Above and beyond

Esther Babb, AB’00, spent February 26 to March 4 summiting Kilimanjaro and biking back down. She became the second woman to make the descent by bike (the first was Jenn Dice in 2011). Babb’s Tanzania excursion helped fund a solarpowered water pump that will be installed in a rural East African community.

Top tiger

On April 21 Christopher L. Eisgruber, JD’88, was named the 20th president of Princeton University, his undergraduate alma mater. A college physics major who became a constitutional scholar, Eisgruber clerked for US Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens, U-High’37, AB’41, and taught at New York University Law School. In 2001 he returned to Princeton to teach and direct the Program in Law and Public Affairs before being named provost in 2004. His appointment begins July 1.

Redlands picks a brain

On February 20 Ralph W. Kuncl, PhD’75, MD’77, was inaugurated as the 11th president of the University of Redlands in California. Kuncl began his career as a professor at Johns Hopkins University, where he researched Lou Gehrig’s disease; his lab’s discovery of the glutamate transporter defect helped illuminate the disease’s mechanisms. Before accepting the Redlands appointment last June, he worked at the University of Rochester in New York, where he served as provost, an executive vice president, and a professor of brain and cognitive sciences and neurology.

A high bar

On March 14 Liz Lopez, AB’97, received a Top Lawyers Under 40 Award from the Hispanic National Bar Association. Lopez was one of seven US attorneys selected for the honor, which recognizes professional achievement and leadership in the Latino community. Based at the Washington, DC, office of Barnes & Thornburg, Lopez works in employment law, food industry regulation, corporate governance, health care, and telecommunications. She has appeared on CNN, NBC, and Univision as a legal commentator.

Positive influence in Afghanistan

Army lieutenant general Daniel Bolger, AM’86, PhD’86, was named one of the 100 Most Influential People in US Defense by DefenseNews magazine. Bolger is responsible for training 350,000 Afghan soldiers, police, and special operations forces, “arguably the most important job in the Army right now,” the magazine’s December profile said. While moving up the military ranks, Bolger earned a U of C doctorate in history and published 12 books, including 11 military histories and the fictional thriller Feast of Bones (Ballantine Books, 1991), about a Soviet paratrooper fighting in Afghanistan.

Fit to print

The 2013 Pulitzer Prize for commentary was awarded to Bret Stephens, AB’95, “for his incisive columns on American foreign policy and domestic policies, often enlivened by a contrarian twist.” Stephens is a deputy editorial page editor at the Wall Street Journal. The Pulitzer Prizes for local reporting and editorial cartooning went to staff members from the Star Tribune (Minneapolis), led by publisher Michael Klingensmith, AB’75, MBA’76.

Pirated television

A book by reporter Colin Woodard, AM’96, is the basis of a forthcoming NBC drama called Crossbones. Woodard’s 2007 work, The Republic ofPirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down (Harcourt), chronicles piracy in the early 1700s, often considered its golden age. The ten-episode series, set in the Bahamas, will follow Edward Teach, nicknamed “Blackbeard,” as he leads a group of outlaws and dodges an undercover assassin. John Malkovich is cast as Blackbeard.

Knight named ambassador to Chad

On March 13 President Barack Obama nominated James A. Knight, PhD’88, to become the next US ambassador to Chad. Knight is a Vietnam War veteran and longtime member of the Senior Foreign Service who has spent most of his career working in Africa. He served as ambassador to Benin from September 2009 to December 2012.