In Action

Let the Sun Shine In:Angela Oh, MS ‘11, and Christina Vourakis, MS ‘12, have partnered up to establish an official Harvard chapter of Project Sunshine, an organization that partners with local hospitals to help support programs related to arts, crafts, education, and social services for children who face medical challenges. They are looking forward to initiating creative new programs at Tufts Floating Hospital in Boston this semester and beyond.

Word Lovers Unite! Graphic artist Veronika Heckova-Wu, MS ‘03, and her husband, Albert Wu, have recently launched Lexigrams, a new kind of visual dictionary designed to help people learn and retain complex English words using artistic illustrations that touch on universal cues and themes. Thus far, Lexigrams has over 100 illustrated word definitions and it continues to grow.

Entrepreneurial Spirit: Congratulations to Shilpa Bhongir, MS ‘12, who was recently elected co-coordinator of Occidental College’s student-run community outreach organization, Oxypreneurship. Among the many projects they will be working on is helping to organize Occidental’s first TEDx event in March.

Setting the Bar: new Columbia Law School alumnus, Florentino Salazar, MS ‘04, continues to impress as he recently passed the New York Bar Exam. Congratulations!

You can’t make it up: Diego Renteria, MS ‘07, is a contributor for a new book put together by journalist and author Sam Quinones, Tell Your True Tale. The book is a compendium of nonfiction stories that reflect experiences of seven first-time authors who grew up in East Los Angeles, and it originated from a workshop that Quinones put together with the goal of getting new writers working on stories about their own lives; true stories that read like fiction.

The windy galaxy: Erik Shirokoff, MS ‘98 will take his work in astronomy to Lake Michigan this June, as he joins the faculty of the University of Chicago as an Assistant Professor. Congratulations!

Presidential Advisory: President Obama’s Advisory Council on Financial Capability for Young Americans has a new member as Jason Young, MS ‘00, was recently appointed to help, “create lasting public-private partnerships that will empower young people throughout the country with financial capability skills.” Jason is the CEO and co-founder of MindBlown Labs, a financial literacy software company based in Oakland. Congratulations!

Think and Act Globally: Following her graduation from UCLA, Delaram Kamalpour, MS ‘10, has joined the Peace Corps and will begin a two-year deployment to Georgia in Eastern Europe this April.

Does Compute: Brent Yorgey, MS ’00, will soon add a Ph.D. to his list of accomplishments as he successfully defended his dissertation to the University of Pennsylvania.  Brent will begin his second semester as a visiting professor in computer science at Williams College this spring.

Opportunities in Medicine: Dr. Joelle Simpson, MS ’95, is part of a team at Children’s National Health Systems in Washington D.C., that is establishing an innovative scholarship program to assist minority medical students in interviewing and completing a clinical rotation in pediatrics.  The Minority Senior Scholarship Program (MSSP) will award eight fourth-year medical students a stipend to live in Washington D.C. while working at the hospital as well as mentorship and other networking opportunities.