Princeton Alumni Weekly Podcasts

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.

As a son of Freddy Fox ’39, one of Princeton’s most enthusiastic ambassadors, Donald Fox grew up with a reunion tent in his backyard. The younger Fox reflects on his father’s love of Princeton — and his path in the 25 years between graduation and his eventual return to work on campus as the University’s recording secretary and later the “keeper of Princetoniana.”

It took Jacob Sager Weinstein ’94 about a decade to sell his first book for young readers, Hyacinth and the Secrets Beneath (Random House), a fantasy and adventure story about an American girl navigating the magical underground rivers of London. With the second book in the trilogy, Hyacinth and the Stone Thief, coming out this month, we spoke with Weinstein about his persistence in creating the Hyacinth series and the challenges and joys of writing for children — as it turns out, 10-year-olds might have been his natural audience all along. Sager Weinstein also explains how he handles writer’s block and the role that Triangle Club and Quipfire! played in teaching him how to write with a specific audience in mind.

Mike Murburg ’77 was 17 when he arrived at Princeton, “naïve and full of testosterone,” but he worked his way through a challenging schedule as a student-athlete, which prepared him for an atypical path after college.

For Wallace Good ’72, leading the Outing Club — and trying to keep its VW Bus on the road — was a bit of a headache. But through trips with the group, he fell in love with Vermont, the place he’d eventually call home. (Season 4, Episode 11)

On the surface, Kieran Setiya *02 had nothing to complain about. He had earned tenure as a philosophy professor; he’d published books and journal articles; he enjoyed teaching. But something was missing. “However worthwhile it seemed to teach another class or write another essay, I suddenly was aware, in a way I hadn’t been, of all the things in my life I wasn’t going to do,” Setiya says. He was having a midlife crisis, and he worked through it by talking with friends and digging into philosophical texts. In a new book, Midlife: A Philosophical Guide, Setiya shares what he learned. He spoke with PAW about some of the key takeaways — and the things he still struggles with.

Doctor and health administrator Alicia Brooks Christy ’77 talks about her path through Princeton and remembers her mother, who completed college as a nontraditional undergrad and supported her daughter in college and medical school. “She always believed in me,” Christy says, “which helped me to believe in myself.” (Season 4, Episode 10)

Scott McVay ’55 has written a memoir, Surprise Encounters, featuring vignettes drawn from decades working at universities and foundations and in the sciences. In a recent oral-history interview, he shared stories about his many ties to Princeton, and in the excerpts here, he speaks about a pair of notable Princetonians: former president Robert Goheen ’40 *48 and former provost Neil Rudenstine ’56. (Season 4, Episode 9)

Sebastian Abbot ’98 first heard about Football Dreams, an ambitious Qatari-backed talent search that aimed to identify promising soccer prospects in Africa, when he was an Associated Press correspondent in Cairo. He returned to the subject a few years later, digging deeper into the story by profiling three of the program’s prominent players for a new book, The Away Game: The Epic Search for Soccer’s Next Superstars. The book is Abbot’s first, and writing it was tremendously rewarding, he says. “If you have an idea that you feel passionate enough about and that you sort of can’t stand the idea of a book not being written about that subject, then I would dive in — but do it with eyes wide open,” he says. “It’ll be harder than anything you’ve ever done.”

Aida Pacheco '77 came to Princeton from a predominantly black and Latino high school in nearby Trenton, where teachers said she wasn't cut out for the Ivy League. Her early experiences on campus reinforced that fear. But when Pacheco was on the verge of dropping out, a supportive friend changed her mind. (Season 4, Episode 8)