Class Notes Archive 1931-2014
Class Notes are searchable back to our spring 2000 issue. You can browse the notes by decade (click on a decade to view its class notes):
Class notes from the 2000s
| 2005KELSIE (KEAR) MCKENZIE and SHAMAR MCKENZIE married in July 2007, and had their first child, Kesenia Joyce McKenzie, last September. Both are currently teachers and live in Southern California. Kelsie was the 2005 UC Davis Gymnastics captain and Shamar played for the football team. (appeared in the Summer 2009 issue) • Christopher Chua and Eileen Sabangan were married in September in Milpitas. April Fortun ’04 and Mike Liwanag ’06 were maid of honor and best man respectively. Bridesmaids included Janine Fiel ’06, Liezel Caliva, Katherine Soong ’06, Tiffany Centeno ’06 and Noren Caliva ’04. Groomsmen included David Salomon ’07, Jason Arcibal ’06, Mike Molano ’05, Eric Abad ’06 and Hamilton Pingol. (appeared in the Winter 2010 issue) • Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed Amber Mace assistant secretary for coastal matters and executive director of the California Ocean Protection Council, effective in November. She previously worked as executive director of the nonprofit California Ocean Science Trust, where she increased their annual budget from $80,000 to $2 million. (appeared in the Winter 2010 issue) • Cara Peck, M.S., was recently chosen as a finalist for a Service to America Medal (Sammie), by the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service based in Washington, D.C. The awards honor federal employees who have made significant contributions to the country. Peck, a life scientist for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in San Francisco, helped start a pilot project in the Bay Area to turn 73,000 tons of food waste into electricity. (appeared in the Winter 2010 issue) • Brent Hillberg and Melissa Noto announced their engagement on New Year’s Eve—three years after their first group date at a Giants baseball game. (appeared in the Spring 2010 issue) • Angie Chau, M.A., is the author of a story collection, Quiet As They Come (IG Publishing), scheduled for release in September. This debut collection explores the lives of Vietnamese immigrants in San Francisco as they struggle to adjust to life in their new country. In 2009, she won the UC Davis Maurice Prize in Fiction. Her work has appeared in the Indiana Review, Night Train, Santa Clara Review, Slant and the anthology Cheers to Muses. One story earned her a Best New American Voices nomination. She lives in Berkeley. (appeared in the Summer 2010 issue) • Amanda Conger, a mechanical design engineer with Inergi, in Huntsville, Ala., was recently named a 2010 Distinguished New Engineer by the North Alabama Society of Women Engineers. She is vice president of the society’s North Alabama section and has helped organize outreach programs to encourage young women to pursue engineering careers. (appeared in the Summer 2010 issue) • Jeffery Fujii was the marketing and public relations director and a rider for the Ride for World Heath, a nonprofit organization that held a fundraiser from April to May where people biked 3,300 miles to raise money for the World Bicycle Relief and HEAL Africa. Fujii, a medical student at Ohio State University, is studying to become an anesthesiologist and was one of nine medical students to lead the Columbus Free Clinic from 2007 to 2008. (appeared in the Summer 2010 issue) • Emily Loui is the manager for the Center for Global Service at UC San Diego. Since the center was launched a little more than a year ago, she has led more than 150 students on service trips to places such as Mexico, Guatemala, New Zealand, Japan and the Dominican Republic to participate in microcredit lending, nutrition courses, building schools and other projects. (appeared in the Summer 2010 issue) • Phong Vu became a certified registered microbiologist in consumer product quality assurance microbiology in December and specializes in pharmaceuticals, medical devices and cosmetics. He works at Genentech in South San Francisco as a quality control associate. (appeared in the Summer 2010 issue) • Emily Azevedo By Elizabeth Stitt Occupation: Professional bobsledder representing the U.S. in international competitions; currently training to be on the U.S. Olympic bobsledding team. From track star to ice queen: Emily Azevedo ’05 has been going down a slippery slope since she left UC Davis—one that could slide her all the way to the Olympics. Azevedo started out as a track-and-field athlete before switching to the sport of bobsledding. As a 100 meter hurdler, she set the UC Davis record in 2005, which wasn’t broken until April of 2008. “Going to Davis and accomplishing what I did gave me the inspiration that I needed,” she said, about competing in her new sport. Her bobsledding career has pushed her to a bronze medal at the World Championships last year in Altenberg, Germany and a silver medal at the World Championships two years ago in St. Mortiz, Switzerland. The fear factor: When Azevedo began training with the team at Lake Placid, NY, it wasn’t love at first ride. “I hated it,” said Azevedo, who serves as the team’s pusher—a common spot for former track-and-field athletes. “It felt like getting hit by a baseball bat over and over again on an out-of-control rollercoaster.” However, once she learned the routs, she was able to prepare herself for the forces pushing and pulling her down the slope. “There’s a fear factor to it,” she said. “Some people don’t like it. It takes a different type of person with a higher threshold for fear to be a bobsledder.” Azevedo said she got over that fear by wanting to represent her country in the Olympics. “It’s an incredible feeling to put on USA gear and compete for my country,” she said. Living an unconventional life: When she sees people she hasn’t seen in a while, she usually doesn’t mention that she’s taken up bobsledding. “It’s not a normal thing to do,” she said. “All of my friends are either married or working,” she said, “and I’m off playing.” Even though she’s won medals in international competitions, she said her greatest success was getting up the nerve to try something new. “I was living in a new place with people I didn’t know—I felt like a freshman again.” In November, Azevedo was chosen as one of the United State’s pushers on the 2008—09 World Cup Team, which makes this her third year as a member of the U.S. Bobsled Team. “The main thing I really believe in is hard work, and that’s something I got from UC Davis. Going to Davis and accomplishing what I did there gave me the inspiration I needed.” (appeared in the Summer 2009 issue) • Jared Wilburn and Elsie Baldwin ’06 were married last September in Sebastopol. Alumni Kyle Hayslip ’05, Tom Weldon ’05, Celeste Passani ’06, Erin Lang ’06, Jen Siemon ’07, Anna (LaSalle) Downing ’08 and Katie Demboski ’06 were in the wedding party. Jared and Elsie live in Carlsbad where Jared works as a mechanical engineer and Elsie teaches English at a local community college. (appeared in the Winter 2011 issue) • Sean Baumgarten, a first-year graduate student at UC Santa Barbara’s Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, has been awarded the Elaine and Herbert Kendall fellowship for 2010–11. After graduating from UC Davis, he spent several months traveling in South America, completed a cross-country bicycle ride from Oregon to Nova Scotia, earned a teaching credential in science from California State University, East Bay, taught elementary and middle school for two years in Oakland, and spent the past year as policy and development intern at the California Wilderness Coalition. (appeared in the Winter 2011 issue) • Andy Ekstrom, M.B.A., of Sacramento was found dead in August at age 35. He was known as the “unofficial mayor” of midtown Sacramento for his charisma and efforts to improve the neighborhood. He was project manager for developer Heller Pacific, where he revitalized the MARRS building into a profitable and trendy place. He ran five marathons and traveled throughout Asia, Europe and South America. Hundreds of people attended his memorial in front of the MARRS building in August. Classmates at the Graduate School of Management, who earlier had given money to name a conference room at Gallagher Hall after the M.B.A. class of 2005, were planning to rename it in his honor. He is survived by his parents, Don and Anne; brothers, Steve and Mark; and sister, Julie Spiteri. (appeared in the Winter 2011 issue) • Chris and Hana (Fujimoto) Camarillo moved to Portland, Ore., after graduation and married in 2007. Chris graduated from Lewis & Clark Law School in 2008, and is now an associate attorney focusing on estate planning, family law and civil litigation at a Portland law firm. Hana is a student at Pacific University School of Pharmacy in Hillsboro, Ore., class of 2013. (appeared in the Spring 2011 issue) • Kyle Bryant works for Friedreich’s Ataxia Research Alliance, where he founded the Ride Ataxia cycling program to raise money for research on the life-shortening neuromuscular disorder. Bryant, who was diagnosed with Friedreich’s ataxia when he was 17, has completed a number of long-distance rides on a recumbent tricycle. Over the past four years, he and three other Team FARA members have biked a total of more than 6,500 miles and raised nearly $1 million for research grants. One of those grants went to School of Veterinary Medicine molecular biosciences professor Gino Cortopassi. “I could not be more proud, because Gino was the one who first inspired me to make a difference with this disease,” says Bryant, who previously worked for a Sacramento engineering firm. In May, Bryant and his team will be biking through Davis. Other Ride Ataxia events will be held this year in Dallas, Philadelphia and Orlando, Fla. (appeared in the Spring 2011 issue) • MOLLY MCGLENNEN, Ph.D., had her first collection of poetry, Fried Fish and Flour Biscuits, published by Salt last November. McGlennen is an assistant professor of English and Native American studies at Vassar College. She and her husband and daughter live in New York. (appeared in the Summer 2011 issue) • Natalie Scoles married John Hansen in June in Honolulu, where they live. She is a Spanish teacher at an all-girls’ school and is working on her master’s degree at the University of Hawaii. (appeared in the Fall 2011 issue) • Anthony Barcellos, Ph.D., has written his first novel, Land of Milk and Money (Tagus Press), due out in July. The story, about Portuguese immigrants who settle in California’s Central Valley, draws from his experiences growing up on his grandfather’s dairy farm. For more information, visit www.landofmilkandmoney.com. In his day job, Barcellos is chair of the mathematics department at American River College in Sacramento. (appeared in the Spring 2012 issue) • Kyle Bryant is preparing to bike 30 miles on May 5 in Davis in a Ride Ataxia event that he founded to raise money for research on Friedreich’s ataxia disease. Ride Ataxia rideataxia.org also holds weekend rides in other cities across the country. Bryant, who has Friedreich’s ataxia, has helped raise $1.2 million for research on the rare neuromuscular disorder. A recent $125,000 grant went to School of Veterinary Medicine molecular biosciences professor Gino Cortopassi. (appeared in the Spring 2012 issue) |