An idea had been percolating in Evan Nesterak ’09’s mind for four years. As a psychology major, he wasstruck by the disconnect between psychological research and its application in the real world, and he was determined to do something about it. His brainchild, developed in close association with his brother, Max ’13, is The Psych [...]

Stephen Estelle ’93 is an example of what happens when West meets East. As a kid, he rode horses on his family’s Montana ranch. In his late 20s, he exported his equestrian experience, leading 200-mile treks across the Tibetan plateau on horseback. “It was like the wild west, circa 1870,” he says. “You could ride [...]

For a quarter century, Rabbi Julie Greenberg ’79 has performed same-sex wedding ceremonies because “celebrating love is the right thing to do.”
Greenberg, who has never been married and identifies as lesbian, has performed about 20 such marriages since 1989. She sees her activism in this area as turning “rites into rights,” adding that these ceremonies [...]

As a child growing up in Austin, Minn., in an affluent household in a predominantly white community, James Hormel ’55, the youngest of three grandsons of Hormel Foods founder George A. Hormel, didn’t witness discrimination. So much greater then was his shock when, arriving, age 13, at the Asheville School for Boys in North Carolina, [...]

The minute the bell rings at the end of a long school day, children come racing into the gym. Amid violins, violas, cellos, and basses, the students chatter and have their snack.
“YA-MA OR-chestra!” calls out founding director Stephanie Hsu ’08, and the kids respond rhythmically in kind, “YA-MA OR-chestra!” The room is suddenly silent, the [...]

Peter Aizupitis ’61 and his daughter Klara ’14 share a heritage and language—Latvian—but also a passion for cultural memory.

Unlike her father, Klara grew up on the East Coast, and her family now resides in Wallingford, Pa., a stone’s throw from Swarthmore. Peter, however, was forced to flee his native Latvia at age 4, when [...]

Retired professor Gertrude “Gee-Gee” Joch Robinson ’50 was born between the two world wars in Germany. The first chapter of her life set a pattern for the fascinating journey that followed. That template gave her the talent to look change in the eye with courage.
Robinson travels in a telephone conversation with Proustian speed from the [...]

If the rumble of the rails, the hiss of the air brakes, and the shrill piping of a train whistle are music to your ears, then you have a lot in common with Frank Moscatelli.
A self-proclaimed “gears-and-pulleys kind of guy,” Moscatelli is an experimental physicist who’s taught at Swarthmore for 31 years. He’s quick to [...]

According to Irish legend, when visitors to Blarney Castle kiss a magical stone, they are endowed with the gift of gab—a special talent for storytelling and other verbal feats. Yvonne Healy ’75, a nationally recognized storyteller in the Irish tradition, may have kissed the Blarney Stone, but she credits her family for her onstage abilities. [...]

Every day, for more than three years, Dawn Porter ’88 agonized over leaving her job. Her comfortable position as a media executive was secure, replete with benefits and, as she wistfully reminisces now, a bountiful office-supply closet. So what finally motivated the former vice president of the legal department at A&E to forsake her position [...]