Princeton is joining other universities around the world by responding to coronavirus in striking and innovative ways. From new, pandemic-related research to solutions-driven engineering; from philosophical and social inquiry to digital adaptations, student support, community service, entrepreneurialism and more — the greater Princeton community is doubling down on our core mission and strengthening our bonds. … Continue reading "‘We Roar’: A new Princeton University podcast about coronavirus...

Celebrated playwright and theater director Emily Mann was raised, if not born, to “make trouble.” Growing up on the South Side of Chicago during the height of the civil rights movement, she decided at an early age that theater was her best tool for effecting change. Her stage career blossomed in step with the feminist movement through plays such as “Execution of Justice,” “Annulla, an Autobiography,” “Betsey Brown” and “Having our Say.” After being named artistic director for the McCarter...

Catherine Riihimaki knows her way around environmental issues. She’s a geoscientist and a science communications expert with the Princeton Council on Science and Technology. From that perch, she works with colleagues across the University to help educate a STEM-literate society through formal and informal experiences. Her newest channel is “All for Earth” – a podcast launched in concert with the 25th anniversary of the Princeton Environmental Institute to drill deep on a central theme: the...

Maribel Hernandez Rivera, a graduate alumna from 2010, reflects on her childhood experience as an undocumented immigrant and now champion of immigrant rights. She attributes her personal success — measured in scholarships from Phillips Exeter Academy, Harvard, Princeton and NYU — to extraordinary luck and exceptional mentors. Maribel has deployed her education towards improving immigration policy in the U.S., first in the Woodrow Wilson School, later in the New York City Mayor’s Office of...

Jo first came to Princeton as a postdoc in 2006, when she worked on data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), a space telescope that took the universe’s earliest baby pictures. When she ran her code on that data, she was briefly the only person in the world to know the precise age of the universe. (Don’t worry, she quickly shared the news.) Now a tenured professor in the department, Jo is not only a world-class scientist, she’s also a world-class science communicator. She...

Wendy Kopp, Class of 1989, was a groundbreaking social entrepreneur long before the term was invented. She conceptualized Teach for America as part of her senior thesis and founded the organization shortly after graduation. It is based a single big idea: the most promising future leaders coming out of college could have profound social impact if they committed to teaching in underserved schools for just two years. Not only would school systems get an infusion of energy and talent, but Wendy...

Juliet Eilperin, Class of 1992, is a journalist for The Washington Post with an unusual pair of specialties: congressional politics and the environment. Juliet’s first book was “Fight Club Politics: How Partisanship is Poisoning the House of Representatives.” She began covering environmental issues in 2004 and shares her views on the challenges of that beat in a polarized political context. Climate change is only part of her focus. Juliet reports on environmental regulation, land use,...

Stephanie Mash Sykes, Class of 2004, is eyeing the future of American cities. As executive director of the African American Mayors Association, she’s focused on the panoply of issues facing black urban leaders today — from demographic trends that are re-shaping their constituencies to new technologies that are re-defining political engagement. She discusses the new wave of millennial and women mayors in her organization and how their presence might shape policies on paid family leave,...

Online journalist Maria Ressa, Class of 1986, knows the best and the worst of social media. It helped drive the Philippines-based news site she co-founded, called Rappler, to 300% growth rates in its early years. Today, she warns that the weaponization of social media threatens the very existence of Rappler, free speech, her own freedom, and the future of democracy itself — not just in the Philippines but worldwide.

Emily Carter, the outgoing dean of Princeton’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, looks back on 15 years at Princeton and forward to her new job as the second-ranking executive officer of UCLA. Her vision for UCLA is grand, inclusive, service-focused … and distinctly urban.  “Basically,” she explains, “the way cities go is the way the planet is going to go because over half the population lives in cities currently and it’s only going to grow.”  

Joanne Ramos, Class of 1995, tackles issues that are both timely and eternal in her powerful new novel exploring surrogacy as big business. She shines a light on social class, immigration, and the trade-offs women often make to secure independence and their children’s future.  Joanne’s plot imagines a world just over the horizon from existing surrogacy practices. Her characters include two Filipino immigrants, a Chinese American MBA and an idealistic college graduate from the Midwest. Each...

Jen Rexford, Class of 1991 and chair of Princeton’s computer science department, has seen it all. From tinkering with the first consumer PCs in 1984 to saving the internet as we know it, Jen has been at the forefront of her field during an epoch of extraordinary advancement … and there’s much more to come. She talks about the urgent need to scale up computer science programs around the country, the feeding frenzy for top computational talent, and partnering with Google. She reflects on the...

Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Class of 2000, has produced and directed award-winning documentaries all over the world, most recently the jaw-dropping “Free Solo,” for which she won the 2019 Academy Award for Best Documentary Film. In the film, Chai documents the physical and emotional journeys of world-class climber Alex Honnold as he attempts to summit Yosemite’s 3,000-foot El Capitan without ropes. Her filmmaking journey started as a Princeton undergraduate, when she traveled to war-torn...

PowerPoint presentations on global warming aren’t usually met with standing ovations, but Kathleen Biggins and her group of traveling speakers are getting used to them — even in the most conservative communities they visit. Their roadshow is called C-Change Conversations. They bring it to the curious and the skeptical in country clubs, rotary clubs, garden clubs, private homes and other gatherings across the country.  

How hard could it be? After working her way through Georgetown, Harvard, Stanford and now Princeton, Sadaf Jaffer has just become the mayor of Montgomery Township in New Jersey. Sadaf is the state’s first mayor from the South Asian community and she’s committed to ensuring that she is not the last. But that’s just in her spare time. By day, Sadaf is a Princeton postdoc, pursuing an academic career in South Asian, Islamic and gender studies. It’s important, she says, to bring her values and...

Lynn Loo, a 2001 graduate alumna and director of the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, says this is an “all-hands-on-deck” moment for everyone with skills or technology to address climate change. She describes the Andlinger Center’s mission to mobilize engineers such as herself and academics across the University to form partnerships with each other, with all levels of government, and with the private sector to decarbonize the economy — now.

Mellody Hobson, Class of 1991, speaks out on the latest episode of the “She Roars” podcast to demystify principles of investing and discuss her own efforts to combat dangerously high rates of financial illiteracy in America today. “I find that children become the gateway drug to parents, and I mean that in the best way. If you can teach a child about money, you de facto teach their parent.” She also discusses the low representation rates for women among Fortune 500 CEOs and managers and asks...

Courtney Banghart, head coach of Princeton’s women’s basketball team, “talks the walk” about team building, shedding fears of failure and taking every three-point shot that opens up in life. She discusses basketball, too — as well as the surreal experience of joining the Pope and Bill & Melinda Gates on Fortune Magazine’s list of 50 greatest leaders in the world.   

As deputy director of science and technology for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Patricia Falcone ’74 has been at the forefront of women in science since becoming one of the first female engineering majors at Princeton. She now oversees the strategic development of Livermore’s scientific capabilities and is responsible for its collaborative research with academia and the private sector. Pat joined Livermore after serving in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy where...

Laura Trevelyan, host of BBC World News America and Princeton parent, has a rare perspective on the United States’ role in the world. She covered her first U.S. presidential election campaign in 2004 and began focusing on the United Nations in 2006. It all became personal in 2016 when the British-born journalist was sworn in as a new American citizen — one day after now President Trump won the White House. Laura’s American roots run deep, however. She is also the great, great, great...

Asha Rangappa, Class of 1996, is an expert on counterintelligence investigations and the law behind them.  A former special agent for the FBI and associate dean at Yale Law School, Asha is now a senior lecturer at Yale’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs — as well as a legal and national security analyst for CNN. In this episode, Asha discusses Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and her risk-taking approach to career planning.

Journalist Indira Lakshmanan was a special guest on campus. She visited Princeton to give the third annual Distinguished Teaching Lecture in Service and Civic Engagement. Indira has reported from 80 countries over the years. She has covered coups, campaigns and revolutions working for the Boston Globe, Bloomberg News, the International New York Times, and many others. She held a chair in journalism ethics at the Poynter Institute until just a few months ago when she became executive editor of...

Frances Arnold, Class of 1979, knew a good thing when she saw it in her laboratory some 25 years ago – and the results were game changing. Defying the prevailing wisdom, Frances innovated a completely new way to engineer enzymes that is now pushing the boundaries of green chemistry, biofuel production and more sustainable industrial processes. And there’s much more to come. Researchers are just scratching the surface of where her methods can lead. In this episode of “She Roars,” Nobel...

Helen Zia ’73 is an award-winning journalist, activist and scholar who has covered Asian American communities and social and political movements for decades. She has been outspoken on issues ranging from civil rights and peace to women’s rights and countering hate violence and homophobia. She is the former Executive Editor of Ms. Magazine and author of Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People and. She was named one of the most influential Asian Americans of the decade by A....