North by Northwestern

Features

  • Evanston small-business owner offers her generosity to the community

    Surrounded by handcrafted gifts and ornate trinkets, 46-year-old small business owner Jaime Leonardi stands behind the register with a warm smile and comforting presence. This is how Leonardi greets customers when they walk into her Evanston store Stumble & Relish, a name celebrating how sometimes the items you relish most are the ones you happen…

  • Sense, track, understand: Northwestern Professor Karan Ahuja and the SPICE Lab

    Professor Karan Ahuja is a man of many dimensions. He’s a Lisa Wissner-Slivka & Benjamin Slivka Assistant Professor in Computer Science and a member of Forbes 30 under 30. He also has a section on his personal website dedicated to “Fun Projects”–origami, glass-blowing and laser-cuts, to name a few. Ahuja grew up in New Delhi,…

  • The most magical club on campus

    Before he submitted his college applications, McCormick third-year and current club co-president Charlie Kalousek knew he wanted to join Northwestern’s Theme Park Engineering and Design Group (TPED). “My (Northwestern) tour guide was the founder of TPED, and he was telling us all about this cool club for roller coasters,” Kalousek says. “I ended up writing…

  • Northwestern’s Block Cinema is a hidden film gem

    Tucked inside the Block Museum of Art right by Norris Student Center and Lake Michigan is the Block Cinema. The theater shows a wide variety of programs open to the public and functions as an educational resource for undergraduate and graduate students. The auditorium seats up to 150 people and screens everything from modern experimental…

  • Furry companions help students alleviate anxiety

    A growing number of students are turning to animals to lessen their anxiety. They say that despite the cost, time commitment and arguments with their landlords and roommates, the company of a furry friend tends to be worth the effort. Every time her rabbit does a backflip through Kim Sloan’s living room, her anxiety eases….

  • Breast cancer survivor rows through her recovery

    On the South Side, Leanna Blanchard rows in the seventh seat of a white boat on the Chicago River. Her black oar is painted with the blue letters “ROW,” the “O” replaced by a graphic of a water ripple and an oar. This logo represents Recovery on Water (ROW), a Chicago crew team of breast…

  • When your best friend looks just like you

    Growing up, my identical twin sister Amanda and I were rarely called by our names. “Earl girls” was an easier choice, thanks to our conveniently rhyming last name. My twin great aunts, Patience Rosenbaum and Penelope Pestronk, recall their family calling them “Twin.” And my family friends Ellen Levy and her identical twin were “Ms….

  • Arya Prachand’s journey to becoming an emergency responder

    Arya Prachand sat with a 6-year-old boy who had nearly overdosed on drugs, monitoring his vitals as the ambulance raced from an emergency medical center to a hospital. The Weinberg first-year was responding to the last call of her 13-hour shift as an Emergency Medical Technician trainee, and it was her highest-stakes response yet. Prachand…

  • VentureCat builds future entrepreneurs in competition for $100,000

    Two years ago, Kevin Kaspar, then a second-year McCormick student, anxiously awaited the announcement of the winner of the 2022 VentureCat competition, a Northwestern program in which student-run start-up companies vie for a $100,000 grand prize. The program, which was first held in 2014, has helped several current and past Northwestern students build successful businesses….

  • Getting down in the details with Dirty Work

    When bass player and McCormick second-year Timofei Asinski got a call on April 15 from good friend and Bienen second-year Jack Pasacreta, he did not hesitate to answer. Pasacreta’s ask threw Asinski for a loop. “I said, ‘Hey Tim, is there any way you could have a band ready for me by Friday?’ knowing that…

  • Meet SaShay Butler: The fearless student advocate

    SaShay Butler dashed from room to room looking for water bottles, blankets and portable chargers in the Student Enrichment Services office the morning of April 25, day one of the five-day pro-Palestine occupation at Deering Meadow. The SES doors were locked to prevent outsiders from entering.   As assistant director of SES, Butler normally spends…