Alumni in the News: December 14

Twelve alumni were named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for 2021. In the Education category, Nicholas Diao ’19 and Justin Wenig ’20, cofounders of Coursedog, and Tara Reed ’13, founder of Apps Without Code; in the Media category, Coleman Hughes ’20, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute; in the Healthcare category, Kyle Robertson ’13, cofounder of Cerebral; in the Enterprise Technology category, Xavier Pladevall ’18, cofounder of Index, and Heather Stupi ’13, cofounder of Reposite; in the Energy category, Duncan Dickerson ’14, VP of Lazard; in the Marketing & Advertising category, Jacqueline Basulto ’17, cofounder of SeedX; in the Consumer Technology category, Prajit Gopal ’16 and Benjamin Kornick ’16, cofounders of Looped; and in the Retail & E-commerce category, Cami Téllez ’20, cofounder of Parade.

On December 3, Canwen Xu ’20 was featured in The New York Times Real Estate section’s recurring series “The Hunt,” which follows New Yorkers in their searches for homes. Xu and her fiancé remotely searched for an NYC apartment after they had to abruptly return to Xu’s family home in Kansas when Covid-19 shut down campus in the spring.

Historian Claudio Saunt ’89’s book Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory was named to Publishers Weekly’s “Top 10” Best Books of 2020 list. The work focuses on the forced migration of Native Americans across the Mississippi River in the 1830s and the state-sponsored theft of their land.

Jessica Baran ’01 was awarded an Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant for short-form criticism. According to the foundation, “the program supports writing about contemporary art and aims to ensure that critical writing remains a valued mode of engaging the visual arts.”

Stephanos Bibas ’89, an appellate judge, wrote the 21-page ruling rejecting the Trump campaign’s attempt to overturn the vote in Pennsylvania. From a November 27 Politico article: “‘Voters, not lawyers, choose the President. Ballots, not briefs, decide elections,’ Judge Stephanos Bibas — an appointee of President Donald Trump — wrote for the three-judge 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals panel composed entirely of GOP appointees. Bibas’ opinion, delivered just after noon Friday, rejected the campaign’s appeal of a district court ruling that similarly shredded the suit.”

Tom Kitt ’96 is a producer and composer of the Grammy-nominated Original Broadway Cast album of Jagged Little Pill; nominations for the 2021 Grammys were announced on November 24.