Class of 2011

Peter Sutoris, currently an assistant professor at the University of York in the United Kingdom, wrote in about his “research into the ways in which education systems are failing to adequately respond to the climate crisis.” Peter has published a book about his research and articles for Politico, The Guardian, Scientific American, Undark, and Salon.

In the absence of other volunteered updates, fall 2022 has been quite eventful for Thomas Lane and me in terms of classmate interactions, so here’s our personal narrative of recent classmate-related life. In October Allison Lure flew in from Columbus, Ohio, for the annual conference of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Allison is doing a fellowship in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), and it is so interesting to hear about her experiences in the hospital. Allison, Thomas, and I explored the Anaheim Packing District together, and we picked her up the next day so that she could visit us in Mission Viejo and meet our three dogs! We also FaceTimed with Yiwei Wang and his wife, Stella, in the Bay Area.

In November Trevor King and Steve Avila both visited southern California. David Gomez joined Trevor, Thomas, and me for a walk along Crystal Cove State Park, Laguna Beach, and an oceanside lunch at Shake Shack (unrelated to the franchise). Steve Avila flaunted his impressive Mandarin and Cantonese skills over dim sum at NBC Seafood Restaurant in Monterey Park, and Steve enthralled Thomas and me with stories of his adventures around the world and in the Republican political world.

In December Thomas and I made the one-hour trek to Santa Monica for the holiday celebration organized by the Dartmouth Club of Los Angeles, which is always a wonderful and welcoming event. (We highly encourage your attendance!) There, we ran into the indomitable Marco Chu, who we’ve known since moving here in 2016, and we met for the first time Waheed Zarif and Stephen Jangro, as well as Olivia Baptista ’12. Thomas recognized Waheed from their time at Thayer Engineering School as they are both engineers. Waheed moved from New York City to Los Angeles in January 2020, and this was one of the first times he was venturing out! Stephen and Olivia also reentered the social world through this holiday event and regaled us with hilarious stories about working in the film industry. (Catch Olivia in Episode 5 of Netflix’s original series The Lincoln Lawyer!)

That same weekend, Thomas and I FaceTimed with a handful of our freshman floormates (including adopted floormates!): Allison Lure, Young-joong Kim, Matthew Elkherj, Amine Abouzaid, Martin Liu, and Andrea Choi. Matt and his wife, Rose, are living in the Bay Area and expecting a baby in June! We are so excited for them and are planning a floormate reunion in May.

Thomas also went to Japan for two weeks in December and met up with Yan Fan for unagi and ran into a Santa parade where they handed out full-size Meiji Hello Panda cookies! Thomas Tao has plans to visit Yan in February, and we so look forward to hearing and seeing photos of their reunion.

Some nostalgia to wrap up: I discovered in November—15 years after the fact—that Chris Takeuchi ’09 as DJ Keystone Cowboy and Andy Sloan ’09 as DJ Grimee were responsible for the sick beats at TriKap (now known as Kappa Pi Kappa) during our freshman year. This belated discovery is also funny because I met Chris once on campus when he was wearing a cowboy hat crafted from Keystone boxes, and I didn’t put two and two together—but I know now!

—Hillary S. Cheng, 26611 La Roda, Mission Viejo, CA 92691; (603) 546-8452; hillary.s.cheng@dartmouth.edu