Northwestern University Alumni

Opening Keynote
9:15–10:15 a.m.

Stack It High, Pile It Up, Sell It Low: The Founding Years of Crate & Barrel
Presented by: Dana Lamparello, Head of Public Services, McCormick Library of Special Collections and University Archives
McCormick Auditorium, First Floor

Join Northwestern Libraries archivist Dana Lamparello as she shares what she has gleaned about Crate & Barrel’s earliest years from company records housed at Northwestern.

In December 1962, on the ground floor of a converted dumbwaiter factory in Chicago’s Old Town neighborhood, Trustee Gordon Segal ’60 and Carole Browe Segal ’60 (’93 P) opened the first Crate & Barrel store, selling affordable and functional modern home furnishings. Despite the saturated market, Crate & Barrel took off and has endured for decades.

The company’s records—including correspondence, catalogs, ads, and artifacts—fill 235 boxes in the University Archives. Through examining the history of Crate & Barrel’s interior displays and layout, product selection, advertising, and retail model, Lamparello unveils a period of crucial business decisions and growth that positioned the independent retailer as an active and influential agent in the consumption of modern design in America.

Morning Sessions
10:30–11:30 a.m.

Learning in Community and Why It Matters: Free Black Charlestonians in Debate, 1847–1858
Angela G. Ray, Associate Professor, School of Communication

Angela Ray presents her research that analyzes the educational goals and activities of a group of young, free Black men in Charleston, South Carolina, who organized and ran a debating society in the tumultuous decade prior to the Civil War. She invites attendees to consider the impact of such learning across time, as she shares stories of the lives of several of the debaters who became politicians, ministers, educators, and artisans. Drawing on rich and previously understudied archival resources, Ray illuminates the potential for us to find inspiration from the past as we craft our present and future.

The Murky Ethics of Good Intentions: Unintended Consequences and a Path for Doing Good Better
Noelle Sullivan, Program Director and Professor of Instruction, Global Health Studies, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences

In today’s complex world, many people engage in activities to help others who are vulnerable at home and abroad. While our intentions are often laudable, some common things we think of as “good works” actually have unintended—and even wasteful or harmful—consequences. This lecture will provide specific cases of help-gone-awry, digging into problematic ideas we carry about helping and how these often create dilemmas for those we aim to serve. It will also provide attendees with principles that can help channel their desires to make a difference into actions that can catalyze change.

Communicating Complicated Science with Public Audiences
Patti Wolter ’89, ’90 MS, Helen Gurley Brown Magazine Professor, Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications

Patti Wolter has decades of experience in translating science to magazine audiences and teaching journalists how science works. Since 2015, she has been flipping that narrative and teaching scientists how journalism works. Now, her one-of-a-kind Medill certificate for STEM PhD students aims to increase the public’s understanding of science by influencing how scientists and journalists communicate the fun, quirky, life-saving, and foundational ways research leads to technical, medical, and social progress. In a partnership between Medill and The Graduate School, the program gives students tools to engage with the public and increase general understanding of scientific issues.

Afternoon Sessions
12:30–1:30 p.m.

Game-Changing GLP-1 Obesity Medications: Exciting Breakthroughs but Challenges Remain
Robert F. Kushner ’82 GME, Professor Emeritus, Feinberg School of Medicine

GLP-1 weight-loss medications, such as Wegovy and Ozempic, have experienced blockbuster success since their entry into the market in the past five years, changing the lives of millions of people living with obesity. What is the science behind GLP-1 drugs, and what are the challenges they present? This presentation offers a rare opportunity to hear from one of the world’s foremost authorities on metabolic health, Robert Kushner, who will review the hype behind these transformative drugs, from their discovery to current and future applications.

Making Sense of the News: Media Literacy in an Age of Misinformation
Michael Spikes ’23 PhD, Lecturer and Director of Teach for Chicago Journalism Program, Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications

Our media ecosystem is increasingly messy, with a mix of professionally produced and user-generated content that often runs together on platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok. The rise of artificial intelligence has added another layer of complexity, making it easier for misleading or fabricated material to appear credible. In this session, Michael Spikes explores how this creates a blurring of the lines between types of content, making it harder to know what to trust. Learn practical skills for assessing the credibility of information from different outlets and strategies for building a set of reliable sources you can return to.

Creative Destruction: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of the Labor Market
Mark Witte ’87 MA, ’97 PhD, Professor of Instruction; Director of Undergraduate Studies in Economics, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences

Will artificial intelligence make workers more productive and thus more valuable? Or will many Americans find that their work experience and skills have been undercut by new technologies? Historically, as technology has brought “creative destruction” to fields of employment, we have found new tasks to employ the labor force. But, as the saying goes, past performance does not guarantee future results. Perhaps emerging technologies will break that trend. Mark Witte shares economic insights, including from the work of Northwestern professor Joel Mokyr and alumnus Peter Howitt ’73 PhD, both winners of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences.

Late Afternoon Sessions
1:45–2:45 p.m.

From Framingham to MASALA: Rethinking Heart Disease Risk in a Changing America
Namratha Kandula, Professor of Medicine and Preventive Medicine, Feinberg School of Medicine

Description: Since 1948, the Framingham Heart Study shaped our understanding of heart disease risk. But today’s America is different from the one that defined that classic research. Drawing on findings from the MASALA (Mediators of Atherosclerosis in South Asians Living in America) study and related work with diverse and immigrant populations, Namratha Kandula shares insights into how culture, migration, biology, and environment interact to shape cardiovascular risk in ways earlier studies never captured. Attendees will learn how expanding who we study reshapes cardiovascular risk models, uncovers hidden drivers, and leads to a deeper understanding of heart disease for all Americans.

Demystifying Artificial Intelligence: Foundations, Infrastructure, and the Future of Learning
Samir Khuller, Peter and Adrienne Barris Chair of Computer Science, Professor of Computer Science, McCormick School of Engineering
Sara Sood ’05 MS, ’07 PhD, Professor of Instruction, Chookaszian Family Teaching Professor, Associate Chair for Undergraduate Education in Computer Science, McCormick School of Engineering

This session demystifies artificial intelligence (AI), explaining the building blocks of generative AI, providing an overview of data centers’ massive use of energy, and exploring AI’s future. Samir Khuller and Sara Sood will also review challenges to learning and teaching in the AI-enabled world, such as when systems like Einstein not only do students’ homework for them, but even log into online portals, consume course materials, and upload their completed work. They will also discuss Northwestern’s undergraduate and graduate programs designed to enable students to lead in the future of AI.

Session Presented by Lilah Shapiro, Assistant Professor of Instruction, School of Education and Social Policy

This session description is coming soon.

Closing Keynote
3–4 p.m.

An Odyssey of Music Images: The Art of Ron Hays
Presented by: Jacob Smith, Professor and Interim Department Chair of Radio/Television/Film, School of Communication

McCormick Auditorium, First Floor

Ron Hays ’67 went from being production manager for the Waa-Mu Show to become a multimedia producer of a unique type of visual music he called “music image.”

After the psychedelic lightshows of the ’60s and before MTV music videos in the ’80s, Hays created his own style of visual music that was a feast for the eyes and ears. From his pioneering work with video synthesizers and his pathbreaking 1979 visual album, Odyssey, to his role in orchestrating massive outdoor musical spectacles, Hays was an innovator who explored novel cultural niches for visual music.

School of Communication professor Jacob Smith provides an overview of Hays’s remarkable career with audiovisual examples from his productions, including experiments with the visual synthesizer, excerpts from his stunningly beautiful visual album, sequences from films including Grease, music videos, and outdoor spectacles such as the earliest Star Wars concerts.

Rooms for the morning and afternoon sessions will be added soon.

When

Saturday, April 18, 2026
8:30 a.m.–4 p.m.

Location

Norris University Center
Northwestern University
1999 Campus Drive
Evanston
Map

Schedule

Pricing

Parking

Campus parking restrictions are waived on Saturday. Free parking is available in the South Campus Parking Garage, located at 1847 Campus Drive, or the adjacent Lakeside Parking Structure.

Accessibility

Handicapped parking spaces are located in the Locy Hall parking lot, located at 1850 Campus Drive across from the South Campus Parking Garage. Guests can also be dropped off on Arts Circle Drive and enter Norris using the accessible south ground entrance.