New Trier High School announced the recipients of the 2024 Alumni Achievement Awards, representing the thirteenth group honored as part of the Alumni Hall of Honor.
A news release from the school stated eight new honorees will join the existing 70 receiving their awards at a gala in March where proceeds will benefit the New Trier Educational Foundation. Winners are chosen each fall by a selection committee of alumni, New Trier staff and representatives from the foundation and are based on how well nominees exemplify the schools motto, “To commit minds to inquiry, hearts to compassion, and lives to the service of humanity.”
Tara Purohit Abrahams, a Class of 1994 graduate, is the head of impact at The Meteor, a media company that advocates for women and girls while also serving as a board chair at She’s The First and the International Center for Research on Women. She’s The First helps 150,000 girls around the world, according to the news release, and focuses on rights for young women around the world.
Class of 1999 graduate Sam Barsh spends his time in the music scene as a producer, songwriter and keyboardist earning himself multiple Grammy nominees and wins for his projects with artists such as Kendrick Lamar, Anderson Paak and BJ the Chicago Kid. Barsh has performed with a wide range of artists during his career and written or produced over 300 released songs. Those songs include 17 gold and platinum certifications and four number one albums on the Billboard 200 chart.
NASA chemist Robert Bryant graduated from New Trier in 1980, was indicted in the National Inventors Hall of Fame this year and is also included in the hall of fame for the Space Foundation and NASA inventors. Bryant holds 33 U.S. patents, over 12 foreign patents and two dozen NASA commercial licenses among numerous other awards from NASA, Valparaiso University and R & — a group that awards revolutionary technologies created in the past year.
Jerry Fiddler, chairman and co-founder of computer science company Wind River Systems is a New Trier Class of 1969. Software from the company has been used in everyday devices from cars to desktop printers and used in firms dealing with office automation, the multimedia industry and aerospace. Wind River Systems even had a part in the Mars Pathfinder and Stardust space missions.
Audible, the popular audiobook and podcast server, was founded by journalist and author Donald Katz. After graduating from New Trier in 1970, he spent 20 years writing where he earned a National Magazine Award, the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize for Nonfiction for his book exploring the life of the department store Sears and an Overseas Press Club Award. He was also nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award for his book, “Home Fires: An Intimate Portrait of One Middle-Class Family in Postwar America” in 1992.
Liesel Pritzker Simmons cofounded Blue Haven Initiative, an impact investment company focused on social and environmental benefits, and the IDP Foundation, a private Chicago based organization that works toward universal primary education. Her work at IDP helps finance about 450 low cost private schools across the world. She graduated from New Trier in 2002.
Richard Sherman, an orthopedic surgeon specializing in knee, hip and shoulder disorders linked to sports injury, works at his alma mater as the team physician at New Trier High School for 28 years. The Class of 1973 graduate also spent 15 years as team physician at Deerfield High School and trains orthopedic surgery residents at Loyola University Medical Center as a clinical assistant professor of orthopedic surgery.
The final inductee is Class of 1986 graduate Ellen Spertus, a teaching professor at Khoury College of Computer Sciences at Northeastern University. She previously worked as a computer science at Mills College and senior research scientist at Google. After leaving New Trier, she went on to MIT to earn multiple degrees where she grew an interest in the intersection of gender and computer science. Her work has resulted in App Inventor for Android and the code.org Hour of Code tutorial aimed at increasing the number of students exposed to computer science.
