Seriousplay

KO

KO(they/them) is a Tony Award-winning associate professor in the School of Communication's Theatre department and the Donald G. Robertson Director of Music Theatre. They are most widely known for their acting work that spans the last 25 years on Broadway and TV.

KO now works at the collegiate level facilitating workshops on interpersonal communication, classroom culture, critical analysis of the Musical Theater canon, and education ethos retooling while mentoring artists privately.

They also co-created the Mosaic Training, a bi-annual 8 week workshop for young artists from underrepresented identities to build community and engage in training free of charge in partnership with Project Broadway and Broadway workshops.

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Farhan Arshad ('10)

Farhan Arshad (GC10) is a television writer and producer with a MFA in Writing for the Screen and Stage from the School of Communication. He has written for shows like CBS’s The McCarthys, ABC’s Dr. Ken, and CBS’s Man with a Plan (starring Matt LeBlanc). He was also both a writer and co-executive producer for the Frasier reboot starring Kelsey Grammer on Paramount+. He was a supervising producer on season three of Amazon Prime’s Upload and Amazon Freevee’s The Pradeeps of Pittsburgh.

Arshad has participated in the Disney Channel Storytellers program and the Sony Pictures Showrunner Training Program, an initiative that grooms the next generation of showrunners.

One of four alumni writing for Man with a Plan—where Gregg Mettler (C94) is an executive producer—Arshad’s time in Hollywood has been filled with one Northwestern connection after another. He told us that he participated in a joke-writing “punch-up” for a pilot where “the entire room was basically full of Northwestern people. You couldn’t escape Northwestern even if you tried,” he says.

A Pakistani American who grew up in Davenport, Iowa, Arshad has pitched and worked on a few projects that feature characters who resemble him and reflect his experiences. “[I'm] in such a unique situation, where millions of people tune into our work. So you really do have a chance, if you exercise it correctly, to get your message out there,” Arshad explains. “Telling inclusive stories is important.”

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Mel McDaniel, Human Communications Sciences Major

When I got to Northwestern, I thought I’d work on language with kids with autism and other learning disabilities,” said human communication sciences major Mel McDaniel. “Then I learned what a wide range there is in speech-language pathology, with all the different populations you can treat. So I thought it’d be interesting to work with people with aphasia. Now I’m working with kids with hearing loss, and I really like that too. A cousin of mine has cerebral palsy, and there are language interventions in that area. Most recently I’ve gotten interested in treatment for stuttering and dysphasia. I can go in all these different directions. I love the diversity of being able to treat different populations and getting to know a lot of different fields before settling on one.”

McDaniel is currently enjoying her work in the Early Intervention Research Group. The lab is led by professor Megan Roberts, who received a grant to study early communication interventions in toddlers with hearing loss. “We have our intervention group and our control group,” McDaniel explains. “I’m the recorder, so I collect videos—hundreds for each kid. I’m blinded to their conditions so I can observe how they improve, whether or not they’ve received intervention.”

Outside her major, McDaniel is minoring in psychology and pursuing a module in childhood communication. But even as her academic work pulls her in multiple directions, she finds time to devote to Northwestern’s Native American and Indigenous Student Alliance. A member of the Maidu tribe, she cochaired NAISA’s annual spring powwow and serves on its knowledge keepers committee, which works to preserve the group’s archives. She also honors her Mexican and Black heritage through work with other campus cultural groups, including the Black Mentorship Program and For Members Only.

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