Leaders on the World Stage
Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe, MA '89, JD '89, will serve as the first permanent and resident U.S. ambassador to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. President Barack Obama nominated Donahoe for the post in November; the Senate confirmed her in March. Donahoe practiced high-tech litigation at Fenwick & West in Mountain View and was a teaching fellow at the Law School. As an affiliate at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) and a doctoral candidate at the University of California Berkeley's Graduate Theological Union, she has focused her recent scholarship on "ethical and legal justifications for humanitarian military intervention."
The World Economic Forum's 2010 Young Global Leader honorees included: Anand Chandrasekaran, MS '02, product director for Openwave Systems; George Hu, MBA '02, executive VP of marketing at Salesforce.com; Heather Fleming, '02, CEO of Catapult Design; Julia Novy-Hildesley, '93, executive director of the Lemelson Foundation; Julian Castro, '96, mayor of San Antonio; Kevin Warsh, '92, member of the Federal Reserve board; Marissa Mayer, '97, MS '99, VP of search at Google; Nathan Wolfe, '92, CEO of the Global Viral Forecasting Initiative; Roberto Milk, '95, CEO of Novica; and Sam Goldman, MBA '02, CEO of D.Light Design. The 197 young leaders (from 72 countries) engage in task forces that address specific challenges of public interest with the objective of shaping a better future.
Tech Trailblazers
Cisco Systems co-founders Leonard Bosack and Sandy Lerner, both MS '81, were awarded the IEEE Computer Society's 2009 Computer Entrepreneur Award for "pioneering and advancing the commercialization of routing technology and the profound changes this technology enabled in the computer industry." Bosack and Lerner left Cisco in 1990. Bosack is now CEO of a telecommunications engineering company. Lerner runs an organic farm in Virginia and has established a center for the study of early women's writings at Chawton House in England.
Golden Opportunities
Scott Blackmun, JD '82, was named chief executive officer of the U.S. Olympic Committee in January. Having previously served as USOC general counsel and senior managing director starting in 1998, and as interim CEO from November 2000 to October 2001, he returned to the organization just in time for the 2010 Winter Games. Referring to the United States's medal count in Vancouver—at final tally, a record 37—Blackmun told the Associated Press: "It's hard to imagine that we could have done better. On and off the field, it's been a great two weeks for the United States."
In 1980, Olympic speed skater Eric Heiden, '84, MD '91, swept every individual event at Lake Placid, winning an unprecedented five gold medals (still the record for the most medals won by a male athlete at a single Winter Games). Now an orthopedic surgeon, Heiden served as medical director for the U.S. speed skating team at the 2010 Vancouver games.
Reel Innovator
Kevin Wooley, '98, MS '00, shared a technical Oscar for his lead role in developing Imocap, an innovative performance capture system, for Industrial Light & Magic. Actors playing computer-generated characters wear sensor-studded bodysuits on set that collect motion data during the shoot. The technology was used to creepy effect to create the villains Davy Jones and the Flying Dutchman crew in the latter two Pirates of the Caribbean movies.
Camp Stories
In 2009 for the first time, participants in the annual three-day "Write Retreat" at Stanford's Sierra Camp published an anthology of their work. The Fallen Leaf Anthology includes fiction, nonfiction and poetry by Tom Barton, MBA '71, Jordan Bender, '83, Lisa Bender, '83, James Chandler, '73, Marcy Holman, '82, Lynette Kent, '69, MA '72, Betty A. Luceigh, PhD '71, Fred Michaud, '62, Robert Nielsen, '66, Karen Paluska, '94, Kathleen O. Peterson, '82, Bridget Quigg, '98, Roberta L. Riedel, '79, Helen M. Robison, '82, Jerry Thrush, MD '88, Dennis H. Vaughn, '55, JD '57, and Alyssa J. O'Brien, a lecturer in the program in writing and rhetoric.
