Mayer has been at this work for more than 40 years, the past 25 at UNH’s CCOM. He and colleagues point out the many reasons we need to better understand the global seafloor. First among them is safe navigation, but there’s also the search for resources and infrastructure like cables and pipelines. Modeling deadly storm surge and tsunamis. Understanding (and protecting) corals, sponges and other ecosystems. There are even implications that let nations claim more undersea resources beyond the existing offshore exclusive economic zone.

The seafloor is at the root of understanding a changing climate as well, says Mayer. “The climate system is driven by the distribution of heat on the planet, and heat is mostly distributed by ocean currents on the planet, and where the deep currents go is controlled by the ocean bathymetry”— or measurement of depth in a body of water — the same way we use topography to describe land.

Of his role in partnership with his alma mater, Laymon has said: “For more than 50 years, I have truly enjoyed participating in and making a positive impact on diversity at UNH — a never-ending journey.”

But for those affected by Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton — two storms so potent their names will likely be retired in a nod to how powerful their legacies will continue to be — living through those emergencies quickly became a story worth sharing.

UNH Magazine heard from many in our greater Wildcat community affected by the storms — some without basic utilities for weeks and with trees toppled over onto carports, others offering boots-on-the-ground support and at least one with a more bird’s-eye view of storms such as these, but the same compassion for those in their path.

Here are some of the storm stories we collected just before the holidays:

The first time Marcia Haigis ’96 saw mitochondria — the cell structures or “organelles” that generate the energy that powers the body’s cells and control cell division and growth — she was struck by their beauty and elegance.

When it comes to cancer cells, however, all the work done by mitochondria is devoted to helping tumors survive and grow — elegant organelles with a destructive purpose. That growth generates a lot of cellular waste, including ammonia. What cancer cells do with that ammonia became a puzzle that Haigis was determined to solve.

Haigis was recognized for her research in 2023, when she was awarded the Samsung Ho-Am Prize in Medicine.

“It’s always been a personal dream to work on a puzzle that, when solved, has the potential to contribute to human health,” Haigis said during her acceptance speech. “Working on mitochondria offered a piece of that puzzle.”

Gulu University is on the other side of town from her full-time role as the co-founder, co-CEO and chief technology officer at Takataka Plastics, a startup that she co-created to address the city’s significant plastic waste problem and create job opportunities.

But why here? Plastic waste is an issue practically everywhere. And for someone as driven as Balcom, entrepreneurial and engineering opportunities would have been available practically everywhere too. She could have found professional success here in her home state of New Hampshire, where she pitched on TV’s “Shark Tank” while still in high school; and at UNH, where she was named a Hamel Scholar and earned her mechanical engineering degree. Or why not California, where she moved to pursue her Ph.D. at Berkeley, and earned awards from the National Science Foundation and USAID, in addition to being named a recipient of the Lemelson-MIT Student Prize and a Fulbright Scholar?

“My dad went to UNH; I applied early … I actually wrote a children’s book as my application essay, and I was the subject of the book,” she says.

That passion and interest in education haven’t waned: Now in her 18th year as an educator, Duclos spent the past year serving as the state’s Teacher of the Year, an honor announced in October 2023. In that role, she served as an ambassador for New Hampshire educators, speaking at events and connecting with other educators across the country. She teaches third grade at Pembroke Hill School, the elementary school in Pembroke with just over 330 students in kindergarten through fourth grade.

After almost five decades as a member of the New Hampshire House, the Governor’s Executive Council and the New Hampshire Senate, and as a candidate for governor, D’Allesandro has retired from public office.

He graduated from UNH in 1961, with life lessons learned and lifelong friends made here. Then this kid from East Boston set out on two paths: one as an educator and another as a public servant. Some 64 years later, he sat down to chat with UNH Magazine in the kitchen of the Manchester home he and his wife Pat ’61 have shared for 53 years. He shared stories of UNH football and political friendships — he recalled a phone call from Hillary Clinton when he chose not to run for reelection and the way Al Gore reached out to him when one of his brothers passed away — and he remembered similarly strong UNH relationships too. Here’s an excerpt of that kitchen conversation…

He loved it here.

And while it was never clear to John’s five children exactly how their father found his way to UNH from his high school in Rahway, New Jersey, one thing was very well known: John was deeply impacted by his time at UNH and shared his passion and joy with his children.

“The expectation that each would attend UNH was no surprise,” says son David ’81. “We had met his former classmates like Jere Chase ’36 and teammates Don Otis ’39 and Art Hanson ’38 (all three inducted into the Athletics Hall of Fame) many times, and heard enough great stories and memories from our father that it seemed like the obvious choice.”

When David joined the UNH community in September 1977, his father told him, among other things, to smile and greet everyone he met, as he did when he was a student, recalls David, who majored in history while at UNH.

Kelsey says she had noticed Joey before, cheering among the Cat Pack at UNH Men’s Hockey games while she sat with the Beast of the East Pep Band, and wasted no time telling Hanna, after Joey had walked away, that she thought he was cute. A few hours and a few texts later, Kelsey and Joey found themselves at Libby’s downtown, celebrating the end of the semester.

From their first official date in Portsmouth the next month (Mexican food, ice skating at Strawbery Banke, coffee at Breaking New Grounds) to making it “official” a month after that, they graduated that May, bidding each other a temporary farewell until they moved in together in August 2015.

Wrightsman, a lifelong learner with interests ranging from classical music to genealogy, a skilled outdoorsman and enthusiastic traveler, passed away on August 14, 2024, from complications of dementia.

In 1964, after graduating from Manchester College in Indiana and earning a Ph.D. in economics from Michigan State University, Wrightsman came to UNH and taught at the Whittemore School of Business (predecessor of the Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics) for 29 years before retiring in 1993. He wrote several textbooks in his field of finance and banking.

My sole means of transportation was a three-speed English “wheel.” (The word wheel was commonly used for bicycles on campus then.) I rode it to Nesmith Hall every morning and, during the day, to a building off-campus to check on research animals. Fellow graduate students who had experienced New Hampshire winters kept joshing me: “Just wait until December, Bill, when temperatures drop below zero. You’ll feel chilled to the bone.” The jacket and London Fog topcoat I had brought from home were going to be inadequate.