UTSAA Magazine – Spring 2006 - University of Toronto Schools

Alumni NewsElizabeth McCusker ’79 arrived inAuckland, New Zealand, in September ’05on a two-year opportunity and overlooksthe Hauraki Gulf, opposite the dormantvolcano Rangitoto. She is looking forwardto driving on the other side of the road.Peeter Reichman ’79 married MicheleSteadman in February, 2005 and they havea son, Jaak Peeter Mark. He lives in Whitby,ON, with Michele’s two daughters.Carolyn Ellis ’80 is well-entrenched ina new career in Integrative Coaching asMaster Integrative Coach and TeleclassLeader. She was recently quoted inMaclean’s about ‘coaching divorced singlesin preparation for new relationships’.Ian Brodie ’85 has become Chief of Staff forPrime Minister Harper, after being Assistantto the Chief of Staff for Mr. Harper in 2003.He served as a professor in the political sciencedepartment at University of WesternOntario from 1997 to 2003 and authoredFriends of the Court in 2002. He and his wife,Vida, have a daughter born a year ago.David Auster ’86 is Associate GeneralManager for 101 Productions in NYC, whereis he part of a group that oversees severalBroadway productions [Spamalot, TheWoman in White and The History Boys]. Healso teaches a graduate theatre program atColumbia UniversityAsheesh Advani ’90 and his company,CircleLending, was the subject of a HarvardBusiness School case recently and werealso profiled in the Wall Street Journal. TheBoston Business Journal selected him as oneof Boston’s “Top 40 Under 40”. He and hiswife, Helen, live in a Boston suburb and areparents of twin boys born on ChristmasEve, 2004.Stephen Bay ’90, an engineer currentlyliving in California, will have a book, LosAngeles: A Photographic Portrait publishedby Twin Light Publications later this year.Winsome Brown ’90 sends greetingsfrom NYC, where she lives with husband,Claude Arpels, and young daughter, Maud.She says, “Themistocles, Thermopylae, theA Trailblazer PassesUsha Kanakaratnam, UTS 1986Peloponnesian War”...to all UTSers as theycharge into competition with Toronto areaschools.Hilary Davidson ’90 has published her 13thbook, Frommer’s New York City Day By Day,the first in a new series of full-colour travelguides being launched this year. Her firstbook, Frommer’s Toronto, was published inits seventh edition last December.Lennox Huang ’90 is a pediatric intensivistat Hamilton’s McMaster Hospital. He andhis wife, Krishna Anchala, recently returnedfrom a trip to the Buddhist Kingdom ofBhutan, a country half the size of Indiana,northeast of India in the Himalayas. www.huangchala.com/Bhutan.Geoffrey Hung ’93 and his wife, DeborahBoulton, relocated to Richmond, BC, lastsummer following the birth of their firstson, Alexander Gabriel. Geoffrey has beenappointed staff physician in the Divisionof Emergency Medicine at BC’s ChildrenA young Tamil girl, who immigrated toCanada with her parents from England in1973 at the age of four, died from breastcancer on July 21, 2005 at the age of 36.She was a ‘trail blazer’ in almosteverything she set out to accomplish inher short lifetime. At the young age offive, she salvaged some books from atrash bin near her home in Crescent Town,a multicultural apartment complex in theeast end of Toronto, where her father, acivil engineer, and his wife and 3 childrensettled. So began her lifelong love ofbooks which she often gifted to her familyand friends with very personal notesabout the literary content of the gift.At UTS from Grade 7 on, she blossomedintellectually as one of the firstTamil girls enrolled here, and her literaryinterests were an integral part ofher strong academic performance. [Shereceived the Maurice Cody Scholarshipfor grade 12 History in 1985]. As a 15-year-old student in downtown Toronto,she developed an appetite for internationalfilms through her attendance atthe Toronto Film Festival, a practice shecontinued religiously even when shewas ill.Usha was called to the bar in 1996,having graduated from Uof T’s TrinityCollege with a BA in history, followedby the law degree. Despite being diagnosedwith cancer in 1998, she continuedto be very active, not only with herreal estate responsibilities at RogersCommunications, but in weekend soccergames and trips to Venezuela, Mexicoand England.She continued to rescue goodbooks from yard sales and library discardtables, and just before her passing, sheteamed up with a friend to win one ofthe first place prizes in the Globe & Mail’sannual literary quiz.Usha was a truly outstanding personwho UTS was proud to have as an alumna.Information from “Lives Lived”, appearingin the Globe & Mail, January 26, 2006Hospital and is also a clinical professor inthe Department of Pediatrics at UBC.Adam Chapnick ’94 reports that he hasjust published [UBC Press] another book,The Middle Power Project: Canada and theFounding of the UN. Adam was the editorand driving force behind the very successfulbook, Through Our Eyes: The Alumni Historyof UTS – 1960 to 2000.Penny Howard ’95 reports that she is marriedto Josh and is a PhD student , studyingin Aberdeen, Scotland, after five years atDalhousie doing marine biology and workingin the USA for five years. Two years ago,she traveled around Cape Horn with herparents – ‘a pretty scary adventure’.Margaret Lyszkiewicz ’95 is working asa consultant / trainer / programmer atGIS Software Company, about 100 mileseast of Los Angeles. In addition to being apartner in an Internet database-driven systemscompany, she actively participates in20 s p r i n g 2 0 0 6 | u t s a l u m n i a s s o c i a t i o n m a g a z i n e