Lauren Hughs '09 is excited to share her good news. She was hired by the applied Physics Labs at the University of Washington. The lab she works in has its fingers in a ton of different pies, but is mostly focused on optical techniques and the development of microsenors. Lauren's first project invoves the vapochromic detection of oxygen, both gaseous and dissolved, using robust platinum complexes.
Taylor Neiman '09 is working at American Analytics, an enviormnmental lab in Chatsworth. He is working primarily in the GC lab testing water, soil, and air samples. He uses multiple detectors (FID, PID, ECD, etc) and will eventually use other instruments (i.e. GC-MS, ICP-MS, etc) for other sample analysis. Additionally, he will also eventually work in the mobile lab conducting site testing as well. Taylor plans to work for a few years before attending law school(patent or environmental law). In the meantime, Taylor will spend his weekends jumping our of airplanes! Yup, his new hobby is SKYDIVING!!
Steven Pankratz '09 has taken a position teaching English in Nanjing, South Korea.
Maggie Weber '09 is attending the University of Texas at Austin pursuing a Ph.D. in analytical chemistry. She is a member of the Willets lab and will be studying how silica coating thickeness affectst the surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy of metal nanoparticles. In her spare time, Maggie is exploring the many running trails of Austin, spending far too much money on music concerts, and terrorizing the students in the lab where she is a TA.
Amanda Hickman '07 is still attending the Univeristy of Michigan working in Professor Melainie Sanford's research lab. This year, she published three papers, one with Prof. Johnson (HMC) and two with Prof. Sanford (UM). She received the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and attended the ACS meeting in Washington D.C. in August. Amanda has achieved candidacy at Michigan and hopes to graduate by August 2010.
James McDonough '07is midway through his third year in the Ph.D. program in materias science andengineering at Stanford (passed qualifying exam December 2008). He was awarded a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellwoship (NDSEG) in March 2009. He also reports that he is the lead aurthor on "Carbon Nanofiber Supercapacitors with Large Areal Capacitances" paper which was accepted to Applied Physics Letters (November 19, 2009). On a personal note, James married Bridget Mary Schuelers this past May 29 in Salt Lake City. They currently live in Sunnyvale with a small zoo-a kitty, guinea pigs, fish, and an aquatic African dwarf frog. James said he is having fun with his Subaru Impreza!!
Stephen Edwards '06 is doing the grad school thing, studying under JohnTully at Yale on the east coast. He is also playing rugby for the graduate school.
Megan Yarnall '06 finished her second year of law school (UOregon). Her interests are leaning towards pacticing IP and patent law. Megan's favorite class was a seminar course in law and science. This course focused on comparing and contrasting the legal and scientific methods and examining probelms that arise when law regulates science or science enters the courtroom. She also enjoys swiming for the club team at U of O as well.
Rachel Gabor '04 earned her M.S. and took a break from academia and served a year in AmeriCorps (hurricane recovery in New Orleans & Mississippi) and another year at an enviromental nonprofit. She is now at UC-Boulder working on a Ph.D. in Environmental Studies and Hyrdologic Science. Her research is at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research. She is part of a large, multidisciplinary project studying the Boulder Creek Watershed, focusing on dissolved organic matter. She absolutely LOVES it.
Aaron Jacobs '04 is finishing his fifth year at Johns Hopkins. His research is in DNA damage and repair. By synthesizing intermediates in DNA damage pathways, they are site specifically able to observe their further decomposition or repair. Last summer, Aaron married Allison Burce (HMC Biology '04). They plan on returning to the west coast once Aaron is finished.
Noah Philips '03 defended his Ph.D. thesis, June 2008 at the UCSB Materials Department, "Ductile Phase Toughening in Brazed Joints." He married Dena Bodzin '03 (now Dena Philips) in August 2008. Noah is working on integrated cellular materials for force protection.
Matthew Mason '02 is currently living in Charlotteville, VA, working as a resident physician in Urology at University of Virginia, having received my M.D. in 2008 from SUNY Upstate MEdical Univeristy in Charlotteville, VA.
Matthew Mattozzi '02 is now a lecturer in the department of Chemical Engineering at UC Berkeley.
Jenn Godwin '01 started a new Medicinal Chemistry position at Vertex Pharmaceuticals in San Diego this past March (2009), with an emphasis in library synthesis. She is enjoying playing soccer and hanging out with her beagle, Rusty, in sunny San Diego. Jenn is also recently engaged (12/20/09) to her boyfriend of 3 1/2 years, Troy Ford!!
Neel Joshi '01, after completing his graduate work in Chemistry at UC Berkeley and a postdoc at Boston University, has accepted a position as an assistant professor in the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Neel will be one of the core faculty members of the new Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering starting this January (2010). Neel was married to Sailaja Ganti on May 3,2009, and they look forward to settling down in Cambridge, MA. He kindly thanks his chemistry professors at Mudd for sparking his interest in science and making it possible to pursue an academic career.
Aaron Schuler '01 is currently living in Auburn, WA, with wife, Jennifer, and baby son, David (born February 13, 2009). They share their website http://home.comcast.net/~aaron_schuler, with pictures and stories of family life. Aaron is working at a small biotech company called Syntrix Biosystems (http://www.syntrixbio.com), as a Research Scientist. One of his proejcts involves developing and marketing light-activated compounds for developmental biologists (http://www.supernovalifescience.com). Aaron has recently joined Facebook and has linked to our HMC Chemistry group.
Stacey (Thonstad '01) Olstad with husband Andy, with sons Caleb & Tucker. Stacey graduated with a PharmD and passed the pharmacy licensure test last August. She is working at Good Samaritan Regional Hospital in Corvallis. She loves hanging out with the "boys" and finishing projects around her house. She also participates in CoHo and is chairing the "health team."
Megan Hall '00 has, after 2 1/2 years in London, returned stateside and to New York, where she continues to work as a writer in a pharmaceutical advertising agency.
John Smythe '99 left pure chemistry, continued in grad school to become a food sensory scientist (think Pepsi challenge on steroids), became anti-capitalist, got a MS at UCDavis, went to Cornell, left without a Ph.D., got a real paying job where they paid him instead of the other way around, recognized it's easy to do what people ask when money flows the other direction, decided going corporate wasn't so bad, currently working for Herbalife in Los Angeles as Sensory Program Manager and looking to buy a condo.
Amy (Pellett) Thomas '98 married fellow Mudder, Cory Thomas '99, in 2000, and they have two children, Josie (6) and Andrew (2). In 2001, Amy graduated from UC Irvine with a Masters in Genetic Counseling. She is currently working part-time as a genetic counselor for Cook Children's Medical Center in Fort Worth, TX.
Nikki Bailey '96 has been teaching for 14 years andstill enjoys it. She is currently eaching chemistry at Long Beach Poly High School and has been there 7 years. Nikki has 2 little boys (6 years & 6 months).
Susannah Block '95 has apparently found her true calling in a totally different arena (other than academia), as an editor/analyst of health care reports at the Government Accountability Office. Susannah and her husband, Daniel Dulay '95, live in Seattle with their daughter, Caroline (3 going on 17).
Rachel Konda-Sundheim '95 is a board certified pediatrician practicing primarily at The Loveland Youth Clinic in Loveland, Co. She is also mother to her three children, Elizabeth (6), Anna (3), and ben (2).
Steven Suljak '95 is enjoying ife at Santa Clara University. He is recently engaged. Steven's fiancee is a product marketing manager for a Bay Area biomedical devie company. Their wedding is planned for May 2010.
Marie Kao-Hsieh '94, mother to Natalie (8) and Joey (4), is expecting her 3rd child this coming April (2010). She also works as a private practice dentist in Potomac, Maryland. Marie's husband, Matthew, is currently working as a staff clinician at NIH working on clinic trials/research in blood stem cell transplant in Sickle Cell Anemia. He has a current publication in the New England Journal of Medicine (12/10/09).
Matt & Rachel (Bittker '93) Harris & Caleb welcome Sarah Ann to their family this past September.
Glen Hastings '93 continues to work in Finance at Yahoo! (almost 6 years now) and just completed 2010 revenue planning for the company's North America business. Janel (Scripps '91 and Assistant Vice President for Institutional Research here at Mudd) and Glenn continue to live in La Verne with their 2 kids, David (6) and Elizabeth (2) and their 2 dogs.
Jennifer Stengel Nichols '93 and family recently welcomed Anna Louise into their family (07/03/09). She reports that Anna Louise has very quickly wrapped big brothers Joshua (13), Timothy (8), Nathan (5) and her daddy, Mike Nichols '90, around her tiny little finger!!
Robyn Carrillo '92 was married to Sarah Herte this past August (2008) at the Disneyland Hotel and is a patent attorney in Sacramento.
Douglas Pesak '92 attended grad school at Michigan, but was moved to Illinois as his advisor took a position there. In 1997, Doug received his Ph.D. in organic chemistry and took a position at Thiokol (now part of ATK). Doug says, "Yep, I was a real rocket scientist for about 4 years formulating thermoset resins for composite rocket cases." Doug then took an opportunity to move back to his native Connecticut to work for Bedoukian Research as a process chemistry in their R&D labs. Now Doug spends his days trying to find economical routes to flavor and fragrance chemicals and insect pheromones. He and his wife, Stacey, and their two daughters, Sarah (5), and Aubree (2), live in Oxford. Doug mentions that if your travels take you to southwestern CT, by all means look them up!
Matthew Plunkett '92 reports that after his Berkeley Ph.D., he worked for four years at two different biotech companies in the Bay Area. In 2000, he went off to the "dark side of the force" and worked as a biotech investment banker at CIBC/Oppenheimer, most recently as Managing Director and Heach of West Coast Biotechnology. Over the summer, Matthew joined iPierian as CFO. This company uses "induced pluripotent stem cells"-derived from patients with specific diseases like Parkinson's, ALS, and diabetes-as a "disease in a dish" and therefore a drug discovery tool. Matthew says it's a great mix of science people, and business.
Bruce J. Hinds '91, associated professor at the University of Kentucky in the department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, was presented the CAREER award in July 2009 (National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services). http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/President-Honors-Outstanding-Early-Career-Scientists/
Mikey Perrott Reppy '90 is running a software company developing mobile data solutions, primarily for organic research chemists, and a software consulting project working with a team writing an enterprise Chemical Registration system.
Doug Gilman '89 is still at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge (Chemistry). Doug reports that life is ful of teaching, research, and raising two kids (3rd and 4th grades).
Todd Tamura '88 started his own air pollution consulting business in '05, got married in '07, had a baby son in '08, and has spent 09 watching both the business and Shea grow.
Craig Berry '85 is a senior software engineer at Google in Santa Monica. He reports there are a surprising number of ex-chemists and refugees from other non-CS pursuits here and plently of interesting conversations over lunch! His daughter, Lenore is a junior at UCLA. She is interested in linguistics and is fluentin Japanese, and is currently learning Russian.
Debbie Debout '85 is currently a Professor of Chemistry at The College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. She has been teaching biochemistry, general chemistry and classes for non-chemistry majors since 1993. She reports that the fascination with NMR she developed working in Dr. Phil Myhre's lab helped inspire her NSF-supported research program in the bioinorganic chemistry of the zinc triad. Debbie and her husband, Eric Dawnkaski, have three children, David(11.5), Daniel(9),and Rebecca(6.5).
Maurice Clifton '85 is the Associate Deanfor Admissions and Student Affairs at Mercer University School of Medicine in Macon, Georgia. Maurice and his wife, Tracy, have 3 children, Thomas (11), Anna (9), and Malory (5). Maurice says, "Add in a foeign exchanged student from Austria, a new dog to with the cat, and there is ALWAYS something going on."
Ron Zuckermann '84 recently left the private sector after 16 years to work for the National Labs. He was a Research Fellow working in drug discovery (currently Novartis) and is now a Facility Director of the Biological Nanostructures Facility at LBNL. Ron is making molecules that self assemble into cool nanstructures. He says it is super fun to be doing basic research once again!
Jim Carter '82 has worked for the last ten years at EMAX Laboratories, Inc., which is an environmental testing lab in the LA area (Torrance). The company focus is on supporting environmental investigations and clean-ups at military bases across the country. Jim is the Director of Business Development for the firm. He is married and has a daughter, soon to be a teenager. "Overall," Jim says, "Life is good!!"
Gary May '82 retired from the Navy a few years ago and now lives in Huntsville, Alabama. He is employed by Millennium Engineering and Integration (MEI) Company and works as an engineering support contractor at the Missile Defense Agency. Gary works in thr Advanced Technologies Directorate providing system engineering expertise in the areas of advanced interceptors and weapon system integration. Gary is also the Program Director at MEI for Advanced Technologies.
Craig Niederberger '82 and his wife, Karen Lewak (Scripps '85), have two daughters. Claire is applying to college, and Lia will be entering high school next year. Craig is the Clarence C. Saelhof Professor and Chairman, in the Department of Urology, College of Medicine and Professor, Department of Bioengineering, College of Engineering, at the Univeristy of Illinois at Chicago.
Fina BioSolutions LLC (www.FinaBio.com) is the start up company of Andrew Lees '76. The principle sponsor is the Serum Institute of India to provide R&D for pediatric conjugate vaccines. These vaccines involve the covalent linking of proteins to polysaccharides. Andrew has a number of patents in the field, including some that are licensed to GlaxoSmithKline. Vacccines using this chemistry are currently marketed in Europe and will be available in the U.S. next year. Andrew is affiliated with the University of Maryland's Bioprocessing facility where he teaches and provides protein purification services. In addition he is an adjunct at the Uniformed Services University, where he teaches. Andrew happily reports that Fina BioSolutions has been profitable from its first year, and so far is doing well in these difficult economic times. Andrew's son is now a freshman at Ursinus College, his daughter is in high school, and his wife is the master of the home front!
Bernie Santarsiero '75 was appointed to the Center for Clinical and Translational Science due to successful fudning of a $20M grant from the NIH/NCRR. He is involed in matching basicscience researchers with clinical and translations investigators at UIC,VA Hospital, andAdvocate Health. Bernie is teaching more in Med Chem and Pharmacy courses, and enjoying the change. He is also doing research relating to drug discovery and infectious disease.
Pete Wehrenberg '75 is working at Pfizer.
Brian Rohrback '74 is the president of a small scientific software company in the Seattle area. They do chemical pattern recognition systems (aka chemometrics)for a very diverse clientele. Most of the systems are integrated into analytical instruments for laboratory and process control. Brian also says that much of the activity relates to the oil industry, particularly in refineries, but also they end up with business coming from most other manufacturing industries: fodd, pharmaceutical, instruments. They have even done clinical systems (e.g., one for tuberculosis).
Gregory Weiland '72 finally stepped down from Chair of Department of Molecular Medicine after 11 years-a new chair was hired-and he reports that he is now, "free, free, free!"
Jim Harris '71 is the Pastor of Heritage Bible Church in Boise, Idaho, and is training pastors in Russia through Slavic Gospel Association.
Gary Kiefer '70 is still a family physician in Scottsdale, and has two college-bound kids.
Jay Labinger '68 just learned that he has been elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, for "distinguished contributions to the field of organometallic chemistry, particularly for mechanistic investigations leading to new approaches for the selective oxidation of hydrocarbons." Jay is still juggling administraive, research, and teaching activities in his dual role as Administrator of the Beckman Institute and Faculty Associate in Chemistry at Calteach (and is not thinking about retiring any time inthe near future.)
Gary Patterson '68 is still a Professor of Chemistry at Carnegie Mellon University and resides in Washington State. He states he has the "longest" commute of any Prof. at CMU. He is a full time Historian of Chemistry with recent papers, "Prolegomena to a Science of Macromolecules, Material Polymerica, Eyes to See: Physical Evidence for Atoms, The Faraday Society and the Birth of Polymer Science, and The Holy Trinity of 19th Century British Physics: Faraday, Maxwell, and Rayleigh.
Jefferson Tilley '68 is starting his 39th year at Roche (now known as Genentech in the US) as a director in the Discovery Chemistry Department. They are just completing a merger with the associated consolidations, job losses, etc. Difference is, this time, the Nutley NJ site where he works, is growing at the expense of others. They have seen the opposite often enough! Jefferson still hopes to have his name associated with a marketed drug and still has a few shots on goal, however time is runing out. Any discovery next year will not see the market place for at least 10 years.
Jefferson and his wife have two daughters that took opposite career paths. One is a nephrologist, currently in the Air Force and deployed in Germany. The other is a contemplative nun living in a convent near Tehachepi, CA (not all that far from Claremont).
Gail Cook Dean '66 has pretty much retired from going to sea, but still has her yacht, small commerical vessel delivery company, Bold American Enterprises, Inc., active. She is one of the finalists in the 2010 Pillsbury Bake-Off contest to be held in April in Orland, FL, with her Orange Coconut Tiramisu Tart. Gail's "backyardwildlife habitat" keeps her busy introducing more native plants into her project.
Gary Spessard '66 is retired from teaching chemistry at St. Olaf College (2008). He teaches organic chemistry during the summer session at the University of Oregon. Recently the second edition of Organometallic Chemistry (Gary O. Spessard and Gary L. Miessler, co-authors) was published by Oxford University Press.They spent the last two years working on the newedition, completely revising some chapters of text.
Gary was heavily involved in in the greenchemistry movement before retirement. He was suported by a large grant from the Keck Foundation to develop laboratory experiements across the curriculum at St. Olaf, especially in the organic laboratories. The effort resulted in several publicaitons and presentations at national ACS meetings.
Gary now lives in Sierra Vista, AZ, where he enjoys hiking, golf, and Old West reenacting with the Tombstone Vigilantes (the official ambassadors of the city of Tombstone). The Vigilantes put on a reenactment show on Allen Street in Tombstone every 2nd, 4th, and 5th Sunday of every month. He enjoys this activity immensely. Gary says the organization supports several local charities.
Pete Gebauer '65 taught his last semester at Monmouth College after 34 years (5 more before that teaching at IUPUI in Indianapolis). He plans to retire in Monmouth and wonders, "Who would have thought that I'd retire in a small town in the middle of Midwest Cornfields."
Hal Harris '62 was recently informed that he will receive the 2010 Science Educator Award from the Academy of Science of St. Louis. This presentation will occur April 22 at the Chase Park Plaza Hotel. Hal reports that he is actively teaching physical and introductory chemistry at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, advising chemistry and physics students (who are seeking teacher certification), writing "Hal's Picks of the Month," and editing "The Cost-Effective Teacher" for the Journal of Chemical Education.
Copyright 2012 Harvey Mudd College
