at Clarkson Univ....Judson Peck wrote a blog post for Notes on the World discussing his grant-funded work last spring to deliver and install two prototypes of a greenhouse for high-elevation use. One model, half-arc metal pipe construction, attaches directly to a house. The other is a full-arc model using less expensive and easier to transport plastic pipe. Judson traveled to the village of Thamo to install the prototypes. There, “curious neighbors and kids came to watch me work, and request greenhouses for their families. The women fed me endless cups of black tea and potato pancakes expressing their thanks. Despite their generosity, I walked out 10 pounds lighter, experiencing on a small scale the limited access to food.” A month later, his Sherpa translator returned to the village to photograph the greenhouses. “They were full of green, leafy vegetables — evidence that I had a hand in helping to develop one solution toward ending food insecurity in Nepal.”...Natalie Ruppertsberger and Noah Lynd were married July 6, 2013.... Theodore Sutherland writes, “I work at African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg, South Africa, with Lisa DiIorio ’91, who teaches English here. We have just added two new faculty — Desmond Mushi ’13 and Joseph Ekpenyong ’12. We were visited recently by a current student, Edwin Mapfuwa ’15.”...Eliza van Heerden had a birthday party in NYC, and guess who showed up? Mackenzie Dreiss, Rachel DiStefano, Lauren McAllister, Cambria Hempton, Chelsea Pennucci and Nora Collins.
2012 Reunion 2017, June 9–11 class co-presidents Mikey Pasek mikeypasek@gmail.com Sangita Murali murali58@comcast.net Mikey Pasek is a first-year Ph.D. student in social psychology at Penn State studying prejudice and stereotyping as a University Graduate Fellow.
2013 Reunion 2018, June 8–10 class co-presidents Meg Murphy megan.a.murphy3@gmail.com Ryan Sonberg rsonberg9@gmail.com The Newburyport (Mass.) Daily News explored the coaching aspirations of former Bates runner Lindsay Cullen, who began her coaching career in August at Dickinson College as an assistant with the cross-country and track programs. “I like the way most Division III schools mix athletics and academics. It’s not an athlete’s entire life, like it might be at a state school or university,” she said. A graduate of Newburyport High School,
Lindsay majored in history at Bates and captained the cross-country and track and field teams her senior year.... Travis Jones, a 2012 NCAA Academic All-American Division III diver, was the model for a series of swimwear shots for Parke and Ronen, a New York-based fashion label with a strong sporting connection. He lives in Brooklyn and works as an instructor at the New York Trapeze School....Neighbor Newspapers in suburban Atlanta caught up with Atlanta native David Pless for a conversation about his memorable Bates track and field career during which he won three Division III indoor shot put championships and earned 10 All-America honors. “I don’t necessarily use as the metric of my accomplishment my place in the national championship,” David said. “It was really a learning experience I had along the way with the team that I was a part of and what we were able to accomplish as a team.” David is now a salesman for Internet company Salesforce.com in San Francisco.
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kaitlin wellens ’aa
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‘I knew I was hooked’ A Bates primate course changed her career course Years after Kaitlin Wellens ’11 did a fifth-grade book report on her hero, Jane Goodall, the iconic expert on chimpanzees is again part of Wellens’ reporting. While doing field research in Tanzania last summer, Wellens met and talked shop with her childhood idol, pictured here. “I first met her in the forest — my wildest childhood dream come true,” Wellens says. Wellens, who is in a hominid paleobiology Ph.D. program at George Washington University, was doing fieldwork at Gombe Stream National Park, made famous during Goodall’s 45-year study of wild chimpanzees. “My first day there, I ran into the alpha male, Ferdinand, grooming his nephew Fudge,” Wellens says. “They are both part of the F family that was made famous by Jane’s work, making it a surreal experience.” Wellens’ specific research involves juvenescence in chimpanzees, which lasts about three years, from weaning to sexual maturity. Is the relatively long juvenile period needed to learn social skills, foraging skills, both? Or is it for body and brain growth? A bio major at Bates, Wellens grew up intending to become a veterinarian. She had even completed her pre-vet requirements at Bates when she took a course on primate behavior, taught by the “fabulous” professor Sonya Kahlenberg, that changed her career path. “I knew I was hooked.”
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