Class Notes Archives
July/August 2009 |
September 2004 Hello all, and welcome to the first column leading up to our 10th reunion. If you are interested in helping to plan the big party, please contact Colin Page, colinp@alum.mit.edu, or me, ranjini@alum.mit.edu. I hope to see you all in Boston in June 2005! First, some corrections from my last column—Heidi (Shih) and Aaron (Ashford) Ashih were inadvertently put in the column as Heidi and Ben. My apologies! Aaron received his PhD in mathematics from Duke in 2001, and promptly decided to become an artist. He constructs sculptures with metal and wood. Heidi received her PhD in biostatistics from Duke in 2000 and continued on as a visiting professor for one year. She entered medical school at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill in 2001. She took a year off to be with her family, but will return for her third year of med school in June. Brian Robertson recently graduated from Harvard Business School and is starting a finance company for large solar energy projects, SunEdison. Brian and Eileen had their first baby, Melanie, in April 2003, and are due with a second girl in August 2004. James Landry is moving back to Boston in June to work in the signal processing division of Alphatech in Burlington. After working in IT consulting for several years, Peter Orondo founded an outsourcing firm, www.acclaimconsulting.com, in Cambridge. Steven G. Johnson has been unable to escape MIT, and is starting there as an assistant professor of applied mathematics in fall 2004. (He still considers himself a physicist, though.) Alex Morozov, moroza01@yahoo.com, is in his first year of internal medicine residency at Columbia. Bernhard Schnurr is a few months into a postdoc at NYU medical school, trying to contribute some single molecule biophysics to an immunology group, while going through a "fire hose" crash course in this new subject matter. Colin Page and his wife recently attended the wedding of classmate and Theta Xi pledge brother Leonard Kimble. Other Theta Xis from the class who attended included Chris Merkel, Michael Evans, Martin Lewis, Jason Jarboe and Chris Rodriguez. After working for a small Japanese company in Hiroshima for the last three years, Anthony Patire will be going back to Berkeley in the fall to study transportation engineering. He might never leave academia again. Howard Pan received his MBA from Sloan in 2001. He is now living in the San Francisco Bay area, working for Intel as a product line manager. He is responsible for Intel's latest 4 Gbps Fibre Channel transceivers as well as some high-end 10 Gbps products. Scott Carpenter helped design the Mars Exploration Rovers at JPL, alum.mit.edu/ www/scottcar. He is currently designing satellites at Northrop Grumman Space Technology (Redondo Beach, CA). Scott married Ria Gober and traveled to Cambodia to assist a free medical clinic. Jesse Hull recently returned from an extended trip to Africa where he climbed Mt. Kenya with Martha Montague '98. He also visited South Africa, and Mozambique with his girlfriend. At Brian D'Amato's ('96) wedding, Jesse saw Ryan Elhert and Joe Chang among other MIT grads. He is still working at a small wireless startup in Oakland. Lots of pictures at: www.jhull.com. Victor Holmes and Betsy Marvit are enjoying the calm life back in Berkeley after a summer of travels to Miami, Washington, and a belated honeymoon in France. After much thought and soul searching, Raj Sodhi made the difficult decision to cut his hair. He says, "For sure, I look different, but really it is the same Raj, only a Raj that has figured out a little more of what works well for him." (See the "before" photo p. TK.) Geoff Gustafson worked on Linux kernel performance for IA64 for Intel in Oregon. He is moving back to Boston in mid-June, and maintains a slowly increasing collection of Web geekery at www.mitwhiz.com. Nik Caruthers, a foundry procurement manager, is approaching his nine-year anniversary with Intel. In addition to his corporate duties, Nik Caruthers and a business associate launched a new company, Legends Retail, which specializes in men's and women's streetwear. The first storefront opened in Little Rock, AK, in 2003; www.legendsretail.com, a fully functional e-commerce site, is set to launch in June of 2004. Nik continues to live in Folsom with his wife, Berenice, and daughters Shanice, age 10 and Jasmine, age two. Congratulations to Alissa Whitney, who recently received the University Volunteer Service Award at LSU. The award is open to all 34,000 students, faculty, and staff, but only four were given this year. Alissa and her dogs, Zoe and Annie, are active in the Paws to Read program at the local library, which utilizes the Vet School's pet therapy program to aid children with reading difficulties. Air Force Capt Andrea Jensen is now stationed at Barksdale AFB in Shreveport, LA, and is a pilot in the B-52 Stratofortress (also affectionately known as the BUFF). Aimee and Morgan Slade celebrated the first birthday of their daughter, Skye Alexandra Slade in May 2004. Morgan heads the Quantitative Research Group and trades a statistical arbitrage book for a large hedge fund in Dallas. David Spetman married the staggeringly beautiful Kathy Hice on April 30 while he was still living in Huntsville, AL. At the end of May, David took a job with SAIC in Arlington, VA. He is now an engineer/analyst supporting the Missile Defense Agency which mostly involves IR signature work. David and Kathy will soon be living in Reston, VA. Yara Isady Alma-Bonilla received a master's in translation (English/Spanish) from the School of Humanities of the University of Puerto Rico on June 5. For her thesis, she translated two publications from Rational Island Publishers (Seattle): Working Together to End Racism, and The Human Male: A draft policy for men's liberation, together with a translator's note. She defended on May 14, and it was approved "outstanding with recommendation to publish." She has been living in San Juan, Puerto Rico, since 2000. Bruce Mackenzie married Tara Wallis on May 8, 2004, in their home island of Tobago in the Caribbean. Graham Fernandes '93 performed brilliantly as in his role as groomsman. The happy couple honeymooned in Havana and Jibacoya, Cuba, in Barbados and in Tobago and recently returned to their home in London. Bruce presently spends his time with inventors and patent offices, keeping the wheels of innovation firmly stuck. His wife Tara spends her time traveling and writing about travel destinations. Valerie (Jordan) Booden is celebrating finally getting her master's in engineering from Purdue University. She is working on hydrogen fuel cell vehicles at Ford in Michigan, and she and her husband are enjoying their two kids Nathan, three and a half years, and Callie, 19 months. Bridget Spitznagel completed her PhD at Carnegie Mellon in May; in March she and husband David Apfelbaum celebrated son Sean's first birthday. Thanks to everyone who contributed, especially those who submitted notes for the first time! Keep in touch! --Ranjini Srikantiah, 15 Mountain Ave, Westwood, NJ 07675, ranjini@alum.mit.edu. |