University of Rochester

Rochester Review
November–December 2010
Vol. 73, No. 2

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River Campus/Undergraduate

1958

George Grimm has been named the associate dean of general studies for the Tucson campus of the ITT Technical Institute.

1962

Joel Schwartz, a professor emeritus of biology at City University of New York, has published a book, Darwin's Disciple: George John Romanes, A Life in Letters (American Philosophical Society).

1963

David Sussman, an orthopedic surgeon in Allentown, Pa., has published a book, Crash to Cash: To Win Financial Security Get Ready for Your Next Accident Now (Disability Research).

1966

Jeffrey Raffel is the coeditor of Public Sector Leadership: International Challenges and Perspectives (Edward Elgar Publishing). Jeffrey is the Charles P. Messick Professor of Public Administration at the University of Delaware. . . . Jo Stiles Schoenegge ’70W (Mas) (see ’66).

1967

Edmund Rucinski sends an update. An exhibit of his work, Transcendental Essence: A Retrospective Featuring the Artwork of Edmund Rucinski, was on display last March and April at the Feast gallery in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. In October, he was awarded the 2010 Frank Mason Prize, named for the acclaimed classical realist who died in 2009.

1969

Betsy Ferries Clavelle, Mary Ostrander, Nancy Durand Robblee, Francie Walters Wyatt, and Jo Stiles Schoenegge ’66, ’70W (Mas) met in April for a minireunion at Capitol Reef National Park in Utah. Writes Francie: “We laughed, talked, hiked, saw gorgeous scenery, sang Rochester songs, and chuckled even more!”

1970

Bob Kirschenbaum has joined the tax department at the Washington, D.C., firm Miller & Chevalier.

1972

Thomas Bonfiglio, the William Judson Gaines Chair in Literature and Linguistics at the University of Richmond, has written a book, Mother Tongues and Nations: The Invention of the Native Speaker (DeGruyter).

1973

Nathaniel Deutsch sends a photo and an update. He writes: “On June 3, 2010, after 34 rewarding years of federal government service, I retired from my position as human resources director of the National Park Service. I plan to remain in Washington and do consulting with federal agencies in the areas of human resources and equal employment opportunity, while working toward my goal of attending baseball games at all 30 major league ballparks!”

1975

Paul Fortgang, an otolaryngologist in New Haven, Conn., sends an update. The former president of the New Haven County Medical Association, he has been working with a committee of doctors to put Project Access—a program in which physician specialists provide free care to low-income, uninsured patients who do not qualify for Medicaid—into effect in New Haven. He writes: “It’s a national program, started in Asheville, N.C., in 1995, and 55 are up and running.” The patients, he writes, “are truly the working poor. We will be seeing patients in our offices, free of charge, and the hospitals will donate free care and ancillary services such as radiology and lab.” . . . Ted Prosnitz writes that he graduated in May from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America with a master of sacred music degree from its H. L. Miller Cantorial School and College of Jewish Music. He adds that he was awarded the seminary’s Hazzan Israel Weiser Memorial Prize for excellence in nusach. Nusach, Ted explains, is “a comprehensive knowledge of the structure of the liturgy, the thematic chants that are appropriate for specific sections of each service, and a full understanding of the prayers that make up each service.” Ted lives in Wyckoff, N.J., with his wife, Karen, and their youngest child, Rachel.

1976

Richard Ketcham has been appointed president and chief executive officer of St. Elizabeth Medical Center in Utica, N.Y.

1977

Zig Hakiel ’89 (PhD) (see ’04 undergraduate).

1978

Maureen Picard Robins writes that she has edited a collection of essays by teachers called The Pressures of Teaching: How Teachers Cope with Classroom Stress (Simon & Schuster, 2010).

1979

Valerie Ann Leeds, an author and independent curator, is the curator for an exhibit of the works of American precisionist Edmund Lewandowski, known for his images of industrial, urban, and architectural subjects, at the Flint Institute of Arts in Flint, Mich. She has produced a book to accompany the exhibit, Edmund Lewandowski: Precisionism and Beyond (Flint Institute of Arts). . . . Laura Sechrist Sommers, a creative writer and cofounder of Whole-Brained Creative in Granville, Ohio, has published an essay in the book When One Door Closes: Reflections from Women on Life’s Turning Points, edited by Terri Spahr Nelson (Sugati Publications).

1985

Nancy Mertzel has been named a partner at Donovan & Yee, an intellectual property law firm in New York City. . . . Ed Scherr has been named vice president and controller of Solar Power Partners, an independent solar power producer in Mill Valley, Calif.

1986

John Page ’88S (MBA) has been named chief financial officer at Nanosys, a producer of lighting, electronic display, and energy storage products based in Palo Alto, Calif. . . . Glenn Stambo, a radiologist at SDI Diagnostic Imaging in Tampa, Fla., writes that he presented research on stroke therapy at the annual International Society of Endovascular Therapy. He also has written an article on the treatment of pulmonary embolisms that appeared in the May 2010 issue of Southern Medical Journal.

1987

Warren Forman has been named director of sales for the Northeastern region for Luminus Devices, a maker of LED lights based in the Boston suburb of Billerica, Mass.

1990

Jason Korosec and his wife, Tana, have welcomed a son, Alexander David. Jason writes: “He weighed 7 pounds, 11 ounces, and was 19.5 inches long. We waited almost three weeks to introduce him to the Pacific Ocean. He seemed quite content to breathe in the misty saltwater air, near Carmel, Calif. Next up, introductions to the autumn in Cleveland and Rochester!” . . . Syed (Ahmed) Mustafa ’99S (MBA) writes that he and his wife, Karen, the cofounders of the Webster, N.Y., based real estate investment and property management firm Brown Dog Holdings, have opened a real estate brokerage division, Brown Dog Realty. . . . Salvatore Pivone, a town judge in Manlius, N.Y., outside Syracuse, has been named an Onondaga County Family Court referee. He will handle custody, visitation, and related cases. . . . Simon Szykman has been named the chief information officer of the U.S. Department of Commerce.

1991

David Kemp sends an update. He writes: “I am still on active duty as a naval officer and just completed a successful command tour as the commanding officer of Navy recruiting for North and South Carolina. I was recently stationed in Washington, D.C., to attend the Industrial College of the Armed Forces to study national resource strategy.” . . . Shawn King has been named vice president of marketing at Wastequip, a manufacturer of waste handling and recycling equipment based in Charlotte, N.C. . . . Mike ’96 (PhD) and Tami Kelly Noel ’94W (MS) send a photo and an update. They held a minireunion weekend in Deep Creek, Md., with friends from Mike’s graduate program at the Institute of Optics. Tami writes: “We drove from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C., and rented a huge house to accommodate all five couples and our 15 children. It was a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with everyone and catch up.” Pictured from left to right are (front row) Tami, Samantha Bromage, Kim Stentz, Michal Freedhoff ’96 (PhD); (back row) Mike, Jake Bromage ’99 (PhD), Jim West ’98 (PhD), Kris West, Andy Stentz ’95 (PhD), and Michael VanLeeuwen ’98 (PhD).

1992

Peter Perkowski, a partner in the Los Angeles office of Winston & Strawn, has been named to the National Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Bar Association's inaugural “Best LGBT Lawyers Under 40” list. Peter was one of 40 lawyers nationwide who were honored for distinguishing themselves in their fields and demonstrating a commitment to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender equality.

1993

Stacy Carpenter, a civil trial attorney at the Denver firm of Hensley Kim & Holzer, has been elected president of the Denver Bar Association.

1994

Dan Gravatt sends an update. He writes: “Nuts and Volts magazine has just published my 10th electronic project article in their September 2010 issue. This article describes a wide-range frequency synthesizer based on a PIC [programmable interface controller] microcontroller and a phase-locked loop. N&V published my first project article in their December 2004 issue, and I’ve also had one robotics article published in Servo magazine in October 2006. I started out at UR planning to be an electrical engineer, but switched to geology as a sophomore. While EE didn’t feel right as a career, it has been a very satisfying long-term hobby.”

1995

Alejandro Diez (see ’97). . . . Mike King, an associate professor of biomedical engineering at Cornell, writes that he and Nipa Mody ’08 (PhD) have coauthored an undergraduate textbook, Numerical and Statistical Methods for Bioengineering: Applications in Matlab (Cambridge University Press). . . . Jennifer Racho writes that this fall she is starting the master’s degree program in public policy at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey Institute.

1996

Matt Cella is a visiting assistant professor of English at Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania and has written a book, Band Land Pastoralism in Great Plains Fiction (University of Iowa).

1997

Alejandro ’95 and Alison Folkman Diez send a photo and an update. They welcomed a daughter, Elena, in November 2009. Alison writes: “She joins her brother, Javier, 2, and loves watching his every move. Alejandro recently completed a nephrology fellowship and is pursuing further training in transplantation at Indiana University. I’m keeping myself busy juggling my time between being a stay-at-home mom and a project manager for a health care research study.”

1998

Kristina Boyer Curro sends an update. She writes: “After working as a speech pathologist in both schools and hospitals in western Massachusetts for the past three years, I have returned this fall to the University of Massachusetts–Amherst to pursue my doctoral degree in communication disorders. I’m funded by a U.S. Department of Education fellowship, and my main areas of focus will be cognition, motor speech learning and planning, and neurolinguistics.”

1999

Sara Pruss, an assistant professor of geology at Smith College, appeared on a television documentary, Clash of the Continents, which aired on the National Geographic channel in July. Sara writes: “I was proud to wear my U of R hat for my interviews—the same one that I have been wearing since 1995!” . . . Nathan Slavik (see ’01).

2000

Josh ’04M (MD) and Tracy Cossin Diamond ’04M (PhD) welcomed a daughter, Sophia Jane, in June. Sophia joins big sister Chloe. The four live near Philadelphia. . . . David Viens, an attorney, has joined the Worcester, Mass., firm of Bowditch & Dewey.

2001

Keith ’03 (MS) and Kathrine Schultz Kraft ’03 welcomed a daughter, Eleanor Margaret, in May. . . . Nathan ’99 and Amanda Baldauf Slavik welcomed a son, Matthew Sullivan, in April. Amanda writes: “Older brothers William and Luke welcomed him with open arms! We’re all happy and healthy in Raleigh, N.C.” . . . Meg Yoos Greenfield ’08S (MBA) has been named assistant director of operations at Western Washington University’s Center for Economic Vitality.

2003

Kathrine Schultz Kraft (see ’01). . . . Daryl Reisfeld writes that he married Jennifer Tolchin in June in Rye Brook, N.Y. Several Rochester alumni posed with the bride and groom. Pictured from left to right are (front row): Daniel Vickery ’04, Katherine Diaz Vickery ’07M (MD), Justin Levinson ’04, Joshua Frankel, Adrianne Krusen Frankel ’04, ’07N, Daryl, Jennifer, Casey Lewis ’04; (back row) Jacob Voorhees ’05, ’06S (MBA), Matthew Goldblatt ’06, Matthew Vnuk ’05, Matthew Groveman, Matthew Baccash ’05, Amanda Loiselle Groveman ’06N, Taylor Lubitz, Gregg Chesney, ’07M (MD), Ian Areces ’06, Seth Baum, Christopher Kelly ’05, Jae Yoon ’04, Daniel Haykin, Daniel Israel ’05, David Reiner ’04, and Ashley Heller. Other alumni also in attendance but not pictured: Geoffrey Bauer, Joan Lucks Feinstein ’71, and Beth Lewis.

2004

Joan Flaschen graduated from law school at the University of Washington in June. . . . Michael Hakiel writes that he and Shaun Beaulac were married in June in Naples, N.Y. Several Rochester alumni posed with the bride and groom. Pictured from left to right are (front row): Eric Schweigert, Tammy King ’08W (MS), Michael’s sister, Elizabeth Hakiel ’02, ’03S (MBA), Michael’s cousin, David Urbanski ’98, Roger McDougal ’70, Adam Urbanski ’69, ’75 (PhD); (middle row) Chris Smith ’03, Miguel Brown, Chris Calo ’07 (MS), Dan Nathan-Roberts, Adam Smith, Shaun, Michael, John Feroleto ’02, Ellen Lewis ’73; (back row) Terence Cordner ’05, Ken Lumb ’03, Andrew Macmillan ’02, Edward Burel ’70, and Michael’s father, Zig Hakiel ’77, ’89 (PhD).

2005

Becky Cortesi Kramer writes that she and her husband, Tyler, celebrated their one-year anniversary in June. Becky sends a photo from the 2009 wedding, showing (from left to right) Justin Moore, Wendy Ressmann Moore, Becca Wolfson, Dan Karr, Rachel Frey, Nate Scott, Christina Lee, Tyler, Becky, Jess Colbourne, Holly Bender ’06 (MS), Megan Walter Sweeney ’06W (MS), Mike Sweeney ’06W (MS), Melissa Selleck Staloff ’06W (MA), Dan Staloff ’06 (MS), Pat McGhee ’06 (MS), Jill Supranowitz, and Chris Supranowitz '06 (MS). . . . Rebecca Neville has been named student activities coordinator and assistant director of residential life at Unity College in Maine. . . . Ben Thorburn writes that he married Colleen Potter in December 2009 at Christ Presbyterian Church in New Haven, Conn. Pictured in a photo taken by Melissa Williamson are, from left to right, Jocelyn Crawford Carr '05E, Rebecca Thorburn, Courtney Potter, Colleen, Ben, Daniel Israel, Anthony Annunziata, and Alan Carr. Other alumni in attendance included Tom ’07 (MS) and Emily Laduque Kraus ’05W (MS), Frank Martignetti ’99, ’99E, and Jim ’81M (Res) and JoAnn Downey Kupiec ’79N (MS).

2006

Sara Froehlich and Baris Kaymak ’08 (PhD) were married at the Interfaith Chapel in July. Sara is completing doctoral studies in mathematics at McGill University, and Baris is an assistant professor of economics at the University of Montreal.

2007

Jake Grantier ’10W (MS) and Cara Champion ’10 were married in June in Painesville, Ohio. Jake and Cara live in Columbus, where Cara is pursuing a master’s degree in public health at Ohio State and Jake is teaching in the nearby Hilliard City School District.

2008

Karen Miller writes that she and Carl Brown were married in June in Stow, Mass. Pictured from left to right are Meghann O’Leary, Sarah Burnham, Katie Berlent, Sarah Amtower, Kim Miller, Karen, Carl, Andrew Brown, Dominic Lorenzo, Michael Gilbert, Abhishek Prasad, and Tony Broyld ’09. . . . Katie Schwertz sends an update and a photo from the reunion that she and her senior year suitemates held in July. She writes: “We get together each summer for a minireunion to catch up on what’s happening in each of our lives. This year we met in Rochester and had fun wandering the campus and reminiscing. We snapped this picture after lying out on the quad enjoying the summer weather!” From left to right are Katie, Karen Hoch, Meredith Brod, Katie Hasman ’09 (MS), Katie Salino, and Christiana Purvis.

2010

Cara Champion (see ’07).