Indiana Alumni Magazine
For most of us, the years just after college are focused on landing jobs, getting into graduate schools, finding partners, and starting families. But the same years are a time of unparalleled creativity and near-boundless energy. So is it any wonder that some of IU’s most impressive alumni are these graduates, all born between 1974 and, gulp, 1989?
Nicole Parker, BA'00
1 MAD COMEDIAN
Nicole Parker, 26
Nicole Parker, BA'00, planned on spending August 2003 doing
improv with The Second City comedy troupe on its Cleveland
stage. But a funny thing happened on the way to that forum. Parker
received a phone call from MADtv, a Fox sketch comedy show, offering
her a spot as a featured cast member on the show.
Parker got her start doing improv with the group Full Frontal Comedy while a student at IU Bloomington . After graduation, she moved to the Netherlands and joined Boom Chicago, an Amsterdam-based group of American improv comedians. She spent two years in the Netherlands and learned Dutch so she could understand what men were yelling at her while she pedaled her bike to work every day.
"It turned out they were yelling, 'Hey, that's a boy's bike,'" Parker says.
After returning to the U.S., Parker helped start a theater company, Waterwell Productions.
She's loving life these days. "I sort of caught up with my imagination," she says.
2 TALKING BLUE DOG
Eric Wortman, 27
Snarky pundits may call them Republicans in Democrats' clothing, but to Eric Wortman, BA'99, Blue Dogs
— the coalition of conservative congressional Democrats that Wortman fronts — are the best that American politics has to offer.
After earning a communication arts degree at IU Kokomo, Wortman moved to Washington, D.C., to pursue graduate studies at American University. He never intended to stay, but a series of exciting inside-the-Beltway jobs culminated with his current gig as communications director for the Blue Dog Coalition. The 39 Democrats (including Indiana's Baron Hill, '77) whose message Wortman crafts value centrism and across-the-aisle cooperation. Above all, Wortman says, "they're a group of deficit hawks."
As party-skeptical Generation X comes of age politically, groups like the Blue Dogs just might have a leg up.
3 MUSICAL BLISS
Julian Bliss, 15
If it's Tuesday, Julian Bliss is in Lübeck, Germany, studying with clarinet great Sabine
Meyer; if it's Wednesday, then he's back in England at London's Royal Academy of Music.
It's an intense international schedule for anyone, but even more amazing for a 15-year-old. And it's paying off. In the last two years Bliss — one of the world's top clarinetists — has won first place in the Concerto Soloists Young Artists Competition in Philadelphia, performed at the Queen's Golden Jubilee, and released his first CD.
But Bliss can't add an IU degree to his roster of achievements just yet. Even though he's completed all the requirements for IU's prestigious artist's diploma, he won't receive his university credential until he completes high school. So for now, Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays find Bliss attending a traditional high school like any other 15-year-old. He lives with his family outside London.
4 BOBBIES GIRL
Diane Dodd, 26
Even the world's most
civilized police department
needs a little help
with community relations.
That's where Diane Dodd,
BA'00, comes in. She works for London's
Metropolitan Police Service — notice that
it's a "service" and not a "force" — managing
citizen volunteers as part of an effort to
improve the bobbies' public image.
Dodd, who was born in England to American military parents, took the job following a stint in the Peace Corps in Bulgaria. She sees it as part of a public-service career that aims to strengthen citizen involvement in public life.
"By giving the public access to the organization, they will get to see how things are happening," she says.
5 SCHOLAR ATHLETE
Tiffany Kyser, 22
If hard work and perseverance have any effect at all — and they usually do — Tiffany Kyser will be playing in the WNBA at this time next year. At least that's her goal.
Kyser, BS'03, was IUPUI's Top Female Student in 2002 and 2003, and she was a first-team Verizon Academic All-American as a senior.
On the court, Kyser holds career records for the Jaguars' women's team in rebounds and free throws made. Last December, IUPUI retired her No. 44 jersey.
After graduation, she played professional basketball in Greece for four months. Later, she was back in the U.S., playing for Springfield, Mass., in the NWBL. She was back in her hometown of Indianapolis this summer, working out and practicing basketball, to get ready for another season in the NWBL, where she hopes to attract enough attention to move up to the WNBA.
Kyser is also outreach manager for Girls Inc. Teaching school may be in her long-term future, but Kyser says she wants to pursue professional basketball for the time being.
6 SERVANT LEADER
Andrew Takami, 25
Whether it was the family
trip to Washington, D.C.,
when he was 8 or the elaborate
scale model of the
White House he made as a
4-H project a couple years later, Andrew
Takami, BA'02, caught the public-service
bug early in life.
After paging for the Indiana General Assembly for five years and volunteering for political campaigns for candidates of both parties — "I vote the person, not the party," he says — Takami turned his passion for servant-leadership to Indiana University. In 2003, the former IU Southeast student-government standout was named acting alumni director for IUS, making him one of youngest people to serve in that capacity in IU history.
Takami still keeps a close eye on politics. He has met both presidents Bush and President Carter, with whom Takami has a special connection: "He was president when I was born."
7 ALGORITHM GURU
Seth Patinkin, 28
To Seth Patinkin, BS/BA'98,
math is money. After graduating
from IU, Patinkin
studied math at Princeton,
working with Nobel Laureate
John Nash (whose struggles with
schizophrenia were the basis of the movie
A Beautiful Mind). When he undertook a
project for the Chicago Board of Trade, Patinkin
became interested in the commercial
possibilities of mathematics.
This interest, along with his entrepreneurial spirit, led him to co-found KPRG, an investment advising company that uses a mathematic algorithm Patinkin developed to predict the short-term overnight gap in the stock exchange. KPRG was soon advising investments totaling $50 million. Patinkin hopes to grow that number to $1 billion in the next several years.
Patinkin recently formed another algorithm-based company, CUTTR, that combats e-mail spam, and he's raising money for a children's art fund.
8 LIVING PROOF
Ryan Pike, 26
Ryan Pike already knew
something was very wrong
by the time he got to the
hospital in the wee hours
of the morning Feb. 4, 1998.
But he didn't know just how wrong until
his parish priest showed up. "He gave me
last rites," says Pike, BS'01. "That's a pretty
scary thought."
In his first year at IU Bloomington, Pike had contracted meningococcal meningitis (MM). The disease can be deadly — 300 to 400 Americans die from it each year — but even when it is not, its consequences are often devastating. Pike, for example, lost nine toes, part of his nose, and the roof of his mouth.
Recovery was slow, but as he gained strength, Pike gained resolve: he wanted to spread the word about MM. "In 24 hours, you can go from flu-like symptoms to death," he says. "It's like a piece of paper burning in a forest fire."
In 2003, Pike joined the staff of the Meningitis Foundation of America. One of his favorite assignments is addressing high-school and college students who, says Pike, don't think that MM can happen to them. "But I'm a textbook case that it can," he says.
Nora Cox, BA'01
9 BILINGUAL POET
Nora Cox, 26
Nora Cox, BA'01, aspires to be an educator and a poet in two languages.
An English major at
IU East, she's now working on a second B.A., this one in Spanish, at
Ball State University. Cox
then wants to earn graduate degrees in both poetry and Spanish literature before
teaching
Spanish and English at the college level. Already her poetry has appeared in
the Massachusetts-based journal Diner. Here's a sample of her work:
FAREWELL
"You are a slow-moving liquid," my grandmother says from somewhere, the words remembered from when she was a girl, her eyes gone.
She shifts her weight to her side, carefully, so as not to disturb the insides.
Her skin has shrunken; the hand is cool. "Such a pretty girl," she says, returning. An even stare.
I sit at the window, letting my face warm the liquid in my own heart, letting it escape from my own face, letting the salt sink in.
Then, I turn, finishing her sentence: "You are like glass."
10 & 11 MITCH-WOMEN
Stephanie Reeve, 28, & Angela Dorrell, 22
While IUPUI grads Stephanie
Reeve, BS'02, and Angela
Dorrell, BA'03, won't
come right out and guarantee
it, they're pretty sure
their man Mitch Daniels
will win the Indiana governorship
this fall.
"He's open to new ideas and he looks at all sides of problems," says Reeve. "He's just really smart, he has a great personality, and he cares about the people of Indiana." Adds Dorrell simply: "Mitch is the guy. He's got it all."
Such confidence led both Reeve and Dorrell to enlist with the GOP candidate's campaign: Reeve took time off from her IUPUI master's program to serve as finance director for the Daniels camp, while Dorrell plays "utility infielder" and goes where she's needed. "It's going to be a tight race," says Reeve, who was the first full-time employee of the campaign, "but win or lose, I think I'm doing a good thing, because Mitch would be great for the state of Indiana."
Both Reeve and Dorrell are eyeing the future. Reeve aims to finish her master's in public affairs, while Dorrell attends the IU School of Law–Indianapolis. The big question, of course, is whether that future will be in a prospective Daniels administration.
12 HEALTH-CARE REFORMER
Morgan
Read, 23
While Congress's scrum
over the recently passed
prescription-drug bill was
contentious, the legislative
process proved to be a positive
one for Morgan Read, BS'03, thanks
to her behind-the-scenes work on the bill.
As assistant to the chief of staff of the House Ways and Means Committee, the SPEA grad researches legislation that moves through the committee — including the Medicare drug bill, for which she examined the benefits hospitals would receive from select Medicare payments.
Dry? Maybe to the uninitiated. But Read became fascinated by the topic and its importance. She now aims to attend law school, study health-care administration law, and eventually work for a pharmaceutical company. "I've invested a lot of time in learning our nation's health-care system," she says, "and I hope to contribute to the private-sector health-care industry."
13 CULTURAL CULTIVATOR
Cory Blatz, 29
Is there a place for early
20th century Ecuadorean
art in the corporate world?
Cory Blatz, BA'99, thinks
so. Blatz spent a year in Ecuador
studying local art and culture after
becoming the first IU Southeast student to
receive a Fulbright Scholarship.
Today, Blatz is an executive-development program leader for Cenveo, a design and printing firm based in Colorado, and he says he's applying what he learned in Ecuador to his current job. His team strives for "a cultural transformation of the entire company. We want to make our 85 locations work more like one company."
Blatz says his education in cultural arts gave him the tools to change a corporate mindset. His goal is to turn Cenveo from "a very old-fashioned, top-down business culture" to a company that works from the bottom up, "where employees are empowered in the decision-making process and feel like they have a role in the company."
Kyle Cox, BS'97 (right) with Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry.
14 PRESIDENTIAL HOPEFUL
Kyle Cox, 29
For Kyle Cox, fate came in the form of a late-night phone call just last month.
That's when Cox — who had been serving as Indiana campaign coordinator for Democratic presidential
nominee John Kerry — learned he had been tapped to serve as coordinated-campaign
director in the far more contentious grounds of Florida. Cox, BS'97, is one of three
Kerry campaigners who will map out and execute an election-day strategy for the state that deadlocked
in 2000. The pressure is on, but delivering the Sunshine State to the Dems is "not
a problem," he says.
Cox, who's worked in politics since he was 11, understands political division. "I come from a family that's half Democrat and half Republican," he says. His mother, in fact, is a Republican — but a grandmother swayed Cox to the blue side. "She was always an inspiration to me," he says, "and when I found out that she was dealing with the issue of whether to buy food or medicine, that really hit home. How we deal with these issues — it's not an abstraction. It's a reflection of our core values as a nation."
Replacing Cox on the Indiana Kerry team is Erin Rosenberg, BA'04.
15 RISING WRITER
Ashley Shelby, 27
Ashley Shelby, BAJ'99, says
that her faculty and peers in
the Columbia University's
graduate nonfiction writing
program always looked
down on journalism as a genre.
So when she proposed that her final project be a journalistic account of the 1997 flooding of Grand Forks, N.D., the idea didn't go over too well. But the Minneapolis native forged ahead anyway. "There was just something haunting about the town," she says. "I realized there was a whole history there."
The result of her dedication was the critically acclaimed book Red River Rising: The Anatomy of a Flood and the Survival of an American City, published in April. The Minneapolis Star Tribune wrote that Shelby had "deeply fixed in our hearts and minds the people of Grand Forks."
Shelby is now focused on fiction, with two novels in the works. But, she says, she'll eventually return to nonfiction to write "the kind of journalism you hope can make a difference."
16 HISTORY MAKER
Aamir
Malik, 29
In 1999, Aamir Malik,
BS'97, stepped away from
his regular duties as an analyst
in the New Jersey office
of management consulting
giant McKinsey and Company and headed
to South Africa, where he spent nearly a
year in Johannesburg helping to cultivate
the burgeoning Internet and online economy
in the fledgling biracial democracy.
"There was an e-commerce bubble starting to expand globally," says Malik, who was born in Kenya and raised in Tanzania. One of his projects, for example, was nurturing the nation's first e-grocery store.
"It was really exciting to see so many people coming together for change," says Malik, who made partner at McKinsey in December. "It was exciting to be part of grass-roots efforts to mobilize the country's people."
17 L.A. LEADER
Jason
Seward, 29
When an internship turned
into a full-time job with a
member of the Los Angeles
County Board of Supervisors,
which budgets and
oversees all activities of county government,
Jason Seward, BA'97, wanted to help
other minorities receive the same opportunities
he had.
So in 2002, Seward launched the Millennium Momentum Foundation Inc., a non-profit, L.A.-based organization dedicated to increasing the number of young adults in the fields of public administration, policy, and public affairs.
"We want to help them effectively transition from the collegiate classroom to the executive boardroom," says Seward, who serves as the group's president and chairman of the board. "I sleep well every night knowing that when the door of leadership was opened for me, I effectively positioned myself to keep it open for other young professionals who seek the same opportunity across the nation."
18 THE SUBWAY GUY
Jared
Fogle, 27
Some famous people have
made a living on their name
long after their talents faded.
Jared Fogle, BS'00, has managed
to make a good living
just being a shadow of his former self.
Even if you don't recognize the name, you probably recognize the face from the Subway commercials that have made Fogle famous. After losing 245 pounds via a self-designed Subway sandwich diet, Fogle began doing Subway commercials in 1999.
Now a full-time spokesman for the company, Fogle is targeting childhood obesity in his latest ads. He also made a small appearance in this year's hit documentary Super Size Me, about the effects of fast food on Americans' waistlines and wallets.
On the road about 200 days a year, Fogle says he also does a lot of work for the American Heart Association and is getting ready to launch the Jared Foundation to raise money to fight childhood obesity.
Fogle, whose weight peaked at about 425 pounds in college, says his decision to turn his life around is now having extraordinary consequences.
"This is something that when I was at the Kelley School of Business I never thought in a million years that I would be doing," he says. "It has been a crazy roller-coaster experience."
19 FOCUSED ACHIEVER
LaToya
Green, 23
LaToya Green, BS'03, admits
that becoming pregnant
at 19 wasn't part of her
plans. "I was disappointed
at the news," she says. "I'm
not going to say I wasn't."
But disappointment turned rapidly into something else. "Determination," says Green. "I was determined to stay focused." The self-described "struggling single parent" who worked nights as a hotel desk clerk during college nonetheless achieved an impressive GPA, participated in IU Northwest's selective Institute for Innovative Leadership, and graduated on time.
Most important, "I got the job I always wanted," she says, "working for Eli Lilly." Her recipe for success has led to a side career as a motivational speaker who's wowed high-school and college audiences and who has a special affinity for single parents.
She'll start an MBA at IUN in January, while the other important Eli in her life, her 4-year-old son, starts his education at the local Montessori Academy.
20 MATH EVANGELIST
Amanda
Serenevy, 29
"Lots of people have a fear
of math," says Serenevy,
who as an IU South Bend
undergrad was named to
USA Today's All-USA College
Academic Team. "I'd like to help them
overcome that in their own lives."
Nowadays, Serenevy is working on a thesis about neurodynamics, or the mathematics of brain neurons, but she says she'll also continue to help people share her passion for math. "Math is a really creative subject," she says. "A lot of times you get to think of things that are really beautiful."
21 WAVE MAKER
Jim
Smith, 26
As a high-school student,
Jim Smith, BS'01, decided
that surfing looked like
something he'd enjoy —
and he didn't let the fact
that he was in Indiana deter him. Lake
Michigan, believe it or not, features some
swells and tubes, and Smith was soon
catching the best of them. Now an ardent
surfer, Smith indulges his hobby at the
ocean. "But," he says, "I still go over to
Michigan City when I can."
Smith's shown the same enterprising spirit in launching a blossoming marketing career. As an IU Northwest junior, he went to discuss a possible internship with the city of Gary — and he came home with a full-time job as a marketing specialist for the city's revitalization efforts.
Two years later, in 2004, he was tapped to help create an identity for Gary's new professional baseball team, the Railcats. He created the team's logo, and he says, "I was fortunate to be a part of all the things about the team that would last forever."
What wave will he catch next?
"Maybe an ad agency," he says. "I love Northwest Indiana, but that's maybe the only thing that could get me to move to Chicago."
Adewale Ogunleye, BA'99 (left); Antwaan Randle El, BS'01 (right)
22 & 23 FOOTBALL STARS
Adewale Ogunleye, 27, & Antwaan Randle El, 25
Despite a decade-long losing skid, the IU football program has managed to produce
two of the most promising young players in the National
Football League: the Miami Dolphins' Adewale Ogunleye, BA'99, and
the Pittsburgh Steelers' Antwaan Randle El, BS'01.
Undrafted after his senior year at IU, Ogunleye, who stands as IU's all-time leader in sacks and tackles for loss, signed a free-agent contract with Miami in 2000 and became a starter at defensive end two years later. In 2003 he led the American Football Conference with 15 sacks and was named to his first Pro Bowl. Said Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning last fall: "He's tough, man."
After capping his collegiate career as the only player in Division I history to total more than 6,000 yards passing and 3,000 rushing, and to pass for more than 40 TDs, Randle El was drafted in the second round by the Steelers in 2002 and promptly became one of the best all-purpose players in the league. "I don't think there's too much you can ask him to do that he can't do," Pittsburgh coach Bill Cowher said last year.
Sunil Malhotra, BA'98
24 HOT COMMODITY
Sunil
Malhotra, 28
Ethnic cinema is a big fat phenomenon among American moviegoers, making stars
not only
of actors such as Nia Vardalos (My Big Fat Greek Wedding) and Parminder Nagra
(Bend it
Like Beckham), but also of the communities and cultures they bring to the big
screen.
Sunil Malhotra, BA'98, may be the next to ride the wave of ethnic cinema to stardom, bringing with him wider attention to the world of American desis, or people of South Asian descent.
Buzz is building around Malhotra, who garnered praise for his work in the ethnic cinematic hits American Desi and Where's the Party Yaar? This spring Malhotra worked alongside Nagra on NBC's ER, and he was named one of the country's seven sexiest South Asian men by Bibi, a magazine focused on South Asian fashion and culture. IU alumnus Dino Teppara, JD'00, was another of the seven, making IU nothing short of desi-licious.
25 UNBOTTLED ARTIST
Jennifer
Idle, 25
For Jennifer Idle, BFA'04,
it's all about the bottles.
Green ones, clear ones,
short ones, tall ones. At
the moment, they're the
preferred medium for the burgeoning artist
and IPFW grad. "Everything I'm doing
right now is bottles," she says. "I have an
obsession with glass. I like the texture, the
color, everything about it."
But, like many artists, Idle has eclectic talents. While her forte is oil painting, she's also adept at watercolor and pencil sketching. She recently won awards in an Indiana Department of Natural Resources contest for her colored pencil and watercolor work. This month she'll open her first professional show at Avant-Garde Gallery in Fort Wayne.
Despite such success, however, Idle knows how hard it is to make a living as an artist doing shows. That's why she just started her own business, providing decorative home painting. "That's my moneymaker," she says.
26 SOCIAL ACTIVIST
Ryan Pintado-Vertner, 28
As an IU student, Ryan Pintado-Vertner, BAJ'98, cofounded
and edited griot,
an activist student newspaper,
and co-founded the
Student Coalition, a cross-cultural group
that addressed diversity issues. A Wells
Scholar, he also held a Sen. Richard Lugar
College Scholarship and won a prestigious
$30,000 Harry S. Truman Scholarship.
After six years as co-director of the Data-Center, a nonprofit research consulting firm in Oakland, Calif., Pintado-Vertner is preparing to enter the University of California Berkeley this fall to pursue an MBA. He wants to examine ways that business principles can be used to further social-justice goals.
"I also want to revive the internationalist passion that I developed while at IU," he adds.
27 FAST TRACKER
Danielle
Carruthers, 24
Danielle Carruthers, BS'03,
barely missed making the
2004 Olympic team, but she
confirmed her place on the
track and field world stage
in the Olympic Trials in Sacramento, Calif.,
in July.
The 10-time Hoosier All-American ran fourth in the 100-meter hurdles finals, falling just short of a trip to Athens. Her time of 12.62 was just .07 seconds behind U.S. track icon Gail Devers' winning effort. Carruthers remains positive.
"I've got a lot of years to go," she told the Bloomington Herald-Times after the race. "The average medalist is between 24 and 30 years old, and I feel very good about my future."
Carruthers holds IU records in the 60-meter hurdles and the 100-meter hurdles. She was ranked fourth in the nation heading into the Olympic Trials.
28 STAND-UP GUY
Chris
Ryan, 28
For a guy who was the
"Funniest Man on Campus"
at IUB four years in a
row, Chris Ryan, BAJ'98, is
pretty serious about some
things. He moved to Indianapolis last
month, the start of a new phase of life that
includes marriage, home ownership, and,
with any luck, a 9-to-5 job. "I don't want to
be in a situation where I only see my wife
one day a week," he says. "I'm very focused
on family life right now."
Still, Ryan says, he's glad he had a stint in Los Angeles, doing sketch comedy with an IU-heavy group called Ten Cent Wings while he worked as an analyst for Paramount Pictures. "That's probably the easiest and best-paying job I'll ever have," he says. "I'm worth maybe half as much now."
Between L.A. and Indy, Ryan picked up a master's degree in journalism from the University of Illinois. His next act will be as a writer, and if the job involves humor, even better. "Comedy," he says, "is everything I love about life."
Daniel Takami, BS'98
29 ACTIVE AIRMAN
Daniel
Takami, 28
Air Force Capt. Daniel Takami, BS'98, describes a recent C-130 cargo
airdrop over Afghanistan
as "the most exciting thing I've ever done." But he hesitates
when he's asked exactly when
and where the airdrop took place. The U.S.'s battles in the Middle East
are serious business,
and Takami makes sure people know that.
Takami took part in ROTC training at IUS and has been an active commissioned officer since graduating six years ago. Working as an assistant flight commander, instructor and navigator, Takami has served six tours of duty (30 to 90 days each) in the Middle East theater since 9/11. Next for him may be a move to the East Coast, where he'll help test new military technology, equipment "designed to heighten America's ability to articulate successfully on the battlefield."
30 CANCER CRUSADER
Elizabeth
Crowell, 24
While tobacco causes other
health problems, it might
actually help prevent cervical
cancer deaths across
the globe. As a research
technologist at the James Graham Brown
Cancer Center in Louisville, Ky., Elizabeth
Crowell, BA'02, worked to investigate that
potential.
The current vaccine used to prevent cervical cancer, Crowell says, is grown in insect or yeast cell cultures, making it expensive — especially for women in developing countries. While at the Brown Center, Crowell worked to develop a vaccine grown in a tobacco plant culture, one that would be much more affordable. Crowell says she is proud that "our lab made significant steps toward creating an inexpensive vaccine."
Now a graduate student in the plant
breeding and genetics program at Michigan
State University, Crowell is researching
ways to make potatoes richer in cancer-fighting antioxidants. "I thoroughly
enjoy the research process," she says. "A
researcher can either get frustrated, or look
at everything as a learning experience." 
“30 Under 30 to Watch” was compiled by the staff of the Indiana Alumni Magazine. Special thanks go to student interns Dan Wells and Ryan Whirty, BAJ’95.