Champions of Communication: Bridging Divides at Home, at Work and for Future Generations
Cathy Andriadis '80 and Karlis Adamsons endowed a new fund to support programs and initiatives that help students learn and practice effective communication across differences. Photo by Dan Loh.
Meet the couple behind the Andriadis-Adamsons Fund
It's fair to say that Cathy Andriadis ’80 and her husband, Karlis Adamsons, view the world from very different vantage points. Andriadis, a former Dickinson English major, is an expert in communications. Adamsons, a chemist, devoted his career to improving equipment and processes. They credit the success of their 25-year marriage to humor, flexibility and communication skills. So it’s fitting that they now help students learn to bridge divides and build understanding in the wider world.
The Andriadis-Adamsons Fund for Engaged Discourse provides $1.4 million to enhance Dickinson programs and initiatives that equip students to exchange ideas effectively across different cultures and languages, and to tackle complex issues productively. The inspiration for this timely gift hearkens back to a generation ago.
International lives
Andriadis’s mother, born in Germany, championed the Nazi resistance during World War II. Her future husband, born in Istanbul, worked for the OSS during the war, and then was a war correspondent for the United Nations, creating broadcasts that aired on many global and national networks. A recognized expert in cross-cultural communications, he spoke eight languages. When his daughter attended Dickinson, he volunteered as president for the Parents’ Advisory Council.
Coming into college, Andriadis was determined to one day take New York City by storm, but she didn’t yet exude big-city confidence and vivacity. That changed as she got involved on campus as a charter member of Kappa Kappa Gamma, captain of the tennis team, writer for the Women’s Resource Center newsletter and participant in theatre productions. As a junior, she was tapped for Wheel and Chain. “That was a culminating honor for me,” Andriadis says. “I knew I had a family here, and that was important to me, as an only child.”
An internship at Philadelphia’s KYW-TV revealed a flair for public relations and journalism. Andriadis went on to be a stringer for the Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse and United Press International; work in radio broadcasting; and pen a monthly column for a sports publication in Asia. After leading media for the men’s professional tennis tour and the Volvo Masters at Madison Square Garden, Andriadis directed corporate communications for ProServ Inc., the second-largest sports-marketing agency in the world.
Next, Andriadis moved to DuPont, where she was a leader for business and corporate communications for three decades. Focusing on environmental communications and initiatives, she worked closely with leading global atmospheric scientists. Early-career negotiations with a rep from Greenpeace provided a master class in her trade. "We wanted the same things, but we had different strategies on how to get there,” Andriadis recalls, who was DuPont’s head of international communications during her final years at the corporation. “I became experienced in crisis and issues communications, learning how to listen, understand and negotiate with many people with differing viewpoints.”
The art of science and systems
In 1998, Andriadis met Adamsons at a gathering for DuPont employees. They shared a formative experience: Both are the only children of Europeans who came to America after surviving World War II.
Like Andriadis, Adamsons grew up in a household where different languages were spoken and where visitors hailed from different corners of the world. Adamsons’ parents were from Latvia. Both were gifted visual communicators—his father, who’d fought with the resistance against Russia and Germany, was an architect, and his mother, a multimedia artist. They met at a university in Germany and settled in the U.S.
Their son inherited his father’s ability to analyze and design structures and systems, and his mother’s passion for art.
Adamsons attained a B.S. in chemistry from Drexel University and went on to acquire dual master’s degrees in physical biochemistry and genetics (University of Idaho and Washington State University) and instrument design (Michigan State University) and a Ph.D. in physical analytical chemistry (Michigan State). He’s authored 50 technical papers and book chapters, and he’s delivered more than 100 research presentations.
Focusing the initial part of his career on healthcare-testing equipment and processes, Adamsons developed urinalysis methods that play a key role in detecting genetic disorders in children, and a process for tracking cell-to-cell communication—an essential assist in the study of cancer. Then he worked at DuPont—and, later, a DuPont spinoff company—for more than 30 years, improving coatings and designing measurement technologies used by automotive manufacturers and others.
The work required the ability to communicate effectively with technical and nontechnical professionals alike, a skill that became especially important when differences of opinion arose.
A career highlight came by way of the Guggenheim Museum. Adamsons worked closely with the head curator to identify the cause of microscopic cracks in the paint on metal sculptures and improve the museum’s methods of storing artworks long-term. That led to a talk at the Museum of Modern Art and several well-cited research papers.
In 2000, Adamsons and Andriadis married at Red Rock Crossing, in Sedona, Ariz. Now retired, they live in Delaware with two beloved cats.
A new legacy
Andriadis, the big-picture thinker, appreciates her husband's talent for dissecting the details, and he admires her expressiveness and communications prowess. She says that while they naturally move through the world in different ways, they meet in the middle—much as Dickinson students are learning to do.
In retirement, Adamsons enjoys creating colorful works of art—their cats are among his favored subjects—which the couple showcases on holiday cards and other goods. Andriadis volunteers; she recently deepened her connections to Dickinson by helping to plan Wheel and Chain’s centennial celebrations. They both make a point of mentoring young people. He enjoys discussing major and career-path options with students, and he advises them to remain open to unfolding possibilities. Andriadis ran a workshop on communications through Dickinson’s career center last year.
On learning about the college’s Dialogues Across Differences program, the couple recognized an opportunity to give back in a personally meaningful way. They established the Andriadis-Adamsons Fund for Engaged Discourse in spring 2025, and in early November, Dickinson hosted a ceremony in their honor. An inscribed paver bearing their names appears on the college’s Old West Society Walk.
“Supporting this communications initiative is critical on so many levels,” Andriadis says. “We’re proud to be a part of this Dickinson endeavor, and we’re immensely grateful to all those who’ve helped bring it to life.”
TAKE THE NEXT STEPS
Published December 2, 2025