CLASS NOTES
allows users to identify T-cell functional signatures through direct visualizations of the phenotype and function of 100s to 1,000s of individual T cells on a single platform in just days. Josh Swanson (CS) received his PhD in mathematics
from the University of Washington in Summer 2018. He’s now in the middle of a three-year post-doc at UC San Diego where he’s busy with many research projects.
2011 Jenni Rinker (engineering) finished her PhD in
mechanical engineering from Duke University in 2016, took a post-doc in the Loads and Controls section of the Wind Energy department at Denmark Technical University and became a researcher in 2018. She works on projects, mentors M.S./ PhD students and teaches an M.S. course. She’s also a sponsored unicyclist who recently finished Kungsleden and other adventures.
2012
investigating the link between the transcriptional regulator KDM5 and intellectual disability using Drosophila as a model. He intends to pursue a residency in neurology with an emphasis on translational neuroscience research.
2013 In May, Laura Maguire (physics) completed her PhD in biophysics from the University of Colorado Boulder. She plans to work in biotech. After graduating from Mudd, Taylor McAdam (math) started a PhD program at University of Texas at Austin and began research in the field of homogeneous dynamics under the supervision of Amir Mohammadi. After four years in Austin, she followed her advisor to UC San Diego to continue the research. She graduated from UCSD in June and moved to New Haven, Connecticut, to start an NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship working with Professor Hee Oh at Yale. Taylor writes, “I am very excited for this new stage of my career, as it puts me well on my way toward achieving my goal of becoming a professional student. In the next few years, I will be making frequent trips to San Diego to visit my boyfriend, Guillermo Esparza ’13 (physics), who is in the materials science PhD program at UCSD, and our cat, Igloo, who is very small and very soft.”
island in southern Germany mingling with 30 Nobel Laureates and young scientists (from undergrad to post-doc) from around the world. She writes, “The mood was electric, with everyone growing more and more energetic and inspired as we chatted about school and life, astro and quantum. And best of all, I got to meet and talk with some of my personal heroes, like Dave Wineland, Steve Chu and Bill Phillips.” In May 2019, Natasha Parikh (biology) completed a PhD in cognitive neuroscience at Duke University. “My dissertation focused on understanding how people with varying levels of anxiety regulate the emotions evoked by negative memories, and it was funded by the DoD’s National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship. I’m now completing a teaching postdoc at Harvard University, developing and teaching three new courses for the psychology department and furthering my research in affective neuroscience. In my free time, I’ve been enjoying singing in various choirs, rock climbing and fostering cats.”
Bryan Visser (biology) says,
Renee Gittins (engineering) has followed a winding career path that led her from biotech to game development. She writes, “Harvey Mudd prepared me well for my various pursuits, including my initial switch from system and design engineer to software development engineer. Five years ago I formed my own game studio, developing an adventure crafting game called Potions: A Curious Tale. I’m excited to release Potions, as I’ve seen how it inspires girls with its bold, resourceful, young witch main character.” In July, Renee was appointed executive director of the International Game Developers Association, the world’s largest non-profit membership organization representing game developers. Hayden Hatch (biology) is an MD/PhD (MSTP)
candidate at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He’s completing his PhD in the lab of Dr. Julie Secombe (Depts. of Genetics and Neuroscience),
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HARVEY MUDD COLLEGE
“Hopefully wrapping up my PhD in biomedical sciences at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. I’m developing a novel and simple method to measure DNA supercoiling in vivo. I’m doing this to discover patterns of supercoiling in E. coli and then relating them replication fork collapse and chromosome segregation.”
2014 Fangzhao An (physics) has spent the last five years
doing cold atom research: building a Bose-Einstein experiment from scratch and using it to model all sorts of cool lattice models from condensed matter physics. The experience has allowed her to experience the full spectrum of lab research. Recently, she got the chance to attend the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting, spending a week on a small
Joshua Vasquez (engineering) has spent the last four years working in a variety of industries, from robotics to automated lab instrumentation. He writes, “While my work rarely had a dull moment, I wanted a more personal story than the ’engineerby-day,’ so I started a journey into outfitting my garage with a few homemade machine-shop tools. The dream? To create animatronics from the comfort of my own homebrew machine shop. After a few years of this side-project, I met a professor looking to bring low-cost CNC machines to new audiences for creative work, and we joined forces. In the last year, I’ve switched gears into grad school at the University of Washington helping make that
