Alumni helping alumni during the fires.
As devastating fires continue to ravage the Los Angeles area, our thoughts are with our some 12,000 L.A. alumni and their loved ones. We at the Stanford Alumni Association are here to support our L.A. alumni as best we can. To that end, we have created the Alumni Helping Alumni group—a secure, Stanford-only clearinghouse where alumni are offering one another assistance, from temporary housing to advice on navigating insurance claims. In moments like these, we are strongest when we stand together as a community. Please take care of yourselves and one another, and know that you are in our hearts and minds.
The climate factor.
For every degree Celsius that the planet warms, the atmosphere is able to absorb seven percent more water vapor. In a Mediterranean climate like Los Angeles’s, that means brush and foliage become extra dry during the summer, said UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain, PhD ’16, which drives hydroclimate whiplash: rapid swings between very wet and dangerously dry conditions. This, Swain said, increases fire risk first by increasing the growth of flammable grass and brush, then by drying it out. “We can’t look at just extreme rainfall or extreme droughts alone, because we have to safely manage these increasingly enormous influxes of water, while also preparing for progressively drier interludes,” he said.
In a Q&A last week, experts spoke with the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment about the health impacts of wildfire smoke—including the vulnerabilities of children and adolescents, whose respiratory systems are still developing. And in Stanford Law School’s Legal Aggregate blog, professor of law and of environmental sciences Deborah Sivas, JD ’87, talked about climate-related disasters, rebuilding, and insurance in a changing world. “You’ve got the hurricanes, the flooding, the sea level rise issues, and I don’t know that we can really sustain any kind of a private insurance market,” she said. “Depending on where you live, it’s a different climate disaster, but they’re happening everywhere.”
Body building.
If you thought 3D printing was only good for clunky cutlery and figurines, get ready for a change of heart. Renee Zhao, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, is printing crumb-sized robots that can spin through blood vessels to aid in blood clot removal. Yunzhi Peter Yang, a professor of orthopedic surgery, has filled a gap in a horse’s broken jaw with a 3D-printed scaffold. And Joseph DeSimone, a professor of chemical engineering and of radiology, is working on 3D-printed microneedle patches that painlessly deliver vaccines to our skin, which could be even more effective than a shot to our muscles.
But Mark Skylar-Scott’s $26 million project really gets our blood pumping. The assistant professor of bioengineering is working to print a heart and implant it into a living pig. “There is a lot of work and a lot of scientific engineering uncertainty remaining,” Skylar-Scott told Stanford magazine. Still, he’s excited for the gateway 3D printing is opening. “Pick another organ that you might want to replace,” he said. “One day, this could extend to that.”
Paddling with the president.
“I tell people that my first leadership experience was running the Stanford Kayak Club,” said President Jonathan Levin, ’94, during a nighttime roll session with students in the Avery Recreation Pool, adding that the club has “taken it up a several notches” since his days. “Spending time with students has been the most fun part of the quarter,” he later told the Daily, in an interview about his first few months as president.
The immigration puzzle.
We often hear that U.S. citizens are starkly divided on immigration policy, but the scholarship of sociologist Tomás Jiménez shows that people’s feelings on the topic are more complex and nuanced than most surveys show. “My grandfather, a migrant farm worker from Mexico, used to tell my adolescent father: ‘Di me con quién andas, y te diré quién eres.’ Tell me who you walk with, and I’ll tell you who you are,” wrote Jiménez. “A version of that warning guides how we understand American identity in response to immigration: Show me your immigration politics and policies, and I’ll tell you what kind of nation you are.” Stanford asked Jiménez and three other scholars what we should know about immigration, from 1776 to the present. Historian and Hoover Institution research fellow Cody Nager, professor of law Jennifer Chacón, ’94, and professor of economics Ran Abramitzky weighed in on the pendulum swings between stricter and more welcoming immigration policies, the meaning of citizenship in America, and the upward mobility of immigrants’ children.
But wait, there’s more.
Driving into Manhattan south of 60th street? That’ll be $9. The new “congestion pricing” is years in the making, but professor of economics Michael Ostrovsky, ’99, and Frank Yang, PhD ’24, still see room for improvement.
Growing up, redshirt sophomore Elic Ayomanor arm wrestled his mom in Medicine Hat, Alberta, and branded calves in Kincaid, Saskatchewan, a village of 120 people. As a wide receiver on the Farm, Ayomanor is at home on the field. Now, he’s entering the 2025 NFL draft.
Stop-and-go traffic goes from bane to boon when it comes to EV battery power, which lasts about a third longer than researchers generally forecasted thanks to real-world driving with its frequent acceleration and braking, as well as helpful periods of being parked (aka, battery naptime).
An AI tool developed at Stanford Medicine can use multiple forms of data to predict cancer prognoses and treatment responses in people with diverse types of cancer, outperforming standard methods and potentially offering physicians assistance to guide patient treatment.
Redshirt sophomore Ryan Agarwal leans into his position as a role model, and at 6'6", that’s a big lean. “I’m one of the few Indian kids playing at this level,” says the shooting guard. “That means the world to me.” (Watch him here.)
The 2025 National Medal of Science and National Medal of Technology and Innovation recipients included professor of microbiology and immunology Helen Blau, for her research on muscle diseases, regeneration and aging, including the use of stem cells for tissue repair; professor emeritus of medicine Paul Yock, for inventing, developing and testing new cardiovascular intervention devices, including the stent; former president of Ohio State University Kristina Johnson, ’79, MS ’81, PhD ’84, for her research in photonics, nanotechnology, and optoelectronics; and Feng Zhang, PhD ’09, professor of brain and cognitive sciences and biological engineering at MIT, for his work developing molecular tools, including the CRISPR genome-editing system.
An AI model has recreated the hand movements of elite pianists and the physiological stresses they endure while playing—a tool that could eventually help musicians mitigate hand injuries or even lead to pianos with varied keyboard widths. “We would never expect a world-class athlete to compete with equipment that does not fit their body. Yet we ask pianists, particularly women, to adapt to a one-size-fits-all design that was never built with them in mind,” said Elizabeth Schumann, an assistant professor of music.
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