GW Magazine 2020 Archive
Fall 2020
Gift Guide: Pandemic Edition
For our seventh gift guide, we're banking on the fact that after spending the better part of a year (and counting) weathering a once-in-a-century global health crisis, comfort might be top of mind when it comes to making a list and checking it twice....
The Line Between Public Health and a Healthy Public
Oxiris Barbot, GME ’94, spent two years as New York’s health commissioner and headed its COVID-19 response, navigating politics as much as the viral outbreak that quieted the city that never sleeps.
A Mayor in the Middle
In March, David Holt, BA ’01—Oklahoma City’s youngest mayor in nearly 100 years and the first Native American to hold the office—found himself, thanks to the NBA, at ground zero for America’s coronavirus shutdown.
Seven GW Alumni Win Congressional Office in Hotly Contested Election
Alumni will represent districts from California to New York in the next Congress.
Baseball Island Dreams
Derek Haese moved the Dominican Republic to coach the sport he played at GW. What started as a shot at fulfilling a dream, slowly became more. Now, after getting two pitchers signed with MLB organizations, Haese has founded an academy that's about more.
XFL 2.0: What Could Have Been
Dallas team president Grady Raskin, BA ’96, had built what had the makings of a successful franchise for the well-received second act of Vince McMahon’s infamous football league. Then the pandemic hit.
Deep-Fried Adventures in American History
“Drive-Thru Dreams” author Adam Chandler, BA ’05, details the joys and challenges of writing a book about fast food.
Alumni
A Class of 2020 Vision
GW and its alumni are working to help the university’s most recent grads, who are facing the worst U.S. economy in a decade and the most virulent public health crisis in 100 years.
From the GWAA
Executive committee announces its goals and priorities
The Native Voice
As a producer and writer on the PBS children’s show “Molly of Denali,” Princess Daazhraii Johnson, BA ’96, helps the first nationally distributed kids’ TV series starring a Native American tell stories from the perspective of her people.
Living in a Martian Simulation
Mounir Alafrangy, MS ’18, spent 45 days in isolation with three people as part of a NASA program studying a red planet mission’s effects on human physiology and the human mind.
GW Research
COVID-19: Fighting the Pandemic
With the onset of a global pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus, hundreds of GW researchers have trained their attention and expertise on the virus and its disease, COVID-19, to better understand, track, treat and stop the virus’s spread.
Out of the Silence
GW psychologists Lisa Bowleg and Lillian Comas-Díaz and epidemiologist Mary Ellsberg examine through a prism of empathy HIV and AIDS in African American communities, violence against women and girls, and the mental health of those living after trauma.
The climate is changing. Can we?
Public policy professor Jorge Rivera studies how companies and people respond (or fail to respond) to natural disasters. Here, he talks about what’s at risk and how we can do better.
Spring 2020
A Late Morning With the Smithsonian Secretary
Lonnie Bunch spent a decade as a GW professor and then founded the National Museum of African American History and Culture. In March, he talked with “GW Magazine” about the importance of history, how we tell stories—and who tells them.
How Mike Corcoran, BFA ’06, Foiled a Bank Robbery
In October 2018, the corrections officer, photographer and former Marine was waiting in line to make a withdrawal from a northwest Pennsylvania bank. When a masked man tried to rob it, Corcoran intervened.
What’s Afoot at President Lincoln’s Cottage
Alumna Erin Carlson Mast, the CEO of the museum in Northwest D.C., says the 16th president’s carpet slippers are a window into the emotional and physical worlds he inhabited.
The Legacy of ‘Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee’
Fifty years ago, alumnus Dee Brown published his seminal work on Native Americans, humanizing a group of people and destroying stereotypes. Here, GW history professor David Silverman talks about the book’s impact then and today.
How Does Twitter Shape the Conversation around COVID-19?
SEAS researchers and teams at two other universities are collecting information about social media attitudes toward the pandemic.
COVID-19 ‘Played Out Exactly as We Predicted’
“Mindhunter” co-author Mark Olshaker, BA ’72, also co-wrote the bestselling “Deadliest Enemy: Our War Against Killer Germs” in 2017.
SEAS Professor Developing Medical Equipment Decontamination System to Battle COVID-19
Michael Keidar’s “plasma brush” could help medical providers sterilize masks and other equipment.
Alum-Owned Restaurant Delivers Free Meals to Older Residents
Medium Rare, a DMV chain, provides full-course meals to those who cannot get out to buy food during the COVID-19 pandemic.
If This Hall Could Talk
Ahead of a major renovation on Thurston Hall, GW Magazine delves into its history–the joys, the tragedies and the birthday pies to the face–as told by denizens from the past half-century.
Technological Wonder
Magician Max Davidson, CCAS ’22, has performed at Caesar’s Palace. Here, he explains what it’s like trying to dazzle people in the wonder-challenged modern era.
A School for Girls
Northwestern professor and alumna Sally A. Nuamah examines a more “gender-sensitive” education.