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April 2010, Vol. 7 No. 2
Cover Story: Prime Time
Soaring over the American heartland at 34,000 feet, Cote de Pablo studies the script for her screen test. It's 2005, and she’s on a commercial airliner en route from New York to Los Angeles for a second-round audition to join a prime-time television series. She relaxes into her seat and scans the script pages—sides as they are called in industry jargon. The character she's auditioning to play, initially described as eastern European, will be the new female lead on the CBS ensemble drama NCIS, a crime-solving show about agents for the U.S. Naval Criminal Investigative Service.
At Cote de Pablo's first audition in New York, she opted for a...
Read MoreIn This Issue
April 2010, Vol. 7 No. 2
Winter, thankfully, is over. Although, one Carnegie Mellon alumna made hibernating in front of the television a wise choice. Cote de Pablo stars in the top-rated, critically-acclaimed drama, NCIS. Learn in this issue about her real-life journey to stardom, along with some other interesting journeys as well—alumnus Josh Knauer's venture into the rain forest; university trustee Franciso D'Souza's breakthrough project 25 years ago in Chennai, India. Their stories—and the others, too, in the April issue—are as invigorating as springtime!
In Simple Terms
Everyone clamors for breakthroughs in everything from realistic computer games to cures for diseases. Such breakthroughs often hinge on computer scientists developing methods that take complex phenomena and turn them it into accurate representations. And that's why Carnegie Mellon's Adrien Treuille has come to the forefront as one of the world's top young innovators.
Young and Restless
The pinnacle of success for many top-level business executives is to someday become the chief executive officer of a major corporation. Not only did Carnegie Mellon alumnus Francisco D'Souza realize that dream, it happened for him before he was 40 years old. And he's not done yet.
Seeing the Forest Through the Trees
Even as a youngster, Carnegie Mellon alumnus Josh Knauer felt a bond with nature. It's a bond he hasn't broken. Not once, not twice, but three times he has come up with ideas that have grabbed headlines and, by all accounts, have had a global impact on the environment.
