A selection of UChicago alumni whose names are in the news.
Soft power
Kim Ng, AB’90, was named commissioner of a new professional women’s softball league in April. Ng took the role after more than three decades in baseball. When she became general manager of the Miami Marlins in 2020, she was the first woman and second Asian American ever to hold that position in Major League Baseball. Ng, who played varsity softball at UChicago, joined the Athletes Unlimited Softball League (AUSL) in summer 2024 as a senior adviser responsible for developing the league, a job that included overseeing its rules and regulations, building team brands, negotiating with cities and venues to secure playing space, and establishing benefits for players. As commissioner she is responsible for continuing to develop and grow the league. The AUSL, which currently has four teams, began its inaugural season on June 7.
Back on the street
Melissa Harris, MBA’16, has created a new podcast, Division Street Revisited. She shares executive producer credit with Pulitzer Prize–winning commentary writer Mary Schmich, who is also the podcast’s writer and host. The seven-episode series picks up on stories from Studs Terkel’s (PhB’32, JD’34) first oral history book, Division Street: America
Guggenheim Fellows
Seven alumni received 2025 Guggenheim Fellowships in April. Awarded by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the fellowships support the work of “exceptional individuals in pursuit of scholarship in any field of knowledge and creation in any art form, under the freest possible conditions.” Joining the 100th class of Guggenheim Fellows are composers Tomás Ignacio Gueglio Saccone, PhD’16, and Krzysztof Wołek, PhD’07; theater scholar and author Rachel Shteir, AB’87; photographer Nina Berman, AB’82; cultural anthropologist Dominic Boyer, LAB’88, AM’94, PhD’00; political scientist Gretchen Helmke, PhD’00; and education historian Tracy Steffes, AM’99, PhD’07.
Hot, bright honor
In February astrophysicist and Nobel laureate Andrea M. Ghez, LAB’83, received the Rumford Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in recognition of her contributions to the field of astronomy. An endowed chair and distinguished professor of physics and astronomy at UCLA and a member of the AAS since 2004, Ghez has transformed the way we understand our galaxy through her research on the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. The Rumford Prize was established in 1796 to recognize those who “have made the most significant contribution to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of heat and light.”
NFL turnover
Ted Ullyot, JD’94, was named general counsel and executive vice president of the National Football League in March. Ullyot was Facebook’s general counsel from 2008 to 2013, serving on the senior management team when the company went public in 2012. In 2022 he cofounded Torridon Law with former US Attorney General Bill Barr. He also worked in the White House and the Department of Justice during the George W. Bush administration.
Carbon credit
Jake Jordan, AB’11, is chief science officer of the nonprofit Mati Carbon, which won the $50 million grand prize in the XPRIZE Carbon Removal competition in April. The four-year competition, backed by the Musk Foundation, sought to “accelerate scalable solutions for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.” Mati Carbon uses enhanced rock weathering to accelerate the natural process by which rocks remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The company is working with smallholding farmers in India, Tanzania, and Zambia to introduce ground-up basalt into their fields. As the basalt dissolves and reacts with water, carbon dioxide in the soil is converted to dissolved bicarbonate, which, upon making its way to oceans and aquifers, should be stably stored there for more than 10,000 years.