She Roars

As deputy director of science and technology for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Patricia Falcone ’74 has been at the forefront of women in science since becoming one of the first female engineering majors at Princeton. She now oversees the strategic development of Livermore’s scientific capabilities and is responsible for its collaborative research with academia and the private sector. Pat joined Livermore after serving in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy where she advised on a wide range of national security, science and technology issues. Along the way, she’s had experiences both weird and wonderful.

Laura Trevelyan, host of BBC World News America and Princeton parent, has a rare perspective on the United States’ role in the world. She covered her first U.S. presidential election campaign in 2004 and began focusing on the United Nations in 2006. It all became personal in 2016 when the British-born journalist was sworn in as a new American citizen — one day after now President Trump won the White House. Laura’s American roots run deep, however. She is also the great, great, great granddaughter of Oliver Winchester, the man responsible for America’s most famous firearm. 

Asha Rangappa, Class of 1996, is an expert on counterintelligence investigations and the law behind them.  A former special agent for the FBI and associate dean at Yale Law School, Asha is now a senior lecturer at Yale’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs — as well as a legal and national security analyst for CNN. In this episode, Asha discusses Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and her risk-taking approach to career planning.

Journalist Indira Lakshmanan was a special guest on campus. She visited Princeton to give the third annual Distinguished Teaching Lecture in Service and Civic Engagement. Indira has reported from 80 countries over the years. She has covered coups, campaigns and revolutions working for the Boston Globe, Bloomberg News, the International New York Times, and many others. She held a chair in journalism ethics at the Poynter Institute until just a few months ago when she became executive editor of the Pulitzer Center. In this episode, Indira talks about journalism as a public service and the importance of holding the government accountable. 

Frances Arnold, Class of 1979, knew a good thing when she saw it in her laboratory some 25 years ago – and the results were game changing. Defying the prevailing wisdom, Frances innovated a completely new way to engineer enzymes that is now pushing the boundaries of green chemistry, biofuel production and more sustainable industrial processes. And there’s much more to come. Researchers are just scratching the surface of where her methods can lead. In this episode of “She Roars,” Nobel Laureate Frances Arnold reflects on her science, her worldview…and how life steps including Russian literature, wanderlust and taxi driving were indispensable.

Helen Zia ’73 is an award-winning journalist, activist and scholar who has covered Asian American communities and social and political movements for decades. She has been outspoken on issues ranging from civil rights and peace to women’s rights and countering hate violence and homophobia. She is the former Executive Editor of Ms. Magazine and author of Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People and. She was named one of the most influential Asian Americans of the decade by A. Magazine.

Jennifer Epstein ’08 is on the frontlines of national politics as one of the younger members of the national press corp. Currently White House Correspondent for Bloomberg News, she began covering the Obama administration just four years out of Princeton and spent her 26th birthday aboard Air Force One. Six years on, she’s a veteran with trench-level views of her industry’s near total transformation. Jen discusses questions of journalistic impartiality, digital disruptions to the business model, and whether journalism is still a good career for ambitious graduates. Oh, and she has a bead on Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, too.

Princeton Emeritus Professor Nancy Weiss Malkiel discusses the pivotal few years around 1969 when a handful of elite, all-male universities in the U.S. and the U.K. suddenly took steps to admit women. Princeton was at the forefront — and Nancy was an eyewitness to all that unfolded. A historian, Nancy joined the Princeton faculty in 1969 as one of only three women in the professorial ranks. The road from there wasn’t always smooth — and Nancy sees milestones yet to be reached — but five decades later, she can claim to have taught, among many other accomplished students, two Princeton women (and one man) who now sit on the Supreme Court of the United States. To read more, check out Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux’s interview with Nancy, in the Princeton Alumni Weekly, including an excerpt from the newly published ‘“Keep the Damned Women Out’: The Struggle for Coeducation.”