CLASS NOTES | SPRING 2024 | 71 challenge from the Lehigh Athletics Instagram page during COVID, she started running as a way to keep active. The marathon is the culmination of all the training, giving her an opportunity to see the city where she grew up in a new light. At Lehigh, Rebecca was an accounting and finance major. She is also a proud alumna of the golf team, where she says she made some of her best memories touring the country playing the sport she loves. She strongly suggested Utah as a great place to visit for the beautiful scenery and great golf courses. Rebecca now lives in the Forest Hills neighborhood in Queens, NYC, where she works for J.P. Morgan in product control. On top of it all, she is also pursuing a master’s degree in finance at Baruch College. My last feature is a good friend from Lehigh who has now moved on to exciting things across the pond! Gen Nickerson has moved to London to pursue her master’s degree in Tudor and Stuart history at the University of Buckingham. Somewhat of a 180 from her computer science and business degree and Spanish minor at Lehigh, Gen is looking forward to a break from software engineering. At Lehigh, Gen was the president of Women in Business, involved with the CSB Association and an orientation leader. After graduation, she spent two years in Seattle, Wash., working for Hulu and Disney streaming. Wishing Gen a safe and memorable time while in London! That’s all for now, folks! Stay warm, and I cannot wait to catch up with more of my fellow classmates in 2024! ’21 Eve Freed, evefreed1@gmail.com and Skyler McCabe, skylermccabe1@gmail.com Editor’s note: Thanks to Anmol Shrestha as he steps aside and welcome to Eve Freed as she joins the correspondent ranks. Julia Pardee recently moved from New York to San Francisco to further her career in venture capital. Since completing Lehigh Silicon Valley in 2020, Julia has helped scale and fund 20-plus cybersecurity start-ups. As a senior venture associate at Cyber Mentor Fund (CMF), she sources new investments, researches market trends, evaluates prospective deals and supports portfolio founders as they grow their businesses. With her relocation to California, Julia began hosting CMF’s monthly podcast, with her first episode discussing recent AI policy developments in the U.S., U.K. and E.U. She is an active alumna through Young Alumni Council, Alumni Volunteers for Admissions and the Soaring Together initiative. In the next few months, she’s co-hosting a Dinner for 12 and a networking event for Lehigh students and alumni in San Francisco. Julia is also the director of professional development at Gen Z VC, a global community of 20,000-plus young people passionate about tech, startups and venture capital. ’22 Clare Fonstein, clf222@alum. lehigh.edu Hi, all. It’s no surprise the Class of 2022 continues to impress, and I am excited to share what two of our peers have been up to. Hannah Murphy and Nick Bowers completed the 2,200mile Appalachian Trail in September. Their journey began in early April in Georgia and took them across 14 states, ending in Maine. The pair hiked about 15 miles each day, with 30-pound backpacks through rainstorms, mosquitos and extreme temperatures. They described the experience as incredible, filled with sunrises and nights under the stars and inspiring a greater appreciation for the environment. Their trek was not without challenges. Nick got sick along the way, landing him briefly in a hospital. Thankfully, with the help of antibiotics, he recovered and could get back to hiking. They spent many nights in their 4-by8-foot tent but occasionally slept in hiker hostels or hitchhiked to a hotel. They made new friends along the trail and learned a lot in the way of foraging, including the skills to cook “chicken of the woods,” a species of mushroom. As of early winter, Nick is now applying to chemistry Ph.D. programs, and Hannah is on the job hunt. Both hope to have more adventures in the future. A huge congrats to Hannah and Nick on this accomplishment, and best wishes on their next steps! I know our class has been up to a lot recently, and I am eager to hear about it all. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any news you would like to share for the Alumni Bulletin! ’23 Editor’s note: Our sincere thanks to Connor Melko for telling the stories of the Class of 2023 throughout their student years and as they transitioned to alumni. We wish you the best of luck in graduate school! To share your news or if you would be interested in becoming your class’s correspondent, reaching out to classmates and writing a column three times a year, please contact the Alumni Office at 610-758-3686 or classnotes@lehigh.edu. ’24 Samantha Gropper, shg224@ lehigh.edu The Class of 2024 is off to a great start in our final year as undergraduates. It’s hard to believe we’ve entered our senior year, and it is remarkable to think about how much we’ve accomplished. I want to highlight two individuals who exceeded expectations and accomplished amazing things this past semester. Lexa Winigrad, a finance major, has spent the past few weeks interning at Lehigh’s Investment Office, which helps manage Lehigh’s endowment of approximately $2 billion. Lexa works directly with Kristin Agatone, the chief investment officer, and the four-person team. Lexa first discovered this internship through one of her professors and thought it would be a unique opportunity to use skills from her classes in a real-world application. Through this internship, Lexa has learned a lot about asset management and how Lehigh’s endowment is managed, allocated and distributed. She’s learned how to effectively evaluate potential investment opportunities and manage portfolios. She’s worked on researching and analyzing trends for a venture capital industry report, writing investment memos for potential growth equity managers and creating public equities manager evaluations, which include both qualitative and quantitative analysis. This opportunity has allowed Lexa to hone her time-management skills, financial analysis and working as part of an asset management team. On campus, Lexa is also on the leadership team of the TRAC Fellowship Program, the president of Beta Gamma Sigma Honors Society, an Orientation Leader and a member of the Greek life community. Chelsea Clark managed a full course load of classes and participated in the New York City 2023 Marathon last November, a longtime goal. Balancing both her training schedule and academics was a difficult task. She spent
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