Newsmakers

President Obama nominated Solicitor General ELENA KAGAN ’81, left, May 10 to succeed Justice John Paul Stevens, who is retiring, on the Supreme Court. If confirmed, Kagan, 50, would be the young­est justice, the third woman, and the third Princeton alum — with Samuel Alito ’72 and Sonia Sotomayor ’76 — on the current court.  

Before joining the Obama administration, Kagan was the first female dean of Harvard Law School and had been associate White House counsel under President Bill Clinton and a law professor at the University of Chicago. Obama praised Kagan as “one of the nation’s foremost legal minds” and a “consensus-builder.” In remarks at the White House, Kagan vowed, if confirmed, to ensure Ameri­cans “get a fair hearing and an equal chance at justice.”

At Princeton, Kagan was editorial chairwoman of The Daily Princetonian, graduating summa cum laude with a degree in history and writing her thesis on American socialism. She received a Daniel M. Sachs ’60 Trave­ling Scholar­ship to earn a master’s degree at Oxford University, and then studied law at Harvard. If confirmed, she would be the first Supreme Court justice in almost 40 years to have no judicial experience.

Former Tiger soccer coach BOB BRADLEY ’80 and his U.S. men’s World Cup team were slated to make a weeklong training stop in Princeton May 17–23 before playing two send-off exhibition matches in Hart­ford and Philadelphia. Bradley is cautiously optimistic about his squad’s prospects in South Africa.  

LOCOMOTIVES  

KATIE GRIECO ’92 and JORDAN ROTH ’97 were featured in “40 under 40,” an annual list of rising stars selected by Crain’s New York Business . Grieco is vice president of operations for Craft Worldwide Holdings, a restaurant group, and Roth is the president of Jujamcyn Theaters. ... Former Prince­ton Presi­dent HAROLD SHAPIRO *64 will chair the panel of 12 experts reviewing the research and management practices of the United Nations Intergovern­mental Panel on Climate Change. ... With a 98–0 vote, the U.S. Senate confirmed DENNY CHIN ’75 as a justice on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit April 22. ... Avon Products chairwoman and CEO ANDREA JUNG ’79 was a co-winner of this year’s Family Heritage Award, presented at the Ellis Island Immigra­tion Museum. ... Lyricist and composer PETER MILLS ’95 has won a 2010 Kleban Prize in Musi­cal Theatre, which comes with a $100,000 award for most promising musical-theatre lyricist. ... EVE EPSTEIN ’81, managing editor for Oregon Public Broadcast­ing’s news department, won a Peabody Award for the radio series “Hard Times,” which the judges said “humanely and thoughtfully” documented “Main Street repercussions of Wall Street’s reckless ways.”