For the summer edition of Pictures of Penn, your fellow Quakers share their recycled artwork, new book releases, memories of pre-COVID travels—and more. Take a look!
Art Gertel C’75 writes, “I note that in the May|Jun issue of the Pennsylvania Gazette, that my freshman-year roommate, Brad Borkan C’75 G’79, recently visited Antarctica. Coincidentally—and this is not the first for the two of us, having found ourselves at a conference in Oslo, Norway after more than 40 years of no contact—I also visited the White Continent (my seventh) in March. I, too, gave an onboard lecture on Shackleton’s ghostwriter and, on a hike retracing Shackleton’s trek over the mountain on South Georgia Island, I was honored by being asked to read associated passages from his journal, describing looking out from the pinnacle over the Greenlandic whaling station at Stromness Harbour. Certainly, a voyage of a lifetime. On more mundane topics, I have been busy during these dystopian times, working on COVID-19 studies, publishing on bioethics issues, and collaborating on numerous projects focused on improving the research and development process to bring new medicines, vaccines, and diagnostics to patients in need.”
Robert Carley C’82, an artist based in Connecticut, writes, “My flags made of coffee cup lids, milk cartons, and other discarded material, which I created during the COVID-19 lockdown, were featured on ABC Eyewitness News Channel 7 in New York on Memorial Day, and also broadcast on CT News 12 and Fox 61 Hartford.” View the ABC News coverage at 7ny.tv/36SyXP8.
Ellen Peters EAS’89 W’89 writes, “After nine years at Ohio State University, including a nostalgia-filled sabbatical at UPenn, I recently moved to the University of Oregon to become the Philip H. Knight Chair and Director of the Center for Science Communication Research. And I’m so happy to announce my 2020 book published by Oxford University Press! Innumeracy in the Wild: Misunderstanding and Misusing Numbers examines numbers, psychology, communication, and their effects on making crucial decisions and living healthier and wealthier lives. Follow me on twitter @ellenpetersjdm.”
Lisa Niver C’89 writes, “I want to thank everyone who has supported me on my crazy ride of a career journey! After Penn, I went to and then left UCSF medical school, got an MA in education and taught from pre-K to 8th grade, sailed the seven seas for seven years, and then chose to be a journalist. I am honored to be a five-time finalist for the Southern California Journalism Awards in print, digital, and broadcast TV categories, but most especially for being nominated as Online Journalist of the Year! I am grateful for all I learned in my liberal arts education that allowed me to know how to figure it out in each of my new endeavors. (You can read more on my website at https://bit.ly/3eF8kQ8.) In March, just before COVID closed the doors on all of my travels, I went alpine ski touring with Heather Fudala C’91 and Carl Law C’87. It was possibly one of the hardest things I have ever done, but we loved it and doing it together made it possible! Thank you to Penn for bringing me my lifelong best friends. (Watch a video clip on my website at https://bit.ly/2ZM60m9.)”
Susan B. Peterson CW’64 writes, “My Chesapeake Bay Retriever, Ch. Mermaid Summer Sunny, finished her AKC conformation championship points with me as owner-handler in July 2019, at the Jupiter-Tequesta Dog Club show in West Palm Beach, Florida. The judge was Wayne Burton from New South Wales, Australia. Six weeks after attending our wonderful Class of 1964 50th Reunion in 2014, I flew back to Philadelphia to meet Wayland Chesapeakes’ Kim Cramer at the airport. Kim drove up from Bridgeton, New Jersey, to bring me my eight-week-old puppy, Sunny. We flew back to Fort Lauderdale that same afternoon. Dog shows were a new sport for me, and I wanted to see if I could show her to a championship myself. We did it. Yay! Now we are hunkered down at our Mermaid Urban Mangofarm in Fort Lauderdale, swimming in the ocean as often as we can. Sunny swims on weekends at Dog Beach. In 1963, as captain of Penn women’s swim team, I won the women’s national collegiate 200 individual medley NAIA championship. Women athletes were excluded from NCAA events at that time.”
Michael P. Malloy L’76 was cohost for the 17th Annual International Conference on Law in Athens, Greece, sponsored by the Athens Institute for Education and Research in mid-July 2020. Michael writes, “I delivered welcoming remarks to the conference participants, attending virtually on a worldwide basis. On the second day of the conference, I delivered a presentation, ‘Distance Banking: Pandemic Responses of a Regulated Industry,’ that explored how the financial services industry was responding to the pandemic crisis. The paper will appear in a Proceedings volume published by the Institute.”
Terri Broussard Williams SPP’20 is the author of Find Your Fire: Stories and Strategies to Inspire the Changemaker Inside You, a No. 1 Amazon New Release, No. 1 Amazon Best Seller for Women in Politics, and No. 6 Cosmopolitan Best Non-Fiction Books of 2020. Terri is a teaching fellow for the Center of Social Impact Strategies at Penn’s School of Social Policy and Practice.
Deborah Willig CW’72 has been selected for inclusion in the 2021 edition of The Best Lawyers in America. Deborah is a managing partner at Willig, Williams & Davidson in Philadelphia who specializes in labor relations and employment law.
Keep smiling, Quakers! We’ll see you soon for another edition of “Pictures of Penn.”