Seen & Heard
A selection of must reads about Dartmouth alumni making news around the world.
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JoRee LaFrance ’17
Water Is Life
“We have known that the water is a reflection of us since time immemorial,” writes LaFrance. “However, our rivers and water have been impacted by human activity such as agriculture, sewage waste and abandoned mines. But I and other Apsáalooke researchers are working together to understand the quality of our water systems and how this poses risks to our community members and cultural practices.
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Ray Prado ’89
Baked in Vermont
The Boston Globe just published a feature story about Gesine Bullock-Prado, who married Prado in 1999, highlighting the couple’s love story. They met through Bullock-Prado’s sister, the actress Sandra Bullock. Bullock-Prado was in charge of her sister’s Hollywood production company for a decade, but then moved to Vermont with Prado. Now she’s an acclaimed pastry chef, he illustrates her bestselling cookbooks, and they live in a farmhouse in White River Junction.
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Zaneta Thayer ’08
Scary Finding
Thayer teaches four anthropology courses at the College, including one called “Evolution of Birth, Pregnancy, and Babies.” She is also the author of a new study examining the prevalance of tokophobia, the pathological fear of childbirth, in the United States. Reporting on her findings, the New York Times writes:
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Steven Fox ’00
Sacred Rep
Fox, the artistic director of the Clarion Music Society, will conduct the Clarion Choir in performances of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil—“a pinnacle of the rich Russian Orthodox repertory,” according to the New York Times—in Hanover and at Carnegie Hall. The occasion will mark what would have been Rachmaninoff’s150th birthday.
“Fox, 44, first conducted the work—commonly called the Vespers, after a liturgical service included in it—as part of a senior project at Dartmouth in 2000,” adds the Times.
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Ben Vinson III ’92
Expanding Influence
“A historian of the African diaspora in Latin America who heads academic operations at a research university in Cleveland will become the next president of Howard University at a time of expanding influence for one of the nation’s most prominent historically Black institutions,” writes the Washington Post. Vinson, currently the provost at Case Western Reserve University, will become Howard’s president on September 1.
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Eleni Kounalakis ’89
In the Race
As lieutenant governor, Kounalakis has already served as acting governor of California more than a dozen times. If elected, she would become the first woman governor of the nation’s most populous state.
“We’re in a time where women’s rights are being attacked in ways that were inconceivable before Donald Trump won,” she told Politico. “I am the first woman elected lieutenant governor of California, and God willing, I will be the first woman elected governor.”
Brian Maracle '69
Innovative Linguist
Maracle, a former journalist, returned to his native Mohawk community in Ontario about 30 years ago. There, he founded an adult language school and began working with community elders to teach Kanyen’keha, the Mohawk language—which he didn't even know how to speak himself.
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Lucky Mkosana ’12
Still Lucky
U.S. Soccer has published a new profile of Mkosana ahead of the upcoming U.S. Open Cup, the sport’s oldest American tournament. The striker, age 35, was in a three-way tie for being the tournament’s top scorer last year.
“These are the games we live for,” said Mkosana, who plays for the Tampa Bay Rowdies. “We’ll be seen as the underdog and we’ll give it all out there for the fans because they live for these games too.”
Helen Li ’15 and Claire Rafson ’19
Castaways
Li, a product manager in San Francisco, and Rafson, a tech investor based in Brooklyn, both competed on Season 44 of Survivor, CBS’s enduring reality television show. After they were voted off the island, each sat down with various news outlets to discuss their experience.
“Everyone feels like they're meant to be the Sole Survivor. It's a huge rude awakening when that's not the case, and, yeah, it sucks,” Li told Entertainment Weekly of being eliminated.
Cal Newport ’04
Under the Hood
In his latest piece for The New Yorker, Newport dissects the inner workings of OpenAI's ChatGPT—and offers reassurance that the technology is not as terrifying as some fear.
