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
| 2006Tometi Gbedema, M.S., a geography graduate student at UC Davis, is working to raise funds to help the people in his birthplace, the farming village of Otwetiri in Ghana. His goal is to help them construct a school, a community center and a church. (appeared in the Winter 2008 issue) • Janine Lee, CEO of Capture the Dream Inc., won the Maybelline and People magazine’s Empowerment through Education Award. Lee was featured in the “Heroes Among Us” Nov. 5 issue of People and received a $10,000 donation to her charity. Capture the Dream helps underserved Bay Area individuals succeed at school and find fulfilling careers. (appeared in the Winter 2008 issue) • Kevin Wynne serves as a public information officer with the U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Disaster Assistance. He was appointed to the public affairs position after being a temporary loan officer with the agency assisting Hurricane Katrina victims. In May 2007, Wynne was deployed to the scene of the tornado that hit Greensburg, Kan. (appeared in the Winter 2008 issue) • Anna Lewis was recently engaged to Mike Buck, M.S. ’90. Lewis is working as a legislative aide for Consumer Attorneys of California in Sacramento and will attend McGeorge School of Law in the fall. Buck is currently working as general counsel to MPA Associates, a firm specializing in the manufacture of special-effects products. The couple recently bought a home in east Sacramento and plan to marry this spring. (appeared in the Spring 2008 issue) • Lonnie Rush, M.B.A., left his position at the California Independent System Operator to start Rush Capital Management, an investment partnership in Folsom. (appeared in the Spring 2008 issue) • Michael Kim and Dan Greenberg ’04 have founded YOLLEGE, a student-driven college review Web site that allows college students to share thoughts and opinions about their college campuses. The online forum includes such topics as campus hotspots and local flavor. It is located at www.yollege.com. (appeared in the Summer 2008 issue) • Elle Koleckar (who graduated from UC Davis as Elizabeth Weber) is co-developer of OneGate for UC Davis (www.onegate.com), an online resource for UC Davis students. OneGate is a collection of Web sites, activities on campus, ways to get involved, maps, program information, university news and search engines for potential and current UC Davis students. (appeared in the Fall 2008 issue) • Erin O'Brien, who is working on a special education credential at California State University, Sacramento, won the 2008 Above and Beyond Award from the Sacramento City Unified School District Special Education Department, Community Advisory Committee. She was honored for her work at Caleb Greenwood K-8 school in Sacramento, where she works in a fifth-grade classroom, assisting a child with autism. (appeared in the Fall 2008 issue) • Roopa Dhatt participated in an international conference celebrating the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Alma-Ata Declaration on primary health care last October in Kazakhstan. She was one of four medical students in the world chosen to represent the U.S./North America region as part of a young people's delegation, and she met world health leaders during her stay in Kazakhstan. She is currently attending Temple University School of Medicine and Sciences Po in Paris. (appeared in the Winter 2009 issue) • Jesse Eric Montes is training the Iraqi National Police and conducting route clearance missions with the U.S. Army as an engineer officer. He plans to attend law school when he returns to the United States. (appeared in the Winter 2009 issue) • ANTHONY “TONY” PUCCI is currently in charge of communications and operations in the Joint Operations Command of AFRICOM at Camp Lemonier, Djibouti, on the Horn of Africa. He recently graduated with honors from the French Desert Commando School. On a break from his normal duties he was able to go to Tanzania and Mt. Kilimanjaro. (appeared in the Summer 2009 issue) • Koosha Toofan competes as a natural bodybuilder. He recently placed second at the Model America Championship in Orange County. A project engineer, he was the project manager for a solar company recognized by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. (appeared in the Fall 2009 issue) • Candice Macintyre married Adam Gaeddert last August in Moss Beach. Ruth Sarah Sherriffs ’07 was the maid of honor and Jessica Meinke was a bridesmaid. MacIntyre works at Mercy’s Trauma II Medical Center in Redding, where she and her husband have bought their first home. (appeared in the Winter 2010 issue) • Ryan Richards, who is pursuing dual master’s degrees in conservation biology and environmental policy at the University of Maryland, was recently selected to receive an Emerging Public Policy Leadership Award from the American Institute of Biological Sciences. He was among just three graduate students nationwide selected for the award; UC Davis ecology doctoral student Meredith Niles was another winner. Richards’ research has taken him to Namibia to study the impacts of bush encroachment on rangeland and develop recommendations for the Namibian government. (appeared in the Summer 2010 issue) • Steve Lambert was featured as an alumni spotlight in the winter 2010 edition. Steve Lambert By Elizabeth Stitt Occupation: Artist, Eyebeam Art and Technology Center senior fellow, teacher at Hunter New School. Extra, extra: For Steve Lambert, art is about more than hanging a painting up on a wall. “Art is a bridge that can connect uncommon and radical ideas with every day live,” he said. “It can show you another way of looking at the world without a real trauma that reality gives us.” And last year, Lambert was able to make that connection with his most popular piece yet—a “special edition” of the New York Times. After nine months of planning with the help of 1,200 volunteers, he released thousands of replicas of the newspaper with phony—but hopeful and positive—stories and distributed them all over New York City, creating a whirlwind of controversy and giving him worldwide media attention. According to Lambert, his goal wasn’t to trick people, but to have them think of how the world can be different. “It was seeing another way the world can be that isn’t a fantasy world with flying cars, but our world with a few changes. And they can still be who they are. They don’t have to be some kind of superhuman.” Galleries and streets: Lambert’s work has been put on exhibit all over the United States and around the world during the past 10 years. However, his work goes beyond the boxed walls of galleries, including more mundane places, like the Internet or stores. His other projects include a computer program that blocks out advertisements with pieces of artwork, and stickers created for grocery store products to examine the exploitation of labor. “You get a different audience—one that isn’t self-selecting—and you can catch people unexpected,” he said. “I want to reach people, and most people don’t go to art galleries.” Lambert currently lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., and more information on him and his art can be found at visitsteve.com. “A part of being an artist is having this strong desire to communicate things to people. I see art as a speech, but it’s in another language.” (appeared in the Winter 2010 issue) • Philip Neustrom Occupation: Executive director of Wiki Spot, a nonprofit, member-supported online effort that helps communities establish wiki projects – collaborative web sites that allow viewers to add and edit content. The Davis Wide Web: In 2004, then-undergraduates Philip Neustrom '06 and Mike Ivanov ’06 started a Web site dedicated to all things Davis. They had moved to town knowing little about the place and wanted to document the fun aspects, big and small, that they discovered. “Whatever was going to come [of the site] we thought we’d at least have a record of things we found interesting at one point in out lives,” said Neustrom. That record became Davis Wiki, now a popular online information source said to be the first English-language community wiki Web site. By the people, for the people: According to Neustrom, he and Ivanov could not have predicted the success the site has had during the past four years. One in six people in Davis visits the thousands of pages featured on Davis Wiki on a day-to-day basis looking for anything from Thai food restaurants to city Council candidates to local ghost stories to lost pets. He believes it’s success if due to its transparency and its fostering of honest discussions. Procrastination going career: When he was a freshman, Neustrom says he was planning on graduate school, but maintaining the Davis Wiki “took over” his free time and became a constructive way to put off studying. Coding, programming and computers in general had been of great interest to him since childhood. Now, the Davis Wiki has opened a career path for Neustrom. Venture capitalists and others seeking to create their own town’s wiki have approached Neustrom, leading to his creation of Wiki Spot (wikispot.org), an online resource to help other communities establish wikis. This site is about open, community discussion where anyone can write anything. It’s the first of its kind and it’s a daring thing.” (appeared in the Summer 2009 issue) • JASON LUCASH By Elizabeth Stitt Occupation: Creator and business development director of OrigAudio. Best of the best: Jason Lucash ’06 has had a good year. In November, Time Magazine declared his creation, the OrigAudio, to be one of the top 50 inventions of 2009. Ranked at 38, the OrigAudio is an easily transportable speaker made out of cardboard, which hooks up to electronics like mp3 players. “[Time Magazine] contacted us in October and told us we were nominated,” Lucash said. “And I thought that was insane. When I found this out, I Googled the best inventions of 2008, and I found the iPhone was the winner. I thought there was no way we’d get on the list.” They had only launched www.OrigAudio.com about two months earlier. OrigAudio to rockets: Starting at 5 a.m. on the morning of November 12, Lucash’s phone was bombarded with phone calls. OrigAudio was announced as one of the best inventions of the year on The Today Show, and his website received a 10,000 percent increase in traffic that day. “The invention that came in first was a NASA rocket,” Lucash said, “and another invention on the list was an AIDS vaccination. Then I found us on the list, and I absolutely could not believe it. It’s an honor to be included with all these crazy and impressive inventions.” OrigAudio’s Rock-It: Lucash and his company have since created another product for the music-loving market called the Rock-It—a small device which can create a stereo out of anything it touches, including lamps, windows and boxes. In the first three weeks, they sold over 1,000 units. In January, he went on national TV to promote the latest creation, and in April, he will be traveling to Asia for a few months where there have been a few OrigAudio shops open since December. “The invention that came in first was a NASA rocket…. Then I found us on the list, and I absolutely could not believe it.” (appeared in the Spring 2010 issue) • Brett Rounsaville was featured in the 2008 summer edition. Brett Rounsaville by Rachael Bogert Occupation: A self-titled “unemployed vagrant” on a cross-country quest, though formerly a designer with Disney and cofounder of a bicycle accessory business. On the road and living the dream: Brett Rounsaville ’06 is often lost and in the company of strangers. Sounds like trouble, but this wanderlust-filled individual has chosen to take an extended leave from the professional world to travel the contiguous states on an Amtrak pass. He carries among other things a few changes of clothes, a laptop and the all-important accessory to his journey: the list. The list is made up of 50 things that Rounsaville is determined to do—such as going on a lobster boat, hang gliding or taking part in a Civil War reenactment—before he returns to California. Depending on the kindness of strangers: Traveling on a shoestring budget pulled from savings or the occasional donation, Rounsaville relies on the people he meets to help him on his quest. He has reportedly gained weight because of excessive hospitality, usually has a nice place to sleep (he doesn’t budget for shelter) and has never felt exposed or threatened, even though he once faced jail time because of a traffic infraction in Ohio. “I think it’s wrong that Americans are taught to fear strangers,” says Rounsaville. “When you get to a certain age and you can make your own decisions, you find out that individual people are great, and it’s only when we get into big groups that people get [mean].” Electronic travels: To document his travels, Rounsaville has kept up a blog at www.amtrekker.com. Additionally, videos of his adventures can be found on YouTube.com or followed on his profile page on Facebook.com. He plans to have the list completely checked off by the Fourth of July, one year after he began his travels. “I got sick of those mornings when I would wake up and just stare at my alarm clock thinking, ‘Man, I really don’t want to go to work today.’ This trip is my solution to that.” (appeared in the Summer 2008 issue) • Jonathan Karpel, Ph.D., began an assistant professor of biology position at Southern Utah University this past summer. He and his wife, Rebekah Karpel, M.S. ’05, live in Cedar City, Utah, with their children Joseph, Elizabeth and Elijah. (appeared in the Fall 2010 issue) • Melinda Moustakis, M.A., received the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction in August from the University of Georgia for Bear Down, Bear North (University of Georgia Press), a collection of short stories set in Alaska that will be published in September 2011. She was also awarded the Maurice Prize in Fiction by the UC Davis English Department in September. She earned her doctorate in creative writing from Western Michigan University in May. (appeared in the Winter 2011 issue) |