Dr. Joseph J. Fins ’82, an internationally renowned medical ethicist and pioneer in the field of neuroethics and disorders of consciousness, was named the first recipient of a newly established professorship, The E. William Davis Jr. M.D., Professor of Medical Ethics at Weill Cornell Medical College. Dr. Davis is a member of the Wesleyan Class of 1947. Fins serves as chief of the Division of Medical Ethics and is a tenured professor of medicine, professor of public health, and professor of medicine in psychiatry. He is also director of medical ethics and a physician at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center and on the adjunct faculty of Rockefeller University. He is a co-author of the 2007 Nature paper describing the first use of deep brain stimulation in the minimally conscious state. The Davis Professorship was created in honor of Dr. E. William Davis Jr., who was instrumental in the founding of New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell’s Ethics Committee in 1994, when Dr. Fins was named as its founding chair. Dr. Davis served as professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Weill Cornell Medical College and is currently vice president for medical affairs emeritus at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital.
Joy Anderson ’89, founder and president of Criterion Ventures, landed on Fast Company’s 2011 list of “100 Most Creative People in Business.” Through her leadership of Criterion and its initiatives that shape markets to create social and environmental good, she is working to change the rules of our economy. As faculty on the leading social innovation award programs, Anderson advises the next generation of leaders. Her insights have shaped hundreds of ventures, including Good Capital, a social investment firm she co-founded in 2006, and Village Capital, where she chairs the board. A political science major at Wesleyan, she earned her Ph.D. in American history from NYU.
RBC Capital Markets, the investment-banking arm of Royal Bank of Canada, hired Judith Fishlow Minter ’82 to co-head U.S. Loan Capital Markets. Fishlow Minter, who will lead the New York-based business with Miguel Roman, joined RBC from North Sea Partners LLC, where she was a managing partner. Previously, she ran Citigroup Inc.’s Loan Syndicate desk for North America. According to data compiled by Bloomberg, RBC has climbed to 11th most-active underwriter of leveraged loans in the U.S. this year, from 15th in 2010, Fishlow Minter was an economics and government major at Wesleyan. She also holds an MBA in finance from the University of Pennsylvania.
In late December, Denise Jefferson Casper ’90 was confirmed to a United States District Court Judgeship in Massachusetts. She had been nominated last April by President Obama, and an American Bar Association panel had rated her as “unanimously well qualified’’ for this lifetime appointment. Casper was previously the Deputy District Attorney for the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office in Cambridge, Mass., overseeing the daily operations of one of the largest district attorney’s offices in New England. Prior to that position, Casper taught legal writing at Boston University School of Law. She had served as an Assistant United States Attorney in Boston from 1999 to 2005; she was promoted to Deputy Chief of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force in 2004. Casper also practiced as a civil litigator in the Boston office of Bingham McCutchen LLP (formerly Bingham, Dana & Gould) from 1995 to 1998. After law school, Casper clerked for the Honorable Edith W. Fine and the Honorable J. Harold Flannery of the Massachusetts Appeals Court. At Wesleyan she majored in African-American studies. She received her J.D. in 1994 from Harvard Law School.
Stephen K. Friedman ’91 has been promoted to president of MTV. Since the fall of 2008, he has been general manager, and he will now oversee MTV, MTV2, mtvU, MTV.com, MTV Hits and MTV Jams. During Friedman’s tenure, MTV has had five consecutive quarters of growth, and launched such successful shows as Teen Mom, 16 and Pregnant, Life as Liz, and the upcoming Teen Wolf. He joined MTV in 1998 and started MTV’s strategic partnerships and public affairs department. As general manager, he launched mtvU, the channel dedicated to college students, in 2004, and helped shape the channel’s Emmy Award-winning Sudan campaign to protest genocide in Darfur. In announcing his promotion, The Los Angeles Times writes: “Over the years, [Friedman] has been instrumental in many of MTV’s social and political causes. … He was deeply involved in MTV’s award-winning ‘Fight for Your Rights’ campaign and its ‘Choose or Lose’ political drive.” Before joining MTV, Friedman was director for the PEN American Center, an international writers’ human rights organization. At Wesleyan, he majored in the College of Letters.
Elise Bean ’78 was selected as one of this year’s most influential women lawyers in Washington, by the National Law Journal. She was chosen as one of only 33 in this category, based upon reporting over the past year and nominations from the D.C. legal community. Bean is the Democratic staff director and chief counsel of the U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The Journal credits Bean and her fellow honorees, which include the two Supreme Court justices, with setting the legal agenda in the nation’s capital. Bean leads a team of Capitol Hill investigators who have explored commodities trading, money laundering, offshore tax evasion, and foreign corruption. Bean has worked for the subcommittee’s chairman, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), since 1985 and has served as the Democratic staff director since 2003. A Phi Beta Kappa government major at Wesleyan, she earned her J.D. from the University of Michigan.
Thomas Cowhey ’94 was appointed vice president of Aetna Investor Relations, responsible for maintaining the company’s relationship with the investor and analyst communities. Cowhey, who joined Aetna in 2007, has most recently served the company as managing director of new business development. Prior to his affiliation with Aetna, he was a principal with Legacy Partners Group, an independent investment banking firm, and also had been a vice president at Credit Suisse First Boston. At Wesleyan, he majored in economics. He holds an MBA, with a concentration in health sector management, from Duke.
J. Gordon Cooney Jr. ’81, managing partner at the Philadelphia office of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, LLP, will receive the 2011 Judge Learned Hand Award from the American Jewish Committee this January. Cooney and Michael Banks, also a partner at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP and a co-honoree, have been pro bono legal representation for John Thompson, a former death-row inmate, wrongly convicted for the murder of a New Orleans executive and an unrelated armed carjacking. Working together on the case since 1988, Cooney and Banks uncovered evidence, witnesses, and other critical information that had not been provided to Thompson’s initial defense team. In 2003, they retried the case: after just 35 minutes of deliberation, the jury found Thompson not guilty. Totally exonerated, Thompson was released after 18 years in prison. Serving as co-chair of the Judge Learned Hand Award event is Charisse R. Lillie ’74.
Marysol Castro ’96 was recently hired as the weather anchor for CBS’ The Early Show. Castro had most recently served as the weather anchor and feature correspondent for the ABC News weekend edition of Good Morning America (2004–2010). In conjunction with studio coverage of the national weather outlook, Castro also reported weather-related stories from the field, including several from New Orleans and Florida, focused around the recent hurricanes. A government major at Wesleyan, she earned her master’s degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
Hannah Doress ’88 produced Earth Day Marin, a country-wide celebration of the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. The day drew thousands of attendees and received front-page coverage in the Marin Independent Journal. Senator Mark Leno, of California’s third district, and State Controller Steve Chiang were among the speakers at the event. The day’s festivities included a green songs contest, topical forums, a local foods “iron chef” contest, and an animation festival. A local resource guide with green living tips was also distributed to attendees, available at earthdaymarin.org. At Wesleyan, she was a sociology major.
![Stephen K. Friedman ’91 has been promoted to president of MTV. Since the fall of 2008, he has been general manager, and he will now oversee MTV, MTV2, mtvU, MTV.com, MTV Hits and MTV Jams. During Friedman’s tenure, MTV has had five consecutive quarters of growth, and launched such successful shows as Teen Mom, 16 and Pregnant, Life as Liz, and the upcoming Teen Wolf. He joined MTV in 1998 and started MTV’s strategic partnerships and public affairs department. As general manager, he launched mtvU, the channel dedicated to college students, in 2004, and helped shape the channel’s Emmy Award-winning Sudan campaign to protest genocide in Darfur. In announcing his promotion, The Los Angeles Times writes: “Over the years, [Friedman] has been instrumental in many of MTV’s social and political causes. ... He was deeply involved in MTV’s award-winning ‘Fight for Your Rights’ campaign and its ‘Choose or Lose’ political drive.” Before joining MTV, Friedman was director for the PEN American Center, an international writers’ human rights organization. At Wesleyan, he majored in the College of Letters.](https://classnotes.blogs.wesleyan.edu/files/2013/11/friedman.jpg)
