Silhouettes 2016 Archives

Greg Weston

By Noah Coco • March 29, 2016

With a lifetime in the radio field, Greg Weston has learned how to connect his audience from behind the scenes of an imageless medium.As general manager of WPTS for the past 12 years and a lifelong radio worker, Weston oversees the station’s operations and acts as liaison between the students and the University.He interned with WCBS radio in New York when he was 15, and then, after putting in time at Northwestern University’s college radio and a commercial station in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, voic

Lori Campbell

By Courtney Linder • March 29, 2016

No one expects their professor to be a former Grammys guest.But nothing is too fantastical for Lori Campbell, who is as vibrant as her St. Patrick’s Day wardrobe. Green down to the last detail — complete with a jade, draped necklace that she crafted herself and eyelids the color of Tinkerbell’s dress — Campbell evokes an effervescent aura of mystique, indicative of her life.Campbell, widely known across Pitt’s campus as “The Harry Potter Professor,” lives and breathes this ethereal reverie, both

Lola Adebiyi

By Rio Maropis, Staff Writer • March 29, 2016

Like millions of millennials, Ololade “Lola” Adebiyi grew up reading and watching the “Harry Potter” series. Unlike those millions of fans, she’s using her passion for the wizarding world to start a charitable nonprofit. Adebiyi is co-founder of Pitt Project Potter, a charitable student organization that raises money for a nonprofit of members’ choice at the end of every spring semester. Born out of an intense fandom for the bespectacled wizard’s adventures, the organization is now on the verge

Derek Griesbach

By Amanda Reed • March 29, 2016

In every inspirational memoir, there is always some impetus that drives the author to change their life for the better. In “Eat, Pray, Love,” it’s Elizabeth Gilbert’s divorce. In “Wild,” her mother’s death leads Cheryl Strayed to hike the entirety of the Pacific Crest Trail.For Derek Griesbach, 34, a Ph.D. candidate and teaching fellow in Pitt’s communication department, this impetus is a book — “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” by Milan Kundera. But it wasn’t the book itself that changed his

Carlino Giampolo

By Dale Shoemaker • March 29, 2016

The heart and the cityCarlino Giampolo is hard to pin down, but he’s never strayed far from his values –– respect and dignity –– no matter how far from Panther Hollow he’s gone.By his own definition, Carlino Giampolo is a powerful man.Yet, he’s never held public office, and he’s not very wealthy. But he’s a man of many projects — from cleaning up South Oakland to advocating for city ordinances in Hawaii — and that’s what’s important to him. “Power is simply the ability to take action,” he said

Sarah Lane

March 29, 2016

The gamechangerSarah Lane didn’t like how women were portrayed in games, so she changed the rules and made her own. Literally. Sarah Lane is playing for women whose odds are stacked against them.Lane, a senior and longtime gamer, has designed a competitive, casual game that grapples with women’s real-life obstacles — unequal pay, unstable reproductive rights and high levels of domestic and sexual violence.Lane’s Chick Fight is the intersection between the board game Life and feminist rhetoric. P

Justin Thakar

By Lauren Rosenblatt • March 29, 2016

Dumpsters, depression and dreamsJustin Thakar is a non-traditional Pitt student, and he likes it that wayAfter watching Justin Thakar salvage his dinner from an Oakland dumpster, a man honked his horn and held a $10 bill out his car window.But Thakar waved the man on. He didn’t need the money.Since 2011, when a friend began leaving him leftovers after his shifts at the Bagel Factory by its dumpster, Thakar, 23, has tried to push the boundaries of middle-class life. The former Pitt student dumpst

Alex Austin

By Britnee Meiser, Staff Writer • March 29, 2016

When Alex Austin finishes class for the day, he doesn’t unwind with a three-hour Netflix binge or a shot pitcher from Hemingway’s. Instead, he drives back to his home in Squirrel Hill and cooks dinner for his 11-year-old daughter, Caitlyn.Austin never thought he’d be a single father studying for a career in international development. Since he was a teenager, he dreamed of working for the Air Force, and at age 20, he became a C-130 crew chief at Pope Air Force Base in North Carolina.But in 2006,

Iris Matijevic

By Matt Maielli • March 29, 2016

It’s not always easy for Iris Matijevic to keep track of where her assorted family members ended up after the Bosnian War.The stark difference between her parents’ native Bosnia and her upbringing in Munich and the United States was confusing as a child. But before her family left Munich for the United States in 1998, Matijevic saw the remnants of her father’s war-torn homeland firsthand.“One thing that I do remember very vividly was my dad’s parents lived on a dirt road — you had to drive throu

Vicki Collier

By Jack Trainor, Culture Editor • March 29, 2016

Vicki Collier’s professional career has been going in circles — not that she minds. For the past five years, Collier, a biology major with a chemistry minor, has spent her summers operating the Oakland carousel in Schenley Plaza — which, as it turns out, means a little more than pushing a button. In 2006, PNC donated the curious campus fixture to the park, which runs from mid-April to mid-October. As the carousel’s longest returning employee, Collier took The Pitt News on a spin through her car