Class of 2000

Kevin Covey
Email: kcovey@cfa.harvard.edu
Phone: 617-910-8509
Address: 6 Traymore St
Cambridge, MA 02140

It’s been a couple years since my last update, so I wanted to make sure not to miss out this time around. The most relevant update is also the most recent news: I defended my PhD dissertation in June, and then moved out to the East Coast in September to start a Spitzer Fellowship at the Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, MA. In theory, I'll be using observations at optical to millimeter wavelengths to study the physical properties of embedded protostars, which will (hopefully) provide useful context for interpreting observations of newly discovered protostars made with the Spitzer Space Telescope. Check back in a couple years, and we can see how closely what I ended up working on matches that description...
On the home front, I'm still getting settled in the area; the place began to feel a lot more like home when Sarah (Spotts, '01) moved out to join me a week ago, after finishing up a final month's worth of work that required her to stay in Seattle. Though we have many friends and family on the West coast that we miss dearly, we're having fun exploring a new city. Among the charms I've experienced so far is my introduction to Boston driving, which was accomplished when I was sideswiped by a tractor-trailer that then proceeded to leave the scene of the accident. I was fine, but the same certainly can't be said for my friend's car, which I was borrowing/car-sitting at the time. As far as simple pleasures go, I find it endlessly entertaining that 'spa' is commonly used out here to denote something I would usually call a deli -- it provides me with fodder for no end of corny jokes, though I think my friends find it considerably less amusing than I do.
I don't think the Physics department has the budget to print out a full description of the other memorable events since my last update (which was in 2003! Eek!), so I'll just give a brief list of the highlights:

• helping start Pre-MAP, a mentorship program at the University of WA for under-represented first year students with an interest in Astronomy (http://www.astro.washington.edu/premap) ;
• discovering a latent passion for karaoke;
• attending an average of 4-5 weddings per year (including that of Vicki Pettersen, Claire's sister!);
• following one such wedding, breaking my two front teeth and then helping extract a motorist from his overturned car;
• a fair bit of travel, the highlight of which was probably a pair of extended weekends in Madrid;
• and inventing a highly entertaining new game called 'Which way did the bug go?' with my good friend Lijah.

I should close by noting that one of the main criteria we used to select our new apartment was the presence of a guest room. Though apartment hunting in the Boston area is now in my top 5 list of unpleasant life experiences, we did manage to land one, so if anyone is ever in the area (a concept best defined quite loosely) please do get in touch. We'd love to put a roof over your head or get together for dinner!

Ben Miller
Email: stopeape@gmail.com
Phone: 303-489-4476
Address: 18858 E. Powers Dr
Aurora, Co 80015

'06 can be categorized as too much work and not enough fun with a wedding in the middle. Bridget Johnson '00 and I got married this August. There were quite a few Carls in attendance. Mr. Dotter '00 learned too well about the "Snuffman" (Infanger '99) and his terrible games. Right around the wedding, I quit my old job as a mining engineering consultant and joined the even darker side. I'm currently working for an oil and gas exploration company. Don't worry, my sister has promised me a black cape for Christmas to go with my new evil job. My new title is Regulatory Manager, which translates to pushing paper, kissing hands, and shaking babies. Now for the fun news! It is now winter and the snow is falling. Bridget and I have a condo up near the ski areas and look to break my previous record of 56 days of riding this year.

Emily Riddle
Email: eer24@cornell.edu

After completing my MS at the University of Massachusetts in 2005, I'm in my second year of a PhD program in Atmospheric Science at Cornell. My research involves using regional climate models to better understand the interactions between the atmosphere, the oceans and the land surface over East Africa. I'm living with Andrew Noble ('00) in a great little apartment downstairs from where Nabokov allegedly wrote Lolita! I'm thoroughly enjoying living in Ithaca and looking forward to hearing what others of you are up to!

Class of 2001

Pascal Mickelson
Email: mickelsp@warpmail.net

Greetings, once again from Houston, Texas. I'm still in grad school at Rice. I defended my master's in January, and am continuing the long haul to the doctorate. I am still playing ultimate, though less frequently, and I am (attempting to) learn Hungarian as well.
In May, I had the pleasure of going to DAMOP (atomic physics conference) and seeing multiple Carleton people. Upon walking into the hotel lobby for registration the night before the conference started, who did I see but Bruce Thomas. This was merely the beginning of a veritable Carleton reunion: I also ran into Jessie Petricka (from my own class), Arjendu Pattanayak, Marty Ligare (class of '79), and current Carls Leigh Norris and Parin Sripakdeevong. Hopefully I didn't forget to list anyone else who was there...regardless, it was great fun catching up with, or meeting for the first time, all these Carls.

Phil Spindler
Email: Phil_spindler@yahoo.com
Address: 337 13th St NE
Owatonna, MN 55060

So I got a letter in the mail not too long ago asking me to submit a brief update as to what I’ve been doing. When I read to the bottom of the letter, I saw a familiar name and I just shook my head. Who put Nelson in charge? He’s wily, that one is- watch out.
I hope everyone is doing well and having fun. I've been busy not working, showing my parents what retirement is all about. After working 14 months at McMurdo Station, I decided to take a break for a while, and I traveled for a few months in New Zealand, Samoa, and Hawaii. After coming back to MN, I stopped by the labs and visited with Cindy, Joel, and Bill. Always good to see smiling faces, though I do believe I was better behaved as a student than they make it out to be.
My friend and I made a six-week road trip out of moving west to Mammoth Lakes, CA last February. I got to see a great part of America I had not seen before- Vegas. What a feat of modern civilization. We took in a Cirque du Soleil show, and that was incredible. Death Valley was beautiful once the storm cleared. I always expected to see Carl Tape saunter around the corner in whatever town, city, or countryside we were in, but I never did. You let me down, Carl. We meet in McMurdo, but nowhere else- what the heck?
In Mammoth, a beautiful small town at the base of the Eastern Sierras, we skied a lot. Once the snow melted in June, we got out to do a lot of climbing and backpacking in the area. It is gorgeous. Yosemite is an hour's drive away (in summer) and the Ansel Adams and John Muir Wilderness' are at your back door. Also, soon after we arrived, I started volunteering at the local brewery a few days a week. Once I had supported my own way to getting trained and becoming indispensable, they had no choice but to start paying me to make sure I'd stick around. So I found myself in an honest paying job at a brewery. My dream had come true. Within the next two years, they will be moving into a new brewery complex that has two apartments above it. One of those can be mine when/if I return to work there after my next Antarctic stint. My dream could come true like I never thought possible- working AND living at a brewery. What an awesome commute… for the beer up through the tap lines into my kitchen. They liked me enough to say that I’d have a job there whenever I come back. So that’s good to know- a fun job in a beautiful place could be mine, if the price is right… and Beer is always right.
But, I guess I was still feeling like I needed something else. I applied to work for the Ice Cube project at the South Pole as a hot water driller on Claire's recommendation. I made the short list, but in the end they wanted strapping young men who could grow real beards to combat the cold. They looked at my shabby attempt for full facial hair, laughed at the wisps on my upper lip, shook their heads and told me I'd freeze to death. They're probably right. Plus, Claire would crack the whip across my back all day long, I'm sure.
So in the end, it worked out since an opportunity came up for a job at Palmer Station, which is in the Antarctic Peninsula south of Chile. I will be working there this season as the Lab Supervisor. The job entails working with the science groups making sure they have lab space, lab materials, boating transportation, and giving presentations to tourists about science research happening in Antarctica. In some cases, the cruise ships carrying the tourists are too large to dock at station, so I will be riding out to them in a small zodiac and boarding their ship to talk and answer questions. You can bet I’ll be wearing my finest attire for the occasion. It’s possible I will move into this job as a full time employee in the future. That would mean working in Denver part of the year, deploying to Palmer part of the year, and traveling in South America in between the times.
With those opportunities, I don’t know if I will be returning to the brewery right away this spring. Perhaps, sometime in the future, I will find a home above a fermenting vat of beer. But if I don’t return to brewery work, I will make my dreams come true if I have to build a loft and ferment my homebrew on the floor beneath my bed.

Carl Tape
Email: carltape@gps.caltech.edu
Phone: 626-395-3825
Address: Caltech, MC 252-21
Pasadena CA 91125
URL: http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~carltape/

All is well in my fourth year at Caltech in Pasadena. In my thesis work, we are aiming at trying to image the crustal structure (down to 60 km depth) of southern California using seismic waves recorded from earthquakes in combination with powerful simulation capabilities. It's pretty cool! I made it to Tian Shan, westernmost China, for a field trip, and to northern Israel (before the mayhem) for a conference. It's nice to get some traveling in while being a "desk jockey" scientist.

Steve Thorsett
Email: thorserr@ucolick.org
Phone: 831-459-2931
Address: 209 Segre Place
Santa Cruz, CA 95060

We (Rachel Dewey, visiting faculty ’87) are in our eighth year now in Santa Cruz, feeling very much at home. I'm now the dean of the science division at UC Santa Cruz, spending far more time thinking about biology than about physics or astronomy, but also looking forward to the launch next fall of the GLAST gamma-ray satellite, which I've been working on for many years now. Rachel continues to teach the advanced lab course for physicists on the astrophysics track, and was re-elected this fall to the city school board. Odds are she will be the board president by the time you read this, so we're looking at another very busy year. Laura is in 5th grade, still loving math and reading, and looking forward to middle school next year. I'm doing a lot of running to stay sane, having survived long enough to compete for age group awards in very small races, and am looking forward to an upcoming 17-km trail run with Laura Ruetsche '87. Happy New Year to all!

Alex Wong
Email: Wongal2001@yahoo.com
Phone: 510-541 0605
Address: 2351 Westwod Ct. Apt D-7
Arcata, CA 95521

Hi everyone! Sorry I've been bad about keeping in touch. I am currently living in the hippie capitol of the world, Arcata, California. I've taken a circuitous route here, with stops in China, Berkeley, and San Francisco, which included some grad school, English teaching, and environmental restoration work. Now, I'm doing hydrology work with an Indian Tribe on the Klamath River: we get to run around outside a lot (especially during big rain storms), and it's beautiful up here, so it's a great place to do fieldwork. Hope all is well back in Olin Hall.

Class of 2002

Ben Luey
Phone: 303-449-1892

Unlike last year, I have no 'big' news, and I think that's a good thing. I'm happy to have left grad school and still enjoying my work at Vescent Photonics. We are working on developing DFB lasers for the AMO community. If all goes well, I'll be at DAMOP this spring, but instead of swiping free pens from the vendor's booths, I'll be hawking lasers at the pen-swiping public ("it slices, it dices! All this for the low, low price of..."). Aside from work, I've been playing Ultimate and climbing a few (well, 2) of the 14,000ft mountains in lovely Colorado. I'm looking forward to spending this New Years with such physics luminaries as Pascal ('01) and Mekayla ('01).

Class of 2003

Rebecca Anthony
Email: rjanthony81@gmail.com

I’m still in Minneapolis, in my second year of the mechanical engineering graduate program at the U of M. My research is using a plasma reactor to synthesize nanoparticles. I’m also running, taking pottery classes, and living it up the best I can.

Bryan Donald
Email: bmdonald@gmail.com
Phone: 651-366-7518
Address: 831 Tatum Street
Saint Paul, MN 55104

Hello all! Well, the past few months have brought many changes. In May I graduated with my MS degree in biomedical engineering from the University of Michigan and married Katie Lord. After a wonderful honeymoon in Italy, we bought a house in St. Paul and moved home so I could start medical school at the University of MN. School is going well so far and it is good to be back in MN!

Brian Joyce
Email: Brianjoyce7@hotmail.com
Phone: 773-515-0303
Address: 641 W. Aldine Ave
Apt. #312
Chicago, IL 60657

Greetings, all you crazy Carleton physics peoples! It has been a very busy year for me. I've either been published as a co-author on a few medical papers over the past year or been submitting papers, mostly in the journal Arthroscopy (so far). Back in the spring I decided to turn away from the Physics track, and have since been focused on getting my MBA. I just took the business school equivalent of the GREs, and I did very well so I'm pretty happy about that. Otherwise, I am just now starting to apply to MBA programs- ideally one that will keep me in Chicago, like Northwestern or the University of Chicago.
Beyond that, I had the extreme pleasure of dislocating my kneecap back in August, and the even more extreme pleasure of putting up with a month of 'old man' jokes while I hobbled around on a cane. Other than that, though, I seem to doing ok for myself. I just started my third year at the same job I’ve had since I moved back to Chicago (medical research), which is ok. Been hanging out with Carleton people from time to time where I can, so anyone reading this should feel free to drop me a line next time they’re passing through. With any luck, by this time next year I’ll be able to report my total success in the first year of a top MBA program. Hope all is well with everyone!

Daniel Miller
Email: danmillerlighting@yahoo.com

I'm still living in Rochester, NY and working at the Geva Theatre Center. I have moved up to first electrician from light board op, the main benefit of which is that I work a "normal" schedule rather than having to work nights and weekends running shows. The biggest news in my life is that last January I got engaged to Jessica Felt '02. We moved to Rochester together after graduation and have finally decided to get married. Our wedding is planned for June 2007. Another big piece of news is that I have decided to go back to school for a masters in Electrical Engineering. While working in professional theatre has been a good job, it is not nearly as fun as doing theatre in college. The timing of this decision is also good because Jess will be graduating from medical school in May and we will be moving to a new city for her residency training; so instead of looking for a new job I will go back to school. Those are the highlights of what's happening for me. If anyone's passing through upstate New York drop me a line and I'll get you some tickets for a show at Geva.

Tim O’Connell
Email: tcoconne@uiuc.edu

I am writing this the day after my beloved Cardinals won the World Series for the first time since I was one year old. I hope it won't take until I'm 50 for these circumstances to occur again!
I'm in the middle of my last semester of taking classes here at the University of Illinois. I'm in my fourth year working on a PhD in Electrical Engineering with a focus on power, and more specifically electric machine design and analysis. It kind of feels like I'll never be done taking classes, but by the time you are reading this I will finally be done!! The grad school experience has been a good one. I recently participated in my third conference up in Troy, NY (RPI campus, for those of you scoring at home), and I'm currently working on a paper for a conference in Turkey later next year. I'm hoping to do my preliminary examination in about four months, and then try to finish my degree by the end of 2007. I'm slowly approaching that proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.
In personal news, I got engaged last March to a darned fine lady named Megan and we're getting married this September. She's in her last semester at the U of I and is currently looking for jobs in the real world. Eli Morris came over to Illinois in early June and met Megan and me for some waterskiing, karaoke and video games. It was a nice several days. Also, over New Year's Eve last year I met Eli and Nate Pogue (along with several other Carls) up in Cape Cod for a week of ping-pong, watching movies and bowl games, and playing assorted Cranium games. We also visited Provincetown, or P-Town as the natives know it, and experienced some of the "culture". Nate enjoyed the "Bears" posters and telling us all about a guy named Horse that he met in Europe.
That's about it from Illinois. If any of you are in the neighborhood give me a call or email.

Nate Pogue
Email: poguen@neo.tamu.edu

I am still down at Texas A&M University slugging it out in graduate school. I have passed all the classes now required for the Ph.D. and completed a Masters last winter. I am working in a group that is really quite exciting. Currently we are creating designs for the magnets shielding the AMS project, or Mars Mission for NASA. We also built the fastest ramping magnet to date and continue building high field magnets. During a conference in Nashville I was able to do some interesting things with metal working at Oak Ridge. As a coincidence, the poster I was presenting there was next to a colleague from SLAC and now our group is collaborating in an endeavor that is making the muon collider plausible. Lastly we are also building RF cavities that have the potential to triple the current gradient of any superconducting cavity that now exists, which is the project that I am spearheading.
During all this work I managed to make it to five weddings, two of which are Carls. I also made it for two annual get-togethers of Carls, one in Cape Cod and another in Chanhassen, MN. I have also been exploring the local Texan sights more and more. I have made a few trips to Mexico and elsewhere with my girlfriend Kim. I have been seeing her for about two years now and we had an interesting time when she flipped her car and had AMNESIA. So for basically from September and on we have been trying to remember things. There is a month gap that is completely gone.
Other than that things are going pretty well down here. This term is the last term of teaching that I will ever have to do, which make me both happy and sad. However, I can now go on more trips to different places without having to find subs and such. So overall things are good, and if you want to brave an experience in Texas look me up.

Susan Stone
Email: s-stone@northwestern.edu
Phone: 847-332-8243
Address: 435 Washington Street
Barrington, IL 60010

Matthew Strait
Email: strait@physics.umn.edu
Phone: 612-788-0168
Address: 1004 1/2 Lowry Ave NE
Minneapolis, MN 55418

I'm still a grad student at the University of Minnesota. I recently passed my oral exam and am now doing research full time. I'm on the NOvA experiment, which will do precision measurements of neutrino oscillation parameters. NOvA will be a 20kT detector made out of about 600,000 16m long plastic cells filled with liquid scintillator, each containing a loop of wavelength shifting fiber. My current task is to create a machine that will inject these loops of fiber into the cells. So yep, I'm an engineer now. Sometime soon I might start working on some data analysis so that I can have something to write a thesis about, but I don't feel in a rush yet.

Class of 2004

Clark Ritz
Email: ritz@physics.wisc.edu

Megan ('03) and I are still living in Madison, WI, trying to fight our ways through grad school. I'm still working for Max Lagally, growing quantum dots on silicon nanoribbons. I will be finished with classes in December, and that's the last thing for me to complete before I become a dissertator. Yay! I'll at least get a small raise, and a little nearer to graduation.
I'd also like to say that one of the greatest milestones in my career came just this past week. I got my first promotional tote bag from a conference! Ok, ok, so it's not really that exciting, but my dad is a doctor, the MD kind that brings home junk from drug companies daily. I grew up associating little pens with "Viagra" stamped on the side as symbols of success and prosperity. I know it's kind of lame, but I really am excited about the tote bag. Now I have something tangible to show for the four years of Carleton and two and a half years of grad school.
I do miss Carleton, and the nice protective bubble, but having my own kitchen makes up for a lot. Best wishes to everyone. Hail the Maize and Blue.

Kelen Tuttle
Email: kelentuttle@gmail.com

I've finally left academia (well, sort of) and gotten myself a real 9 to 5 job at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. I run a daily online newsletter (check it out: http://today.slac.stanford.edu) that gets e-mailed to about four thousand researchers. That means I get to spend my time learning about the particle physics, astrophysics and photon science research that takes place at SLAC -- great fun. All the joys of research without any of the actual work. Life is good. ...and the Bay Area rocks! If you're in the area, let me know – we should go rock climbing or hiking or swimming or surfing or cycling or just out for a good meal.

Class of 2005

Seth Cooper
Email: cooper@physics.umn.edu

It's been an interesting year. After graduating from Carleton, I managed to get myself doing physics again the very next fall--as a grad student at the University of Minnesota. After two semesters of TAing and taking challenging classes (read: Jackson) in my first year, I was ready to do some research. I worked on the CMS project at the LHC in CERN, doing Monte Carlo simulations of beams fired at the EM calorimeter. I didn’t get to go to Geneva, unfortunately, but I certainly will get there if I continue with the project. I’m not very fascinated by calorimeters, but I would like to get data once everything is online. I’m still interested in looking for extra dimensions. I recently passed the PhD written qualifying exam, so now I’m trying to nail down a thesis advisor as the TAing and classes continue. That’s all for now, and I wish everyone the best!

Sam Kelly
Email: skelly@coas.oregonstate.edu

I am in Corvallis Oregon studying physical oceanography at Oregon State. I've been on a couple of recent research cruises; one last August off the Oregon coast and one this August off the New Jersey coast. This summer I also passed my written exam, so I'm enjoying a relatively stress-free fall. I am currently studying internal waves and ocean turbulence.

Class of 2006

Kurt Bunnell
Email: kurt.bunnelle@corps2006.tfanet.org

I teach eighth grade physical science in Oakland, CA. I joined Teach For America in June and after spending the summer training and teaching in southern California, I moved here for my permanent placement. There are many challenges in teaching, and at the end of each day I'm sure I spent it working. I live with some other Carleton grads in Oakland and we have a house with a swanky view and a pool in which we keep a robotic pool cleaner. If anyone is ever looking to unload science books or supplies suitable for a physical science classroom, I will take anything from anyone

Mark Knight
URL: http://carletonknight.blogspot.com

I’m working on finding an advisor and surviving (and enjoying) my first year as a Rice ECE grad student. I’m glad I have a mountain bike for the daily commute. Houston roads are brutal. The dancing scene down here is great, however; my weekly dose of Lindy definitely helps with the stress.

Neal Meyer
Email: Nem150@psu.edu
Address: 215 Sunrise Terrace
State College, PA 16801

I'm in the middle of my first term of graduate school at Penn State University in State College, Pennsylvania. I'm on a TA this year and am currently teaching 3 labs for a class on Fluids and Thermal Physics and a class on Wave Motion and Quantum Optics. My own classes are Quantum Mechanics 1, Classical Dynamics and Math Methods. Other than classes I've found some time to explore some parks in the area and have sampled a few restaurants and bars as well. All is well in Happy Valley.

David Sterling
Email: David.sterling@duke.edu

I am at the Medical Physics program at Duke University. Classes are going well and everyone in the program is really nice. I am currently in the process of shopping around for a thesis project, but it will most likely be on 4D dosimetry for radiation therapy planning verification (which sounds more complicated than it actually is). I am surprised at how much material in my classes I have already at least partially covered in other classes taken at Carleton. If anyone is in the Durham area, let me know.