Senior Truska Mahmood was born in northern Iraq and believes that her dreams of being a dentist never could have been realized there. “When I came to the United States, there was an ‘aha’ moment for me as a female, thinking that I could actually be a dentist,” says Mahmood, who appreciates that this scholarship is available only to women pursuing the natural sciences. “Especially where I’m from, it is an amazing leap for a woman to become a doctor,” she says. “When I noticed this scholarship was only for women, it made me feel special.”

Senior Ashley Jo Paggen also dreamed of being a doctor, even though she had never performed well in math. The scholarship meant that she’d be able to dedicate extra time to the subject.

Then Paggen was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a debilitating disease of the spinal cord and brain. “Talk about having the odds stacked up against you!” Paggen says lightheartedly. “The scholarship lifts a weight off my shoulders, allowing me to stay focused on my studies and health.”

Both women received $1,250. “If I could talk to Marti Barrett today,” adds Paggen, “I’d want to tell her that it is an honor to be part of her legacy.”

In her book, Pull: Networking and Success since Benjamin Franklin, Laird says she “looked at people like Benjamin Franklin and Andrew Carnegie, people who society has always held up as self-made men,” and found that they all had help.

Laird discovered that people only became aware of social networking after the women’s rights and civil rights movements. “It was no longer legal to push people out of opportunities. “They discovered that they needed social capital.”

The key to this discovery, says Laird, was in the language that people used. “Today, we talk about networking and mentoring. We institutionalize it and help people without social capital. Before the movements, it was assumed that success was strictly based on one’s own abilities, even though people had always used relationships to achieve success.”

Laird is the first recipient of the recently established Award for Outstanding Faculty Achievement, which recognizes exceptional contributions in teaching, service and research and/or creative work by a tenured faculty member in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The recipient receives a stipend of $5,000 per year for three years.

Laird says the award will enhance both her research and teaching. “When I get a chance to come up with new ideas, I get excited, and that helps my students.”

Knox had been dreaming of “everything French” since she saw Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” at the age of six. A single mom who has been taking out loans and working full-time to fulfill her dream of being a high school French teacher, Knox knew she would be adding to her loan burden to graduate. “I’ve had to take out a lot of loans, which is scary because I’ve been able to pay for college, but when I graduate, I wonder if I will ever be able to catch up.”

Knox applied for and received the Humphreys Scholarship, but says all of her classmates are grateful to Humphreys. “We are all so thankful to Dr. Humphreys for thinking about us,” she says. “People get busy and forget about where they came from. I hope that someday I can do the same thing that Dr. Humphreys has and give back.”

Humphreys, who is a medical doctor, says establishing the scholarship means as much to him as it does to Knox. “I made the scholarship to say thank you,” he says. “I am grateful to be able to help motivated and talented students like Erica. Funny how even in giving, I become the recipient.”

Sutton lives in Denver’s Five Points where, she says, there is a rich history of jazz, a recent influx of new residents and a diverse population, but no sense of community.

“I had four kinds of neighbors and none of them were talking,” she says. “There are the Spanish-speakers who keep to themselves; there’s me and a neighbor living in the same building; a single mom across the street; and a $300,000 home on the corner—we never see that guy.”

And the neighborhood’s business owners are suffering as a result, says Sutton, who studied English and ethnic studies at UC Denver, graduating in 2007. So, she decided to do something about it. She launched “Five Points Juke Joint,” a community celebration that she hopes will expand to become a monthly destination for people seeking a fun, artistic and cultural experience.

On the last Saturday of every month, Sutton organizes these community gatherings on Welton Street. The first event was held Sept. 29, 2007 and featured UCD jazz musicians. The second event was held in a local coffee shop, Blackberries, where they showed the movie “The Wiz.”

Ultimately, Sutton would like to see the event grow to the stature of First Fridays on Santa Fe Avenue, drawing people from across the city.

“This is one of the more cultural neighborhoods we have downtown,” explains Sutton. “We shouldn’t let all the energy that’s been put into this neighborhood over the years go to waste.”

Despite finding a great job with the university, Breeze says, “I couldn’t stand not being in school, so I have taken courses ever since.” Inspired by her love of art, history, film, traveling and literature, Breeze plans to continue studying after she retires: “I already have my schedule set for next spring—I plan to take a course on South Africa before visiting Africa again in 2009.”

Breeze retired with the immense respect of the UC Denver community and with well wishes for adventures to come.

Since earning her PhD in 2003, Hayden’s career has flourished. She has developed culturally diverse communication vehicles to educate vulnerable populations, such as migrant workers, about the risks of mosquito-borne illnesses including West Nile Disease. She and colleagues recently were recognized by the American Public Health Association for these materials.

Hayden is particularly concerned about the emergence of dengue fever, a tropical disease, in a desert climate. Dengue fever is an arboviral disease, carried by arthropods such as mosquitoes and ticks, that has worldwide impact. She is committed to developing interventions to slow or halt the further expansion of dengue and to efficiently focus preventive efforts.

Hayden has worked as project director and co-principal investigator of a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-funded study investigating the roles of climate variability and human-environmental interactions on the potential for dengue fever to emerge along the U.S./Mexico border in Arizona and Sonora, Mexico. In collaboration with the Center for Disease Control’s Border Infectious Disease Surveillance program, she was part of an investigation of an outbreak of dengue fever in December 2005 in Brownsville, Texas, and Matamoros, Mexico, to document the first case of locally acquired dengue hemorrhagic fever in the United States.

Ronnie Seagren, BA geology 1979, had her first novel, Seventh Daughter, published by Flying Pen Press. It’s the story of seven sisters who must travel to the Peru of 1937 and stand in the shadow of a solar eclipse to save the world from destruction. Her education in geology helped in describing the rugged terrain of the Andes.

Daviana Rowe, BA psychology 1982, is a licensed clinical psychologist.

R. Laureen Gunter, BA geography 1983, is retiring from her position as meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Air Resources Laboratory Atmospheric Turbulence and Diffusion Division in Oak Ridge, Tenn., after 29 years of federal service. Gunter spent several years with the Aerosol Research Section at NOAA’s Boulder offices before bringing her scientific knowledge and expertise to Oak Ridge. Her research has included studies of the optical properties of aerosols and measurements of trace gases on the NOAA Twin Otter aircraft. After retirement, Gunter plans to spend time painting and visiting her grandchildren in Holland.

Rosalyn Zigmond, MA English 1993, PhD education 2004, is an instructor in the program for writing and rhetoric at CU Boulder. She’s teaching several courses including first-year writing and technical communication.

Maryanne Gilbert, BA political science 1995, worked as a paralegal for many years, then changed gears completely and went to massage therapy school. She now owns and operates Health & Harmony Massage LLC in Golden, Colo.

Allison (Dunkelberger) McConnell, BA psychology 1995, now lives outside of Philadelphia with her husband, Kevin, and three kids, Jack, Duncan and Olivia. After graduation, she pursued her master’s degree from the University of Denver and now teaches at a private middle school in Drexel Hill, Pa.

Jennifer Gibbins, BS chemistry 1999, is married with three four-legged children (two dogs and a cat). She graduated with her MBA from Syracuse University. Gibbins currently lives in Thornton, Colo., works at Amgen and is a distributor for nutritional products (www.XELR8.biz/gibbins).

Melanie Clam McClanahan, BA political science 1999, met her current husband, Mike in Lucy Ware’s law, politics and justice course. Melanie is a faculty advisor for Regis University’s College for Professional Studies’ adult undergraduate program. She received her MS in organizational leadership from Regis and is currently working on an adult learning certificate. Melanie and Mike live in west Washington Park with their Labrador retrievers—Chester and Stanley.

Margaret Frohlich, BA Spanish 2001, is a visiting assistant professor of Spanish at Dickinson College where she teaches language and modern Spanish literature. Her dissertation—Nationality and Sexuality Across Borders—won a prize, titled Premio de Crítica Victoria Urabano, from the Asociación Internacional de Literatura y Cultura Femenina Hispánica. It was presented to her in October, in Seville, Spain. The same organization is publishing the award-winning monograph.

Aida Jimenez-Esquilin, MS biology 2003, completed her PhD in soil sciences/soil microbiology at Colorado State University in 2006. She is currently a research scientist working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, in West Virginia.

Duried Kassab, MS biology 2003, will have completed his osteopathic medicine training and earned his DO from Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences in May 2008. Though he spent a month as a sub-intern in Greeley, Colo., doing rural/family medicine, he applied for a residency position in family medicine in Denver.

Roger Green, MA humanities 2004, is currently applying to the PhD program in English at the University of Denver. He received the Outstanding Graduate Student Award for his master’s thesis which connected philosopher Emmanuel Levinas to jazz and poetry. Green often plays and records with Ron Miles and had a CD reviewed in The New York Times.

Christopher W. Helm, BA geography 2004, received his master’s degree from CU Boulder in 2007. He is a GIS programmer studying glacier change in relation to global warming at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo., and recently was hired as a scientist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo. Helm is also teaching a course on deploying GIS functionality at UCD in spring 2008.

Katie (Atchison) Hietala, MS biology 2004, works for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Subarctic Agricultural Research Unit, in Fairbanks, Alaska. Hietala is researching the microbial conversion of fish by-products for making a variety of value-added products such as animal feeds, fertilizers, pharmaceuticals and energy.

Laila N. Mahmud, BA psychology 2004, is completing a master’s in UCD’s Department of Communication. As an undergrad, she worked as an event coordinator for UCD’s Office of Student Life and in the public relations department of Barnhart Communications. Mahmud is the public relations coordinator for eBags.com, a Denver-based company and online retailer of bags and luggage, and was recently quoted in an article about luggage trends in The Wall Street Journal.

Timoleon Wilkins, BA Spanish 2004, had his film “Los Caudales” screened in New York, Portland, Ore., and Edinburgh, Scotland. He also completed another short experimental film “The Crossing” which screened at the BFI-London Film Festival in 2007. Timoleon is currently working for the UCLA Film and Television Archive, managing their film series at the Billy Wilder Theater in Los Angeles. In 2005 he taught English in Mexico City and is currently working on a film using the footage he shot in Mexico.

Diane Birks, MIS integrated sciences 2006, works in Nicholas Foreman’s pediatric neuron-oncology lab at the Anschutz Medical Campus. Birks is applying knowledge obtained from the computational biology certificate program with molecular techniques that she used for her MIS project.

P. Jonathan Ungerland, BA philosophy 2006, is currently studying at Yale Divinity School and pursuing a master’s in philosophical theology. Ungerland credits the UCD philosophy and religious studies departments for his ability to continue his education at an institution like Yale.

Colin Rose, BA political science 2007, is attending Harvard University for a master’s degree in liberal arts in management.

Elizabeth Watkins, BA English writing 2007, is now working as an executive assistant for the Office of State and Federal Government Relations at the University of Colorado System.

At just 11, Villarreal was on her way to a career as a ballerina. “I trained 30 hours a week even through school,” she said. Yet she still managed to graduate from high school as an honor student.

After graduation, Villarreal became a professional dancer for Ballet Chicago. Unfortunately—or fortunately—the glamorous industry quickly lost its appeal. “I trained there for a year, but wasn’t happy. I felt isolated. You’re always in front of a mirror and all you see is yourself. Everyone says that being on stage is when you get to connect, but the lights are too bright. It’s like you’re your own little jewelry box—you’re really just playing a character.”

So Villarreal decided to pursue a different dream: going to college. Today she’s a senior English literature major who is working toward a minor in writing. Now she connects through extracurricular activities. Villarreal is the managing editor of the UCD newspaper, the Advocate, and is responsible for its current and successful format.

Villarreal also has an internship with The Bloomsbury Review, a book review magazine with a circulation of 125,000. “It’s not for credit or for pay,” she said. “I love it there.”

Villarreal is passionate about equality and constitutional rights demonstrated by her role as president of Gender Issues, Scholarship and Action. Her motivation stems from the ballet world: “I had a teacher who said ‘if you can, you must.’”

Fomby co-authored an article with Andrew Cherlin titled “Family Instability and Child Well-Being” for the April 2007 edition of American Sociological Review. She says, “Most of my research has considered how parents’ choices and behaviors influence the choices their children will make. Sometimes the mechanisms aren’t totally straightforward or immediate, but there’s little doubt that parents are the best chance for teaching kids to be happy, healthy and smart.” Fomby has received several grants from the National Institutes of Health at Johns Hopkins University, some of which follow her to Denver.

The research endeavor began when she read an article that reported kids who experienced instability in their family structure had a variety of behavioral problems at school and engaged in risky sexual behavior. “I wondered whether children were responding to changes in their family structure, or whether those changes and the kids’ behavior problems were both symptoms of problems in how families were relating to each other,” says Fomby.

The research design was novel in that it made use of publicly available data (two generations of it) from a national longitudinal study. Additionally, the study’s findings came as a surprise because of the racial differences noticed in one speculative piece. Fomby sees no obvious explanation why their study showed that the cognition and behavior of black children were less affected by household instability than with Caucasian children. However, Fomby states research has shown possible reasons for the findings—it may be because black children are more connected to their communities through churches, neighborhood connections and extended family so they can overcome instability easier. It’s also possible that black children face more stress, poverty and low-income problems, so they build a resistance to such hardships.

Exploring these hypotheses is the next step for Fomby; now that she’s begun the analysis, more research demands are developing. The research both challenges and excites her: “First it raised more questions than it answered. It gave rise to theoretically important research questions that could be answered with data from the real world.”

Fomby believes her research complements her ability to teach. “Teaching and research have a great symbiotic relationship in that the focused thinking in research lends itself to better teaching…you bring research to the class and give your students the opportunity to reach a whole new level of understanding. At the same time, learning to describe concepts clearly in the classroom carries over to research and writing.”

As a top research institution, UC Denver will propel its reputation by welcoming new faculty like Fomby. She will be a great asset to the university and will, in turn, gain motivation and new perspectives by teaching; her insight on the field and the classroom make a great combination for success. Fomby says, “UCD’s commitment to our urban community means that I can conduct research locally that will have real significance to our students.”

Communication alumni Tanya Gonzalez (BA 2003) and Nai Pak (BA 2004) represent how internships play a vital role in an undergraduate student’s life. Both women landed positions at Denver’s KMGH Channel 7 television station shortly after serving there as undergraduate interns.

Gonzalez, who is now the promotions producer for 7NEWS, is responsible for creating on-air promotions that highlight the talent and the station. She also creates promos for Channel 7’s community events. As the promotions intern during her final semester of her senior year, Gonzalez said she wasn’t “just getting coffee or answering phones.” She had the opportunity to work directly on all aspects of the job—writing, editing and producing her own promos. Her hard work paid off when she was asked to return as a paid freelance employee three months after graduation. Six months later, she was hired as a full-time producer. In 2006, Gonzalez won what every television journalist aspires to achieve: a Heartland Chapter Emmy Award for a topical news promo, an honor for which she and the UC Denver communication department are extremely proud.

As creative services coordinator, Pak uses her communication degree for a myriad of responsibilities, including writing press releases, coordinating both station and community events, maintaining on-air inventory and managing the community calendar for the station’s Web site. While Pak’s job at 7NEWS materialized right after graduation, she believes all four of the internships she completed as an undergraduate gave her the experience that culminated with the KMGH offer.

Responsible for these successful internship opportunities is Suzanne Stromberg, instructor and internship coordinator for the communication department. She requires that students link class assignments with the work performed in an internship. “This really showed me how valuable my education would be outside of the classroom,” said Gonzalez. Pak echoed Gonzalez’s sentiment, saying that the communication curriculum prepared her for her internships through applicable and professional projects that she eventually faced in the workplace. “My classes engaged me in creating print ads and direct mail pieces, drafting press releases, storyboarding commercials and other real-world projects.”

Both Gonzalez and Pak strongly advocate for completing internships as a strategy for increasing one’s marketability upon graduation. “My internship was just as important as my college degree,” Pak said, “if not more important in launching my career.”