Will Miller, E’07, and his teammates placed fourth in the men’s eight rowing final on Wednesday morning at the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London, narrowly missing out on a medal in the 2000-meter Eton Dornay course.

The U.S. crew finished with a 5:51:48 time, slightly behind the 5:51:18 time from bronze medalist Great Britain.

Miller, 28, is Northeastern’s 29th Olympian and the 19th alumnus to row in the Games, continuing a proud tradition of Olympic rowing success for his family and the university. Northeastern rowing has been represented in every Olympiad since 1972, when his father, Bill, ’70, who was an outstanding oarsman for Northeastern, competed in the coxless fours.

The 2012 Summer Olympics in London mark the 16th time Northeastern has sent athletes or coaches to the Games.

Northeastern’s most recent medalist is women’s ice hockey head coach Dave Flint, who captured silver at the 2010 Vancouver Games as an assistant coach for the USA women’s ice hockey team. Rower Dan Walsh, BHS’02, earned the last Summer Olympics medal, winning bronze in the 2008 Games in Beijing. Vicky Sunohara, ’90, is the last Husky to capture Olympic gold, winning the medal with the Canadian women’s ice hockey team at the 2006 Games in Torino.

There’s vacation, and then there’s travel.

People take vacations to common hotspots, often laying by the pool and thumbing through brochures plotting the next day’s diversion. Vacationers wait in lines and see the same attractions as everybody else.

Travel, at least according to the founders of Off The Grid Excursions, is something more.

“When you travel you get energized and you get new experiences,” explained Jaclyn Carron, a 2008 marketing and finance graduate of Northeastern who co-founded the new travel company with three other alumni. “When you learn about new cultures, you learn about yourself.”

“We wanted it to feel more like an adventure than a vacation,” she added, “so we custom-curated trips that take you off the beaten path.”

Off The Grid celebrated its launch with a party on Tuesday night and has partnered with IDEA: Northeastern’s Venture Accelerator, to develop its business model and secure outside funding.

The company is booking trips now to Thailand, Morocco, Peru and a Central America excursion to Belize and Guatemala for travel starting in January. The trips were designed by Carron and her co-founders — 2006 entrepreneurship and finance graduate Jen Downing; 2007 business management and marketing graduate Charles Stevenson; and 2010 accounting and finance graduate Nicholas Lento — and will be led by local guides who know the area and speak both English and local languages.

The weeklong trips will be targeted to young travelers, no more than 16 of which will go on each excursion. “As soon as you bring 25 people to a new place, it can sometimes be hard to even fit into that space,” Carron said.

The Northeastern entrepreneurs chose to build their travel business for a simple reason: Each had long ago caught the travel bug, either through family vacations or experiential-learning opportunities at Northeastern, and wanted to build a business rather than work at a more traditional 9-to-5 job.

“We have a passion for travel,” Carron said, “and we’re eager to share that passion with others.”

A group of Northeastern students and alumni spent the summer cycling across the United States for Bike & Build, a nonprofit organization in which teams of more than two dozen bikers build homes along their route through organizations such as Habitat for Humanity.

Cyclists Dustin Tran and Diane Pham, both 2012 graduates of the university’s pharmacy program, 2009 graduate Matthew Shingler, 2010 graduate Heather Gardiner, 2012 graduate Shannon Brown and seniors Sean Reilly and Rachel DeBaun participated, tasked with raising $4,500 and completing 500 miles of training prior to the start of the 10-week ride.

Neither Tran nor Pham were expert cyclists prior to their cross-country trek — Tran biked from Providence to Seattle, Pham from Vermont to Vancouver — but they quickly developed the strength and skills they needed to complete their journey.

They picked up vital skills for working at the build sites, too. “When you have 31 people at a site, you can really get a lot of things done very quickly,” Tran said.

For him, the cause was uniquely personal. “I grew up in a Boston Housing Authority unit — pretty much the projects,” Tran explained. “So this cause was very dear to me.”

Bikers rode an average of 70 miles per day, but the longest ride spanned 116 miles, according to Pham. They lodged in church basements and high-school gymnasiums — pretty much any spot that was cost effective and accessible.

Hosts, Pham said, were welcoming and gracious, providing potluck dinners and friendly conversation at each stop. Every dollar not spent on accommodations was put toward the program’s affordable-housing projects.

Pham said it was initially hard to absorb the magnitude of the trip, owing to its sheer mileage and service components. For both bikers, though, reality started to sink in once they reached the West Coast.

“When we first saw the Pacific,” Pham said, “we were just in shock. The feeling was as if you’d won the lottery — you’re really happy, but you still kind of don’t believe it.”

Now that they have completed Northeastern’s six-year pharmacy program and Bike & Build’s 10-week summer program, both Pham and Tran are looking forward to the next phases of their lives.

Tran is in the process of moving to Oregon, where he plans to find a job in the pharmacy field. Pham, for her part, is spending the next few months in South America before pursuing a career in public health.

But both said they hope to complete the Bike & Build program again, noting its transformative experience.

“The 30 other people on my trip became my new family,” Tran said. “Even after the first week, it was like I knew these people for years. So having it end? That was bittersweet.”

In an emergency, first responders need to be able to communicate. But with infrastructure damaged by a disaster, the cellular and wireless networks they depend on may be damaged or destroyed, crippling the use of high-tech tools that help find victims or establish a sense of order.

Enter Dan Landers and Glen Chiacchieri, both of whom graduated from Northeastern in May with bachelor’s degrees in electrical engineering. For their senior capstone project, they worked with a team to develop a rugged robot equipped with the tools to establish a wireless network and a pair of repeaters that can expand the signal even further.

“You have to be able to talk to each other,” Chiacchieri said. “You have to be able to communicate.”

The capstone team included Landers, Chiacchieri, Barry Son, Senthuran Selvanayagam, Hector Palomares, Ryan Moynihan, Mauro Berti and Imran Ahmed. Their faculty adviser was Masoud Salehi, associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Though most of the team was well versed in electrical engineering concepts, the project required them to step outside of their comfort zone.

“We had to learn all the mechanical engineering and all the design in less than nine months,” said Landers, who is now enrolled in the College of Engineering’s graduate program.

The robot is nicknamed Bobak in honor of mohawked NASA engineer Bobak Ferdowski, who gained Internet fame last month when the Curiosity rover landed on Mars.

Bobak is made predominately of aluminum; weighs between 150 and 200 pounds; and measures 40 inches long, 16 inches tall and 28 inches wide — narrow enough to fit through a standard door and compact enough to fit in the back of an average sedan. Equipped with a webcam, it runs on a basic netbook with a custom web interface and standard home wireless routers modified with long-range antennas.

Nearly any type of computer can control it, from smartphone to tablet to laptop. The driver directs the robot, which runs on an operating system called NodeJS, and views the robot’s environment through the webcam. If the robot loses network connectivity, it drives in reverse until it regains its connection.

Most of the robot was built at the Somerville, Mass.-based Artisan’s Asylum, a massive collaborative workspace where Landers and Chiacchieri honed their skills. With more than 40,000 square feet of warehouse space, Artisan’s Asylum is among the largest “hackerspaces” throughout the world.

“There is something like $750,000 worth of tools here, but the most valuable resource is the people,” Landers said. “No matter what you need to do, odds are there’s someone here who’s an expert at it.”

Landers and Chiacchieri have continued to improve their device and are planning to develop a second-generation robot. The second iteration of Bobak, they said, will be larger, have a greater capacity for network delivery and double as a remote power station.

In addition to developing the robot as a practical tool for the field, the student-researchers hope to use Bobak to show young people that engineering can be a fun, challenging and rewarding career choice.

They noted that middle-school students have been drawn to Bobak during test sessions and hacker events, adding that they have used the shiny, metallic robot to talk about engineering from a broader perspective. They’ve also worked with freshmen engineering students, who have visited the duo’s workspace at Artisan’s Asylum to get exposure to the “hacker” and “maker” elements of engineering the space celebrates.

“There’s always more we can do with this,” Landers said. “And we’re excited to see where we go next.”

Candid advice flowed freely at the Student Alumni Association’s first 5 Under 25 event of the year, in which recent graduates answered questions posed by current students.

Last Thursday evening’s event in the Alumni Center featured five graduates of the newly renamed D’Amore-McKim School of Business, all of whom stressed the importance of taking leadership roles and embracing co-op as an opportunity to learn about future careers and develop a powerful personal network.

One of the five graduates was Jason Morris, B’11, who now works as a corporate compliance associate at Biogen Idec. After switching majors from computer science to business, he considered becoming a hotelier, a goal that led him to take a co-op at an upscale Boston restaurant.

That co-op, however, taught Morris that the service industry wasn’t for him.

“I kept hearing, ‘If you hate it, it’s only six months,’” Morris said. “I thought it was just something people said, but it’s definitely true. I probably got more out of that co-op because it showed me what I didn’t want to do and that’s incredibly valuable.”

The hour-long panel discussion also featured School of Business alumni Jason Donovan, Kevin Holub, Jeremy Klein and Greg Skloot, all of whom graduated in 2012. Jil Rinne, the vice president of alumni relations for the Student Alumni Association, moderated the event.

Skloot, now the chief operating officer of Boston-based marketing company influencers@, stressed the importance of taking leadership roles with student groups. He shared his experience running the Northeastern Entrepreneurs Club.

“So much of what I do now in a real business I did first in the e-club,” Skloot said. “I learned how to manage people, I learned how to get money, I learned how to run events. And I do all of that now every day running a company.”

Donovan, whose co-op with EMC Corp. led him to a full-time job after graduation, said the relationships forged through co-op are as important as the skills learned on the job.

“Co-op is a six-month job interview,” Donovan said. “Every day you’re working with the managers and co-workers who will still be there when you come back looking for a job. And it’s amazing the difference a good co-op experience can make.”

The Student Alumni Association is hosting 5 Under 25 events for the remainder of the academic year. Graduates from the Bouvé College of Health Sciences will discuss their experiences on Oct. 18. For the full schedule please visit the event’s website.

Northeastern students and their families will celebrate university traditions and experience the campus’ vibrant atmosphere at the annual Parent and Family Weekend, which runs from Friday to Sunday. Throughout the weekend, families will be engaged in a range of exciting events—from faculty-led discussions and breakfasts with college deans, to a family barbecue and athletics matches.

Many events are free with registration, but others require attendees to purchase tickets.

On Friday and Saturday, “Faculty Spotlight” events featuring professors from a range of disciplines will explore academic topics including the presidential election, climate change and biodiversity, the economy and social entrepreneurship. Meanwhile, tours of university facilities such as the Digital Media Commons, the Marine Science Center and Gallery 360 will highlight academic and student life.

Families will get a brush with celebrity on Saturday, when the university hosts “A Conversation with Tom Bergeron” at 2:30 p.m. in Ell Hall’s Blackman Auditorium. This event is only available to parent weekend participants and requires tickets and preregistration.

Bergeron is a 2012 Emmy Award winner and host of ABC’s Dancing With The Stars. He is also known as the host of America’s Funniest Home Videos and Hollywood Squares; as a fill-in host for Who Wants to be a Millionaire; and for appearances on many other TV programs.

Saturday entertainment also includes a family barbecue; an Xhibition Kitchen event with renowned chef Terry Walters at 2:30 p.m. at the Stetson West Dining Hall; and evening performances by comedians.

Sports fans should have plenty to cheer for this weekend. On Friday, the women’s hockey team drops the puck against Robert Morris at 7 p.m. in Matthews Arena. On Saturday, the men’s soccer team plays George Mason at 6 p.m. at Parsons Field; the women’s hockey team faces-off against Maine at 2 p.m. at Matthews Arena; and the men’s hockey team takes on UNH at 7 p.m. at Matthews.

On Sunday, women’s volleyball faces Georgia State at 1 p.m. in Cabot Gymnasium and the women’s field hockey team battles Towson at 2 p.m. on Jordan Field in Cambridge, Mass.

Over the weekend, Northeastern celebrated the School of Pharmacy’s 50th anniversary, bringing together generations of graduates, faculty, staff, university leaders, along with current students, to commemorate the school’s proud history and look ahead toward its promising future.

On Saturday night, more than 275 people, including approximately 150 alumni, attended a grand celebration of the impact university leaders, distinguished faculty and outstanding students have made on the School of Pharmacy over the last half-century.

“You may have noticed that the campus has changed, the programs have changed and the people have changed, but at its core, it’s that enduring commitment to excellence that drives us forward every day,” John R. Reynolds, dean of the School of Pharmacy, told attendees.

Terry Fulmer, dean of the Bouvé College of Health Sciences, noted that the exceptional accomplishments from alumni and students include an “impressive array of successes in the advancement of drug discovery, delivery and diagnostics along with our world-class educational programs.”

Stephen W. Director, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Northeastern, called the anniversary celebration an important milestone and hailed faculty, staff and alumni for the school’s progress over the last 50 years. He also credited the school for its focus on use-inspired research driven by societal needs, noting that health, along with security and sustainability, is one of the university’s top research themes.

“We know today just how important health care and efficient cost-effective delivery of health care is in this country and this school plays a leading role there,” Director said.

A commemorative video was also played at the event, capturing the school’s history and offering a glimpse into its cutting-edge research—which includes utilizing nanotechnology to combat cancer and developing subcutaneous nanosensors  that monitor blood glucose levels.

The event also recognized several distinguished honorees who have made profound contributions to the school over the years:

George D. Behrakis, P’57, H’98, and Margo Behrakis
George, a visionary leader in the pharmaceutical industry, and Margo Behrakis’ gift led to the founding of the state-of-the-art Behrakis Health Sciences Center. The couple has established chairs and scholarships at Northeastern and other universities and medical centers, including the George D. Behrakis Chair in Pharmaceutical Biotechnology at Northeastern. George Behrakis has served on Northeastern’s board of trustees for many years, and was elected lifetime trustee emeritus in 2006 in recognition of his leadership. He also received an honorary degree from Northeastern in 1998 and the Outstanding Alumnus Award from the Sport in Society, a Northeastern University research center, in 2000.

Joseph Fleming, P’70, MS’71, and Nancy Fleming, P’71
Joseph Fleming, an entrepreneur, was named an Alumnus of the Year in 2005, and founded the highly successful Health Sciences Entrepreneurs program at Northeastern. He is chairman of the HSE program and is active in mentoring young entrepreneurs. Nancy Fleming served as an assistant director of pharmacy at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital and a supervisor of pharmacy at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She has been a spokesperson for the pharmacy alumni outreach group and a member of the 50th Anniversary Committee.

John Neumeyer and Evelyn Neumeyer, ED’78
John Neumeyer, a former professor of medicinal chemistry in the School of Pharmacy, established Northeastern’s first doctoral program (Pharmaceutical Sciences). In 1981, he was named the university’s first Matthews Distinguished Professor. He was also recently inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Medicinal Chemistry Division of the American Chemical Society and was named the 2012 Outstanding Educator of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists. Evelyn Neumeyer was honored by Northeastern as the 1992 Outstanding Alumna for Business and Industry. The couple participates in the Health Sciences Entrepreneurs program and has established two undergraduate scholarships at Bouvé as well as a Research Achievement Award given annually to a graduate student in the pharmaceutical sciences.

The School of Pharmacy’s rich history dates back 85 years to 1927 when Constantine Meriano founded the Meriano School of Pharmacy in Boston. In 1940, the school was incorporated into the Boston School of Pharmacy, and in 1949 it was renamed the New England College of Pharmacy.

Then, in 1962, the college merged with Northeastern to become the Northeastern University College of Pharmacy. In 1999, Northeastern’s Bouvé College of Heath Sciences was formed, and it now houses the School of Pharmacy. Earlier this year, the school moved to its new location at 140 The Fenway.

A panel discussion, hosted by the Health Sciences Entrepreneurs, that drew approximately 75 students kicked off the 50th anniversary celebration on Friday with alumni community pharmacists highlighting opportunities for entrepreneurs in independent community pharmacy.

One of the alumni panelists, Vahrij Manoukian, P’81, owner of Hollis Pharmacy in New Hampshire, urged students to consider taking an entrepreneurial leap and building their own local community pharmacies, which he said requires developing strong relationships with customers and stellar customer service. He also noted that Northeastern’s signature experiential education model gives students invaluable real-world experience as they begin their careers in pharmacy.

On Sunday, the 50th anniversary festivities concluded with a White Coat Ceremony for the Doctor of Pharmacy program’s Class of 2016. The ceremony formally moves students into the professional phase of their pharmacy education. George Behrakis P’57, and Afton Wagner, P’07, from the National Community Pharmacists Association, were the keynote speakers at the ceremony. The event was attended by a full house of the students’ family and friends in Blackman Auditorium.

For alumnus Dan Belcher, Ray Kinnunen’s classroom is familiar turf. As a student, Belcher helped the associate professor of international business and strategy develop a course called “Sustaining Business in the New Economy,” a popular offering among students in the D’Amore-McKim School of Business.

Earlier this semester, Belcher, BA’03, returned to inspire and educate current business students by channeling his experience as an entrepreneur. This year, he and business partner Izzy Azeri founded the cloud-computing company Stackdriver, which is based in downtown Boston and employs a growing team.

“They looked at the opportunity and the competition and thought very hard about building a strong team — the same things I teach my students,” said Kinnunen, who plans to use Stackdriver as a test case in his course next semester. “Belcher is practicing everything he learned at Northeastern, and then some.”

Stackdriver — which recently received a $5 million investment from Bain Capital Ventures — will be used by businesses interested in building their applications on the cloud, which means they rely on third-party servers rather than their own, like Instagram, Pinterest and Heroku. The company’s main product will use cutting-edge data analytics to help companies improve the performance, availability, security and efficiency of their applications in the cloud.

“Our core value is to help companies that build cloud-powered software focus on innovating rather than deal with the day-to-day hassles of managing their infrastructure,” said Belcher, who described his company’s soon-to-be-released software platform as “a brain for the cloud.”

Belcher said that he relies on what he learned at  Northeastern to propel his venture forward. He praised his experience in Huntington Management Consulting, an undergraduate club advised by Kinnunen and focused on man­age­ment con­sulting and strategy.

“That group taught me to really think hard about what makes a business successful,” Belcher said. “And I’ve stayed in touch with professor Kinnunen over the years, who’s long been a person I’ve bounced ideas off of and has helped us meet potential hires and co-ops.”

Cloud computing enables businesses to reduce their start-up costs by eliminating the need for costly and complicated computer servers; true to its mission, Stackdriver’s “server closet” contains only a modem and wireless router.

Cloud-based ventures can scale up by simply buying more space; Stackdriver, Belcher said, makes it easier for a company to manage its transition from a small venture with fairly straightforward infrastructure requirements to a major online business with sophisticated operations and global infrastructure.

“People start off in the cloud typically because it’s easy to start small and have your environment grow with you,” Belcher said. “And over time, once you grow larger, the economic factors aren’t as important. A company like Netflix could pretty efficiently run its own data centers, but it choose to run in the cloud because it don’t want the distraction of having to manage physical infrastructure. It wants to remain nimble and focused on innovation.”

The company currently employs a staff of nine, with plans to hire two or three new employees a month for the foreseeable future. One of its first hires was Mike Bartucca, who graduated from Northeastern in the spring with a degree in electrical and computer engineering.

“This is a place that’s really breaking new ground, so it’s an exciting place to be,” Bartucca said. “At this point so early in my career, I feel so fortunate to be part of building something from the start.”

The November Project began last fall as a pact between friends who wanted to stay in shape, but has evolved into what co-founders Brogan Graham, AS’06, and Bojan Mandaric, AS’06, call a “fitness tribe.” On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 6:30 a.m., hundreds of Bostonians — many of whom are in their 20s and 30s and graduates of Northeastern— gather for intense workouts at locations such as Allston’s Harvard Stadium and Brookline’s Summit Avenue.

Last month, GoNU highlighted the November Project, a three-year-old endeavor that aims to duplicate the camaraderie and accountability that Graham and Mandaric showcased as rowers for Northeastern’s crew team. We caught up with Graham to find out what gets him out of bed in the morning and what makes the group successful.

William “Mo” Cowan, a 1994 graduate of Northeastern University’s School of Law, has been appointed by Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts to serve as the state’s interim U.S. senator.

Cowan will replace U.S. Sen. John Kerry, who resigned after 29 years in the seat to become the nation’s secretary of state. Voters will choose Kerry’s permanent successor in a special election on June 25.

“I pledge to people of Massachusetts that during this interim period I will go to work every day with the needs and aspirations of state’s citizens foremost in my mind,” Cowan said in a Wednesday morning press conference at the State House announcing his appointment. “I know the citizens of Massachusetts care about jobs, education, and affordable, high-quality healthcare and I will work with those interests in mind every day.”

“Mo is a fantastic leader with a heartfelt commitment to public service,” said Joseph E. Aoun, president of Northeastern University. “He has that rare combination of deep policy expertise and the ability to build excellent working relationships with colleagues. These talents will serve him—and Massachusetts—well in the Senate.”

Cowan stepped down as Patrick’s chief of staff last November and had previously served as the governor’s chief legal counsel. He is also a former member of the litigation section of the Boston-based law firm Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glosky, and Popeo, P.C. and the former president of the Massachusetts Black Lawyers Association.

At the press conference, Patrick called Cowan a trusted adviser, professional colleague, and a longtime friend. “Mo is a highly respected public citizen,” he said. “In every step, he has brought preparation, perspective, wisdom, sound judgment, and clarity of purpose. That has all earned him the respect, admiration, and trust of people throughout government.”

Cowan’s prestigious career has been widely recognized. He has been named a “Top 5 percent Massachusetts litigator” by Law and Politics magazine and a “40 Under 40” business leader by the Boston Business Journal.

His Northeastern experience helped shape his career success. “Northeastern is what brought me to Massachusetts, and I am thankful for the inspiration, lessons, and real world experience I gained during the time I spent there,” Cowan said. “It is one of many pieces that helped bring me to where I am today.”

Of his first co-op as a judicial intern with the Honorable Patti Saris of the Massachusetts State Trial Court, Cowan once said, “Getting her real-time constructive criticism of my lawyering skills in their infancy was important in shaping the lawyer that I ultimately became. I was challenged, I was pushed, and I was taught how to communicate in writing as a lawyer.”

He also noted that his second co-op with North Carolina Prisoner Legal Services taught him an important lesson in litigation. “It helped me realize that as an advocate you often have to place personal feelings on the back burner to advocate for your client or to ensure that justice is done.”

Last weekend, 350 critical-thinkers-in-training flooded Cabot Cage for the 67th annual Boston Science Fair, where middle– and high-school students from around the city presented their research on topics ranging from the effects of wind turbine blade design on energy output to molecular signaling in human lung cells.

“Training in science and STEM is really a way of thinking,” said Christos Zahopoulos, executive director of Northeastern’s Center for STEM Education. “It’s a way of approaching problems, a way of becoming a critical thinker.”

The Center for STEM Education and Boston Public Schools have collaborated for many years, said Claire Duggan, the center’s director of programs and partnerships. This year, the duo found a third partner in Science From Scientists, a local nonprofit organization that places practicing scientists in elementary– and middle-school classrooms to engage with students.

“I used to compete in science fairs all the time,” said Erika Ebbel Angle, CEO and founder of Science from Scientists. “When I think about what really made me want to be a scientist, it was those experiences I had as a kid.”

Northeastern’s Marine Science Center engaged students during the activity session. Photo by Daniel Sullivan.

“The really interesting science fair projects, in my opinion, are the ones where the students are able to identify something in their personal experiences that has affected them that they are trying to overcome or investigate further,” Sullivan said.

Many of the students participating in this year’s fair are graduates of Northeastern’s Exxon Mobil Bernard Harris
Summer STEM Program for Middle School Students, a two-week academic camp aimed at stimulating students’ interest in science and engineering as a potential career path.

“The thing I love about science is the whole experimenting thing,” said Ina Beinborn, an 8thgrader at Boston Latin School and a camp graduate. “You can find out something that was unknown to you before, and it just gives you experience, and more knowledge.” Beinborn’s project on the effects of moving air versus still air on melting ice won her second place in the competition’s junior division.

The science fair approach allows students to get their hands dirty, to ask questions of their world, and do “the whole experimenting thing” until they find answers, said Pam Pelletier, senior program director for science at BPS.

“They have to wrestle with ideas and discrepancies between what they thought, what they know, what they’re seeing,” Pelletier said. “Science is messy—and that’s what we want kids to know.”

For most Boston sports fans, the big game is a diversion, a time out from the daily grind. When a winner is crowned, they pull off replica jerseys bearing names like Ortiz, Brady, and Garnett, and then return to the minutiae of everyday life.

But for Northeastern alumnus Adam Jones, the end of the game is but the beginning, the onset of a nuanced critique of critical plays, coaching decisions, and player performances.

And he’s no armchair quarterback. As the new evening host on 98.5 The Sports Hub, Jones has the radio pulpit, reaching tens of thousands of loyal listeners in his booming voice. His eponymous show runs weeknights from 6–11 p.m., but he could talk sports all night long. “I understand how fortunate I am that I get to do this for a living,” Jones said.

Becoming a big-time sports media player in a town known for its championship banners was a long time in the making for the 29-year-old Newport, Vt., native, who grew up rooting for the Bruins and Celtics.

He graduated from Northeastern in 2008 with a degree in communication studies, serving as the sports director of the student-run radio station, 104.9 WRBB, and the play-by-play broadcaster of Husky football and basketball. From 2006–2009, he reported on Red Sox games from Fenway Park and anchored SportsCenter for 890 ESPN Radio, first as a co-op student and then as a full-time employee. And before his most recent gig as host on ESPN Radio Boston, he teamed up with legendary Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy on a Saturday-morning radio show on 98.5.

Even his play-by-play of the Northeastern men’s basketball team has proved useful in preparing him for his latest gig, for which he scours newspapers, Twitter feeds, and websites for the latest sports news. “I would spend a couple of days making out a roster and compiling all the statistics I wanted to refer to during the broadcast,” Jones recalled. “Now the content is different but the study habits are the same.”

He put his reporting skills to good use during the show’s debut on Jan. 3. In an unplanned interview with New England Patriots President Jonathan Kraft, he asked probing questions about head coach Bill Belichick’s contract and the future of the team’s offensive coordinator, who had turned down interview requests for vacant head coaching jobs. “My head was spinning and I was trying to remember the phone number and how to use the calls screen,” said Jones, “but the interview turned out great.”

He has high hopes for the Bruins and Celtics, both of whom appear poised to make deep playoff runs this spring. “The Bruins are already in the mix for another Stanley Cup,” he said. “The question now comes down to whether they make a big deal that puts them over the top, like upgrading their third line or adding more depth on the blue line.”

Northeastern alumnus Mike MacWade urged his fellow Huskies this Spring to participate in the Mission: MacWade Challenge—and alumni enthusiastically answered the call in resounding numbers.

The challenge’s goal was for 3,500 alumni to make a gift toward anything they loved about their experience at Northeastern, and to do it by March 31. In return, McWade, a 1983 graduate and senior executive at Putnam Investments, promised to make a $100,000 gift to the university.

The goal was met and MacWade gave $100,000 to support what he loved the most about his alma mater—the College of Arts, Media and Design. And he didn’t stop there. Energized by the huge turnout of his fellow alumni he issued another challenge: in return for support from an additional 500 alumni he would raise the amount of his own gift by an additional $15,000. The April 5 deadline was once again met with unexpected turnout of passionate Huskies and MacWade kept his promise.

All told, Mission: MacWade brought in more than $400,000 from 4,785 alumni donors since the challenge was launched.

“This gift is a fantastic example of  how collective giving can move our university forward. It was inspiring to see alumni empowering other alumni to give back to their alma mater through annual giving,” said Diane MacGillivray, senior vice president for university advancement.

“The success of Mission: MacWade illustrates how much this university means to every one of us. Mike put out the challenge and thousands of his fellow Huskies answered the call, making a gift to support what they love most about Northeastern,”  said Jack Moynihan, vice president for alumni relations and The Northeastern Fund.

As part of the challenge, alumni could offer their support to the Northeastern Fund or to a specific area of the university most meaningful to them.

The Northeastern Fund is the engine that supports the university’s momentum on many fronts. Annual gifts support operational and academic resource needs that continue to grow as the campus expands and evolves, and annual gifts also serve as important resources to support teaching, research, and scholarship priorities.

“We all have a vested interest in this amazing university, and because of your involvement today’s students, those who are following in our footsteps, will enjoy the same incredible opportunities we had at Northeastern,” MacWade said in thanking alumni for their support.

A partnership between the Center for Research Innovation and the alumni-founded startup VentureCrowd is connecting Northeastern-based ventures with entrepreneurially minded talent to turn innovative technologies into thriving businesses.

Launched in November, VentureCrowd is an online innovation platform designed to help student– and alumni-run startups solve challenges in business and technology and create new companies around university-based technologies. Users can also tap into the expertise of  other entrepreneurial students, faculty, and alumni.

“At VentureCrowd, we enable a university’s entrepreneurial community to collaborate effectively around their startup opportunities,” said co-founder Ryan Johnson, a 2012 graduate with a master’s of science in technological entrepreneurship. “Startups can expand their access to problem solvers and collaborators through VentureCrowd faster than they would be able to on their own.”

Through VentureCrowd, startups can crowdsource the challenges they’re encountering, and the community of users can help deliver solutions. The first startups that launched challenges through the crowdsourcing platform were founded by Northeastern alumni, all of whom began working on their innovations as undergraduates. One challenge asked students to submit designs that can be printed using 3-D printing technology. Another asked for help to engineer a smart battery charge controller for a prototype of a new wind energy generator. A third needed assistance launching a business plan based on recently developed water disinfection technologies. While this round of challenges is over, VentureCrowd and CRI plan to launch another in the near future.

“VentureCrowd accelerates the formation of entrepreneurial thinking around Northeastern’s innovations,” explained Tracey Dodenhoff, director of the Center for Research Innovation. “Not only do we see this as helping our existing spin-outs, we also see this as an opportunity to highlight technologies with high potential and help entrepreneurial teams form a business around them.”

Founded in 2011, CRI’s mission is to accelerate the impact of university research through commercial vehicles, particularly startups. The CRI is also the host of the annual Research, Innovation & Scholarship Expo (RISE), an event that brings together university research, startups, industry, and investors every spring to celebrate Northeastern University’s innovation and entrepreneurship community.

Johnson and VentureCrowd co-founder Bret Siarkowski, a 1987 graduate with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, serve a key role in Northeastern’s entrepreneurial ecosystem as mentors to students and startups in the community.

“Although we only launched our first platform this past November, we’ve already grown exciting partnerships not only with the university, but with the different ventures that exist here,” Johnson said. He explained how VentureCrowd is currently working with the Northeastern Health Science Entrepreneurs to launch a new mentorship program this fall as part of a university-wide effort to expand industry-specific mentoring for new ventures.

“We developed this platform to tie together different resources for ventures,” Johnson said. “By connecting entrepreneurially minded talent, mentors, and resources with untapped university-based innovations, we can launch new high-tech startups that might have otherwise sat for years in file cabinets and labs.”

With graduation fast approaching last fall, Eric Santagada and Marie Sullivan asked an age-old question: “What’s next?” They set guidelines for their future plans, agreeing to pursue a fun-filled endeavor that would combine their passions and further their careers. From there, they arrived at their answer: the American Music Project.

“Northeastern gave us the drive to create our own opportunities, instead of waiting for a job to come to us,” said Sullivan, who graduated in December with a bachelor of arts degree in communication studies with a concentration in media production. “We wanted to go out there and make it happen for ourselves, and that’s exactly what we did.”

Sullivan and Santagada—who graduated in December from the D’Amore-McKim School of Business with a concentration in entrepreneurship—quickly launched a Kickstarter campaign for the AMP. To raise even more money, the duo hosted two benefit concerts in Boston featuring Northeastern bands. More than 200 people pledged some $10,000 to support their cause, and their dream of documenting vibrant music around the country became a reality.

Above, a clarinet player in Austin, captured by American Music Project photographer Marie Sullivan.

The project combines Santagada’s business knowledge and Sullivan’s video skills with their mutual passion for music. The team is currently in the midst of a three-month road trip through Nashville, New Orleans, and Austin, where they are documenting festivals, popular venues, bands, and more, to tell the story of each city’s unique music scene. While on the road, they are sharing what they find through videos, photographs, blog posts, and social media.

“We wanted to cover unique cities that we could compare and contrast,” explained Santagada. “New Orleans has an established feel and tradition, Austin is up and coming and growing every day, and Nashville is a professional music industry hub.”

Santagada and Sullivan are on the road with two other Northeastern alumni, Charlie Treat and James Metzger. Aside from the crew, a major player in this project is the AMPmobile, a conversion van complete with instruments, microphones, and an audio interface. The mobility of the van gives the team the potential to accomplish a lot more than many other film crews: With their equipment in tow, they can drive to any location and set up a professional recording studio.

“This experience is more about our personal growth than anything else,” said Santagada. “I want everyone to see how we’re following our passions successfully, and we want to inspire people to do the same thing, whatever their passion may be.”

Northeastern alumnus Marquis Cabrera deferred enrollment at an Ivy League graduate school after graduating in 2011 with a degree in criminal justice. Instead, he chose to continue developing Foster Skills, a Boston-based nonprofit he started as an undergraduate that supports the city’s foster children.

It’s a personal cause for Cabrera, who grew up in foster care before being adopted as a teen. Now, his hard work and dedication have earned him the recognition of being named one of the region’s top innovators by The Boston Globe.

“The deck is stacked against children in foster care,” the Globe wrote in a profile of Cabrera that ran in the newspaper’s special Globe 100 issue last month. “No one knows that better than Marquis Cabrera, a former foster kid who beat the odds to graduate college. Now he’s trying to help other foster children achieve life success through his nonprofit social enterprise, Foster Skills.”

After growing up in New York City’s foster care system, Cabrera wanted to create an organization that could support children like him and lobby for systemic changes. With those goals in mind, he created Foster Skills, where he served as CEO until January. Cabrera stepped down, he said, to allow enough time for the organization to transition to new leadership as he continued his education.

Foster Skills has worked with some 450 local youth and organized more than 80 workshops focused on teaching life skills. The organization has also established partnerships with like-minded organizations; lobbied for new legislation advocating for education and judicial stability; developed MyHome, a web portal of resources for foster children; and launched the Foster Youth In Action Initiative to share stories of successful foster youth.

At an event at the Massachusetts State House in April, Cabrera and several current Northeastern students lobbied legislators and rallied members of the public to support legislation that would improve the lives of foster children in Massachusetts who age out of the system.

Now a member of the nonprofit organization’s board of directors, Cabrera is navigating a web of opportunity, including graduate school. Cabrera credits his experiential-learning opportunities at the White House, City Year, and the startup Wayfair “for developing the skills and connections to build Foster Skills.”

At 24, Cabrera is the youngest of this year’s crop of 12 leading innovators, who include inventors, CEOs, researchers, and other local luminaries.

“Marquis is truly a superhero for his work in building and supporting families, and inspiring other young people to be change-makers as well,” Boston City Councilor Tito Jackson told the Globe.

While investigating drug-protein interactions at the Broad Institute of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Jay Duffner realized he would need advanced training in his field to be a competitive member of the biotechnology industry.

Duffner turned to Northeastern’s Professional Science Master’s program in Biotechnology, which features a unique approach to graduate education that includes training in business practices in addition to the science and technology courses offered in traditional master’s programs.

“I wanted to keep my ties with industry, and Northeastern provided a good opportunity to gain a master’s, learn more, and to apply what I was learning in the workplace,” said Duffner, who is one of the first graduates of program.

Jim Leung, academic director of the biotechnology PSM program, has seen first-hand the need for qualified job candidates like Duffner throughout his 30 years working in the biopharmaceutical industry. “We always have a great demand for well-trained people,” he said. “It had been quite an effort to fill those positions because the skills are pretty specialized.”

Fifteen years ago, academia took notice, and with the help of funding from the Sloan Foundation, universities established a new kind of graduate program specifically designed to fill that need.

“The Professional Science Master’s degree was designed to be the scientific equivalent of the MBA,” said professor Graham Jones, chair of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology. With a significant portion of the nation’s nearly 3 million unfilled jobs spanning the biotechnology industry, biotech PSMs have a unique and important role in today’s economy, he said.

Celebrating it’s 10th anniversary this year, Northeastern’s PSM program in Biotechnology is expanding to the Seattle campus, accepting applications for the fall and has become a model for others around the country. This is thanks in no small part to the efforts of program manager Cynthia Bainton, who last fall received an award from the National Professional Science Master’s Association for her outstanding contributions to the PSM initiative.

Bainton noted that the industry is constantly evolving, and as a result, programs like Northeastern’s need to be flexible and responsive to what’s happening in the real world. For instance, if industry requires job seekers to have expertise in drug product formulation, then programs must adapt their training to meet that need. Northeastern’s program recently revitalized its curriculum for just that reason and now offers three new tracks, including analytical sciences and pharmaceutical technology.

Unique from master’s and PhD programs, 30 percent of the standard PSM curriculum is dedicated to so-called “plus courses,” which train students in everything from leadership and ethics to intellectual property law and tech transfer. At Northeastern, the other 70 percent is spent in the classroom with world-leading academic and industry experts.

But the central component of any PSM is work experience—which aligns strongly with the university’s global leadership in experiential education. At Northeastern, that takes shape through graduate co-op placements, a critical feature that sets Northeastern’s program apart. Leung and Jones agree that Northeastern’s edge lies in its commitment to providing high-quality internship experiences. “We regard ourselves as industry facing,” Jones said. “That’s in our DNA.”

During his second year of the program, Duffner transferred to Momenta pharmaceuticals, where he used his co-op to bring a new set of tools into the company’s repertoire. “I learned how to perform gene expression analyses, something I had never done before,” he said. This effort eventually turned into a platform that nearly every division of the company now makes use of. Today, Duffner works as a senior scientist there, employing a new generation of co-op students from his alma mater.

The success of Northeastern’s program is visible: Every PSM student who applies for a job after graduation receives one. With a unique set of skills unattainable through any other educational program, PSM students are filling the industry’s void, said Leung.

All clinical drugs are intended to go through lengthy and thorough trials before reaching a pharmacist’s shelves. These tests are designed in part to catch any adverse effects of the drug on the patients. But these clinical trials are extremely controlled and the test subjects are cherry picked from the patient pool, according to Nick O’Donnell, a recent graduate of Northeastern’s doctor of pharmacy program. The real world looks a lot different than this, he said.

That’s why O’Donnell, in conjunction with John Devlin, an associate professor of pharmacy practice in the Bouvé College of Health Sciences, decided to delve a little deeper into one class of drugs: intravenous sedatives. Because of their systemic action, these drugs have the potential to disrupt processes across the body.

Every time a patient experiences an adverse effect of a drug—be it an increase in heart rate, the development of an infection, a failure in the gastrointestinal track, or anything in between—the attending physician has the option of reporting the event to a central database maintained by the Federal Drug Administration. Because the system is voluntary, O’Donnell said, there are some serious reporter bias problems built in. For instance, if a patient experiences an adverse effect that doesn’t surprise the physician, it’s less likely to be reported.

Still, the database represents the most inclusive collection of wisdom on drug side-effects post-marketing. O’Donnell used this information to perform the most comprehensive examination on the most often used IV sedatives to date. He selected 2,500 anonymous patients from the database, who collectively experienced 6,000 adverse events over an eight-year period from 2004 to 2011.

He looked at the relative incidence of events per organ system, including the neurological, cardiac, respiratory, metabolic, and gastrointestinal systems. He also looked at infection rates.

“No one had looked at which sedatives affect different organ systems the most,” O’Donnell said. Much of what they found was to be expected. But there were a few anomalies that could never have been detected without this kind of search.

For instance, one of the sedatives known to decrease blood pressure and heart rate was also associated with a large incidence of cardiac arrest, something doctors would never have previously been concerned about with this particular drug. Another drug commonly known to affect the GI tract had similarly high rates of respiratory-related events.

O’Donnell presented the work at the Research, Innovation, Scholarship, and Entrepreneurship expo, or RISE, earlier this year and earned an award in the Health Sciences category. “I enjoy this kind of work because I can turn the data I have into something useful for the field,” he said.

Larry J. Merlo, president and CEO of CVS Caremark, said on Tuesday morning at Northeastern’s CEO Breakfast Forum that the challenges presented by America’s rapidly evolving healthcare landscape will require innovative solutions that lower costs and improve patient access to quality care.

Merlo said today’s healthcare industry is grappling with challenges ranging from meeting the needs of Baby Boomers to what he called the “epidemic” of patients’ non-adherence to prescription medication schedules. The Affordable Care Act, he added, is constantly introducing new elements into the fold.

“All of the stakeholders in the system including consumers, employers, and hospitals, are experiencing levels of unprecedented change,” said Merlo, the latest keynote speaker at Northeastern’s CEO Breakfast Forum series. President Joseph E. Aoun hosts the events, where leading CEOs share their expertise with audiences of other CEOs and senior executives from the Greater Boston area.

President Joseph E. Aoun, right, greets Larry Merlo, president and CEO of CVS Caremark, on Tuesday morning at Northeastern’s CEO Breakfast Forum. Photo by Brooks Canaday.

CVS Caremark, Merlo explained, is driving many innovative approaches to meet these healthcare challenges, particularly by reinventing pharmacy’s role in the equation. He detailed CVS Caremark’s Pharmacy Advisor Program, which helps patients manage the treatment of chronic diseases through a variety of resources such as counseling services and email notifications. He also pointed to MinuteClinic, CVS Caremark’s retail medical clinics located in select CVS/pharmacy stores nationwide that Merlo said offer convenient, affordable, high-quality care and ease the burden on hospitals treating non-emergency conditions. Launched in 2000, there are now 650 MinuteClinic locations that have collectively treated 15 million patients.

“CVS Caremark is uniquely positioned to help stakeholders navigate the complexities of a changing healthcare system,” said Merlo. He noted that the company’s resources and services are extending the frontlines of care for consumers, helping to alleviate the primary-care physician shortage, closing gaps in care, and improving medication adherence.

In his introductory remarks, Aoun highlighted the longstanding relationship between Northeastern and CVS Caremark, particularly through partnerships in the School of Pharmacy and School of Nursing in the Bouvé College of Health Sciences. CVS Caremark currently employs 278 alumni and nearly 700 students have completed co-ops at CVS Caremark since 2002. In addition, 45 pharmacy students from the 2013 graduating class were placed at CVS Caremark for their Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experiences—intensive experiential courses—during their final year in the Doctor of Pharmacy program.

“Northeastern graduates have certainly demonstrated their leadership abilities among our workforce,” Merlo said.

Aoun noted how Northeastern’s innovative approach to higher education through experiential education parallels CVS Caremark’s novel approach to healthcare solutions. “I was struck by the similarities between the two,” he said.

During a question-and-answer session, Jack Reynolds, dean of the School of Pharmacy, asked Merlo to discuss ways in which the school’s curricula could integrate new elements that align with the evolving healthcare field. Merlo pointed to two areas of opportunity: customer interaction and the evolving nature of the pharmacy industry.

Describing the challenges related to customer interaction, Merlo told the story of a MinuteClinic nurse practitioner who noticed a high-school athlete’s heart murmur during a routine physical and directed the family to a specialist. The boy’s mother initially questioned the finding, but the specialist’s later confirmation compelled her to write a warm letter to CVS Caremark lauding the nurse practitioner’s careful attention.

“This is just one story about what is happening out there every day, whether it’s a nurse practitioner or a pharmacist doing wonderful things that ultimately end up saving people’s lives,” Merlo said.

College of Engineering alumnus and tech innovator Michael Sherman is the man behind Northeastern University’s Michael J. and Ann Sherman Center for Engineering Entrepreneurship Education.

Scheduled to launch this fall, the new program’s curriculum is designed to arm engineering undergraduates with the appropriate entrepreneurial skills to successfully pitch and commercialize their innovations. Workshops and courses will be led by Northeastern faculty and innovators from industry.

“We need to ensure that engineering students are able to communicate in the commercial world,” said Sherman, who graduated with a bachelor of science from the College of Engineering in 1968. In some ways, he said, the “commerciality of innovation is more important than the innovation itself.

“It doesn’t matter how good your product is,” he explained. “If you can’t make a business case for its viability then you won’t be able to bring it to market.”

The center complements Northeastern’s commitment to fostering entrepreneurship on campus and will work closely with faculty in the D’Amore-McKim School of Business and IDEA, Northeastern’s student-run venture accelerator.

“Michael’s passion for turning innovative engineers into savvy entrepreneurs resonates deeply with our mission at Northeastern,” said Joseph E. Aoun, president of Northeastern University. “Our students thrive on infusing their knowledge with real-world experiences. Michael’s support will be instrumental for our engineering students and the sustainability of their inventions.”

Nadine Aubry, dean of the College of Engineering, shares Sherman’s passion. “Engineers create products but without taking those to market, what’s the point? Business considerations need to be an integral part of the engineering design process; otherwise engineers waste time designing products that will never be used,” said Aubry, who met Sherman shortly after she had expressed her vision to introduce entrepreneurship in engineering education as new dean last fall. “Michael and Ann’s investment will allow the college to introduce entrepreneurship in our engineering curriculum at a much larger scale.”

Sherman has 40 years of experience in communications hardware and software development, including wireless applications for military, government, and commercial use. His business, AES Corp., of Peabody, Mass., produces and installs leading-edge security products for organizations and households in more than 130 countries around the world.

Sherman grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., and moved to Boston in 1963 to attend Northeastern. He credited co-op with giving him the confidence to excel in the business world. “Gaining experience in the work environment made me realize that I could accomplish the business objectives I desired,” he said. “I have always considered Northeastern integral to my career success.”

This multi-million dollar seed investment is a testament to Sherman’s loyal and ongoing support of his alma mater during the last 25 years. He is grateful to be in a position to give back to Northeastern’s crop of burgeoning engineers. “Engineers and the engineering profession will exist long into the future if they are able to become the commercial engines of innovation,” he said.