Christiane Amanpour: ABC News Global Affairs Anchor
One of the most widely-recognized foreign correspondents, Christiane Amanpour is currently the global affairs anchor for ABC News. In addition, she is the host of “Amanpour,” an interview program on CNN International where she has also been the chief international correspondent since 1992. Amanpour broke into the journalism scene in 1990 when her first assignment was to cover the Gulf War. Since that first assignment, she has reported from many places, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel and Rwanda. Amanpour was the only person to interview Hosni Mubarak and had an exclusive interview with Muammar Ghadafi during the Arab Spring in February 2011. Amanpour was the 2011 recipient of the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism.
Sheila Bair: Pew Charitable Trusts Sr. Advisor
The current senior adviser to The Pew Charitable Trusts, Sheila Bair was the chair of the United States Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation from 2006 to 2011 and played a major part in the government’s response to the 2008 financial crisis. Before that, Bair was the Dean’s Professor of Financial Regulatory Policy for the Isenberg School for Management at UMass Amherst since 2002. She has also served as assistant secretary for financial institutions at the U.S. Department of the Treasury (2001-2002) and held many other prominent positions. She was the recipient of a 2009 John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award and a Hubert H. Humphrey Civil Rights Award.
Martin Duberman: Writer/Gay Rights Activist
Martin Duberman is an American historian and gay-rights activist as well as a writer of plays, biographies, historical works, essays, book reviews and more. He is a Professor Emeritus of History at Lehman College and the Graduate School of the City Univ. of New York, and he founded the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in 1991 in the latter — the nation’s first university-based research center dedicated to the study of issues of concern to LGBTQ communities. Duberman has received many awards for his writings, including a Bancroft Prize, a Vernon Rice/Drama Desk Award, two Lambda awards and more. He has been a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.
Ulric Haynes Jr. ’52: Former U.S. Ambassador to Algeria
Ulric Haynes ’52 is a former United States Ambassador to Algeria (1977 to 1981) and a member of the American Academy of Diplomacy and Council on Foreign Relations. During his time as ambassador, he helped to negotiate the release of hostages from the U.S. Embassy in Iran. He has worked for the United Nations, the U.S. Department of State and the National Council, focusing on various regions of Africa. His positions in academia include serving as the president of SUNY College at Old Westbury and teaching at institutions such as Harvard and Stanford. Haynes holds a B.A. in political science from Amherst and a J.D. from Yale Law School, and he graduated from the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School.
David K. Lewis ’64: Connecticut College Professor
David K. Lewis ’64 is the current Margaret W. Kelly Professor of Chemistry at Connecticut College and taught at Colgate Univ. for 26 years. He recently received the 2012 National Award for Research at an Undergraduate Institution from the American Chemical Society (ACS), in honor of his decades of successful collaboration with, and encouragement of, undergraduate researchers in chemistry. Lewis has produced more than 40 articles, most with undergraduate coauthors, for publications such as The Journal of Physical Chemistry and the Journal of the American Chemical Society. He is affiliated with Aerodyne Research Inc. and is a member of the ACS, the Council on Undergraduate Research and Sigma Xi.
Anthony W. Marx: Former Amherst College President
Currently president of the New York Public Library, Anthony W. Marx was the 18th president of Amherst College. He strove to make Amherst the most selective and socioeconomically diverse college in the country, and he pushed to ensure access for the most talented students from any economic background. Prior to Amherst, he was a professor and director of undergraduate studies of Political Science at Columbia Univ. He also helped in the founding of Khanya College in South Africa. Marx wrote a book, “Making Race and Nation: A Comparison of the United States, South Africa and Brazil,” that won the American Political Science Association’s 1999 Ralph J. Bunche Award and the American Sociological Association’s 2000 Barrington Moore Prize.
John McPhee: American Author
John McPhee is an American writer widely considered to be one of the pioneers of creative nonfiction. He is the author of 29 nonfiction books on a wide range of topics, a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1965 and the Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University since 1974. His titles include “A Sense of Where You Are” (1965), “The Curve of Binding Energy” (1974), “Uncommon Carriers” (2006) and “Silk Parachute” (2010). He won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, a 1977 Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the 2011 Wallace Stegner Award from the Center of the American West.
Jim Steinman ’69: Composer, Lyricist and Producer
Since his days as a young opera fan and a creator of daring theatrical works at Amherst College and with Joe Papp at the New York Shakespeare Festival, Jim Steinman ’69 has sold more than 190 million records as a composer, lyricist and Grammy Award-winning record producer. He is responsible for hit songs such as “Total Eclipse of the Heart” and “Making Love Out of Nothing At All,” and Meat Loaf’s album “Bat Out of Hell.” Steinman also wrote the lyrics for the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical “Whistle Down the Wind” and contributed to the soundtrack of “Footloose,” among other movies. In June 2012, Steinman will be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
