Princeton Alumni Weekly Podcasts

Tyler Lussi ’17, a forward for Portland Thorns F.C. in the National Women’s Soccer League, broke the Princeton records for career goals and career points in her senior year. Since then, she’s been chasing new goals in pro soccer in a city that is deeply invested in its team. In an interview for the PAWcast, Lussi shares her ideas for getting more fans to buy into women’s soccer. This episode was recorded on location at the Princeton Soccer Conference earlier this month.

When President Dwight Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act in 1958, Charles "Pete" Conrad '53 was training as a U.S. Navy test pilot. Eleven years later, he’d become the third person to walk on the moon. Nov. 19 marks the 50th anniversary of Conrad’s moonwalk, part of the Apollo 12 mission, and to mark the occasion, PAWcast spoke with Jordan Bimm, a historian of science and postdoc in Princeton’s sociology department.

The Equal Rights Amendment, which guarantees gender equality, is only one state away from being added to the United States Constitution, thanks to revived grassroots campaigns that took hold in the wake of the 2016 Presidential election. Linda Terry Coberly ’89, the chair of the ERA’s Legal Task Force, speaks with host Carrie Compton about the many hurdles that have prevented the ERA’s passage since its introduction in the ’70s, and what will come next if a final state ratifies it.

Asteroids and volcanoes and biotechnology — oh my! Bryan Walsh ’01 discusses his book, End Times, about the existential threats facing humanity. Walsh, a former foreign correspondent, reporter, and editor at Time, is editor of Medium’s science publication, OneZero.

In popular culture the car is seen as a symbol of freedom. But as Sarah Seo ’02 *16 writes, driving a car is also “the most policed aspect of everyday life.” Seo, a legal historian and the author of Policing the Open Road: How Cars Transformed American Freedom, discusses the history of the automobile and its impact on the law and law enforcement in the United States, from a new interpretation of the Fourth Amendment to the issue of discriminatory policing.

Inspired in part by personal experience, sociologist Danielle Lindemann ’02 studied the growing phenomenon of “commuter spouses” — couples who choose to live apart to enable both partners to pursue their career goals. In an interview with PAW’s Carrie Compton, Lindemann explains that the couples she spoke with for her book, Commuter Spouses: New Families in a Changing World, chose this lifestyle out of professional necessity, not for purely financial reasons. She also discusses what’s changed (and what hasn’t) in how we think about gender roles and how, paradoxically, high levels of education may tend to limit one’s professional choices. For a transcript of this podcast, visit https://paw.princeton.edu/podcast/pawcast-sociologist-danielle-lindemann-02-commuter-spouses (Photo: Cyndi Shattuck Photography)

In this Commencement episode of PAWcast, we talk with valedictorian Kate Reed ’19, a history major and Rhodes Scholar from Arnold, Md. Reed talks about her experiences teaching English as a second language in Trenton, digging into archival research in Mexico City, and wandering into a Princeton Preview course that eventually helped to shape her course of study.

On this month’s PAWcast, novelist Lisa Gornick ’77 discusses her new book, writing, and her former career as a psychotherapist in an interview with associate editor Carrie Compton. “As a therapist and then as a psychoanalyst, I was really trained to hear unconscious themes, to see the way that stories unfold, and to hear the way that emotion is concealed in language,” Gornick says. “And so, I felt very much as though I was using what I knew as a student of literature in the therapy room — and the reverse as well.” Her latest novel, The Peacock Feast (Sarah Crichton Books), was published in February. Author photo © Sigrid Estrada; for a transcript of this interview, visit https://paw.princeton.edu/podcast/pawcast-author-lisa-gornick-77-writing-life-and-her-background-psychotherapist

History and Woodrow Wilson School professor Harold James — a leading academic and expert in European history and globalization — tells PAW’s Allie Wenner about the available options for the U.K. as it nears the April 12 Brexit deadline, how the issue of leaving the European Union was brought to the table to begin with, and why he doesn’t think Theresa May will be Britain’s prime minister for much longer.

Amherst College psychology professor Catherine Sanderson *97, the author of The Positive Shift: Mastering Mindset to Improve Happiness, Health, and Longevity, talks with PAW about the science of happiness and how our outlook can shape our reality. Even if positivity doesn’t come naturally to you, making small lifestyle changes can help to shift your mindset. “One of the most encouraging things, to me, about all of this research now on the power of positive mindset, is that there’s something you can do,” Sanderson says.

Ge Wang *08 co-founded the mobile music company Smule, whose apps have reached more than 200 million users. Now he’s a professor at Stanford in the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics. In a conversation with PAW, he talks about music, computing, and his new book, Artful Design: Technology in Search of the Sublime.

Visiting professor Ashoka Mody is the author of EuroTragedy: A Drama in Nine Acts, which unpacks the history and political motivations behind the European Union’s decision to employ a common currency, the euro. In a conversation with PAWcast’s Carrie Compton, Mody discusses the currency’s inherent flaws and its uncertain future — a topic that’s made headlines in recent days.

Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist George F. Will *68, a noted conservative who advocated for voting out the GOP in the 2018 midterms, spoke with PAW about America’s current political climate, the dangers of recent federal spending policy, and why President Donald Trump is “intensely boring” — for a columnist, at least. Will recently was selected to deliver the Baccalaureate address for Princeton’s Class of 2019. This is part of a monthly series of interviews with alumni, faculty, and students.

Nell Irvin Painter, a Princeton professor emerita of history, was 67 years old when she enrolled as an MFA student at the Rhode Island School of Design. During her second year there her book The History of White People was released and would become a New York Times bestseller. It was disorienting event, as she describes it. On one hand, there was the elation of receiving laudatory reviews, and on the other, the ever-present, stinging criticisms she experienced in art school, which she calls “one long tearing down.” Her latest book, Old in Art School, describes her late-in-life journey from preeminent historian to painter.

Two years after leaving Princeton to serve in the Army in Vietnam, Jim Marshall ’72 returned to a campus roiled in conflict. He says that he felt like “an oddity” of sorts — an undergraduate who had seen the war firsthand. Marshall would go on to law school, a career in politics that included four terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, a visiting teaching appointment at Princeton, and a stint as president of the United States Institute of Peace. He’s played a leading role in the recent formation of the Princeton Veterans Association, and he advocates for more opportunities for student veterans. “It’s good for Princeton to be open and supportive, and as helpful as possible, to veterans who have served,” Marshall says.

Economics professor Alan Krueger — former chairman of President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers — tells PAW’s Allie Wenner about his research on the economics of the music industry, including his opinions about the secondary market for concert tickets, how online streaming has reversed the downward trend in revenue for recordings, and why he thinks Taylor Swift is an “economic genius.”

Washington Post nonfiction book critic Carlos Lozada *97, a Pulitzer Prize nominee earlier this year, tells PAW about his approach to reading (and re-reading) books and shares recommendations from his own shelf. He also remembers the books that made a lasting impression on him as a kid. And he recalls his time at the Woodrow Wilson School, where he took macroeconomics from future Fed chairman Ben Bernanke.

Kyle Berlin ’18 had a lot to be excited about as he finished his senior year: The Spanish and Portuguese languages major was named Princeton’s valedictorian. And he was set to start an artistic residency in Maine, where he and two collaborators will perform a play he wrote last year, exploring the many questions that relate to the concept of “home.” In advance of Commencement, Berlin spoke with Allie Wenner about the inspiration for his play and how his travels as an undergrad have shaped the person that he is today. This is part of a monthly series of interviews with alumni, faculty, and students.

Playing football at Princeton created lasting memories for William Ledger ’54, who lettered in his senior year and had the opportunity to follow one of the Tigers’ greatest teams, the undefeated 1951 squad, as a sophomore. (Season 4, Episode 14)

Celine Gounder ’97 started her Princeton career as an engineering student, but she eventually switched to molecular biology and found a calling in public health and epidemiology. In addition to practicing medicine, Gounder is a journalist and podcaster, and the current season of her podcast, In Sickness and In Health, explores the opioid overdose crisis. She spoke about opioids, as well as her experience as a volunteer during the Ebola epidemic in Guinea, in a recent interview with PAW.