TechTimes Magazine Fall 2023

FALL 2023

T H E M AG A Z I N E O F T H E B R O O K LY N T E C H A L U M N I F O U N DAT I O N

There are 6,000 students at Brooklyn Tech.

Who are they?

FALL 2023

TH E M AG A Z I N E O F TH E B ROO K LY N TEC H ALU M N I FO U N DATI O N

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June 26,2023 Barclays Center Brooklyn, NY

Photo by Eason Fan ’25

PRESIDENT’S LETTER

MILESTONES GREETINGS, Technites and Friends: Just as I thought that our pace would change after our show-stopping Centennial Celebration, the milestone excitement continues as we reach the next series of notable Tech anniversaries: 50 years since the first women graduated Tech, 40 years since the inception of the Alumni Foundation, and the city PSAL baseball championship.

As I enter my third presidential year I am now “hip to the game” that each year will bring on something wonderful to celebrate, often in new refreshing ways that tie our multi-generations together. Reflections of yesteryear compared and contrasted to relevance of today and the promise of tomorrow: That is the beauty of the rich tapestry that is Brooklyn Tech.

I hope that as this edition of TechTimes showcases new faces, we listen with full appreciation to their respective voices. Technites are not a monolith despite our shared educational experience that creates a propensity to “I am because we are.” I believe this issue illustrates that Technites are excelling outside of traditional STEM fields, and forging unique paths to change the world, one Technite at a time.

In the spirit of being a little non-traditional and certainly with a nod to my mentor, the late great, indelible Ms. Elizabeth Sciabarra, who touched so many Technites so deeply and lastingly, I invite you take in this TechTimes by way of Cheer: We come from Tech, Couldn’t be prouder, If you can’t hear us, we’ll shout it louder ….Check us out!

Denice Clarke Ware ’83 President Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation

TABLE OF CONTENTS 8

It’s Show Business Performing arts are a big hit at Tech

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Student Voices Success stories, all. How do they do it?

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Big Leaguer Tatia Mays-Russell ’84 drives baseball’s offfield data revolution

26 MacGyver Man Lee Zlotoff ’70’s TV icon was “born” at Tech 28 Alumni News 30 Parting Thought

EDITOR’S NOTE

NEAR THE BACK OF THIS ISSUE, in a spot we reserve for a just-graduated Technite’s parting thoughts, Maja Siemieniewska ’23 introduces us to the novel concept of human allotropy.

If your recollections of chemistry class are as hazy as mine, I urge you to look up “allotrope.” Then, give Maja’s essay a read.

Maja poignantly caps our focus on student lives, reminding us that Tech’s six thousand gifted teenagers are—along with their academic performance— searching, and occasionally struggling, through challenging adolescent years to find their niche, channel their talents into pathways for future success, and become adults.

We didn’t start out planning this issue around this theme. It emerged organically, as we sat in Room 1W9 at Tech last spring, meeting and listening to one student after another.

Whether born into privilege in the United States or poverty in another country, the students we met touched on common themes: perceiving themselves as somehow different, attempting to positively channel that perceived differentness, realizing that their particular intellectual gifts come entwined with equally unique personal challenges. Identity, their stories suggest, is defined by much more than – and cuts across the categorical lines of – obvious markers like gender or race.

The unsung (until now) hero of this issue is Saira Masud ’23, our TechTimes intern for the year. Saira recruited most of the students featured here, with persistence and a sharp eye for compelling, inspiring life stories. Saira worked diligently in the background all year. Now, in these pages she proudly steps forward to open our student profile section with her own inspirational story.

Thanks also to my Alumni Foundation board and staff colleagues who offered sound counsel throughout this issue’s development. I consider none of my ideas a good one until they tell me so.

Ned Steele ’68 Editor In Chief 2

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ABOUT THE BACK COVER Stationed, by media major Beverly Siew ’23, was created in 2020, one week into what would become 16 months of quarantine and hybrid learning. It reflected “how I felt at the time,” Beverly recalls: “At peace, but like I wasn’t going anywhere.” Beverly is going places now. She is pursuing a BFA in 3D animation and visual effects at the School of Visual Arts.

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TechTimes The Magazine of The Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation Fall 2023 Editor In Chief and Chief Writer Ned Steele ’68 Art Director Nicholas E. Torello Creative Strategies Editor Chelsea Erin Vaughan Managing Editor Lisa Trollbäck Intern Saira Masud ’23 ©2023 Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation, Inc. Published annually. Articles may be reprinted with permission.

Alums: Send your letter to editor, or personal or professional update for publication in Class Notes to: techtimes@bthsalum.org

THE PRINCIPAL’S OFFICE AS WE EMBARK on the next hundred years, I look toward the future to build on the successes of our storied and heralded past.

I am excited about the genesis of new programs, such as the expansion of advisory classes to all four years, where students will explore topics from navigating Brooklyn Tech academically and socially to the college process and future careers. I am excited about new facilities such as our new anatomy laboratory and our planned virtual reality laboratory, and I look forward to the ribbon-cutting of our forensics science laboratory this year.

I am excited about what I call the “Brooklyn Tech Model,” where I share what we do and who we are with educators around the world. This October I am traveling to China to speak about our school at their country’s largest educational conference. Our model is the envy of the world as they seek to understand and replicate many aspects of it.

Our school continues to receive national recognition, as evidenced by some of the highest historical ratings in U.S. News and World Report rankings for the past five years – placing in the top 50 schools in the nation each of those years.

Students find a home and identify here at Brooklyn Tech as they choose coursework, activities, and majors customizing their experience. From the courses and curriculum to our cutting-edge educational facilities and our award-winning faculty, we offer an education experience unrivaled in New York City.

Thank you, our alumni family, for all you do to enhance our educational experience with donations and your time. Your participation in alumni events inspires our students to strive for excellence, guiding them toward achieving their true potential in the workforce and beyond.

David Newman Principal

ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPHY You might recognize a background or two in the photos that illuminate this issue’s story package on student lives: the classrooms, labs, and hallways of Brooklyn Tech were a co-star of our photo shoots. Thanks to Jason Martin and his assistant Dawn Bianchini for the principal photography…. And a double thanks to the student photography team of Eason Fan, photographer, and Chloe Wong, assistant and photo stylist, who both performed at a professional level. Chloe is off to college now, but Brooklyn Tech is fortunate to have Eason for two more years. ■ ‹ Eason Fan ’25 at work.

Share your news or thoughts on the stories in this issue... Email to ➜ techtimes@bthsalum.org TOP P. 2: JAI SIM O NE PHOTOGR APHY. BOT TO M P3: NED STEELE

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Front, l to r: Diana Liu, Melissa Goodrum.

Rear: Timothy Ree, Adam Virzi, Richard Capozzi.

WRITERS IN THE ROOM

THESE BROOKLYN TECH English teachers don’t just write on blackboards. Published authors all, they enrich student education by introducing the perspective of a writer into the classroom.

Richard Capozzi is the translator of The Buddha Within Ourselves: Blossoms of the Lotus Sutra by Maria Immacolata Macioti. His translation is credited with introducing the noted Italian scholar’s work to a wider audience of English-speaking academics.

Melissa Goodrum is the editor of four print anthologies and the author of two full-length poetry collections: definitions uprising and something sweet & filled with blood. Her poems, wrote Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Tyehimba Jess, “are taut, burgeoning beams of ancestors, wriggling onto the page with totems of sound— history surrounding each page.”

Diana Liu co-authored A Poetry Pedagogy for Teachers, a book for high school and college English and writing educators and teaching artists, as well as poetry readers and writers. It discusses poetry’s ability to inform classroom pedagogy.

Timothy Ree’s debut poetry collection, Beasting, looks at race, politics, and family dynamics through the lens of the Korean-American experience. A reviewer called it “a timely blend of family portrait, lyric poetry, and political call toward greater Asian American visibility and immigrant resistance in this country.”

IT GETS WET AND MESSY, but educationally invaluable, when the concrete starts pouring in room 1N8.

That’s the John A. Cavanagh Materials Testing Lab, where civil engineering majors recently became the first high school students in the nation to receive professional certification for making, curing, and testing concrete, thanks to the efforts of teacher Michael Boulis.

Reminiscent of bygone days when Tech students rolled up sleeves and donned shop aprons for hands-on learning, these future engineers mix the ingredients, allow it to set, and deploy sophisticated equipment and methodology to see if they’ve done it right. If they correctly perform the complex testing regimen, they earn certification from the industry’s standard-setting American Concrete Institute (ACI).

Boulis also teaches at CUNY’s City Tech, where second-year college students perform the same exercises to earn the certification. He thought, “Why not Brooklyn Tech?”

At first ACI turned down his request to join the program, on grounds that it was college-level. “So then I told them about our school and our students,” Boulis recalled.

ACI officials looked closer at Tech and were so impressed that they slashed the exam fees significantly and had volunteer professional engineers conduct the certifications for free. Alumni Foundation grants helped cover other project costs.

The extensive seven-step certification tests density, weight, air content, and other variables. Then comes a 55-question written test. Last year, 93% of the students passed it, and 97% passed the performance test.

At first, said student Lukyan Ivakhno, “It’s mostly fun, like playing in a sandbox but with concrete. But it further proves to colleges that we know how to work and how to learn.” ■

THIS CLASS IS HARD

Adam Virzi is the author of a section of Redefining Teaching Competence Through Immersive Programs, which explores ways “to develop teachers’ global, multilingual and intercultural competencies, in preparation for entering today’s culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms.”

In addition, social studies teacher Jonathan Leaf is an author, playwright, and screenwriter. This year he published City of Angles, which Kirkus Reviews called “easily companionable, intelligent, and brimming with artful humor.” ■ 4

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BEYOND THE FROG

LET THE OTHER SCHOOLS do frogs. At Tech, biology students dissect sharks.

Dissection is a highlight of Human Anatomy, a course for Biological Sciences majors so challenging that they can only take it after completing college-level Advanced Placement biology.

Hence the shark… just a dogfish shark, no more than 18 inches long, but a creature that surprisingly shares evolutionary ancestry with humans. Thus its special role in room 4N8, the biology lab presided over by teacher Caitlin Reste.

“A lot of our students come to the major purely because they want to dissect,” Ms. Reste explains. “We do the frog, but in the first year.

To get past the ‘ick’.”

“I’d never heard of anyone dissecting a shark,” recalls class member Mahmoud El-Eshmawi ’23, now a pre-med student at Northwestern University. “But it was amazing and rewarding. In this class, you go from zero to dissecting a shark in a few months.”

The Alumni Foundation’s support helps to make the experience possible for the students. ■

“ WRITERS”: E ASO N FAN ‘ 25, ARR ANGED BY CHLOE WO NG ‘ 23. “ CL ASS”: TOP AND BOT TO M, STANLEY ZHENG ‘ 23; BOT TO M CHLOE WO NG ‘ 23. “ FROG”: CHLOE WO NG ‘ 23

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BACK TO BARCLAYS BROOKLYN TECH’S 140th commencement ceremony marked a return to Barclays Center for the first time since 2019. Diplomas were awarded to nearly 1,500 graduates – each one walking to the stage to be congratulated by Principal David Newman, and to be welcomed into the Tech alumni community. The keynote speaker was Lanny Smoot ’73, an Imagineer and research fellow at Disney with more than 100 patents. ■

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ANOTHER BANNER YEAR BROOKLYN TECH SPORTS TEAMS won an amazing 10 PSAL championships in the 2022-23 school year.

The Engineers were winners in: BOYS Cross Country Lacrosse Swimming Table Tennis GIRLS Badminton Lacrosse Soccer JV Soccer Swimming COED Stunt

OPPOSITE: E ASO N FAN’ 25. ABOVE: NYC PSAL

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★★★

THE SHOW GOES ON TECH’S PERFORMING ARTS PROGRAM IS A SMASH HIT

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The

BRIGHT LIGHTS DAZZLE. The vast stage beckons.

Crisp state-of-the-art sound rings through the majestic 2,968 seat, dual-balconied auditorium, larger than any Broadway theater.

In a setting like this, could the performances be anything less than spectacular?

No, they could not. Brooklyn Tech’s performing arts program is a sprawling powerhouse where hundreds

of students sing in, emote in, and stage a robust lineup of high-quality musicals, plays, and concerts.

It is, in Broadway lingo, a hit show: talented teenagers around the city now spurn acceptances to the city’s preeminent performing arts schools, lured by the twin benefits of Tech’s stage opportunities and its rigorous science-engineering academics.

Vaishnavi Venkatesh ’24 is one young woman who did just that. “I can play music and build circuits in the same day,” says the mechatronics major/violin virtuosa. In two years she has performed on the Tech stage six times, tackling not only the classical canon’s most challenging pieces but original compositions by Tech music students, while excelling in the classroom. Choosing Tech over LaGuardia High School was “kind of a no-brainer,” she says.

It’s a combination other high schools can’t match: an unparalleled STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) curriculum plus an arts program rivaling the city’s best. It’s the chance to be, as Principal David Newman calls them, “renaissance people.”

“Because of our robust music and theater programs we are really a STEAM school in disguise,” says Gus Trombetta, referencing the trend of enriching STEM with art. Trombetta is Tech’s assistant principal of visual and performing arts – a

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position created just last year in another sign of the program’s expanding presence.

The program dates to the 1970s under direction of teacher Alice Timothy, followed by Susan Palmieri. The baton was handed in the 1980s to Jim DiBenedetto ’71, in addition to his football coaching duties. At that point, he had never seen a Broadway show. continued on next page FA L L 2 0 2 3

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Gradually he grew the program, generated new funding, and attracted a following. Before long, he recalls, “A huge amount of talent started coming into the building.”

After stints by teachers Geraldine LaPierre and Cory Fischer, DiBenedetto’s old role is now filled by two of his proteges: theater director Edwin Velazquez ’90, and band leader Deshawn Withers ’00.

Today, some 600 students – roughly one in ten Technites – take part. Students from all 18 academic majors participate – as performers, set designers and builders, and stage crew.

There are multiple choral recitals, concerts by bands and four levels of orchestra, plays, and musicals – Sweeney Todd, Hairspray, A Midsummer’s Night Dream and Clue among past productions. The chorus has performed at Carnegie Hall.

It all unfolds on a recently upgraded stage and orchestra pit in the iconic auditorium, gleaming after a recent renovation that enhanced the sound system. Stepping onstage in a professional-level setting, students say, motivates them to outdo themselves. Many have gone on to success as actors, singers, musicians, and technicians.

Professional singer and music teacher Cindy Hospedales ’02, a graduate of the chorus and two musicals, says she learned “a high Previous page: Left, The Addams Family (2019), Right: The performing arts go back to Tech’s origins, before the current building opened.

Top far left: Clue (2022). Bottom left: Once Upon a Mattress (2023). Above left and below: Tech’s instrumental program is multifaceted. Band members prepare to perform on the Tech stage.

standard of excellence in approaching music that sticks with me to this day.” Former TV news reporter and anchor Jeanine Ramirez ’88, a star of Bye Bye Birdie in 1986, says, “Being on stage in that grand auditorium taught me how to command presence.”

To thrive in a large school, students seek to find a niche.

The program is that home for many. “We’re like a small family,” band leader Withers says.

But the program benefits the entire school, and not just from enjoyment of the entertainment.

Middle school students are invited to attend performances, in hopes some will be dazzled and take the admissions test.

Velazquez believes the program’s prominence “says something about how we are a well-rounded school.

There’s something for everyone.”

And Vaishnavi, the violin-playing mechatronics major, gained a benefit from choosing Tech’s engineering-music combo: her offstage, in-classroom academic performance earned her a software development internship with a major global consulting firm. “It’s a job I would not have gotten from another high school,” she says. ■ The Alumni Foundation administers the Peter Adam Levine ’89 Memorial Scholarship for Outstanding Achievement in Arts and Theater. The 2023 recipient was Matthieu DeRobles, who was stage manager at Tech. He now studies technical theater and computer science at Hunter College.

THE NEXT ACT

A

GROWING MUSIC and theater curriculum adds academic backbone to the program, including Advanced Placement Music Theory. In drama class, professional actors come in to workshop student-written scenes.

What’s next? A professional-level recording studio is scheduled to open this fall on the ninth floor next to the old WNYE radio studio, for teachers to enhance the curriculum and students to record their college audition pieces.

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Voices

BUSTLING OF A THOUSAND quick footsteps.

A mosaic of college sweaters and familiar blue and white forming the Manhattan Bridge. Faces blurred from hellos and the late bell’s pressure. It is just another day at Brooklyn Tech.

Each individual student’s experiences

inform their identities, and those identities interact with and impact those experiences.

Students drive Tech– one by one– through their varied talent, dedication, and tenacity.

Tech in turn molds, cultivates, and challenges them. Their stories are the story of Tech.

—Yan Zhen Zhu ’23

Saira “Preparing to leave the country where I was born, I imagined a paradise and a beautiful white-fenced house. Reality is a fickle thing: In Bangladesh, I was spoiled. I had a house, friends, and money. In New York, I did not even have my own room.

It was always Canada that held our hearts. In a roller coaster of emotions over how much money immigration required, my parents’ hard-earned savings and sacrifices went down the drain, and that plan fell through. It was devastating.

Now, in New York, I saw my mother’s wet eyes as she worried about money. The cold knife of guilt and responsibility sliced deeper into my back when the bills piled or my mother went to sleep hungry.

In the tapestry of my immigrant narrative, a moment of self-reflection emerged: How did I come to bear the weight of the world upon my shoulders? Why did the burden of success, financial prosperity, and the pride of my parents seem to rest solely upon me?

As an immigrant, in a family of girls, I was cognizant of the stigmas and stereotypes that envelop us. The world often casts its gaze upon me through the prism of predetermined expectations, viewing me as submissive and fragile, confining my existence to roles prescribed by society.

I would rise above to defy those limitations and forge my own paths of empowerment. It was not enough to yearn for BTHS MAJOR: Aerospace Engineering COLLEGE: University at Buffalo

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STUDENTS

STUDENTS

How students’ sense of identity shapes – and is shaped by – their high school experience the American Dream to come true. I had to actively pursue it. I walked to school every morning with one thought: “Work harder than the person next to you.”

This thrusted me into the world of a circus. I became a trapeze artist clutching the bar of academic success, swinging and spinning, trying desperately not to fall into the pit of academic failure. I spent long, arduous nights bent on my table, pens and paper splayed on my desk.

I was a juggler – of school, extracurriculars, and mental health, deathly afraid that everything would come crashing down. I shuffled from class to class, sometimes staying after school for student government events. On weekends I focused on internships in engineering and aerodynamics. I still carved out time for self-care, hosting small get-togethers, and walks in nature.

Lastly, I became a professional clown, managing my emotions and plastering on a smile every time my mother asked if I was okay. There was no space to slip up and give in to emotions. I needed results.

This circus I call my life is an ongoing iteration of failing and succeeding. I am glad my life did not turn out to be the perfect paradise the spoiled little girl had hoped for. Her pristine white picket fence house could never compare to the chaotic beauty of my circus.”

Saira Masud was awarded a 2023 Alumni Foundation Joseph ’50 and Frances R. Weiss Family Trust Scholarship. She is now a student at the University at Buffalo. ■

BTHS MAJOR: Pharmacy COLLEGE: Princeton

Eileen “I’m the one to take care of my nine-year-old brother after school; my parents work late.

I get home from Tech around 5:00 after Science Olympiad. First I do my homework and studying, then I help my brother with his.

After dinner I usually clear the dishes. Sometimes I help my parents pay the family bills. My days are kind of packed. Maybe at night I’ll get an hour to watch Chinese dramas.

Being first generation and having to take on many family responsibilities motivated me to push myself early on and embrace difficulties.

At Tech, the library is my most visited and favorite place.

Surrounded not by silence but by collective motivation and knowledge, I am always more motivated there.”

Weston Research Scholar Eileen Zheng was one of the top 300 scholars in the nationwide Regeneron Science Talent Search, the first Technite since 2017 to earn that distinction. She published a paper with a peer in the Journal of Emerging Investigators, researched how RNA mutations might affect cancer patient survival, and was the only high school student selected to present at an international conference on cellular biology.

Eileen’s career goal is to become a physician treating the underserved: “I understand the struggles of not being able to afford something in health care.” ■ FA L L 2 0 2 3

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STUDENTS

WHO ARE THEY? These are Brooklyn Tech’s students: • More than 60 languages are spoken in their homes • 60% are low income • 58% are male • 42% are female • 2% have disabilities

• 2% are unhoused • 60% are Asian or Pacific Islander • 23% are white • 6% are Black • 6% are Hispanic • 4% are multiracial • 1% are Native American or Alaskan 2021-22 data, NYS Education Department

Yan Zhen “You wear your race…

My thinking is informed by my lived experience as a first generation American and Chinese American, with my family history of diaspora, loss, assimilation and becoming. These stories serve as the basis of my work and advocacy, using my second language to tell stories of a first home.

I see my involvement in journalism as a means to bring disenfranchised peoples’ stories to the forefront – to amplify the voices that most often go unheard.

I hold onto my name as a keepsake, a living souvenir of my birthplace. Of course, I’ve adopted “American” mannerisms and cannot divorce this more established second home from my identity, but my name is something I could hold onto. It is a first impression, a memory.

Others can assume my identity through olive skin and crescent eyes, but my name was mine.”

A student journalist, writer and activist, Yan Zhen Zhu came to the U.S. at age four. Her poems and critical essays have won Scholastic Art & Writing awards. She was a Questbridge College Prep Scholar. Working with a Chinatown youth center, she developed a curriculum centered on Asian American empowerment and support for all people of color.

She has interned at the mayor’s anti-hate crime office, served on the Brooklyn DA’s youth advisory board, researched hate crimes in New York schools, and hosted a podcast.

At Princeton Yan Zhen plans to study civil rights law and social advocacy. ■

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BTHS MAJOR: Social Science Research COLLEGE: Princeton University

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STUDENTS

BTHS MAJOR: Chemical Engineering COLLEGE: Howard University

Jediah “I’ve been blessed with parents who kept me conscious of racial dynamics in America.”

Near the end of the traumatic 2019-2020 pandemic school year, George Floyd died at the hands of police officers. Jediah Thomas, then a freshman, was galvanized as were millions of Americans.

What could a 14-year-old do?

Jediah convened a small group of friends on Zoom to talk. Word spread, and the conversation grew to include a wide swath of the Tech community, including staff. It mushroomed into a series of virtual town halls that covered school issues as well as the broader national ones. Jediah and his group also reached out for discussions with elected

officials, including state senator Zellnor Myrie ’04, a Tech alum, about NYPD and school safety officer training policies.

The following school year, attention turned to raising the visibility of race-related issues in the classroom. Jediah and his peers focused on Black History Month, urging teachers – in all disciplines – to highlight Black concerns and Black culture more prominently in their lessons.

Many faculty responded. One math teacher devised a lesson that graphed the redlining of underserved communities to highlight inequities. “It pushed the needle,” Jediah said of the efforts.

Jediah became student body president and is now in a PhD track undergraduate chemical engineering program at Howard University. ■ FA L L 2 0 2 3

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STUDENTS

BTHS MAJOR: Physics COLLEGE: Cornell University

Nicholas “My background is international.

My parents are immigrants from both sides of the Danube River – my dad from Romania, my mom from the former Yugoslavia. This influenced me to be interested in history and to try to better understand the past, as a way of influencing the future.

I also believe in the importance of being a good scientist. You have to understand how what you do affects the real world.”

Nicholas Vasilescu, as a Weston Research Scholar in physics, searched for anomalies in astronomical light patterns that might indicate the presence of extraterrestrial civilizations. Out of one million planetary samples in a NASA-MIT database, he identified 15 that might sustain life.

Nicholas plans to become an astrophysicist for NASA or a space company, but will also major in history; he has won scholastic honors in both fields, and was successful in citywide Model UN and history competitions. He has served on the U.S. Open ball crew, captained Tech’s tennis team, and was a student representative to the Alumni Foundation board. ■ 16

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Roberto “People would find out about Honduras’ crime through the news and ask if I was a criminal.”

Embarrassed in elementary school to disclose his home country, Roberto Quesada developed “a plan to be anything but Honduran,” lying about vacation visits to his homeland and “stealing” an Anglicized nickname from a popular TV show.

That plan inevitably crumbled : “My melanin and indigenous features made me stick out like One World Trade on the New York skyline.” Roberto eventually asked his

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STUDENTS

Jacqueline “I grew up hearing stories about my big sister getting a banana for Christmas.

She and my parents came here from Uzbekistan, where the deprivation was so great that fresh produce was a luxury even for affluent families.

I was the first born here.

My parents would remind me of the privilege of being raised in the United States. It made me way more thankful for what I had.

Mom works in home care and Dad is a repairman.

School was presented to me as a gateway to the opportunities they didn’t have. I took the SHSAT without any test prep. When I passed it, I told my mom I wanted to go to the local high school. All my friends were going there and I was afraid Tech would be too hard.

She told me that if I could pass the SHSAT without studying, I could probably handle Tech.

BTHS MAJOR: Law and Society

I would not be going to Yale if it were not for that last-minute discussion at the kitchen table.”

COLLEGE: Yale University

Jacqueline Lashmanova says of her Law and Society major: “I was excited to come to school to argue about the meaning of a comma in a statute. My law classes were a playpen for thoughts.”

mother, an activist, to tell him more about his heritage. She told him of a country weakened “by a series of political missteps, corruption, and foreign interference.”

“It pushed me to want to fight for social justice in the U.S.” he says. “I have worked hard to elevate Latino voices and stories.

I hope to make the U.S. a more just place for all.”

Roberto has spoken out on environmental and educational equity issues. He was a U.S. Senate page, a state legislator’s intern, and a member of the USA Debate Team. He aspires to become a lawmaker. Roberto was the Class of 2023 salutatorian. ■

At Tech, she says. “For the first time in my life I learned that it is okay to be the kid that sits in the front of the classroom and never stops asking questions.”

BTHS MAJOR: Environmental Science COLLEGE: Harvard University

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BTHS MAJOR: Civil Engineering COLLEGE: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Maeve “If I were to sum up my high school experience, it would be through the lens of searching for my identity.

I used to think that every young boy also fantasized about being a girl. Or also felt jealous when their sister’s friends came over and could never explain why. It took me 14 years to discover that there was a word to describe how I felt. And it took me two more years to finally tell my parents.

I endured middle school fully closeted. The one trans boy in my class got bullied ruthlessly. I found high school easier when I made my first friend group, all as queer as me.

[Covid] quarantine forced me to brave the world 18

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and my parents on my own. I taught myself that the only way to live authentically is to not let anyone try to define yourself for you. I control who I am.

I often look back at my old self. At when I bought my first horrendous tie-dye croptop or when I fell in love with a girl who clearly did not see me as one.

But I accept that those selves were myself, and I can be proud of myself today because of them.”

Maeve Chen was president of the Science Olympiad team and the American Society of Civil Engineers chapter at Tech, and helped renovate a community garden near the school.

Now studying civil engineering at MIT on a full scholarship, Maeve says, “I intend to work in construction and I hope my work will take me around the world and help me serve the public.” ■ WWW.BTHSALUMNI.ORG

STUDENTS

Hazel “Being the only daughter with five brothers, and the first person in my family to be born in the United States, I am no longer only African.

I am African American, exposed to modern feminism, autonomy, and the women’s health movement.

Coming home from work with lambskin condoms, dental dams, and quite-graphic reproductive anatomy presentations, I create much-needed conversations in my household.

As a kid, I may have been prohibited from asking questions about my body; but now I have taken my right to know and fight for myself. Now, I am able to stand up for others.

Every day, I choose to break generational curses. Every day, I choose to break the silence and speak up.”

Hazel Ekeke was featured on the Drew Barrymore Show for her work as a sexual health educator and reproductive justice activist. She received Tech’s Elizabeth Sciabarra Student Activities Award.

“Navigating the intersectionality of being an African and an American is what inspired me to advocate for underrepresented communities,” she says.

BTHS MAJOR: Biological Sciences COLLEGE: University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing

Once embarrassed by her African names, she gave herself a fake Western middle name because it sounded “prettier.” She now proudly uses her given middle names, Chizaram and Temitope. ■ FA L L 2 0 2 3

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STUDENTS

BTHS MAJOR: Law and Society COLLEGE: University of Pennsylvania

Gabrielle “I grew up in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

Since I was seven or eight, I’ve seen racial profiling on the streets.

I’ve been racially profiled myself. I’ve seen overpolicing. I’ve seen people get scammed out of their resources. I was taught a strict script on what to say to the police. I’ve seen the struggles of neighbors who weren’t fortunate to go to a school as good as Tech.

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with people I care about impacted me.

I want to change the criminal justice system for the better. I want to combat legal discrimination. I want to serve my community.”

Gabrielle Cayo’s activist work has been featured on Good Morning America, the BBC, and in Gothamist.

On a student advisory committee for the New York City schools chancellor, she researched and advocated for culturally

responsive education: “There isn’t enough of it in the schools and it doesn’t do justice to our cultural diversity. When you dumb down history it makes people make the same mistakes again. It makes people feel they are not being seen or heard in the classroom.”

Gabrielle interned for Senator Chuck Schumer and spoke before the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. At Tech she headed the Black Students Union. In college she is studying political science on a pre-law track. ■ WWW.BTHSALUMNI.ORG

STUDENTS

Jacky “We moved around a lot when I was a kid.

I lived in China with my grandparents, then Louisiana (where I learned English in kindergarten), New York, Florida, and Boston, all by third grade. I didn’t have a set group of friends I could rely on for life. It made me realize there will be struggles in life, but nothing I can’t bear. I learned how to adapt to different situations.”

Jacky Lin’s passions are aviation and music. A cellist, he formed a symphonic orchestra at Tech combining strings, band and chorus.

He found 40 student musicians to join it, and a teacher to be its faculty advisor.

He was an award-winning leader in the Civil Air Patrol, reviving Tech’s chapter after the pandemic shutdown. He has piloted a Cessna 172 Skyhawk three times: “It felt surreal to fly before I drove a car.”

Having moved around so much earlier, Jacky intends to stay in New York post-college, as a mechanical engineer: “The mix of different cultures here is what really makes this city so special. I don’t think I can really work anywhere else that will give me that day-to-day interaction.” ■

BTHS MAJOR: Aerospace Engineering COLLEGE: University at Buffalo

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STUDENTS

BTHS MAJOR: Software Engineering COLLEGE: University of Pennsylvania

Faiyaz “I came to the U.S. when I was ten. Coming here for fifth grade was a culture shock, but I was able to fit in because I spoke English.

I appreciate that my parents didn’t pressure me on choosing a college or thinking about possible careers. They were big supporters of doing what I want to do, just be happy. It allowed me to instill a drive in myself.

You can’t go for a field just for the money. At the end of the day it has to be something you like.”

Faiyaz Hasan majored in software engineering and was president of the debate team.

He also did – and published – research in socioeconomics.

His research found underfunding of Covid era government stimulus checks to minorities.

Having known peers whose limited access to technology at home required them to rely on school for support, he is interested in the digital divide: “Access to resources is an issue that needs to be discussed.”

In college Faiyaz plans to sharpen his coding skills and use them to conduct more socioeconomic research. He is one of just 60 Jack Kent Cooke Scholars in the U.S. ■ 22

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STUDENTS

Courtney “At Tech I was known for my positive attitude. In a big school like this, I learned that you have to go above and beyond to stand out and you need to rely on yourself, not anyone else, to help you.”

Courtney Simon was born in New York but lived in Hong Kong until age nine. She felt comfortable at Tech because “A lot of people grew up in different places. It gave us something more to talk about. In elementary school I was the only one.”

Captain of Tech’s tennis and table tennis teams, Courtney was on the U.S. Open ball crew, on court with the world’s top players: “At first it was stressful and I had low confidence. My second year I realized I was actually very skilled at it and shouldn’t worry about making mistakes, because it was holding me back.”

Urged to attend Tech by her big sister (class of 2020), she was originally undecided as to major: Then “I saw the robotics demonstration, and that was it.” She aims to become a mechanical or electrical engineer and work for NASA. She has also taught reading and math in summer school to underserved children. ■ BTHS MAJOR: Applied Mathematics COLLEGE: Yale University

Rommy “As a STEM person, I take an analytical approach to creative writing.”

Rommy Sasson was a Weston Research Scholar and finalist in the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair.

Her project explored methods to prevent clotting in biomedical devices like stents, and she will be credited in a publication as a conributor on a research team at Stony Brook University.

Rommy plans to pursue her passion for research as a mathematician. She was introduced to dynamical systems theory while studying mathematical neuron models with her Weston Research mentor, and last summer was one of 80 students worldwide to participate in research on machine learning at Israel’s Weizmann Institute.

She is also an award-winning playwright, though she writes only occasionally “as a hobby”: Her entry was Brooklyn’s top ranked play in a 2020 citywide high school competition and was performed by the Lucille Lortel Theater. Her play, “Caught in a Storm,” was about two teenage brothers “living two quite different realities.”

BTHS MAJOR: Mechatronics-Robotics COLLEGE: Purdue University

“As a STEM person, writing was always very alien to me,” she says. “But by exploring these character dynamics, I was able to approach it in a much more analytical way that felt more familiar.”

Rommy is also a black belt in Tae Kwan Do. She was a student representative to the alumni board. ■ FA L L 2 0 2 3

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ALUMNI

A pioneering woman in the big leagues

4 8 ’ l l e s s u R Tatia Mays

ALL-STAR ★

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ALUMNI

MA J OR LE AGUE BASEBALL PL AYERS ASSOCIATIO N / DAVID HAE T T Y

HOW’S THIS FOR A RÉSUMÉ? Brooklyn Tech, Cornell, Wharton.

Those are the credentials Tatia Mays-Russell ’84 brings to her high-powered job in a realm where African-American female senior leadership is virtually non-existent: the world of Major League Baseball.

As chief financial officer of the Major League Baseball Players Association – MLBPA, the ballplayers’ union – she is one of only a few African-American women holding a C-suite level position in the sport.

A self-described gearhead, Mays-Russell is in her third finance position in professional sports, but don’t pigeonhole her: she started out as a materials science engineer, and for more than ten years developed strategies and worked on high-profile initiatives for New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

And, she candidly admits, she’s more into the numbers behind operating an efficient organization than the players’ on-field stats.

Water cooler chatter in the office can present a challenge: “What happened on the field last night? I probably didn’t see that game,” she concedes. “I would likely have more interest in how we did at the gate.”

But, she hastens to add, “I’ve developed a huge appreciation and love for the game, the players, and the fanbase.”

SO THERE SHE IS every day, fielding calls from agents for the top players (sometimes from the players themselves), handling licensing and royalty distributions to athletes, overseeing investment, tax, and accounting for the union, automating finances and workflow, and moving the CFO role to a more strategic function as MLBPA grows and professionalizes.

The union’s latest growth arena is also one of her newest passions and responsibilities: helping to transition the game’s 5,500 minor league players into MLBPA’s union operations. Most of them have been historically lowpaid, earning less than $5,000 a year, and from varied backgrounds including Latin America. In September 2022 they unionized, joining the MLBPA, and last March the union negotiated the first collective bargaining agreement in minor league baseball history.

Already the newly unionized young players in the farm system are reaping financial benefits from their affiliation: Salaries for all minor leaguers more than doubled under the new agreement.

The expansion quadruples the number of athletes for whom Mays-Russell provides financial stewardship. Many young prospects who eventually make it to the big show will earn substantial money from licensing and marketing deals. Mays-Russell oversees the financial end of that MLBPA business for the players, and she makes it her business to support not only the celebrity superstars but all players.

she preferred problem-solving and working with people over working with chemicals. So it was off to Wharton for a master’s degree in business, and a career pivot into management consulting.

Then, a surprise twist: while helping a sideline family sports business, she identified a startup opportunity at the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA). The young league needed additional financial acumen to drive its growth. Before long Mays-Russell was a senior director introducing analytics and systems to fuel the expansion.

She later joined Scholastic, the publishing and media company, as vice president overseeing strategic planning and development, reporting, and financial performance. But sports finance resurfaced when she became the National Lacrosse League’s first chief financial officer. Always with an eye toward new challenges and experiences, Mays-Russell next took an opportunity to drive strategic initiatives for New York’s MTA and New York City Transit – another start-up role. Her mission there: use data and an analytic approach to drive operational efficiency.

“I am keenly aware of the unique opportunity my role brings to baseball.”

IT’S A LONG WAY from the GE Plastics lab bench where she started, developing high-temperature formulations for airplanes and automobiles after studying polymer science at Cornell’s engineering school.

A stint in business development for GE sparked the discovery that

AROUND THAT TIME, MLBPA’s first-ever African-American executive director, ex-player Tony Clark, was looking to strengthen his leadership team with an eye toward diversity. He and his chief operating officer, Xavier James, brought Mays-Russell onboard. She started in July 2020, amid the pandemic, and has been expanding and advancing the MLBPA’s financial operations and functionality ever since.

She credits the two leaders with giving her the opportunity to drive and lead change in baseball.

One place you may not see Mays-Russell is at the glamor parties and showcase events that pepper the sports calendar. She’s putting all her time into building a best-in-class finance team and operation for the MLBPA. “What I’m most interested in,” she says, “is ‘how are we going to make this work?”

“I am keenly aware of the unique opportunity my role brings to baseball. I’ve had good fortune, but I was also prepared,” she adds. “I start each day with a prayer of gratitude and thanks.” ■ FA L L 2 0 2 3

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MacGyvering It Lee Zlotoff ’70 invented an iconic character.

It started at Tech.

NOT EVEN THE ICONIC HERO figure he created could match the signature achievement of Lee David Zlotoff ’70: He put a word in the dictionary.

The word is MacGyver, defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as “To make or repair (an object) in an improvised or inventive way, making use of whatever items are at hand.”

Zlotoff created the 1980s-90s TV series centered on Angus MacGyver, that master of ingenuity who could brainstorm his way out of any fix by conjuring up amazing solutions seemingly out of nothing. (Think duct tape or Swiss Army knife.)

The show ran seven seasons, but Zlotoff retained rights to the brand – and built it into a still-growing phenomenon of spinoffs, books, a public speaking theme and more – a meme so powerful it culminated in the Oxford Dictionary’s 2015 enshrinement of the term.

NOT SURPRISINGLY to readers of this publication, Zlotoff credits his high school with inspiring (along with his dad, an inveterate tinkerer) the notion of a MacGyver.

At Tech “I learned how to turn a block of metal into something more than a block of metal, and make it useful,” he recalls. “What if you could do that with your mind, and if you could solve problems that you didn’t realize you could approach, much less solve? [Tech taught me] there’s more than one way to solve a problem.”

It would be nice to report that Zlotoff’s Brooklyn Tech background drove him directly to create the resourceful character. But the real story took a different turn.

A successful L.A.-based television scriptwriter-producer (Hill Street Blues, Remington Steele), Zlotoff was offered an absurd amount of money to develop a new network TV series based on a 26

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concept that he was told “had never been done before.”

There was just one problem: Zlotoff determined that the concept the network and studio wanted “simply wouldn’t work.” Tasked with finding another solution, he tried multiple approaches. All failed to satisfy the network suits.

Nearing desperation, Zlotoff broadcast an SOS to his writing buddies, summoning them to an intervention. “I locked the door and announced, ‘We’re not leaving this room until I have a kickass idea to write my way out of this predicament,’” he later recalled.

When they asked what he had to work with, Zlotoff ultimately admitted, “I’ve got nothing.”

A long silence ensued. Then someone – Zlotoff does not remember who – said, “Okay, let’s go with that. Your guy, don’t give him anything. That’s his deal: he’s got nothing.”

And so, as Zlotoff tells it, MacGyver was born.

THE SERIES AIRED for 139 episodes plus two TV films, was sold to over 70 foreign countries, and continues to air. As a result, the cultural hunger for more MacGyver grew and, having retained rights to the character, Zlotoff was able to feed it.

Recent years have seen a five-season re-boot on CBS, a new fiction series of MacGyver adventures, and even, who would have imagined it, MacGyver The Musical.

It premiered in Houston in February 2022 to sellout crowds, rave reviews, and awards. In true MacGyver spirit the starring title role is cast in real time out of the audience in every performance, allowing a total novice to MacGyver their way through the show. Zlotoff is now in discussions with investors and producers about mounting the next full-scale production.

But this franchise is about more than entertainWWW.BTHSALUMNI.ORG

ALUMNI

ment. From it, Zlotoff has derived The MacGyver Secret: the belief that we all have an “Inner MacGyver” we can access to find creative solutions to any kind of problem.

It’s all explained in a book he co-wrote, aptly titled “The MacGyver Secret: Connect to Your Inner MacGyver and Solve Anything.”

Zlotoff has developed the secret into a fullblown program, offering talks and workshops to audiences around the country, including the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Maker Faire, and Harvard and Stanford universities. What listeners and readers get, his promotional materials offer, is “a simple, revolutionary guide — using nothing more than a pen and paper to tap directly into your inner Mac to become an ace problem-solver.”

He also established the MacGyver Foundation, a non-profit charity “dedicated to the encouragement and support of individuals and organizations throughout the world who utilize self-reliance, non-violence and sustainability to improve people’s lives.”

With all this, what began as pure Hollywood entertainment has evolved into a model for living and thriving amid today’s increasingly complex environmental, social, and geopolitical challenges.

Or, as Zlotoff is fond of saying, “We’re all MacGyvers now.” ■

M AR T I N C H R I S TO PH ER

For more about what’s happening in the world of MacGyver, visit www.macgyver.com.

Lee Zlotoff and his wife Dayna have announced the establishment this fall of the first $2,500 MacGyver Scholarship. It will be awarded to a student in Brooklyn Tech’s Weston Research Scholars Program.

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ALUM NEWS

D R O P T E C H T I M E S A N O T E A B O U T YO U R N E W S O R U P DAT E … T E C H T I M E S @ B T H S A L U M .O R G

CLASS NOTES

ALL IN THE FAMILY

FIVE FONGS: A RECORD?

1940s Ret. Maj. General Thomas F. Rew ’40, an Air Force veteran of WWII, Korea, and Vietnam, at 101 is as old as Tech itself. He still occasionally flies a glider and he plays racquetball.

SAI SO AND DAVID MOOK LYNN FONG, émigrés from postwar China via Hong Kong, valued education above all.

Settling in America, they sent five children to Brooklyn Tech.

Dr. Pazel G. Jackson, P.E ’49 was, at 91, the oldest attendee at Homecoming 2023. He is on the board of Carver Bancorp.

DEAN KEN

David, a teacher before emigrating, worked long hours – as a waiter and then an OTB branch manager – in the U.S. Sai So tended to home and children, making sure that each sat down at the kitchen table to do their homework every afternoon.

In honor of Sai So, Dean K. Fong ’68 and his wife Linda Lee have created a fund to support female student researchers at Tech.

1950s Dr. Arno Penzias ’51, 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics winner, turned 90.

JANE

Donald (Steinberg) Sargent ’53 works full time for the Federal Aviation Administration evaluating launch licenses for ventures like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic.

“My mother wanted her daughters to have the opportunities that she struggled for and was denied in China,” Dean Fong recalled. “Whatever opportunities my brothers and I got, they had to get too. She would tell the girls, ‘You’ve got to be better than the boys because they will get opportunities you might not get.’”

1960s

The Fong and Lee Foundation Research Stipends will award grants of $2,500 each to four Tech seniors in architecture/engineering, business, law, and medicine (sciences). Preference will be given to young women of Asian descent who would be first in their family to attend college. The grant will run five years, for a total of $50,000 and 20 students.

A Father’s Son, a film spin-off of Henry Chang ’69’s detective book, won several honors, including the Audience Choice Award at the Katra Film Series.

“This is only a stepping stone,” Dean said. “We want to tell the students, ‘we’ll be there – we can help you.’”

KOKE

Dean became a successful attorney. Koke Fong ’66 was an architect before moving into real estate, banking, and business. Ken Fong ’71 was a business executive. John Fong ’77, a physician, practiced medicine and then transitioned into the healthcare insurance industry as an executive. Jane Fong ’78, also a physician, is vice chair of pediatrics at BronxCare Health System (formerly Bronx-Lebanon Hospital).

JOHN

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Baldwin Lee ’68 published Baldwin Lee: A Southern Portrait, 1983-1989. The New Yorker called him “one of the great overlooked luminaries of American picturemaking.”

1970s George L. Van Amson ’70 receives the Alexander Hamilton Medal of Columbia College this fall.

Jeff Gardere ’74, a clinical psychologist and associate professor, hosted the VH1 show Dad Camp and was the psychologist on The Real Housewives of Atlanta.

Gin Yee ’78 retired as NYPD Staten Island Borough Commander.

There could have been a sixth Fong at Tech: An older sister reached high school age before Tech began accepting young women. ■

A Flag for Juneteenth, a children’s book by Kim Taylor ’81, was published this year.

It’s not known for certain that the five Fongs hold the record, but the Alumni Foundation knows of no family with more Technite siblings. If you know of one, tell us at techtimes@bthsalum.org

1980s L. Londell McMillan, Esq. ’83 received the National Bar Association’s 2023 Entertainment Attorney Icon Award.

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Jason Birchard ’84 is the thirdgeneration owner of Veselka, the legendary Ukrainian diner. He started working there while at Tech.

Janai Nelson, Esq., ’89, President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, was commencement speaker for Suffolk University.

1990s Marc Williams ’90, former Brooklyn Tech assistant principal, was a finalist in the Toastmasters International World Championship of Public Speaking.

Terrance Blackman Stroud, Esq. ’94 is deputy commissioner, NYC Department of Social Services Office of Training & Workforce Development.

Cheryl N. Williams, Esq. ’94 is executive deputy counsel, NYC Department of Education.

2000s Minara Uddin El-Rahman, Esq. ’00 had her company, Mora Cosmetics, featured in Forbes.

Stephen Thomas ’01 is an assistant

coach for the NY Giants. He and Giants scout Michael Derice ’04 played football for Tech.

Ricardo Zayas ’01 is back on Broadway appearing in Moulin Rouge, in the lead role of Santiago.

Michelle Cadore ’02, founder of Da Spot NYC, partnered with the Alumni Foundation on “KEEPING IT 100,” a special-edition apparel collection for the Tech centennial. New merch designs debut soon.

Doris Chan, M.D. ’02 is an interventional cardiologist at NYU Langone Health, Brooklyn.

Dr. Alla Prokhovnik-Raphique ’05 of the Ukraine NGO Coordination Network was honored in City & State NY’s “50 remarkable women improving New York.”

CIty & State NY cited Mon Yuck Yu ’08, co-founder of the Academy of Medical and also public health services and policy director for Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, as one of New York State’s most powerful Asian Americans.

Class of 2009’s Jasmin Zaman, Farhana Chowdhury, and Shamita Rahman and others celebrated

ALUM LAUNCHES FUND TO SUPPORT BLACK, LATINO STUDENTS

alumni to join her in supporting it.

Bola Oyedijo ’92, Alumni Foundation vice president (left, with Mathew Davie ’23), is launching a fund to support Black and Latino students at Brooklyn Tech, and calling on all

The Brooklyn Tech Black & Latino Heritage Fund officially kicked off this fall with a contribution from Ms. Oyedijo and her appeal for alums to take part. The fund’s purpose, she said, is “to foster, through cultural celebrations, educational enrichment, and alumni engagement, a sense of community and belonging for current Black and Latino students.”

The new fund will enable TECH Talks from successful Black and Latino alumni, celebratory programming for Hispanic Heritage, Black History, and Women’s History months, and support for student organizations such as the Black Student Union (BSU) and ASPIRA. “I want current Brooklyn Tech Black and Latino students

Shamita’s wedding. Jasmin is a nurse anesthetist, Farhana is a lawyer, and Shamita is a senior VP at Citi.

2010s Mirza Uddin ’14 is co-founder and general partner of Vessel Capital, and runs the business team at Injective, a blockchain network.

Katherine Vask, Esq. ’15 (formerly Vaskevich) and Randy Haddad, Esq. ’15 graduated from NY School of Law. She clerks for a U.S. Southern District judge.

He is at Bisogno & Meyerson, LLP. Matthew Flics ’19/Cornell ’23 was a Cornell University Merrill Presidential Scholar for graduating in the top 1% of his class.

2020s Tiffany Wu ’20 received the Rev. Joseph McShane Student Achievement Award from the Fordham College Alumni Association.

Luke Sullivan ’21 is in the U.S. Naval Academy. His twin, Matt Sullivan ’21, is at Auburn University on an ROTC scholarship. ■

to feel connected to and supported by alumni,” Ms. Oyedijo said. “It is no secret that the Black and Latino student population of Brooklyn Tech is a small fraction of what it was in the 1980s and ’90s.”

Black and Latino students, she said, “do not feel the alumni connection nor are they aware of the many thousands of Black and Latino alumni who came before them.”

“As an alumna from the ’90s, I attended Brooklyn Tech when Blacks and Latinos represented over 40% of the student population. I believe that it is imperative that we alumni give back to our alma mater, providing students both connection and support through our time and financial contributions. We want all of our students to walk through Tech’s doors feeling welcome and included, knowing that this is a place where they belong.”

“I am calling on all alumni, particularly those from the ’80s and ’90s,” Ms. Oyedijo said, “to join me in making an annual financial commitment to sponsor this fund.

Together we can make a difference” ■ To learn more and to donate please visit: bthsalum.org/BLHF.

Alums: send us your professional or personal news update. Send to techtimes@bthsalum.org FA L L 2 0 2 3

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PARTING THOUGHT

AN ALLOTROPE

By Maja Siemieniewska ‘23 STANDING IN FRONT OF THE MIRROR, I placed my index finger on my top lip. Holding it in place, I repeated after the audio recording: “squirrel.”

Then again, slowly, “Squr-uhl,” and again, and again.

I focused on the movement of my mouth, visualizing every twitch of my muscles and observing how my pronunciation changed when I adjusted my tongue. I patiently repeated the exercise until I felt satisfied—only 170,000 more words to go.

Despite the painstaking efforts, my accent reduction was stalling.

Every setback raised a question as to whether my journey to becoming a US resident was worth the trouble. Back in Poland, I was a master communicator, a highly awarded orator, and a finalist in numerous national grammar competitions. But ever since coming here at age 14, I was the timid outsider with a speech impediment whom no one could understand.

My accent is the first thing anyone hears and often overshadows the importance and urgency of the ideas I am trying to share. For many, it is a motive to humiliate me.

My middle school classmates insisted on correcting even the most insignificant mistakes in my speech, such as the apparently erroneous way in which I connected the “r” and the “l” in “squirrel.”

My insecurities grew exponentially. I feared participating in class, let alone trying to make new friends. I felt misunderstood, detached, and inferior to all those around me who could effortlessly speak in the American standard. I took a vow of silence until I sounded like them. I wished there was a universal language that knew no accent.

It was in my AP chemistry class—of all courses—where this negative notion seemed to dissipate. Chemistry, the study of matter, is impartial to accent. As my teacher was discussing allotropes of chemical elements—different forms in which an element can exist in nature—I began to reflect more broadly on the idea of communication itself. Elements, like humans, communicate in unconventional ways, yet no one judges their differences. On the contrary, these variations are desired and admired.

My accent was just an allotrope of American English, not a shameful trait that needed to be eliminated. It existed naturally and it made me unique. My speech was as proficient as any American’s, only articulated in a different font, a different allotrope.

I began to ask comprehensive questions in class and share elaborate ideas with the many friends I made. I learned to look at myself with more compassion and not to take any belittling remarks on my accent personally; my self-worth was not defined by others’ misguided perceptions of me. Even if my peers saw me as an insignificant bit of carbon, I was a different allotrope—the dazzling diamond. ■ Maja Siemieniewska ’23 is a freshman at California Institute of Technology planning to major in chemical engineering, with the goal of becoming “either a big-time engineer in Silicon Valley or the next Marie Curie.”

Harness our Greatest Potential Make an investment in the school that set YOU on the path to success.

Your tax-deductible donation provides academic, extracurricular, and handson experiences that public funding cannot.

Use the enclosed reply envelope or visit bthsalumni.org/donate.

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E ASO N FAN ‘ 25

Together WE make a difference.

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Save the Date

The Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation Presents

Homecoming 2024 Friday, April 12 – Saturday, April 13, 2024 Celebrating The 50th Anniversary Class of 1974 Tech’s First-Ever Female Graduates All Class Years Ending in 4 and 9 The Technite Diamond Club (all graduates of 50 years ago or more) Reconnect with friends, classmates, and former faculty Meet current Technites Relive old memories

Become a Class Representative Check the Alumni Foundation website for details www.bthsalumni.org Contact Michelle Corley Director of Alumni Engagement and Inclusion mcorley@bthsalum.org

THANK YOU

The BROOKLYN TECH ALUMNI FOUNDATION gratefully acknowledges the following individual donors whose lifetime giving, through June 30, 2023, enables the foundation to fund educational initiatives and capital upgrades that sustain Brooklyn Tech as the premier specialized high school for STEM. Visit our website for the full donor honor roll including our corporate and foundation partners.

As of June 30, 2023 $1,000,000 + Isaac Heller ’43* Norman Kurt Keller ’54 Leonard Riggio ’58 Leandro P. Rizzuto ’56* Charles B. Wang ’62* Floyd Warkol ’65 Josh S. Weston ’46 $500,000 + John A. Catsimatidis ’66 James T. Fantaci ’64 Fred M. Grafton ’44* Victor Insetta ’57 Achilles Perry ’58 Ashok Varadhan ’90 $250,000 + Erik Klokholm ’40* Lorraine* and Michael D. Nadler ’52* Mary Jane* and Richard H. Schnoor ’49* $100,000 + David H. Abramson ’61 Lauren and Gregg Abramson Harold Antler ’46* Peter J. Cobos ’72 Charles A. DeBenedittis ’48 Susanne D. Ellis Jacob Feinstein ’60* Howard Fluhr ’59 Jeffrey M. Haitkin ’62* Herbert L. Henkel ’66 Stuart Kessler ’47* Alfred Lerner ’51* Richard Mack Stephen C. Mack William L. Mack ’57 Frederick C. Meyer ’40* Michael F. Parlamis ’58* Lee James Principe ’56* Alan M. Silberstein ’65 Louis H. Siracusano, Sr. ’60* George J. Suffal ’53 Thomas J. Volpe ’53 Michael A. Weiss ’57 $50,000 + David Abraham ’48 Martin V. Alonzo, Sr. ’48* Willard N. Archie ’61 John Arfman Anthony J. Armini ’55 Lawrence A. Baker ’61 Larry Birenbaum ’65 Joseph M. Colucci ’54 Robert F. Davey ’58 John J. Eschemuller ’65 Peter A. Ferentinos ’55 Dean Fong ’68 and Linda Lee Penny Haitkin Lawrence S. Harte ’49 Joseph J. Jacobs ’34* Joseph J. Kaminski ’56 Richard M. Kulak ’56* Rande H. Lazar ’69 Mathew M. Mandery ’61 Michael Minikes ’61

Carmine A. Morano ’72 Robert C. Ochs ’59 Michael George Reiff ’72 Sherman Rigby ’46* Edward R. Rothenberg ’61 $25,000 + Allan L. Abramson ’58 Anthony Agnello ’66 Martin V. Alonzo, Jr., Marlene Alonzo and Sabrina Alonzo Joseph Angelone ’63 Mark Arzoomanian ’83 Anthony Bartolomeo ’70 Douglas Besharov ’62 Robert H. Buggeln ’57 Larry Lee Cary ’70* Dorcey Chernick * Louis C. Cosentino ’61 Kenneth D. Daly ’84 James DiBenedetto ’71 John di Domenico ’69 Leonard Edelstein ’55 Irwin and Terry Fishberg Keith Forman ’76 Andras Frankl ’67 Jason Haitkin Alice C. Hartley * Joy H. Hsiao ’87 Eric Kaltman ’60 Penelope Kokkinides ’87 Edward T. LaGrassa ’65 Franklin F. Lee ’77 Glenn Y. Louie ’59 Lawrence C. Lynnworth ’54* Robert Marchisotto ’47* Betty J. Mayer * Arnold J. Melloy ’40* Margaret Murphy ’83 Murray H. Neidorf ’45* Bert Reitman ’63 John B. Rofrano ’61 Patrick Romano ’43* George E. Safiol ’50 Harry Scheuer ’48 Anthony P. Schirripa ’67 William Sheluck, Jr. ’58* Richard Schwartz ’53 John C. Siltanen ’31* Lawrence Sirovich ’51 Ned Steele ’68 Chester Wong ’94 William H. Wong ’64 Anonymous $10,000 + Jeanine Aguirre-Ramirez ’88 Frederick Haig Ajootian ’41* Jean M. Bahr Emanuel Becker * Cindy Lee Bird-Kue ’86 Harry H. Birkenruth ’49 Samir K. Bose * LeRoy N. Callender ’50 Wilton Cedeno ’82 Samuel David Cheris ’63 Calvin Chin ’84 Nicholas Y.L. Chu ’77 John V. Cioffi ’67

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Leonard B. Comberiate ’69 Peter J. Coppolino ’61 William A. Davis, Jr. ’59 Thomas C. DeCanio ’63 Elizabeth Decolvenaere ’08 Alfonso D’Elia ’67 Robert J. Domanoski ’47* Murray Dropkin ’62 Jonathan D. Dubin ’74 Jeff Erdel ’63 Charles D. Federico ’47 Richard R. Ferrara ’59 Victor M. Finmann Bernard R. Gifford ’61 Jeffrey L. Goldberg ’69 Robert J. Golden ’63 Jacob Goldfield Arnold Goldman ’73 Domingo Gonzalez ’72 Eugene J. Gottesman ’47 George Graf ’70 William H. Henry ’57 K. Steven Horlitz ’64 Michelle Y. JohnsonLewis ’79 Edward H. Kadushin ’57 Charles Kyrie Kallas ’37* Leslie P. Kalmus ’56 Steve H. Kaplan ’63 Sheldon Katz ’52 Nancy, Mitch, Ernie and Felix Kaye Barbara and Richard Kessler Elizabeth Korevaar Eliza Kwong ’93 Richard E. LaMotta ’60* Salvatore Lentini ’79 Michael Levine ’61 Stephen J. Lovell ’57 Joel O. Lubenau ’56 Frank Robert Luszcz ’61 John M. Lyons ’66* James H. M, Malley ’58 Sidney A. Mayer ’46* Susan J. Mayham ’76* Ellen Mazur Thomson Patricia Vasbinder* and Victor B. Montana ’60* George W. Moran ’61 John Moy ’58 Shana Mummert John R. Murphy ’61 Alan S. Natter ’69 Hau Yee Ng-Lo ’80 Floyd R. Orr ’55 Bola Oyedijo ’92 Eugene Picone ’76 Daniel K. Roberts ’43* Edward Roffman ’68 Charles J. Rose ’70 Robert Murray Rosen ’51* William J. Rouhana, Jr. ’69 Edward P. Salzano ’64 Roger E. Schechter ’70 Alfred Schroeder ’46* Elizabeth A. Sciabarra* Phyllis Scroggie Irwin Ira Shapiro ’47 Moshe Siegel

Roy B. Simpson ’41* Barry Sohnen ’70 James Spool ’46* Jonnie* and Ralph H. Stahl ’45* Daniel Stahl Robert J. Stalzer ’59 Ronald P. Stanton ’46* Stuart Subotnick Joseph N. Sweeney ’48 Michael Tannenbaum ’58 Daniel Tomai Wesley E Truesdell ’46* Armand J. Valenzi ’44* George L. Van Amson ’70 Salvatore J. Vitale, Jr. ’56 Ralph B. Wagner ’51 Louis Walkover ’37* Denice Clarke Ware ’83 Stephen Weinryb ’75 Anre Williams Steven Wishnia ’66 Douglas Yagilowich ’76 Peter Yan ’88 Randi Zinn Anonymous $5,000 + Anthony J. Abbate ’59 Kenneth R. Adamo ’68 Ron S. Adler ’68 Louis G. Adolfsen ’67 Kenneth S. Albano ’68 John P. Albert Esq. ’90 Michael A. Antino ’60 Joseph F. Azara, Jr. ’64 Donald Bady ’48* Rudolph Bahr, Jr. ’41* Randell Barclay Eric D. Barthell ’75 Harvey L. Beeferman ’59 Kay ’80 and Jim Benjamin ’80 David J. Bershad ’57 Theodore Bier Syd Blatt Ronald Blum ’67 Anthony Borra ’58 Mariano Borruso ’71 Thomas Breglia ’76 Robert B. Bruns ’55 Charles Cahn, Jr. Dominic N. Castellano ’45 Joseph A. Cavallo ’58 Sylvia Cember * Robert J. Ciemian ’59 Jose R. Claxton ’82 Deirdre D. Cooke ’80 Brian Cosgrove Pat C. and Joseph L. Cuzzocrea, Sr. Kenneth D’Alessandro ’66 James E. Dalton ’49 Horace H. Davis ’84 Fred M. del Gaudio ’71 Frederick DeMatteis ’40* Lucia DeSanti Edward Diamond ’63 Ronald T Diamond Robert C. DiChiara ’63 Robert H. Digby ’61 James Dimon Vicent D’Onofrio ’66

Robert W. Donohue ’60* Mary-Jean Eastman Margery Elfin Barry D. Epstein ’58 Domenick J. Esposito ’65 Samuel Estreicher ’66 Murray Farash ’52 Arthur A. Feder ’45* Robert Femenella ’72 Al Ferrara Clifford H. Fisher ’59 J Gary G. Fox ’57 Keith Franklin ’78 David L Fung ’81 Michelle D. Garcia ’78 Norbert F. Giesse ’83 Adrienne D. Gonzalez ’94 Herbert A. Granath ’48* Kenyatta M. Green ’89 Michael Greenstein ’65* Steven Grenell ’63 Robert Gresl ’46* Arnold Gruber ’59 Mario Guerrero ’86 Ronald D. Haggett ’54 William L. Haines Steven A. Hallem ’72 Konrad E. Hayashi ’73 Carl Erik Heiberg ’92 Robert J. Heilen ’53 Gordon H. Hensley ’47* John Hensley Tomas Hernandez Jr. ’73 Christopher Hong ’09 Clifford A. Hudsick ’61 John J. Huson ’52 Arlene Isaacs-Lowe ’76 Frederic H. Jacobs ’65 John Jarrard Allan C. Johnson ’28* Gary Jurick Gerard Justvig ’75 Peter Kakoyiannis ’65 Arthur H. Kettenbeil ’67* Carl H. Kiesewetter ’55 Kiseon Ko Peter Konieczny ’62 Eugene V. Kosso ’42 Robert M. Krasny ’69 Bert Krauss ’50 Costantino Lanza ’72 Lloyd J. Lazarus ’63 Daniel A. Le Donne ’45 Bruce Lederman ’66 Chester Lee ’66 Victor Lee ’66 Danny Lee-Lap ’91 Joel F. Lehrer ’48 Marvin J. Levine ’65 Sidney Levitsky ’53 Nathan Lipke ’92 John Liu ’98 Raymond M. Loew ’58 Carol Loewenson Thomas Lowry Richard R. Lukaj ’87 Luke Mangal ’89 Taahira Maynard ’99 Stephen Mazur Londell McMillan ’83 Ira Meislik ’61 Steven D. Menoff ’72 Michele Meyer

Edward D. Miller ’56* Joseph Montalbo ’74 Francis C. Moon ’57 Alfred J. Mulvey ’67 Clyde Munz ’74 Kaeisha T. O’Neal ’99 Stanley H. Pantowich Gurpreet S. Pasricha ’86 Robert J. Paterna ’72 Robert J. Pavan ’47 Regina M. Pitaro Emanuel Polichronakis ’68 Lee H. Pomeroy ’50* Jeff Porrello Valentine P. Povinelli, Jr. ’59 Robert Puccio Bertram Quelch ’45* Jonathan Riegel Joan Riegel David Rios Kirk Robinson Edward M. Rosensteel ’74 Herb Ross ’41 Randi Rossignol Robert R. Rowe ’45* Lawrence G. Rubin ’43 Dan M. Ruesterholz ’56 Richard K. Ruff ’58 Seth Ruzi ’76 Erwin L. Schaub ’46 Roger E. Schechter ’70 Charles H Schmidt ’70 Ernest R. Schultz ’25* William B. Siegel ’66 Leon C. Silverman ’57 Michael Simpson ’90 Irwin Smiley ’46* Jonathan David Smith ’80 Richard E. Sorensen ’60 Mitchell E. Stashower ’83 Ivan D. Steen ’54 Robert C. Stewart Robert Sumanis Jacob Tapper Peter M. Taras ’77 Richard S. Taylor ’57 John Thonet Carlton P. Tolsdorf, Jr. ’68 Mike Trovini Richard W. Turnbull ’69 Lance Turner ’70 David W. Wallace ’42 Laura Warren Craig A.C. Westcarr ’88 Kenneth M. White Elizabeth M. Wieckowski ’79 Samuel Wiener Grayling G. Williams ’76* Russell P. Wong ’79 William C. Wurst ’67 George A. Yabroudy ’48 Joni A. Yoswein Lloyd Zeitman ’69 Barry Zemel ’64 Laurie Zephyrin ’92 Erwin A. Zeuschner ’53 Wei-Jing Zhu ’86 * Deceased WWW.BTHSALUMNI.ORG

Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation OFFICERS President Denice Clarke (DC) Ware ’83 Vice Presidents David Lee ’78 Bola Oyedijo ’92 Anthony P. Schirripa ’67 Treasurer Jim DiBenedetto ’71 Secretary Ned Steele ’68 Directors John Albert ’90 Wilton Cedeño ’82 Horace Davis ’84 Tomas Hernandez ’73 Lesleigh Irish-Underwood ’82 Penelope Kokkinides ’87 Amy Kong ’99 Edward T. LaGrassa ’65 Tatia R. Mays-Russell ’84 Daniel D. Miller ’99 Gretchen Mullins Kim ’84 Margaret Murphy ’83 Achilles Perry ’58 Valmira Popinara ’18 Deepti Sharma ’04 Michael A. Weiss ’57 Giselle Williams ’92 Honorary Director Leonard Riggio ’58 Student Representatives Saranika Chakraborty ’25 Charlie Smith ’25 Teresa Xiao ’24

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE IT FILLS ME WITH IMMENSE JOY to share with you the latest edition of our annual alumni magazine. I hope you’ve enjoyed delving into the rich tapestry of experiences that shape who we are as Technites, and the impact we have on the world around us.

The profiles of our recent graduates, each narrating their unique journey, resonate with the core values of Brooklyn Tech, as they embody resilience, determination, and the unyielding spirit that defines our beloved alma mater. As Technites, we come together to support and uplift one another, making us stronger as a community, both locally and globally.

The strength of our alumni base is indeed extraordinary. Together, we have continued to support our school, empowering the next generation with enriched curriculum, extra-curricular and athletic activities, cutting-edge equipment, and innovative resources for labs and classrooms. The impact of our collective contributions is palpable. It ignites a sense of pride in knowing that we are making a lasting difference in the lives of our students.

Outside of Tech’s rigorous STEM activities, one of the pillars that has consistently defined our school’s excellence is its visual and performing arts program. As I reflect on my own journey, I find myself transported back to the stage, where I too was part of the drama club, bringing to life musicals like Hair and The Music Man. Those moments of collaboration and teamwork not only nurtured our creativity but taught us invaluable life skills. The arts program at Brooklyn Tech continues to inspire and shape our students’ lives, fostering confidence, curbing fears, and honing their presentation skills.

Our Technite identity is a powerful bond that unites us all. It is an identity that transcends backgrounds and unites us under the banner of excellence, curiosity, and innovation.

I am profoundly grateful to be part of this incredible community. Your unwavering support, dedication, and passion have been the driving force behind the Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation’s success. Together, we will continue to uplift and empower the next generation of Technites, ensuring that their journeys are as transformative and meaningful as ours were.

Courtney J. Ulrich ’90

STAFF Executive Director Courtney J. Ulrich ’90 Chief Educational Officer Mathew M. Mandery, EdD ’61 Director of Alumni Engagement Michelle Corley Administrative Assistant Urani Persaud Director of Communications Lisa Trollbäck Director of Data and Analytics Leticia Villalón-Soler BROOKLYN TECH ALUMNI FOUNDATION PO Box 26608 Brooklyn, NY 11202-6608 718.797.2285 info@bthsalum.org www.bthsalumni.org BROOKLYN TECHNICAL HIGH SCHOOL David Newman, Principal

Plan Now for Your Legacy Your planned gift to the Alumni Foundation can provide transformational learning opportunities, upgrades to classrooms and labs — and tax advantages during your lifetime.

Let’s discuss what we can build together!

Contact Courtney J. Ulrich, Executive Director: 718-797-2285 or development@bthsalum.org

Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation, Inc. P.O. Box 26608 • Brooklyn, NY 11202-6608 www.bthsalumni.org

NonProfit Org US Postage PAID PPCO

Performing Arts are a hit at Tech: See page 8

Stationed, 2 02 0, alcohol markers on paper, media major Beverly Siew ’23. S e e page 2 22

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