Sophie is a deputy arts editor and a staff writer for News at the Daily. She is a sophomore studying international relations and French and can be reached at sophia.herron@tufts.edu.
When Zak Goldstein was around 4-years-old, he built a model solar system out of ping pong balls with his dad. Today, he’s wrapping up his senior thesis at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University.
Tufts alumnus Henry Cooke (A’79, AG’84), founder of Historical Costume Services, discovered his passion for history while trying to bolster his college application. Cooke worked throughout high school to pay for college, which didn’t leave him much time for extracurriculars. Because of his interest in history, his school counselor suggested he join a newly-formed minuteman reenactment group.
Leatherwork is a relatively new love for Basil Cleveland, president and cofounder of the Boston Leather Guild. He discovered the material around five years ago through a different hobby –– woodworking.
Diana Fernandez Bibeau, deputy chief of urban design for the City of Boston, didn’t plan to work in the public sector. She began as an architect and was inspired by American architect Buckminster Fuller’s work around “innovative city making.” This interest led her to landscape architecture and urban design.
Donald Chapelle, founder and owner of Brilliant Ice Sculpture, made his first foray into the world of ice carving at 18 years old. He was living in a hotel and noticed a large block of ice in the freezer. A waiter told him it was used to make sculptures.
Ellie Ayati Jian began her career as a milliner by coincidence. Originally trained as an architect and interior designer, she stepped into the world of hat-making when a friend asked her to enter the contest for the Longines Prize for Elegance at the Belmont Stakes, a fashion contest in New York. When Jian couldn’t find a fascinator to match her outfit, she decided to make one instead, ultimately winning the prize for most elegant look of the day.
“Moriarty is dead, to begin with.” And after spending three years without his nemesis, master detective Sherlock Holmes is bored and depressed. No case in London tempts him, and he is estranged from his now-married friend Dr. John Watson, even refusing to come to his house for Christmas. Worse, he imagines that he sees Moriarty’s ghost around London. Gloomy, grouchy and very much not in the Christmas spirit, Holmes mopes alone on Christmas Eve — until a doctor asks him to investigate a mysterious death.
Clockmaking runs in the family of Richard Hills, an antique horologist and owner of Hills Antique Clocks in Holliston. Throughout high school and college, he worked in his brother’s repair shop in Wellesley and, after graduating, continued clockmaking on the side while working as a bioanalytical chemist.
The second round of Project: Pop-Up Medford will transform 348 Boston Ave. into a shared retail space for three small businesses from November 2025 to January 2026. The project — a collaboration between the City of Medford, Tufts University and retail incubator consulting firm UpNext — provides microenterprises with the opportunity to promote their work, try new business models and learn how to operate a retail storefront.
For pastry chefs Richard Akers-Barrows and Maura Kilpatrick, baking is about imagination.
