Fellows

John Bargh

Kathryn Bell

Lucas Bender

Peter Bensinger

After graduating Stanford in 1980, Peter returned to Chicago to study improv for a year with Paul Sills, the original artistic director of The Second City – Chicago’s improv theater whose alumni include many Saturday Night Live performers. He then moved to New York City and worked as an actor for five years before going to New York University School of Law and becoming a commercial trial lawyer. Peter started at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP in New York, then went to Kirkland & Ellis LLP in Chicago, and then spun off with Bartlit Beck LLP twenty-five years ago. He spent most of his career doing pharmaceutical patent/antitrust cases.

For the past fifteen years, Peter has been the Bartlit Beck partner responsible for professional development (lawyer training), new lawyer orientation, and attorney performance review. Twenty years ago, he also co-founded and taught for the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law an experiential workshop seminar called “High Tech Trial Techniques.” The class covered presentation stagecraft, digital presentation of evidence, best practices and custom animation in PowerPoint, and the use of trial graphics in trial and appellate briefs. He has also taught Continuing Legal Education classes on variety of topics, including patents 101, taking and defending depositions, examining fact and expert witnesses, delivering opening and closing statements, “Dealing with Jerks – using Aikido and active listening to deal with difficult opposing counsel,” “Presentation Stagecraft – using fundamental theatre techniques to enhance connection and persuasiveness,” and “Enhancing Ensemble Performance – using stagecraft to facilitate connection and inclusion.”

In addition to Peter’s work as a trial lawyer and teacher, he has experience as a civic leader:

• President, Chicago Sinai Congregation (2009-2012) (chicagosinai.org)
• Executive Committee member, Trustee, Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago (luriechidrens.org)
• Chairman, Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute of Lurie Children’s Hospital
• Chairman, Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership (spertus.edu)
• Chairman, Professionals Network of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, and Trustee, Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago (juf.org)

His Fall 2019 Trumbull residential seminar “Leadership as Behavior” weaves together lessons learned from the theater, from leading trial teams in high

Graeme Berlyn

Graeme Berlyn’s interests are the morphology and physiology of trees and forests in relation to environmental stress. Leaves are the most responsive and vulnerable organs of trees, and Professor Berlyn studies the ways that leaf structure and function reveal the effects of environmental change such as global warming or altitudinal and latitudinal gradients. In addition, these studies can help determine the optimum range of habitats for individual species and thus be of use in reforestation and aforestation. Some of the techniques used to study these problems are: light processing by leaves in relation to environmental factors as measured by chlorophyll fluorescence, photosynthesis, spectral reflectance, absorption, and transmission; and image analysis of leaf and tree structure. Professor Berlyn has also pioneered in the development of organic biostimulants that can help plants resist insect, disease, and other environmental stressors while reducing fertilizer use. Thus the Berlyn lab focuses on how to measure the stress of plant life and also on how to ameliorate it. Students in the Berlyn lab are currently working on such topics as structural and functional change along elevational gradients in mountains, molecular control of sun/shade leaf phenotypic plasticity, response of tropical pioneer species to gaps in tropical forests, and the role of antioxidants, stress vitamins, and mycorrhizas in organic biostimulants.

Ruth Blake

Ruth Blake’s research has been the characterization and interpretation of oxygen isotope fractionations in the PO4-water system during biogeochemical cycling of phosphorous in natural waters and sediments. A major area of current research surrounds characterization and “ground-truthing” of 18O/16O ratios (18O) signatures of phosphates in mid-ocean ridge hydrothermal Fe-oxide deposits, with the goal of identifying reliable 18Op biosignatures and isotopic tracers of microbial activity and phosphorous cycling at mid-ocean ridges, in Earth’s deep biosphere, Mars and beyond. Many of the activities her laboratory are devoted to development of methods for extraction and O isotopic analysis of PO4 in a range of geologic, biologic and extraterrestrial materials including deep-sea sediments, ancient rocks; biomass, and Martian soil analogue materials.

Susan Brady

Susan Brady has been an archivist and librarian at Yale for over 25 years, and currently is an archivist at the Beinecke Library. Specializing in performing arts archives, she processes (catalogs) archival collections and assists readers in identifying materials related to their research topics. She serves as a Personal Librarian to Trumbull College freshmen and sophomores. Originally from Austin, Texas, Susan has undergraduate and graduate degrees in Theater, and a Master’s degree in Library and Information Science from the University of Texas at Austin. Susan loves to travel, hike, and attend theater, dance, and music performances. She is a yoga practitioner and teacher.

Emma Brennan-Wydra

Victoria Brescoll

Victoria Brescoll’s research focuses on the impact of stereotypes on individuals’ status and power within organizations, particularly for individuals who violate gender stereotypes. Her study “Can an Angry Woman Get Ahead? Gender, Status Conferral, and Workplace Emotion Expression,” published in Psychological Science, concluded that people reward men who get angry but view angry women as incompetent and unworthy of status and power in the workplace. The research was widely reported on in the popular press including the New York Times, Business Week, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, National Public Radio, and U.S. News & World Report.