Classnotes

80s

Gary Rivlin’s (pictured above) (BS80) book Saving Main Street: Small Business in the Time of COVID-19 recounts his two years following a group of small-business owners struggling to survive the pandemic. He chronicles the personal and financial challenges confronting owners amid a contentious presidential election, confusing government aid programs, and contradictory safety guidelines. In 2017, he was part of the team that won the Pulitzer Prize for reporting on the Panama Papers.

90s

William Hook (BS90), principal of the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences, was appointed to the Illinois Committee for Agricultural Education.

Sophia King (MSEd90) ran for Chicago mayor in 2023. She represented Chicago’s Fourth Ward on the city council from 2016 until this year.

Elvin Chan (MSEd98) is a senior financial analyst at the City Colleges of Chicago.

00s

Arnaldo Rivera (BS02, MSEd07) was appointed by Illinois governor J. B. Pritzker as chairman of the Illinois Tollway Board. He is chief administrative and equity officer for Navy Pier.

El Da’ Sheon Nix (BS04) is Northwestern’s new director of Evanston community relations in the Office of Neighborhood and Community Relations. He was previously community relations manager for Tutoring Chicago and has worked in nonprofits for two decades. A former member of the Wildcats football team, he was honored at Northwestern’s fall game against Iowa and is one of more than a dozen alumni who returned to campus for Professor Dan Lewis’s last seminar.

Joe Curnow (BS05) is assistant professor at the University of Manitoba, where she studies learning, identity development, and youth-led social change.

Shana Hazan (MSEd05), a former teacher and nonprofit executive, was elected in November to the San Diego Unified School District board, where she is now vice president.

Ashley Koester (BS05) is a staff veterinarian at the VCA animal hospital in Manhattan Beach, California.

Lauren Parnell (BS07) is a research associate at the World Bank. She is working on her doctorate at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Anna (Schaefer) Scallet (BS07) is a special project coordinator with the Washington, DC, Department of Housing and Community Development, where she underwrites gap financing and equity investments in affordable housing projects.

Melanie Kahl (BS08) is a 2023 Mira Fellow at the London-based Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, where she is exploring how leaders design transformative experiences.

Jessica Fain (BS09) is head of core products at Brightwheel, a preschool and childcare software company.

Valerie Hwang (BS09) is a clinical ayurveda practitioner based in Long Beach, California. She founded the private practice Intrepid Ayurveda in 2020 after seeking holistic solutions for mental health. “My undergrad major in human development and psychological services has served as a strong foundation for my approach to patient care today,” she says.

Kelly Kirkpatrick (BS09) is director of investor relations at SOSV, a global venture-capital firm focused on human and planetary health. She is also executive director of the O’Sullivan Foundation, which provides philanthropic support for a variety of nonprofits.

Hilary (Bowen) O’Dougherty (BS09) is assistant athletic director at Seattle Academy, where she also coaches lacrosse. She was previously a coach at Mount St. Mary’s University and the University of Southern California, where she started the lacrosse program. At North- western, she led the women’s lacrosse team to four national championships and in 2016 was inducted into the Athletics Hall of Fame. 

Stacy Pancratz (BS09) is a research scientist at Meta, focusing on demography and survey science.

10s

Corbin Bryant (BS10), a former nose tackle in the NFL and on the Wildcats football team, is director of events and marketing for athletics at Emory University.

Rebecca Komarek (MSHE10), an associate director in the College of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Colorado Boulder, was recently named outstanding staff member by the mechanical engineering department.

April Faith-Slaker (MA12) is executive director of Detroit’s newly established Office of Evic- tion Defense.

Carrie Murphey (MSHE12) is director of student affairs at the School of Medicine at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Michelle Hoda Wilkerson (PhD12), associate professor in the School of Education at the University of California, Berkeley, earned tenure in 2021. She researches computer- integrated learning experiences in science and mathematics education, with a focus on student authorship. In 2022, she cochaired a workshop on the foundations of K–12 data science education for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. She has two sons, born in 2018 and 2021.

Kate Schultz (Comm09, MSHE13) is developing and expanding educational programs and training for Mayo Clinic physicians, clinicians, and researchers to implement artificial intelligence, machine learning, and analytics in their practice and research. Schultz teaches the proseminar course series in the premed/prehealth postbaccalaure- ate program in Northwestern’s School of Professional Studies and is faculty director of its new online undergraduate degree program in health sciences, which will launch this fall. She recently earned her doctorate in health sciences from Northern Illinois University.

Jacqueline Gaines (MSHE14) is a founding staff member and student affairs administrator at the University of Chicago’s new department of race, diaspora, and indigeneity.

Brendan Bond (MSHE16) is director of college counseling at Woodlands Academy in Lake Forest, Illinois. He is also the assistant varsity basketball coach.

Kara Falcone (MSEd16) is the state director of Best Buddies Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Sean Radford (MSLOC16), chief human resources officer at HALO Branded Solutions, was appointed to the board of directors of AIDS Foundation Chicago.

Carly Shagrin (BS16) works on strategy and special projects in the Office of the CEO at Google.

Karen Halverson Cross (MSHE17) published “Deregulation and the ‘Gig Academy’” in the Wayne Law Review. Cross is a law professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Bridget O’Connell (MSHE17) is associate dean of the Chicago Center of Excellence in Engineering and Computer Science at Wilbur Wright College.

Nichole Beardsley (BS18) is assistant women’s lacrosse coach at the University of Colorado Boulder. She previously coached at the University of Massachusetts and was director of operations for lacrosse at Northwestern when the team made two Final Four appearances (2019, 2021) and claimed the 2019 Big Ten Tournament championship.

Alexa Brown (MSHE18) is a recruiter at University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, which manages the National Center for Atmospheric Research on behalf of the National Science Foundation.

Mollie McQuillan (PhD19) received the Emerging Scholar Award at the American Educational Research Association’s national meeting. An assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, she studies educational policy, social relationships, and the health of gender-expansive students and educators.

20s

Hayley Krolik (BS20) had a chance to return to Colombia, this time as a senior consultant in human capital for Deloitte in Bogotá. She previously taught English through a Fulbright in Villavicencio.

Peter Meyerhoff (PhD20) is cofounder and CEO of Chicago-based education company 10story Learning, where he leads a team of teachers and designers in creating dynamic, project-based math learning programs.

Ella DeBode (BS21) is a project manager at WildLandscapes International, a nonprofit land conservation organization that partners with diverse stakeholders to preserve large connected landscapes.

Naomi Blaushild (PhD22) was named a 2023 Community for Advancing Discovery Research in Education Fellow. She will join a group of education researchers focusing on STEM education, educational equity, and social justice.

Lucas Davison (BS22) advanced to the quarter- finals of the heavyweight class of the NCAA Wrestling Championships in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Melody Pabón (MSLOC22) is a human resources consultant supporting corporate functions at Microsoft. While at Northwestern, she earned an equity and inclusion certificate along with her master’s degree. Her capstone research explored the impact of mentorship on the career advancement of women of color.

Carlotta Esposito (MSSEP23), a member of the inaugural cohort of the world’s first dual-degree master’s in applied economics and social and economic policy program, is a knowledge management fellow at the Great Lakes Protection Fund.

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