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Ricky Quinones Has A Grammy, And Yet Still Approaches Music With Humility
Ricky Quinones has spent his life exploring and expressing music across genres, geographies, and stages, from Amherst to New York, including Broadway, and Grammy-winning collaborations. Ricky opens up about his musical evolution, the artists who shaped him, and why the blues remains the emotional and structural foundation of everything he… Listen ⇢
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Sonia Nagorski Reads Earth’s Past To Help Predict And Improve Its Future
As a very amateur geologist, I’ve been looking forward to catching up with Sonia Nagorski ever since my podcast project started. That’s because she’s a geologist whose work focuses on understanding Earth’s history and what it can tell us about the world we humans are shaping today. Perhaps not surprisingly,… Listen ⇢
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Mike Gold Makes The Case For Big Swings That Lead To Practical Good
Mike Gold has built a life defined by range. He ran an art gallery in New York. He scaled an animation studio to nearly 200 artists. He has built backend systems for massively multiplayer online games, collaborated with DARPA on next-generation engineering tools, and even mined gold on a beach… Listen ⇢
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Asim Ahmed Reflects On Caregiving, Infectious Disease Sleuthing, And The Soundtrack Of His Life
Asim Ahmed has three passions: the detection and workings of infectious diseases, sports (especially his hometown St. Louis teams), and music, and in this wide-ranging conversation, he shows how each one has shaped his life. We talk about his one-of-a-kind custom jerseys (clever mashups of teams, players, and music references),… Listen ⇢
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Mariela Rexach Learned To Stop Following The Script
Mariela Rexach’s life reflects a combination of steadiness, self-knowledge, and humble assertiveness. From Amherst to Penn Law and back home to Puerto Rico, Mariela has raised a family and built a nearly three-decade career at the same women-owned labor and employment law firm. She shares the thinking that has helped… Listen ⇢
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Kensei Nishikawa Champions The Humanities In A Divided World
Kensei Nishikawa arrived at Amherst as a transfer student from Japan already holding a degree from the University of Tokyo, carrying with him two languages, two cultures, and a deep love of literature. What he didn’t yet know was how profoundly Amherst would shape not just how he reads and… Listen ⇢
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Parke Lutter And The Art of Becoming Who You Already Were
Amherst isn’t known for launching fashion designers and entrepreneurs, but that’s just one of the reasons why this conversation with Parke Lutter was so much fun. This talent has been building inside of him since his childhood in the Midwest, where he made clothes for one of us stuffed animals,… Listen ⇢
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Deb Thalheimer Long Listens Her Way to a Life of Meaning
Deb Thalheimer Long’s career and life since graduating with me from Amherst College have been marked by subtle yet profound transformations. From Wall Street to academia, from the Baltimore public schools to the hospital floor, Deb has navigated big career pivots with intentionality. Now a nurse specializing in wound care… Listen ⇢
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Matt Sawyer Has Found His Forever Team
Matt Sawyer has built a career rooted in one place: the Williston Northampton School in Easthampton, Mass., where he’s taught English, coached baseball and football, and served as ninth-grade dean for more than three decades. In a world that celebrates mobility and reinvention, Matt’s story is one of steadfastness and… Listen ⇢
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