1970s
Robert T. Egan ’74 was appointed chairman of the commercial litigation department of Archer & Greiner, P.C., a regional law firm of over 175 attorneys headquartered in Haddonfield, New Jersey, and among the five largest law firms in New Jersey. James Tierney ’78 moved into show business after leaving Microsoft. He has been director and manager of the Renton Civic Theatre for eight years. He also co-owns and manages The Farm at Cedar Springs, a retreat center and wedding location, which recently saw the addition of five miles of hiking trails, shared with an elk herd. (Roosevelt elk grow up to 1600 pounds.) His youngest daughter is attending grad school in Connecticut, which he considers a nice excuse to visit the state.
1980s
Steven Smith ’81 currently works as a medical science liaison interfacing between his biotechnology company and cancer researchers. He collaborates with some of the country’s best cancer doctors in the South to provide access to innovative cancer drugs for patients with hematologic malignancies. Steven has recently completed his recertification as a board certified oncology pharmacist from the Board of Pharmaceutical Specialties. He lives with his wife and two children in Gainesville, Fla. Mike Towle ’84 is the General Partner of Fort Hill Partners LLP, a boutique accounting firm specializing in finance and accounting infrastructure and litigation consulting (forensic accounting). Patricia (Sivo) Cole ’85 currently has a private practice at the Rainbow Center for Children and Families in Old Wethersfield, Conn. She also consults to Andover Elementary School as well as other school systems providing evaluations and assistance in program planning. She is married with two daughters, the eldest of whom just completed her first year at UConn in the Honors Program. Elliot Cazes ’86 practices gynecology in Tampa, Fla. He speaks nationally about hereditary cancer risk assessment, breast cancer risk protocols and prevention, in-office toxicology screening, carrier screening genetics, ovarian cancer prevention, and menopause. He also consults for six national biotech/pharmaceutical companies. He lives in Tampa, Fla., with his wife, Pam ’87, and children Matt (22), Monica (20), Brett (18), and Evan (16). Charles Wynn ’89 received an R&D 100 award in 2013. These awards are given annually by R&D Magazine, recognizing the 100 most technologically significant innovations during the year. The award was received for development of the PHASE sensor, which senses trace levels of explosives using an ultraviolet laser and photoacoustic detector. The ability to detect trace explosives from significant standoff distances could significantly impact our ability to detect and defeat deadly threats in a variety of scenarios.
1990s
Jason Courtmanche ’91 and his wife, Amy Nocton ’92, bought a new home in Storrs. Jason also became the President of the Nathaniel Hawthorne Society on June 15. He was the commencement speaker at Tolland High School on June 20. He also just received two grants from the National Writing Project, from a larger grant awarded by the U.S. Dept of Education, to promote Teacher Leadership and for Work in a High Need School. He will be teaching a new First Year Honors course at UConn in the fall, “Why Read?” Melanie Hancock ’93 was elected Shareholder by the Tampa Bay law firm Hill Ward Henderson. Ms. Hancock practices in the firm’s Executive Compensation & Employee Benefits Group. Chad Landmon ’96, Chair of Axinn, Veltrop & Harkrider LLP’s Intellectual Property and FDA practice groups, has been named a 2014 Law360 “Rising Star” in the life sciences area. The national award recognizes top legal talent under the age of 40 in certain practice areas. Stephen Pavlopoulos ’96 started at Vevo in September and has been producing and writing original music video programming. Jaren (Madden) Herron ’97 and Mark Herron ’98 happily welcomed Alison Rayna Herron to the world on February 5, 2014, 7 pounds, 3 ounces, and 20 inches long. Karen Dahl ’99 has been working on her own as a consultant for a few years, primarily focused on helping nonprofits and service and education-focused organizations with communications and operational needs. She recently took on a new client, Cities of Service, and led the launch of a new website. She lives in New York with her husband and two young children.
2000s
Dr. Lauren Aleksunes ’00 was recently promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure at Rutgers University in the Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy. She was also selected to receive the Board of Trustees Research Fellowship for Scholarly Excellence and the Presidential Fellowship for Teaching Excellence at Rutgers University in 2014. Christina Needham ’00 began her new job as Head Field Hockey Coach at Connecticut College on June 15. She is very excited to be back in Connecticut after seven years away. Dennis Lawson ’01 received an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Delaware Division of the Arts as the 2014 Emerging Artist in Fiction. Also, his short story “Fair Warning” appeared in the anthology Rehoboth Beach Reads: The Beach House, published by Cat & Mouse Press. This story was recently turned into a noir radio drama by Delmarva Public Radio. Erin S. Pirro ’01, Vice President and Farm Business Consultant at Farm Credit East, ACA, was selected as a member of the Hartford Business Journal’s 40 Under 40 Class of 2014. The class will be judged on their ability to leverage the power of social media and drive traffic to the website, so help Erin show the Husky pride by visiting her biography page on the HBJ’s site. Here’s an easy-to-use link. Karalyn Jacobs ’02 completed a Master of Science degree in May 2014 with emphasis on Family Nurse Practitioner from the University of Indianapolis, Indianapolis, Ind. Lindsay Bolt ’04 was promoted this past year to her current position as a clinical nurse educator with the UCSF Medical Center Institute for Nursing Excellence. Sam (Shiv) Sharma ’04 participated in and completed the course “Think Tank on Global Education” at Harvard Graduate School of Education at Harvard University in May 2014. Carla (Hill) Galfano ’05 was married on February 24, 2012, to Giovanni Galfano in Erice, Sicily, Italy. They welcomed their son, Julian Federico, on April 29, 2013. She was recently given the permanent position of Art Museum Registrar and Assistant Curator at the William Benton Museum of Art at UConn after three years as interim registrar. Alex M. Dressler ’06, M.D. graduated from New York Medical College on May 22, 2014. Dr. Dressler will be completing his intern year in internal medicine at Greenwich Hospital, part of the Yale New Haven Health System before beginning his anesthesiology residency at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) as part of the class of 2018. Vanessa Kafka ’06 and her husband, Doug, were married in September 2013 in New Hampshire and just recently went on their honeymoon. They traveled to Singapore and Bali and Lombok (two islands in Indonesia) and loved it! She joined Wayfair in February as Senior Marketing Manager for Lifestyle Brands, DwellStudio and Birch Lane, the latter of which she helped launch at the end of March. Ray Lorenzoni ’07 is excited to have just started his pediatric residency at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore in New York City. The training will last for three years. He attended the UConn School of Medicine and UConn undergraduate Honors Program, which both contributed greately to this recent accomplishment. Paul Millerd ’07 joined Boston Consulting Group in January 2014 as a knowledge expert in their Knowledge Organization. He is working to help build their global Transformation practice and support client teams on long term change projects. Jason Bomberger ’08 was recently promoted to manager in the New York Financial Services Risk Assurance Practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers. In this role, Jason currently serves large fnancial services clients and leads cross-disciplinary teams to re-engineer and optimize significant business processes and related controls. Additionally, Jason is currently pursuing his certification for corporate coaching at the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching (iPec). Rebecca (Stetz) Cangiano ’08 just celebrated her second wedding anniversary with Michael Cangiano ’08. They met in Honors housing and started dating their senior year at UConn. They married June 2, 2012, in Dedham, Mass. She also just completed her doctorate of physical therapy from the University of St. Augustine in St. Augustine, Fla. Jacob Martin ’08 successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation titled “Multivalent bioconjugates for the inhibition of anthrax toxin, influenza virus, and HIV,” in spring 2014. He graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He is currently working as a postdoc in the same lab, with Professor Ravi Kane, to wrap up a couple of research projects as he pursues new postdoc positions at schools other than RPI. David Miller ’08 graduated in May with an MBA from Harvard Business School. He has since moved to New York City where he is working as an associate at Loeb Partners, a merchant banking firm and family office. Go Huskies! Kathryn Grive ’09 received a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award this year from the National Institutes of Health. Megan Wolf ’09 graduated from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in May 2014, and has returned to Connecticut for residency in orthopedic surgery at UConn Health in Farmington, Conn.
2010s
Shan Parikh ’10 completing a master’s degree in physiology and neurobiology, in Dr. LoTurco’s laboratory (a fantastic place to get your Honors thesis and graduate mentorship), and then began an M.D./Ph.D. program at Temple Medical School. Upon completing two years of the program, his PI left to go to Nashville, Tenn., and Shan asked to transfer with him. Shan just relocated to Nashville and began his graduate studies at the Vandy MSTP, studying cardiovascular disease. He would like to thank Dr. LoTurco for his continued mentoring and career guidance. Matthew Begue ’11 advanced this year to candidacy in the Ph.D. program of the mathematics department at the University of Maryland, College Park. He was also promoted to Associate Director of the Norbert Wiener Center for Harmonic Analysis and Application. As Associate Director, he organized and ran February Fourier Talks 2014, a national conference held every year at UMD. He is a summer intern this year at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington D.C., working with the Remote Explosives Detection team. Kelly O’Donnell ’11 received a J.D. in May 2014 from University of Michigan Law School (cum laude). Olivia Bogucki ’12 will be attending the University of Maine to pursue her Ph.D. in clinical psychology. Dayton Horvath ’12 earned first prize in the 2014 Tech Push and Grand Prize at UCSB’s New Venture Competition. Amy McDavitt ’12 graduated from Lesley University (Cambridge, Mass.) in May, with a Master in Education degree. She then received her Massachusetts teaching license in elementary education. Aaron Nelson ’12 graduated from the Air Force Institute of Technology in March of 2014 with a Master of Science in Applied Mathematics. He was named a Distinguished Graduate (top 10 percent of his graduating class) and received the Dean’s Award for best thesis in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics (Title: “About Phase: Synthetic Aperture Radar and the Phase Retrieval Problem”) He is currently stationed at Edwards AFB, CA with the Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation, Detachment 1. Emily Szkudlarek ’12 begins a Ph.D. program in cognition and cognitive neuroscience at Duke University’s Department of Psychology and Neuroscience in Fall 2014. 2LT Nicholas Hurley ’13 graduated April 1st from the U.S. Army’s Field Artillery Basic Officer Leader’s Course with the designation of Distinguished Honor Graduate. He was ranked first in a class of 122 Army and Marine officers attending the five-month course at FT Sill, Okla. He will now be attending UConn Graduate School for a Master in History beginning this fall (expected graduation May 2016). Sam Tracy ’13 started a new job with 4Front Advisors, an Arizona-based medical marijuana consulting company, and will be helping open their new Boston office. He will be working with dispensaries in Massachusetts, Nevada, Illinois, and Arizona to ensure each state’s programs are operated in strict compliance with state laws and with great care for their patients and communities.
Return to the Summer 2014 issue of the Honors Alumni eNewsletter