AVENUE OF GIANTS!

Distinguished Alumni Avenue of Giants 2010 Nomination Form

Three Distinguished Redwood Alumni will be part of the 2010 Avenue of Giants inductees. This annual recognition was initiated in 2009 as part of Redwood’s 50th Anniversary Celebration. This year’s honorees represent the complex world of math, the outer reaches of the cosmos and the efforts to protect our environment.

This recognition honors graduates of Redwood High School who have made a significant contribution to society or achieved substantial professional success. The candidate must be of such exemplary character and achievement as to be worthy of emulation by current Redwood students. The candidate must have graduated at least fifteen years prior to being nominated.

Nonimations will be accepted from alumni and current and retired staff throughout the year. An Alumni Association Committee will make the selections in early Spring, coordinate ways to bring the inductees to the school to interact with the students and classes, and provide recognition banquet in their honor.  

2010 Redwood High School Distinguished Alumni Avenue of Giants

GUNNAR CARLSSON (1969) received his Ph.D. in Mathematics at Stanford in 1976.  He then taught and did research at University of Chicago, University of California (San Diego), and Princeton University before returning to the Stanford Mathematics Department in 1991.  He has published over 85 papers mainly in algebraic topology within pure mathematics. During the last ten years he has been adapting topological methods to help understand data arising in scientific and engineering problems. B.A., Mathematics, Harvard University. Ph.D, Mathematics, Stanford.

STEVEN J. MCCORMICK  (1969) a lifelong environmentalist, is now president of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, a private entity committed to environmental conservation and scientific research. McCormick was president and CEO of The Nature Conservancy from 2001-2007. Earlier as Western Regional Legal Counsel for TNC, he created Conservation by Design, the strategic framework that now guides all of TNC’s work  in 29 countries. McCormick has also served on the U.C. Berkeley College of Natural Resources Advisory Board and the Advisory Board of the Harvard Business School Social Enterprise initiative. B.S., Agricultural Economics, University of California, Berkeley. J.D., University of California Hastings College of Law. 

NICHOLAS B. SUNTZEFF (1970) holds the Mitchell/Heep/Munnerlyn Chair in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Texas A&M University. He is also Deputy Director for the Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy.  He is an internationally recognized observational cosmologist and led groups which discovered Dark Energy and measured the most precise expansion of the Universe to date. Dark Energy was predicted by Einstein in 1917, and comprises 70% of the mass/energy of the Universe. [Prior to A&M he was Associate Director of Science for the US National Optical Observatories and lived in La Serena Chile for 20 years.  He As Vice President of the American Astronomical Society he serves a subcommittee that oversees all NASA astrophysics projects including the Hubble Space Telescope.] His High-Z Supernova Team was awarded the Gruber Cosmology prize, considered the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in cosmology. BS with distinction in mathematics, Stanford University. Ph.D Astronomy and Astrophysics University of California, Santa Cruz.

Redwood High School's 2009 Inaugural Class of Distinguished Alumni

STEVE FAINARU (1980), a Washington Post correspondent, won the Pulitzer Prize for International reporting in 2008 for his stories on how private security contractors in Iraq operate outside the law. He was also a finalist for this award in 2006. His book, Big Boy Rules, on this same topic was published this spring. He has worked for the Post since 2000, where he also worked as an investigative reporter on topics ranging from civil liberties to sports. He worked for the Boston Globe for 11 years and is co-author of The Duke of Havana: Baseball, Cuba and the Search for the American Dream. B.A., University of Missouri, M.A., Columbia University.

DON FRANCIS, M.D., D.Sc (1960) has provided leadership in the discovery and control of HIV, the eradication of smallpox, and the control of Ebola hemorrhagic fever. He initially directed the AIDS laboratory at the Center for Disease Control, and his early warnings about AIDS were chronicled in Randy Shilts And the Band Played On about the beginnings of the AIDS epidemic. In 2004, he co-founded Global Solutions for Infectious Diseases (GSID) and serves as Executive Director and principal investigator for their dengue fever program. He attended College of Marin and the University of California, Berkeley, received his M. D. at Northwestern University and his Doctor of Science in Virology at Harvard University.

THE HONORABLE GAVIN NEWSOM (1985) is the youngest San Francisco mayor in more than 100 years.  His decision to grant marriage licenses to same sex couples gained worldwide attention for the issue.  He initiated the plan to bring universal health care to all of the city’s uninsured residents.  He has established other programs ranging from harnessing local solutions to global climate change to easing the problems of the homeless.  He is a likely candidate for governor in the next election.  He is a founder of PlumpJack, an enterprise of wineries, restaurants and hotels. B.A., Santa Clara University.

MARTHA OLNEY, PhD (1974) an Adjunct Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, was a recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award in 2003 at Cal and was awarded the Distinguished Teaching Award from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in 1991 along with numerous other teaching awards.  She also presents workshops on teaching to the Berkeley faculty & graduate students and teaches economics to high school teachers in summer professional development programs.  She was a co–author of Essentials of Economics with Paul Krugman, the 2008 Nobel Prize winner in economics, and has published many other economics texts.  B.S., University of Redlands (magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa); PhD, University of California, Berkeley.

AMBASSADOR DENNIS ROSS (1966) was appointed in February 2009 to be Special Advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Gulf matters. Previously, he served as the lead negotiator on the Arab-Israeli conflict in the administrations of George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. He was awarded a Presidential Medal by President Clinton and has received the State Department’s highest award twice. Ross is the author of The Missing Peace, in which he detailed his work to forge accords in the Middle East. His book entitled, Statecraft and How to Restore America’s Standing in the World, was termed “important and illuminating” by the New York Times. His latest book, Myths, Illusions and Peace, will be published in June. BA: University of California, Los Angeles; PhD, University of California, Los Angeles.

ERIC SCHMITT (1978) currently reports on terrorism issues for the New York Times, where in 1999 he was part of a Pulitzer Prize team of reporters who investigated how China was able to obtain sensitive U. S. military technology. Since joining the Times staff in 1983, Mr. Schmitt has reported from Congress, the Pentagon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Haiti and Somalia and covered the 1991 Persian Gulf War. He was one of the main reporters assigned to the impeachment proceeding against President Bill Clinton. He served as assistant to senior columnist James Reston when he first came to the Times. He attended Harvard University's program on National and International Security in 1991, and was awarded a Knight Journalism Fellowship to Stanford University in 2006-07. B.A., Williams College.

DINA TEMPLE-RASTON (1982) is a correspondent for National Public Radio, where she covers counter-terrorism. She was City Hall Bureau Chief for the New York Sun and formerly worked for Bloomberg News in Asia, where she was responsible for opening Bloomberg's Shanghai and Hong Kong offices.She was White House correspondent for Bloomberg News for both terms of the Clinton administration and is the author of four books. Her first, A Death in Texas, was chosen by the Washington Post as one of the best books of 2002. She has also written books on Rwanda and civil liberties in America post-911. Her most recent book, The Jihad Next Door, is about homegrown terrorism in America. She speaks Chinese Arabic, and French.  B.A., Northwestern University; Liaoning University, Shenyang, China; M.A., Columbia University.

JAY WEAVER (1973) has been a legal affairs reporter for the past ten years at the Miami Herald, where he covers the state and federal courts. In 2001, he was part of a Herald team that won the Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of Elian Gonzalez, a six-year-old Cuban at the center of an international custody battle. Weaver and his colleagues detailed the pre-dawn federal raid to seize the boy from his Miami relatives and reunite him with his Cuban father. This year, the Miami Herald nominated Weaver for a Pulitzer Prize for his series showing how South Florida doctors and clinics defrauded the Medicare program of billions of dollars. As a result of his work, judges imposed tougher prison sentences, Congress sought more oversight of Medicare, and claims totaling hundreds of millions of dollars were denied. In March, Weaver's series won first place in the 75th National Headliner Awards for Health, Medical and Science Writing. Earlier, after the 2000 Florida presidential election dispute, Weaver contributed to a Herald staff book, Democracy Held Hostage. Weaver got his start in journalism at the Daily American in Rome, Italy. B.A., University of California, Berkeley.

DONALD KREPS (Redwood High’s Principal 1957-1979) is recognized in this one-time-only non-alumni award for his inspirational leadership which created the foundation for the quality of education at Redwood High School. He was the founding Principal of Redwood, creating the spirit and high expectations for students and staff alike. His qualities of mentorship, high ethical standards and kindness permeated Redwood during his tenure. He allowed staff and students to challenge themselves in creating a positive educational atmosphere. After resigning as Principal in 1979, Mr. Kreps stayed on at Redwood as a Math and Physics teacher before retiring in 1983. Following his retirement, he taught Math and Physics at The Branson School for an additional nine years. B.S., Stanford , M.A., Stanford.

Last updated 8.1.10