Leola N. Bergmann | Mitchell A. Burgess | Robin L. Green | Dorothy K. Ray | Jerry M. Sudarsky | James L. Watson
Leola N. Bergmann
Scholar & Printmaker
MA 1939, Department of English
PhD 1942, Department of American Studies
Leola N. Bergmann is an artist and the author of influential historical studies of the immigrant and minority experience in the Midwest. Her historical scholarship includes her dissertation on the history of the renowned St. Olaf College choir, the book Americans from Norway (1950), and the pioneering article, “The Negro in Iowa” (1948), which was the first study of its kind and is still considered a classic. In the 1960s, she began studying drawing at the CLAS School of Art and Art History. Eventually, she turned to printmaking under the guidance of Mauricio Lasansky, Virginia Myers, and Keith Achepohl and developed a unique monoprinting process. The UI Museum of Art presented a retrospective of her work in 2003. In 2004, Bergmann donated her portrait of lifelong friend May Brodbeck (MA ’45 and PhD ’47, both in philosophy), UI vice president for academic affairs and dean of faculties from 1974-1981, to the Iowa Women’s Archives.
Mitchell A. Burgess
Television Producer & Writer
BA 1978, Department of History
Mitchell A. Burgess and Robin L. Green are executive producers and writers for the television series The Sopranos, for which they have won two Emmy awards for outstanding writing for a drama series. Green also won an Emmy as a supervising producer for the series Northern Exposure when it was honored as outstanding drama series in 1992. The husband-and-wife team has also written for a number of other television shows, such as A Year in the Life and Party of Five, and they have won Golden Globe, Peabody, and Writers Guild of America awards. They both began their television careers after years in varying occupations, including journalist, waitstaff, computer programmer, traffic manager in a meatpacking plant, and specialist fourth class, U.S. Army.
Robin L. Green
Television Producer & Writer
MFA 1977, Department of English
Robin L. Green and Mitchell A. Burgess are executive producers and writers for the television series The Sopranos, for which they have won two Emmy awards for outstanding writing for a drama series. Green also won an Emmy as a supervising producer for the series Northern Exposure when it was honored as outstanding drama series in 1992. The husband-and-wife team has also written for a number of other television shows, such as A Year in the Life and Party of Five, and they have won Golden Globe, Peabody, and Writers Guild of America awards. They both began their television careers after years in varying occupations, including journalist, waitstaff, computer programmer, traffic manager in a meatpacking plant, and specialist fourth class, U.S. Army.
Dorothy K. Ray
Radio Journalist
BA 1944, MA 1945, Department of Journalism and Mass Communication
Dorothy K. Ray is a journalist and civic leader in the Iowa City community. Since 1958, she has broadcast the Dottie Ray Show daily on KXIC radio, interviewing more than 20,000 guests over the years. A tireless booster of Iowa City and community organizations, she has received the Russell Slade Award for community service and the Service to the Arts in Our Region Award from the Iowa City Area Chamber of Commerce, as well as the Friend of Education Award from the Iowa City Education Association. As a student, she headed the first all-women editorial staff of The Daily Iowan. She has also taught journalism at the University and served on the School of Journalism & Mass Communication’s Professional Advisory Board until 1999.
Jerry M. Sudarsky
Radio Journalist Founder and Chairman of Alexandria Real Estate Equities
Attended The University of Iowa 1936-39
Jerry M. Sudarsky is founder and chairman of Alexandria Real Estate Equities, a real estate investment trust (REIT) that owns and develops research facilities for the pharmaceutics and biotechnology industries. Financial analysts consider it to be one of the most successful REITs in the country. Early in his long career (1946), he founded the Bioferm Corporation, one of the world’s first biotechnology companies, which used fermentation processes to produce vitamins. He sold the company in 1960 and went on to work in policy development for the United Nations and for Israel, where he focused on infrastructure for science and business. He later served as an executive for such companies as Daylin, Inc. and JEG. He still holds numerous patents in industrial microbiology. In 1942, he received a BS degree in chemical engineering from Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute (now Polytechnic University). He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree from the Polytechnic University in 1976 and an honorary doctorate from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2002.
James L. Watson
John King and Wilma Cannon Fairbank Professor of Chinese Society, Harvard University
BA 1965, Department of Asian and Slavic Languages and Literature
James L. Watson, one of the most distinguished anthropologists of modern China, is the John King and Wilma Cannon Fairbank Professor of Chinese Society at Harvard University. He was one of the first students of Chinese language at Iowa and went on to earn his doctorate in anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. He has conducted pioneering studies of village life, family and kinship, popular religion and ritual, migration, and globalization. He is past president of the Association for Asian Studies and a member of the National Committee on United States–China Relations. Among his many honors, he has been named a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Anthropological Association, the Royal Anthropological Institute, and the American Ethnological Society.