Arianna Schindle ’08 is committed to improving peoples’ lives, whether in an impoverished Thai village or along Chicago’s Magnificent Mile. Read about this social justice crusader from Kalamazoo College in a profile by author, historian, and columnist John Hallwas in the McDonough County (Illinois) Voice.
Category: Alumni
The Physics of Immortality
The Goods are dead, but their good’s alive! Walter and William Good, both members of the Class of 1937, have been deceased from some time, but their legacy lives at the Kalamazoo Air Zoo. The Goods created the Guff, the first successful radio controlled aircraft, and a replica of the aircraft is now on permanent display at the Air Zoo. The aircraft was created with vacuum tube-based control units; it won first place in the 1939, 1940, and 1947 R/C Airplane Nationals. The original plane resides at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. The Good brothers graduated from K with bachelor’s degrees in physics, and they then went on to earn doctorates in the subject.
K Alumnus’ Documentary Film Nominated for an Oscar
A documentary film by David France ’81 titled “How to Survive a Plague,” about the early years of the AIDS epidemic, is one of five in the category to be nominated for an Oscar Award. Oscar nomination is not the only recognition France has received for his film. The Gothic Independent Film Awards and the Boston Society of Film Critics voted it the best documentary film of 2012. And the Independent Spirit Awards, which occur the day before the Oscars, has nominated “How to Survive a Plague” for Best Documentary. France’s film chronicles the tireless efforts of activists in the 1980s and early 1990s bring attention to the disease and mount a response appropriate to it–in terms of research, social policies, and human dignity compassion. An article on France and the film appeared recently in the New York Times.
K Alumna Wins Prize for Science Journalism
Kirsten Weir ’99 is the winner of the 2012 AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award in the children’s science news category. The awards are administered by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for professional journalists to honor distinguished reporting for a general audience. Weir received the award for her article “Uninvited Guests,” which appeared in the April/May 2012 issue of Current Health Kids. In a way that appeals to children and adults the article describes the parasites and microbes that live in and on our bodies. Said Weir: “Kids often seem to think that science is something that happens in a laboratory or a faraway place. I loved that this story underscored how much is still unknown about the organisms living right under our noses (not to mention the rest of our bodies).”
Kalamazoo College’s Only Rhodes Scholar Offers Advice to WMU Finalist
Kalamazoo College alumna Becky Gray ’81 is the only student from K or Western Michigan University ever to receive a Rhodes Scholarship. In a Nov.15, 2012 Kalamazoo Gazette article, she offered some words of advice for Rhodes Scholarship finalist Mitch Zajac, a WMU graduate student and former football player.
Kalamazoo College Alumna Helps Develop Bicycle Safety Simulator
Jodie Plumert ’85, professor and chair of psychology at the University of Iowa is helping lead a joint research project with the University’s computer science department to develop a simulator that uses virtual environment technology to study children’s decision making process when riding a bike. The simulator employs a stationary bicycle sitting in the middle of three large screens and equipped to feed real-time information into a computer network, which creates an interactive virtual environment. Bicyclists “ride” up to a simulated intersection, assess the traffic “crossing” on the screens around them, then determine when it’s safe for them to cross. Read more about Jodie and her research on her UI webpage.
Check out the video below where Jodie helps demonstrate the simulator.
Peter Tippett ’75 Wins U.S. Chamber of Commerce Award
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce presented its first Leadership in Health Care Award to Peter Tippett M.D., Ph.D ’75, chief medical officer for Verizon and vice president of the Verizon Incubator. Peter is responsible for Verizon’s health IT strategy and the development of an extensive portfolio of solutions that are enabling the rapidly evolving health care information technology ecosystem. Tippett has worked as an emergency room doctor, as a helicopter emergency physician, and as a virologist. He also worked in software development and is widely credited with creating the first commercial anti-virus product that later became Norton AntiVirus.
K Alumnus Is Half of “Dynamic Duo” Behind Health Fair for Homeless
Stevie Simmons ’12 graduated from Kalamazoo College in June with a Bachelor’s degree in history. Now a Battle Creek, Mich., resident, Stevie is pursing a Bachelor’s degree in human service administration from Sienna Heights University, while working for AmeriCorps VISTA at Kellogg Community College, a national service program that aims to fight poverty. He’s also half of a “dynamic duo” helping to organize the upcoming Greater Battle Creek/Calhoun County Project Connect Homeless Health Fair.
K Grad (and Fulbright alumna) Sends Letter to Fulbright Applicants
Julia Anderle de Sylor ’09 has posted a letter to Fulbright applicants that offers encouragement, advice, and an assessment of the value of the rigorous application process, regardless of whether one is ultimately accepted. Julia received a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant fellowship in Germany after she graduated from K, and she writes how it changed her life. At K she majored in German and studied abroad in Clermont-Ferrand, France.
This ’44 Grad is Young at Heart
Virginia “Jinny” (Taylor) Hilf ’44 was the first editor of The Index, the student newspaper of Kalamazoo College. Today, at age 90, Jinny is making news for her lifetime of accomplishments in northwest Indiana and elsewhere.