Profiles

Matthew Alexander (‘01) is founder of Ahmsa, an NGO in Bogotá, Colombia that provides skills training, microcredit, and other support to alleviate poverty in Bogotá.

Craig Nakagawa (’89) is co-founder of VillageReach, an NGO aimed at improving health care distribution systems in the most distant reaches of developing countries, beginning with Mozambique.

When Noah Purcell ('02) first met Supreme Court Justice David Souter, he couldn’t believe he was discussing the law with a Justice. Now, as a clerk for Justice Souter, it's all in a day's work.

In Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood, A&S alumna Mary Kollar ('65, '81) shares poetry with passersby through a poetry box outside her house.

Drake Witham ('96) has taken his stand-up act to Seattle's Bumbershoot Festival, Comedy Central's Live at Gotham, and U.S. military bases in Iraq. 

Baghdad, Nicaragua, Thailand, and Russia are just a few of the recent assignments for alumni in the Foreign Service. 

"[The students] make me laugh every day. And they will try anything," says Monte Cristo Elementary School teacher Andrea Peterson ('96), recently named Washington Teacher of the Year. 

Alumnus Don Logan, who spent years teaching Seattle public schools after earning two history degrees at the UW, has endowed a chair in the Department of History. 

Just before graduating last spring, Julia Parker created a community service award for future philosophy students, raising the funds for the award herself. 

Alumni in fields ranging from biotechnology to finance believe their UW English degree has been a valuable asset throughout their career. Related stories: A poetry group created by an English alum and friends is still going strong after 15 years; a donor has funded "Ask Betty," an interactive website on English grammar and usage, in his mother's honor. 

Ed Viesturs’ (’81) first climbs were in the Northwest, during his years as a UW undergraduate. Now he has become the first American to successfully summit all 14 of the world's 8,000+ meter peaks without supplemental oxygen. 

Don Petersen, former chairman and CEO of Ford Motor Company, has been an inspirational chair of the College of Arts and Sciences' board for the past six years. 

Three alumni describe how they have reconnected with the College, decades after graduating. 

Astronaut Michael Anderson, who perished in the space shuttle Columbia, earned his B.S. from the UW College of Arts and Sciences in physics and astronomy. 

Although Yehuda Hayuth (Ph.D., '77) is president of the University of Haifa in Israel, he still makes time to teach at the University of Washington each summer.