Kaleidoscope Newlsetter - UWC-USA

KALEIDOSCOPE 

Winter 2004 Volume 29 

CEC 

Retreat 

pgs. 2 

Community 

Service 

pgs. 3-5 

Orientation to Service 

Cultural 

Days 

pgs. 6-8 

Graduating 

Davis 

UWC 

Scholars 

pg. 9 

Sustainable 

Progress 

pgs. 10-11 

Alum Joins 

Board 

pg. 12 

Life on 

Campus 

pg. 13 

2004 

Reunion 

pg. 15

The Bartos Institute for the Constructive Engagement of Conflict (CEC) was established to 

formalize and develop UWC-USA’s commitment to fostering in its students the skills, attitudes and 

commitment necessary to address conflict productively. Early in the school year, a CEC retreat is 

held for all first-year students which is led by second-year leaders in CEC. 

Constructive Engagement of Conflict Retreat 

By Chelsea Keeney (USA) - First Year 

and Askari Elson (Barbados) – Second Year 

The Constructive Engagement of Conflict retreat kicked off 

this year on October 4 th . The entire first-year class, as well as secondyear 

facilitators, poured off the UWC buses to inhabit a local camp 

for a weekend. Students broke off into clusters calling themselves 

things like “Tofu” and “Jelly Fish,” and began discussing the five 

principles of CEC (Listen with your undivided attention, 

communicate in a manner which reflects the dignity and worth of 

each individual, explore and examine differences, search for and 

understand others’ truths, and problem-solve collaboratively.) 

The first evening, the group of students, facilitators, and 

teachers gathered in the lodge for an opening ceremony. Two special 

guests gave a presentation on compassion and recent hate crimes such 

as the Columbine shooting and the murder of Mathew Shepard. 

Second-years June (Uganda) and Askari (Barbados) gave compelling 

speeches pertaining to examples of stereotypes and their personal 

President Phil Geier with Celeste and 

Armand Bartos whose generosity 

established the Bartos Institute. 

experience with discrimination. Nicholas (China) also shared the meaning of his name and his feelings of 

national pride. The podium was then opened up for those who wanted to share their experiences and 

thoughts. At the end of the night, the auditorium was silent and several students sat weeping from the 

intense feelings experienced. The presentation ended with the students and facilitators holding hands and 

singing “Imagine” by John Lennon. 

Bonfires were the spectacle of each night, bringing together song and storytelling. As students 

roasted marshmallows to make s’mores (a traditional American dessert for camping: marshmallows, 

graham crackers, and chocolate), an affectionate ambiance was felt throughout the circle. 

The following day a personality test was administered. Students were categorized according to their 

score and each personality type was given a certain side of the cafeteria. Friendly debate broke out about 

whether the characteristics associated with being an extrovert or introvert were better; in the end, everyone 

won. 

The weekend came to a close as the students and facilitators gathered around for one last farewell. 

As we all held hands, a ‘safe space’ was created and feedback was given about the weekend. Gratification 

was attributed and small games were played. We sang songs, and some students entertained. No one will 

forget Prashant’s (Nepal) rendition of “who let the dogs out.” As he sang his heart out, dancing about the 

circle, the group cheered him on and joined in chorus. John McLeod’s dog was included in the fun, and 

Prashant, in fear of getting bitten, was rapidly chased. Finally, “Imagine” was sung once again, and unity 

was sensed throughout the circle. The weekend was a success, and there was a great feeling of 

accomplishment amongst the first-years and facilitators alike. 

Page 2 UNITED WORLD COLLEGE U • S • A

COMMUNITY SERVICE PROGRAM 

Orientation to Service 

United World College students arrive from distant homes to a world community folded within a landscape 

of mountains, rivers, adobe, the high desert and a castle. Within days, they are spirited away in clusters 

of fifteen for three full days of intense training in community service. Some tear off a hundred year old 

church roof to aide in its restoration. Others work at a food depot dedicated to helping those for whom 

access to food is a struggle. A children’s museum, an “EcoVersity”, a pueblo, a theater company, farms, 

forests, and an organization building homes for the less fortunate are among the sites that benefit from 

the students’ labor. 

These trips are not only learning opportunities but also provocations to help define individually and 

collectively a meaning of service that embraces wide perspectives and interpretations. Over the next three 

semesters students develop their skills, instruct other students and participate in numerous service 

projects (see side bar, page 5). Upon graduation, the students return home with a commitment to 

continuing their volunteer spirit in their own communities. 

The UWC – USA Community Service Program consists of five broad divisions: youth and sports; 

healing arts and elderly care; education; performing arts; and housing and community development. 

Highlights of select fall ’03 community service orientation trips and students’ responses follow. 

Cornerstones 

Cornerstones Community Partnerships, a Santa Fe-based non-profit organization, 

works primarily with rural Hispanic villages and Native American Pueblos in New 

Mexico and the Southwest to restore historic structures. 

Damian Almiron Bonnin (Paraguay): “The service trip was an adventure. It was really 

a good thing to be with those people; for them to get to know the people from the school 

better and also for us to get to know the people of this place we helped…” 

Nick Smith (United States): “The building of the church was really a 

product of teamwork. I think the best part was that everyone shared the 

same goal and we did our best to do our part…” 

Geoff Blanton (United States): “It was really exciting to be a part of the work of the 

people of Mora. They are amazing people with generous hearts. Making mud rocks!” 

Kamilla Friis (Denmark): “I was on top! I would love to go back 

and help again and see the work when it was done. And it was nice to 

have spicy food!” 

Yasemin Abay (Turkey): “Frankly I never thought I’d be able to handle this work but 

what I did for Santo Nino Church really impressed me…” 

KALEIDOSCOPE Page 3

Santa Fe Children’s Museum 

The Santa Fe Children’s Museum is a place for families to learn and play together. 

The interactive exhibits, beauty of the outdoor garden, diversity of programs, and 

professional staff make for a special museum visit. 

Nick Smith (United States): “We’ve left our mark and we can call it ours. 

Community is more advanced because of what we did.” 

Josue Paulos (Bermuda): “It was an investment into the community, 

not just community service.” 

Rasha Husni (Lebanon): “Today we actually saw parents of children coming along and 

using the place. It’s what gave us the kick to work.” 

Likeleli Seitlheko (Lesotho): “It felt good that I was doing 

something to help others that really needed my help…hope to do it 

again.” 

Taos Pueblo 

The Traditional-Sustainable Practices Program is a recent addition to the pueblo that is 

being developed to honor and preserve traditional agricultural and building methods 

while integrating contemporary sustainability practices. 

Anonymous: “The trip was really interesting. We saw a lot 

of interesting places and got to know about gardening and 

different projects. Maybe that’s why I feel like I haven’t 

given much-only got a lot.” 

Anonymous: “This is probably one of the most interesting 

expeditions I’ve had to take part in - an eye opener in its 

rightful sense. By the end of the trip I had a totally different 

perception of very crucial world issues. I now understand 

why there’s so much environmental talk. From the heart of 

the world for real we need to act - to act for the preservation 

of the world and our very delicate environment.” 

by Kevin Major-Hansford (Canada) 


EcoVersity 

The EcoVersity was founded in 1999 by a team of educators, ecologists, 

anthropologists, and activists who gathered to design a school for students seeking 

innovative and practical approaches of learning from the land. 

Chelsea Sterbut (Canada): “It was wonderful to do hands on work that would help 

the environment for years to come. I love everyone in the group. Service makes 

everything so wonderful. I am loving it.” 

Anonymous: “It is a really great 3 days and 2 nights trip in my life. It makes 

me understand volunteer better. I have worked lots of work, even I have trouble 

with dust allergy but I think I have done my best. Working here, it makes us to 

be united. We have to be a team-work.” 

Andre Skyaasen (Norway): “The place we work is 

brilliant. We should have many more places like this in the 

world.” 

An International Service: 

Amnesty International 

On the 28 th of September, nine UWC students and one faculty member 

participated in a 15-mile relay run to raise awareness of human rights 

abuses around the world. This 15-mile relay run was organized by a 

member of the local community, Doug Hughes, with assistance from 

the UWC Amnesty Group. The run commenced at 8 am on a clear 

Sunday morning, starting from Manuelitas, and concluding at Storrie 

Lake. 

Students mingled with members of the local community, running 

alongside them and exchanging casual conversation, as well as 

partaking in a potluck barbeque, and signing petitions and letters at an 

Amnesty International table that was set up at the Storrie Lake station. 

Students wore the names of victims of human rights abuses on their 

shirts as they ran their part of the relay. 

UWC students took turns to run in groups of two to four students, while 

the rest of the UWC students would cheer their friends on from the 

Bluebird bus driven by math teacher Alan Wicks. 

The Amnesty Run was a way in which UWC students could work 

alongside members of the local community for a cause that concerned 

members of the global community, and our Amnesty group intends to 

continue participating in and organizing similar projects with the Las 

Vegas community. 

Zinaida Dedeic – Second Year 

Community 

Service Projects 

Amnesty International 

Ballet 

Big Brothers/Big Sisters 

CARE Unit 

Castle Tours 

CEC Constructive 

Engagement of Conflict 

Chess Club 

Children’s Choir 

Ecology and Arts Weekend 

Ecology and Arts Weekly 

EcoVersity 

Forest Project 

Highlands Child Care 

Independent Service 

La Vida Encantada 

Las Vegas Recycling 

LVMC Support 

PAWS 

Peer Educators Sexual 

Responsibility 

Phenomenal Women 

Radio 

Santa Fe Children’s 

Museum 

Spanish Immersion 

Special Olympics 

Tutoring Paul D. Henry 

UNICEF 

KALEIDOSCOPE Page 5

CULTURAL DAYS 

EUROPE 

Harriet Rollitt 

Hill Vognild 

The Viennese Waltz 

Muineire Galician Dance 

The Closing Scene 


Julie Ham (teacher) and Nao Munemura 

CULTURAL DAYS 

MID EAST, AUSTRAILIA, ASIA 

Asad Panjwani, Hadar Meltzer, Vikram Anand, 

Krishna Kothary, Felix Long Yin Yu, Felix Amankona-Diawuo, 

Akshay Nanavati, Sergey Grechukhin, Prashant Ratna 

Kansakar, Thair Abu-Rass and Khalil Ibrahim Madbak. 

Naleli Mpho Soledad Morojele, Sahra Peterson, Nadine Abdallah, 

Mary Alcantar, Dilge Gozga and Natalia Bernal Restrepo. 

The Closing Scene 

President Phil Geier and Eyad 

Shabaneh, Economics Teacher. 

Makhethe Mpoti and Elishibah Wali Msengeti 

Sari Zaid Kaylani 

KALEIDOSCOPE Page 7

CULTURAL DAYS 

AFRICA 

Opening Scene 

Andrea Cheney, Colin Lanham 

(teacher) and Felix Forster 

Sam Rugunda and June Tibaleka 

Elishibah Msengeti, Richmond Owusu Adusei 

and Menzi Lukhele . 

Victor Kai-Rogers 

Amanda Monnye 

and Menzi Lukhele 

Likeleli Seitlheko, Makhethe Mpoti, Naleli Morojele, Elisabeth 

Ndour, Amanda Monnnye, Haoua Manzo, Sahra Petersen, Tihtina 

Zenebe Gebre, June Tibaleka and Aneth Kasebele . 


FIRST DAVIS UWC SCHOLARS TO GRADUATE 

Senior Davis UWC Scholars at Colby College with Colby 

President Bro Adams, Shelby and Gale Davis and Phil and 

Amy Geier. 

Davis United World College Scholars 

now number in the hundreds at five pilot 

schools— Colby College, College of 

the Atlantic, Middlebury College, 

Princeton University and 

Wellesley College. The first class of 

these scholars will graduate this year. 

What is this Davis United World College 

Scholars program? Above all, it is the 

vision and power of private philanthropy 

articulating the importance of fostering 

greater understanding among the world’s 

future decision-makers, Americans and 

non-Americans alike. In practical terms, 

this program provides scholarships to an 

outstanding group of UWC graduates. 

Four years ago, Colby College, College of the Atlantic, Middlebury College, Princeton University 

and Wellesley College were selected by philanthropist Shelby M. C. Davis as the inaugural schools for 

the Davis United World College Scholars program. UWC-USA President Phil Geier was asked to design, 

implement and manage this new initiative. Davis offered to fund scholarships for every UWC graduate 

who is accepted and then matriculates at these schools, regardless of national origin or UWC campus 

from which the student comes. The goals of this Davis philanthropy continue to be to: 

• provide scholarships to exemplary students from all cultures whose demonstrated passion 

through their UWC experience gives promise to building international understanding in the 21 st 

century. 

• build clusters of these internationally committed students within the undergraduate populations 

of selected American schools. 

• seek to transform the American undergraduate experience through this international diversity on 

campus, as much for the large majority of Americans as for those UWC graduates on campuses. 

• spark participating colleges and universities to embrace and leverage the value of this initiative 

to the long term benefit of their students and faculties, their strategic planning, and their role in 

contributing more proactively to our highly interdependent yet volatile world. 

• create a very diverse cadre of Davis United World College Scholars who will, during their 

educational experiences and throughout their lives, contribute significantly to shaping a better 

world. 

KALEIDOSCOPE Page 9

SUSTAINABLE PROGRESS AT UWC-USA 

Nestled up against the Sangre de Cristo 

range with a view that extends out towards the 

open plains to the east of Las Vegas, we here at the 

United World College (UWC) feel a strong 

connection to our environment. Our connection 

has fueled an awareness surrounding 

environmental issues and the need for sustainable 

practices. Recycling, an important community 

service has been active at our school for many 

years. This is shown in the form of conventional 

recycling such as cans, bottles and other materials 

and also in the form of water which we reuse to 

irrigate the landscaping on campus. 

For the past two years I have been a 

member of the sustainability group at the UWC 

which works to further the ideas and 

implementation of environmentally sound 

projects; both in the community of Las Vegas as 

well as in the student body who we hope will 

realize the importance of their actions towards the 

environment in their home countries. 

Recently, we have been able to acquire 

sources of alternative energy on our campus. Mrs. 

Frances Tyson, a deceased local environmental 

activist and philanthropist, established and 

endowed a fund that supports the Environmental 

Systems program at the college and more 

specifically encourages 

study and understanding 

of sustainable 

practices. These include 

not only recycling of 

materials and the reuse 

of water but also the 

study of alternative 

methods of conserving 

and generating electrical 

power. 

For the past several 

years, students in the 

Campus Sustainability 

Service have educated 

Mrs. Frances Tyson 

By Crister Brady, Class of 2004 

Hadar Meltzer, Aubrey Bodden and Los Alamos 

Scientist Dr. Albert Migliori of Los Alamos 

National Laboratory. 

other students, faculty and staff about ways in 

which individuals and institutions can reduce the 

environmental impact of the college. Efforts have 

included practical advice on recycling such as 

using both sides of a piece of paper before 

recycling it, using paper and plastic bags from 

stores as packing material, saving water by using a 

tumbler when brushing your teeth, refilling your 

water bottles, taking “submarine showers” by 

turning on the water only to get wet then turning it 

off to soap your body and turning on the water 

only long enough to rinse, don’t flush the toilet for 

urine and saving electricity (when you leave an 

empty room turn off the lights, replace 

incandescent lights with compact fluorescent 

lamps). In a comparison to last year significant 

savings have been achieved. 

Support from Mrs. Tyson has catalyzed 

efforts to install ambitious alternative power 

generation demonstrations on campus. Her 

contributions made it possible for the college to 

purchase two wind turbines, one mounted on a 40 

foot mast behind the science building and another 

more portable one attached to a trailer which also 

carries solar photovoltaic panels. These panels 

and the small turbine produce electricity to charge 

batteries. The trailer can be used to power Search 


and Rescue base camps, providing power for 

radios and lights for several days. In addition the 

trailer is available for demonstrations to schools 

and organizations in the area and is employed in 

teaching Environmental Systems students about 

methods for promoting sustainability in their home 

countries. 

Many others have contributed to this effort. 

Generous donors, including members of the 

governing board of the UWC, have made it 

possible to build and equip the trailer itself and to 

install a large array of ground mounted solar 

photovoltaic panels. These panels are mounted on 

a rack that tracks the sun and improves efficiency. 

In full sun and with a healthy breeze the 

installation can produce up to 2,000 watts of clean, 

renewable electric power. They have also made it 

possible to begin the design and construction of 

solar collectors, which will provide hot water for 

the swimming pool and its associated showers. 

Professionals from Los Alamos National 

Laboratories have helped in the design and 

construction of the turbine and trailer installation. 

Particular thanks go to Dr. Albert Migliori whose 

guidance and expertise have been invaluable in 

initiating, designing and completing these 

projects, to architect John Midyette who 

supervised the siting and construction of the tower, 

photovoltaics and the trailer and to Jon Betts, also 

of Los Alamos National Laboratory, who actually 

constructed the power trailer. Also, the 

enthusiastic support of the administration here at 

the UWC has played an important role for our 

endeavors. 

The wind turbines and the solar 

photovoltaics will further our current goal to 

reduce the amount of energy consumed by our 

school as they will soon be plugged into our power 

grid. The import of our actions, which follows the 

mission statement of UWCs worldwide, to create 

students who are “…environmentally aware (and 

active)…” is to spread awareness of the need for 

sustainable development worldwide. I feel that we 

have made a very positive step in that direction. 

Alikhan Abdimagidov, Ellie Montiano, Annukka 

Kurki, Kate Saunders, Philosophy Walker, Carmen 

Alexander, Rachel Makowitz, Filip Wolski and Dylan 

McFarlane (left-hand side grouping) Khalil 

Mariano Azar, Erisha Suwal, Olav Waastad, Catia 

Pereira Correia Lopes, HRH Philippos, Marc 

Franzoni, Elia Cusimano, Sergey Grechukhin (on 

crutches), Nacho Alvarez Gussoni and Alexis 

Howland (right side grouping). 

UWC solar photovoltaic panel and wind turbine. 

KALEIDOSCOPE Page 11

Graduate Added to the Board of Trustees 

Michael C. Taylor (’91) was elected to the UWC-USA Board at the Trustees’ 

Annual Meeting held in Washington, DC last November. Success in 

Montezuma led to Michael’s admission to Harvard University where he 

graduated in 1995. He was then awarded a Fullbright to Mexico where he 

focused on Mexico Constitutional Law. Michael’s interest in Mexico was 

sparked initially by his UWC Project Week experiences. 

Michael is a six-time marathoner, having competed recently in Boston and 

New York, his home these days. Professionally, Michael works in the securities field. His financial 

acumen will be a welcome addition to the Board’s Finance Committee, particularly with regard to its 

investment strategies. 

Michael’s wife Barbara, who too was a Fullbright Scholar in Mexico, is Chief-Resident of Internal 

Medicine at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital and a specialist in Infectious Diseases. Michael joins five 

other UWC alumni on the UWC-USA Board of Trustees. 

Heads’ Retreat at UWC-USA 

The UWC Heads came together in Montezuma last 

summer for nearly a week of meetings and 

reflection. Housed in the guest quarters of the 

Davis International Center (the Castle), they 

discussed topics as far ranging as program 

innovation, better links between campuses, the role 

of the International Baccalaureate Diploma and risk 

management. 

At the same time as the Heads met, other 

representatives of the various campuses and the 

International Office gathered in Montezuma to 

discuss Information Technology and the Global 

Directory. The Heads and their tech colleagues 

benefited from joint discussions in the new Geier 

Technology Center. 

Further connections between the UWC campuses 

grew out of the Heads’ Retreat in Montezuma. 

Each campus now has a faculty member designated 

to coordinate greater linkages and these “link 

faculty” will meet in person this June on the 

Waterford Kamhlaba UWC campus in Swaziland. 

UWC-USA’s link faculty member is English 

teacher Elizabeth Morse (see page 16). 

Trustees Jim and Sarah Taylor host Heads for dinner at 

their home in Santa Fe. Front row from left: Stuart Walker, 

(Pearson College, Canada), Keith Clark, (International 

Office), Tammy Wan, (Vice Chair UWC International Board), 

Fernando Mejia, (sitting) (UWC-USA), Adriana Botero 

(UWC-USA) Sarah Taylor (Trustee, UWC-USA) Nicky 

Lawrenson (Red Cross Nordic UWC, Norway), Amy Geier 

(UWC-USA) John Lawrenson (Red Cross Nordic UWC, 

Norway). Back row from left: Marc Abrioux (Adriatic UWC, 

Italy), Ann Abrioux (Adriatic UWC, Italy), Jim Taylor 

(Chairman, UWC-USA), Laurence Nodder (Waterford 

KaMhlaba UWC, Swaziland), David Wilkinson (Mahindra UWC, 

India), Malcolm McKenzie (UWC of the Atlantic, Wales), Phil 

Geier (UWC-USA). 


FIRST TWO TWO 

WEEKS OF LIFE ON CAMPUS 

Richmond Owusu Adusei (Ghana) – First Year 

The first two weeks in a stranger’s land is like a thousand years in prison--without any familiar 

face to smile to, no shoulders to lean on. “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” as the 

Soul Singers put it. To many of us to whom first impressions are indelible, we needed a “home” away 

from home, and that is what the UWC provided for us. That was the first culture shock that most of us 

green horns (new to an environment) experienced. 

I remember when a batch of first-years arrived on campus, and all second-years ran up the long 

flight of stairs to meet them with beautiful smiles on their faces --what a place to be. No wonder we sing 

“Imagine”, because on our UWC-USA campus, there are no countries and we all live as one. Imagine all 

the people living life in peace –nothing to kill or die for. 

Orientation allowed us first-years to get acquainted with our new environment, to know each other 

better, and to be introduced to our new learning environment. In all these, religion was not left out. There 

was a bus to take students to church and back. We took a campus tour and a trip to the “undisputable” 

Wal-Mart. This was a good experience to some of us who have no such big stores in our home countries. 

Other assemblies and activities brought us together with advisors, faculty, residential staff and our 

second-year students. There were introductions to the academics, service and wilderness. 

Orientation sealed our membership in this beautiful community. We went through different 

processes to get acclimated to the school, learn about health care, participate in physical activities, have 

our photographs taken for the school’s intranet and identification cards. Furthermore, we met with Phil, 

our President, and had mission statement meetings, which were a big success. 

The most interesting part of the orientation was the challenge course. Through exercise, we learnt 

to prove ourselves trustworthy, trust each other and work together as a team. It was a very good 

experience and really challenging, too. The first weekend saw us through orientation wilderness and 

service trips, where first-years had a good experience and second-year leaders like Allison and the rest 

proved themselves to be excellent and worthy 

leaders. Right afterwards we had the 

welcoming dinner. 

The welcoming dinner is an experience 

that I don’t think anybody on campus would 

like to forget. It was the occasion to represent 

the place where you came from by wearing 

traditional dress. It was such a wonderful 

scene; students dressed elegantly, sitting at the 

table with their advisors. 

The UWC community proves many 

wrong: a land where a stranger is not a 

stranger, where people from all over the world 

live together as one, without riots and 

discrimination, where there are different 

colours but one people. I hope someday all 

human races will join us and the world will be 

‘Trusting Hands’ at Orientation. 

as one. JUST IMAGINE. 


Have we made a difference to the world? 

…We have made meaningful contributions in politics, academics, education, science, business 

and government in many developed and developing nations of the world. We are not destined to 

be superheroes…but then nobody is, but we certainly have played a role and are proud of it. 

Excerpted from the Graduation speech to the Class of 2003 by Andrés Franco ’84 

We e invite invite 

you ou now now 

to make make 

a differ dif erence ence. 

Your investment in the 2004 Annual Fund supports our greatest priorities: 

❖ International Scholarships 

❖ Community and Wilderness Services 

❖ Constructive Engagement of Conflict Outreach Program 

❖ Campus Facilities’ Development 

And much more. 

*The 2004 Annual Fund ends on May 31, 2004! 

Please use the enclosed envelope for your gift, 

or visit www.uwc-usa.org and click on Make an On-Line Gift. 

Stay Connected Through the UWC Global Directory 

Members of our UWC Community (current and former students, current and former faculty and 

staff, members of the Board of Directors, current National Committee members) are all invited to become 

part of the UWC Global Directory. Once registered in the Directory you are given a free email address 

in the form of first.lastname@uwc.net. This UWC email address may be forwarded to another email 

address, or be read on the UWC mail server. 

The UWC Global Directory is for you and contains only what you want to enter. You may edit and 

update your own record and decide which bits of information others can view. Only UWC Community 

members who have logged in with valid UWC ID and password can access the Directory; they can only 

see what other members have made visible. 

Register now! Just type the web address: http://www.uwc.org/login and follow the directions. 


MONTEZUMA 2004 REUNION 

Make plans to return to Montezuma in August. This year’s reunion will be held August 6th – 9th with an 

optional extension until August 11th for those who just need to soak in our hot springs for two more days! 

Each year’s reunion is open to graduates of all classes but with a special emphasis on those classes 

celebrating 5, 10, 15 and now 20 years out. Yes, this year commemorates the 20th anniversary of UWC- 

USA’s first graduating class. So, a special invitation to the classes of ’84, ’89, ’94 and ’99. 

2004 REUNION Friday, August 6th – Monday, August 9th 

Optional Two-Day Extended Stay Monday, August 9th – Wednesday, August 11th 

We must have a commitment from a minimum of 30 paying reunion participants in order to offer the 

optional two-day extended stay package. Registration deadline for the Extended Stay is July 1, 2004. 

This year, the 2004 Reunion Schedule includes an optional two-day extended stay at an additional cost. 

Those staying on campus longer will enjoy added memorable moments with alumni. Planning is 

underway for a varied slate of activities including possible day excursions to Santa Fe or Taos, bike riding, 

golfing, hiking Johnson’s Mesa, class functions, open mike – alumni expressions and other creative 

events. There will also be plenty of family activities for parents and children. Visit the UWC–USA 

website www.uwc-usa.org, click 2004 Reunion and register now. 

Bridge Street in Las Vegas. 

Postcard Madness. 

Starting a game. 

REGISTER EARLY AND SAVE! 

Early bird registration: If you register by June 

11th, your reunion registration fee is $175.00 or 

$290.00 for the extended-stay option. 

After June 11th but by July 16th the registration 

fee per person is $200.00 or $315.00 for the 

extended-stay option. The registration fee per 

person after July 16th is $225.00 or $340.00 for 

the extended-stay option. 


NEW LINKS TO OTHER UWCS 

A new committee has been established to help the ten 

UWCs around the world communicate and plan more 

effectively together. Each UWC will have a representative 

and the committee will work with students and staff to 

coordinate UWC-wide initiatives. At present, the 

committee will work on sharing newsletters between 

colleges, initiating a “UWC Peace Day” and planning for a possible joint SEA 

(Singapore)/USA/Pearson (Canada) expedition in October 2004. A meeting of 

all representatives will take place in June 2004 at Waterford KaMhlaba UWC 

of Southern Africa in Swaziland. 

English instructor Elizabeth Morse, the UWC-USA representative says, “The 

Links Committee has had some great ideas so far, and we are hoping the June 

meetings will be an information-sharing session that will generate some 

creative thinking about how the UWCs can collaborate more successfully. 

Among other things, we will be sharing ideas about UWC mission-related 

activities and events and talking about how to improve communication among 

UWC teachers, staff and students. Should be interesting!” 

UWC-USA Launches new, exciting website! 

In collaboration with Spininart Designs and Artifex Designs 

and with input from students, graduates, faculty, staff, 

Trustees and friends, the UWC-USA has launched a new, 

exciting website. Work began on designing the new site in 

the fall of 2003 with a survey to all current students, 

graduates, faculty, staff and Trustees, as well as everyone 

with an e-mail address on the school database. People were 

asked to look at the current site and send their comments on 

what they liked, what they didn’t like, what they were 

looking for when they went to the site, whether they found 

it, and what suggestions they might have for improvements. 

The new site has been built to be easy to navigate, easy to 

update, engaging to look at and to contain a great deal of information. Check it out at www.uwc-usa.org. 

You’ll find general facts about the college, specifications about admission and the 2004 Reunion, campus 

news, ways to make a gift, lots of great photos and much more. Let us know what you think! 

SAVE THE DATE! 

WEDNESDAY, MAY 26 th 

CLASS OF 2004 GRADUATION 

10:30AM ON CAMPUS IN MONTEZUMA, NEW MEXICO 


1984 

Ed Burns 

2317 Todville Road 

Seabrook, TX 77586 

emburns@houston.rr.com 

Sandra Thomas 

60 Wellpark Avenue 

Grey Lynn, Auckland 

NEW ZEALAND 

sandra.thomas@xtra.co.nz 

Luis Amor writes that his business is 

going well. His son, Ecab, is already four 

and growing by the minute. This year he 

has joined the Mexican National 

Committee and says that the former 

chairman is retiring after over thirty years, 

so a group will take over his 

responsibilities. Luis is anticipating lots 

of work ahead! He sees Jose Pablo 

Pineda often and reports that Jose Pablo 

is married and has a son, Jose Andres. 

Jose Pablo is currently a director at 

Berlitz. Agneta Eikelenboom moved 

from Vancouver to La Paz, Bolivia in 

2002. She is CFO of Foncresol (Fondo de 

Credito Solidario) a micro-finance 

program assisting impoverished rural 

communities. Last year she and her 

partner, Tom Lewis, traveled to 

Cochabamba, where a search for Jose 

Luis Poveda ended in a happy reunion on 

Christmas day. Jose Luis is a civil 

engineer. He and his wife Ana Maria have 

three young sons. Sheila Farrell and her 

husband Mark now have a daughter, 

Rachel Irene, who was born on August 

30 th , 2003. Sheila is busy learning how to 

be a mom, fixing up their 100-year-old 

home, and working as a psychologist at 

the Denver Veteran’s Affairs Medical 

Center. Andres Franco writes “I moved 

out of NY and resigned from the 

Colombian Foreign Ministry to join 

UNICEF as Representative in Peru. Maria 

Eugenia, my wife who is Peruvian, was 

delighted with the idea of moving back to 

her country. Daniel, my 5 year old son, for 

his part, is enjoying the fun of being with 

relatives. I am 

deeply committed 

to my new job, 

and have found 

that we do make a 

difference in the 

life of many in 

this country. 

UNICEF works 

with children in 

extremely excluded 

indigenous 

communities of 

the Andes and the 

Amazon where 

conditions are 

precarious. I 

expect to be in 

Peru around three 

to four years.” Paul Grimes reports that 

he is “currently masquerading as the 

Deputy Chief Executive of the South 

Australian Treasury Department and 

along with Debra Grimes, is living in a 

fully renovated turn of the century villa in 

Kingswood, requiring minimal 

maintenance. Guests will be invited to 

behave disgracefully and to drink copious 

amounts of various beverages.” Susanne 

Holste is currently freezing in 

Washington, DC but normally working 

for the World Bank in Madagascar, 

enjoying every bit of it. She just moved to 

a new house and has lots of space for 

Montezuma Post 

This is the year of our 20 th reunion! 

Indeed, it was this time twenty-two years ago one hundred 

souls from around the world first gathered at the UWC-USA in 

the name of peace and understanding in the middle of the 

Pecos Wilderness. Although many of us are probably in a state 

of complete denial, now is the time for us to return to 

Montezuma to celebrate our momentous graduation 

anniversary. Since our days there, the campus has been 

transformed - the old dilapidated castle is now fully restored 

to its historic beauty, the old dining hall is now a 21 st 

century 

technology center, and there are new buildings that didn’t even 

exist in our days – the athletic center, pool and sanctuary just 

to name a few. Part of the appeal of our reunion will be to 

return to our old stomping grounds and see all these changes! 

Most importantly though, we all look forward to the time this 

summer when we can reunite with friends. Let’s hope for a 

huge turnout! 

Kenneth Yeung ’84, his wife and 

Dolly Warotamasikkhadit ’84. 

visitors! Last year, she organized a 

Malgasy National Committee and sent the 

first-ever student to a UWC. After having 

survived three mergers, Anny Rey 

decided she was either too cynical or too 

idealistic to pursue her original career. So 

instead of practicing journalism, she has 

started to write about it. Otherwise, she’s 

busy raising her 2-year-old son, saving 

her romance from sleepless nights and 

dealing with a curious craving for nail 

polish and lipstick - first signs of a midlife 

crisis? Eugenio Ruggiero is always in 

Rome! In his spare time, he keeps quite 

busy with UWC activities in Italy and in 



Easter in Upstate NY - Dorrie Brooks ’85 and daughter Harper, 

Melanie Weston ’86 and daughter Isabel and Ken Neal-Boyd and 

daughter Lily ’85. 

Europe. Within these activities, he 

recently met up with Shiru Mwangi in 

Freiburg, Germany, at a meeting of the 

Executive Committee of the UWC 

International Board (of which Shiru is an 

active member). In November he was in 

Warsaw for a UWC European Regional 

Conference, and Laszlo Boroczky (‘85) 

was there as well. He says, “It was great to 

meet again after so long!” Sandra 

Thomas is currently practicing family 

law in Auckland, New Zealand and along 

with partner, Matt Whineray, bought a 

house in Pt. Chevalier, Auckland, 

requiring a lot of work. Nuptials may take 

place on site in late 2004. Guests will be 

invited to bringing dancing shoes and a 

paintbrush. Andrea Tisi and Ed Burns 

met for dinner recently in Washington, 

DC. Andrea is working for the 

Department of Homeland Security, 

recently moved into a new and fabulous 

apartment in DC and continues to run 

marathons. Rumor has it Ed has recently 

bought land in New Mexico and is 

offering to host community service 

projects during the reunions of the classes 

of 1984 and 1985. Kenneth Yeung 

reports that he is now the CEO of 

Chinacare, an investment company 

focusing on the healthcare sector 

investment in China. He basically 

commutes to work in Beijing every 

Monday to Thursday and returns to Hong 

Kong for the weekend. While in Beijing, 

Ken has met up with Julie Hall for 

dinner. Julie is now the head of the SARS 

team for WHO based in Beijing and just 

moved to Beijing last October with 

husband Chris, and children Roberta and 

Adam. Julie is dealing with SARS and 

the Avian Flu - a long way from first-aid 

simulations involving Saif-Deen Akanni 

’85 with broken bones lying under the van 

outside the cafeteria. 

1985 

Helen Durham 

29 Goodhope Street 

Paddington, NSW 2021 

AUSTRALIA 

hdur4534@mail.usyd.edu.au 

Francisca Acevedo attended Grinnell 

College in Iowa. She finished in 1989 and 

returned to Chile where she worked for a 

private biotech company. In 1990 she 

moved to Mexico with her family and 

completed a Master’s in Plant Genetics. 

Francisca completed her Ph.D. in Spain in 

1998. She now lives and works in Mexico 

City with her partner, Carlos, and is 

expecting her first child. After seven years 

working for Merrill Lynch (ML), 

Jacqueline Bell was promoted to coportfolio 

manager of the ML Global 

Value Fund. Her husband Lawrence Saul 

is entering his second year as a professor 

at the University of Pennsylvania. Their 

children, Rebecca and Caleb, will turn 4 

and 2, respectively, in November 2004. 

Dorrie Brooks and her partner Helen 

welcomed a 9lb 12oz baby boy at 2 AM 

Halloween morning. His name is Joseph 

Parker Brooks-Kahn. Joey is their second 

child. He joins his sister, Harper, who is 

now almost 3 years old. Dorrie now 

works for the National Atomic Testing 

Museum. She’s hopeful the new job will 

provide her reason to visit New Mexico 

soon. If not, she hopes to make it to the 

August reunion. Charlotte Brenner 

Zeile has moved to Stuttgart with her 

twins (Christina and Simon, 2) and Philip 

(5). Charlotte and her husband both work 

for Bosch and travel quite a bit in the Far 

East. In April ’03, Ken Neal-Boyd 

welcomed a son into the world, named 

Will. The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer 

covered Nicolas Checa (of Kissinger 

Associates, Inc.) speaking about the 

Spanish election results following the 

recent bombings in Spain. Roman 

Figueras met Norbert Schady in a plane 

to Ecuador. Roman has been living in 

Ecuador for the past five years. Norbert 

was impressed by how many children 

Roman has (Marc and Clara were born in 

Spain, Micaela and Mateo in Ecuador). 

Roman owns a construction company 

specializing in social housing 

development. Greta Hanson lives in 

Minneapolis, with her son, Gonzalo (4). 

She works for a non-profit organization, 

assisting the large Mexican and Somali 

populations newly arrived in Minnesota. 

Koichi Hiramoto is in Washington, DC, 

working for IFC, a private sector arm of 

the World Bank. Jennifer Keith, M.D. 

and her husband, Steve Blanding are 

thrilled to announce the birth of their first 

child, a son, named Keagan Thomas 

Blanding, born 12/02/03, 7 lbs. 9 oz 

(3437 grams). Mom, Dad and baby are all 

doing well. Stefan Klasen recently 

moved from Munich to Göttingen to take 

up a chair in Development Economics. 

Valerie Oke is in her fourth year as a 

Biology professor at the University of 

Pittsburgh. Outside of work, she has been 

busy working on her house and escaping 

Pittsburgh for better hiking venues - 

California and upstate New York. Laurel 

Pietzrak lives in Parksville, Vancouver 

Island, British Columbia and works for 

the Ministry of Human Resource as an 

employment and assistance worker in the 

disability office. She is a member of the 


Nina Stupples ‘85 went to Nepal and fulfilled a lifelong 

dream of working as a volunteer physician in a high altitude 

clinic for three months on the Annapurna Circuit. 

Vancouver Mobile Support Team, which 

provides emergency shelter, food and 

clothing to people who have been 

displaced from homes due to disaster. She 

is also a member of the local Emergency 

Social Services. She has two daughters, 

Rachel (9), and Hannah (7), who are 

gorgeous and keep her running. Chris 

Price visited his old roommate Pascal 

Gasirabo in Hamburg last year. Pascal is 

completing his program in medicine in 

Germany. He has two beautiful daughters: 

Hana-Malaika (11) and Jill-Aminata (6). 

Chris continues his work as a family 

practice physician. Andres Resendez, 

Jaana Remes and their children, Samuel 

(5) and Vera (2), recently moved from the 

San Francisco Bay Area to the college 

town of Davis, California. Jaana 

continues to work for a consulting firm on 

a part-time basis. Andres continues as an 

assistant professor in the Department of 

History at the University of California at 

Davis. Helen Rowlands is now living in 

The Hague, The Netherlands, with her 

husband and son. She is currently a fulltime 

mum, trying to get fitter and learn 

Dutch. Don Schaeffer graduated from 

Washington & Lee University in 1989 and 

served as an International Banking 

Officer at Wachovia Corporation and as 

Executive Director of the Japan/America 

Society of Kentucky prior to returning to 

graduate school at Duke University’s 

Fuqua School of Business where he 

received his MBA degree in 1997. After 

graduating, he moved to Atlanta to take a 

position with a boutique investment 

banking firm, which is now called CBIZ 

Century Capital Group (formerly called 

Niederhoffer-Henkel). He currently 

serves as Vice President of the firm, 

which provides merger & acquisition 

advisory and capital raising services 

primarily to privately held companies 

with revenues between $20-$200 million. 

Don has been married to Lesley for ten 

years and has two wonderful daughters, 

Emelyn (4) and Madeline (2). After ten 

years in Athens, Talal Soghaier moved to 

Dubai, UAE in mid-July. He joined Willis, 

an insurance broker, as their business 

Development Manager for construction in 

the Middle East region. Nina Stupples 

has returned to the Australian outback 

after six months off last year. Nina is part 

of a five-doctor practice in Katherine 

(doing most things that GPs do as well as 

surgery, anesthetics and procedural 

obstetrics) working in the casualty 

department at the local hospital. It’s an 

all-consuming job (and fairly unique in 

these days of litigation) and there is very 

little spare time; however, there are some 

beautiful places to play nearby, like 

Kakadu, the Kimberley and Katherine 

Gorge. Emma Tucker is back in the UK 

editing the Financial Times Weekend 

Section. She lives in Lewes, in Sussex, 

where she grew up. Thomas, Billy and 

Joseph are now 7, 5 and 2. Pankaj Vaish 

runs a hedge fund in New York, which he 

founded in 2000, after spending two years 

at Vega Asset Management and eight 

years at Citibank in NY, as a Managing 

Director in charge of North American 

equities derivatives business. Before 

joining Citibank in 1990, Pankaj studied 

at MIT for five years, receiving a 

Bachelor’s in International Economics 

and an MBA from MIT’s Sloan School. 

He is married to Anu, and has three 

children – two girls and a boy. Gyorgy 

Vereb is married with two children - 

Gyorgy Mate (6 1/ 2) and Mark Andras (3). 

He teaches Biophysics and Cell Biology 

at the University in Debrecen, and does 

research, mostly related to frequent 

diseases and novel molecule/cell-based 

medications. Gyorgy is still organizing 

international student exchanges and 

running a center for self-education for 

medical students as a voluntary activity. 

Brendan Wild recently completed his 

Ph.D. in English at the University of 

Alberta. Brendan and his wife, Jennie, 

celebrated their eighth wedding 

anniversary in July. Brendan works as a 

freelance editor and writer. Steve Wilson 

continues to pastor an Episcopal Church 

in Kentucky. He writes: “Our little part of 

the Anglican Communion has suddenly 

been international news. Being on the 

liberal end of our denomination and 


caring about our international 

communion has brought some challenges 

over the past several months. This past 

August, I continued my mission work in 

the Dominican Republic by leading a 

team of dentists. The team worked for 

five days out of a church clinic in the 

southern part of the Dominican 

Republic.” Steve also serves on the board 

of Kentucky Refugee Ministries, which 

helps settle international refugees in the 

United States. Currently, his congregation 

is sponsoring a Somali Bantu family of 

eleven. He welcomed a new daughter, 

Grace Elizabeth (Gracie) in October 

2003. Her brother Christian enjoys her 

company very much (most days). 

1986 

Rebecca Lloyd 

Erikastrasse 57-A 

Hamburg, 20251 

GERMANY 

Melanie Weston 

40 West 15 th Street Apt. 5A 

New York, New York 10011 

chineygirl@aol.com 

Ivor Frischknecht is still living in San 

Francisco. He just returned from Australia 

where he visited with Helen Durham ’85 

and discussed the merits of school 

uniforms while watching five-foot 

goannas (lizards) search for barbecue 

scraps. He’s presently developing a 

hydrogen (alternative energy) company. 

No sign of fertility dropping off says, 

Fahmeeda Gill. She is expecting her third 

child soon, named Insallaah. Her son, 

almost 3 and her daughter 14 months 

make motherhood a full-time job. 

Fahmeeda is working part-time for an 

independent trade body lobbying 

government for more social housing, 

addressing the needs of vulnerable 

people. Diego Pérez Salicrup and his 

wife are expecting a second baby. Last 

summer Diego met his former roommate 

Stephan Klasen ’85 in Germany. He 

says, “Although some improvements are 

visible, Stephan’s room is still a mess.” 

Thomas Schwingler is still in Europe but 



Jeremy Rau , Margaret Drent ’86 , Abigail Lidar, Jessica Rau, Daniel 

Lidar ’85 and Nina Lidar. 

misses New York a lot. He visited with 

Norbert Shady ’85 and Francisco 

Ferreira in the summer of 2003. Both 

Norbert and Francisco are working at the 

World Bank in Washington, DC. Sergio 

Ripamonti was married to Briyidt on 

Nov. 1st, 2003 after 11+ years together. A 

large crowd of 1986 and 1987 graduates 

attended the festivities. The two live in 

North Miami Beach in a house on the 

water with their Rottweiller “Kokin”. 

Their other Rottie “Papi” passed away 

Jan. 10 th . They SO miss him! Sergio 

continues to work in the financial field. 

He owns an investment fund and trades 

for his own account as well as for his 

clients. Briyidt is happy designing 

women’s apparel and wedding gowns, 

which she has presented in NYC. Tony 

Spearman Leach is now marketing 

manager for Motor City Casinos in 

Sébastien Ramseyer ’87 and his 

daughter ‘Eve’ born December 

’02. 

Detroit, MI, assisting in the coordination 

of the casino’s television, radio, outdoor 

print campaigns and internal marketing. 

Nanette van der Laan, her husband 

Jamie and their two children Maya, 4, and 

Finn, 18 months, moved from Paris to 

London last summer. Nanette is still 

working as a free-lance journalist, writing 

for newspapers and magazines as well as 

some TV work at the BBC. She had a 

wonderful time catching up with Kwesi 

Dickson ’87 and Sebastien Ramseyer 

’87 at Luisa Edwards’ ’87 wedding in 

November. Martin Weiss and his wife 

Anja AC ‘87 are the proud parents of their 

third child, Theo born March 31, 2003. 

Melanie Weston and Michael Jacob 

welcomed a new baby girl, Lola in 

October, joining her two year old sister 

Isabel. This past July, Michael threw 

Melanie a 35th birthday party in 

Germany, attending were Ivan Alves ‘87, 

Thomas Schwingeler, Rebecca Lloyd 

and Gian-Paolo Ruggiero. 

1987 

Arild Drivdal 

14 Clifton Street, Apt. 2 

Cambridge, MA 02140 

adrivdal-uwc@myway.com 

Class Agent needed to replace 

Marisa Leon. 

Anyone interested can e-mail 

beth.johnson@uwc.net. 

Carla Castellanos de Bass lives and 

works in Dallas and would love to see 

classmates passing through Texas. She 

travels frequently back to Lima, Peru, on 

business. She was recently in Miami and 

met up with Maria Florencia Giavarini 

Rodriguez, who got married last year and 

lives in Key Biscayne, and with fellow 

Peruvian Sergio Ripamonti ‘86, who just 

got married in the Dominican Republic 

and also lives in Florida. Ana Beatriz 

Campos Mora, married now for almost 

10 years, has 3 children, Jose Pablo (8), 

Beatriz (6) and Ignacio (2). She studied 

business administration but now is taking 

care of her children at home. From sunny 

Southern California, Esra Colduroglu 

Black reports that she was married to 

Paul Black five years ago and that they 

are expecting their first child in June. 

Esra moved from NY to California seven 

years ago and has never looked back. She 

says: “I was working for a financial 

software company, but quit that a while 

ago and decided that I wanted to be a stayat-home 

mom. Now I am surrounded by 

tons of baby books trying to figure out all 

the “baby stuff ”. I still keep in touch with 

a few people from UWC and look forward 

to getting in touch with more this year.” 

Having worked in the high-tech industry 

and traveled North America for the last 

three years, Arild Drivdal decided to do 

something useful and is currently 

pursuing a Master’s in Public Health at 

Harvard, focusing on child survival 

strategies and the implementation of selfperpetuating 

community health programs 

in developing countries. He spent the 

summer in Zambia, where he had the 

opportunity to visit various villages in the 

(very) remote North-Western Province by 

bicycle and to work on community health 

programs there. Rumors originating from 

well-placed sources have it that Louisa 

Edwards was married in November and 

that Karen Taylor has changed jobs, but 

still lives in the DC area. Alma Gill and 

husband had a little girl, Rachel Gill 

Bowles, on June 5, 2003. Alma says, “We 

have settled into being a family of four 

and hope that 2004 will be a peaceful year 

for all.” Alma is living in Melbourne, 

Australia working part-time as a bond 

fund manager for HSBC. She would love 

to catch up with any UWC student (past 

or present) traveling through Melbourne. 

“Things are going well for us in 


Singapore,” writes KC Kung. “The 

family spends quite a bit of time traveling 

in the region where the kids LOVE going 

to different places. My work takes me to 

many countries in Southeast Asia and 

Australia/NZ, and I would love to get 

together with classmates who are in these 

places.” Marisa Leon has been busy with 

UWC International Board and National 

Committee work and is therefore stepping 

down as Class Agent for now. On her 

recent trip to the UWC board meeting in 

London, she met Emma Tucker ‘84, who 

is doing well and enjoys her work with the 

Financial Times. Amit Mital is still at 

Microsoft in Seattle, working as General 

Manager of Microsoft Office Live 

Meeting. He’s very excited about the 

upcoming ski season and would love to 

hear from you. “I am the proud father of 

my second daughter, Mercedes, and have 

just finished the blueprints of my future 

house,” writes Federico Nazar from 

Argentina. Jennifer Pickell Horne 

reports: “Daryl, Tessa (3), Cody (2), and I 

have moved back to my hometown of 

Hoquiam, WA. Back home for the first 

time since Montezuma – hard to believe. 

I am still flying for UPS, but out of 

Ontario.” David James is a full-time 

English teacher at a private boy’s high 

school and enjoys teaching most of the 

time. PaaJoe Poku and his wife Meryl 

had a son born January 12, 2004, named 

Adam Kofi-Takyi Poku. He joins his fiveyear 

old sister, Rose. Sebastien Ramseyer 

is still an architect in Paris practicing with 

his firm as well as doing freelance design 

work for bigger firms on large 

institutional, commercial and domestic 

projects. He’s been married for a year now 

and things are going great. He and his 

wife just bought a bigger apartment in 

Paris. In December ‘02, they had a lovely 

girl, named Eve. He says, “She’s our doll 

and my best achievement by a long shot.” 

Liz Tan writes, “I am still in NZ and still 

working in the film industry.” My 

message to everyone is: see ‘Whale 

Rider’ – and then come visit! After 12 

years at Oxford, Tchavdar Todorov, first 

as an undergraduate, then as a graduate 

student and finally as a research fellow, is 

now teaching Physics and Math at the 

Queen’s University of Belfast, a distant, 

quaint and enchanting land. He and his 

wife, Milena, who is a fellow-Bulgarian, 

have a daughter, Biliana, almost three 

years of age. Mieneke van Dixhoorn 

lives in Johannesburg with her husband 

Timo Smit, an Atlantic College graduate. 

Together they are the proud parents of 

Tobias (16 months) and Tette (2 months). 

Mieneke is senior lecturer in the 

Department of Immunology at the 

University of Witwatersrand. She writes: 

“We enjoy life in South Africa, especially 

spotting game other than Friesian 

Holstein cows.” Boyd Waters and his 

wife, Leila Whelan ’88 continue to be 

delighted by their 2-year-old daughter, 

Cameron. The three are expecting a new 

addition, Alexander, to the family in 

March ’04. Boyd is proceeding to work 

on the Very Large Array expansion 

project, with the recent formation of a 

software design team, keeping him quite 

busy. He is pleased to host VLA tours, so 

be sure to let him know if you’re in the 

area. 

1988 

Ben Thompson 

3324 Castle Heights Ave, Apt. 

217 

Los Angeles, CA 90034-2731 

bent@lobo.net 

Sandra Encalada-Boome 

2654 Kincaid Street 

Eugene, OR 97405 

encalada@molbio.uoregon.edu 

Gregor Andrade was married a couple of 

years ago and he is a professor at the 

Harvard Business School. Shona 

Armstrong and her husband, Zac Unger, 

had a baby in October ’03 by surrogacy, 

named Perseverance (Percy). She was in 

the hospital for four and a half months 

because she was born at 27 weeks. Both 

she and their surrogate are doing great 

now! Since then, Shona had a second 

baby, named Makaby, via her own womb 

(thanks to miracles of modern medicine) 

in early January. Mara J. Feiertag-Frank 

Sparks continues her pottery business in 

West Palm Beach, Florida. Cesar Sanz- 

Rodriguez completed his M.D. and Ph.D. 

degrees at Universidad de Alcalá Henares 

and Universidad de Lleida, respectively, 

in Spain. He then trained in Clinical 

Hematology at Hospital de la Princesa in 


Madrid, where he has spent five years in 

total. For the past two and a half years, 

Cesar has been working with the 

Department of Clinical Research of the 

Spanish subsidiary of the pharmaceutical 

company of Merck & Co. In 1999, he 

married another physician named Marian 

and became the proud father of Laura, a 

beautiful 16 month-old girl. He says, 

“Life is treating me well.” Erik Rostad 

Ness works at the Norwegian Ministry of 

Children and Family Affairs. He and his 

wife are doing well. Christian, age four, 

and his parents are looking forward to a 

new sibling in a few months. 

Caesar Sanz Rodriguez ’88 and 

his daughter Laura. 

1989 

Gina Neff 

858 Moraga Drive, Apt. 3 

Los Angeles, CA 90049-1671 

ginasue@panix.com 

Sara Koplik is back in New Mexico 

working as a fiscal analyst for the 

Judiciary and Environment Department at 

the N.M. Legislature in Santa Fe, NM. 

Joao Marques was married in 1999. He 

and his wife have a son, Goncalo, who 

was born in April 2003. Ronnie Morena 

and his wife Abena had their first baby, a 

boy, September 6. His name is Ronnie, Jr., 

and Ronnie Sr. reports that they are all 

doing great in Denver. Gina Neff 



Joao Marques’ ’89 son, 

Goncalo born April 2003. 

recently caught up with Michael Buckley 

and his wife on a trip to Toronto, where 

they have a house. She says, “They 

promise to come to the reunion in August 

if we all buy them a few drinks.” Chiara 

Osbat was awarded her Ph.D. in Applied 

Econometrics from the European 

University Institute. She defended her 

thesis, “Searching for Purchasing Power 

Parity: a Methodological and Empirical 

Analysis of Equilibrium Real Exchange 

Rate Determination,” in December 2003. 

She has been working for the last three 

years at the European Central Bank, and 

now looks forward to having a life. Chris 

Ott and his partner David Danaher were 

legally married in Toronto on July 4, 

Celebrating our 15 th reunion! 

2003. After the Ontario decision that 

made gay marriage possible, they 

arranged a small, basic ceremony in a 

hurry because they really wanted to do it 

on US Independence Day. They still live 

in Madison, Wisconsin, where David is a 

professor of Slavic Languages at the 

University of Wisconsin. Chris Ott works 

for the state lesbian and gay rights 

organization and does freelance travel 

writing. For the past three years, Jelena 

Petrovic has been living and working as a 

choreographer, dancer and Pilates teacher 

in Amsterdam. Annukka Piironen and 

her husband Chris had a baby boy, 

Nicolas, born on June 21, 2003. They are 

still living in Washington, DC. Kamenna 

Rindova Lee and her husband, Eugene, 

welcomed a baby boy into the world. 

She’s working for the American Red 

Cross headquarters in Washington DC 

and reports, life is hectic and wonderful. 

Michael Stern is engaged to the 

extraordinary Miss Pamela Paul. Nuptials 

are expected in New York City later this 

year. Donna Yost and her husband Paul 

have moved to that other Las Vegas 

(Nevada) where she is a buyer for the 

natural foods supermarket, Whole Foods. 

Donna is planning on making the trip to 

the first Las Vegas (New Mexico) for the 

reunion in August and is looking forward 

to seeing everybody then. 

Mark your calendar – register early – return to Montezuma this 

summer. Let’s gather together with our friends and family this 

summer amidst the pines and reminisce old times. For those 

with children, this year’s reunion offers plenty of family 

activities. For those wishing to stay longer, an optional 

extended stay with a varied slate of activities is now available. 

So no excuses - sign up soon! 

Sara Koplik ’89 received her Ph.D. from the Department of 

History (Middle East section) of the School of Oriental and 

African Studies’ (University of London) in October 2003. A 

chapter from her dissertation, “The Demise of The Jewish 

Community in Afghanistan, 1933-1952,” was recently 

published in the Journal of Iranian Studies. 

Daniel and Sarah Stamp 

Kenningham’s ’90 lovely 

daughter, Anna. 

1990 

Lance Meister 

41 Lafayette St., Apt. 2 

Arlington, MA 02474 

lanceandgabi@comcast.net 

Jan Boontinand and her two and a half 

year-old daughter, Jasmine, who likes to 

sing and dance, are fine in BKK. Jan has 

joined a development NGO called 

ActionAid in their Asia Regional Office 

in Bangkok. She says, “ It’s been quite an 

interesting transition – involving a wide 

range of issues - food security, sustainable 

development, urban poverty, social 

movements, etc.” After finishing a yearlong 

stint as a public transportation 

advocate in Grand Rapids, Andy 

Debraber began in June ‘03 as the pastor 

of an Open and Affirming (of all, and 

particularly the GLBT community – the 

church is about 75% gay and lesbian) 

United Church of Christ congregation in 

Douglas, Michigan, on the shores of Lake 

Michigan. His son Ezra will be one year 

old soon and Anna will be three. Shaila 

Ekramoddoullah is living in Winnepeg 

with her children: Tori (9), Tamika (6) and 

Caelan (4). She is still at Investors Group 

and now has her Accounting Designation 

(CMA— Certified Management 

Accountant). She was promoted to Team 

Leader and likes her new job. Recently, 

she ran into Catherine Daniel at a local 

nightclub. She was only in Winnepeg for 


Kim Higdon ’90 with her third 

child, Amelia. 

the weekend from Vancouver BC. They 

spent a few hours the next day together 

and did some catching up. Kim Higdon is 

still living in Kentucky with her 

increasingly large family. She had her 

third child, Amelia, earlier this year. 

Hiroko Morita James is the proud owner 

of a big house in Kyoto, as of December 

18 th . She says, “We are really excited 

about the move, and will settle down in 

Kyoto for the foreseeable future now.” Her 

son, Gareth (3) talks endlessly in both 

Japanese and English and will start 

kindergarten in April. He (and his mum) 

can’t wait! Their other son, Lewis, just 

turned one and started walking. 

Catherine Jheon is living in Toronto and 

working as a journalist. Her specialty is 

food. She talks on the radio about cheap 

restaurants. Daniel & Sarah Stamp 

Kenningham have a lovely daughter, 

Anna. Adam Kirk is still living in 

Canberra, working as a government 

lawyer. He is involved in the Australian 

UWC Network, editing the local 

newsletter and organizing the annual 

reunion. Recently, he visited with 

Raechel Waters who was visiting from 

Adelaide for a work conference. He also 

frequently connects with Ashley 

Crossland ‘91 who is still living in 

Sydney and working as a commercial 

lawyer. However, Ashley hopes to leave 

the law firm next year to become a 

barrister at the Sydney ‘Bar’ (which in 

Australia means wearing a 18th century 

style horse-hair wig and black robes while 

pontificating in front of judges!) Phoebe 

Lostroh and her partner closed on a 

house in the historic neighborhood in the 

downtown area of Colorado Springs, CO 

on Friday, November 7, 2003. She says, 

“The house is a Victorian and was built in 

1900, yet is in amazing shape!” Lance 

Meister recently married Gabriela 

Motyckova (AC ‘93) on December 20th 

in the Czech Republic in a lovely castle. 

Erick Argueta, Hans Melberg and Ram 

May-Ron all attended. After recently 

marrying, Anasol Munoz Puente moved 

to her new house on June ‘03, and is ready 

to receive visitors in Mexico City. While 

Havovi Framji Tavadia was in Boston in 

October, he visited over lunch with Lance 

and Jade Qian. Havovi reports that his 

son, Karl is now three and a half years old 

and attends a local Montessori school 

every morning for three hours. His other 

son, Darin (4 1 /2 months) is cutting his first 

Lance Meister ’90 with Havovi 

Framji Tavadia ‘90 and Jade 

Qian ’90. 

two teeth already. He is full of smiles for 

all of them and especially loves it when 

Karl plays with him. Rebecca Pearson is 

working as an IT&S Implementation 

Project Coordinator for HCA. She’s on 

the road quite often, enjoying trips all 

over the US installing systems in support 

of the supply chain operations of a 

network of hospitals. When she’s back 

home in Nashville, she’s been doing 

things she’s never done before like eating 

vegetables and running half marathons. 

She says, “Life is good here in Nashville. 

I have a great guest room for anyone who 

wants to come enjoy Music City, USA!” 

Jade Qian’s Chinese language teaching 


video for children “Follow Jade” won Dr. 

Toy’s Ten best video and 100 best toys, 

and Seal of excellence. Sonia Verjovsky 

has a wonderful baby named Tristan. 

Alobek Yusupov has three children, two 

sons and a daughter. A year ago he 

received a wonderful offer from The 

Swiss Textile Company to run their newly 

established Representative office in 

Uzbekistan. 

1991 

Max Jones 

813 Independence Drive 

Albaster, AL 35007 

misterplow@mindspring.com 

In the summer of 2002, Mohan 

Ambikaipaker married his partner of 

many years, Briana L. Shay. Rajesh 

Vedanthan was the best man. UWC 

classmates Paul Bjerk, Falnnery Haug 

and his Getaway ‘Mom’, Karmie 

Williams and her daughter Colleen 

attended the wedding. Any UWCer 

traveling through Austin is welcome. 

Tarra Hassin and Brian Lax ‘92, now 

currently living in Albuquerque, NM, are 

engaged! They won’t be surprised at all if 

others are a little surprised, but they have 

been dating for over a year, and of course 

have known each other much longer than 

that. They would love to hear from old 

friends. Ilyanna Kreske still lives in 

Denver, and is happy to host any visitors. 

Ruben Rivero is working as a Cisco 

Networking Academy Instructor at the 

University Rafael Belloso Chacín. He 

holds the CCNP certification, and the 

prospects for his department expansion 

look great! He and Aurelio Ramos ’91 

from Colombia, who now lives in 

Caracas, recently visited with one 

another. 

Mohan Ambikaipaker ’91 is pursuing a Ph.D. in Social 

Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin (studying 

race and social movements). 



Mirjam Muller Leuchtenberger ’92, her boyfriend Andreas, Uli Kratz 

‘92 and Makiko Yamazaki ‘92 at dinner in Heidelburg, Dec. ’03. 

1992 

Liliana Lezcano Frutos 

Benjamin Constant 835 c/ Ayolas 

Edificio Jacaranda - 4th Floor 

Asuncion 

PARAGUAY 

liliana.lezcano@berke.com.py 

Hussam Al-Damen received his Master’s 

in Finance and Banking in 2002. Since 

then, he’s been lecturing in the Sultanate 

of Oman for the past year. He married last 

year and is proud to announce the recent 

birth of a baby girl. Rene Burgoa-Uzieda 

from Bolivia is still working as a Civil 

Engineer in San Francisco and has been 

appointed Project Engineer. He and his 

wife Aimee are fine. Becky Cadwell Day 

Liliana Lezcano Frutos’ ’92 children 

– Elias (7) and Nicolas (4) 

Yesika Moreno Ramirez’s ’92 

daughter, Daniela. 

had a new addition to her family, Cassidy 

Ann. Jeremy Darling is now at the 

Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, CA. 

His work often takes him to Chile, Puerto 

Rico and New Mexico. He went to 

Sydney in July for a conference and 

visited Cherie Butler, who was doing 

rotations among organic and biodynamic 

farms. Heather Deutsch is earning a 

degree in City Planning at the University 

of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Over 

the summer, she saw: Zvezda Chan Van 

Pelt ‘93 in DC, who is married and 

working for a transportation consulting 

firm and also just got her realtor’s license; 

Carlos Diaz Alvarado ‘93 who is 

working at the Inter-American 

Development Bank; and Maria 

Jaramillo who is working for a lending 

institution focusing on Latin America. 

While in Boston, she visited with: Hillel 

Soifer ‘91 who is now down in Chile 

doing research for his thesis; Adam 

Kleinberger who is blowing really cool 

big bubbles (whatever that means) and 

making people happy, and Ajay Totlani 

who is busy consulting. And finally, 

Heather saw Nuno Limao who just got 

married. Rebecca Pitman was in town 

for the wedding and Tamas Orban ’93 

was also in town for a conference. Kimi 

Jackson is managing her own law firm in 

Denver and says, “I’m doing great”. Aura 

Kanegis is living in DC and her band just 

came out with a new CD. Jessica 

Kosfizer moved back to San Francisco in 

February ‘03. Nuno Limao married twice 

this past summer with the same person, 

Stephanie Aaronson, but in different 

continents, different religions and with 

different guests. He says, “I’m doing well 

as an economic professor at the 

University of Maryland.” Ana Meira is 

currently living in her hometown in 

Brazil. Liliana Lezcano Frutos is 

traveling to Brazil to meet her in early 

‘04. Mirjam Mueller Leuchtenberger 

says she’s busy working on her M.D. - 

Ph.D. thesis, investigating the role a 

certain virus plays in infertility. After the 

thesis, she’s heading in the direction of 

genetic counseling. She lives with her 

boyfriend, Andreas. Over the summer she 

was very excited about completing some 

triathlons. Mirjam visited with Makiko 

Yamazaki and Uli Kratz for dinner at the 

Christmas Market in Heidelberg. Brian 

Powell and his wife Michelle are very 

proud to announce the birth of Jude Elliot 

Powell on Thursday, September 18 at 1:25 

PM. He weighed in at 7 pounds, 12 

Gregory Scolas ‘92, 

countrymate Christina DiLena 

‘92 and her baby. 


ounces. The rest of the kids are very 

excited to finally see him, and all are in 

love with him. They didn’t use any name 

submitted in the class of ‘92 Name the 

Baby Contest, even though there weren’t 

that many! 

1993 

Bertha Camacho 

Casilla 6199 

La Paz 

BOLIVIA 

bcamacho_74@yahoo.com 

Katrin Bennhold is still in Paris, 

working as a journalist and greatly 

enjoying it, though part of her is 

beginning to get restless again and 

wonders where she’ll be next. She’s also 

looking forward to the 10-year reunion in 

August ‘04! Olga Coste Centeno visited 

Rene Burgoa Uzeida ’92 this past 

summer after attending her 10-year 

reunion at UWC-USA. Melinda 

Wittenburg is now living in Atlanta and 

plans to continue her graduate study this 

summer after a 5-year hiatus. 

1994 

Aly Kassam Remtulla 

48 Brooks Avenue 

Arlington, MA 02474 

aremtulla@stanfordalumni.org 

Diego Angemi is currently based in 

Uganda working for the Poverty 

Monitoring and Analysis Unit in the 

Ugandan Ministry of Finance, Planning 

and Economic Development. He really 

likes his job because it gives him an 

opportunity to work in the development 

field for the government of a developing 

country, as opposed to a donor 

organization. He’s playing basketball in 

the Ugandan National League and can’t 

wait for the reunion. Artti Aurasmaa is 

enjoying married life and having a blast 

with his two sons. He is still working as 

a CFO for a small Finnish company called 

3 Step IT. For three months he was living 

in Southern Sweden preparing a new 

business plan for his company’s 

remarketing operations. He spent the 

summer in Sweden, and was back in 

Finland in the fall. He and his family 

have already planned a grand tour to the 

US next summer and the reunion will be 

an essential part of the trip. 

Congratulations also to Lee Bruce 

Douglas who is expecting her first child 

in March of 2004. Last year she was in 

Boise, Idaho for a conference and got into 

an elevator and saw someone who looked 

familiar – it was Mollar Nkiwane. Lee 

was running to catch the airport shuttle 

and didn’t have much time to chat. Gisele 

Cuglievan has big news – she was 

recently engaged to Charles, a Frenchman 

she met on an airplane! They hope to 

come to the reunion this summer. Gisele 

was in India for a few weeks in the fall 

working with local NGOs that work with 

the Dalits (untouchables). She met up 

with Amrita Narayanan Bruce in 

Madras and Nella Gerritt Hengstler ‘93 

in New Delhi after many years. Gisele 

has now completed her Master’s and is 

looking for gainful employment. Joining 

Gisele in Paris is Bongani Dlamini who 

is starting an MBA at HEC. Fellow 

Dutchwoman Loes De Vries graduated 

from college three years ago and moved 

to Arnhem with Durk, her boyfriend of 

six years. She says she doesn’t believe in 

marriage and has no plans for children, 

but they do have two cats. Loes is a social 


Caterina Presi ’94 and João 

Quinta da Fonseca ’94 married 

May 24th, 2003 in Leeds (UK). 

worker for problem teenagers and her 

boyfriend is a bridge and tunnel engineer. 

Jennifer Dykstra Mink is in her second 

year of a pediatric residency in Norfolk, 

Virginia. She and her husband Wayne 

welcomed their first child Walter Wayne 

Mink into the world on September 27 th , 

2003. Due to work and family 

constraints, it is unlikely they will be able 

to attend the 2004 reunion. Benjamin 

We are fast approaching the ten-year reunion of the 

Class of 1994. 

Plans for the reunion are already underway. So far almost 40 

members of the class are likely to attend. A sub-committee has 

agreed to help plan and execute reunion activities, including: 

Frederico Gil Sander, Niraj Kumar, Preeta Samarasan, 

Jeremiah Stevens and Aly Kassam Remtulla. Let them know 

if you’d like to get involved. Preeta Samarasan is leading a 

project to put together a class facebook – everyone from the 

class will have a page to share their news through words and 

photos. Preeta will collect the pages, transform the information 

into book format and then mail all 1994 alumni in advance of 

the reunion. Another idea under consideration is developing a 

class survey, so watch your inbox and mailbox for more 

information. 



Tony Purvis ’94 contracted as a guest entertainer 

onboard the new Queen Mary II (the world’s newest, 

largest cruise ship). He sang for Queen Elizabeth on 

January 8, as she was christening the ship. 

Eichert has been working for 

Congressman Dennis Kucinich’s 

presidential campaign since June, first at 

his national campaign headquarters in 

Cleveland, and most recently as the 

campaign’s New England youth 

organizer, stationed in New Hampshire. 

He’s enjoying it very much and learning a 

lot. He hopes to be a delegate to the 

Democratic National Convention in 

Boston in July 2004. While on the East 

Coast, Ben had the opportunity to meet up 

with Cathryn Tonne and John 

Christodouleas in Boston. After the 

campaign he plans on returning to his 

home in Santa Cruz, California, where 

last year Chandler Marietta ‘93 and 

Stale Sandberg visited him. Jessica 

Flack is working as a doctor for the 

National Health Service in the UK. She’s 

finished her anesthetic exams, has a 

lovely new boyfriend, and is resuming the 

social life she once led. She had her first 

Christmas at home since joining the NHS 

and is working like a dog. She and Tom 

are planning on going to live and work in 

Australia for a year, but have not yet 

formalized plans. Sofia Calderon 

reports that she is still working in a semivoluntary 

position at the UWC of the 

Adriatic, and is in charge of five 

activities, Healthwatch and the 

multimedia area. In the fall she was in 

Oxford and Vienna and saw some 

UWCers while she was there. She is now 

looking for a job in the non-profit sector, 

and will attend the reunion if she can. 

Tatiana Jimenez has been in Madrid for 

the last six years. She started to get 

involved with the socialist party, and 

became the Secretary General of the 

Socialist Youth in her hometown four 

years ago. Since May she has been an 

elected councilor and is in charge of 

development cooperation, civil society 

and participation, information services 

and public relations. She is very happy 

with her new life. Agnieszka 

Kajrukszto is still working on her Ph.D. 

in Political Science while teaching college 

in 

the Bronx, and doing feminist organizing 

in Poland and New York. She recently had 

dinner with Bela Walker ‘95, saw Oscar 

Owen’s band, Battlestar America , in 

NYC and visited Scott Pearce in Toronto. 

Sashe Kanapathi is in Malaysia for six 

months taking a leave of absence from 

work to spend time with family and 

especially his sister who is getting 

married. He will likely make the reunion 

and would love to do a road trip from Las 

Vegas, Nevada. Aly Kassam Remtulla 

was recently promoted after two years at 

the executive search firm, which he 

continues to enjoy. He just finished cochairing 

his Stanford reunion and 

continues to be active on a number of 

non-profit boards. He just joined the 

board of Martina Navratilova’s foundation 

(www.rainbowendowment.org). He’s been 

in close touch with many of his 

classmates. Preeta Samarasan came to 

visit him for a weekend in May. In June 

he saw Pilar Weiss on a layover in Las 

Vegas, Nevada – she is a union organizer 

and happily dating Chris, a fellow 

organizer. He was graciously hosted by 

Nadia and Kristina Dahlstrom ‘93 in 

London in June and was also able to 

spend time with Liane Lohde, Ian 

Shore, Emily Wylde and Soren Nielsen 

‘95. Incidentally, Emily is currently in 

New York City working for the UN 

Population Fund as a consultant 

researcher. He also saw Cathryn Tonne 

at a lecture at Harvard where she is 

working on her Ph.D. in Public Health. 

He’s very much looking forward to the 

reunion and hopes to hear from many 

before August. Jirka Korinek finally 

finished his civil service exams and found 

a great job working for the government on 

programs for regional support from the 

EU structural funds after the Czech 

Republic joins the EU in May. He regrets 

that he and his wife will probably be 

unable to come to the reunion. Niraj 

Kumar has started school again – he’s 

doing an MBA at the MIT Sloan School 

of Management. He finds it to be a big 

change from working and he’s having fun 

– maybe a little too much fun. He visited 

Thinley Namgyel in Bhutan a couple of 

months ago and wished he had spent more 

time there. You can see photos online at: 

http://photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/ah 

uwc94/lst. Niraj also stayed with Aly 

Kassam Remtulla while he was 

apartment hunting. They hadn’t seen each 

other since the London mini-reunion a 

few years ago. Tony Purvis’ contract with 

the Queen Mary II continues through 

June 11, and his schedule includes Rio for 

Carnivale, New York City, Southampton, 

Senegal, all throughout the Caribbean, 

and eventually the Mediterranean. Tony 

is one of four guys hired to be part of a 

strolling acapella/comic/improv group. 

When he’s not on the high seas, Tony lives 

in L.A. with his partner Joseph (who 

some met at the five year reunion). He 

will be back in the US in time for the 

reunion and will be promoted to a 

Manager at the GAP clothing store. 

Fellow Malaysian Preeta Samarasan is 

taking a leave of absence from her neverending 

Ph.D. to finish her novel and 

hopefully get an MFA in Fiction. She was 

recently in England for a fiction 

workshop for “experienced writers” and 

was proud to be selected given that she is 

as yet unpublished. She spent the 

weekend preceding the workshop with 

Jason Lees in London and met up with 

Sofia Calderon Miller, Nadia 

Christodoulou and Liane Lohde. Joao 

Fonseca and Caterina Presi happened to 

live in a small Yorkshire town close to 

where the workshop was being held. She 

reports that everyone looked just the 

same, only more poised, polished, 

confident. Lidija Sekaric finished her 

Ph.D. in Applied Physics at Cornell in 

May. She achieved notoriety for playing 

the nanoguitar, and she and her husband 

Kevin landed jobs at the IBM Watson 

Research Center 30 miles north of NYC. 

Annelise Sprenger will very likely be at 

the reunion with her boyfriend Sander. 

Before or after the reunion she plans to 

travel in the US or Mexico. She recently 

started a trainee job in the Ministry of 

Education in The Hague, which she is 

enjoying very much. Jeremiah Stevens 

is only one semester away from becoming 

an Ohio-licensed Social Studies teacher. 

He and his partner Rob are looking at 


other places to go, which is a matter of 

jumping a few hoops, but with an Ohio 

license he can teach almost anywhere. 

They are thinking of Buffalo, NY for 

social and economic reasons. Rev. Brett 

Van Veldhuizen Hendrickson and his 

wife brought home their son, Thomas who 

was adopted in Guatemala City, 

Guatemala. 

CONTACT DETAILS MISSING 

FOR: 

Luis Araque Toledo, Tamara 

Darroux, Asaf Jimenez, Cyrus 

McCray, Martin Mok, Kwame 

Mark Owusu-Ansah, Gabriel 

Shelton-Davis and Avigal 

Trincher. 

All alumni are encouraged to provide 

updated contact information for the 

above alumni to both the UWC-USA 

Alumni Relations Office, 

alumni@uwcaw.uwc.org and Class 

Agent, Aly Kassam Remtulla, 

aremtulla@stanfordalumni.org. 

October 2003 Brooklyn - 

Akindele Hickling ’96 (front), 

Alba Cabral ‘96 and Terra 

Louise ’96 (center), Angela, 

girlfriend of Josser Eduardo 

Delgao Almandoz ’96, Roma 

Kessaram ’95, Gert Danielsen 

’96, Surbhi Sharma ’96 and 

Gabbi Moore ’95 . 

1995 

Kathryn Holmgaard Shaffner 

5316 Brookstone Lane 

Virginia Beach, VA 23455 

kafryn99@yahoo.com 

Dan Darling was married in June. He and 

his wife Eva moved to Sydney in 

November. Conrad Dombrowski is 

teaching at an alternative elementary 

school focusing on outdoor education on 

Cortes Island of Canada’s west coast. He 

was married last summer to Sarah 

Downey and has two beautiful children 

Osha (now almost 3) and Aislin (only 6 

months old). He says, “All is wonderful in 

my life!” 

1996 

Brittany Marr 

3147 Buttercup Lane 

Evergreen, CO 80439 

brittanyladd@yahoo.com 

Gert Danielsen 

Ringduevegen 4 E 

N-2032 Maura 

NORWAY 

gertico@yahoo.com 

Alison Quin 

9 Wyena Street 

Rye, VIC 3941 

AUSTRALIA 

banambirr@hotmail.com 

Brian Abernathy left the theatre last 

year. He is currently working for 

Philadelphia Councilman Frank DiCicco 

as a legislative aide. Moataz Abdel 

Rahman is still in Cairo, engaged to a 

beautiful girl and planning on marrying in 

’04. He finally stopped water polo after a 

couple of injuries and because of office 

life. He truly enjoys working at Henkel as 

a brand manager. Lamiae Aidi is still in 

NYC, working for the United Nations 

Radio, while Maria Almond is believed 


to still attend Harvard Medical School in 

Boston. Laura Anderson has moved to 

Medellin and works for Chemonics 

International, a development consultancy, 

on a commercial forestry project. Penny 

Anthony still works in Sydney, Australia 

as an Account Executive for Jardine Lloyd 

Thompson Australia in insurance. She 

says the noblest thing she has done all 

year is sponsor a child in Nepal! She also 

wants visitors, adding, “We are lonely 

down this end of the world.” Jorida 

Banda works at an investment bank in 

New York City is married and says, “Life 

is good”. Vicente Behrens graduated 

from med school in March ‘03, in 

Caracas, and started to work as a research 

fellow in orthopedics at Mercy Hospital 

in Miami. He’s part of the research team 

of the Arthritis Surgery Research 

Foundation, studying patients that have 

had total knee or hip replacement. He 

hopes to take the STEP 1 and get licensed 

in the US next year. Alvaro Berg was 

tracked down in Kansas. He graduated 

with a major in Biology, Film and French, 

and is now sticking around just to save 

some money before he moves out of the 

USA. “My possibilities are London, 

Australia, Brazil or France, although I 

guess I can always go back home,” he 

adds. Philippe Bergeron just directed a 

15 minute short film called “terrified 

times today” based on a feature script he 

has written. He is still living in London, 

UK with his girlfriend and worries about 

temping, airplanes and Canadian cinema. 

Teresa Bernheimer is in Oxford, 

working on her Ph.D. thesis in Islamic 

History: “I will be in Princeton for six 

months from January onwards, and hope 

to see some people then. I saw Catherine 

Cronin, Tove Greve ’97, Philippe 

Bergeron and other UWCers at a party in 

London recently.” She also had 

Thanksgiving dinner at Catherine’s, 

cooked by third years. Charles Bibilos is 

believed to still be living in Tucson. Jim 

Bowen was working in politics in 

Washington last year and then spent the 

summer in Mexico (Guadalajara and 

Mazatlán) before beginning law school at 

Suffolk University in Boston. He sees 

Kevin Park nearly every day, and has also 

met up with other Bostonians Lerato 

Molefe, Luke Pustejovsky, Daniele 

Vidoni ‘97, Maria Almond, 

Takeomi Yamamoto and 



Chinatown dinner in NYC for Surbi Sharma ‘96, Akindele Hickling ‘96, 

Gert Danielsen ‘96, Josser Eduardo Delgado Almandoz ’96 and 

friends. 

Mohammed Abu Zaid ‘95. Jim will 

frequently be in Mexico during holidays 

and would enjoy meeting up with any 

UWCers there. Alba Cabral is in her 

third year of graduate school in Clinical 

Psychology. She also tries to do some 

artwork and has become an expert at 

bowling, according to UWC witnesses. 

Seth Coan traveled and worked in Nepal, 

India, Myanmar and now is working in 

the San Francisco bay area as a water 

resources engineer for an environmental 

engineering consulting firm. Mike Cope 

is still living and working in sunny and 

warm LA. He has gotten socially 

motivated enough to meet up with some 

UWCers who are in the area. His wife 

Carolina Tello ’97 is in her second year at 

Academy of Art College in San Francisco 

and doing amazing work in her animation 

studies. In November he saw Terra 

Louise, John Brooks ‘97, Mary Alice 

Grant ‘97, Josser Eduardo Delgado 

Almandoz and Roma Kessaram ‘95 in 

New York. Catherine Cronin is in 

London, awaiting Mike’s visit. Emily 

Croot Larbi-Jones is working as an 

economist in the Ghanaian Ministry of 

Trade and Industry on WTO, EU and 

ECOWAS negotiations. She recently met 

up with Aleem Siddiqui and Nicola Mai 

‘97 in London. If anyone is coming to 

Ghana, they should get in touch! She 

would also love to hear from anyone 

working on developing country 

international trade issues. João Duarte 

Cunha reports from northern 

Mozambique, where he works as a 

consultant for the Niassa Business Centre, 

under the Swedish International 

Development Agency. He says he is 

having a great time, traveling loads and 

generally enjoying the Maputo vibe. If in 

the area, please get in touch! Gert 

Danielsen works at the Centre for 

Peacebuilding and Conflict Management 

in Oslo, and received a Rotary World 

Peace Scholarship to begin his MA in 

Buenos Aires in March. When in NYC, he 

met with Josser Eduardo Delgado 

Almandoz, Surbhi Sharma, Terra 

Louise, Roma Kessaram ‘95, Jorida 

Banda,Akindele Hickling,Alba Cabral, 

Lamiae Aidi, John Brooks ‘97 

and Mauricio Albrizzio ‘92. 

Anupreeta Das graduated from 

LSE with distinction and is now 

back in New Delhi, working as a 

current affairs correspondent with 

a weekly magazine called Outlook. 

India is bursting with stories, she 

reports. She plans to apply to 

journalism schools in the USA for 

fall 2004. She is also in touch with 

Lamiae Aidi and Eneza Mnzava 

‘97, and Devika Sahdev, whom 

she’s supposed to meet up with one 

of these days. “Devika - let’s make 

this happen this time!” Samantha 

DeCouto is reported to be living in 

Philadelphia, and is very happy 

about starting Medical School in 

August. Josser Eduardo Delgado 

Almandoz is still in medical 

school, graduating in May 2004 

and then going on to pursue his 

residency in Radiology. He will also be 

taking a six week trip to Asia in late 

March of ‘04 with his girlfriend Angela. 

From the Internet, we found that Bojan 

Djordjev graduated from the Faculty of 

Drama, Theater and Radio Directing 

Department, and is currently doing his 

MA studies in the field of Theory of Arts 

and Media, at the University of Arts in 

Belgrade. He is also one of the members 

and founders of the artistic theoretical 

group Teorija Koja Hoda, The Theory 

Which Walks, and co-directed a short 

film called Transylvania. Ed Doe is still 

working in Silicon Valley, just south of 

San Francisco. He works for Nortel 

Networks as a Product Line Manager of 

their Ethernet Switching Division. He 

recently traveled to Australia, Malaysia, 

Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and China, 

and met up with Erik Leung in Hong 

Kong. He hopes to travel to Colombia, 

Venezuela, Peru and Costa Rica for work, 

so if you’re in the region, he requests that 

you contact him and let him know. He 

sends his best wishes out to everyone. 

He also saw James Wisener ‘95 for 

Canadian Thanksgiving at his cottage 

north of Toronto. David Garcia finished 

his licenciatura degree in March, which 

means he is now able to “legally” 

practice anthropology, which is what he’s 

doing. “We are extending the Vanderbilt 

University’s Development and 

Wedding of Takeomi Yamamoto ’96 & 

Sotoko Nakajima, March 30, 2003 at 

Goddard Chapel, Tufts University with 

Carlos Varela ’95 (left) and Luke 

Pustejovski ‘96 (right). 


Archaeological Regional Project of 

Cancun to other very interesting sites that 

include amazing cultural and natural 

patrimony. We are cooperating with the 

local Maya so that they can manage these 

sites that are part of their landscape, and 

sometimes they even exist in their own 

land, but are controlled by others. It 

seems I will be doing this for a couple of 

years, now that we have US-AID’s 

support. So if anybody is interested in 

seeing eco-tourism on the hands of the 

Maya, drop me an email.” Akindele 

Hickling was married to Allison in the 

summer of 2002, moved to Manhattan 

and joined the architecture firm Hardy, 

Holzman, Pfieffer & Assoc. He writes 

that he and his wife “are doing well, met 

up with Jessica Horn ’97 (visiting from 

London), Surbhi 

Sharma and her 

boyfriend, Gert 

Danielsen, Gabby 

Moore and the 

regular NY gang. 

Chad Jones, Maz 

Moloto, Terra 

Louise, Roma 

Kessaram ‘95, 

Josser Eduardo 

D e l g a d o 

Almandoz, Alba 

Cabral, et al, 

fairly frequently 

in the last few 

months.” Jessica 

Hoff received 

her MPH in 

Epidemiology 

from the University of Michigan in April 

2002. She spent the summer working in 

Montana and in September she moved to 

Seattle, where she started working on her 

Ph.D. in Microbiology. She’s “fallen in 

love with Seattle, and couldn’t be happier 

(well, maybe if I didn’t have to take 

classes). Since I’ve been here I’ve seen 

both Renu Badiani ’97 and Tyler Davis 

’97 (he lives here, too).” Rochelle 

Johnston is “alive and living in Toronto, 

Canada!” working with the Save the 

Children organization.Chad Jones keeps 

busy at work in Harlem by funding 

worker and community organizing across 

the US and in the maquilas with the New 

World Foundation and with plenty of 

travel. Recently, he traveled to London, 

Mexico City and Oakland, in which he, 

respectively, sipped pints of boddingtons 

with Phil Nikolov ’95, grubbed on some 

tacos al pastor with Vania Ramirez 

Camacho, and relished sukamawiki and 

ugali with Wahome Muchiri. He also 

glimpsed the NYC return of Devika 

Sahdev, waxes philosophical with 

S’bonelo Mkhize, Tom Dibaja (both 

‘97) and catches glimpses of Terra 

Louise, Kevin Park and Carlos Varela 

Manzano ‘95 once in a blue moon. Jean 

Jin Nie Khor touched base to say that she 

is “working as a pharmacist at a retail 

pharmacy in the city center (Kuala 

Lumpur, Malaysia), if anyone’s around 

the area, do give me a call.” Brittany Marr 

was married to Brian in September 2002 

(Maz Moloto was the maid of honor!), 

and is now happy to say “I’ve left the 

Mountainview, CA – July 2003 Terra Louise ’96, Vanessa (Waterford), 

Charles Bibilos ’96, Seth Coan ’96, Lana Nasser ’96, Kristen 

(Waterford) and Wahome Muchiri ’96. 

world of finance and now get to call 

myself a teacher! I’m working with 

middle school students at a Montessori 

School in Evergreen, Colorado teaching 

Spanish. Highlights of ’03 included a 

long-overdue trip to NYC, a climbing trip 

to central Mexico with my husband Brian, 

and most recently a short visit to Costa 

Rica to soak up some culture and cafecito. 

By the way, there’s always plenty of room 

for anyone wishing to visit Colorado and 

do some skiing this winter.” Erik Leung 

mysteriously told us “I am trying not to 

get infected with the atypical pneumonia 

which is rampant these days here in HK. 

So I suggest you make no more attempts 

to make contacts with me to reduce your 

own risks.” Life is treating Iris Marlovits 

absolutely great! She’s working at the 


Austrian Federal Economic Chamber, 

singing with the Vienna Gospel Choir, 

organizing (mostly conferences), staying 

in touch with the Austrian National UWC 

Selection Committee and enjoying her 

friends. She continues to commute to her 

parents who live at the countryside in 

Grosspe Tersdorf. In January ‘04, she 

traveled to New Zealand to visit with 

UWCers. Annalies McIver writes: ‘I’m 

still teaching History to secondary school 

children, but moved to a comprehensive 

school, and am in charge of the gifted and 

talented program.” She says, “I had a 

fantastic time in South Africa over the 

summer and did some work with some of 

the township schools in Cape Town.” 

Annalies still lives in Oxford, but spends 

most weekends in London. Anyone 

wanting to visit, just 

let her know. Maz 

Moloto still lives in 

New York City. She 

says, “It is still 

the best place to 

be despite all 

the madness in 

the world right now. 

I’ve been here almost 3 

years now.” After 

working at Goldman 

Sachs, she decided 

to do something 

“more people 

oriented and less 

spreadsheet 

based.” She 

reports, “It has 

been a turn for the 

better. “ Lana Nasser moved to San 

Francisco to begin her graduate studies. 

Corrine Ng has moved on from economic 

consulting and is now working for HSBC 

Asset Management as a property analyst. 

She traveled to the south of France in ’03 

and hopes her next trip will be to the USA 

where she’ll catch up with a few more 

UWCers. Mary Truc Nguyen and Jakob 

Nielsen live together in Aarhus, Denmark. 

Jakob is working towards a M.D. and 

Ph.D. He will finish his M.D. in the fall 

’04. He recently spent a year and a half as 

a researcher at the National Institute of 

Health’s Heart, Lung and Blood Institute 

in Bethesda, Maryland. Now back in 

Denmark, he continues to do research in 

the fields of hypertension and renal 

physiology, which is the topic of his Ph.D. 



Mary recently started medical school. 

She learned Danish and has been working 

hard on passing as an authentic bicycling 

and beer-drinking (usually not at the same 

time) Dane. After studying in France, 

Samkeliso Nxumalo returned to 

Swaziland where he is working on a 

screenplay. He seeks to become involved 

in his country’s film industry. Corin 

O’Dwyer is living in Taiwan and works in 

export and quality control. He plans to 

stay in Taiwan at least another year. 

Kevin Park is in Boston attending a 

school for piano technology where he is 

learning to tune, repair, regulate, and 

rebuild pianos. He’s been pretty busy 

with music. Although he hasn’t played 

since school started he’s been doing 

recordings and live sound for Devil 

Music. His plan is to tune pianos at the 

Aspen Music Festival this summer, then 

just stay out west. Nathan Patmor is 

living in the East Village, New York City 

and would love to meet up with anybody 

in the city. He’s the Director of a very 

cool school of holistic health - check it 

out at www.integrativenutrition.com. He 

loves life, is eating great food, just 

discovered an amazing Japanese spa near 

his office, and traveled to a tropical 

getaway for Christmas. Boian Popunkiov 

is still in Madison where he’s involved 

with the graduate employee union (the 

Teaching Assistants’ Association). This 

year, he’s one of the co-presidents, which 

keeps him busy. Through the union he’s 

met two other UWC graduates: he worked 

with Katie McCoy ‘97 on a campaign 

about a SEVIS fee for international 

students, and he’s met Travis Foster ‘95 

at various TAA events. Luke Pustejovsky 

has joined a venture capital firm in 

Boston called Echelon Ventures. He is 

also currently engaged in a volunteerathon 

with Gert Danielsen, in which they 

strenuously compete to help as many 

people as possible through service, 

dialogue and mutual respect. When not 

competing, Luke stares longingly at old, 

worn, wallet-size pictures of Philippe 

Bergeron. Alison Quin left Japan in 

August and took a quick trip to Europe 

and Malaysia on the way back to 

Australia. She caught up with Sebastian 

DeHalleux and Anke Schlevoigt in 

London, and Jean Jin Nie Khor in Kuala 

Lumpur. She has applied for university 

next year, and will (hopefully) study to 

become an English teacher. Gauri 

Rajbaidya was last known to be working 

at Earlham College for an outreach 

program that helps ‘at risk’ high school 

students go to college. He visits high 

schools, keeps track of students’ academic 

performances and evaluates the program. 

He plans to attend an architecture 

program and study sustainable design and 

affordable housing. Vania Ramirez 

Camacho is still teaching International 

Relations and North American History at 

the Tec de Monterrey, Mexico City and 

Cuernavaca. She’s going through serious 

psychological preparation for her Ph.D. 

She has decided to exploit her culinary 

skills and started studying to be a chef a 

couple of months ago at the Cordon D´ 

Or Haute Cuisine. She hopes to finish up 

at the Culinary Institute of America in 

New York some time soon. Arvin Dee 

Robles is the Head of English at an 

English school in Hong Kong and has 

recorded voice for English textbooks and 

Radio 4. He is also the writer and director 

for his own musical theatre company. He 

has starred in Hong Kong musicals and 

plays, including La Cage Aux Folles (The 

Birdcage). He will play the lead in a film, 

DragonBlade, which will be released 

worldwide in 2004. Guillaume Rougale 

spent six months in Burma doing an 

internship at the French Embassy in 

Rangoon, got married in France and then 

moved to Turkey. He and his wife will 

likely be there for another year. He’s 

working for the UNHCR. “We’re having a 

great time in Turkey and of course, if by 

any chance you pass by Ankara just let me 

know.” Devika Sahdev continues to work 

at Breakthrough, a human rights 

organization in New Delhi, India doing 

lots of exciting work. She has applied to 

law schools in the UK for fall 2004. She 

has been in touch with Anupreeta Das, 

who’s working at a magazine in New 

Delhi, and other UWCers. Giulia 

Salzano is moving to Milan and is still 

writing her thesis. Kristian Segerstrale 

leads a busy life in London working for 

Macrospace, a mobile games company he 

co-dreamed-up three years ago. He now 

gets to travel the globe and play games for 

a living. He finished his part-time 

Master’s of Science in Economics at the 

LSE in June and frequently sees 

Sebastien De Halleux, Aleem Siddiqui, 

Carianne Gran, Catherine Cronin and 

Nicola Mai ‘97 and has also seen some of 

Tobias Breidthardt, Rosa Bruno, Emily 

Croot Larbi-Jones, Subina Shrestha 

‘95, Dario Betti ‘95 and Martin 

Clutterbuck ’95 over the past year. 

Surbhi Sharma has been really busy 

teaching Chaucer this semester and 

studying for her Ph.D. qualifying exams. 

She’s off for a family vacation to India 

soon and is excited about that. She’s 

enjoying life in New York and has seen 

Terra Louise, Josser Eduardo Delgado 

Almandoz,Akindele Hickling, and Alba 

Cabral recently. Keiko Sugiyama is still 

working for J.P. Morgan Securities Asia 

Pty. Ltd. in the Tokyo branch. Laura 

Taylor-Kale spent last summer in Niger 

on an agricultural development project. 

She spent time with Lerato Molefe in 

Senegal (Lerato was doing a summer 

internship in Dakar). She is finishing her 

graduate degree in public policy with a 

focus on international development and 

demography. Enrique Torres was last 

known to be in Italy pursuing an MBA. 

After completing a Master’s in English in 

Germany and Canada, and having worked 

in Europe, he would like to settle in the 

old continent. Due to the volatile market 

conditions, the future remains relatively 

uncertain. Terra Louise writes: “I lean 

toward deliberating with my little awes 

and how this life experience humbles me. 

The sky was really beautiful tonight.” 

Rashna Ginwalla ’95 recently visited 

Roma and Terra in their Brooklyn flat. 

On Thanksgiving, Roma and Terra 

attended Philip Nikolov ‘95 and Jasmina 

Kwater’s spontaneous wedding. Ding 

Wei is working as an electrical engineer in 

New Jersey. Takeomi Yamamoto is still 

at the Fletcher School of Law and 

Diplomacy as part of the training program 

of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of 

Japan. He spent his summer at the Asia- 

Pacific Center for Security Studies in 

Hawaii as a fellow. Also, he visited the 

UWC-USA in May. In Boston, he sees 

Luke Pustejovsky from time to time. 

Adriana Zegarra is working on a health 

project in Bolivia. She writes, “This is 

really nice and I am learning a lot”. She 

plans to travel around Europe although no 

dates are set. 

CONTACT DETAILS 

MISSING FOR: 

Nia Albiston, Jonna Anderson, 


Rosa Bruno, Fernando Carrasco, 

Ana Maria Chalco, Evan Clary, 

Regina Cunningham, Rebecca 

(Becky) Odoms, Kwadjo (Ivan) 

Omari, Cintia Pecellin Campos, 

Pema Seden, Krisztina Szegeny, 

Methiga (May) Tangkaewfa, 

Katherine (Kat) Wa 

All alumni are encouraged to 

provide updated contact 

information for the above alumni 

to the UWC-USA 

Alumni Relations Office, 

alumni@uwcaw.uwc.org. Please 

also register new contact 

information via the Class of 

1996’s list at 

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/a 

huwc96. 

1997 

Renu Badiani 

211 Buckley Road 

South Gate, Wellington 6002 

NEW ZEALAND 

renu@paradise.net.nz 

Sirap Bindebir 

1111 Arlington Blvd., Apt. 442 

Arlington, VA 22209 

bindebirserap@hotmail.com 

Raquel Fraga-Encinas 

9314 Cherry Hill Road, 

Apt. 1125 

College Park, MD 20740 

raquel@astro.umd.edu 

Maria Rodas moved to New York and 

loves it! She’s still working as a 

management consultant, but plans on 

applying to business school in the near 

future. Raminta Stockute is currently 

working on her Ph.D. in Political Science 

at Texas Tech. 

1998 

Jay McKinnon 

499 Poplar Avenue, Apt. 3 

San Bruno, CA 94066 

jay@openDNA.com 

Pierre Monteux 

470 Route des Oliviers 

Domaine de la Peyriere 

06250 Mougins 

FRANCE 

pierrevmm@yahoo.com 

Siu-Fung Yau 

75 West End Ave., Apt. P10F 

New York, NY 10023 

sy192@columbia.edu 

Mike Alcock completed his engineering 

degree and is still working for British 

Airways. Repa Ali completed half of her 

Master’s studies. As part of the program, 


she is working with homeless people and 

then will return to university for her 

second year. Mustu Barma is working 

with HSBC in London as an investment 

banker. Marylee Bussard is still working 

for SCOPE (Sarasota County Openly 

Plans for Excellence), a nonprofit agency 

that focuses on citizen engagement, 

capacity building and problem solving on 

important community issues. She’s 

involved in facilitating a study group on 

family violence and producing two 

documentary films on local issues. 

Marylee bought a house last June, and is 

spending her spare time remodeling and 

gardening. She welcomes visits from 

UWC friends. Martin Doe is in his last 

year studies at McGill University in 

Montreal. In September, Shannon 

Duncan spent a day with Daniele Vidoni 

‘97, who recently started studying at 

Boston University. Amie Ferris-Rotman 

is currently pursuing an MA in Russian 

Literature at UCL in London. She worked 

for Amnesty International’s Russian 

Campaign throughout the summer, which 

she loved, and is deciding whether to enter 

the work-world of human rights or begin a 

Ph.D. Andreas Fidjeland is pursuing his 

Ph.D. at Imperial College, London. Just 

before Christmas he went to a conference 

in Tokyo with his research group. He has 

also met a few times with Tara Kessaram 

‘01 and other UWC Londoners. Julianne 

Class of ’98 - 2003 Reunion photo – Ruth Padilla-Ruiz, Mike Alcock, 

Siu Fung Yau, Martin Doe, Yerim Tejada Valentin ’97, Carlos 

Domiguez Vargas, Tatjana Bruss, Angela Lytton, Shafee Jones 

Wilson and Lisa Abbott. 



Julianne Fraser ‘98 & Rob 

Cooper with Joy Marie Cooper 

born August 1, 03. 

Fraser Cooper is the proud mother of her 

daughter, Joy who was born on August 1, 

2003. She is currently living with her 

husband in Saranac Lake, New York; they 

moved there in March to be closer to her 

family. Julianne works six hours a week as 

a translator for one of the residents from 

the Dominican Republic living at 

Sunmount and spends the remaining time 

as a “full-time domestic engineer” (stayat-home-mom). 

She discovered a new 

passion for Spanish that existed all along, 

but only recently has been able to thrive. 

She hopes to complete a Ph.D. program in 

Spanish after Joy is in school. Siu Fung 

found a surprise at work - she works with 

Michelle Veilleux ’88. After living and 

working for Continuum Int’l Publishing 

in NYC for 8 months, Alison Gilman is 

returning to Colorado. She hopes to spend 

’04 working with AmeriCorps and 

deciding about graduate school. Matthew 

Hallanger is still in school at the 

moment. He’s currently working as a 

volunteer fire fighter /EMT for his local 

fire department, and has taken fire fighter 

I & II certification exams. From January 

to May ‘04, he’ll be working as a 

paramedic intern in preparation for his 

national exam in early June. Eventually, 

he’ll work as a fire fighter/paramedic 

somewhere in the U.S., but his plans are 

“still somewhat up in the air.” Doreen 

Kirabo returned to Uganda. She plans to 

study French and might go for a Master’s 

Degree in a few years, either in Europe or 

the US. Margaret Lau is living 

in Washington DC, working for a 

health care research firm that does 

research/consulting work for hospitals. 

She says that it is “Quite interesting work, 

though it gets a little too for-profit for my 

liking at times.” She is thinking about 

returning to graduate school in public 

health in a couple of years when she 

finally gets “her act together”. Marthe 

Lot Vermeulen has recently finished a 

LLM in International Human Rights Law 

at the University of Essex. She is living in 

London with her sister, doing an 

internship with a human rights NGO. 

Currently, she’s working with REDRESS, 

a NGO seeking reparations for torture 

victims. From January ’04 onwards, she 

will be working for an NGO that brings 

cases to and monitors the European Court 

of Human Rights. Most of her free time 

involves doing Capoeira or strolling the 

streets of London with friends. Pierre 

Monteux is still living in London. He is 

currently studying for a Master’s Degree 

in Design while teaching design to 

undergraduates and working on a Project 

led by the BBC on “News of the Future”. 

He is also working freelance both in 

London and in the south of France. In his 

spare time he is working on two open 

source programs dedicated to the web. He 

has also re-designed the UWC-USA ‘98 

website and invites the class of ‘98 to 

update their info on www.ahuwc98.noip.com. 

He is still part of the French 

National Committee and had a few 

chances to meet with Sarah Connelly ‘97 

who is part of the British National 

Committee on a very informal basis. 

Finally with the little time remaining, he 

is running around London with friends. 

He lately had a chance to see most of the 

Londoners, Marthe Lot, Andreas 

Kirkeby, Mustu Barma, Amie Ferris- 

Rotman and Patricia Schofield. Cindy 

Picard is currently living in Madrid with 

a man she met while doing the Camino de 

Santiago. She is looking for a job but 

hopefully will be leaving this city soon to 

go live in the countryside to do some 

other projects. She is very happy, because 

she can speak Spanish! She and Martha 

Junquera meet quite often as she lives 

here too; she says “it is very nice to be 

friends again after 5 years of separation!” 

They also enjoyed a visit from Carlos 

Dominguez Vargas on his way to Malaga 

with his family. Christian Proaño 

returned to Ecuador, after finishing 

University in London in May ’03. He has 

been discovering the Artistic scene in 

Quito while working as a Sound designer 

for a Theatre play. Inga Rudzinskaite is 

currently living in Oslo, Norway with her 

husband Terje. They got married in 

August 2002. She is continuing her 

studies of political science at the 

University of Oslo, and plans to finish in 

about a year “if all goes well”. Inga’s 

husband who has graduated from law 

school is completing the training program 

for diplomatic service. They will be sent 

abroad in 2005, and Inga is really looking 

forward to a nomadic life. Lisa Strassner, 

as of January ’04, volunteers in Venezuela 

at the Simon Bolivar UWC. This will be 

her first time in South America, and she 

hopes that she will be able to see some 

UWCers whom she hasn’t seen in a long 

time. Evren Sungur still works in 

Boston. Yangchen Tshogygl gave birth 

to a 2.5 kilogram baby girl on November 

9th at around 3:40am. She said in her 

email that “the labor wasn’t too bad and 

besides I was in labor for only about 4 

hours.” The baby’s name is Tshering 

Chhoden. Islam Youssef has just started 

his second year at Sakhr Software 

working as a computational linguist in the 

machine translation department. He has 

also done some freelance translation at 

times. He hopes to get a convenient offer 

to start his MA in the UK next year; as he 

has already deferred one admission. He 

believes that two years are more than 

Shannon Duncan ’98 still lives in Boston, MA, and works at 

the progressive non-profit Northeast Action. She attended 

the class reunion and said, “I had a great time seeing 

everyone at the reunion. The renovations on campus were 

astounding. I actually ate and slept in the Castle!” 


enough sitting in front of the computer! 

He so wants to start something new in his 

life. 

1999 

Firend Zora 

1112 M Street NW 

Washington DC 20005 

fzora01@alumni.tufts.edu 

Maggie Baldwin, after graduating with a 

biology & psych degree, attended 

culinary school in Florence. Although not 

destined to be a chef, she was able to 

travel a lot and met up with Lucy 

Samalova, Noelle Kerr, Sabrina Das, 

Natasha Ketabchi, Gian Luigi and 

Tatjana Bruss ‘98. She spent the winter 

in MI working as a dog sledding guide 

and returned to Europe in the summer. 

She headed to Australia for New Years 

with Dale Furse. Cesar Cardoza is busy 

with the chemistry world but very happy. 

He finished his work in the Mexican 

Association pro UWC´s in May. Now, he 

is dedicated to school and to some 

chemistry computer projects. He is 

planning to go into the Theoretical 

Chemistry area. He saw Sabrina Das in 

Mexico over the summer. Sabrina Das is 

in her final year of medical school and 

will be let loose as a junior doctor in 

Scotland this coming August. Paul El- 

Meouchy is in his fifth year at Cornell 

finishing up his degree in Electrical 

Engineering and Economics. He is also 

finishing up his term as Cornell’s 

Interfraternity Council President and 

playing for Cornell Rugby. Currently he is 

looking for a job. Dale Furse graduated 

from the University of Melbourne. He 

visited Maggie Baldwin in New Zealand 

Our First-Ever Reunion! 

before she joined him in Melbourne for 

New Year’s. As of February ’04, he’s 

working with the Australian federal 

government in Canberra. Tiffany 

Jackson graduated from Washington & 

Jefferson College in Washington, 

Pennsylvania on May 17th, 2003 with a 

Bachelor of Arts Degree in Political 

Science. She is currently attending the 

Graduate School of Public and 

International Affairs at the University of 

Pittsburgh where she is working on her 

Master’s in Public Administration Degree. 

Noelle Kerr is living in London, pursuing 

an acting career. Noah Long lives in 

Boston for the moment, working for a 

renewable energy non-profit, hoping to 

help build a wind turbine or two. He 

graduated from Bowdoin College in 

December ‘02 and spent the spring 

traveling in Europe, where he relied on 

the hospitality of loads of UWC folks 

including Mustu Barma ‘98, Sabrina 

Das, Esmond Tresidder ‘98, Trina 

Lynskey, Niels Pedersen and Linda 

Korlof. He is hoping to continue his 

world tour this next year before going 

back to graduate school. He visited 

UWC-USA in August and was impressed 

by the castle and field house. Trina 

Lynskey teaches in Japan. She’s had 

many visitors to the Emerald Isle, far too 

many to name. “If anyone is in the Tokyo 

area, please drop by for tea!” Milan 

Mandic received his SB this past June 

from MIT in Aerospace Engineering and 

is now working on his Master’s of Science 

degree in the same department. His 

project involves developing the 

decentralized navigation of formation 

flying spacecraft. Also, he recently met 

Evren Sungur ‘98, and it turns out that 

they live in the same neighborhood. 

Lindsay Michael finished her degree in 

Music at McGill University in May. She 

decided to stay in Montreal working at the 

Believe it or not – five years have passed since our UWC 

graduation. Let’s plan on coming back this summer to revisit 

with our friends. Many activities are planned, including 

special class functions for our first ‘official’ reunion. Hope to 

see many of you there this summer! 


Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 

radio. She works in current affairs and the 

arts, mostly as a researcher. She loves 

public radio - but she hasn’t given up on 

singing yet. She saw Sheila Leach ‘98 a 

couple of weeks ago, and now Mark 

Henderson and she are singing in the 

same choir in Montreal. Gwyneth 

Mogg-Hall is in graduate school studying 

for a Master’s in Public Health in Seattle 

at the University of Washington. Betsy 

Odom graduated from the San Francisco 

Art Institute in 2002, and has spent the 

past year living in Houston, TX. She 

lives in an artists’ warehouse, and spends 

her time making sculptures (and 

occasional duct tape paintings), showing 

her work around town, and designing 

Chia Pets. Some of them are even on 

late-night TV commercials! If you’re 

interested in seeing some of her work of 

the non-growing variety, she’s listed 

in the artists’ registry at 

www.lawndaleartcenter.org. Niels 

Pederson is still in Copenhagen. He 

studies rhetoric, plays music, has a 

girlfriend, and has fun. In November he 

had a good time going to London with 

his band, El Video (www.elvideo.dk) to 

play in a small club, and there he saw 

Ben Melkman ’98, Ruth Tomlinson ‘99, 

Seb Huberti ‘00 and Ida Norheim 

Hagtun ‘01. He is thinking of going to 

the USA to study next fall. Amanda 

Riehl and her husband Jamie Browning 

‘97 moved to San Diego, and she started 

her Ph.D. in Math this past fall at UCSD. 

She spent the summer teaching at a 

program at MIT to get more young 

women involved in electrical engineering 

and computer science. Dorothy Scott is 

back home in the Cayman Islands now. 

She’s started her training contract at a 

large local law firm. She’ll qualify as a 

Cayman Attorney-at-Law by April 2005. 

She’s working on a huge and fascinating 

case for an entity, which previously 

supported the UWCs. Root for her, 

because if it goes as she hopes it does the 

UWC movement might very well 

benefit. Vilma Sielawa Ferreira 

graduated from the University of New 

Mexico with a dual degree in Economics 

and Latin American Studies. She is 

going to spend some time in Brazil, and 

she plans to visit Europe in the summer of 

2004. Fernando Sztrajtman is now 

living in São Paulo, Brazil, after having 



spent five years away from home. Marie 

Soenderup Kolling ‘00 was with him 

there until mid-May. He now lives the 

life of a regular Brazilian, working in a 

drinks company and traveling with friends 

on the weekends. In June/July ’04, he 

plans a trip to the USA and Europe during 

his well-deserved holiday. He will attend 

the reunion and then head on to Europe, 

visiting a few countries. Simonas Vilekis 

established his own private firm and is 

providing consultancy services for a 

tourism/transport policy advice bureau in 

Brussels. He is anxiously waiting for EU 

expansion, which will change much for 

him. Firend Zora graduated from Tufts 

University this past summer, and he is 

currently working in Washington, DC at 

the Center for International Private 

Enterprise. His work involves editing, 

desktop publishing, computers, aiding the 

Middle East department, and other 

economic development work. He 

currently shares an apartment with Chris 

Cammack ‘00, and sees Jimena Blanco 

‘00, Smiriti Lahkey, and Dung Huynh 

‘00 regularly. This summer he also met 

up with Shahan Mufti, Alexa Smith- 

Munez, and Ibrahim Khader ‘00. 

2000 

Mahdi Bseiso 

6202 Mayflower Hill 

Waterville, ME 04901 

mwbseiso@yahoo.com 

Javier Lopez Aranguena 

15004 La Coruna 

SPAIN 

javierlopeza@yahoo.es 

Siri Armstrong spent some time in Paris, 

after which she returned to Sweden, 

where she has started a three-year 

program in logistics at the Gothenburg 

School of Economics. “So far it’s been 

surprisingly good. I never thought this 

would be what I would study, but I 

actually find it really interesting!” 

Outside academics, she works at a 

jewelery store. David Bachman is still 

working full time as an EMT and has 

nearly finished the paramedic program 

that brought him to Eastern Kentucky 

University in the first place. Afterwards, 

he plans to focus on pre-med with his 

second major – biochemistry, as well as a 

minor in economics and mathematics. 

Katherine Banner-Martin is happily 

completing her final year at school and is 

graduating in April. She still loves 

monkeys and is planning on doing 

research and conservation work in Costa 

Rica, Africa, or Malaysia. Jimena Blanco 

is a senior in college in Lynchburg, VA 

and is graduating in May. She has been 

spending a lot of time with Firend Zora 

‘99 and Chris Cammack and is moving 

with them to Washington DC next year. 

She also had mini-reunions with Anais 

Borg-Marks, Yoomie Huynh, Norma 

Correa ‘99, and Ibrahim Khader. 

Jimena is still very involved in field 

hockey and has received ODAC 

conference awards during all four years of 

her career. She was also featured as the 

player of the semester at her college and 

selected for the Model EU delegation that 

was held in DC. Anais Borg-Marks 

reports, “My life has been a bit of a 

whirlpool, very emotional at times... 

Probably because I am trying to figure it 

out! Trying to figure out where I would 

like to live, what I would like to do, trying 

to balance creative pursuits with being a 

normal person!” This has resulted in her 

writing – hence winning an art essay 

competition at her University. Currently, 

she lives with her boyfriend Marcel in 

New York. She is double majoring in Art 

History and Philosophy at the State 

University of New York at Purchase. She 

would love to reconnect with old friends 

and they are welcome to visit her! Kira 

Brady is teaching at a private middle 

school in Santa Barbara, CA. Mahdi 

Bseiso completed his degrees in music 

and computer science, but is still hanging 

around Colby College for a semester, 

learning German and Hebrew. He is 

unsure as to what he will be doing next 

year, but options include computer music, 

bioinformatics, artificial intelligence and 

robotics. Heather Cover will be 

graduating from Macalester College in 

December with a B.A. in Economics and 

Sociology, and expects to start a job at the 

Central Bank of Bahamas in January. She 

and Althea Wilson celebrated Christmas 

in the Bahamas. She would also like to 

add: “I suppose I should mention that Phil 

Emma Martensson ’00 visiting 

Aditya Shah ’99 in India. 

Geier visited Macalester in October and 

had lunch with all of the AHUWC grads 

here. There were 8 out of 9 of us present! 

And yes, Phil still wears those weird ties”. 

Arber Davidhi is still busily attending his 

last year at the College of the Atlantic. 

Diana Denham spent her summer 

studying in Mexico, where she spent time 

with Mara Polgovsky Ezcurra ‘01, 

Miguel Nieto Cifuentes and Ivan 

Sebuwufu ‘01 –and many more UWCers 

from elsewhere, plus “I ended up living 

with the family of a UWCer from my year 

who studied in India”. From Mexico, she 

headed to Oklahoma where she spent the 

summer covered in play-dough, and 

applesauce, working full time at a day 

care with toddlers. And although she will 

be graduating in May from Brown, the 

future “from there is totally uncertain for 

me”. Gisele Fernández reports: “This 

past summer was absolutely wonderful 

because I traveled to very different areas 

of the world. First, last May, I went to 

Japan for 2 weeks with a few of my 

University classmates thanks to a grant 

given by the Freeman Foundation. Then, 

I made a couple of stops in my beloved 

Madrid as well as Amsterdam. Finally, I 

spent a month traveling through Israel. I 

had the time of my life in the Holy Land. 

Now, I am back in Lake Forest College 

(IL) for my senior year, missing all those 

loved ones that are so far away from me 

these days but also trying to take 

advantage of all the things Uncle Sam’s 

land has to offer. I am learning quite a bit 

in my classes and if everything works out 


well, I will be graduating this coming 

May with an Economics and International 

Relations degree.” Sara Green is 

attending her last year at York University, 

studying history. She is planning on 

taking a year off to do a journalism 

course, learn Hindi, and earn some 

money. Sebastian Huberti is currently 

studying micro engineering in Lausanne, 

Switzerland. He has roughly three more 

years remaining. He is having a good time 

enjoying the scenery and people in that 

beautiful area of Europe, and hopes to see 

some UWCers there. Joel Hunt is a 

Mathematics and Justice student, 

minoring also in Computer Science (and 

doing very well in Justice, where he will 

receive honors). Furthermore, he is also 

working for the Justice Department, 

designing their access databases, creating 

webpages for them, as well as conducting 

some research. On the personal side, he 

now has a serious girlfriend… and he 

requests visitors in Alaska. Also still (and 

ever) in Madrid, Javier López 

Arangüena is in his fourth year of his 

Law and Business Administration Degree 

(just two more to go!). He is serving in 

college as class delegate, and student 

representative in the Academic Senate. He 

also joined the Constitutional Law 

department as a collaborating student, so 

he can earn some money doing research 

there. Furthermore, he still works as a 

member of the board and treasury master 

in the UWC Spanish Alumnae 

Association. During the summer, he spent 

a month in Washington DC, where he met 

Rick Slettenhaar, Yoomie Huynh, 

Ibrahim Khader, Shahan Mufti ‘99, 

Norma Correa ‘99, and Susan 

Keppelman ‘01. In August he did a 

course in Business German in Passau, 

Germany. Ayal Kantz was released from 

the army, and therefore could travel to the 

US, where he met up with Aaron 

Anderson, J.J. Jones, and Mayra 

Madriz ‘99, with whom he spent a few 

days in San Francisco. He also visited 

Jonathan Mason ‘01, in Colorado, and 

together they came back to visit the 

school. Ayal stayed also at Kira Brady’s 

place, where he met Roshin Mathew, 

Kate Saldin and Miguel Nieto 

Cifuentes. Marie Kolling is back in 

Denmark, studying at the University of 

Copenhagen. She is putting many hours 

into practicing capoeira angola and samba 

at the city’s biggest samba school, and is 

having a blast. Emma Martensson is 

now in her second year at the Stockholm 

School of Economics. She has been 

working on a student-initiated project 

about India, which involved spending the 

summer there. While there, she was able 

to meet up with Aditya Shah ‘99. She 

spends a lot of time working with the 

student association but still manages to 

find some time to enjoy Stockholm. Next 

semester she is hoping to see more UWCfriendly-faces 

as she is off to Mexico to 

visit her boyfriend. Alisha Musicant is 

taking her time at Antioch College and is 

currently in India where she is completing 

a semester abroad in Buddhist studies. 

She will be back in April and will be 

Ayal Kantz, Kira Brady, Kate Saldin, Miguel Nieto and Roshin 

Matthew (in front) all Class of 2000. 


graduating in the spring of 2005. Karin 

Neira is finishing her third year in Law 

and is looking forward to a nice summer 

break after graduation. Elad Rachevski 

‘99 and Maytav Dagan ‘99 are currently 

in Chile, as a part of their trip around 

Latin America. Liliane Ndong graduated 

from Bryn Mawr College with a degree in 

Economics and Political Science. She 

works at the Health Policy Center of the 

Urban Institute in Washington, DC. 

Miguel Nieto will be graduating from 

Macalester College with an Economics, 

Psychology and Neuroscience major in 

May of 2004. After graduation, he plans 

to return to Mexico City to work for a 

couple of years; graduate school remains 

in the not-so-distant horizon. He recently 

enjoyed an informal reunion with Roshin 

Mathew, Kate Saldin, Ayal Kantz and 

Kira Brady in Santa Barbara, California. 

Jehanzeb Noor spent a semester abroad 

at Oxford University and had a great time 

there. He also traveled to Ghana to teach 

at the Legon University. “I found 

Ghanaian people to be the friendliest ones 

I have ever met. The country was 

beautiful and the time amazing”. He is 

currently back at MIT, finishing his senior 

year majoring in mechanical engineering 

and management finance. In December 

he visited Rick Slettenhaar in Holland, 

and afterwards, headed back to Pakistan 

where he is enrolled in a Human Rights 

project about domestic violence on 

women. Adrienne Norris is “still 

unmarried” and is with the US Marine 

Corps, currently serving in Iraq. She says, 

“Not to worry, I’ll be safe.” She still calls 

Hawaii home and will be starting an 

online course toward her degree in 

Graphic Design beginning next year. 

Tamara Pinos is graduating with a 

degree in computer engineering next July 

after which she is planning on traveling 

around South America and possibly 

Europe, using the money from a prize that 

she won at a contest held by Microsoft. 

She is also spending time working with 

clay and learning more dance techniques 

– all that while still working with the 

UWC national committee. Inna 

Poliakova spent her summer in New York 

doing an internship at JP Morgan Chase 

and reconnecting with a lot of UWC 

contacts: “In fact, in one of the nights out 

organized by the firm, I bumped into 

Anthony Wong ‘01 from Malaysia who 



was also interning at JPM. One of the 

fondest memories was Meisan Lim’s ‘99 

birthday party on Roosevelt Island, where 

I saw Naa Aku Addo, Souleymane Ba 

’99, Endri Trajani ’99, Natasha 

Ketabchi ’99, Paul El-Meouchy ’99, 

Melkizedeck Okudo ‘99, Nii Saka Addo 

’98 and Siu-Fung Yau ‘98 who all seem 

to be doing terrific.” This made her think 

about how many UWC graduates go into 

investment banking, and how this relates 

to the UWC philosophy. Caroline 

Schumutte was in Madrid until 

December, where she had an amazing 

time: “I must admit I like Madrid quite a 

bit more than London, but maybe that’s 

also just the difference of a semester 

abroad or a Bachelor’s of Science in 

Management”. She has met Adani Illo 

‘01 and Javier López Arangüena in 

Madrid, and Naa Aku Addo and Nii Moi 

Addo ‘99 at Dartmouth this past summer. 

Next June she will graduate, and 

hopefully will go back to Germany to 

work for a while, then get involved with 

the National Committee there. She will 

also be traveling a little in the US and 

Europe in the next six months, so she 

expects to see some of you around! 

During his internship in the political 

department of the Netherlands Embassy 

in Washington DC last summer, Rick 

Slettenhaar stayed with Yoomie Huynh 

in Georgetown University and met up 

with Firend Zora ‘99, Norma Correa 

‘99, Ibrahim Khader, Gigi Modrich, 

Javier López Arangüena, Ana del 

Carmen Garcia (AD ’00) and Cammie 

Burch. Afterwards, he traveled through 

the Balkans for thesis research, and saw 

Marij Dunk (AD’02), Ana Prokic and 

Natalija Novta (LPC ‘00), as well as 

Javier López Arangüena and Gerfried 

Aigner. After his trip to Paris with In- 

Young Park (SEA ‘03) in September he 

returned to Harvard. While traveling to 

New York for a long weekend, Rick 

visited with Joep Damen ’99, Meisan 

Lim ’99, Vikram Rupani ’99, Alfredo 

Achecar ’99 and Ben Rice-Townsend 

’01. Jormquan Suwanketnikom is still 

an undergraduate student majoring in 

electrical engineering. She just 

transferred from Germany almost two 

semesters ago and is now a student at 

University of Illinois at Urbana- 

Champaing. Apart from academics, she 

likes to hang out with international 

Althea Wilson ’00 is in her final year at Trent University. 

She’s pursuing a career in Economic Development, and in 

her free time, she has started a Gospel Choir at Trent. “I still 

think back on my UWC experience with very fond 

memories and wish nothing but the best for the UWC 

movement”. 

friends in engineering, play some sports, 

music and has taken up salsa dancing. She 

liked Europe so much that she is planning 

to go back there for a Master’s Degree, 

otherwise, she would like to go to some 

Asian country. That is, at least, her plan, 

which she expects to accomplish after 

changing colleges twice! 

2001 

Deidre Ann Ciliento 

2 Cypress Road 

Lake Hopatcong, NJ 07849 

deeg82@hotmail.com 

Chi Fung Ng 

Flat F, 18/F, Block 10 

Royal Ascot, Fo Tan, NT 

HONG KONG 

imaginejeff@hotmail.com 

Akiko Terai 

Macalester College 

1600 Grand Avenue 

St. Paul, MN 

HONG KONG 

aterai@macalester.edu 

Angela Vignoli 

Via aprilia 15 

04012 Cisterna di Latina 

ITALY 

angelavignoli@hotmail.com 

This spring Liza Anderson will return to 

Swarthmore College, where she pursues 

her double major in religion and political 

science. Gareth Carter is at LSE, senior 

editor of the Student Newspaper, Captain 

of the football team, and not studying 

nearly enough. He still sees Ida Norheim 

Hagtun, Nahoko Hoshino ‘02 and 

Giovanni Sorda ‘02 who both also study 

at LSE, as well as Tara Keserram and 

Susanne Mueller. Michael D’Agostino 

is in his third year at Notre Dame. He 

recently decided to major in Economics 

and will probably minor in Peace Studies. 

Lauren Fletcher is studying 

International Relations and Spanish (first 

year) at Leeds University, loving being in 

a huge city, and spending most of her time 

in the local Army Officer Training Corp 

“like Wilderness, but with rifle”. She is 

off to a four-day exercise/exam in 

Cumbria (rain, snow and hail expected) 

and then come March she is off to do a 

skiing qualification in Austria. David 

Cekan stayed in Richmond Virginia, for 

the month of December. He will be there 

again during the summer and will be 

working at Kingsdominon, like he did last 

summer. Cristina Gomez is studying 

abroad in Florence/Italy with Said Al- 

Nashashibi and she loves it! They are 

going back to Middlebury to finish their 

junior year in the spring. Adani Illo is 

currently studying abroad in Madrid, 

Spain. He writes, “Spain is a lovely 

country. The people are very nice and life 

is really laid back. I´m having the time of 

my life. I met up for coffee with Carolina 

Schmutte ‘00, who is also studying 

abroad in Spain this semester, and Javier 

López Arangüena ‘00, who is living in 

Madrid with his girlfriend. Was great 

talking with them about the old days at 

the UWC. I also met Johanna Poutanen 

‘00 when she came to Madrid in 

September.” Anne Jurkowski is taking a 

semester off from Smith thanks to IB 

credits. She first volunteered at a turtle 

conservation project in Costa Rica, and 

she is currently volunteering at a marine 

lab in New Zealand, basically chasing the 

eternal summer before heading back to 

freezing winter-land this semester. 

Cihan Karagoz received a degree in 

Bachelor of Commerce with a double 

major in Economics and Finance. He 


writes, “I am delighted to give you the 

news that I am the first ever university 

graduate of our 2001 class (correct me if 

I am wrong). It has all been well here in 

Sydney. Overall I jammed everything in 

two years. It is time to look forward now 

and I will be going back to Turkey in a 

few months, starting up a business there.” 

He has been in contact with Murilo 

Tanouye ’02 and Michael Janda ’02. 

Susan Keppelman is in Cambodia 

traveling around. For the past four months 

she has been studying sustainable 

development in Thailand. She writes, 

“…the program was really interesting. We 

spent most of our time in the Northeast 

(the program was through Khon Kaen 

University), which is the poorest part of 

Thailand. It was really intense! I spent 

a lot of time living in villages and 

interviewing people. I spent most of the 

semester working on a book (which I 

wrote with four other students) about the 

Pak Mun Dam called, “Shadow on the 

Mun.” It was published for a conference 

for dam-affected people by a publisher in 

Thailand, and right now we’re working on 

getting it published in the U.S. I 

definitely went four months without 

sleep… It was an incredible experience, 

though, and the program was perfect for 

any UWC students.” Samir Mastaki is 

now in Russia, in the city of Yaroslavl, 

having a great time during his semester 

abroad. As of February, he’s back in 

Middlebury. Cristina Matos-Albersat is 

at Ohio Wesleyan University. She says, 

“It’s been kind of crazy and cold lately, 

but it will be summer in 4 days (at least 

for me, because I am heading to 

Venezuela). This is, in theory, my junior 

year at OWU but if everything goes as 

planned, I should be graduating this May. 

It’s so weird to see “senior” on my official 

transcript. I am double-majoring in 

Journalism and Spanish (literature) with a 

concentration in Broadcasting and 

Photography. It’s been so fun, really.” 

Hopefully she will be participating in the 

New York Arts program next fall, though 

she hasn’t decided where her internship 

will be (magazine, TV studio or with a 

professional photographer based in 

NYC). Jeremy McGaffey is in New York 

studying how to rise above the film 

industry, though he says his interests are 

turning more towards nonprofit work. In 

January, he began shooting his first 16mm 

film. He’s also working on a documentary 

about Liberation Theology. Mark 

Napierkowski is in his second year at 

Tulane University, “Harvard of the 

South”, enjoying his time in New Orleans. 

He is a proud member of Delta Tau Delta 

fraternity, and he is responsible for 

coordinating all their alumni events. It is 

his second year and he is working towards 

a major in Evolutionary Biology, also 

fulfilling the pre-med requirements, and 

perhaps a German minor. Aaron Olivera 

is currently a junior at Ohio State 

University with a double-major in 

International Studies and Spanish. His 

concentration in IS is Eastern Europe and 

he is studying Serbo-Croatian as his third 

language. He writes, “Life is good here 

for me, as public school affords me a 

great atmosphere and a great GPA (3.95, 

for those who know that sort of thing). I 

managed to fall in love this fall with a 

record company (Saddle Creek-if any of 

you can find a record store that has 

anything from this label, check it out).” 

Jose Paixao is studying architecture at the 

University of Nottingham, England. 

Mara Polgovsky Ezcurra is living in 

Mexico City. After taking a few semesters 

off, she switched her gears from studying 

medicine to studying International 

Relations. Since she left UWC, she has 

been dancing a lot. She has been in two 

professional dance companies and has 

been practicing four or five hours a day. 

Bobby Redwood is cold kickin’ it up in 

Maine. He’s been stashing loot all year 

to go see Susanne Mueller and Ida 

Norheim Hagtun in London. In February 

‘04, he traveled south to Bolivia, where he 

aspires to study Quechua, archaeology, 

and Jesuit missionary activity. After 

Bolivia he’s taking a year off from boring 

school to squat in the UK and then hike 

the Appalachian Trail with Jon Mason! 

Bobby still hates cutting his hair and 

adores skateboarding. His favorite food 

will always be spicy Ramen soup. Dan 


Rizk is attending Augustana College in 

Sioux Falls SD, majoring in Computer 

Science and Math with a minor in 

Physics. He is a main tutor/assistant for 

the computer science department. It is his 

third year there, and he will be graduating 

on May 23, 2004. He is considering 

NDSU for graduate school in software 

engineering. Axel Rosenberg is in 

Norway - Oslo. He likes Oslo a lot, but 

spends most of his time out in the wild or 

in the library (library = Axel’s personal 

kitchen). Shenila Sikander Ali Khoja is 

studying Politics, Philosophy and 

Economics at Oxford University for a 

year and plans to return to Brown 

University in September ’04 to complete 

her undergraduate degree in Economics 

and International Relations. Aim Sinpeng 

is traveling to Prague, Czech Republic for 

her spring semester abroad and her 

summer internship. Kris Sorensen 

attends St. Andrews, Scotland. He is 

studying for a degree in International 

Relations and Modern History. Shivanth 

Bahadur, Kaisa Hannele Kivipelto and 

Alex Goborov are also there trying to 

keep up with the UWC spirit! Jakob 

Sroubek is at Hamilton College, in 

snowed-down upstate NY. He is hoping to 

graduate this coming May and then move 

on to studying medicine. Lina Stenlund 

is still on an island in the French West 

Indies, “Not doing much that’s any good 

for anyone, (but) lots of sailing.” In 

January, she moved to another island 

group, “Les saintes, which is heaven-like 

- 8,000 inhabitants, no cars, and 

incredible scuba-diving. It’s very 

peaceful.” Akiko Terai is a junior at 

Macalester College and she will be 

spending her next semester in Santiago, 

Chile. She had extremely good luck with 

seeing her old friends this year. This 

summer she stayed with her getawaysister 

Emilia Ramirez Valenzuela ‘02 

and met up with Ivan Flores Cecena ‘02, 

Mara Polgovsky Ezcurra, Nono 

Liza Anderson is an undergraduate fellow with both the 

Fund for Theological Education and the Pew Younger 

Scholars Program at Notre Dame. She spent the summer 

working and studying in the Philippines, and this fall 

through an exchange at the American University in Cairo, 

focused on Muslim-Christian understanding. 



Harhoff ‘02 and Diana Gomez ’03 all in 

Mexico City. She also visited her dear 

brother Stalin Coronel ’01 in Quito. 

Trudy Rebert and Joel Larson (both 

‘02) joined the Macalester community 

this year. In early October, Phil Geier 

came to speak at the annual Macalester 

International Roundtable, so she and 

other UWC-USA students got to hang out 

with him for a couple of days and 

discussed old/new rumors on the UWC 

campus. She also saw Zaheed Essack, 

over Thanksgiving, who is off to London 

next semester for his study abroad. Mitch 

Troup is in his third year at Bridgewater 

College in Virginia, where he is studying 

International Studies and Economics with 

a minor in Philosophy. He is engaged to 

Jen Spanier ‘02, who also attends 

Bridgewater. The two plan to marry in the 

summer of 2005! This summer, he hopes 

to study development and ideology in 

Cuba. Lani Visaisouk and Maja 

Bulatovic are in Utrecht and will 

graduate in May. Roeland de Wilde ‘02, 

Maria Ines David ’02 and Judit 

Koppany are also there as well as Lissy 

Prinzl ‘98 and Patrick Sam ‘03. Lani 

spent last semester “on exchange” at 

UCLA, taking Russian literature and 

medieval history classes. She writes, 

“Reacquainting myself with American 

life in general and getting to know 

American college life specifically gave 

me major culture shock; I’m glad to be 

back in Europe.” Moritz Waldstein- 

Wartenberg finished his military service 

last year. He is now studying History and 

International Economics in Vienna. He 

writes, “I am enjoying Vienna very much; 

the cultural life (both the theater as well as 

clubbing, maybe with a slight 

predominance of the latter), its 

internationality, the proximity of both the 

mountains as well as Eastern (Central) 

Europe (where the beer is still cheap).” 

Last summer Moritz Waldstein- 

Wartenberg and Lucas Josten 

participated in a big Model UN 

conference, which was held at the Vienna 

UN headquarters. Also Moritz was 

working in Munich as an intern in the 

public finance department of a big 

German bank. During spring break he 

will work as a volunteer in a refugee camp 

for asylum seekers in Austria. Benny 

Wijatno is in his third year at Harvard 

University studying Economics with 

some Computer Science, Political 

Philosophy, and even Marine Biology. He 

is tutoring kids in Chinatown, frittering 

too much time with roomies, playing 

halo, ranting about Bush, developing a 

taste for redneck comedy and a finegrained 

appreciation of American politics, 

training too little for the Boston 

marathon, and keeping an eye out for 

something useful to do post-college. 

2002 

Dafna Herzberg 

3 Levona Street 

Rehevot, 76350 

ISRAEL 

dufi10@hotmail.com 

Michael Janda 

80 Gordon Street 

Lane Cove, NSW 2066 

AUSTRALIA 

aw00mjan@uwc.net 

Ingrid Stige 

Djupvik 

Frauske, N-8200 

NORWAY 

ingrid_stige@hotmail.com 

Neal Call completed his freshman year at 

Georgetown last May, worked as a land 

surveyor over the summer, then returned 

to DC where he lives in a house with a 

couple of grad students. He’s taking the 

year off to write, paint, and generally be a 

bum. He is teaching high school students 

in order to pay the rent and volunteers in 

a mentoring program for at-risk youth. 

For those who make it to DC, he says, “I 

have more than enough room and extra 

couches for people to stay over.” 

Valentine Katchanovskaia is studying 

abroad in Seville, Spain for a year. Last 

year, Ingrid Stige attended a one-year 

music school, sang and learned a lot. This 

fall, she enrolled in a one-year long 

course in Ethnicity and Multicultural 

Societies at the University of Oslo. She 

says, “I enjoy it, but miss music and hope 

to study that somewhere next year.” 

Beyond school, Ingrid takes vocal- 

Justine MacWilliams ’02 with 

Suet Yee Chong (Kathie) ’02 at 

International Day. 

lessons, sings in a choir and volunteers for 

Oslo Red Cross. Emma Tilquin is 

studying Political Science in Brussels, 

enjoying the student life, and the central 

location of Brussels in Europe for UWCer 

visits. Suet Yee Chong works in the 

Career Services and Exchange Programs 

Office of International University 

Bremen. She and her boss initiate many 

projects (as a part of development of 

IUB). 

2003 

Adriana Qubaia 

Middlebury College 

MC Box 4010 

Middlebury, VT 05753 

adriana.Qubaia@uwc.net 

Class Agent needed. 

Anyone interested can e-mail 

beth.johnson@uwc.net. 

James Byrne is studying biomedical 

engineering at the University of Texas, 

and “getting lost among liberals in 

Austin”. He writes: “To describe my 

college experience thus far, I shall relate it 

to Rudolph the red nose reindeer. I felt 

like Rudolf except with a Zoolander type 

of sketchiness and without a red nose.” 


Rita Kaufmann attended the Dialogue 

for Peace Initiatives: Kashmir, which in 

addition to being a very informative 

seminar ended up being a UWC class of 

2003 reunion. She met up with Jessica 

Mowles, David Hogue, David Hilden, 

JaeHee Cho, Nahal Zebarjadi-Sar, 

Ben Carlson, PJ Christeleit, and 

Meenakshi Chivukula. She writes: “It 

was amazing to see all of them and it 

showed that our UWC spirit will never 

die. Seeing everyone cemented into my 

head that we were never to be lost to 

each other but just a phone call or a trip 

away. UWCers are undoubtedly 

inextricably intertwined through that 

special ‘something’ that we gain from 

our experience.” Mika Kesamaa is 

“Hanging in there in Finland, 

unemployed, scrounging around for 

means of a living.” He is also deciding 

between different options of scholastic 

endeavors to pursue in the future. 

Jessica Mowles enjoyed all things 

European as an au pair in the South of 

France, where she sipped wine and 

zipped around on Colette Murphy’s 

scooter. Through attending the 

Roskilde music festival in Denmark and 

passing through London twice, she was 

able to adequately soften the impact of 

graduation by meeting up with many coyears. 

She is presently at home in 

President Phil Geier, Nyoko Muvangua ’99 

(Namibia), Ronald Tjiho ’04 (Namibia) and 

Trustee Sarah Taylor. 

Virginia, where she welcomes 

visitors, speaks with a Southern 

accent, teaches Phenomenal Women 

at an after-school program, and works 

at a terribly boring office job. The 

latter will fund her spring adventures, 

hopefully to include working with the 

Pearson Third-Year Option in Costa 

Rica and traveling to non-Western 

countries. She will attend Macalester 

College beginning August ‘04. 

Adriana Nordin Manan had a 

wonderful summer back home in 

Malaysia, made even more special by 

the weeklong visit of PJ Christeleit, 

David Hogue and David Maes. She is 

currently at Colby and settling in 

nicely. As co-president of the newly 

established cooking club, she looks 

forward to more adventures in the 

kitchen that will hopefully not end up 

“in a fire alarm being set off ”. 

Adriana Qubaia started her first year 

in Middlebury College. She is very 

happy about being reunited again with 

Jakub Kostal ’02 and Pascal 

Maharjan ’02 who are currently 

sophomores in Middlebury. She 

is particularly excited about tutoring 

Arabic, and is looking forward to the 

UWC reunion in Middlebury over 

Thanksgiving break. She wants to 

thank everyone who sent life 

updates for 

Kaleidoscope. 


Past UWC-USA 

Faculty Staff 

Even before their respective retirements in 

1991 and 1992, Dottie and Nat Mann 

decided to stay in Las Vegas, and are still 

there. Occasionally, they come to the Castle 

during morning break to visit with their 

getaway students. They frequently attend the 

cultural shows and the music concerts in the 

Castle, which provide them the chance to 

visit with some of the faculty members from 

their days. Both are looking forward to this 

summer’s Reunion, the twentieth for the first 

class. They hope to see some of the faculty 

from 1984: Ivan Mustain, Bob Wade, 

Charles Hanson, Dr. Darrel Axtell, Marcel 

Roy, Neil Hunter, Susan Kenneson, Tunji 

Augustus, Maria Elena Maldonado, 

Jacqueline Tellier, Margaret Summerfield, 

John Edwards and founding President, Ted 

Lockwood. 

Josh Gladden’s daughter, Josephine Rose 

was born on April 8 th . She was, and is, a 

beautiful and healthy baby girl. Josh 

completed his doctorate in Physics this past 

summer and started a postdoctoral fellowship 

at Penn State working on fluid dynamics. He 

says, “We often think of the wonderful 

friends and times we had at the UWC and 

love to share our experiences there with 

people we meet. Hope all is well in 

Montezuma.” 

Elisa Vandervort (Community Service 

Coordinator ‘96-’98) finished her studies in 

health care and became a family nurse 

practitioner. She lives and practices in VT, 

where she is enjoying the challenges of a 

steep learning curve in her new job at a rural 

family practice with two family physicians. 

The population served includes needy 

underserved rural Vermonters in a very 

‘down home’ family practice setting and 

college-aged students at a university across 

the road. She says, “Whoever thought I’d 

have to attend a football or hockey game and 

be the health care provider who is supposed 

to have a clue!” She’s plotting a return to 

international social justice work, once more 

of her loans are paid off. All the best from 

snowy Vermont…come visit! 


BAS BLEU BOOK CLUB 

UWC-USA neighbor and friend Marla Kay Blount brought 

her entire book club for a Castle tour earlier this year. The 

group had just finished reading HM Queen Noor’s 

autobiography, Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected 

Life, and enjoyed not only the Castle tour but also learning 

more about the United World College mission and HM 

Queen Noor’s volunteer role as President of the UWCs. 

The ladies were so impressed that each one made a gift to 

the college before heading back to their homes in 

Albuquerque! Marla Kay and her husband Byrl formalized 

their relationship with the college by becoming a GetAway 

family and hosting two first-year students, Elishibah Wali 

Msengeti from Kenya and Pem Lama from Bhutan. 

KALEIDOSCOPE, VOL. 29 

UWC-USA 

The Armand Hammer United World College of the American West 

Post Office Box 248 

Montezuma, NM 87731-0248 USA 

ADDRESS CORRECTION REQUESTED 

Kneeling: Carole Chistensen, Nancy 

Blaugrund, Patty Snead, Harlene Geer, 

Connie Johnson, Millie McMahan 

Back Row: Sheila Barnes, Flo Parker, Pat 

Ray, Janie Bacchus, Barbie Crawford, 

Marla Kay Blount. 

Nonprofit Org. 

US Postage 

PAID 

Permit No.1 

Montezuma, NM

Kaleidoscope Newlsetter - UWC-USA

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