Class Notes — Harker School 1992- Present –Harker Quarterly Spring 2014
1992
Liz Williams Itterly has been busy at work making the “top 10” agents list in her office at Alain Pinel Realtors in Saratoga. In December, she sold a new home to classmate Alfred Viola and his wife, Erica. Liz and her husband welcomed their second son, Loukas, in January.
1995
Heather (Kelly) Wright reports that she recently took a new job as director of merchandising at Fabletics, a new activewear brand that’s quickly growing. She has been living in El Segundo with her new husband, Ethan, and their dog, Jenna, for the past five years with “no plans to leave in the foreseeable future.” For information about her wedding, please see the Celebrations section!
Michael Berger said he is living it up in Seattle, working in construction as an engineer/project manager for Sellen Construction (currently working on Tacoma General Hospital). “My son is now 6 and he keeps me busy! When I’m not preoccupied with him, I’m checking out the sites/ challenges around the Puget Sound, i.e., climbing Mount Rainier last summer, doing the Seattle-to-Portland bike ride, hitting the slopes,” he said.
Danielle Holquin had a baby. Please see the Celebrations section for details!
Kate Stober had a baby. Please see the Celebrations section for details!
1996
Jerome Keene bought a house in Fresno, where he was hired as a senior planner for a land-use and engineering firm, Quad Knopf. He is finishing up his master’s in community development with an emphasis in building economic capacity from the University of Nebraska – Lincoln Worldwide Campus program, which he will complete this fall.
Andrea Nott got married. Please see the Celebrations section for details!
Ashley Sukovez Franke had a baby. Please see the Celebrations section for details!
1998
This spring, Alexander Wang will be appearing as a guest lecturer at the Stanford Arts Institute. He will be welcomed to the CEMEX stage on April 10, and will be discussing design and Balenciaga. Alexander was also recently featured in the February issue of Vogue, which included details and a photo of a beanie he designed as a statement of solidarity for gay rights. The black knit hat spells out “P6,” shorthand for Principle 6 of the Olympic charter, and it speaks to a strategy by gay rights advocates to get spectators and athletes in Sochi to register their opposition to repressive anti-gay laws in Russia. Alexander was also featured in the December issue of the Connecticut Cottages & Gardens holiday gift guide, which included a yoga mat he designed.
2004
Anjali Vaidya reports that in late 2013, she left Google’s NYC office to take a senior role on Yahoo’s growing mobile products team. “At Yahoo I’m learning the language of product and that is fun. The spirit in the Yahoo NYC office is lively and young – most mobile product managers came from acquisitions, so it’s a collection of startups all under the same roof. I’m super excited to join a scrappy and impactful team at a company leading a mobile software renaissance,” she said.
2006
Mina Lee recently took a social impact year away from her job at BCG Singapore and spent six months with the World Bank in Washington, D.C., working on a crowd-funding platform and seed fund for entrepreneurs in the Caribbean. With the remaining time she traveled throughout Peru, Shanghai and Japan.
Amira Valliani is running the Boston marathon this April! On top of training to run 26.2 miles, she’s also raising $10,000 for the Aga Khan Foundation, one of the world’s largest international development organizations and one that’s taking an incredibly innovative approach to alleviating global poverty. Training has been a tough journey so far, especially since she’s been training on the East Coast in the middle of the polar vortex, but it’s taught her a lot about the power of perseverance combined with a killer playlist.
2007
Laura Sanchez (Hartzell) Murillo has joined the Taipei American School as a Spanish teacher.
2008
D.J. Blickenstaff graduated from USC with a BFA in acting last spring and is now working in Los Angeles pursuing an acting career. He made his television debut with a small role on the NBC sitcom “Sean Saves the World,” as a delivery person. Last year he was featured in an article in the Harker Quarterly about his role as Elliot Grey in the parody musical production of the bestselling novel “Fifty Shades of Grey,” which opened in an off-Broadway theater in New York.
2010
Vivian Huang and Christine Hsu are both in the second of a three-year program at the University of the Pacific’s Thomas J. Long School of Phar- macy and Health Sciences. As student pharmacists, they have been given the opportunity through various introductory internships to serve patients in many different settings including free health fairs, community pharmacies, hospitals and assisted-living facilities. These internships have given them experience with administering vaccines, consulting patients on proper therapy, and communicating with physicians to provide advice on optimal drug treatment plans. They are looking forward to returning to the Bay Area for advanced rotations at the end of this year and will be graduating in May 2015.
Ryan Cali enjoys playing basketball for Linfield College, a private undergraduate institution located in the Pacific Northwest. He credits his father, his brother and his coach as his basketball mentors.
Daisy Lin reports that she recently acquired, and is intent on learning to solve, a Skewb (a combination of a puzzle and a mechanical puzzle in the style of a Rubik’s Cube).
Sumeet Sharma is looking forward to beginning a master’s in computer science starting in September.
Mark-Phillip Pebworth will be graduating in June with two bachelor of science degrees, one in bioengineering with a minor in French, and the second in biochemistry with a minor in biotechnology. “For graduate school, I’ve been interviewing at UCSF, Stanford and MIT in medical engineering or stem cell biology,” he said.
Esther Belogolovsky enjoyed traveling to Europe during winter break. “I went to Dub- lin, Edinburgh, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Vienna, Budapest and Prague in two weeks!” she recalled.
Victor Chen writes that he graduated early from Caltech and is now in his first year of medical school at the UCSD School of Medicine, along with fellow Harker Class of 2010 members Yash Khandwala and Ashish Mittal, both of whom graduated early from undergrad at UCSD. “Another first-year medical student classmate of ours is Jayasree Sundaram ’05,” he said.
Kelsey Chung is keeping busy creating some paintings for her senior show at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo. She is also working at a local art museum.
Srikrishna Seeni shared that his Bollywood dance team, SLU Shakti, began its journey on the road to Bollywood America (the nationals equivalent for Bolly- wood/fusion style dance teams). “As a second-year team, we have taken what we learned last year in the circuit and took the stage by storm on Feb. 1 in Atlanta when we took third place at a competition there. While not enough to qualify for nationals yet, Shakti is poised to strike at our next competition, and I hope that the team can bring me home: BA will be held in the Bay Area this year. On a related note, a special congratulatory shout-out to Class of 2012 students Neha Kumar and Piku Mody. They are a part of Anubhav, the Northwestern University team that took first place in Atlanta. They’ll be coming home for BA for sure,” he said.
Andrea Lincoln is preparing a paper for publication in May on adaptivity research. She is graduating in May with a double major in math and computer science.
Sarah Newton started her own crochet fashion line called Puzzled Heart Designs (PhD for short). The line features custom crochet hats, scarves and pillows, all handmade by Sarah. You can check out her line at puzzledheartdesigns. com and order your own piece from her Etsy store!
Vinay Kumar is going to be moving to New York City after graduation and rooming with Sean Morgan. “Actually there are a ton of us working at Goldman Sachs together in New York next year,” he said.
Jeremy Chung is working as a research assistant in the sleep lab at Santa Clara University, preparing a lit review and presentation for the Association for Psychological Science conference, which is the flagship organization for psychology.
Adriee Wong, along with Molly Ellenberg ’13, are members of Finesse Dance Company, a student-run contemporary dance organization at UC San Diego. They are currently working on choreography for their annual showcase in late May and are having a blast continuing to dance in college.
Alex Creasman studied abroad in Budapest and met up with Kacie Kaneyuki, who was studying abroad in Italy and Hungary last semester. He will be working full time at Oracle starting in September. Kacie noted that she traveled a lot during weekends in Rome and that “Alex was a great tour guide.”
Guadalupe Briseno is part of the Association of Latino Professionals in Finance and Accounting. “I’m the Seattle University branch treasurer of ALPFA. I work part-time as the assistant accountant at Pacific Northwest Diabetes Research Institute,” he said.
Johnny Lau shared that he is continuing to breakdance and that he is the president of his breakdancing club at UC Davis. “We won first place in our annual Davis dance competition in the spring of 2013 and are currently preparing for the next one,” he said.
Ally Axelrad just got a job as a writing teacher and college counselor in Bangkok, Thailand, for the next two years. The company is called Top Scholars and is a full-time college prep program for high school students.
2013
Neeraj Baid has launched his fourth app, called “Take Me Away.” This app lets you travel the world through the eyes of Instagram.