Marian Miner Cook
Athenaeum

Christopher Reid was born in Hong Kong in 1949, educated in England, and studied at Oxford University from 1968-1971.

He then worked as a freelance journalist and as book review editor of Crafts magazine. He won an Eric Gregory Award for his poetry in 1978. A year later his first poetry collection, Arcadia (1979) was published, winning the 1980 Somerset Maugham Award and the Hawthornden Prize. This has been followed by Pea Soup (1982); Katerina Brac (1985); In The Echoey Tunnel (1991); Expanded Universes (1996); For and After (2002) and Mr Mouth (2005). A selection of his poems was published in the US as Mermaids Explained (2001). He is often cited as co-founder with Craig Raine of the 'Martian School' of poetry which employs exotic and humorous metaphors to defamiliarize everyday experiences and objects. He has also written two books of poetry for children: All Sorts (1999) and Alphabicycle Order (2001).

He is the editor of two Faber and Faber collections: Sounds Good: 101 Poems to be Heard (1998) and Not to Speak of the Dog: 101 Short Stories in Verse (2000).

Reid has also published illustrations in Punch and London Magazine, worked as Poetry Editor at Faber and Faber for eight years, and runs his own independent publishing house, Ondt & Gracehoper. He received a Cholmondeley Award in 1995, the 2000 Signal Poetry Award for his children's collection All Sorts, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

His latest collections are The Song of Lunch (2009); A Scattering (2009), in memory of his late wife, Lucinda; Nonsense (2012); Six Bad Poets (2013); and Anniversary (2015). A Scattering was shortlisted for the 2009 Forward Poetry Prize (Best Poetry Collection of the Year) and the 2009 T. S. Eliot Prize, and won the 2009 Costa Book of the Year.

Source: Excerpted extensively from British Council: Literature

Mr. Reid's Athenaeum presentation is co-sponsored by the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies at CMC.

Author of the debut novel Black Cake, Charmaine Wilkerson is originally from New York, has lived in Jamaica, and currently does most of her writing in Italy. A former news and communication professional, Wilkerson lived in California for several years, working as a television news reporter and anchor in Los Angeles and Bakersfield. Her award-winning short fiction has appeared in various magazines and anthologies. She currently working on a second novel. Wilkerson is a graduate of Barnard College and Stanford University.

Ms. Wilkerson’s Athenaeum presentation is co-sponsored by the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies and the Center for Writing and Public Discourse, both at CMC.

Photo credit: Sian Trenberth

Food for Thought: Podcast with Charmaine Wilkerson

Committed to investing in people and solutions driving climate progress, Tom Steyer founded and ran Farallon Capital Management, a multi-strategy global investment business based in San Francisco, from 1986 until 2012. During that period, it grew assets from $6mm to $36bn. Over the same time, Steyer was also a partner and investment committee member at Hellman & Friedman, a multi-billion-dollar private equity firm.

In 2012, Steyer stepped away from Farallon to dedicate his time, resources, and energy to mobilizing bold climate action, including to help make California the largest jurisdiction in the world with a 100% clean energy law. 

Steyer also is the founder of NextGen America, the largest youth voter engagement organization in American history, and co-founder of Beneficial State Bank, a triple-bottom-line community development bank focused holistically on justice and sustainability.

Most recently, Steyer was a Democratic presidential candidate and in 2020 served as co-chair for Governor Newsom's Business and Jobs Recovery Task Force. He the then candidate Biden's Climate Engagement Advisory Council to help mobilize climate voters.

Today, he is the co-executive chair of Galvanize Climate Solutions, a climate-focused global investment firm delivering capital and expertise to accelerate the solutions that will define the climate transition and reshape the global economy.

Mr. Steyer’s Athenaeum presentation is part of the Climate Solutions Series this spring.

View Video: YouTube with Thomas Steyer

Robert Simonds P'24 is a media entrepreneur and a prolific film producers. After graduating summa cum laude from Yale University in 1985, Simonds quickly built a career as one of Hollywood’s youngest and most profitable creative producers. With his individual productions grossing over $6 billion in worldwide revenue, he boasted one of the highest ROIs of any major studio producer and has been featured in The Hollywood Reporter’s “100 Most Powerful People in Entertainment”, Variety500: Entertainment Leaders and Icons, and Variety’s “Dealmakers Impact Report”.

Simonds’ successful formula consisted of developing movies around an individual star’s personality and ethos. Frequent collaborators included Adam Sandler, Steve Martin, Dave Chappelle, and many others.

Simonds carried this philosophy into the creation of STX, a fully integrated studio, giving Simonds and the talent even greater control over the making, the marketing, and the delivery of the content. Through an innovative series of financing partnerships, Simonds is able to market and distribute his films in over 150 different countries. In the last few years alone, through his STX banner, Simonds has produced or executive produced over 70 star-driven films. This  volume of globally released output is currently more than all the other top five Hollywood producers. Notable commercial hits include Hustlers, Molly’s Game, The Foreigner, The Mauritanian, The Upside, The Gentlemen, Greenland, and the Bad Moms franchise.

Simonds is currently focused on Ecommerce, Web3 infrastructure, machine learning assisted storytelling, AI focused marketing tools, and other derivative applications of the commercial content he is making.

Food for Thought: Podcast with Robert Simonds P'24

Stacey Hoppe serves as vice president, social responsibility and sustainability for Warner Bros. Discovery, a leading global media and entertainment company that creates and distributes a massive range of content and brands across television, film, and streaming. Available in more than 220 countries and territories and 50 languages, Warner Bros. Discovery reaches a worldwide through its iconic brands and products including, among dozens of companies, Discovery Channel, discovery+, CNN, DC, Eurosport, HBO, HBO Max, HGTV, Food Network, Discovery en Español, Hogar de HGTV and others.

In this setting, Hoppe oversees strategy, programs, and initiatives in the area of environmental sustainability, including climate strategy, emissions reduction and reporting.

Prior to Warner Bros. Discovery and WarnerMedia (which merged with Discovery in April 2022), Hoppe spent more than 15 years at Warner Bros. holding posts in the company’s corporate responsibility, human resources, corporate communications, and special events departments.

Ms. Hoppe is the featured speaker for the Roberts Environmental Center's 2022-23 Green Careers Conference.

Eswar Prasad is the Tolani Senior Professor of Trade Policy at Cornell University. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, where he holds the New Century Chair in International Economics, and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He was previously chief of the Financial Studies Division in the International Monetary Fund's Research Department and, before that, was the head of the IMF's China Division.

Prasad is the author of the book "The Future of Money: How the Digital Revolution is Transforming Currencies and Finance" (Harvard, 2021) which was named one of the best economics and business books of 2021 by The Economist. He is also the author of "Gaining Currency: The Rise of the Renminbi" (Oxford, 2016) and "The Dollar Trap: How the U.S. Dollar Tightened Its Grip on Global Finance" (Princeton, 2014).

Prasad has testified before the Senate Finance Committee, the House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services, and the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. He is the creator of the Brookings-Financial Times world economy index (TIGER: Tracking Indices for the Global Economic Recovery). His op-ed articles have appeared in the Financial Times, Foreign Policy, Harvard Business Review, International Herald Tribune, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post.

Professor Prasad will deliver the 2022-23 McKenna Lecture on International Trade and Economics. This program is also co-sponsored by the Financial Economics Institute (FEI) at CMC.

Mary D. Nichols is widely recognized for a career as one of the world’s most important environmental regulators. Nichols currently serves as the co-chair of the Coalition for Reimagined Mobility, as vice chair of the California-China Climate Institute with former Governor Edmund J. Brown of California, holds visiting appointments at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy and Cornell Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future, is a fellow at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and Distinguished Counsel at UCLA School of Law.

In December 2020, Nichols completed her long tenure at the California Air Resources Board (CARB), a post she has held since 2007 and from 1979-1983. Under Republican and Democratic governors, Nichols oversaw the development and implementation of multiple globally recognized programs to cut air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions in ways that create jobs and support economic growth. During her leadership at the CARB, California became a national leader at developing clean energy and clean transportation solutions that many other states and nations have adopted.

Nichols brings a large area of expertise drawing from her many other positions, including bringing the first litigation under the then-recently passed U.S. Clean Air Act while working at the Center for Law in the Public Interest from 1971-1974. From 1993-1997, Nichols served as assistant administrator of Air and Radiation for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under President Bill Clinton. Her efforts there led to the first federal air quality standard regulating potentially deadly fine-particle pollution and the acid rain trading program.

Nichols has also served as the California Secretary for the Natural Resources Agency from 1997-2003, as executive director of Environment Now Foundation; founder of the Los Angeles Office of Natural Resources Defense Council; professor and director at UCLA Institute of Environment; and co-founder of the first environmental justice working group, a multi-ethnic forum for leaders from traditional environmental and community-based organizations to address issues of environmental equity.

Nichols received her B.A. from Cornell University and her J.D. from Yale Law School.

Ms. Nichols' Athenaeum presentation is part of the Climate Solutions Series this spring.

View Video: YouTube with Mary Nichols

Pardis Mahdavi is the provost and executive vice president at the University of Montana. She previously served as associate professor and chair of anthropology at Pomona College. Her work focuses on gender and sexuality in the Muslim world, including gendered labor, sexual politics, labor migration, human rights, youth culture, transnational feminism, public health, human trafficking, and public health in the context of changing global and political structures. She is the author of "Passionate Uprisings: The Intersection of Sexuality and Politics in Post-Revolutionary Iran" (2008), "Gridlock: Labor, Migration and Human Trafficking in Dubai" (2011), and "From Trafficking to Terror" (2013). 

A lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Mahdavi has been a fellow at the Social Sciences Research Council, the American Council on Learned Societies, Google Ideas, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. She has consulted for a wide array of organizations including the U.S. government, Google Inc., and the United Nations.

View Video: YouTube with Pardis Mahdavi

Food for Thought: Podcast with Pardis Mahdavi

Born in Israel and educated at Tel Aviv University and St. Antony's College, Oxford, Omer  Bartov's early scholarship concerned the Nazi indoctrination of the Wehrmacht and the crimes it committed in World War II and was analyzed in his books, "The Eastern Front, 1941-1945," and "Hitler's Army." He then turned to the links between total war and genocide, discussed in his books "Murder in Our Midst," "Mirrors of Destruction," and "Germany's War and the Holocaust." Bartov's interest in representation also led to his study, "The "Jew" in Cinema," which examines the recycling of antisemitic stereotypes in film. His more recent work has focused on interethnic relations in the borderlands of Eastern Europe. 

Recent publications include "Erased: Vanishing Traces of Jewish Galicia in Present-Day Ukraine," "Anatomy of a Genocide: The Life and Death of a Town Called Buczacz ," winner of the National Jewish Book Award, and "Tales from the Borderlands: Making and Unmaking the Galician Past." His many edited volumes include "Shatterzone of Empires: Coexistence and Violence in the German, Habsburg, Russian, and Ottoman Borderlands," "Voices on War and Genocide: Three Accounts of the World Wars in a Galician Town," and "Israel-Palestine: Lands and Peoples."

Bartov’s novel, "The Butterfly and the Axe," will be published in 2023. 

Professor Bartov’s Athenaeum presentation commemorates International Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27th) and is co-sponsored by the Mgrublian Center for Human Rights at CMC.

Food for Thought: Podcast with Omer Bartov

View Video: YouTube with Omer Bartov

David Heska Wanbli Weiden, an enrolled citizen of the Sicangu Lakota Nation, is the author of Winter Counts (Ecco, 2020), which was nominated for an Edgar Award for Best First Novel. The book was the winner of the Anthony, Thriller, Lefty, Barry, Macavity, Spur, High Plains, Electa Quinney, Tillie Olsen, CrimeFest (UK), Crime Fiction Lover (UK) Awards, and was longlisted for the Hammett Prize, Shamus Award, Colorado Book Award, Reading the West Award, and the VCU Cabell First Novel Award. The novel was a New York Times Editors’ Choice, an Indie Next pick, main selection of the Book of the Month Club, and named a Best Book of the year by NPR, Amazon, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, The Guardian, and other magazines.

Weiden has short stories appearing or forthcoming in the anthologies Best American Mystery and Suspense Stories 2022, Denver Noir, Midnight Hour, This Time for Sure, Never Whistle at Night, and The Perfect Crime. His nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, Shenandoah,  and Writer’s Digest.

He is the series editor of Native Edge, an imprint of the University of New Mexico Press specializing in Indigenous literature. Weiden received the PEN America Writing for Justice Fellowship and is the recipient of fellowships and residencies from MacDowell, Ucross, Ragdale, Vermont Studio Center, Sewanee, and Tin House.

Weiden received his MFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts, his law degree from the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, and his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. He’s professor of Native American studies and political science at Metropolitan State University of Denver and serves on the faculty of the Cedar Crest Pan-European MFA Program and also the Mile-High MFA Program at Regis University.

Mr. Weiden will deliver the 2022-23 Gould Center for Humanistic Studies' Ricardo J. Quinones Lecture.

(Adapted from https://davidweiden.com/bio/)

Photo credit: Sarah Boyum

View Video: You Tube with David Heska Wanbli Weiden

Scott Akasaki ’98
Scott Akasaki ’98 enters his 22nd season and sixth as senior director of team travel for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Akasaki was the first Asian-American to be named to the post in Major League history and is just the fifth team travel representative for the Dodgers since they moved to Los Angeles in 1958. In December 2017, he was voted by his peers as the Donald Davidson Traveling Secretary of the Year.

During his tenure, Akasaki has guided the Dodgers nationwide and internationally including on trips to Beijing, Sydney, Taipei, and Mexico. In the fall of 2014, Akasaki was selected by Major League Baseball to organize a team of MLB All-Star players on a two-week, four-city, seven-game trip to Japan. In 2020, he led the Dodgers’ travel logistics as the team won at a World Championship in a bubble-environment during the pandemic in Dallas, Texas. In 2021, his work with Dodgers’ manager Dave Roberts against Asian Hate was featured in ESPN.

A cum laude graduate of Claremont McKenna College, Akasaki double majored in government and legal studies. He has served on pro baseball steering committees for both The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company and Four Seasons Hotels Limited. Akasaki has been a featured speaker at the Japanese American National Museum, the Claremont Colleges, UCLA, USC, and also on various podcasts. 

Emilee Fragapane 
Emilee Fragapane is entering her 11th season with the Los Angeles Dodgers. She studied economics and statistics at Sonoma State University and at UC Santa Barbara. She joined the Dodgers as an operations intern directly out of college, and now works to help integrate analytics and baseball between the front office and the coaches and players, with a focus on the rising availability of biomechanical data.

Michael Voltmer
Michael Voltmer is entering into his eighth season with the Los Angeles Dodgers, and his second as the director of baseball strategy and information. His focus is on roster construction and ensuring the Major League coaching staff has the data needed to make excellent in-game strategy decisions. He majored in economics at the University of Louisville and earned a master’s in data science from the University of Virginia.

View Video: YouTube with Scott Akasaki '98, Emilee Fragapane, Michael Voltmer

Tamara F. Lawson ’92 is the Toni Rembe Dean and Professor of Law at the University of Washington School of Law in Seattle. Lawson was the founding dean of the Benjamin L. Crump Center for Social Justice and holds several leadership appointments in the legal community including with the Association of American Law Schools Deans, Law School Admissions Council, Society of American Law Teachers, National Bar Association, and NBA’s Law Professors’ Division. 

Prior to joining the legal academy, Lawson served as a deputy district attorney at the Clark County District Attorney’s Office in Las Vegas, Nevada. Among other prosecutorial duties, she worked on the Special Victims Unit for Domestic Violence and successfully argued multiple cases before the Nevada Supreme Court, including death penalty appeals.

A renowned teacher and scholar, her publications are extensive, and her research has appeared in prestigious law journals. Her article, “A Fresh Cut in an Old Wound – A Critical Analysis of the Trayvon Martin Killing: The Public Outcry, the Prosecutors’ Discretion, and The Stand Your Ground Law,” garnered Lawson media appearances as a legal expert, and she was selected as the Reporter for the American Bar Association’s National Task Force on Stand Your Ground Laws. Her timely research on excessive force cases is published in “Powerless Against Police Brutality: A Felon’s Story” and in “Awakening the American Jury: Did the Killing of George Floyd Alter Juror Deliberations Forever?”

A graduate of Claremont McKenna College where she majored in government, Lawson earned a J.D. from The University of San Francisco School of Law and an LL.M. from Georgetown University Law Center.

Dean Lawson will deliver the 2023 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Lecture.

(Adapted from https://www.law.uw.edu/directory/faculty/lawson-tamara-f)

View Video: YouTube with Tamara Lawson '92

Food for Thought: Podcast with Tamara Lawson '92

The Claremont Treble Singers, an ensemble of the Joint Music Program of Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd, Pitzer, and Scripps College, is a high-voiced ensemble of about 30 students. It is led by conductor Charles W. Kamm, associate professor of music at Scripps College and director of choirs for the Joint Music Program. 

Jeppe Hein is a Danish artist based in Berlin. He studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Arts in Copenhagen and the Städel Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Frankfurt, Germany.

Hein is widely known for his production of experiential and interactive artworks that can be positioned at the junction where art, architecture, and technical inventions intersect. Unique in their formal simplicity and notable for their frequent use of humor, his works engage in a lively dialogue with the traditions of Minimalist sculpture and Conceptual art of the 1970s. Hein’s works often feature surprising and captivating elements which place spectators at the center of events and focus on their experience and perception of the surrounding space.

Hein has exhibited internationally with multiple solo exhibitions, numerous public art installations, and his work is found in the permanent collections of many museums.

This talk coincides with a dedication event for the artist’s permanent installation of Modified Social Benches sited at Adams Hall at CMC.

Photo credit: Jan Strempel Photography, 2022 

For over nine months, the Russian military has prosecuted an unprovoked war against Ukraine, bombing cities, destroying critical infrastructure, and brutally occupying multiple regions of Ukraine. While the Ukrainian counteroffensive has succeeded in winning back large swaths of Russian-occupied territory in recent months, the war continues with no end in sight. As the Russian military fails to achieve it aims, despite the recent large-scale mobilization of Russian conscripts and massive missile strikes, the Kremlin threatens further escalation. To address these security and other aspects of the war, panelists Dr. Polina Sinovets, director of the Odesa Center for Nonproliferation at Mechnikov National University and Dr. Volodymyr Dubovyk, director of the Center for International Studies at Mechnikov National University, will appear via zoom to join in-person Anna Romandash, award-winning journalist from the Lviv region investigating Russian war crimes in Eastern and Southern Ukraine.

This lunch panel is part of CMC’s Keck Center for International and Strategic Studies' Conference on Russia’s War on Ukraine.