Bride Maggie Darver Orenstein ’08 with Daisies Katherine “Kiki” Dreyfuss ’08, Kate Reeder ’08, Christine Peterson ’08, Tiana Tippen ’08, Mandy Cline ’08, Mary Alex Smith ’08, Susan Weiner ’08, Erica Schenck ’08, Heather Wolf ’08, Tracy Diers ’08, Ashley Bolden ’08, Sasha Nouri ’08, Haley Huffines ’08, and Lindsay Campbell ’08
earning her master’s in vocal performance. Mary Alex Smith also returned to Dallas after graduating from Texas Tech, with a major in public relations and a minor in restaurant, hotel, and institutional management, to work for the Society of Petroleum Engineers, as well as part-time for Park Cities Events. Avery Ziblich traveled abroad, living in Beirut for two months this past summer, before returning to Dallas, as well. Christine Chow is currently in Dallas, working on a start-up called Jinbu (www.jinbu.us) and in business development for a small oncology firm. She has also been volunteering with a refugee family from Bhutan and they “light up [her] life!” In a similar entrepreneurial spirit, Tiana Tippen has begun her own online jewelry company called “Corraca Fine Jewelry” selling unique silver designs. She will be launching her own website soon! While Rosie Parravano was initially living in Dallas working for CASA and Talley Dunn Gallery post-graduation, she has now moved to Boston to attend Harvard Law School. Also attending law school are Peyton Budd and Becca Fine, reunited as classmates at Texas Law. Meredith Jones is at UT, finishing her undergraduate degree in social work before she starts her graduate school applications. When she isn’t in class, she spends time working at a domestic violence shelter. You can
also find Daisies Sarah Butt, Kassie Lorenzen, and Kiki Dreyfuss in Austin. Working as a production manager for Big House Sound, Sarah coordinates audio, video, and lighting for concerts and festivals, and enjoys riding her horse Luis, who lives nearby, on the weekends. Kassie is incredibly happy with her job at Advantage Sales & Marketing, where she manages her clients’ relationship and distribution with convenience store customers. And Kiki is employed in the Treasury Management Department at Frost Bank in Austin. Also living in Texas is Laura Jean Stargardt, who recently moved from Fort Worth to pursue a master of science degree in systems engineering management at Texas A&M. Katie Meidell is furthering her studies in engineering, as well, working on a master’s in aerospace engineering at the University of Michigan. Two other ’08 Daisies have joined the engineering field: Mary Susan McDowell is working for Baker Hughes as a research and design engineer in Houston, focusing on Completion Tools. And after graduating from the Naval Academy, Alicia Crawford is putting to good use her degree in oceanography in Coronado, California, where she is stationed on the USS Gary FFG 51, working in the engineering department as the Electricians Officer. Her first deployment is next summer
to the Western Pacific, and we’re all wishing her the very best! Two of our alumnae are in their second year of Teach for America; Carey Evans is in Charlotte, North Carolina, finishing her placement, and Melissa Sullivan is in San Antonio doing the same at a KIPP Charter School. Melissa teaches sixth-grade science, and has recently been named the sixth-grade level chair! She took her love of teaching to Tanzania this past summer, where she spent several months with a kindergarten class. Emilie Christian is also teaching – and training – at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center, while she applies for doctoral graduate programs in English literature. She also tutors high school students and “glamorously,” she says, works at Barnes & Noble. Additionally, she continues to work with a professor from her alma mater of Reed College on a collaborative article on gender and disability theory, which they hope to present at the Lewis & Clark Gender Studies Symposium next spring. After completing her master’s in performance and related studies from Goldsmiths, University of London, Adrien May is now back in Arlington, where she teaches choir to seventh through twelfth grade students at a small private school, while she herself studies for the LSAT. And lastly in the education field, Jenny Mathai is pursuing her master’s in severe special education at Boston College’s Lynch School of Education. She received the Donovan Urban Teaching Scholarship and the Bank of America Leaders in Urban Education Fellowship, and plans to graduate in June 2014. Others pursuing further education include Lindsay Dolan, who is a second-year Ph.D. student in political science at Columbia, where she is researching the relationship between international security, aid politics, and natural resource conflict in developing countries. Shannon Blakey is also a Ph.D. student studying clinical psychology at the University of Wyoming, specializing in the nature and treatment of anxiety disorders. She has, only days before this update was written, defended her thesis – way
SPRING
2014
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