Class Note 2007
Hello, everyone! It is rare to spend a day in New York City without crossing paths with someone you recognize from Dartmouth. I recently ran into Chelsea Minkler and Priya Patel. Chelsea, on vacation from Seattle, was visiting Priya (who, by the way, passed all of her actuarial exams on the first try!). It is always nice to have spontaneous reunions with classmates and it is great to hear that you are staying connected throughout the country, some even tying the knot with fellow classmates. Let’s start with them:
Andrew Flynn popped the question to Whitney MacFayden while they were in the high Sierras. The engaged coupled spent the next four days backpacking through what Whitney calls “some spectacular country.” They both live in Palo Alto, California, and are planning a northern California wedding next fall. Amy Shaw and Chris Atencio married on September 11 in Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York. Hannah Burzynski is now engaged to Casey McCullar, Tu’07.
Andreas Baum and Neal Sarkar are attending law school at the University of Chicago in the class of 2012. Nik Nartowicz began Georgetown Law School. Gwen Rudie graduated with a master’s in astrophysics this June and is continuing at Caltech for a Ph.D. Christina Behrend started her M.D.-Ph.D. program at Duke this fall. Finally, Jonathan Awerbuch ran into Michelle Shortsleeve at Yale’s student orientation, where they are both starting graduate school.
Jessica Olson visited Dartmouth to discuss the expansion of DartHeart, a nonprofit she started in March 2008 to unite and support student survivors of trauma. She’ll be moving to Boston to begin the premed post-bac program through Harvard’s Extension School. In her free time she’ll start another DartHeart campus group in the Boston area.
Three Dartmouth ’07s won the talent show at Google’s annual North American Sales Conference. The Jackson 7—consisting of alums Amy Do, Paul Dupuy, Jacques Hebert—stole the show as they danced to a Michael Jackson medley. Amit Padukone has been on assignment in Gurgaon, India, for a little more than a year, managing a team for Google. He’s planning to move back to the United States in early 2010.
Derrick Smith also wants to stay connected. Derrick got a record high score on Facebook Bejeweled. Although he admits George Oh is demolishing him, he dares any classmate to take him on.
Maryanna Quigless is training to run the New York City Marathon on behalf of the African Leadership Academy in South Africa. Jessica Chervin along with Zev Lowe ’03 and Velizara Passajova ’10 are working as Kiva Fellows for Kiva.org, a microlending Web site where you make loans to deserving entrepreneurs from impoverished communities around the world. Jessica is traveling throughout francophone Africa, working with microfinance institutions. Nicole Cameli accepted a position with AmeriCorps and moved to Portland, Oregon, for the year. Alejandro Martinez is currently featured on www.nocaptionneeded.com, a blog “dedicated to discussion of the role that photojournalism and other visual practices play in a vital democratic society.” This project was aided by the Dartmouth General Grant.
To end I want to relay a message from Shala Byers and Dave Zubricki, our class head agents. They send a big congratulations to the class of 2007 on our outstanding achievement for winning three awards from the Dartmouth College Fund—far more than any other young alumni class! We won the Dartmouth College Fund Committee Award for all-around achievement among young alumni classes, the Raymond J. Rasenberger ’49 Award for outstanding non-reunion achievement and the Charles J. Zimmerman ’23 Award for the high participation one to five years out. Thank you for all of your contributions.
Cheers.
—John Valdez, 329 E. 94th St., Apt 1, New York, NY 10128; (415) 264-4908; jev@alum.dartmouth.org
