'20 in Their 20s' List Filled With Young and Talented Wildcats

An impressive list of young Northwestern University students and alumni were recently honored for their innovation, creativity and leadership by Crain’s Chicago Business in their annual list of “20 in Their 20s” -- people under 30 who are at the top of their respective industries.

Sam Barnett, a current Northwestern graduate student working toward  a joint Ph.D. in neuroscience and finance in the Northwestern University Interdepartmental Neuroscience (NUIN) program and the Kellogg School of Management, is the CEO of SBB Research Group LLC, which recently partnered with AMC Theatres to measure audience reaction to movie trailers.

Matt Bogusz, a 2009 alumnus of the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, is streamlining local government as the mayor of Des Plaines, Ill.

Zoe Damacela, a Weinberg senior, started her fashion business out of her dorm room, has appeared on the cover of Seventeen magazine and has a design job lined up at Macy’s, Inc. in New York.

Mert Iseri, a 2011 graduate of the McCormick School of Engineering, and Yuri Malina, a 2011 Weinberg alumnus, are co-founders of SwipeSense, Inc., a project that spawned from Design for America, a group they created during their undergraduate days at Northwestern. SwipeSense is a portable hand sanitizer that clips to medical professionals’ clothing like an iPod to aid in hygiene compliance at hospitals.

Tristan Meline, a 2007 School of Communication alumnus, is the associate marketing manager for MillerCoors LLC, where he has carefully and successfully guided a multi-million dollar ad campaign for the company’s first line of hard cider.

Luke Tanen, a 2007 School of Communication alumnus and current student in the Kellogg School of Management's part-time MBA program, is the executive director of the Chicago Innovation Awards.

Though not affiliated with Northwestern, honoree Allison Hebron, co-founder of Resonance Medical Technologies, Inc., is working with Northwestern researchers to bring to market a mechanism that fights hearing loss by continuously pumping medication to crucial areas of the inner ear.

Read profiles and watch videos of all the honorees at the original story on Crain’s Chicago Business.