Profiles
A.O. Scott
When the Wicked Witch of the West and her evil winged monkeys appeared on screen in “The Wizard of Oz,” A.O. Scott ’87-’88 ran out of the room screaming.
Stephanie D. Wilson
On July 4, 2006, NASA’s Discovery space shuttle lifted off into space, sending Harvard graduate Stephanie D. Wilson ’88 beyond the earth’s atmosphere for the first time in her life.
Soledad M. O'Brien
When Soledad M. O’Brien ’88-’00 was lobbying for the vote of Cabot House sophomore Charles “Bradley” Raymond ’89, she did not know that she was speaking to her future husband.
Michelle Obama
When Ilene Seidman saw a photo in the newspaper of the 2004 Democratic National Convention’s keynote speaker and his wife, she was shocked.
Journalist Ellen Goodman '63, Frequent Recounter of 'Cliffe
Goodman, who would graduate from Radcliffe and enter the workforce during a time of political and social change, came to write extensively about these inequalities and the position of women in society during her career in journalism. A Pulitzer Prize winning columnist, Goodman continues what she describes as maintaining about gender relations in culture in retirement.
Dennis Ritchie '63, The Man Behind Your Technology
Ritchie would rewrite the world of procedural languages during his career at Bell Labs, which began as a doctoral student at Harvard in 1967 and ended with his retirement in 2007. In the Washington Post’s memorial piece of Ritchie, Paul E. Ceruzzi, a Smithsonian historian, compared Ritchie’s life to that of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, whose death—which came seven days before Ritchie’s—was highly publicized.
Chris Sims '63: Mathematician, Economist, and Many Things In-Between
Choosing to make a career in applicable economics instead of abstract mathematics, Sims has striven to connect the theory with the data—a dedication to both the abstract and the literal that defines not only his career, but his life as both an academic, activist, father, husband, and horseback rider.
Gov. Booth Gardner, HBS '63
Gardner matriculated to the Business School in the fall of 1961. There, he honed skills that—as several of Gardner’s political advisors told The Crimson—would be invaluable in his career in government. The former governor, who passed away this March, ran the state of Washington with a personal and compassionate management style, fighting for his beliefs until the end.
Classes In The Yard By Day, Music In The Square By Night: Tom Rush '63
It started with a ukulele. Tom Rush ’63-64 was ten when his cousin Beau taught him how to play. Rush says that his prior five years of piano lessons had been torture, but on the ukulele, he had fun. Soon, Rush graduated to the baritone ukulele, an instrument that “felt pretty manly” compared to its predecessor, and before long he was strumming a guitar.
Janet Reno, J.D. '63, And Her Long Path From Cambridge to The Capitol
When Reno was a student at the Law School, there was only one women’s bathroom on the campus, found in the basement of Austin Hall. Professor W. Barton Leach ’21, who joined the Law School faculty in 1929, did not allow women to speak in class, saying their voices “were not powerful enough to be heard,” according to Charles Nesson, a former classmate of Reno’s, quoted in Anderson’s biography.
