MIT Class of 2003

making facebook look good

noreply@blogger.com (Kristie) — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 00:23:00 +0000

Reshma Khilnani sent me a picture of our classmates working at Facebook's new office. From left to right, Reshma, Nisha Gulati, Sophia Han Cheung, Alan McConell, Ling Bao, and Stanislav Funiak. If I knew how to make a thumbs up emoticon symbolizing my approval, I would.

May/June 2012 Class Notes

noreply@blogger.com (Kristie) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 05:09:00 +0000

Written January 23, 2012

Beloved slacker classmates, I am writing to chastise you for not sending me class notes. SHAME ON YOU. Fortunately, you’re cute, so I am going to let it slide. Do not expect this kind of forgiveness when we are old and shriveled. Then, you have to send me lengthy updates. You have been warned.

Despite my clever request for class notes, I only received one update that was not the product of coercion. *Dr. Alex Wissner-Gross (www.alexwg.org) is spared the wrath of shaming because he was elected to the Philosophical Society of Washington and granted U.S. Patent 8,073,864. Congratulations Alex!

Now, onto the rest of you. SHAME!

I will do my best to salvage the situation by telling you all about the alums I have seen the last few months. Last week, I went to the San Francisco Toast to IAP where I saw *Reshma Khilnani, *Teresa Zhang, *John Miyagi, *Rick Sheridan, and *Murali Vajapeyam. I pleaded for class notes, and some of them offered to pretend to be having a baby for the sake of class notes continuity, but I do have a small amount of journalistic integrity, a very small amount, so we will not fabricate pregnancies this time.

We decided to call up *Brett Lockyer because we heard he had some news. After hearing our voicemail/demand, Brett wrote in to share that he was recently engaged to his girlfriend of two years, Janine Baer. They met at a birthday party, and their instant connection flourished to become the healthy, comfortable relationship they now share. Their late summer wedding will be in beautiful Sonoma, California. Congratulations Brett! You are partially spared from the public shaming described above.

*Rick Sheridan also sent me an official update after seeing how forlorn I was at the Toast to IAP. Rick wrote, despite the economic difficulty, he’s decided to give the fruitless job search a rest, counts his blessings that Silicon Valley has reached his family doorstep, yielding a strategic foothold from which to unleash his nefarious projects upon the distracted and unsuspecting populace. Rick is requesting designers familiar with pastels. I would like to note that nefarious projects rarely come in pastel colors. Rick is either off track or he is a true evil genius.

The weekend after the Toast to IAP, I went to *Alison Wong’s birthday party. After a tasty brunch, we visited a beekeeper and harvested a bucket of honey. Alison, *Reshma Khilani, and I looked very stylish in the beekeeping suits.

I learned that if you want to relocate a bee hive, you have to move it at least 3 miles or the bees won’t be able to find their way back to the hive. You don’t need to check that on Wikipedia. That information comes straight from a beekeeper who was wearing overalls, so it is true.

Back in December I saw *Diana (Bolton) Welmerink in Reno (also known as the greatest place on Earth). Diana will be moving to Reno this summer when her husband, Adam, finishes his orthodontic residency. Hooray! Now, if the rest of you would please move to Reno, I will hurry back from San Francisco.

I also had dinner with *Kristen Quinn in December in San Francisco. I think we shared Brussels sprouts. I might be wrong. I’ve had Brussels sprouts with a lot of people lately. I don’t want to cheapen my experience with Kristen, which was delightful, but I may not be keeping my vegetables straight.

I had lunch with *Will DelHagen in December. Will is hard at work starting a company, and he is contemplating when the optimal time is to add a puppy to the payroll. I saw Will again at an MIT10 event where we also saw *Eric Varady. Eric does super angel investing, and I asked him hard-nosed questions like whether he gets to wear a cape to work. He said no, but we all know he was being coy, and the answer is yes.

Who else? *Joanne Chang came to visit me and Cat Ng ‘01 in November. Joanne recently moved to Sioux Falls, South Dakota with her husband, Dan the Man Kwan, and she is recruiting for more MIT alums to join her. While in San Francisco, Cat, Joanne, and I went to the warehouse filled with trampolines known as the House of Air and we tried on wedding dresses for fun. Tragically, Cat and Joanne both married other people, so I cannot marry either of them. Jerks.

While Joanne was visiting, Gina Bassi* was also visiting for Thanksgiving, and her family had a birthday party for her, which *Teresa Zhang, *Reshma Khilnani, Joanne, and I attended. Gina’s family is tons of fun, and they had an M&M birthday cake for her, which makes any party a success.

I think that covers it. You people better shape up next time and send me updates. Alternatively, each and every one of you who lives in the Bay Area is going to have to line up something fun to do with me.

Kristie A. Tappan, Class Secretary, ktappan@alum.mit.edu

Class Notes 2012, One More Year of Silly E-mail

noreply@blogger.com (Kristie) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 20:58:00 +0000

Happy New Year Classmates!

I hope this e-mail finds you enjoying 2012 and that you haven't spent too much time outlining your annual plan for responding to class notes request. In the unlikely event that you haven't got around to making your plan, consider something like this

January: Explain to classmates how to build a robot out of marshmallows and then submerge robot in hot cocoa as part of a chocolate exploratory mission.

February: Send class secretary Valentine made out of duct tape.

March: Catch Leprechaun. Report scientific findings to class.

April: Fabricate news stories.

May: Alphabetize professional accomplishments and send to class secretary.

June: Begin mentally preparing for the class of 2003 10 YEAR REUNION in 2013.

July: Win sand castle building contest and send picture of winning castle/fortress of awesomeness to class secretary.

August: Get puppy and select MIT themed name.

September: Get married to fellow geek, or robot, whichever.

October: Haunt things.

November: Send class secretary cornocopia of news.

December: Train reindeer to do caculus.

It should be a good year for class notes. To get things started, send me your news for this month's column before next Monday. Also, be sure to visit our class blog where you can find a recent interview of Chirag Shah and learn about his world-improving exploits!

http://mit2003classnotes.blogspot.com/

Secretarily yours,

Kristie

An Interview on Service with Chirag Shah

noreply@blogger.com (EEK) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 05:24:00 +0000

1. How did you get involved working with Kiva (www.kiva.org)?

By 2008, I had been with Bank of America for about four years. I’m not sure if it was a quarter-life crisis or just being antsy, but I felt compelled to do something different. I had been interested in microfinance for a while; it staggers me that three billion people do not have access to loans, savings or insurance. The opportunity to take a year off and spend time at Kiva was a great way to help contribute to the microfinance movement.

Kiva.org allows everyday people to make microloans to entrepreneurs in developing countries. The scalability of Kiva was intriguing. In a given week, 40,000 online users make, on average, a $50 microloan, which equates to 2 million dollars being lent weekly to entrepreneurs!

Back at MIT, I did something similar when I took a year off to do service with the organization DoSomething.org after our freshman year. I probably learned more during that year working for the non-profit than in the other three years at MIT. That was a powerful life lesson.

2. What was your role at Kiva?

Since Kiva was a small non-profit, it never had an opportunity to mine through its data to see if it could gain insights to help impact more borrowers. I was able to parse out information from the data and worked with the management team to implement new strategies. For example, in lending statistics, are people more or less likely to lend to a woman in Asia or a man in Africa? (Interestingly, women in Asia get funded 2.5 times faster.) Our team was able to use that data to identify profiles that would be attractive candidates for lending. Another example, if the borrower sent an update to the lender with their business progress, the lender was three times more likely to lend to a new borrower.

We also started using marketing tools such as Google AdWords and Facebook ads, and through the use of analytics, we were able to better optimize click throughs.

3. What were some highlights of your time working with Kiva?

It was easy to get up caught up in the analytical side of Kiva, so it was good to work with the borrowers to keep in touch with the human aspect and stay grounded with the cause. One memorable project was when a borrower in Kenya wanted us to videotape him so he could express his gratitude to the lenders.

He said, “Last week was one of the first times I have ever used the Internet, so I decided to Google my own name. I was shocked when I saw my name come up on Kiva’s website. I could not believe that people from around the world had given me a loan to help me purchase my goat!!! I’m so thankful for the loan and plan to repay it!!!”

I was touched by the humbleness and thankfulness of this borrower in receiving his loan. At the same time, watching someone use technology for the first time to Google his name was incredible – especially when I remembered I did the same thing when I learned about Google! No matter where you are, people are people. The world is really big, but it is also very interconnected.

4. What were the biggest challenges working for Kiva and making the switch from the corporate world?

It was very different going from being a small cog at Bank of America and heading to a small organization like Kiva where you wear a lot of hats. I arrived at Kiva when it had 35 employees. I wanted to do everything I could to help the organization, and there was always so much to do. It often felt like juggling 100 different tasks, and at the end of the day realizing I couldn’t possibly finish every task.

5. What could MIT alums do to give back to their communities?

It’s not always possible for people to dedicate a year of service, but I know a lot of people are interested in giving back. What I see happen frequently is that a person waits for the perfect opportunity to serve, but the perfect project does not come up and all of a sudden a year passes by.

My advice would be to dive in today and get involved with just one thing – once a week or once a month for six months. As long as you can get your foot in the door, it makes it a lot easier to network and find a volunteer opportunity that may be a better fit.

6. What’s next for you in your volunteering/philanthropic life?

I have noticed a pattern that every four years I take a year off from my job to serve. I’m not sure if I will be jumping back soon, but I would like to do things on the side. While I still do one off things for Kiva, I am inspired by the web’s ability to scale impact. I am currently looking at projects that combine the web and education.

Top 5 Gifts to Get for your Favorite MIT Engineer

noreply@blogger.com (aileen) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 02:45:00 +0000

1) Hilarious Science/Engineering T-shirts on Snorg Tees (www.snorgtees.com)

2) Starter Molecular Gastronomy Kit (http://www.thinkgeek.com/interests/dads/e71f/)

3) Membership to your local Science Museum (http://dir.yahoo.com/science/museums_and_exhibits/)

4) xkcd comic book (http://store.xkcd.com/)

5) New Star Wars video game (http://www.swtor.com/info)

March/April 2012 Class Notes

noreply@blogger.com (Kristie) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 04:07:00 +0000

Written November 28, 2011

Hello classmates! You responded to my Thanksgiving request with lots of news that we can all be grateful for. There are lots of happy events, exciting career developments, and babies to report!

*Abdulaziz "Aziz" Alnaim wrote from Saudi Arabia. He shared that this year, Thanksgiving fell right after Eid Al-Adha (a holiday with the main activity is eating lots of lamb cooked in several ways), so the typical waist-expansion associated with this time of the year has been even more aggressive. Aziz sent a picture of himself, his lovely wife Hana'a, and their son, Abdulla during the holidays.

I may be biased because I think you’re all wonderful, but they’re an adorable family, and they are even more adorable because their son is apparently obsessed with cars and trains (even by toddler standards) and no pictures of him exist without--at least-- one car or train in hand; chances are he'll be in MIT studying mechanical engineering in short order!

After two years of dating long distance between LA and NY, *Cristina Esmeralda Roussel married Brian Molinatti on September 3rd, 2011 at the Mission Inn Hotel in Riverside, California. MIT alums that attended the wedding were George Gluck ‘02, Paul Gluck ‘68, *Levente Jakab, Alice Moy ‘02, *Justin Mazzola Paluska, and Trisha Montalbo ‘02. Cristina and her groom enjoyed a two week cross country honeymoon road trip, which included packing most of Cristina’s earthly possessions into her Mazda 3 and driving 3,600 miles from LA to NY. Stops along the way included the Grand Canyon, the Four Corners monument, cave tours in Colorado, Denver Rockies vs. Cincinnati Reds on Sept 11th, Mount Rushmore, the corn belt, the top of the Willis (Sears) Tower, Milwaukee Brewers vs. Denver Rockies, Pabst Mansion tour (of PBR beer fame), Chicago Cubs vs. Texas Astros, and lots of bridges in western Pennsylvania. She is happy to be on the east coast again and hopes to meet up with any alums in White Plains/Westchester County, New York. She also turned 30 on September 22, and pursuant to my request for news of what flavor birthday cake we had while collectively turning 30 this year, Cristina had a mocha chocolate cream vanilla cake from Sal and Dom's Pastry Shop.

*Jennifer Shieh also recently moved back to the east coast after eight glorious years in the Bay Area. She started an AAAS Science & Technology Policy fellowship in Washington, DC in August. She’s learning about how the government helps science & technology move forward while at the NIH (National Institutes of Health), NCI (National Cancer Institute), and SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) Development Center (there's a reason why DC has so many acronyms...but Jennifer suggests switching to a more efficient numbering system). Having just moved from the startup side of things, Jennifer is enjoying the perspective of being on the money-holding side. Being back on the east coast has also made it easier to visit our alma mater, and she finally walked down the Infinite again this summer for the first time since we graduated! Jennifer is hoping to get involved with more MIT alums in the DC area so DC alums, invite Jennifer out to play!

*Brittany Burrows is taking a career detour and is working as a chocolatier at Poco Dolce in San Francisco. She says it's a lot of fun (although less like Willie Wonka's chocolate factory than her friends imagine) and she is enjoying the change of pace. Locals can visit their shop on 3rd

Street in Dogpatch. She recommends the popcorn toffee and the olive oil chocolate bars!

*Jessy (Baker) Rivest and her husband, Chris Rivest, went to the weddings of Libby Wayman ‘04 & Mike Kalin (MIT- and now olympic- sailing coach!) and Amber Mahone & Abe Schneider ’02 this past summer. In August, Jessy finished my PhD, retired for 4 months (highly recommended, classmates), and then started a postdoc working on batteries at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.

*Jonathan Jackson wrote with news of his company Dimagi (dimagi.com), which, after my review of their website, I will officially proclaim to be an awesome health care start up. Dimagi just moved to Central Square, and they just opened an office in New Delhi, India, and are opening in Cape Town, SA in Q1. They’re having a blast! Congrats Josh!

*Dr. Alex Wissner-Gross (alexwg.org) also wrote with news of professional accomplishments. He joined the Harvard University Institute for Applied Computational Science as an Institute Fellow, and he joined the Scientific Advisory Board of The Cure is Now.

Finally, we have new little engineers to welcome into our MIT family! *Monica Gupta Jain and her husband, Anuj, welcomed their son, Nikhil Raj Jain, to the world on Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at 7:58pm at White Plains Hospital in White Plains, New York. The little peanut weighed 6 lbs and was 19 inches. He has his mom’s eyes and his dad’s mouth, but the jury’s still out on his nose. Mom, dad and baby are all doing well, adjusting to life as a family of three!

*Danielle (Guez) Barber’s

daughter Noa was born on Sept 8! She showed up 7 weeks early so she weighed only 3 pounds, 8 oz at birth, but the little peanut is catching up quickly, and how cute is it that both of our new mothers are calling their babies little peanuts? You are the most lovable class. All the other secretaries are jealous. Until next time my class of cashews!

Kristie A. Tappan, Class Secretary

Thanksgiving Class Notes!

noreply@blogger.com (Kristie) — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 17:50:00 +0000

Classmates,

On this fine Thanksgiving morning, I am writing to ask you to be the gravy to my mashed potatoes!

How can you be this river of tastiness? By sending me an update on what you have been up to these past few months. Yum!

If you find yourself reclining in a leather chair, digesting pumpkin pie, and watching football, send me an e-mail. Typing burns a lot of calories. You will be ready to go back for your fifth helping in no time.

In addition to e-mails, I encourage you to take pictures of your Thanksgiving feast/activities. You can send them to me on your mobile cellular telephone device. Bonus points will be generously and arbitrarily awarded for pictures that incorporate the Thanksgiving theme and protractors, calculators, circuit boards, and/or beavers (live or in toy format).

Thanks in advance for your e-mails, which you have to send lickety split because my column is due Monday November 28. Also in the spirit of thankfulness, I am thankful for being your class secretary and for having the opportunity to engage and connect with all of you these past eight years! You guys are great. Thanks!

Kristie

Strategically Aligning Your Professional and Volunteer Interests

noreply@blogger.com (aileen) — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 22:54:00 +0000

by Aileen Wu

Like most young professionals, I find it difficult to make time for everything that I want to do in life. I have to deliberately carve out time to spend with friends or catch up on free reading and am left to wonder how volunteer work is supposed to fit into the picture. I got to catch up with MIT03 alum, Hareesh Nair, who has found an efficient way to pursue his professional, social and community development interests all through strategically selected volunteer positions.

Hareesh Nair is currently the Senior Manager of International Market Development at Medtronic and previously completed his BS in chemical engineering at MIT and his MBA, with a specialization in healthcare management, at Wharton. I was amazed at the range of interesting opportunities he has been involved in such as advising the Science Museum of Minnesota on recruiting membership or mentoring medical technology startups through SMART, the Singapore-MIT Alliance on Research and Technology. He shared with me his insights about how to make the most of volunteer experiences.

Select Opportunities in Fields You Want to Learn More About – Hareesh took on a volunteer position at AdvaMed, the largest medical technology lobby in the US, because he wanted to further his understanding of policy debates that will shape the medical technology industry. For example, leveraging his role as an investor with Medtronic’s Corporate Development group, he worked with Advamed to form an advisory committee with other corporate and venture investors to facilitate business development strategies within the industry that are linked to overall public policy. Such policy oriented groups offered great professional and social connections to like-minded industry leaders, while keeping him on top of political issues of the day affecting his work.

Find High-Impact Positions Designed to Grow Your Network – Hareesh serves as an Innovation Grant Advisory Board member for SMART, the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research & Technology - a grant organization that provides early stage funding to bring innovation to the marketplace. He works with fellow Board Members to review proposals and provide the most promising entrepreneurs guidance for long-term strategies to navigate through clinical and commercial risks. His participation in SMART helps him cultivate an innovation ecosystem in Singapore with leading investors in the region, and provides Medtronic with access to the growing start-up environment in Asia.

Use Networked Searches to Find / Create Volunteer Positions Right for You – Hareesh has been able to find so many interesting and high impact volunteer positions by searching through his network. He came across the Science Museum of Minnesota position through a recommendation from a friend in McKinsey’s government practice. Friends in the legal community are often well connected to exciting non-profit leadership and community outreach opportunities. Another powerful method to land high impact roles is through conferences, especially by getting speaking roles that open doors to new people and opportunities, such as the one he had at Advamed. Also, throughout Hareesh’s volunteer work, he has been able to leverage his connections at Medtronic to gain sponsorship for events and initiatives he has organized at these non-profits. They focus him to build a strong network looking to address similar problems in industry both inside and outside of work.

Entrepreneurship in Clean Tech Discussion Panel

noreply@blogger.com (aileen) — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 20:29:00 +0000

Please join AMITA on Tuesday evening, November 15th, for an exciting panel discussion on Entrepreneurship in Clean Tech. Come hear successful women entrepreneurs and venture capitalists talk about their experiences in the clean tech startup space. The discussion will touch upon industry-specific issues such as funding, market research, technology development, and regulatory constraints. Panelists include

Marcie Black '94, MNG '95, PhD'03 - CTO & Co-founder at BandGap Engineering

Vanessa Green MNG '08, MBA '11 - CEO at OnChipPower

Jiong Ma PhD - Partner at Braemar Energy Ventures

Mina Hsiang '03, MNG '05, MBA - Senior Associate at General Catalyst Partners (Moderator)

Details

Room E51-315

6:30pm-7:00pm - Reception with light dinner sponsored by Goodwin Procter LLP

7:00pm-9:00pm - Discussion Panel

Register online at http://alumweb.mit.edu/groups/amita/BrowseWeb.do?webSiteId=SI000477&webPageId=P008&eventId=42364

AMITA members & MIT10: $15 MIT non-member alumni : $18 Students: $10 Guests: $20 $5 extra at the door

January/February 2012 Class Notes

noreply@blogger.com (Kristie) — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 19:25:00 +0000

Class Notes due September 26, 2011

Aloha classmates! This fine Monday morning, I am writing class notes from Hawaii. Three days ago I had my last day of work in Reno, and after a week of tropical vacation, I will be moving to San Francisco where I will continue my lawyering activities, but where I will see a lot more of my MIT pals! Speaking of those pals, I attended *Alison Wong’s wedding to Eli Collins on September 24 at the San Francisco Zoo.

MIT guests included *Teresa Zhang, *Ryan Williams, *Reshma Khilnani, *Rick Sheridan, *Gina Bassi, *David Reinharth, zebras, giraffes, an eagle, an armadillo, an iguana, and a tortoise. Obviously, we partied like animals.

In other nuptial news, *Sheldon Chan married Katherine Redfield ’09 on August 27th at the Penn Club of NYC. MIT friends in attendance were *Sid Henderson, *Mark Jeunnette, *David Jackson,

*Bill Fienup, *Deborah Burkhart, *Brian Dunagan, Jay Bacow ’02, Derik Pridmore ’01, Yvonne Chan ’95, Sara Sheehan ‘09, Caroline Lowenthal ‘09, Rachel Price ’10 and Samuel Ribnick ’06. After the wedding the couple headed to Rome, Italy for some nice R&R. Katherine and Sheldon are living in New York City and would love to hear from old friends.

*Maggie Sullivan started French Test Pilot School at Base Aérienne 125, Istres, France in September as a Flight Test Engineer exchange student from the USAF. She is renting la maison americaine in Martigues -- "The Venice of Provence" -- for the year, and it is way too big for just one person. (Much bigger than the apartment she rented in Toulouse for summer prep classes, where the living room had only a couch and a beanbag chair!) So, if you want to take a vacation in the south of France between now and August, call her up or email! *Kim Schwing and *Amy Simpkins (née Schonsheck) are already planning visits, so the precedent is set.

*Ray Dantes finished his residency in Internal Medicine, and recently started a 2 year stint in the CDC's Epidemic Intelligence Service, a job recently portrayed by Kate Winslet in the movie "Contagion" (spoiler alert: they don't usually meet her fate!). Basically, he’s a disease detective, and we can learn more about it here http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/post/contagion-shines-light-on-real-life-disease-detectives/2011/09/12/gIQAJVofNK_blog.html.

*Dr. Alex Wissner-Gross (www.alexwg.org) authored a chapter in the upcoming edition of the Handbook of Electronic Trading.

*Kay Tye will be returning to MIT as an assistant professor in Brain and Cognitive Science January 2012! She and her husband, Jim Wagner, are excited to be moving back to Cambridge.

Answering my call for news about our collective 30th birthday, *Andy Michael Goldsweig wrote in to share that for his 30th birthday, on August 18, his wife, Bracha, delivered a beautiful baby girl on August 24 at Yale-New Haven Hospital. As MIT people like numbers, he gave us all the vital stats: 19.25 inches, 7 lbs 3.5 oz, Apgars 9 and 9 at 1 and 5 minutes. Here is a picture of her at age 30 minutes.

They named her Naomi Sarah Goldsweig, and present at the naming ceremony were *Samuel Daitch and Daniel Abadi PhD '07. Andy is completing his medical residency at Yale-New Haven in June 2012 and will stay on for a cardiology fellowship. We also asked for news of volunteering activities, so Andy shared that he had just returned from six weeks of making ward rounds and teaching medical students at the Centre Hopitalier Universitaire de Kigali in Kigali, Rwanda. Thanks Andy and congratulations!

Continuing with volunteering news, Stephanie Willerth shared that she has participated in some interesting science outreach programs in the last year. One of them is called Science Venture (http://scienceventure.uvic.ca/), where she gave a talk to girls in grades 3 through 7 about being an engineer, and the girls also got to tour her research lab. Stephanie is also presenting her research to the public through the Café Scientifique program in October. It's a program where scientists give a public lecture at a bar describing their research to general public to increase science awareness. She’s pretty excited to field questions about stem cell biology at a bar.

*Lori Eich is one of the coaches for the Loyola Chicago Women's Ultimate team. She spends her free time helping to build the next generation of ultimate frisbee players. She claims the work is more self-serving than philanthropic as she likes telling kids what to do, but in the process, she also gets to teach them about fitness, nutrition, and Being Awesome, which is capitalized for a reason.

Finally, *Amilio Aviles has been doing a lot of volunteer work since he left MIT. We’ll be doing a profile on Amilio on our class blog so you can learn more about it. In the middle of graduate school at UC San Diego, he went to Guatemala for 3 months working with Mayapedal (www.mayapedal.org) building pedal powered machines for rural development. Earlier this year he connected with another group called Friends of the Poor (http://www.friendsofthepoor-africa.org). He went with them to Nigeria for 2 weeks and helped with a few different projects including sharing some of the pedal powered machine designs. When Amilio wrote in for class notes, he was leaving that day for Costa Rica to see if he could offer any engineering advice to a group that is growing Jatropha plants for small scale biofuel production so local farmers don't have to burn charcoal. We’ll learn more about it when he gets back, so be sure to subscribe to our feed at http://mit2003classnotes.blogspot.com/ and you can follow Amilio here: http://astromilio.xanga.com/.

I hope you’re all doing well, and I look forward to checking in with you in a few months for more EXCITING ADVENTURES IN CLASS NOTES!!!

Kristie A. Tappan, Class Secretary

Class Notes and Do Gooders

noreply@blogger.com (Kristie) — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 17:34:00 +0000

Hello classmates!

It is once again time to reflect on the last two months, stretch out your typing fingers, and send me news! This time, bonus points will be awarded for news involving (1) iguanas, (2) bean bag chairs, and/or (3) your 30th birthday cake. Just so you know, I had carrot cake for my birthday, and it was delicious.

Send me those updates before September 26, and they will be in the January/February 2012 edition of Technology Review and on our blog (http://mit2003classnotes.blogspot.com/) after the 26th.

In addition to class notes, your dedicated class council asked me to find out what philanthropic/non-profit/volunteer activities you're involved in. Why? Because we'd like to help other classmates get involved in your wonderful causes, and we can't do that unless you tell us what you're doing. If you'd like something to be featured in our upcoming series on how our classmates are making the world a better place and how you can make it even better than better, send me an e-mail.

Finally, in the spirit of class notes, I have some news! I'm moving to San Francisco the first week of October, so get ready for class notes solicitations involving fog and sourdough bread! I'm looking forward to seeing lots of you in the Bay Area soon!

Your Secretary,
Kristie

Wedding Picture!

noreply@blogger.com (Kristie) — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 04:10:00 +0000

Michael Bolin is back from his honeymoon and sent us a picture of the GAZILLION MIT alums from classes of 1996 to 2005 that were at his wedding. Enjoy!

MIT Fall 2011 Career Fair - Wed 9/21

noreply@blogger.com (aileen) — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 02:12:00 +0000

The MIT Career Fair is coming up and alumni are invited to participate! The fair will take place on Wednesday, September 21st, from 11-5 in Johnson Athletic Center.

MIT Career Fair Website: http://career-fair.mit.edu/

Alum Registration: http://career-fair.mit.edu/alumni/register.php

Companies like Amazon, Boston Scientific, McKinsey and Sequoia Capital will be there! Submit your resume online and come join the fair!

San Francisco Soiree Reminder

noreply@blogger.com (Kristie) — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 05:24:00 +0000

Hello classmates!

I'm writing to remind you all about the upcoming Spark Soiree in San Francisco on August 12. What's that you say? You don't live in San Francisco? That's not a problem. You can invent a teleportation device between now and then and beam yourself to San Francisco. Problem solved!

Dial in the following coordinates into your space-time-continu-o-meter: Friday August 12, 2011 from 7pm to 10pm at Milsal+Partners at 2678 California Street.

Go buy your tickets here: http://sparksummersoiree.eventbrite.com/

You'll be supporting this non-profit:

http://www.sparksf.org/

AND SUPER BONUS you'll get to see our very own Rebecca Lipon perform (http://sinisterdexter.net) and rock your socks off (note: wear socks in preparation).

Kristie

Design Innovation - A Ruler for Your Wallet

noreply@blogger.com (aileen) — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 15:34:00 +0000

Check out Alison Wong's latest product - a slick vinyl ruler that fits on the edge of your credit card! Measure everything in centimeters or inches with this virtually weightless design innovation!

To learn more and order your own, check out the CardStick website.

November/December 2011 Class Notes

noreply@blogger.com (Kristie) — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 20:57:00 +0000

Class Notes written July 28, 2011

Hello classmates! To begin, we have some news that didn’t make it into our last column, including this haiku from *Will Arora. Twelve years in Boston; just moved out to Seattle; it's rainy and wet. Will now works with Manish Gaudi ‘05, and he’s met up with *Skip Dise and *Sandi Lin. Will would love to connect with more nearby alums, so send him an e-mail if you’re in Seattle. Also, if you were impressed by Will’s poetry, that’s nothing compared to his work as a performance artist. You can see him salsa dancing in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juzP-ABLQeQ. Ole!

*Josh Jackson also sent me a haiku: Moved south to Houston; To start G2MT Labs; What an adventure. In prose Josh explained, he finished his PhD at the Colorado School of Mines in 2009 and moved to Houston to set up a metallurgical testing laboratory, G2MT Labs. Classmates can check them out at www.g2mtlabs.com or follow them at twitter.com/g2mtlabs/ . Their blog covers materials and corrosion-related issues at www.g2mtlabs.com/blog, and Josh promises to keep the posts interesting.

*Alice Altair Enevoldsen and *Jason Gift Enevoldsen wrote to share that they welcomed Vera Vega Gift Enevoldsen into the world on April 9, 2011.

*Diana Cheng and *Matt Frank decided to squeeze all their major life changing events into this past June. They had a baby girl, Emma, on June 2nd; moved to Boston on June 13th; and Matt started his residency at Beth Israel Deaconess on June 23rd. They are now living in Coolidge Corner and adjusting to life with a new home, new job, and new baby.

*Brittany Burrows finished her PhD in neuroscience at Stanford's School of Medicine earlier this year. She defended on November 30th, and turned in her final thesis in March. She learned a lot, of course, and she says was a great experience, but she’s glad to be done with school! Brittany started her first post-grad school job in May as the Director of Product Development at Peerbetween, a startup in Palo Alto. Brittany is also training for the San Jose Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon on October 2nd as part of Team In Training, a group that raises money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Brittany is running in honor of her cousin, a survivor of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and in memory of her sister-in-law's brother, who lost his battle with acute myeloid leukemia a couple of years ago. If anyone would like to help Brittany raise money to fund research on blood cancers, you can donate online at: http://pages.teamintraining.org/sj/rnrsjha11/bburrows

*Christine Robson had a wonderful trip to Boston this spring. She spent the weekend with *Justin Mazzola Paluska, Trisha Montalbo ‘02 and *Kathryn Chen. Christine reports that Kathryn is an intestment banker in NYC and came up to Boston to visit. Justin and Trisha are still in Cambridge. While in Boston, Christine also attended *Jonathan Sheffii's graduation party from Harvard Business School.

*Dr. Alex Wissner-Gross (www.alexwg.org) joined the Advisory Board of the telecommunications cable company Hibernia Atlantic.

*Abdulaziz "Aziz" Alnaim recently founded Mayar Capital Management, an investment firm that follows value investing principles. He now enjoys his time sitting alone at his small office doing investment research. He also recently decided that he's had enough and quit his post as chairman of Yareem Arabia, a multi-concept restaurant company he co-founded in 2006. He is trying to continue blogging at www.readysettryagain.com but he has fewer things to complain about nowadays.

*Daniel Turek is halfway through his PhD program in statistics at the University of Otago, in Dunedin, New Zealand. Daniel wrote his update from the US while he was visiting to attend Michael Bolin's wedding in Princeton, NJ. He had a wonderful time seeing heaps of old classmates, on both the east and west coasts during his visit.

*Michael Bolin wrote in himself to share about his wedding, and he earned 15,000 class notes bonus points for writing in during his honeymoon. He and his wife, Sarah Graham Bolin, were celebrating their two week honeymoon in Italy, where they were visiting Rome, Cinque Terre, and Venice. Of the 147 guests at their July 16 wedding in Princeton, NJ 34 had MIT degrees, spanning '96 to '06! The 03s had quite a strong showing with 11: *Alex Jacobs, *Michael Bolin, *Ryan Jazayeri, *Brian Stube, *Stephen Harsany, *Jonathan Berkow, *Daniel Turek, *Neil Gavacs, *Matt Notowidigdo, *Tony Kim, and *Patricia (McAndrew) Young. They had an incredible wedding weekend. Hooray!

*Kevin Nazemi finished up his MBA and MPP degrees at Harvard and moved to NYC where he founded Done (done.com) with two other MIT alums, Paul Covell ‘01 and Ken Nesmith ‘04. They have secured funding and settled in offices in Soho. They are looking for MIT rockstars to join the team; anyone interested can email kevin@done.com.

After a brief stint of being unemployed last year, *Ben Nicholson was hired as a project manager for a start-up in West Sacramento called Micromidas, which is developing a process to grow polymer-producing bacteria on wastewater sludge. The extracted polymer is renewable and biodegradable; it's poop-to-plastic!

Finally, *David McIlroy wrote to share that his daughter Charlotte was born in August of 2010. Her brother Danny is her best friend and they play great together. Also, in June David finished his PhD program in materials science at Illinois and started work at Ticona Advanced Engineering Materials. Anna ‘05 and Dan are now living on the southeast side of Cincinnati.

Thanks for the updates everyone! I look forward to hearing from you again in a few months.
-Kristie A. Tappan, Class Secretary

Class Notes Request Wherein Procrastination Pays Off

noreply@blogger.com (Kristie) — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 21:36:00 +0000

So... I should have sent this e-mail last week or at least earlier this week, but um... there was work, The Lost World was on TV, and do you know how much stuff is on the internet? A lot, so you can see how I didn't manage to get my class notes request to you in a timely manner. No matter. There are several whole entire days between now and when my column is due. You guys can write tons of e-mails to me between now and then. You will right? I'm not going to have to write a column about how I drafted some objections last week or about how I managed to get locked inside my office and had to call my mom to come rescue me. Technology Review would not be impressed. My fate as a reporter rests in your hands. Send me some updates before next Thursday, July 28.

After July 28, class notes will be on our class blog: http://mit2003classnotes.blogspot.com/, and right now you can check out Aileen's post on the MIT-Stanford Entrepreneurship Social in June. Next up will be our San Francisco event, and I'm going to send you all an e-mail about that shortly. Hopefully. Maybe today. We'll see.

Kristie

MIT & Stanford Alumni Entrepreneurship Social Sold Out!

noreply@blogger.com (aileen) — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 02:08:00 +0000

The Boston MIT & Stanford Entrepreneurship Social in June was a great success! Our sold out event featured an engaging talk, by Ben Zeskind, founder of Immuneering, that garnered much discussion with the audience. Entrepreneurial alumni from various fields (software, medical devices, law) mingled over well paired beverages and hors d'oeuvre at the Central Bottle.

We would like to thank the following people for making this event possible -

Wan Li Zhu, MIT 2003 Alum

Ben Zeskind, MIT 2003 Alum

Jeff Stoler, Stanford Alum

Jason Walker, MIT Alumni Association

Elena Lee, MIT Alumni Association

Also, a special thank you to our sponsor, Fairhaven Capital, and to Immuneering -

MIT & Stanford Entrepreneurship Social featuring Ben Zeskind, Immuneering Founder

noreply@blogger.com (aileen) — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 20:47:00 +0000

Fairhaven Capital presents

MIT & STANFORD ALUMNI ENTREPRENEURSHIP SOCIAL

featuring Immuneering Founder & MIT 2003 Alum, Ben Zeskind, PhD, MBA

Tues, June 21, 6:00 PM (!) at Central Bottle Wine & Provisions (196 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA)

REGISTER ONLINE ASAP by Thurs, June 16 ($15/person)

Entrepreneurs affiliated MIT and Stanford University are invited to join us to network over wine, beer and appetizers prepared by the expert staff at Central Bottle (menu below).

Ben Zeskind will give an informal talk about founding Immuneering, a startup that helps pharmaceutical companies develop more effective treatments for cancer, autoimmune disease, and neurodegeneration. Immuneering's uniquely quantitative approach generates insights into the mechanisms that cause medicines, including immunotherapies, to work differently in different patients, and yields strategies to increase the number of patients who respond.

Before founding this startup, Dr. Zeskind earned an SB in EE & Comp Sci at MIT, a PhD in BioE at MIT’s Whitehead Institute and an MBA from the Harvard Business School where he was recognized as a Baker Scholar, the highest award for academic distinction. Dr. Zeskind has worked at Merck’s Global Marketing Division, IBM, Constant Contact, Bose, and the US Army Natick Lab.

Drink Tasting Menu -

Chateau Tours de Mirambeaux Reserve, Entre-deux-Mers from Bordeaux, France (a sauvignon blanc - semillon blend)

Li Veli PrimoNero from Puglia, Italy (a primitivo - negroamaro blend)

Brooklyn Brewery Brooklyn Local 1 Ale from New York, US

Appetizer Menu -

Arancini with Mozzarella

Creamy Goat Cheese + Fig Jam on Crostini

Robiola Bosina + Finocchiona "Cigars"

ABOUT FAIRHAVEN CAPITAL - Based in Cambridge’s Kendall Square, Fairhaven Capital is a venture capital fund dedicated to a thesis-based approach to investing in North American technology companies. This approach focuses investment efforts on markets where emerging companies and technologies can create significant value in three to five years. The Fairhaven team is focused on themes in the consumer, enterprise, financial services, materials, media infrastructure and security markets. Fairhaven is currently investing out of its second fund of $250 million.

September/October 2011 Class Notes

noreply@blogger.com (Kristie) — Fri, 27 May 2011 03:20:00 +0000

written May 26, 2011

Hello classmates! This month you impressed me with your mastery of Japanese poetry by sending me several haikus. We begin class notes by showcasing these creative accomplishments.

*Tim Sutherland
Moved to Porter Square.
Much nicer than East Cambridge.
Back on the Red Line!

*Arthur Fitzmaurice
Raising money to fight AIDS
Ran eighth marathon
(http://apla.convio.net/goto/agfitz)

*Amanda Beeson
rochester, ny.
salad days spent with puppy.
half-marathon? check.

*Darcy Kelly-Greene
We went to London
A princess wedding took place
We did not attend

*Yuriy Brun
Computers can't joke.
To teach them how, I wrote a
That's What She Said bot.
Read more about it here: http://www.geekosystem.com/thats-what-she-said-computer
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/04/they_invented_a_computer_that.html Or the technical paper here: www.cs.washington.edu/homes/brun/pubs/pubs/Kiddon11.pdf

*Aaron Fernandes
I said new baby
Wife said new dog; what to do?
All of the above!
And new job, and probably a new house too, but I couldn't fit that in 5-7-5.

*Amy (Schonsheck) Simpkins
The baby is here
All chubby cheeks and soft coos
I'm in love again.
Andrew Lee Simpkins was born on April 28, 2011 to Amy and her husband, Travis Simpkins (MS '02, PHD '06). He is their first and practically perfect in every way.

*Kristin (Brodie) and her husband Reuben had their second child, a baby girl, named Gwendolyn Mae on January 21st. Everyone is doing well. Kristin is excited about heading out to California soon for *Cari Rottenberg's wedding in the end of May. She's taking Gwen on the trip with her, so it'll be the first big girls’ trip together. She's really looking forward to seeing the sun for a bit since it's been the wettest winter and spring in years up in Canada where they're living.

*Caroline Twomey Lamb and her hubankd Andrew Lamb ‘02 had a daughter on April 4. Her name is Catherine Twomey Lamb. Caroline reports she is sleeping less than she did as an undergrad, but it's worth it.

*Anthony Thomas and *Dwan (Riddick) Thomas had a busy spring. Dwan gave birth to Jacob Alexander in February. His big brother Tony (2 yrs old) can't wait to teach him how to break expensive things and climb furniture! Anthony completed his MBA at Wharton in May. Their plans for the summer include moving from Philadelphia back to Houston, where Anthony will be working at an energy investment firm.

*Sonali Shah is graduating from Internal Medicine Residency this June and she is starting her hematology/oncology fellowship at Dana Farber Cancer Institute this July. She will also be celebrating her four year wedding anniversary to her husband Ravi a cardiology fellow at MGH this June. They will be in Boston for another three years (this her twelfth year in Boston since coming to MIT for college!)

*Tilke Judd defended her thesis "Understanding and predicting where people look in images" in May and will graduate this year from MIT with my PhD in computer science. The defense was fun and there was an interactive laser pointer demo, which I hope brought an element of danger to the defense.

This spring, *Teresa Zhang & *Jessy (Baker) Rivest sat next to each other wearing ridiculous costumes in the UC Berkeley commencement, and were awarded their PhDs in mechanical engineering. Hooray!

*Dr. Alex Wissner-Gross (www.alexwg.org) was invited to speak and moderate a panel on the future of real-time data mining at the 2011 North American Financial Information Summit in New York City.

*Julie Koo, *Monica Krishnan, *Anita Kumar, *Aileen Wu and *Lucy Zhao spent a fun-filled weekend at Myrtle Beach this past April. Their trip was filled with meals of ice cream, poolside relaxation, turtle sightings and couple of drinking games. They eagerly await their next weekend getaway!

*Emie Okorafor is finishing his first year at UCLA FIlm School, working toward his master’s degree in animation. He’s hoping to upload some of his projects and music to his website soon, so click and visit http://emezie.com.

*Marc-Kwesi Farrell finished his MBA at Harvard last June (his 3rd tour of duty in Boston), and then spent the summer traveling--World Cup in South Africa among the stops. After, he moved to NYC to start work on his own sports and social media concept; Fanlime. Things have gone very well to date, and he’s excited about launching a beta product in the coming weeks. He’s actively looking for fellow MIT alums to join his team, so if you or anyone you know is looking for a technical co-founder gig, or if you have a general passion for sports/startups, get in touch with Marc!

*Jonathan Sheffi graduated from Harvard Business School in May and planned to move back to San Francisco to work for Novartis Diagnostics. He is looking forward to seeing other Bay Area '03s!

*John Miyagi is graduating this August from the University of Hawaii with his PhD in Tropical Medicine (Pharmacology). He’s going to be attending UCSF this fall to attend pharmacy school, and he’s looking forward to hanging out with me! This shameless flattery is how John earned the grand finale spot for this month’s class notes. TA DA!!!

Thanks for all the poetry and prose. I will contact you when the Boston Globe asks us to write a story on the power of news through haiku.

Kristie A. Tappan, Class Secretary

Class Notes - Haiku News

noreply@blogger.com (Kristie) — Tue, 17 May 2011 14:41:00 +0000

Good morning classmates!

It is time for more class notes.

Send me an update.

I hope you found that solicitation haiku brief but inspiring, and I am looking forward to receiving many poems from you before my deadline on May 26.

For example,

I went on a trip.

Oregon was far away.

Got dysentery.

I had a baby.

It is cute, but likes to cry.

I will teach it math.

I will also accept news in prose format. You can tell me how much fun you've had at one of the MIT 2003 happy hours that have been sweeping the country. So far, we've hit Washington, DC and New York City, and we'd like to thank Jazlyn Carvajal and Just Lovely Creations (www.jlcevents.com/) for organizing and sponsoring bowling night in New York.

Next up, is Boston, so keep your eyes peeled for an e-mail from our class president, Aileen Wu, with the details. The 5 Cities, 5 Months happy hour extravaganza will hit the west coast after that. Details and class notes will be on our blog (http://mit2003classnotes.blogspot.com/).

Poetically yours,

Kristie

MIT03 Bowling Night Recap

noreply@blogger.com (aileen) — Fri, 13 May 2011 16:56:00 +0000

MIT03 Bowling Night in NYC was a success! Young MIT alumni caught up over bowling, desserts and arcade games. The crowd was wonderfully diverse including a sociologist, a software developer and a finance professor! Thanks so much to our attendees, our organizer, Jazlyn Carvajal, and our event sponsor, Just Lovely Creations!

5C5M Bowling Night in New York

noreply@blogger.com (aileen) — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 16:14:00 +0000

Sponsored by Just Lovely Creations & MIT03

Wed April 27 | 8:00-10:00 pm | 300 New York (Pier 60 / 23rd & West Side Hwy, NYC)

Join MIT03 and friends for a fantastic night of bowling in Chelsea! Catch up with your favorite classmates while bowling strikes and perhaps, more importantly, sporting the most stylish bowling shoes in the city. Admission of $26 includes bowling lanes, shoe rentals and appetizers. Contact Jazlyn Carvajal (jazcar03 at alum) with questions.

About Just Lovely Creations - We are a full wedding planning and decoration service founded by Jazlyn Carvajal. We cater to YOUR style and needs. We will make sure that wedding details are taken care of according to YOU and all you will need to worry about is walking down that aisle and saying I DO.

About MIT03 Five Cities Five Months - MIT03 will be hosting five events in five cities across the US - Next up - MIT Entrepreneurship Happy Hour in Boston at the Russell House Tavern in May. Email Aileen (aileenwu at alum) for details.

Volunteer Opportunities for and by MIT03

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Palmer) — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 14:24:00 +0000

To celebrate National Volunteer Week, we’re kicking off a new way for '03's to find volunteer opportunities. We’ve heard from our classmates that they want to give back, but it’s often tricky to know where to look.

On our class blog, we’ll be highlighting ways you can volunteer that are geared just for the MIT crowd. And we want your help!

Do you know of volunteer opportunities where you live? Do you work at a nonprofit that could use some help? Send us an email with your ideas, especially if they would be uniquely suited for us MIT folks.

Here’s the first, from the Conrad Foundation:

Get involved in the Spirit of Innovation Awards third annual Innovation Summit at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, CA from April 28 - May 1, 2011. This is the Conrad Foundation’s annual science and entrepreneurship competition for high school students, which challenges teams of students to create innovative products using science, technology, and entrepreneurship to solve 21st century, real-world problems.

The Innovation Summit will not only be the final test to determine this year’s winners but it will also feature workshops from an array of aerospace, clean energy, and entrepreneurial professionals. We will need several volunteers to help meet, greet and organize the event throughout the weekend.

To learn more about our specific volunteer opportunities please visit this page. When you are ready to sign up to be a volunteer at the Summit please fill out this short form.

July/August 2011 Class Notes

noreply@blogger.com (Kristie) — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 05:21:00 +0000

Hello classmates! This month, there is news to report and a nation-spanning class of 2003 event to promote. From April to August, we’re having events in 5 cities in 5 months (catchy no?). If you live in DC, New York City, Boston, Chicago, or San Francisco, be sure to attend one of the events. If you happen to live in some other city, like Reno, Nevada, don’t be left out, you can have your own happy hour, and I will report it in class notes as an epic event that would make any big city jealous. We’re hoping lots of you get together in the next five months, but for now, here’s some news to read before you get to catch up in person!

*Josh Neubert and colleagues are molding the scientific innovators of tomorrow through the Conrad Awards. To win, teams of high school students face off building technologies to address the fields of space travel, clean energy and cyber security. Once Josh and his colleagues are done with the awards, there're going to all drink... a lot. Running programs (especially for kids) takes a lot out of a person (www.conradawards.org)! Josh will definitely be looking forward to the MIT ‘03 happy hours.

In March, *Jessica Brodkin gave an outstanding comedic performance at the Boston Women in Comedy Festival, opening up about relationships, her family and her Puerto Rican alter ego. After the show, she met up with *Aileen Wu, *Vicki (Schubert) Williamson and Victoria Davis ‘04 to catch up at a local bar.

*Gloria Choi is graduating from the U.C. Davis School of Medicine in May, and she'll be starting her pediatrics residency at UCLA in July.

On April 1 (no joke!), *Robert Lillianfeld will complete what started out as a joke (seriously!) and defend his dissertation for a Ph.D. from the physics department at Virginia Tech.

*David M Foxe is working on architectural and engineering projects at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City.

*Dr. Alex Wissner-Gross (www.alexwg.org) was invited to deliver the closing keynote at the 2011 TradeTech Equity Trading Conference on the future of low-latency global networking.

*Hareesh Nair got engaged last fall in Philadelphia to Ewa Szymanska, who he met years before while they were studying at UPenn. In January, they moved to Singapore, where Hareesh was promoted to establish Medtronic's information technology and patient connectivity businesses in emerging markets. Of the ten major cities Hareesh has lived in, Singapore is the best to work, live, and play. You’re all invited to find Hareesh if you visit Southeast Asia.

*Lauren E. Frick (III S.B. '03, XX Ph.D. '07) and Charles I. Morton (X S.B. '97, XX Ph.D. '09) were married in Lobby 7 on 11th February 2011 (11022011 because the wait until November's analogous American-style palindrome was just too long) by a Justice of the Peace who read the vows off of an iPad while Lauren and Charles exchanged Möbius strip rings (complete with an ambigram inscription of the couple's first names) forged by local sculptor Gideon Weisz. In addition to random passers-by, Jessica Duda (XVI S.M. '05 Ph.D. '08), Kevin Duda (XVI S.M. '04 Ph.D. '07), Head Volleyball Coach Paul Dill, Head Swimming & Diving Coach Dawn Dill, Volleyball Assistant Coach Samantha Lampert, James Perkins (VI Ph.D. '07), Technology Review Senior Web Producer Brittany Sauser, and Lance Cordeiro witnessed the proceedings. Celebration migrated to the Miracle of Science, where all involved sat under the world-famous periodic table menu, making this one of my favorite wedding announcements in class notes of all time.

Finally, we have more babies to welcome into our MIT family. Four of our classmates celebrated the births of their second child. *Kristin (Brodie) Domike and her husband Reuben had Gwendolyn Mae Domike on January 21. They now have two children who were born on islands; the first was born in England and the second on Prince Edward Island where they are happily living now.

*Charlene Clark, her husband Jamie '00, and big sister Kendalle welcomed little Jonah Robert Clark into the world on February 8th. Soon, they're moving to a big house in Reading, MA, where Charlene will continue her crazy duties as a stay-at-home mom (now times 2).

*Chris Fidkowski and his wife Christina ‘01 had their second baby, Julia Aleksandra Fidkowski, on 3/14 (pi day!). Julia weighed in at 9lbs 12oz. Her big sister, Bridget, is now 19 months.

Finally, *Colin Galbraith wrote to share that the past six months months have been quite exciting for the Galbraith household. Colin spent most of the fall months interviewing with oral and maxillofacial surgery residency programs around the country. The day before one of his interviews, Colin and his wife welcomed their second son into the world on October 30th. They named him Elliot Meyer Galbraith. In January, Colin matched to the oral and maxillofacial surgery residency program in Denver, Colorado. In March, he spent ten days in Haiti providing dental care in remote villages near Jeremie. Colin will finish dental school in May and then move the family back to Colorado for his four-year residency.

Thanks everyone for all the wonderful news; send more updates my way!

Kristie A. Tappan, Class Secretary