When President Barack Obama made his overnight trip to Dover Air Force Base late last month, one of the fallen Americans to whom he offered a somber salute was 1994 Stanford graduate MICHAEL WESTON, an agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) who was killed along with two other colleagues in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan on Oct. 26. Weston attended Harvard Law School after graduating from Stanford with an AB in economics and an BS in computer science. According to a story on NPR, he joined the Marines after his first year of law school and trained during breaks. He served as a military lawyer in Iraq, and later became a DEA agent. Weston was 37 and leaves his widow, Cynthia Tidler.
Archive for November, 2009
Mummies and Medicine
If you’ve had your fill of vampires and are looking for something different to do with the kids over the long holiday weekend, you can pay a visit to the mummified remains of the 2,500-year-old Ancient Egyptian priest named Irethorrou at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. The reconstruction is based on determinations of Irethorrou’s bone structure that were part of an intensive series of state-of-the-art scans conducted last summer by radiologists at the School of Medicine. Watch the video, which features radiology Professors REBECCA FAHRIG, VOLNEY VAN DALSEM III and others.
The holiday season: What’s on your mind?
As Thanksgiving approaches and the December holiday break is just a month away, we’d like to hear your thoughts about how you plan to spend the holiday season. What do the holidays mean personally, politically, intellectually? How will you spend them and with whom? If you are traveling, where will you go? What will you cook? Share your favorite recipes or gift or decorating ideas or your strategies for minimizing stress or saving money.
Check your local listings
MARION KENWORTHY, a longtime campus resident who describes herself as among those who are “strong Stanford supporters but older and unable to walk, climb steps and get ourselves to the stadium,” did quite a bit of legwork to find out where to find Versus, the network that will broadcast this afternoon’s Big Game. Here’s what she found out: If you live in the Stanford area and have anything above the basic Comcast cable service, the game will air on channel 81.
Beat Cal!
With Noyola’s goal, women’s soccer still undefeated
TERESA NOYOLA scored a 25-yard free kick that led to Stanford’s 1-0 victory over rival Santa Clara in the third round of the NCAA women’s soccer tournament Friday night. Noyola, who was a standout at Paly, is the daughter of Stanford alums PEDRO NOYOLA and BARBARA BAYARDO.
The team will host Boston College Friday, Nov. 27.
Make some noise, Dean Julie!
In the hourly countdown to Big Game, AXE committee members, from left, JAKE SMITH, KIM TRAN and REGINA GETZ-KIKUCHI joined JULIE LYTHCOTT-HAIMS, dean of freshmen and undergraduate advising, Thursday on White Plaza as she sounded the air horns.
Photo by L. A. Cicero
Stanford’s winning Facebook efforts; Apps course exceeds 4 million mark
IAN HSU, Stanford’s director of Internet media outreach, traveled to Cambridge, Mass., earlier this month to pick up an award for Stanford’s cutting-edge Facebook strategy and Fan Page. The Society for New Communications Research (SNCR) – a global nonprofit research and education foundation and think tank dedicated to the study of new media and communications, handed Hsu the Excellence Award for External Communications and Communities. Past winners of this honor have included Dell, SAP and Edelman. A full press release on this year’s awards is available on SNCR’s website . . . And speaking of new media, according to BRENT IZUTSU, project for manager for Stanford on iTunes U and YouTube, free video downloads of CS193P, the university’s hot course on creating applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch, have surpassed the 4 million mark.
Andrea Lewis, 2008 Knight Fellow, radio personality, dies
ANDREA LEWIS, a long-time broadcast and print journalist best known for her co-anchor roles on KPFA radio, died Nov. 15 of an apparent heart attack. She was 52. Lewis spent the 2007-08 academic year on Stanford’s campus as a Knight Journalism Fellow. “In my mind she was just a real sweetheart, a good person whom I liked enormously and one whom I’m going to miss enormously,” JIM BETTINGER, director of the Knight program, said in a KPFA obituary. While at Stanford, Lewis studied the role of alternative journalism in contemporary American culture and democracy, Bettinger added. “She took intensive Spanish classes, fiction and non-fiction writing workshops, as well as classes in virtual reality and sound art. She also made strong connections at the Stanford Women’s Community Center, which was in keeping with her deep commitment to gender issues.”
A memorial service is scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 24, from 6 to 9 p.m. at the First Unitarian Church of Oakland, 685 14th St., Oakland, CA 94612.
Photo: John S. Knight Fellowships
The ambassador, the prime minister and the emperor . . .
Diehard Stanford football fans won’t let a little thing like a 17-hour time difference or 5,000 miles dampen their Cardinal spirit. U.S. Ambassador to Japan JOHN ROOS, ’77, JD ’80, and his wife, SUSIE ROOS, ’78, will host a Big Game event at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo that starts at 9 a.m. Sunday morning, just before kickoff. The Rooses and their guests, who will include Japanese Prime Minister YUKIO HATOYAMA, MS ’72, MS ’73, PhD ’76, will watch the Cardinal vs. Bears matchup live on the American Forces Network . . .

John Roos is sworn in by Judge Thelton Henderson while Roos's wife, Susie, and son David look on. Photo: David Gonzales
WINSLOW BRIGGS, professor, by courtesy, of biology and director emeritus of the Carnegie Institution for Science’s Department of Plant Biology at Stanford, has won the International Prize for Biology from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. On Nov. 30, Briggs will be presented with the award, consisting of a medal and 10 million yen (approximately $110,000), along with an imperial gift from the emperor of Japan, at a ceremony in Tokyo. The award ceremony is held in the presence of His Majesty Emperor Akihito, who will deliver a congratulatory message. The prize, created in 1985 to commemorate the 60-year reign of Emperor Showa and his longtime devotion to biological research, honors an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to the advancement of research in fundamental biology. In the Carnegie Institution’s announcement of the award, WOLF FROMMER, current director of the Department of Plant Biology, said, “The work of Dr. Briggs on blue-light receptors in plants and microbes has been a major milestone for our understanding of how organisms detect light, which allows them to respond to environmental changes.”