Ivy@50: Leigh Hochberg

"If Brown didn't have a fencing team, I probably would've wound up matriculating somewhere else."

And Leigh Hochberg's decades-long association with Brown University has brought him to the cusp of a major medical milestone -- enabling people who are paralyzed to control devices with their minds.

He's the principal investigator for a study using the BrainGate Neural Interface System on live subjects -- in this case, with patients who have lost use of their limbs -- taking place at Harvard's Massachusetts General Hospital. The BrainGate system is a 4mm square (baby aspirin-sized) semiconductor implanted into a patient's motor cortex, the part of the brain that normally controls movement. It then sends motor cortex signals to an outside processor, which translates the signals into computer directives. "The first person [with the implant] controlled a TV, opened simulated email, and transported a piece of candy to someone's hand with a robotic arm," says Hochberg.

For Stephen Eschenbach's full story, please visit Ivy@50.

Ivy@50: Maya Lawrence

Maya Lawrence is in Europe, working as an "assistante d'angalis" at a lycée (high school) in Paris, through a program administered by the French Embassy in Washington, D.C. She's also training with some of the world's best fencers in preparation for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China.

It's a hard path -- competing on a world-class level in preparation for the Olympics, while beginning as a teacher of English as a second language. And Lawrence could have picked an easier venue for this training. When she arrived in France in September 2005 she "didn't know the language. If you start [speaking] in English they get mad at you," she says, "but if you try first in French they're fine."

For Stephen Eschenbach's full story, please visit Ivy@50.

Ivy@50: Bob Cottingham

When Bob Cottingham arrived as a freshman sabre fencer in 1984, Columbia fencing had not won an NCAA title since 1971. When he graduated in 1988, the program just won its second straight championship and would go on to win five titles in seven years. Cottingham was key to the revival of this elite program.

Growing up in Orange, N.J., he "played football and lacrosse, which is my favorite sport," he says. "I can also remember watching other athletes on television in the Olympics." He would soon join those athletes on the Olympic stage.

For Stephen Eschenbach's full story, please visit Ivy@50.