Notes from the Class of 2007

Ira Bauer-Spector (Thtr) received the 2017 Betty Peabody Emerging Young Leader of Balboa Park Award for his contributions to fostering awareness for the arts. Ira is the marketing and communication manager for the San Diego Civic Youth Ballet and the founding artistic director for the Breakthrough Workshop Theatre, which is celebrating its sixth year.

Ben Linville-Engler (Biochem, MechEngr) was named the industry and certificate co-director for MIT’s system design and management program, the school’s master’s program in engineering and management. In his role, Ben will find companies the program can collaborate with on research projects. He also will spearhead the SDM certificate in systems thinking program. 

In February 2018, just before the birth of her second child, Emily Rondi Daniels (Mktg) was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. Targeted therapy has kept the cancer suppressed. Since the diagnosis, she and her husband Brian (Fin) have sponsored Links for Lungs, a charity golf tournament. Emily and Brian have generated more than $300,000 for lung cancer research at UCHealth.

Gloria Mendoza Schmidt (Soc) is a lawyer you might recognize: Representing the Osundairo brothers, she appeared on CNN, Fox News and several other outlets during the Jussie Smollett case. She also owns the Gloria Law Group based out of Chicago, and is a mother of two.

Investigative reporter and historian Cody Mcdevitt (Jour) wrote Banished from Johnstown: Racist Backlash in Pennsylvania. The book tells the history of a 1923 incident where the town mayor ordered 2,000 African-Americans and Mexican immigrants out of the city at gunpoint and a threat of imprisonment. Cody has reported for the Somerset Daily American in western Pennsylvania and lives in Murrysville, Pennsylvania. 

Juli Sarris (MLing; PhDEdu’15) will be a Fullbright Scholar for the spring semester of 2021 at the University of Prishtina, Kosovo. She will be teaching second language acquisition theory, English as a Second Language and English as a Foreign Language methods and advanced EFL literacy. Juli teaches at many colleges along the Front Range, including CU, and lives in Boulder, along with her husband and two adult children.

Lucy Ohanian (Law) and Effie Seibold (MJour’03; Law) were both recipients of Colorado Law’s Dan Barash Scholarship, which is awarded to students who hope to be public defenders. Now, Lucy is chief deputy of the Colorado State Public Defender’s Office, where she recruits and hires our state’s public defenders. Effie is the training director for the Colorado State Public Defender’s Office and has worked with three-quarters of the lawyers who have also received the Dan Barash Scholarship.

Clay Pruitt (Film, Thtr) wrote and directed a short film, Our Place Together, starring a Tony Award nominee. The film held its North American premiere in August 2020 at the Outfest Los Angeles LGBTQ Film Festival. The film follows two young husbands as they confront a diagnosis and its ramifications. Clay writes that the film was inspired by both of his parents’ cancer diagnoses and corresponding struggles.

Law firm Holland & Hart welcomed 15 attorneys, including Colorado Law alumni Brad Williams (Law), Jordan Bunch (Engl’08; Law’11), Kevin McAdam (Law’10) and Nathan Mutter (Law’15), to the firm’s partnership in January 2021. 

At CU, Jessie Stegner (Thtr) performed in big roles, acted in the Colorado Shakespeare Festival and studied in London at Shakespeare’s Globe. After performing improv in Chicago, she went to UCLA to pursue a degree in screenwriting. Now, she lives in Hollywood and performs in The Second City’s “The Really Awesome Improv Show,” intended for families.

In January, Stephen E. Baumann II (PolSci’07) was promoted to shareholder of Littler, a Denver labor law practice. Stephen manages employment and labor law issues for large and small companies and, if necessary, will represent these companies in both state and federal courts. He lives in Commerce City, Colorado.

Aspen Brewing Company, founded in 2008 by Duncan Clauss (Engl’07), will celebrate 15 years in business this March. The company has two World Beer Cup gold medals.

Sean Guth (Arch’07; MArch, MUrbDes’09) was named president of Lose Design, an award-winning architecture, landscape architecture, civil engineering and planning firm. Sean has been with Lose Design since 2013. His career began in Denver and he has since worked around the world on a variety of projects, learning how to integrate architecture and urban design in a way that addresses both social and environmental sustainability while highlighting quality, creativity and budget-sensitive solutions. Sean lives on a farm in Tennessee with his wife and daughter and is a passionate outdoorsman.

Siddhartha Rathod (Law’07) represented the family of Christian Glass, who was killed by a police officer responding to a 911 call near Silver Plume, Colorado, in June 2022. The family received $19 million, the largest-known law enforcement settlement in Colorado. Siddhartha, who won the CU Boulder Alumni Association’s Kalpana Chawla Outstanding Recent Graduate Award in 2017, told Colorado Public Radio, “This settlement agreement sends a message to law enforcement across the nation that communities will no longer tolerate this type of policing.”

John Eric Schleicher (PolSci’07) is a winner in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest, which earned him a trip to Hollywood for a week-long master class workshop, an awards event and publication of his winning story in the international bestselling anthology L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 40. John’s winning story, “Squiddy,” is about an extraterrestrial invasion of squids. John lives in Missoula, Montana, with his wife and son.