Spotlight on Scholars

Douglas A. Samuelson (Nevada, 1965) describes himself as “one of the Scholars who actually tried to do what President Johnson urged us to do: improve our society.” He adds, “I’ve been mostly unsuccessful at that, but at least I gave it a good try. There were a few little milestones here and there.”

Well, yes, here and there. After college at Cal – Berkeley, he moved to Washington, DC in 1975 to become a Federal policy analyst. In that role, in 1980, he played a significant analytical role in the US v. Exxon price regulation case that depended on determining when “a significant change in producing patterns” had occurred in a large oil field. The resulting verdict, over $2 billion, was the largest in the history of the Federal civil courts at the time.

In 2009 Julian Cook’s powerful baritone voice won him recognition as a Presidential Scholar in the Arts (IL).  Today he still sings, but it’s his voice as a scholar, innovator, educator, and community leader that’s earning him center stage.

Julian grew up on the south side of Chicago, a grandson of Mississippi sharecroppers who moved to Illinois in the 1940s. He always sang, but he didn’t recognize his artistry as anything special because he thought everybody could sing. His mother, grandmother, and sister always sang, and music was a big part of his church life. 

A few weeks after her high school graduation, Alice Trenholme Isaacman (1964, OR) met Alan Shepard, the first American in space, at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. A quarter century later, she began working for the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) project at NASA.

Her first NASA visit was part of her national recognition as a Presidential Scholar. “That was in 1964, the very first year of Presidential Scholars,” Isaacman said. “We got the royal treatment. And I do mean the royal treatment.” Isaacman recalls shaking President Johnson’s hand, visiting the Supreme Court, and eating lunch with Senator Wayne Morse (one of just two senators to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution).

Catherine and Nicole Dekle have answered just about every identical twin question there is. 
 
“We get asked a lot whether we have ESP,” said Nicole Dekle Collins, an editor at The Wall Street Journal. “We don’t.”
 
A physician based in Atlanta, Catherine offers a plausible explanation for twin telepathy. “I remember once we were cooking in the kitchen, and I turned to Nicole and asked if she remembered this one time we went to the beach. She said she had just been thinking about that, too. But we realized it was because we had both heard fragments of a song and, because we had the same shared experiences, it brought up the same memory.”
 

Multiple award-winning writer and videographer Lex Hames (1966, MT) has traveled a remarkable path in life, whether spinning prayer wheels in the great Gonden Monastery at 14,000 feet in Tibet, riding horseback across Mongolia to meet the Reindeer People, or hitchhiking through the Yukon with a husky named Odin. We asked him to the share some of his adventures with us. Here's what he told us.

Watching Boston City Council President Michelle Wu in action today, most people would guess she'd been a consummate politician all her life. Not so. A political career was the farthest thing from her mind in 2003, when she was named a U. S. Presidential Scholar from Illinois. Although she planned to attend Harvard, she was unsure of a particular career path. “I would never have predicted that I would be in politics," she said. "Even if someone had asked me to make a short list of careers I could see myself in, politics wouldn’t have been on that list.”

Dr. Michael Weiss (1975, OH) quickly realized that in order to get to the future—a future with advances in insulin that would benefit the poor and most vulnerable—he would have to go back to school. With a MD, PhD (both from Harvard University), and a full professorship already in hand, Weiss took a two-year sabbatical from teaching biochemistry at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) School of Medicine to earn an MBA at the CWRU Weatherhead School of Management.

 "At the beginning of my journey, I didn't know what a Presidential Scholar was," says Arts Scholar Rachel Moore (CA, 1982). But she soon learned and turned her nationally recognized talent into a preeminent career—first as a dancer with the American Ballet Theatre and later as the Theatre's executive director and CEO. Today she's President and CEO of The Music Center in Los Angeles.

Kathy earned a bachelor’s from Cornell and a PhD from Rutgers. After teaching political science at the University of Vermont, Kathy joined the staff of CBS News, where she served as the point person for the network’s polling branch and for its collaboration with The New York Times poll (the oldest print/broadcast polling partnership in the United States).

K. Tsianina Lomawaima (known as Kimberly Carr when she was a Scholar from Ohio in 1972) is a prominent Native American academic and author who has earned national recognition for her landmark books, To Remain an Indian (Outstanding Book Award, American Educational Research Association); and They Called It Prairie Light (North American Indian Prose Award, American Educational Association Critics’ Choice Award).

For Clara Shih (2000, IL), the Presidential Scholars National Recognition Program was a life-changing experience. One fellow Scholar became her college roommate and a best friend for life. Another became a partner in a venture capital firm that has now invested in Clara’s enterprise software company, Hearsay Social.

From high school shot-putter to critically acclaimed writer. It's not a self-portrait many people paint, but Sam Lipsyte (Arts Scholar, 1986, NJ) seldom colors inside the lines. He insists he's just an ordinary guy, but his life tells a different story.

Presidential Scholars are a diverse group, but they share one thing in common: each attains an outstanding measure of achievement at an early age. Few, however, can match internationally acclaimed cellist Bion Tsang (1984, NY) who was much younger than most when his talents were recognized.

Merrick Garland (1970, IL) is Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He was appointed to the court in 1997 and was named Chief Judge in February 2013. A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, Garland has spent the majority of his career in public service, serving as Special Assistant to the Attorney General (1979-1981), Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia (1989-1992),

To the world, Matt Anestis is an international leader in business and finance. To Presidential Scholars, he’s a 1991 honoree from Connecticut and a founder of our Alumni Association.

Maria Filsinger Interrante (2012, MN) entered the spotlight in the scientific community in August 2015 as part of the groundbreaking research team at the Stanford Smolke Laboratory that created chemically synthesized yeast and bioengineered opioids with the potential to rewrite and reduce the story of pain around the globe.  

Jamie Raskin is working hard to be the next Congressman for Maryland’s 8th Congressional District.  Jamie is aided in his campaign by numerous former Presidential Scholars, including his “best friend for life", Louisiana’s Michael Anderson (1979, LA).  Jamie and Michael met at the National Recognition Week in the summer of 1979. 

Like most Scholars, Jack Wolfgramm, 2015 Presidential Scholar from Hawaii, was surprised and pleased to be invited to be a candidate, and even more surprised to have been selected.  His trip from Hawaii to Washington D.C. for the National Recognition Program, though, was much different than for other Scholars.