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UC Davis Magazine

Class Notes Archive 1931-2014: Summer 2009

1998ZUN-JAY HOU and his wife, Johanna Crespo, had a healthy baby girl named Amalia Luna Crespo Hou in April.   JOSEPH JOHNSON and REBECCA (EMMERICH) JOHNSON ’00 welcomed their second child, Isaac Samuel Johnson, in April. The family lives in San Ramon.    SONGHUA LIN, M.A., Ph.D. ’02, was awarded tenure at Denison University in Granville, Ohio last January. She joined the university as an assistant professor of economics in 2002.    AYDIN NAZMI is currently a professor of community nutrition at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo after working abroad for the past 10 years. He served in the Peace Corps in Micronesia, worked in Venezuela, received his M.Sc. at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and earned a Ph.D. while studying in Brazil. He lives with his wife, Giseli, a physician.
1999MATTHEW RAFAT has a law practice in San Jose that specializes in labor and employment cases. He also has a blog, www.gotshares.com, about law, economics, the stock market and shareholder meetings.   Max Whittaker By Elizabeth Stitt Occupation: photojournalist, regular contributor to the New York Times and senior photographer at Sactown Magazine. Developing photographer: As a student at UC Davis, Max Whittaker thought of photography more as a hobby rather than a potential job. The history major didn’t take it seriously until he started working as a mountain guide for Outdoor Adventures. In 1997 he took the fall quarter off to climb the mountains of Peru—the same year a huge storm snowed in the mountains, making it impossible to climb. With nothing to do, Whittaker bought a camera on the black market, and soon discovered his passion for taking pictures. Coming back campus, he joined the California Aggie as the “slightly paid” staff photographer. From slightly paid to a little more slightly paid: After graduating in 1999, Whittaker spent seven years subsisting on Top Ramen while he established himself as a photojournalist. “It’s an incredibly hard industry to get into,” Whittaker said. “They don’t make it easy on you. You live in places you don’t want to live and the pay is bad.” But competitive and self-motivated, Whittaker never gave up—and it paid off. He’s been published in most every major magazine like Time and Newsweek, and his photos regularly appear in The New York Times. “It was pretty trippy to see my name in the byline,” he said about the first time he had a photo published in a major newspaper. “You know most people are going to skim the article, but they always look at the photo.” Living History: His work has taken him to places all over the world, and he has covered events like presidential campaigns, the economic crisis, Mexican wrestling and war. “I’ve certainly been shot at a number of times,” Whittaker said, but he’s never been hit. Whatever the assignment, he said, “It’s still the same job—looking for the moments that are a part of the larger story.” Whittaker currently lives in Sacramento with his wife, Jen Picard, the senior producer for Capital Public Radio’s Insight, along with his six cameras. “I feel like my whole job is current history. The best part about it is being there when history is made.”    Max Whittaker By Elizabeth Stitt Occupation: photojournalist, regular contributor to the New York Times and senior photographer at Sactown Magazine. Developing photographer: As a student at UC Davis, Max Whittaker thought of photography more as a hobby rather than a potential job. The history major didn’t take it seriously until he started working as a mountain guide for Outdoor Adventures. In 1997 he took the fall quarter off to climb the mountains of Peru—the same year a huge storm snowed in the mountains, making it impossible to climb. With nothing to do, Whittaker bought a camera on the black market, and soon discovered his passion for taking pictures. Coming back campus, he joined the California Aggie as the “slightly paid” staff photographer. From slightly paid to a little more slightly paid: After graduating in 1999, Whittaker spent seven years subsisting on Top Ramen while he established himself as a photojournalist. “It’s an incredibly hard industry to get into,” Whittaker said. “They don’t make it easy on you. You live in places you don’t want to live and the pay is bad.” But competitive and self-motivated, Whittaker never gave up—and it paid off. He’s been published in most every major magazine like Time and Newsweek, and his photos regularly appear in The New York Times. “It was pretty trippy to see my name in the byline,” he said about the first time he had a photo published in a major newspaper. “You know most people are going to skim the article, but they always look at the photo.” Living History: His work has taken him to places all over the world, and he has covered events like presidential campaigns, the economic crisis, Mexican wrestling and war. “I’ve certainly been shot at a number of times,” Whittaker said, but he’s never been hit. Whatever the assignment, he said, “It’s still the same job—looking for the moments that are a part of the larger story.” Whittaker currently lives in Sacramento with his wife, Jen Picard, the senior producer for Capital Public Radio’s Insight, along with his six cameras. “I feel like my whole job is current history. The best part about it is being there when history is made.”
2000MEREDITH (HAMPSON) LUNDY and her husband, Kevin, welcomed their second child, Ryan James, in January. Their older son, Brendan, is 2 years old, and they live in Louisville, Ky.    JOSEPH JOHNSON and REBECCA (EMMERICH) JOHNSON ’00 welcomed their second child, Isaac Samuel Johnson, in April.
2001LAURA GALDORISI and J.T. O’SULLIVAN got married in Coronado in April.   LAURA GALDORISI and J.T. O’SULLIVAN got married in Coronado in April.
2002ROBERT SLATT married Jenene (Roberto) Slatt in July 2008, and the couple was expecting their first child this May. Since graduating, Slatt has been working as a commercial mortgage banker and is currently the vice president at Newmark Realty Capital in San Francisco. He and his wife live in San Francisco.
2003MATT TURNER currently works for Diablo Contractors Inc., and helps manage the construction of a major underground water treatment series in North Lake Tahoe. He splits his time between Carnelian Bay and Davis.
2004BEVERLY (BOVEY) GARBER has been accepted to the University of California, San Francisco, to pursue a master’s degree in nursing. Upon completion, she will be an adult nurse practitioner specializing in occupational and environmental health. She is currently a nurse at the UC Davis Medical Center in the neurosurgical Intensive Care Unit. She lives in downtown Sacramento with her husband, James.    TOBHIYA HOLMES has been accepted into the Peace Corps to teach English at a Chinese university. He left in June to begin his 27-month commitment in China, which entails three months of training before he begins his two-year teaching assignment.    ANTHONY PINATA earned an M.A. in Italian literature from the University of Connecticut. Recently, Pinata worked as a curatorial assistant at the Oakland Museum of California. As a visual artist he participated in an exhibition called Vivid Wonders of a Startled Imagination at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts’ Gallery 51.
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.   AARON “DON” MILLS, Ph.D. ’05, an assistant chemistry professor at the University of Idaho, died in May at age 32. After earning his doctorate, he conducted postdoctoral studies at UC Davis and UC San Francisco on organic molecular synthesis. He joined the University of Idaho faculty in summer 2008. He is survived by his wife of eight years, Heidi Mariah Mills; parents, Joseph and Carol Ann Mills of Alvin, Texas; brother, Andrew Thomas Mills; and sister, Diana Mary Melissa Harding.   KELSIE (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.   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.”