Trojan Family Magazine Autumn 2025

LIFELONG AND WORLDWIDE

The Trojan Family now has half a million living alumni.

scene

USC Women’s Soccer defeated California Baptist 4-0 on Aug. 17. This marks the first game played in the new Rawlinson Stadium.

Family Matters

It’s official: The Trojan Family is now half a million strong. This milestone confirms the reach of our Trojan Family, our impressive legacy and the impact we have on lives around the globe.

I have always felt the spirit of the Trojan Family in a personal way — as the son of two Korean immigrants who attended graduate school at USC in the late 1960s. More than 50 years later, the Trojan Family continues to amaze and uplift both me and this university. One of my priorities has been to get out and meet as many Trojans as I can, and I always leave my encounters energized and inspired by your passion, dedication and generosity of spirit. There are many things that put USC in a category of its own, and the Trojan Family is perhaps the most important of them all.

In these pages you’ll also learn about some other ways that USC distinguishes itself in its pursuit of excellence. One story, which demystifies the process of drug development from early-stage molecule modeling to clinical readiness, illustrates how our researchers are combining USC’s strengths across different disciplines — from biology and pharmacology to chemistry and AI — to develop cures for cancer, infectious diseases and neurological disorders. And the story about the transformational impact of the USC Leslie and William McMorrow Neighborhood Academic Initiative highlights USC’s continued

focus on improving student outcomes and uplifting our neighboring communities.

Our piece on the work of the USC Center for the Political Future could not be more timely. During an era of intense polarization, USC continues to be a place where students and faculty with widely differing opinions and beliefs feel welcome, where people seek to engage constructively with each other over those differences, and where intellectual rigor and honesty create new vistas of understanding and common purpose. Cultivating these values of open discourse and free inquiry is one of my highest presidential priorities.

After reading these stories, I hope you will come away as excited as I am about how USC is shaping both our present and our future. While it’s easy nowadays to focus on some of the challenges facing higher education, there is so much happening at USC — from students attending their first game at the Coliseum, to patients saved by innovative procedures, to faculty changing lives through their research, creative expression and teaching — to remind us why our mission remains so vital.

For both USC and the Trojan Family — all 500,000 of us — the future shines brightly. Fight On!

Beong-Soo Kim USC Interim President

The

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Ted B. Kissell

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Jane Frey

MANAGING EDITOR

Lilledeshan Bose

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Chinyere Cindy Amobi

DEPUTY EDITOR

David Medzerian

COPY EDITOR

Cord Brooks

PRODUCTION MANAGER

Mary Modina

VISUALS EDITOR

Caleb Joel Griffin

STAFF WRITERS

Greg Hernandez

Rachel B. Levin

Grayson Schmidt

DESIGN AND PRODUCTION Pentagram

CONTRIBUTORS

Will Kwong

Laurie McLaughlin

April Ortiz

Nina Raffio

Daria Yudacufski

USC Trojan Family Magazine 3434 S. Grand Ave., CAL 140 Los Angeles, CA 90089-2818 magazines@usc.edu

USC Trojan Family Magazine (ISSN 8750-7927) is published in April and November by USC University Communications.

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4 Seen and Heard

Lessons from a K-pop star, reimagining As You Like It and USC’s dance legacy.

5 Five Things You Need to Know

USC Athletics had numerous wins this year — here are the highlights.

T R O J A N

8 A Steady Hand

Meet USC Interim President Beong-Soo Kim.

10 Surgical Breakthrough

The first human bladder transplant was a USC-UCLA collaboration.

12 Lives Well Lived

USC’s cancer survivorship programs give patients renewed hope.

14 ... Live from UPC!

A look at highlights from 20 years of Visions and Voices. F A M I L Y

44 Alumni News

The Trojan Family is now 500,000 living alumni strong — what does that mean for you?

56 Summer of Lab

USC undergrads took a deep dive into research during summer break.

Across the Aisle

The USC Center for the Political Future offers a useful model for upholding our democracy through respectful, civil dialogue and trust — regardless of political party affiliation. By Nina Raffio

Voices of Promise

USC’s Leslie and William McMorrow Neighborhood Academic Initiative is now 35 years old: Read the oral history of how it became USC’s premier college-access program from the people who took part in it. By Greg Hernandez

Startup Surge

With the help of AI and bold licensing strategies, drug and device discoveries by USC researchers are reaching patients faster than ever before. By Leigh Hopper and Will Kwong

Breaking the Silence

A new study from Keck Medicine of USC links hearing devices to improved social well-being among adults with hearing loss. By Chinyere Cindy Amobi

A Place for Creative Community

The Sparks Center for Community & Culture at the USC School of Dramatic Arts is making the most of its new, expanded space.

Apart from serving as a gathering place for USC’s artistic community to connect, the light-filled room on the second floor of the Dick Wolf Drama Center has hosted

LESSONS FROM K-POP STAR YUGYEOM

Just hours before he took the stage at the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles for the final two shows in the North American leg of his TRUSTY World Tour, K-pop performer Yugyeom visited USC to talk with students about his journey and artistry.

From his start as a member of the iconic K-pop group GOT7 to launching a successful R&B solo career, Yugyeom shared valuable insights on adapting to changing media, building a personal brand, leveraging cross-cultural understanding and navigating the entertainment industry.

“This is the first time in six years that I’m really performing,” Yugyeom says. “I felt like this was the time to prove myself. While I was a part of GOT7, I was a part of a big group. I was also the youngest, the maknae I wanted to show that I have grown and can grow as well.”

workshops developed in collaboration with the Jay Shetty Certification School, an organization that provides personal and professional coaching. The center also initiated an artist-in-residence program with Los Angeles theater company TeAda Productions.

A highlight of the TeAda collaboration was a musical adaptation of Shakespeare’s classic As You Like It. The show featured a cast and creative team that included six TeAda actors alongside USC drama students and performers from three other local performing arts organizations — the Marshall Dance Company, Amazing Grace Conservatory and the 24th Street Theatre.

The collaboration was a form of advocacy that also helped create a culture of caring, says Anita Dashiell-Sparks, the school’s associate dean of community and culture and chair of performance. “We are constantly asking our student artists to crack open their sense of empathy, compassion and emotional intelligence,” she says. ALLISON ENGEL

Hye Jin Lee of the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, who teaches “The Evolution of K-pop” — the only course at USC exclusively focused on the subject — led the conversation and spearheaded the collaboration with Billboard Korea that made the event possible.

“For students looking to enter the entertainment or media industries, it’s essential to be aware of K-pop and understand its place in the broader global media ecosystem,” she says. EMILY CAVALCANTI

Setting a Legacy in Motion

The USC Kaufman School of Dance is marking 10 years of transformative achievements in dance education and performance with the release of its inaugural Impact Report.

Established through a gift from philanthropist Glorya Kaufman, USC Kaufman has redefined dance education by blending conservatory-level training with the academic rigor of a leading research university. The report highlights the school’s innovative curriculum and its impact.

During the past decade, USC Kaufman has cultivated a vibrant community of artists and scholars. Students have performed on prestigious stages such as The Joyce Theater in New York City and the Jacob’s Pillow International Dance Festival. Alumni have joined renowned companies like Ballet Hispánico, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, The Joffrey Ballet and Rambert. Others have gone on to perform with superstar artists like Beyoncé and Olivia Rodrigo while also pursuing careers in film, multimedia and business. MATT DE LA PEÑA

5 Big Wins in the Big Ten

Aug. 2 marked the rst anniversary of the Trojans joining the Big Ten Conference. e move put USC within one of the two most competitive college athletic conferences, and the Trojans wasted no time making their presence known. Here’s a look at ve Big Ten milestones Trojans reached during their debut year on the Big stage. DAVID MEDZERIAN

PRETTY MUCH EVERYONE’S PLAYER OF THE YEAR:

It was no surprise that JuJu Watkins was the Big Ten women’s basketball Player of the Year, too.

A BIG KICKOFF:

Last a win rival UCLA at

Last October, a win against crosstown rival UCLA at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson — the home of the Los Angeles Galaxy — gave the women’s soccer team USC’s first Big Ten regular season title.

A GREAT TEAM, A GREAT COACH:

The Big Ten recognized that USC’s women’s basketball program has both, naming Lindsay Gottlieb its Coach of the Year.

ANOTHER WIN AGAINST UCLA — AND ANOTHER REGULARSEASON BIG TEN TITLE:

and

Led by JuJu Watkins and Kiki Iriafen (pictured), the women’s basketball team took the conference regular season title with a March 1 win in a game in which the Trojans never trailed.

TALK ABOUT COMING FROM BEHIND:

The Women of Troy started the final day of May’s Big Ten outdoor track and field competition in ninth place with 9 points then scored another 112 points to take the team title.

Big Ten outdoor track and field in ninth with 9 — then scored another 112 points to team

TROJAN

A DECADE OF DANCE USC Kaufman School of Dance students take center stage at the school’s 10th anniversary celebration.

A Steady Hand

USC Interim President Beong-Soo Kim, who previously served as a USC senior vice president, brings stability in a time of transition. BY

RACHEL B. LEVIN

In February, the USC Board of Trustees appointed Beong-Soo Kim as interim president. Kim stepped into the role July 1 after five years as USC senior vice president and general counsel. Prior to joining USC, he served as an executive at Kaiser Permanente and as a senior federal prosecutor. The son of Korean immigrants who both attended graduate school at USC, he is the first Asian American to lead the university. He will serve in the interim position until a new president takes office.

“Beong has demonstrated dedication to the university’s academic, research and health care missions and a commitment to excellence,” USC Board of Trustees Chair Suzanne Nora Johnson says. “His thoughtful

“Focusing on academic excellence. That’s why we are here. That’s the most important thing — full stop.”

BEONG-SOO KIM

and balanced leadership, his compassion for everyone in the Trojan Family and his

integrity make him the right person to lead USC at this time. Beong’s exemplary abilities to listen deeply, communicate openly and collaborate in decision-making have garnered respect across the university. His extensive knowledge and experience make him uniquely suited to guiding the university through the opportunities and challenges facing higher education at this critically important moment of transition.”

Kim recently spoke with USC Trojan Family Magazine about his vision for USC.

During your time leading USC, what are your thoughts about how best to move the university forward? This is an incredibly tumultuous time for

higher education. The challenges include cuts in federal research funding, threats to international student enrollment and more. Even though the next several months are going to be very challenging, I think there are ways that we can turn these challenges into opportunities. The pressure that comes from situations like the one we’re in can help clarify where our strengths lie and where we can improve. The key to all this work is to re-ground ourselves in the university’s core mission of academic excellence.

What opportunities do you see in how USC approaches research?

There are opportunities to combine resources across USC ’s schools and do things more efficiently. That’s going to add more value to taxpayers and to society.

We also have an important opportunity for communication — really engaging people so they understand what, why and how USC research provides as much value as it does. Our researchers are on the cusp of preventing Alzheimer’s, curing blindness and making breakthroughs in AI. There’s so much important work being done at USC that is critical not just to health, but also to national security, to student success, to our communities and to our nation. We have to make sure that this message is conveyed.

What additional priorities do you have for the coming year?

Focusing on academic excellence. That’s why we are here. That’s the most important thing — full stop. I’m talking about teaching. I’m talking about research. I’m talking about all the things that our faculty, students and staff do to support our academic mission.

I also want to spend more time supporting our amazing health system. The cutting-edge health care offered by USC faculty and providers is so important to achieving our ambitions as a major research university.

With 23 schools, along with our health system, we have these amazing opportunities at USC to combine disciplines in a way that’s unparalleled — AI and medicine, dance and computation. My job is to catalyze and facilitate the incredible things that can happen when USC’s diff erent disciplines collide and create new sparks of discovery and insight.

How will you lead USC at a time when universities are being criticized for failing to promote a wide range of viewpoints? I want to focus on creating an academic environment where a variety of viewpoints is not only tolerated but welcomed as opportunities to debate, discuss, learn, advocate and advance the pursuit of truth. John Stuart Mill and Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. developed this idea of a “marketplace of ideas.” The core concept is that, in a democracy and at any great university, we need to have a clash of different ideas to advance academic excellence and truth.

What are your thoughts on the milestone USC recently reached of having 500,000 living alumni in the Trojan Family?

Passing the 500,000 alumni mark is an incredible reminder of how important USC is, not just to our community, but to the nation and the world. The Trojan Family is such a powerful force. It’s such a differentiator. It’s what makes USC so special. It’s what makes our alums so proud to be graduates of USC, to be supporters of USC — and it shows up in so many ways.

During the interim period, I want to do everything I can to reach out to both

“I want to focus on creating an academic environment where a variety of viewpoints is welcomed as opportunities to debate, discuss, learn, advocate and advance the pursuit of truth.”

BEONG-SOO KIM

alumni who have been actively involved with the university since they graduated and those who may not have been as active or aware of what’s happening on campus. I want to make every single alum of USC feel as proud as they’ve ever been in this institution and what it does for our community, for our students, for our country and for the world.

You’ve played the cello since age 5 and even gave classical porch concerts at your home during the COVID-19 pandemic. How have your musical experiences shaped you?

What I love about music is the opportunity it creates to connect with other people. I won’t go so far as to say I’ve learned to be a leader from playing chamber music, but there are so many parallels. When you’re playing chamber music, you have to listen to other people, but you also have to show up when your solo line comes along. You’re creating something that’s really beautiful and doing it with other people who have a shared vision.

That’s what we’re trying to do at USC: We’re trying to create some incredible music together. As interim president, I’m just the conductor.

World’s First In-Human Bladder Transplant

In a groundbreaking procedure, USC and UCLA surgeons successfully performed a combined kidney and bladder transplant — potentially revolutionizing treatment for patients with nonfunctioning bladders. BY USC

STAFF

Surgeons from Keck Medicine of USC and UCLA Health have completed the world’s first bladder transplant in a human. The groundbreaking surgery took place May 4 at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, led by Inderbir Gill of USC and Nima Nassiri of UCLA.

“This is a historic moment in medicine,” says Gill, founding executive director of USC Urology and Chair and Distinguished Professor of Urology and Shirley and Donald Skinner Chair in Urologic Cancer Surgery at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. “For carefully selected patients with terminal bladder dysfunction, transplantation may now be a viable option.”

The procedure was the result of over four years of collaboration, research and preparation by Gill and Nassiri, who previously worked together at USC. Numerous pre-clinical procedures were performed at Keck Medical Center and OneLegacy, Southern California’s organ procurement organization.

The patient had lost most of his bladder to cancer, had his kidneys removed due to renal cancer, and had been on dialysis for seven years. To address these complex health issues, the team performed a combined kidney and bladder transplant. First the kidney, then the bladder, were transplanted in an eight-hour surgery. The kidney was connected to the newly transplanted bladder, restoring the patient’s ability to urinate for the first time in years.

“The kidney immediately produced urine, and the patient’s kidney function improved

right away,” Nassiri says. “There was no need for dialysis post-surgery.”

The donor organs were recovered at OneLegacy’s Transplant Recovery Center. The entire process met the highest clinical and research standards.

Millions suffer from bladder dysfunction worldwide. In severe cases, parts of the intestine are used to create or augment the bladder — a solution that comes with longterm risks, including infections and kidney issues. A bladder transplant may offer a more natural alternative, though challenges remain.

Because of the need for immunosuppressive drugs, ideal candidates for bladder

transplants are those already undergoing or in need of another organ transplant. “Despite the unknowns, our goal is to understand if bladder transplantation can help patients with severely compromised bladders lead healthier lives,” Gill says.

This first transplant was part of a UCLA clinical trial. Gill and Nassiri plan to continue their work and expand the procedure to more patients.

USC Urology, under Gill’s leadership, continues to push the boundaries of robotic surgery, organ transplantation and medical innovation — now adding the bladder to the list of transplantable organs.

Protecting a Legacy

Longtime Holocaust remembrance leader Mickey Shapiro bolsters USC Shoah Foundation’s efforts with $30 million gift. BY

For the past 30 years, USC Shoah Foundation has collected, preserved and shared the testimonies of Holocaust survivors. In May, USC honored Mickey Shapiro, a longtime leader in the preservation of Holocaust memory and a strong advocate against antisemitism, for his recent $30 million gift to the foundation that will help preserve the lessons of the Holocaust for the next 30 years and beyond.

The university celebrated Shapiro’s gift at an event outside Leavey Library on USC’s University Park Campus, the home of the USC Shoah Foundation. As part of the gift, the foundation’s space at the library has been renamed the Mickey Shapiro Headquarters of the USC Shoah Foundation.

Shapiro, a member of USC Shoah Foundation’s board of councilors and executive committee, hopes the gift will give future

CHINYERE CINDY AMOBI

generations access to the indispensable resources and learning materials the foundation provides.

“The USC Shoah Foundation’s staff, its board, its scholars and especially the survivors and their families welcomed me into this work and made me feel part of something truly meaningful,” Shapiro says. “The world needs to learn from the Holocaust, and that will always be true, which is why this gift is so important.”

Robert Williams, chief executive officer of the foundation, notes that the headquarters now named for Shapiro “will remind every student, every professor, every visitor who walks through our doors that memory must lead to moral action, to truth, to respect, and to the fact that the Holocaust reaches beyond the confines of the past and shapes our lives.”

The gift will be used toward general operating funds and the foundation’s endowment, which sponsors crucial research and initiatives across the globe while ensuring that the organization remains flexible enough to adapt to the challenges of the moment. Some of the funds will also go toward the ongoing collection and preservation of thousands of testimonies globally. This includes the Countering Antisemitism Laboratory on the USC Capital Campus in Washington, D.C., which addresses antisemitism around the world and collects testimonies from survivors of antisemitic violence since the end of the Holocaust.

Shapiro hopes his philanthropy with the foundation inspires others to ensure that its important work continues for decades to come.

“Every day, the USC Shoah Foundation is not only preserving memory but shaping a better future for mankind,” Shapiro says. “The work of the foundation has been and continues to be critically important to preserving Holocaust memory, fighting Holocaust denial and distortion, and ensuring these life histories are preserved for future generations.”

To support the USC Shoah Foundation’s work, contact Andrea Waldron at waldrona@usc.edu or call 213-700-7167.

Lives Well Lived

USC cancer survivorship programs help patients thrive after diagnosis. BY

CHINYERE CINDY AMOBI

When Duncan Wigg, a 79-year-old retired psychologist and professor, developed severe pain in his leg and hip in 2022, he had no reason to expect the diagnosis he would receive: stage 4 lung cancer.

In the medical journey that followed, Wigg’s orthopedist referred him to Keck Medicine of USC, where a multidisciplinary team of practitioners would bring him back to health — but not without limitations.

Struggling with a disabling post-surgery recovery, Wigg credits oncology physical therapist Kimiko Yamada and her team with helping him return to his normal routines and a new level of health.

“With so many cancer patients becoming long-term survivors, we now look at ‘cured’ as being far more than ‘cancer-free,’” says David Freyer, director of the cancer survivorship programs at the USC Norris and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. “Rather, it is living their best possible life after cancer.”

At USC, practitioners are redefining post-diagnostic care: “We have an expanding number of clinics, programs, services and collaborations specifically designed to assist our patients who have completed cancer treatment,” says Freyer, a professor of clinical pediatrics and medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC.

Because the cancer journey is so complex, practitioners coordinate across disciplines to ensure that no patient falls through the cracks — or faces the journey alone.

An interconnected web of helpers

USC Physical Therapy has a team of oncology specialists that works with cancer patients and survivors to improve quality of life, reduce pain caused by treatments and meet other unique needs of cancer survivors.

The program is just one example of how oncology practitioners from USC’s health sciences schools and health system are providing services to improve quality of life. Those services include mental health care for patients, survivors and their caregivers, as

well as support groups to assist patients and those who care for them as they experience the challenges that a cancer diagnosis presents.

Survivorship begins at diagnosis

The survivorship concept — which considers all living patients who have been diagnosed with cancer as survivors — is an international guideline for all providers who work with cancer patients.

“It was developed to recognize that patients who are diagnosed with cancer at any time have a deep number of traumas that they go through that are not just related to their health, but have to do with the financial aspects, with family, their social interactions

“Patients diagnosed with cancer undergo a deep number of traumas that are not just related to their health.”

—DAPHNE STEWART

and what the future looks like,” says Daphne Stewart, medical oncologist with USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center and clinical professor of medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. Stewart is also the women’s cancers section chief for medical oncology at Keck School of Medicine’s department of internal medicine.

“There’s a tremendous amount of pressure that gets put on people that we must recognize and address,” Stewart says.

Working within this model, providers like Stewart think about how to work with other providers involved in cancer care, including psychologists, social workers, exercise specialists, and nutrition and weight optimization

providers to ensure that patients can take advantage of all the resources the health system offers.

When Stewart arrived at USC in 2023, she developed a clinical breast cancer survivorship program for patients who had finished their primary therapy.

Patients enter the program to improve their long-term mental and physical health and manage financial and social stresses, Stewart says. For mental and social support, the program also offers peer groups that meet monthly and give patients a safe space to share experiences.

“It really allows the patients to talk about the overwhelming stress of the big picture of how much this has affected their lives,” Stewart says.

“There are over 18 million cancer survivors in the United States, and over 4 million of these, about 22%, are breast cancer survivors — a number that is expected to rise. We have to acknowledge that this is a large patient population, and as a cancer center, we are thrilled to have a survivorship program so that we can represent our patients fully.”

From survivor to advocate

Mary Aalto, a patient advocate for the USC Norris cancer center, is one of those survivors. A 19-year survivor of stage 3 breast cancer, Aalto returned to the USC Norris cancer center four years after her successful treatment to join the center’s Cancer Survivorship Advisory Council.

“Twenty, 30, 40 years ago, people weren’t surviving stage 3 cancers, and physicians were just trying to help patients live,” Aalto says. “Today, survivorship is about quality of life, communication and the doctor-patient relationship.”

Where hope grows strong

Uttam Sinha, director of the Head and Neck Center at Keck Medicine and a professor of otolaryngology – head and neck surgery with Keck School of Medicine, pioneered a

survivorship program for his department in the early 2000s.

Sinha says survivorship programs are essential for providing patients the ongoing care and relevant information throughout their journey, as well as addressing the psychosocial aspects of the experience, including community, nutrition, stress management, physical activity and sleep.

“There’s so much information in cancer management, but the retention is low because patients are often overwhelmed,” he says. “I usually pair newly diagnosed patients with survivors who’ve been through similar journeys. That peer support is invaluable.”

The mission statement of the department’s survivorship program, “Where courage is born and hope grows strong,” reflects a core message Sinha and his team promote: encouraging patients to celebrate life, find strength in community and embrace their present, even

while acknowledging the losses and uncertainties that accompany survivorship.

Strengthening patients for the journey

Yamada has now worked in the field of oncology for two decades, helping patients recover better and faster.

She mentioned that a common misconception is that there is not much to life after cancer and that quality of life is guaranteed to be poor after diagnosis. “I’ll have you know that many of my very first patients from that initial case load are still alive and thriving,” she says.

Optimism in uncertainty

Duncan Wigg’s recovery presents a clear case against that misconception. While he still receives immunotherapy for his initial bout of lung cancer, he describes his health as “excellent.” A little over one year ago, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. After

receiving treatment, he faced another painful recuperation but is expected to make a full recovery. He continues to do intensive physical therapy with Yamada, receives regular preventative care with his team of Keck Medicine specialists and takes trips with his wife, a yoga teacher who, he says, was also essential to his recovery.

Wigg marvels at how far health care has advanced in the last decade. At Keck Medicine, “I experienced nothing but the best collaboration between oncology, general surgery, radiology and physical therapy,” he says. “They were all talking to each other.”

Mary Aalto shares Wigg’s positivity. “I am so optimistic about the future for cancer survivors, because it’s getting better and better all the time,” she says. “People are living longer. They’re living healthier. They’re regaining the things in their lives that they loved and that they thought they lost when they were first diagnosed.”

Hot Ticket

For 20 years, Visions and Voices has presented Trojans with invigorating, interdisciplinary experiences that reveal the power and impact the arts can have on students and society. Here are some prominent highlights.

BY DARIA YUDACUFSKI

2019

Actor, model, filmmaker and philanthropist Isabella Rossellini (left), with Visions and Voices Executive Director Daria Yudacufski (center) and actor Mark Hamill (right), who introduced the evening.

2017

2022

Grammy Award-winning musician and composer Jacob Collier discusses his creative process with USC Marshall School of Business professor David Belasco. “I find myself quite freed by the idea that you can just be curious,” he says. “I think if you’re curious, your dreams will take you by surprise, and that’s a really lovely, gladdening, mind-opening kind of space.”

2006

Quincy Jones helps launch Visions and Voices with a concert and conversation titled “Jazz, Public Diplomacy and Dizzy Gillespie.”

As part of Trojan Family Weekend, rock icons the B-52s perform at USC. Their advice? “If you’re a writer or a musician, and you think an idea is too crazy, write it down — or record it,” says Fred Schneider (right), to which Kate Pierson (left) adds, “And wear a wig.”

2024

Rapper, actor and author Common discusses his life with USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism professor Allissa V. Richardson. “This microphone is a gift,” he says. “These words that you’re saying, you never know who they can touch and how they can affect people.”

2007

Beloved composer John Williams conducts the USC Thornton Symphony in a magical evening of his music; afterward, the line of fans waiting is longer than at any other Visions and Voices event.

2016

The Martha Graham Dance Company — the oldest American dance company, founded in 1926 — performs at USC. Associate Professor Patrick Corbin of the USC Kaufman School of Dance says the company “invented modern dance as we know it today.”

2010

Renowned radio host Ira Glass (right) speaks to Trojans about the importance of having passion, joy and curiosity for life and for work, no matter what field, reminding them of how much of that joy can come from hearing and telling stories.

2013

Elton John performs an intimate two-hour concert in Bovard Auditorium, backed by his band and students from the USC Thornton School of Music. “There is an energy you have … called youth that can change the world,” he tells the audience. “I have energy now, but it’s not like the energy you have in your 20s, [when] you’re fearless and you go for broke.”

2025

Since 2006, Visions and Voices has kicked off every year with “SPARK!,” a Welcome Week event. Here, the Class of 2029 celebrates the arts at a kickoff attended by more than 4,000 students.

Pause, Chew, Recall

Brain cell discovery may explain excessive hunger. BY WILL

Scientists have discovered a specific group of brain cells that create memories of meals, encoding not just what food was eaten but when it was eaten. The findings, published in Nature Communications, could explain why people with memory problems often overeat and why forgetting about a recent meal can trigger excessive hunger. During eating, neurons in the ventral hippocampus region of the brain become active and form what the team of researchers call “meal engrams” — specialized memory traces that store information about the experience. Scientists have long studied engrams for their role in storing memories, but the new study identified engrams dedicated to meal experiences.

“An engram is the physical trace that a memory leaves behind in the brain,” says Scott Kanoski, professor of biological sciences at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and corresponding author of the study. “Meal engrams function like sophisticated biological databases that store multiple types of information such as where you were eating, as well as the time that you ate.”

Meal engrams are formed during brief pauses between bites when the brains of laboratory rats naturally survey the eating environment, allowing specialized hippocampal neurons to integrate multiple streams of information.

KWONG

When attention is focused elsewhere — on phone or television screens — these critical encoding moments are compromised. “The brain fails to properly catalog the meal experience,” says Lea DecarieSpain, postdoctoral scholar at USC Dornsife and the study’s first author, “leading to weak or incomplete meal engrams.”

The discovery has immediate relevance for understanding human eating disorders, and the findings could eventually inform new clinical approaches for treating obesity and weight management. “We’re finally beginning to understand that remembering what and when you ate is just as crucial for healthy eating as the food choices themselves,” Kanoski said.

HEALTH FILES

Researchers from the Keck School of Medicine of USC have developed a blood test that can identify early signs of Alzheimer’s disease by measuring proteins linked to the condition. The new test, known as Penta-Plex Alzheimer’s Disease Capture Sandwich Immunoassay, runs on equipment commonly used in many laboratories and can help catch the disease in its earliest stages, when treatment might be able to prevent or delay cognitive decline.

A new wearable sensor made at USC could help patients with bipolar disorder track medication levels through sweat: The wearable sensor, believed to be first of its kind, could vastly improve treatment and drug safety for millions of patients who take lithium for bipolar disorder.

The herpes simplex virus type 1, generally associated with oral herpes, may cause painful cold sores or fever blisters around the mouth. Yet, when genetically engineered to fight cancer, the virus may also play an important role in treating advanced melanoma, skin cancer that has spread to other parts of the body, according to phase 1-2 clinical trial results published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology and recently presented by Keck Medicine of USC at the 2025 American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting.

Three New Trustees Elected

Finance leader Bret Johnsen and real estate executives Wil Smith and Glenn Sonnenberg are now part of the USC Board of Trustees.

BY CHINYERE CINDY AMOBI AND RACHEL B. LEVIN

Finance leader Bret Johnsen and real estate executives Wil Smith and Glenn Sonnenberg were elected to the USC Board of Trustees in June.

BRET JOHNSEN

With more than two decades of leadership at companies like Broadcom and Mindspeed, SpaceX CFO Bret Johnsen has helped propel SpaceX’s meteoric rise. He credits USC for igniting his ambition and building lifelong friendships, calling his student years “some of the most exciting times” of his life. Johnsen, who earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting from the USC Leventhal School of Accounting before pursuing a master’s degree in finance from San Diego State University, believes his time at USC made him a more driven individual. Today, Johnsen keeps his Trojan ties strong, tailgating with old classmates and keeping USC grads top of mind when hiring for his companies. As a trustee, he hopes to help USC navigate change and stay bold: “Serving my Trojan Family means driving impact where it matters most.”

WIL SMITH

Real estate executive Wil Smith has deepened his long-standing commitment to the university by joining the USC Board of Trustees. A 1999 graduate of the Dollinger Master of Real Estate Development program at the USC Price School of Public Polic y, Smith is the founder, president and CEO of Greenlaw Partners. He has supported USC through leadership and philanthropy for over a decade, including a transformative $10 million gift in 2020 that established the USC Price Wilbur H. Smith III Department of Real Estate

Development. Smith credits USC with launching his career and giving him the confidence to build his company, and he frequently mentors students and guest lectures, helping future real estate professionals navigate the industry. He’s motivated to pay his success forward by helping USC students flourish academically and professionally, saying, “I do whatever I can to help enrich student opportunities, student growth and student connectivity to the USC Alumni Association.”

GLENN SONNENBERG

The USC Board of Trustees has reappointed alumnus and real estate executive Glenn Sonnenberg, who previously served from 2003 to 2008. Sonnenberg, president of Latitude Real Estate Holdings, brings over 30 years of finance and investment experience and decades of service to USC and the Los Angeles community. A double Trojan, he earned degrees from USC Dornsife and the USC Gould School of Law. He has held numerous leadership roles, including on the USC Gould and USC Libraries Boards of Councilors, and co-founded the USC Libraries Scripter Award. Sonnenberg and his wife, Andrea, have championed mental health and education causes, including the Bradley Sonnenberg Wellness Initiative at USC Hillel, named for their late son. He al so chairs Wayfinder Family Services and serves on several nonprofit boards. Sonnenberg says he’s excited to help shape USC’s future, believing in higher education’s power to transform lives and build community. “Contributing to a great institution like USC and, in some small way, making it better is a great feeling,” he says.

Serving Democracy

For over a decade, the Leonard D. Schaeffer Fellows in Government Service program has placed students on the front lines of public service to support career development — and democracy. BY

This past summer, Izzy Del Gaudio completed a career-defining internship at SpaceWERX, the innovation arm of the U.S. Space Force in El Segundo.

“I was really drawn to this role because of my interests in national security, emerging technology and public/private-sector collaboration,” says Del Gaudio, a fourthyear student at the USC Dornsife College

RACHEL B. LEVIN

of Letters, Arts and Sciences and master’s candidate at the USC Marshall School of Business. “It made me even more excited to pursue a career that combines innovation, defense and strategic policy.”

Del Gaudio’s experience reflects the mission of the Leonard D. Schaeffer Fellows in Government Service program, which has placed undergraduates in high-level government

internships for more than a decade to help them explore and pursue career pathways in public service. Each year, 50 fellows are selected — 10 from each of five universities: USC, Harvard University, Princeton University, the University of Virginia, and the University of California, Berkeley.

“Schaeffer fellows learn firsthand how government operates, the impact one can have on our society and the importance of being an engaged citizen who supports the values of our democracy throughout their lives,” says Leonard D. Schaeffer, a health care executive, public service leader and philanthropist who founded the program in 2015.

Schaeffer’s own influential experiences interning for a U.S. senator during college

motivated him to start the program. At USC, Schaeffer holds the Judge Robert Maclay Widney Chair and serves as a professor, member of the Board of Trustees and chairman of the USC Health System Board, which oversees Keck Medicine of USC.

“Government service often provides students with greater opportunities for responsibility and impact than in the private sector, and it can be enormously gratifying working on such interesting and important public policy issues,” says USC Interim President Beong-Soo Kim, whose own career path included stints in both local and federal government service. “By inspiring such amazing students to pursue careers in civic leadership, the Schaeffer Fellows program brings into the government precisely the talent, innovation and public spirit we need.”

ACCESS AND SUPPORT

Undergraduate public-service internships are often unpaid, posing a barrier for many students to pursue them. The Schaeffer Fellows program alleviates that obstacle by providing each fellow with a $6,000 stipend to assist with housing, transportation and other living expenses. “Fellows are able to engage with what we love without any financial burden,” Del Gaudio says.

Since its founding, the Schaeffer Fellows program has supported 467 interns in more than 280 federal, state and local government offices and agencies nationwide. Fellows can opt to be matched with an internship at one of the program’s partner agencies or secure an internship independently. In some instances, such as Del Gaudio’s internship at SpaceWERX, government agencies and offices create internship opportunities in response to outreach by the Schaeffer Fellows program’s administrators.

“I never would have had access to this type of niche and forward-thinking role without the Schaeffer program’s support,” Del Gaudio says.

A COMPREHENSIVE EXPERIENCE

Fellows across the country come together for a virtual orientation before their internships begin, a midsummer professional development summit held in Washington, D.C., and fall events at their respective universities that recognize fellows’ contributions to public service. While each university selects

“Schaeffer Fellows learn firsthand how government operates, the impact one can have on our society and the importance of being an engaged citizen who supports the values of our democracy.”

LEONARD D. SCHAEFFER

its own fellows, the program’s common aspects are centrally administered at USC by Executive Director Erica Lovano McCann and Assistant Director Willa Erickson.

Grounded in the program’s key themes, these events prompt students to reflect on their core values, gather leadership lessons,

develop strategies for collaboration and networking, and cultivate transferable skills. Each fellow also receives one-on-one mentorship from an alumnus of their university, who is often also an alumnus of the program. Even if fellows decide not to pursue careers in government, these activities help them “translate the skills and insights from their internships into any path they pursue,” Lovano McCann says.

The latter proved true for alumna Jamie Kwong, now a London-based Nuclear Policy Program Fellow at the global think tank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Kwong’s 2016 internship with the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific was pivotal in launching her career as a nuclear policy researcher.

That summer, Kwong set up informational interviews with approximately 50 people working in international relations — some of whom Schaeffer personally introduced her to. Through those conversations, she discovered the think-tank pathway. Kwong, who completed her doctorate in war studies at King’s College London, is currently a Schaeffer Fellow alumni mentor and member of the Schaeffer Fellows Advisory Board.

“I try to pay back what I was given that summer,” she says.

Defending the Future

A film developed at USC is helping the U.S. Navy visualize — and strategize — conflict years from now. BY USC STAFF

A vision of maritime conflict in 2043 is shaping discussions inside the U.S. Department of Defense — and it began at USC.

Sea Strike 2043 , a six-minute film developed by Force Writers Room (FWR), depicts a high-intensity naval battle featuring more than 30 emerging technologies currently under development or testing by the U.S. military.

Praised by online publication Task & Purpose as “slick, sharply produced” and “grounded sci-fi,” the film has become a strategic touchpoint, sparking vital discussions of future concepts and capability

integration among senior Navy leaders such as former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti, who called it a compelling representation of her vision for the U.S. Navy’s future.

FWR is co-led by USC Institute for Creative Technologies’ Dava Casoni, a former Hollywood actor and U.S. Army Reserve logistics officer, and U.S. Navy Reserve Capt. Ric Arthur, a television writer and Navy strategist. The team blends creative storytelling with military insight using talent from award-winning filmmakers.

The Sea Strike 2043 team includes director David Rosenbaum, designer Jayse Hansen (Iron Man 3, Top Gun: Maverick) and producer Jason Reed (Mulan, National Treasure: Book of Secrets). “Together, they rendered not just a film, but a testbed for imagining the

future of naval force design and concepting,” says Randall Hill Jr., vice dean of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and executive director of USC Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT).

The project’s influence is global. Screenings in the United Kingdom, Australia and Japan drew senior military leaders, policymakers and defense experts, while graphic novels and concept art in the United States continue to inform U.S. Navy planning.

“At USC ICT, we believe storytelling is a strategic asset,” Hill says. “The Force Writers Room is proof that creative technology — shaped by multidisciplinary teams and rooted in research — can help the nation prepare not only for the conflicts of tomorrow, but for the ethical, operational and human challenges they bring.”

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Support the Trojans whose discoveries and inventions help us all live better lives.

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USC’S CENTER

FOR THE POLITICAL

FUTURE

OFFERS A HOPEFUL,

PRACTICAL

MODEL FOR ENSURING THAT DEMOCRACY FUNCTIONS AND FLOURISHES THROUGH RESPECTFUL, CIVIL DIALOGUE AND TRUST — REGARDLESS OF POLITICAL PARTY AFFILIATION.

BY NINA RAFFIO ILLUSTRATION BY PAUL BLOW

with political polarization at a historic high and Republicans and Democrats more ideologically divided than at any point in the last three decades, the need for civil, fact-based dialogue has never been more urgent. At USC, one center is meeting that need with uncommon clarity and purpose.

Founded in 2018 by veteran Democratic strategist Bob Shrum and Republican campaign consultant Mike Murphy, the Center for the Political Future at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences bridges academia and practical politics. Its mission is bold but vital: to promote respectful political conversations, encourage active civic participation and prepare the next generation of leaders to navigate diverse viewpoints with integrity and empathy.

“What I hoped, beyond just putting all this together, was that we would serve students really well and enrich their education by connecting them with the real world of politics,” Shrum says.

“We also wanted to have an impact beyond the university’s gates — what former USC Dornsife Dean [Amber D.] Miller called the ‘academy in the public square,’” he adds. “Our programming isn’t just followed by our students; it’s followed by people throughout the community.”

“Today’s polarized political environment makes it difficult to engage in constructive dialogue, and social media has made these challenges even more daunting,” says USC Interim President Beong-Soo Kim. “That’s why it’s so important for USC to stand as a place that welcomes a broad range of viewpoints and

encourages students and faculty to engage with ideas different from their own. The Center for the Political Future serves as a model for how people across the ideological spectrum can unite around a shared commitment to core democratic values.”

BORN FROM BIPARTISANSHIP

USC’s commitment to bridging political divides spans decades. In 1978, the university established the Institute of Politics to combine academic study with practical political experience. Unlike traditional political science departments, which focus mainly on theory, the institute emphasized hands-on learning through internships, career preparation and small, impactful conferences that nurtured both political and professional growth.

In 1987, the institute was renamed the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics in honor of the influential California lawmaker known for his sharp political instincts and dedication to public service. For nearly 30 years, the Unruh Institute quietly shaped future civic leaders, becoming a key hub of political education on the West Coast.

That legacy took a new turn in 2016, when USC tapped one of the most storied figures in Democratic politics to chart a new path forward.

Shrum had spent decades at the highest echelons of American and international politics. In the United States, he advised Senate campaigns for Joe Biden, John Glenn, Edward Kennedy and Barbara Mikulski, and served as a senior strategist for presidential candidates Al Gore and John Kerry. His influence

has extended well beyond American borders: Shrum worked with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, the prime minister of Ireland, the president of Colombia, and the British Labour Party, including Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

“Bob is a genius in his own way — not just for his eloquence, his debating skills or strategic mind. He is a good man who believes in America, in the goodness of people and in the idea that we can make the world a better place,” says Brown, who was appointed Distinguished Scholar at the USC Schaeffer Institute in September. “He’s spent his life working toward that. Bob is someone who has helped shape America — and in many ways, the world — through the work he’s done.”

When asked to lead the institute’s transformation, Shrum agreed on one condition: The new center couldn’t just claim to be nonpartisan — it had to embody nonpartisanship. And that meant sharing the helm with someone who represented the other side of the political spectrum both in résumé and philosophy.

Shrum extended the invitation to his longtime political rival, Republican strategist Mike Murphy, a sharp-witted tactician who had spent decades winning tough races

HELPING ADVANCE CPF’S MISSION, PROVIDING STUDENTS WITH A SAFE SPACE TO LEARN AND TALK POLITICS OF ALL KINDS, SEEING ITS IMPACT ON CAMPUS – IT ’ S BEEN ONE OF THE MOST SPECIAL PARTS OF MY COLLEGE EXPERIENCE.

for GOP heavyweights like Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney and Arnold Schwarzenegger. A veteran of six Republican presidential campaigns and a familiar face on NBC, CNN and NPR, Murphy was known for his irreverent humor, no-nonsense messaging and keen instincts for the political pulse.

“Bob Shrum and I have been fierce political opponents, yet good friends, for decades,” Murphy says. “The sly fox Shrum took me out for margaritas, and before I knew it, I signed up to help lead the center.

“I’m very proud of the work we do here: striving for a politics where you have opponents but not enemies and debate over a common set of facts, not ceaseless political warfare for its own sake,” Murphy adds.

Together, Shrum and Murphy became the founding co-directors of what would be named the USC Center for the Political Future (CPF). To this day, it remains the only institute of politics in the nation led jointly by a Democrat and a Republican.

A REAL-WORLD LABORATORY FOR DEMOCRACY

What began as a campus initiative has evolved into a national model for restoring civility, fostering intellectual diversity and preparing the next generation of public leaders. CPF blends academic rigor with real-world political engagement, creating a space where students don’t just study politics — they live it.

At the heart of CPF’s programming is its signature Fellows Program. Each semester, the center brings in a bipartisan cohort of political professionals — including former senators, campaign managers, speechwriters and media strategists — to serve as fellows-in-residence. These fellows lead small, discussion-based study groups of 10 to 15 students, offering a behindthe-scenes look at how politics really works.

“Los Angeles is known for its dominant industries — entertainment, aerospace,

tourism — but politics isn’t usually one of them,” says Kamy Akhavan, CPF’s managing director. “And yet, politics is such a normal and important part of our world. Most people here know actors or engineers, but they don’t necessarily know anyone who’s worked behind the scenes in government or on a campaign. That’s what CPF brings to USC — direct access to the political world, from Washington to Sacramento.

“Our students get personal, face-to-face insight from people who’ve shaped policy, run campaigns and led in the public arena. It’s mentorship at the highest level,” he adds.

CPF’s “Pizza and Politics” series adds another layer of accessibility. These informal gatherings give students the chance to engage with fellows over a slice of pizza and a spirited conversation — no lectures, no scripts, just real talk about real issues.

“The mission has never been stronger,” says Betsey Fischer Martin, Emmy-winning journalist and former TV news executive, who joined CPF as a spring 2025 fellow. “It’s about fostering civic dialogue and helping students understand what’s happening in the world around them. It encourages them to put down their phones, step away from social media and engage in real conversations.

“Whether with each other or with political professionals, these interactions help them make sense of the larger world they’re stepping into,” she says. “What’s powerful is creating space for young people to come together in small groups to learn in a way that’s simple, engaging and safe — especially in a world that doesn’t always feel that way.”

MENTORSHIP THAT OPENS DOORS

The impact of the fellows program extends far beyond the classroom. Fellows often become mentors themselves, helping students land internships in Washington, Sacramento and beyond. These connections have launched

careers in government, advocacy, journalism and more.

“For a lot of students who aren’t normally exposed to the political world, this is their entry point,” Akhavan says. “They’re not just watching from the sidelines — they’re engaging with the country’s most prominent political figures and building up their own networks so they can expand their impact.”

That access is transformative. Fellows have helped students secure opportunities with leaders across the political spectrum — from former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Lee Zeldin. Those connections often continue long after graduation.

“Whether they want to run for office, work in advocacy, start their own nonprofit or take some other path entirely, we’re helping them take those first steps,” Akhavan says. “From their Trojan perch, they go out and make the world a better place.”

BRINGING THE PUBLIC INTO THE CONVERSATION

CPF actively collaborates with campus groups and external organizations to host public events featuring nationally recognized figures, fostering open and respectful dialogue on urgent issues.

Its marquee events — including the Climate Forward Conference, held jointly with USC Wrigley Institute for Environment and Sustainability, and the Warschaw Conference on Practical Politics — address urgent topics such as climate change, elections, immigration and social justice with a focus on evidence-based discussion and openness to diverse perspectives.

CPF also collaborates with media partners to co-host major televised political debates, including the 2024 California Senate debate featuring candidates vying to succeed the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

“If you had asked me 10 years ago why a bipartisan center was important, I would have had a different answer,” says Barbara Boxer, a former Democractic U.S. senator, Marin County supervisor and fall 2020 CPF fellow. “But now, it ’s not just important; it ’ s necessary. It ’s an emergency. We’re not talking to each other across party lines. I can tell you from personal experience: Everything I accomplished over all those years — all the thousands of things I got done — I always did it with a Republican. We’ve got to get back to those times. The fact that this center brings us together, allows us to look each other in the eye and find common ground — that’s critical.”

CPF’s work also extends to addressing broader social challenges that threaten democratic values, including efforts to confront rising intolerance and preserve critical historical truths. In 2023, it co-sponsored a special convening with USC Shoah Foundation that brought together international diplomats, scholars, community leaders and survivors to discuss the importance of preserving Holocaust memory in the face of growing antisemitism.

One of the center’s flagship events is the annual Young Women’s Leadership Conference, which brings together high school students from across Los Angeles at USC for a day focused on leadership development and civic engagement. Held during Women’s History Month, the event offers hands-on workshops led by elected officials, community advocates and USC student mentors.

For many attendees, the conference is their first experience on a college campus. The event has helped hundreds of young women become more civically engaged, with some going on to pursue roles in government, nonprofit organizations and the offices of elected officials at every level.

“The conference helped me just by being able to talk to some elected officials who have really made an impact on their community,” says Maya Reval, a student at Culver City High School and 2025 conference participant. “As a young woman and as a woman of color, seeing panelists who have made changes and who I feel resemble who I am was really inspiring.”

MORE THAN TALK

CPF encourages students to be active participants in democracy through programs that make civic engagement visible and accessible.

Each election cycle, CPF organizes voter registration drives, hosts informational events and collaborates with student organizations and campus groups to promote civic awareness. Since 2022, USC has also served as an official voting location, hosting mobile vote centers on both the University Park and Health Sciences campuses, as well as secure ballot drop boxes.

Through voter registration drives, mobile voting centers and partnerships with USC Athletics and student organizations, CPF helped boost student voter turnout from 17% in 2014 to nearly 74% in 2020, and 33% in 2022.

“CPF really helped me educate myself about the influence of voting and how it directly impacts us on a day-to-day basis,” says

former CPF administrative coordinator Arija Martin, who graduated from USC Dornsife in May with a bachelor’s degree in international relations.

LESSONS IN RESPECTFUL DISAGREEMENT

More than five years into its mission, CPF has built a campus culture where it’s safe — and valuable — to disagree. Students learn to frame issues around shared values, not partisan identities, and to approach politics with humility and curiosity.

IF YOU HAD ASKED ME

10 YEARS AGO WHY A BIPARTISAN CENTER WAS IMPORTANT, I WOULD HAVE HAD A DIFFERENT ANSWER. BUT NOW, IT ’ S NOT JUST IMPORTANT; IT’S NECESSARY.

BARBARA BOXER FORMER DEMOCRATIC

U.S. SENATOR

“If there’s a way out of the division we’re facing as a country, it will likely begin with programs like this — educating, informing and actively showing the next generation of leaders how to work with people they don’t agree with,” says former CPF fellow Mike Madrid, principal at Grassroots Lab, a premier campaign-management and lobbying firm in California.

“I haven’t seen that anywhere else. You might see sparks of it in other places, but you don’t see it take root and grow the way it has here at USC,” Madrid says. “But more than that, it’s a roadmap to the future — one that could help fix what ails us as a country and begin to heal what’s broken in our political system.”

Students echo that sentiment.

For Will Erens, politics doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game. The former CPF student, who graduated from USC Dornsife in May with a bachelor’s degree in political economy, says the center fundamentally reshaped how he views public discourse.

“Every day, across nearly every area of policy, we encounter issues that ought to unite people but instead deepen partisan divides,” Erens says. “That kind of tribalism slows progress and ends up hurting everyone — from college students to military officers to farmers.

“As someone who’s fairly centrist and cares about forward-thinking policies in tech and national security, I think it’s essential that we learn to collaborate and engage in civil dialogue,” Erens adds. “The Center for the Political Future has been an incubator for that. It helped me understand the political landscape, meet fascinating people and learn to approach complex policy challenges from all sides.”

For Eleanor Love ’26, a USC Dornsife undergraduate majoring in public policy and data analytics, student worker at CPF and president of Political Union — the multipartisan student organization affiliated with CPF — the connection is deeply personal.

“CPF has been my home on campus for years,” she says. “When I first arrived as a freshman, my introductory public policy classes made it clear that polarized politics are unsustainable and unproductive.”

Her first exposure to CPF came through Political Union’s weekly meetings and events, where she met peers with widely different perspectives, was challenged intellectually and formed some of her closest friendships.

“Helping advance CPF ’s mission, providing students with a safe space to learn and talk politics of all kinds, seeing its impact on campus — it ’s been one of the most special parts of my college experience,” she says.

A VISION FOR THE FUTURE

As Shrum prepares to step down as director, CPF is ready to build on its strong foundation. Looking ahead, it aims to broaden its efforts to combat misinformation, boost voter participation and foster greater inclusion across campus and beyond.

“I hope that it continues to grow — both in terms of what it’s able to do and the resources it’s able to deploy,” Shrum says. “I hope that 20 years from now, new generations of students are benefiting from it — and benefiting in ways that are maybe even bigger than what we’re doing now.”

BY GREG HERNANDEZ ILLUSTRATION BY SEAN MCCABE

AN ORALHISTORYOF

NAI, USC’S PREMIER COLLEGE-ACCESS PROGRAM.

LUIS CAMPO AND his middle-school classmates got some puzzled looks when checking out books at Doheny Library and while walking to their morning math and English classes at USC’s University Park Campus in the early 1990s.

“We would get questions like, ‘What are you guys doing here? You’re little kids!’” Campo says. “We had USC IDs but we’d have to explain, and sometimes staff members would call someone to double-check.”

Campo and his peers were among the first local middle schoolers to take part in the then-fledgling college access program now known as the USC Leslie and William McMorrow Neighborhood Academic Initiative (NAI).

Since its launch 35 years ago this fall, NAI has guided nearly 1,700 scholars who grew up near USC’s University Park and Health Sciences campuses through a seven-year college prep journey starting in sixth grade by offering

FAMILY SUPPORT IS INTEGRAL TO NAI’S SUCCESS; PARENTS AND CAREGIVERS MUST ATTEND THREE-HOUR SATURDAY MORNING SESSIONS HELD MORE THAN A DOZEN TIMES A YEAR.

academic support and resources to prepare students for college admission and the academic rigors of university life. Students attend early-morning weekday classes at a USC campus before their regular school day begins. They also attend Saturday sessions that provide resources such as academic enrichment, SAT preparation and personal development programming. And by holding workshops for parents and caregivers on everything from nutrition to financial literacy, NAI equips them with tools to nurture their children’s academic success. The program’s investment in students is hugely successful: NAI has a 100% high school graduation rate and 99% college graduation rate.

NAI: THE EARLY DAYS

In the late ’80s, USC’s Vice Provost of Educational Affairs Barbara Solomon saw a lack of diversity in higher education and wanted to do something about it. Solomon, who later became the first Black dean at USC, teamed with then-Undergraduate Vice Provost Sylvia Manning to lay the groundwork for the rigorous academic program.

SOLOMON: We wanted students to develop the skills to succeed. We [first] started with ninth through 12th grade, but it was soon apparent that we could do better if we included students at an earlier age. Then, if we worked with ninth or eighth graders, they [sometimes] had siblings who were also interested.

CAMPO, A MEMBER OF THE SECOND NAI COHORT AND A 2002 USC GRADUATE, FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT OF THE NAI ALUMNI ASSOCIATION: We didn’t know what the heck NAI was about at first because there was no marketing behind it and nobody knew about it. The principal and the teachers would pick the students they thought would excel in this type of program. Now it’s different. So many people know about NAI and want to apply.

KATE McFADDEN, A TEACHER AT JAMES A. FOSHAY LEARNING CENTER FOR 36 YEARS, WHO HAS MENTORED NAI STUDENTS SINCE THE BEGINNING: When we first started, the kids began taking AP exams and no one passed — some didn’t even finish the essays. But it was OK, because they were taking the test. Then a few kids passed. Now, I talk to my students and they’re like, “Oh yeah, we finished all the essays.” It’s amazing to see the level of educational rigor grow and the expectations that the kids have for themselves.

KIM THOMAS-BARRIOS, USC SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF EDUCATIONAL PARTNERSHIPS: By the 12th grade, they have AP Calculus and AP Literature. We pepper the journey with support because we know what is needed: extra time on English and math. Those

are the twin towers to get you into college. You’re going to read a lot, and you’re going to write a lot. Since the first graduating class in 1997, nearly 1,700 seniors have completed the NAI journey and attended college; 487 of them are now Trojan alumni. Others have attended such schools as Harvard University, UCLA, Stanford University and University of California, Berkeley.

A FAMILY AFFAIR

Family support is integral to NAI’s success; parents and caregivers must attend three-hour Saturday morning sessions held more than a dozen times a year. The programs cover nutrition, wellness, financial literacy, communication, critical conversation and ways to build and maintain a culture of academic excellence at home.

SOLOMON: We knew the program needed to have the continuous involvement of parents or at least a parent surrogate if we were going to require students to be in attendance after school and on the weekends. Parents needed to have a way of connecting.

THOMAS-BARRIOS: Parents want the best for their child, so they are willing participants. We’ll talk about all the things that could knock a kid off the pathway. If you’re going to go visit grandma for a month because grandma’s sick, where is the kid going to be? They can’t be out of school for a month. That’s something that we are very strict about. It’s about being on time, not being absent, and of course, getting all your assignments done. You don’t miss anything — that’s the expectation.

GUILLE AMBROZEVICIUS, WHOSE SON, LEO, IS A 2025 NAI GRADUATE: Once he started NAI, it just became part of my son’s life. It’s part of our lives. We’ve always worked our travels around his NAI schedule. It came before a baseball game, before a soccer game, before anything that he was playing. He knew he had NAI first, and it was nothing that he was ever upset about.

ALEXIS JACQUEZ, 2025 WOODROW WILSON SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATE AND USC CLASS OF 2029: There are sacrifices like having to miss family gatherings on Saturdays and having people say, “You go to school on Saturday? You should be having fun!” I would say, “This is good for me! I’m going to be going to USC.”

EXTENDING NAI’S REACH

In 2018, Leslie and William McMorrow presented NAI with a transformative naming gift that was the largest-ever donation to USC’s community outreach programs. It ensures that a larger number of students can participate in NAI well into the future.

BARBARA SOLOMON

GUILLE AMBROZEVICIUS

Up until now, graduates have come from Foshay Learning Center and Woodrow Wilson and Abraham Lincoln high schools. Starting this fall as part of an expansion into South and West Los Angeles, NAI will add students from Crenshaw High School and Susan Miller Dorsey High School to its cohorts.

SAMUEL GARRISON, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF UNIVERSITY RELATIONS: Leslie and Bill McMorrow are NAI’s guardian angels and two of the most giving people that I’ve ever met. Their love for USC, for NAI, and most importantly for the children in the program is humbling. Without their support, the program would certainly not be nearly as successful as it is.

WILLIAM McMORROW, A TWO-TIME USC ALUMNUS AND NAI BENEFACTOR: NAI is really the most rewarding thing I’ve ever been involved in. I’m just a little piece of this thing. It’s the support of the leadership at USC. It’s Kim Thomas-Barrios and her leadership for more than 20 years that is really important, as is the staff at NAI. Roughly half the kids [last] year got accepted to USC. Being around this campus and seeing what goes on here, it really makes them feel great.

PERSEVERING THROUGH COVID-19

One of the most challenging periods in NAI’s history began in March 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic prevented in-person classes and meetings.

But some students faced far deeper struggles than keeping up with their studies. NAI staff saw an unprecedented rise in the demand for services from students and their families. The coronavirus also claimed the lives of three NAI parents, who in each case was the family’s primary breadwinner.

GARRISON: NAI continued because of the amazing staff that pivoted within days to continue the program entirely online. Staff focused on helping our scholars through one of the most challenging and disruptive periods of their lives. The team provided mobile hotspots as well as food, mental health resources and even in some cases helped pay for funerals.

THOMAS-BARRIOS: Our staff are beautiful people with beautiful hearts. They took on a huge commitment during the pandemic.

JACQUEZ: It was difficult to join NAI during the pandemic because of everything going on. But I kept my focus on the main goal which was to succeed and get to college. I was going to be prepared. By my sophomore year, we were able to transition from Zoom and meet our teachers and others in our cohort in person. I was able to form what I hope will be lifelong friendships.

MOTIVATED FOR THE JOURNEY

NAI is operated by USC Educational Partnerships in the division of University Relations. In NAI’s early days, teachers and principals hand-picked students for the program. Now, as word has spread about the success and rigor of the program and demand has grown, students who live in the neighborhoods closest to USC’s University Park and Health Sciences campuses can apply online and are chosen by a selection committee.

The majority of the program’s scholars become first-generation college students.

JACQUEZ: When I was a student at El Sereno Middle School and Magnet Center, I knew NAI was a program that could help me eventually become college-bound. It was a big deal and so competitive because everyone wanted to be a part of it.

THOMAS-BARRIOS: Fifth-grade teachers let us know that they tell students about the program — before we even get there! And the students tell their parents. We ignite the imaginations of the kids, and something just touches the parents in their hearts.

AMBROZEVICIUS: My son Leo was nominated by his fifth-grade teacher, and he pretty much started the process on his own. He started doing his essays, he filled out the application, he wrote everything he needed to write, all on his own. He presented it to us at the point where he needed to have his interview. It just surprised us. We took the time, we did some research, and it is such an amazing program.

McFADDEN: Students come in ambitious and goal-oriented. They are willing to put the hard work in.

AN ENDURING LEGACY

Each spring, a location at the University Park Campus is transformed into an elegant venue for an annual gala to celebrate the culmination of NAI scholars’ seven-year journey and the beginning of their university life.

Although long retired, Solomon tries to never miss the gala; this year she was seated at a prime table. She enjoyed a steady stream of visits from Trojan attendees who were eager to greet the education trailblazer to whom Garrison later paid tribute during his remarks.

SOLOMON: I felt amazed at the size of the crowd and appreciative of the NAI grads and their proud families. The presence of so many hardworking staff, administrators and civic leaders reflected the high value placed on what the program has become.

NAI IS REALLY THE MOST REWARDING THING I’VE EVER BEEN INVOLVED IN. I’M JUST A LITTLE PIECE OF THIS THING.

WILLIAM MCMORROW

JACQUEZ: [At our gala], my heart was filled with so much joy because I was thinking about everything I worked hard for. I got to the end goal.

Others also reflected on the influence NAI has had on the lives of students and their families over the years.

McFADDEN: I’ve taught everything from seventh grade through 12th grade. I’ve seen the impact of the program not just in the kids, but on campus and in the community. It was a culture changer at our school. We have a college-going culture now. The level of rigor that students expect in their classes is very high.

Teaching in the NAI program is the high point of my career. I’ve taught children of students that I had, and so the impact has been very strong, very deep.

McMORROW: These young people are so extraordinary, and their parents make such sacrifices. Not to be too corny, but it’s what makes this country great. They are truly the future of the country.

THOMAS-BARRIOS: It’s amazing that for more than three decades, USC has reached so deeply into the community that surrounds both campuses. It’s such a selfless act for a major university to be able to open its arms so wide in a way that really changes the trajectory of families.

en years ago, two pediatric heart specialists approached USC biomedical engineer Gerald Loeb with an idea for a new pacemaker designed for babies, whose hearts are too small for conventional models.

The tiny device wouldn’t require open-chest surgery, sit inside the heart or have wire leads, which often break. Inserted under the breastbone through a small tube, the miniature pacemaker — a little bigger than a vitamin E capsule — would fit securely between the heart and its surrounding pericardial membrane.

Loeb is no stranger to medical innovation. A biomedical engineering professor at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, Loeb developed and patented an artificial fingertip with a complete sense of touch that was licensed to a successful spin-off company from his USC lab. He specializes in electronic devices that connect with the nervous system.

“My career consists of people coming in with crazy ideas and deciding which ones are practical enough to give a shot,” Loeb says.

The pericardial micro pacemaker is getting its shot. He and Yaniv Bar-Cohen, a pediatric heart specialist at the Keck School of Medicine of USC and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, developed,

patented and successfully demonstrated a working model. Bar-Cohen is in talks with pacemaker companies that can bring their device to market. They envision it being used in babies, children and adults.

From pill-sized pacemakers to stem cell therapies and new cancer treatments, USC researchers are collaborating to advance medical innovations, address complex health challenges and improve lives. Trojan researchers across the sciences are seeking to cure blindness, develop new testing options for cancers such as ovarian and breast cancers, and delay the onset of arthritis. They are also finding new ways to detect and slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.

“At USC, we don’t just imagine the future of medicine; we engineer it, we patent it, we launch it,” says Ishwar K. Puri, USC’s senior vice president of research and innovation. “Our researchers are redefining what’s possible. This is what it means to innovate like a Trojan.”

The USC Stevens Center for Innovation plays a pivotal role in many of these efforts, managing the intellectual property generated from more than $1.2 billion in annual research funding across medicine, engineering and the sciences — a scale that reflects USC’s growing influence in shaping the future of health technologies.

“We’re seeing more faculty startups launch with strong science and real commercial potential,” says Erin Overstreet, executive director at the Stevens Center. “We want to make sure we’re helping them build the right foundation — from patents to partnerships.”

A LONG LEAD

The path from discovery in the lab to the marketplace is painstakingly slow. Each promising treatment must go through rigorous scientific review before it can advance to clinical trial and eventually to FDA review and approval. According to some estimates, the cost of producing a single FDA-approved drug ranges from $1 billion to $3 billion over a 10- to 15-year period. The odds of success are slim: Only 3%, give or take, win FDA approval.

USC scientists are on the front line of finding ways to accelerate discovery and compress the timeline. They are launching startups to inspire investment and working closely with private industry.

USC’s Vsevolod “Seva” Katritch is using AI and computational methods to screen billions of compounds to disrupt the earliest — and most time-consuming — phase of drug discovery: the identification of “hits” and development of “leads.” He and Charles McKenna, professor of chemistry and pharmaceutical sciences, host workshops to encourage AI drug discovery. Annie WongBeringer, associate dean for research at the USC Alfred E. Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, is using organon-a-chip technology (where cells from specific organs, such as the heart, are grown on silicone wafers) to screen potential drugs for issues such as liver toxicity earlier in the process.

“USC is not only publishing discoveries but actively developing therapies and spinning out biotech companies,” says Steve Kay, who directs the USC Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience and is the co-director of the USC Norris Center for Cancer Drug Development. “We’re building an ecosystem that turns basic science into treatments — especially for diseases affecting our local population, like pancreatic cancer, leukemia and Alzheimer’s.”

“Historically, universities stopped at publishing discovery research — insights into pathways, cell types, animal models — while pharma took it from there,” continues Kay, a University and Provost Professor of Neurology, Biomedical Engineering and Quantitative and Computational Biology. “What we’re doing now is moving our discoveries further along the commercialization path before handing them off. That means more value retained at USC and more ownership for inventors.”

Here’s a sample of USC-licensed startups, drugs and devices:

• Be Biopharma has licensed technology developed by microbiologist and Keck School of Medicine Distinguished Professor Paula Cannon to edit the genes of the body’s own B cells to express therapeutic antibodies for indications including cancer, autoimmune disease, infectious disease and central nervous system applications.

• Acur aStem, a startup co-founded by Justin Ichida, is developing drugs to treat ALS and frontotemporal dementia. In late 2023, AcuraStem signed an exclusive licensing agreement with pharmaceutical giant Takeda to bring the discoveries to market.

• Synchronicity Pharma, a biotech startup co-founded by Steve Kay, has completed early safety trials in humans for a compound that selectively attacks glioblastoma — a deadly form of brain cancer — stem cells. The compound, SHP1705, targets the circadian clock proteins hijacked by glioblastoma stem cells, impairing the cancer cells’ ability to survive and grow. Circadian clock proteins regulate the body’s sleep-wake cycle and other daily rhythms.

• Plurocart, a startup founded by Denis Evseenko at Keck School of Medicine, is developing a “regenerative pouch” to replace cartilage that’s been damaged by a fall, sports injury or other trauma. The pouch contains hundreds of thousands of young cartilage cells derived from stem cells. “It’s a little reparative structure that you can surgically deliver right into the cartilage defect,” Evseenko says.

INTERDISCIPLINARY BREAKTHROUGHS

e famed inventor Nikola Tesla is believed to have said, “Be alone — that is the secret to invention.”

For Trojan inventors like Charles Liu, the opposite is true: eir secret to invention is to work as a team.

Even though the process may take years, licensure does not dim Liu’s enthusiasm for helping patients recover function from brain injuries or diseases.

Co-founder of USC’s Neurorestoration Center and professor of clinical neurological surgery, urology and surgery at the Keck School of Medicine, Liu specializes in the creation of implantable devices that respond in real time to abnormal brain activity. His prosthetics for the brain are designed to help patients who su er from brain conditions such as epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, memory loss and more. rough a combination of engineering and medicine, he is a healer in the rapidly emerging eld of biomedicine known as neuroprosthetics.

“ e hope is that neuroprosthetics will become an important tool for functional neurorestoration in human patients, which will work in synergy with other strategies such as regenerative medicine and neuromodulation-enhanced learning,” Liu says. “ e hope is that all aspects of human neurological disabilities can be restored beyond what conventional healing and rehabilitation can achieve.”

Associate Professor of Neurological Surgery and of Biomedical Engineering at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering Dong Song, who often collaborates with Liu, focuses on addressing brain health issues through engineering.

For instance, he is working on a brain prosthesis to restore episodic memory in patients who su er from memory-impairing conditions such as neurological disease or injuries.

Using a computational model, his team records neural signals from one part of the hippocampus and stimulates another to rebuild broken memory pathways by using implantable brain devices.

“We don’t try to patent every idea that comes through our o ce,” she explains. “Instead, after a careful review, we move forward with patents on about two-thirds of the inventions we see. For those, we put in the work to draft applications that clearly de ne what makes the invention new and protectable. Strong patents not only stand up if challenged — they are also more attractive to companies and investors, making them far more licensable assets for USC and our inventors.”

e center’s licensing team now numbers more than 20 professionals who work closely with faculty to negotiate startup-friendly agreements. Many deals begin with low-cost, short-term options to reduce risk for early-stage companies. Later, they are upgraded to full licenses once funding is secured.

“Within the next ve to 10 years, our goal is for this device to transition from proof-of-concept studies to broader clinical trials, ultimately providing a therapeutic option for conditions like traumatic brain injury and early-stage Alzheimer’s disease,” Song says.

GETTING TO YES

At USC, some scientists bring their early ideas to the Stevens Center, which helps turn rough prototypes into patented devices. at process often extends to launching a startup company where strong intellectual property can give investors the con dence to fund the testing and development needed to bring an invention to market.

In recent years, the center has re ned the way it handles technology transfer — the process of moving university research into the real world. Since joining the center in January 2024, Overstreet has emphasized investing early in high-quality patent applications and being more selective about which inventions to pursue patent protections for.

“Our job is to reduce friction,” Overstreet says. “We want to get to yes, and we want startups to succeed.”

e Stevens Center oversees licensing of all technologies at USC, including diagnostics and medical devices. Companies like CpG Diagnostics and Regenerative Patch Technologies (RPT) — co-founded by Mark Humayun of USC Viterbi, the USC Roski Eye Institute and Keck School of Medicine — are part of USC’s expanding innovation footprint. RPT developed an implantable retinal patch for restoring vision in people with age-related macular degeneration. It remains one of the university’s most cited examples of therapeutic success.

Recent studies, backed in part by the taxpayer-supported California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, indicate the patch appears regenerative, not just slowing the degenerative disease but also reversing its course. Clinical studies are underway.

SIGNALS OF STRENGTH

As the life-sciences industry shifts toward personalized and cellbased therapies, Overstreet believes USC is better positioned than ever to rise among the top institutions for innovation. Recent deals with well-capitalized companies, such as Be Biopharma, re ect a maturing pipeline of faculty-led ventures — and illustrate an unrelenting determination that is a hallmark of USC research.

“ ese are signals of strength,” she says. “ ey show what’s possible when you combine groundbreaking research with strong intellectual property and the right partnerships.”

With more than $1.2 billion in annual research activity and a sharpened focus on translational outcomes, Trojan inventors are laying the groundwork for a future where USC discoveries save and improve more lives, faster than before.

FIG.I An implantable retinal patch for restoring vision is one of the university’s most cited examples of therapeutic success. FIG.II Drug development is a painstakingly slow process. FIG.III A “regenerative pouch” derived from stem cells replaces damaged cartilage after a fall. FIG.IV A pacemaker the size of a pill won’t require open-chest surgery. (Doctor not to scale.)

A NEW STUDY FROM KECK MEDICINE OF USC’S JANET CHOI IS THE FIRST TO LINK HEARING DEVICES TO IMPROVED SOCIAL WELL-BEING AMONG ADULTS WITH HEARING LOSS.

BY CHINYERE CINDY AMOBI • ILLUSTRATION BY PETRA PETERFFY

efore married couple Barbara both 87, started using hearing aids in 2023, hearing loss in every aspect of their lives.

“We couldn’t understand what our doctors were saying, and telephone calls were hard,” Barbara Nakahara says. “When you can’t hear something on television or a movie with your family, you really miss a lot.”

The Nakaharas’ experience is typical for those who experience hearing loss and find it increasingly hard to engage with the world around them.

“Hearing loss not only impacts hearing and communication, but also a patient’s relationships, work life and independence,” says Janet Choi, assistant professor of Clinical Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery at the Keck School of Medicine of USC.

Choi is the lead researcher on a new study from the USC Caruso Department of Otolaryngology – Head & Neck Surgery that is the first to link hearing devices, including hearing aids and cochlear implants, to improved social well-being among adults with hearing loss.

“Through the research, I really wanted to understand whether treating hearing loss using hearing aids or via cochlear implantation can have a positive impact on patients’ social lives,” Choi says.

The study, published in JAMA Otolaryngology – Head & Neck Surgery, showed that hearing aids and cochlear implants can improve social engagement and reduce isolation among adults with hearing loss. The research team did a systematic review of 65 studies covering more than 5,000 participants.

Researchers found that hearing devices help people feel more socially connected, more involved in conversations and less lonely. This research follows a January 2024 study by Choi, which showed that adults with hearing loss who use hearing aids have an almost 25% lower risk of mortality. Both studies and other research suggest that treating hearing loss can improve both lifespan and social quality of life.

“Ultimately, our goal as physicians is to have happier, healthier patients,” says Professor John Oghalai, department chair of otolaryngology – head and neck surgery and Leon J. Tiber and David S. Alpert Chair in Medicine at Keck School of Medicine. “This research is really getting to the outcome of helping people be happier, and that’s a direct correlation with our goal of taking care of patients.”

The Nakaharas began to seriously consider hearing devices after Glenn Nakahara’s brother shared that their father had spent his later years socially isolated due to his hearing challenges.

“Glenn’s parents were engaged [with other people] all their lives; people came to visit or they went out to dinner,” Barbara Nakahara says. “To learn that Harry [Glenn’s father] was just sitting there was a really upsetting moment.”

The Nakaharas, already patients at Keck Medicine of USC, then met with audiologist Nicole Greene, who guided them through the process of selecting the best hearing devices for their situation.

Fighting stigma

While the Nakaharas were eager to seek treatment, Choi says that young patients experiencing hearing challenges tend to put up the greatest resistance to using hearing devices.

“There’s a huge social stigma linked to hearing loss and using hearing aids in our society; people think that they make them look old,” Choi says. “As a result, a lot of people are in denial.”

Choi wanted to challenge that stigma because of her personal connection to hearing loss. She was born without a left ear canal due to a congenital condition called aural atresia. A childhood surgery failed to fix the problem completely, so she had to rely almost entirely on her right ear. Although Choi’s pediatrician recommended hearing aids early on, her parents worried that she would be picked on by her classmates.

She didn’t start using hearing aids until a physician who Choi trained with at the University of Minnesota advised that she could be missing crucial words — especially in the operating room, where competing sounds could lead to confusion.

“Hearing aids actually made a huge, positive impact for me, especially in work environments,” Choi says. “I didn’t miss words anymore.”

Relating to patients

Choi’s experience helps her relate to patients with hearing loss — especially those who are newly diagnosed.

“I really like showing my hearing aids to my patients, because they usually don’t even notice that I’m wearing them,” says Choi, who noted that the diversity of options for hearing devices has expanded widely in the last 10 to 20 years. Most patients first think of the bulky, highly visible hearing aids of the past when faced with the reality of hearing loss, but many devices are now smaller, compact and less visible — if patients even want to conceal them.

“I personally advocate for hearing aids as a positive tool to celebrate and embrace,” Choi says. “They can even be a fashion statement at some point.”

Easing access for others

While hearing devices offer a relatively quick source of relief for many patients with hearing loss, finding the best device can be daunting. Choi’s difficulty navigating the hearing loss landscape as a patient — even while working in that field — was an eye-opening experience.

Choi says she had to try different hearing-aid molds and materials before she found the ones that worked for her. “Learning that process myself, I knew we had to do better,” she says. “That’s why I got into hearing-loss research — to understand what treating hearing loss can do and then make it more accessible for everyone.”

Since then, she has authored more than 50 publications in peer-reviewed journals and book chapters and presented at national and international conferences. Her research projects include population-based studies examining the impact of hearing loss and its treatment on health outcomes, as well as the development of artificial intelligence-based solutions to ease access to hearing care.

Reaching across disciplines

Before her fellowship in otology, neurotology and lateral skull base surgery at the University of Minnesota, Choi completed a ve-year otolaryngology residency at Keck School of Medicine. She returned to USC as a faculty member and practitioner in 2023, crediting the collaborative nature of her department and USC as an institution as the reason for her return to the university.

“It was the people,” Choi says. “I enjoy working in a very collegial environment, where a lot of collaboration happens not just in my department, but as a whole. USC as an institution, especially for my research, is very multidisciplinary I have a lot of collaborators in disciplines such as gerontology and neurology.”

“At USC, faculty in di erent departments want to work together to solve di cult problems and develop innovative ideas,” Oghalai adds. “Our goal is not just to provide medical care, but to advance medical care. And we do that through collaboration and innovation.”

Oghalai hopes Choi’s new research has her desired e ect of expanding understanding of the bene ts of treating hearing loss.

“My hope is that this research cues people into the idea that [hearing devices] can actually help you accomplish more in your life, and not detract from your life,” he says.

Parsing through the social benefits

Before Choi’s breakthrough nding, many studies already showed that hearing loss is connected to negative social engagement and loneliness. What wasn’t known was whether

treating hearing loss with hearing aids or cochlear implantation could have a positive impact on social well-being. For the study, her team reviewed ndings from the previous studies and found there was a “really signi cant, positive impact for both hearing-aid use and cochlear implantation in multiple domains of social outcomes,” Choi says.

ose with cochlear implants reported the biggest improvements in social quality of life, likely because the implants provide greater hearing restoration than hearing aids, especially for people with severe hearing loss. e researchers also found that individuals using hearing devices felt more socially connected and less limited and anxious in social situations.

Like the participants from the study, Choi and the Nakaharas saw their social experiences enriched after treating their hearing loss.

Before using hearing devices, Choi would smile and nod or laugh at a joke without fully understanding when someone spoke to her on her left side.

“ at’s something that a lot of people with hearing loss actually do, because it’s cumbersome to have to ask others to repeat themselves constantly,” she says. “You have to pretend in a lot of situations.”

For the Nakaharas, treating their hearing loss meant fully experiencing their granddaughters’ volleyball games for the rst time and the promise of better engagement with the girls as they age into college. “At our age you have to enjoy all of this, because we’re not going to be around forever,” Barbara Nakahara says.

“ e hearing aids are a very big plus because we can continue to watch them grow happily,” Glenn Nakahara adds.

MORE THAN A PATIENT

Our experts at Keck Medicine of USC go beyond the standard to provide care personalized to you. Your story is our priority, and we strive to focus every treatment plan on what’s vital to you. Together we are limitless.

KeckMedicine.org

FAMILY

NEWLY MINTED TROJANS

USC’s Class of 2025 celebrates commencement at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in May, bringing the Trojan Family to the 500,000 living alumni milestone.

HALF A MILLION

n classrooms and boardrooms, at studios and startups, in research labs and hospitals, Trojans have been making a global impact for more than a century. The Trojan Family has one of the most powerful alumni networks in the world — and it’s now 500,000 strong.

USC’s powerful group of alumni is made up of leaders, changemakers, artists, advocates, award winners, teachers, storytellers, parents and pioneers. Collectively, there’s nothing quite like the Trojan Family — and the numbers tell the story. Read on … and Fight On!

By USC STAFF

Illustrations by Giacomo Gambineri

TROJAN PRIDE

“I’ve never been prouder to be a USC alumnus. My degrees are much more valuable today than they ever were. The campus is beautiful. I love showing the campus off to friends who are visiting from different places.”

Jay Berger ’66, MS ’67, PhD ’71 Past President, Half Century Trojans

1,064

MILLION STRONG

PUTTING A GREAT EDUCATION TO WORK

“I graduated with a fire in my belly, and attribute my diate success first few years my business the entrepreneurship program at Harjot Takkar ’93 Founding Member USC Alumni Club

226,

182

97,127

LARGEST ALUMNI BASE USC DORNSIFE COLLEGE OF LETTERS, ARTS AND SCIENCES

TROJANS WITH UNDERGRADUATE DEGREES

SMALLEST ALUMNI BASE USC KAUFMAN SCHOOL OF DANCE

TROJANS WITH MULTIPLE DEGREES

279,903

TROJANS WITH GRADUATE DEGREES

“I’ve been to over 55 countries, and wherever I go, if I put on something that says I’m a Trojan, alumni will come out of the woodwork. It’s just amazing.”

Wilma Pinder ’62 Board Member, Half Century Trojans, Alumnae Coordinating Council, Town & Gown of USC

NATIONAL

A GLOBAL FORCE ...BY GENERATION*

306,314

89

CALIFORNIA has the largest number of Trojan alumni. NORTH DAKOTA has the smallest number of Trojan alumni.

INTERNATIONAL

135

Number of COUNTRIES where Trojan alumni live

Overseas countries with the most Trojan alumni:

4,727 CHINA INDIA

11,677

BY AGE

104 22

171,202

76,670

MILLION STRONG

STAYING CONNECTED

“In Washington, D.C., my core group of friends were fellow Trojans. We hadn’t known each other on campus, but I met them through the USC network. Over time, we became each other’s support system, family and home away from home. This experience showed me how powerful our Trojan Family is. No matter the distance from Los Angeles, you can always find Trojans who are eager to connect with and support one another.”

Paola Fernandez ’14 MPP ’19, 2025 Widney Alumni House Volunteer Award Winner; Member, USC Latino Alumni Association and USC Washington D.C. Advisory Group

“USC has made a profound and lasting impact on my life, both personally and professionally. As a second-generation Latina and granddaughter of a Mexican immigrant farmworker, I am forever grateful for the many opportunities our beloved university has provided me.”

Linda Mirdamadi MD ’94, Member, USCAA Board of Governors and Board of Directors, and USC Latino Alumni Association

GIVING BACK

How will you stay connected?

For more than 100 years, alumni have given back to USC by raising money for scholarships, contributing their expertise, mentoring fellow Trojans, and volunteering their time, energy and talent.

of alumni-hosted events each year foster a culture of giving back to USC.

1,000s

of volunteers share their time and talent through USC organizations annually.

awarded annually to USC students through more than 800 USCAA scholarships.

62,879

alumni made a gift to USC in the 2024-25 academic year.

Get Ready to Get Involved

Something big is coming to the Trojan alumni network …

We’re reimagining what it means to volunteer by makingit easier than ever to stay connected and give back in meaningful ways. Through regional networks, career engagement and new technology, we’rebuilding a stronger, more connectedglobal Trojan Family—together.

Bepart of what’s next— find your opportunity at alumni.usc.edu/volunteer or scan the QR code today!

(213)740-2300 • alumni@usc.edu

1 9 5 0 s

Janet Boldt Saenz ’50 (EDU) is one of seven finalists for the Excellence in Education award of Alpha Delta Kappa International Association for Women in Education.

1 9 8 0 s

Baron Birtcher ’81 (BUS), best-selling mystery author of the novel Knife River , has been awarded the Will Rogers Medallion Award, a prestigious annual awards program that recognizes excellence in Western literature and media.

Ken Scarborough ’82 (DRA) won an Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Preschool or Children’s Program for Sesame Street at the Third Annual Children’s and Family Emmy Awards.

Grant Heslov ’86 (DRA) adapted his Academy Award-nominated screenplay Good Night, and Good Luck , starring and co-written by George Clooney, for Broadway. He also produced a livestream of the play for CNN, marking the first time a live play on Broadway has been televised.

Troy McQuillen ’87 (SCA) started his marketing and publishing company McQuillen Creative Group Inc. in South Dakota. In 2023, he restored local newspaper journalism to his semi-rural community by starting an online news platform and a weekly printed newspaper. He has since started another newspaper in a community 90 miles away, as well as a biweekly glossy community magazine for Aberdeen.

Chas Henry ’89 (SCA) had a book published by the University of Nebraska Press, Fuji Fire: Sifting Ashes of a Forgotten U.S. Marine Corps Tragedy , a U.S. military disaster unknown even to most military historians.

Philip A. Iannuzzi Jr. ’89 (ENG) recently published a book on developing leaders titled Leadership Excellence: Empower Your Leadership with The Model for Sustained Leadership Success

Edward Chyun ’99 (LAS) has been elected by Littler, the world’s largest employment and labor law practice representing management, to its 2025 board of directors.

2 0 0 0 s

Winnie Lok ’01 (DRA) is the new general manager for East West Players, the nation’s preeminent Asian American theater company.

Jacqueline M. Cofield ’02 (SCJ) was named to the prestigious Fulbright specialist roster for 2025-28. A visionary educator, cultural strategist and arts advocate, she will collaborate with institutions around the world to advance arts-based education and global learning.

Pilaar Terry ’02 (SCJ) was named to Advertising Week New York’s Future is Female Awards shortlist of 25 talented and game-changing women in advertising.

Bonnie Abe ’04 (ACC) recently joined Accuity LLP, one of Hawaii’s leading CPA and business consulting firms, as an audit principal.

Patrick J. Adams ’04 (DRA) , best known for playing Mike Ross in the USA Network hit Suits , stars in the BBC and Netflix miniseries The Bombing of Pan Am 103.

Ryan Horiuchi ’04 (ACC) was recently promoted to audit partner at Accuity LLP, one of Hawaii’s leading CPA and business consulting firms, where he specializes in federal compliance and service organization controls.

Amanda Truemper ’05 (ARC) recently joined the ownership group of Trivers, a St. Louis-based architecture, planning, urban design and interiors firm. Her work has been honored with awards from the AIA, IIDA Gateway Chapter, Illuminating Engineering Society and Landmarks Association of St. Louis.

Giovanna Silvestre ’06 (LAS) published the book Confused Girl: Find Your Peace in the Chaos (Blackstone) on May 13. It is sold at the USC Bookstore.

Ludwig Göransson GCRT ’08 (MUS) in April was featured in a Los Angeles Times article about the creative process behind composing Ryan Coogler’s film Sinners .

2 0 1 0 s

McKinley Belcher III ’10 (DRA) was nominated for a BAFTA and an RTS Programme Award for work in the Netflix series Eric , which also starred Benedict Cumberbatch and Gaby Hoffmann.

Regina Zurbano EdD ’11 (EDU) was recognized as Region 15 CTE Administrator of the Year for 2025 by the Association of California State Administrators, representing the Antelope Valley ACSA Regional Charter. She currently serves as the director of Local Control and Accountability Plan and Charter Oversight for the Palmdale School District, the fourth-largest elementary school district in the state.

Aida Mariam Davis MPP ’12 (SPP) , author of Kindred Creation: Parables and Paradigms for Freedom , was a featured speaker on April 26 at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. The book was published by Penguin Random House.

A Battle-Ready Sponge

Kenton Gregory is saving lives from combat zones to maternity wards with his invention: a sponge-based wound dressing.

Something simple, quick and cheap — that’s the formula Kenton Gregory ’76 (ENG) ’80 (MED) used to create his sponge-based wound dressing for hemorrhaging soldiers. On the battlefield, medics face harsh conditions with limited resources and little time to save lives. Blood loss remains the leading cause of death in active combat, so Gregory knew his solution had to work fast.

“Everything that’s complex would fail in the battlefield,” he says.

Traditional gauze can take several minutes to apply and is difficult to use in areas like the armpit or groin. Gregory’s sponge-based dressing, placed inside a syringe, expands in just 15

seconds to seal a wound, buying medics precious time to evacuate the wounded safely. The mini-sponge hemorrhage control dressing is now saving limbs and lives from grievous artillery and drone wounds in Ukraine daily.

But this simple invention doesn’t just save soldiers. In low-resource countries, the same technology can help women survive postpartum hemorrhages, which are the top cause of maternal death worldwide. In Ethiopia, for example, women are at higher risk of dying due to limited resources and access to urgent care as much as 14%. At the University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka, Zambia, medical personnel assist up to 30,000 live births yearly — and 1 in 20 of these mothers experience postpartum hemorrhage. There, Gregory’s sponge was used on nine women, all of whom survived. The entire procedure, from opening the package to stopping the bleeding, averaged 60 seconds, much faster than drugs typically used.

Gregory first thought of the sponge in 2008, but his innovations go back further. After 9/11, he partnered with the military to develop chitin-based wound dressings. “I was showing it for the very first time in a medical meeting in an airbase in Florida,” he recalls. “They looked at me and said, ‘We’re going to need this.’”

A chemical engineer and physician, Gregory always wanted to merge his engineering skills with medicine. He’s founded seven companies and worked in lasers, tissue engineering and pandemic preparedness as a Bill Gates Fellow. Now, he’s developing AI tools that utilize cellphone ultrasound signals to aid in diagnosing pneumonia in areas with limited radiology services. Pneumonia still kills thousands of children under five every year.

Gregory is currently developing an inexpensive, AI-guided, tablet-based ultrasound for the Center for the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. It is an early detector of smoke-inhalation lung injury, abdominal bleeding and severe extremity injury at the site of mass casualty events.

Despite his inventions, Gregory doesn’t care for business management. “My gift is in inventing,” he says. “That’s what I love to do the most.”

He hopes to keep designing simple, life-saving tools for the world’s most vulnerable — from soldiers in battle to mothers in rural clinics. “I always think about what’s going to make the biggest difference for my patients,” he says. “Where can I help save the most lives?”

RANIA SOETIRTO

Kevin Greene ’12, ’14 (SCJ) was named the new assistant general manager of the Bay Area Panthers. A two-time graduate of USC where he played collegiate football, he went on to play in the NFL with both the San Francisco 49ers and the Tennessee Titans.

Matthew Jellick MAT ’12 (EDU) was recently promoted to director for the University of Colorado’s International College in Beijing. Matthew has lived in China for nearly eight years, teaching at the university level.

Madison Rhoades ’13 (ART) created Slashers Axe Throwing & Ales, a horror-themed axe-throwing bar in Costa Mesa, in the same elevated level as “the Rainforest Café, but with horror movies, axe throwing and beer.”

Jordana Sapiurka ’14 (DRA) won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Casting for a Live Action Program for her work on Disney+’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians at the third annual Children’s and Family Emmy Awards.

Joy Wang ’14 (SCJ), a morning reporter at ABC 7 News DC, was selected as one of the inaugural 40 under 40 awardees by the Asian American Chamber of Commerce.

Taylor Dearden ’15 (DRA) stars alongside fellow alumna Amielynn Abellera ’11 (DRA) in HBO’s hit medical drama The Pitt.

Raashi Kulkarni ’18, ’16 (MUS) composed the score for the film A Nice Indian Boy, released on April 4. Kulkarni’s score blends rich Indian musical elements and Western orchestral traditions, while also balancing Bollywood influences with a modern pop sensibility.

Esther Lee GCRT ’15, DMA ’19 (MUS) made her Carnegie Hall debut as a pianist for the world premiere of Elliott Bark’s “Mercy for Violin, Cello, Piano and Orchestra,” presented by Distinguished Concerts International New York.

Caroline Wilkins ’16, MM ’19 (MUS) won the principal harp position with the Boise Philharmonic. Wilkins has served as principal harpist with the American Youth Symphony, the Debut Chamber Orchestra and the USC Thornton Symphony. She is the 2019 grand

prize winner of the American Harp Society National Competition.

Paul Cornish ’18 (MUS) signed with Blue Note Records and released his debut album, You’re Exaggerating!, in August.

Natasha Drukarova Denmark EdD ’19 (EDU) joined California State University, Northridge, as a tenure-track professor.

Baek Hwong ’19 (MUS) , aka NoSo, performed their song “Sugar” on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on May 19. The single is from NoSo’s upcoming album, When Are You Leaving?, released on Oct. 10 via Partisan Records.

Jensen McRae ’19 (MUS) was noted by the Los Angeles Times as the city’s next great songwriter. L.A. Times music critic Mikael Wood traced her journey from studying at Harvard-Westlake to honing her songwriting skills at USC Thornton and ultimately gaining prominence as an alternative folk-pop artist.

Anne Ranzani ’19 MM ’21, GCRT ’23 (MUS) joined the Long Beach Symphony as principal bassoonist. Ranzani performs across California as the principal bassoonist for the California Symphony and Monterey Symphony, as well.

2 0 2 0 s

Tyler Joseph Ellis ’20 (DRA) wrote the book for a new musical, The (Disaster) Marathon of 1904, which was one of two winners at the Open Jar Studios and Stage Door Networks’ Broadway Shark Tank competition. He is also appearing in the national tour of the Broadway musical Shucked

Jamie Salinger ’20 (DRA) used her degree in stage management to help put on the 67th annual Grammy Awards, and she also worked with NBC operations at the Paris Olympics.

Ivy Ngoc Trac EdD ’20 (EDU) has been appointed director of personnel services at Garden Grove Unified School District. She previously served as a high school assistant principal and an intermediate school principal.

Juan Pablo Contreras DMA ’21 (MUS) was named the new co-chair of New Music USA’s Board of Directors alongside Anne-Marie Spataru.

Angelo Mok ’21 (SCJ) was named one of 150 scholars in the 2025 cohort of Schwarzman Scholar. The program provides support to attend a one-year, fully funded master’s degree program in global affairs at Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University in Beijing.

Tanya Olivia MAT ’21 (EDU) completed her fourth year as a teacher and has been accepted to the Teacher Innovator Institute (TII) program for the summer in Washington, D.C. The program prepares teacher innovators to deliver STEAM lessons and become mentors for their classroom community.

Elia (Salazar) Plascencia EdD ’21 (EDU) has started a new chapter in her career as the administrative clinical research program manager in the Department of Diagnostic Radiology at City of Hope National Medical Center. She previously worked at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) and the Keck School of Medicine of USC. In her new role, she will provide strategic oversight and operational leadership for radiology programs, with a strong focus on clinical and translational research initiatives.

Karlie Teruya ’21 (DRA) served as the technical assistant stage manager and the sub assistant stage manager for the Tony Award-winning musical Maybe Happy Ending

Andrew Miller EdD ’22 (EDU) has recently joined Beijing International Bilingual Academy as academic principal. In this role, he leads curriculum, instruction and professional learning across the K-12 school, supporting a dynamic bilingual and international learning environment.

Shaz Umer MUP ’22 (SPP) was appointed by U.S. President Donald Trump to be director of strategic initiatives in the Office of the Secretary at the Department of Transportation. He helps advance the secretary’s innovation agenda, focusing on research, policy and technology that will shape the future of mobility.

A Champion of Change

Wallis Annenberg, USC Life Trustee and pioneering philanthropist whose bold investments enriched the lives of generations of Angelenos and those around the world, died on July 28 in Los Angeles. She was 86.

A transformative force in American philanthropy, Annenberg changed how foundations engage with communities by championing bold initiatives rooted in compassion, accessibility and innovation.

Since assuming leadership of the Annenberg Foundation in 2009, Annenberg expanded its giving exponentially, investing $1.5 billion in nearly 3,000 nonprofits, community spaces and groundbreaking projects.

Annenberg’s decades of leadership elevated arts and culture, education, conservation, animal welfare, aging and longevity, health care access, and social justice — advancing opportunity and dignity for millions.

Her philanthropic influence is evident throughout Southern California in the numerous spaces she helped develop, including the Annenberg Space for Photography, Wallis Annenberg GenSpace, The Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing, Annenberg Community Beach House, Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, Wallis Annenberg PetSpace and the state’s first universally accessible public treehouse.

A lifelong advocate for education and the free press, Annenberg’s impact on USC is both vast and enduring. Since her father, U.S. Ambassador Walter H. Annenberg, founded the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism in 1971, the Annenberg family and foundation have given more than $350 million to USC.

In 2010, a $50 million lead gift enabled the creation of Wallis Annenberg Hall. Most recently, a $5 million grant from Annenberg and the foundation created a new multimedia production studio in her name on the USC Capital Campus.

“Courageous, thoughtful and exceedingly generous, Wallis Annenberg was our champion, a lifelong advocate for the essential role communication and journalism play in advancing our society and sustaining our democracy,” USC Annenberg Dean Willow Bay says.

In 2017, Annenberg became only the fourth recipient of USC’s University Medallion, following in the footsteps of her father. She also established endowed chairs in communication and journalism, created fellowships supporting research on women and families, and funded leadership initiatives that have helped diversify the journalism profession.

Annenberg’s commitment to service earned her numerous accolades, most notably the National Humanities Medal from President Joe Biden in recognition of her efforts to

deepen the nation’s understanding of the human experience and expand access to cultural resources. In 2003, Annenberg received an honorary doctorate from USC.

In a rare interview with CBS This Morning in 2013, Annenberg said she viewed her giving as building community. “I’ve always been aware of the privilege that I have financially,” she said. “And at the same time, I knew it wasn’t going to fill me up. I can’t keep it unless I can give it away. It’s got to be a two-way street.”

Annenberg grew up immersed in civic life; after studying at Columbia University, she married and raised four children before joining TV Guide, a cornerstone of her father’s communications empire. She later became a central figure in global philanthropic networks.

Wallis Annenberg is survived by her four children — Lauren, Roger, Gregory and Charles — five grandchildren and one great-grandchild. USC STAFF

A Life in Motion

Glorya Kaufman, a USC Life Trustee and internationally celebrated arts patron whose historic gift created and endowed the USC Kaufman School of Dance and its landmark instructional building, the Glorya Kaufman International Dance Center, died peacefully surrounded by family and friends on Aug. 5.

Kaufman had a lifelong love for and involvement with dance, believing in its potential to heal the body, mind and spirit of people, as well as build connections across socio-cultural boundaries. The nonprofit Glorya Kaufman Foundation, which she founded in 2008, has supported world-renowned dance and art programs and nurtured children through dance at community organizations such as L.A.’s Inner-City Arts, Covenant House California, Mar Vista Family Center, and most recently at Vista Del Mar Child and Family Services with the opening of the Glorya Kaufman Performing Arts Center in 2023.

When launched in 2012, USC Kaufman was the first new school to be established at USC in nearly 40 years. It opened in fall 2015, and the school’s home on the USC University Park Campus, the Glorya Kaufman International Dance Center, opened a year later.

“Glorya was a visionary in every way, particularly in recognizing the profound impact that dance brings to people’s lives daily,” USC Kaufman Dean Julia M. Ritter says. “In just 10 short years, Glorya transformed her vision of exceptional dance education in Los Angeles into one of the most prominent dance programs in the country.”

Kaufman was married to homebuilder Donald Kaufman, co-founder of the Fortune 500 building company Kaufman & Broad, now KB Home. Since her husband’s death in 1983, she focused on philanthropic ventures.

Kaufman’s contributions have helped many Los Angeles-area nonprofits, including St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica and the Cedars-Sinai/USC Glorya Kaufman Dance Medicine Center.

She was a founding member of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, a patron of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and sat on the board of directors of the Geffen Playhouse. This year, she opened the Glorya Kaufman Community Center, a stateof-the-art multiuse facility in Culver City.

In recognition of her dedication to dance education, Kaufman was awarded honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degrees from USC in 2013. She was elected to the USC Board of Trustees in 2012.

Kaufman is survived by her children, Laura, Gayl, Curtis and Zuade, a 2005 USC master’s degree recipient; and her many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. USC STAFF

Sam Avila ’23 (MUS), Jillian Batt ’24 (MUS), Chloe Gardner ’24 (MUS), Mateo Gonzales ’24 (MUS), Maddi Lasker ’24 (MUS), Katherine Nerro ’24 (MUS) and Matt Weaver ’25 (MUS), USC’s SoCal Vocals, were featured in Rolling Stone for their performance in the documentary Just Sing, which premiered at the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival.

Kelvin Nguyen ’23 (LAS) received the E. Richard Brown Social Justice Fellowship, which supports students who conduct research into universal health insurance for all living in the United States.The award stems from Nguyen’s achievements at UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, including a 4.0 GPA and multiple research projects and student service.

Evan Wyno ’23 (SCJ) was awarded an Emmy Award for his work on On the Red Carpet at the Oscars at ABC7 Los Angeles, where he created the segment “Three Random Questions.”

Colleen Evens EdD ’24 (EDU) began a role as coordinator of culture and climate at School District U-46. The district is the second largest in Illinois, and she oversees 58 schools, leading the district in restorative justice practices.

Michael Ocon MPA

Ben Gunnarson MM ’24 (MUS), Andrew Jacobi MM ’14, GCRT ’16 (MUS) and Mary La Blanc ’22 (MUS) participated in the inauguration of President Donald Trump on Jan. 20. As members of “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band, they performed at the swearing-in ceremony and marched in the inaugural parade.

B I R T H S

Nikki David ’14 (SCJ), a daughter, Kya June.

I N M E M O R I A M

Gene J. Matranga ’60 (ENG) of Palmdale, Calif.; May 30, at the age of 92

Walter Weckwerth ’68 (DEN) of Visalia, Calif.; July 20, at the age of 81

James Alan Ball MSPT ’73 (BPT) of Boca Raton, Fla.; June 21, at the age of 75

Miro Copic ’84 (LAS) of San Diego; May 12, at the age of 63

Robert Foster (DEN) of Phoenix; Jan. 13, at the age of 81

Joyce McDowell ’87 (MS) of Hermosa Beach, Calif.; April 26, at the age of 89

John Hampton ’89 (BPT), Bellingham, Wash.; Feb. 6, at the age of 61.

L E G E N D

ACC USC Leventhal School of Accounting

A RC USC School of Architecture

ART USC Roski School of Art and D esign

BPT Division of Biokinesiology and Physical Therapy

BUS USC Marshall School of Business

DEN Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry of USC

DNC USC Kaufman School of Dance

DRA USC School of Dramatic Arts

EDU USC Rossier School of Education

ENG USC Viterbi School of Engineering

GRD USC Graduate School

GRN USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology

IYA USC Iovine and Young Academy

LAS USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

LAW USC Gould School of Law

MED Keck School of Medicine of USC

MUS USC Thornton School of Music

OST USC Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy

PHM USC Alfred E. Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences

SCA USC School of Cinematic Arts

SCJ USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism

SPP USC Price School of Public Policy

SSW USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work

Crisann Begley-Smith, Alexander Bernard, Kianoosh Hashemzadeh, Christian M. Hetrick, John Hobbs, Desirae Lantry, April Ortiz, Alex Rast, Cristina Romero, Sabrina Skacan, Nicole Stark, Angela Wilson, Justin Wilson and Delphine Vasko contributed to this section.

the

James Alan Shankwiler ’87 (MED) of Pasadena, Calif.; Aug. 2, at the age of 63

Summer of Lab

USC undergrads from various disciplines spend summer fully engaged in research.

BY GREG HERNANDEZ

There is nowhere else USC senior Elizabeth Kunz would have rather spent her summer than at Seaver Science Center, immersed in experimental quantum computing research.

“The thing about being here for the summer is that you get to take advantage of a lot more of the resources and attention that usually go to PhD students,” says Kunz, a physics major at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

Her research involves the hardware side of quantum computing, improving the simulation of superconducting circuits and optimizing device designs to solve real-world problems.

Kunz is among the many undergraduate students from various disciplines who engaged in intensive research when spring classes ended in May until fall classes in August started.

The summer months provide “uncompromised time” for undergrads to dive deeper into research and to work more intensely with mentors, according to USC Dornsife Professor Peter Kuhn, whose teaching and research also spans the Keck

School of Medicine of USC and the USC Viterbi School of Engineering.

“It’s a unique opportunity for students to focus on their true passion,” says Kuhn, founding director of the Convergent Science Institute in Cancer within the USC Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience.

“This deeper engagement is beneficial for both the student’s and mentor’s research,” he adds. “The student will have learned and practiced throughout the year and can then hit the ground running during the summer.”

Neuroscience major Julian Moreno spent the summer assisting with immunohistochemistry research in USC Dornsife associate professor Andrew Hires’ lab.

The lab’s research focuses on cortical circuit function, the specific computations performed by interconnected networks of neurons within the cerebral cortex (the outer layer of the cerebrum, the largest part of the brain), and on technology development to aid in diagnosis and research.

Moreno says his research has helped shape his priorities while at USC even if he’s had to sacrifice going out with friends.

“At the end of the day, I know it’s going to be worth it,” he says. “I’ve been able to grow not only as a scientist, but as a person as well. I feel like my entire purpose on this earth is to help contribute to society.”

BY STEPHEN GEE

Unmatched Excellence Unbelievably Close

With expanded specialty services and the area’s most advanced technology, there’s a new gold standard of care in the San Gabriel Valley.

From cancer care to pain management to autoimmune disease treatment and more, Keck Medicine’s new and renovated locations bring more world-renowned doctors and state-of-theart technology to Pasadena.

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A legacy worthy of a Trojan.

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