Alumni Updates

Where are you now? Let us know at ischool.uw.edu/alumni/updates.

Informatics

Lauren Appelbaum, ’13, is a technical editor at Amazon Web Services after a few years as a technical writer . Dylan Babbs, ’17, is working as a product designer at Uber . Hamed Barahimi, ’11, is the IT director for Inpatient Systems & Services at Stanford Health Care in Palo Alto, California . He got his master’s from the UW in Health Informatics and Health Information Management in 2017 . Drew Before, ’17, is working as a lead front-end developer at Nintendo . He’s working on rebuilding Nintendo .com from the ground up to support an integrated e-commerce store .

Andrey Butenko, ’21, is working as a software developer at Amazon Web Services . He also volunteers as a Python instructor with the Microsoft TEALS Program . Eric Cohen, ’21, is an operations associate at Fraym, a geospatial data science company headquartered in Arlington, Virginia . Michael Cohen, ’12, is a software development manager at Oracle Cloud Infrastructure .

Nina Dang, ’15, is working at Asana in San Francisco .

Greyson Fields, ’21, is working as a product manager at VMware on the Cloud Commerce team .

Peter Freschi, ’17, celebrated his 4-year anniversary working at Qualtrics . He was recently promoted to senior software test engineer . Godgiven Grogan, ’20, reported starting on her MBA at Washington State University . “What else am I supposed to do during this pandemic?” she says . Muhammad Hussain, ’19, is working at Salesforce as a technical architect .

Liz Johnke, ’10, was working as a principal product designer at Boeing, leading the UX team for the Manufacturing Operations Management Tool Suite, supporting 90,000 global factory workers . Liz is a Boeing associate technical fellow and the first woman to earn the designation for UX design and design thinking at Boeing . Shaarika Kaul, ’19, is working as a marketing data analyst at Visa . She is also working on the second book in the “Mindful Mansi” series with her co-author . She still plays cello, sings, and models for South Asian designers . Locksley Kolakowski, ’21, joined Accenture as a software architect analyst . She started the online MSIM program this fall with her two siblings, who are also Informatics alumni . Her twin sister is working at Avanade and her brother at Amazon .

Jacob Leighty, ’16, is working as a hybrid UX designer/software engineer at T-Mobile .

Kevin Ly, ’16, is a program manager for Facebook and Instagram Shops . Lilian Mburu, ’20, is working in downtown Boston at Mass General Hospital, in its oncology department as a system design engineer . She reports that she misses Seattle most days, but Boston is growing on her . Matthew Mun, ’21, is working for Amazon as a software development engineer . Katherine Root, ’12, is working as the director of design at Mighty Networks, a company in the community and creator economy space . Atinder Saini, ’16, is at OpenTable, where he has been building products since 2019 . He gained hands-on experience as a product manager and product/UX designer over the past five years . Mikala Salley, ’12, is working as a quality assurance engineer at Amazon . Mikala is a Seattle Sounders supporter and outdoor enthusiast .

Kecheng Sun, ’20, started as a UX designer at PwC’s Experience Center . He was relocating to Chicago to start his new journey following the completion of a master’s degree . Ashmann Syngle, ’21, is working as a software engineer at HBO Max . Erik Thomas-Hommer, ’21, is working as a software developer at Amazon while trying to start a hospitality SaaS company on the side .

Caleb Thorsteinson, ’16, is working as a software engineer, building real-time translation systems at Amazon . Andrew Vitollo, ’11, is a senior product manager at Trusona, working on a usable and secure solution to solve the problems associated with using passwords on the internet .

Nicholas Xu, ’21, is working as a program manager at Microsoft . Jessie Zhang, ’17, is a student in the MS in Human Centered Design & Engineering program at the University of Washington .

MLIS

Kristina J. Alayan, MLIS Law ’10, was appointed associate dean for library & technology and associate law school

professor at the University of Maryland’s ontologist at Amazon, working directly nonpartisan campaign for Clackamas Francis King Carey School of Law . with the website taxonomy on a global County Clerk and will be on the ballot in Margaret Ansell, ’12, was awarded scale . 2022 . promotion and tenure at the University Bethany Ellerbrook, ’19, accepted a Katharine Macy, ’14, earned a of Florida . Margaret is currently serving permanent position with the Walt Disney promotion to associate librarian with as the associate chair of the Gainesville Animation Research Library . tenure at Indiana University Purdue Health Science Center Library at the rank Kelly Grader, ’20, is working as of associate university librarian . a medical librarian for a research Audrey Barbakoff, ’10, completed her institution/teaching hospital in Los Doctorate of Education in organizational Angeles . University, Indianapolis, where she is the collection assessment librarian and subject liaison to business and economics . change and leadership from the University of Southern California . Jennifer Brady, ’17, followed her MLIS with her Doctorate of Education at Lindenwood University in higher education administration and instructional design . She’s now the library director for the Southwest Baptist University Springfield campus and the personal Nicole Gustavsen, ’16, has been the STEM liaison librarian at Gonzaga University in Spokane since 2019 . Jessica Jones (Gimse), ’15, has started in a new position as the reference archivist at the Puget Sound Regional Branch of the Washington State Archives . Nichole Maiman Waterman, ’12, launched a consulting firm — Waterman Works — in 2020, specializing in fundraising and development operations for small and medium-sized nonprofits . This year, she began working with the IF Project as its first development director . Joe Marquez, ’06, is working as a UX researcher at Zipline . librarian to the College of Health professions .

Kawanna Bright, ’12, earned her Ph .D . in 2018 at the University of Denver in research methods and statistics and is now an assistant professor at East Carolina University . This year, she and colleagues were awarded an IMLS grant for a project titled Identifying Opportunities for Retention of BIPOC Librarians Using Survival Analysis . Grove Kroger, ’74, had an essay, “Lawrence Durrell’s Paradise Lost,” published in the 2021 issue of Limberlost Review: A Literary Journal of the Mountain West, and his article “Uncertain Landfalls: In Search of , was Ingrid Mattson, MLIS Law ’12 appointed associate dean for library services, professor of legal research, and director of the law library at Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University .

Odysseus” appeared in the June 2021 issue of the Amsterdam Quarterly . His poem “Out Here the Distances” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2020 by Synaeresis magazine . Kevin Mittge, ’94, is the adult services librarian and Mapleton branch manager at the Siuslaw Public Library District in Florence, Oregon .

Debbie Chavez, ’99, started a nonprofit, Libraries for the World, to create libraries Seth Kurke, ’21, is an archivist/ Thomas Moak, ’79, has retired from Mid-Columbia Libraries in Kennewick,

Indigenous studies outreach coordinator

in areas of the world that don’t have easy for Documentary Educational Resources,

Washington, after 41 years as a librarian and manager . He continues to work access to books . based in Watertown, Massachusetts . He was hired to revamp their catalog as an elected commissioner of the Port of Kennewick and as an appointed Warren Chin, ’12, is a children’s services to make it more accessible and to do commissioner of the Kennewick Housing librarian at Seattle Public Library’s outreach to Indigenous communities Authority . Columbia Branch, the same library where documented in the films . he volunteered in high school . Tonya Livshits, MLIS Law ’14, is working Matthew Myers, ’18, recently was promoted to Librarian II and took on Kat Cuff, ’13, is the director of provider as a research manager at Holland & duties as the data librarian for the Virginia relations at Ex Libris, a ProQuest Knight LLP in its Los Angeles office . Beach Public Library system .company . Kat oversees a team of librarians based in the U .S . and Israel . Julie McBrien, ’19, reports: “My career goal was to be an academic librarian Bridget Nowlin, ’14, became director of library services at Cornish College of the Marjorie Doyle, ’83, continues to and this year I finally did it!” She began Arts . volunteer at Missoula Public Library a new job as head of access services at in its Memory Cafe program that she Lasell University’s Brennan Library . Mahina Oshie, ’06, is working as a helped start five years ago . She also trains volunteers in various areas and frequently recommends new programs for consideration . Marjorie retired as a reference librarian from the library in 2015 . Catherine McMullen, ’08, made the switch from books to ballots in 2015 and is a voter-focused elections administrator in Oregon . She was recognized in August 2021 by the Oregon Association of County Clerks as a certified elections genealogy librarian in special collections at Seattle Public Library . Robert “Bob” Pankl, ’70, has been volunteering at Mount Rainier National Park as part of the Cascades Butterfly Project . He retired from the Tacoma Public Leslie Denning, ’19, is a taxonomist/ administrator . She has launched a Library in 2017 after 44 years .

Carrie Phillips, ’06, was appointed library director for Musselman Library at Bluffton University in Ohio, following 15 years as an archives and special collections librarian for the same organization . Anna Price, ’20, is working at the Law Library of Congress, where she was recently promoted to senior legal reference librarian . She has been at the library since May 2019 after being hired about halfway through the MLIS program . Carli Reinecke, ’20, started as an associate academic librarian for the University of Wisconsin Green Bay at its Marinette campus . Alicia Salaz, ’06, was appointed vice provost and university librarian at the University of Oregon . Murray Sampson, ’11, works for the American Booksellers Association, doing customer support for its Drupal-based e-commerce platform, IndieCommerce . Sohrab Seera, ’20, is the CEO and founder of Computing ReApplied, a company he began in 2019 . Anna Sgarlato, ’14, is working at ProQuest, where she’s been since 2018 .

Erin Sharwell, ’07, was appointed head of circulation services at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia . Ellen Shatter, ’69, reports that she is enjoying retirement: “I retired in 2003 from San Francisco Public Library and have been doing absolutely nothing ever since .”

Shannon Smith, ’19, joined Boise State University as an open educational resources librarian . She recently completed the SPARC Open Education Leadership Program . Caitlin Stewart, ’20, has been working since graduation as the teaching and learning librarian at Illinois State University . Jen Stutesman, ’01, celebrated her 20th year as a librarian at a new job as a branch manager at Walla Walla County Rural Library District, College Place Branch . Lauren Sullivan, ’18, recently moved back to her hometown of Elgin, Illinois, to become an adjunct librarian at Elgin Community College . Ryan Tolnay, ’19, is the Global Education, University Studies, and School of Individualized Study liaison librarian at the Rochester Institute of Technology . Julie Varee, ’21, is working in the library and archives at the Anchorage Museum . As the Community Outreach Archivist, Julie is helping to ensure the archives include individuals and groups from historically marginalized communities in the story the museum tells about Anchorage and Alaska . Michael Wagner, ’18, is in his third year as an ontologist at Amazon . Barbara Williams, ’19, accepted a job at the Library of Michigan as a library development analyst . She reports: “My MLIS has done so much to further my career . Without it, I was stuck in a paraprofessional position without the possibility for growth .” Miriam Wnuk, ’13, chaired the Northwest Interlibrary Loan Conference for the first time and successfully pivoted it to a virtual conference halfway through the planning year due to COVID-19 . She is also the chair for the 2021 conference . She is the assistant manager of resource sharing at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee . Michelle Young (Wong), ’08, was appointed to serve as a member of the 2022 ALSC John Newbery Award Committee .

Stephanie Zimmerman, ’12, is working as IT program manager at Seattle Children’s Hospital, focusing on information security and core technology .

MSIM

Jin Ahn, ’09, moved to DB General Insurance as a senior chief manager for its new market development team . Oscar Cummings, ’13, is working at T-Mobile as a principal systems design engineer . Maeve Edstrom, ’19, was promoted to Director of User Experience at HeadLight, an infrastructure technology firm . Erika Enomoto, ’20, is a program manager at Microsoft Azure . Tyler Fruichantie, ’14, is working as a product manager at Expeditors International, where he has been since graduating . Aditya Kaul, ’16, is working as a business intelligence engineer at Google . Harsh Keswani, ’17, took a senior product manager role at Oracle’s Cloud Infrastructure team . He had previously spent three years at Splunk as a product manager for machine learning . Tiffany Ku, ’19, is a UX researcher at Redfin, based in Seattle . Paula Land, ’04, is a senior content strategist for the NASA Earth Science Data Systems program, doing content strategy, information architecture and user experience work on the program’s website . She consults via her company, Strategic Content, and teaches in the content strategy master’s degree program at the FH Joanneum college in Graz, Austria . Jun Qian, ’14, is a senior software engineer at Everlywell, a unicorn startup in Austin, Texas . Avanti Shah, ’18, was promoted to staff data scientist at Walmart Global Tech . She had a patent pending and was expecting a baby . Ritu Sidana, ’12, joined Seattle based nonprofit SEIU 775 as a project manager . Oktavianus Sinaga, ’11, is a senior IT analyst at the Department of Information Systems Management in the Central Bank of Indonesia .

Jess Stull, ’19, recently was promoted to director of operations and automation at Appen .

Ph.D.

Jeff Huang, ’13, has started a sabbatical after getting tenure at Brown University in the Computer Science department . He’s raising chickens and has written stories about the papers he published while at the iSchool .