Pipe Dreams

At the South Street Seaport Museum, Peter Neill collects and houses America s nautical past and the origins of New York s heritage. It s the perfect job for a born storyteller.

by Ray Isle

This year s fiction contest winner traces a son one episode at a time.

by Sam Warren

Embracing rather than lamenting Stanford s unflinching admissions policies, men s basketball coach Mike Montgomery has built what nobody thought was possible: a powerhouse program. Not bad for a guy who expected to be a high school P.E. teacher.

by Kelli Anderson

The idea was simple: mount an exhibition of artwork loaned by Stanford alumni and friends. It was also a learning opportunity for student curators, who got a behind-the-walls look at how a major museum show comes together.

by Summer Moore Batte

Elaine Pagels s commentaries on so-called heretical texts like the Gospel of Thomas are broadening scholars views of early Christianity and challenging long-held assumptions.

by Diane Rogers

Academically gifted but occasionally lacking advantages other students take for granted, students must fight through anxiety, feelings of isolation and the difficulty of negotiating two worlds. Their success may change their families forever.

by Theresa Johnston

As neuroscientists hone new technologies for probing our brains, predicting our behavior and perhaps even altering our thoughts, ethicists wrestle with some vexing questions.

by Joan O’C. Hamilton

The works of Early Renaissance painters such as Jan van Eyck have enthralled viewers for centuries with their uncanny realism and exquisite detail. Was it sheer talent, or did they secretly rely on projection devices? A Stanford physicist takes a stand.

by Marguerite Rigoglioso

Pete Starr lived up to his name. A prominent San Francisco lawyer, he was one of the nation s foremost mountaineers and conservationists in the early 1930s. Then he disappeared on a solo climbing trip to the Sierra. By the time searchers found him, all of California knew his story.

by William Alsup

Retired from teaching but vibrant as ever, Diane Middlebrook is working on the next chapter of her life, as full-time biographer. Her latest project is characteristically adventurous: chronicling the troubled marriage of poets Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath. It s a subject as interesting as Middlebrook herself.

by Cynthia Haven