Class Note 1987
Kudos to Lee Cerveny, a winner of the Presidential Early Career Award for Science and Engineering, which is issued by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Lee was one of 85 researchers to receive the award, the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers. Ten federal departments and agencies join together annually to nominate the most meritorious scientists and engineers whose early accomplishments show the greatest promise for assuring America’s preeminence in science and engineering and contributing to their agencies’ missions in terms of commitment to community service as demonstrated through scientific leadership, public education or community outreach. Winning scientists and engineers have received research grants for up to five years. “The award ceremony will be held in the White House sometime after the new year,” Lee wrote. “Last year the recipients each got to spend time with President Obama away from the media. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that he will be able to attend this year and that I can share my idea to develop a new Science Corps along the lines of the Peace Corps or AmeriCorps, which would organize a volunteer pool of scientists as mentors and partners to engage with local communities in science learning, discovery and exchange.” Lee works for the Forestry Service in the Seattle, Washington, area where she lives with her husband and their sons Alex (12) and Nick (7) and plays on a local all-women ice hockey team.
I was once again fortunate to attend the Heather Myers and Tim Bixby holiday soiree, where there is always gathered a sophisticated group of new media types and Dartmouth alums. This year Tim’s father, Ned Bixby ’57, was in attendance with his wife, Marlene—they’d popped in unexpectedly on their way from Florida. Ned, when coaxed, expounded on his family’s philanthropic support of children’s education in Zimbabwe through the World Vision charitable organization. We now recognize that Tim’s indefatigable service to the ’87 class has a family precedent in his dad’s activities to support education from Hanover to Harare. I was also pleased to make the acquaintance of Bethany Rogers, a childhood friend of Tim’s and fellow Minnesotan. Bethany is a professor of education history at the City University of New York. She had much insight into the current state of education policy and the recent controversial appointment of a new New York City chancellor of education.
Bart Massucco writes from Blackstone, Massachusetts: “My wife, Marissa, and I and our three children—Liam (10), Brontë (5) and Lennox (3)—share our farm with two dogs, five cats and 15 horses give or take depending on how many foals arrive each spring. Marissa and I run the veterinary clinic and boarding kennel businesses together. The kids are growing up loving all the options we enjoy as New Englanders: snowboarding and skiing all winter and summers split between Maine, the Vineyard and the Berkshires, with plenty of hiking and time on the water and horseback. Of course we have foaling season at the farm each spring and I manage to sneak off to a few horse shows in the summer and fall. During the school year weekends are generally divided between multiple trips to the soccer field, basketball court, baseball diamond and gymnastics center, etc., like many out there I imagine. We send our best to everyone.”
—Melissa Wallshein Smith, 77 Benedict Hill Road, New Canaan, CT 06840; melissaj@optonline.net; Wendy Becker, 2 Kensington Gate, London, England, W8 5NA; wendy.becker.87@alum.dartmouth.org
