Newsmakers: A Conversation With Sonia Sotomayor

Pitt Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg moderated a special evening with Sonia Sotomayor, associate justice of the United States Supreme Court, in Carnegie Music Hall, Oakland, on Feb. 4. Part of the Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures series, the Feb. 4 sold-out event featured the associate justice discussing her recent autobiography, My Beloved World, and talking about how she—a poor Hispanic child from the crime-ridden-Bronx—grew up and landed a seat on the nation’s highest court. Sotomayor received two standing ovations—and both times, she crossed her hands across her heart and looked up in amazement at the filled balconies. Nordenberg graciously asked the associate justice about her life, lamenting at one point that, due to time constraints, he had to nix “half of the things I wanted to ask you!” As one of his parting gifts to Sotomayor, the chancellor presented a framed cover of Pitt Med magazine’s Winter 2012/2013 issue, which featured a story on the development of synthetic insulin at Pitt in 1964. Sotomayor was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at the age of 7.