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September 2005

Hello, everyone!

I just came back from our reunion and I must give kudos to all who contributed to the weekend. Thanks go to Jahnavi Swamy and the entire reunion committee for putting together a fabulous set of events. The highlight for me was the dinner cruise around Boston Harbor. We will soon have pictures and video clip on our website... stay tuned for details.

Now onto the notes... there were many people at the reunion but I did not haw a chance to talk in detail with all of them. Here are the ones on whom
I can report:

Roderick Diaz came with his wife, Fiona Schneider whom he married in October 2005. Roderick recently started a new position as West Coast planning manager at STV, a transportation-planning company in the Los Angeles area. Stan Thompson, also in LA, is enjoying his freedom by traveling around the world. He recently visited Peru with Michelle Green '96. Bonnie (Kim) Niederstrasser and her husband, Carlos, went to
Japan and Philadelphia to visit Bonnie's friends from Wharton (where she recently completed her MBA). They will soon return to Washington, DC,
where Bonnie will be doing management consulting for PRTM, and Carlos will return to Orbital. She reported that lndrani Chakraborty recently
had a baby girl and elso finished her MBA at Wharton.

Erica Hanley-Onken, along with Matt and Zoe, enjoyed seeing everyone at the reunion. Erika is living in North Carolina working for Intrasphere, a pharmaceutical/medical device consulting firm. Despite being only two days away from her due date with baby number two, Jocelyn Chen attended the reunion with her husband, Kai, and her lovely 20-month-old daughter Alethia. They are all living in Boston. Ranee Mehra is coming up on her first anniversary with Sharad Verma, who works at Bayer Pharmaceuticals. They live in New Haven, where Ranee is pursuing a medical-oncology fellowship at Yale University.

Anna (Tomassini) Plehn is a project engineer at Moog a motion-controls company. Her husband, Jose '96, is an economics professor at the State
University of New York in Buffalo. Beth Siers was all smiles with her fiance, Paul Brennan; they are planaing a wedding for April 2006. They are both in the Boston area, where Beth continues to work at the MIT Libraries. Another fellow Muse, Amy Koo, was also recently engaged. She and her fiance, Don Long who live in the Bay area, enjoyed a Boston "duck" tour with me; my two-year-old son, Tejan; and Sarah Keightley and other alums. Jeff Gonzalez was in great spirits at the reunion. He continues to live, work, and play in Miami.

Erin Lavik, an assistant professor at Yale University, was able to tear herself away from writing medical-school recommendations for her students
long enough to enjay a lovely day in Boston. Sahana Sarma, who works for McKinsey in New York, and her husband, Ravi, enjoyed the dance
floor on the cruise ship. Matt and Holly (Goo) Becker had a peaceful evening on the cruise. Chris Merkel and his wife, Chantel, had a chance to meet fellow Billerica, MA, resident and Class of '95er, Shawn Hanegan, and his wife, Liz. Chris is a software engineer at Dimensional Insight and Shawn is a systems engineer at MITRE. Victor Holmes and his wife Betsy took some spins on the dance floor, but kept their dancing rather lowkey--they are expecting their first child in July.

Brian Robertson, Eileen, and their two daughters are living in Annapolis, MD, where Brian is helping to start a solar-energy-financing company
called SunEdison. Linsey Francesca Paik is enjoying her work as a holistic-health counselor in NYC. I had a brief chat with Bryn (Mowry) Oh while she enjoyed the summer weather on the Kresge Oval with her
husband, David '91, and their three children.

Not present at the reunion, but there in spirit: Jonathan Hardy is a development engineer at a small Texas software company called People-
Admin. In December he bought a house in East Austin where he and his wife, Annie Lanier, can enjoy their newlywed days. The two planned an
April 23 wedding in New Orleans. Raj Sodhi has been working as an applied physicist for PNI, providing algorithms for its line of compassing
products.

Nicole (Gotti) and Ed Hernandez have added another bundle of joy to the family with the arrival of Antonia Edward Hernandez in November.
While everyone is adjusting to the arrival, three-year-old Marisol is still coping with the concept of sharing. The family recently moved to the Chicago area, where Ed is an associate brand manager for
Kraft Foods' Philadelphia Cream Cheese. Shalini Verma and Rohit Gupta are happy to announce the birth of their son, Kailash Gupta-Verma. He was born Feb. 27, 2005, with a weight of seven pounds and a length of 19.75 inches. Shraddha (Dalal) Munver and her husband, Ravi, recently welcomed their son, Sujan, into the world on April 21, 2005.

Andrew Kraft continues to add to his collection of "simultaneous job hats" as he runs Adweek/Brandweek/Mediaweek's Digital Marketing Conference and Expo, as well as corporate relations for the ninth annual Webby Awards. Heather Wages is in her eighth year of teaching highschool chemistry here in Massachusetts, and was recently named to the list of Who's Who Among America's Teachers for the second time. Heather also directs, advises the technical-theater program, and recently started an improv troupe-that took bronze in a regional competition in its first year. Kyle Shinseki will receive his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management in Evanston, IL, in June. In July, Kyle will be moving to San Juan, Puerto Rico, to work in U.S. Hispanic marketing at Procter & Gamble's Multicultural Business Development Organization.

Porshia (Parkinson) Wrschka gave birth to Leila Patrice on Oct. 10, 2004. The family lives in Danbury, CT. Mom works for IBM and dad Peter works for ATMI, both as engineers. Karin Lin and her husband, Cade Murray '96, welcomed their second daughter, Kyla Chen Murray, on March 22. She joins big sister Kiera, who is thrilled with the newest addition to the family.

Thanks for your Class Notes contributions over the years, everyone. This is my last column for now, because someone else will soon take over
responsibilities as our new class secretary. I look forward to reading more about your latest achievements and news. Take care, all!

Please send news for this column to Ranjini Srikantiah, secretary, 92 Westwood Blvd., Westwood, NJ 07675; e-mail: ranjini@alum.mit.edu.