A taste of the Middle East

A group of Williams students recently gathered in the First Congregational Church’s kitchen to prepare loaves of bread. They didn’t use mixers or food processors—just their hands, an ancient recipe for holy bread and a set of wooden Greek, Coptic and Syrian bread stamps borrowed from their professor, Febe Armanios.

As they kneaded and stamped and dusted the loaves with flour, concepts from Armanios’ class, Food in the Middle East: A History, began to snap into focus.

Profile written for Williams College.

Zine scene

As an activist involved in sustainability and other campus movements, Coco Rhum ’24 is always looking for new ways to educate and engage people. For that reason, she’s exploring an interest in zines—self-published, small-circulation magazines that often provide a platform for voices that might not be heard otherwise.

With roots stretching back to abolitionist papers in the 1830s, zines gained ground as alternative media during the 1950s and 1960s. They’re typically printed through inexpensive means, like photocopying, but some modern zines are also distributed digitally. A zine can be produced as a single issue or as part of an ongoing series, and the structure can range from journalistic to literary to abstract.

“Zines have a long history of being countercultural publications,” Rhum says. “They allow for a certain freedom and subversiveness that doesn’t normally happen in the mainstream publishing industry.”

Profile written for Williams College.

Friendships that help healing

On April 24, 2003, Austin Duncan ’02, was traveling around Egypt with his friend Ningchuan Zhu ’02 while on a break from his Fulbright-funded research in Kuwait. The two had spent the day wandering around Cairo before taking a train to Luxor. Duncan remembers crossing the Corniche, a promenade along the east bank of the Nile, and walking toward the Luxor Temple. He turned and shouted back to Zhu, “Stop being scared and just cross the road.”

That’s the moment everything went blank.

A mirror on the side of a bus hit Duncan’s head, sending him flying several feet into the air. Zhu came running to find him unconscious and bleeding in the middle of the Corniche. A British nurse eating lunch across the street rushed over, instructing Zhu to take his shirt off and wrap it around Duncan’s head. The police arrived. Duncan was taken to a hospital in Luxor, then transported to one in Cairo and, later, two in the U.S.

Duncan had suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI) and didn’t regain consciousness for more than a month. His first memory after the accident is of his 23rd birthday, on June 7, 2003. He remembers sitting on the grass outside a hospital in Seattle, Wash., his IVs still connected, surrounded by his parents and former Williams classmates from Woodbridge House: Kari Sutherland ’02, Ronit Stahl ’02, Rachel Seys ’02 and Abigail Rosenthal ’02. Some had been visiting Duncan since his transfer to the U.S., while he was still unconscious.

Profile written for Williams College.

Tech translator

Throughout her career, Ryan Triplette, L’03, has worked at the intersection of technology and the law.

Early on, she served as chief intellectual property counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee before transitioning to director of government relations for Intel. Triplette then went to work as a principal for Franklin Square Group, a boutique government relations firm in Washington, D.C., where she advised technology companies facing existential legislative and regulatory issues in the U.S. “I like to think of myself as a translator between technology companies and governments,” she said.

Four years ago, Triplette broadened her scope by launching Canary Global Strategic. She now splits her time between Paris and Washington helping technology companies understand the regulatory implications of entering new markets and craft strategic ways of introducing new products and their impact to relevant policymakers.

This profile of Ryan Triplette originally appeared in the winter 2022 issue of Richmond Law Magazine.

A shot at normalcy

The Covid-19 pandemic changed everything about how Brad Wasserman ’96 and his colleagues at Oberlin Road Pediatrics practiced medicine. They divided up their office to create separate areas for sick and well patients. They closed their waiting room and asked patients to stay outside until their appointments began. And Wasserman, one of nine pediatricians at the practice, located just a few miles from the State Capitol building in Raleigh, N.C., converted his 43-year-old school bus into an onsite flu shot clinic.

The Oberlin Road staff also took early steps to prepare for one crucial pandemic milestone: the approval of Covid-19 vaccines for children. In May, they began administering shots to kids age 12 and up. Then, shortly after the Pfizer vaccine was approved for 5- to 11-year-olds in early November, Oberlin Road received its first allotment. They’ve seen a steady stream of young patients ever since.

We spoke to Wasserman about rolling out the vaccines, addressing parents’—and patients’—concerns and the aptly named “Cool Bus.”

Q&A written for Williams College.

Staying on Track

When Jean Bell ’83 (née Jones) was in elementary school in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, her older brother started a girls’ track team and invited Bell, her sister, and their friends to join. Running gave her a sense of freedom, a feeling of speed—she was hooked.

Decades later, she’s still running—and a recent Netflix documentary is sharing her story with the world. The film, Sisters on Track, follows Brooke, Rainn, and Tai Sheppard, who are members of Jeuness Track Club, an all-girls team founded and coached by Bell. The teenage sisters gained national attention after participating in the 2016 Junior Olympics and being named Sports Illustrated’s SportsKids of the Year, leading to a dinner with LeBron James, Michael Phelps, Jay-Z, and Beyoncé, and appearances on The View.

This profile originally appeared in the fall 2021 issue of Brooklyn Law Notes.

Leading the Conversation

Shortly after moving to Philadelphia in 1997 and securing a position at Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis, Debbie Epstein Henry ’94 started to question the direction of her career. She wondered: Was it possible to play an integral role in her children’s lives and be on a partnership track?

Henry decided to start a brown bag lunch group for other lawyers interested in work-life issues. She emailed three local lawyers she had recently met, as well as three litigators at her firm, and asked them to forward her message to anyone who might be interested.

“I was a fifth-year associate and a fairly recent New York transplant. I barely knew anybody,” she said. “Within a couple of days, 150 people emailed me back. I knew I had struck a nerve.”

This profile of Debbie Epstein Henry originally appeared in the fall 2021 issue of Brooklyn Law Notes.

Learning through Practice

As one of the first law schools in the country to launch a clinical education program, Brooklyn Law School paved the way for generations of law students to gain valuable experience before starting their careers. These clinical experiences also changed the career trajectory of some alumni, who went on to lead clinical education programs at other law schools.

Meet four alumni working in clinical education today who demonstrate the Law School’s influence not only on their careers, but on the field at large.

This feature appeared in the fall 2021 issue of Brooklyn Law Notes.

Celebrating Williams Firsts

When Azaria Vargas ’22, a softball player from Bellmore, N.Y., first arrived at Williams College, she naturally sought out friendships on her team. Those connections only deepened when she and several teammates realized they shared an aspect of their identities in common—that of being the first in their families to attend a four-year college.

Vargas says it was reassuring to learn that her teammates sometimes struggled with the stress of navigating college life like she did—trying to untangle the acronyms of offices and programs, or figuring out how to access resources. They relied on each other for advice and support. Vargas wanted more first-gen students to have access to the same kinds of networks that she and her teammates formed.

“First-gen identity is not visible and does not often emerge in conversations,” she says. “There was no distinct pathway to those interactions.”

Profile written for Williams College.

From (oyster) farm to table

There’s a day every year, as the long New England winter comes to a close, when Chris Sherman ’07 can sense a change in the air. The water warms, and algae production resumes, creating a briny aroma. An easterly breeze carries the scent across the bay and into downtown Duxbury, Mass., where Sherman serves as president of Island Creek Oysters. 

“You don’t get that with any other natural phenomena,” says Sherman. “We live in such close harmony and communion with the ocean.” 

This visceral connection to the ocean has been an undercurrent throughout Sherman’s life, inspiring an interest in sailing and a decision to pursue a concentration in maritime studies at Williams College. He participated in the Williams-Mystic program—a collaboration between the college and the Mystic Seaport Museum—where he studied coastal environments through a variety of lenses, such as art, literature, history, science and public policy. 

The call of the ocean also drew him to take a job as an oyster farmer for Island Creek Oysters two years after graduating from Williams.

Profile written for Williams College.

Improv instructor teaches students how to roll with the punches

In improv terms, the spring 2020 semester could be described as a short-form challenge. Think Whose Line Is It Anyway?, with a seasoned team reacting to constantly changing, rapid-fire exercises. Each game lasts only a few minutes before the team starts fresh with the next challenge.

This fall, though, is more of a long-form endeavor. It’s still unscripted, with plenty of unexpected surprises, but a narrative arc guides everyone to a shared destination.

To navigate either exercise, improv performers have to begin by building camaraderie with their teammates. As with most things, for now, that means getting to know one another over Zoom.

Profile of Elizabeth Byland for VCUarts.

An activist artist's quest for spectacular failure

Eric Millikin approaches his work with an outlandish, utopian vision. The activist artist begins with questions like, “If I were to make artwork that ended racism, what would that be? How could I do that?”

He knows failure is likely inevitable—but that’s precisely the point. In aiming to change the minds of 6 or 7 billion people, Millikin hopes he’ll convince a hundred to reconsider their ideas, beliefs and actions.

“If you fail at radical, you might end up somewhere incredible, whereas, if you fail at incremental, you’ll end up where you started,” he says. “I embrace that failure and aim as high as possible, so that my failure is as spectacular as possible and if there is any amount of residual success, it’s as big as possible.”

Profile on artist, activist and journalist Eric Millikin for VCUarts.

Craft and art history graduate students join forces for exhibition

As a fiber artist, Laura Boban often uses clothing and interior textiles—like sports jerseys, bed sheets, garden flags and pillows—to explore intersections between the home and sports, and blur familiar identifiers for femininity and masculinity. In one work, abstract figures constructed from effeminate fabrics convey images of hockey fights, while another stacks objects from home and sports to form a precarious, haphazard structure.

“I’m interested in domesticity and suburbia,” says Boban, who is an MFA candidate in the VCUarts Department of Craft/Material Studies. “I started thinking about sports as a metaphor for belong and the idea of a team. And most of the textiles are thrifted, so they had a life before in [someone’s] home.”

Last spring, Boban was preparing for her candidacy show when she got a message from Haley Clouser, a graduate student in the museum studies program in the Department of Art History. Clouser was about to graduate and wanted to gain more experience collaborating with artists.

Profile on Laura Boban and Haley Clouser for VCUarts.

VoicingHan: Managing pain through avatar technology

When Semi Ryu performed Parting on Z—her work about a farewell between symbolic lovers: user and avatar—in London in 2013, something unexpected happened. She found herself sobbing in the middle of it.

That’s when, she says, she found her Han—a Korean concept where one feels extreme grief coupled with great hope.

Ryu, an associate professor of Kinetic Imaging, wondered if this same experience could be replicated in others. She worked with Tracey Gendron from VCU’s Department of Gerontology to develop VoicingElder, which used avatars and lip sync technology to help residents in an assisted living facility listen to their own stories. Ryu saw the practice as a way to improve quality of life and connect through storytelling.

“They enjoyed talking, but it was also community theater,” she says. “Everybody shared their stories together. And sometimes they just wanted to be an audience and watch somebody else talking.”

Lately, Ryu has been testing a new hypothesis: Can personal storytelling and virtual reality help terminally ill patients manage their pain and construct meaning for their lives?

Profile originally appeared on the VCUarts website.

In the studio: Chris Visions

How would you describe your aesthetic?

A lot of people have described it as kinetic and energetic. I want it to feel vibrant and lifelike. When someone sees my art, I want them to feel something or to wrestle with something.

I don’t want eye candy. Even with how expressive my work is, I’m still telling stories. It helps you settle into those more subtle moments, instead of everything being in your face.

How did you get your start?

I went up to New York Comic-Con a couple of times and put a portfolio in and didn’t hear anything. One time I sold my car to pay for the bus ticket to go. I talked to Neal Adams [known for his imagery of Batman and Green Arrow] and got him to critique my work; he totally trashed it the first couple of times. I talked to an editor who gave me an art test for American Vampire. He said it was very ambitious, and that was it. It was like that, over and over again.

Then, one time I went to the convention and didn’t bring a portfolio. I talked with a guy who was a fan. He said to send him some stuff and, long story short, my first real professional gig was doing a cover for Adventure Time. It propelled me and got me into my first book, Dead Letters.

Q&A with comic artist Chris Visions originally appeared in the VCUarts alumni magazine, Studio.

The crucial element

While many climate change discussions focus on reducing our dependence on fossil fuels like oil and natural gas, there’s another, quieter challenge lurking: The Earth is running out of phosphorus.

The resource is set to peak, meaning the demand will outweigh the supply, by 2040. That’s a full 10 years before the world is expected to see a shortage of fossil fuels.

Why does phosphorus matter? The mineral is a key component of fertilizers, batteries, animal feed, and food preservatives. A phosphorus shortage would lead to a decline in plant growth and reduce the food supply for the earth’s 7.5 billion people. There is also an established connection between high phosphate levels in the body and many neurological diseases.

Unlike fossil fuels, phosphorus has no substitute—no solar or wind energy to replace it. There is no manufactured, synthetic version. It is not renewable. When it’s gone, it’s gone.

Could Louis Kuo, professor of chemistry, be the one to find the solution?

Profile originally appeared in the Lewis & Clark alumni magazine, The Chronicle.

Captain Wendy Lawrence

On 26 July 2005, Wendy Lawrence suited up and boarded the space shuttle Discovery at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. She and her six fellow crew members were headed for the International Space Station. 

They had spent a year and a half training and preparing for this mission. It was the first since 1 February 2003, when the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated during re-entry, killing all seven crew members aboard—colleagues that Lawrence had known and worked with. 

Since the accident, NASA had been researching and implementing improvements. Lawrence and her colleagues on the STS-114 mission were continuing that research by testing safety procedures and repair techniques. Lawrence flew the space station’s robotic arm during two of the mission’s three spacewalks, and flew it again to install a work platform on the space station. 

“Usually, when you’re assigned a mission, you know exactly what you’re going to do at the start of your training flow,” Lawrence said. “This wasn’t the case for us. We had to come up with new ways of doing things once we were up in space. We were figuring things out as we went.” 

In spite of the uncertainty, the mission was successful. Nearly 14 days and 5.8 million miles later, the crew landed at Edwards, having revived U.S. space exploration after unimaginable loss. 

Feature originally appeared in the U.S. Naval Academy alumni magazine, Shipmate.

True stories

When Denison launched its narrative journalism concentration, it was building on a long history of giving students tools to report and comment on the news. I contributed to a series of profiles showing the variety of student storytellers, asking them to share the highs and lows of learning their craft, the people and stories that inspire them, and what drives them to tell the unexpected, engaging, and sometimes downright thrilling stories from campus and beyond.

No water required

It's awesome when you have crazy talented friends -- and even better when you get to write about them! I met Carrie Walters when I wrote about her and the first 804ork cookbook. I wrote her after the story published and asked if she might need some editorial help on the next edition. Lucky for me, she said yes. I learned so much from Carrie, about freelancing, and branding, and doing what you love.

This super savvy entrepreneur is now the brains (and hands) behind Paper Rose, a line of stunningly realistic paper flowers, and I got to write about Carrie again. And bonus, her amazing photos landed her on the cover of the autumn 2017 issue of University of Richmond Magazine.

April showers bring May flowers — unless you’re Carrie Fleck Walters, ’00. Then you just need some crepe paper, a little creativity, and a bushel of talent.

Walters first started making paper flowers when she was looking for a way to use her hands and unwind after a day working in graphic design.

She was a painter in college but doesn’t have the space for a studio at home. She tried knitting, but that wasn’t right, either. Then, she stumbled on a paper flower kit in Martha Stewart Living magazine.

“Working with paper was just a natural thing,” she says. “It’s malleable. There are a lot of different weights and textures to crepe paper, and they each have their own ability to be molded. I can sculpt the petals and position them so they’re more real.”

A tiny house with twins

When Lindsay and Jared Knight decided to build a 310-square-foot house, they wanted to have more time and money for adventures, like travel and parenting. They got their wish when twin babies arrived in March 2017.

In the spring/summer issue of University of Richmond Magazine, I talked to them about how to do more with a whole lot less for an expert's guide on tiny house living.

Then, after the twins were born, I followed up to see how their expectations met reality.

When friends come by with toddlers, Lindsay and Jared sometimes wonder whether their tiny house will still work when the girls are more active. “Long-term, when they’re a little more grown up and walking around and getting into everything, it may not be as sustainable,” Jared says. “But for now, it’s a good option.”

Living in a tiny house with tiny humans wasn’t an unexpected situation for the Knights. They found out a few years ago that they couldn’t have children unless they used in vitro fertilization. Down-sizing was part of the master plan to afford the procedure. It’s also how Lindsay and Jared plan to spend so much time at home during the twins’ early months and years. To them, that out-measures any amount of square-footage.