Trojan Family Magazine Winter 2014

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CA L I F OR N I A WINTER 2014

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F A M I L Y WHERE T ROJANS COME TO GET HER Te Nikiases welcome the Trojan Family to the USC President’s House

scene

PHOTO BY GUS RUELAS

The main reading room in the Hoose Library of Philosophy has been a favorite haunt for studious Trojans since 1929. Housing rare medieval manuscripts and an extensive philosophy collection, USC’s oldest library can’t help but encourage quiet, scholarly reflection thanks to its vibrant stained glass windows, intricate mosaics and soaring cathedral ceilings.

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She decorates the tree.

You decorate her ďŹ nger.

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Editor’s Note Can you live long and live well?

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President’s Page Not only do USC’s trustees donate significant time and energy to advance the university’s work, but their generosity also has added $1 billion to the Campaign for USC.

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Mailbag Pats, pride and other observations from our readers.

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News Ten years of milestones at USC Viterbi, getting adventurous with USC Annenberg’s new journalism director, and a pop quiz on USC football.

inside

20 Robo Beekeeper

By Diane Krieger Harnessing the power of “swarm intelligence” with tiny robotic insects, one USC Viterbi engineer has the tech world buzzing.

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Care to Dance?

By Elizabeth Segal Arts reporting is alive and well thanks to cultural communicators like Sasha Anawalt.

26 Close to Home

By Diane Krieger For a holistic approach to healing, pharmacologist James Adams blends scientific methodology with traditional Chumash techniques.

At the USC President’s House, the Trojan Family feels right at home.

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Researchers at USC are unlocking the biological processes of aging so that we can live longer, healthier lives. By Marcus Woo

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Alumni News An alumni club for entertainment industry Trojans is a smash, a mobile app connects alumni and faculty like never before, and the Tommy Awards spotlights New York’s rising stars.

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Class Notes Who’s doing what and where.

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Ask Tommy Trojans share notes on their favorite places to study around USC.

tfm.usc.edu

Life Redesigned From autism to obesity, USC occupational scientists are there to help—and now they’ve gotten a big boost from the Chan family. By Jessica Raymond

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Live Long and Prosper

Meet Your Tech Future Ready to geek out? Take a peek into the future with five game-changing innovations that will transform how we’ll be healing, teaching, entertaining and protecting ourselves. By Marc Ballon

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Welcome Home From students yearning for a warm Thanksgiving family dinner to alumni who bleed cardinal and gold, the USC President’s House has seen them all.

By Eric Noland

O N T H E C O V E R : PH OT O B Y B I L L Y OU N G B LO O D

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e d i t o r’ s n o t e

The quarterly magazine of the University of Southern California

Here’s to Your Health “Seventy-five. That’s how long I want to live: 75 years.”

Those are the words of National Institutes of Health bioethicist Ezekiel Emanuel, who wrote a thought-provoking piece on the human lifespan in The Atlantic earlier this year. Emanuel’s essay on living well—versus living long—sparked lively discussion in our office, especially in light of this issue’s feature story on longevity.

Emanuel believes Americans are “obsessed with exercising, doing mental puzzles, consuming various juice and protein concoctions, sticking to strict diets, and popping vitamins and supplements, all in a valiant effort to cheat death and prolong life as long as possible.” Anyone who’s seen the prevalent ads touting seemingly miraculous tropical juices and rejuvenating hormones might agree.

Here’s where a discussion with USC’s longevity researchers proves enlightening, though.

When USC Longevity Institute Director Valter Longo talks about the benefits of a Mediterranean diet and eating moderately to extend life, he’s not advocating tacking extra time to the end of a lifetime, stretching out years of disability or squeezing out a few more days wracked by pain. Longevity can be about prevention—a focus on dietary and lifestyle practices that could forestall disease and add healthy days to the most productive span in our lives. Why shouldn’t we use findings from science to influence everyday habits that could keep our bodies aging well through our 80s, 90s and possibly beyond?

I, for one, will keep trimming red meat from my diet, add more fish, use sun protection, and continue my addiction to savory greens and morning runs. And I’ll keep looking out for what’s new from the USC Longevity Institute to share with you.

Alicia Di Rado Editor-In-Chief, USC Trojan Family Magazine

E DI TO R-I N- CHI EF

Alicia Di Rado M ANAGI NG E DI TOR

Elisa Huang SE NI O R E DI TO R

Diane Krieger PRO DUCT I O N M ANA G ER

Mary Modina

ART DI RE CTO R

Sheharazad P. Fleming DE SI GN AND PRO DUCTION

Pentagram Design, Austin

CO NT RI BUTO RS

Kirsten Aten Laurie Bellman Michelle Boston Nicole DeRuiter Simon Flores Paul Goldberg Michelle Henry Sue Khodarahmi

Dan Knapp Carl Marziali Maya Meinert Beth Newcomb Russ Ono Alison Stateman Holly Wilder Claude Zachary

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Minne Ho M ARKE T I NG M ANA G ER

Rod Yabut ADVE RT I SI NG I NQ UIRIES

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USC Trojan Family Magazine (ISSN 8750-7927) is published in March, June, September and December by USC University Communications.

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winter 2014

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USC Trojan Family Magazine 3434 S. Grand Ave., CAL 140 Los Angeles, CA 90089-2818 magazines@usc.edu | (213) 740-2684

p r e s i d e n t’ s p a g e

Uniting Vision with Philanthropy

PHOTO BY STEVE COHN

b y c. l. m a x n i k i a s Every day, Niki and I feel tremendous gratitude for the magnificent support of the Trojan Family. The university’s alumni and friends do so much to advance our community’s work and to ensure that it benefits society in meaningful ways. At the fore of this exceptionally dedicated group I must include our venerable trustees.

While they contribute their time and energy, they also stand among USC’s most ardent benefactors. As we move past the halfway point for The Campaign for USC—exceeding $3.7 billion, or 63 percent of our $6 billion goal—our trustees continue to step forward with transformational gifts, ones that are spectacular in both scope and size. So far, our trustees’ collective contributions to our campaign total nearly $1 billion.

Kathleen Leavey McCarthy and her family’s foundation committed the first major gift in support of our new USC Village. This $30 million gift will name the Leavey Foundation Honors Hall, which will house up to 600 of our most academically ambitious students.

Mrs. McCarthy has long shown singular dedication to our undergraduates, a dedication that is surely rooted in fond recollections of her own experiences at USC. In 1954, she was our homecoming queen!

Another trustee, Frank Fertitta, and his wife, Jill, provided the gift to establish Fertitta Hall, a new home for USC Marshall School of Business undergraduate students. This will be a technology-rich center for young entrepreneurs, one that nourishes creative collaborations and professional connections while maintaining cutting-edge learning tools. Fertitta Hall will sit prominently at the university’s southeast gateway, and a quick drive to downtown, our city’s economic center.

Ronnie and Barbara Chan have elected to support our top-ranked occupational science and occupational therapy program. Their $20 million gift—their third major gift to USC—honors Ronnie’s dear mother and will name the USC Mrs. T.H. Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy. This is the first naming gift and the largest ever made to any occupational therapy program in the field’s history.

In June, we celebrated two other landmark trustee gifts, each totaling $15 million. Thomas Barrack Jr. and tfm.usc.edu

his family gave theirs to USC Marshall, significantly advancing the school’s global mission and supporting the renovation of a key building, to be renamed Barrack Hall. This will serve as a vibrant hub for students preparing to become international business leaders.

Also last summer, we received an equally generous gift from Andrew and Erna Viterbi—$10 million of which is directed to our USC Viterbi School, and $5 million of which is dedicated to the USC Shoah Foundation—The Institute for Visual History and Education. This gift enhances the Viterbis’ already-stellar legacy, and coincides with the 10th anniversary of their $52 million naming gift to our engineering school.

USC was founded on a philanthropic spirit. More than a century ago, Judge Robert Maclay Widney, the university’s chief architect and founder, donated $100,000—an extraordinary amount in that age—for the university’s first endowment fund, and later supervised the management of that fund. Fittingly, he also served as the first chairman of USC’s Board of Trustees, and in so doing began a sterling tradition at the university, one that marries leadership with charity, vision with philanthropy.

C. L. Max Nikias and Niki C. Nikias with Erna and Andrew Viterbi at the 10th anniversary of the Viterbis’ engineering school naming gift.

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Trojan Memories

I enjoyed your article about the favorite hangouts of former Trojans (Ask Tommy, Summer 2014, p. 72). What a happy surprise to see a photo (by Julius Shulman) of my “Coffee Dan’s” in Van Nuys. I designed that building in 1963; it was the corner anchor of the block-long neighborhood shopping center. Unfortunately, it was demolished a few years ago to allow for a more intensive use of the site. I am happy to learn that Trojans frequented and enjoyed my design.

William Krisel ’49 (ARC)

Los Angeles, CA

Buck the Trend

We welcome your feedback. Submit your letter to the editor at tfm.usc. edu/mailbag or by email at magazines@usc.edu.

proud to mention that his granddaughter, Gabriela Rosales, just graduated from USC this past year!

C y n t h ia Jame s Santa Barbara, CA

It Takes a Village

I love what the USC Village will do for the university and the surrounding area, but I am a bit disappointed that, aesthetically speaking, the design of the buildings leans toward an East Coast, Ivy League feel and less of the traditional USC architecture that I loved while attending the university.

Tom Bu ssanic h MA ’ 07 (ACC) Malibu, CA

Thank you for interviewing Peter Westwick. I can’t wait to read the book about surf history. I thought it would be interesting for people to know that my father, Don James, attended the dentistry school in the ’40s and later became a well-known surf photographer as well as a dentist in the Los Angeles area. His book, Surfing San Onofre to Point Dume: 1936–1942, is a classic slice of surfing history from that era in Southern California. USC can claim one of its own, Don James, as a major player in the beginnings of surfing in California. I am also

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M E D I A

A recent study by Valter Longo, director of the USC Longevity Institute, generated buzz across the Internet with evidence that fasting every so often can regenerate the human immune system. After the study was posted on Reddit discussion boards, more than 200,000 users visited USC News online (news.usc.edu) to read about the study’s findings.

C O U N T I N G

C L I C K S

2,744

Number of “Likes” for this photo of Hahn Plaza at dusk, which was the timeline cover photo for the USC Facebook page.

11,234

I love real human-life stories, and your story on Javorius “Buck” Allen (“Tailback U,” Autumn 2014, p. 12) is a standout. My admiration and congratulations on his accomplishments “under the helmet” and as a fine young man—he is a true studentathlete. I enjoyed getting to know him in this way. I am an old Trojan, 74, graduated with a BS in business, played on the Trojan Rugby Club in ’61–’62 (right wing, mostly), loved ’SC and still do, and proud to display my loyalty in front of the UT Longhorn fans here in Texas!

Bayar d G . B o ok m an ’ 6 2 ( B U S ) Wimberley, TX

Channel Surfing

S O C I A L

YouTube views for USC Admissions’ “USC Dorms” series, which gives prospective students a tour of six distinctive student rooms. The videos compelled the social media management platform @Hootsuite to tweet that USC sets the example for how social media can enhance student life. Watch the series at bit.ly/USCDorms.

Fitting Tributes

I read with sadness the passing of Mel Patton. Mel and I were undergrads together in 1949. As I recall, Mel was a soft-spoken young man. He was a sprinter and practiced running up and down the stairway of the Coliseum from Row 1 to Row 36, starting at dawn and over again at twilight. I watched him do this many times. I remember Mel becoming a world-class competitor in track events, beyond the Hall of Troy. I send to the Patton family my deepest feelings of sorrow.

Malcolm Gerstein ’50, MS ’55 (EDU) Claremont, CA

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“Likes” on Instagram for this snapshot taken from the elevators in the Tutor Campus Center.

winter 2014

PATTON PHOTO COURTESY OF USC UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES

mailbag

TROJAN

PHOTO BY AVE PILDAS

BODY OF WORK Artist Phyllis Green’s creations often resemble organs and skeletal parts. A member of the faculty of the USC Roski School of Art and Design, Green makes multimedia objects that represent the body.

With a practice integrating gender politics and influences of modernism, Green has earned plenty of notice: The Guggenheim Foundation named her a 2014 fellow.

tfm.usc.edu

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trojan news

From startups to cybersecurity, USC Viterbi has had 10 memorable years since its landmark naming gift.

It was a gift that would change engineering at USC forever. USC Trustee Andrew J. Viterbi PhD ’62 and his wife, Erna, donated $52 million to USC in 2004, naming the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. Andrew Viterbi knows engineering well: He co-founded Qualcomm and created the Viterbi algorithm, which is used in everything from wireless and satellite communications to online search engines. A decade later, the Viterbis continue to invest in innovation. This year, they gave another $15 million to the university, designating $10 million to USC Viterbi and $5 million to USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education. Here’s a look back at 10 USC Viterbi moments and milestones in the 10 years since the Viterbis’ original gift.

By Jessica Raymond

04 SCIENCE OF SECURITY CREATE, a national counterterrorism research center, began at USC Viterbi and the USC Price School of Public Policy in 2004.

Innovations include port and airport security systems.

GAME CHANGER The Princeton Review named USC Games, a partnership between USC Viterbi and the USC School of Cinematic Arts, as the No. 1 game design program in 2010—and every year since.

10 HIGH-TECH HEALTH The Health, Technology and Engineering at USC program (HTE@USC) formed in 2011 to develop revolutionary medical devices.

QUANTUM LEAP I became home to Lockheed In 2011, ISI Martin’s powerful D-Wave quantum comp computer, which could potentially solve optimization problems faster than any processor ever.

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GOING THE DISTANCE U.S. News & World Report ranked the school’s Distance Education Network as the top online graduate computer science program in 2013 and 2014.

BIONIC EYE The U.S. Food and Drug Administ Administration in 2013 approved o the Argus II, a device use of re that restores limited vision to blind USC researchers were the blind. instrumental.

LIMITLESS LEARNING In 2012, USC Viterbi launched the iPodia Alliance, which brings together engineering students electronically.

It now links 10 schools worldwide.

STARTUPS In 2013, USC Viterbi Startup Garage— Southern California’s only engineering student-led venture accelerator—began to launch tech companies.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF USC VITERBI

The Design Decade

ANTIVIRUS USC Viterbi’s Information Sciences Institute (ISI) in 2004 became the headquarters for DeterLab, a major cybersecurity test bed for academia, industry and government.

EMERGING LEADERS Since 2004, a nation-leading 10 USC Viterbi faculty members have made MIT Technology Review’s list of 35 Innovators Under 35. (top) Maryam Shanechi (middle) George Ban-Weiss (bottom) Megan McCain

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trojan news

Virtual reality. Medical histories on a microchip. Digital sculptors crafting a 3-D body using code, not clay. In the not-toodistant future, digital technology will blur the lines between the physical world and the virtual one, say USC researchers.

Using USC’s biannual Global Conversation in New York as their platform, USC scientists, engineers and creative thinkers recently made their predictions for a digitized world. They were led by keynote speaker Jimmy Iovine, the music industry innovator, entrepreneur and namesake donor with Andre “Dr. Dre” Young to the USC Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy for Arts, Technology and the Business of Innovation.

Iovine said he’d like the Iovine and Young Academy to become known as the Apple of higher education, a home for innovators fluent in technology and the arts, and for a radically new model of instruction that erases disciplinary boundaries.

“Education,” Iovine said, “is really ground zero for fixing anything.”

Curious about the researchers’ predictions and visions of our digital frontier?

Take a look at our feature on your tech future (p. 40)—and read more online at bit.ly/2014NYGC.

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FAT H E R

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F O U N D E R

The “pistol-packing judge” is back and larger than life on the University Park Campus. A new sculpture of USC’s founder, Judge Robert Maclay Widney, stands outside the Widney Alumni House.

Towering some 8 feet 6 inches tall—and weighing more than 1,000 pounds—the bronze and steel statue commemorates the frontier lawman and developer who launched Los Angeles’ first university in 1880. Created by artist Christopher Slatoff, the sculpture was unveiled in August at a ceremony attended by nearly a dozen of Widney’s descendants and their family members.

Picking Up the Pieces A historian tracks the untold story behind the fall of the Berlin Wall.

On the evening of Nov. 9, 1989, Americans were tuned to their televisions watching NBC Nightly News anchorman Tom Brokaw’s exclusive live report from West Germany as the Berlin Wall, a 28-year symbol of divided Cold War Europe, came down.

Americans might have seen Germans climbing over the Berlin Wall and chipping the concrete apart, but 25 years later, the circumstances that led to its collapse remain widely unknown in the United States, according to Mary Elise Sarotte, Dean’s Professor of History and professor of international relations at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

While many believe the fall resulted from an agreement between former President Ronald Reagan and then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Sarotte’s book The Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall (Basic Books), published in October, traces it to a series of mishaps.

It began when the East German regime sent a carelessly worded press

announcement declaring that its people would get new travel rules.

“The regime botches the announcement so badly that it sounds like they’re announcing real travel freedoms,” Sarotte explained. “At this point, the revolutionaries are so well organized that they can seize on that, and tens of thousands of people start showing up at the wall saying, ‘The wall’s open!’”

To document the events that led to the wall’s destruction, Sarotte conducted more than 50 interviews, speaking with former revolutionaries, border guards, Communist party officials and journalists, including Brokaw, one of the only American TV journalists with a full news crew on the scene when the wall came down.

“This is not a story about high-level politicians,” Sarotte said. “It’s a story about people you’ve never heard of. The goal of the book is to let them speak in their own voices and get credit for their accomplishments, and in some cases, for their mistakes.” winter 2014

IOVINE PHOTO BY DANA MAXSON; WIDNEY PHOTO BY GUS RUELAS

Digital Revolution

tfm.usc.edu

PHOTO COURTESY OF WILLIAM J. MCMORROW

To read more from the interview, visit bit.ly/WillowBay.

trojan news

Next-Generation Newsroom USC Annenberg School of Journalism Director Willow Bay wants students to get adventurous.

What is the state of journalism today, and what kinds of opportunities do you see for young people? There have been profound changes in both journalism and public relations, most of them technologically driven and many of them disruptive.

The flip side of that is we’ve never had more tools to be able to go out and tell extraordinary stories. We’ve never had a greater ability to reach audiences. We’ve never had more creative ways to inform our readers and our viewers.

Even with so many skills, will we find jobs, given journalism’s uncertain business model? I would like Annenberg to not just equip students with the skill set they need, which is sizeable, but with a mind-set that is entrepreneurial, risktaking—I might even say adventurous. I would love to see our graduates not just go out and change the world with their reporting, but also to change the world of journalism. I’d love to see the future of journalism firmly in the hands of journalists rather than technologists, who are our valuable partners, or big companies that are often our funders.

How has your career shaped your vision for the school? Having worked at Huffington Post when it was a startup, I appreciate the energy, the excitement and the culture of collaboration and iterative development. It

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was the circular nature of change, constant improvement and constant invention there that has now become imperative at all organizations—particularly here at a school of journalism that’s operating in a space where constant change is the new normal.

facing in your path to convergence. Let us wrestle with some of those, with you or for you. Bring us stories that you want us to help you cover. We want to open the doors to all sorts of conversations about how we can connect and partner.

Annenberg’s biggest change this year is the move to the converged Media Center in the new Wallis Annenberg Hall, blending broadcast, print and digital platforms. How will this work? Students come in from the field, and they don’t retreat to a Balkanized set of stations that are their platforms. They come to a group of editors, and say, “OK, here’s what I’ve gathered in the field. What’s the best way to tell this story?” It’s a really exciting moment to be coming into this sandbox as a student reporter.

In such a rapidly changing field, what’s the value of a formal journalism education?

The business today expects the digitalnative generation to be equipped with skills that previous generations of journalists didn’t have. You’ll be expected to hit the ground running and to write for multiple platforms—for web, for digital video, for longer-form stories. You’ll be expected to handle images, to shoot and cut video.

Additionally, journalists today are often expected to be their own marketing and distribution departments. You are expected to know how to leverage social media tools to get your stories in front of an audience.

That’s a sizeable amount of skill to pack in to a four-year undergrad education or a nine-month graduate program.

Could the Media Center become a model for the industry? I want to say to the industry: Come on in, see all that’s going on here, bring us the challenges that you’re

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PHOTO BY MARK BROWN

Willow Bay took the helm of the USC Annenberg School of Journalism this year amid seismic shifts in her field. A veteran of broadcast news and, more recently, the Huffington Post and Bloomberg TV, Bay is eager to lead the next generation of storytellers as the school’s new director. She spoke with journalism graduate student Daina Beth Solomon about the challenges and rewards of modern journalism, and why USC Annenberg is becoming the city’s most innovative newsroom.

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Two Teams, One Mission USC’s women’s basketball team is out to prove that last year’s dream season was no fluke, and the men’s basketball squad is set to take on the Pac-12 with a crop of highly touted newcomers.

Entering her second season, women’s basketball Coach Cynthia Cooper-Dyke looks to build on the Trojans’ 2013–14 Pac-12 Tournament Championship, which shot the team into the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2006.

On the men’s side, Coach Andy Enfield’s squad—anchored by sophomores Nikola Jovanovic and Julian Jacobs—adds sophomore transfers Katin Reinhardt and Darion Clark to a 12th-ranked recruiting class of talented freshmen.

Get to know the teams online at usctrojans. com. To see them in action at the Galen Center, tickets are available at gettrojantix.com or call (213) 740-GOSC (4672).

Q U OTAT I O N

“My students are very respectful of the fact that they’re in my classroom to learn history. But I have more traffic in office hours from students who want to talk about writing fiction, adapting fiction to film and getting books signed for their mom!” Deborah Harkness, USC Dornsife history professor and bestselling author of the All Souls Trilogy 16

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For children, not seeing a dentist can mean more than just getting a few cavities. Dental pain and illness is a leading reason children miss class and do poorly in school. Since 2012, the Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry of USC and the USC School of Social Work have collaborated to provide underprivileged children and families in Los Angeles with services including oral health care. For thousands of children in LA, the Children’s Health and Maintenance Program (CHAMP) is the only way to get a dental checkup. Now, a $3 million gift from the Hutto-Patterson Charitable Foundation will expand USC’s community outreach. The gift establishes the Hutto-Patterson Institute for Community Health. Funds will support an eight-chair mobile clinic trailer—the Ostrow School’s largest—as well as faculty endowments and student scholarships. The schools estimate that USC will be able to reach more than 45,000 children through CHAMP. For Catherine Hutto Gordon MSW ’97, the foundation’s president, this gift was a perfect fit. She’s a member of the School of Social Work’s Board of Councilors, and the foundation has a history of giving to dental education.

The foundation was established with an inheritance from her grandfather, a dentist.

Also, as a graduate student at USC, she was influenced by a professor who held positions in both schools. Says Hutto Gordon: “I could see how important it is for dental students to have social work training and awareness— the more interchange of information, the better off all the clients end up being. Now I get a chance to influence this myself.” winter 2014

HARKNESS PHOTO © 2014 SCARLETT FREUND

Healthy Smiles

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H E A LT H F I L E S

108 A research team including Keck School of Medicine of USC scientists linked 108 locations in the human genome to schizophrenia risk.

More than 80 percent of these genes had never been associated with the disease. The findings could fast-track the development of schizophrenia treatments, which have seen little progress in the last 60 years.

#1 Charles White

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#2 John Robinson #3 Charles Young #4 Gil Kuhn

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#5 Clay Matthews III

Along with MIT and Harvard colleagues, a USC Stem Cell researcher has found a way to isolate breast cancer cells circulating in the bloodstream and grow them in a lab. This technique could eventually allow doctors to pre-test drugs on cancer cells taken from patients, allowing them to better customize therapies.

#7 Marion Morrison

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A study led by USC social work experts found that young teens who received “sexts”—sexually suggestive texts or photos on their phone—were six times more likely than others their age to report being sexually active.

P O P

Q U I Z

Produced in collaboration with USC Athletics, The Official and Exclusive Illustrated History of USC Trojan Football (Skybox Press) offers illuminating nuggets from the world of pigskin.

Can you match each of these Trojans to a tidbit from the book that describes him? a. USC’S first All-American tight end, he was drafted sixth overall in the 1973 NFL draft. b. A Green Bay Packers linebacker, he began at USC as a walk-on. His father and an uncle and brother all played for the Trojans.

tfm.usc.edu tfm. tf m.us usc. c.ed edu u

c. In 1937, he was the first USC player drafted to pro football (in the 10th round to the nowdefunct Brooklyn Dodgers football team). d. With 1,440 yards rushing, he was USC’s first Heisman Trophy winner in 1965. e. Later changing his name to John Wayne, this actor was a backup tackle for USC in 1925 and 1926. f. This Heisman winner scored the gamewinning touchdown in the 1980 Rose Bowl. g. He urged his team to “win one for the fat guy” and beat Notre Dame in 1982. USC did, on a touchdown with only 48 seconds on the clock.

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Answers: 1 f, 2 g, 3 a, 4 c, 5 b, 6 d, 7 e

PHOTOS COURTESY OF USC UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES; KUHN PHOTO COURTESY OF THE KUHN FAMILY

#6 Mike Garrett

S Tr U DoE N t j Ta PnR O FnI LeE wA MsY

VA N D E N B E R G

Being Tommy Amy Vandenberg is student by day and Tommy Trojan at night.

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Introduced last fall, the Tommy and Traveler mascots became instant hits thanks in large measure to Vandenberg and her fellow “mascoteers”— political science major Mario Montes, environmental engineering major Howard Gil and recently graduated business major Neal Pecchenino ’14.

All are volunteers. For Vandenberg, being a mascot is more than an outpouring of school spirit. It’s a chance to shape-shift.

“I love how you can put on an alternate persona and be your crazy self, or be whatever your character is, and no one knows it’s you,” she says.

Vandenberg got her big break during high school when she landed a job as the cow at

her hometown Chick-Fil-A. Her one regret when leaving Texas for Los Angeles was that USC didn’t have a mascot program.

Then one day she spotted an inconspicuous flyer at the Lyon Center inviting Trojans “interested in spirit” to a meeting.

“It sounds weird but I felt it calling me,” she recalls. When Vandenberg realized it was a mascot recruitment meeting, she was thrilled—until she heard the Tommy suit was sized for someone measuring 5 feet 8 inches. (Traveler is even taller.)

“I’m 5-foot-1,” she laments.

“But when they saw me in the costume, they were like, ‘OK, you’re allowed. You love it so much.’”

Pretty soon Vandenberg was working popular hip-hop moves

DIANE KRIEGER

PHOTOS BY DUSTIN SNIPES

Her hair up in a ponytail, Amy Vandenberg looks nothing like a man. You’d never guess this petite chatterbox could be transformed into a hulking Trojan warrior. Yet on game night, that’s exactly what happens.

Vandenberg is the girl inside the Tommy suit—the largerthan-life mascot who rallies Galen Center basketball fans.

“Whenever I put on that suit, I seriously become Tommy Trojan,” says the sophomore mechanical engineering major from Katy, Texas. “My posture changes. I stand up straighter.

I put my arms out—you know how really strong guys walk with their arms out? I put a bounce in my step. I make sure every single part of me is in character.”

like the Dougie into her routine.

The fans went wild.

Being Tommy isn’t easy.

Suiting up takes 15 minutes, with a helper. A muscle-bound spandex under-suit is followed

by Tommy’s skin. Next come bulky pants with more built-in muscles, a barrel-shaped “super chest” and the massive head, helmet and sandaled feet. The costume alone weighs about 20 pounds, not counting the heavy sword and head.

It’s sweaty work, the battery-powered fan inside the head notwithstanding. Vandenberg compares it to when she played summer soccer in Texas, where the mercury would hit 104 degrees with 100 percent humidity. Thankfully, the undersuit gets dry-cleaned regularly.

There’s supposed to be a half-hour time limit inside the suit, but Vandenberg has clocked 90-minute performances.

“I have way too much fun,” she explains. “They can’t get me off the court.”

What is it about being a mascot that gives Vandenburg such a rush?

“I love doing things for people,” she says. “As a mascot, you get to make people laugh, and they don’t feel like they have to do anything back. And I think that’s really cool.”

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Robo Beekeeper Picture a swarm of robotic bees— hundreds, maybe even thousands of them—whirring their gauzy wings as they hover and dart away, sensing the world around them through tiny cameras no larger than the head on a Lincoln penny.

This is Néstor Pérez-Arancibia’s dream. A young scientist in the field of biomimetics, Pérez-Arancibia joined USC in 2013 as an assistant professor in USC Viterbi School of Engineering’s aerospace and mechanical engineering department.

He lost no time launching his Autonomous Microrobotics Systems Laboratory

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to expand on work he began as a postdoc on Harvard’s RoboBees project, which aims to artificially mimic the collective behavior and intelligence of a bee colony for scientific benefit.

Pérez-Arancibia’s dream of a robotic swarm may sound far-fetched, but according to the Chilean researcher, “everything looks extremely good” to make his dream a reality.

He has already built a feather-light, 5-millimeter-long camera that delivers 96-by-96-pixel resolution. And he’s closing in on a completely new technology for powering his micro-robots.

The scale may be tiny, but the sheer ambition and difficulty of Pérez-Arancibia’s project are monumental.

“What living creatures do effortlessly, robots must be programmed to do artificially,” he explains. This leads to a long list of engineering problems ranging from the aerodynamics of insect hovering to flight control.

For the bees to be fully autonomous, they also need to be smart. To that end, Pérez-Arancibia, whose expertise is in control algorithms, plans to collaborate with Alice Parker, a USC Viterbi computer engineering professor, to create a minuscule “artificial brain.” winter 2014

ROBO BEE BY POLLY BECKER

A USC Viterbi scientist wants to create tiny robotic insects that could yield big scientific benefits.

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Then there’s the challenge of designing an ultralightweight power supply.

“If the robot weighs 60 milligrams and you have a payload of 50 milligrams, how do you put power inside?

That problem has not been solved yet,” he says. Working with USC Viterbi colleague and former astronaut Paul Ronney, Pérez-Arancibia devised a way to get the same robot to fly for two hours, he says—at least in theory.

Perhaps the most daunting hurdle for Pérez-Arancibia is fabrication. “When developing a flying robot on the scale of a common housefly, all hardware must be developed from scratch,” he says. Nothing can be purchased off the shelf, and every piece must be painstakingly assembled under a microscope.

“The scale and complexity of the mechanical features require new ways to design and prototype,” he says.

And remember, he wants to build a swarm.

“If you want a colony, then you need communication between the robotic bees,” Pérez-Arancibia says.

That means designing a tiny circuit to support inflight data transmission.

Far from discouraged, Pérez-Arancibia is excited by the hurdles. In the world of science, he says, “the more problems you have, the better—because every problem leads to students getting PhDs and publishing papers.”

Fewer than a dozen researchers are currently working on robotic insects, but Pérez-Arancibia has one big advantage: He can use MOSIS, the Multi-Project Wafer Integrated Circuit Fabrication Service, which is operated by USC’s Information Sciences Institute.

“This is one of the great things about USC,” he says.

“At Harvard, you would have to go to a private company and pay them $500,000 to fabricate a circuit. MOSIS will do it for free or, if not free, way cheaper than half a million dollars.”

DIANE KRIEGER

Why Robotic Bees?

Robotic insects may sound like a fanciful research area, but flying micro-robots offer potential practical benefits: • Crop pollination to offset the impact of colony collapse disorder among bees • Searching for survivors before sending in first responders • New surgical devices, such as robotic catheters with embedded sensing • Research in fragile habitats where human observers cannot go • Models for basic aerodynamic experiments

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Joy

Anger

Sadness

Regret

Face Value If you’re negotiating a deal, expressing your emotions could help clinch it.

To better understand the influence of emotion in business deliberations, researchers from USC Marshall School of Business, USC Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT) and USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences recently conducted a study in which they watched people interact with computer-generated negotiators.

Study participants were more willing to work out investment deals with a computer counterpart who smiled when cooperating with them and frowned to express regret after exploiting them. In other words, people interpreted facial expressions to determine a counterpart’s intention to cooperate.

“If you come to an agreement in a negotiation and you are really happy, it may not be a good idea to show how happy you are, because it might lead the other person to think that you did better than they did.

But in other circumstances, showing strong emotion may be the ticket to success,” explains Peter Carnevale, USC Marshall professor of management and organization, who helped lead the study.

How negotiators interpret facial expressions can influence economic decision making in the business world—and beyond.

Advances in graphics technology mean that today’s onscreen, virtual characters, like those created at ICT, are far more expressive than ever before. According to Carnevale, this has “tremendous implications not only for entertainment, but also for education and training systems and for remote business via animated images.”

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FA C U LT Y

P R O F I L E

S A S H A

A N AWA LT

Care to Dance?

USC Annenberg’s Sasha Anawalt keeps arts journalism alive during turbulent times in media.

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Angeles Times, The Smithsonian, the Pritzker Architecture Prize and their own startups.

Anawalt has seen enrollment in USC Annenberg’s arts journalism program more than double since it started in 2008.

Now Anawalt is looking ahead to new projects and starting an arts, culture and entertainment desk. This studentrun online news center will help fill a void in LA arts coverage by partnering with the Los Angeles Times, KCET’s ArtBound and KPCC public radio.

“Instead of competing, we need to join forces

by telling stories together and sharing research around a central hub,” she says. “What better than a university to be that common ground?”

She’s also launching the DanceMapLA project online, featuring data visualizations, a dance survey and up-to-theminute updated dance articles, chat and news.

For Anawalt, discovering and sharing the world of the arts is

essential to being human. If no one had written about Nureyev, she wonders, would she ever have seen him perform?

“When you see something that moves you, that opens your eyes to what a miracle human beings can be, you want to tell others. It’s hardwired in our nature,” she says. “Arts journalism isn’t going to go away. There are too many artists out there to enthrall us, and make us want to tell the world.”

ELIZABETH SEGAL

ILLUSTRATION BY ALEXANDRA COMPAIN-TISSIER

Ask Sasha Anawalt when her obsession with the arts began, and she’ll fondly look back to her childhood in New York City.

Lively dinner table conversations about the arts with her father, a painter, and mother, a dance critic, stretched long into the evenings. When the legendary Soviet-born ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev fled to the West in 1961, his story captured the family’s imagination.

“His defection changed our lives!” she remembers.

Dance, in particular, was a constant from an early age. “My sister and I went with my parents to the ballet many nights a week—in our pajamas—and did our homework during intermissions at City Center,” Anawalt says. She would go on to become chief dance critic for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, National Public Radio affiliate KCRW and LA Weekly. In 1996, she published a Los Angeles Times best-selling cultural biography, The Joffrey Ballet: Roberty Joffrey and the Making of an American Dance Company.

Now director of arts journalism programs at USC Annenberg, Anawalt wants her students to experience the same sort of passionate discussions about the arts. She takes them behind the scenes to the studios of artists like Bill Viola and Kira Perov and architect Frank Gehry ’54. She also showcases LA’s diversity with trips to the J. Paul Getty Museum and a theater troupe on Skid Row. But even with exposure to LA’s art world, Anawalt knows her students have challenges ahead. The rise of the Internet disrupted traditional journalism, and newsrooms have cut many of their arts reporting positions.

Yet the electronic media revolution has also spurred an unprecedented explosion of diverse voices and opinions.

Anawalt spearheaded a popular course that gives students entrepreneurial skills. Her former students have found niches at the Village Voice, the Los

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“Unbelievable. Go see Ailey. It’s change-your-life good.”

- NBC’s Today Show

Robert Battle Artistic Director

Glenn Allen Sims. Photo by Andrew Eccles.

April 15–19, 2015

musiccenter.org/ailey | (213) 972-0711 MAKE A GROUP AND SAVE! Student group pricing available. Call (213) 972-8555 for more details.

Masazumi Chaya Associate Artistic Director

trojan news

Leading by Example The USC Board of Trustees welcomes three visionary executives.

Three new members were elected to USC’s Board of Trustees this year, and they have one important thing in common: They’re committed to using their expertise to benefit the university.

A HEALTHIER FUTURE Robert A. Bradway is chairman and CEO of biotechnology company Amgen Inc., which researches and manufactures therapies for serious conditions including cancer, rheumatoid arthritis and bone and kidney disease. Headquartered in Thousand Oaks, California, Amgen has a presence in more than 75 countries and has reached more than 25 million patients.

Prior to joining Amgen, Bradway was a longtime healthcare investment banker at Morgan Stanley. He began his Amgen career in 2006 as vice president for operations strategy and quickly rose through the company. He was named president and chief operating officer in 2010, CEO in 2012 and chairman in 2013.

At USC, he also serves on the advisory board of the Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics.

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Bradway received his bachelor’s degree in biology from Amherst College and an MBA from Harvard University.

FAMILY TIES Ramona Cappello ’81 has a long relationship with USC. Growing up in a family of Trojans, Cappello went to football games at the Coliseum from an early age. She was a star student at the USC Marshall School of Business and graduated as valedictorian.

Cappello has distinguished herself as an entrepreneur. After years of developing and running successful businesses, she founded Corazonas Foods in honor of her father and grandfathers, who died of heart disease. Corazonas creates snack foods that are infused with plant sterols, which lower levels of so-called “bad” cholesterol. Having recently sold the company, she’s now founder and CEO of Sun Harvest Salt LLC, a distributor of a line of natural sea salts.

Cappello remains one of USC’s most dedicated volunteers. A member of USC Associates, she recently completed her term as president of the USC Alumni Association Board of Governors.

INTERNATIONAL PARTNERSHIPS Dominic Ng has helped build bridges between the United States and Asia as chairman and CEO of East West Bank.

Under Ng’s leadership, the Southern California-based bank has transformed from a small savings and loan association into an international commercial bank with assets of $27.6 billion.

Ng is a community leader as well. In 2000, he became the first Asian American to chair the fundraising campaign for the United Way of Greater Los Angeles and raised a record $66 million. He currently serves as an independent director on the board of Mattel Inc., and is a board member of the Committee of 100, having completed his term as chairman this year.

He’s also a dedicated supporter of the USC Pacific Asia Museum and served on the President’s Leadership Council at USC. Ng was raised in Hong Kong and moved to the United States to attend the University of Houston. Prior to joining East West Bank in 1991, he was a certified public accountant with Deloitte & Touche. winter 2014

BRADWAY PHOTO COURTESY OF AMGEN FOUNDATION; CAPPELLO PHOTO BY CHRIS SHINN; NG PHOTO COURTESY OF DOMINIC NG

BY JESSICA RAYMOND

Scholarships change lives.

Every gift counts. giveto.usc.edu

trojan news

FIG. 1

Made in LA Jim Adams offers insights on his weekend hikes about how Chumash healers use plants common to Southern California.

Among them:

Close to Home James Adams is a pharmacologist and USC School of Pharmacy associate professor. He also happens to be a trained Chumash healer.

Though he doesn’t possess a drop of Native American blood from the Chumash tribe, you could say Adams’ passion for natural remedies flows in his veins. His ancestor William Adams, a surgeon and Virginia settler, embraced the healing practices of Native Americans in the 1630s when medical supplies from England were scarce. Those practices stayed in the family through the centuries, and Jim Adams grew up on remedies like sassafras tea for childhood aches and pains.

Today, Adams—a 26-year USC faculty member who earned his PhD in pharmacology and toxicology from UC San Francisco—studies the active ingredients in medicinal plants native to Southern California.

The work is sorely needed. While 75 percent of today’s pharmaceuticals trace their roots to plants and other natural sources, Southland flora have been conspicuously overlooked. Commercial plant-based drugs are almost exclusively derived from European and Amazonian species. “There are dozens of plants in these hills right here that no one has ever investigated,” Adams says.

No one in a lab coat, anyway.

For 14 years, Adams trained under renowned Chumash medicine woman Cecilia Garcia, who passed away in 2012. The two co-authored a book, Healing with Medicinal Plants of the West published the same year.

Adams brings 21st-century tools to the study of plants the Chumash have used for millennia. In his USC lab, specimens that Adams gathers by hand undergo high-performance liquid chromatography, mass spectrometry and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Botanists based in China and France have traveled to USC to collaborate with him.

In addition to teaching a course on Chumash healing at the pharmacy school, Adams regularly offers plant walks for USC medical students and the public.

His research team, which includes USC undergraduates, is now studying California holly (Heteromeles arbutifolia), also known as toyon and Christmas berry. “No one has any clue what’s in this plant and how it works,” Adams says, even though the Chumash have long used it as an Alzheimer’s treatment. Incidentally, so abundant was California holly in Los Angeles that it gave rise to the name now known the world over: Hollywood.

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FIG. 3

FIG. 4

FIG. 1 CALIFORNIA EVENING PRIMROSE (OENOTHERA CALIFORNICA) “This plant helps women stay in balance through menopause and uterine problems, like fibroids and cysts. It also helps diminish hot flashes.”

FIG. 2 MUGWORT (ARTEMISIA DOUGLASIANA) “This plant contains serotonergic agents that interfere with addiction mechanisms. People can use it to quit cigarettes, cocaine, alcohol, In ’n’ Out Burgers—whatever.”

FIG. 3 YARROW (ACHILLIA MILLEFOLIUM) “They say Achilles used this plant to cure bleeding in his soldiers. It works on nosebleeds. It’s also useful for minor pain relief, like a headache.”

FIG. 4 CLEVELAND SAGE (SALVIA CLEVELANDII) “This is a beautiful plant you can use for pain instead of naproxen, aspirin or ibuprofen.

It contains 52 different monoterpenoids that are all pain relievers.”

FIG. 5

FIG. 6

FIG. 7

FIG. 5 CALIFORNIA HOLLY (HETEROMELES ARBUTIFOLIA) “These wonderful red berries are used against Alzheimer’s.

Does it cure the disease? No, but it helps patients be more functional in society.”

FIG. 6 VALLEY OAK (QUERCUS LOBATA) “This used to be very common in the San Fernando Valley. The Chumash people planted it because the acorns are enormous.

They make an acorn soup that helps cure diarrhea.”

FIG. 7 ELDERBERRY (SAMBUCUS NIGRA) “The elderberry blossom is good for colds and flu. It’s sold at the drug store as Sambucol.”

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ILLUSTRATIONS BY JANENE WALKKY

A USC pharmacologist studies the power of medicinal plants in our own backyard.

FIG. 2

Our numbers back us up.

Our beliefs propel us forward.

U.S. News & World Report

2014-2015

Ranked a top hospital in Los Angeles and California by U.S. News & World Report At Keck Medicine of USC, we believe in making a difference in what matters most in health care — big and small. We are continuously reimagining and reinventing care. Our scientific research and breakthrough therapies improve outcomes, and our custom treatments and personal touches make care more compassionate. Here, we’re not just practicing medicine; we’re redefining it.

#3 Top Hospital in Los Angeles #8 Top Hospital in California #9 in the Nation for Ophthalmology #20 in the Nation for Urology #23 in the Nation for Cancer care #33 in the Nation for Geriatric care High-performing in 7 specialties

(800) USC-CARE KeckMedicine.org/beyond ARCADIA • BAKERSFIELD • BEVERLY HILLS • BURBANK • COVINA • GLENDALE • GLENDORA • IRVINE • LA CAÑADA FLINTRIDGE • LANCASTER • LOS ANGELES • MISSION HILLS • MONTEBELLO • MONTEREY PARK • NEWPORT BEACH • PASADENA • THOUSAND OAKS • TULARE • TUSTIN • VAN NUYS tfm.usc.edu usc trojan family 27 © 2014 Keck Medicine of USC

Live Long and Prosper Researchers at USC are untangling the biological processes of aging so we can enjoy longer, healthier lives.

Legend says that Ponce de Le贸n was looking for the Fountain of Youth when he landed in Florida in the 1500s. Although the story is likely apocryphal, centuries later countless others are still seeking the secret to youthfulness. Despite detox 28

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PHOTO BY JOVANA RIKALO /STOCKSY

BY MARCUS WOO

VISIONARY SCIENCE

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PHOTO BY ALEJANDRO MORENO DE CARLOS/STOCKSY

diets and sham pills that promise the contrary, we still follow the inexorable march of Father Time, year by year, decade by decade.

We still grow old.

Ask a doctor about how to stay young, and you’ll likely hear familiar truisms: Exercise regularly, eat your fruits and vegetables, and don’t smoke. But now science is starting to give us more detailed answers about what happens when we age and how things like diet affect us at the cellular, molecular and genetic levels.

As we get older, wear and tear makes us more prone to diseases like diabetes, cancer and Alzheimer’s. “Statistically speaking, age is the most potent risk factor for many of these diseases,” says Pinchas Cohen, dean of the USC Davis School of Gerontology. By teasing apart how aging relates to disease, USC researchers are learning what it takes to live longer and, more importantly, to live healthier.

“For us, the goal is really to make life disease free,” says Lucio Comai, a professor of molecular microbiology and immunology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. His research quest starts with a particularly rare and debilitating genetic disease—one that causes time to seemingly speed up.

AGING FAST Those with Werner syndrome have a normal childhood, but when they reach puberty, things start to go awry. First, there’s no growth spurt. In their 20s, they go bald or their hair turns gray. By their 30s and 40s, they develop cataracts, type 2 diabetes or cancer. Their bones weaken and arteries harden. In short, they get old. Fast.

The syndrome occurs when people carry a mutation in an important gene. The mutation causes the loss of the normal version of what’s called the Werner protein.

Comai and his colleagues are studying how the healthy Werner protein protects cells against age-related wear and tear. It seems to help keep the genome stable— including protecting the telomeres, the fragile regions of DNA at the end of chromosomes whose deterioration has long been linked to aging.

The hypothesis is that as we age, the Werner protein deteriorates over time, Comai explains. Because it stops working like it used to, we become more vulnerable to diseases. “Our goal is to really understand the details, because that’s how you design a drug,” he says. “We think we’re halfway there.” Such a drug that boosts the protein tfm.usc.edu

might help people stay healthier.

“This is fantasy right now, but that’s our ultimate dream,” Comai adds. Still, a long life won’t be as simple as making more of this protein—too much could actually increase the likelihood of cancer.

PROTECT AND REPAIR A variety of threats can damage cells as we age, says Kelvin Davies, the James E. Birren Chair in Gerontology at USC Davis, where he is also dean of faculty and research. Even psychological and emotional stress can cause harm.

Much of the deterioration of our cells over a lifetime is due to what’s called oxidative stress, the consequence of molecules known as free radicals that wreak havoc in cells. While some free radicals come into the body from drugs, alcohol, radiation and air pollution, most are byproducts of normal metabolism as cells turn food and oxygen into energy.

These free radicals, or oxidants, are harmful because they have a lonesome, unpaired electron hanging around the fringes of the molecules. Electrons love to be in pairs, so in a quest for balance, the free radical will strip an electron away from another molecule, such as DNA or a protein, damaging that molecule in the process.

In every cell of your body, free radicals damage some 1,000 sites in your DNA every day, Davies says. But your body can fix about 99 percent of the damage, thanks to several layers of defense and repair systems.

You’ve probably heard of antioxidants such as vitamins E and C, which are abundant in fruits and vegetables and can’t be produced naturally in your body. They’re good for you because they disarm free radicals. (Nevertheless, antioxidants are

“Statistically speaking, age is the most potent risk factor for many of these diseases.”

overhyped, and most people don’t need supplements, Davies says. “You’re better off eating lots of fruits and veggies like your mother told you.”)

But antioxidants can only do so much, and some free radicals eventually get through, crippling or killing cells. Damage to DNA, in particular, can cause cancer. In fact, free radicals are involved in just about every major disease, from heart attacks to Alzheimer’s. There’s even a well-respected theory that free radicals may cause aging and determine lifespan.

Fortunately, antioxidants are just one way the body mitigates damage. Cells sometimes slow down their other activities to focus on protecting and repairing themselves, and they can adapt to stress by turning on extra protective genes, Davies explains.

Hundreds of genes and enzymes are involved in protecting cells and adapting to stress. Over the past few years, Davies and his colleagues have identified these adaptive pathways and discovered a handful of master genes that control this protective system, he says, “like a conductor of an orchestra.” One such gene is NRF2.

“The more we look, the more involvement we find that it has with adaptation, stress resistance, longevity and lifespan,” he says. As it turns out, NRF2 works less effectively as we age.

Researchers like Davies want to reverse this slowdown—and find out if doing so extends youthfulness. Can they find ways to boost NRF2 or remove the roadblocks that keep it from working well? So far, he says, they’ve found tantalizing clues. Eating fewer calories, for example, improves the NRF2 response, although no one knows yet exactly how that happens. Other researchers are testing the potential of drugs that can make the body act like it’s getting too little food.

FASTING FOR YOUTH Cutting calories has been one of the most intriguing ways to promote longevity. Just ask Valter Longo, director of the USC Longevity Institute, whose research on periodic fasting and protein restriction has thrust him into the news.

Here’s how fasting works. By default, your body is always geared toward reproducing, since you never know when a suitable mate will come along. But if you restrict your calories, your body will focus its resources on protecting itself—an evolutionary adaptation for when food is scarce. usc trojan family

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Read the entire interview online at bit.ly/USCLongevity.

Five Simple Ways to Live Healthier— and Longer There’s no magic pill (yet) that stops us from getting older. But here are some reminders about how to stay healthier longer, from USC experts:

Charting the Future Pinchas Cohen serves as dean of the USC Davis School of Gerontology and is also executive director of the Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center.

A major focus of his work is “personalized aging” and developing digital initiatives for longevity research.

You’ve coined the term “personalized aging,” in which genome sequencing will someday guide a personalized strategy for healthy longevity. How would this work? Personalized medicine is essentially a way to select the best treatment for you based on the genomics of your disease. You can get your genes sequenced and learn your risk for diseases like diabetes, Alzheimer’s, cancer or heart disease. You can further identify these risks with a review of family history. Using a combination of these risk-factor assessment tools, you can then select diet, nutrition, exercise and lifestyle choices for yourself.

If you’re at risk for Alzheimer’s, for example, there are things you can do to prevent the disease, such as physical exercise, brain-training strategies or learning additional languages.

Many of these risk-assessment tools are available already. But what we still need to learn is what kinds of strategies are most effective for specific genetic risks. For example, given a certain gene that increases the risk for diabetes, we don’t really know how effective a low-carb diet will be. Maybe diet won’t particularly help, but exercise will.

What ethical issues need to be considered when it comes to genetic screenings? Many people don’t want to have genetic testing done for fear of losing their health insurance or losing their job if their test results become known and they are discriminated against in the workplace. While these are valid concerns, measures should be taken in order to ensure against these discriminatory practices. Others fear the psychological effects related to finding out they are at higher risk for certain diseases. This is something that should be discussed with your doctor before proceeding.

How might we experience personalized aging in the future? Hopefully genetic testing will provide us with information on which foods to eat for optimal performance, which forms of physical activity we are best suited for, how much sleep we should be getting and what types of social engagement we should participate in. The whole idea is to maximize our health span.

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1. Eat less. Valter Longo suggests two meals a day and a light snack.

2. Eat a plant-based diet. A diet isn’t about losing weight in the short term, but being healthier for life. Eat more fruits and vegetables and less meat. Fish is good, as long as it doesn’t contain too much mercury. Cruciferous vegetables like broccoli are especially beneficial, Kelvin Davies says, as they induce the NRF2 gene, which is linked to stress resistance and longevity.

3. Exercise. That doesn’t necessarily mean running marathons or getting buff.

Exercise is a lifestyle choice, Pinchas Cohen says, and what’s most important is physical activity every day.

4. Don’t smoke. Tobacco smoke contains lots of free radicals that damage DNA. 5. Beware of supplements.

“There’s a lot of junk science out there about aging, particularly as it relates to supplements,” Cohen says.

Many are useless or even dangerous. winter 2014

That’s one idea, anyway. There are countless factors and biological processes involved, and no one knows exactly how cutting calories may extend lifespan. But thanks to experiments on mice, worms, fruit flies and yeast, scientists know that organisms that consumed fewer calories than on a normal diet—in some cases, 40 percent less—lived much longer. On the other hand, much longer studies involving rhesus monkeys proved less conclusive, probably because they ate very little over a long time, which might have counterbalanced fasting’s protective effects, Longo says.

Regardless, Longo acknowledges that it’s impractical to nibble at every meal and constantly feel hungry. It’s hard enough to ignore that last french fry, let alone skip a third of your calories. “Nobody’s ever going to do it,” he says.

Instead, periodic fasting may be a better strategy. “Fasting is probably the most powerful beneficial intervention you could do to a human being,” Longo says.

Cutting calories for a few days shifts the body from ready-to-mate mode into standby and maintenance: You save energy and your cells get a chance to regenerate.

In particular, Longo has found that fasting helps rejuvenate the immune system, which weakens with age, making the elderly more susceptible to disease. While fasting, your body gets rid of old and damaged immune cells, but once you eat again, your immune system comes back renewed. The team is now planning a clinical trial to see if fasting can help elderly people combat the flu by renewing their immune systems.

His quest for answers has even whisked him a continent away—to remote villages in Ecuador.

In 2005, he contacted an Ecuadorean physician who was studying a group of people with an intriguing genetic mutation—one that’s similar to mutations that Longo’s team had discovered among yeast and mice with unusually long lifespans.

These Ecuadoreans were all under 4 feet tall—and they were remarkably youthful and free of cancer or diabetes. The reason: A genetic mutation blocked the activity of a growth hormone. That got Longo thinking.

Levels of that same growth hormone rise when people eat a high-protein diet.

When Longo and his partners studied a large group of Americans’ eating habits over two decades, they found that eating lots of animal-based protein like meats and dairy products during middle age raised tfm.usc.edu

the chance of cancer and early death. In another study, they showed that a low-protein diet mitigated symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease in mice.

It’s early, but the data are promising: Periodic fasting seems to dampen the growth hormone’s activity. Soon the team will publish a study that tested a fasting regimen among volunteers. For five days a month, over three straight months, people were asked to follow a carefully designed, extremely low-calorie diet—about 700 to 1,100 calories per day, far lower than the 2,000 to 2,500 recommended for most adults.

Longo already thinks periodic fasting is the way to go, and he follows the fasting plan himself—as do others in his lab, and his family and friends, he says. But he warns that no one should do it without medical supervision and food proven to provide adequate nutrients. (In response to cancer patients asking him if they could eat something instead of fasting, Longo has started a USC spinoff company called L-Nutra that prepares and sells the meals.

To avoid a conflict of interest, he’s not allowed to be involved in the collection or analysis of the data in the human studies.)

While drugs may someday treat aspects of aging, they may also carry side effects, Longo says. So fasting will likely be the best option, since your whole body can adjust accordingly. “You are in tune with the diet,” he says. And fasting, he points out, is something people have been doing for thousands of years as part of necessity or religious practice, which he suspects was likely also done for its mental and physical health benefits.

USC Norris Cancer Center, the Mayo Clinic and other hospitals are even testing whether careful fasting can help protect cancer patients and sensitize their cancer cells to treatment.

“This is not a fad,” Longo says. “This is our history. Now, finally, it’s met with the

“There isn’t a single recipe for staying healthy longer.”

clinical, scientific evidence that’s necessary to do it right.”

HOLISTIC PRECISION Much of what science is learning about aging is consistent with what social scientists see outside the lab. Murali Nair, a clinical professor in the USC School of Social Work, has met some of the world’s oldest citizens in nations from Japan to India. Getting to know several dozen centenarians taught Nair that most of them, whether they’re rich or poor, share a lifestyle that he says the rest of us should emulate.

They eat regularly and relatively little, mostly vegetables, fruit and nuts. They remain physically, socially and mentally active. They maintain a positive outlook on life and have some sense of spirituality and faith in something greater than themselves.

They also all believe in random acts of kindness. “We have advanced technology in extending our lives, but modern medicine alone is not enough,” Nair says. We need a holistic approach that shows better appreciation of our body, mind, spirit and the environment.

Aging is complex, involving every biological organ and system. Lifestyle, environment and genetics all come into play. As a result, no one ages the same way, and we all have different susceptibilities to diseases and different responses to diet, exercise and drugs. The solution to such diversity may be what Cohen, of USC Davis, has dubbed “personalized aging.”

“The concept is that there isn’t a single recipe for staying healthy longer,” Cohen says. “Each of us should find the best strategy that’s scientifically driven.”

Doctors are already beginning to target cancers at the genetic level. Cohen proposes a similar approach to delay aging.

By sequencing your genome while you’re healthy, doctors could determine your risk of age-related diseases like diabetes or Alzheimer’s. If you show a high risk for disease, then doctors could identify drugs or lifestyle changes that might work particularly well for your genomic profile.

Today, doctors can already reasonably assess risk for some diseases, and they’ll only get more accurate over time, Cohen says. But no one completely knows which treatments and strategies are best suited for each person’s individual genome. That will likely take decades.

“We’re not even halfway there,” Cohen says. Until then, we have yoga and broccoli. usc trojan family

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Life Redesigned The USC Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy helps people live life to its fullest, no matter what challenges they face.

BY J E S S I C A R AY M O N D

USC has been putting occupational therapy on the international map for decades by building the science behind occupational therapists’ work with patients. And with a recent gift from USC Trustee Ronnie C. Chan MBA ’76 and his family, USC cemented its place in the field, becoming home to the nation’s first named occupational therapy program.

Yet occupational science and occupational therapy remain misunderstood. Many confuse it with other helping professions, like physical therapy. Instead, think of occupational therapy as a toolkit for living your best life.

From the occupational therapist’s perspective, “occupations” refer not to your job but rather to day-to-day activities like brushing your teeth or cooking dinner. Many of us take these routine tasks for granted, but occupational scientists and occupational therapists recognize that for people with injury or illness, even the simplest tasks can be difficult. Occupational therapists work with people of all ages to develop new habits and routines that enable them to live happier and more productive lives, no matter what conditions stand in the way.

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in depth

Supporting Student Veterans Occupational therapy formally began as a profession in 1917 during World War I. The first occupational therapists helped to rehabilitate wounded veterans and reintegrate them into civilian life. Nearly 100 years later, occupational therapists continue to play a vital role in the lives of returning service members.

Veterans have a unique set of challenges. In addition to mental health concerns, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression, they often struggle with vision and hearing.

Tinnitus—persistent, strong ringing in the ears—is the most common disability among veterans. Among student veterans, tinnitus can make it difficult to listen to lectures and focus on coursework.

At USC, student veterans have an advocate and helper in Carlin Daley ’02, MA ’06, OTD ’07, an assistant professor of clinical occupational therapy.

For one, Daley makes sure student veterans get the special accommodations they need. That could mean providing a notetaker during class or securing electronic versions of the documents for students with sustained vision or hearing loss.

“If for some reason an accommodation doesn’t seem to be working, students might be referred to me to see if I can figure out a different piece of the puzzle, because occupational therapists are trained to look at all elements of a person’s life,” Daley says. “I’m going to think about what’s happening psychosocially, physically and ergonomically, and combine that with the sensory piece to inform them of ways we can help them through other resources.”

Daley also frequently works with student veterans at USC’s Kortschak Center for Learning and Creativity to identify new habits and routines that could boost their academic success. She’s noticed that often student veterans struggle without a clear schedule, regular exercise and a sense of community—the hallmarks of military life. In these cases, she might help them create structured routines and come up with ways to build social and academic support networks.

Occupational therapists help student veterans at USC create structured routines, a hallmark of their time in the military.

“From the occupational therapy lens, it’s thinking about how our suggestions will fit in with everything else they are doing. I think that a holistic view is something that’s a unique strength of this profession,” Daley says.

Daley also has been active in military support and outreach efforts throughout the USC community. She’s been involved in the planning phase of the new USC Veterans Resource Center, which brought her occupational therapy expertise to discussions on the space’s layout and its programming and services.

“There’s so much positive momentum with the veteran population here,” Daley says, “and it’s exciting that occupational therapy has such a strong voice in what’s happening.”

A Legacy of Leadership HISTORIC PHOTOS COURTESY OF USC CHAN ARCHIVES

In 1942, USC welcomed its first students to its newly formed occupational therapy department. The United States had just entered World War II, and the university wanted to ensure that well-trained occupational therapists would be ready to care for injured servicemen when they returned home.

USC became a leader in the field and has established an unparalleled record of excellence over the past seven decades.

Among USC’s highlights in occupational science and occupational therapy:

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• Has held the No. 1 spot for 12 years in U.S. News & World Report rankings • Established nation’s first post-professional degree program in occupational therapy in 1947 • Created the nation’s first two-year, entry-level master’s degree in occupational therapy in 1962 • Established the world’s first doctoral program in occupational science in 1989 • In 1997, the influential “Well Elderly Study”—led

by Florence Clark, associate dean at USC Chan—became the first occupational

therapy research to be published in the Journal of the American Medical Association • Secured more than $20 million in federal grants over the past 10 years • Four alumni have been elected president of the American Occupational Therapy Association • Since 1958, 15 Trojans have received the American Occupational Therapy Association’s Eleanor Clarke Slagle Award, the profession’s most prestigious academic recognition

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Keeping the Weight Off for Good

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Florence Clark: Life Architect Florence Clark PhD ’82 has led the USC Chan Division for nearly four decades as an associate dean, chair and now the Mrs. T.H. Chan Professor of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy. A trailblazer, she’s helped her program keep its No. 1 ranking for 12 years. Here’s her take on her field.

How do you define occupational therapy and occupational science? Although the profession got its start nearly 100 years ago, its aims today remain the same: to help people live life to the fullest. Occupational therapists do that by helping people build sustainable, health-promoting routines that can decrease risk of, or better manage, chronic diseases and disabilities.

In the late 1980s, our then-department chair, Dr. Elizabeth Yerxa, summarized it this way: “Medicine is concerned with preserving life; occupational therapy is concerned with the quality of life preserved.”

The research discipline that emerged—occupational science —and the health care profession of occupational therapy do just that. We optimize people’s quality of life no matter what disease, disability or condition confronts them.

What makes occupational therapists uniquely qualified to help people? I call occupational therapists “life architects.” When architects design and renovate homes they take aesthetics, the surroundings and functionality into account.

When occupational therapists help people, we customize potential options with the goal of reducing health risks.

With a stroke survivor, for example, an occupational therapist will enable him or her to re-enter previous worlds of activity through a combination of coaching, acquiring new skills and relearning old ones, providing specialized equipment and modifying the surrounding environment.

We call this “lifestyle redesign.” Our faculty therapists lead you through an assessment of lifestyle risks, identify goals, build a plan for developing healthy habits and coach you through long-term change. Research has shown that lifestyle redesign improves quality of life and reduces health care costs, which are major concerns in health care today. winter 2014

MORRISON PHOTO BY JOHN SKALICKY; CLARK PHOTO BY PHILIP CHANNING

For years, weight loss seemed impossible for David Morrison MRED ’90, a 62-year-old banker from Alhambra, California. At 328 pounds, even simple activities like walking and sleeping were difficult, and he couldn’t find weight-loss strategies that worked.

“For whatever reason, I was not disciplined enough to stick with a diet,” he says. “I didn’t want to play games with myself and pretend something was going to work when I knew it wouldn’t.”

In 2010, Morrison opted for a laparoscopic adjustable gastric band procedure—commonly known as lap band surgery—to limit the amount of food he could eat. But he couldn’t sustain the changes he needed to make and eventually regained the weight he lost after surgery.

Two years later, Morrison turned to Peter Crookes, associate professor of surgery with Keck Medicine of USC. Crookes performed gastric bypass surgery, a procedure that shrinks the stomach and reduces the number of calories the body can absorb.

This time, to make sure he had the support he needed to adjust to life after surgery, Morrison joined the Lifestyle Redesign Weight Management Program at the USC Occupational Therapy Faculty Practice.

In this program, patients meet regularly with an occupational therapist to develop new habits aimed at managing weight and reducing stress, like learning to cook more healthful food and fitting exercise into a work schedule. They also discuss emotional issues related to food.

After his operation, Morrison started meeting with Ashley Uyeshiro ’08, MA ’10, OTD ’11, an assistant professor of clinical occupational therapy, every one to two weeks. Uyeshiro worked with Morrison to create a customized plan that incorporated physical activity and a prescribed diet into his daily routines, as well as strategies to control portion sizes, which was especially important for Morrison because a bypassed stomach can eventually stretch from overeating.

“I was lucky because [Uyeshiro and I] happened to work on the same wavelength,” Morrison says. “I would bring in my questions, and she would work with me on answering them.”

The treatment plan has been a huge success. Twenty-two months after the surgery, he weighs 189 pounds—a drop of nearly 140 pounds from his heaviest weight. More important, he’s discovered daily strategies that have kept the weight off and now sees Uyeshiro just once every six to eight weeks.

“I think the reason this program works is because our occupational therapists cater the education, the problem solving and the occupation-based activities to people’s unique situations,” Uyeshiro says. “We also hold people accountable for the changes they plan to make and equip them with the tools they need to selfmanage their weight for a lifetime.”

A diehard Trojan football fan, Morrison says that being able to walk easily from his car to his seat at the Coliseum is a wonderful feeling. He’s also been enjoying watching people react to his transformation: “They’re in shock!”

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PHOTO BY GUS RUELAS

A Gift That Makes History

USC Trustee Ronnie C. Chan MBA ’76 and his wife, Barbara, have a special appreciation for occupational therapy after watching their younger son go through the program at USC. Now, thanks to their generosity, countless other occupational science and occupational therapy students will share their knowledge around the world.

The Chans’ $20 million naming gift, announced in September, represents the largest to any academic program in the history of occupational therapy.

More than 70 years old, the program is now called the USC Mrs. T.H. Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy. Their gift names the program in honor of Ronnie Chan’s mother, who worked for many years as a nurse.

It also endows the Mrs. T.H. Chan Professorship in Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, which is held

by Florence Clark, associate

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dean of the division. And there’s more: the new USC Mrs. T.H. Chan Occupational Therapy China Initiative will establish a partnership with a top Chinese university to create a graduate program in occupational therapy there.

Ronnie Chan has extensive business experience in China.

He’s the chairman of Hang Lung Group Limited and its subsidiary, Hang Lung Properties Limited, which stands among Hong Kong’s leading real estate companies.

He also co-founded the Morningside Group, a privately held investment firm that owns and manages industrial and service companies throughout the United States and Asia.

A longtime leader dedicated to helping USC partner with organizations around the Pacific Rim, Ronnie Chan established the USC Hong Kong Alumni Association and supported construction of the USC International Residential College,

where international students have the opportunity to live and learn side by side with their American classmates. He also led efforts to raise money for the International Plaza at the Ronald Tutor Campus Center—rallying support from USC alumni in Asia—and donated toward the plaza’s building fund.

The Chans have two children who graduated from USC: Adriel ’04 majored in international relations, while Adley ’06, ’07, MA ’08, OTD ’12 went on to earn undergraduate and graduate degrees in occupational therapy after earning his bachelor’s degree in sociology in 2006. Adley Chan recently joined the division as a clinical faculty member.

Having grown up in Hong Kong, Adley Chan is passionate about enhancing occupational therapy education and practice in Asia. “Although there are already several occupational therapy degree programs in China, and a number of outside

universities have established relationships with Chinese partners to bring occupational therapy education to parts of China, USC has the potential to help expand the spread of occupational therapy in China on a larger scale,” he says.

“Beyond China, the whole of East Asia needs well-trained occupational therapists,” Ronnie Chan adds. “USC has a very strong presence and reputation in this part of world, so the potential for the university to set the standard there—just as it’s done in the United States— is huge.”

JESSICA RAYMOND

ABOVE: From left, C. L. Max Nikias, Barbara Chan, Mrs. T.H. Chan, Ronnie Chan, Adley Chan and Adriel Chan.

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PHOTOS BY PHILIP CHANNING

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in depth

Living Well with Autism Autism spectrum disorders affect 1 in 68 children and comprise the fastest-growing developmental disability in the United States. Researchers throughout the USC community—from physicians to filmmakers—are working together to try to improve the diagnosis and treatment of autism, and occupational therapists are among them.

Occupational therapists work with people with autism to improve everything from their coordination to how they interact with other people. But one key way that occupational therapists help is by focusing on the needs of families living with autism.

“We’ve been examining some of the functional problems or challenges that families experience when they have a child or family member with autism, as well as developing better understanding of family strengths and expertise,” says Mary Lawlor, associate chair of research and professor of occupational science and occupational therapy.

Frequently, for children with autism and their families, daily tasks like getting dressed or taking a bath pose unique challenges.

Parents appreciate strategies that can improve their child’s engagement and participation in everyday life, and occupational therapy and occupational science professor Sharon Cermak is studying practical solutions.

Take the dreaded visit to the dentist. Cermak recently conducted a study on how to make dental visits more manageable for children with autism spectrum disorders. The glaring lights, harsh sounds and strong smells of a dental office can cause a sensory overload that triggers anxiety and disruptive behavior among these children. Dentists are sometimes required to use general anesthesia or restraints to safely clean the children’s teeth.

Cermak found that making some simple changes to the environment could help, such as replacing fluorescent lights with softer, colorful lights, playing soothing music and bundling children snugly in specially designed butterfly-shaped wraps, which provide calming pressure. With the modifications, children were much less anxious, according to her study.

“Down the road, we hope that we can design interventions that will lead to a better quality of life for children with autism and their families,” Cermak says.

She’s already identified several areas where environmental adaptations can make a difference. For example, changing lights and cutting noise in school classrooms may help some children with autism learn better. “Fluorescent lights give off a flicker that’s not noticeable for most people, but can be highly irritating for children with autism. Just changing the lighting can increase their attention,” she says.

Findings from her research extend to the home. Many children with autism are highly sensitive to certain foods, which can strain family meal times. But making simple changes like dimming lights, playing soft music and limiting distractions could make mealtimes easier for these children.

Bedtime also poses concerns. Children with autism have a hard time falling asleep, and they experience less restful sleep than other children. But Cermak has found that warmth can help them relax. “Even putting their blanket in the dryer for a few minutes before bedtime can induce a calming effect,” she says.

When children with autism are given the tools to actively participate in daily life, Cermak says, they’re happy and thrive— and their families do too.

Occupational therapists work with adults and children to give them the skills and habits they need for a healthy life. That can involve everything from helping people regain strength and coordination to perform routine activities after surgery, disease or trauma (opposite) to advancing research to help children better interact with others (left).

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MEET YOUR TECH FUTURE GET A GLIMPSE AT FIVE WAYS USC RESEARCHERS WILL CHANGE THE WAY YOU LIVE.

BY MARC BALLON ILLUSTRATIONS

BY ZOHAR LAZAR

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Raise your hand if you thought you’d have a jetpack or make your morning commute in your flying car by now. Disappointed? Don’t be. Thanks to USC researchers, other surprising ideas and innovations are poised to revolutionize our world. From implantable memory chips that help us learn faster to cybersecurity tools designed to thwart terrorist attacks, Trojan technological advances are set to become part of everyday life.

BUILDING BUDDIES On a cold winter night in 2024, it’s quitting time for Sally, a corporate attorney who works in a 25-story downtown high-rise. A frenetic whirlwind of energy, she often forgets to turn off the lights and shut down her computer. Just as Sally is about leave, a smiling avatar named Jess appears on her screen.

“Hey, Ms. Harried,” Jess jokes. “I know you’re in a hurry to hit the gym, but please turn everything off before you head out.”

Suddenly, pictures of animals in the wild, crashing waves and majestic redwoods are projected onto a screen in Sally’s office. “Do it for Mother Nature,” Jess adds.

Sally quickly turns off the lights and her computer. A text message lights up her cell phone. “Thanks, friend. Have a great night!” It’s signed “Jess”—with a smiley face.

Last week, Jess appeared as a hologram on her co-workers’ desks to remind them of Sally’s birthday, prompting an impromptu party. Sally has gotten to like Jess.

Almost everyone in Sally’s building has their own version of Jess—their own personal avatar to watch over them. The avatars, which the employees name and design, text the employees good morning, celebrate their work achievements and encourage them to save energy.

The avatars, in fact, are proxies for the building itself, which wants to forge relationships with occupants to increase their comfort and reduce the building’s overall energy usage by one-third. (Office towers and commercial buildings account for about 20 percent of all domestically consumed energy.)

“I see buildings and their occupants working together and even forming friendships,” says Burcin Becerik-Gerber, a USC Viterbi assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering. Her research on building-human interactions won her a spot

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BURCIN BECERIK-GERBER USC Viterbi assistant professor Stephen Shrank Early Career Chair in Civil and Environmental Engineering

on the 2012 MIT Technology Review list of the world’s top innovators under age 35.

In Becerik-Gerber’s vision, a building would use occupants’ cell phones to initiate a conversation to find out how satisfied they are with the temperature, lighting and air quality. Sensors throughout the building would capture additional data. All of this information would filter through algorithms that could recommend temperature and lighting levels for different office suites to optimize comfort and conservation. Energy wasters would receive texts, emails and audio messages to encourage them to make better choices.

Further in the future, an avatar might reward employees for making smart decisions like jettisoning a space heater or switching to two-sided copies.

Says Becerik-Gerber: “There’s a lot of room to change behaviors and save energy.”

MECHANICAL MINDERS MAJA MATARIĆ Professor and Chan Soon-Shiong Chair in Computer Science, Neuroscience and Pediatrics USC Viterbi vice dean for research Director, Robotics and Autonomous Systems Center Co-director, Robotics Research Lab

“I see buildings and their occupants working together and even forming friendships.”

John doesn’t want to get out of bed.

At 79, he’s suffered a stroke that’s left him with aches and limited range of motion on his left side. If he doesn’t work on rehabilitating his left arm and leg, his doctor says, he’ll develop arthritis in the limbs on his right side from overuse.

In a perfect world, physical therapists would come to his house to help. But it’s the late 2020s, and he needs more care than he can afford. Physical therapists are in short supply too.

Thank goodness for Tiny Tim. “Come on, John,” he says. As John reluctantly gets up, Tiny Tim moves closer to him, flashing his eyes red and green in excitement.

“Follow me,” he says, reaching and pointing with his left arm. “You can do it.”

For the next half hour, Tiny Tim successfully leads John through a series of arm and leg exercises.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you, Tiny,” John says.

Tiny Tim is a robot. He and other socially assistive robots are part of the future of health care.

For the past decade, USC Viterbi’s Maja Matarić and her team of PhD students have studied how intelligent robots might provide one-to-one personalized care to assist stroke patients, people with Alzheimer’s disease and children with autism, among others. winter 2014

LIGHT DOME PHOTO BY CHRIS SHINN

Their pioneering work, which includes programming smart machines to be more engaging and responsive, aims to help people in need “become more self-motivated and confident to lead better lives,” says Matarić.

Matarić’s interdisciplinary team has contributed impressively to the field. In a pilot trial with stroke patients, they discovered that patients were more likely to exercise when encouraged by a robot than when alone. In studies with healthy seniors and those with Alzheimer’s, both groups strongly preferred exercising with a robot than with a computer screen. Another study tested robots that made encouraging sounds and blew bubbles whenever children with autism moved closer and interacted with them. Some children reacted so well to the robots that they talked more and turned to their parents to describe events as they occurred, a surprising feat among children who struggle to communicate.

Now Matarić’s team, in cooperation with Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, is examining whether children receiving intravenous injections experience less pain if empathetic robots comfort them beforehand.

To date, no one has run large-scale clinical trials with these types of robots, largely because of the lack of funding for such “demanding yet crucial assessments,” Matarić says.

“In 10 years,” she adds, “I hope that we will see specialized, socially assistive robot technologies enhancing human care to help children with autism learn specific communication or social skills, help elderly people feel less lonely through

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games and conversation, and help stroke patients have the support and motivation around the clock that is needed for the rehabilitation process.”

DIGITAL DOUBLES PAUL DEBEVEC Chief visual officer, USC Institute for Creative Technologies Professor of computer science

(BELOW) USC Institute for Creative Technology’s light domes enable researchers to create photorealistic digital faces.

With the Pacific Ocean as a backdrop, the familiar faces slowly make their way toward a stunning Malibu beach house.

The camera lingers on each of them, bringing smiles of recognition to excited filmgoers watching the screen. Jet Li appears first. Then Dolph Lundgren. Next is Sylvester Stallone, who smiles and hugs his comrades. The Expendables are back together, 40 years after their last movie adventure—in 2014.

They haven’t aged a day.

New members materialize. A youthful John Wayne, wearing his trademark cowboy hat, saunters up. “Howdy, partner,” he says. A young Marlon Brando, circa A Streetcar Named Desire, nods his head at the assembled. Hollywood’s latest heartthrob, Bobby Whitfield III, enters, looking resplendent in a black Italian suit. “Now, let’s get this party started,” he quips.

Incredible, yes. Impossible, no. At least not according to Paul Debevec.

Debevec is the Academy Awardwinning chief visual officer at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies. The photorealistic digital faces he and his research team have created—which seem lifelike in any lighting condition—have appeared in such blockbusters as Gravity, Avatar and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Most recently, Debevec and his colleagues took high-resolution scans of the cast of Maleficent to create computergenerated pixies and a “digital double” for star Angelina Jolie that was used in some of the film’s more dangerous stunts.

A computer scientist with a PhD from UC Berkeley, Debevec is perhaps best known for inventing the Light Stage, a spherical, computer-controlled lighting apparatus now in its 11th iteration. With 12,000 light-emitting diodes and seven high-definition cameras, the Light Stage allows actors to be photographed under any color, intensity, polarization and distribution of light, providing the data to create photorealistic digital doubles.

So how does he think The Expendables might get made in the future? To resurrect Wayne, Brando and other long-deceased usc trojan family

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actors, computer-vision algorithms would analyze hundreds of frames from old movie footage to compute 3-D images of their faces. Actors like Li, Lundgren and Stallone could be preserved at their current ages by being scanned at the Light Stage to create digital doubles for future use. The digital faces could be composited onto the bodies of contemporary actors who could mimic the stars’ movements, while impressionists could imitate their voices. Will filmmakers and audiences balk at the casting of deceased actors’ digital doubles? That remains to be seen, but the technology will likely make it possible.

That’s not all. Debevec believes digital entertainment technology will one day allow directors to cast whomever they want in a movie—living, dead or invented.

“I like the idea of a filmmaker saying, ‘This is what I want a person to look like,’ and telling a computer, ‘This is how I want their eyes to be, how many freckles I want,”’ he says. “This could be a whole new way of applying the skills and talents of a casting director.”

“We need an ecosystem of test beds connected together for research on the hard problems facing us.”

SUBDUING CYBERTERRORISM It’s a typical November night in the City of Angels in 2025.

The freeways, Metrolink trains and Metro railcars teem with commuters. Overhead, 1,500-seat jumbo jets take off and land at Los Angeles International Airport in quick succession, a precisely choreographed ballet of technology. Elsewhere, telecommuting moms and dads check email and wrap up virtual conference calls on their tablets, smartphones and watches.

At 7:58 p.m., disaster strikes.

Within seconds, a multipronged cyberattack takes out the local air traffic control system. Terrorists knock out Metro’s communications network, derailing trains. Hacked Department of Water and Power (DWP) computers shut off water to local residents and release millions of gallons into the ocean. The power grid is knocked out. Then the region’s Internet goes down.

Los Angeles grinds to a halt.

Far-fetched? Maybe not. In 2012, an Al Qaeda video called for an “electronic Jihad” against the United States. The next year, federal agents warned more than 3,000 companies that they’d been hacked, tfm.usc.edu

TERRY BENZEL Deputy director, Computer Networks Division Research scientist, USC Marshall School of Business

“[A chip] theoretically could make people smarter, give them more detailed and vivid memories.”

according to White House officials. And in September, a cyberattack reportedly exposed information on more than 27,000 U.S. government employees.

Given cyberterrorists’ increased sophistication and the defensive nature of cyber warfare—bad guys need only find and exploit system vulnerabilities, while those under attack must protect entire networks—the risk of a cyber Pearl Harbor has never been greater.

“While cyberthreat growth continues to accelerate, the stream of new and effective cyberdefense technologies has grown much more slowly,” Terry Benzel said before Congress in 2013. As deputy director for the Computer Networks Division at USC’s Information Sciences Institute (ISI), she went to Washington to address lawmakers about ways to improve cybersecurity research, including better technology transfer between academia and industry.

Benzel, a renowned cybersecurity expert and former division vice president of the antivirus company McAfee Inc., has spent the past decade at ISI leveling the playing field.

Under her direction, USC, in cooperation with UC Berkeley and private partners, built DeterLab. The nation’s largest and most advanced universitymanaged test bed supports research and development on next-generation cybersecurity technologies. More than 200 organizations, including the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Columbia University, use the platform, which is largely funded by the Department of Homeland Security.

How might DeterLab help thwart large-scale cyberterrorism?

Entrepreneurs and researchers could develop powerful anti-malware software within this sealed-off mini-Internet by launching and learning from simulated cyberattacks on critical American infrastructure, including power grids, financial systems and transportation networks.

Within a decade, Benzel hopes DeterLab could link with other test beds to create specialized environments in which agencies like LA’s Metro and DWP could “take advantage of the tools and protocols we’ve developed to create new technologies to repulse attacks,” she says. “We need an ecosystem of test beds connected together for research on the hard problems facing us.” usc trojan family

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MAKING MEMORIES TED BERGER Professor of biomedical engineering David Packard Chair of Engineering Director, Center for Neural Engineering

BROUGHT TO YOU BY USC Here are some breakthroughs created at USC that changed the world we live in today.

COLOR TV In the 1940s, Willard Geer, USC professor of physics, created the Geer tube, a cathode ray tube that used electron guns to beam colors onto a display screen, enabling full-color television.

JPEG AND MPEG The coding research begun in the 1970s at the USC Signal and Image Processing Institute became the basis for the JPEG and MPEG standards used for digital image compression—enabling today’s selfies.

COMPUTER VIRUS In 1983, then-graduate student Frederick Cohen PhD ’86 created the first documented “parasitic application.”

Dubbed a computer virus, his hidden program was able to seize control of a computer when unknowingly uploaded from a floppy disk.

.COM While working at USC Viterbi Information Sciences Institute, Paul Mockapetris and Jon Postel pioneered the Domain Name System, which introduced the “.com” and “.org” Internet naming standards.

CHOLESTEROL AND HEART HEALTH In 1987, David Blankenhorn, a USC cardiologist and professor of medicine, definitively linked cholesterol to heart health. He proved that lowering cholesterol could reverse heart disease, spurring the development of cholesterol-lowering medications.

LOUDNESS STANDARDS Tomlinson Holman, USC School of Cinematic Arts professor and co-creator of the THX audio quality standards for theater sound, helped establish the Motion Picture Association of America’s loudness standards for movie trailers.

FACIAL REGOGNITION SOFTWARE USC physics, biological sciences and computer science professor Christoph von der Malsburg pioneered a complex facial recognition program that could scan and identify faces in images, creating the basis for many security applications.

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Madeline, an 85-year-old grandmother, enters a classroom. The French teacher, a tall, beret-wearing robot named Jacques, immediately moves to kiss her on both cheeks.

“Comment allez-vous?” he asks. The elderly woman smiles at Jacques, who has taught her French for the past few months.

Today, Monsieur Robot discusses how to conjugate regular verbs into the subjunctive tense, which expresses uncertainty, doubt and possibility. Complex stuff.

Back in the day, in the 2010s, even the most dedicated French students struggled with the subjunctive and its nuances. No more.

Madeline has no problem mastering French’s many linguistic complexities. She’s also recently learned calculus and Spanish with relative ease.

People used to grow more forgetful and less sharp with age.

Memories of yesteryear sometimes lost their vividness or disappeared altogether. The situation was worse for people whose brains were damaged from stroke, injury or dementia. These people often failed to create new long-term memories, making it difficult to remember caregivers’ names, how to dress or even how to find the bathroom.

So what changed to allow seniors to learn foreign languages as easily as their grandchildren? How could people with brain injuries make new long-term memories?

Perhaps it was because a brain implant now in development

by USC Viterbi professor Ted Berger eventually went mainstream.

“In the future, we expect that the chip will help many people have better and stronger memories,” says Berger, whose chip was dubbed a “breakthrough technology” by MIT Technology Review in 2013.

A renowned neuroscientist and biomedical engineer, Berger has worked for more than 15 years on an implantable silicon microchip that could help patients with severe memory problems form long-term memories again. The chip, which would be placed under the skin at the crown of the skull, might one day also improve the memories of healthy people.

Berger’s neural prosthesis, which he has developed with an international team of computer scientists, engineers and physicians, would boost a damaged hippocampus—the region of the brain where long-term memories are made. The chip would act as a bridge across damaged brain tissue to help short-term memories become long-term ones.

The chip translates short-term memories into the proper codes as they travel through the hippocampus. In successful pilot trials, researchers have even recorded memories as they occur.

Large-scale clinical trials could happen within a year.

Berger’s fervent commitment to developing the world’s first memory chip is personal. A series of strokes left his mother unable to make any new memories. He felt helpless watching her mind waste away. His team’s chip could greatly benefit people like her— and perhaps the entire population.

“It theoretically could make people smarter, give them more detailed and vivid memories that fade away not in two years but in 10 years,” Berger says. “The chip might make people better at math and spelling and allow them to make associations to come up with new ideas, unique things.” winter 2014

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HISTORIC PHOTO COURTESY OF USC UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES

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Welcome Home From students yearning for a warm Thanksgiving family dinner to alumni who bleed cardinal and gold, the USC President’s House has seen them all in the first four busy years of the Nikias presidency.

PHOTO BY ERIC NOLAND / SAN MARINO OUTLOOK

by eric noland courtesy of san marino outlook

It’s 6:30 p.m. and guests are descending on the house. Here’s a USC physician, fresh from seeing her last patient of the day. Next comes a silver-haired, quick-witted business professor, with his hearty laugh and firm handshake. A steady procession of USC employees, from administrative staff to scientists, follows them to the home’s front door, all ready to see their hosts: USC President C. L. Max Nikias and his wife, Niki.

The growing crowd might intimidate some, but hospitality comes naturally to the Nikiases. They’re at ease hosting groups large and small at the USC President’s House, an expansive yet comfortable estate in San Marino, California, that’s been home to USC presidents for 35 years. Natives of Cyprus, the Nikiases have hospitality threaded through their DNA.

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cover “In Greek culture, you never sit down to have dinner alone,” Niki says. “There’s always the neighbor, the cousin, the motherin-law, the father-in-law who will drop by and say, ‘Well, what’s up for dinner?’ And you don’t even plan on it. Not only that, RIGHT: With hospitality but you also plan a lot of parties—birth- and comfort as the days, celebrating by hosting dinners at the foremost goals for guests at the USC house. It’s something that I’ve done a lot.”

President’s House, “The rule is,” Max adds, “you don’t do Niki Nikias works with it unless you really love it. The pressure is staff to approve event always there, the time commitment is always details from menus to seating. there. The challenge you face is how you OPPOSITE: Niki Nikias pace yourself. But when you have to be on, makes sure everything you have to be on, and you have to love it. is set for guests before they arrive. Then, when You can’t fake it.” the doorbell rings, the The Nikiases have ample opportunities couple are always at to put this into practice. Since moving into the front door with a the home, they’ve hosted about 175 events warm welcome. there—from intimate little dinners of four to orchestrated parties for 400 people on the rear lawn, under a tent. Nearly 15,600 guests have attended gatherings at the house during the Nikias years. “And we shake hands with every one of them as they The Nikiases juggle a schedule that can come through the door,” Max says over his take them across ever-present laugh.

Los Angeles and the It’s no exaggeration, apparently. “It country, building relationships. Here doesn’t matter the size of the party—when is the lineup for a you walk in the door, they’re both right typical week. there to greet you,” says Lorna Reed, a Monday: member of USC’s Board of Trustees since “1 Percent Dinner” 1987. “Large or small, they make you feel for Good Neighbors you’re the most important guest to walk donors at home through that door.”

Tuesday: Because of that crush of visitors, the USC Board of Nikiases are sensitive to the impact the Councilors reception busy entertainment schedule might have Wednesday: on their San Marino neighborhood. For Dinner with USC the big events, typically held in December, Trustees at home they not only notify neighbors, they invite Thursday: them, along with various city officials.

Cancer research The USC President’s House has long gala fundraiser ties to the university. Seeley Mudd, a forFriday: mer dean of USC’s medical school, left his Dinner with chief home to the university in his estate, with executive of Keck the stipulation that it house the university Medical Center of USC president. It has done so since 1979.

After Max Nikias became USC’s Saturday: president in August 2010, the university LAPD reception to receive Jack undertook some renovations to the house, Webb Award and the Nikiases moved from their longtime home in Rancho Palos Verdes on the Sunday: Student event and day before Thanksgiving that year. author book signing Demonstrating just how undaunted on campus

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they are by hosting large gatherings, the couple opened the house to 400 USC students the next day for Thanksgiving dinner. Many of them were international students, while others were U.S. students who weren’t able to get home for the holiday. The Nikiases couldn’t abide the thought of them rattling around near-empty residence halls and a quiet campus.

This couple had personal experience with that. They both earned their undergraduate degrees in Athens before venturing to far-off Buffalo to pursue graduate degrees at the State University of New York.

The holiday dinner, Max says, was Niki’s idea, and “I think she came up with it because we both remember very well, when we came to this country as graduate students, the first two or three years were very lonely on Thanksgiving Day. Everything was closed and you don’t have a family anywhere to go to for Thanksgiving Day.” It has since become an annual tradition. “The last couple of years, we noticed that we also get local kids,” he says with a laugh.

“From Pasadena, Arcadia. They come for the dinner.”

Niki interjects: “We’d been doing that with our daughters’ friends for years. ‘They have nowhere else to go. Can we bring them?’”

Shiyao Wu, a junior majoring in computer science who grew up in China, remembers experiencing the American holiday for the first time at last year’s Thanksgiving. “I was impressed that it was not just a formal dinner, but really a family dinner,” he recalls.

In addition to being pleasantly surprised by the garden setting, Wu remembers the warmth of the hosts. “President Nikias, his wife and daughters all came, walked around the tables and talked to us and even took pictures with us. That really made us feel that we are a family.”

Reed, the USC trustee, says that it’s a mutually beneficial occasion, because Max and Niki “love the kids, being with them and mingling. It gives them a chance to have some one-on-one conversations with them. Talking to the kids is a highlight of their year.”

They’ve had other students over too. Take that backyard barbecue for basketball players, for one. And during the football team’s NCAA sanctions, when the team was banned from postseason bowl games for two years, the couple twice invited the student-athletes to the home for a Christmas party—with the NCAA’s blessing. winter 2014

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GOOD NEIGHBORS CAMPAIGN EVENT PHOTOS BY KAREN BALLARD; LADIES’ TEA AND THANKSGIVING EVENT PHOTOS BY STEVE COHN

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autumn 2014

“Being invited to the president’s dinner was an honor,” says senior Katherine Grabar, president of USC’s Panhellenic Council.

At a leadership dinner last December, she met the Nikiases and remembers, “The house is stunning. We were free to roam about the grounds and the downstairs of the house. The ambiance was festive!”

The Nikiases also open the home for the annual “1 Percent Dinner” recognizing USC employees who donate 1 percent or more of their pay for USC’s Good Neighbors Campaign, which supports neighborhood partnerships. During the house’s 2010 renovation, guests at the French-themed dinner on campus had such a rousing time that Max declared the next year’s dinner would be “Greek night”—opa!—at the USC President’s House.

He stayed true to his word, bringing Greek food, dancers and musicians from St. Sophia Cathedral.

It’s spawned a warm family feeling and memorable entertainment ever since, featuring performers from traditional Chinese lion dancers to artists from the USC Thornton School of Music.

At each event, especially the small ones, Max listens carefully to his guests, building connections from the common threads in their lives.

The Nikiases also have hosted donors and supporters who are instrumental to the $6 billion Campaign for USC. Some stay overnight.

As part of the home renovations, Niki asked that a bedroom suite be created on the ground floor. Max says he “half-jokingly, half-seriously” refers to it as the Lincoln Bedroom, because an overnight stay in those quarters costs $1 million, “payable to USC.” Guests stay up late chatting with their hosts and have breakfast with them in the morning. The couple still chuckle about the overnight visit of David and Dana Dornsife, who donated $200 million to USC’s College of Arts and Letters, which now bears their name. After breakfast the next morning, Max had to leave for his USC office, but told the Dornsifes they were free to linger and stroll the property. He laughs at the memory: “I got a text from Dana: ‘Thank you, Max, we had a great time; 199 nights to go.’”

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Niki Nikias embraces the role of “first lady.” She chooses all menus and themes for house events, approving details from linens to seating. In 2013, she welcomed hundreds of guests and appeared at dozens of events on USC’s behalf. Here’s a rundown.

Offsite meetings with donors and officials: 61 Events attended as guest: 65 Events hosted at house or at USC: 90 Meetings and retreats at house: 7 Travel days: 49 Total: 272 out of 365 days

OPPOSITE: Hosting Ladies’ Tea is a springtime tradition to thank support organizations like Town and Gown of USC, the Association of Trojan Leagues and the Alumnae Coordinating Council.

BELOW: Each year, the Nikiases open their home to hundreds of students for a traditional family Thanksgiving.

cover The press of these social encounters— large and small—is unrelenting. From late August when the school year begins until mid-December, the Nikiases have few nights to themselves in the house. They savor that time together.

The two walk several miles in the neighborhood for exercise or slip out to their favorite seafood restaurant. And they’ve gotten quite comfortable in the house itself. It was built in 1932 by architect Reginald Johnson, who is noted for the Santa Barbara Biltmore Hotel. Paneling was brought from a manor house in England, and rooms in the house had to be designed in accordance with those panels’ specifications, Niki says.

But their enthusiasm really begins to bubble over when they talk about the beautiful murals. What a bizarre coincidence they encountered when they moved into this house.

The Mudd family made its fortune mining copper on Cyprus in the early 1900s. One of the sons, Seeley (Harvey, the namesake of the college, was the other), commissioned noted muralist Alson Clark to paint scenes of Cyprus on the walls around the staircase in his San Marino home.

The murals have long since been painted over, but Max has old, yellowed photographs of them. He excitedly riffled through a folder of them. Look at this, he says—the Greek theater of Salamis: “Niki grew up two miles from it!”

Then he produces a photo of a mural of the Byzantine monastery Antifonitis, which was painted at the base of the stairs.

And the tour continues. They both gesture out a window toward a stand of trees in the backyard, where the roof of a small building peeks through the shrubbery—it’s a playhouse, built for Mudd’s daughter, and it has electricity, running water and a kitchen.

There seems to be no evidence that the Nikiases’ hospitality is forced. Or rushed.

This really does come naturally to them.

“The interesting thing,” says Lorna Reed, “is that though it is the Nikiases’ home, they truly believe it is all of the university’s house. That’s why they love to entertain so much. ‘Come to your house.’

It’s a wonderful feeling you get as having a little bit of ownership.” usc trojan family

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USC Alumni Day of SCervice Daylong and Worldwide.

Saturday, March 14, 2015 Roll up your sleeves and join thousands of fellow Trojans participating in community service projects around the world.

Sign up for a project in your area: alumni.usc.edu/scervice

ALUMNI.USC.EDU | ALUMNI@USC.EDU | TEL: 213 740 2300

FA M I LY

PHOTO BY GUS RUELAS

IN YOUR EYES The regular Pac-12 football season may be over and daylight hours have waned, but it’s always a sunny Saturday at the Coliseum for Trojan sports fans.

Throughout the year, submit your comments or photos from sporting events using the #USCNow hashtag on social media, then go to usctrojans.com to see yourself in your full Trojan splendor—with or without sunglasses.

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For more information or to apply for TEN membership, visit alumni.usc.edu/ten.

family news

Friends in the Business by diane krieger Here’s a simple question: What USC school produces Trojans who go on to work in the entertainment industry?

If you said the USC School of Cinematic Arts, you’d be right. But if you said the USC Marshall School of Business, you’d also be right. Same goes for USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, USC Gould School of Law and several others.

This reality is at the heart of the Trojan Entertainment Network (TEN), a highly successful alumni group that’s breaking the alumni relations mold.

Traditionally, USC alumni groups have converged around a school, a geographical region, an age range or an identity—women, LGBT, Latino, African American and so on. But in today’s boundary-busting professional world, an entertainment lawyer might have more in

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common with a video game designer or a reporter from Variety than with a divorce attorney or a public defender. TEN brings together alumni who work in entertainment, regardless of their professional discipline or major.

TEN founders Jim Kelly MFA ’10, Alex Lazaris ’04, MBA ’10 and Ian Christian Blanche MFA ’10 tapped into something big when they established the group in 2010. Demand from Trojans across the entertainment industry kept growing, and they eventually turned to USC Alumni Association (USCAA) chief executive Patrick Auerbach EdD ’08 for university backing and staff support.

Auerbach, associate senior vice president for alumni relations, was happy to help. The group became a chartered member of the USCAA in 2014 and already has nearly 2,000 members.

TEN is selective. Applicants must

BELOW: TEN leaders, from left: Heather Moos ’97, Ian Christian Blanche MFA ’10, Jim Kelly MFA ’10, Alex Lazaris ’04, MBA ’10, Jennifer Sullivan ’01, Norman Hopson EML ’11

work in the industry and hold a degree from USC. Undergraduate alumni must wait two years after graduation to apply, though graduate alumni can apply immediately, says Erin Mascho, USCAA’s liaison with the group. They must go through a screening that involves verification of degree status and employment. Basic membership is free, but paid levels (Indie $100, Studio $250) come with perks, such as invitations to exclusive events.

Career development is a huge draw.

While the USC Career Center organizes job fairs and networking events for entrylevel alumni, TEN is about “providing more sophisticated programming content and a forum for mid-career professionals to network,” Auerbach says.

The alumni network concept opens up a new frontier, according to Auerbach, and USCAA President Amy Ross PhD ’86 agrees. “We realize the old ways of looking at alumni engagement don’t always work anymore,” she says. “It’s more than going to a football game or going to your class reunion. It’s about, How can you stay engaged? How can the university be relevant?”

Inspired by TEN’s success, three new Trojan networks are in development and will target real estate, education and veterans. (Although not an industry, veterans are well suited for an alumni network because there is a strong shared identity, and alumni come from all disciplines).

Networks won’t replace school-based groups or other alumni clubs. They’ll add to them. Ultimately, alumni relations aims for inclusion. “We want to encourage involvement with the university,” Auerbach says. “We want to build volunteerism, and we also want to build philanthropy back to USC.” winter 2014

PHOTO BY ARMANDO BROWN

A network for Trojans in the entertainment world now numbers nearly 2,000 members.

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Life and Times of a Litigator

PHOTO BY GUS RUELAS

Longtime LA attorney remains a “perpetual cheerleader” for USC.

Despite what you might see on TV courtroom dramas, being a good litigator is not about being aggressive, flashy or devious.

“To make it work, you must build a story around your facts,” says Wilma Williams Pinder ’62, with the conviction of a seasoned lawyer.

For 30 years, Pinder represented the city of Los Angeles and rose to the position of assistant city attorney before she retired in 2008. She knows the courtroom well. She also knows about the importance of hard work and persistence, both in the legal world and beyond it.

The older of two sisters, Pinder was only 3 years old when her family moved from Shreveport, Louisiana, to LA in search of better opportunities.

She’s thankful for her parents’ can-do spirit. “They raised us to be decent, caring people and

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to have no expectations of anyone except ourselves,” she says.

Pinder’s mother, a Realtor and the family’s main breadwinner, used to tell her, “You’re going to college, and I am going to pay for it.” And she did.

A graduate of Dorsey High School, Pinder attended what was then called Pepperdine College (at that time, located a few miles south of USC in South LA), then transferred to USC her junior year. In an undergraduate psychology class, she met the young man who would become her husband: Frank E. Pinder III ’63. “He was just a kid, like I was,” she recalls. “But we shared the same values, and he ended up being such a joy.”

Besides common values, they shared a curiosity and caring about people. Wilma Pinder went on to earn a master’s degree in psychology at

Howard University, where Frank earned his medical degree, later specializing in psychiatry.

(Currently semi-retired, he still works part time as an assistant clinical professor for the Los Angeles County+USC Medical Center’s Psychiatric Inpatient Service.) After stints teaching psychology in the 1970s, Wilma Pinder studied law at UCLA and then joined the city of Los Angeles’ legal team.

Known during her career for being a consummate attorney with an unrelenting style, Pinder brings that same passion to volunteering. A self-described “perpetual cheerleader for USC,” she helped organize her class’s 50th reunion as well as the USC Women’s Conference in 2012. She also serves on the board of the Half Century Trojans alumni group. “You can come home again,” she says.

Besides organizing events and activities, Pinder enjoys being swept up in the spirit of the university. “It’s an anchor in LA,” she says, leaning back in an armchair in the President’s Lounge at Widney Alumni House. “And it has made an imprint on the world, because there are so many international students here.”

It’s not surprising that she mentions USC’s international flavor. The Pinders have traveled far and wide throughout America, Africa, Europe and Asia, taking their Trojan spirit with them. A picture that she recently found in her home in the Mid-Wilshire area shows her and Frank in 1987, posing in front of the Great Wall of China. All smiles, they’re both raising two fingers to the sky: V for Victory.

CHRISTINA SCHWEIGHOFER

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V O L U N T E E R P R O F I L E P R I S C I L L A P A R T R I D G E D E G A R C I A ’6 3, M S ’6 7, E D D ’7 2

Healing Unseen Wounds A clinical psychologist helps PTSD patients find a path forward.

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“We’re fragile, but able to overcome our past.” neuro-linguistic programming, biofeedback and a brain-training machine akin to a video game.

She emphasizes the power of the mind. “We’re fragile, but able to overcome our past,” Partridge de Garcia says. “There’s always that little light, hope or person in the background letting us know we’re going to be OK.” She encouraged Oxnard College to expand the program by establishing a Re-Entry Center, where she worked until 2002.

Grateful clients have kept in touch. “Each Christmas, I get phone calls from veterans I’ve worked with, thanking me be-

cause they can sleep at night,” she says. “Or Re-Entry Program participants who’ve turned their lives around and become lawyers, doctors, social workers.”

As a devoted Trojan with three degrees, she’s also stayed close to her alma mater. She proudly rattles off, “I’m a Helen of Troy, on the board for the Half Century Trojans and 50th Reunion Committee, member of Town & Gown, donor for USC Rossier School of Education, holder of Cardinal & Gold season tickets.” She and her husband, Pedro Garcia EdD ’83, a professor of clinical education at USC

Rossier, haven’t missed a home football game since 1977.

Much like the day she carried the Olympic torch, Partridge de Garcia knows firsthand that moving ahead in life often requires support from others. Her Trojan network helps, and so do her guiding words: “Keep your mind on your life’s purpose, be with other people, stay present and in control of what you can learn and build.”

BEKAH WRIGHT

winter 2014

PHOTO COURTESY OF PRISCILLA PARTRIDGE DE GARCIA

In honor of her work in the community, Priscilla Partridge de Garcia ’63, MS ’67, EdD ’72 lit the Olympic torch in Santa Barbara, California, as part of its journey to the 1996 Atlanta Games. Accompanied by police officers, she high-fived cheering bystanders as she ran along the designated route. It wasn’t until later that she learned some observers were less supportive.

“I’d received 17 death threats,” she says. “Turns out, the runner who lights the torch is always a target.” She subsequently discovered that “beyond the police that I knew of running beside me, there were also CIA members all around and snipers covering me from the trees.”

She might not have known about the threat to her life, but she does understand the impact of fear. Her life’s mission is to help people who’ve grappled with violence and loss.

A clinical psychologist in private practice, Partridge de Garcia works with clients suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. She also studies mind-body connections in the aging brain, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Through her one-on-one work with patients in Camarillo, California, she helps heal unseen wounds that lie deep in the psyche, helping her patients move past trauma.

She entered the field in 1975 as a young psychologist at Oxnard College’s Re-Entry Program. She transitioned people experiencing PTSD into college courses, then careers.

The students Partridge de Garcia encountered ran the gamut from domestic abuse victims to Vietnam War veterans. “I realized they had a lot of blocks from the past,” she recalls.

“The goal was to help remove disabling patterns. Sometimes talk therapy alone just doesn’t do that. For someone to really get well, working on all levels— emotional, physical, spiritual and intellectual—has to come into play.”

Beyond traditional therapy, Partridge de Garcia’s uses eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, hypnotherapy,

family news

Check out photos from recent USC alumni events at flickr.com/usc_alumni.

One Big “Appy” Family

TOMMY AWARDS PHOTOS BY DANIELLE FAITELSON

Whether they’re in Los Angeles or London, Beijing or Boston, Trojans can easily stay connected with each other and their alma mater with the new USC Fight Online app for smartphones.

Geo-social connecting is just the beginning.

The app offers seamless access to two members-only alumni databases—the FightOn!line web community and the searchable USC Business & Service Directory —as well as a suite of online career services, including the popular connectSC job-listing portal. It offers fun features too: built-in instant messaging with Trojan emojis and a photo booth with templates for dressing up your selfies in Trojan gear.

Available for the iPhone and iPad (an Android version arrives in 2015), the free USC Fight Online app can only be activated by degreed alumni. “This is a benefit of being part of a very distinct community,” says Patrick Auerbach, associate senior vice president for alumni relations. The social networking possibilities are up to your imagination. Throwing a USC cooking party?

The app lets you invite Trojan foodies in your area. Starting a book club? Use the app to find fellow USC bookworms.

About 93,000 Trojans—more than a quarter of USC’s alumni base of 360,000— already have FightOn!line accounts, and the same ID and password will access the mobile app. Within the first year, Auerbach hopes to have 10,000 users on the mobile app and to increase Fight On!line participation by 10 percent.

It even comes with bragging rights: It’s the first geo-social alumni mobile app in the Pac-12.

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TROJANS IN THE SPOTLIGHT At the 5th annual Tommy Awards held in June, Trojans were honored for their creative, philanthropic and business contributions to New York.

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#1 SING ALONG Alumni from USC a cappella groups SoCal VoCals, Reverse Osmosis and the Trojan Men perform a number for the New York Trojan Family. The USC Alumni Club of New York includes members from New York City, Long Island, the lower part of the state of New York, southern Connecticut and northern New Jersey.

#2 LET’S ROCK Carrie St. Louis ’12, who plays the lead role of Sherrie in Rock of Ages on Broadway, takes the stage. The vocal arts major from the USC Thornton School of Music made her Broadway debut in the musical, which tells the story of two young artists trying to make it big in the 1980s LA music scene.

#3 WRITING THE BOOK Tommy Awards performer Marja Harmon ’05, a cast member in The Book of Mormon, graduated from the USC School of Dramatic Arts. Thanks to New York-area alumni, the Tommy Awards event has raised about $150,000 in scholarships for USC students from the region.

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Educate Your Palate.

Unique wines crafted exclusively for the Trojan Family.

The inaugural The inau in augu gura rall Tr Trojan Troj ojan an W Wine inee Collection in Collllec Co e ti tion on includes inc ncllud dess three thre th reee exceptional e ce ex cept ptio iona nall vintages — a Stuhlmuller Vineyards Chardonnay, a Luna Vineyards Cabernet and a Highway 12 red blend. Taste-tested and recommended by wine industry experts, this year’s release proudly features two USC alumni-managed vineyards.

You’ll want to savor and share these exquisite wines, cust cu stom om-l -lab abel eled ed w ithh ic it icon onic ic U SC iimagery. mage ma gery ry.. custom-labeled with iconic USC Qu Q Quan anti titi ities ies are are limited lim i ited imit i ed d so so order ord or derr today: de d to y: Quantities TTrojanWineCollection.com Tr ojan oj anWi nWi Wine neCo Coll llec ll ecti ec tion on.c .com om m Proceeds Procee Pro ceeds ds sup support ppor p t the the pro p programs gr ms gra m and services servi se rviccces Alumni Association. of the h US USC C Alum A lumni ni Ass Associ oc at oci ati tion on.

I partnership In par with

ALUMNI.USC.EDU | ALUMNI@USC.EDU | TEL: 213 740 2300

Class notes appear online. Read news about each graduate at tfm.usc.edu/classnotes and send your news for consideration to classnotes@usc.edu.

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Donald Thomas Aikens ’53, MS ’61 (BUS) was recently appointed a member of the Palm Springs Unified School District Board of Education. He lives in Palm Springs, California.

family class notes

professor at Michigan State University’s School of Social Work, and dean and professor at the University of Connecticut School of Social Work.

1 9 8 0 s 1 9 7 0 s Renee White Fraser PhD ’81 (LAS) was honored as one of the “50 Influential Women in Los Angeles” by Los Angeles magazine and named one of the “Ten Brightest Women in Advertising” by Advertising Age. The CEO and founder of Fraser Communications, she has co-hosted “Unfinished Business Tips” on KFWB, a Los Angeles AM radio station, to encourage and inspire entrepreneurship.

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AGUILERA PHOTO COURTESY OF GENE AGUILERA; EMMY STATUETTE COURTESY WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Jim S. Gaede MSW ’60 (SSW) retired in May from Fresno State University where he taught and inspired students for 17 years as a part-time undergraduate faculty member with the Department of Social Work Education. Previously, Gaede served as a program manager for 35 years at Kings View Behavioral Health Systems, a private, faith-based mental health nonprofit.

Vivian Von Hagen Thompson ’62 (LAS) recently donated the charmed memorabilia of her late mother, Vivian Tobin, as the first Alice in Wonderland to appear on a U.S. stage (1915) to Doheny Memorial Library’s Cassady Lewis Carroll Collection.

The package includes original performance photographs, program notes, related correspondence and dated newspaper reviews that laud the Alice productions in both Chicago and New York. Also in the gift was the actress’s later theater and film career record, her most important role having been Dacia in C. B. de Mille’s first major extravaganza, The Sign of the Cross (1932).

Leslie Ann Geyer ’63, MA ’63, PhD ’77 (LAS) received the Community Impact Award from the State Public Affairs Committee of the Junior Leagues of California for her work on behalf of homeless women. She also was selected as Outstanding Woman of Monterey County by the Commission on the Status of Women for her community activism.

Nancy Humphreys MSW ’63 (SSW) retired in April as the director of the Nancy A. Humphreys Institute for Political Social Work, which she founded. Previously, she served as president of the National Association of Social Workers, director and tfm.usc.edu

science, education, law, business, finance, government and public service.

Gene Aguilera Gene Aguilera ’76 (LAS) has written Mexican American Boxing in Los Angeles, part of Arcadia Publishing’s popular “Images of America” series. The vintage-pictorial history celebrates the colorful and flamboyant world of Mexican-American boxing in Greater Los Angeles from the 1900s to the 1990s. Written from a historical perspective, it provides snapshots of boxing’s sociological culture, from neighborhood rivalries and Mexican idols to posters and promoters. In the book, Aguilera covers some of the most notable Mexican-American fighters, from “Mexican” Joe Rivers to Oscar De La Hoya, telling the stories of their sensational ring wars while keeping alive the spirit and legacy of MexicanAmerican boxing.

Frederick J. Ryan Jr. ’77 (LAS) ’77 (SCJ), JD ’80 (LAW) was named publisher and chief executive officer of The Washington Post. Ryan previously served as president and CEO of Allbritton Communications, founding chief executive of Politico and served as chief of staff under President Ronald Reagan. He was recently appointed to the National Geographic Society board of trustees, joining 20 other leaders in

Nate Thomas Nate Thomas MFA ’84 (SCA) won an Emmy Award for a national television public service announcement (PSA) campaign he produced and directed for the FBI on intellectual property theft. Thomas received the honor at the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences 40th Annual Pacific Southwest Emmy Awards gala in Carlsbad, California. The award-winning work included three ads on music piracy, bootleg clothing and stealing trade secrets. The project was done through Thomas’ production company, Nate Thomas & Associates, which specializes in making PSAs. Thomas is a tenured professor of cinema and television arts and head of the film production program at California State University, Northridge (CSUN). Richard Ollis, MFA ’84 (SCA), a CSUN lecturer, served as usc trojan family

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family class notes director of photography on the ad campaign. Thomas and Ollis both previously received a commendation from former FBI Director Robert Mueller for their FBI PSA work.

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Erika Endrijonas MA ’90, PhD ’96 (LAS) was named president of Los Angeles Valley College. She was previously executive vice president and accreditation liaison officer of Oxnard College in Ventura County, California.

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A. Phoenix Delgado ’02, MM ’04, DMA ’13 (MUS) conducted the New Valley Symphony Orchestra in June in the summer pops concert “Mancini Tribute & Composers of Our Time,” featuring the music of Henry Mancini, Erich Bulling and Leonard Bernstein. Mancini’s widow, Ginny, who attended the event, was moved by the touching tribute.

Julie Boardman ’04 (MUS) received the Spirit of Troy Award at the USC Alumni Club of New York’s Fifth Annual Tommy Awards on June 23. Since graduation, Boardman has worked in various aspects of the entertainment industry and is currently co-producer of An American in Paris and Peter and the Starcatcher through her company, Untitled Theatricals.

Campbell Coulter ’04 (ARC) was named vice president of Building Performance Lighting for Piper Technologies. Coulter’s primary focus will be to lead Piper’s Redwood Systems and Sensity Systems practices, both of which provide advanced low-voltage lighting control capabilities for lower-cost, higher-performing interior and exterior workplaces.

Sahar Fathi ’04 (LAS), a policy analyst for the Seattle Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, was honored as a Rising Star by the nonprofit Women of Color Empowered.

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She was named one of the “Smartest People in Seattle Politics” by The Stranger in 2013 and one of “Seattle’s Smartest Global Women”

by The Seattle Globalist in 2014.

Clara Yang ’04 (MUS) and Xiao-Dan Zheng ’05 (MUS) released a recording of Grieg and Prokofiev for Albany Records in April.

Yang is assistant professor of piano at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and cellist Zheng is a tenured member of the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra.

Leslie H. Wind PhD ’03 (SSW), USC School of Social Work clinical associate professor and associate dean of academic programs, received the National Association of Social Workers Lifetime Achievement Award in May. Wind’s career spans more than four decades as a licensed clinician, researcher, advocate, community organizer, activist, author, professor and mentor.

We welcome updates from our fellow Trojans.

Go to tfm.usc.edu/classnotes to submit news for consideration through your school’s online form or to your school’s listed contact.

million monthly social referrals. Time’s combined social followings now exceed 20 million, the largest at Time Inc. In her new role, Schweitzer will continue to oversee the social team, editorial technology, content partnerships and newsletters at Time while also working across divisions on digital strategy.

Named as one of Forbes’ 30 Under 30 in Media in 2012 and 2013 and Business Insider’s 30 Most Important Women in Tech Under 30 in 2013, Schweitzer has formerly served as director of marketing and communications at Vox Media and deputy publisher at Talking Points Memo.

Alejandra Cortez ’12 (LAS), a current USC School of Social Work (SSW) student, won her bid for election to the Cypress Park Neighborhood Council in Los Angeles. A lifelong resident of Cypress Park, Cortez is a committed community advocate working alongside her neighbors to make positive change.

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Ali Atefi MA ’11 (ENG) is a registered patent attorney and partner at Loza & Loza LLP, an intellectual property law firm based in Southern California. He specializes in patent law, particularly in the process of obtaining patents for valuable inventions in the technical areas of computer software, electrical engineering and biomedical engineering. His clients range from startup ventures to Fortune 500 corporations in all aspects of intellectual property counseling and protection.

Kory Reid MM ’11 (MUS) has been appointed assistant music director of the Grammy Award-winning choral ensemble Chanticleer.

Callie Schweitzer Callie Schweitzer ’11 (SCJ) has been named editorial director for audience strategy at Time Inc., where she will work on a variety of digital initiatives at the corporate level. Schweitzer joined Time Inc. in 2013 as director of digital innovation at Time magazine, where she led the magazine’s website to a record 20

Kristen Kavanaugh MSW ’12 (SSW) received a “40 Under 40 Award” from San Diego Metro magazine in October.

Kavanaugh, a former Marine captain who served five years in the military including a combat deployment in Iraq, co-founded the Military Acceptance Project, a social justice nonprofit that promotes acceptance of LGBT service members, veterans and their families.

Samuel Barbara DMA ’13 (MUS) has been appointed director of choral activities and assistant professor of music at Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania.

Paul J. Richardson MSW ’13 (SSW) was promoted to first lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force. An alcohol and drug abuse prevention and treatment clinic program manager stationed at Nellis Air Force Base, Richardson serves more than 10,000 active-duty personnel, overseeing substance abuse prevention, education and treatments as well as providing outpatient treatment options to active-duty populations in Las Vegas.

John Russell DMA ’13 (MUS) has been appointed conductor of the San Diego Master Chorale. winter 2014

A L U M N I P R O F I L E K A R E N A D E L M A N M F A ’1 2

PHOTO COURTESY OF KAREN ADELMAN

The Art of Singing

Armed only with a small canvas backpack, a video camera and an artistic vision honed at USC Roski School of Art and Design, Karen Adelman MFA ’12 flew to Colombia to track down bullerengue.

A form of music and dance based in cumbia, bullerengue is a sort of call and response—a courtship ritual originally generated by the mingling of black slaves with indigenous women in colonial Colombia. Adelman used her $5,000 Neely Macomber Travel Prize—a competitive award for USC Roski students— to experience bullerengue firsthand. She returned to Los Angeles and last year presented her installation, La Bulla y Restos, which translates roughly to “the ruckus and remainders.”

Videos of life on the Colombian coast were projected in endless loops across the USC

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MFA Gallery walls, illuminating a gigantic sculpture knitted of mohair that hung in the center of the room. As the video’s soundtrack alternated between Spanish conversation and singing, Adelman’s live outbursts of song bounced off the walls, filling the space with the haunting echoes of bullerengue.

Adelman has a talent unusual among visual artists: She is a classically trained opera vocalist. From a young age, the New York native aspired to sing, from belting on a Broadway stage to crooning in jazz-blues clubs. As a child, she also was fascinated by crafts, particularly sewing, embroidery and knitting.

“I end up thinking about those material experiments I was engaging in as a child, working my way through materials to their final form,” Adelman says. “Most objects I make exist

in this sculptural place. I also bring my performance work into some kind of integrated reality.

I knew my work here would involve music and videos.”

During one of Adelman’s live performances, she paced under a spotlight with a large scroll in hand, synchronizing her vibrant singing with the sounds and voices in the videos. She sang in both English and Spanish, producing the fusion fundamental to bullerengue.

“The entire show is like a song,” Adelman says. “It has aspects that repeat, aspects that don’t. But in the end, there’s this sense of a story being told. And a sensory feeling about what happens.”

A strong advocate of live performance, Adelman has appeared in several other Los Angeles shows following her Macomber exhibition. She

says her experimentation with integrating music, spoken word and the visual makes her art impossible to ignore.

“A way of making meaning is to attend to something very carefully,” she says. “One of the reasons I do these performances is that I can activate attention as one of the faculties we have.

When there’s signification, there are feelings produced by it.”

L I L L I A N I N S A L ATA

Karen Adelman uses visual art, video, music and spoken word in her exhibitions.

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Winning Proposition USC Price grad uses quirky characters to educate voters on key issues.

It was a call in autumn 2008 from the Los Angeles Times that gave Nate Kaplan MPP ’11 pause. Kaplan was the communication director for then-Los Angeles Councilmember Bill Rosendahl, and the newspaper wanted to know: How would Rosendahl be voting on the November ballot?

“I’m hammering through the boring, gray voter guide we’ve all come to know and resent, and I’m thinking this is pretty difficult—and I have a background in policy,” Kaplan remembers.

A follow-up conversation with Rosendahl put things in perspective. It was the year of Proposition 8, the proposed ban on same-sex marriage— and Rosendahl is openly gay, so the issue was particularly important to him, Kaplan says.

“He was convinced he had to vote yes. We kept assuring him, ‘You’ve got to vote no if you support same-sex marriage.’”

The experience clicked for Kaplan. “I thought, there has

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to be a better way to communicate this information,” he says.

“Text-heavy voter guides don’t cut it.” Kaplan came up with an idea to create short, nonpartisan video clips that could clearly explain ballot measures.

Kaplan headed to USC Price School of Public Policy to earn his Master in Public Policy degree while still working with the LA City Council and on his video project. Despite having no background in video production, directing or screenwriting, he made a trial-run series of black-and-white, low-budget videos. It evolved into what’s now SeePolitical.com.

In 2012, an invitation to speak at Otis College of Art and Design proved integral for the fledgling site.

Chip Houghton, co-owner of the Emmy Award-winning animation studio Imaginary Forces, approached Kaplan at the event about partnering on the project. “They’ve been a godsend,” Kaplan says of Imaginary Forces. “They’re incredibly

talented at telling a story in 30 seconds to two minutes.” Two minutes was key for SeePolitical—it’s the magic number affixed to voters’ attention spans.

SeePolitical had its soft launch before last June’s election and then refocused on November’s vote. Undergrads from USC Dornsife’s Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics perform the ballot research. Says Kaplan: “We really benefited from their youthful energy and suggestions of how to communicate information.” Dan Schnur, director of the Unruh Institute, also serves on See Political’s board of directors.

For Kaplan, SeePolitical’s agenda is simple: clarity.

Kaplan envisions the site as a “platform for all things election and politics, and to empower voters with knowledge, helping them make decisions for themselves.”

Several powerhouses have joined SeePolitical’s cause, including the League of Women Voters, Yelp and Time Warner

Cable. Talks are in progress with Univision and Telemundo to potentially offer SeePolitical videos for Spanish-speaking voters. “We want to expand to other states, and drill down to local city and county issues as well,” Kaplan says.

As SeePolitical gains momentum, Kaplan is asked the inevitable question: Would he consider running for office?

After all, the Massachusetts native became the youngest candidate in his district’s history to win a primary when he ran for the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 2006. His response is that of a true politician: “I’ll always keep that option on the table, but my dream is for SeePolitical to become a national success and to serve as its executive director for a very long time.”

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family class notes Justin Evans ’03, ’05 (ENG) and Jennifer Leong Evans ’05 (LAS), JD ’08 (LAW), a daughter, Charis Noelani.

B I R T H S

Mindi (Huth) Monty ’93 (OST) and Scott Monty, a daughter, Grace Catherine. She joins brothers William Scott, 10, and Drew Allan, 7.

Brad Eilert ’94 (BUS) and Kristen Eilert, a daughter, Reese Ava. She is the niece to Heidi Eilert Kuss ‘91 (LAS).

Jacob Ullman ’95 (SCJ) and Xandi Ullman, a son, Nolan.

Laura (Giles) Rath ’00, MS ’02 (GRN) and Steve Rath, a daughter, Anna Elizabeth.

She joins sister Audrey.

Christopher Cagle ’02 and Jill Cagle, a daughter Keira Nicole. She joins brother Carson William, 2. She is the granddaughter of William Workman ’78 (SPP) and greatgranddaughter of George Brokaw ’58 (EDU).

Ashley Cooper ’04, MA ’06 (SCJ) and Michael Cooper ’02 (LAS), twins, a son and daughter, Clark and Norah.

Matthew Souza ’04 (ACC) and Nicole Gomez Souza, twin daughters, Mia Michele and Ella Nicole. They are the nieces of Joseph Souza ’07 (ACC), granddaughters of Anthony Souza ’77 (ACC) and Diana del Rio Souza ’78 (BUS), and grand-nieces of Ana Marie del Rio ’76 (LAS), MPA ’78 (SPP).

Jessica (Jones) Nelson ’05 (SCJ) and Trevor Nelson, a son, Chase James. He joins brother Lazarus Wood.

Caryn Weghorst MBA ’09 (BUS) and Matt Weghorst, a daughter, June Annabelle. She joins sister Violet Estelle. They are the nieces of Jason Ginsburg ’96 (DRA).

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Marisa J. Lopez-Sevilla MAT ’11 (EDU) and Alfredo Q. Sevilla, a daughter, Veronica Sofia. She is the niece of Jacobo S. Lopez ’15 (SCA).

M A R R I A G E S

Scott Anderson ’96 (SCJ) and Nova Via. Annie Faulkner ’11 (SPP) and Brian Wagner ’12 (LAS).

Michael Directo ’06 (LAS), MBA ’13 (BUS), MD ’13 (MED) and Shari (Vasquez) Directo ’07 (MED).

Jaime Lee ’06 (LAS), JD ’09 (LAW) and Matt Cheesebro MS ’09 (ENG).

Michael Hu ’11 (SCJ) and Caleigh Douglass ’10, MPH ’12 (MED).

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Your

NEWS Your

WORLD Your

USC

It’s all at news.usc.edu

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Harold J. Greene, 55 Maj. Gen. Harold J. Greene MS ’89, MS ’90, PhD ’92 (ENG) of Falls Church, Virginia, died in the line of duty in Afghanistan on Aug. 5 at the age of 55.

Greene was the highest-ranking soldier lost in the line of duty since the Vietnam War. He had earned dual master’s degrees in materials science and mechanical engineering as well as a doctorate in materials science from USC Viterbi School of Engineering. In his more than 30 years with the U.S. Army, Greene earned numerous commendations and awards, including the Distinguished Service Medal.

Florian Mansfeld, now a professor emeritus of materials science, served as Greene’s academic adviser at USC. He remembers a warm and approachable student, a bit older than his classmates, but friendly with everyone. Before applying to USC, Greene called Mansfeld and told him that the Army had given him an opportunity to pursue a PhD, but at a different school.

Greene convinced his superiors to send him to USC’s engineering school instead, where he researched and wrote a dissertation about how the materials used in helicopter rotor blades experience corrosion and fatigue when exposed to polluted air.

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After leaving USC, Greene’s expertise in airframe materials led him to a job helping the Army investigate helicopter crashes. Having developed a strong bond, Greene hired Mansfeld as a consultant, and they worked together to improve the safety of helicopters by researching what causes failures. From there, Greene rose through the ranks of the Army, ultimately earning promotion to two-star general in 2012.

Greene, a devoted family man, was “always very proud of his children,” said Mansfeld. Mansfeld often invited students to his home for holiday dinners, which Greene attended with his wife, Susan Myers, and young son, Matthew. Greene’s daughter, Amelia, was born right around his graduation.

“General Greene served our country with honor and distinction. He served with unparalleled dedication and offered the highest sacrifice, his own life,” said Yannis C. Yortsos, dean of USC Viterbi. “We are honored and proud to count him as our own.”

Bob (Robert) D. Johnstone ’42 (ENG) of Ventura, California; Dec. 20, 2013, at the age of 94.

Max Oppenheimer Jr. PhD ’47 (LAS) of Sun City, Nevada; May 23, at the age of 96.

Walter Mazzone ’48 (PHM) of San Diego, California; Aug. 7, at the age of 96. winter 2014

PHOTO COURTESY OF U.S. ARMY

See the latest USC news stories, photos and videos online — anytime, anywhere. Or subscribe to get USC news delivered straight to your inbox.

IN THE

MIX P R O M OT I O N S E V E N TS O P P O RT U N I T I E S

EVENT

Shining STAR USC Professor Roberta Diaz Brinton, named Woman of the Year

by Los Angeles magazine for her research in the fight against Alzheimer’s disease, received a unique accessory in addition to her honors, courtesy of the fine jewelry artists of Buccellati. At a private event at the Beverly Hills store, Brinton expressed delight to Buccellati CEO Alberto Milani over the Soleil Rayon 22-carat gold bracelet. The design serves as a reminder of her decadeslong involvement of the USC STAR program, a highly successful science enrichment program at the university. buccellati.com

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A LU M N I P R O F I L E R O B E RT K R O N F L I ’1 1

Serving Up Success

PHOTO BY CAROLINE ASHKAR

A restaurateur on the rise started with an underground supper club run out of a USC student apartment.

Buzz-worthy dining venues with waiting lists for reservations are no big thing in Los Angeles. But back in 2009, one that hit the scene wasn’t located in a trendy foodie neighborhood. It was run out of the North University Park apartment of two USC sophomores, Robert Kronfli ’11 and Alex Chang ’11. Over the next two years, what started as a casual Thursday night dinner among friends became an underground phenomenon. It would spur a documentary film and forever change their lives.

The illicit supper club was called Paladar, the Cuban term referring to a restaurant run out of a private home. While Kronfli, a music major, took on the role of restaurateur, Chang, a kinesthesiology major, served up three-course prix fixe dinners that ranged from Spanish-inspired cuisine to New American.

By the end of Kronfli’s and Chang’s senior year, the Thursday night dinners had expanded to Tuesday through Saturday with

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up to 70 diners per night and a documentary in the works by USC film student Gil Freston ’12.

Kronfli, who was juggling schoolwork and internships, began to consider another career path. “When Paladar began taking up so much of my time, energy and mental focus, my life just naturally went down that road and I decided to go with it,” Kronfli remembers.

After graduating, Chang headed to Europe to hone his cooking skills. Kronfli took his own next logical step: He went into business with his brother Daniel ’05, the founder of Bacaro LA restaurant.

Now a full-time restaurateur, Kronfli’s days are anything but predictable. “During the day, I could be doing accounting and financial forecasting, marketing and branding; at night, serving customers or washing dishes.”

The pace of the business is a perfect fit. “We don’t like complacency,” he says. “We’re always looking toward the next

project, how we can keep growing and stay busy.”

And busy they are. Beyond expanding Bacaro LA, the Kronflis and their business partner, Lior Hillel, opened Nature’s Brew, a cafe next door.

Demand for their sauces led to the opening of Kronfli Brothers Inc., a retail foods bottling company. In August, the brothers and Hillel stepped outside their USC neighborhood comfort zone, opening Bacari PDR in the community of Playa Del Rey. Each new endeavor has met with success in an oftencruel industry. The Kronflis’ approach? Extreme attention to detail. “My OCD, in this regard, really ensures that every detail—from food, service, design and cleanliness—is executed properly,” Kronfli says. “Obviously, hard work and a strong vision also need to work side by side with effective business and marketing strategies.”

And many of their staff members are USC students or

Robert Kronfli, left, with Lior Hillel and Daniel Kronfli

alumni, by design. “This investment isn’t only financial but also an emotional one,” he says.

“We treat our team members as if they’re part of our extended family. We couldn’t accomplish the goals we‘ve set in place without a hardworking team that shares our passion.”

The brothers and Hillel now dream of dramatically growing their restaurants and product line. But in the midst of so many projects, Kronfli won’t forget his roots as a student at USC. Freston’s documentary, Paladar, which captured the scrappy, experimental underground club that started it all, showed at the Tribeca Film Festival and Downtown Film Festival–Los Angeles in 2013 and is now available on iTunes and Amazon.com.

Watch the Paladar trailer at bit.ly/USCPaladar.

BEKAH WRIGHT

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family class notes Clarence “Cully” Cullimore AIAE ’49 (ARC) of Bakersfield, California; April 20, at the age of 88.

Janet Catherine Horning Tubelle ’50 (LAS) of Walnut Creek, California; Feb. 15, at the age of 86.

Rudolph “Rudy” E. Fanska ’52 (LAS) of Titusville, Florida; April 4, at the age of 90.

Ned Delmont Osborn ’58, MS ’60 (ENG), of Torrance, California; June 27, 2013, at the age of 94.

Harold “Hal” Tobin ’62 (BUS), Indio, California; Nov. 9, at the age of 74.

Bud Hollowell ’64, PhD ’70 (EDU) of Lakeland, Florida; May 16, at the age of 71.

James Porter ’66 (ARC) of Los Angeles; July 15, at the age of 72.

Phillip D. Shannon MA ’66 (OST), MPA ’74 (SPP) of McAllen, Texas; June 23, at the age of 77.

Joel Rosenzweig ’70 (DRA) of Richardson, Texas; Oct. 29, at the age of 66.

FA C U LT Y, S TA F F & F R I E N D S

Peter Daland, 93 Legendary USC men’s swimming head coach Peter Daland passed away on Oct. 20 in Thousand Oaks, California. One of the most successful and respected collegiate and international swim coaches in history, Daland spent more than 45 years coaching at the club and college levels. Under Daland, the Trojans won nine NCAA team championships from 1958 through 1992. Daland, a six-time National Coach of the Year, led his swimmers to 93 NCAA and 155 Pac-10 individual and relay titles. USC went undefeated in dual meets in 20 of his seasons. His 1977 team is regarded as the finest collegiate swim team ever.

John Naber ’77, four-time Olympic gold medalist and 10-time NCAA champion, said of his former coach: “The sport lost a great man, and I lost a dear friend.

He brought a wealth of knowledge and understanding on how to get the most out of his teams, and his swimmers repaid him

with great admiration, loyalty and respect.”

Daland also coached the U.S. men in the 1972 Olympics as they won nine gold medals (including seven by Mark Spitz) and the U.S. women’s 1964 Olympics team, which captured six golds. He guided American teams to impressive victories against East Germany and the USSR in 1971 and at the World University Games in 1973.

Daland was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame, the American Swimming Coaches Association Hall of Fame and the USC Athletic Hall of Fame. The pool at USC’s Uytengsu Aquatics Center bears his name.

Daland is survived by Ingrid, his wife of nearly 50 years; children George, Roger, Peter Jr., Bonnie and Leslie; and eight grandchildren.

In lieu of flowers, Daland’s family requests that donations be made to the Peter Daland Endowed Head Swimming Coach’s Chair to endow the men’s swimming head coach’s position (c/o Ron Orr, USC Athletic Department, Heritage Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0602).

Wilson C. Stockey MS ’73 (SPP) of Naperville, Illinois; April 28, 2013, at the age of 75.

Mark Nicolay DMA ’89 (MUS), Redlands, California; May 19, at the age of 57.

Evans Alexander Hanson ’00 (LAS) of Houston; Nov. 21, 2013, at the age of 35.

PHOTO COURTESY OF USC UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES

Christopher Mello DMA ’07 (MUS) of San Pedro, California; June 19, at the age of 38.

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Science and Technology Center headquartered at USC. Edwards earned a bachelor’s degree with honors in geology at The Ohio State University and went on to earn her master’s in geology and a PhD in geomicrobiology from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Edwards is survived by her children, Ania, Katya and Nakita Webb; her parents, Timothy and Sandra; her siblings, Ben, Melanie and Nina; and many nieces and nephews.

PHOTO BY PHILIP CHANNING

Katrina Edwards, 46 A dedicated teacher, mentor and leader in the field of geomicrobiology, Katrina Edwards passed away in South Pasadena, California, on Oct. 26. The professor of biological sciences and earth sciences at USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences made pioneering advances in understanding “intraterrestrials”—microbes living miles below the ocean’s crust and sediment. Edwards’ research illuminated the reciprocal interactions between microbes, rocks and minerals in the ocean’s crust and how these interactions influence global biogeochemical processes.

“In the world of geobiology at USC, it is now hard to imagine anything occurring that was not started or improved upon by Katrina Edwards,” said Kenneth Nealson, holder of the Wrigley Chair in Environmental Studies and professor of earth sciences and biological sciences at USC Dornsife.

Edwards received many distinctions throughout her career for her contributions to oceanographic research, including the prestigious Royal Society of Canada’s 2012 A.G. Huntsman Award for Excellence in Marine Science. She published about 100 research papers, contributed to several microbiology textbooks, and served on the editorial boards for publications including Environmental Microbiology, Geobiology Journal and Geomicrobiology Journal.

In 2009, with the support of a $29 million grant from the National Science Foundation, Edwards and her USC team partnered with several major research universities and national laboratories to establish the Center for Dark Energy Biosphere Investigations, the second NSF tfm.usc.edu

David Weiss of Los Angeles, California; May 24, at the age of 67.

L E G E N D

LAS ACC ARC BUS SCA SCJ DNC DEN DRA EDU ENG ART GRN LAW LIB MED MUS OST PHM BPT SPP SSW

USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences USC Leventhal School of Accounting USC School of Architecture USC Marshall School of Business USC School of Cinematic Arts USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism USC Kaufman School of Dance Ostrow School of Dentistry of USC USC School of Dramatic Arts USC Rossier School of Education USC Viterbi School of Engineering USC Roski School of Art and Design USC Davis School of Gerontology USC Gould School of Law USC Libraries Keck School of Medicine of USC USC Thornton School of Music USC Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy USC School of Pharmacy Division of Biokinesiology and Physical Therapy USC Price School of Public Policy USC School of Social Work

Susan Bell, Carrie Banasky, Kristin Borella, Wendy Gragg, Mike McNulty, Maya Meinert, James Morse, Jane Ong, Kristi Patton, Kathleen Rayburn and Mara Simon-Meyer contributed to this section.

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Send your questions or memories to Ask Tommy at magazines@usc.edu. Include your name, degree, class year and a way to contact you. Questions may be edited for space.

Ask Tommy Questions and answers with Tommy Trojan Dear Readers,

A masonry monkey thumbs its nose high above passersby at the Student Union.

Without a doubt, my favorite study spot was the edge of the old fountain in the center of campus. There, surrounded by roses, with Youth Triumphant towering over me, Doheny Memorial Library at my back, and Bovard in front of me (beyond the meticulously maintained flowerbed with “USC” spelled out in hedges), I felt so much a part of our great and historic alma mater. I could not be anything but studious in that spot.

As far as libraries go, the library in Mudd Hall. The church-like silence must come with its mock-cloister architecture. Again, sitting at the “altar” (the table in the apse), or in one of the smaller alcove tables, surrounded by aged leather-bound volumes, what else can one do but study intently? (Except maybe drift into long daydreams about the weekend to come.) Mudd Hall closes early though, so my choice for later

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study would have to be Doheny’s main reading room. Though it had been closed for retrofitting and renovation for one or two of my years at ’SC, Doheny is a stunning gem. They just don’t build them like that anymore (for example, Leavey Library—functional, but sterile).

J A S O N M A Y N A RD ’04 The monkey near the ledge at the Student Union—its legend and the history with the architect and construction crew with President von KleinSmid. Easily, that is No. 1 in Trojan Family lore.

L A RRY S T EV EN L O N D RE ’71, MBA ’74 Dear Larry, Bonus points for any students who could study near this distracting primate! Above

the main entrance on the east side of the Student Union is a stone likeness of USC’s fifth president, Rufus B. von KleinSmid.

To his right, a monkey gargoyle thumbs its nose in von KleinSmid’s direction. According to urban legend, architects placed the monkey there to express their sentiments.

Some say the builders were frustrated over finances; others say they were irritated with von KleinSmid’s comments or his desire to locate the main entrance on what is now known as Trousdale Parkway, contrary to their advice. Someone undoubtedly knows the truth, but they’re not talking. Thanks to USC’s First Book of Lists and Urban Legends (Figueroa Press) for refreshing my memory on this one.

winter 2014

PHOTO BY HOLLY WILDER

As 2014 dwindles down to its last few days, USC students are taking their final exams and finishing up their final projects.

I remember those days. In fact, I still have dreams in which I suddenly realize I have to take a final exam for a class I’ve completely forgotten. (Sound familiar?)

More than the exams themselves, though, it’s what I learned about life from some of my professors that has stayed with me. I had a few instructors who got me interested in topics I’d never expected to enjoy.

OK, Greek mythology was probably an obvious choice for a Trojan, but who knew I’d also like learning about rocks? Yet other teachers influenced my career choices.

Do you have memories about a favorite USC professor or instructor? Drop me a line at magazines@usc.edu to share your stories.

Now let’s get to your thoughts. In the Spring 2014 issue of USC Trojan Family Magazine, I invited you to submit your favorite spots on campus for studying.

Here are some of your responses.

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