End-of-2007 Superlatives

December 31, 2007

By hammersmith

Considering that 2008 has already begun for the farthest-flung Scholars and alums, we’d better hurry up with some year-end awards. Let’s get right to it:

Most Likely to Catch You if You Start Spilling Trade Secrets: Keith Schon (’92). Keith is a senior software engineer for Cataphora, which conducts investigations on very large data sets, mostly for the legal industry, discerning behavior patterns by looking at e-mail messages, instant messages, memos, calendar entries, operation of electronic door locks…

Best Demonstration of Skills Enabling One to Live off the Land in Case of Apocalypse: Jonathan Furst (’88 ). Jonathan is the co-founder and senior editor for Chromatrope Design, a print and web design company in the Bay Area. And he’s a graduate of the Tom Brown Tracker School. And he leads wilderness-skills workshops for Wild Mystic in the Sierras.

Best Worst Commute: Katie (Awerkamp) Liljenquist (’95). Katie lives in eastern Idaho, 256 clicks up the road from Provo, where’s she’s an assistant professor in the Marriott School of Business at BYU. No monkey business in class, kiddies: Her research centers on ethics and power and decisionmaking and related psychology stuff as it applies in organizational settings.

Funniest Funny Person: AJ Morales (’97). While he was working on his MFA in dramatic writing at NYU, AJ was also putting together the Wicked Wicked Hammerkatz, a sketch and improv comedy group based out of the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in New York. AJ’s still performing, writing, and directing–for the Hammerkatz and several other comedy groups.

Most Likely to End the Argument about Whether Paintings By Elephants Count As Art: Sherri Irvin (’89). Sherri is an assistant professor of philosophy, specializing in aesthetics, at the University of Oklahoma. The story of her hunt to land her current position was published here.

Best Sense of Perspective (or, at least, best model of the known universe): Ka Chun Yu (’88 ). Ka Chun is the curator of space science for the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. His current research focuses on evaluating the use of immersive virtual environments, like digital planetariums, for teaching astronomical concepts.

Most Likely to Arbitrate a Conclusion to the Writer’s Guild Strike: Sarah Calvert (’00). Sarah has just a semester to go at Columbia Law, where she has focused on media and entertainment law. This year she’s serving on the editorial board for the Columbia Science and Technology Law Review and working for the Law and Justice Unit at ABC News.