Transition at the top.
This month marks more than the transition to a new academic year at Stanford. On September 1, Richard Saller took over as interim president of the university, replacing Marc Tessier-Lavigne. In mid-August, Saller, a professor of classics and former dean of the School of Humanities and Sciences, spoke with Stanford about the year ahead: what will happen, what won’t, and where he’ll need to navigate uncertainty.
Although the university faces challenges, Saller says he expects the role to be invigorating. “I think Stanford is probably the most extraordinary concentration of diverse talent anywhere in the world,” he said. And he’s already completed his first major to-do: hiring a provost. Jenny Martinez will assume that role on October 1, replacing Persis Drell. A noted scholar of international law and of constitutional law, Martinez joined the Law School faculty in 2003 and has been the school’s dean since 2019. Earlier in her career, Martinez clerked for Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, ’59; she was also an associate legal officer for Judge Patricia Wald of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. The Board of Trustees will assemble a search committee for a new university president this fall.
Did we just become BFFs with Cal?
If you were in search of a summer drama, you needed look no further than the Power Five—er, Four—athletic conference realignment. On September 1, Stanford emerged from the Pac-12 rubble, accepting an invitation to join the Atlantic Coast Conference as of August 2024. University leaders said the move will provide the opportunity for Stanford student-athletes to continue pursuing excellence at the highest levels, both in the classroom and on the field. Of Stanford’s 36 varsity sports, 22 should see few or no scheduling changes. The university plans to work with the ACC to “minimize the impacts of travel” for the remaining 14 teams, according to administrators.
SMU and Cal will also join the ACC. Normally, we’d rib the Golden Bears right about now, but honestly, they’re, like, the only ones we know in our new class. And we know the Tree thing is unusual, but our future opponents have mascots ranging from a literal piece of fruit to Cardinal birds (that won’t get confusing) to something that Virginia Tech claims “evolved from a turkey.” It’s . . . a lot to take in, and we need a friend. Cal alum Mike Silver agrees that this should be a Bay-bridging moment. “The body-snatchers came for us, and the two tribes put aside their antagonism, stood shoulder to shoulder and lived to fight another day,” he wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Flocking together.
Photo: Maya Xu, ’25
From downy woodpeckers to black-crowned night herons, the Stanford Birdwatching Club is out to spy them all. “I’ve probably seen 150 different species on campus,” said doctoral student and club president Adam Burnett. Check out a gallery of species they’ve spotted.
The stars among us.
If you saw Wes Anderson’s newest movie, Asteroid City, you saw Ethan Josh Lee, ’23, who plays science prodigy and student journalist Ricky Cho. (On the film’s poster, which he’ll no doubt sign and send to the Loop, Lee is the one suspended midair wearing a jetpack.) On the streaming screen, you’ll eventually catch the work of medical student Grace Li: While becoming a doctor, she wrote the New York Times bestselling thriller (as one does) Portrait of a Thief, about a group of Chinese American college students hired to steal back looted Chinese art from international museums. Li’s story is in development as a Netflix series. Finally, for five minutes of fascinating history, check out actor, writer, and producer Issa Rae, ’07, as she discovers her family’s past on Finding Your Roots.
If you’re avoiding the big and small screens in solidarity with the Writers Guild of America, Stanford Law professor Paul Goldstein, a leading authority on copyright law and a novelist, discusses the WGA strike, the bubbling omens around AI-produced scripts, and more about how the law is developing in this area.
But wait, there’s more.
In a new study analyzing the data of 1.4 million Danish adults, researchers found that people diagnosed with depression were 2.41 times more likely to develop dementia, even when the depression had occurred decades before. More analysis is needed, including to determine whether treating depression decreases the risk of dementia.
School’s in! Geoffrey Cohen, PhD ’98, professor of education and of psychology, offers three ways teachers can foster a sense of belonging in their students.
Manu Chopra, ’17, is helping funnel money toward the rural poor in India—one voice recording at a time. Chopra is the co-founder and CEO of Karya, a nonprofit that pays nearly 20 times India’s minimum wage to residents who record their voice for datasets that are later used to improve AI in languages other than English.
Physician compensation depends on a mishmash of factors, including specialty, gender, and Medicare reimbursement. Primary care physicians come out at the bottom of the income pile, which may make the specialty less attractive to medical students. Problem is, the U.S. has a severe shortage of PCPs. In a new working paper, researchers found that increasing primary care physicians’ income by 5 percent would boost the probability of graduates from top medical schools entering primary care by . . . wait for it . . . nearly 5 percent.
Of course, sometimes one can’t even make it to the hospital. That’s what happened on September 1, when Stanford deputies delivered a baby on campus.
What happens when you and your date realize your moms were Stanford classmates and you met as children at Stanford’s Sierra Camp? You get married at Fallen Leaf Lake, naturally.
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