Class of 1980

Paul Conklin

Email: martonklin@alunmi.duke.edu

Phone: (218) 467-3584

Address: 2048 Agate Lane NW, Solway, MN 56678

I continue to work as a research associate with the U. of MN Department of Soil, Water and Climate, and as an adjunct in the Geography Dept. at Bemidji State while we try to make our farm at least a self-supporting venture. We started selling vegetables this year as on the Community Supported Agriculture model, where people pay up front for a summer's supply of vegetables. We supplied nine families this year and we hope to grow enough for 15 or 20 next year. We sell honey, and organic eggs and chickens as well; just to make sure we keep busy. Visitors are welcome (if you're willing to pull some weeds while you're here.)

Nick Donofrio

Email: ndonofrio@wi.rr.com

Phone: (262) 547-0892

Address: 2013 Harris Highland Dr., Waukesha, WI 53188

Hi Folks! My overall professional and personal situation has remained stable during the past year. I'm still working at Merge eFilm (www.merge.com), but my role has changed to Director of Systems Engineering. My team is largely involved in system designs and test plans, and also providing technical support to our field service reps. I don't apply many principles of physics, but it's amazing how much I call upon the basic concepts of scientific experimentation as we troubleshoot the root cause of software defects. Our company is going through a rather aggressive growth stage and it's been a challenge to crank out new software development programs while maintaining high quality. Keeps me quite busy most of the time. Happy Holidays and Seasons Greetings to you all!

Class of 1981

Thomas Carroll

Email: Thomas.L.Carroll@nrl.navy.mil

URL: http://chaos-mac.nrl.navy.mil

Phone: (202) 767-6242

I suspect my work environment is in for some big changes. There has been some reshuffling in the Department of Defense, and as a result, basic research is declining. The emphasis at NRL these days is "what have you done for the fleet lately?" I am not against applied research, but the structure of this lab can make it hard to change over. I am hoping to start a project with people from our radar division on applying chaos to radar. They have been working with sines and cosines for over 60 years, and despite great cleverness, they've about wrung everything out of those waveforms that they can. I am hoping we can find a place for chaos—it could lead to some very interesting research. Of course, if things don't work out, I've been looking for a reason for years to get away from the east coast.

On weekends, I am still working on the same log cabin project for the Potomac Applachain Trail Club. We finally hope to finish next spring. If we had known that a hand built log cabin would take over 8 years, I'm not sure we would have started. I'll have to find a new outdoors project to work on for the club- maybe I'll go back—to maintaining trails.

Class of 1982

Jay & Cindy (Breckenridge) Cummings

Cindy Breckenridge Cummings and Jay Cummings, both of the class of 1982, live in Greenbelt, MD. Jay works at Goddard Space Flight Center in the Lab for High Energy Astrophysics, currently on an instrument for the Swift gamma ray burst mission. Cindy works as an editorial assistant at the AIP Industrial Physicist magazine. That means poor Cindy, who did not major in Physics, is now around physicists nearly 24/7. Since Carleton, Jay has been at the University of MN (Ph.D. 1989), Caltech, Washington University in St. Louis, and GSFC, working on various cosmic ray instruments. They have 2 daughters; Nyssa is a senior in high school and Caitlin is in 5th grade. Jay has just picked up his bagpipes again after not playing for the last 3 years or so.

Dan McCreary

Email: d.mccreary@comcast.net

URL: www.danmccreary.com

Home office: (651) 405-9034

This has been a year of change for me. Last March I separated from my wife of 14 years. I am currently working at CriMNet (www.crimnet.state.mn.us) developing enterprise application integration systems to make 1,100 criminal justice computers talk to each other. This summer I added features to the network that have been instrumental in solving crimes in Minnesota. I have also been involved in defining national XML standards for sharing criminal justice information. My latest project is developing statewide standards for public key encryption in Minnesota. This summer I also put a GPS to work and started Geocaching. (see www.geocaching.org) which is a great way to use technology, enjoy the outdoors and get some exercise. I also purchased a new digital Nikon D-100 SLR that I really enjoy. My kids Mary (10) and Laura (13) are doing great. Feel free to call visit my personal web site and check out the photos or drop me an email. Peace and Happiness.

Class of 1983

Bob Clark-Phelps

Email: bob.clark-phelps@alumni.carleton.edu

Phone: (508) 393-8150

Address: 17 Mohawk Drive, Northborough, MA 01532

Greetings to all from Massachusetts! It's been another year of big changes for us. In July of this year, a dream I've been pursuing for the past thirty-odd years came true—I found a job in the photovoltaic industry! Carleton, a fellow Physics Department alum (Andrew Gabor, '89), and this very newsletter all played key roles. Through past issues of the newsletter, I was aware that Andrew was working in the PV industry, most recently at Evergreen Solar in Marlborough, Massachusetts (outside Boston)—this despite the fact that we never overlapped at Carleton and had never met face to face. Over the past few years, I would call him from time to time to see if there were any openings. This year when I called in the midst of my latest job search (prompted in part by layoffs at AMD which I had barely survived) lo and behold, he had a position open! (Check out Evergreen at www.evergreensolar.com.)

Though the job is the one I had always wanted, it was not an easy decision to pull up stakes and move away from Silicon Valley, leaving behind friends, familiar places, and that unbeatable California climate and scenery. My wife Marie has been very understanding and supportive of the move, despite the fact that she really didn't want to leave California. Other factors that helped tip the balance were the somewhat lower cost of living and much higher quality of life in Massachusetts (much better public schools and, in this suburban belt, much less congestion and much more open space). Also, there are abundant opportunities here in neuroscience, Marie's field, should she decide to return to her career at some point. Though others might disagree, I also count snow as a plus, and I'm sure our boys (Brendan almost 5, and Thomas, 2) will agree. We actually had our first snowfall just before Halloween, and this was their first taste of Real Winter. Last but not least, we have escaped the Schwarzenegger Administration just in time. Now, if only I could find a way to escape the Bush Administration.

Brendan is in pre-school half days for three days a week and will be receiving some special education services from the school district (occupational therapy for motor skills issues). He still enjoys the traditional cars, trucks, and trains, and TV shows like PBS's Dragonland, but he especially wants to make friends in our new neighborhood. Thomas is fully mobile and just as on the go as his older brother. He is just starting to put words together into two-word sentences and loves lining up vehicles of all sorts into elaborate, extended "trains."

Please feel free to give us a call if you also live in the Boston area or will be visiting. It's always a pleasure hearing from fellow alums and current Carleton students. Best wishes to all for a year of health and peace.

Class of 1984

Molly O’Dell Coulter

Email: coulters@corecom.net

Phone: (907) 696-4689

Address: 20346 New England Drive, Eagle River AK 99577

Life continues to be happy here in Eagle River, Alaska. Gary, Scott and I keep much the same. Scott (at age 12) is just starting to cruise along furniture and we are finally realizing that we have to childproof. It’s very exciting! His favorite activity continues to be his horseback riding therapy—we are so lucky to have a great program so close to home. I continue to work and love my teaching job. I’m having to work to become a “highly qualified” math teacher, however, because my degree is in physics and not math. Gary is nearing the finish line at getting the Red Dog Mine in compliance with ISO 14001 environmental standard. It’s been a great challenge for him, and a good one. The mining industry hasn’t earned a good environmental reputation, so he’s enjoying the challenge of trying to change that perception. Our most exciting news is that we bought land in Colorado for future plans. We’re hoping to move closer to family in the next ten years or so. We love Alaska, but it’s far from friends and family. Happy Holidays!

Dave Glick

Email: David_b_glick@comcast.net

Address: 540 Dorland Rd. S., Maplewood, MN 55119

Greetings! It's hard to believe we've now been living in Maplewood, MN for 3.56 years. Almost a year ago, I left my job at the Minnesota Dept. of Education and joined Twin Cities Public Television as Project Manager in their education department. It's fascinating to be looking at our education system from yet another perspective—this time from the outside. I even get a chance to think science once in a while, since we're the home of Dragonfly TV and other science productions. I'm working on several distance education projects including websites, datacasting, and "traditional" online courses. Rachel and Daniel are in third and first grades respectively. They love their soccer and swimming. Sally is adjusting to the kids being in school all day by finishing up her ESL teacher's license and working part time. Life is good, even if some days I feel like a stereotype (wife, two kids, house in the suburbs...)!

Daniel Kim-Shapiro

Email: shapiro@wfu.edu

URL: http://www.wfu.edu/~shapiro/

Yeah, Halloween is definitely my favorite holiday. I still remember freezing my__off, walking back from Parish House my freshman year trying not to fall over the dangling pieces of cheese cloth that made up my mummy costume. Last Halloween was especially special—my son Mica was born. Today, Mica's five-year-old brother is wearing his ninja costume (I plan to put mine on when I get home) and participating in the "Fall Sing" with the rest of his junior kindergarten class. Unfortunately, while he is singing I will be teaching quantum mechanics. I do love teaching that class. I corresponded with our former Carleton classmate, Dan Schrodinger, I mean Shroeder, about my choice of textbook for that class. I am developing peer instruction and Just in Time Teaching materials for it. That keeps me busy, together with the fact that my wife (Lisa Kim-Shapiro, MD) is now a first year pathology resident and I am running a million-dollar plus lab studying nitric oxide and sickle cell anemia. Well, the third Kim-Shapiro child is due in May (please be a girl, please be a girl), so at least we'll have more help around the house ;-) Physics Rules!!!

Dan Schroeder

Email: dschroeder@weber.edu

URL: http://physics.weber.edu/schroeder/

Phone: (801) 626-6048

Address: Physics Department, Weber State University, Ogden, UT 84408-2508

This semester I'm taking my turn teaching at our new branch campus, so my commute has temporarily grown from two miles to fourteen. Fortunately, my university just made a deal with the local transit authority that allows all employees (and students) to ride the bus for free. I know most commuters have it much worse, but still I'll be happy when my workplace is again within a ten-minute bike ride.

In June I got appointed book review editor of the American Journal of Physics. For some reason, after you write a book, they assume you're qualified to judge other people's books. The job involves many agonizing decisions. Suggestions for reviews, and volunteer reviewers, would be most welcome.

When I get into the mountains, it's usually to document the ever-expanding ATV assault. Now the local Forest Service folks are planning to cave in and simply allow ATV's on most of the trails that they're already using illegally. Write to your Congressperson!

Class of 1985

Tom Albrecht

Address: IBM Almaden Research Center, 650 Harry Road, San Jose, CA 95120

Dear friends, we are just finishing a 20 month international assignment at the IBM Zurich Research Lab in Switzerland, and will be returning to San Jose, CA in December. I've been managing the "Millipede" micromechanical data storage project, which has turned out to be a lot of fun. I can't predict whether or not this technology will make it to the marketplace or not, but I've enjoyed helping guide it along the way. Upon return to San Jose, I'll be back at the IBM Almaden Research Center, where I've been since 1989. My new project will likely be either in magnetic tape technology, or in "storage class memory," which means new solid-state data storage technologies to replace flash memory, and maybe someday, disk and tape drives (although tape and disk are unbeatable for at least the next several years).

My family and I have very much enjoyed our time in Europe. We've taken a number of trips around the neighboring countries (France, Germany, Austria, and Italy) as well as a trip to England. Our favorite destination just might be Austria—it's just as beautiful as Switzerland, but far less expensive. The many Alpine ski resorts in Austria make superb summer destinations for hiking and general outdoor enjoyment, and in the summer, they can't give away the hotel rooms. (We don't ski, which perhaps makes us poorly qualified to live in Switzerland, but they're tolerating us OK.) We'll miss many things about Europe, but we are also looking forward to our return to San Jose. Our three little girls (Laura, 3, Christine, 2, and Sarah, 1) are keeping us very busy, but we wouldn't have it any other way! They don't know anyplace other than Switzerland as "home," so they may need some time to adjust to California. Happy Holidays to all!

David Keith Wilson

My family and I are still getting settled after moving to New Hampshire last year. We bought a pretty piece of land in the quaint, traditional New England town of Lyme (just north of Hanover, where Dartmouth College is located) and are having a house built. Hopefully we'll be in by Christmas. The kids (Daniel, 8, Annalee, 7, David, 4, and Abigail, 1) and my wife Nancy are all doing very well and look forward to the winter snow. I'm working at the Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Lab, where my recent focus has been the development of finite-difference methods for sound propagation in the atmosphere. I oversee the Seismic/Acoustic Team now, which nominally has 10 members (half Ph.D.'s) and has been humming along productively for several years. I also continue to be an editor for the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. All of which keeps me both very busy and content. Best wishes for the holidays to all.

Class of 1986

Steve Cederbloom

Email: cederbse@muc.edu

URL: www.muc.edu/ph/~cederbse

Greetings! The big news for this year was the arrival of our first child, Justin Allen, on January 11. Parenthood is quite an adventure! Stacey is on maternity leave from job teaching high school math, but is teaching part-time at Mount Union. So Justin is with me for office hours three days a week, which is fun and different.

My department at Mount Union has moved into the new science facility (with a traditional domed observatory, a sliding-roof observatory, and a mount for a small radio telescope on the roof). They kept telling us that everything was on schedule, but then in June, when we were supposed to move, things were suddenly behind schedule. We ended up moving the week before classes started instead! So unpacking and finding things has been a constant struggle in the midst of normal class/lab schedules. But the new building is very nice!

David Gerdes

Email: gerdes@umich.edu

URL: http://cdfrh0.grid.umich.edu/~gerdes/

Dear friends, I am in my 6th year on the faculty at the University of Michigan. My research focus remains the study of proton-antiproton collisions at the world's highest laboratory energies, using the CDF experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron collider. I've also begun a new research effort in cosmology, working on the SNAP experiment that will study the dark energy responsible for the recently discovered cosmic acceleration. I hope to spend part of my 2004-05 sabbatical at Berkeley coming up to speed in this exciting new field.

My sons Paul and Graham turned 10 and 8 in November. I've decided that parenthood is more difficult that high-energy physics, but that the project does not take quite as long to reach maturity. My wife Blair still works as a trademark attorney for Harley-Davidson. This year Harley-Davidson celebrated its 100th anniversary and we celebrated our 13th.

I'm always looking for good graduate students. Carleton students interested in a risk-free look at the University of Michigan should consider our REU summer program. Best wishes to all.

Nathaniel Longley

Email: nat@fnal.gov

Phone: (651) 290-2893

Address: 819 St. Clair Ave., St. Paul, MN 55105

Karen, Emily (9), Kate (8), and William (2) are all great, and send their hellos to everyone. So, I'm building a cabin north of Brainerd with some high school buddies, who pointed out my 2002 Twin Cities' time qualifies on a technicality for Boston 2004. Given my new hops-fueled training regime I'll most likely need a taxi to get up Heartbreak Hill, but they're making me go with them anyway—apparently some sort of bizarre, potentially dangerous, bonding ritual. The only consolation is that forty years from now, when, God willing, we're all up at the lake together, I won't be the only eighty-year-old fart who wimped out on Boston.

Had a long talk with Freeman Dyson about strategic bombing, and General Relativity. He isn't sure gravity needs to be quantized. Neither am I, but for entirely different reasons. Karen isn't sure either, but what she's not sure about is whether agreeing with Freeman Dyson is good thing or a bad thing. At least it has lead to some interesting work.

Tara O'Brien Pride

Email: mezzotara@hotmail.com

Now that my daughter is in 1st grade and in school all day, the whole family has had to make some adjustments. Mine have included volunteering in the school library, co-leading "art appreciation" activities in the classroom, and taking a low-key Spanish class in an effort to follow what Kalinda is learning in school. Eating lunch at home by myself was tough at first, but it's okay now. I'm sad to have far fewer opportunities to teach/learn alongside Kalinda, but I find being involved in the classroom scratches some of the itch. In the art appreciation program, I'm given pretty free rein on topics and activities. So far the class has made window clings that resemble Frank Lloyd Wright's stained glass designs. Soon we'll be creating sand paintings like the Navajo's. Later we'll study the photographs of Ansel Adams and make shoebox cameras. All the preparation is a great learning experience for me and I love it. I guess while my daughter is in public school, I'm in home school.

I'm still involved with my singing group, the Cascadian Chorale. For the past year and a half we've had in the works our first publicly available CD and it looks as though it might go on sale this holiday season! It features pieces by contemporary composers Bern Herbolsheimer, David White, and Troy Peters, among others. Based on the bits I have heard so far, I think there are going to be some fabulous sounds on this disc. Anyone who's interested can Email me or check out the Chorale website, www.cascadianchorale.org. Best wishes to all in the coming year.

Class of 1987

Kara Beauchamp

Email: kbeauchamp@cornellcollege.edu

I am in my third year of teaching physics at Cornell College, in Mount Vernon, Iowa. My husband Jeff and I enjoy living in Mount Vernon with our son, Kai. We bought a 100-year old house on 1.75 acres at the edge of town (walking distance to Cornell). Jeff is in the process of turning the property from a Christmas tree farm into an organic vegetable garden. Kai is 5 and is enjoying half-day kindergarten. He's already a great reader, and he often gets his mom to pretend she's a bunny while he's a small mouse.

Cornell is small (about 1000 students) and has an unusual calendar—students take one course at a time, each lasting 3.5 weeks (that's 18 days!). I teach 6 out of 9 "blocks" during the year, which is incredibly busy while I'm teaching. In September, I taught astronomy to 24 (non-major) first year students! The students were very enthusiastic, and despite the fact that I got little sleep, it was a lot of fun. I love how much I can learn when I'm teaching! During my non-teaching blocks I not only have time to sleep but I even have time to talk to my husband. I also spend time on a renewable energy research program I started. I have 5 anemometer towers that I'm using to measure wind speeds around the area. I'm working with two school districts to see if it makes sense for them to install wind turbines.

Bob Benjamin

Email: benjamir@uww.edu

URL: http://academics.uww.edu/physics/rab.htm

Phone: (608) 256-7565

Address: 480 N. Baldwin #5, Madison, WI 53703

I'm glad to report That I have a new home For my physics career.

Read the rest of this poem.

I started in Texas. A PhD path: Astronomy, physics, And even some math.

I neared 30 in Austin, And the shock, I would posit, Made me examine my life, And come out of the closet.

I landed a postdoc At the "U" (Minnesota). Bought my first car (Just replaced by Toyota).

Moved next to Wisconsin, Lured by the cheese And the need for astronomers With fresh PhDs.

I study the Galaxy And things interstellar And drink lots of beer in UW's Rathskellar.

But I lived on "soft money" A tentative fate Hoping grant money Would not show up too late.

Then I met John Fields, A philosophy teacher. "Love at first sight" Is the phrase I would feature.

We both want to stay here, And put down some roots, I'd say it's for life, but I avoid absolutes.

So last year I applied For a tenure-track spot Down at UW-Whitewater (40 miles), a straight shot.

I started this fall, So I get to perform Feats of physics for students Just rolled out of their dorm.

In two years they will finish A big renovation And I'll get my own lab space For this newfound vocation.

But until that is finished I have lots I can do In my dorm-turned-to-office Three-one-seven Goodhue.

I welcome your comments. Keep in touch, that's my credo. And if you feel like writing: benjamir@uww.edu

Randy Ellingson

Hello, Yes, it was a really great trip my wife Maria (we're still newlyweds married July 5, 2003) took to Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, so graciously and gracefully hosted by Joel Weisberg earlier this month. I still know so little about the night sky, but already look upon it with added wonder after the recent modern and archeo-astronomy lessons.

I continue at the National Renewable Energy Lab; I’m in the Basic Science Center, so I'm not officially responsible for actually developing the clean solar cells, though I assure you I am keeping my eyes open for new ideas always. My work currently involves the characterization of electronic structure and relaxation dynamics in single-walled carbon nanotubes and semiconductor quantum dots, with an eye towards fast charge separation and transport. Keeps me plenty busy, though I get in a few hours woodworking as well my first major project in quite some time is a desk. Watch for an upcoming public service announcement campaign with the Ad Council on energy efficiency and conservation, featuring the "Energy Hog". My wife is centrally involved in this campaign, sponsored in part through Energy Outreach Colorado.

Steven Glapa

Email: sglapa@inrealis.com

URL: http://www.inrealis.com

Address: 272 Edgewater Drive, Milpitas, CA 95035

Hi all, it's been a while since I've done one of these. I've had the mixed blessing of experiencing the full peak-to-trough amplitude of the Silicon Valley roller coaster over the past few years, so it's been keeping me pretty busy. Highlights from the work life: left Lucent for a software startup at what turned out to be NASDAQ's peak, had a close call nonetheless with a company-acquisition transaction that would have enabled comfortable early retirement (oh well), spent some time "in transition" as we say, consulting and investigating the commercial phenomenon in nanotech. If you're curious about that space, check out http://www.inrealis.com for more on what I found there. Landed at ArrayComm, the wireless industry's brain trust for so-called smart antenna technologies, at the beginning of this year. Even though I am the company's marketing department —there used to be a marketing “team”, but that was before our 50% layoffs in May. I have found it necessary to break out my Berkeley Physics E&M text on occasion, which is fun (It impresses the engineers here to no end when they learn that their marketing guy has a physics degree.) We're on a mission to bring to market a technology that provides the broadband data rate of DSL but with the user freedom of cellular, and things are looking good now for the company, so I'm having a good time. Sorry to say it won't be coming to the US any time soon, thanks to the FCC and the wireless service provider oligopoly here, but it'll happen eventually.

Home life is good—we got to keep our house, which is more than can be said for tens of thousands of families in the Valley—and my kids are 4, 6, and 8 now, so we're right in that sweet spot where the joy exceeds the effort by a wide margin. Enjoying it fully while it lasts. Best wishes for the holidays to all,

Eric Jensen

Email: ejensen1@swarthmore.edu

URL: http://astro.swarthmore.edu/~jensen/

It has been several years since I've written, but I've enjoyed keeping up with others via their contributions to the alumni newsletter–thanks to everyone for writing in.

I'm in my sixth year as an assistant professor of astronomy at Swarthmore College, which means I'm up for tenure this year—I'll find out in February. I enjoy the job, though I've also been wrestling with figuring out how to do a decent job at it without having it occupy my every waking moment—and also with figuring out how to have more of those non-waking moments! My wife Julie Nishimura-Jensen ('87) has been teaching Latin and Greek part-time at Haverford and Penn. We have two sons now—Alex is 5 and Tim is 2.5. They keep us busy and entertained. Alex can point out Chile on a map, since I've been traveling there a lot in the past few years to use telescopes at Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory for my research, searching for young stars that are relatively near Earth. These stars will provide good targets for follow-up observations to place better constraints on the timescale for planet formation. Overall, life is good, I hope the same is true for all of you.

Terry Kucera

Email: tkucera@crosslink.net

Address: 3-E Crescent Rd., Greenbelt, MD 20770

Hi all, my big news for this year is that in October I married Jeff Travis. Jeff and I met in a local bicycling advocacy group and have been dating for four years. He's an engineer and also works at NASA/Goddard. We'll be living at my house, so my address will remain the same.

Other than that, things remain pretty much the same. I still work at NASA on various Sun related projects: SOHO, Living with a Star, and now it looks like I will be helping with the preparations for the STEREO spacecraft to be launched in a few years. That last one is actually two spacecraft, one leading and one following in Earth's orbit to get stereo measurements of the Sun and solar wind. Pretty neat. Happy 2004 to everybody!

Silva Theiss

Email: stheiss@comcast.net

Hello all. I apologize for not having written for several years. Kids happened. The last time I wrote, I think I was doing a postdoc at Bell Labs. Major events since that time:

June 1997: moved to Livermore CA, where Steve had a postdoc at the National Lab making integrated circuits on plastic. July 1997: birth of Julia Ashlyn Theiss, 6 weeks early. Man, were we surprised and unprepared! She was due in early September. We hadn't bought any baby supplies except for a car seat. Fortunately, she didn't suffer any ill effects from her early arrival. February 1998: I started working at the National Lab also, doing Monte Carlo and molecular dynamics simulations of B implantation and annealing in Si. It was a joint project with Intel and Applied Materials. It was very cool to spend some time on their corporate campuses. March 1998: we purchased our first house! It's about 30 years old, built as part of a big development, but the houses are old enough that they no longer look like cookie-cutter replicas of each other. And everything you plant in the garden grows! 2nd Half, 1999: in August, Steve got frustrated with his job situation at Livermore, saw an ad for a position at 3M for someone with almost exactly his qualifications, and applied. 3M called back to find out if he would really seriously move from California to Minnesota. He interviewed in September, talked it over with his management at the lab (who don't believe he would really leave California for Minnesota) and accepted the job in October. Our California house spend only a few days on the market before selling. We house hunted in Minnesota and I interviewed at 3M in November. January/February 2000: we spend Y2k (remember that?) in Hawaii, then completed the move to Minnesota. I started working in the MEMS group at 3M. We decided to focus on optical telecommunications applications. March 2002: birth of Laura Alexandra Theiss, 4 weeks early (much better than 6 weeks early.) While I was out on maternity leave, it became clear that optical telecommunications is *not* a good market to concentrate on. We became the "Microsystems" group, and are working on small sensors and actuators for several applications. So, I'm enjoying my job, enjoying my kids, and generally having a fine time. Although I wish my garden would grow here like it did in California! Send email!

Steve Thorsett

Email: thorsett@ucolick.org

URL: http://www.thorsett.org/

Phone: (831) 459-5170 (work)

Address: 209 Segre Place, Santa Cruz, CA 95060

Dear friends, it has been a couple of busy years since I last wrote. We are in our fifth year in Santa Cruz, feeling very much at home. I realized how soft we were getting when I went back to Northfield to talk with the "What do physicists do?" class and experienced my first snowstorm in years! It was wonderful to see everyone, and to meet a new generation of Carleton students. I'm hoping to see Joel in Aspen this winter, if we can both get away from teaching for a few days.

Other fun encounters: fun with Joel and the gang a year ago in Crete; writing a paper with Bob Benjamin '87; a visit from Laura Ruetsche '87 and Gordon Belot last spring. Other highlights: braving the sharks in the bay to do my first (only distance) triathlon; improving my skills on the piano my great-great-grandparents hauled across the country a century ago; watching the odd genetics of math play out in Laura's second grade homework.

At work: I'm now department chair in astronomy at UCSC, and not teaching much for a while. We had a wacky summer, with our Science paper on the "Methuselah planet" making the front page of many newspapers as well as the evening news and PBS. Most of my real science these days is fundamental astrometric studies of radio pulsars, but I'm spending more and more time getting ready for the launch of the GLAST gamma-ray satellite, and trying to get an x-ray satellite flown.

Digby Willard, Jr.

Email: willard@usfamily.net

URL: http://www.scienceteecher.com

I left my job teaching physics at St. Paul Central High School in 2000. It was a great six years, and I actually did get to be good at something and make a difference for lots of students. After six years of teaching some of the best students around, I wanted more time with my family. I also had lots of issues with the whole notion of compulsory schooling, which I came to see more and more as one of the most damaging things in our society. Obviously there isn't space to go into detail on how I came to this view by working with the best and the brightest, but by the time I left, I really felt that Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall" was all about me, and that there was no way I could change that. Anyone who wants a fuller explanation can read the chapter entitled "Teachers: the People vs. the Profession" in The Teenage Liberation Handbook by Grace Llewellyn '86. Her experience was almost exactly like mine; only the details are different. If you still want a further explanation, email me, or read any educational writings by the late, great John Holt.

Since I left teaching, my wife Fun Fun Cheng '86 and I have focused on our home business. We sell math and science novelty t-shirts, ties, scarves, and jewelry online and at conventions. After a couple very lean years, we now make a pretty decent living doing with this business, to our perpetual amazement. Visit http://www.scienceteecher.com/ for details.

We also spend lots of time with our six-year-old daughter, Kate, who does not attend school. It's great seeing her grow up in the family business, and just being around her day in and day out.

I'm also back in schools now, coaching junior high wrestling at Capitol Hill Magnet School here in St. Paul. I've found that the wrestling part is no problem; junior high, on the other hand, is a whole different ball of wax.

Answers to the three most common questions asked by old friends: No, I don't think I'll ever go back to teaching school. It was a great decade, and I made more of a difference for more people than I ever had before. Most people never know what it's like to be the eye of the hurricane, and I wouldn't trade the experience for anything. But that part of my life is over, and I've moved on. No, we don't expect to sell t-shirts and ties for the rest of our lives. But it's a nice lucrative break while we figure out what to do next, and we don't think we'll ever again work for anyone else if we don't want to. We don't know if our daughter will ever attend school. Most people manage to send their offspring to college without deciding in advance if those offspring are going to get doctorates. This is the same kind of thing at an earlier age.

Class of 1988

Carolyn Berland

Email: Carolyn.berland@telia.com

Hi everybody, I'm still living in Sweden with my husband and two daughters (1 and 6). I work in the research department of a company that makes paper towels, diapers etc. I am nowadays something between a chemist and a microbiologist but every once in a while I get to do some physics which is always fun. Being so off the beaten track, I haven't seen any Carleton people in a long while (except of course my brother and sister) so if anyone ever makes it so far north give us a call

Brian K. Hakim

Email: bhakim2004@kellogg.northwestern.edu

Greetings from Evanston, I am in my second year at Kellogg School of Management after spending my summer back in the Bay Area interning at Genentech. Business school is a lot of fun, with great people, good classes, and much exercising of my liver.

The fall term has me busy taking as many classes as possible, trying to finally delve into the fun of Chicago, and of course, recruiting for a full time job (anyone know of a good medical device or biotech position?). Up and coming for me is a term abroad in Bangkok, Thailand at a "sister" school called Sasin followed by five weeks of traveling to India, Australia, New Zealand, or some combination. Then its one more term back at Kellogg before heading back to the real world. If you are in Evanston this fall or spring or in Thailand over the winter, send me an email.

Jeff Kouba

Email: jkouba@hockey.net URL: http://www.jeffkouba.com

My big news this year is my wife and I have adopted from Russia again. This time we have a new daughter we've named Hanna. (It's the latter half of her Russian birth name, Snezhanna.) We brought her home in April. She comes from Kostroma. We made two trips over there, one to see her and one to actually have our court date and bring her back. Hanna turned two in September. She and her brother are getting along great.

I continue to influence world events. You may recall when we adopted our son from Russia; we were over there on 9/11. With Hanna, the war in Iraq began the day we arrived on our first trip, and it ended while we were there on our second trip. I am still working for Qwest in the Twin Cities. I went to a different development group in June, and have been hip deep in java web development every since. It's been a great chance to improve those skills.

Class of 1989

Jonathan Alberts

Email: jalberts@u.washington.edu URL: www.celldynamics.org

Dear physics, I'm working with the Nascent Center for Cell Dynamics at the University of Washington's marine labs in Friday Harbor, Washington—big time science (we like to think) on a tiny little island. Among other things, we build computational models to study how lots of small-scale simple interactions lead to larger-scale complex emergent behavior in the realms of cell motility/organization and genetic networks. I have a 20 month old daughter with Sara Jackson (Chemistry '90) who enjoys living by the water—it's sort of like summer camp for scientists.

Mark Anderson

It's been a quiet year in Northampton, Mass. Building up to '04 has sort of been the theme. My partner Penny Leveritt and I will be getting married this coming May in Amherst. And sometime around then I should be finishing up with the manuscript I'm now under contract with Gotham Books/PenguinPutnam to produce. It's (tentatively) titled: "Shake-speare's Autobiography: The Literary Life of Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford." Fellow '89 physics nerd (and former roommate) Jon Alberts was kind enough this summer to read through my first five sample chapters and provide some helpful feedback. I should soon have a book website up at http://www.shake-speare.info/. Tentative publication date is spring of '05. I've done very little freelance writing this year, although the biggest exception to that rule has been a cover story for New Scientist magazine scheduled to come out (as I write this note) during the last week in November. The article's on quantum cryptography and the clever ways some scientists are figuring out to hack these supposedly un-hackable systems. Those quantum courses I took at Carleton and as an astro grad student have certainly paid for themselves.

Jennifer Ashton Worwa

Email: ashwor@msn.com

Address: 14111 Rosewood Lane North, Dayton, MN 55327

Still full-time mom, part-time veterinarian and enjoying all the joys and challenges that both provide. Expecting our third child in March. Hope to attend reunion next year and see some of you!

Mike Catanese

Email: ashwor@msn.com

Address: 14111 Rosewood Lane North, Dayton, MN 55327

Still full-time mom, part-time veterinarian and enjoying all the joys and challenges that both provide. Expecting our third child in March. Hope to attend reunion next year and see some of you!

John Daniel

Julie (Bateman) and I are still living in Lafayette, Colorado, with our 3 children: John (9), Lynn (7), and Michael(5). We have been here for ten years, so now it certainly feels like home. We all love doing outdoor things, including camping, hiking, cycling, and backcountry skiing. One of the things we love about Colorado is that these activities are all close to us. However, we do miss the "real" winters of Minnesota.

I am still working at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Aeronomy Laboratory in Boulder. While still at the same lab, the work I do has changed quite a bit from when I first arrived. I started out modeling atmospheric processes related to ozone depletion. As that problem has become more understood, I have turned my attention toward climate change issues. I have also shifted much of my focus from pure modeling to experimental work. Most of the research I do involves making spectral measurements of scattered sunlight at visible and near-infrared wavelengths with the intent of inferring cloud properties remotely. An aspect of this that I particularly enjoy is developing new ways of extracting cloud information that can be useful to weather and climate modelers from such simple measurements. The field campaigns that we participate in also lead to some exciting (and not so exciting!) trips. These have included trips to Antarctica, hurricane hunting out of Florida, pollution measuring over Houston, and cloud observations in central Oklahoma.

While Julie and the children usually do not come along on the field campaigns, last winter we all got to spend five months on the South Island of New Zealand while I was collaborating with scientists there. It was quite an adventure that more than met our hopes and expectations. We are still amazed that we traveled somewhere almost every weekend, and we never left the South Island. Now we are happy to be back in Colorado and to get to have another winter, after three summers in a row.

Eve Fillenbaum

URL: http://home.earthlink.net/~fillenbaum

Hi all, the big event of the week was a car accident that I'm still waiting to hear how much needs to be done to my car to fix (nobody hurt and I'd have to say it was the fault of the other guy, who ran a stop sign, but still a pain!).

The big event of the year was definitely the birth of our daughter, Amethyst Lynn Maddison, on February 14th. She's now sitting up, wants to be standing up, and is the proud owner of 2 teeth. She is extremely cute (even according to random strangers). I've been back at work at Retek since May; Joseph took the summer off to look after Amethyst but is now back at work also.

Andrew Gabor

Email: amgabor@cox.net

Phone: (401) 621-7806 (H), (508) 357-2221 (W)

Address: 54 Holly St., Providence, RI 02906

All is well with both family and work. My wife Iris got tenure in the Engineering Department at Brown, so it looks like we'll be sticking around here for a while. My two slightly wild girls, Jasmine and Maya, are 4 and 2. They're very cute. I'm currently munching on some candy I stole from their Halloween loot. Jasmine is going to the French American School that is total immersion in French. The teacher claims that Jasmine understands French, but she's a non-performer at home. Work remains exciting at Evergreen Solar. We're in the middle of a big expansion of our photovoltaic solar panel factory. To help take some of the burden off my shoulders, I hired a Carl! Bob Clark-Phelps ('83 Physics) has been here for a few months now and has hit the ground running. See his post for more info.

Paul Grossi

Email: paul@raft.net; pgrossi@aol.com

Phone: (408) 727-4227

Address: 5002 Calle De Escuela, Santa Clara, CA 95054-1431

2003 finds me still working as the Director of Education for the Resource Area for Teachers (RAFT), a thriving Bay Area non-profit organization that collects industry discards (used office supplies, excess publicity materials, used computers, and many other random items) and creates educational uses from the accumulation. Teachers can come to the warehouse and get materials to support hands-on teaching. We also offer workshops and create "kits" in which all the supplies for an activity with a class of 20 are included; these kits cost around a $1. On Saturdays, I am the science demonstrator and get to teach teachers how to do various science projects using RAFT materials. It is a pretty interesting place—we have over 4000 teacher members who use RAFT!

My daughter Isabel just turned 5. She is enrolled in a parent participation elementary school, so I spend four hours in the classroom every Monday being in effect a teacher's aide. I am very much enjoying trying to teach 5 year olds the difference between d and b (bump goes the other way) and the difference in sound between p and b (making the puh sound requires a little puff of air, while buh doesn't). My wife Jenny is an oncology nurse at Stanford hospital. For recreation, I play ultimate with a Bay Area co-ed frisbee club, "Santa Crucial". Could ramble more, but that is probably enough. Hope to hear from folks if they pass through the Bay Area!

Kent Lindquist

Email: kent@lindquistconsulting.com

Address: Lindquist Consulting, 59 College Rd., Suite #7, Fairbanks, AK 99701

Hello, my new company, Lindquist Consulting, is doing well in its second year. I just returned from a successful trip to Rome, working with a branch of the Italian government on monitoring the strong-motion component of earthquake wavefields. Private consulting has turned out to be a great way to pursue my dual interest in scientific research and in the complex technologies supporting near-real-time monitoring. Not to mention, the Italian pasta, coffee, and wine were great. I hope everyone is doing well, best regards