Class Notes

CU Anschutz medical school student Paige Bennett (IntPhys) was selected as one of six to receive the 2015 Pisacano Scholarship from the Pisacano Leadership Foundation. These awards are given to students attending U.S. medical schools who demonstrate a strong commitment to the specialty of family medicine.

Using her Fulbright-National Geographic Digital Storytelling Fellowship, Ari M. Beser (PolSci) traveled throughout Japan and produced photo essays, videos and articles to give voices to those affected by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 70 years ago and the Fukushima nuclear power plant meltdown five years ago.

Davis Saltzgiver (MechEngr) is head of product for Trago, a company that provides water bottles that track how much a person drinks and delivers that information to a person’s phone through an app. The Trago cap and water bottle can be ordered through its website, Trago.com. Davis developed the idea while a CU student.

Jamie Haller (IntlAf) worked in Guatemala with adults and the local tourist police force at a language school and taught in Colombia with under-funded and under-resourced public schools. She has since moved to New Mexico, where she teaches environmental stewardship at an elementary school. In March 2016 Jamie will head to the Dominican Republic for a 27-month position with the Peace Corps as a volunteer literacy promoter.

James Kohnen (MechEngr), Graham Risch (MechEngr) and Michael Stevenson (MechEngr) are undertaking a 20,000 mile, 28-country motorcycle trip across Eurasia. They left May 12, 2015 and are blogging at www.3x2freefall.com.

As a program director for Manna Project International, Carissa Chen (Jour) leads programs in Nicaragua that give underserved communities access to healthcare, education and improved livelihoods. She also teaches English, dance and a creative arts class for children in Nicaragua and runs a child sponsorship program that supports 50 children (ages 0-5) and a women’s jewelry cooperative that provides 25 women with a steady income.

A long-term experiment run by Scott Ferrenberg (PhDEPOBio) and Sasha Reed (PhDEPOBio’08) showed that the biocrusts of Utah’s Upper Colorado Plateau are at risk from climate change. They found the biocrusts, made up of complex organisms like mosses and lichens, die off with heat increases, putting drylands at an increased risk for desertification. Their work was featured in the Washington Post this September.