Photo: Justin Short / Office of the GovernorWell Versed
Gov. Jerry Brown named Juan Felipe Herrera Poet Laureate for the State of California. A poet, playwright, photographer and artist, Herrera, MA '80, is a professor of creative writing at UC-Riverside. He has written 28 books and his work has received numerous national and international awards. Pending confirmation by the Senate, Herrera will become the eighth person—and first Chicano—to hold the title of California Poet Laureate. From 1915 through 2000, the title was unofficial and held for life. In 2001 Gov. Gray Davis, '64, made it an official post with a two-year term and annual stipend provided by the California Arts Council.
Photo: Paul GregoryRemember Wen
White Frog, a feature film co-written and co-produced by Ellie Wen, premiered to a sold-out crowd at the Castro Theater on the opening night of the 30th annual San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. With her mother, Fabienne, Wen, '09, wrote the drama about a teen with Asperger's syndrome coping with the death of his brother. She paid tribute to her alma mater in a moving scene in which the protagonist's mother (festival honoree Joan Chen) receives an envelope containing her deceased son's (Harry Shum Jr. from Glee) Stanford acceptance letter. Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang, '79, served as executive producer and script adviser on the film, directed by Quentin Lee.
Photo: Courtesy Math Camp Inc.Streamlining Serendipity
Highlight, created by Paul Davison, was touted as the most buzzed-about social networking application at this year's South by Southwest media conference. (Previous apps that parlayed SXSW buzz into a solid user base include Twitter in 2007 and FourSquare in 2009.) Currently available for the iPhone, the app uses location data and Facebook profile information to alert users to like-minded people in their vicinity. "Most people walk around like ants, hoping that by randomness they'll intersect paths with the person of their dreams," Davison, '02, MBA '07, told Time.com. He describes Highlight as a "sixth sense" to identify individuals who share your affinities.
"Googlers take coffee very seriously. Thousands of world-class engineers, pure perfectionists when it comes to software, also spare no effort in achieving the perfect cuppa. Understanding the importance of caffeine to its bottom line, Google provides unrivaled experiential spaces to explore and develop one's barista skills."
—Alon Halevy, PhD '93, leader of the database research group at Google in the preface to his book,The Infinite Emotions of Coffee.
