Alumni Profiles

Spotlight stories on alumni who are leading, innovating, and making a difference.

Catherine Zipf smiling, wearing striped shirt and dark sweater outdoors.

Preserving the History of Jim Crow Era Safe Havens

Architectural historian Catherine Zipf is building a database of Green Book sites.  

by Lydialyle Gibson

Sandra Goldmark and Michael Banta at Pop Up Repair, their experimental effort to begin a national dialogue about consumption

Sandra Goldmark's novel effort promotes repairing, not replacing, items

Sandra Goldmark ’97 puts the focus on repair, not replace.

by Kristen Strezo

“I don’t want Morehouse to just survive,” says its new president, John S. Wilson Jr., “I want it to thrive.”

Morehouse College president returns to rebuild ailing institution

John S. Wilson Jr. grabs the chance to realize his calling.

by Nell Porter-Brown

J.C. Buttre&rsquo;s portrait, probably drawn when Everett ran for vice president on the Constitutional Union Party ticket in 1860, links him to Harvard and George Washington, one of his favorite subjects. (His lectures raised more than $100,000 to help purchase Mount Vernon [see <a href="http://harvardmagazine.com/2011/05/granny-talk">“Granny Talk”</a>], and he wrote the entry on Washington for the 1860 <i>Encyclopaedia Britannica.</i>)

Brief life of statesman-orator Edward Everett, by Castle Freeman

Brief life of a statesman-orator: 1794-1865

An honorand and the principal guest speaker at the 2007 Commencement exercises, Bill Gates reveled in collecting his Harvard degree—30-plus years after he dropped out of the College.

Walter Isaacson on Microsoft's founder Bill Gates at Harvard

Walter Isaacson on "complete rejectionist" Bill Gates at Harvard College—and the birth of personal-computer software

At her gallery, Emma Katz promotes sophisticated original work by young artists such as sculptor/photographer David Rodriguez, represented here (left to right) by <i>A Love Song Played at a Very Specified Frequency, Holding Device,</i> and <i>The Thing About Distance.</i>

Emma Katz of Recession Art in Brooklyn is a fine-arts entrepreneur

Where inspired artists meet aspiring collectors

by Nell Porter-Brown

Catherine A. Gellert

Catherine A. Gellert is the new Harvard Alumni Association president

An energetic alumni leader emphasizes her “ability to listen.”

Diana Mara Henry

Photographer Diana Mara Henry publishes her collection "Women on the Move"

Photographer Diana Mara Henry ’69 publishes her collection Women on the Move.

by Kristen Strezo

Wilson’s vessel, <i>Great American III</i>. Wilson is barely visible just behind the cockpit at upper right.

sitesALIVE! founder Rich Wilson circles the globe—solo—under sail

Rich Wilson ’72 circled the globe—nonstop, solo, under sail—and has written the tale.

by Craig Lambert

Henry Beston (in a Coast Guard uniform) on the Outer Beach, Cape Cod, in the early 1920s

Brief life of nature writer Henry Beston Sheahan, by John Nelson

Brief life of a nature writer in a machine age: 1888-1968

by John Nelson

Max Sandvoss with some of his goats at the First Light Farm and Creamery in East Bethany, New York

Max and Trystan Sandvoss make goat cheese in upstate New York.

The brothers Sandvoss moved from glitter to goat cheese.

by Steve Potter