“I was walking down the street recently and a black guy with a mohawk coming down the street complimented a white guy with a mohawk going the other way. So I made a wish. Yeah, I know how miracles work.”
Amid loud applause, Amherst alumna and comedian Aparna Nancherla ’05E began her stand-up stint on “Conan” in October 2013. Although this was her first time receiving national attention for her comedy work, Nancherla has been making people laugh even before she ever picked up a microphone.
Once a biology major at the college, Emily Stern ’83 has now integrated her science education at Amherst and medical training at Cornell into revolutionizing functional neuroimaging for studying functions of the brain. The director of Functional and Molecular Neuroimaging and of the Functional Neuroimaging Laboratory at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, one of the primary teaching hospitals of Harvard Medical School, Stern is a leading expert in imaging of neuropsychiatric diseases.
A Determined Researcher
He has served on the boards of more than 40 profit and nonprofit companies. He has co-authored a well-received book regarding entrepreneurial practice. Now, at age 80, things have slowed down a bit, but H. Irving Grousbeck ’56 remains busy working as a professor at the Stanford Business and Medical Schools.
Huston Powell ’91 has mastered the art of tracing musical tastes around the world. Working with Austin-based concert and festival promoter C3 Presents, Powell has the task of booking bands for the world’s most prominent festivals. Most notably, Powell holds the reins to the annual Lollapalooza music festival.
After his time at Amherst, Powell took an unconventional path to join C3 Presents, the incredible force behind much of the eclectic music, good vibes and flower headbands that the world has come to love.
The Path to C3 Presents
Five seconds into my interview with Amy Ziering ’84, the distinguished producer and director of Academy Award-nominated “The Invisible War” (2012) and Emmy nominee “Outrage” (2009) tells me, “You know, I hate talking about myself. What about you? What do you study?” I knew I was supposed to stay on track and get the story, but her curious demeanor disarmed me as I slipped into a digression about my life.
Most students study world events from a safe distance. Abbey Gardner ’89, however, has the habit of being exactly where history is being made. From a visit to the Soviet Union during the Gorbachev era, to the halls of the Latvian parliament during the nation’s struggle for independence, to earthquake-shattered Haiti, Gardner has both witnessed and taken part in the changing world of international affairs. Today, she works with Special Advisor to the United Nations Secretary General Paul Farmer to improve aid to developing countries.
Culling images and fragments from the world around her, Tess Taylor ’99 exemplifies how a poet can also be a historian, archaeologist, naturalist, teacher, student and witness. Whether she is describing her first post-college apartment in Brooklyn, her drives from northern to southern California or the bird sanctuary at Amherst, her thoughtful observations give a complex and distinct shape to a place’s unspoken stories.
The Root of a Poem
“Poetry is essentially a long conversation,” Taylor said.
