CLASS NOTES
from the PCDS community has been tremendous and I want to thank the many faculty, students, parents, and alumni who have been able to donate their resources and time to empower these inspiring and hard-working scholars. This year, I was also blessed with my own educational opportunity. After being rejected by all 17 medical schools to which I had applied two years ago, I was admitted this year to my top choice, Mayo Medical School at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. I joined my 49 classmates in July and every day has been a surreal and cherished adventure. Mayo is incredibly supportive and I will be going back to India periodically throughout the next few years to help as many children as we have the resources to educate, heal, and empower.”
to pursue my doctorate in clinical psychology next fall.”
Sophie Stens spent a month in Kenya, in Kibera, Africa’s largest slum, working as a student dentist. (Read about her experience at sofiastenson.blog-
Courtney Van Cott married Alex John in May in Milwaukee, Wis. Pictured are Sandra Theis, Courtney Van Cott, Scott Griffen, and Michaela Johnson-Clague—all ’06.
spot.com.) After the month in Kenya, she climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. Sofia is currently a third-year dental student at The University of Washington. The photo shows her with her mother at Sofia’s white coat ceremony from dental school. Drew Teer writes that he “is part of a team conducting a study with a military veteran population to prove the efficacy of a new treatment we’ve pioneered for comorbid PTSD and substance use at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. I plan
John Tierney started his third year of medical school at Temple University in May, and spent the summer on surgery rotation. He shared a photo from
Christmas 2012 that includes four ’06 alumni. Pictured left-to-right are John Schupbach, Tracy Thomas, John Tierney, and Nick Barranco.
2007 Ross Bridgeman is now based in Los Angeles but traveled the country this fall playing at over 30 colleges and universities with R&B singer Rayvon Owen. In October he appeared as Rapunzel’s Prince in Studio Tenn’s production of Into the Woods in Nashville, Tenn. Clare Burnham recently relocated to Austin, Tex. She graduated from Ohio State in 2011, started at Abercrombie & Fitch in retail merchandising in Columbus, Ohio, and then moved back
to Phoenix and into Spiritual Gangster to oversee product development and marketing. She’s now an Assistant Store Manager for Lululemon in Texas as well as a production consultant for Spiritual Gangster—and also a spin instructor! Rebecca Cianci Grennon’s husband Joe returned from a nine-month deployment in Afghanistan in February. They celebrated their second wedding anniversary on August 27 in San Diego. This was their first anniversary spent together since Joe was in Afghanistan last year. Shahmeer Halepota is in his second year at the University of California Berkeley School of Law, otherwise known as Boalt Hall, where he is student president. Carsten Hamann is a third-year student at Loma Linda University School of Medicine. His wife Kaylee completed her master’s in mathematics at the University of California Riverside and continues with coursework toward a Ph.D. Asher Landay writes, “I’m living in Los Angeles and working at ICM Partners, a major Hollywood talent agency. I was recently accepted into the agent trainee program where I’ve learned more about different areas of the business and heard personal stories from notable figures in the industry through our weekly seminars. In my spare time, I love going to the beach or hitting up a hiking trail. This past summer, I reconnected with some other alums who recently moved to LA including Schooner Sonntag ’09, Eric Fram ’09, Cole Goodyear ’10, and Jasleen Khanuja ’05. It’s been great catching up on what they’ve been up to and where they are headed!” 57