Alumni Updates - April 2021

Campus building seen through blossoming trees

Jim Campbell, A77, will have first book, Madoff Talks: Uncovering the Untold Story behind the Most Notorious Ponzi Scheme in History, published on April 27. The book draws on exclusive interviews with the Madoff family and their associates to present an account of the Madoff scandal. Campbell, who has a nationally syndicated radio show (Business Talk with Jim Campbell), is known for his interviews with leading figures from the worlds of business, politics, and sports.

Meron Langsner, AG11, had her play Bystander 9/11: A Theatre Piece Concerning the Events of September 11, 2001 published in an acting edition by YouthPLAYS, one of the top publishers and licensors of educational theater in the country. The play, which has been anthologized by Bloomsbury, was performed at Tufts twice, in 2004 and 2007 on the anniversaries of the events portrayed. The second performance featured Katia Porzecanski, A09, who is now an on-air reporter for Bloomberg. 

Alex Rappaport, E17, MSIM18, is CEO at ZwitterCo, and reports new funding for the company, a leader in innovative industrial filtration, which is “now poised to target applications in bioprocessing, agricultural waste treatment, food and beverage, and other industries,” according to Businesswire. ZwitterCo’s membrane technology was developed at the School of Engineering and the Tufts Entrepreneurship Center. Read more about Rappaport’s efforts in the Tufts Now article “Clean Water Ahead.”

Aaron Tartakovsky, A12, CEO of Epic CleanTec, is featured in a Fast Company article, “This tech recycles toilet water in Silicon Valley high-rises.” Says Tartakovksy: “We’re showing people that wastewater really just consists of water, it consists of energy, it consists of nutrients, and it consists of organic matter.” The company’s technology was created as part of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Reinvent the Toilet Challenge, which asked engineers to create a safe, cheap toilet that could be used by the billions of people around the world who don’t have access to plumbing.  Tartakovsky joined other sustainability pioneers on the GreenBiz “30 under 30” list in 2017.

Boston’s Boch Center celebrated Women’s History Month with an exhibit of photographs by Susan Relyea Wilson, J69, M75. “Women Who Rock” features women musicians photographed by Wilson from the late 1970s into the 1990s, including Tracy Chapman, A87, H04, Patty Griffin, and Tina Turner. The exhibit is on display through April 14 on the Wang Theatre digital marquee and online. Wilson, the owner of Susan Wilson Photo in Cambridge, steadily also pursues her love of history by writing and photographing books on Boston history and, most recently, as resident scholar at Brandeis University’s Women’s Studies Research Center.

Full list of April People Notes can be found here.