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MIAMI THE UNIVE RSIT Y OF MIAMI MAGAZIN E | FALL 2017
From high-tech goggles for diagnosis and cannabis treatment trials to state legislation and outreach, UM’s concussion program is winning hearts and minds in the war on sports-related brain trauma.
Combating Concussion
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Contents miami.edu/magazine
Volume 24 Number 1 | Fall 2017
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D E P A R T M E N T S
F E A T U R E S
University Journal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
18
R+D Update . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
A multidisiciplinary team works both on and off the island to save colonial-
Eye on Athletics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
communist country.
Inbox
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Faculty Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Student Spotlight
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Alumni Digest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Class Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 In Memoriam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Restoring Architectural Wonders in Cuba style churches and other architectural wonders deteriorating in the
22
Tackling Concussions Head-On Long before concussions were a national topic, they were top of mind for a team of UM docs who have been making game-changing advances in the field ever since.
Alumni Leaders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
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Big Picture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Professor Emerita Nancy Voss, M.S. ’54, curates this unique repository of
Hidden Treasure tropical Atlantic species collected by UM scientists since the 1930s.
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You Know I Read It in a (Maga)Zine A new generation digs into UM’s growing collection of self-published texts, known as zines—one-of-a-kind records of art, activism, and every subculture in between.
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COVER ILLUSTRATION BY SCOTT FRICKER
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Inbox
COMMENTS AND OPINIONS FROM UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI ALUMNI AND FRIENDS
A Word from Dr. B
Bill Butler, Vice President Emeritus Miami, Florida Editor’s Note: William Butler served as vice president for student affairs at the U from 1965 to 1997.
Megan Pimentel is a fifthyear architecture major
“ I chose this statement for my mother. She is Nicaraguan by birth, and I’m American by birth. When people say someone is ‘American,’ the likeness of people like us does not come to mind. ‘The New American’ seeks to change that, to incorporate us into the culture.”
“ A person is truly most open to the world when laughing with others. Laughter is one of the most vulnerable expressions of love.”
“ Growing up I was always treated differently for being Hispanic. It took me a long time to realize that being different wasn’t bad—it’s what made me who I am. At UM, being different is one of my greatest values, not one of my weaknesses.”
Tyler Felts is a senior studying motion pictures, theatre arts, and psychology
Velaria Velasco is a
Kevin Bustamante is a junior studying political science and creative writing
sophomore studying business law
PHOTOS COURTESY
Wearing Their Stories A globally recognized portrait project gives students a powerful way to share their personal messages of inspiration with the UM community. BY A N D R E S TA M AYO
16 MIAMI Spring 2017
miami.edu/magazine Spring 2017 MIAMI 17
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Neither of them attended the University of Miami, and neither did their sons, but they cheered for the University of Miami like no one we’ve ever known. The University of Miami was their team through and through! It was refreshing to hear from another loyal “non-alumnus ’Cane” who feels the same way.
Lynn Guarch-Pardo, B.Ed. ’77 Coral Gables, Florida
Fan of a Fan
Kudos on Kislak
It was wonderful to read the comment (“Inbox”) by Jaime Alvarez in the Spring 2017 edition of Miami. My husband and I are both proud alumni of the University of Miami, Class of 1977, and win or lose, we stand by our alma mater. However, the most faithful and fervent ’Canes fans we ever met were my childhood next door neighbors, Glen and Gerry Skelton.
What a fine gift the University of Miami has received from Mr. Jay I. Kislak (Spring 2017, “Landmark Kislak Collection Comes to UM”)! I read
2 MIAMI Fall 2017 miami.edu/magazine
SUNNY ODOGWU, AN IMPOSING FIGURE AT 6 FEET 8 INCHES and 325 pounds, steps to the podium at the University of Miami’s Shalala Student Center ballroom. The microphone disappears into his hand as the Hurricanes football player tilts it upward before addressing the crowd of students, faculty, and staff attending the Dear World storytelling presentation on campus, the culmination of a photo shoot that drew almost 200 members of the UM community. “No matter how bad of a day I am having,” says Odogwu, one of five UM students selected to share the story behind his photo, “I always try to remind myself of where I have been. I grew up in a 10-footby-10-foot room with my six siblings, my mom, and my dad.” In keeping with Nigerian tradition, his parents and youngest siblings shared the room’s lone twin bed. The eldest took the couch (more “like a little chair,” he says), while the rest of the family slept on the floor. But Odogwu, fast outgrowing the small space, opted to sleep outside. His parents helped get him to the United States, where he eventually played basketball and attended high school in Maryland. During his senior year, his friends convinced him to try football. Projected onto the screen behind Odogwu is his recent Dear World Portrait. In it, his massive palms are spread to reveal in black marker his chosen message of truth: “Came from a dungeon. Now I’m here.”
the article with glee. The importance of this collection cannot be underestimated. Mr. Kislak took great lengths to protect and share his personal collection of pre-Columbian artifacts with schoolchildren, which I can attest to during the year I worked for Jay I. Kislak Foundation, right after my graduation from the University of Miami. Mr. Kislak and my father, Jacques Mayol, were friends.
Editor’s Note: Thank you for the feedback. For “Class Notes” we go by what alumni submit, but for “In Memoriam” we now include enrolled last names whenever possible.
Game Dates, Please My husband and I, along with our children, are avid UM football fans. We used to receive a colorful, laminated UM football schedule but for the past few years we have not. This would be an easy thing to do to keep all of us out-of-towners alerted to the Saturday games. Please include some kind of football schedule in the magazine this year. Thousands of UM alumni will enjoy receiving it.
Dottie E. Mayol, B.G.S.C. ’98 Fort Myers, Florida
Birth Names, Please Your magazine is always a welcome link showing changes in the school I attended in the late 1950s. One suggestion I have to make it more reader-friendly is to include the “maiden” or enrolled last name of alumnae in both the Class Notes and In Memoriam. COURTESY UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES
Congratulations on the way you tell the stories of our University. I just finished reading the Spring 2017 issue, and your storytelling is superb. I was especially impressed with UM students telling their stories in such unique fashions (“Wearing Their Stories”). And I am very proud to see that UM students turned out so well to take an active part in the recent national election for president (“Hurricanes Take Election by Storm”). My congratulations as well to the staff members who assist in making the magazine so very special.
“ The Hawaiian saying ‘Kanu i ka Honua, Ulu i ka lani,’ which loosely means, stay planted in the Earth to grow toward the heavens, was an important reminder for me to stay rooted in my Hawaiian culture during my transition to UM.”
Janet Stormont Burley, A.B. ’61 Tampa, Florida
Patricia, B.Ed. ’73, and Theodore, B.B.A. ’69, M.B.A. ’71, Tiemeyer Palm City, Florida Editor’s Note: Excellent suggestion! Please look for UM football schedules in future issues of the magazine. Go ’Canes! CORRECTION The correct email address for Jay Schutawie, B.S. ’83, president of the Austin ’Canes community, is president@austincanes.com.
CORRECTION Owing to a database error, Leonard S. Rabin, B.B.A. ’59, was incorrectly listed in the Spring 2017 “In Memoriam” section. We regret the mistake. Send updates regarding “In Memoriam” to alumni@miami.edu.
WRITE TO US Letters should be fewer than 300 words and may be edited for style, length, and clarity. Please include contact information.
MIAMI
Address letters to: Inbox, Miami P.O. Box 248105 Coral Gables, FL 33124 miami.editor@miami.edu Send your Class Notes: Email alumni@miami. edu or call 305-284-2872 (1-866-UMALUMS)
The University of Miami Magazine
Assistant Vice President for Communications and Marketing
Todd Ellenberg
Executive Director for Communications and Marketing
Meredith Camel, M.F.A. ’12 Editor
Robin Shear Creative Director and Art Director
Scott Fricker
From the Editor
Associate Editor
Robert C. Jones Jr. Graphic Designer
Nicole Andujar
The Season of Resilience and Renewal
Production Manager
Angie Villanueva, A.B. ’12
In September 1926, less than a month before the newly established University of Miami was slated to open, a Category 4 hurricane ripped through Miami. A quick plan to relocate from the ravaged Coral Gables campus to the nearby Anastasia Hotel allowed the U to open on time. Sixty-six years later, in 1992, a Category 5 hurricane named Andrew came barreling into south Miami-Dade County, this time on the first day of orientation, with thousands of new students and their parents in town. Not only did UM’s administration and staff manage to keep everyone safe and sheltered, classes started just two weeks late despite a reported $13.7 million worth of damage to campus. Since Andrew, there hadn’t been an equivalent threat to the UM campus until recently, when Hurricane Irma triggered the evacuation of the entire Gables campus and other key facilities. Even vulnerable stock from UM’s Experimental Fish Hatchery had to be transported to safer environs—ironically, the Rosenstiel School’s 40,000-gallon SUSTAIN hurricane simulator tank. With roughly the entire state facing possible impact—the cone of uncertainty as it’s known in hurricane lingo—UM’s Office of Emergency Management snapped into action. A small army devoted countless hours to ensuring the safe and orderly evacuation and return of thousands of students, many of whom had never experienced a weather event of this magnitude. In the wake of the storm, UM President Julio Frenk assured, “We are Miami Hurricanes, and we have a historic legacy of resilience and renewal. The University community will have a successful semester, and together we will help our neighbors recover.” Resilience is defined as the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties. Psychologists have described it as that particular quality that allows some people to be knocked down by life and come back stronger than ever. But how do we do more than simply get back up? In rising again, how do we get better? Though planned before hurricane season, many stories in this issue address just such questions of resilience, recovery, and renewal. Resilience requires long-term meaningful approaches, as Dr. Gillian Hotz, who spearheaded UM’s concussion program 20 years ago, details on page 22. Resilient people need strong yet adaptable structures and resources, and as religion professor Michelle Maldonado notes on page 15, perhaps even a saint in their corner now and then. A few of the stories in this issue also stem from the recently released UM Communications Special Report on Cuba and the Caribbean, a region critical to our own endurance as a hemispheric, Pan-American institution of higher education and research. In the wake of hurricanes Irma and Maria, that long-standing spirit of solidarity and reciprocity will only strengthen. In his introduction to that special report, President Frenk stated, “Our immersion in the rich and varied Caribbean cultures helps blend and weave the intricate and diverse hemispheric fabric of the University of Miami.” To explore how that fabric is being enriched in new and exciting ways, read on in these pages, view the report at cuba.miami.edu, and visit the Richter Library’s exhibition, “Caribbean Fragments,” on view through summer 2018. —Robin Shear, editor
Editorial Contributors
Maya Bell Barbara Gutierrez Carlos Harrison Michael Malone David Menconi Jennifer Palma Barbara Pierce, M.A. ’10 Annie Reisewitz, B.S. ’96 Andres Tamayo Aaliyah Weathers, ’19 Dina Weinstein
President
Julio Frenk Vice President for University Communications
Jacqueline R. Menendez, A.B. ’83 Senior Vice President for Public Affairs and Communications and Chief of Staff to the President
Rudy Fernandez, M.B.A. ’10
Interim Senior Vice President for Development and Alumni Relations
Donna A. Arbide, M.B.A. ’95
Miami is published by the University of Miami Division of University Communications. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. Distributed free of charge to alumni and friends of the University. Postmaster and others, please send change of address notification to Miami, Office of Alumni Relations, P.O. Box 248053, Coral Gables, Florida 33124-1514; telephone 305-284-2872. Contributions of articles, photographs, and artwork are welcome; however, Miami accepts no responsibility for unsolicited items. The comments and opinions expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect those of the University of Miami or the staff of Miami. Copyright ©2017, University of Miami. An Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.
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UniversityJournal
NEWS, PEOPLE, CULTURE, AND RESEARCH FROM CAMPUS AND BEYOND
Category 5 Teamwork in Action through Hurricane Irma’s historic impact put crisis management, resilience to the test University wide Hurricane Irma may have battered the region but didn’t dampen the spirits of University of Miami students. With suitcases, backpacks, and skateboards in tow, they began moving back into their residential colleges September 21, nearly three weeks after the charttopping storm’s approach prompted UM to close. A few joked that they’d been on a “hurri-cation.” Advertising and art history major Alejandra Madrid, who evacuated to Orlando “not knowing what we’d be coming back to,” was among the first to return to Stanford Residential College. Thousands more made their way back throughout the weekend in advance of a return to undergraduate classes on September 25 (medical, law, and marine school graduate students had returned the week before). Meanwhile, many returning students also took time to aid South Florida’s recovery. A service day on September 22, organized by the Butler Center for Service and Leadership, drew over 250 participants, who fanned out at nine community sites in need around Miami, including UM’s own Gifford Arboretum. “A disaster creates a crisis but also brings out the best of people,” UM President Julio Frenk told the energized volunteers assembled that morning. “Here at the U, in our solidarity, responsibility, caring for each other, and getting back on track, this ‘best’ came out very clearly.” Concerns had arisen weeks earlier. As forecasters predicted the possibility of a direct hit from a Category 4 MIAMI Fall 2017 miami.edu/magazine
5 “Frankenstorm,” the University announced it would close to give its nearly 31,000 students, faculty, and staff as much opportunity as possible to prepare or evacuate. With classes canceled, UM’s Emergency Operations Center (EOC) activated September 6. “We evacuated more than 4,300 residential students, and since less than one-third of students come from the great state of Florida, many of them left Miami,” Frenk explained. “Our staff and contractors worked hard
before the storm to secure our facilities and to ensure that recovery would be as quick as possible.”
EMERGENCY SHELTERS Though the Rosenstiel and Gables campuses were basically vacated during Hurricane Irma, the University of Miami Health System, with Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Miami Hospital (UMH), and Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, cared for and sheltered thousands of patients,
personnel, and family members, including dozens of household pets. UMH never lost power, but one of its main elevator banks failed three times. With Irma’s winds howling outside— with a gust of 127 mph recorded nearby— it fell to Rolando Rivero, director of plant operations, to climb 14 flights of stairs to the roof and an open 10-foot staircase to reach the motor room and reset the elevators. “He was very brave, but our
at the end of the shelter operations knew Dennis, loved Dennis, and hugged Dennis.” Both Bascom Palmer and UMH had reopened for emergencies by the morning after the storm, September 11. By September 13, all UHealth facilities were once again functioning regularly.
A REMARKABLE RECOVERY Like the rest of Southeast Florida, UM was lucky. It was spared a direct hit from the mammoth hurricane that crippled several Caribbean islands and menaced the Sunshine State for days, ultimately making landfall in the Lower Keys as a still-powerful Category 4 storm on Sunday, September 10. But the ensuing 24-hour lashing from Irma’s University leadership met regularly before, during, and after the storm, which toppled trees across the Coral Gables campus. Work crews began cleanup efforts immediately after Irma passed, preparing the campus for the return of students.
elevators had to remain working,” said Michael Gittelman, UMH’s chief executive officer. Another highlight occurred when a UM/Jackson Memorial Hospital obstetrician helped coach a couple by phone to deliver their own baby during the height of the storm. And Michael Kelley, who organized Bascom Palmer’s shelter team, which hosted almost 400 during the storm, praised the attitude of shelter volunteers like medical IT employee Dennis Golbourne, B.B.A. ’98. “Every person who left Bascom Palmer
fringes, with winds above 100 mph, left a cascade of challenges in its wake. When Jacqueline A. Travisano, UM’s new executive vice president for business and finance and chief operating officer, first saw UM’s lush 260-acre Gables campus in shambles the Monday after Irma’s passage, she momentarily questioned if a quick recovery would be possible. A tangle of toppled trees, twisted vegetation, and downed power lines blocked nearly every road, walkway, and entrance and damaged critical building management systems. “It was heartbreaking,” said Travisano, who also oversees Facilities and Real Estate, the UM Police Department, and the Office of Emergency Management.
“All I saw was devastation, but the grief lasted for about five seconds because we had a lot of work to do, and we planned for and were prepared to do it.” Even before UM’s contracted cleanup crews arrived, alumnus Jose I. Bared, B.B.A. ’88, the son of UM Trustee Jose P. Bared, B.S.M.E. ’64, made his way to the University’s EOC to ask how he and fellow ’Cane William Real, ’93, could help their alma mater. By the next day, their general contracting company, Civic Construction, had 12 dump trucks, a dozen bobcats, and half a dozen backhoes engaged in the massive recovery effort. By week’s end, with more than 300 staff and vendors working around the clock, more than 125 buildings had been inspected room by room, vital repairs had begun, power had been restored to nearly all buildings, and network service had been returned to 98 percent of the Gables campus. Working through the weekend, cleanup crews ultimately chopped, chipped, and hauled away 4 million pounds of landscape debris— more than the combined weight of UM’s entire student body. Critical to the crisis management operation was the EOC, from which a group of top University officials and communications experts worked with the emergency management crew for 10 days—almost half of that time without going home. Matt Shpiner, B.B.A. ’08, director of the Office of Emergency Management, told The Miami Hurricane he’d logged at least 220 hours since Labor Day. An emergency call-in line enabled parents, students, and employees to get answers in real time from real people. Regular alerts from UM’s Emergency Notification Network and social media posts, including on-site video reports from Frenk, also kept the UM community informed before, during, and after the storm. Returning Mahoney Residential College resident Sarah Ortiz Monasterio praised the University’s communications. “All of the YouTube videos were really well done,” she said. Her mother, Susan, added, “From a parent’s perspective, the videos of President Frenk from the ‘bunker’ were really reassuring. It was very motivating and really gave us a sense of family.” miami.edu/magazine Fall 2017 MIAMI 5
STEM Gets Supercharged at eMerge Americas University-fueled advances gain international attention at tech-futures forum deploy more emergency responders and where to plan for sanitation and other services,” explained Joel Zysman, director of advanced computing at CCS, who worked with Geng on the sensors. Themed around climate change and sustainability, UM’s eMerge exhibition space also featured the work of marine biologist Andrew Baker, Ph.D. ’99, who, with colleague Rivah Winter, Ph.D. ’17, developed a technique to “climate proof” corals from the harmful effects of global warming.
PHOTOS BY JENNY ABREU
From furthering smart city technology to climate-proofing endangered coral reefs, the University of Miami showcased several research-based initiatives at eMerge Americas in June, giving conference attendees a glimpse of its STEM power. “These are the future,” Shijia Geng, a research associate in UM’s Center for Computational Science (CCS), proclaimed on the opening day of the annual forum, which connects innovators, investors, and thought leaders through workshops, talks, and high-tech
UM flexed its STEM muscle at eMerge Americas 2017, showcasing a variety of its high-tech projects.
demonstrations. She was referring to black, wallet-sized Ubiquitous Environmental Sensors strategically attached to support beams in the Miami Beach Convention Center, where eMerge took place. The sensors recorded noise levels in the giant exhibition hall, feeding the data to a wall-mounted video board interface. Imagine those devices deployed around a metropolis, taking readings on temperature, humidity, and pedestrian and vehicular traffic. Their data could help city planners determine “where to 6 MIAMI Fall 2017 miami.edu/magazine
“Temperatures get too warm, and when corals get too hot, they turn white in a process called coral bleaching,” said Baker, an associate professor at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. “They expel their algal symbionts, which are critical for their survival, and without their algal symbionts, they die.” In their Coral Reef Futures Lab, Baker and Winter have succeeded in changing the types of algal symbionts the reefs contain in favor of more thermally tolerant ones. Their challenge
now is to tweak the method to work in the field. UHealth Information Technology showcased new computer models that mine data from electronic medical records, with the goal of making those records easily searchable so physicians and researchers can use them to deliver better health care. Other University projects on display at eMerge 2017 included: n Zenciti, a smart city being designed by the School of Architecture, CCS, and IT leaders in the Yucatán; n Historic Green Village, a College of Engineering project on Anna Maria Island, Florida, where five commercial buildings will be powered by solar energy, ground source heat pumps, and geothermics; n Rapid test kits developed by Miller School of Medicine researchers for the human papillomavirus and Zika virus; n A sustainable aquaculture collaboration between the Rosenstiel School and Open Blue Sea Farms in Panama for the commercial production of cobia. UM, which has taken part in eMerge since its 2014 launch, again played a key role as a global sponsor. UM President Julio Frenk was on the “Innovation in the Americas” panel, and David Seo, chief information officer and chief medical informatics officer at University of Miami Health System, shared a stage with Steve Tolle, vice president of strategy for IBM Watson Health, with which UHealth is collaborating to bring cognitive imaging into daily practice to help physicians address some of the most challenging illnesses affecting the U.S. population. Jean-Pierre Bardet, UM’s engineering dean, took part in a discussion with Rony Abovitz, B.S.M.E. ’94, M.S.B.E. ’98, founder and CEO of South Floridabased mixed-reality computing innovator Magic Leap, which has over 1,000 employees. “It’s great to have this partnership between industry and universities,” said Bardet. “Rony is challenging us, and he’s giving us a window to the future.”
R+ D Update A Miller School expert has co-authored a global policy statement outlining new ethics guidelines for the practice of gene editing, or making targeted changes to the DNA of a cell or an organism. On August 3, The American Journal of Human Genetics published the American Society for Human Genetics’ policy statement on germline gene editing in humans. It recommends against gene editing that culminates in human pregnancy, supports publicly funded in vitro research into its potential clinical applications, and outlines scientific and societal steps necessary before implementation of these clinical applications is considered. The policy statement was developed by a task force of representatives from 11 organizations with genetics expertise, including the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. Representing the Miller School on the task force was bioethicist and lawyer Rosario Isasi, whose work focuses on the regulation of human genetic technologies. Isasi is an ethics and policy adviser to government, professional, and international bodies who played an active role in the 2005 adoption of the UN Declaration on Human Cloning. She joined the Miller School faculty in 2016 as a research
assistant professor. She holds appointments in the Dr. John T. Macdonald Foundation Department of Human Genetics, the Institute for Bioethics and Health Policy, the John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, and the Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Institute. “It is crucial that we get the ethics of gene editing
What is gene editing? Gene editing is a technique that enables targeted changes—editing, adding, replacing, or modifying— to the DNA of a cell or an organism. There are different methods, but the procedure involves using an enzyme to cut the specific DNA sequence, and then repairing it by adding or replacing the deleted sequence.
What are the concerns about gene editing? The main concerns are misuse of the technology and engaging in premature applications before we know they are safe and effective. Should we, for example, be trying to enhance certain traits, such as intelligence, to create designer humans? And what might be the result of passing these changes on to subsequent generations?
DAVIDE BONAZZI / THE iSPOT
Ethics of Gene Editing
right,” said Kenneth W. Goodman, director of the Institute for Bioethics and Health Policy and co-director of UM Ethics Programs. “This statement will shape policy, prevent abuses, and foster progress. Professor Isasi gives UM’s bioethics and genetics teams a seat at this very important table.” Here, Isasi answers questions about the policy statement and its broad implications.
What are the promises of gene editing? The biggest promise is the ability to “rewrite” the code of life—our DNA. Gene editing holds great promises, if safe and effective. It could give us a better understanding of genetic diseases in order to develop therapies—such as eradicating or correcting genes that cause inherited diseases—and even curing or eliminating them.
How real are these concerns? Some of the concerns are very real because the science of gene editing has been advancing more rapidly than have ethical guidelines for its use. There is a growing sentiment for the need for scientific and ethical guidance. That is why we wrote the policy statement now. We have the fundamental human right to benefit from scientific progress and its applications, but we also have a duty to ensure that progress is achieved responsibly, reflecting our social and moral values as the human community. Policy statements by professional organizations are valuable because they set a precedent. What comes next? We hope to continue encouraging societal debate regarding ethical guidance of scientific progress. This will not be an easy task, as advances in gene editing applications will continue to raise complex scientific, ethical, and policy concerns.
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MRI Innovator Tapped as New Provost Jeffrey Duerk is here to ‘move the needle in big ways’ When 6-year-old Jeffrey Duerk felt ready to ride a bike without training wheels, he didn’t tell his parents. Instead, he fished through his father’s toolbox, selected the appropriate wrench, and got to work. Though he succeeded in removing only one wheel, he learned a lifelong lesson. “That can-do spirit, that entrepreneurial spirit—that’s a lot of what science is,” says Duerk, who joined the University of Miami in July as executive vice president and provost. “It’s having a sense that you can do something, then trying to do it, and if it doesn’t succeed, trying again.” Still an avid cyclist, Duerk has been tinkering for the last 30 years not with training wheels but with the signals, sensors, and algorithms of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), the indispensable medical tool that produces images of the human body without radiation. MRI technology was in its infancy when Duerk—who holds a bachelor’s degree from Purdue University—was pursuing his master’s in electrical engineering at The Ohio State University. One day, a professor ended the lecture early and opened class to any topic. A fellow student asked about “this thing called nuclear magnetic resonance imaging.” The professor didn’t know what it was but vowed to find out.
Today Duerk holds some 40 patents, primarily for MRI innovations, and in 2017 was inducted into the National Academy of Inventors. That quintessential symbol of invention—the light bulb—appears prominently atop two desk lamps in his
“ That can-do spirit, that entrepreneurial spirit—that’s a lot of what science is.” “He came back and gave this lecture about quantum spin, magnetic fields, radio frequencies, digital signal processing,” Duerk recalls, “and I said this is what I want to do!” Knowing that Cleveland, Ohio, was a hotbed for the burgeoning MRI industry, Duerk chose Case Western Reserve University for his Ph.D. in biomedical engineering. There, he joined an MRI lab “at basically the time the first human whole-body systems were becoming available,” he says. 8 MIAMI Fall 2017 miami.edu/magazine
office in the Ashe Building on the Coral Gables campus. One naked bulb sits on a steampunk-style machine; the other rests on an oversized silver flashlight. The zigzag filaments emit a captivating glow, but for Duerk, the lamps’ most alluring quality is their unusual pairing of objects. In art as well as in education, Duerk looks for the creative intersections of objects, people, and ideas because, as he says, “the more interfaces you have, the more interesting things you can
do. That’s one of the really great things about the University of Miami having 11 schools and colleges, as well as its various centers—all of these are opportunities to explore complex questions and solve different types of problems.” Except for a few stints in the corporate world as a young scientist, Duerk developed his career at Case Western before coming to Miami. In 2005, at the request of the medical school dean at Case, he and an interdisciplinary group of colleagues from across campus drafted a proposal to invest in defining how medical imaging, genetics, drug discovery, and therapeutic evaluation could be linked. The dean’s response to their proposal: “This is interesting, but think bigger.” The dean appointed Duerk founding director of what would emerge as the Case Center of Imaging Research, which has been a major player in fast-tracking discoveries into real-world applications. Expanding MRI from solely a diagnostic tool to an interventional one was among
New Dean Joins Nursing School Her research on infection prevention has led to clinical changes Cindy Munro, an accomplished health care researcher and a leader in the field of nursing, arrived as dean of the University of Miami School of Nursing and Health Studies in August, one month before the school dedicated its landmark Simulation Hospital. “The kinds of things we’ll be able to do in our Simulation Hospital are pretty powerful,” says Munro, who was previously associate dean of research and innovation at the University of South Florida College of Nursing. “It spans not just education but also research and service to our local and global community.” She says the school’s “very impressive” record, globally engaged students, and spectacular faculty drew her to UM. Before joining USF in 2011, Munro was the Nursing Alumni Endowed Professor in the School of Nursing at Virginia Commonwealth University, where she earned her Ph.D. in nursing and a post-master’s Adult Nurse Practitioner degree. A recipient of the 2017 Leadership in Research Award from the Southern Nursing Research Society, Munro is focused on examining the relationship between oral health and the prevention of systemic disease. Her work has been supported by more than $8 million in funding, and she recently received a nearly $2 million grant from the National Institute of Nursing Research to study prevention of delirium in critically ill adults. Among her three patents is an international patent for a vaccine for streptococcal endocarditis. Her research findings have helped change clinical practice Cindy Munro speaks at the dedication ceremony and reduce health care costs by for the School of Nursing and Health Studies’ addressing hospital-acquired new Simulation Hospital. infections. “I am immensely impressed with Dr. Munro’s qualifications, her research in health care, and her track record in mentoring others,” states UM Provost Jeffrey Duerk. Munro, a licensed registered nurse in Florida and Virginia and board-certified adult nurse practitioner, is a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing, the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She belongs to the USF Chapter of the National Academy of Inventors. She is co-editor in chief of the American Journal of Critical Care, recipient of the 2016 Apex Award for Publication Excellence in Editorial and Advocacy Writing, and winner of the American Society of Healthcare Publication Editors Best Commentary Silver Award. She holds an M.S. in medical surgical nursing from the University of Delaware and a B.S.N. from Millersville University of Pennsylvania.
JENNY ABREU
DONNA VICTOR
their key contributions. “In order to capitalize on the full potential of MRI, we wondered if it was possible to image quickly enough to do an image-guided procedure,” Duerk explains. “One of our graduate students won an international young investigator award for the ability to deploy a stent in a renal artery completely under MRI guidance to the same accuracy as in, for example, a CT scan. The fact that this application of MRI now exists very widely, for specific indications—that’s pretty gratifying.” Duerk also was a member of the interdisciplinary team of scientists and physicians who created and have advanced MR Fingerprinting, a quantitative technique that allows radiologists to more specifically identify and assess abnormalities than traditional MRI. And while leading the center, mentoring students, publishing papers, and acquiring patents—as well as raising two children with his wife, Cindy—Duerk was tapped to chair the Department of Biomedical Engineering and later to serve as dean of the School of Engineering. Each time he confronts a new challenge, Duerk thinks back to his former dean’s “think bigger” advice, as well as a favorite quote by architect Daniel Burnham, which begins, “Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood…” The role of provost at the University of Miami was yet another opportunity to think big and broaden his scope of impact. In learning more about the University, in particular its hemispheric, excellent, relevant, and exemplary aspirations, Duerk wanted to be among the leaders who have the chance to “paint on this amazing canvas.” “If you look at the leadership of the University of Miami today,” Duerk continues, “President Frenk has been here two years and we have new deans of the School of Business Administration, School of Nursing and Health Studies, and Miller School of Medicine. All of us came because we are builders. It’s not about moving the needle from 9.9 to 9.95. Here the opportunity is to move the needle in big ways.” —Meredith Camel, M.F.A. ’12
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Global Marketing Expert Leads Business School New dean has his finger on the pulse of health care policy around the world John Quelch, known for his work on the marketing implications of globalization and consumer empowerment in the health care market, joined the University of Miami in July as dean of the School of Business Administration and vice provost for executive education. He came from Harvard Business School, where he was the Charles Edward Wilson Professor of Business Administration with a joint appointment as professor of health policy and management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. From 1979 to 2010, Quelch held a number of other positions at Harvard, including senior associate dean of the business school.
At the China Europe International Business School, he served as dean, vice president, and distinguished professor of international management from 2011 to 2013, and he was dean of the London Business School from 1998 to 2001. UM President Julio Frenk has called Quelch a “renowned scholar on globalization and a proven academic leader internationally” who is “poised to take the School of Business Administration to its next level of excellence.” “This is a very exciting location with tremendous potential as the hub of the
intersection, not just between North and South America, but between the East and West as well,” Quelch said of UM. “We have tremendous opportunities here to build a new university for the 21st century under President Frenk’s leadership.” Quelch has written, co-written, or edited 25 books and numerous business case studies on leading international organizations. Born in London, he was educated at Exeter College, Oxford University (B.A. and M.A.), the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (M.B.A.), the Harvard School of Public Health (M.S.), and Harvard Business School (D.B.A.). He is a Commander of the Order of the British Empire and this year was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. A U.S. citizen since 1991, Quelch has also lived in Australia, Canada, and China.
Taking Stock in Florida Business school’s Florida 50 Index beats the competition The University of Miami’s Florida 50 Index, the bellwether on the state economy owned by the School of Business Administration, was up 18.33 percent for the year compared with 8.24 percent for the S&P 500 and 7.81 percent for S&P 1500. In the second quarter of 2017 it gained 7.2 percent, outperforming both the S&P 500 and S&P 1500 by more than double, or 4.63 percent and 4.74 percent, respectively. The top-10 Florida performers for the second quarter included PetMed Express Inc., up 102.58 percent; ILG Inc., up 31.87 percent; WellCare Health Plans Inc., up 28.07 percent; Office Depot Inc., up 21.44 percent; PGT Innovations Inc., up 19.07 percent; Marriott Vacations Worldwide Corp., up 18.18 percent; CSX Corp., up 17.64 percent; Rayonier Advanced Materials Inc., up 17.40 percent; Parkway Inc., up 15.59 percent; and Sykes Enterprises Inc., up 14.05 percent. “The 12 largest companies in the Florida 50 Index have a combined 10 MIAMI Fall 2017 miami.edu/magazine
market capitalization of almost $300 billion,” said Seth Levine, an accounting lecturer at the school. “The strong performance of FP&L’s parent company, NextEra Energy, railroad conglomerate CSX Industries, cruise companies Carnival and Royal Caribbean, Darden Restaurants, and real estate leader Lennar each contributed to helping the index outperform the S&P 500 for the first two quarters of 2017.” Established by the school in 2016, the Florida 50 Index is based on the capitalizations of all Florida-based large-, mid- and small-cap companies included in the S&P 1500 index having common stock listed on the NYSE or NASDAQ. It is the first custom S&P Dow Jones index to be owned by
UM’S FLORIDA 50 INDEX MARKET BREAKDOWN
a university and the only index that focuses solely on public companies headquartered in an individual U.S. state. The index is available under the ticker symbol UMIAMIFL through the S&P website at www.umiamifl.com.
18%
15% utilities
it
22% industrials
13% financials
1%
energy
27% consumer discretionary
1%
3% healthcare
materials
Its performance can be monitored in real time on Yahoo Finance. The full list of index components can be found at bus.miami.edu.
Practice, Practice, Practice Simulation Hospital ushers in a new era of engaged learning Atrium, under the specially designed mural (as yet unnamed) by artist and University design architect/strategist Lily Castaner and University architect Juan Rodriguez-Vela that reflects how water and nursing share the same roots of compassion and healing.
PHOTOS BY JENNY ABREU
The Simulation Hospital dedication ceremony on September 28 provided guests with an unforgettable afternoon: Scores of “shooting victims” resuscitated; multiple intubations, injections, and intravenous medications administered; families instructed on caring for infirm loved ones; first-time “mothers” counseled on their infant’s care—even a few natural “births.” “Today is a monumental day in the history of the School of Nursing and Health Studies and the University,” said Cindy Munro, dean of the school, in welcoming more than 280 guests in the new hospital’s filled-to-capacity auditorium. Munro thanked the many people whose support and leadership transformed the idea for the hospital into a peerless five-story, 41,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art facility. “The Simulation Hospital offers us the opportunity to have a global impact. Yesterday’s simulation practice compares to this like a slide rule compares to a super computer,” Munro said. UM President Julio Frenk told the audience that the facility launches a new vision for health care education in our community and beyond while promoting one of the “noblest professions”—nursing. “The Simulation Hospital allows us to be better positioned to raise the level of care in the many moments of crisis that we all experience.” The president stressed the importance of “practice, practice, practice” to master any profession or area of life that the new facility affords students. “The new hospital exploits that powerful source of learning where you do that without causing any harm to anyone,” he said. Guests at the dedication followed selfguided tours to eight simulation rooms, featuring ambulatory care, an emergency department, a neo-natal intensive care unit, a birthing suite, operating room, intensive care unit, and a home-health transitional-care apartment. At each unit, health care professionals demonstrated “real” medical crisis scenarios. The traditional ribbon-cutting ceremony took place in the Pamela Garrison
Everything from an emergency surgery to a premature newborn infant being cared for in a neonatal unit was showcased during the Simulation Hospital’s ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Nilda (Nena) Peragallo Montano, the former dean of the School of Nursing and Health Studies who is credited with providing the vision for the Simulation Hospital and convening UM leadership, administrators, architects, and engineers to advance the hospital’s construction, attended the ceremony. School of Nursing and Health Studies graduate Catherine Nadeau, M.S.N. ’17, now a lecturer at the school pursuing her D.N.P., is excited about the enhanced educational opportunities the hospital will bring. “For students, so many of the skills can be so mystifying until you get there, into a real situation,” Nadeau said. “To be able to show the students actually how it should happen and how you do the procedures—like where exactly to place the stethoscope to listen to the
gallop of the heartbeat—is fabulous.” The welcome presentation in the auditorium concluded with MiamiDade Chief Fire Officer Edward Erickson, M.S.N. ’16, highlighting the role of the new hospital as a training facility for the community. While at the podium, Erickson received an “emergency call,” then the big screen beside him went live with a health care crisis team rushing a gurney—their “patient” clinging to life—to the emergency room where the practiced team managed to revive “him.” Kacie Robinson, a student in the school’s nurse practitioner program, has already had a few of her classes in the new facility. Said Robinson, “The hospital is more realistic—a lot closer to what we will experience in a clinical setting.” —Michael Malone miami.edu/magazine Fall 2017 MIAMI 11
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Summer of Hope Empowering foster kids is at the heart of two new camp programs Trust comes painstakingly slowly for many foster care youth as they tumble “through the system” from family to family, often wondering where “home” will be tomorrow. For 20 rising 9th-graders in foster care who comprised the first cohort of First Star Academy of the University of Miami, “home” was the Coral Gables campus for five weeks this summer. And trust—together with math, language arts, science, and life skills—was the focus of this national model that opens a pathway to college for a particularly vulnerable population. “Everyone in our program has a trauma history,” says Kele Stewart, the School of Law professor who motivated the effort. “We talked with case managers to determine who would be a good fit. We were determined to give everyone an opportunity.” At the School of Education and Human Development, Professor Laura Kohn-Wood and Associate Professor Wendy Morrison-Cavendish, M.S.Ed. ’00, Ph.D. ’06, were instrumental in developing the design and research protocol for the program, which aims to improve the teens’ chances of graduating high school, and entering and succeeding in college. In addition to academics and life skills, the program included field trips
year, staff from the education and law schools will coordinate monthly meetings with the adolescents and their parents or caregivers while providing educational advocacy and support. “Being able to meet with students and reinforce that this is a four-year program, that we are committing to them—that’s something they generally don’t hear,” says Morrison-Cavendish, an expert in special education and juvenile justice education. Facilitated by program director Maria Pia De Castro, Ed.S. ’07, a cadre of alumni and students serves as teachers, advisors, and support staff. The Children’s Trust and Our Kids of Miami Dade/Monroe are funding the first phase of the program. “The youth are very engaged, Top: From left, counselors Stephan Ambrose and Alkean asking a lot of questions,” says Smith, director Maria Pia De Castro, and teacher Deborah Stewart. “Their questions are Perez talk with Professor Kele Stewart. Above: Students very empathetic and insightful.” in a college readiness camp hosted by the Center for Participants of another college Computational Science show off their capstone projects. readiness camp—this one hosted by UM’s Center for Computational She was one of 17 girls who took part Science (CCS) and Educate Tomorrow, in the six-week program, which Athena a mentorship and tutoring organizaHadjixenofontos, Ph.D. ’14, director of tion for underprivileged children and engagement for CCS, established in colyouth in foster care—also gave positive laboration with the nonprofit cofounded feedback. by alumna Virginia Emmons McNaught, M.S.Ed. ’13. The bulk of training the girls received related to computer science—how to code, visualize data, and think critically about complicated issues—but their takeaway transcended the screen. “I learned I can do anything that I want,” says —Ashley Adirika, age 12 Adirika. “I just have to be focused.” Organizers plan to host the camp to the murals in Wynwood, the Frost again next summer and create an openScience Museum, a dance performance, Before her experience at UM this source data-science curriculum for and a beach cleanup event. The youngsummer, Ashley Adirika told WLRN teachers. sters ate in Hecht Dining Hall and slept radio she had no interest in computers “My biggest hope,” Hadjixenofontos in the residential colleges. or coding. “This camp actually taught says, “is that the students will feel less The same group of participants— me a lot about myself, as well as things I intimidated by the big, fancy words with the potential to add 10 more can use for my future, so I think I’m set,” that are used to talk about data science teens—is slated to return to UM for said Adirika, 12, grinning behind her and, therefore, be more likely to pursue three more summers. During the school round eyeglasses. opportunities related to this space.”
“ This camp actually taught me a lot about myself, as well as things I can use for my future, so I think I’m set.”
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Eye on Athletics The Inside Story Dominating defenses and high-powered offenses from opposing squads give college football teams enough to worry about week in and week out without the added concern of thunderstorms, lightning, and intense heat disrupting practice sessions. That’s why most of the Elite Power Five schools, including the University of Miami, either have or are in the process of building an indoor practice venue. In fact, such sites are now the norm in college football, says Jesse Marks, A.B. ’05,
M.S.Ed. ’08, senior associate athletic director for development. Although UM’s planned 81,800-square-foot Carol Soffer Football Indoor Practice Facility won’t open until the fall of 2018, its interior blueprint is already creating a buzz. It includes a 20,000-square-foot football operations center with coaches’ offices, conference and meeting rooms, a stateof-the-art video center, and a recruiting suite; tributes to past Hurricane greats; and elaborate displays of UM’s storied football history. “We’ve started with the external construction of
the building,” Marks says. “But we still have needs to make this facility the best in the country. To make it the best we need to have proper branding, we need to have the most up-to-date technology and equipment, and we need to demonstrate what the U’s tradition is all about.”
supporter of UM Athletics for more than 20 years. Alumni, fans, and supporters were quick to open their wallets. Former UM players contributed significantly, donating nearly $2 million. Leading the way with a $1 million commitment were Hurricanes head football coach Mark
was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1990; and many others. “Former players wanted to get behind this resurgence of support in our program,” says Marks. “This speaks to the importance of the U family and making sure our championship legacy continues.”
Ring of Honor ’17
As of deadline, over $32.1 million had been raised toward the $34 million overall goal for the facility. A Miami Athletics crowdfunding campaign (Give2IPF.com) aimed at outfitting the facility’s interior has raised over $160,000 since its September launch. It was only a year ago that Miami Athletics announced the largest gift in its history that got the project off the ground. South Florida real estate developer and philanthropist Jeffrey Soffer and his siblings gave a lead gift of $14 million in honor of their mother, Carol, a passionate
Richt, B.B.A. ’82, and his wife, Katharyn. Among the other Hurricane gridiron notables to support the project: Nose tackle Vince Wilfork, ’06, who was selected by the New England Patriots in the first round of the 2004 NFL Draft and spent 13 seasons in the league; Bryant McKinnie, ’01, a longtime NFL offensive lineman who was an Outland Trophy winner at UM and a key player on the U’s 2001 national championship team; Alonzo Highsmith, B.B.A. ’87, a former NFL fullback who, as a college freshman, helped the ’Canes win the 1983 national championship; Ted Hendricks, ’72, a former NFL linebacker who played on four Super Bowl-winning teams and
The latest football legends to join the Hurricanes’ Ring of Honor were recognized in October for outstanding careers. All five inductees—Michael Irvin, B.B.A. ’88 (Dallas Cowboys); Ray Lewis, ’95 (Baltimore Ravens); Ed Reed, B.L.A. ’02 (Ravens, Houston Texans, New York Jets); Warren Sapp, ’94 (Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Oakland Raiders); and (posthumously) Sean Taylor, ’04 (Washington Redskins)—already belong to the University of Miami Sports Hall of Fame; Irvin and Sapp are also in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. This class marks a total of 23 inductees since the Ring of Honor was established 20 years ago.
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Board of Trustees Loses Two of Its Finest Arthur H. Hertz: Former Wometco, Seaquarium Chief A senior member of the UM Board of Trustees, Arthur H. Hertz, B.B.A. ’55, died May 3 at 83. Hertz worked his way up from junior accountant at Wometco Enterprises, Inc., a communications and leisure firm that later owned the Miami Seaquarium, to executive vice president and treasurer in 1981, COO in 1983, and eventually CEO and chair of the board, a position he retained up to the time of his death. He served over 35 years on the University of Miami Board of Trustees, chairing the Finance and Audit, Credentialing Review, and UM Hospital Board of Governors committees. He was a former president of the UM Alumni Association, a lifetime non-voting member of the association’s board of directors, and a 1992 recipient of the association’s Henry King Stanford Alumnus of the Year Award. He was also a member of Iron Arrow, the Phi Kappa Phi and Phi Eta Sigma scholastic honor fraternities, and Omicron Delta Kappa. Hertz established the Arthur H. Hertz Endowed Business Scholarship at the School of Business Administration and was a generous donor to the Miller
School of Medicine—particularly the Mitchell Wolfson Sr. Department of Community Service (DOCS)—as well as to all Hurricanes sports teams. A founding member of the Golden Cane Society, which recognizes top-level donors to the Department of Athletics, Hertz cared deeply about enriching the student-athlete experience.
Robert Mann: Founded WVUM as a UM Student Robert “Bob” Mann, A.B. ’70, the University of Miami alumnus and trustee who cofounded and served as the first general manager of the student-run radio station, WVUM, when he was a student at the U, and whose influential gifts to the School of Communication helped transform the educational experience for students, allowing them to learn and create in state-of-theart classrooms and television studios, passed away on October 5. He was 70. The former president of R.A. Mann Inc. and a co-founder of U.S. Biochemical Corporation, a Cleveland, Ohio-based
life science and biotechnology company, Mann gave millions to UM. During the University’s record-breaking Momentum2 fundraising campaign, he made a $1 million planned gift to a School of Communication scholarship fund, designating his gift to the Samuel and Grace Mann Endowed Scholarship Fund named after his parents. Mann also gave funds to help construct the School of Communication’s Robert and Lauren Mann Broadcast Center, which opened last year in conjunction with the Koenigsberg and Nadal Interactive Media Center. He was also an avid supporter of UM Athletics, once donating $1 million to the department to support Hurricanes football, basketball, baseball, and emergency needs for all student-athletes. Mann was elected to UM’s Board of Trustees on October 11, 2002. He served as vice chair of both the Student Affairs and Athletic Advisory committees and served on the Academic Affairs, University Advancement, Master Planning and Construction, and Investments committees. He also chaired the visiting committee of Intercollegiate Athletics and served on the library’s visiting committee.
Early Advocate for Students Remembering Bill Sandler, longtime dean at the U William W. “Bill” Sandler Jr., the former dean of students who counseled, mentored, and befriended University of Miami students for over 40 years, died on August 6 at his Key Biscayne home. He was 83. Sandler came to UM in 1962 as a counselor in the Dean of Men’s Office and rose through the administrative ranks. For 25 years he served in the role of 14 MIAMI Fall 2017 miami.edu/magazine
dean of students, retiring in July 2006. Above all, Sandler considered himself an advocate rather than an administrator. He was instrumental in shifting the focus of the Division of Student Affairs to give students a role in University governance and a voice in issues that mattered to them. Working closely with students, he advised fraternities and sororities,
developed the Student Discipline System, instituted a student-run honor code, oversaw the Campus Chaplain’s Association, and cofounded the Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Education, which today bears his name. Inducted into the Iron Arrow Honor Society in 1974 and named an honorary alumnus in 2003, Sandler received the Lambda Chi Alpha Order of Merit, Panhellenic Council’s Administrator of the Year Award, and National Lambda Chi Alpha Award for Distinguished Service, among other accolades.
BYRON MALDONDO
Faculty Files
Saint Sheds Light on Cuba’s Spiritual Identity Professor of religious studies Michelle Gonzalez Maldonado is one of the foremost authorities on Nuestra Señora de la Caridad del Cobre (“Our Lady of Charity”), Cuba’s patron saint and arguably its most important symbolic figure. Maldonado’s work tends to be history driven, but more recent events— most notably the tentative normalization of U.S.-Cuban relations that began in 2014 and the 2016 death of communist revolutionary leader Fidel Castro—have conspired to add contemporary relevance. “The interesting thing about Our Lady of Charity is that, in spite of the highs and lows in relations between the U.S. and Cuba, her status has remained constant,” Maldonado says. “Even
though religion was heavily marginalized by Cuba’s government for so long, she remains a prominent figure of Cuban national identity— for both those in exile and those on the island.” Maldonado is herself a product of that Cuban diaspora, born in Miami to Cuban exiles who fled the island in the wake of the 1959 revolution that brought Castro to power. Maldonado’s grandmother arrived in the U.S. later with just one belonging: a statue of La Caridad. Maldonado recalls how that enshrined icon was prominently displayed, first by Maldonado’s grandmother, then her parents. It now has a place of honor at UM, in the senior residential faculty apartment Maldonado shares with her husband,
Byron, and their two sons. “In many ways,” she says, “I became a scholar of religion to answer the questions, who is La Caridad del Cobre and what is her significance for the Cuban people?” Themes of Maldonado’s native culture prevailed throughout her career at Loyola Marymount and then at UM, where she came 11 years ago with specialties of Latin American and feminist theologies, as well as AfroCaribbean studies. In addition to teaching, Maldonado is vice provost of undergraduate education and director of the Office of Academic Enhancement. She is also writing a book about Cuban anthropologist and poet Lydia Cabrera, who was among the first writers to document Afro-Cuban religious practices and symbols
in the 1930s and ’40s. In her recent “’Cane Talk,” Maldonado depicts La Caridad as an enduring symbol of resilience for the marginalized and oppressed, a powerful figure that will continue to evolve with the changing realities of Cubans everywhere. “La Caridad is much more than an image of Mary,” says Maldonado, who has visited Cuba twice. “She has been a constant for the Cuban people throughout their history. She has been transported, adapted, and transformed. She has worn masks for Catholics, practitioners of Afro-Cuban religions, nationalists, and everyday Cubans. She is Cuba’s spiritual fuel.” —David Menconi Watch Maldonado’s talk at canetalks.miami.edu
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Establishing a Hemispheric Platform World-renowned economist and former ambassador fills a new role for the University entrepreneurship and ventures in Miami and beyond. “I cannot think of anyone better qualified to take on this strategic task,” UM President Julio Frenk stated. “Dr. Dieck-Assad is passionate about macroeconomics, working tirelessly to create cross-sector relationships among the business, government, and academic sectors, and to ensure a global perspective that will enrich the education and innovation opportunities for our national and global communities.” Widely published on economic and political topics, Dieck-Assad has served since 2014 on the World Economic
Forum task force for the study of competitiveness and productivity challenges for Latin America. She served as dean and distinguished professor of economics at the Graduate School of Business Administration (EGADE Business School) at the Monterrey Institute of Technology (ITESM) in Monterrey, Mexico, one of the top-ranked universities in Latin America. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin, her M.A. from Vanderbilt University on a Fulbright Scholarship, and her B.A. from ITESM, all in economics. ABIGAÍL GUZMÁN TAMEZ
Economist María de Lourdes DieckAssad, who has held positions in academia, business, and government, including serving as Mexico’s ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg and chief of the Mexican Mission to the European Union, began her tenure August 15 as vice president for hemispheric and global affairs at the University of Miami. The newly created position, recommended in UM’s “Roadmap to Our New Century,” involves promoting and managing collaborations between the U and its worldwide partners, with a special focus on the Americas; overseeing the Hemispheric University Consortium to advance research and education throughout the Americas; and playing a key role in the Hemispheric Innovation Hub, founded to advance
Removing Health Care Barriers New center models inclusive treatment for the LGBTQ community of Miami Health System. “The clinic was uniquely designed to consider not only the patient’s physical needs but the emotional as well,” says Foster, director of LGBTQ Concierge Services at UMH. “We treat you with both respect and compassion in addition to understanding what you are here for, whereas general health care providers may not understand.” Located in an academic hospital with aroundthe-clock care and a highly trained, multidisciplinary medical staff, the center is one of the first of its kind in the southeast United States. Renowned gender affirmation surgeon Christopher J. Salgado is on the center’s team of UM physicians, which also includes GUSTAVO FREUNDT
Often members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) community shy away from seeking medical assistance because of the complexities of their needs and
Building a culture of inclusive health care: Christopher J. Salgado and Lauren Foster
possible barriers to access, says Lauren Foster, a transgender woman and a leader in the LGBTQ community. Not so at the LGBTQ Center for Wellness, Gender and Sexual Health, which opened in January on the second floor of the University of Miami Hospital (UMH), part of the University 16 MIAMI Fall 2017 miami.edu/magazine
adolescent-medicine specialists, urologists, gynecologists, and plastic surgeons. “The clinic is a major milestone for the University of Miami and will help improve access to quality medical care for LGBTQ patients,” says Salgado, professor of surgery. “It offers a welcoming and comforting environment where patients receive individual guidance on their journey into gender affirmation and overall care for other health issues.” With recent insurance coverage expansions, demand for gender reaffirmation and other services the center offers is on the rise, says Foster. The Human Rights Campaign Foundation named UMH a “Leader in LGBT Healthcare Equality” in 2016. Working with CipherHealth, the hospital also implemented the first-ever LGBTQ digital rounding script, which allows patients to identify their gender/sexuality during the rounding experience. “These strides,” says Foster, “have catapulted UMH into a national model for equitable health care and help save lives.”
JENNY ABREU
Student Spotlight With an expression of joy and satisfaction, Harold Tapamo watches 10-year-old Satima and her younger sister, Maryam, tinker with the desktop computer he’s just installed in their new home. A few short months ago, the girls were trapped amid the bombs and bedlam of civil war in their native Syria. Now refugees living with their parents in Homestead, Florida, they are enamored with their first computer. Tapamo, 17, is the reason behind its arrival. Global Sigma, the student organization he founded and now leads as president, donated the computer to Satima and Maryam in July—part of a process of helping the girls empower their future, says Tapamo, a senior. And he’d know better than anyone. Accepted to the University of Miami at the age of 13 after graduating from Florida Virtual School, the first statewide Internet-based public high school in the United States, Tapamo says his organization strives “to empower communities through technology.” “Without a computer, I wouldn’t be where I am today,” he says. “We want to provide that technology to as many people as we can, especially those who would not have access to it otherwise.” His organization donated refurbished computers to four other Syrian refugee families now living in Miami and is planning to give PCs and laptops to communities in Bangladesh, Colombia, Haiti, and the central African country of Cameroon, where his father worked as an
Techno Connector Harold Tapamo is making computers accessible
engineer before coming to the United States. “I always like to use the example of the printing press,” says Tapamo. “When it was first introduced as new technology, it made reading available to the masses. Today’s printing press is the computer, and providing people with computers and allowing them to have access to such a vast sea of knowledge has a similar effect.” But it will take more than computers to close the disparity gap that exists in many countries around the world. It will take better access to health care, and in that field, Tapamo is also planning to make an impact, using the knowledge and skills he’s learned as a biomedical engineering major to invent lowcost medical devices for Third World countries. “I want to aid a multitude of people, not just a minority,” he says. Tapamo already seems well equipped to do just that. Starting his freshman year, he worked in the Department of Physics, conducting research in materials physics. This past year he was also at the Diabetes Research Institute, preparing a manuscript for publication on the regulations of regenerative medicine and working on a patent application for a device that would assess the risk of diabetes noninvasively. “I don’t know exactly what the future holds,” Tapamo says, “but starting a biotechnology company down the road is a goal of mine. The desire to innovate and help people is a big part of what I am about.” —Robert C. Jones Jr.
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Iglesia de Nuestra Señora del Carmen, one of the Spanish Colonial churches in the province designated to the World Monuments Watch.
Restoring
Architectural Wonders in Cuba BY BÁRBARA GUTIÉRREZ PHOTOS BY CARLOS DOMENECH
ON A SUNNY JANUARY DAY IN SANTIAGO DE CUBA, ORIENTE, 13 STUDENTS
from the School of Architecture scurry through the halls of the Church of Santa Lucia looking for the iconic eyes among the wooden crosses and masonry of the Colonial-style sanctuary. “Karen Mathews, an art historian who went with us to Cuba, told us that since Santa Lucia gouged her eyes out in her devotion to the Lord, there were figures of eyes hidden throughout the church,” says Jorge Hernandez, B.Arch. ’80, professor in the School of Architecture. The unusual scavenger hunt was one of the many highlights of an 11-day trip to the island by architecture students who traveled with Hernandez and fellow faculty members: lecturer Ricardo Lopez, B.Arch. ’00, M.A.S.T. ’07; Carie Penabad, B.Arch. ’95, associate professor and director of undergraduate studies; and Christopher C. Mader, assistant professor of research with a joint appointment as a director at the Center for Computational Science. Mathews, assistant professor in the Department of Art and Art History in the College of Arts and Sciences, also worked on the project. Their mission, as part of the Documentation and Preservation of Historic Buildings studio class, was to begin the refurbishing process for the Church of Santa Lucia. Built in 1701, it is one of 12 churches designated to the World Monuments Watch by the World Monuments Fund. They are considered cultural heritage sites that face imminent challenges. “I think the trip helped to demystify the place for many of the students,” says Cuban-born Hernandez, who was crucial in helping the Cuban Catholic Church get the World Monuments Fund designation in 2016. “They were able to confirm for themselves the state of the island, the quality of the people and the architecture.” The students spent eight-hour days measuring the inside of the church, sketching its architectural features, and drawing blueprints, as well as interacting with other visiting architects and students from Europe who were studying places of worship in Oriente, Cuba’s easternmost province. miami.edu/magazine Fall 2017 MIAMI 19
PHOTO COURTESY UM SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE
School of Architecture students (left) traveled to Santiago de Cuba to start a restoration project on the Church of Santa Lucia (above).
“I never knew what Cuba looked like, and when I got there and saw the deterioration, it blew me away,” says Camille Cortes, a 21-year-old architecture student on her first trip to the island. “It was a very special trip.” The students were lodged in the church’s retreat house and spent time getting to know the locals as well as the needs of Santa Lucia’s parishioners. As part of their class, they presented their building proposals for the church, which included ancillary structures for the parishioners, says Hernandez. Exploring Cuba’s architecture has been the clarion call for thousands of artists, painters, tourists, academics 20 MIAMI Fall 2017 miami.edu/magazine
and, of course, architects throughout the years. As the largest island in the Caribbean, Cuba enjoyed a privileged position for the Spanish conquistadores because of its geographic location. Havana became a prosperous port of entry to the New World, and the Spanish spent great wealth in building fortresses to protect the country’s capital, which is unlike any other in the hemisphere. “What is extraordinary about Havana is that for more than four centuries the city has benefitted from a confluence of European, African, and American influences,” says Penabad, whose parents are from Cuba. “The city, although deteriorated, remains pretty much frozen in time,” says Sonia Chao, B.Arch. ’83, a research associate professor at the School of Architecture and daughter of Cuban emigrants. “Each layer of Havana’s 500year architectural and urban legacy, and their respective inherent lessons, remains clear. “That’s invaluable and it makes Havana a really unique place for our students to learn about urbanism and architecture,” adds Chao, director of the
Center for Urban and Community Design. Her academic research on Cuba dates back to 2002. Under the tutelage of a U.S. foundation, she has visited the island on numerous occasions, reopening the door to academic dialogues and collaborating on research focused on historic preservation, sustainability, urban design, and urban regulations with faculty and students from UM and the University of Havana’s CUJAE-Instituto Superior Politecnico José Antonio Echevarría and the Offices of the Historian in the cities of Havana, Cienfuegos, and Santiago. Her scholarly activities on Cuban architecture include design workshops, lectures, and exhibitions—including one at the second Architecture Biennial in Havana—as well as multiple publications and a book due out later this year tentatively titled Havana—The Caribbean City: The Evolution of Its Urban Form and Regulations, which covers 500 years of history. Chao’s extensive academic work fostered a reconsideration and re-appreciation of earlier form-based codes, in turn nourishing the preservation-minded urban design regulations that eventually emerged for
three historic neighborhoods in Havana. With foundation support, hundreds of books in Spanish were donated to the CUJAE and the other four architecture schools across the island. Others were edited and produced in collaboration with local academics on urbanism and design theory that would prove seminal for Cuban architects and students. “The local academics are the curators of that great [Cuban] urbanism and architecture,” says Chao, who, since 2004 has been teaching a popular class at UM called Havana: The Challenges and Opportunities of Preserving the Past. “To think that they wouldn’t have the most recent kind of information at their disposal seemed to put them at a handicap. Needless to say, they’ve been at preservation for some time, so we learned from their academic and hands-on know-how as well.” Other faculty at the school, such as lecturer Rafael Fornes, have been instrumental in establishing academic relationships with Cuban scholars. “Ever since its founding, the University of Miami School of Architecture has had a huge interest in Cuba,” says Fornes. “There have been great exchanges between professors.” Since 1996, Fornes has taught a class at UM called Studies of La Habana, which explores not only the architecture but the culture of The 18th century Iglesia de San Francisco (top) and the the city as well. Using his many Cathedral of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción in Santiago contacts on the island, he led student de Cuba (above). trips to Cuba as a visiting professor for Notre Dame and Yale universities. Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, the school’s After 1996, when it became near imposformer dean, are highly influential sible to travel to Cuba, Fornes organized architects credited with launching the trips to such places as New Orleans, Key New Urbanism movement. West, and Saint Augustine, cities that In 1998 Fornes returned to Cuba to have “a great Cuban influence,” he says. teach a series of seminars at the CUJAE Born and raised in Havana, Fornes on Miami’s Architecture and Urbanism. graduated from the CUJAE in 1981 and The seminars were very well received worked on several projects in his native and gradually opened the way for other Cuba. After immigrating to Hungary, UM professors to visit the island. he moved to Miami in 1992 and came In the early 2000s, Duany began a to know several prominent Cubanlecture series on New Urbanism for UniAmerican architects, including Andres versity of Havana architecture students. Duany, lecturer at the School of ArchiHis lectures were printed in the book tecture. Duany and his wife and partner, Charlas en el Capitolio de La Habana
sobre el Nuevo Urbanismo (Talks at the Havana Capitol Building on New Urbanism). The work of School of Architecture faculty in the island continues. Last November, Fornes, Lopez, and fellow lecturer Jorge Trelles, B.Arch. ’82, participated in the Convención Científica de Ingeniería y Arquitectura (Scientific Convention of Engineering and Architecture) at the convention center in Havana. Recently, UM professors Victor Deupi, the son of Cuban-born architects, and Jean-Francois Lejeune curated an exhibit, Cuban Architects at Home and in Exile: The Modernist Generation, at the Coral Gables Museum. The display covered the work of prominent Cuban architects inside and outside the island, demonstrating the breadth and diversity of Cuban architecture. Dozens of pictures, drawings, documents, and letters were displayed along with photos of buildings such as the Tropicana Night Club and the National Bank in Havana. For Deupi, getting to know many of the architects in the exhibit had a special meaning. “This was my father’s generation,” says Deupi. “They were his teachers, his colleagues, mentors, and his employers.” Many of the archival items came from boxes that had been long forgotten, stored away in closets by the relatives of the architects or even the architects themselves. Thanks to the success of the exhibit, most of the documents, photos, maps, and other architectural materials will be donated to the UM Libraries’ Cuban Heritage Collection so that the legacy of these Cuban architects will be preserved and available for posterity. “We are building the archive of Cuban architecture,” says Deupi.
This story is part of a Special Report on Cuba and the Caribbean produced by UM Communications. Read more at cuba.miami.edu.
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A N AV I D S P O RT S FA N W H O G R E W U P I N CA N A DA , Gillian Hotz loved the brawling physicality of ice hockey. Yet as a young research neuroscientist who came to the University of Miami in 1992 to study traumatic brain injury at Jackson Memorial Hospital’s new Ryder Trauma Center, she was stunned by her
T A C T K A TAC L K I CKL N G LING G C O N C U S S I O N S C O N C U S S I O CONCUSSIONS N N O N D O A O D HHEEA D A E H first high school football game. Even sitting up in
the stands at Harris
Field in Homestead,
where the powerhouse Miami Southridge
BY
MA
YA
BE
LL
Senior High Spar-
tans played, she was unnerved by the
violent, relentless
THWACK! of helmet and shoulder pad colliding.
“These were big, fast,
believe how hard they were hitting each other,” Hotz
recalls of that night in 1996 when she accompanied the
team doctor, Lee Kaplan, then an orthopedic resident at UM/Jackson, and now director of the University of Miami Sports Medicine Institute, to the game. “And they were doing it again and again. I said to Kaplan, ‘This is crazy! These kids are killing each other.’’’
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ILLUSTRATION BY HARRY CAMPBELL /THE iSPOT
strong kids, and I couldn’t
How the University of Miami became a game-changing authority in identifying, treating, and educating the public about sports-related brain injuries.
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DONNA VICTOR
Not one to ignore a potential health or safety issue, Hotz returned to Jackson and cornered neurologist Kester Nedd, who was the director of neurorehabilitation at Ryder. Hotz urged him to start a clinic for mild traumatic brain injuries—which is what concussions are—for high school and other athletes. “There were 35 high schools in Miami-Dade County, and I knew some student-athletes who got their heads knocked ought to be looked at before they returned to play,” says Hotz, founding director of the KiDZ Neuroscience Center at The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, part of UM’s Miller School of Medicine, and director of the Concussion Program. “But we didn’t know much about concussions then, and the culture was to shake it off, and get back into the game.” Her intuition would prove prophetic. Today, concussions are considered a major public health concern, and there is growing awareness they should be treated for what they are—an injury to a vital organ. Caused by a bump, blow, or jolt to the head, concussions disrupt how the brain functions and can alter it permanently. But they are invisible injuries and weren’t on the nation’s health radar until National Football League players began suing the league for ignoring the growing evidence that multiple concussions put them at high risk for what’s been called chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). As depicted in the 2015 film Concussion, the progressive neurodegenerative disease is blamed for the premature neurocognitive decline and deaths, including a number of suicides, of dozens of NFL players. Hotz’s nearly quarter-century crusade to change the culture of ignoring concussion, which included the passage of a state law barring concussed youth athletes from immediately returning to play, has made Florida, and particularly Miami-Dade County, a safer place for contact sports. And it all began that night in Homestead, when she enlisted Kaplan and Vincent Scavo, then Southridge High’s athletic trainer, to her cause. With their support, the University of Miami has become home to one of the nation’s most comprehensive multidisciplinary programs for concussion diagnosis, treatment, education, training, and research.
Neurologist Kester Nedd, left, and neuroscientist Gillian Hotz manage hundreds of sports-related concussions each year at the UHealth concussion clinic they founded in 1996.
Now part of the University of Miami Sports Medicine Institute, which Kaplan launched with Scavo in 2008, the concussion clinic Hotz and Nedd established at Jackson in 1996 manages about 800 sports-related concussions a year. About 200 of those are high school athletes (mostly football players) from Miami-Dade County Public Schools, which partnered with UM in 2011 to establish the nation’s first countywide concussion testing and monitoring program for all high school students who play contact sports. Given its reputation and experience, UM’s concussion program also has attracted several multidisciplinary concussion faculty and millions of dollars in concussion research grants
from an array of organizations, including the NFL, General Electric and Under Armour for their Head Health Initiative, the military, and the private sector. Two of the grants come with the tantalizing prospect of revolutionizing concussion diagnosis and treatment. The newest grant is for the development of a pill derived partly from the cannabis plant that could provide the first clinically proven concussion medication. The other is for a portable assessment device, a pair of computerized goggles that can objectively, accurately, and quickly diagnose concussions on the sidelines or in the locker room. “We know that if we diagnose concussion and intervene early, the longterm consequences can be reduced,”
AMADEUS MCCASKILL
says Michael E. Hoffer, professor of otolaryngology and neurological surgery who joined Hotz’s team in 2014 after spending much of his 21-year U.S. Navy career treating head injuries. “Both the diagnostic device and the pharmaceutical countermeasure are very exciting for these reasons.” Research on the cannabinoid pill is still in the preclinical stage but, backed by serious funding, is promising. Last year Scythian Biosciences Inc., a Canadian company, awarded Hotz and a team of other neuroscience experts and researchers at The Miami Project and the Miller School $16 million to test a compound that they hope will reduce brain inflammation and the immune response, halting the cascade of symptoms many concussion sufferers endure. Initially, common symptoms can include headache, blurred vision, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, and confusion.
Otolaryngologist Michael E. Hoffer and his UM colleagues hope to revolutionize concussion diagnosis and treatment with novel testing devices and the first clinically proven concussion pill.
Some people briefly lose consciousness. Over time, depression, anxiety, irritability, and mood swings can set in. Most, however, recover within two weeks. But according to the 5th International Consensus Conference on Concussion in Sport held last year, symptoms in 10 to 20 percent of sportsrelated concussion cases persist for weeks, months, even years. With the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimating as many as 3.8 million sports-related concussions in the U.S. annually, that’s a huge population at risk for long-term effects. The proposed medication combines cannabidiol (CBD), a major but non-intoxicating constituent of the cannabis plant, with a chemical that disrupts cannabinoid nerve-cell receptors. Naturally occurring in the human body, cannabinoid receptors are part of our endocannabinoid system, which is involved in appetite, pain sensation, mood, and memory. If the compound, which should be in clinical trials next year, proves successful at halting concussion symptoms, it could help clinicians manage what is considered the most complicated sports-related injury. Concussions are so difficult to diagnose and treat because you can’t see one on an MRI or CAT scan and, like snowflakes, no two are alike. The symptoms vary and evolve rapidly, depending on the severity of the injury and the stage of the disruption to brain function. “Concussion is not one disease; it’s a spectrum,” says Nedd, an expert in managing concussion symptoms. “You
CONCUSSION BY THE NUMBERS The number of concussions reported by sport and gender among Miami-Dade County’s public high schools shows that the brain injuries are not the exclusive domain of football players, or male athletes. Soccer is the No. 1 reason female athletes sustain concussions and, according to research presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 69th Annual Meeting, female athletes are more likely than their male counterparts to sustain a concussion. To learn more about UM’s concussion program, and partnership with Miami-Dade County Public Schools, visit uconcussion.com.
have to understand how the brain is organized and, when it’s injured, how that organization changed. You have to properly classify that before you start treatment.” Too many community doctors, he notes, intervene too late and with the wrong treatment at the wrong time. “The patients say, ‘I have a headache,’ so you give them a pill for the headache; they say, ‘I can’t sleep,’ and you give them a pill for sleep. Then they say they are anxious and depressed, and pretty soon you don’t know if the pills are causing the problem, or the brain injury.’’
T T
he goggles, known as the I-Portal PAS—portable assessment system— are familiar to most UM athletes, including those in club sports, because many volunteered to help Hoffer and his coprincipal investigators test and refine the devices. Hoffer, Carey Balaban of the University of Pittsburgh, and Miller School graduate and otolaryngology resident Mikhaylo Szczupak, B.S.A.E./M.S.A.E. ’12, M.D. ’15, received grants from the Department of Defense and the Head Health Challenge II, which is funded by the NFL, GE, and Under Armour, to conduct the tests. The goggles are equipped with two 3-D cameras that each sample one eye’s movement at 100 frames per second— much faster than the human brain processes images. As a result, they can detect abnormal eye-reflex responses, which indicate subtle balance and visual deficits. The goggles essentially
Concussions Reported in Miami-Dade County Public High Schools in 2016 SPORT BASEBALL BASKETBALL FOOTBALL LACROSSE SOCCER SOFTBALL VOLLEYBALL WRESTLING CHEERLEADING OTHER TOTAL
FEMALE 0 11 0 2 12 6 2 0 6 5 44
MALE 1 6 100 2 8 0 2 11 0 1 131
TOTAL 1 17 100 4 20 6 4 11 6 6 175
Source: UM/Miami-Dade County Schools Countywide Concussion Care Program
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enable clinicians to see what they’ve never seen before: a concussion. Developed by Neuro Kinetics Inc. (NKI), the goggles incorporate many of the oculomotor, vestibular, and reaction-time tests that Hoffer helped NKI adapt from the company’s I-Portal Neuro-Otologic Test Center (NOTC). A sophisticated $250,000 rotary chair found in specialized balance centers, the I-Portal NOTC can measure concussion symptoms both initially and during recovery with 95 percent accuracy. The goggles, Hoffer says, can do about the same—in four minutes, at a fraction of the cost, at the site of the injury, and without an expert operator. “The goggles are the future,” he predicts. “They will become the AEDs [automated external defibrillators] of the concussion world—with one at virtually every sideline, or locker room.” Aside from their affordability and portability, the I-Portal PAS goggles, which could be on the market by next 26 MIAMI Fall 2017 miami.edu/magazine
year, have another huge advantage. Nobody, not even elite athletes, can fool them. For an invisible injury that relies on self-reporting, in a culture that reveres and rewards strength, toughness, and perseverance, that’s critical. “Many athletes don’t report their symptoms because it’s not a big deal,” Hotz says. “They have a headache, they take a Tylenol, and eventually they feel better. But too many athletes hide their symptoms for fear of being yanked from the game, or ruining their pro prospects. That’s a huge problem.”
A A
lifelong soccer player, David Goldstein wasn’t hiding anything when he played through what turned out to be his third concussion in four years during his freshman year at Ransom Everglades School in Miami. When he collided head to head with an opposing player during the district
ANDREW INNERARITY
From football players to the soccer team, many UM student-athletes tested computerized goggles that quickly and accurately diagnose concussions.
finals in January 2010, he didn’t give it any thought. Filling in for an injured varsity player, the game was the biggest of his life. All he cared about was helping Ransom win, which it didn’t. “You can see it on the video: I instantly put my hand to my head. I knew something was wrong, but it was a huge opportunity for me. I had a lot of adrenaline and the game mattered a ton,” Goldstein recalls. The day after the match, Goldstein, who graduated from Princeton University in June and is pursuing a master’s degree in sports management at Columbia University, went to his club practice. He still had a headache but didn’t want to disappoint his coach. Afterward, he collapsed, wracked with pain that, along with nausea, sensitivity to light and sound, irritability, and exhaustion, would persist for four months, through visits to a number of doctors. “They all suspected a concussion and they said the same thing: ‘You pass the standard neurological exams. We don’t know what else to do for you. Rest. Don’t play. Sorry,’” Goldstein says. “Then I found Drs. Hotz and Nedd, and within two weeks I was symptom-free. They asked me questions others hadn’t. They gave me medication others hadn’t, and they tested my balance, which I thought was strange.” Hotz also administrated a 20-minute computerized neurocognitive test that would help confirm his diagnosis. Known as ImPACT—for Immediate PostConcussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing—the test is usually given to athletes in the preseason to establish
As a high school student, David Goldstein spearheaded a change in state law and the nation’s first countywide concussion testing program.
a baseline for cognitive function in the event of a head injury. Hotz gave Goldstein, an excellent student, the test anyway, matching his results against an average student. His ImPACT scores were below average. Determined to help other students avoid his ordeal, Goldstein and his parents launched a fundraising campaign for concussion awareness and testing in 2011, raising enough money to enable athletic trainers to administer the baseline test to every one of Miami-Dade’s 15,000 public high school student-athletes. This summer, the Miami Dolphins Foundation announced it would assume
Dash for Concussion Awareness 5K Run/Walk in Sunrise, retired NFL wide receiver Ray Crittenden, a researcher on Hotz’s concussion team, visits area high schools to talk to football players about the consequences of ignoring concussion symptoms. Crittenden knows he’s reaching some young men, but research shows most high school football players still do not report symptoms. “I’ll see some of these kids in the clinic, and they tell me, ‘You’re the reason I’m here,’ but the culture is embedded by high school,” he says. “We really need to start earlier, so they grow up in a culture of awareness.”
when youth athletes in all sports suffer concussions, and how long they take to recover. But it’s also an essential prevention tool, raising red flags about isolated problems. Hotz points to a high school that, over two weeks, sent seven football players to the concussion clinic. She soon learned why: None of them had been wearing their assigned, properly fitted helmets; they were just randomly grabbing one. “To get a handle on injury prevention, you have to have a surveillance system in place that helps you look at where, when, why, and how injuries are happening,” Hotz says. “Now we have
Researcher Ray Crittenden, center, a retired NFL receiver, discusses the consequences of ignoring concussion symptoms with high school football players.
the cost of countywide baseline testing for Miami-Dade’s high school athletes, and eventually those in Broward and Palm Beach counties, too. Goldstein also spearheaded the passage of the 2012 Florida law that bars youth athletes who exhibit concussion symptoms from returning to practice or play until a physician clears them. Proposed by a statewide concussion task force that Hotz led, the bill was signed into law at the Miller School by Governor Rick Scott, who dedicated it to Daniel Brett. The year before, Brett, a high school freshman from Broward County who dreamed of playing for the Miami Hurricanes, took his own life, ending two years of agony from multiple concussions. Today, funded by the annual Daniel’s
Fortunately, Crittenden says, Miami-Dade has a growing legion of sentinels—the hundreds of public high school coaches, athletics directors, and trainers who, through the state law and their training for and participation in the countywide concussion program, understand what Scavo began learning the night he met Hotz on Southridge High’s sidelines. “Concussion is serious, and we all have to take it seriously,’’ says Scavo, who became UM’s head athletic trainer in 2011. “We are the frontlines, and now we have the tools to build awareness and change the culture.” Now a model for the nation, the countywide program is also a valuable research tool, providing Hotz and her team the big-picture data on how and
those answers, and can drill down to the problem and fix it. Maybe it’s the helmet; maybe it’s a tackling technique issue. Without surveillance, we wouldn’t know.” And without Hotz, who also launched the countywide BikeSafe and statewide WalkSafe programs to teach youngsters to ride and cross streets safely, Florida might be a far riskier place to play contact sports. “People ask me all the time if I would let my kid play football,” she says. “Absolutely I would. But I wouldn’t drop my kid off at a pool that didn’t have a certified lifeguard on duty. And I wouldn’t drop my kid off at a field to play without a coach or someone there who is trained in proper tackling techniques and who understands concussion.” miami.edu/magazine Fall 2017 MIAMI 27
Hidden reasure T More than 60 years after earning her master’s degree at UM, Nancy Voss continues to curate the marine school’s treasure trove of specimens known as the Marine Invertebrate Museum. WITH ITS EXOSKELETON, TENTACLE-LIKE LEGS, AND LONG ANTENNAE, this creepy crawler has all the repulsive characteristics of the household cockroach—but at 10 times the size. n Nancy Voss, M.S. ’54, walks toward a shelf inside a cramped room at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, reaches up with both arms, and removes a large jar containing one of the specimens. n “A very interesting marine animal is the giant sea roach,” Voss explains, showing the isopod’s insect-like features to a pair of visitors. “Now, this,” she continues, “is closely related to our roach that infests our home. This is in Biscayne Bay, and it is also all down through Brazil. And in South America, it is found in food markets and is excellent eating.”
BY ANNIE REISEWITZ, B.S. ’96 PHOTO BY DONNA VICTOR
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To view the video A Museum of Marine Life: The University of Miami Marine Invertebrate Museum, go to cuba.miami.edu.
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PHOTOS BY SCOTT FRICKER
Creepy crawler from the deep: Nancy Voss, M.S. ’54, displays one of the multitude of preserved creatures housed at the Rosenstiel School’s Marine Invertebrate Museum, home to more than 90,000 specimens.
She places the jar back on one of the many shelves in the room, in which tens of thousands of other dwellers of the deep—crabs, sea spiders, sea urchins, starfish, squid, shrimp, sponges, and more—share space and are all preserved in substances that look like mysterious liquids from a mad scientist’s lab. But this is unlike any lab in the world. In fact, it’s not a lab at all. The Marine Invertebrate Museum at the Rosenstiel School is a library of sorts, a repository of tropical Atlantic marine species, which, more than six decades after its founding, continues “to be of increasing importance for research in the marine field with each passing year,” says Voss, a research professor emerita and squid expert who maintains and operates the museum. Octopuses, corals, mollusks, and lobsters. The collections at this CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species)-certified museum run the gamut. All told, the museum is home to approximately 93,000 specimens, from which over 600 new species have been identified, with more new creatures likely to be named. 30 MIAMI Fall 2017 miami.edu/magazine
“You see the wonderful diversity in forms in corals,” Voss says of the museum’s coral collection. “Truly fascinating” is how UM shark researcher Neil Hammerschlag, Ph.D. ’10, describes the trove of specimens. “It’s a scientific window into the past, present, and future of ocean biodiversity.” But how did it start? All museums can trace their origins to something. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, for example, was founded in 1870 with the goal of bringing art and art education to the American people. For the Marine Invertebrate Museum’s founding in 1949, credit an early 1940s infectious disease outbreak among sponges in the Bahamas. So concerned about the outbreak was one young oceanographer, F.G. Walton Smith, that he traveled to the archipelago to investigate. Soon thereafter Bowman Foster Ashe, UM’s first president, contacted him with the idea of coming to Miami to set up a marine biological laboratory that would eventually become the Rosenstiel School. Nancy Voss’s husband, Gilbert Voss, B.S. ’51, M.S. ’52, was named the first
curator of the invertebrate collection while still a student in the late 1940s. He led field trips to collect buckets of specimens in order to conduct more in-depth studies of the rich ocean life in and around Biscayne Bay and its reefs. In those years Rosenstiel School researchers collaborated with the Cuban government through the use of its Navy vessel, Yara, and together they conducted some of the first studies of the Florida Current. Much of this work helped form the basis for our scientific understanding of the ocean environment around Florida and the Caribbean. Cuba “has some of the greatest untouched coral reefs in the whole Caribbean,” says Nancy Voss. “It’s very important to know what’s there and [ensure] environmental protection of the area.” In the 1960s, Gilbert Voss, who earned his Ph.D. from The George Washington University before returning to the Rosenstiel School, conducted more extensive expeditions with his UM colleague Frederick M. Bayer, B.S. ’48. Gilbert Grosvenor, the first fulltime editor of National Geographic
magazine and first president of the National Geographic Society, encouraged Voss and Bayer to submit a proposal to the National Geographic Society and National Science Foundation to study the entire tropical Atlantic—from the surface to its greatest depths in the Caribbean and from Florida to the Bahamas, north to Bermuda, and east to the Gulf of Guinea off Africa. The organizations jointly funded their proposal for exploratory cruises that took place between 1964 and 1975. In the Lesser Antilles, they collected one of only six known examples of black coral in the world—Stylopathes adinocrada—from the Greek “adino” for crowded and “crada” meaning twig. That was in 1964, the same year Dennis Opresko, B.S. ’66, M.S. ’70, Ph.D. ’74, was investigating black corals as part of an invertebrates class at UM. Opresko, now a research associate with the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, went on to publish several articles on this group of corals. Many other researchers from the Rosenstiel School have scoured the sea along the east coasts of the Yucatán peninsula, Honduras, Nicaragua, and
Costa Rica; the Caribbean waters of the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic; and beyond in search of specimens. Other notable contributions to the museum include an extensive micro-mollusk slide collection from Florida, South and Central America, the Caribbean, and the Bahamas from the late Professor Emeritus Donald Moore, B.S. ’54, Ph.D. ’64, and coral and other invertebrate samples retrieved from the eastern tropical Pacific by Rosenstiel School Professor Peter Glynn and his students. Increasingly, says Nancy Voss, geneticists and medical researchers interested in finding new natural products from the ocean that could help cure diseases are expressing a desire to visit the museum and study some of its holdings. She maintains close collaborations around the world to provide this resource to scientists who are hunting for everything from a species that may hold a potential cure for cancer to a better understanding of the marine environment. In 1995, she recalls, one of the top specialists in marine worms from the University of Havana spent considerable time in the museum’s very large
and important polychaete, or marine worm, collection. Though Voss receives little financial support to keep the invertebrate museum up and running, she knows the rich repository she and her late husband helped pioneer is critical to further scientific understanding and discovery. More than three quarters of these collections have been catalogued so far, according to Voss, who is working on digitizing the rest in the hopes of making them accessible to a wider audience. “None of these collections can ever be duplicated,” she explains. But there’s another reason she’s so passionate about the museum. “It’s an essential part of my life, and it’s a challenge,” she says. “And I love challenges.” Into the Mysterium, an exhibition premiering photographs and a video installation inspired by the artist Michelle Oka Doner’s fascination with these specimens, is now on view at the Lowe Art Museum through January 14, 2018. For more information or to learn how to support the Marine Invertebrate Museum, call Noah Younngstrom at 305-421-4373 or email nyoungstrom@ rsmas.miami.edu. miami.edu/magazine Fall 2017 MIAMI 31
w o n k you i read it in a mohair suits
elec tric boot s
They’re weird and they’re wonderful, and they’re really keen. Take a trip into the zine universe with UM Special Collections. BY DINA WEINSTEIN
needle in and out ceful fingers nimbly guide the Marisabel Lavastida’s long, gra s the excess. ay thread taut and snip gr e th s ll pu e Sh . et of its targ tress. But this is no tailor shop, and Lavastida isn’t a seams The local artist, her arms a gallery of tattooed images, sits among Art Museum, calmly hand-sewing her tools at a table outside the Lowe
the binding on a four-page, index card-size zine (pronounced zeen).
A DJ from WVUM radio plays music for the crowds as they the 2017 Miami Zine Fair. circulate through four large tents set up for 32 MIAMI Fall 2017 miami.edu/magazine
DINA WEINSTEIN
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avastida is one of the 146 vendors and presenters who took part in this day-long celebration of small handmade booklets, held April 22 on the Coral Gables campus. Her zines—with titles like via iPod and Classified, Cycle and Hypnotism—showcase collages she creates from discarded books and encyclopedias. “I have no idea when I make them,” she says. “I just make the collages, and then I make the book from that, clumping them together. It’s a lot of social and political ideas and also a focus on the animal world.” One called Drowning World, for example, addresses the timely issue of rising sea levels, she explains. Social issues and activism played a key role at the fair, which took place on Earth Day and coincided with the March For Science held in Washington D.C., Miami, and other cities around the world. Art and activism have been part of the zine community pretty much since the beginning in the early 1900s. Even when political messages were not overt, the act of independently making zines (also known as “fanzines”) could be considered revolutionary. University of Miami Special Collections describes them as independent, usually self-published texts popular in underground subcultures, printed in limited editions, and often produced via photocopy (or, before that, mimeograph) machines. Cristina V. Favretto, head of UM Special Collections, shared her expertise on the zine movement at this year’s fair, held on campus for the first time in its three-year history in partnership with Exile Books; O, Miami Poetry Month; the Lowe; and UM Special Collections. In “A Whirlwind History of Zines from Roman Times to the Present,” Favretto offered a speedy summary that started with Romans writing on walls and whizzed next to American Revolutionary War-era pamphlets produced by Thomas Paine before pointing out that the first zines were launched by science fiction fans passionately documenting the genre. Moving into the modern era of zine styles and influences, she discussed the classic “ransom note” font inspired by the Sex Pistols’ album covers of the 1970s. Then, for the many millennials in the audience, she explained the role of the mimeograph machine— complete with its blue ink and alluring smell—in creating zine booklets before the advent of the photocopier. The format offered fans “an easy way to get their work out,” says Favretto, who began building UM’s collection when she joined the UM Libraries faculty in 2008. In less than a decade, Special Collections has amassed over 10,000 zines organized into 88 collection boxes, all documented, cataloged, and digitally archived for online access. Though other universities have zine collections, Favretto says what sets UM’s apart is its size and distinctive hemispheric focus. While it includes works from all eight continents, many of the materials are specifically reflective of, or produced in, South Florida, as well as Caribbean and Latin American countries. Favretto cites the Firefly Zine collection as particularly noteworthy. A 2,000-item donation from former residents of the now-defunct Firefly collective house, a Miami punk rock miami.edu/magazine Fall 2017 MIAMI 33
34 MIAMI Fall 2017 miami.edu/magazine
ZINE PHOTOS BY SCOTT FRICKER
and activist community, its holdings cover everything from political beliefs and causes to the Miami punk scene to alternative forms of transportation such as bicycles. The Lenny Kaye Science Fiction Fanzine collection comprises an international trove, originally owned by Patti Smith Group guitarist Lenny Kaye, that spans the 1940s to the 1970s. Other gems include the Reggae Fanzine collection, Caribbean and Latin American Zine collection, and Leila Miccolis Brazilian Alternative Press Collection, which includes works painstakingly collected over 45 years by the Brazilian author, poet, and literary critic. Plenty of entertaining issues and offbeat titles can also be found, including issues of Flapper magazine from the 1920s, a group of zines called Feminist Pizza Party contained in a to-go pizza box, and several zines documenting The Rocky Horror Picture Show cult movie. Favretto’s nostalgia for zines dates back to her days as an art school student involved in the punk rock scene, which helped zines truly take off in the 1970s. She recalls how these raw but vibrant journals, like Sniffin’ Glue and I.D., captured the spirit of a burgeoning but underground music movement while helping to connect like-minded communities in the decades before the internet. Over time the zine scene grew to cover a wider variety of subjects encompassing everything from comics and anarchist politics to women’s rights and environmentalism, to more esoteric topics like dumpster-diving, alternative fashions, and tattoo art. The fact that collector catalogs now market zines at hefty prices, says Favretto, supports something she has said for years—that zines represent an important category of historical documents to be preserved. But she and the staff at Special Collections do more than preserve zines. They promote them as vehicles for education and inspiration, inviting visitors to flip through their handstapled pages. Gema Pérez-Sánchez, associate professor of Spanish in the College of Arts and Sciences, has used the collection to teach her students about life in post-Franco Spain. “The students loved it,” says Pérez-Sánchez, who had them make their own zines to interpret La Movida, Spain’s countercultural movement of the 1980s popularized in the films of Pedro Almodóvar. Brenna Munro, associate professor in the Department of English, assigned the students in her Queer Sexualities: Literature and Theory class to find LGBTQ zines that would enhance their project research. And Anna Maria Barry-Jester, a visiting professor at the School of Communication, had her Blogging/ Journalism class use the collection to study possible connections between zines and the emergence of internet-based blogs. Dezare Sellers, B.B.A. ’17, learned about the collection when her Women’s and Gender Studies class used it as background for creating their own publication, which they displayed at last year’s Miami Zine Fair. This year Sellers distributed her own zine, Smart and Sensual, at the fair. “Even with something as small as 16 pages, I was overwhelmed at first,” says the recent grad, who majored in business management. “But taking the class and seeing all
the examples just proved to me that I was as capable as anyone of making one, and that the DIY (do-it-yourself) unfinished look is part of the charm. Zines don’t have to be perfect to make a statement.” Outside groups benefiting from the collection have included Exchange for Change, a creative writing program for inmates at Dade Correctional Institution (DCI). The staff asked DCI inmates to create their own zines, which UM student Galia Bernat, an Exchange for Change intern, showcased at this year’s fair.
Favretto says this is the third golden age of the zine, following the 1920s and the 1970s. In Miami, the fair has seen exponential growth since its 2015 launch. Special Collections was able to add 90 works donated by fair participants to its zine inventory. And Favretto and her staff remain eager to encourage the next wave of zines and zinesters. Recently seniors from Miami’s New World School of the Arts high school visited the collection, gleaning inspiration for their own creative projects. “Young artists need a voice,” says Amanda Season Keeley, founder of Exile Books. And zines, she insists, provide a
SCOTT FRICKER
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ristina V. Favretto, head of UM Special Collections and a zine enthusiast from her punk rock days, has helped the University curate a serious collection of more than 10,000 of these handmade pamphlets with attitude, also known as “fanzines.” UM’s collection covers nearly 100 years and eight continents, with issues addressing everything from feminism to flying saucers.
unique mode of expression the world wide web has not yet rendered obsolete. “People want something tangible, something different from the internet and blogs. The Web gives people anonymity, where you’re not taking responsibility. Zines are more ground-level, more grassroots.” Sellers, who also produces a blog at smartandsensual.com, agrees. “The internet has really made it easy to get your ideas out into the world, but I still value the work and time it takes to create a zine,” she says. “The zine format just lends itself to strong ideas.” miami.edu/magazine Fall 2017 MIAMI 35
Alumni Digest
Alumni Digest
NEWS AND EVENTS OF INTEREST TO UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI ALUMNI
From ‘Magical’ College Years to Lasting Leadership Ten questions with UM Alumni Association President Frank Jimenez University of Miami Trustee Frank R. Jimenez, B.S. ’87, began a two-year term as president of the University of Miami Alumni Association in June. Recently he took a quick break from his busy schedule as vice president, general counsel, and corporate secretary for Massachusetts-based defense industry powerhouse Raytheon Company to speak with Miami magazine about his Orange Bowl memories, his devotion to the U, and his goals for advancing the UM Alumni Association.
How was your UM student experience? It was so good I decided to extend it by a year and a half. Maybe that had a little something to do with the fact that I was sometimes more involved in student government and student activities than I was with my classes, but I still managed to graduate in less than 6 years. I thought that was OK, but my parents weren’t quite so sure!
The best lawyer in the family is actually my older brother Marcos, a double ’Cane (A.B. ’80, J.D. ’83) who served as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida. We moved to Miami from Puerto Rico when I was 3, and my brother entered UM when I was in middle school. I would go to the Orange Bowl to watch Marc, who was a football cheerleader. I remember sitting on a stool next to [then President] Henry King Stanford at an MIA food counter before dawn, waiting for the team and cheerleaders to board their flight to Tokyo to play Notre Dame in 1979. Three years later, I almost enrolled at FSU, but the UM affinity from my earlier
years ended up keeping me home—and I’m extremely glad it did.
What or who inspired your long-term devotion to this institution? My parents (with my 1-year-old brother) left Cuba in 1961 with almost nothing—no assets, no college degrees, no English skills. Yet before my Dad passed in 2014, they were able to see both their sons tapped into Iron Arrow, graduated from law school, and confirmed by the U.S. Senate to presidential appointments. Next to family and church, the institution most responsible for our success here has been the University of Miami. It provided us with a worldclass education, setting us up well for graduate study, and in my case offered rewarding and enriching extracurricular experiences through leadership in student government, Lambda Chi Alpha, ODK, Homecoming, and Carni Gras. Throw in great friends, sports championships, and role models like religion professor
JENNY ABREU
I was premed but unenthusiastic about med school. It took me five years to admit it, but once I decided to go to law school instead [at Yale], everything took off like a rocket. My path to serving as general counsel of the Navy was a series of unexpected twists and turns: from grad school and law school, to a
You’re not your family’s only ’Cane. Was there an affinity for the U early on?
RHONA WISE
How did you go from biology major to general counsel of the Navy?
judicial clerkship, to a Miami law firm, to deputy chief of staff for Governor Jeb Bush, to chief of staff for HUD Secretary Mel Martinez, to the Pentagon in 2004.
Then and now: As a UM student, Frank R. Jimenez was active in student government. Today he serves as president of the University of Miami Alumni Association.
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Stephen Sapp and multiple Bills (Provost Lee, Vice President Butler, Deans Sheeder and Sandler), and you have a formula for magical college years and lifelong loyalty.
What kinds of global issues and emerging technologies are critical for UM? I would love to see UM excel further in all STEM fields. I thought the $100 million gift last year by Phillip and Patricia Frost to create the Frost Institutes for Science and Engineering was right on target.
What are your goals as president of the UM Alumni Association? Once the 2018-25 strategic plan is finalized this fall, we will turn to implementation in its four focus areas: strengthening our global reach, developing a pipeline of leadership and financial support, building a lifelong
engagement model, and expanding our capacities in staff talent, processes, technology, and data. We want every alumnus to feel that the U is within closer reach by the end of the plan period.
Which of President Frenk’s Roadmap initiatives for moving the U forward most excite you?
whether it’s been a few years or a few decades since they graduated. We want to keep better track of them through “one single view” of the alumni “customer” rather than multiple views balkanized by individual school, college or affinity groups. And we want to facilitate continual opportunities for their lifelong engagement and learning.
Besides STEM@UM, I love the hemispheric initiatives and the 100 Talents initiative. We need to draw world-class research and teaching talent to the premier educational institution in “Latin America” by making it irresistible to move to its “capital.”
What about family—you have a young daughter?
What do you want fellow ’Canes to know about the Alumni Association’s strategic planning efforts?
Living in New England, how often do you get back to Miami?
More than anything else, we want to make it easier for alumni to plug back into the U at any time in their lives,
I was a first-time husband at 48 and first-time father at 50. My beautiful wife, Debbie, and precious 2-year-old, Righley, have made everything else in my life dim by comparison.
We rarely let a month go by without a trip to Miami, especially during football season. Miami will always be home.
Alumni Leaders Embark on New Roles Beginning June 1, 2017, new alumni leaders began rotating onto the UM Alumni Association Board of Directors Executive Committee. Frank Jimenez, B.S. ’87, whose Q&A starts on the preceding page, took the reins from Brenda Yester Baty, B.B.A. ’90, as president. Yester Baty, the immediate past president, is a member of the UMAA Strategic Planning Council and currently chair of the board for Make-AWish of America. Kourtney Gibson, B.B.A. ’03, president of Loop Capital Markets and a partner in the firm, is the executive committee’s new president-elect, slated to take over for Jimenez in June 2019. Cynthia Hudson, A.B. ’84, M.A. ’97, senior vice president and general manager for CNN en Español (see “Latina Leaders,” page 42), and Katie Phang, J.D. ’00, a partner with Berger Singerman in Miami, are newly named vice presidents on the executive committee. Other key leadership changes included the election in June of two new alumni trustees: Geisha Williams, B.S.I.E. ’83, chief executive officer and president, PG&E Corporation (see “Latina Leaders” page 42), and Marvin R. Shanken, B.B.A. ’65,
Kourtney Gibson
Marvin R. Shanken
of Shanken Communications, the publishing entrepreneur behind Cigar Aficionado and Wine Spectator, as well as editor in chief and publisher of Whisky Advocate. “I am very honored and excited to provide further service to the University of Miami,” says Shanken. “For many, many years it has owned my heart.”
Four ’Canes Named UM Trustees Cynthia Hudson
Katie Phang
Of eight new members elected to the University of Miami Board of Trustees in May, half are UM alumni: Johnny C. Taylor, B.S.C. ’89, president and CEO of the Society for Human Resource Management; Ana VeigaMilton, B.S.E.E. ’87, J.D. ’93, president and CEO of the José Milton Foundation; Jonathan Vilma, B.B.A. ’04, retired NFL player and current college football commentator and studio analyst for ESPN; and student trustee Alessandria San Roman, A.B. ’15, UM School of Law student and the 2017-18 president of the Student Bar Association. The other new UM trustees are Adriana Cisneros Phelps de Griffin, Miguel B. “Mike” Fernandez, Marcus Lemonis, and Jacquelyn R. “Jackie” Soffer.
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Alumni Digest
Power Surge Four ’Canes make ‘Most Powerful Latinas’ list
38 MIAMI Fall 2017 miami.edu/magazine
Chronicle earlier this year. But a mentor at FPL sparked her imagination. “Geisha,” she recalled him saying. “Someone has to run this place. Why not you?” “Why not me?” she began thinking. “What would it take?” Along the way, Williams earned an M.B.A. Today, her advice to other women is, don’t be afraid to succeed, take the tough jobs, and look at the career paths of those running the place. For Williams, it has been tried and true wisdom. She’s now a shining role model at the helm of company number 157 on the Fortune 500, respon- Clockwise from top: Geisha J. Williams, B.S.I.E. ’83, Deborah Rosado sible for 23,000 Shaw, and Ileana Musa, B.B.A. ’91. employees, 16 million customers, revenues of $17.7 billion, and news Twitter account, top 6 Twitter acprofits of $1.4 billion. In a June profile, count in the world in any language, the Fortune wrote, “Williams rose at PG&E world’s No. 1 Spanish-language Facebook in large part because she has embraced page, and No. 1 Google Plus page, accordthe rise of renewables. And she shows ing to Fortune. every sign of continuing to welcome Financial executive Ileana Musa, dramatic change. As she puts it, ‘I’ve got B.B.A. ’91, Powerful Latina number revolutionary blood in my blood.’” 31, is managing director, Global Client No. 12 on Fortune’s list is Cynthia Segment & Strategy Executive, at Bank Hudson, A.B. ’84, M.A. ’97. As senior of America Merrill Lynch. She also vice president and general manager of serves as chair of the corporate adviCNN en Español and Hispanic Strategy sory board for the Association of Latino for CNN/U.S., Hudson oversees all Professionals For America. original Spanish-language content for Rounding out Fortune’s list at 50 CNN worldwide, including television is Deborah Rosado Shaw, senior vice feeds for Latin America, Mexico, and president, chief global diversity and U.S. Hispanic markets reaching almost engagement officer of PepsiCo. The 40 million households. She launched mother of Jason Shaw, A.B. ’12, she is on CNN en Español’s digital business, which the National Women’s Business Council averages 25 million unique users. Her and is the World Bank Group Diversity digital accolades include No. 1 Spanish Council’s only Hispanic member. BILL WISSER
Three alumnae and one ’Cane parent were listed in Fortune magazine’s ranking of “The 50 Most Powerful Latinas of 2017,” compiled by the Association of Latino Professionals for America. In the number one spot is alumni trustee of the University of Miami Board of Trustees Geisha J. Williams, B.S.I.E. ’83, CEO and president of PG&E Corporation. Williams made business history this year as the first Latina to lead a Fortune 500 company—and the first female CEO in the California utility’s 150-year history. Her start date of March 1 marked another milestone—almost 50 years to the day from when 5-year-old Geisha Jimenez fled Cuba with her family. Williams, as she’s now known by her married name, has come a long way. Born to Cuban dissidents and named for a 1958 John Wayne movie, Williams grew up in New Jersey. Her parents worked multiple jobs before saving enough to buy the small grocery store she helped out in as a youngster. Encouraged by a high school teacher, Williams studied engineering at UM. She got into electricity by chance, answering a bulletin board posting that read: “Engineers wanted. Call Rick.” That summer job, at Florida Power and Light, led to a 24-year career at FPL, where she rose to the level of vice president. In 2007 Williams joined PG&E, an early leader in renewable energy. During her tenure on PG&E’s electricity side, she led a reported $15 billion investment in modernizing the company’s grid and bringing in smart metering technology, among other infrastructure improvements, helping achieve the best electric reliability in PG&E’s history. Last year she also successfully orchestrated negotiations to decommission the company’s Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant by 2025. But Williams admits that, being a first-generation college graduate, an immigrant, and a woman, her career dreams were initially modest. “I wanted a good job with a good company,” she told the San Francisco
PHOTOS BY JENNY ABREU
Candid ’Canes The bronze statue of Sebastian the Ibis, created in 2009 by Brooklyn-based artist Patrick Flibotte and unveiled in 2010, stands 8 feet tall at the entrance to the Robert and Judi Prokop Newman Alumni Center. Sam Ballam, B.B.A. ’72, a member of the University of Miami President’s Council from Philadelphia, spearheaded and funded the sculpture, which has proved a popular addition to the ’Canes family over the past several years, particularly during graduations and other special visits to campus, when hundreds flock to have their photo taken with the U’s stalwart mascot. Here are a few of our recent faves. Feel free to share yours at miami.editor@miami.edu.
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Alumni Digest
Career in Focus: Artists’ Artist Chris Felver, A.B. ’69 Four decades on, visual historian of creative icons keeps exploring new territory with his lens Photographer/filmmaker Christopher Felver grew up in Akron, Ohio, and Harjo, and Sherman Alexie, including Felver, A.B. ’69, made his initial repucame to Miami to play on the golf team. their own jottings, poems, drawings, tation documenting Allen Ginsberg, “Anything to get out of Ohio,” he says. and other hand-written notations. Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and other iconic He studied history, but admits he wasn’t “This was like entering another Beat-generation poets during the 1970s. the greatest student. Still, enough of his world, and these people were kind So it’s not surprising that a conversaeducation stuck for him to consider himand gracious enough to let me be with tion with him can turn into something self a historian all these years later. them in it,” Felver says. “That was the like a free-form poem in which he’ll roam far and wide. Ask his age and he’s likely to quip, “forever young” before launching into an explanation of “generational sweep” and how to present that as well as live it. “I, um, tend to go stream-of-consciousness,” Felver admits with a laugh. “I’m just not a corporate person on any level, Among the 95 key figures from Native American art and activism circles Christopher Felver photographed for Tending and I think my work the Fire are, from left, poet, musician, and author Joy Harjo; the late Oneida-Mohawk-Cree stand-up comedian, actor, and reflects that. We’re writer Charlie Hill; and the late Sioux musician, political activist, and actor Floyd “Red Crow” Westerman. all travelers, everybody on the road to finding out.” Following graduation and a 10-month gift, being allowed to spend time with But don’t let any of that give you the idea stint in the Army that he says ended a culture that’s a lot deeper than ours. he lacks discipline. Felver has been a marvel when he was “discharged for being They’ve been spared commercialism, of productivity over the past four decades. ‘untrainable,’” Felver hit the road and but it’s cost them everything. Native His catalog includes eight films and nine spent a number of years playing guitar Americans have been treated impropbooks, including this year’s Tending the as a troubadour. Then he went to film erly from the get-go—every treaty our Fire: Native Voices and Portraits (University school in London, where he made The government has ever made with them of New Mexico Press). Last Time I Saw Neal, a short film about has been broken. So this book illumiBased in Northern California, Felver Neal Cassady, the Beat-era icon immornates the course of that history.” has taken more than 1,500 portraits talized in Jack Kerouac’s landmark 1957 It is colorful history rendered, as of everyone from fellow photographer novel, On The Road. Felver does in just about all of his work, Ansel Adams to the Italian director That led Felver to the Bay Area, in stark shades of black and white. Franco Zeffirelli. He’s best known for where he made documentaries includ“To have lasting value, black and his images of noted artists, people like ing 1984’s West Coast Beat & Beyond white is the way to go,” he says. “When Patti Smith and Norman Mailer, Tony (which he jokingly calls “all the memI take pictures, I’m thinking in black Bennett and Clint Eastwood—all of bers of Allen Ginsberg’s address book”) and white—which I guess means I don’t whom he shoots using a methodology and 2009’s Ferlinghetti: A Rebirth of think commercially enough. But it that puts a premium on efficiency. Wonder. He says he currently has films works out, and I suspect it will continue “Portraits are quick because they in the works about British-born sculpto work out. I’ve never had to take other have to be,” says Felver. “Take too much tor Tony Cragg and linguist/social critic jobs, just photography and film. I’m not time, people get set in the face, fed up, Noam Chomsky, among others. [Steven] Spielberg, but I’m Felver. And and tired of you—and you don’t want He has stayed busy with photogI’ve been very lucky because not many that to happen. It’s a two-way thing, raphy, too. For Tending the Fire he artists get to live on just their work. me looking at you looking at me. All my combined portraits of 95 key figures “But,” he continues, “I’d rather be lucky portraits, they’re looking dead at me. from Native American art and activthan good, as that old golf saying goes.” They’re not have-a-nice-day pictures.” ism circles, such as Louise Erdrich, Joy —David Menconi
“ Portraits are quick because they have to be.”
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Class Notes Philip S. Benzil, B.S. ’54, a retired dentist who practiced for 35 years in Westminster, Maryland, was elected to the Miami Beach Senior High School Hall of Fame, based on his lifetime commitment to community service. Robert Bollinger, B.B.A. ’57, Robert Ridgely, B.B.A. ’57, David V. Russell, B.B.A. ’57, and Norman Ridgley, B.A.B.A. ’56, held their second mini-reunion in Riviera Beach, Florida, in April. Edward A. Robin, B.S.E.E. ’57, is the founder and co-CEO of the Sustainability Analytics Corporation, based in Croton on Hudson, New York. Robin presented at the American Mosquito Society in San Diego, discussing a project focused on combatting the Zika virus in Miami-Dade. Ann Marie Bouse McCrystal, B.S.N. ’59, was elected to fill an additional two-year term on the Hospital District Board of Trustees, the taxing authority for indigent care in Indian River County. She received the Legion of Bronze Medallion Award from the Chapel of Four Chaplains in recognition of her lifetime of service to the community.
1960s
Paul Tocker, B.B.A. ’60, received the Schenectady County Bar Association’s 50-year attorney award. Tocker resides in Delray Beach and previously was deputy corporate counsel for the city of Schenectady and an assistant county attorney. Leon J. Hoffman, A.B. ’61, continues to enjoy his private practice of psychology in Chicago. He is also a regular writer of letters and articles on myriad topics in lay and professional publications and plays the cello.
Arnold Newman, B.B.A. ’62, is the executive director and founder of the International Society for the Preservation of the Tropical Rainforest, based in California. He advises tropical governments on preservation, is the author of three books on the topic, and founded Africa Tomorrow, the Cathedral Rainforest Science Preserve in Costa Rica, and the Fossil Ridge Paleontological Park in California. Alice Humr Gross, B.S.N. ’65, is retired from a career in nursing, which included mainly supervisory roles and culminated in a nurse director position. Gross enjoys traveling internationally to attend her daughter’s Ironman races. “I’m still young at heart,” she reports, “and enjoy my newest ride, a 2016 Laguna Blue Corvette convertible.” David Koyle, A.B. ’69, CEO of Omni Medical, announced his company has opened a network of clinics to evaluate patients who qualify for the use of medical cannabis, with locations in Florida, Michigan, Illinois, and Ohio. Edward J. Tassinari, M.A. ’69, Ph.D. ’82, a member of the faculty of the Humanities Department at SUNY Maritime College in Bronx, New York, reports his recent promotion from associate professor to professor of history.
1970s
Clare Wolf Good, B.S.N. ’70, celebrated her 88th birthday. She is an emeritus member of the Florida Nurses Association and the Florida Organization of Nurse Executives. She enjoys driving to Greenacres, Florida, to see her 2-year-old great, great granddaughters. Jonathan Kahn, B.S. ’70, published the book The Brooklyn Heights Sublet under the name Jonah Cohen.
Citizen ’Cane The Bucks Stop with Her The signature of a UM alumna soon will be seen on U.S. currency. Jovita Carranza, M.B.A. ’03, was sworn in June 19 as the 44th treasurer of the United States. “This is a woman who from day one has recognized the value of hard work in achieving success,” said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, whose signature will appear with Carranza’s on new bills slated to go into circulation this year. Carranza learned the value of a dollar at a young age. Her first job, when she was 12, was cleaning a discount store in her Chicago neighborhood for $5 per week. Other early jobs included babysitting and selling pens at Montgomery Ward, Mnuchin said at the swearing-in event. In the 1970s Carranza had a job loading trucks at UPS. Quickly spotted as someone with great potential, she ascended the corporate management ladder at UPS before retiring in 2005 as vice president of air operations. Soon after, then-President George W. Bush appointed her to serve as deputy administrator for the Small Business Administration, a position she held from 2006 to 2009. In 2010 she founded JCR Group, a consulting firm that provides “business development, federal procurement, profit and loss management, and operations and logistics support,” according to its website. As treasurer, Carranza has direct oversight over the U.S. Mint, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and Fort Knox, and is a key liaison with the Federal Reserve. The treasurer serves as a senior advisor to the secretary for community development and public engagement. According to Mnuchin, Carranza will spearhead efforts to promote financial education at all stages of life. By her own account, the Illinois-born Mexican-American “progressed from an extremely deep-blue collar family income to achieving the American Dream of White Collar Corporate Leadership by leveraging my hard-earned education.” In addition to earning a master’s degree in business from UM, she studied at the INSEAD business school in Paris, France, Michigan State University, and the University of Chicago, according to a White House statement. “Today would not have been possible were it not for the grace of God,” Carranza said at her swearing in, thanking colleagues, friends, and family for being there to support her. “Also, my daughter Klaudene is here to share my most memorable moment.” Carranza is the 16th woman and 7th Latina to hold the U.S. treasurer position. —UM News miami.edu/magazine Fall 2017 MIAMI 41
COURTESY DEPARTMENT OF TREASURY
1950s
Class Notes Curt Smith, A.B. ’70, was unanimously elected chair of the Brevard County Florida Board of County Commissioners. He was first elected to the board in 2014 after retiring as a private business owner. Veda Andrus, B.S.N. ’73, presented a session “Growing an Integrative Nursing Practice in Acute Care” at the 2nd International Integrative Nursing Symposium in Tucson, Arizona, in April, and in July presented “Building the Healing Organization: Strategies for Successful Implementation, Cultural Transformation, and Sustaining High Value Outcomes” at the 28th International Nursing Research Congress of Sigma Theta Tau International in Dublin, Ireland. John L. Lahey, Ph.D. ’73, is marking his 30th year as president of Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. Under his leadership, it has grown from 1,900 students and three schools to 10,000 students and nine schools with an endow-
ment of $450 million, according to the Quinnipiac University website. Lahey, who recently announced plans to retire after the 2017-18 academic year, is chair of the nonprofit that runs New York’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Leslie A. Thomas, B.M. ’73, Community Arts Division director of the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, received the Friends of William Grant Still Art Center’s 2017 Art Angel of the Year award in August for his 27 years as an artist, activist, educator, philanthropist, and administrator in the arts. James E. Croley III, M.D. ’76, is the author of Believing Is Seeing: Focus Through a GodCentered Paradigm (Faithful Life Publishers, 2016). An eye surgeon, he is the founder and director of the Cataract & Refractive Institute of Florida. Kenneth S. Dubow, B.B.A. ’76, is a member of the School of Business Administration’s Accounting Advisory Board and
has been with Kaufman Rossin for 37 years. Michael Laneve, B.Ed. ’76, recently earned his doctorate in organizational leadership with honors at 62. He has master’s degrees in educational administration and in curriculum and instruction. After 25 years as a high school football coach and school administrator, he plans to work in the Chicago public school system in the area of leadership training. A resident of Evergreen Park, Illinois, he is married and has four daughters and a son. Laurie Hannan Anton, B.M. ’78, was admitted to the Tennessee Bar and recently sworn in to the federal court for the Eastern District of Tennessee. She practices in the fields of entertainment law and intellectual property law. She is also licensed to practice in Florida. Mike Rosenthal, A.B. ’78, B.F.A. ’78, M.A. ’84, recently retired after more than 32 years as a mathematics instructor at Florida International University. He reports that he hasn’t missed a ’Canes home football game since 1969. Christy Torkildson, B.S.N. ’79, was inducted as a fellow in palliative care nursing by the Hospice and Palliative Nursing Association at its 2017 assembly.
1980s
Dennis Scholl, J.D. ’81, received the Art Transforms award from the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum FIU. A nationally recognized arts patron, he recently stepped down from his leadership position at the Knight Foundation, where he oversaw funding of close to $200 million to arts organizations nationally, created a Random Acts of Culture program, and with his team at the foundation developed and led the Knight Arts Challenge. Tara Solomon, A.B. ’81, A.B. ’82, was honored with the Excellence
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in Tourism Award by the Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce. She is the founder of Tara, Ink., a public relations, special events and creative marketing firm headquartered in Miami Beach. Bruce Zimmerman, B.M. ’81, is an independent film composer. His production music through ZimMusic Library has been used in The Voice, The Americans, American Pickers, and more. He is composing and conducting the live score to an IMAX dome film with his son Joshua Zimmerman, B.M. ’15. Dawnn Lewis, B.M. ’82, President’s Council member, stars as Tana in The Legend of Master Legend, a new Amazon Prime video series. Maria-Teresa Lepeley, M.S. ’82, M.A. ’87, co-edited Human Centered Management in Executive Education Global Imperatives, Innovation and New Directions (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). She is principal editor of the Human Centered Management book series. Leo F. Armbrust, M.S.Ed. ’83, published his motivational book Only the Wounded May Serve. David C. Jones, A.B. ’83, B.S. ’83, was promoted to the rank of colonel in the Vermont Air National Guard, where he commands the 158th Medical Group. He maintains his civilian job of professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive sciences at the University of Vermont, where he also directs the medical center’s Fetal Diagnostic Center. George Pita, B.B.A. ’83, a member of the School of Business Administration’s Accounting Advisory Board, earned the South Florida Business Journal’s 2017 CFO Award for Turnaround Achievement for his work as executive vice president and CFO of MasTec. Sherry Ulsh, M.B.A. ’83, relocated to Pennsylvania to take a job in indirect sourcing at the Hershey Company.
Citizen ’Cane Big Plans for Bioprinting Organs Medicine frequently works miracles these days—but for patients who need new organs, options remain notoriously limited. “Every 30 seconds,” says physician Anthony Atala, A.B. ’85, “someone dies from a disease that could be treated with tissue regeneration or replacement.” As director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM), Atala is inventing 3-D printing techniques to bioengineer organs. The culmination of decades of research, it’s an amazingly ambitious quest that has already made medical history. Atala first came face to face with the heartbreaking impact of organ shortages as a freshly minted pediatric urologic surgeon conducting research at Boston Children’s Hospital. Devastated by the procession of grievously ill children dying for want of donor organs that simply did not exist, he hit on an audacious solution: He would grow replacement organs in the lab. In a pioneering 1999 clinical trial that must have seemed straight out of science fiction, Atala and his colleagues built bladders for seven pediatric patients with a severe form of spina bifida that had damaged their urinary tracts. Cells harvested from the patients’ bladder tissues were cultured, then grafted onto biodegradable bladder-shaped scaffolding. Once the tissues filled in, the new organs were transplanted back into the children. Seven years later, all of the patients in the study were alive and well. One of them, Luke Massella, now a young adult, joined Atala in a TED Talk, thanking the brilliant, soft-spoken surgeon-biotechnologist for a normal quality of life he could never have achieved otherwise. Despite the remarkable success of the bladder trial, Atala knew that its techniques were too time-intensive to meet the demand for replacement organs. In 2004, to lead and accelerate advances in the field, he moved his team to Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center to start WFIRM, where he now directs a research staff of more than 450—the largest such entity under one roof. Peruvian-born and raised in Coral Gables, Atala reconnected with his childhood dream of becoming a physician as an undergrad at the University of Miami, where he majored in psychology. “I had really good mentors and professors at UM,” Atala says, recalling chemistry professor Harry P. Schultz (later dean of the department) as especially inspiring. A member of UM’s Iron Arrow Honor Society, Atala moved on to medical school at the University of Louisville, then subspecialty training at Harvard Medical School. As his interest in bioengineering grew, his finely honed
surgical skills proved a major plus. “Pediatric procedures are very precise,” he says. “You have to really think about what you’re going to do, examine the tissues, then figure out how you’re going to take them apart and put them back together.” In addition to culturing tissues on biocompatible scaffolds to grow organs ranging from the hollow urethra to the highly complex kidney, Atala is now focusing on an even more novel approach: 3-D printing. Since beginning the work years ago with desktop printers, he and his WFIRM colleagues have created a breakthrough technology known as Integrated Tissue and Organ Printing, or ITOP. Inside the 800-pound ITOP, living cells nestle within biogels dotted with tiny channels that allow nutrients to circulate. Atala’s WFIRM team now seeks to perfect printing techniques for more than two dozen different organs and tissues. Some of the results have been successfully implanted in animal subjects and are progressing toward human trials. “Ultimately,” says Atala, “we would like to create off-theshelf, smart biomaterials to regenerate organs.” Toward that end, he has collaborated with like-minded Miller School of Medicine faculty such as Camillo Ricordi, director of the Diabetes Research Institute, with whom he co-authored a study evaluating applications of bioengineering to gastrointestinal disease. Atala also speaks frequently with Joshua Hare, founding director of the Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Institute. “I definitely see our work converging in the future,” Atala says. He has found common cause, as well, with fellow ’Cane Bernard Siegel, A.B. ’72, J.D. ’75, who directs the Regenerative Medicine Foundation Atala founded. In 2014 it merged with Siegel’s Genetics Policy Institute. Amid his prodigious and widely acclaimed work—Scientific American recently named him one of the world’s most influential people in biotechnology—Atala continues to see patients. He says he considers it essential “to keep the reasons for what I do front and center. At the end of the day, it’s all about the patients—and making them better.” —Barbara Pierce, M.A.I.A. ’10
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Class Notes Kristine (Ross) De Haseth, A.B. ’84, M.B.A. ’85, is executive director of the Florida Coalition for Preservation, a community advocacy group promoting responsible development on the barrier island and coastal communities. A former merchandising and licensing executive for Paramount Pictures and Sony Music in California, she has returned to South Florida, where she enjoys volunteering, paddle-boarding, gardening, and debating politics with her teenage son. Paul Frishman, A.B. ’85, M.S.Ed. ’90, was named CEO at the Galbut Family Miami Beach Jewish Community Center on the Simkins Family Campus. For over 30 years previously he held leadership roles with Jewish community centers in Florida, Arizona, and Los Angeles, California. Scott Mueller, B.B.A. ’85, CEO of Dealer Tire, was honored as a visionary entrepreneur at the Sixth Annual LaunchHouse Bootstrap Bash in Ohio. Reyadh Al-Rabeah, B.S.I.E. ’87, an employee of Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, is a member of the Kuwaiti Engineers Society, volunteering on its public relations team. He also serves as the alumni representative for UM’s Middle East ’Canes Community and volunteers at the Kuwait House for National Works memorial museum. John Kneski, B.Arch. ’87, is an instructor at the Miami Dade College School of Architecture. He is the founding program manager for a $9.9 million U.S. Department of Labor-funded Training for Manufactured Construction (TRAMCON) grant. Under his leadership, the first Miami World Center MDC TRAMCON construction class graduated last October. Bruce McGuire, A.B. ’87, the managing partner of Global Alpha Research, LLC, and head of the Connecticut Hedge Fund Association, was re-
cently described in a profile on ChinaDaily.com, “The Financial Diplomat,” as “playing a key role in developing China’s asset management industry.” Timothy Huebner, A.B. ’88, the Sternberg Professor of History at Rhodes College, published his fourth book, Liberty and Union: The Civil War Era and American Constitutionalism (University Press of Kansas, 2016).
1990s
Carlos Martinez, J.D. ’90, was elected to his third term as Miami-Dade Public Defender. Diana Brooks, B.S.C. ’91, is cofounder of VS/Brooks Advertising in Coral Gables, which ranked 24th on Ad Age’s list of Best Places to Work. Angela Roseman Burgess, B.S. ’91, was promoted to senior vice president and chief actuary at Assurant, Inc., a Fortune 500 global provider of specialty insurance. She oversees a team of 100 actuaries. Stephanie Arnold, B.S.C. ’92, is the author of 37 Seconds: Dying Revealed Heaven’s Help—A Mother’s Journey (HarperCollins, 2015). Christy Crowl, B.M. ’92, M.M. ’95, is the founder of ProMusicDB.org and music supervisor/ director for Dollface Entertainment. She is a band member in Mannheim Steamroller; a session singer in Star Wars Rogue One, Star Trek Beyond, and more; and is the recipient of multiple awards, including a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award. Curtis B. Hunter, LL.M.T. ’93, is a shareholder with the law firm of Becker & Poliakoff. He is a member of the corporate and securities practice group based in Miami. Chris Wood, M.B.A. ’93, celebrated his 10th year of working at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey in Atlanta, Georgia. He and wife Kristin celebrated 20 years of
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Mixed Media Worlds Wide Matt White and the Super Villain Jazz Band’s Worlds Wide (Ear Up Records, 2017) is the sophomore release from trumpeter and composer Matt White, M.M. ’06, D.M.A. ’11, who is also an assistant professor of music at Coastal Carolina University in South Carolina.
Code Noir The 12 original tunes on Code Noir (Afrasia Productions, 2017), the 15th album from Frost Distinguished Alumna and critically lauded vocalist Carmen Lundy, B.M. ’80, encompass jazz, blues, Brazilian samba, and pop sounds, along with “the many emotions that are prevalent in this country right now,” she notes.
Rehab Reunion Grammy Award-winning singersongwriter-pianist Bruce Hornsby, B.M. ’77, brings a folksier sound to his 20th album, Rehab Reunion (Universal Music, 2016), on which he plays dulcimer with his band, the Noisemakers, backing him up on washboard, organ, fiddle, and mandolin, as well as guitar and bass. There’s even a fun paean to Hornsby’s UM stomping grounds, “M.I.A. in M.I.A.M.I.”
Poisoned First-time author Alan Bell, B.B.A. ’76, J.D. ’79, recounts his harrowing journey from unexplained illness to recovery and activism in Poisoned: How a Crime-Busting Prosecutor Turned His Medical Mystery into a Crusade for Environmental Victims (Skyhorse Publishing, 2017). The founder of the nonprofit Environmental Health Foundation, he continues to warn against the dangers of environmental toxins.
Woman Walk the Line In Woman Walk the Line: How the Women in Country Music Changed Our Lives (University of Texas Press, 2017), Nashvillebased pen-slinger Holly Gleason, A.B. ’85, edited over two dozen personal essays paying tribute to groundbreaking country artists—from Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton to Shania Twain and Taylor Swift.
marriage. They travel often with their sons, Eric and Ryan. Eric Alexandrakis, B.M. ’94, B.S.C. ’94, M.M. ’96, is owner, composer, and producer at Minoan Music. His recent collaborations include artists John Malkovich, The Ting Tings, Yoko Ono, and Young the Giant, among others. His 2016 album, Like a Puppet Show, was the first experimental vinyl-only album of its kind to be included on the Grammy ballot in multiple categories. Adam James Ball, B.S. ’94, M.D. ’99, is the owner of Gulfstream Urology Associates, P.A., performing da Vinci robotic surgery for prostate and kidney cancers. He is married to Cristina Ramirez-Ball, A.B. ’95, M.Ed. ’97. They have two children— Caroline, 13, and Ethan, 10—and enjoy their time living on the Treasure Coast of Florida. Eddie Dominguez, B.S.C. ’94, former business journalist and current managing senior vice president and director of marketing, communications, and community relations for City National Bank of Florida, was recently a “Career Path” profile subject in Crain’s Miami. Barclay Ferguson, M.B.A. ’94, was named chief financial officer of the Medical College of Wisconsin. Maribel Perez Wadsworth, B.S.C. ’94, was selected by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce to serve on the board of the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. She is senior vice president and chief strategy officer at Gannett Company, Inc. Alexis Gonzalez, B.B.A. ’95, J.D. ’99, managing shareholder of AG LAW, was appointed to serve on Miami-Dade County’s Small Business Enterprise Advisory Board. Hilary Semel, M.A. ’95, J.D. ’98, is director of the New York City Mayor’s Office of Environmental Coordination, which oversees environmental review and green
Citizen ’Cane Key Lessons from a Musical Mentor and ‘CNN Hero’ Chad Bernstein, B.M. ’06, M.M. ’09, D.M.A. ’12, named a CNN Hero for building music programs for at-risk youth in Miami and Chicago, came to a musical fork in the road at age 9. He’d already been playing piano for six years but in fourth-grade orchestra was steered toward trombone because “I had long arms that could reach all the way out to 7th position,” he explains. The young Bernstein became energized when he started “learning jazz and funky things” on the trombone. But his piano teacher couldn’t teach him that musical style. Growing tired of movie soundtracks and classical music, he decided he’d rather use his practice time on trombone, he recalls. By 15, Bernstein was gigging around Chicago, on his way to a scholarship at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music, where he earned bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate degrees while playing jazz and Latin music. A linchpin of the Miami music community, Bernstein plays trombone (and even conch shells) in multiple bands and has released his own albums (including this year’s Suite for 2nd Lieutenant, in honor of his Marine brother Max) while doing sideman work with everyone from the rapper Pitbull to Phish keyboardist Page McConnell. But that early experience of not having a sympathetic teacher at a key time always stuck with Bernstein, especially when his band Suénalo played a show at a juvenile detention center in Miami about 10 years ago. Bernstein was struck by the way the center’s seemingly disinterested teens responded to the music and came to life. Inspired, he teamed up with his businessman father to form Guitars Over Guns Organization (GOGO), a nonprofit with a goal of providing musical alternatives to gangs and violence for at-risk youth. The way Bernstein sees it, the program’s benefits go both ways. “The group of people I played that gig with were waiting tables to support themselves, yet they were some of the most philanthropic people I’d ever met,” Bernstein
remembers. “They were giving of their time in a really genuine way, and Guitars Over Guns tries to build on that and transform the community with meaningful communication between professional musicians and young people working through adversity. “Music is the bridge,” he continues. “And we do it through pop, hip-hop, whatever the kids are interested in. That was why I’d quit piano at a young age. You need to be reached on your level with something you’re selfmotivated to learn.” Bernstein was a graduate student when he launched the first GOGO chapter in 2008 in Miami. A second chapter has since started in Chicago, with expansion into New York and Los Angeles set for 2018. The program has been hugely successful, mentoring hundreds of young people. In 2015, CNN aired a profile of Bernstein as a CNN Hero. The organization has also picked up a Knight Arts Challenge grant for Music Is My Weapon, a collaboration with police departments to transform melted-down bullet casings and guns into musical instruments. These days, Bernstein’s biggest challenge is finding time for it all. He and his wife, alumna Rebecca Adam Bernstein, B.S.N. ’08, M.S.N. ’12, have two small children; and between family, running and expanding GOGO, and being a working musician, it often feels like there just aren’t enough hours in the day, he admits. “That’s where being at Miami helped. [Dean] Shelly Berg has done a great job redirecting the program’s focus to the realities of life once you leave college,” Bernstein says. “At the end of the day, musicians are entrepreneurs. We have to be. And everything I do comes from the same place, whether it’s as husband or father or musician. I do constantly feel like I could be doing more for my kids, my wife, the organization, myself as an artist. It’s not easy, but they’re good problems to have. It’s humbling.” —David Menconi miami.edu/magazine Fall 2017 MIAMI 45
Class Notes building implementation for capital and infrastructure projects such as affordable housing developments, sustainability and resiliency improvements, and transit systems. She also teaches Leadership for Sustainability and Environmental Policy at the New School. Jennifer Hughes, B.M. ’96, made her New Hampshire debut at the Palace Theatre, starring as Miss Mona Stangley in a production of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. She also performed in The Light in The Piazza: A 10th Anniversary Concert, a fundraiser at the Lincoln Center. Jen Karetnick, M.F.A. ’96, is the author of the collection The Treasures That Prevail (Whitepoint Press, 2016), poems about climate change and its impact on Miami. James Taintor, B.S. ’96, M.B.A. ’99, published his first book, Building Authentic Confidence in Children. A former chemistry teacher and dean of students, he
served as a headmaster at several institutions before becoming head of school at Brookfield Academy in Wisconsin. He lives with his wife, Elizabeth Taintor, B.S. ’96, and two children in the Milwaukee area. Michael C. McCourt, B.S.C. ’97, a member of the Directors Guild of America, works out of New York and Los Angeles with Washington Square Films. He is also a street photographer under the name THE VERSO. Erin (Pilibosian) Ricketts, B.H.S. ’97, was promoted to senior research program manager in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Johns Hopkins University, where she has been working for 18 years. She lives in the Baltimore area with her husband and children Owen, 8, and Connor, 6. Brian Russell, B.M. ’97, M.M. ’07, Ph.D. ’10, lecturer of music media and industry, instructor of contemporary guitar, and director of assessment at the Frost School of Music, was a quarter-
finalist for the 2017 Grammy Music Educator Award. Elizabeth Pratt Daggett, B.S. ’98, welcomed her third child, Evelyn Delphine, in May 2016. Daggett notes that her baby is the first granddaughter of Charles W. Pratt, B.S. ’67, and a future ’Cane. Jessica Merz, B.S.C. ’98, director of global corporate communications for Bacardi-Martini, was named to the “40 Under 40” by PR Week. One of 50 employees Bacardi selected for a twoyear leadership development program at Harvard University, she spearheaded the Bacardi No Straws Pledge, eliminating nearly 650,000 straws and stirrers from the environment annually. Jamila Abdullah Mwidau, B.S.N. ’98, M.P.H. ’03, is a lieutenant commander at the U.S. Public Health Service and regulatory project manager for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Drug Evaluation Research.
’C A N E I N T H E AC T
Mike Johnson, B.B.A. ’82, M.B.A. ’83 (bottom), shows his love for the U while skydiving with an instructor over Tennessee on July 8. Email a high-resolution photo of you living your passion to miami.editor@miami.edu.
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Charles P. Buscemi, B.S.N. ’99, M.S.N. ’01, Ph.D. ’05, was promoted to clinical associate professor at the Nicole Wertheim College of Nursing and Health Sciences at Florida International University.
2000s
Jason Shelton, M.A. ’00, Ph.D. ’05, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Arlington, was appointed director of the UTA Center for African-American Studies, one of just three such centers in Texas. He is a member of the American Sociological Association and Southern Conference on AfricanAmerican Studies. Joseph D. Wall, B.S. ’00, took command of a KC-10 flying squadron at Travis Air Force Base in California. A lieutenant colonel, he is the first active duty commander of an Air Force reserve squadron responsible for refueling other aircraft worldwide. He is also a graduate of the Air Force ROTC program at UM. James Jones, B.B.A. ’03, who was part of three NBA championship teams, including two with the Miami Heat, retired after 14 seasons in the league to become vice president of basketball operations for the Phoenix Suns. Jones played for the Miami Hurricanes men’s basketball team from 1999 to 2003, finishing his career at UM averaging 11 points per game. He was named third-team All-Big East his junior year and second-team Verizon Academic All-American his senior year. He was inducted into the University of Miami Sports Hall of Fame in 2014. Roshan D. Shah, B.B.A. ’03, a commercial real estate attorney at Scarinci Hollenbeck, was promoted to counsel. His office is based in Lyndhurst, New Jersey. Emily Caldarelli, B.S.Ed. ’04, a fourth-grade teacher at Paul Cuffee Lower School in Providence, Rhode Island, was
honored with the prestigious $25,000 Milken Educator Award for her project-based approach to learning and leadership in supporting professional development opportunities for her colleagues. She was one of 35 U.S. educators to receive the award from the Milken Family Foundation. Christina Hale, B.B.A. ’04, M.S.Tx. ’05, was made a tax partner at PwC. Last year she married Andrew Beal in Jamaica. Benjamin Leis, B.S.C. ’04, received the Paul K. Sugrue Entrepreneurial Spirit Award and $2,000 at the 2017 University of Miami Business Plan Competition, hosted by the University’s School of Business Administration, for his venture Comic Cure, which hosts comedy events to help raise funds for nonprofits Kerri Sohn, A.B. ’04, an actress based in New York City, is performing in the off-Broadway show Sleep No More and appears in the 2017 movie Nobody’s Watching. Ilana Tabacinic, A.B. ’04, J.D. ’08, made partner in the litigation practice group in the Miami office of Akerman LLP. J.R. Biersmith, M.A. ’06, is the producer, director, and co-screenwriter of the 2017 documentary Men in the Arena (2728 Pictures), which follows two Somali national soccer team friends as they chase their dream to play in the United States. Anthony De Yurre, LL.M.P. ’06, senior associate with the Miami law firm Bilzin Sumberg, and an associate in Bilzin Sumberg’s Land Development and Government Relations Group and the International Group, received the Hispanic National Bar Association’s “HNBA Top Lawyers Under 40” Award. Joshua Henry, B.M. ’06, was cast as Aaron Burr in the Chicago and national tour productions of the smash hit Hamilton. Tamara James, B.L.A. ’06, was elected mayor of the city of
Citizen ’Cane A Superwoman on the Screen The residents of Elmwood Park, New Jersey, didn’t expect stuntwoman Diane Peterson, A.B. ’72, to drive a car through a storefront or leap from a burning building. They’d invited her back to her hometown to ride a Clydesdale horse in the city’s Centennial Parade—a role she’d originated there decades earlier, at age 3. But nostalgic appearances aside, Peterson, who these days sells real estate in Malibu, California, still has a need for speed. That need is based on a craft honed in some 200 films and television shows, from Children of the Corn and The Naked Gun to Action Jackson and Batman Forever, according to her extensive resume. A SAG/Equity member, Peterson majored in drama and minored in psychology at UM, where she was named 1970 Homecoming Queen. “Dancing with then-President Henry King Stanford was pretty special,” she remembers. There’s a lot more she recalls fondly from her time at UM. “My professor Buckets Lowery got me interested in drama,” she says. “He was an amazing man and fabulous teacher. He also taught me the importance of being on time, which I never forgot.” After graduation, Peterson went straight to New York to pursue acting, getting her start in the show Kojak. That’s where she saw a car chase scene being filmed. “I was hooked on stunts ever since!” she says. It wasn’t easy to break into the predominately male arena, but Peterson persevered. “I always believed in myself,” she says. “The University of Miami gave me confidence and courage to face the wide world ahead of me. I had a well-rounded education, and I could tackle the future without hesitation.” Peterson has recently finished writing
Dania Beach, in Broward County, Florida. During her career as a Miami Hurricanes basketball player she racked up 2,406 points, becoming the school’s all-time leading scorer among men or women. She went on to the WNBA and the Israeli league, playing professionally for nine years. She has a young son
her memoir, Hollywood Stuntwoman, and is shopping it for a publisher. She says her greatest experiences in the industry included getting to work on award-winning films like Titanic and Annie Hall, and serving as Jessica Lange’s stunt double in Blue Sky. Of course, there were close calls, too, where all of the precise planning and timing required to set up a stunt literally went out the window. “Sometimes the unforeseen occurs, and you must think fast and react to the situation to try to avoid a disaster,” Peterson explains. “Several of my friends have been killed, and I shattered my heel in a high-fall accident.” But that hasn’t stopped Peterson, who still finds some time for stunt jobs—that is, when she’s not racing her 1998 355 GTS Ferrari. Earlier this year, she reports, she won the Platinum Award at the Ferrari Club of America’s international event in Daytona Beach, Florida, where she reached speeds of up to 145 mph on the track. “It was a real thrill,” she says. “I got to enjoy my need for speed.” —Robin Shear
and spent the past few years as a community activist, according to a Miami Herald profile. Deanna Kralick, B.S. ’06, Supervisory U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer for the Miami/ Tampa Field Office, completed a Master of Arts degree in security studies at the Center for Homeland Defense and Security
at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. She has been with U.S. Customs and Border Protection for the last 10 years, starting her career at the Miami Seaport. She currently serves as a supervisor for the Miami Tactical Analytical Unit, which handles intelligence report production and incident research
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Class Notes for the state of Florida. Anna Lozoya, B.S.N. ’06, a registered nurse and attorney at law, recently published “Mandatory HIV Testing of Pregnant Women: Public Health or Privacy Violation” in the Houston Journal of Health Law and Policy. Meagan Mulawka, B.S.N. ’06, earned an M.S.N. from New York University School of Nursing and teaches in the school’s Clinical Simulation Learning Center. She is a nurse practitioner at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center on hepatopancreatobiliary surgery service. Haydee Sera, B.B.A. ’06, J.D. ’09, an associate with Weiss Serota Helfman Cole and Bierman, P.L., in Coral Gables, Florida, received the Hispanic National Bar Association’s “HNBA Top Lawyers Under 40” Award. Marcia DiStaso, Ph.D. ’07, has joined the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications as the new chair of
its Department of Public Relations. She was previously an associate professor in advertising/ public relations at Pennsylvania State University. Domenick G. Lazzara, A.B. ’07, opened the law firm Lee & Lazzara, PLLC, in Tampa. His practice focuses on general civil litigation, and he teaches business law at the University of Tampa. He is a Shriner, Freemason, Guardian Ad Litem, and sits on various boards, including the National Italian American Bar Association and Shriners Hospitals for Children. Kevin V. Michael, B.S.I.T. ’07, is managing partner of South Florida IT services and consulting firm Invizio, which was the Small Business honoree at the Miami-Dade Beacon Council’s 2017 Beacon Awards. Michael Nakash, B.B.A. ’07, M.B.A. ’09, married Rachel Milen on March 25 at the Ritz-Carlton in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He is the chief executive of Spectrum
Kitchens in New York. R. Nicholas Nanovic, J.D. ’07, LL.M.T. ’08, of Norris McLaughlin & Marcus, P.A., was designated by the National Association of Estate Planners & Councils as an Accredited Estate Planner. He was recognized in Philadelphia Magazine as a Rising Star, a distinction for lawyers age 40 and under who have been practicing for under 10 years. He lives in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Lauren Book, B.S.Ed. ’08, M.S.Ed. ’12, a Democrat from Plantation, Florida, won a seat in the State Senate. Before her election, she helped lobby to put new laws on the books to help sex abuse victims and founded the nonprofit organization Lauren’s Kids. She is married to Blair Byrnes and recently gave birth to twins, Kennedy Grace and Hudson Lee. Lauren Galluzzo, B.B.A. ’08, married Frank Calvosa in February in West Orange, New Jersey. Christopher Alex Hooton, A.B. ’08,
married Hadas Gold in April in Scottsdale, Arizona. He is the chief economist for the Internet Association in Washington, D.C. Hugo J. Mojica, M.A. ’08, joined the Houston Astros Major League Baseball team as a Community Affairs and Astros Foundation coordinator. He lives in Houston, Texas. Blair Brettschneider, B.S.C. ’09, was named to Forbes’ annual 30 Under 30 list for her work as founder and executive director of GirlForward, which provides mentorship, education, and leadership opportunities for refugee girls in the U.S. Since launching GirlForward in 2011 in Chicago, she has been featured on CNN Heroes and received an Impact Award from the Chicago Foundation for Women. Only 600 (or 4 percent) of 15,000 online submissions were named to the Forbes list. Brettschneider is now based in Austin, Texas, where she launched a second GirlForward site in 2016.
Thank you for making Alumni Weekend 2017 great! ’Canes from all over returned to campus for Alumni Weekend and Homecoming 2017 to celebrate UM’s Homecoming traditions and meaningful history, along with treasured friendships and school and college connections. To see, post, or tag photos from the festivities, follow us on social media with #AWH17 or go to facebook.com/miamialumni.
alumniweekend.miami.edu For more information, contact 1-866-UMALUMS (862-5867), 305-284-2872, or alumni@miami.edu. Follow us on social media
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48 MIAMI Fall 2017 miami.edu/magazine
’09, is the founding executive director of Venture Café Miami, launched last year to facilitate sustainable growth, increased diversity and inclusion, and greater connectivity within Miami’s innovation and startup community. She previously served as legal counsel to entrepreneurs, startups, and multinational corporations. Stephen C. Heymann, A.B. ’09, J.D. ’12, LL.M.E. ’13, is an associate in the Atlanta office of Chamberlain Hrdlicka Attorneys at Law. Alexander Strassman, A.B. ’09, J.D. ’14, an attorney at GrayRobinson, P.A. in Miami, is an accredited Certified Fraud Examiner.
2010s
Christopher Slivka, B.S.M.A.S. ’10, B.S.N. ’11, provides post-surgery care in the Cardiothoracic ICU at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle. Colleen S. Campbell, D.N.P. ’11, is serving a three-year appointment on the Veterans Health Administration Office of Nursing Services’ Evidence-Based Practice Field Advisory Committee. William Frick, B.S.B.A. ’11, made Features Magazine’s 2017 30 Under 30 list. He is the vice president for information technology at BNY Mellon.
Belinda Merkelis, B.S.M.A.S. ’11, is an environmental educator and naturalist working on her master’s degree in biological sciences through Miami University. Marike Paulsson, LL.M. ’11, director of the International Arbitration Institute at the University of Miami School of Law, is the author of The 1958 New York Convention in Action (Wolters Kluwer, 2016). She was recently appointed as a council member for North America to the court of the Mauritius Arbitration and Mediation Center.
Citizen ’Cane Uncle’s Cuban Odyssey Inspires Filmmaker Little did Tony Méndez, B.S.C. ’11, M.F.A. ’14, know that a routine family gathering would lead to an award-winning film and offer from HBO Latin America. At that gathering, Méndez sat fixated as his uncle told of his journey to the United States from Mariel, Cuba. Méndez’s uncle, Ricardo, explained that from posing as a “pimp” to pretending to be a homosexual, he’d tried everything he could to earn himself a criminal record in Cuba—a surefire way, he thought, to earn passage to America decades earlier. For Ricardo and many Cubans like him, these were acts of desperation to find a new life outside of the communist country. With stirring elements of humor and pathos, the story was so compelling to Méndez, at the time a student in the School of Communication’s Department of Cinema and Interactive Media, that he recalls thinking, “This is the movie; this needs to be told.” His uncle’s tale became the inspiration for Mendez’s award-winning thesis film, El Mar y Él (The Sea and Him), nominated for the 2015 Cannes Film Festival’s Short Film Corner award. “This was bigger than making a feature film. This was my family’s story, this was my uncle’s story, this was the story of 125,000 Cubans who had to go through a lot to get out of the country,” says Méndez, whose parents were born and raised in Cuba before emigrating to Miami during the infamous Mariel boatlift in 1980. From April to October of that year, Fidel Castro opened the border to any Cuban wishing to leave the island from the Mariel harbor—about 25 miles west of Havana and the closest port to the United States. The majority of those migrants were ordinary Cubans with blue-collar skills. But some were prisoners or patients released from mental health facilities. When this was discovered, U.S. public opinion on granting asylum to the Cubans coming from Mariel changed markedly. In reality, only about two percent, or about 2,700 of the 125,000 Cuban refugees were deemed violent or serious criminals under U.S. law. These were “average people trying to escape Cuba,” says Méndez, “and that was the driving force behind this movie.”
TONY MENDEZ
Leigh-Ann A. Buchanan, J.D.
Infused with Méndez’s passion to show the reality of Cubans’ struggle to escape Cuba, El Mar y Él went on to win Best Thesis Film, Best Directing, Best Producing, Best Editing, and Best Actor at the Department of Cinema and Interactive Media’s 2015 Canes Film Festival. It was also voted one of the top five best student films in 2015 and was screened at the 10th Annual Canes Film Showcase in Los Angeles at the Directors Guild of America Theater One. The film’s success also helped catapult Méndez’s career, opening opportunities for him at National Geographic and CBS after graduation. Ultimately HBO Latin America picked up El Mar y Él for a two-year contract, and PBS has optioned it for 2018. “It has been my greatest accomplishment so far,” he says of the film’s success. Méndez also runs his own company, Wonder Worker Films, and created the Say It Loud film festival to help effect a change in race relations around the world. States Méndez: “I believe everyone is inherently deserving of authorship of their own stories.” —Andres Tamayo miami.edu/magazine Fall 2017 MIAMI 49
Class Notes Tiffany Walter, B.A.M.A. ’11, and Joseph Weitzer, A.B. ’09, were married in Miami on February 19, showing their ’Cane pride at the reception with orange and green cupcakes. The couple, who met at UM while playing Ultimate Frisbee, live in Jersey City, New Jersey. Andrew DeMuro, A.B. ’12, performed on Season 11 of The Voice after auditioning with his rendition of Billy Joel’s Vienna (he sang a duet with Joel himself during a 2012 concert at the University of Miami). A former special education teacher who leads a Chicago-based musical trio, DeMuro made it through three rounds of the competition with Adam Levine as his coach. He is also regional director of programming for the nonprofit Guitars Over Guns. Justin Pressman, B.M. ’12, was recently appointed development manager of the American Friends of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, which is responsible for providing more than $4 million in funding annually to support educational programs and international tours for the orchestra. Mallory Watson, M.S. ’12, and William Gutek, J.D. ’13, were married this past February in Key West, Florida. Scott D’Ambrosio, B.B.A. ’13, is the founder/CEO of jOffer, Inc., an online recruitment platform. He is from Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. Alyssa Mary Plisic, B.S.N. ’13, is a travel nurse who works in the pediatric intensive care unit at Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego, California. She was previously part of a pediatric critical care fellowship at Cohen Children’s Medical Center of New York, where she worked in the pediatric ICU for two years. Erin Benson , A.B. ’14, earned a Master of Studies in Law from Wake Forest School of Law. A merit scholarship recipient, she is president and founder
of Gameday Bae, Inc., which specializes in custom game-day apparel and accessories. Victoria Humphrey, B.S. ’14, won the Miss National Sweetheart 2016 crown and placed 2nd runnerup at Miss Florida 2016, where she earned the title of Florida’s Sweetheart 2016. She also won the Miss National Sweetheart 2016 crown, along with a scholarship, with plans to attend medical school. Bryan Vega , J.D. ’14, joined Miami-based Meland Russin & Budwick, focusing his practice on real estate, corporate, and transactional matters. Alyssa Wilkins, B.M. ’14, is the founder and owner of Dynamic Lynks, a therapeutic center in Oak Park, Illinois, that focuses on the unique mind-body connection of autism through music and movement. Michael Zangara, LL.M.P. ’14,
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joined the Miami office of Stroock & Stroock & Lavan’s real estate practice group. Sandra Ferrin, J.D. ’15, joined the Miami office of Stroock & Stroock & Lavan as an associate focusing on commercial real estate transactions and financial institution matters. She previously served as a law clerk with the Honorable Frank Shepherd of the Florida Third District Court of Appeal. Jennifer Hammond , LL.M.E. ’15, joined Green Schoenfeld & Kyle LLP, a law firm based in Fort Myers, Florida. She previously practiced in Maryland. Her areas of expertise include estate planning; trust administration; taxation, probate, corporate, business, and partnership law; and wealth preservation. Christina Karapelou , D.N.P. ’15, works at the Miami Transplant Institute via Jackson Memorial Hospital as a kidney and
pancreas transplant nurse practitioner in the pre- and post-transplant clinics. Martim Meirelles, A.B. ’15, a New York City-based photographer, contributed photos to Le Marais: A Rare Steakhouse, Well Done (Mitico, Inc., 2016). He and the authors, owner Jose Meirelles and executive chef Mark Hennessey, spoke at UM’s Chabad house earlier this year. Kenneth Bowden, B.S. ’16, a software development engineer at Citrix in Fort Lauderdale, was a finalist in the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce’s HYPE Awards in the “Most Valuable Graduate” category. He serves on the UM Alumni Association’s Young Alumni Leadership Council.
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In Memoriam* Ludd M. Spivey, D.L.W. ’30 Mary (Terrell) Francis, A.B. ’36 Bernard A. Frank, J.D. ’38 Marvin I. Wildman, B.B.A. ’42 Rudolph E. Gomez, J.D. ’44 Graham C. Miller, J.D. ’44 Josephine A. (Mool) Whitaker, A.B. ’44 Marcia (Pessin) Kagan, A.B. ’47 Lowell N. Veach, A.B. ’47, J.D. ’49 Erwin Allen, B.B.A. ’48 Frank S. Cannova, J.D. ’48 Michael F. Donoghue, B.S.E.E. ’48 Keith L. Doyle, B.Ed. ’48 Cynthia (Wasserman) Schuleman, A.B. ’48 Naomi Anderson Seavy, A.B. ’48 Bert Udell, A.B. ’48 Myron L. Altschuler, B.B.A. ’49 Angela M. Anderson, A.B. ’49 Harold Baumgarten, M.S. ’49, M.D. ’60 Arthur T. Bruggisser, B.S. ’49 J. S. Calkins, B.B.A. ’49 Robert N. Farley, A.B. ’49 Leonard S. Frischman, B.Ed. ’49 Robert B. Gilman, B.B.A. ’49 Creighton E. Johnson, B.B.A. ’49 Royal F. Jonas, J.D. ’49 Winifred (Oertel) Kammer, M.Ed. ’49 Edward Klar, B.B.A. ’49 John F. Larkin, B.B.A. ’49 Robert L. Lippman, B.B.A. ’49 James S. Rainwater, J.D. ’49 Waldo G. Rothenberg, J.D. ’49, LL.M.T. ’70 Lenore P. (Levine) Sharps, B.Ed. ’49 Stanley H. Spieler, J.D. ’49 James A. Spingarn, A.B. ’49, M.S. ’50 Frank L. Belsante, J.D. ’50 J. T. Blackard, J.D. ’50 Gordon F. Buck, B.S.M.E. ’50 Charles B. Cartwright, J.D. ’50 Henry F. Clark, B.B.A. ’50 Leonard A. De Longa, A.B. ’50 Robert E. Dusenbury, B.B.A. ’50 Robert Eppelein, B.B.A. ’50 Lorraine (Rosenberger) Gabellini, B.S. ’50 Solomon Hait, B.Ed. ’50
Invented Patient Simulator Harvey Cardiologist Michael S. Gordon dedicated his career to innovating the way we train physicians. From the time he became a professor at the Miller School of Medicine in 1966 until his death on July 7 at age 80, Gordon was coming up with ways to improve patient care by way of innovating better teaching methods for new health care professionals. In 1968 he invented the world’s first cardiopulmonary patient simulator named “Harvey.” Still in use today, Harvey can realistically replicate nearly every cardiac disease. Gordon later created UMedic, a web-based training program to train physicians, emergency responders, and military personnel. He also made a lasting impact by founding the Michael S. Gordon Center for Research in Medical Education at the Miller School. Now nearly 2,000 medical centers and agencies worldwide use educational resources developed at the center by Gordon and his team. Throughout the years, he and the center received many accolades and awards, but according to his wife, Lynda Gordon, he remained grounded, humble, and dedicated to the University of Miami, where the couple made generous contributions—funding scholarships for medical students and making donations to the Richter Library, Frost School of Music, Jerry Herman Ring Theatre, and many other programs and departments.
Richard E. Jaffe, B.B.A. ’50 Marilyn J. Klein, B.Ed. ’50 Louis P. Llop, B.S. ’50 Daniel J. Placido, B.S. ’50 Edward J. Putz, B.Ed. ’50 Delos W. Rentzel, D.L.W. ’50 Edward J. Roskiewicz, B.B.A. ’50 Paul Rosner, A.B. ’50 Irene L. Sym, A.B. ’50 Myron A. Verville, B.B.A. ’50 Woodrow L. Wilson, B.Ed. ’50 Carlos Amenabar, B.B.A. ’51 John W. Balkany B.S.M.E. ’51 Calvin J. Bartlett, A.B. ’51 Sol Berman, B.Ed. ’51 James E. Brame, B.B.A. ’51 Seymour Brumer, B.S.I.E. ’51 John R. Carlson, B.S.C.E. ’51 Harold L. Greene, J.D. ’51 Neal D. Huebsch, B.B.A. ’51, J.D. ’53 John K. Kazarian, B.B.A. ’51, J.D. ’52 Myra S. Kyle, A.B. ’51, M.F.A. ’81 Alice E. Maddrey, A.B. ’51 Raymond C. Plate, B.S.M.E. ’51 Eugene W. Ruiz, B.B.A. ’51 Leonard L. Schless, B.B.A. ’51 Theodore P. Sloan, B.Ed. ’51 Robert L. Stone, B.B.A. ’51 Richard M. Zimic, B.B.A. ’51
Peter K. Bacon, B.B.A. ’52 Joanne (Graham) Dick, B.M. ’52 Sylvia (Erickson) Frazier, A.B. ’52 Donald D. Kaplan, B.M. ’52 Tamotsu Kobayashi, A.B. ’52 Joel Miller, J.D. ’52 Winfield J. Morgan, B.B.A. ’52, B.Ed. ’58 Stanley B. Smith, B.S. ’52 Anita (Rabin) Weiss, B.Ed. ’52 Thomas P. Allen, A.B. ’53, M.A. ’55 Irving B. Appelbaum, B.B.A. ’53 Thomas A. Cave, B.B.A. ’53 Betty Barco Bishop Elliott, B.B.A. ’53 Thomas E. Fryer, B.B.A. ’53 Charles A. Gifford, M.S. ’53 Martin Hayes, M.B.A. ’53 Joseph M. Kardack, B.B.A. ’53 Arnold F. Kurzinger, J.D. ’53 Leo Levine, J.D. ’53 John Pachon, B.S.C.E. ’53 John H. Patterson, J.D. ’53 Paul R. Ray, B.S.E.E. ’53 Robert O. Ruelle, A.B. ’53 Jack J. Sellati, A.B. ’53, M.D. ’62 Eleanor L. Ashbaugh, B.Ed. ’53, M.Ed. ’65
Clara (Pallissard) Akers, B.Ed. ’54 Miriam (Lopinto) Bell, B.S. ’54 Robert O. Collins, J.D. ’54 Donald E. Ewing, A.B. ’54 Robert F. Hart, B.B.A. ’54 Harry D. Johnson, B.B.A. ’54 Edward J. Kapushy, B.Ed. ’54, M.Ed. ’65 Marlene (Schulte) Kerdyk, B.Ed. ’54 Adrian C. Larkin, A.B. ’54 Arlene (Leon) Leider, A.B. ’54, M.Ed. ’68 Jay J. Manning, B.B.A. ’54 Sylvia (Masson) Otero, A.B. ’54 Paul Palilonis, B.B.A. ’54 Edwin M. Andersen, A.B. ’55 Philip S. Bibicoff, A.B. ’55 David S. Feaganes, B.B.A. ’55, J.D. ’59 Shelah H. Grossman, B.Ed. ’55, M.Ed. ’71 James P. Kyne, J.D. ’55 Constantine P. Lantz, A.B. ’55, J.D. ’58 Michael K. Mitchell, B.Ed. ’55 George G. Sando, B.S.E.E. ’55 Alan P. Sherr, J.D. ’55 Greta P. Silver, A.B. ’55 Ernest D. Tobey, B.Ed. ’55
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Class Notes Ted E. Tsouprake, B.B.A. ’55, J.D. ’57 Ralph O. Wallace, B.B.A. ’55, J.D. ’67 Richard T. Whalen, J.D. ’55 James B. Willenborg, B.B.A. ’55 Herbert Bass, A.B. ’56 Samuel L. Butler, A.B. ’56 Norman H. Cohen, B.B.A. ’56 Richard Elkman, B.B.A. ’56 Morton S. Glazer, A.B. ’56 Harvey Gruskin, B.B.A. ’56 Clarence E. Hall, J.D. ’56 Dorothy (Carlisle) Isbell, M.Ed. ’56 Lawrence Mero, B.B.A. ’56 Eduardo Perez-Casalduc, J.D. ’56 Thomas R. Rench, B.S.M.E. ’56 Clarence L. Reynolds, B.S.C.E. ’56 Donald J. Rice, B.B.A. ’56 Josephine K. Spear, A.B. ’56 Stanley R. Sterbenz, J.D. ’56 Thomas D. Tilden, B.S. ’56 Stanley D. Angel, J.D. ’57 Lionel H. Aselton, B.B.A. ’57 William O. Augustin, B.Ed. ’57 Mary C. Cunning, A.B. ’57 John T. Elkins, M.D. ’57 Marilyn Jackson, A.B. ’57 James F. Lochner, B.B.A. ’57 Edward J. Marko, B.B.A. ’57, J.D. ’62 Jack C. Nichelson, A.B. ’57 Ben E. Osking, B.B.A. ’57 David Press, B.B.A. ’57 Robert W. Schmitt, B.B.A. ’57 Albert Yurko, J.D. ’57 William S. Crane B.S.E.E. ’58 Robert E. Drawdy, M.D. ’58 Jacob Kreshtool, J.D. ’58 Lawrence A. Long, B.B.A. ’58 Alwyn Y. McConnell, B.B.A. ’58 Willard D. Memering, B.Ed. ’58 Theodore Miller, B.Ed. ’58 Olga (Latoni) Rodriguez, M.S. ’58 Barbara Stern Rothberg, B.Ed. ’58 Edgar M. Shaw, B.B.A. ’58 Chandler H. Townsend, B.B.A. ’58 Bert R. Adams, B.B.A. ’59 William L. Henning, B.B.A. ’59 Maurice A. Malo, B.S.E.E. ’59 Sue A. Morgan, B.S.N. ’59 George L. Noble, B.B.A. ’59 Edward C. Norbut, B.B.A. ’59 Louis Rabin, B.B.A. ’59, J.D. ’62
Famed Seattle Seahawk NFL Hall of Famer Cortez Kennedy, B.L.A. ’06, known for both his tenacity on the field and his “larger than life” personality off of it, died May 23 at age 48. The iconic former defensive tackle was the MVP of the Miami Hurricanes’ 1989 NCAA national championship team before he was drafted by the Seattle Seahawks with the third overall pick in the 1990 NFL Draft. Kennedy spent all 11 seasons of his career with Seattle, making eight Pro Bowl teams and being named the 1992 Defensive Player of the Year before retiring in 2000. Even after his retirement, he remained active in the football community, and in 2012 he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. In 2016 he returned to his alma mater, serving as the grand marshal for UM’s Alumni Weekend Homecoming Parade.
Joseph Rein, A.B. ’59 William C. Saunders, B.Ed. ’59, M.Ed. ’69 Milton M. Stephens, A.B. ’59 John A. Tory, B.B.A. ’59 James D. Welch, B.B.A. ’59 Ronald D. Bigbee, B.B.A. ’60 Donald W. Blackburn, B.S.A.E. ’60 Eldred R. Bratsen, A.B. ’60 G. B. Brodeur, A.B. ’60 Selma R. Campbell, M.D. ’60 Robert J. Derham, J.D. ’60 Martha Y. Embry, B.Ed. ’60 William J. Fey, B.B.A. ’60 Charles E. Hearty, B.S.E.E. ’60 Robert A. Hill, M.Ed. ’60 Albert P. Johnson, B.B.A. ’60 Tracy R. La Tona, M.Ed. ’60 Ralph W. Lindley, B.S.C.E. ’60 James T. Moore, J.D. ’60 Serena (Hollander) Nuhomovic, B.Ed. ’60 Walter S. Pesetsky, J.D. ’60 Lawrence M. Rosenhaus, A.B. ’60 Richard J. Small, B.B.A. ’60 Rita (Auerbach) Wallach, M.Ed. ’60 Arthur J. Botnik, B.S.N. ’61 James C. Bryant, M.A. ’61 Sam Davis, M.Ed. ’61 Lawrence J. DiGiammarino, B.Ed. ’61 Richard S. Donelon, B.M. ’61 Robert T. Dorris, B.S.E.E. ’61 Loring P. Evans, J.D. ’61 Marvin N. Feld, B.B.A. ’61 Jack G. Flowers, B.B.A. ’61 Harley H. Joseph, B.B.A. ’61 Cooper C. Kirk, A.B. ’61, M.A. ’63
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Harriet (Gould) Mertz, M.M. ’61 Ursula Metzger-Wellisch, B.B.A. ’61, J.D. ’74 Richard G. Mole, B.S.E.E. ’61 Roland R. Reynolds, B.M. ’61 George L. Schulman, B.B.A. ’61 Charles W. Skalaski, B.Ed. ’61 Barry M. Storter, M.D. ’61 Terence C. Sullivan, B.Ed. ’61 Howard F. Sussman, M.D. ’61 Harry T. Thorsen, B.S.E.E. ’61 Barbara A. Woods, B.Ed. ’61 Paul K. Anderson, B.B.A. ’62 David P. Bronson, B.B.A. ’62 Robert C. Eggert, B.B.A. ’62 Lorraine S. Force, M.Ed. ’62 Ellen (Koenitzer) Sanford, B.Ed. ’62, M.Ed. ’72 Edward C. Smith, B.B.A. ’62 Bruce J. Snyder, B.S.E.E. ’62 Thomas R. Stephenson, M.D. ’62 Costas P. Tsentas, A.B. ’62 Frederick E. Vollrath, B.B.A. ’62 Orianne G. Cherin, B.Ed. ’63 Frances R. Cook, B.M. ’63 Peter J. Geraghty, B.B.A. ’63 Moreno Habif, B.B.A. ’63 James M. Henderson, B.B.A. ’63, J.D. ’67 Judith (Barron) Lewis, B.S.N. ’63 Archie J. McGregor, B.B.A. ’63 William E. Powell, B.M. ’63 Melvin D. Riff, B.B.A. ’63 Myron Silverman, B.S. ’63 Grace (Richardson) Tarbox, B.B.A. ’63 Lew E. Ayers, A.B. ’64 Eleanor A. Beck, B.Ed. ’64 Rowland T. Benson, B.Ed. ’64 Alan L. Bloom, B.Ed. ’64
David W. Burkett, A.B. ’64, J.D. ’69 Mercedes C. Calvera, C.T.P. ’64 Elliott Y. Denner, A.B. ’64 Maria (Martinez) Domingo, C.T.P. ’64 Josefina E. Fernandez-Fraga, C.T.P. ’64 Robert H. Gore, B.S. ’64, M.S. ’67, Ph.D. ’72 Leonard S. Haines, B.S.E.E. ’64 Barbara A. (Butcher) Hollenberger, B.S. ’64 Ronald M. Jones, A.B. ’64 Alan K. Lindblom, A.B. ’64 Ronald M. McKnight, A.B. ’64 Howard A. Merrick, M.D. ’64 Carol C. Schwartz, B.Ed. ’64 E. S. Stewart, M.D. ’64 Ronald W. Andersen, A.B. ’65 Nelson Beller, B.Ed. ’65, M.Ed. ’67 Jonathan Berman, A.B. ’65, M.S. ’67 Rabbe G. Emeleus, B.B.A. ’65 Anita C. Ennis, A.B. ’65 Angela M. Esparraguera, A.B. ’65 Phyllis Fure, B.Ed. ’65 Eugene O. Gellis, A.B. ’65 Manuel J. Iglesias, B.Ed. ’65 David A. Karkut, A.B. ’65 Luke A. Ross, B.S. ’65 Barbara (Bale) Schoonmaker, B.S.N. ’65 Frank R. Swift, A.B. ’65 Selemon Albert, B.Ed. ’66 Stephen L. Baum, J.D. ’66 Jane E. (Loven) Bloom, B.Ed. ’66 Edda M. Cimino, M.Ed. ’66 Thomas J. Eberle, B.B.A. ’66 Glenna (Jackson) Fargo, B.Ed. ’66 George R. Geswaldo, B.Ed. ’66
Luis A. Herrero, B.S.’66 Rae (Trapolino) Houghton, B.M. ’66 Robert L. Kantor, M.D. ’66 David L. Kleinberg, M.D. ’66 Alexander I. Koler, M.S. ’66 Mark J. Lazarus, M.D. ’66 Eddie A. Lockamy, B.S. ’66 Washington Quinones, A.B. ’66 Isabel E. Socarras, C.T.P. ’66 Stanley R. Steele, B.B.A. ’66 Thomas M. Vassy, M.B.A. ’66 Teh-Chuan Wang, MS. ’66 James H. Boyle, B.B.A. ’67 Helen C. Brunstrom, B.S.N. ’67, M.Ed. ’70 Edward R. Epstein, J.D. ’67 Patricia (Dillard) Ervin, M.Ed. ’67 Andrea S. Goodman, A.B. ’67 Arthur B. Haven, B.B.A. ’67 James V. Johnstone, J.D. ’67 Robert O. Lampi, B.M. ’67 Ronald J. March, B.Ed. ’67 Andrea Rose Martin, A.B. ’67 Carol (Davison) Martin, A.B. ’67 William M. Smiley, LL.M.I. ’67 Elayne Burke Wershil, B.Ed. ’67 Betty Rohan Witt, B.Ed. ’67 Phyllis M. Allen, M.Ed. ’68 Barbara Daryl Arnold, B.Ed. ’68 Sara C. David, A.B. ’68 Daniel S. Dearing, J.D. ’68 Ondina P. Fidalgo, B.Ed. ’68, M.Ed. ’70 Edith E. (Camino) Gonzalez, A.B. ’68 Polly (Clemmer) Hubbell, M.Ed. ’68 Alfred J. Lozar, M.Ed. ’68
Gustavo Munguia, B.S.E.E. ’68 Leonard J. Schweitzer, A.B. ’68 Stuart F. Sibley, A.B. ’68, M.A. ’70 Melvin C. Smith, B.S.I.E. ’68 Richard J. Whitney, B.M. ’68 Norma K. Abbott, A.B. ’69 Betty J. Bartlett, M.Ed. ’69 Frederick W. Buch, M.Ed. ’69 Robert A. Conlin, M.B.A. ’69 Marion W. Fore, LL.M.T. ’69 William A. Gora, B.M. ’69, D.M.A. ’75 Leona (Hoffman) Greene, A.B. ’69 Stephen N. Horwitz, B.S. ’69 Harry C. Rettger, B.B.A. ’69 Kenneth C. Tarnove, A.B. ’69 William H. Turner, M.Ed. ’69 Steve Wilson, B.B.A. ’69 Andres R. Angulo, B.B.A. ’70 David J. Barbato, M.B.A. ’70 John G. Clark, Ph.D. ’70 Jocelyn Y. Gouin, B.Ed. ’70, M.S.Ed. ’82 George R. Harper, J.D. ’70 Ingeborg Hutzel, A.B. ’70 William G. Lukes, M.Ed. ’70 Margaret B. Nebesky, A.B. ’70 Alberto M. Penarredonda, B.S.M.E. ’70 Louis Pica, A.B. ’70 Vincent N. Ricci, M.M. ’70 Gary E. Roberts, B.B.A. ’70, M.S. ’79 Nelson N. Rosenfeld, A.B. ’70 David H. Stamm, M.Ed, ’70, M.S.Ed. ’70 Johanna S. Teague, M.Ed. ’70 Theodore M. Veremeychik, M.M. ’70
Consuelo (Finlay) Arostegui, B.Ed. ’71 Arlinda E. Ashley, B.S.N. ’71 Arnold R. Castro, B.S. ’71 George L. Eisman, A.B. ’71 Salvatore J. Falcone, B.B.A. ’71 Eugenio C. Ferreiro, B.S. ’71 Paul M. Herman, B.B.A. ’71 Elliott M. Jackson, B.B.A. ’71 Dennis Popp, B.Ed. ’71 Nettie (Rappaport) Salzman, B.Ed. ’71 Althea M. Sample, M.M. ’71 Marjorie (Nobrega) Zigo, B.S.N. ’71 Maria G. Albert, B.Ed. ’72 Jordan Bittel, LL.M.T. ’72 Richard A. Clark, B.S. ’72 Joseph M. Colpitts, B.Ed. ’72 Michael L. Cortwright, B.B.A. ’72 Jeffrey M. Feuer, J.D. ’72 Manuel A. Guerra, B.Ed. ’72 Mariana (De La Herran) Herrera, B.B.A. ’72 Patricia (Adcock) Leslie, M.A. ’72 Melody A. Morgenstein, M.Ed. ’72 James J. Munro, B.B.A. ’72 John Sweeting, M.Ed. ’72 Charles B. Williams, B.B.A. ’72 John H. Boyle, B.G.S. ’73 Peter C. Diaz, A.B. ’73 Jo Anne Fleming, A.B. ’73 Alan R. Gregg, A.B. ’73 Henry E. Hemsath, LL.M.T. ’73 A. L. Jagschitz, A.B. ’73 Holly C. (Hord) Job, B.S. ’73 Jeanne V. Lee, M.A. ’73 Paul D. MacAulay, J.D. ’73
Legendary Piano Professor Rosalina G. Sackstein, M.Ed. ’64, admired and respected pianist and professor emerita at the Frost School of Music, died February 14. She was 93. The inaugural recipient of the Phillip Frost Award for Excellence in Teaching and Scholarship, Sackstein was the oldest and longest-serving professor on faculty when she retired in 2012. Her 50-year UM career included chairing the Department of Keyboard Performance. Born in Matanzas, Cuba, she received B.S. and B.A. degrees from the Conservatory of Music, Camagüey, Cuba, a Master of Education from UM, and a doctorate in pedagogy from the University of Havana. She was president of the Miami Civic Music Association from 1980-2012. Her children include alumna Rosalina “Rosy” Sackstein-Roitstein, B.M. ’77, a California-based flutist.
Donald L. Nanney, Ed.D. ’73 Glenn A. Shuman, J.D. ’73 Humberto B. Valdes, B.S. ’73, M.S./Ph.D. ’85, M.D. ’88 Benigno Villadoniga, C.T.P. ’73 Jack E. Young, Ph.D./M.D. ’73 Mark R. Barlow, B.B.A. ’74 Doris M. Cone, B.S.Ed. ’74 Carole N. Langer, B.C.S. ’74 Leland J. Remsen, A.B. ’74, J.D. ’77 Andrew W. Anderson, J.D. ’75, LL.M.O. ’87 Julio S. Diaz, B.Arch. ’75 James F. Farrell, M.D. ’75 Geraline (Lewis) Gilyard, Ed.D. ’75 Karen J. (Gillotte) Hardin, A.B. ’75 Charles J. Ochipa, B.B.A. ’75 Jeffery V. Richter, A.B. ’75 Kathy S. Schanz, A.B. ’75 Frances V. Trick, A.B. ’75, M.S.Ed. ’82 Charles F. Cleare, B.B.A. ’76 Kirk J. Curilla, B.Ed. ’76 Paula Gottlieb, A.B. ’76 David C. Hume, B.B.A. ’76 Costa E. Mitchell, B.G.S. ’76 Robert V. Sambol, A.B. ’76 Patrick T. Gannon, Ph.D. ’77 Ruth H. Gerrity, M.A. ’77 Paul W. Pheneger, Ph.D./M.D. ’77 Peter A. Zorn, M.F.A. ’77 Cheryl A. Bell, M.Ed. ’78 Barry I. Harkaway, J.D. ’78 Zan Lang, B.Ed. ’78 Lucille Lebel, B.B.A. ’78 Sharon J. Manering, B.S.N. ’78 Regina G. McArthur, B.Ed. ’78 Brendan M. O’Connor, J.D. ’78 Paul J. Reilly, M.D. ’78 Frances P. Saunders-Hoffmann, B.Ed. ’78 Maxine R. Usdan, A.B. ’78 Allan J. Atlas, J.D. ’79 Lori K. Bodner, A.B. ’79 Richard J. Dewitt, J.D. ’79 Paul U. Dritenbas, B.Arch. ’79 Walter L. Schafer, LL.M.T. ’79 Harriett F. Stapleton, B.S.Ed. ’79 Howard B. Steinert, B.B.A. ’79 Richard I. Blinderman, J.D. ’80 Frederick L. Bloom, M.D. ’80 Edward F. Gray, M.S. ’80 Abraham M. Karkowsky, Ph.D./M.D. ’80
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Class Notes
Court Wins Effected Industry Changes UM Citizens Board member Ervin Gonzalez, J.D. ’85, a civil trial attorney who led some of the most significant personal injury and class-action cases in Florida, died June 8. He was 57. The Miami-born son of Cuban exiles joined the law firm of Colson Hicks Eidson in 2000. According to his bio, he obtained 33 verdicts of at least $1 million. He was selected to serve on the Plaintiff Steering Committee for the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill and Chinese drywall multidistrict litigation, playing a key leadership role in the litigation of both cases, which resulted in multimillionand multibillion-dollar settlements. Another of his notable cases was the $100 million class-action settlement for the desecration of graves in a Jewish cemetery. Gonzalez had served as president of the Dade County Bar Association and on the Florida Bar Board of Governors executive committee. He also belonged to the National Board of Trustees of the National Institute of Trial Advocacy and the Academy of Florida Trial Lawyers. Named among Hispanic Business Magazine’s “100 Most Influential Hispanics in the Nation,” Gonzalez enjoyed mentoring students as an adjunct professor at the UM School of Law. He is survived by Citizens Board member Janice B. Gonzalez, A.B. ’85, his wife of nearly 30 years.
Janet R. Riley, J.D. ’80 Pauline K. Rodgers, M.S.Ed. ’80 Millie (Muzaurieta) Tonarely, M.B.A. ’80 Barbara M. Avery, M.B.A. ’82 Sharon M. Mendez, M.P.R.A. ’82 Janet E. Ritenbaugh, A.B. ’82, J.D. ’85 Carlos A. Dieseldorff, B.S.M.E. ’83 Juanita (Bradley) Hartsfield, B.B.A. ’83 Ninette I. Metcalfe, B.B.A. ’83 Hazel Vinkemulder, J.D. ’83 Richard Comras, B.C.S. ’84 Lynda J. Harris, J.D. ’84 Ronald B. Schmidt, J.D. ’84 William G. Claytor, D.L.W. ’85 Robert A. Lavender, M.M. ’85 John T. Altringer, B.B.A. ’86 Fernando Belaunde-Terry, D.Arch. ’86 Steven B. Esquinaldo, J.D. ’86 Stacey (Martin) St. Clair, A.B. ’86 Marla Stracener, B.S.S.A. ’86 Alyson B. Tobin, B.S.N. ’86 Allison (Walton) Wright, A.B. ’86 Fredric C. Bricka, A.B. ’87 Matthew T. Dill, LL.M.E. ’87 Lori (McNamara) Kane, B.S.C ’87
Renee C. Kasner, B.S.Ed. ’87, M.S.Ed. ’88 Steven I. Kazdin, A.B. ’87 Albert T. Lambert, M.D. ’87 Edward M. Lerner, J.D. ’87 Ana L. Marin, B.Arch. ’87 Christianne Weiner, B.S.Ed. ’87 Richard C. Da-Cunha, B.S.C. ’88 Paul S. Esposito, B.S. ’88, M.D. ’92 Kenneth D. Fink, J.D. ’88
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Joel A. Shapiro, M.D. ’88 Nkechi R. Taylor, B.B.A. ’88, M.B.A. ’94 Beverley C. Booth, B.S.N. ’89 Carey S. Carr, LL.M.R. ’89 Christine (Piejak) Mendales, J.D. ’89 Jay A. Gayoso, J.D. ’90 Laura H. Morrison, J.D. ’90 Dina V. Sotolongo, A.B. ’90 Gordon Fearnley, J.D. ’92
Tate R. Volino, B.B.A. ’92 Stuart Kloda, A.B. ’93, M.D. ’95 Scott C. Martineau, B.S.C ’93 Felice D. Rivers, J.D. ’93 Mortaza A. Yamini, A.B. ’93 Deborah A. Dickstein, A.B. ’94 Marcelino N. Marrero, B.Arch. ’94 Jose Wong, B.S.E.E. ’94 Timothy K. Chartier, M.D. ’96 Robert R. Woodus, B.G.S. ’96 Charles C. Mills, J.D. ’97 Virginia D. Meeks, LL.M.E. ’98 Lilliam M. Vargas, B.B.A. ’99 Derrick R. Finch, M.M. ’00 Edward S. Halpert, M.B.A. ’00 Thomas J. Puzniak, B.S.C.E. ’00, B.S.A.E. ’83 Susann S. Arsuaga-Sills, M.B.A. ’01 Pamela J. Bookman, M.S. ’01 Scott R. Crouse, LL.M.T. ’03 Christina A. Lindemann, LL.M.C.L. ’03 Brian J. Nerkowski, B.S.C. ’05 Fernando F. Franco, M.B.A. ’06 John M. Howell, B.S. ’06 Abeku S. Wilson, B.B.A. ’06 Joseph H. Pollard, A.B. ’07 Rebecca S. Wells, D.N.P. ’11 Gavin L. Hardin, B.L.A. ’12 Allison E. Sharp, M.B.A. ’15 *Names recorded as of August 1, 2017. We
research each name in the “In Memoriam” section, but errors can occur. Please email any corrections or clarifications to alumni@ miami.edu or call 305-284-2872.
Shining Star of Theatre Department Aspiring actor Elizabeth “Ellie” Goldenberg, B.F.A. ’17, of Hummelstown, Pennsylvania, died after a boating accident May 13, one day after graduating with honors from the College of Arts and Sciences. She was 22. A top theatre arts student, she starred in numerous productions at the Jerry Herman Ring Theatre, including As You Like It and, most recently, Spring Awakening. She received the Friends of Theatre Award, one of the department’s highest honors, and performed alongside Broadway actor Jeff Kready in Tom Jones’ The Game of Love. She was vice president of UM’s Theater Action Group and active in campus Jewish groups Emet Israel and UChabad. In a statement, Patricia A. Whitely, vice president for student affairs, said Goldenberg “was absolutely beloved by her faculty, fellow students, and her many UM friends.” The Ellie Goldenberg Memorial Scholarship Fund was established in her memory at the Department of Theatre Arts, University of Miami, P.O. Box 248273, Coral Gables, FL 33124.
ALUMNI LEADERSHIP
305-284-2872 or 1-800-UMALUMS n alumni.miami.edu
Board of Directors Executive Committee
Frank Jimenez, B.S. ’87, President
Brenda Yester Baty, B.B.A. ’90, Immediate Past President
Alumni Trustees
Susan L. Lipton, A.B. ’67, J.D. ’70 Marvin Shanken, B.B.A. 65 Geisha Williams, B.S.I.E. ’83
Directors
Taghreed Al-Saraj, B.F.A. ’99, M.S.Ed. ’01 Suzanne M. Block, A.B. ’81 Daniel Carvajal, B.B.A. ’08 Victoria A. Colon, M.B.A. ’98 Santiago Corrada, A.B. ’86, M.S.Ed. ’91 Xavier Cortada, A.B. ’87, M.P.A. ’92, J.D. ’92 Charlotte Dauphin, B.S.C. ’07 Jose Felix Diaz, A.B. ’02 Darren Dupriest, B.B.A. ’91 Jorge Duyos, B.S.I.E. ’85, M.S.I.E. ’88 Carlota Espinosa, B.S.C. ’90 Bill J. Fisse, B.B.A. ’75, M.B.A. ’77 Allison Gillespie, B.A.M. ’91, M.S.Ed. ’95, M.S. ’03 Lissette Gonzalez, B.A.M. ’01 Shannon K. High-Bassalik, B.S.C. ’88 Robert J. Munch, A.B. ’73 Nilesh Parikh, B.B.A. ’05 Marc Risser, B.B.A. ’93 Racquel S. Russell, B.S.C. ’00 Gulnar Vaswani, B.B.A ’91, M.B.A. ’93 Spencer B. Weinkle, B.S.C. ’07 Doug Weiser, A.B. ’78, J.D. ’82
Young Alumni Leadership Council Representative Emilio Garcia, A.B. ’10
Kourtney Gibson, B.B.A. ’03, President-Elect
Guillermo de Aranzabal Agudo, M.B.A. ’84, Vice President
Faculty Representatives
Christian Diez, B.S. ’00, M.D. ’04, M.B.A. ’12 Delegate, Faculty Senate Winston Warrior, B.B.A. ’93, M.B.A. ’96
Student Representatives
Adrian Nunez, President, UM Student Government Kyle Kingma, President, UM Student Alumni Ambassadors
’Canes Communities
Atlanta Marc Leven, B.B.A. ’10, marcleven@gmail.com Austin Jay Schutawie, B.S. ’83, president@austincanes.com Boston Michaela Hennessy, B.A.M.A. ’14, mjhenny77@gmail.com Broward County Jon Malone, B.S.C. ’07, jmalone61@gmail.com Brazil Eduardo Medeiros Vieira, B.B.A. ’98, emv23@miami.edu Charlotte Jason Wilson, B.S.C.E. ’98, jcwilson34@gmail.com Chicago Vickie Marie Horn, B.S. ’82, horn.vickiem@gmail.com Cincinnati Marc Bouche, B.Arch. ’84, marc.bouche@hotmail.com Colombia Gloria Duque, B.B.A. ’99, M.B.A. ’04, gpduque2001@yahoo. com Dallas Carolina Selvidge, B.S.C. ’98, selvidgefamily@gmail.com Denver Josh Josephson, B.B.A. ’07, j.josephson21@gmail.com Detroit Joshua Lopez, A.B. ’10,
Cynthia Hudson, A.B. ’84, M.A. ’97 Vice President
Brian L. Itzkowitz, B.B.A. ’90, Vice President
joshua.lopez@uprepschools.com Houston Edward Perry, B.M. ’07, espmobile@gmail.com Indianapolis Danielle Haupers, B.S.B.A. ’09, danielleevabruno@ gmail.com Jacksonville Andrew Gall, B.B.A. ’10, gallfera531@charter.net Las Vegas Natasha Williams, B.B.A. ’05, mrsnatashadw@yahoo.com London Maria Newstrom, B.Arch. ’09, mnewstrom@gmail.com Los Angeles Jaclyn Mullen, B.M. ’04, info@jaclynmullenmedia.com Louisville Christian Furman, A.B. ’92, christian.furman@ louisville.edu Middle East Reyadh Al-Rabeah, B.S.I.E. ’87, alrabeahr@gmail.com Nashville Ben Bruno, B.M. ’07, benbruno305@gmail.com New Jersey Jennifer Smith, B.B.A. ’94, miamicanes321@gmail.com New York Michael Gohari, B.B.A. ’11, michaelgohari@yahoo.com Orlando Adrian Burrowes, M.D. ’00, adrianmd2000@hotmail.com Palm Beach County Amy Kent, A.B. ’83, amyj727@gmail.com Philadelphia Stephen Bernstein, A.B. ’13, sbernstein44@gmail.com Phoenix Michelle Loposky, A.B. ’04, mloposky@gmail.com Raleigh-Durham Bennett Christian Robinson, A.B. ’05, bcrobinson@ gmail.com Richmond TBD San Francisco Fawn Perazzo, B.S. ’98, f_perazzo@yahoo.com
Katie Phang, J.D. ’00, Vice President
Andrew Potter, M.B.A. ’04, Vice President
Sarasota Chris Clayton, B.S.C. ’94, starsmiley@hotmail.com Seattle Jordan Louie, ’07, jordanklouie@gmail.com Southwest Florida Barbara Woodcock, A.B. ’08, canesgrl13@ gmail.com Spain Jaime Escalante, B.B.A. ’93, M.B.A. ’11, Escalantej@iata.org St. Louis TBD Tampa TBD Washington, D.C. Jennifer Del Toro, A.B. ’11, dccanespresident@gmail. com
Special Interest Groups
Black Alumni Society Cynthia Cochran, B.B.A. ’01, M.P.A. ’06, cie1@umail.miami.edu Band of the Hour Debbie Baker Robinson, B.B.A. ’84, dbrstitch@ gmail.com LGBTQ Judson Dry, B.B.A. ’07, judsondry@yahoo.com Public Health Sciences Daniella Orihuela, B.S.B.E. ’11, M.P.H. ’14, dorihuela@frostscience.org UM Sports Hall of Fame Tracy Kerdyk, A.B. ’88, tracykerdyk@ gmail.com
School and College Groups
College of Engineering Andrew Doyle, B.S.I.E. ’08, Adoyle052@aol.com, and Arthur “Rob” Weaver, B.S.M.E. ’08, J.D. ’11, RWeaver@aol.com School of Law Detra Shaw-Wilder, J.D. ’94, detra.shawwilder@gmail. com, and Mark F. Raymond, J.D. ’83,
Donna A. Arbide, M.B.A. ’95, Executive Director
mraymond@broadandcassel.com Miller School of Medicine Robin Straus-Furlong, B.S. ’78, M.D. ’82, rstrausmd@yahoo.com, and Ana I. Gonzalez, B.S. ’81, M.D. ’85, anagonmd@aol.com School of Nursing and Health Studies Debbie Anglade, M.S.N. ’10, Ph.D. ’14, d.anglade@miami.edu, and Carmen Sierra, B.S.N. ’96, carmenjsierra@gmail.com Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science Sandra St. Hilaire, A.B. ’08, M.A. ’11, ssthilaire1984@gmail.com
Alumni records of the University of Miami are kept strictly confidential. Directory information is released only to other members of the alumni community unless an alumnus or alumna has requested complete privacy. On a very limited occasion and only at the approval of the UM Alumni Association Board of Directors, directory information is shared with outside vendors who are in a joint relationship with the University. Should you not wish to release your name to any outside vendor and/or other members of the UM alumni community, please notify the Office of Alumni Relations in writing at P.O. Box 248053, Coral Gables, Florida 33124-1514.
We’ve got some ’Canes over here in Atlanta (pictured at right)—and in dozens of other cities around the globe! ’Canes Communities, proudly supported by the University of Miami Alumni Association, offer programming open to all alumni, parents, students, and friends of the U. To connect with your local Hurricanes family for networking, events, and fun, visit miami.edu/canescommunities.
To get involved with the ’Canes Community in your area, submit a UConnect form at www.miami.edu/uconnect.
miami.edu/magazine Fall 2017 MIAMI 55
Big Picture A SNAPSHOT OF THE U TODAY
Drone’s Eye View This lofty perspective of the Coral Gables campus, taken by a drone post-Hurricane Irma, shows one of the most scenic portions of UM’s landscape, which is undergoing a transformation now that a new student housing project is being built along the southeast corner of Lake Osceola. For more information about new student housing, visit miami.edu/newstudenthousing.
“ As a student, I felt a responsibility to participate in campus life as a way of paying back my scholarship. Now I’m showing my continued gratitude by establishing an endowed scholarship through an estate gift.” —Timothy G. Anagnost, A.B. ’65, J.D. ’68
Paying It Forward:
The Gift of a UM Education
Double ’Cane Timothy G. Anagnost, A.B. ’65, J.D. ’68, enjoyed a storied 50-year career in law before retiring from his successful practice. But it might never have been. Anagnost grew up very poor in Miami, overcoming polio at age 7. “My father worked as a waiter, and my mother worked in a shoe factory,” he shares. “Being able to go to the University of Miami on scholarship was an absolute gift to me.”
Now he is investing in the institution that invested wisely in him, creating a provision in his estate plans to establish a need-based general endowed scholarship in honor of his hard-working parents. Scholarships like these are crucial to the University’s commitment to break down financial barriers for high-achieving students like Anagnost, those willing to go the extra mile to excel at the U and out in the world.
Anagnost studied hard, got involved with student government, chaired the Honor Council, played on UM’s All Campus intramural football team, and was tapped into Iron Arrow.
“This is an area that is most needed at the University,” says Anagnost. “I owe the U—it left a lasting impression. Now I can do the same.”
Any gift, no matter the size, can make a lasting impact for generations to come. For more information about the various ways you can leave your legacy at the University of Miami, contact Cynthia L. Beamish, B.S. ’82, executive director of the Office of Estate and Gift Planning, at 305-284-2914 or cbeamish@miami.edu, or visit miami.edu/plannedgiving.
MIAMI
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The passion. the pride. the drive.
IT’S WHO IT’S HOW YOU ROLL
In your swag and on your tag, it’s all about the U. Best of all, each U plate funds scholarships for UM students. Get yours today!
miami.edu/UMplate