DEBI scientists and that is so important in training the next generation of Researchers at the Center for has resulted in groundbreaking discoveries that lay the scientists.” Tose like Zinke. Dark Energy Biosphere Investi- foundation for understanding life below the ocean. “Before C-DEBI there wasn’t a central body saying that gations have set their sights on A recent study published by Doug LaRowe, assistant the deep biosphere is important, and we need to go forth and understanding its depths. professor (research) of earth sciences at USC Dornsife, study it,” Zinke said. “But we’re looking at the really basic characterized marine sediments on a global scale for the science questions that mean a lot in terms of how life evolves, frst time. His work produced an estimate of the total and how ocean chemistry afects our world. amount of marine sediment in the oceans, the average “It’s been really fantastic getting to be part of this research thickness of the sediment blanket, an estimate of how structure.” —M.B.

the world below the blue Reverberations the worldthe world below below the blue the blue the world below the blue microbes and the underlying rocky subseafoor — was part Bundled in layers of blankets for warmth, Laura Zinke of a scientifc research cruise to the Dorado Outcrop. Te settled in for a two-hour ride to the bottom of the ocean. rocky ridge lies 125 miles of the west coast of Costa Rica, Te temperature dipped signifcantly once she and her approximately two miles below the ocean’s surface. Her colleagues passed the depth still touched by sunlight, mission was to collect water and sediment samples to take 29 and it would continue to drop as an engineer maneuvered back for testing and to gather data on the microbes living 3X10 20% the Alvin submersible research vessel deeper and deeper around the site. toward the seafoor. Trough a small porthole, Zinke saw As a research assistant afliated with the Center for fuorescent creatures fit by. Dark Energy Biosphere Investigations (C-DEBI), head- “Looking out the window was like staring into the quartered at USC Dornsife, Zinke’s research will help night sky, but the stars are moving,” said Zinke, who is build scientists’ understanding of the deep biosphere. working toward her Ph.D. in marine biology and biological “When we think about the ocean, most people think oceanography at USC Dornsife. about the surface of the ocean and the coastal environments The estimated number of Proportion of marine Her descent to the deep biosphere — a habitat com- close to the shores,” said Jan Amend, director of C-DEBI microbial cells present in sediments that make up the prising the ocean foor made up of sediment teeming with and professor of earth sciences and biological sciences. marine sediments ocean’s volume

44 Spring / Summer 2017 45 “We are devoted to building a thriving student current global political climate is one that is extremely community that is interested in applying humanities and conducive to Islamophobia, and in my opinion under- ethics to their academic work as well as engaging with civic taking projects such as this one is the frst step toward and global ethical issues,” explained Boyd-Judson, who demonstrating that it is possible for people of diferent is also executive director of the Oxford Consortium for backgrounds to live together peacefully — as they did in Human Rights and was recently named UNESCO Chair in medieval Córdoba.” Global Humanities and Ethics. Hickman and Loan spent their winter break writing a She aims to carry the USC Levan Institute’s vision research paper they hope to publish in an academic journal. even further as it enters its second decade. She is creating Backed by Boyd-Judson’s infuence as a UNESCO chair, more opportunities for students across the university to they want to eventually present their work to U.N. ofcials engage with ethical issues through curricular expansion and — and even Pope Francis. new initiatives. “[Te students] are trying to come up with a strategic Te institute will afrm its global partnerships with way to take this issue back to the Vatican now that there’s the University of Oxford, RAND Corporation and a new pope who might be more open,” Boyd-Judson said. Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Afairs. Tis is exactly the kind of global impact she is committed For students searching for value and meaning in their to helping students bring about. educational experience, such collaborations will create “We couldn’t do anything if LBJ [Boyd-Judson] wasn’t new platforms for scholarship of consequence through the a UNESCO chair,” Hickman said. “But because it seems global humanities. like we have a path to actually make a change, we have to “My goal is to create more opportunities for students from take it.” the humanities and beyond to see that they can make a Hickman said Boyd-Judson has played a big role in diference in their world,” Boyd-Judson said. “I think it’s inspiring her to take action. something that’s very important for this generation.” “I honestly think [the inspiration came from] meeting EMPOWERING STUDENTS Hickman appreciates the opportunities the institute a professor who wanted to do something and is so suppor- Through the USC Levan Institute provides for enacting positive change. tive. LBJ is a nurturing mentor — she wants you to for Humanities and Ethics, “With the mosque-cathedral, it seemed like there was succeed and she wants to make a diference. She’s so tough director Lyn Boyd-Judson is a very clear goal,” said Hickman. “Te humanities has and so kind.” giving students the tools and an unwarranted reputation of people just discussing stuf According to Hickman, Boyd-Judson is all about getting opportunities to make a differ- without anything ever happening. But when we left that students out in the world, doing on-the-ground work. ence in their world and envision meeting, we started coming up with a plan.” Boyd-Judson concurs. an even better future. Hickman partnered with fellow Oxford Consortium “A critical part of my mission has been not just having Seminar attendee Mazen Loan, who is Muslim, to address a place where we celebrate the humanities here at USC,” the issue. she said, “but where we take the humanities and all the “Tere was a time when [Córdoba] served as a nexus for big questions, the love of truth and beauty, and everything Muslims, Christians and Jews, and for centuries they lived that’s in our core mission for the university, and we sufuse together peacefully,” said Loan, a philosophy major. “Te it outward.” —L.P.

humanities in action humanitieshumanities in action in action humanities in action with a Muslim rights organization that has been trying It was late in the afternoon on the last day of the trip, and to secure permission for Muslims to pray at the mosque, Reverberations Lyn Boyd-Judson and Mary Cate Hickman were sitting in which was converted to a Roman Catholic cathedral in the the back of a cab. Frustrated and a little riled up, they wound 13th century. Unfortunately, 15 years of grassroots eforts The USC Levan Institute for 200 Levan Undergraduate Scholars through the ancient, impossibly narrow streets of Córdoba, have been rejected both by the church authorities in Spain Humanities and Ethics engages 3 ANNUAL LEVAN-OXFORD SEMINARS Spain, talking about the meeting they had just left. and the Vatican under the former pope. students with the values at “Despite the fact that it’s a mosque and a cathedral and It was in the cab that the lightbulb went on. the core of humanity. In this a UNESCO World Heritage site, Muslims still aren’t “As someone who is a religious minority, or maybe just effort, it seeks moral reflec- allowed to pray there,” Hickman said, utterly perplexed. as someone who’s interested in human rights, it makes tion, understanding of self and She was referring to the historic Mosque-Cathedral of me physically uncomfortable that this is happening,” said multidisciplinary dialogue. 10 Levan Undergraduate Fellows Córdoba, a marvel of Moorish architecture built in the Hickman, who is Mormon. “I think that this is something More than 2,000 students and 8th century, that she had visited two days earlier. Te junior, worth spending time on fxing.” faculty from the USC Dornsife who is majoring in religion as well as cinema and media studies, Boyd-Judson agreed. Te grassroots approach was not community are actively work- was in Europe as part of the Oxford Consortium Seminar — working. Tey needed to go through the United Nations. ing to make a positive impact a human rights-oriented educational collaboration between Boyd-Judson has directed the USC Levan Institute, across society and around the USC Levan Institute for Humanities and Ethics and housed at USC Dornsife, for the past 10 years. Te late USC the world. the Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Confict at the alumnus Norman Levan — professor emeritus and former University of Oxford in England. chief of dermatology at the Keck School of Medicine of Led by Boyd-Judson, director of the USC Levan USC — contributed a major gift that inaugurated the Institute and lecturer in the School of Religion, the summer institute in 2007. course brought 15 USC undergraduates to Oxford, Belfast, Levan’s original vision for the institute was to promote Northern Ireland, and fnally Córdoba, to attend lectures engagement and multidisciplinary dialogue surrounding and meetings on human rights and confict, humanitarian the common humanity of USC students, and to create a action and peacemaking. forum in which students could explore diferent modes of 3 Levan Graduate Fellows Hickman had accompanied Boyd-Judson to a meeting thinking and responding to the world. 1 UNESCO CHAIR

46 Spring / Summer 2017 47 fault model that identifes the myriad faults across the Golden that touches all levels of learners. Undergraduates can intern State where the ground has the potential to slip and tremble. with SCEC while K–12 students can join the citizen-science “Geologists have spent decades sweating in the feld to Quake Catcher Network, in which volunteers place earth- map these faults and understand their three-dimensional quake monitoring sensors in their classrooms or homes to structure,” said Jordan, University Professor, William M. collect seismic data. Students learn about earthquake science Keck Foundation Chair in Geological Sciences and professor from a curriculum that complements gathering the data. of earth sciences. But nothing might be as far reaching as SCEC’s com- Researchers then use supercomputers to analyze that data munication and outreach arm as exemplifed by the Great and create models to approximate how those faults might ShakeOut Earthquake Drills. SCEC coordinates the annual break as well as the resulting strong shaking. global disaster preparedness event, which helps individuals Te operation is elaborate. Scientists from across institu- and organizations around the world get ready for a major tions and disciplines such as geology, seismology and geodesy earthquake. — the branch of science that studies the earth’s shape and “It’s a remarkable public outreach and educational activity movement — coordinate their fndings into usable seismic that has taken on signifcance worldwide, and it’s done right hazard estimates. Tat information guides structure engi- here at USC,” Jordan said. neering and design and emergency preparedness, as well as In 2016, more than 50 million people from more than insurance premium assessments. 70 countries registered to participate in the Great ShakeOut, “Tis research is visionary because this notion of putting which called for participants to practice the “drop, cover, and it all together and actually creating models that do all of this hold on” drill for at least one minute wherever they were — together is pretty new,” Jordan said. “We don’t really have this school, work, home or elsewhere. Some went further, holding type of system-level modeling capability in many places, and table-top exercises, tsunami and fre evacuation drills, safety so we’ve been trying to develop how that works.” equipment demonstrations, and even mock search-and- Other countries are taking notice of how SCEC researchers rescue activities. are collaborating on these grand-scale projects. For instance, “Te mission of ShakeOut is that everyone, everywhere, EPIC CENTER scientists in New Zealand recently launched the Quake- should know how to protect themselves during an earth- The Southern California CoRE Centre for Earthquake Resilience to connect research quake,” said SCEC Associate Director Mark Benthien, who Earthquake Center is leading programs across national and international institutions. coordinates the ShakeOut drills worldwide. the charge in earthquake Jordan presented the distinguished lecture on earthquake In the decade and a half that Jordan has directed SCEC, system science to ensure that system science in California at QuakeCoRE’s inaugural he has seen the center directly impact the way scientists wherever and whenever “the annual meeting in 2016. Recently, Jordan met with researchers understand earthquakes and how the public has learned to big one” hits, we’re prepared. in China who are working to establish a SCEC-style research prepare for a tremor with the new models and simulations center, too. “We are setting a template for how you do this produced to the global preparedness drills run by the center. kind of research worldwide,” he said. “We’ve really changed the way people deal in a practical Te center also has a signifcant education component sense with seismic hazards,” Jordan said. —M.B.

seismic scienc seismicseismic science science Reverberations seismic science than they used to be,” said Tomas Jordan, director of the Te largest earthquake to jolt Southern California Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC), which is FREQUENCY OF EARTHQUAKES OF VARIOUS MAGNITUDES occurred more than 150 years ago. Te Great Fort Tejon headquartered at USC Dornsife. “Our exposure to hazards is SIZABLE SHAKING Earthquake of 1857 — the biggest recorded quake in much higher, so the risks are higher. Tat just means we have Earthquakes take place around 1,300,000 state history at magnitude 7.9 — originated in Monterey to understand on the system level what’s going to happen in an the world almost constantly, County, rumbling 225 miles along the San Andreas fault, earthquake — not just what’s going to happen to my house and but most are relatively small; the majority of temblors aver- kicking up dust all the way down to the Cajon Pass north what’s going to happen to USC, but what’s going to happen 130,000 of San Bernardino. everywhere.” age a magnitude 2.9 or less. According to reports, the current of the mighty Kern Tankfully, SCEC, which is funded by the National But notches on the magnitude River turned upstream and gushed 4 feet over its banks. Science Foundation and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), 13,000 scale make a sizable differ- Te Los Angeles River was also reportedly thrust from its is at the forefront of earthquake system science. Te science ence. The scale is logarithmic, bed. Two people were killed by the temblor, a testament to and technology center brings together a network of more 1319 meaning that for each step up how sparsely populated the state was at the time. than 1,000 earthquake researchers from across the United in magnitude, an earthquake releases 32 times more energy. Studies have shown that it is only a matter of time before States and the world to get to the bottom of how exactly 134 another “big one” hits. Te chance of having one or more earthquakes work and to ofer models for forecasting when So, for instance, the Northridge magnitude 7.5 or larger earthquakes in California over the and where large temblors might occur. earthquake that shook the San next 30 years is greater than 50 percent. Te probability Among the many projects headed by SCEC is an inno- 2-2.9 17 Fernando Valley with great of a smaller, but still substantial, 6.7 magnitude quake vative model for forecasting earthquakes called the Uniform 3-3.9 intensity in 1994 was relatively occurring in that time period jumps to 99 percent. Let that California Earthquake Rupture Forecast (UCERF), devel- 4-4.9 moderate at a 6.7 magnitude, 5-5.9 compared with what scientists soak in. With the high-density populations of cities like oped in concert with USGS and the California Geological 1 Los Angeles and San Francisco, a large earthquake could Survey. UCERF represents the most authoritative estimates 6-6.9 think of as a “big one,” which severely damage crucial water aqueducts and power lines, of the magnitude, location and likelihood of earthquakes in 7-7.9 would measure 7.5 or larger. requiring repairs in the billions of dollars. Not to mention California, both in the long term and in the short term. 8 and higher the lives that it would jeopardize. To make these forecasts, hundreds of scientists have “Earthquakes have become much more disruptive to society contributed their research to create a community earthquake Average annual number of earthquakes worldwide. (Graphic not to scale.) Source: earthquake.usgs.gov

48 Spring / Summer 2017 49 Power to the Patient by Darrin S. Joy F. DUNCAN HALDANE, 1981–85 information available immediately in an easily understood format. ATOM-HP — developed in collaboration with USC Norris Compre- F. Duncan Haldane, the re- hensive Cancer Center; the Keck School of Medicine of USC; the USC Legacy cipient of a 2016 Nobel Prize in Viterbi School of Engineering; and the USC Jimmy Iovine and Andre Physics, conducted much of his Young Academy — uses wearable technology and smartphones award-winning research while to monitor patients. Current cancer treatment and monitoring is a professor of physics at USC confined to clinic visits, sometimes weeks apart. ATOM-HP enables Dornsife from 1981-85. continuous, real-time data capture, eliminating gaps in the process. Now at Princeton University, CancerBase is a social media-based tool. Kuhn’s team along with Haldane relied on advanced colleagues from the Keck School of Medicine, USC Iovine and Young mathematical models to win Academy and Stanford University designed CancerBase to empower the prestigious award he patients to share their experiences anonymously in a format akin to shares with David Thouless Facebook and other online social platforms. of the University of Washing- Much like current navigation apps, which gather data from ton and J. Michael Kosterlitz many users on similar paths, ATOM-HP and CancerBase will pro- of Brown University. Their cess the data received to allow patients to team with physicians research into the bizarre and choose, at any time during treatment, the path best suited properties of matter in extreme to their individual needs. states, including supercon- “It will let patients compare their experiences with others ductors, superfluids and thin like them and make choices that fit their needs,” Kuhn said. magnetic films, may have major A 30-year-old mother facing breast cancer, for example, might applications in electronics, ma- IN APRIL 2000, PETER KUHN STEPPED OFF A PLANE IN ATHENS, opt for a treatment with a slightly higher risk of recurrence than terials science and computing. GREECE. IT WAS HIS FIRST TRIP TO THE CITY, THE CENTER OF chemotherapy but avoids the cognitive side effects of “chemo- Haldane initially experi- CIVILIZATION IN ANCIENT TIMES. brain,” so she can continue to attend to her young children’s enced difficulty in getting his needs. A 75-year-old prostate cancer patient may decide the work recognized. It wasn’t Hailing a cab outside the airport, he slipped into the back seat and risks of surgery outweigh the 10 percent chance of death from until after arriving at USC handed the driver the address of his hotel destination, then settled his particular form of the disease over the next 15 years. Dornsife that the London- in for the ride. About an hour later, they arrived. The cost: $100. Personal preferences and social concerns can be just as important born physicist succeeded in “Two days later, back to the airport from the same hotel was just as the need to tackle the cancer, Kuhn said. publishing two landmark pa- shy of a $20 cab ride that took no more than 10 minutes,” said Kuhn, Kuhn speaks not just from an academic view. Much of his work is pers, both in 1983, that later Dean’s Professor of Biological Sciences and professor of medicine, rooted in a very personal experience: His mother was diagnosed established his reputation. biomedical engineering, and aerospace and mechanical engineer- with breast cancer when he was 18. “It is very gratifying that ing. The first driver had taken advantage of Kuhn’s unfamiliarity with Though her treatment was successful, every unexplained pain work, which was initially Athens and unnecessarily extended the trip, running up the bill. she felt has been a source of concern for the past 30 years, he said. disbelieved as a bizarre ILL

Kuhn had actually enjoyed that scenic ride, so he didn’t mind the “I grew up with that worry, conscious of this constant fear because USTRATI prediction, has blossomed swindle too much, but he now marks the incident as an important pain is indeed often the first indication of metastatic progression. into one of the foundations

lesson in how times have changed. Even though the physicians monitor patients, still too often the first O of new ideas on topological “We need a continuum N BY “Interestingly enough, that wouldn’t happen again today,” indication the disease has returned and spread is pain.” By then, matter, entanglement, matrix J of care to support the he said, noting the explosion of GPS and cell phone technologies. the cancer has a renewed virulence. EAN product states, and much

continuum of disease.” These advances, the kind used by driving services such as Lyft and Kuhn finds the status quo — relying on a patient to report pain and F else,” Haldane said. “All these PETER KUHN, Dean’s Professor RANC Uber, bring a new level of transparency to the process. Both driver then having to determine if further testing is warranted — difficult things are things that no one of Biological Sciences, professor O of medicine, biomedical engineer- and passenger know how long the trip should take. And by using to accept. “That means that we as scientists have really failed the IS P expects. You stumble over ing, and aerospace and mechani- navigation services and apps to gather data from other users on patients. It’s ridiculous.” OD something, and then you find cal engineering, and associate similar paths in the vicinity, they can choose to change the route to Technologies such as ATOM-HP and CancerBase, he believes, could EVIN; HA the big picture after.” —S.B. director of the Bridge Institute

avoid traffic or skirt construction. be the key to turning that around, providing the appropriate tools to CANCER CE at the USC Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience Kuhn, who also is associate director of the Bridge Institute at the both the treating physician and the patient. Using social media and LD USC Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience, wants to bring this the latest data-harnessing technology to analyze large amounts of ANE PHO same kind of transparency, along with the decision-making power it the most current data will help patients and doctors track health LL I T LL provides, to cancer treatment. from the initial diagnosis, through treatment and well after. And O C USTRATI O

“It doesn’t matter where I am, using my GPS and overlaying local researchers can use the information to further advance treatment. URTESY real-time traffic, I can see how long the trip will take or detours that “We need a continuum of care to support the continuum of O N BY A N BY

might be an advantage,” he said. The same should essentially be disease,” he said. “If we want a continuum of care, we need to have O F F

true for patients. That is his vision behind initiatives such as Cancer- a continuum of data to support that, and we need a spectrum of HA . DUNCAN L EXAN Base and ATOM-HP (Analytical Technologies to Objectively Measure technologies for both the health and the disease of that patient to Artist’s metaphorical concept of topology,

Human Performance). support that. We have to build that out. D

N E E R G U R E in which a cofee cup and doughnut are Both projects were highlighted as part of former vice president “It all fits in this bigger picture,” he said. “Convergent science at “equal” to one another in topological LD

Joe Biden’s Cancer Moonshot program. They aim to gather data USC enables us to bring this all together and indeed deliver solutions ANE terms based on the number of loops

in real time from doctors, patients and researchers and make the to the wicked problem of cancer.” within each.

50 Spring / Summer 2017 51 DORNSIFE F A MILY

TROJANALITY HONORS Faculty News of brain processes underlying “the most distinguished work on from INSIGHT Into Diversity maga- emotions, decision making and the history of the Jewish diaspora zine. The award recognizes women AIMEE BENDER, professor of consciousness, and for his contri- published in English.” who work to inspire and encourage Infuential Minds in Science English and director of the butions to the modern discussion the next generation of young Four USC Dornsife researchers set a high bar for their peers, ranking among the Ph.D. program in Creative of the mind/body problem. MEGAN LUKE, assistant pro- people to pursue STEM education top 1 percent of cited scientists in their fields of study. Writing and Literature, was fessor of art history, was award- and careers. Reisler was honored appointed a Distinguished Pro- ALICE GAMBRELL, associate ed a Fellowship for Experienced for her efforts to develop the Science does not take place in a vacuum. Countless experiments fessor by USC President C. L. Max professor of English, was Researchers from the Alexander Women in Science and Engineering are undertaken every year, with each one drawing ideas from Nikias, a designation reserved named the 2016-17 McElderry von Humboldt Foundation. She will (WiSE) program at USC. previous experiments, adding to the pool of knowledge for those who have brought Research Fellow by USC Dornsife’s be based at the Freie Universität and fueling further studies. Clarivate Analytics (formerly special renown to USC. Department of English. in Berlin for three residencies from GEORGE SANCHEZ, professor Tomson Reuters), a New York City-based multinational 2017–19, where she will work on of American studies and media and information frm, generates an annual Highly Cited DANIELA BLEICHMAR, associ- JESSE GRAHAM, associate her forthcoming book. ethnicity and history, and Researchers list to determine which scientists have made the ate professor of art history and professor of psychology, director of the Center for most foundational contributions to their felds. history, and associate provost received a Sage Young Scholar JILL MCNITT-GRAY, Gabilan Diversity and Democracy, First noting the top 1 percent of cited papers indexed for faculty and student initia- Award from the Foundation for Distinguished Professorship received the 2017 Lifetime Vadim Cherezov between 2004 and 2014 in 21 felds of study, the company tives in the arts and humani- Personality and Social Psychology. in Science and Engineering Achievement Award from the then counts the number of these papers attributed to ties, was named a 2016-17 visiting and professor of biological Immigration and Ethnic History each author. Tese research papers describe work that the scholar at the Center for Advanced WILLIAM HANDLEY, associate sciences and biomedical Society (IEHS). He was recog- scientifc community has judged to be the most noteworthy. Study in the Behavioral Sciences at professor of English, received engineering, was awarded the nized for his numerous influential In the end, about 3,100 researchers rose to the top of Stanford University. the Western Literature Associa- 2016 Dr. C. Harmon Brown Award articles, reports and edited their felds. tion’s 2016 Susan J. Rosowski from USA Track & Field for her anthologies that have shaped Te prestigious list of “Te World’s Most Infuential JAMES BOEDICKER, assistant Award. The honor is given for contributions to the fields of the fields of Chicano, Latino Scientifc Minds” for 2016 includes four scientists from professor of physics and outstanding teaching and sports medicine and science. and ethnic studies. He was also USC Dornsife. All are members of the Bridge Institute at astronomy and biological mentoring in the field of western CH honored for his mentorship and EREZ the USC Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience. sciences, received a 2016 DARPA American literature. VIET THANH NGUYEN, Aerol teaching of students.

O Vadim Cherezov, professor of chemistry, biological Young Faculty Award, which iden- V AN Arnold Chair of English and Valery Fokin sciences, and physics and astronomy, was noted in the

tifies and engages rising research JOSH KUN, associate professor D professor of English and BRUCE SMITH, Dean’s Professor

S Pharmacology and Toxicology category. Cherezov studies stars in junior faculty positions at of communication and American TEVENS American studies and ethnicity, of English and professor of the structure and function of proteins that reside in cell A Glass Act U.S. academic institutions. studies and ethnicity, was selec- received the Dayton Literary Peace theatre, received four awards membranes, many of which may be involved in serious Part artist and part inventor, USC’s scientific glassblower makes handcrafted pieces ted as a 2016 fellow of the John PHO Prize as well as the 2017 Book for The Cambridge Guide to diseases including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, as well as T that keep critical USC labs running. JOHN BOWLT, professor of D. and Catherine T. MacArthur O Award in Creative Writing (Prose) the Worlds of Shakespeare

S BY S BY diabetes and cancer. Slavic languages and litera- Foundation. Considered one of for his Pulitzer Prize-winning first (Cambridge University Press, Valery Fokin, professor of chemistry, appears in the R Phillip Sliwoski is surrounded by glass — on his desk, in cabinets, in big bins at his feet. tures, was selected to receive the the most prestigious prizes in YAN novel, The Sympathizer (Grove 2016), which he edited. The Chemistry category. Fokin is known for co-discovering He is a scientifc glassblower, which means he designs the glass instruments that 2016 Distinguished Contributions the United States, the MacArthur YO Press, 2015). Nguyen was also se- two-volume set was named an copper-catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition, recognized UNG; chemistry professors and students need for experiments. He has been at USC Dornsife’s to Slavic, East European, and Eur- Fellowship provides a $625,000 lected for the 2016 National Book Outstanding Academic Title of in the feld as the iconic example of “click chemistry.”

Department of Chemistry for nearly 10 years and is the embodiment of a fading art form. asian Studies Award for his work grant, popularly known as the FO Award in Nonfiction shortlist for his 2016 by the American Library Tis term refers to fnding the simplest and most reliable Scientifc glassblowers used to populate research universities and corporate laborato- creating and promoting the field of “genius” grant. KIN book Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam Association and the Outstanding chemical reactions to build molecules that can be used to

PHO Vsevolod Katritch ries across the United States, but due to everything from budget cuts to automation, they Russian modernist visual culture. and the Memory of War (Harvard Print Reference Work of 2016 discover new medicines and materials. Fokin’s research T

ANDREW LAKOFF, associate O University Press, 2016). (Humanities) by Library Journal.

are increasingly scarce. However, their expertise and artistry are essential for chemists C focuses on uncovering the molecular basis of human

Distinguished Professor professor of sociology, was O who design glassware for their unique chemical reactions. Tis isn’t stuf you can order in URTESY disease by identifying features that set it apart from healthy a catalog. Emeritus of English and Writer named a 2016-17 fellow of the MATTHEW PRATT, associate ARTHUR STONE, professor of physiological processes. in Residence Emeritus T.C. Center for Advanced Study in the professor of chemistry and psychology and director of the “I make one-of-a-kind items here,” said Sliwoski, one of only a few glassblowers left O Vsevolod Katritch, assistant professor of biological sciences F VA in Los Angeles. BOYLE won the inaugural Mark Behavioral Sciences at Stanford biological sciences, received USC Dornsife Center for Self- and chemistry, is listed in the Pharmacology and Toxicology L “It’s an art that’s been around for 1,000 years,” he said. “You don’t want it to disappear. … Twain American Voice in Lit- University. ERY the American Cancer Society’s Report Science, was awarded the category. Katritch employs structure-based computational No matter what, with automation and everything, there’s stuf we still need that is made out erature Award for his novel The FO HOPE Award, which honors an John Ware and Alvin Tarlov Career approaches to study signaling of membrane proteins, KIN; KATRITC of glass.” Harder They Come (Ecco, 2015). PAUL LERNER, professor of ACS-funded researcher who is in Achievement Prize for patient including members of the superfamily of G protein-coupled Sitting at his bench burner — a fame of 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit — Sliwoski informs history and director of the the first two years of funded work. reported outcomes measures. receptors, and to design new molecules that selectively control University Professor ANTONIO Max-Kade Institute for Austrian- Pratt was honored for research that It acknowledges Stone’s contribu- you he’s not an artist, “like you see in Venice.” Raymond Stevens the function of these important clinical targets. H DAMASIO, David Dornsife German-Swiss Studies, S “significantly impacted the society’s tions to the field, including the de-

L PHO

Scientifc glassblowing is more exact, he said, because he’s taking parts and melting IW Raymond Stevens, Provost Professor of Biological Chair in Neuroscience, profes- received the American Histor- goal of a world free from the pain velopment of real-time techniques O T

them together. But he’s also creating things never made before. SKI Sciences, Chemistry, Neurology, Physiology and Biophysics, and Chemical Engineering O

sor of psychology, philosophy ical Association’s 2016 Dorothy PETER BY and suffering caused by cancer.” for capturing patient experiences

“In some ways, he’s an artist and in some ways, he’s a very sophisticated engineer,” said PHO and Materials Science, and director of the Bridge Institute, was named in two and neurology, and director Rosenberg Prize for his book and, as a team effort, the Patient

Mark Tompson, Ray R. Irani, Chairman of Occidental Petroleum Corporation, Chair in T categories: Pharmacology and Toxicology and Biology and Biochemistry for the third O Chemistry, and professor of chemistry and chemical engineering and materials science. of the Brain and Creativity The Consuming Temple: Jews, RUE GUS BY HANNA RIESLER, Lloyd Arm- Reporting Outcome Monitoring year in a row. Authoring more than 300 peer-reviewed articles, Stevens pioneered work Institute at USC Dornsife, Department Stores, and the ZH strong Jr. Chair for Science and Information System. A

Students will walk in with a complex plan or design and walk out with something O in high-throughput methods for revealing the structure of proteins — essential work much simpler, thanks to Sliwoski, he said. was awarded the 2016 Mind Consumer Revolution in Germany, YU and Engineering and professor for pharmaceutical drug development. He is a serial entrepreneur and has helped ZHO

and Brain Prize in recognition of 1880-1940 (Cornell University L of chemistry, received a 2016 Continued on page 55.

“My colleagues at other schools don’t have this ability. It enables us to do things that S A develop several therapeutic molecules for conditions ranging from infuenza to

U other people just can’t do,” Tompson said. “With Phil, the sky’s the limit.” —J.C. his fundamental investigations Press, 2015). The prize recognizes Inspiring Women in STEM Award diabetes. —D.S.J.

52 Spring / Summer 2017 53 DORNSIFE F A MILY

FACULTY CANON

Cases From the Yuan dian- and exploring questions of immi- DAVID ST. JOHN, University Alumni News BONNIE NIJST (B.A., English, zhang Harvard University Press / gration, identity, love and family, Professor of English and ’81), president and CEO of Zeesman Associate Professor of East Asian the second work of fiction from Comparative Literature, 1940s Communications Inc., was Languages and Cultures and Aerol Arnold Chair of English, was named a Chancellor of the The Honorable MANUEL L. REAL awarded the MBE Trailblazer History Bettine Birge reveals Professor of English and American Academy of American Poets. (B.S., business administration, Award from the National Minority the complex, sometimes con- Studies and Ethnicity, and 2016 St. John will consult with the ’49) celebrated 50 years as an Supplier Development Council. tradictory inner workings of the Pulitzer Prize-winner Viet Thanh organization on matters of artistic active U.S. District Court judge on Mongol-Yuan legal system, seen Nguyen gives voice to lives led programming, serve as a judge for Nov. 3, 2016. He was appointed UTE E. VAN DAM (B.A., through the prism of marriage between two worlds, the adopted the organization’s largest prizes for by President Lyndon B. Johnson communications arts and disputes in chapter 18 of the Yuan homeland and the country of birth. poets and act as an ambassador in 1966. sciences, ’84) was elected to PIER PAOLO PASOLINI: dianzhang. SO MUCH BLUE: A Novel of poetry in the world at large. a third term as a school board Performing Authorship Columbia Greywolf Press / As the events of 1960s trustee for Moorpark Unified University / Assistant Professor the past intersect with the present, MARK THOMPSON, Ray R. The American Bar Association School District. She recently of French and Italian and Gender the painter protagonist in the latest Irani Chairman of Occidental Section of International Law served as board president. Studies Gian Maria Annovi book by Distinguished Professor of Petroleum Corporation, Chair selected ROBERT E. LUTZ revisits Pier Paolo Pasolini’s English Percival Everett struggles in Chemistry and professor of (B.A., political science, ’68) LORI WALDON (B.A., political multimedia oeuvre, interpreting to justify the sacrifices he has made chemistry and chemical engi- to receive the section’s 2016 science, ’83) was named regional his authorial performance as for his art and the secrets he has neering and materials science, Lifetime Achievement Award. director of news for KCRA-TV and a masochistic act that elicited kept from his wife. was named a co-recipient of the KQCA-TV in Sacramento, CA; rejection and generated hostility IEEE Jun-ichi Nishizawa Medal for 1970s KOAT-TV in Albuquerque/Santa-Fe, to highlight the contradictions that his pioneering work on organic BEN EUBANKS (B.A., history, NM; and KSBW-TV in Monterey/ structure a repressive society. CONTINENTAL AMBITIONS: devices leading to organic light- ’78) was appointed a member Salinas, CA. THE TERRANAUTS: A Novel Roman Catholics in North emitting diode displays. The of the 2017 Beverly Hills/Greater Ecco / Set in 1990s Arizona at America: the Colonial Experi- award is presented to individuals Los Angeles Association of 1990s a biosphere-type experiment ence Ignatius Press / The late or a group for outstanding con- REALTORS board of directors. DAVID BLAKESLEY (Ph.D., and told through three narrators, University Professor and Professor tributions to material and device He is also a member of the California English, ’90) received the George the latest book by Distinguished of History, and Policy, Planning, science and technology. Association of REALTORS board Yoos Distinguished Service Award Professor Emeritus of English and and Development Kevin Starr of directors. and was named a fellow by the Peculiar Journeys Writer in Residence Emeritus provides an evocation of three WENDY WOOD, Provost Rhetoric Society of America. Anna Journey of English publishes a collection of essays and a new book of poems T.C. Boyle brings to life an elec- Roman Catholic civilizations Professor of Psychology and DAVID R. MOORE (B.A., speech that explore her fascination with the peculiar and the grotesque. trifying, pressured world in which TWO FACES OF EXCLUSION: — Spain, France and Recusant Business and director of the communication, ’75) was DAVID BOWMAN (B.S., geo- connected lives are uncontrollably The Untold History of England — as they explored, Social Behavior Laboratory, sworn in by the chief justice of the logical sciences, ’93; M.S., P AINTING “ Like the wild fox she defed her mother to feed that left pushed to the breaking point. Anti-Asian Racism in the United evangelized and settled the North was named the first holder of California Supreme Court as a geological sciences, ’96; “Nothing except / a paw print browned in old grease, / ghosted THE ART OF PHILOSOPHY: States University of North Carolina American continent. the Sorbonne University INSEAD member of the board of directors Ph.D., geological sciences, Visual Thinking in Europe Press / Professor of History and Distinguished Visiting Chair in for the conference of California Bar ’99) was appointed dean of the to the bone china’s edge,” Anna Journey’s poetry has a haunt- TH ing, feral quality that leaves its singular traces imprinted From the Late Renaissance AN E PENITENT Spatial Sciences Lon Kurashige Behavioral Science for the 2017- Associations. College of Science, Technology, on the reader’s mind long after the words have faded from to the Early Enlightenment explains the rise and fall of exclu- 18 academic year. Engineering, and Mathematics the page. Princeton University Press / sionist policies through an unstable 1980s at Eastern Washington University. Assistant Professor of Art History and protracted political rivalry that NINA ELIASOPH, professor of KIMBERLY J. DURMENT-LOCKE

Te Atheist Wore Goat Silk (Louisiana State University D Susanna Berger shows that the T began in the 1850s, extended to sociology, and PAUL LICHTER- (B.A., English and print Boston Public Schools Assistant Press, 2017), the third collection of poetry by the assistant H E PATIENT” BY BY E PATIENT” professor of English, is followed by her frst book of essays, making and study of visual art in the age of exclusion from the 1880s MAN, professor of sociology journalism, ’83) received the Superintendent of the Office An Arrangement of Skin (Counterpoint, 2017). Reading it, Europe from the late 16th to the until the 1960s, and since then and religion, were honored with Excellence in Diversity Award of English Language Learners Te Boston Globe wrote, “is like cracking open a closet door and early 18th centuries functioned as has shaped the memory of past the 2016 Clifford Geertz Award from The Aerospace Corporation. FRANCES ESPARZA (B.A., important methods of philoso- discrimination. BEAUTIFUL BRAIN: The Draw- from the Section on Sociology international relations, ’97) peering in to see a tight and private collection of oddities, secrets, and skeletons.” R YAN MCLENNAN; J MCLENNAN; YAN For those familiar with Journey’s work, this is to be both relished and expected. Her new phical thinking and instruction. HAUNTED: On Ghosts, Witches, ings of Santiago Ramón y Cajal of Culture of the American Socio- “Slum Lord,” a short story by was appointed to the board of poems and essays brim with tales of graveyards, taxidermy, infdelity and tattoos — even Vampires, Zombies, and Other Harry N. Abrams / Co-author, logical Association for their article TIMOTHY FOUNTAIN (B.A., directors at Boston Partners in a fried chicken prom corsage sold as a novelty item by a Kentucky forist. “You want to see Monsters of the Natural and University Professor, Appleman “Civic Action.” The annual Geertz political science, ’82), was Education in October 2016. the photographs / snapped after midnight when the blonde prom dates gnaw / their pink- Supernatural Worlds Yale Professor of Biological Sciences, Award recognizes the best article selected for radio broadcast in the

University Press / Exploring how O and Professor of Neurology and on cultural sociology. They also University College Cork (Ireland) MICHELE LEIGH (B.A., Russian, ribboned corsages to the gristle,” she writes. URNEY Journey said she has always had an interest in dark fairy tales and a fascination with the fear has been shaped into images of Psychology Larry Swanson received the 2016 Distinguished Carried in Waves competition. ’92; M.A., critical studies, ’96; monsters and monstrosity, University describes Nobel Laureate Santiago Contribution to Scholarship Award Ph.D., critical studies, ’08) stories her mother told her about her own childhood living on the grounds of the Texas mental PHO Professor of English, Art History Ramón y Cajal’s contributions to from the Section on Political Socio- JENNIFER APPLETON GOOT- received a Fulbright Scholar award T

asylum where her father, a psychiatrist, did his residency. O “Tose were the kinds of stories I grew up hearing,” Journey said. “Tey seemed normal and History Leo Braudy explores BY neuroscience through his ground- logy for the same article. MAN (B.A., interdisciplinary to conduct research in Russia for S to me as a child, and I didn’t realize there was anything unusually macabre about them until four major types: the monster from TE breaking artistic brain imagery. studies, ’81) was named the her book on women who worked nature (King Kong); the created PH executive director of DC Stoddert in the Russian silent film industry. much later. I N A I D E I N A “A sense of risk and wonder is what I try to carry into both my poems and essays. monster (Frankenstein); the mon- Soccer in Washington, D.C. It’s also what I hope to share in teaching my students — that writing is a continuous process MARRIAGE AND THE LAW IN ster from within (Mr. Hyde); and the THE REFUGEES Grove Press / Continued on page 57. of discovery.” —S.B. THE AGE OF KHUBILAI KHAN: monster from the past (Dracula). Written over a period of 20 years

54 Spring / Summer 2017 55 DORNSIFE F A MILY

ALUMNI AND STUDENT CANON TROJANALITY

ROBERT VINSON (B.A., human- Navy Relief Society and Caridad (10/24/16) at age 35; creator ities, ’95) was elected president International. and editor in chief of DailyGirth. of the El Pueblo de Los Angeles com; an avid reader who enjoyed Playing it Forward Historical Monument. JOHN ROSS BOYD (B.A., Slavic weight lifting and watching USC Jamil Moledina leads games strategy for Google Play, languages and literatures, football and Los Angeles Lakers drawing on lessons he learned at USC Dornsife. ANDREW VREES (B.A., po- ’70) Rosamond, CA (7/9/16) at basketball. litical science and broadcast age 69; served as a Los Angeles When gaming entrepreneur and sci- journalism, ’91) was named City fireman and paramedic. JAMES W. KINNEY (B.A., ence fction writer Jamil Moledina Broadcasting & Cable magazine’s history, ’61; M.S., educa- ’94 was ofered a job leading games PSYCHOSIS IN THE PRODUCE THE UNSETTLERS: In Search News Director of the Year. He is LAVINIA REYNOLDS JOHN- tion, ’68) Palos Verdes Estates, strategy at Google Play, the tech DEPARTMENT Red Hen Press / THE LILIES OF DAWN Annorlunda CAKE TIME Red Hen Press / TESTIFY Red Hen Press / of the Good Life in Today’s vice president, news, at WCVB-TV SON CARROLL (B.A., speech, CA (10/18/16) at age 77; taught whiz thought twice before accept- Laurel Ann Bogen (B.A., English, Books / Vanessa Fogg (B.A., Siel Ju (Ph.D., literature and The debut novel by current Ph.D. America Riverhead Books / Mark in Boston, MA. ’39) San Luis Obispo, CA (9/9/16) history and served as activities ing. Having recently created his own ’71; MPW, ’01) explores beauty and biological sciences, ’95) examines creative writing, ’08) grapples with candidate in literature and cre- Sundeen (MPW, ’99) traces the at age 100; lived according to director at Palos Verdes High startup, he wasn’t initially keen to madness, dysfunctional families, spirituality and empowerment urgent questions, including how ative writing Douglas Manuel is search for the simple life not only 2000s her motto, “Love one another,” School; part owner of Argo return to a large company. However, love and anti-love, and growing up in her fairy tale novella about a to love madly without losing a a contemplation of race, religion through the stories of three very VENITA BLACKBURN (B.A., which was passed on to her by World Travel. the opportunity to help develop the as a baby boomer. flock of enchanted cranes and a sense of self. and class that confronts some of different couples, but through the creative writing, ’04) received her mother. game industry was too tantalizing to pass up. poisoned lake of water lilies. the most critical issues in society. visionaries that inspired them to the Prairie Schooner Book Prize MALCOLM LUCAS (B.A., Previously editor-in-chief of Game Developer magazine walk away from the life they knew in Fiction for 2016. Her collection ANNE CLEMENTS CLARK political science, ’50; LLB, and executive director of the Game Developers Confer- in order to find — or create — of stories, Black Jesus and other ELDRED (B.A., political ’53) Los Angeles, CA (9/28/16) ence, Kenya-born Moledina joined Electronic Arts and a better existence. Superheroes, will be published science, ’51) Sierraville, CA at age 89; became a judge on the then moved to mobile start-up Funzio before launching later this year. (9/19/16) at age 84; was a dedi- California Superior Court in 1967 his own company. cated volunteer with the Sierra and a U.S. District Court judge in Paradoxically, Moledina won the top job at Google Play MATT LEINART (B.A., sociol- County Sheriff’s Mounted Posse 1971; appointed to the state court not because his startup — Wormhole Games — succeeded, ogy, ’05) was named to the and the Girl Scouts of America; in 1984 and elevated in 1987 to but because it hadn’t. While visiting tech companies to 13-member 2017 College Football member of the Sierra County chief justice. help his employees fnd new jobs, Moledina told Apple Hall of Fame. Historical Society and worked as and Google they could do better supporting games like a tour guide at Kentucky Mine; JAMES B. ROE (M.S., biology, those he created. To his surprise, Google agreed, inviting POMEGRANATE EATER DEEP WATERS University of HUMANISM AND THE DEATH THE ADVENTURES OF ABUELITO 2010s during collegiate years was a ’68) Portland, OR (12/19/16) him to do just that. Kore Press / Through prose poems RAISING A CHILD WITH AUTISM New Mexico Press / In this intro- OF GOD: Searching for the Good MindStir Media / From doing TIMOTHY JOHNSON (B.A., Helen of Troy. at age 72; was an orthopedic Now he draws on his B.A. in international relations and interrogating the self in the guise Straight Street Books / Timothy duction to the breadth of writer After Darwin, Marx, and somersaults on the moon to racing international relations, ’11; surgeon in California and Oregon; East Asian area studies to fuel his twin passions: gaming and of various fruit, epistles address- Fountain (B.A., political science, Frank Waters’ work, Alan Louis Nietzsche Oxford University Press / cheetahs in the Serengeti, the B.A., music-violin, ’11) was ALFONSO GONZALES (B.S., enjoyed heli-skiing, motorcycles science fction. He published a sci-f novel, Tearing the Sky ing a shadow lover and lexical ’82) provides parents of affected Kishbaugh (B.A., international Ronald E. Osborn (Ph.D., political protagonist in the literary debut appointed to the U.S. Foreign zoology, ’16) Hermosa Beach, and travel. (Kalyphon Press), in 2010. tapestries whose words seem to children tips, techniques, hope relations, ’61) touches on subjects science and international relations, of Jackie Tait (MPW, ’07) has Service and will serve as a public CA (12/27/16) at age 96; the Moledina also credits his carefree childhood in Africa point only away from meaning and and encouragement. reflecting the great cultural shifts ’12) wrestles with the question of had his share of fun, but none of his diplomacy officer within the U.S. oldest graduate in USC history, GEORGE R. VICK (Ph.D., with his success, noting, “Having that freedom to dream toward one another, Amaranth of the late 20th century. whether we can have a compelling exploits compare to his grandest Department of State. completing the final credit of his philosophy, ’68) Pasadena, CA is important to the creative process.” —S.B. Borsuk (M.A., English, ’06; Ph.D., basis for humanistic values and adventure of all. degree on May 13, 2016; served in (9/30/16) at age 86; joined the literature and creative writing, ’10) human rights apart from religion. LEGO released the first product the U.S. Navy before transfer- faculty as a philosophy instructor lets language speak, directing our from toy designer AMANDA ring to the U.S. Marine Corps; while pursuing his Ph.D. at USC; gaze at its shimmering surfaces. BROOKE SAYERS (B.A., anthro- trained in field medicine, treating professor of philosophy pology and psychology, ’11) wounded on the battlefield during at California State University, in May 2016 as part of the LEGO World War II; led his own soil busi- Los Angeles. Friends line of toys. ness until retiring in 2008. JOSEPH ALBERT WAPNER Births JOHN “JACK” CLADWELL (B.A., philosophy, ’41; LL.B., REBEKAH SICK OLKOWSKI HESSIN (B.A., political ’48) Los Angeles, CA (2/26/17)

LAVENDER AND RED: MOL (B.A., Spanish and interna- science, ’51) Anchorage, AK at age 97; served in the U.S. Army in E

Liberation and Solidarity in BONE CONFETTI Noemi Press / D tional relations, ’09) and Gary (3/26/16) at age 89; served in World War II; awarded the Purple INA P the Gay and Lesbian Left Uni- In her first poetry collection, THE SONIC COLOR LINE: SCANDALIZE MY NAME: Olkowski welcomed a son, Robin the Army Air Corps during World Heart and the Bronze Star for

versity of California Press / Emily Ph.D. candidate in literature Race and the Cultural Politics Black Feminist Practice and HO Alexander, on Nov. 26, 2016. War II as a radio operator; played his bravery; served for 20 years T

K. Hobson (M.A., American and creative writing Muriel Leung of Listening NYU Press / the Making of Black Social Life O football while attending USC; was on the California Municipal and C O

TRUMAN, FRANCO’S SPAIN, studies and ethnicity, ’07; Ph.D., explores two types of survivors at Jennifer Stoever (Ph.D., Fordham University Press / Terrion URTESY In Memoriam a special agent with the Federal Superior Courts before his 12-year AND THE COLD WAR American studies and ethnicity, the end of the world: lovers American studies and ethnicity, L. Williamson (M.A., American BARBARA BLAKE ABRAHAM Bureau of Investigation; served as starring role on The People’s

University of Missouri Press / ’09) presents a history of queer and ghosts who die, are revived ’07) explores how black thinkers studies and ethnicity, ’08; Ph.D., O (B.A., social sciences and a magistrate with the Fairbanks Court, where he served as judge; Wayne H. Bowen (B.A., history, radicals who understood their and die again. They scale the conceived the cultural politics of American studies and ethnicity, ’11) F JA communication, ’52) San Diego, District Court. honored in November 2009 with M I

’90) provides a framework for un- sexual liberation as intertwined horizon, collecting debris wherever listening at work during the eras approaches the study of black fe- L CA (10/11/16) at age 86; was a a star on the Hollywood Walk derstanding how a nation facing with solidarity against imperial- they go in the attempt to fashion a of slavery, Reconstruction and male representation as an opening MOL member of Chi Omega while MICHAEL CERVANTES (B.A., of Fame. E a global threat develops strategic ism, war and racism. new sense of humanity. Jim Crow. onto a critical contemplation of the D attending USC; after brief career English [creative writing], ’04; INA relationships over time. vagaries of black social life. with Convair, volunteered for the MPW, ’06) Los Angeles, CA

56 Spring / Summer 2017 57 DORNSIFE F A MILY

REMEMBERING

RenownedInsightful for his pioneering research, Mind Bosco Tjan was a beloved professor of psychology.

Bosco Tjan, professor of psychology and co-director of the Dana and David Dornsife Cognitive Neuroimaging Center, died on Dec. 2, 2016, in Los Angeles. He was 50. Tjan, who joined USC Dornsife in 2001, was a world- renowned expert on vision, particularly in how the brain recognizes shapes and scenes. Tjan recently received a $4 million grant with a team of researchers from the National Institutes of Health to study how blindness changes the brain. His ongoing research projects included image enhancement for people with impaired vision, indoor navigation aid for the blind and the visually impaired, and perception of visual speech. “Bosco Tjan was a beloved member of our psychology faculty,” said Jo Ann Farver, professor and chair of psych- ology. “He was a dedicated, kind and patient teacher and mentor of graduate and undergraduate students. We will all especially miss his sense of humor, keen wit and brilliant mind.” Irving Biederman, Harold Dornsife Chair in Neuro- sciences and professor of psychology and computer science, STARR was a close friend and longtime colleague of Tjan’s. In a eulogy, Biederman described Tjan as “a major contributor to PHO vision science.” T O C “He tackled a wide range of problems, and everything he O URTESY published was a paragon of beautiful design and rigorous methodology.” O F MIC H

AE CaliforniaCalifornia State Librarian Emeritus Dreamer Kevin Starr was one of the leading historians L MAC of the Golden State. O R / S

AN Historian and University Professor Kevin Starr, who served as the State Librarian for TheA lauded Nobel scientist helped Achiever establish USC as a notable center of advanced hydrocarbon chemistry.

F California for a decade, died Jan. 14 in San Francisco. He was 76. RANCISC “Professor Starr was our dear friend, a beloved teacher and a USC treasure, but he truly Chemist George Olah, who won USC’s frst Nobel Prize, gases. His novel approach was based on the use of methanol belonged to the world,” USC President C. L. Max Nikias said. “His bright mind, rigorous O

died at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif., on March 8. for energy storage as a convenient renewable liquid fuel to CH intellect and passion for language will be deeply missed, but his extraordinary books will R

George Olah, Distinguished He was 89. replace gasoline and diesel, and as a feedstock for making O continue to inform us for generations to come.” NIC Professor of Chemistry, Chemical Olah had a profound infuence on the world of hydro- petroleum-derived products. L A native of San Francisco, Starr joined USC Dornsife in 1989 and was a professor of Engineering and Materials carbon chemistry, and his discoveries had applications At USC, he was Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, E / P history and policy, planning and development and special adviser to the provost. A highly Science and Donald P. and OL

to everyday life: He helped pave the way for less polluting Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Donald P. ARIS; TJAN sought-after lecturer and writer, he was known for his far-reaching explorations of life in Katherine B. Loker Chair in gasoline, more efective oil refning and several modern and Katherine B. Loker Chair in Organic Chemistry, and California. He authored the renowned eight-volume series Americans and the California Organic Chemistry, was born drugs. founding director of the Loker Hydrocarbon Research Dream, which chronicles social and cultural history in the state since its admission to the

in Hungary in 1927. He and his In 1994, Olah received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for Institute at USC Dornsife. PHO union in 1850.

family fed the Soviets in 1956, groundbreaking work on superacids and his observations of “Distinguished Professor George Olah was a true legend T In 2005, he received the Presidential Medal from USC. Te next year, Starr was O BY PETER PETER BY and he eventually joined USC what are known as carbocations, a feeting chemical species in the feld of chemistry. His pioneering research fundament- P awarded a National Humanities Medal by President George W. Bush and received the HO in 1977. long theorized to exist, but never confrmed — until Olah ally redefned the feld’s landscape, and will infuence its T Centennial Medal from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University. O devised a way to keep them around long enough to study scholarly work for generations to come,” said USC President BY In 2010, he was inducted into the California Hall of Fame. ZH JOH A

their properties. C. L. Max Nikias. “While Professor Olah was a world- O “Kevin Starr was a rarity in his feld — an iconic fgure whose scholarly understanding of N LIVZEY His post-Nobel research focused not only on developing renowned Nobel laureate and a giant in chemistry, he was YU the complexities and beauty of California’s history were matched only by the masterful prose ZHO a new way to solve dependence on fossil fuels, but also also a beloved member of our Trojan Family. He will be he used to convey that understanding to others,” said USC Dornsife Dean Amber D. Miller. U on mitigating global climate change caused by greenhouse deeply missed.” “Te academic world has lost a truly exceptional human being.”

58 Spring / Summer 2017 59 IN MY O PINION

new-growth, mountain-man beards and modern-primitive ear plugs, and gals with nose piercings, blue hair and combat boots. Tey were inventing fashion apps and microbrews and, I want to say, crowd-sourced design memes for sustainability — sometimes all at the same time! Even the food trucks were mix-taping disruption. Picture a $12 Korean-Mexican Belgian wafe rolled into a cone flled with kimchi pork and panko fried chipotle avocado. On the one hand, it was easy to get caught up in the DIY (“Do It Yourself,” for you laggards) excitement. Sample SXSW presentations included: “Te Pitch: Selling Your Disruptive Health Startup,” “Shark, Billionaire, Activist” and “Outthink the Future with Just 10 Ideas a Day.” Tere was a strong spiritual element, too, à la “Te Love Algorithm,” “Good Is the New Cool” and “Te Future of Emotional Machines.” Te futuristic neo-words were dizzying: “grocerants,” “chatbots,” “artivism,” “foodporn,” “wayknowing,” “biopunk,” and “hackpharma”! More familiar, but just as zeitgeisty? “Burkini,” “cannabis” (along with its amiable bro “cannabis startup”) and, of course, never out of style (“Keep Austin Weird”!) “vinyl.” And yet, there was a palpable undercurrent of stress, too. For such young people, time is feeting. With “Seconds Matter: Capturing Attention in Mobile Feed,” seconds mattered so much there wasn’t time for an article. Rows of conference rooms featured “speed pitches,” “accelerator pitches” and “super accelerators,” fanked by: “It’s Not Ready Yet: Te Perfectionist’s Struggle,” “You Can Survive Creative Burnout Meetup” and “Te Treat Is Evolving: EntrepreneursSandra Tsing Loh MPW, ’89 finds insight, food and Are You?” Was there an unspoken connection between millennial dreams at South by Southwest. “Psychopaths in Silicon Valley: A Guide” and the “Entrepreneurs’ Guide to Battling Depression & ADHD”? When I came of age — this was back in the ’80s — my (Description: “49% of entrepreneurs have some form of tribe of impressionable youths all wanted to be performance mental health condition and 30% of entrepreneurs sufer artists like Laurie Anderson, writers like Bret Easton Ellis, from depression [2x more likely than non-entrepreneurs]).” rockers like …? True, it wasn’t a golden age for rock. (Cue Te aforementioned Gary Vaynerchuk — an online Flock of Seagulls, Pet Shop Boys). Nor was it, possibly, for marketing guru — said it best to a crammed ballroom fashion. (Tink moussed hair, parachute pants, eerily shiny of rapt SXSW-ers. Vaynerchuk’s talk was essentially a Q&A Members Only jackets). session for aspiring entrepreneurs. As he noted while By contrast, today, in the “twentyteens,” it seems what pacing, in athletic shoes and headset, “Starting 15 years ago, many dreamy-eyed, creative young people aspire to be are suddenly everyone wanted to be an entrepreneur. Entre- not artists or writers or musicians but … entrepreneurs. Like preneurs are like rock stars now! And that’s great for me — wait for it — Gary Vaynerchuk! Doesn’t ring a bell? personally. I work 18 hours a day because I love it! But not I LL

No matter. All this — and more — is what I learned when everyone’s like that. Maybe you’re not an entrepreneur. USTRATI I attended South by Southwest (SXSW) recently in Austin, And that’s fne. Number 11 at Facebook makes more than Texas. A trendsetting music, flm and interactive media fes- everyone in this room combined!” O tival, SXSW also features a tech-based “Startup Village.” Wisdom to ponder. In the meantime, many of the rest N BY

My colleagues Mark Davis and Sarah Mojarad (both join- of us will just have to seek comfort in microbrews, chipotle H A

L Fuel passion. Spark curiosity. Ignite discovery.

ing the USC faculty this year) had invited me to their panel avocado and some kimchi. Sustainable kimchi. M “Getting to Yes: Communication and Entrepreneurship.” AYF O Communication for techies is my expertise: I’m a specialist Sandra Tsing Loh, a former USC Dornsife student and faculty RT USC Dornsife cultivates a liberal arts mindset in our next generation of creators, leaders and visionaries. H

; Your gift enhances our capacity to take on society’s most complex issues — sustainability, cancer and on what I like to call, with apologies to Mark Twain, “Te member is a writer/performer whose latest play is based on her PHO

Awful Scientifc Language” — a hodgepodge of Greek, book Te Madwoman in the Volvo (Norton, 2014), named one T neurodegenerative disease, poverty and more. Support from alumni, parents and friends upholds this O Latin, mistranslated German and pirate-speak, it often does of 2015’s “Most Notable Books” by Te New York Times. J BY dynamic academic community. Help us clear new pathways for discovery with your gift to USC Dornsife

not make sense to ordinary humans. I couldn’t wait to share A contributing editor for Te Atlantic, her radio show OH today. dornsife.usc.edu/giving N

my “soft skills” with our next-gen Bill Gateses. “ Te Loh Down on Science” airs daily throughout the nation. L IVZEY But SXSW Startup Village entrepreneurs weren’t She teaches science communication and drama at the University just nerdy science-mathletes. Here were guys sporting of California, Irvine and beyond.

60 Spring / Summer 2017 61 CHANGE SERVICE REQUESTED Non-Profit Org. U.S. Postage PAID University of Southern California

University of Southern California 1150 S. Olive Street, T2400 Los Angeles, California 90015

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The World Below

A friendly humphead wrasse crosses paths with environmental studies students as they plunge into Micronesian marine biodiversity at the famed Blue Corner diving spot in Palau. PHO T O BY DAVI BY D

G INSBURG