Daniel F. Le Ray is an award-winning content marketer, writer and editor based in Washington state. He has served as editor of several publications, from college alumni magazines to Europe's largest communications journal, worked with freelance clients ranging from startup app developers to food services providers and healthcare consultancies, and been an in-house marketer for international online marketplaces.
Melanoma is a rare but extremely dangerous form of skin cancer. About 100,000 people in the U.S. are diagnosed with it every year. When caught early, melanoma can usually be treated successfully by removing the cancer and a small amount of the surrounding tissue. However, later-stage melanoma is more difficult to treat.
In recent years, new and effective treatments for melanoma have become available with many more studies and treatments on the horizon.
As a cardiac electrophysiologist — a physician who deals with the electrical system that controls the heart’s rhythm — I work with a lot of patients who are experiencing irregular heartbeats, also called heart arrhythmias.
The Oregon Writing Project brings educators together to build antiracist curriculum and transform their own teaching expertise into scholarly research.
Scholar-educator Linda Christensen believes that the battle for social justice and racial equity begins in the classroom. Christensen is director of the Oregon Writing Project (OWP) at Lewis & Clark, a program that provides teachers in the region with the opportunity to collaborate on developing antiracist curriculum and that elevates K–12 student writing.
Photo: Robert Reynolds
Every year, more than half a million pigs arrive at slaughterhouses around the country sick or severely injured. Unable to walk, these “downed” animals sometimes carry human transmissible diseases such as listeria, campylobacter, swine flu, and salmonella. Students in Lewis and Clark law school’s new Animal Law Litigation Clinic (ALLC) are facing off against industry and government to prevent animal suffering and protect the food supply, with the help of staff attorney Delcianna Winders.
Illustration by Sue Coe, Factory Pharm, 2001
As founder and CEO of the Portland-based Center for Parental Leave Leadership (CPLL), Beacom helps businesses manage the transitions surrounding parental leave and advises them on culture change efforts and crafting new policies—ones that foster employee loyalty by creating a positive environment for working parents.
Dr. Mawuli Nyaku is a seasoned public health expert and epidemiologist who has led multiple efforts to boost vaccine coverage in the U.S. and worldwide for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He is now global director of medical affairs for pediatric vaccines at the pharmaceutical giant Merck, which has two COVID-19 vaccines and one antiviral therapy in the pipeline.
As more than 45,000 fires scorched 8 million acres of land across the American West this past summer and fall, national news stories were accompanied by stark images: orange-red skies over San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, smoke obscuring Seattle’s iconic Space Needle, and evacuated towns across Oregon. In late July, Emily Shafer ’18 and nine other East Coast firefighters drove across the country as part of the Connecticut Interstate Fire Crew to help tackle some of the blazes in northeastern California.
CRAFTING COMPELLING COPY FOR HI!, A EUROPEAN EMPLOYER BRANDING AGENCY, INVOLVED DISCUSSIONS WITH THE FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT AND A COLLABORATIVE EFFORT TO CREATE IMPACTFUL WORK THAT FIT THE DESIGN OF THE COMPANY’S EXISTING GERMAN-LANGUAGE WEBSITE.
Four billion miles from Earth, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft investigates Pluto and the furthest reaches of the solar system.
A massive region of planetesimal bodies called the Kuiper Belt circumscribes our solar system. Home to dwarf planets like Pluto, the belt also boasts thousands of small, planet-like objects which may date back to the beginnings of our own planetary system. On January 1, 2019, NASA’s New Horizons space probe completed a flyby of one of these objects, the most distant object in our solar system ever to be studied.
Photo: NASA
Working with national health care agency Coffey Communications, we crafted a concise message for an advertisement being used at the New England Society for Healthcare Communications’ (NESHCo) annual conference. The brief was to focus on Coffey’s decades of experience in partnering with health care providers to share their story with their patients and community.
In a new National Geographic film, editor and writer Brian Newell crafts a tale of the human and environmental threats faced by Africa’s mighty Okavango Delta.
Into the Okavango, a National Geographic documentary film released in December, follows a trio of modern-day explorers as they travel by traditional canoe (mokoro) more than 1,500 miles down the massive Okavango river toward its mighty delta, a site under increasing threat from human activity.
Photo: National Geographic Films
Willamette University alumni and faculty experts discuss the technology behind cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and how digital economies may be quietly revolutionizing the business world.
Since 2009, Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum and thousands more digital currencies have used blockchain technology to build volatile but exciting trading markets, untethered from the analog world of banks and national economies. While many are skeptical that digital currencies will democratize money, there is little doubt that blockchain has massive business potential.
Photo by David McBee from Pexels.
The Procko lab applies big data tools to molecular biochemistry. Their goal: a better understanding of how we might fight HIV-1.
According to Erik Procko, HIV is “a tricky little beast.” Research into this potentially deadly virus, which has infected nearly 38 million people worldwide, accounts for half of the Procko lab’s work at the University of Illinois’ School of Molecular and Cellular Biology.
Photo: MCB Magazine
Variable Maps, a small printing and marketing services provider, needed a full website update to reflect its broad range of services. The copywriting work focused on making the case for using a diverse supplier like Variable Maps and on catching the customer's eye while including clear descriptions of the services the company provides.
This February, newspaper headlines around the world proclaimed it one of the biggest discoveries in physics for decades: the first observation of gravitational waves—ripples in the fabric of spacetime.
The discovery was made by the LIGO Project, based jointly at the Hanford Site near Richland, Washington, and in Livingston, Louisiana. Since 2006, Assistant Professor of Physics Greg Ogin has been a member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration.
Photo: Matt Z. Banderas
As marketing manager and lead copywriter at Sedo.com, I collaborated with design and product management, marketing and sales to rewrite and redesign the Sedo.com homepage. The new iteration led to an increase in user account creation.
An interview with Macklemore producer Josh Karp, aka Budo, which was published in Whitman Magazine.
Photo: Matt Z. Banderas
Does Professor Thomas Armstrong’s research into the psychology of disgust hold the key to more effective treatments for anxiety disorders?
Two contrasting images appear on a computer screen in Assistant Professor of Psychology Thomas Armstrong’s lab. After several seconds, they disappear, to be replaced by a new pair. Participants in this experiment see one “disgusting” object—a rotting apple, a blood-spattered sink—and one “neutral” counterpart—a wall clock or a coat hook. A small device attached to the computer tracks their eye movements, allowing Armstrong to determine what people do when they see something disgusting—look at it, or avert their gaze.
Photo: Matt Z. Banderas
Through rewriting the copy for Whitman College's admission landing page, we converted a higher percentage of visitors into active prospects for college recruitment.
His grandmother’s babysitter was Chief Joseph. He has appeared on The Colbert Report. He laughs with you but he also talks about genocide. When you speak to Sherman Alexie, you cover a lot of ground. Just don’t ask him to be a spokesman for anyone.
An interview with Seattle-based author Sherman Alexie about his novel Reservation Blues, which charts the course of Coyote Springs, an all-Indian rock ’n’ roll band that forms on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Eastern Washington. In Alexie’s novel, music is a means to tell stories filled with humor and sadness.
Photo courtesy Royce Carlton Inc.
