On Tuesday, March 10, the College will honor five alumni for
distinguished professional achievement by presenting each with a John Jay
Award. Low Library will be the setting for a black-tie dinner honoring Maggie
Gyllenhaal '99, Benjamin Jealous '94, Dr. Paul Maddon '81, Thomas Francis
Marano '83 and Gregory Wyatt '71.
Gyllenhaal, a stage and screen
actress, made her theatrical debut in 2000 as "Alice" in Patrick Marber's award-winning
Closer at the Berkeley Repertory
Theatre, which played later at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. Her other
stage performances include Tony Kushner '78's play Homebody/Kabul, in which she starred in 2004 and which ran in Los
Angeles and at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Gyllenhaal
has starred in a wide range of films, from quirky dramas (Stranger Than Fiction) to action blockbusters (The Dark Knight). Her recent projects include Trust the Man with Julianne Moore, Billy Crudup and David Duchovny,
and Oliver Stone's World Trade
Center, with Maria Bello and Nicolas Cage. Gyllenhaal's next project is the dramatic
film Crazy Heart, in which she will
star alongside Jeff Bridges. She also starred in Happy Endings, opposite Lisa Kudrow and Tom Arnold.
A
multiple Golden Globe nominee, Gyllenhaal also has been honored with an
Independent Spirit Award nomination for "Best Actress," a Chicago Film Critics'
Award for "Most Promising Performer," a Boston Film Critics' Award for "Best
Actress," a National Board of Review award for "Breakthrough Performance" and
an IFP/Gotham "Breakthrough Performance" Award, for her role in Secretary.
Jealous
is the 17th president and CEO of the NAACP, as well as the youngest person to
hold the position in the organization's 100-year history. Previously he was
president of the Rosenberg Foundation, director of the U.S. Human Rights Program
at Amnesty International and executive director of the National Newspaper
Publishers Association. During his time at NNPA, Jealous rebuilt its 90-year
old national news service and launched a Web-based initiative that doubled the
number of black newspapers publishing online.
While
an undergraduate, Jealous worked in Harlem as
a community organizer for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. On campus, he led
boycotts and pickets for homeless rights, protested to help save full-need financial
and need-blind admissions and was engaged an environmental justice battle with
the University, leading to a suspension. Jealous returned to Columbia and completed his degree in
political science. He later attended Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar,
where he earned a master's in comparative social research.
Maddon
is CEO, CSO and director of Progenics Pharmaceuticals, a biopharmaceutical
company that specializes in medicines pertaining to gastroenterology, oncology
and virology. He earned his M.D. in 1988 from P&S and a Ph.D. in biochemistry
and molecular biophysics the same year from GSAS. Maddon founded Progenics in
1986 while an M.D./Ph.D. student. He has made major contributions to the understanding
of viral entry and infection, for example, he isolated the gene encoding CD4
and discovered that a second receptor, CCR5, is required for HIV entry. In recent
years, Maddon's primary focus has been on developing innovative therapies for
prostate cancer and hepatitis C virus infection.
Maddon
has served on the editorial board of the Journal
of Virology and chaired and served on numerous scientific review committees
of the National Institutes of Health and Department of Defense. He received Columbia's Dr. Alfred
Steiner Award for Biomedical Research and the Dr. Harold Lamport Biomedical
Research Prize.
Along
with high school science teachers in Westchester
County, N.Y., Maddon founded
the Westchester Science and Engineering Fair and coordinates a science research
mentoring program. He also is on the advisory committees of Columbia's Science Honors Program.
Marano
is chairman and CEO of Residential Capital and a chairman on the ResCap Board
of Directors. Before joining ResCap, he was managing director for Cerberus
Capital Management and senior managing director and global head of mortgage and
asset-backed securities at Bear, Stearns.
While
at Bear, Stearns, Marano oversaw the expansion of mortgage and asset-backed
activities in the United States,
Europe and Asia and was on the company's Board
of Directors. His tenure at Bear, Stearns spanned more than 25 years; for much
of that time, he was instrumental in creating the firm's top-ranked mortgage
department.
Marano
priced the first agency Real Estate Mortgage Investment Conduit for Fannie Mae
in 1987 and the first tranched commercial mortgage-backed security in 1994. He
was involved in Bear, Stearns' acquisition of assets in several MBS originators
and became head of the department in 2001. Marano is on the boards of Covenant
House and the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund, and is a member of the College's Board
of Visitors.
Wyatt,
sculptor-in-residence at The Cathedral Church of
St. John the Divine, studied art history
at the College and later classical sculpture, for three years, at the National
Academy of Design's School
of Fine Arts under
renowned sculptor EvAngelos W. Frudakis, N.A. He earned his M.A. at Teachers
College in ceramic arts in 1974 and completed his doctoral coursework in art
education in 1976.
Nurtured
in the artistic tradition of his native Hudson River
Valley at an early age by his father,
William Stanley Wyatt '43, '47 GSAS, a painter and fine arts professor at Columbia and City
College, Wyatt has chosen cast bronze as his primary medium. His works have
appeared in numerous exhibits, from the United
States Consulate General in Florence, Italy (Adam
and Eve) to the Shakespeare Centre in Stratford-upon-Avon in England
(bronze models from The Tempest, King
Lear and more). His extensive collection of sculptures includes his 2004
gift to the University, Scholars' Lion, exhibited
near the entrance to Dodge
Fitness Center.
Wyatt
has been president of the Fantasy Fountain Fund.
For more information on the dinner, contact Meghan
Eschmann, associate director of alumni affairs: 212-851-7399 or me2363@columbia.edu.