CLASS NOTES | FALL 2024 | 73 tandem skydiving instructor so he can take his dad on a trip. As a tandem skydiving instructor, he would be strapped alongside another person as they jump, guiding the process. So, if anyone is looking to use their Lehigh network for some skydiving advice, you know who to call! Another one of our peers, Kevin Gu, also set exciting goals for himself outside of work. Kevin, a consultant at Accenture, is working to become a Six Star World Marathon Major finisher, running the major marathons in New York, Chicago, London, Berlin, Boston and Tokyo. Kevin has run three marathons thus far, some counting toward the Six Star title. He ran the Chicago marathon in 2023, followed by Tokyo and Copenhagen this year. In the fall, Kevin is set to run the New York City marathon. I am wishing Kevin and Nick the best of luck in achieving these goals and hoping you all have a pleasant fall! As always, please reach out if you have any news you would like to share with your peers for the next column. ’23 Declan Coster, declanmcoster@gmail.com Hello, Class of 2023. My name is Declan Coster, and I will be your class correspondent. If you don’t remember me, you’ll probably remember the countless GroupMe messages I berated you with about various events. I am excited to write these columns and to share how our class is doing after our shared time on South Mountain! I will be writing this column every four months, so please feel free to reach out and share any news you’d like me to include. The best ways to reach me are by email (declanmcoster@gmail.com) or Instagram (@dec.o) I know all of you have been very busy since graduating, but here are a few updates from the assortment of people you could have found in my Thomas Street house senior year. Lester Huang has moved twice since graduating. Originally, Lester moved to Rochester, N.Y., for work but then switched jobs to work at Lazarus with me and moved to Denver, Colo. Lester also has something of a travel bug; he has been to 12 states in the past year as well as Japan and Australia. Yukang Kuang has been working for Keysight Technologies in the Pacific Northwest and now lives in Portland, Ore. Yukang’s room has its own electronics lab that far surpasses the Packard Lab electronics lab we studied in together. In his spare time, Yukang continues to build on his cooking skills and enjoys hiking. Matt Briggs moved out to central Maryland to work for WSP. Briggs has been enjoying exploring the D.C. and Baltimore area. He continues to be an avid cyclist and has been trying to do a better job of not falling off his bike. Matt Tallo left for Hokkaido, Japan, right after graduation to work for Letara Ltd. For over eight months, Tallo worked on rocketry projects while also traveling through Japan and Korea on the weekends. Tallo is now back in the U.S. and will finish his mechanical engineering master’s at Lehigh this fall. David Tauman has been working as a structural engineer at Dewberry in Bloomfield, N.J. Dave will be returning to Lehigh for a master’s in catastrophe modeling and resilience part-time. On the weekends, Dave is often in contact with his Lehigh social circle, which is not a surprise to anyone who knows him. Adam Porfiris now works for Deloitte as an advisory analyst and lives in New Jersey. He has been navigating not only the beginnings of his career, but also the treachery of NJ Transit. Adam continues to be an avid Mets fan despite the Mets’ continued lack of success. Excitingly, Kevin Coxhead got engaged to his high school sweetheart, Kylin Szarko, in February and married this fall. Kevin is working as a software developer in Philadelphia. ’24 Kyra Boston, kruthb11@gmail.com Hello, Class of 2024! I am so excited to be taking over as our class correspondent. It’s the perfect way to keep in touch with all the wonderful people I met during our time as undergrads and a great opportunity to get to know those I may not have crossed paths with while on campus. I hope you all have been enjoying the past few months post-graduation as we all transition to the next phases of our lives. I have settled back in my hometown of Camp Hill, Pa., just outside of Harrisburg, where I have started working as a water/wastewater engineer at Gannett Fleming. It has been interesting finally getting to apply the material I learned in my civil engineering classes to the various project designs I work on! As many of you have also started working at your first full-time jobs or have moved on to begin additional programs in academia, I wish you all the best of luck! I want to highlight some of the unique opportunities a few of our classmates are pursuing. Will Yaeger is spending the next year in Peru on a Fulbright scholarship. In his time there, he will be studying biocontrol methods for fungal diseases of cacao at the Universidad Nacional Agraria de la Selva in Tingo María. Brooke Cannon will also be abroad on a Fulbright scholarship in Greece. Brooke will be at Harokopio University of Athens to achieve a Master of Science degree in “Sustainable Tourism Development: Heritage, Environment, Society.” Sam Ginn and Claire Kirshenbaum will be traveling to Serbia and Indonesia, respectively, as Boren Scholars. Both Sam and Claire will be spending their time developing linguistic and cultural knowledge of the country and their locale to later work in public service for the federal government. Congratulations are also in order to my fellow Martindale Scholar students (Sarah Mixsell, Tessa Dougan, Alex Damle, Ben Murphy-Schmehl, CJ Marina, Emily Michnowski, Kate Brown, Lauryn Holgado, Sam Ginn, Will Yaeger and Layan Suleiman ’25) for the upcoming release of our “Perspectives” journal edition highlighting our research on various aspects of Morocco and its economy. I look forward to catching up with you all in November as we celebrate the journal’s release at the Harmonie Club in New York City! In the coming months (and years), I look forward to hearing from everyone in the Class of 2024! I hope to hear about everything each classmate is doing and is planning to do, so I can share it with our fellow classmates! ’25 Stephanie Kasulka, sek225@lehigh.edu ’26 Amanda Rowan, abr226@lehigh.edu As the leaves change color, the trees grow bare and I try to write, I can’t help but think about how much has changed. In my third year at Lehigh, I now live in an apartment. Something that makes me feel very grown up. Now I know, it’s only a little step in adulthood, but I’ve learned to cook! That’s a pretty big step in my book. I’ve made salmon, turkey tacos, hamburgers and so much more. And while I could go on and on about all the things I’ve learned while
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