Alumni Newsmakers

’94, is mindful of her pioneering role as the new president of the Case Alumni Association. She’s only the second woman to lead the 134-year-old association — after Susie Nagorney ’76 — and the first president to have graduated from the Case School of Engineering, which was created in 1992.

Collins ascended to the presidency of the Board of Directors in July, replacing Marv Schwartz ’68, PhD ’73, who finished his two-year term.

“There’s some transition occurring” within the alumni corps and on campus, said Collins, an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.

CWRU Provost Ben Vinson III is now leading a strategic planning process to chart the future course of the university. Collins supports that effort but said her priority as CAA president will be to forward the vision of Dean Venkataramanan “Ragu” Balakrishnan. “I’m very excited. I think it’s a great time to be in this role,” she said. The dean would like to strengthen the school’s research capabilities, and Collins said alumni can help by supporting the maintenance and enhancement of research labs.

She would also like to introduce scholarships for international students, who have become an important part of the student body. Presently, there are no scholarship programs that appeal to Case’s international graduates.

“They’re alumni, too,” Collins said. “And they should be able to participate fully, while they are here and when they leave.”

Collins, a resident of Cleveland Heights, came to the Case School of Engineering in 2013 from Swagelok, where she was a senior research fellow, bringing expertise in advanced manufacturing. An inventor on four patents, she served as president of ASM International in 2014-2015.

In addition to a new president, the June meeting introduced four new board members:

• Jessica Palmer ’10, MEM ’11, of

Brunswick, Ohio, is a project manager for Vitamix

• Steve Simmons ’79, MS ’82, of

Mullica Hill, New Jersey, is a senior field solution architect for CDW

• Carlin Jackson ’15, of Cleveland

Heights, Ohio, is the founder and principal consultant at Theo.

Wyes David, Ltd • Kenneth A. “Ken” Barker ’70, of

Allison Park, Pennsylvania, is the former senior vice president, director of quantitative analysis and research for Mellon Equity Associates, LLC

Chris Wentz ’13 received the $25,000 first prize check from Bob Pavey, left, and JumpStart CEO Ray Leach.

Five startups connected to Case Western Reserve shared $70,000 in prize money, and a boost of confidence, at the second annual Morgenthaler-Pavey Startup Competition this summer.

First place and $25,000 went to Everykey, a company with a product for the times — a device designed to unlock computer networks and mobile phones, making passwords unnecessary.

“We started Everykey as undergraduates at Case, so winning the MP startup competition brings us full circle, and it's possibly the most meaningful award we've been given!” founder Chris Wentz ’13 said in an email.

His four-year-old, 10-person company in Little Italy, staffed largely by Case graduates, has shifted its focus from consumers to business customers. The cash infusion will help to fuel the change in strategy and build new features, he said.

“The MP startup competition is a great piece of validation that we're back on the right track,” Wentz wrote.

The contest seeks to identify and support promising startups with CWRU connections. It was co-founded by Bob Pavey, a CWRU trustee, in honor of his late investment partner David Morgenthaler. The second edition attracted more than 50 entries. On June 29, six finalists pitched a panel of investors at a campus gathering. The other winners were:

Second place ($15,000) — Nexus A.I., a company that applies artificial intelligence to staffing decisions.

Third place tie ($10,000) — Boundary Labs, a developer of sensor technology, founded by Prince Ghosh ’19.

Yeu Patch, a maker of the potholefilling Thump Pad.

Mandato Prize ($10,000) — Quanterra, a provider of aerial imaging analytics, lead by Shoshana Ginsburg, PhD ’15.

’19 is off to England this fall to study astrophysics at the University of Cambridge. It’s an opportunity made possible by a Gates Cambridge Scholarship, which is bestowed upon a chosen few.

She’s one of only 34 students in the United States selected for the scholarship, which recognizes intellectual acumen, leadership and social commitment. Established by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the scholarship funds a postgraduate degree at Cambridge for students outside of the United Kingdom.

Masterson graduated in May with degrees in mathematics and astronomy and physics. She was helped in her academic journey by a Junior Senior Scholarship from the Case Alumni Foundation.

“I couldn’t have done it without the mentorship that I’ve had at Case [Western Reserve],” she told The Daily, noting the instrumental support of her advisers and professors.

She is the first CWRU student to win a Gates scholarship since Jason Tabachnik ’13, who was also a math major. Masterson plans to study astrophysics at Cambridge and peer deeper into a universe she became fascinated with at Case.

“The breadth of research that I’ve done has allowed me to see that astronomy really is the field for me,” Masterson told The Daily.

Wapakoneta, the hometown of Neil Armstrong (“…one small step for man…”), celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing with a host of events, including a parade through the city of 10,000 in northwest Ohio.

Leading that grand march July 14 was NASA astronaut and Case alumnus Don Thomas ’77, PhD. Town leaders say he was just the man for the moment.

Thomas, a Cleveland native who earned his bachelor’s in physics from Case, was selected as a mission specialist in NASA’s 13th group of astronauts in 1990. He is a veteran of four space shuttle missions, three aboard Columbia and one aboard Discovery.

Today, Thomas serves as director of the Hackerman Academy of Mathematics and Science at Towson University. He’s also a sought-after public speaker who encourages young people to prepare to become the next generation of scientists, engineers and explorers.

Parade organizer Molly MaxsonKlemenic told the Sidney (Ohio) Daily News that Thomas makes Wapakoneta think of its favorite son.

“We can think of no better grand marshal than Dr. Thomas, whose life of service speaks to the values exemplified by our own Neil Armstrong,” she said.

Thomas recalled how Armstrong accepted an invitation to witness one of his space shuttle launches — and came a day early to not miss anything.

“It was the thrill of my life,” Thomas said.

Anu Garg ’02 has been supplying a word a day, every day, to vocabulary enthusiasts around the globe for 25 years. That remarkable consistency (from com- + sistere – “to take a stand”) began with classmates at the Case Institute of Technology.

Today, his daily vocabulary primer, Wordsmith, reaches nearly 400,000 subscribers in 171 countries. That makes Garg — a self-described word nerd — one of the foremost promoters of the English language.

He began sending his word-a-day emails in 1994 to fellow Case students while earning his master's in computer science.

“I started this as a hobby when I was in graduate school and it remained a hobby," Garg told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in May.

He continued to send out a daily email for the 16 years he worked as a research engineer, programmer or consultant for AT&T Labs, MCI and others. Eventually, the email list grew so long, he was working two jobs and he had to pick one.

He chose Wordsmith.

“English has more than half a million words, and one lifetime is not enough to meet all of them,” Garg said. "But this is what I do.”

Find his work at Wordsmith.org