People who aren’t lawyers are interesting too! Here’s some of the work I’ve done on science, insurance, Jewish, urban planning, finance, health and wellness, ballot initiatives and alumni magazine topics.<\/p>\n
\u201cFaculty push back on how colleges are planning for the fall<\/a>,\u201d July 2020, Education Dive \u201cAs colleges’ coronavirus costs rise, insurance coverage still unclear<\/a>,\u201d April 2020, Education Dive \u201cFor colleges, insurance against sexual misconduct is becoming harder to get<\/a>,\u201d April 2020, Education Dive \u201cRestitution and Resources Remain Available for Holocaust Survivors as They Age<\/a>,\u201d February 2020, Jewish Home LA \u201cNew rules limit states’ oversight of online colleges. How will they react?<\/a>,\u201d January 2020, Education Dive \u201cHow Artificial Intelligence Is Getting Us Closer to Star Trek\u2019s Universal Translators<\/a>,\u201d November 2019, StarTrek.com \u201cWith a Grain of Salt<\/a>,\u201d August 2013, Planning magazine \u201cInformative Choice\u201d and \u201cForbes’ Field<\/a>,\u201d July 2013, Carnegie Mellon Today \u201cTeeny Tiny<\/a>,\u201d April 2013, Carnegie Mellon Today \u201cOptimized<\/a>,\u201d April 2013, Carnegie Mellon Today \u201cSecurity Force<\/a>,\u201d January 2013, Carnegie Mellon Today \u201cSocially Acceptable<\/a>,\u201d January 2013, Carnegie Mellon Today \u201cEarly Returns<\/a>,\u201d January 2013, Carnegie Mellon Today \u201cDefensive<\/a>,\u201d July 2012, Carnegie Mellon Today \u201cNo Place Like Home<\/a>,\u201d July 2012, Carnegie Mellon Today \u201cOpen House<\/a>,\u201d April 2012, Carnegie Mellon Today \u201c30 Seconds With Prem Ramaswami<\/a>,\u201d April 2012, Carnegie Mellon Today \u201cRestoring the ‘Water Freeway<\/a>,’\u201c January 2012, Planning magazine \u201cTweetable<\/a>,\u201d January 2012, Carnegie Mellon Today \u201cNada Brahma (Sound of God)<\/a>,\u201d May 2011, Whole Life Times \u201cHelp for the Winter Blahs<\/a>,\u201d January 2011, Whole Life Times \u201cStop a Cold Before It Stops You<\/a>,\u201d February 2010, Whole Life Times \u201cGroup Hopes Gaucher Becomes Household Name<\/a>,\u201d November 2006, The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles
\nI set out to write an article about faculty concerns about getting the novel coronavirus from in-person classes during the fall semester, and I ended up following where my sources took me into a story about shared governance between faculty and administration. As this article explains, the pandemic merely exacerbated this trend.<\/p>\n
\nIn this piece for Industry Dive’s Education Dive higher ed vertical, I talk to insurance professionals about the skyrocketing costs to higher ed institutions of dealing with coronavirus, what kinds of questions they’re asking their insurers about risk and the long, uncertain timeline for figuring out what coverage is available.<\/p>\n
\nA variety of factors\u2014most notably, growing disapproval of sexual misconduct and juries’ willingness to express that disapproval with large verdicts\u2014has created a tough market for colleges and universities seeking insurance to cover sexual misconduct. In this Industry Dive piece for Education Dive’s higher ed vertical, I talk to some insurance professionals about what’s going on, why and what schools can do about it.<\/p>\n
\nDespite the decades since the Holocaust, its survivors are still around, and there are more resources available for them than ever. In this piece for local Jewish publication Jewish Home LA, I talk to (mostly) Bet Tzedek Legal Services, one of the two organizations in the U.S. that help survivors make restitution, about what resources are available for survivors as they age and how they can get access to those resources.<\/p>\n
\nOn November 1, the U.S. Department of Education published a final rule that, among many other things, appears to remove states’ ability to enforce state laws that specifically regulate distance education if they authorize distance education entities through an interstate contract (called a state authorization reciprocity agreement). This article is about how states might be reacting.<\/p>\n
\nOn Star Trek, 24th-century universal translators make it possible for humanity to work with, love and conduct diplomacy with alien races. In the early 21st century, things are a bit less smooth and seamless\u2014but artificial intelligence researchers are working on it. In this article, I explain the fields of AI involved in this work and how close we are to usable everyday machine translation.<\/p>\n
\nSan Diego County’s Water Authority is making a big bet on desalination of ocean water using reverse osmosis technology. Though RO desalination technology is proven, it’s pricey compared to conventional water. This article for the American Planning Association’s member magazine explains why the Authority believes it’s worthwhile, going into finances, availability constraints and the water rights issues that plague the western United States.<\/p>\n
\nTwo briefs for Carnegie Mellon’s alumni magazine. The first concerns an award for the CIO of Alcoa, an alum; the second is about Carnegie Mellon graduates named to the Forbes magazine 30 Under 30, focusing on a \u201csocial entrepreneur\u201d trying to bring affordable electricity to Haiti.<\/p>\n
\nA longer alumni magazine article on a group of grad students in mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, who took first place in a nanodevice design competition at Sandia National Laboratories.<\/p>\n
\nA brief for my alumni magazine on an award for a professor at Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business.<\/p>\n
\nAn alumni magazine brief about a new role for national security expert and Carnegie Mellon professor Kiron Skinner: national security policy advisor to the university.<\/p>\n
\nA short piece about an honor for a Carnegie Mellon University researcher working on solving the intractable problem of antibiotic resistance.<\/p>\n
\nA short alumni magazine article about awards to young Carnegie Mellon faculty and graduates.<\/p>\n
\nThis very short alumni magazine piece is about an award to Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley assistant professor Patrick Tague, who researches real-time defenses against attacks on wireless networks.<\/p>\n
\nCarnegie Mellon Heinz school alum Paul Tremer was recognized as Homeland Security Information Systems Security Officer of the Year.<\/p>\n
\nIn this piece for my alumni magazine, I checked in with Ari Sklar, an architect putting the finishing touches on a Miami Beach house so \u201cgreen\u201d that it’s expected to have \u201cnet zero\u201d energy — it draws nothing from the grid and will likely sell a small amount of energy to the local utility.<\/p>\n
\nPrem Ramaswami, building on a history of using technology in activism, tells us how and why he helped launch Google’s Crisis Response team after the devastating Haitian earthquake of 2010.<\/p>\n
\nThis article for the American Planning Association’s member magazine explains and explores the Los Angeles River Revitalization Master Plan from the City of Los Angeles. It’s safe to say that the river has suffered from bad human decisions, but the city has an ambitious plan to make it a recreation destination and an economic engine instead of a forgettable concrete channel.<\/p>\n
\nFor my alumni magazine, I had the privilege of interviewing a bright, dynamic young woman from Morocco who came to Carnegie Mellon’s Silicon Valley campus as part of an exchange program run by the U.S. State Department. There, she researched Twitter’s usefulness during the San Bruno PG&E gas explosion of 2010.<\/p>\n
\nThis article is about nada yoga — the yoga of sound. It’s less familiar to most Westerners than more physical forms of yoga, but sound can help some people connect better with their spiritual sides, and is reputed to help with healing.<\/p>\n
\nFor this piece, I enjoyed rummaging through multiple published studies, looking for scientific evidence for the effectiveness of herbal remedies for anxiety and depression. Some of them might surprise you!<\/p>\n
\nA service piece on natural ways to fight off or treat a winter cold, using things you probably already have in your kitchen. I was pleased to have the expert advice of a doctor and herbal medicine specialist from UCLA, as well as numerous academic studies, to draw on for this.<\/p>\n
\nA news piece about one man’s attempt to raise awareness in the Jewish community about a rare but devastating disease that strikes Jews of East European descent disproportionately.<\/p>\n