Alumni in the News

Six College alumni made this year’s Forbes “30 Under 30” list. In the Finance category are Lalit Gurnani ’11 (associate at Goldman Sachs) and Salim Hirji ’11 (principal at Apollo Global Management); in Social Entrepreneurs is Ebele Ifedigbo ’10 (cofounder of The Hood Incubator, which “helps transition underground cannabis sellers to legal markets” as cannabis becomes legal across the country); in Media is Peter Sterne ’14 (senior reporter for the Freedom of the Press Foundation); in Marketing/Advertising is Shirley Chen ’10 (founder of Narrativ, a startup that uses “artificial intelligence to enable retailers to bid for clicks on product links in editorial content”) and in Hollywood & Entertainment is Sabaah Folayan ’13 (a director and producer who co-directed the police brutality documentary Whose Streets?).

Playwright Terrence McNally ’60

Michael Nagle

Playwright Terrence McNally ’60 and his husband, Tom Kirdahy, were featured on November 15 in The New York Times’ new series “It’s No Secret,” which highlights couples “who share thoughts about commitment and what they have learned about themselves and each other along the way.”

College alumni also appeared on televisions across America this past fall. Meghan McCain ’07 joined the cast of The View as a co-host on October 9. On October 20, Dr. Jennifer Ashton ’91, PS’00, HN’16 was named chief medical correspondent for ABC News. Cara Buono ’93 appeared on the hit Netflix series Stranger Things, which debuted its second season on October 27. And on November 17, Buzzy Cohen ’07 won the Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions, taking home the $250,000 grand prize.

In music news, producer and former Vampire Weekend band member Rostam Batmanglij ’06 released his debut solo album, Half-Light, in September and Nico Muhly ’03’s new opera, Marnie, opened at the English National Opera on November 18.

New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor ’96 made headlines when she broke the October 5 story “Harvey Weinstein Paid Off Sexual Harassment Cases for Years,” exposing decades of accusations against one of Hollywood’s top producers. Kantor also appeared on The Daily (a Times podcast) to discuss the story. Since then, she has filed several articles uncovering more allegations tied to Weinstein and other high-profile figures.

Tom Kitt ’96

Jörg Meyer

The National Institute of Social Sciences, one of the nation’s oldest honorary societies, presented former University president Michael I. Sovern ’53, LAW’55 with a National Institute Gold Honor Medal on November 14.

Jin Ha ’13

Huan Nguyen

Broadway is currently home to quite a few Lions: Tom Kitt ’96 did the orchestrations, arrangements and music supervision for the Broadway musical SpongeBob SquarePants, which began performances on November 6 and officially opened on December 4. Jin Ha ’13 stars as Song Liling in the Broadway revival of M. Butterfly, directed by Julie Taymor and written by Professor David Henry Hwang, head of the School of the Arts’ playwriting concentration; the show opened October 7. Playwright (and House of Cards creator) Beau Willimon ’99, SOA’03’s new work, The Parisian Woman, opened on Broadway on November 30 and stars Uma Thurman and Josh Lucas.