UR Nursing helped this alumna change careers. Now, it’s part of her next chapter moving from Neurovirology researcher to wellness advocate.

Christina Mather ’17, ’18N found an interest in health care while at the URochester. She earned her first bachelor’s degree in microbiology and immunology across the street at the School of Arts & Sciences, where she participated in neurovirology research studies as an undergraduate, but craved more personal connections in her daily work.

“I have always had an innate passion for healing others and wanted a hands-on job where I could do just that,” Mather said.

Mather, who is originally from Rhode Island, knew the School of Nursing would be an excellent fit: “they welcomed diverse students like me from many different career paths in their program.”

The accelerated bachelor’s program helped Mather successfully start a career in the Neuromedicine ICU at Strong Memorial Hospital after graduation.

As an alumna, Mather found a supportive environment at the School of Nursing once again when she transitioned to a new role as a project nurse at the Center for Employee Wellness, and just recently, started to pursue her master’s degree in the Family Nurse Practitioner specialty.

Being part of the Employee Wellness team has helped Christina channel her love for preventative medicine.

How did the School of Nursing prepare you for what you’re doing at your current job?

The biggest lesson I learned from the School of Nursing is that nurses, first and foremost, are their patients’ most prominent advocates. I aim to advocate and educate my patients in my everyday practice.

Why did you choose the Ģ����ý Medical Center to start your nursing career?

My health assessment lab instructor, Jenna Gonillo-Davis ’15N (MS), encouraged me to pursue a career in critical care nursing in Strong Memorial Hospital’s Neuromedicine ICU, where she works as a nurse practitioner.

The Neuromedicine ICU welcomed me into my first nursing role and supported me through all the challenges that come with being a new bedside nurse. My preceptors, co-workers, and patients helped me foster strong critical thinking skills and inspired me to pursue a degree as an FNP in the future, hopefully specializing in neurological rehab.

Most importantly, URMC supported me after a severe car accident that shattered my right lower leg and left me physically unable to fulfill the role of a bedside ICU nurse. They provided me with both excellent medical care and job security, and connected me to new career opportunities when it became clear I could no longer work in the Neuromedicine ICU.

I never imagined that there could be so many different types of nursing careers out there. While grieving the loss of my identity as a bedside nurse, I wasn’t sure what jobs would be physically feasible for me to pursue. The School of Nursing’s Center for Employee Wellness helped reignite my passion for nursing and has supported me as I advance my education.

What do you find most rewarding about being a nurse?

I love that I can go home every day and feel like I have accomplished at least one tangible thing, whether it is helping educate a client on their risk factors for cardiovascular disease or even providing vaccinations to various clients the Center for Employee Wellness serves.

A conversation with Shane Campbell-Staton ’08

This scholar, evolutionary biologist, and master storyteller uses classrooms and lecture halls along with podcasts, television, and film to attract a broad and diverse audience to science. His goal? To help people see how science plays such an important part in our past, present, and future.

, a biology professor at Princeton University, has dedicated his life to exploring human activity as a force for evolutionary change. He studies the Anthropocene—the geological period we’re in now—during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment. His lab, the Campbell-Staton Group, looks at animal performance, gene expression, and genomics to understand how human activity affects evolution.

“We study all kinds of creatures—from Russian wolves to tuskless elephants to mountain mice—to learn about how various species adapt to urbanization, climate change, invasive species, and natural as well as human-caused events and disasters,” says Campbell-Staton. “Our work is like putting together a puzzle—each piece is important and, when they are linked, we get a bigger, better picture of our place in this world and our impact on it.”

Campbell-Staton hosted , a six-part PBS documentary series in which he traveled from farms to restaurants, high-tech labs to street markets, and ancient forests to the back alleys of big cities to gain insights into human nature, human impact, and what it means to be a human being. Audiences can also tune into Campbell-Staton on his ongoing podcast. Inspired by comic books, graphic novels, movies, and television, each episode tracks the boundaries of where science meets fiction.

In June 2023, Campbell-Staton gave the keynote presentation at the University’s Juneteenth Celebration, where he delved into the challenges he overcame at Rochester and elsewhere, the opportunities he’s cultivated, and the life lessons he’s learned along the way. He also discussed the connections between biology and human history, science, politics, economics, culture, and structural racism.

How did you get interested in science?

Growing up in Sumter, South Carolina, I didn’t have easy access to nearby woods or tidal pools, but I was captivated by science through television shows like those hosted by Steve Irwin and Jeff Corwin. My neighborhood was home to many small lizards, called anoles. So, TV and lizards were what first sparked my interest in science.

What important life lessons did you learn at Rochester?

One of the most important lessons was how to fail successfully. During my first year, I struggled with math, calculus, and chemistry classes, which left me feeling dejected after failing some of them. I even considered leaving school. However, my mother encouraged me to persevere and not quit because I was afraid to fail. Her support inspired me to spend the summer devouring high school science books to prepare for my sophomore year.

What do you think makes a great scientist?

A great scientist is not someone who has all the answers. In my personal statement to Harvard, I talked about how the giants of science are those who persevere when they hit a wall. I have experienced my share of failures and setbacks, but I have never given up. I am tenacious and curious, and I keep trying until I get it right. These qualities have helped me to succeed and get accepted into several graduate schools, including Harvard, where I earned my PhD and focused my dissertation on my favorite childhood lizard: anoles.

What sparked your interest in comic books?

As a graduate student, I was drawn to “Superman vs. Muhammad Ali” in a bookstore window in Harvard Square. I was intrigued and had to find out who won the battle. That launched my interest in comic books. After an intense day working on my dissertation, I really liked reading comic books and escaping into another world. One night during that time, I had a dream that combined science and superheroes, which led me to start the Biology of Superheroes podcast with Arien Darby ’07, a fellow comic book fan and friend I met at Rochester.

Who is your biggest role model?

I have many role models, but I have to say that my mother is the most important one. She has always encouraged me. When I was a kid, she told me that people can take just about anything from you. They can take your money, your power. But, she said, once you learn something, it’s yours—you get to keep it. And she underscored that you can actually give away what you know and still keep your knowledge.

A journalist aims to help readers understand the latest in scientific discoveries and how that news shapes their lives.

Like many people at the start of the pandemic, Julia Sklar ’14 found herself spending a lot of time at home, trying to keep up the professional connections she had built as an independent science journalist.

Interviews with scientists in their labs were out, and conferences had been postponed.

Like most people, Sklar’s professional and social life began taking place entirely through video calls, particularly the video conferencing app Zoom.

And she noticed a refrain: Why was it, so many wondered aloud and on Twitter, that they could feel emotionally and creatively energized by a day of in-person interaction, yet so drained after a day on Zoom?

Having worked as a science journalist for a decade, Sklar knew there was research that could explain the experience.

She recalled learning about a study at Boston Children’s Hospital that explored how children with autism engaged more effectively with their speech and language therapists when those meetings were video-mediated compared to when therapy took place in person.

“I thought that was so fascinating, because just anecdotally in my own life, I felt the opposite—I always had a really hard time with video chatting and found it really tiring.”

When a National Geographic editor joked on Twitter about commissioning a “10,000-word cover story” about the phenomenon, Sklar was ready.

“I wrote a story for them about the neuroscience of ‘Zoom fatigue,’ and the perspective of how, for many people with autism, Zoom calls were making their regular jobs and social interactions a little bit easier and more accessible.”

The story ended up going viral and was one of the internet’s most-read articles in 2020.

But as other outlets picked up the story and wrote their own versions, Sklar noticed that the positive aspects were drowned out.

“Zoom fatigue just became the word that everybody was talking about and the angle about the technology being an accessibility tool for some people completely got lost,” she says. “To me, that was the most exciting and interesting part of this. It was disheartening to watch the news cycle turn out that way.”

Since the first query to that editor, the Rochester brain and cognitive sciences and anthropology double major has written several stories for National Geographic, and last year, produced The Brain: Discover the Ways Your Mind Works, an 18,000-word volume that the publisher calls a “bookazine.”

The work draws on the latest research into the neuroscience of perception, flavor, chronic pain, and consciousness to provide a status report of sorts on the human brain, “the final frontier of human biology,” as Sklar notes. Forthcoming from National Geographic in April 2024 is her second bookazine, a new volume devoted to the science behind stress.

Sklar credits her double major and other campus opportunities with setting her on her path as a science journalist. In BCS classes, she became grounded in the world of modern science and how research takes place. She then honed many of her journalism skills at the Campus Times, where she worked as an editor throughout college.

After reading a profile of Fred Guterl ’81, then the executive editor of Scientific American, in Rochester Review, she reached out to Guterl, who provided helpful advice on how to pursue her goal of bringing the two interests together and becoming a professional science journalist.

Now, she sees her anthropology courses as also having played a pivotal role.

“We dissected some of the problematic history of anthropology, particularly through a colonial lens. I find that really helpful today,” she says. “Whose right is it to tell a certain community’s story? That comes up a lot with representation and diversity in the journalism industry.”

Based in Boston, Sklar was in Vienna, Austria, this winter for a fellowship at the Complexity Science Hub, where she worked on a project exploring how urban infrastructure influences human health. At the same time, she was teaching an online graduate level science journalism course at Johns Hopkins.

As part of the fellowship, she conducted workshops designed to improve the ways in which scientists and journalists engage with one another.

Improving those conversations is key to ensuring that the public remains informed about how scientific advances influence modern life, she says.

While fascinating, news about scientific discoveries, breakthroughs, and other research is only part of the story.

“The thing that’s always the most interesting to me is how all of these innovations impact real lives or have the potential to change the society that we live in.”

Josh Cassada ’00 (PhD) will be aboard the International Space Station for several months

Josh Cassada ’00 (PhD) will be aboard the International Space Station for several months as part of a four-member crew that docked with the station this fall.

Cassada served as the pilot for a NASA SpaceX commercial crew that lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on October 5. The spacecraft—named Endurance—docked with the space station the following day, joining a team of seven already on board.

Cassada and his crew mates—Commander Nicole Mann and Mission Specialists Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and Anna Kikina of Roscosmos—are scheduled to be aboard the space station for up to six months before returning to Earth in the spring of 2023.

The mission is the first for Cassada, Kikina, and Mann, who is also the first Indigenous woman from NASA to go to space. The crew will conduct scientific studies to prepare for human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit and to benefit life on Earth, according to NASA.

Cassada is the third Rochester graduate to travel to outer space. In 1998, physiologist Jim Pawelczyk ’82 completed a 16-day mission on the Space Shuttle Columbia, serving as a payload specialist responsible for the operation of a laboratory aboard the shuttle. Pawelczyk is a professor of physiology and kinesiology at Penn State University.

And in 1973, Ed Gibson ’59 was part of a team that set a then world record for time in space when they were aboard the former Skylab 3 for 84 days. During the mission, Gibson participated in three space walks. Gibson’s record was later eclipsed by American scientist and astronaut Norman Thagard, who spent 115 days on the Russian space station Mir.

An alumnus and longtime donor, Fred Schindler reflects on the gift he and his wife made to establish the Frederick J. and Marion A. Schindler Cognitive Neurophysiology Lab, supporting research on autism and development disabilities.

Frederick J. Schindler ’57 graduated from the Ģ����ý with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry. He went on to earn a PhD in biophysics from the University of Pennsylvania and spent 40 years working in chemical product research and development before launching a second career as a science teacher at Hill Top Preparatory School in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. The school is known for providing life-changing learning experiences for bright students with performance-based learning differences. Through teaching, Schindler met his wife Marion, an educator and former English department chair at another Philadelphia-area school.

Now fully in retirement, Schindler has pursued a self-study of scientific literature related to behavior and mental health, with an emphasis on “brain training” interventions for attention deficit disorders, autism, and age-related dementia. Following a discussion with , and , of the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience in 2019, Schindler made a gift that funded two proof of concept research projects: “Adding Autism and High-Density Electrophysiology to the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study,” to further develop these novel and strategic areas of the overall study at Del Monte.

and the were proud to name the in May 2022, in grateful recognition of the Schindlers’ generosity and their passion to support research that will enable neuroscience-based interventions for autism.

Why name the Cognitive Neurophysiology Lab?

Marion and I are very encouraged by the research that is being done here and by the leadership and scientists who are doing that work. It goes beyond the Department of Neuroscience, making connections across the Ģ����ý as a whole. So that’s very rewarding to see. Previously, we established a for the benefit of the , and we are now adding to it with our gift to the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience. This CRUT is professionally managed and diversified and provides us with a steady income stream for the rest of our lives. From a financial planning point of view, it’s been an excellent way to give. And I think that’s a win-win for everybody.

I’m very appreciative to the University staff for listening to my interests and helping me align them with my giving. Once I heard about The , it was very natural to support the project.

In addition to the CRUT, we also made a cash gift for the University’s immediate use, and we’re hearing some of the results of that project already.

When you reflect on your time at the URochester, are there distinct aspects of your education that you have brought forward into your career?

During my senior year in high school, I thought I was a real hotshot in my local community. I was getting good grades and all. Then I participated in the Westinghouse Science Talent Search and realized how little I knew. It was an epiphany that set me on the path of lifelong learning. I received a scholarship to attend the URochester, and for those four years I learned all I could about chemistry, physics, and biology. I had an intense focus on my studies, while being supported by wonderful professors and graduate assistants.

My record at Rochester led to a PhD fellowship in the prestigious biophysics program with Britton Chance at the University of Pennsylvania. During my graduate school years and my career in chemical research and development, I brought forward that same intense focus on continuous learning. I enjoyed working on challenging projects.

The Ģ����ý gave me a real leg up in my career.

What was it like making a shift from your career in research to teaching science to kids with special needs?

I felt like a complete rookie since I had never worked with kids, let alone those with special needs. I was not what you might call a natural teacher. However, I quickly learned that the kids did not care how much science I knew, they just wanted to know how much I cared for them. I had a lot of support from the parents, administration, and other faculty. The students ranged widely in their academic capability from a little below average to some extremely bright students. All of them had some type of significant learning or social difficulty. I tried to teach science at a high level to those students who were excelling, but I was also very patient and accommodating.

I had a large classroom and store room in the basement that was completely separate from the other classrooms, with an outside door facing a wooded area. This all made it easier to teach using engaging hands-on demos and activities. We did robotics. We did aquaponics. We did an engineering competition each year. It was wonderful to see the students grow. It was a demanding, but very rewarding job for me for 13 years.

It sounds like you and Mrs. Schindler have a shared commitment to helping young people with autism. How did you become passionate about researching autism and developmental diseases?

Our specific interest in autism developed through relationships with Hill Top School. Of course, we all have our personal stories of relatives and friends who have these types of difficulties. My wife, Marion has had, in addition to her teaching experience, a lifetime of supporting two sons who were identified as having “immature brain development” back in the ’60s. Today, they would have a more specific diagnosis. Back then, what made it especially tough was that the prevailing attitude was to blame the parents. So at least we’ve come a long way from that.

Despite the best efforts of parents, teachers, physicians, and therapists, genetic and developmental differences often remain obstacles to success in higher education and the workplace. I saw this first-hand at Hill Top. What is needed is improvement in cost-effective therapies with the potential for reversing or compensating for genetic or developmental differences, and I want to learn broadly about these possibilities. We all know that the brain can be changed through therapy and mindfulness. Imagine if we used technology to actually look at those brain signals? How could we use this information to help a person adapt?

What impact do you hope this research will have in the field?

I am very optimistic that the contributions from this laboratory will be tremendous. But certainly, I recognize what a difficult problem it is and the challenges that are involved in going from the basic science to clinical practice or classroom interventions. I applaud the effort that Dr. Foxe’s group is making to engage high school students in neuroscience. I still think that a school is the ideal place to assess best practices for identifying approaches for assisting students with autism. I am encouraged that there are possibilities, and I look forward to learning more about them.

At the Intersection of Optics and Art

Considered one of the fathers of Silicon Valley, Jay Last ’51, ’11 (Honorary) had an extraordinary career in science, technology, and art. As an early leader in the development of semiconductors, he helped usher in the computer revolution. A noted African art collector, Last was among the first generation of Westerners to appreciate the continent’s visual art traditions. He died in November at the age of 92.

After graduating as an optics major in 1951, Last earned a PhD in physics from MIT in 1956. Early in his career, he joined a group of eight entrepreneurs who founded the Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation. There, Last helped develop and produce the first integrated circuit chips, work that paved the way for the computer revolution and established Silicon Valley as the epicenter of the digital world.

Often crediting his grounding in optics for providing him with a special appreciation for form and color, Last pursued his interest in art throughout his career. His collection of African art is now housed at UCLA, and his collection of mid-20th-century lithographic labels is part of the Huntington Library in San Marino, California.

“In the early days of my collecting, I and many of my friends were becoming interested in art because it was interesting geometry to us,” Last said in a 2016 interview for Rochester Review. “And the way I’ve collected art, the pieces I really appreciate the most are usually the simplest design forms, or the most imaginative design forms.”

Last is the author of The Color Explosion: Nineteenth-Century American Lithography and the coauthor, with Gordon McClelland, of five other books. In 2015, he published a memoir, African Art and Silicon Chips: A Life in Science and Art. He also founded Hillcrest Press and published books on California art, ethnic art, and graphic arts. He was a founder and member of the board of directors of the Archaeological Conservancy, a national nonprofit organization established in 1980 to preserve US archaeological sites.

Widely recognized as a scientist and humanist, Last received the Maurice Rickards Award from the Ephemera Society of America, and he was awarded the Legends of California Award from the California Historical Society. The University presented him with the institution’s highest award for alumni, the Hutchison Medal, in 2005 and awarded him an honorary degree in 2011.

A generous philanthropist who supported numerous museums and educational institutions, Last helped establish a professorship at Rochester and provided support for humanities fellowships as well as the Writing, Speaking, and Argument Program, the Language Center, and the River Campus Libraries.

His interests reflected a long-standing appreciation for how the sciences and the arts complement one another.

This retired cardiothoracic surgeon and academic medical leader established an endowed scholarship to benefit future generations of medical students

Stephen Plume ’69M (MD), ’75M (Res)—Emeritus Professor of Surgery, Community and Family Medicine, and The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College—has spent his career working in academic medical centers as a cardiothoracic surgeon, a faculty member, and as an administrative leader. Plume recently established an endowed scholarship* at the URochester’s School of Medicine and Dentistry (SMD). The impetus for his gift? To give back to a school that played a formative role in his life and his approach to medicine.

“I’m very appreciative of what I learned at Rochester,” says Plume, who has spent most of his life in Vermont, just across the New Hampshire state line from Hanover, N.H. “The school and faculty members such as Dr. George Engel, who founded the with Dr. John Romano, provided me with practical knowledge and insight that informed my entire career.”

Plume had a particular affinity for Engel, who was his professor and mentor. “This scholarship pays homage to what he meant to me,” he adds. “It’s a way for me to honor his influence and, at the same, to support future generations of medical students.”

To make an immediate impact, Plume also established a current use fund to have resources available to name a scholarship recipient for the current 2021-2 academic year. Olanrewaju Akande, a first-year medical student, is the first Plume scholar. Recently, the two had the opportunity to meet over Zoom. “Olanrewaju is a motivated young man with a great future ahead of him,” he says. “He is deserving of a scholarship and I am glad to support him.”

“Without Dr. Plume’s support, I truly do not envision myself sitting alongside my peers at the URochester today,” says Akande. “Because of his generosity, I am here, at the School of Medicine and Dentistry—my top choice for medical school—and I do not have the financial constraints that often limit others with comparable backgrounds. I will be forever grateful to him.”

Here, Plume elaborates on his time at the medical school and his reasons for giving back.

What was the catalyst for establishing this scholarship?

Although I’ve always supported the Medical School through its annual fund, I came away from my 50th reunion a few years ago with a wish to do something more for the institution. I reconnected with friends I hadn’t seen in decades and I walked through spaces that held significant meaning for me. All of this rekindled feelings of loyalty and affection and prompted me to reflect on what I learned during medical school and how important that time was in my life and career.

What do you wish for Olanrewaju and future Plume scholars?

My wish for all medical students is to find honorable and satisfying careers in medicine. In addition to the benefits of the rigorous academic program at SMD, I’m hopeful Olanrewaju and future beneficiaries of this scholarship become exposed to and take advantage of the hallmarks of a Rochester education. We’ve all benefitted from our grounding in a humanistic interest in medicine, regardless of our areas of specialty. ��I’m proud to be associated with Rochester.

How do you think the biopsychosocial model transformed clinical care?

At first, some people thought it was too “soft” and wanted to “get back to the real stuff,” ��not yet recognizing that described diseases are not the same as experienced illnesses. It became a big part of our medical education. For me, it comes down to this: illness is an individual experience that manifests differently in each one of us. It’s personal. We can learn about named diseases in textbooks, but we do not understand an illness until we connect with the person, in the context of that person’s life, goals, and distinct environment. This approach has carried over to other aspects of my life, influencing how I interact with colleagues, institutional leaders, family, and friends.

How did Dr. Engel mentor you?

When I was a student, we were required to ask someone to serve as our clinical advisor during our third and fourth years. I asked Dr. Engel to be mine. At first, he seemed a bit taken aback—I’m not sure he had been asked before. But, he agreed and took me on along with another classmate, Ivy Bock Boyle ’69M (MD), who spent her career in child and adolescent psychiatry. We became a triumvirate of sorts. We would practice a particular pattern that put the biopsychosocial model into the clinical environment.

It went like this: one week, Dr. Engel would interview a patient and Ivy and I would just listen. The next week, we would go through a tape of that interview and deconstruct it. He’d ask us things like “What just happened? What did we hear? What didn’t we hear? Why do we think he asked a certain question?” The third week, Ivy or I would interview patients and we’d begin the cycle again. That intense analysis, coaching, and modeling of patient and clinical interaction stuck with me forever. Those detailed, careful listening experiences influenced, I hope, all my clinical interactions.

Why choose SMD for medical school?

I had a good, honest conversation with the admissions officer during my medical school interview. I had ridden the bus all night from Cambridge, Mass., with an evolving wisdom tooth extraction infection. Despite that distraction, the chemistry was there. I felt good about the place and knew it was right for me.

Advice for prospective medical students?

I do a lot of admissions interviewing for Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. I advise prospective students not to over-intellectualize their decision. I encourage them to learn what they can about the schools they are considering, and then to ask themselves, “Will I like and trust the people I’ve met?” I remind them that the people shaping their values, whether explicitly or through what has been called “the hidden curriculum” of medical school, are at least as important as the subjects studied. Getting my medical education among those I trust and respect was one of the best decisions of my life.

Do you have counsel for those who may be considering a gift to the school?

I encourage other alumni to reflect on what their medical school experience has meant to them over the course of their careers. Then, if they are thinking about making a gift, do what feels right to help nurture the traditional values and expertise that are synonymous with the school.

* The Stephen K. Plume, III ’69M (MD), ’75M (Res) Scholarship

The lives of family members inspire an engineer to improve health care in Africa.

Mercy Asiedu ’14 knows all too well the staggering human toll that results from the lack of basic health care in developing countries.

“Diagnostic and preventative medicine is really lacking,” says Asiedu, whose own family members in Ghana have paid the price. “People die and we don’t even know why.”

One of her aunts died, apparently of pancreatic cancer, because her illness went undiagnosed. Another aunt died when nobody noticed she was aspirating while in childbirth. A grandmother succumbed to diabetes because of the lack of proper monitoring and shortages of medications.

“That’s what inspired me to go into medical devices and diagnostics,” says Asiedu, a postdoctoral research scientist at MIT, whose efforts to address health care problems in sub-Sahara Africa earned her an inaugural Patrick J. McGovern Tech for Humanity Changemakers award from the Computer History Museum earlier this year.

The award will support two start-up companies Asiedu has launched. Both use advances in machine learning to provide preventative and diagnostic health care to chronic disease victims in sub-Sahara Africa.

One of the companies, Calla Health, is about to market an FDA–cleared, low-cost, portable cervical cancer screening device, the Pocket Colposcope, for use by midwives or community health workers. Asiedu developed AI-based algorithms for the device as part of her PhD research to enable automated risk assessment. Asiedu is also leading efforts to develop and commercialize a version of the cervical cancer screening device that women can use to screen themselves.

The other company, GAPhealth, cofounded with Bintou Kaira, a chemical engineer from Gambia, is developing a data-driven, personalized mobile app designed to make it easier for patients with noncommunicable diseases to monitor their symptoms and connect by telehealth with doctors when they need help. The mobile app, inspired by both cofounders watching their mothers struggle with diabetes, is set to be piloted in Ghana and Gambia this year.

Asiedu was born and raised in a small village near Kumasi, one of Ghana’s largest cities, where her father, an agricultural research scientist, and her mother, a former IT specialist, were employed.

In junior high school, Asiedu aspired to be a fashion designer. However, at her mother’s urging, she pursued a science track in high school because of the better career opportunities it offered. “I found that I really enjoyed it,” Asiedu says.

She initially planned to stay in Ghana to attend medical school. The Zawadi Africa Education Fund scholarship, however, gave Asiedu an opportunity to apply to select undergraduate programs in the United States. The biomedical engineering program at Rochester caught her eye because of its high ranking and because of the support of all-tuition-paid Renaissance and Global Merit scholarships that the University offered. Despite her uncertainties about studying in the US, she followed her mother’s advice and accepted.

Asiedu found an academic home in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. She soon switched her focus from medical school to biomedical engineering, with a focus in biomechanics and medical devices.

Amy Lerner, an associate professor of biomedical engineering, “was one of the most amazing mentors I have had—just very thoughtful and approachable with how she worked with her students, which is something I really appreciated as an undergraduate and even more so now.” Asiedu says.

Drawing on the lessons she learned from her coursework in biomechanics and her senior design project at Rochester, Asiedu began developing the cervical cancer self-screening device as part of her PhD research at Duke University. She worked from concept through prototyping and had opportunities to conduct clinical trials in Peru and Ghana. She is pursuing her postdoc at MIT to further understand how new machine-learning techniques can be applied to large medical data sets, which will help her companies.

Asiedu is currently taking a six-month maternity leave from her postdoc. Her baby boy is the first child for Asiedu and her husband, Jonah, a former research scientist at Duke, who also now works for a start-up company.

As a woman and person of color, Asiedu is doubly representative of large segments of the population who remain underrepresented in STEM fields.

At Duke, she was founder and president of the African Graduate and Professional Students Association, which created mentorship programs for minority and African undergraduates. She also gives talks to high school students about her experiences, encouraging women and minorities in particular to consider science and engineering.

Her advice: “Dedicate time to studying what you are passionate about but also be kind to yourself. When you are in fields like biomedical engineering or pursuing a PhD, and you find it really challenging, you are tempted to think, because you are a minority, that you are the only person going through those challenges. But you should realize that most people in those programs find them challenging. You just have to make it through by keeping the end goal in mind. Having a support group and community that can encourage you to keep going when the going gets tough is especially important.”

This article originally appeared in the fall 2021 issue of Rochester Review magazine

A Pioneer in Studying Sexual Orientation’s Roots in Biology

The driving forces for Richard Friedman ’66M (MD) were simple: ethics and science.

“I felt an ethical obligation to find the reasons for antihomosexual prejudice,” the acclaimed psychoanalyst once said in an interview.

In his 1988 groundbreaking book, Male Homosexuality: A Contemporary Psychoanalytic Perspective, Friedman illustrated that sexual orientation was largely biological and not pathological. Using studies of identical twins and theories of developmental psychology, Friedman showed that biology—not upbringing—made the biggest impact on a person’s sexual orientation.

It was a direct contradiction of the widely held Freudian notion that same-sex attraction was somehow curable, and it made Friedman a champion for gay men who dreamed of marrying and adopting children. The book led to major changes in the way psychologists and psychotherapists viewed and treated homosexual patients.

Friedman died in March 2020 at the age of 79.

Even after the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders in 1973, many therapists considered it an illness that could be cured. “Straight people had the same personality issues, and they got away with murder,” Friedman’s wife, Susan Matorin, a clinical social worker at the Weill Medical College of Cornell, told the New York Times. “Gay people were stigmatized, and he didn’t think that was right.”

Born and raised in the Bronx, Friedman attended Bard College before enrolling at Rochester for medical school. He completed his psychiatric residency at Columbia. While serving in the Army Medical Corps, he treated traumatized Vietnam veterans at a medical center in El Paso, Texas. He later became a faculty member at Columbia University.

In his acknowledgments for Male Homosexuality, Friedman cites his time at Rochester as being key to the book’s inspiration. “I was fortunate enough to spend a year in the laboratory of Dr. Seymour Reichlin,” he writes. “Dr. Reichlin’s brilliance, patience, kindness, sense of humor, and warmth were appreciated beyond measure. Dr. George Engel’s lectures on psychological development in health and disease were also remarkably enlightening.”

Matorin says her husband “cherished” his time at Rochester. After his death, she found his old textbooks in their apartment. “That so moved me,” she says.

Friedman’s early research focused on sleep deprivation experienced by physicians in training. He was the first to demonstrate that lack of sleep impaired the ability of doctors to function during surgery. His later psychiatric research examined sexuality, and a 1998 article he authored on female homosexuality was named best publication of the year by the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association.

Author Andrew Solomon, winner of the 2001 National Book Award for The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression and Friedman’s patient for 25 years, said Friedman gave him the optimism to see a bright future during some of his darkest days.

“He seldom proposed anything as a possibility. He talked in absolutes,” Solomon wrote in a in The New Yorker last May. “I am happily married, have children I love, and enjoy reasonable career success. I once said to Dr. F. that if I had been able to see one day of life in my fifties when I first entered his office, I wouldn’t have had to go through so much anguish and peril along the way. He replied that if I hadn’t gone through so much anguish and peril, I wouldn’t have ended up with the life I had.”

Friedman’s obituary in the New York Times noted his impact on the world while also depicting a man with strong passions—he always carried a copy of the US Constitution—and at least one dislike: “A devoted fan of both opera and professional basketball, he was a lifelong lover of literature, a passionate student of history, a gifted pianist, and hated broccoli.”

As commissioner of public health for Rochester’s Monroe County, Michael Mendoza ’12S (MS) has developed a following as the go-to source for community-minded information.

What the NIH’s Anthony Fauci has been to the nation, Mike Mendoza—or, on Twitter—has been to the Rochester area: a ubiquitous presence on TV and print news, radio, and social media; and the go-to person for the most reliable and up-to-date information and advice, based on the best available science, under relentlessly shifting circumstances.

Last spring, the Rochester area fared comparatively well. Hospitals never neared the capacity that they had prepared for, and in mid-October, data reported in the New York Times showed that Monroe County had the lowest rate of infection of any community in the nation with a population greater than 500,000. But cases have risen dramatically since then, and Mendoza, with his characteristic blend of candor and positive community spirit, is helping lead a renewed effort to educate the public.

Mendoza is a native of Chicago who earned his bachelor’s and medical degrees from the University of Chicago, later adding a master’s in public health degree, as well as a master of science degree in medical management from the Simon School, to round out his formal training. Holding faculty appointments in both the School of Medicine and Dentistry and the School of Nursing, Mendoza was widely praised for taking early and decisive action last spring that helped keep infection rates down in some of the traditional hotspots.

For example, in the early weeks and months, Monroe County faced the same challenges as every other region when it came to protecting residents of nursing homes and other longterm care facilities, as well as those who care for them. He called upon Thomas Mahoney ’83M (Res), chief medical officer at Common Ground Health—an organization itself dedicated to forging regional partnerships—to launch a collaborative group among longterm care facilities and hospitals countywide. Mahoney says that kind of leadership was not typical.

“We’re part of national organizations, and I’ve spoken to folks and presented what we did,” Mahoney said in October. “A collaboration like this, thought out by Mike, trying to get community members to work with what the county was doing, was pretty unique.” The county’s efforts included a push, forged by Mendoza, to distribute appropriate personal protective equipment, or PPE, throughout the county.

Mendoza’s job has only gotten harder this fall, however, as a weary public has begun to take less heed of the expert advice he and his colleagues in public health have offered repeatedly. As he told a local news station on the first of December, “We truly do hold the future of the pandemic in our hands.”

This article originally appeared in the fall 2020 issue of Rochester Review magazine.