Alumni Profiles

Carl Djerassi, Class of 1943, is best known as creator of the birth-control pill. The distinguished chemist has also made a mark in the literary world. Currently, he serves as the Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at Stanford. See his Kenyon profile to learn more.

James D. Cox '60, H'97 Houston, Texas Stringer Professor of Oncology and Chair of Radiation Oncology, MD Anderson Cancer Center, University of Texas. To Jim Cox, Kenyon will always be the place where he learned that students and faculty members can challenge one another's views without rancor--the sort of spirited discourse that would later stimulate his own work in cancer research.

Harvey Lodish '62 H'82 P'89, and Pamela Lodish P'89, established the Harvey F. Lodish Faculty Development Professor in the Natural Sciences to recognize excellence in teaching, research, and scholarship among junior faculty in the natural sciences at Kenyon. Lodish is a professor of biology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Founding Member of Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research.

Jonathan Tazewell, '84, a chemistry major, returned to Kenyon two years after his graduation, to work for the Kenyon admissions office. Tazewell then went on to earn his master of fine arts degree from California Institute of the Arts in directing for theater, video, and cinema in 1994. Tazewell again returned to Kenyon in 1997 as an Assistant Professor of Drama and has been teaching at Kenyon since.

Carla Ainsworth, '95, Alumni trustee since 2006, majored in chemistry and history. Ainsworth earned her medical degree at Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree in public health at the University of California at Berkeley. She is now a family physician with Swedish Family Medicine in Seattle, Washington. Married to her Kenyon classmate, Mark Havrilla, Ainsworth is a daughter of the late Marilyn Yarbrough, a former trustee of the College.

Paul A. Bonvallet, '96, Assistant Professor of Chemistry at the College of Wooster, graduated from Kenyon College with a B.A. in chemistry and a minor in physics. Paul received his Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin in 2001. From 2002-2004 he was a postdoctoral fellow at UCLA's Department of Chemistry and California NanoSystems Institute, where he worked with a multidisciplinary team to develop and successfully employ a "molecular muscle" to perform micromechanical work by harnessing molecular motion.

Thomas J. Magliery, '96. Since 2005 Tom Magliery has been an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry and the Department of Biochemistry at The Ohio State University. He is a member of the Ohio State Biochemistry Program, the Biophysics Graduate Program and the Chemistry-Biology Interface Training Program.

Karly Burke, '06, a biochemistry major from Woodbury, Minnesota, won a Fulbright award to teach English in South Korea. Also the winner of a George J. Mitchell Scholarship, which supports one year of graduate study in Ireland, Burke declined the Fulbright and accepted the Mitchell.

Kelly P. Burke,'06, a chemistry major, is currently studying at Johns Hopkins Medical School and plans to earn an M.D./Ph.D. degree in biochemistry and pharmacology and to establish her own cancer research laboratory as a faculty member at a medical school. Her goal is to conduct cellular research leading to improved clinical oncology treatment for patients.