By Bart Gummere, Associate Head of School for College Counseling and Alumni Relations

We’ve been lucky to hear from several of our alumni recently with updates on their school and career plans.

CLASS OF 2009

Paul Strong writes, “I’m still living down here in Arizona. I’ve been working full-time at Arizona State University. I’m mainly doing market research and digital product development for the teachers’ college. I started the job right when COVID hit in March 2020, so it was an ‘interesting’ time to move into the education field. But they have some good work going on at ASU. Might even be interesting to EPS, since you’re all about innovation. One group I’m working with a lot is called Next Education Workforce—the idea is to work with local public school districts and have them organize their teachers into teams, so they can specialize instead of having to be all things to all people. I’m also trying (although slowly!) to build some interest around launching a website for teachers around the country to network, ask questions, and share ideas.”

CLASS OF 2015

After graduating from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Cris Gammill took a job flying for SkyWest Airlines. Recently he switched jobs and is now flying 747’s for Atlas Air.

Izzy Rheins reports, “Recently I just started a new job as a Marketing Coordinator at EchoNous, located in Redmond. EchoNous is a global medical equipment manufacturer that develops proprietary artificial intelligence-assisted handheld ultrasounds, diagnostic equipment, and educational platforms for healthcare professionals.”

Connor Nolan writes with this exciting news, “The past few months have been quite the whirlwind! After finishing up the MAT program last July, I moved up to Woodland Park, CO, to work as the education fellow for the Catamount Center. I first got connected with them four years ago as an undergraduate when I did a semester abroad program called TREE (Teaching and Researching Environmental Education). It’s a teacher training program that allows for undergraduates to get a TON of time teaching with real students while living in Pikes Peak National Forest and applying theory to practice. The undergraduates teach over 75% of the fifth-grade science curriculum at the local elementary school in Woodland Park and teach multiple units at a credit recovery high school in Colorado Springs.

“After getting my master’s degree this spring, I moved up there and began working as the education fellow, which entailed a vast range of responsibilities from teaching undergraduate, fifth grade, and high school courses to helping the undergraduate students develop their own units and lesson plans to teach with the fifth graders themselves. Additionally, I worked with the teachers and staff at both schools to coordinate programming and ensure students had the necessary background knowledge for any lessons that the undergraduates taught at the Catamount Center.

“Since the semester ended, I was offered a promotion to work as the Director of Education at the Catamount Center and take lead on all educational programming and outreach. I’m super excited for the opportunity and can’t wait to see where the journey takes me.”

Loren Pickard has a new job. She writes, “My new job at Google is on the advertising team for large retail. I will be managing the Google Ad strategy for Amazon.”

Tenley Weinstein writes, “I am currently living in Bellevue and now working at Nordstrom. I work as a Merchandise Analyst and am responsible for planning the home flash event business on NordstromRack.com. I recently applied to some MBA programs in the Seattle area and will make a final
decision by May on where to attend. I didn’t think I would want to pursue a master’s degree but really miss learning in a classroom setting!”

CLASS OF 2016

Jonny Netz shares some exciting news about his latest business venture. He’s been working on this company for several years and writes, “Rematch is the world’s largest Esport tournament-hosting platform and community hub for gamers. Approaching 1 million registered players, Rematch was recently acquired by a large Silicon Valley technology company with the goal of rapidly growing its community through providing services in additional video-game titles and offering a wider variety of Esport-related features. Jonny will be leading his team through this vision with the goal of reaching millions of new players over the course of 2022.

CLASS OF 2020

Gavin Uberti shares, “I’ve been doing very well here in Cambridge! This past semester, I was a speaker at TVMCon 2021 and (along with some friends) published an arXiv preprint implementing an obscure type of encryption for the first time. I’ve been enjoying my classes as well—I took Math 55 my freshman year (and loved it), and have since taken a number of other CS and math courses. I’m currently on track to earn both my bachelor’s in math as well as my master’s in computer science when I graduate in 2024. Career-wise, I’m currently working as a software engineer at OctoML, which I really enjoy. I joined back when they had just raised their series A—by now, we’ve raised our series C and have a valuation of nearly one billion. I’m going to be back in the area this summer to keep working there.”

CLASS OF 2021

Tristan Haeger recently completed his first term at Swarthmore College and reports things are going well. He is swimming on their varsity team and adjusting well to college life. Tristan also shared, “This semester I’m taking a 9 person astro class with an 8:30-11:30pm lab, so I’m super excited to get to know more people in my major and get the chance to observe the night sky.”

Sydney Vernon writes, “I just finished a great first season of cross-country at Caltech. The SCIAC conference championships were held at Pomona-Pitzer, so I got to reconnect with some other EPS alums there! I am looking forward to track this spring and eventually studying math, applied math, or computer science.”