Class of 1970 45th Reunion RED Talk Bios

Naturally, our Legendary Class of 1970 had no shortage of fascinating, accomplished classmates from whom to draw amazing 45th Reunion speakers. On Friday, June 5th 10:00-11:30AM. in Goldwin Smith - HEC on the Art Quad.

Research

Entertainment

Design

Bob Langer

Ed Zuckerman

Phyllis Corcoran Woods

Bob in 140 characters, Twitter-style

From playing with a Gilbert chemistry set to producing a dizzying number of technologies to save lives, Bob's awards say "generous genius"

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Ed in 140 characters, Twitter-style

Ed's dazzled our eyes with words in Rolling Stone + NY Times and tingled our senses with Star Trek + Law & Order. Got him an Emmy + Peabody

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Phyllis in 140 characters, Twitter-style

For decades spanning Star Trek to the Mindy Project, Phyllis collaborated with directors + actors, telling stories with evocative costumes.

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About Bob

It may have been what Bob wrote in his Cornell application about his exploits as an 11-year old budding chemist that got him into Engineering, but it was his diligence as a Chemical Engineering student that led from his B.S. to his Sc.D. in chemical engineering from MIT in 1974. Bob then could have joined a Big Oil Company with his credentials, but instead his ambition was to fuel the world with new and innovative products that could improve peoples' lives.

Looking at Bob's numerous accomplishments, it might seem like he sailed into success. Oh no. He may share something about how his first nine research grant applications were rejected. Bob wanted to restrict tumor growth by changing how blood vessels formed and develop controlled-release drug delivery systems for cancer treatment. He persevered. In 1996 the FDA approved his polymer-based treatment for brain cancer in 1996. Following this approval, Bob participated in the founding of multiple technology companies, including Enzytech (which merged with Alkermes), Momenta Pharmaceuticals, T2 Biosystems, and Moderna Therapeutics.

Bob has received over 220 major awards. He recently won two more noteworthy awards – one from across the pond – the 2015 Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering and one in Ithaca – the 2015 Cornell Entrepreneur of the Year. Bob is one of 7 individuals to have received both the United States National Medal of Science (2006) and the United States National Medal of Technology and Innovation (2011). He also received the 2002 Charles Stark Draper Prize, considered the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for engineers, the 2008 Millennium Prize, the world's largest technology prize, and the 2012 Priestley Medal, the highest award of the American Chemical Society. He is also the only engineer to receive the Gairdner Foundation International Award. Stay tuned: 82 recipients of this award have subsequently received a Nobel Prize.

Bob currently serves as the David H. Koch Institute Professor at MIT. Bob has written over 1,280 articles. He also has nearly 1,050 patents worldwide, licensed or sublicensed to over 250 pharmaceutical, chemical, biotechnology and medical device companies. He is the most cited engineer in history. Bob's not done: his research laboratory at MIT is the largest academic biomedical engineering lab in the world, maintaining over $15 million in annual grants and over 100 researchers. 200 of his former students and postdocs lead their own companies and research labs across the globe.

About Ed

Ed reports that growing up in Detroit was boring as compared with the explosive Cornell campus of 1966-1970. In a 2006 interview by The Sun, Ed shared, "I eventually realized, of course, that my remarkable experiences had less to do with the difference between high school and college than with the difference between the years 1966-1970 and the years that preceded them." Thanks Ed, for once again capturing in words what we in the Class of 1970 lived, together.

After leaving The Hill with an A.B. in English from Arts & Sciences and The Cornell Daily Sun's Editor-in-Chief and Managing Editor on his resume, he became a hack journalism professor (his words) at HACC the Harrisburg Area Community College. The newspaper Ed then founded supported the defendants in the federal conspiracy trial of the "Harrisburg Seven", which included our Fr. Daniel Berrigan's brother, Philip. (Early interest in conspiracies? That is, writing about them.)

Next: Ed got paid to do his "Europe on Two Dollars a Day" as a tour guide in Europe and North America. He then traveled, figuratively, all the way through his young adulthood into "early middle age" as a freelance journalist for The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, Spy, Harper's, The New Yorker, and other magazines. Now you've got to love this: he "fell into" writing for television. We hope he expands on how that happened when he has mic in hand. He also found time to publish two nonfiction books, The Day After World War III and Small Fortunes.

Ed's TV credits include "Law & Order" (for which he wrote or co-wrote more than 50 episodes), "JAG," "Miami Vice," "The Agency," and "Star Trek: The Next Generation." He's been a "showrunner" of "Law & Order: Criminal Intent," "The Whole Truth," "Killer Women," "Blue Bloods," and "Century City," which he created. (You can Google to find that he's considered one of the best showrunners in the biz.) For HBO, he wrote "Path to Paradise," a docudrama of the first World Trade Center bombing.

About Phyllis

Phyllis' life story reaches from upstate New York to Hollywood. Her love of storytelling and design has roots from her parents, both professors at SUNY Brockport on the Erie Canal - her father in art history and her mother in special education. We know Phyllis today as the accomplished motion picture and television costumer, who has applied her extraordinary design and research skills for decades as a costume supervisor and key costumer on scores of memorable projects ranging from E.T. the Extraterrestrial, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (all sever seasons), Transformers, to The Mindy Project.

Phyllis' B.S. degree in Textiles and Clothing from the College of Human Ecology was a classic background for the retail industry in New York, where she'd spent a junior semester at FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology) learning techniques such as pattern making and draping from people in the industry. It was her work with costumes at the Cornell theater department, together with her spirit of adventure that transported her away from the New York apparel industry to the dynamic 1970's regional theater scene at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, where she "found her people" and life's work as a costumer. Phyllis treasures her professional experience in theater as a great place to learn a discipline and participate in all aspects of putting on a production.

After designing for the inaugural season at the Denver Center 1980, Phyllis and family moved to Los Angeles. Phyllis entered the film and TV industry, beginning a decades-long arc of collaboration with writers, directors, actors, designers, and production staff in numerous films and TV series. Having to select from the long list is a challenge, but some of the notable films and TV series over the years illuminated by Phyllis' work include: The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, The Naked Gun 2-1/2, The Amanda Show, The Tracy Morgan Show, Reno 911!, and Argo.

Phyllis' successes can be attributed to her skills, knowledge personal characteristics, and network of colleagues who value her attention to detail, persistence and hard work. Costume supervision is a highly collaborative profession, conferring closely with directors such as, the Oscar-winning writer and director early on about how he saw the characters. She engages in intense research, understanding the zeitgeist of a period by examining photos from the period to discern why a person carries that purse and a myriad of the other nuances of the day. The actor also comes to her with a perception of the character; costumes help the actor create the character. With Phyllis helping the actors put on their clothes (literally), they become the character. Phyllis continues to build the "closets" of Hollywood that engage our sense and imaginations.

the Cornell Class of 1970 site

Class of 1970 45th Reunion RED Talk Bios