A blog of Rotary International recently shared a story of Muyi Yang ’18 about his experiences of founding a school for marginalized youth in Syria, which you can find here. More information may also be found here.

Muyi has been nominated as the Coordinator for the Nordic and Baltic Region of the Rotary Peace Fellowship Alumni Association Europe. Dedicated to bridging cross-cultural dialogues, he recently published his first Arabic article on one of the biggest media platforms in the MENA region. The article highlights his appreciation of the rich culture in the MENA region and the resilience that the local populations embody. You can read the article as published here and here translated into English.

Zach Silver ’18 has been recognized in Smithsonian Magazine for his work in Laurie Santos’ Comparative Cognition Laboratory and the Canine Cognition Center. Read the Smithsonian article here.

Taylor Williams ’18 graduated a semester early from Southern Illinois University School of Law on December 12, 2020. Taylor grew up in the country outside of Bloomington and will return to Bloomington to work at a local law firm. Taylor also received the McLean County Bar Association Scholarship in December, prior to her graduation.”

Tim Foszcz ’18 will star as a featured performer, or “new face,” in the first virtual installment of Porchlight Music Theatre’s popular New Faces Sing Broadway series. New Faces Sing Broadway 1987 will be filmed on-site at Chicago’s historic Studebaker Theatre and will be available for streaming Nov. 6-29, 2020. The series features Chicago’s newest talents performing unforgettable songs from the hit shows Les Misérables, Into the Woods, Me and My Girl and more.   For ticket information, visit PorchlightMusicTheatre.org.

Congrats to Mike Plecki ’18, who won the Khan Cup at Urbana Country Club along with his father. Read the full article here.

Jacob Taitel ’18 has published a method scale book, Beyond the Scale: For Tuba. This was a project that he was awarded research honors his senior year. He is working on publishing a version for all the brass.  You can find his book here.

Teaching Titan Graduate Shannon Green ’18 has written a children’s book! She shared the following information about it:

Scottie on the Space Station is an educational story for children in the early grades which exemplifies how to speak to people with disabilities, but in a fun, imaginative way. This story is a personal one for my sister and me because we grew up with Scottie and had to repeatedly teach others that it is ok to just talk, befriend, and play with him. My sister (and co-author), Kaela, and I wrote this picture book in the hopes that it can be a reference for teachers and parents to review inclusion and diversity (something I think is desperately needed in these times). We added the space station element because our father and, previously, my sister worked at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and are space enthusiasts; an enthusiasm we wish to spread to the younger generation.

You can buy the book on Amazon here!

Victoria Drake is one of the co-authors of the work Randomized Controlled Trial of a Prefeeding Oral Motor Therapy and its Effect on Feeding Improvement in a Thai NICU. Victoria and other co-authors worked alongside Illinois Wesleyan Associate Professor of Nursing Brenda Lessen Knoll ‘89. The work was nominated for the 2020 Best of Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic, & Neonatal Nursing Writing Award.

Wow! Congratulations, Victoria!

Zach Silver ’18 has been working with Laurie Santos, director of the Comparative Cognition Laboratory and the Canine Cognition Center at Yale University. Zach is a graduate student interested in how nonhuman animals learn from and about human agents. He also provides original music for Santos’ podcast The Happiness Lab.