OTHER PATHS
THE MAGAZINE OF THE BROOKLYN TECH ALUMNI FOUNDATION
CHEERLEADERS RETURN
Sidelined in the Covid years, the cheerleaders come back strong.
COOL CLASSES
Brooklyn Tech ‘s array of course offerings is unusual and unmatched.
Icons for iconic classes: Media major students created these for (above) Astronomy, Environmental Sustainability, Flight School; (below) Forensic Criminology, Genetics, Robotics, Neon Design.
OTHER
Alumni
COVER: “Other Paths.” Clockwise from top left: Jeanine Ramirez ’88, TV reporter/video production-public relations pro; Jeffrey Quilter ’68, archaeologist; Munzzy Uddin ’12, restaurateur; Vernon Reid ’76, rock star.
MILESTONES
GREETINGS, TECH COMMUNITY!
WELCOME TO THIS YEAR’S ISSUE of our alumni magazine, highlighting alumni excelling in non-engineering fields. While remaining Engineers at heart, many of us chose alternate career pathways or perhaps pursuits on the fringe of technology. Leveraging our STEM foundation and strong analytical and problem-solving skillset, Technites succeed across all fields of endeavor. Collectively, we agree that our Tech experience prepared us for any field of our choosing.
“This above all: to thine own self be true” is early advice found in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Authenticity is achieved when a person’s actions remain congruent with their values and individual desires, despite pressures to conform. Authenticity embodies the courage to be yourself and pursue what you genuinely want. Authenticity also requires the ability to challenge your own limitations and to accomplish beyond what others deem possible. I admire those living their most authentic lives in their careers of choice.
It has been one of my greatest joys as president of the board of directors to meet so many Technites and hear your stories. We are often connected in ways beyond our love of our technical education. The board strives to ensure all constituents in our Tech community are heard, and I am delighted that TechTimes is able to amplify a diverse range of voices.
We find daily inspiration in our Tech spirit and fortitude, on full display in this issue. Enjoy the following pages, which vividly illustrate that individually and collectively, we are an awesome bunch. If you dare to be different, press on!
Denice Ware ’83
EDITOR’S NOTE
ABOUT THE COVER
“Other Paths”: Photo art by then-student (now University of Rochester ’28) Gianna Miceli ’24 (left) from submitted and stock photos.
TechTimes gave the original photos to Gianna, who was introduced to us by digital animation teachers Patricia and Richard DePinto, and she took it from there. Reacting to the cover theme of Tech alums who thrive in non-STEM fields Gianna said, “We are never limited by our past choices. Whether we continue charting the course we set for ourselves while at Tech or embark on a different one in college, this will be us one day.”
Gianna, who has been creating art since age four, plans to major in psychology and may explore an interest in art therapy. She was the 2024 Gold Medal winner for her Tech major, Media.
FALL SEMESTER of my junior year at Tech, I scored an 80 in technical drawing – a startling leap forward from my usual dismal 65s and 70s.
It was the closest I ever came to becoming an engineer.
Like many before me and many since, I was – am – one of those Technites who knew early on that a career in STEM was not my destiny.
Nevertheless, I persisted. I found my niche, did well enough in classes that did not require hand-eye coordination to compensate for those 65s in drawing, and eventually built the foundations of what would become my career.
I was vaguely aware that other students were doing cool things in their classes – like building houses, disassembling aircraft engines, and mixing chemicals. Though none of that was for me, I was proud to be attending a high school where such activities took place.
I still feel that pride as I walk the hallways of Tech. Dropping by occasionally to do the work of editing this magazine, I am amazed by what I see being offered in the classrooms, and by the casual way students display mastery of subject matter often esoteric and sophisticated beyond my comprehension.
How fortunate we, and indeed the entire city and nation, are that Brooklyn Tech presents this sumptuous smorgasbord of learning opportunities and state-of-the art professional practices to six thousand young people every year.
These two thoughts – my appreciation for what Tech gave me even as I pursued non-STEM directions, and for the fabulous array of courses available then and now – led to the themes of this issue. Having thought those thoughts, I felt compelled to explore and develop them. Fourteen of the pages to follow – the “Other Paths” and “Cool Classes” features – are the result. I hope you enjoy reading them even half as much as I and our creative team did in creating them.
The real stars of “Cool Classes” are the educators who every day at Tech inspire teenagers with some of the world’s most exciting and cutting-edge knowledge. Brooklyn Tech’s teachers are special, and I thank them for showing TechTimes a glimpse of their magic, enabling us to share it with you.
Above all, my thanks to our alumni foundation’s chief educational officer, Matt Mandery, EdD ’61, for serving as guide and compass to the wonderful world of Tech’s Cool Classes.
Ned Steele ’68
TechTimes
The Magazine of The Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation Fall 2024
Editor In Chief and Chief Writer
Ned Steele ’68
Art Director
Nicholas E. Torello
Creative Strategies Editor
Chelsea Erin Vaughan
Managing Editor Lisa Trollbäck
Intern Eason Fan ’25
©2024 Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation, Inc.
Published annually. Articles may be reprinted with permission.
Alums: Send your letter to the editor, or personal or professional update for publication in Class Notes, to: techtimes@bthsalum.org
THE PRINCIPAL’S OFFICE
AS WE EMBARK on another academic year, I find myself reflecting on the successes of our last. This past graduating class was special – the first to come to Tech during the COVID epidemic. They were the smallest class in the last decade, but surely left one of the largest marks.
Whether it be the colleges they were admitted to, scholarships they earned, or NYC PSAL championships they won, it’s evident they not only endured but thrived and triumphed in Brooklyn Tech’s unique educational environment.
We opened our first Senior student union for them, full of recreational activities to minimize stressors and maximize social activities among students who began their Tech journey with stifled, fully remote interaction. In the following pages, you will read about the introduction of our student-designed, new Tech mascot, BT Beaver the Engineer, building community and school spirit.
These are just a couple of highlights of the Tech of today as we look to be a paradigm of exemplary education for schools across the globe.
I revel in the notion that this issue is focused on “cool classes.” Brooklyn Tech is an amalgamation of them. Many are facilitated in iconic labs dedicated to each major and made possible through generous support of alumni. These state-of-the-art facilities are integral to delivering the instruction today that will turn our students into tomorrow’s leaders, innovators, and captains of industry.
There are so many aspects of the educational experience at Brooklyn Tech that we simply could not provide without the support from the Alumni Foundation and individual generosity, which helps us continually better all academic, social, cultural, and athletic facets of the school. The Foundation’s Faculty Grants Program is just one example of how alumni enable us to offer special enrichment opportunities and l experiences to current students.
On behalf of all students, faculty, and staff, I thank you for your continued support of Brooklyn Technical High School.
David Newman
Follow Brooklyn Tech
Keep up with your alma mater all year, whenever you choose. On YouTube, the Student Media organization posts many videos of sports events and school performances and events. Follow through the QR code here.
Student Media captures the essence of the Brooklyn Tech spirit and archives it for generations of current and future alumni.
A resourceful and talented band of videographers, photographers and graphic designers, Student Media allows students to pursue their passion in media production.
3 CHEERS FOR CHEER!
They come from Tech! Couldn’t be prouder! If you can’t hear them, They’ll shout it louder!
They’re shouting it again. Tech’s cheerleaders have returned after the disrupted Covid years – and in brand new uniforms.
Three cheers to two Technites half a century apart for making it happen:
Raquel Maysonet-Sigler ’87 had been a Tech cheerleader. The experience “gave me the ability to have presence – to walk into a room and feel confident,” she recalled. Today, she is a Tech guidance counselor.
Sasha Lempert ’25, entering Tech as a freshman, wanted to join the cheerleading team – and was
By The Numbers
In 2023 (the last year available) Brooklyn Tech administered Advanced9,993Placement (AP) exams. It is the largest AP program in the world.
94% of those AP test-takers scored a 3 or above.
87% of the Class of 2023 are pursuing the same major in college that they took at Tech.
dismayed to learn there was none. When sophomore year passed with no cheer squad, she decided to act.
“After two years of waiting I thought, ‘If I don’t do it, it won’t happen,’ ” the Physics major said. “I decided it was my time.”
She searched the faculty directory for a faculty advisor, and MaysonetSigler – already coaching the stunt team – agreed just in time for the 2023-24 school year’s start. Tryouts were held and the cheerleaders turned out for football season, but with makeshift uniforms.
Shortly before graduation, official uniforms were finally ready, and they debut here on this page. This school year, the squad will shout it loud at home football and basketball games and school events. Hopefully at Homecoming 2025 too. And if you can’t hear them, they’ll shout it louder. ■
EVERYONE’S MAKING ROBOTS
Three of Tech’s majors, and the school’s renowned robotics team, work in the former machine shop that is now the Ike Heller ’43 Computer Integrated Manufacturing and Robotics Lab. It hums with activity morning to night.
The space has hit capacity. To the rescue: a second robotics lab, opening this fall.
With Aerospace, Electrical Engineering and Mechatronics students filling every workbench, “We’ve outgrown the space. One room is simply not enough,” said Assistant Principal Mark Rodriguez. All told, about 450 students – one in twelve Technites – need access to the lab’s sophisticated machinery.
The new room, a repurposed old physics lab, will – like the original –feature a robotic arm, laser and plasma cutters, a programmable router, a bench mill threading machine and, yes, a lathe. All are industry-grade state of the art. ■
The cheer squad is once again ready to rock the house.
RESEARCH SCHOLARS SHINE
A flagship Alumni Foundation initiative, the Weston Research Scholars Program offers students a three-year, hands-on research science opportunity. Mentored by experienced faculty, promising young scientists pursue groundbreaking research projects and aim for prestigious science and engineering competitions and journal publications.
As the program marked its first decade, its graduates were asked what they’ve been up to since Tech. Of 158 responding alumni, almost all pursued a STEM path in college, and:
• More than one in four – 27 percent – attended or are attending an Ivy League college.
• Another eight percent attended or are attending Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
• 71 percent attended a university ranked in the nation’s top 50.
• Five are currently enrolled in medical school.
• Eight are currently in graduate schools including Stanford, Caltech, Columbia, NYU, and Stevens Institute of Technology.
Many are already in careers. They are software engineers, basic science researchers, R&D scientists, civil and mechanical engineers, and a legal assistant. They work for companies including NASA, Amazon, Google, Meta, Warner Brothers, Regeneron and the National Institutes of Health. Many of those still in college are continuing to do research.
Emma Costa ’14, one of the first program graduates, went to MIT as an undergraduate, worked as a molecular biology lab technician at Google Accelerated Science, and is now completing a Ph.D in neuroscience at Stanford University.
Arjun Krishna ’15 studied mechanical engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology and now works at SpaceX, on a team designing and building the next generation of the Starship launch vehicle, the most powerful rocket ever built.
This article was adapted from a report by Alumni Foundation Chief Educational Officer and program founder-director Mathew M. Mandery ’61, Ed.D and mentor Macrae Maxfield, PhD. The program was funded by a donation from Josh Weston ’46.
HERE COMES
BT!
As if cheerleaders weren’t enough, Tech now has a mascot.
Meet BT Beaver – soon to star on the sidelines at football games and school events.
“We’re the Engineers, but we didn’t have a physical representation,” said health ed teacher Lori Parizman, who “saw mascots everywhere greeting kids” on college visits with her son. She thought, Why not Tech?
Parizman pitched it to school leaders who had been discussing new ways to enliven school spirit. They jumped at it. A schoolwide contest was held for students or faculty to conjure a character that would embody Brooklyn Tech. There were 39 entrants, and nearly 2,000 students voted.
The winners were a student team coached and inspired by math teacher Ben Lockeretz.
“A beaver is the engineer of nature,” said bio major Cici Salinas-Sandler ’26, who sketched a fullbody image of “a cute little beaver with glasses.”
Samantha Tan ’26 created the persona shown here. “A beaver can be very fierce-looking or very cute-looking,” she said. “They have a lot of versatility.”
And who will actually be BT Beaver? That will be decided soon. “Someone agile with an outgoing personality,” Parizman suggested. Hint: several students will probably take turns.
And look for BT Beaver not only at games and school events, but on T shirts and coffee mugs. BT Beaver merch is on the way. ■
Graduates receive white lab coats in an annual ceremony.
Bridging Diversity in STEM
By Dr. Mathew M. Mandery ’61, Chief Education Officer
Brooklyn Technical High School has a long history of developing future leaders in careers yet to be imagined. The Brooklyn Tech Future World Vision STEM Pathways Consortium is designed to meet the needs of a changing world. As a result, current and future Brooklyn Tech students are working to address those challenges before they even graduate high school.
The Brooklyn Tech Future World Vision STEM Pathways Consortium is a ground-breaking initiative pairing Brooklyn Tech with seven Brooklyn middle schools* to promote the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Future World Vision Project and inspire young people to pursue STEM education and careers. It unites one of the world’s largest associations of engineers – the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) – with the nation’s largest STEM high school, Brooklyn Tech, and is led by one of the nation’s largest high school alumni organizations—the Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation (BTAF).
Reaching higher-needs areas
Brooklyn Tech’s and ASCE’s Future World Vision initiatives promote and support many of BTAF’s
goals—including broadening its reach into higher-needs neighborhoods throughout the borough (and beyond) and engaging young people in STEM at a younger age.
The project builds on the National Grid/Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation/Brooklyn Tech Middle School STEM Pipeline program that began in 2013. That program demonstrated that with STEM experiences and academic enrichment, middle school students can become interested in and have the skill set to pursue STEM-related studies and careers.
Today’s effort engages students in developing and performing STEM projects and activities guided by and incorporating elements of ASCE’s Future World Vision. Brooklyn Tech students take a leadership role in engaging middle school students in the projects — providing them a glimpse into their potential future.
Major World Trends
Future World Vision addresses six major global trends: alternate energy, autonomous vehicles, climate change, smart cities, high-tech construction/advanced materials, and policy and funding. Launched in 2020, the project identifies key
challenges our world is facing and determines how to address them.
In 2021 Brooklyn Tech became the only high school in the nation to partner with ASCE on the initiative. This is an opportunity to benefit Tech in two ways: connecting the school with industry, colleges, and universities to ensure its programs remain current and offer a worldclass education; and broadening and strengthening Tech’s efforts to be a leader in providing middle school students with resources and encouragement to pursue STEM studies and careers. The initiative gives under-represented middle school students greater access to Brooklyn Tech and other STEM high schools.
An Ecosystem of support
We are creating an ecosystem of inspiration and support. In each middle school we have a STEM Champion teacher, an Algebra Initiative teacher, and STEM Academy activities. Last year, middle school students worked with Tech teachers and students in Tech’s Materials Testing Lab, Environmental Science Lab, Architecture Lab, and Computer Science Lab. We also offered an SHSAT Prep Scholarship Program. A Consortium math coordinator and Brooklyn Tech STEM teacher leaders support partner schools.
This year we also engaged our Consortium students in the first annual Brooklyn Tech Invitational Mathematics Competition, an all-day event hosted and led by students in our Math Honor Society (Mu Alpha Theta). Five middle schools competed. BTAF hosts two Consortium events at Brooklyn Tech, in December and May. These bring together students, parents, administrators, and teachers from the Consortium schools to learn more about the Future World Vision project and see the great work occurring at Brooklyn Tech and in their schools.
At last May’s Third Annual Consortium Conference, Tech students, faculty, school leadership, and ASCE hosted world leaders in STEM to celebrate the participating middle schools’ student contributions and Tech’s student-centric STEM initiatives. It was the culminating event for United for Infrastructure Week, a national movement to promote the
Continued on page 30 * The participating middle schools are MS 113, MS 126, MS 313, IS 318, MS 354, MS 392 and MS 691.
Hack? No Slack.
Stage a hackathon with crazy-hard coding challenges that would cross an IT pro’s eyes? No problem for a Technite.
Find tech industry professionals to judge it, plus a thousand dollar’s worth of needed equipment? Slight problem, for a teenager.
Not for Ashley Leung ’24 .
A leader of Tech’s Girls Who Code team, Ashley partnered with other student coding groups to run a weeklong online competition last December.
Everything was in place, but highquality hackathons award prizes to winners, and are judged by adult professionals. Ashley and her classmates had none of that.
So Ashley fired up LinkedIn and searched.
“I reached out to companies that had sponsored Girls Who Code. Then
I searched tech companies in New York and looked up female employees.”
Searching the accessories company Logitech’s website, Ashley found a page on women in STEM. At the bottom in fine print was an email address.
Rx for Success
“I decided to cold-email them. I didn’t think it would work but I tried.”
About a month later, a Logitech employee responded. Soon the hackathon received $1,000 worth of keyboards and mice.
Other students contacted other companies, and Microsoft sent two employees to judge the competition.
The event was a success, and Ashley is now studying computer and electrical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University.
“She took the initiative to raise not only the club’s status in the building but also with the professional world,” team faculty advisor and Tech alum Shaina Doherty ’01 said of Ashley. ■
In 2017 Brooklyn Tech launched a pharmacy major with an enticing premise: automatic admission to Long Island University’s Ph.D Pharmacy degree program, plus a scholarship, for all graduates.
Twenty-seven students enrolled, nine of whom chose LIU – just down the block from Tech – over other college opportunities when they graduated in 2019.
Fast-forward five years, and the success story is complete: The first two of the original Tech class completed studies last spring and received their LIU Ph.D.
Dennis Louie ’19 and John Ting ’19 knocked a full year off the standard doctorate path thanks to their Tech Advanced Placement courses. Dennis plans to become a hospital staff pharmacist and John aims to work at the retail level.
Assistant Principal Thomas Evangelist, who developed and runs the program, has grown it significantly: Currently, 170 students are enrolled in the major. Since 2019, 66 students have gone on to LIU. One in twelve participants now in its pharmacy program are Brooklyn Tech graduates. ■
Left to Right: Dennis Louie, Thomas Evangelist, John Ting
COOL CLASSES
WANDER INTO Brooklyn Tech any random day and you may find aerospace majors “piloting” a jet plane... future criminologists uncovering forensic evidence in a re-enacted crime scene…young digital artists animating video characters exactly as Hollywood studios do…teen scientists performing DNA sequencing and barcoding…and aspiring designers wielding fire and glass to fabricate neon art.
And more. Tech’s academic rigor is renowned, but what can go unrecognized is the expansive range of sophisticated course work – much of it college level and aligned with current professional practice – going on in the school’s 18 majors. What’s equally notable is how innovative and industry-focused many of the courses are. Here is a collection of classes that you won’t find under any other high school roof.
ASTRONOMY
The classroom sessions go strongly into math and physics, but the fun part comes after school during the dark winter season outside on Lafayette Avenue.
Then, the telescopes come out to search for, and photograph, the moon, the Andromeda Galaxy, and the Orion Nebula. Students brave winter’s cold and summer’s mosquitos for deeper heavenly hunting in monthly nighttime trips to Floyd Bennett Field.
The class is primarily for Physics majors but is “just enough fun for other students to take as an elective,” said assistant principal Thomas Evangelist.
Alumni Foundation funds provide the class with telescopes and other instruments and equipment that cannot be obtained through the New York City purchasing system.
DIGITAL ANIMATION
Working in the same software that Hollywood film studios use, students invent their own three-dimensional characters, place them in a setting of their own design, and animate them.
Alice Shur ’24 created Winona (right), “a super-eccentric student trying to get through college,” and designed a dorm room for her. “It’s cool to bring your ideas to life,” said Alice, now at Fashion Institute of Technology and aiming to become a digital animator. Her classmate Gianna Miceli ’24 invented Hopper, a worm, and put him in a video game set inside a tomato.
The class teacher is a former digital artist for film. Graduates have gone on to work at Disney, Nickelodeon, and Google.
Alumni Foundation funding has provided software and support. Now teachers in the Media major are hoping for additional donations to purchase state-of-the-art motion capture systems.
ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
Environmental science major seniors “explore how to become participatory citizens who understand the complex scientific and social issues
Top to bottom, left: genetics laboratory, robotics and computer integrated manufacturing lab, simulated crime scene in a forensic science class, and outdoor stargazing. Right: students invent characters, then build and animate them on professional-grade animation software.
Innovative and industry-focused classes not found under any other high school roof
behind the headlines.”
Topics covered include groundwater treatment, sustainable agriculture, genetic engineering, biofuels, and wildlife habitat design.
Students can obtain college credit for the course through an arrangement with the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry.
The Alumni Foundation secured major grants from Con Edison and New York City to create the environmental lab and a hydroponic greenhouse. Alumni gifts and grants support the lab’s operations and fund student field trips.
FLIGHT SCHOOL
Students learn to pilot a jet plane on an FAA-approved, professional-grade flight simulator in a class that’s equivalent to the first year of flight school.
Most students in this class go on to study engineering in college, but several have earned pilot licenses after graduation. “It’s a unique opportunity and I’m grateful for it,” said Robert Uuganbayar ’24, who is now in flight school with career plans of piloting private jets. “I feel prepared.”
The Alumni Foundation funded a wind tunnel and helped the class obtain flight simulators.
FORENSIC CRIMINOLOGY
Who did it? Students encounter a vividly real-looking crime scene simulation in a classroom and have to find out.
It’s a capstone project that tests students’ mettle in forensic investigation and legal argument. To solve the mystery, students leave no stone unturned as they analyze evidence. There are fingerprints to dust, hairs to collect, bullets to compare, and suspects to question.
The crime scene also enlivens a criminal procedure and civil law class. Students generate lab reports from the scene and stage a mock trial based on its evidence.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: an environmental sciences lab, crimesolving students at work, neon art, and a professional grade flight simulator: a palette of experiences no other high school can offer.
The Alumni Foundation secured government funding to upgrade the forensic science lab and has provided equipment for it.
NEON DESIGN
Seniors in the Industrial Design major work with neon and glass to master the basics of neon art and engineering, and fabricate their own creations based on the understanding they acquire of the science behind the craft.
After diving into the chemistry of noble gases and the electrical engineering that neon tubes require, students take up torches to weld and to bend glass into brilliant art pieces. They work at UrbanGlass, a globally-recognized glass studio located just a few blocks from Tech.
Alum Thomas Volpe ’53 worked with the Alumni Foundation to establish this program as a partnership between Brooklyn Tech, UrbanGlass, and St. Francis College.
Many classes are college-level and industry-aligned. Alumni funds supply flight simulators, telescopes, field trips, and more.
Photography by Eason Fan ‘25
Students who took the IT infrastructure course now work for the world’s leading technology companies.
FUNDAMENTALS OF IT INFRASTRUCTURE
Invented at and for Brooklyn Tech, this class matches “what you’d typically see in the third or fourth year of college,” said assistant principal Mark Rodriguez.
Students work on a Linux platform to recreate all that it takes to run – and write programs for – a large organization: infrastructure, web, applications, databases, cloud computing, and more. The focus is on technologies and concepts used in industry and advanced college coursework.
Alumni of this class have worked after college for Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and other top tech companies.
The Alumni Foundation secured funding for the fiber optic network that the Software Engineering major and entire school run on.
GENETICS
This course covers micropipetting, gel electrophoresis, DNA extraction, PCR amplification, Sanger DNA sequencing, bioinformatics, and CRISPR gene editing.
Students learn the real-life skills of performing paternity testing, and DNA fingerprinting using principles of single-nucleotide polymorphisms and restriction enzymes.
Students learn how to identify species by bringing insect or vegeta-
tion samples to the lab, and they perform DNA barcoding. Their original hypothesis-driven investigations culminate in a research paper. “The techniques they learn are the gold standard for a molecular biology lab,” said teacher Dr. Michael Estrella. The bar is set high: “We are hoping to create innovators,” he added.
The Alumni Foundation worked with faculty and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory to create the DNA lab. Alumni grants provide reagent kits that cannot be purchased through the Department of Education’s system. “If it were not for the Alumni Foundation, we could not do this,” Dr. Estrella said.
CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT:
Former industrial-era shops now incubate computer science stars of tomorrow, advanced equipment enhances the genetics class, and the drill bit lives – albeit in high-tech form, in the robotics and computer integrated manufacturing lab.
MATH RESEARCH
At higher levels, mathematics is more about asking questions than solving problems. “It’s a chance to delve into what mathematicians really do,” explained Dr. Thomas Blozy, one of the teachers who designed the class exclusively for Tech.
That includes developing their own math questions and attempting to answer them in research papers.
Graph theory and number theory are among the advanced topics students explore as they tackle problems that may take weeks or months to solve.
Graduates of the class have entered careers in computer science, pure math, economics, finance, engineering, science, and data analysis.
Alumni Foundation donations enable students to compete in local and national math competitions. The Milo Kessler ’21 Math Major Fellows Program helps research students work with mathematician mentors outside of Brooklyn Tech.
ROBOTICS ENGINEERING
The end goal of this class is for students to apply the skills they learn to design and build a mechatronic device that solves real-world problems. First, the students learn such programming languages as C, Arduino, ROBOTC, and easyC. Then they write algorithms to control and obtain feedback from transducers in the devices they create. Along the way, they master technologies like Bluetooth communication protocols and wiring, and programming microcontrollers.
Robotics Engineering is another of Tech’s classes that is roughly equivalent to third- or fourth-year college work. Alumni funds enabled the creation of the robotics and computer integrated manufacturing lab ■
The career path from Tech leads to engineering, technology, and the sciences. But also, for many, to the arts, humanities, education, business, and more.
Sportscaster
Brooklyn (Prospect Park, specifically) was where he fell in love with baseball, and sports generally.
Brooklyn Tech was where he first became “comfortable in situations where you have to be confident and stand out.”
Combining those two traits in college, Alex Faust ’07 began calling basketball and hockey games at Northeastern University, where he graduated under the mistaken belief that he was born to be a business analyst. After four years dishing numbers at a major firm, he quit to pursue freelance gigs in the broadcast booth.
Within a few years he had called hockey and Boston Red Sox games for ESPN, NESN, and Westwood One, among others. He then became lead announcer for the LA Kings hockey team. He now is a play-by-play commentator for the NHL on TNT and across multiple sports for FOX Sports, as well as occasional New York Rangers radio broadcasts. He also calls Major League Baseball games for Apple TV+.
A surreal moment of fame came in 2018 when the thenhost of Jeopardy, Alex Trebek, proposed him as his successor. (Faust recalls his reaction to that surprise as “flattery and bewilderment.”)
What remains constant across varied sports and networks is what drives him: “A fascination with storytelling, and the adrenalin of doing something live.” ■
Diva
After runs in Tech musicals Hair, The Wiz, and Grease, La Toya Lewis ’01 graduated thinking, “If I could perform on that stage, I can perform on any stage in the world.”
Those stages, so far in her career, include the Metropolitan Opera, Radio City Music Hall, Citi Field, and Houston Grand Opera House during a national 10-city tour with Wynton Marsalis.
Lewis didn’t sing opera until college, but she blossomed into the genre. For the Met, the classically trained soprano has performed in the chorus of Porgy and Bess and X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X
She leads the PAL Cops and Kids Chorus founded by TV star Tony Danza, which is how she got to Radio City (with the Rockettes), as well as to the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Lighting. She has performed lead roles in local New York City opera groups.
Back in middle school, Lewis had wanted to audition for LaGuardia High School.
But her parents persuaded her that Tech’s rich academic and performing arts programs were an incomparable twin bill. In her freshman year she joined the chorus, and hasn’t stopped singing since. ■
Restaurateur
Career-switching from nanoengineering down south to opening a restaurant in hipster Bushwick wasn’t enough of a challenge for Munzerin (Munzzy) Uddin ’12. She did it during the Covid pandemic.
Uddin and her partner, Harvey Wong, signed the lease in December 2019, she recalls. The world shut down before The Monkey King – named after a rebel primate in a Chinese fable – could open, and the suspense began: What would run its course first – the pandemic or the pair’s ability to cover the rent?
Happily for Brooklyn foodies, The Monkey King won out. It started as a ghost kitchen in 2021 and welcomed diners inside the following year.
The journey from silicon to scallion sauce began when Uddin started questioning her post-Brooklyn Tech career path. Falling in love with nanoengineering at college, she was rising comfortably at a tech startup in North Carolina. Her 25th birthday sprung an “Is that all there is?” moment upon her.
“I saw myself stagnant,” she recalls. “I wanted to unlock my next level of potential.” Wong, then an accountant with a father who owned a successful Asian restaurant, “was on a similar journey with a head start on me.”
The couple went for it. Today, the restaurant is a highly rated mainstay, earning raves for its pan-Asian fusion mix that blends Chinese cuisine seamlessly with Bengali accents.
Uddin’s engineering background has proved useful: originally trained as a process engineer to standardize operations, “I took what I did building computer chips and implemented all that into this,” she says, pointing to The Monkey King’s sumptuous décor and efficient kitchen.
And the soup dumplings are delicious. ■
Rock Star
“I have always been a fan of technology, especially the myriad ways it can enhance and improve music. Early technophobes shouted cries of ‘Sellout!’ at Bob Dylan way back in ’65! Imagine the impact on rock history writ large, if they had succeeded & prevented the development of amplifiers, synthesizers and electric guitars in the name of a rigid musical puritanism.” – Vernon Reid ’76, one of Rolling Stone’s 100 greatest guitarists of all time, and founder of Living Colour. ■
JudgeRaised by a single mom in 1980s Bushwick, Julio Rodriguez III ’90 saw both crime and unsettling police interactions with his community. “I felt something needed to be done,” he recalls.
Passionate to pursue a law degree, he almost didn’t attend Tech. His concern that its STEM-rich curriculum wouldn’t launch him toward a law career melted after one “unchallenging” year in a local high school. He transferred to Tech, and “it was challenging. It prepared me.”
Rising through the ranks of government and the legal system, Justice Rodriguez now sits on the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan – the second highest court in the state. There, he rules on some of the state’s most significant cases.
On his office wall – as it has been in all his previous offices – is a photo montage he made of his personal role models and heroes. Among them: Supreme Court Justices Marshall and Sotomayor and Nelson Mandela, alongside the flag of Rodriguez’s ancestral homeland, Puerto Rico. It hangs where he can see it from his desk. “I want to draw inspiration from it,” he says. ■
Stunt Man
He’s been thrown through plate glass windows. He’s leapt from skyscraper roof to roof. He’s fought more fights than he can count. “There’s tons of stuff where you can see me get beat up or blown up,” he says.
Charlie Ruedpokanon ’99 majored in architecture at Tech, but even then the martial arts were his passion. After school, he and his buds – known as FPTG (Five Phly Thai Guys) – practiced their moves and videotaped them.
Inspired by martial arts films, he headed to Asia after college with a stack of demo reels to break into that continent’s burgeoning action-film scene. While he still does stunts, he has since branched out to stunt coordination, and into acting – usually as the bad guy or the detective. He can be seen in the Netflix films Fistful of Vengeance and The Serpent, and was the stunt coordinator for the acclaimed 2022 film Tár. All told, he’s been in front of or behind the camera for 50 films.
After doing the first scary stunt, Ruedpokanon says, “It becomes like a ride you enjoy in a theme park.” ■
Comedian/Educator
Emmy Award-winning Ellen Cleghorne, Ph.D ’76 was the first full-fledged Black female Saturday Night Live cast member, noted for impressions of Anita Hill, Mary J. Blige, Whoopi Goldberg, and many others.
She later starred in her own sitcom and many film and TV productions. But one career was not enough: “to set an example for my daughter” – whom she was encouraging to pursue an advanced degree – she earned a Ph.D from NYU. Her doctoral thesis was on the social context of African American humor. While continuing to act and perform she went on to teach acting and the theory of comedy at The New School.
One of five siblings to attend Tech, she said her experience “taught me to ignore racists; to be self-reliant; and whatever you want, you are going to have to fight for.” ■
Archaeologist
“What I learned at Tech has served me very well,” says master archaeologist Jeffrey Quilter ’68, “from fixing the back-porch stairs at home to excavating 7,000-yearold sites in Peru.”
“Have I been happy I went to Tech!” he continues. “What do archaeologists who excavate sites do? They lay out excavation grids using surveying equipment (Geometry); they deal with different kinds of materials that they excavate (Industrial Processes); they record their finds and draw what they discover at the excavation site (Freehand and Mechanical Drawing). Even Foundry was highly useful for knowing how metal is cast and worked.”
Quilter first grew interested in archaeology through visits to relatives in England. Stonehenge and the country’s castles and ruins mesmerized him. Then a summer in a student exchange program in Peru provided the focus for his life’s work.
Now retired, Quilter was director of Harvard University’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology and a Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at Harvard. He has written seven books and more than 40 journal articles.
An expert in ancient Peru and Costa Rica, Quilter is known for his team’s 2008 discovery, on a 400-year-old piece of paper, of a lost indigenous language of northern Peru. The discovery received international news coverage. He was on teams that found the world’s earliest known shark victim, and the mummy of an ancient priestess or ruler, the Señora de Cao.
Quilter calls his Brooklyn Tech education foundational to his work. ■
Photographer
Although the 1968 BTHS valedictorian had been encouraged by his father since childhood to attend MIT, “it didn’t take but five minutes” upon arriving there to realize that a technology career wasn’t for him.
Fortunately, Baldwin Lee chanced upon a photography class. It changed his life.
Proceeding through MIT “as much away from technology and science as I could,” Lee emerged with a Bachelor of Science degree and a concentration in photography. At graduation, he told his father he intended to become a photographer instead of an engineer. Dad cried.
Lee went on to teach photography at Yale, the Massachusetts College of Art, and the University of Tennessee, where he served honorably but in relative anonymity beyond Knoxville for 40 years.
But in 1982, Lee and his camera had embarked on a seven-year, on-and-off odyssey across the deep South. Seeing through his lens the realities of poverty and racism, he experienced “a political awakening” and began focusing on the faces and lives of rural Black Americans. “I felt all of a sudden that I had a calling,” he recalls.
He rode through back roads, straight into the communities the police told him to avoid. He asked and received permission for every shot he made.
Occasionally he exhibited some work locally. But mostly, the 10,000 photos he took sat in boxes for decades.
After retiring, decades after the original journey, a New York publisher discovered his work and invited him to present 300 photos in what became the 2022 coffee table book Baldwin Lee. Critical acclaim poured in.
The book was short-listed for the Aperture/Paris-Photo Book of The Year award.
The New Yorker called him “one of the great overlooked luminaries of American picture-making.”
The Harvard scholar of race and African-American culture Imani Perry wrote: “Lee has a sensitive eye for both poverty and dignity… a witness to those at the bottom of U.S. stratification, and their refusal to swallow that status.”
The New York Times found his work “moving, illuminating, troubling, above all humane.”
Exhibits in New York, California, London, and Atlanta followed.
“I tried to show a kind of grace, a kind of presence that has nothing to do with color, economic status, or place,” Lee told TechTimes. “It’s purely the human quality.” ■
PHOTOS COURTESY OF BALDWIN LEE ‘68
A career born and incubated at Brooklyn Tech
TV Reporter
If you lived in New York in the 2000’s or 2010’s, you probably know Jeanine Ramirez ’88.
A fixture on NY1 News for 24 years, she covered Brooklyn with understanding and passion, and filled our screens many weekends as an anchor.
Hurricane Sandy and 9/11 fell on her watch, as did countless other big stories. Perhaps her greatest impact, though, came through the insights she brought to the coverage of Latino issues, whether in Brooklyn, Puerto Rico, or the Dominican Republic.
Today she owns a video production and public relations firm, with such clients as IBM and NYU Langone Health. Airing this fall: Voces NYC, her new feature show produced by HITN TV. She’s also appeared as her on-air self in Ghostbusters and Law and Order.
After majoring in communications at Fordham, she started out as a desk assistant and field producer for WPIXTV (PIX11). “I ran the prompter for Kaity Tong,” she recalls.
Ramirez broke onto the air in Midland, Texas, then the nation’s number 150 market, covering rodeos and chili cook-offs. “It was a shock to the system,” she says. “But I learned my craft.”
There’s no doubt where this career sprung from: At Tech, she majored in graphic communications and starred in several stage musicals.
“I discovered my love for communications at Brooklyn Tech,” she says unhesitatingly. ■
Solving a Math Problem
In her sophomore year, Brooklyn Tech introduced Elizabeth Segal ’24 to the notion that higher mathematics was about more than increasingly difficult problems. Rather, it represented “a different way of thinking,” she recalled. The exciting discovery sparked her to major in Applied Mathematics.
Then something began bothering her. She had been primed to succeed in math through a middle school enrichment program. But what about all the young people who had no such opportunity?
Elizabeth decided to create the opportunities. She formed STEM Is Us, with the vision of introducing children around the world, online, to advanced math and coding. She and two classmates started by approaching their own elementary schools, and others in the city, with an idea: encourage your students to join a program we will develop and teach.
second to eighth grade in 65 countries and 20 US states. About 20 high school students – most of them Technites – generate content and lead sessions. Nearly 200 other volunteers provide outreach and support services.
Persistent outreach and follow-up soon brought about 15 schools on board. Elizabeth and her classmates developed and launched the curriculum in their free time.
But Elizabeth’s vision was global.
To attract the army of young volunteers she’d need to promote, spread, and operate the program on a worldwide scale, Elizabeth posted a homemade video on Instagram. It went viral.
Elizabeth developed a content-rich curriculum and web presence with standard platforms like WordPress. The volunteers spread the word through social media. There was no adult help.
Today STEM Is Us offers courses in competitive math, Python and Scratch coding, and biology to young people from
Young people in countries including India, Poland, Tanzania, Bangladesh, and China take part in classrooms through student-led country chapters.
All this caught the attention of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. It invited her to speak at UN headquarters, where she presented to a conference of more than 200 policymakers and activists from around the world –including government ministers and high-ranking UN officials.
“It felt surreal,” Elizabeth recalled. “I was one of the youngest people there speaking to these influential people.”
“I did not think it would get this big,” she added, recalling her early start in asking her old elementary school to sign up for her vision: STEM is for everyone.
Elizabeth is now a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania studying math and economics and hoping to eventually work at an investment bank to give back to her community. ■
Elizabeth created a global educational program, wrote a children’s book (above left), and wowed the United Nations
All Photos by Eason Fan ‘25
Engineering a Revival
Like most student organizations, Brooklyn Tech’s chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) was set back by the Covid years. Oliver Rygh ’24 was one of the students who brought it back to its pre-pandemic strength.
“He ran it like a job,” said faculty advisor Jan-Kristòf Louis-Mansano of Oliver’s year as NSBE chapter president. “He helped us get organized. Calendars. Google Drive. Marketing. He set expectations and held people accountable.”
NSBE is on solid footing now, and Oliver is a big part of the reason. The chapter is also increasingly focused on professional development activities. “We are about advancing our members as leaders at Tech,” Oliver said.
The organization is also about preparing its members to excel in college and advance into engineering careers. That was a key focus for Oliver, an Aerospace major who had no family or personal ties to the engineering profession when he entered Tech.
“If you don’t have parents in the engineering or technology field it’s harder to get a foot in the door,” Oliver said. “So how can we provide students without parents in the tech field with the support that people with resources have?”
The group brought in a mentor from NYU Tandon (formerly Brooklyn Poly) to talk about résumé writing, business dress, and business etiquette. It staged a Professionalism Week, open to all students, to spotlight those topics and related issues.
The chapter revived a dormant Drone Cadets program where members learn how to fly drones and work toward FAA certification to operate them. NSBE returned a popular event, the Boat Regatta, where students fabricate makeshift fanciful cardboard vessels, large enough to sit in, and race them in the school swimming pool. The event is part of Engineers’ Week, when STEM-focused clubs showcase STEM activities including a popular egg drop competition. The group also took part for the first time in a national remote control car race competition. A large chapter contingent attended NSBE’s national convention in Atlanta, where it tied for first place in a math competition.
Oliver “ran the National Society of Black Engineers chapter like it was a job.” said his faculty advisor.
“I wanted to bridge the gap,” Oliver said of his year as NSBE president. “It’s not just about community. It’s about professional development.”
Oliver is now studying engineering at Princeton University. ■
Alumni Foundation funding supports the NSBE chapter’s Drone Cadets program and trip to the national convention.
Tech students innovate and push boundaries –
inside the school and
beyond.
Tunnel Vision
Then serving as an “innovation intern” at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, college student Ann Jenica Jose ’20 thought about the unused catwalks in the Holland and Lincoln tunnels that tunnel police used to patrol, and wondered how they could become useful once again.
Recalling the amazing feats of her Brooklyn Tech robotics team friends, she instinctively knew that high school students could answer the question. With support from Port Authority leaders, she ran a competition for regional high school teams to invent a new, technology-based use for the catwalks.
Not surprisingly, a Brooklyn Tech team entered. It was led by Mechatronics and Robotics major Gurupavan (Guru) Sudhakar ’24. “I was ecstatic to see a Tech team submit their application to the competition,” Jose recalled.
Guru’s team devised a fire- and smoke-detecting emergency response robot that would roam the catwalks and respond to incidents, sending responders data on a problem’s nature and location. Based on machine-learning software and equipped with cameras and sensors, the entry impressed Port Authority judges, though it didn’t win. Guru’s response was to aim higher – literally.
With his Tech buddies, he has formed a tech startup that is meeting with investors about a wall-climbing robot they are developing to help fight high-rise fires. The bot will ascend a building’s facade to the location of a fire and spray flame suppressant inside. “I was the type of kid who broke all his gadgets to see how they worked,” Guru said. “I like building stuff and coming up with solutions.”
For the Weston Scholars Research Program, Guru invented a long-range air sample-collecting rocket glider drone, GASP (Global Air Sampling Plane). A prototype is in development. He is now a freshman at CCNY. Ann Jenica is now a permanent PANYNJ employee. ■
Gurupavan formed a tech robotics startup and was a Weston Research Scholar.
Extra! Extra!
Around the country, high school newspaper editors worry about censorship. But a greater concern for just-graduated editor-in-chief of The Survey Kiran Yeh ’24 is self-censorship.
Kiran was honored as 2024’s New York State Teen Journalist of the Year by the Journalism Education Association.
“It is the biggest issue around the country,” she said of selfcensorship. “A lot of students don’t want to express an opinion; some reporters don’t want their name on contentious issues. Cancel culture is so prevalent.”
Around the country, maybe. At Tech, under the leadership of Kiran and co-Editor-in-Chief Josephine Murphy, that hasn’t seemed to be the case.
Recent stories – all bylined – examined the migrant crisis, national educational politics, and Muslim students’ need for prayer space at Tech. It reported on pushback from some faculty to the school’s widespread purchase and use in advisory class of a motivational selfhelp book. It pointed out that some students had negative experiences in a widely known national study abroad program some Tech students participated in.
Through it all, Kiran said, “Principal Newman has been supportive – he’s been really great.”
Kiran and Josephine, who entered Tech in the “remote” Covid year of 2020-21, helped bring the newspaper back to full strength after the pandemic. As Law & Society majors “we care about what’s going on outside school” as well as inside, Kiran said.
“Our school has a big diversity of ideas,” she added. “Our job is trying to express them in as unbiased a way as we can. We are saying [to readers], ‘this is what happened.’ It’s up to you to decide.”
Inspired by summer experiences at The New York Times and NBC News, Kiran joined The Survey as a sophomore and rose from staff reporter to news editor and on up to the top editorship. When she joined, the newspaper’s website was blank – a testament to the pandemic’s impact. Her sophomore year, it published in print once.
Kiran, who “surrounds a story and gets to its beating heart,” urges student journalists everywhere to resist selfcensorship.
Kiran started a boot camp to train new recruits in journalism and implemented a style guide. Last year, the paper returned to its regular print publication schedule, with a robust website (surveybths.com). It was named the city’s best online high school newspaper in a competition run by Baruch College.
“We don’t publish the most [frequently],” Kiran said. “But we spend months on each piece. We are putting out quality.”
“She has the curiosity and instinct to surround a good story, and get to its beating heart,” said faculty advisor Thomas Wentworth.
Kiran is now a freshman at Yale University. “Her potential is limitless and she is going to make a difference wherever she lands in life,” Mr. Wentworth said. ■
From Tech to Journalism
How I ended up in a creative field
By Mary Chao ’85
The immigrant peer pressure was real. Embarking on my fledgling artistic dreams at The High School of Art and Design in Manhattan, my parents were flanked by a chorus of their Queens Chinese friends with the question: “Why would you let your daughter go to an art school when she got into Brooklyn Tech and Bronx Science?”
For immigrants, careers in math and science were tickets to the good life in America. A stable career where meritocracy ruled over connections and other nebulous metrics.
My non-English speaking parents cajoled me to transfer. I caved, taking the SHSAT again and enrolling at Tech as an incoming sophomore in 1982. Those who know Asian immigrant parents understand filial piety: you don’t say no to demands.
As a student at Tech, I excelled in creative courses such as English, social studies and especially art, while barely getting by in mandatory math and science classes. The Graphics major gave me a creative outlet, especially a dual enrollment program with collegelevel photography classes.
When it came to college, I didn’t have a choice as my parents insisted on New York University for its generosity. Plus, immigrant girls just didn’t move away from the home for college. Serendipitously, I ended up with a job at CBS News while helping out a Tech classmate at Brooklyn College in finding a job. I would become hooked on journalism—my life’s work and calling.
Immigrant women journalists who are English language learners are few and far between, even more so three decades ago. But our voices are desperately needed. Unbeknownst to me back in the halls of Tech in the 1980s, I would get my greatest life lessons. The beauty of Tech is the organic diversity. The friendships between people of all races, socioeconomic backgrounds, and genders, from all corners of the five boroughs. This unique life experience helped me grow as an empathetic journalist, understanding diverse perspectives.
The journalism industry hasn’t been easy and is currently undergoing a seismic shift. We need more people like the students and graduates of Brooklyn Tech to help shape the narrative. ■
Mary Chao ’85 is a Specialty Reporter at Scripps News Network. She has worked as a print-based reporter for over 25 years, as an opinion columnist and business and features writer, most recently at The Bergen Record of New Jersey, part of the USA Today Network.
Born To Write
By Angela Belcher Epps ’74
I was already a writer when I entered Brooklyn Tech as a tenth grader. In junior high, I distributed hand-written novellas to my peers. They awaited my sequels as I used teenaged characters to unpack complex dynamics within communities and relationships. Decades later, I’m still writing with similar intentions.
My family was, and continues to be, what I call literacy rich. All of us read and talk about ideas. Without much discussion, I was nudged along a rigorous path. I took the entrance exam and went to Tech— not because I was headed toward a career in math or the sciences, but because I was encouraged to embrace academic opportunities.
Navigating Tech’s humanities, English, foreign language, and shop classes didn’t require epic efforts. Chemistry, trigonometry, physics, and calculus, however, were beasts to continually slay. Keeping abreast of a relentless schedule of challenging content made study nonnegotiable. End of semesters found me pulling near all-nighters—self-testing with Barron’s study guides to ensure that I passed the Regents Exams.
Like many teenagers, my social life ranked pretty high on my priority list. However, expectations at Tech made me vigilant about juggling time and energy. I cultivated the discipline to do this and that. Tech, therefore, laid a veneer of maturity over my otherwise youthful way of being in the world. At the core of that maturity was intrinsic motivation. Passing those math and science courses meant chugging along after hours with no prodding, coddling, or immediate feedback. I generated my own steam to make incremental progress while often feeling as if I was floundering around in the dark.
That’s what inextricably links my career as a creative writer to my Tech beginnings.
I realized early on that a passion for writing doesn’t always pay the bills. For most of my life, I held extremely demanding full-time positions— often meeting rigid deadlines, with workdays that didn’t end with a time clock. Still, after those long hours, I came home and wrote creatively because that has always been my calling.
Fortunately, Tech’s rigor showed me what stamina looks like. It also instilled the edifying trait of persevering in spite of the perception of having hit a wall. Memorizing, applying, and manipulating formulas meant approaching new subjects from multiple perspectives until I found myself on the right track.
That process is not so different from that of a soul level writer’s. I daresay I have written hundreds of pages that won’t ever be submitted for publication. I’ll revise a ridiculous number of times when I suspect I’m missing an essential element needed to inspire a reader to simply contemplate a single notion.
Even now, I’m trying to master some craft techniques and write in ways I haven’t before. I feel we Technites become long-haulers who ultimately understand the amount of energy that might be expended just to get a clue. ■
Angela Belcher Epps ’74, one of Brooklyn Tech’s first nine female graduates, writes fiction and creative nonfiction. She authored a novella titled Salt in the Sugar Bowl and is working on a novel.
Left: Jamie Germano; Right: Silas Shah
The Ring
Alan Friedland ’47 is one of the lucky Tech alums: a Tech grandpa.
Sixty-six years after his graduation, Alan beamed proudly in the Barclays Center as granddaughter Carly Gerson ’13 walked up front, shook hands with the principal, and collected her Brooklyn Tech diploma.
He had been a College Prep major in an all-boys school. She was a Social Science Research major at modern-day Tech. That didn’t matter. “When I entered Tech he was overjoyed. He was happy I was following his footsteps, and even though my footsteps would look very different than his, there were similarities,” Carly recalled.
They had always been close, but the common bond brought them even closer; often they talked by phone about her Tech experiences.
They agreed about a common theme among many freshmen and
sophomores: “Tech sets you up to be a drop in a bucket of water – so you have to make yourself stand out,” Carly said.
“My grandfather understood what it’s like – how being one of many will make you more confident.”
After that Barclays graduation, Carly went on to college and to become a special education teacher in New York. Through it all, she and her granddad talked often.
In 2022, Carly was to be married in New York. Alan, then 92, lived in Florida and was unable to travel to Long Island. It was heartbreaking for both that he couldn’t attend his granddaughter’s wedding.
As the wedding day approached, Carly remembered the graduation gift Alan had given her nine years earlier at Barclays.
She rummaged through closets and found it. Opening the tiny box she had carefully saved, she lifted out Alan’s 1947 Brooklyn Tech senior ring.
“So I tied it to my bouquet,” she recalled.
“I walked down the aisle knowing that ring was with me there. I felt that he was with me too.”
Update: Alan is now the great-grandfather of Carly’s daughter Micah, born earlier this year. Carly is saving the Tech ring for her wedding bouquet. ■
ALUM NEWS
DROP TECHTIMES A
1940s
CLASS NOTES
By Lisa Trollback
Bernard Kleinman ’42 , the oldest Homecoming 2024 attendee, turned 100 in June. He celebrated his milestone birthday in Brooklyn with friends, family, and fellow Technites. A former machinist on the Manhattan Project, Victor Kuras ’42 had a second career teaching Mechanical Engineering and Aeronautics at Tech from 1977-1989. His 100th birthday was celebrated in August in Huntington, L.I. He is believed to be the first centenarian who is both an alum and former faculty member.
Alumni Hall of Fame member and Harvard astrophysicist Irwin Shapiro, PhD ’47 is still going strong at age 94, with the recent publication of The Unity of Science: Exploring Our Universe, from the Big Bang to the Twenty-First Century (Yale University Press), based on a Harvard course for nonscientist undergrads that he created and has taught each spring for 15 years.
Albert S. Ruddy ’48, who won a Best Picture Oscar as the producer of The Godfather, died in May. In bringing Mario Puzo’s novel to life on the big screen, Al left an indelible mark on film history. He won yet another Best Picture Academy Award for Million Dollar Baby and is in our Alumni Hall of Fame. 1950s
Before retirement, Nathan Streitman ’51, Ret. AIA, AICP, was an architect and city planner for many major rapid transit projects and modernizations for Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH), Los Angeles Metro Red Line, and the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA).
A Nobel Prize-winning physicist who confirmed the Big Bang Theory, Arno Penzias, PhD ’51 died at age 90 in January. His 1964 discovery with Robert W. Wilson settled a debate over the origin and evolution of the universe.
A ‘CLEARE’ LEADER
ANOTHER BROOKLYN TECH GRADUATE is serving in the ranks of elected officials who are alumni.
Cordell Cleare ’85 represents Harlem in the New York State Senate, where she chairs the Aging Committee and sits on the committees for banks, education, and social services.
Sen. Cleare was a community activist in the Harlem area, where she was born and raised, before her election. She worked for 18 years for a prior occupant of the seat, Bill Perkins, as his chief of staff. She sat on her local Community Education Council and Community School Board. In 2012, she was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention. As an activist, she was a tenant organizer who worked to protect children from the dangers of lead paint.
Also serving in the state Senate is Zellnor Myrie ’04, who was profiled in the 2019 TechTimes. Brooklyn Tech also has Latrice Walker ’97 in the state Assembly, profiled in 2018. In addition, the second highest ranking elected official in New York City is Jumaane Williams ’94 Laurie Cumbo ’93, formerly a City Council member, is New York City’s cultural affairs commissioner. ■
1960s
Joe Machnik, PhD ’60, a soccer commentator and authority who began it all on Tech’s team, was inducted into the United Soccer Coaches Hall of Fame. Well known as a player, coach, referee, and broadcaster, he is also in the National Soccer Hall of Fame.
Arnold Feldman ’63 enjoyed a diverse career in the oil and chemical industries spanning over 30 years and 35 states. Later becoming an environmental health and safety consultant, Arnold now enjoys life outside Philadelphia with his wife and is a Life Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. A lifelong student, Ron Brandt ’65 earned a master’s degree in Jewish History from Touro University.
1970s
Lanny Smoot ’73, Brooklyn Tech’s 2023 commencement speaker, became the second Imagineer in Walt Disney Company history, after Disney himself, to be inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
Angela Belcher Epps, Patricia Rodriguez-Ruiz (formerly DeRamos), Dawn Fredericks, and Madeleine Powell-Harris, all class of 1974,
were the first women in Tech history to be welcomed back for a 50th Anniversary reunion. They were among nine brave young women who graduated in 1974.
Albert Diaz ’78 became the first Hispanic Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, Richmond, VA. He has served on the court for 14 years and hears appeals of federal cases originating in Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina.
Sidney Milden ’77 and retired Tech Track & Field Coach and Phil Zodda officiated at the 2024 U.S. Olympic track and field team Trials.
Jamelle McKenzie ’79 became the first woman and first Black official to represent Ward One on the College Park City Council in Metro Atlanta. 1980s
Maurice Ashley ’83, the trailblazing first Black chess grandmaster, shares his wisdom in two new books, Move by Move and The Life-Changing Magic of Chess. He returned to Tech in June to inspire the award-winning chess team.
Siu Ling Ko ’82 is the first female vice president and
chief mechanical officer for New York City Transit. She oversees the entire fleet of 6,500 subway cars, as well as 13 maintenance shops and two overhaul shops.
Randolph (Randy) B. Houston, Jr. ‘87 became General Counsel and Corporate Secretary to Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. He previously was Assistant General Counsel at BuzzFeed.
Yusef Johnson ’87 (Aero) is living his dreams on and off the field as lead integration mission planner for NASA’s Artemis IV and coach for outside linebackers at Lutheran Southern Academy. Selected as one of eight coaches in a partnership with the National Coalition of Minority Coaches, Yusef, who played football for Tech, gained valuable experience this spring with the UFL’s Houston Roughnecks. 1990s
Fatima Jones ’90 is Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at Dance Theatre of Harlem. She has served in marketing and PR for leading cultural institutions, including The Apollo, Brooklyn Museum, and BAM.
Giselle Williams, Ed.D. ’92 , Alumni Foundation board member, was promoted to Vice President, Multilingual Advocacy & Content at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, where she continues to highlight and elevate the wealth of assets that multilingual students bring to classrooms every day.
NYC Public Advocate Jumaane Williams ’94 was the Brooklyn Tech commencement speaker in June at Barclays Center. He had earlier in the year visited Tech for his 30th reunion and the BTHS Caribbean Culture Club and CASONY’s Carnival Celebration of Caribbean Culture.
Carletta Higginson, Esq. ’95 was named EVP-Chief Digital Officer at Warner Music Group, overseeing the full spectrum of WMG’s global digital partnerships. Previously she was Global Head of Music Publishing at YouTube and Google Play.
Laura Harding, Esq. ’91 is President of Erase Racism NY. A power player on Long Island, she aims to address the impact of structural racism,
especially in housing and schools. 2000s
Muyinatu (Bisi) Bell ’02 , John C. Malone Associate Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Johns Hopkins, received the National Science Foundation’s 2024 Alan T. Waterman Award, the nation’s highest honor for early-career scientists. She was recognized for her pioneering interdisciplinary research in photoacoustic and ultrasound imaging.
Kolawole (Kola) Jegede, MD ’02 was appointed Site Director for the Division of Spine Surgery at NYU LangoneBrooklyn, where he also serves as Orthopedic Surgery Residency Site Director/Director of Quality and Safety. He is the Spine Section Editor for The Bulletin of the Hospital for Joint Diseases
Justina K. Rivera, Esq. ’04, General Counsel and Deputy Comptroller for Legal Affairs for the NYC Comptroller’s Office, was named to City and State NY ’s “2024 Trailblazers in Law.”
A Senior Foreign Affairs officer at the U.S. Department of State, Maureen Ahmed ’07 was invited to join the Council on Foreign Relations. She has held positions in Washington, D.C., Croatia, South Africa, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka since 2017.
A physician for the NYC Department of Health & Mental Hygiene, Joanne Fernandez-Booker, MD, MPH ’06 received the National Hispanic Association’s 2024 40 Under 40 Award for her work with vulnerable students in the Bronx.
A.V. Rockwell ’07 (Media) was nominated for the Directors Guild of America’s Michael Apted Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement of a First-Time Theatrical Feature Film Director. Her debut film, A Thousand and One, won the 2023 Sundance Grand Jury Prize and was named by critics to many top ten lists for the year.
Angel Rosario, Jr., MD, MPH ’04 is a General Surgery Resident at NewYorkPresbyterian/Columbia University. His interests and research include eliminating health and surgical
disparities in low-income communities. 2010s
Christine Davie ’10 (formerly Pembroke), a Human Capital Manager at Deloitte, was guest speaker for the Alumni Foundation’s Future World Vision Consortium program.
Anne Cebula ’16 became the third female Olympian in Tech history this summer, and the first Technite ever to compete in epee at the Games. She chose Tech for the opportunity to learn fencing, and began her meteoric trajectory in the sport while captaining Tech’s team.
Terrique Pinnock ’17, a former Weston Research Scholar, earned her Doctor of Medicine degree from The City University of New York School of Medicine. She gave keynote remarks at the annual Weston Scholars recognition ceremony. She is an anesthesiology resident at Mayo Clinic in Florida.
William Z. Tom ’19 graduated from RIT and is a Field Applications Engineer for AMD in San Jose, CA. His dad is former Tech faculty member John Tom ’8 1 . 2020s
Chase Kellebrew ’23 was dubbed “the grandmaster of slime” by The New Yorker, and “the presiding genius of SoHo’s Sloomoo Institute.” His innovative slime creations have been praised by celebs Jessica Alba, Drew Barrymore and others.
Augustus Roebling ’24 is the first Tech alum with ancestors sculpted on the school’s façade. He’s a descendant of Brooklyn Bridge builders John Augustus, Washington Augustus, and Emily Roebling. He is a freshman at Pratt.
Liam Dertinger ’20, winner of Chopped Jr. and graduate of Le Cordon Bleu, Paris, is Executive Chef of Caffeinated New York, a new upscale brunch café on Staten Island. He was previously Sous Chef at Soho Grand Hotel. ■
Alums: Send your professional or personal news update to techtimes@bthsalum.org
EMBRACING THE FEAR
By Wafa Berri ’24, Salutatorian Freshman, CUNY Macaulay Honors at Hunter
MY PARENTS SET THE BAR, and my four siblings and I had to raise it higher and higher.
But as you know from four years at Brooklyn Tech, raising the bar higher for yourself can be very scary...because it comes with the unknown; it comes with the self-doubt, and it comes with taking risks.
Thirty years ago, my dad immigrated from our home country, Algeria. He wanted to get his Ph.D, which was not offered in Algeria at the time, so he immigrated to France, then America. Education was engraved in
his mind by his parents’ model. His father was the principal of his school and his mother was a teacher at the school. My mother? She was the first woman in her family to go to college and get a degree. And of course, she raised us five kids.
With my older siblings paving the pathway, we always went to the same schools. However, I made my own path by coming to Tech. I can’t lie, I was scared. But I had to go with the flow.
Yes, I was scared, but now I realize that fear is a natural part of any new experience. It’s not about being fearless but about embracing the fear and moving forward anyway. Each one of us has faced our own unique challenges and fears, yet we stand here today because we didn’t let them hold us back. We often get caught up in the fear that we forget to enjoy what’s going on in the moment.
So, step into the future with the same courage and determination that brought us all here today. it’s okay to be scared. It’s okay to not have everything figured out. It’s okay to be a little lazy! What matters is that you keep moving forward. ■
BRIDGING DIVERSITY IN STEM
Continued from page 6
importance and vitality of infrastructure and infrastructure careers to communities and the nation.
Sparks of Innovation
The conference was not only on the forefront of innovation; it also staged the world premiere of an IMAX film, Cities of the Future, narrated by actor/ director John Krasinski. Middle school and Tech students were thrilled to view the film and engage in a talkback with director Greg MacGillivray and ASCE engineers Paul Lee and Diniece Mendes. Past ASCE president Maria Lehman also provided compelling remarks about the Consortium’s impact. Where are the sparks of imagination and innovation ignited? Right here, right now, at Tech. More than 100 years ago, Tech was created as a response to urgent technological needs and demands of the times. The story is the same. The location is the same. The need is even more urgent. The investment in our young people is about increasing our resilience and capacity to live in a newly adjusted world.
Brooklyn Tech is a hotbed of bold, brave, and brilliant ideas. With Tech leading the way, this initiative can become a timely national model for high schools throughout the country. Brooklyn Tech, with ASCE, has begun a thrilling journey into the future. ■
The BROOKLYN TECH ALUMNI FOUNDATION gratefully acknowledges the following individual donors whose lifetime giving, through June 30, 2024, enables the foundation to fund educational initiatives and capital upgrades that sustain Brooklyn Tech as the premier specialized high school for STEM. Visit our website for the full donor honor roll including our corporate and foundation partners.
$1,000,000+
Isaac Heller ’43*
Norman K. Keller ’54
Leonard Riggio ’58
Leandro P. Rizzuto ’56*
Charles B. Wang ’62*
Floyd Warkol ’65
Josh S. Weston ’46
$500,000+
John A. Catsimatidis ’66
James T. Fantaci ’64
Fred M. Grafton ’44*
Victor Insetta ’57
Achilles Perry ’58
Ashok Varadhan ’90
$250,000+
Penny and Jeffrey M. Haitkin ’62*
Erik Klokholm ’40*
Mary Jane* and Richard Schnoor ’49*
$100,000+
David H. Abramson ’61
Lauren and Gregg Abramson
Harold Antler ’46*
Peter J. Cobos ’72
Charles A. DeBenedittis ’48*
Susanne D. Ellis
Rochelle and Jacob Feinstein ’60*
Howard Fluhr ’59
Herbert L. Henkel ’66
Stuart Kessler ’47*
Alfred Lerner ’51*
Christine and Richard Mack
Kelly and Stephen Mack
Phillys and William L. Mack Sr. ’57
Mary and John R. Manuck ’65
Frederick C. Meyer ’40*
Lorraine* and Michael D. Nadler ’52*
Michael F. Parlamis ’58*
Lee James Principe ’56*
Alan M. Silberstein ’65
Louis H. Siracusano, Sr. ’60*
George J. Suffal ’53*
Thomas J. Volpe ’53
Michael A. Weiss ’57
$50,000+
David Abraham ’48
Martin V. Alonzo, Sr. ’48*
Willard N. Archie ’61
John Arfman
Anthony J. Armini ’55
Lawrence A. Baker ’61
Larry Birenbaum ’65
Robert H. Buggeln ’57
Samuel D. Cheris ’63*
Joseph M. Colucci ’54
Robert F. Davey ’58
John J. Eschemuller ’65
Peter A. Ferentinos ’55
Terry and Irwin Fishberg
Linda Lee and Dean Fong ’68
Lawrence S. Harte ’49
Joseph J. Jacobs ’34*
Richard M. Kulak ’56*
Edward T. LaGrassa ’65
Linda and Rande
Lazar ’69
Mathew M. Mandery ’61
Michael Minikes ’61
Carmine A. Morano ’72
Robert C. Ochs ’59
Michael G. Reiff ’72
Sherman Rigby ’46*
Edward R. Rothenberg ’61
$25,000+
Allan L. Abramson ’58
Tony Agnello ’66
Martin V. Alonzo, Jr.,
Marlene Alonzo and Sabrina Alonzo
Joseph Angelone ’63
Mark Arzoomanian ’83
Tony Bartolomeo ’70
Douglas Besharov ’62
Larry L. Cary ’70*
Dorcey Chernick*
Victor E. Chiarella ’58
Louis C. Cosentino ’61
Kenneth D. Daly ’84
John A. di Domenico ’69
James DiBenedetto ’71
Leonard Edelstein ’55
Keith Forman ’76
Andras Frankl ’67
Jason Haitkin
Alice C. Hartley*
Joy H. Hsiao ’87
Penelope Kokkinides ’87
Franklin F. Lee ’77
Glenn Y. Louie ’59
Lawrence C. Lynnworth ’54*
Robert Marchisotto ’47*
MacRae Maxfield
Betty* and Adrian Mayer ’38*
Arnold J. Melloy ’40*
Margaret Murphy ’83
Murray H. Neidorf ’45*
Bola Oyedijo ’92
Jeff Porrello
Bert Reitman ’63
John B. Rofrano ’61
Patrick Romano ’43*
George E. Safiol ’50
Harry Scheuer ’48
Anthony P. Schirripa ’67
Richard Schwartz ’53
William Sheluck, Jr. ’58*
Lawrence Sirovich ’51
Ned Steele ’68
Chester Wong ’94
Teresa and William Wong ’64
Anonymous
$10,000+
Jeanine AguirreRamirez ’88
Frederick H. Ajootian ’41*
John P. Albert ’90
Jean M. Bahr
Cindy L. Bird-Kue ’86
Harry H. Birkenruth ’49
Samir K. Bose*
LeRoy N. Callender ’50*
Chin ’84
Nicholas Y. Chu ’77
John V. Cioffi ’67
Leonard B. Comberiate ’69
Peter J. Coppolino ’61
Pat and Joseph Cuzzocrea Sr.
Thomas C. DeCanio ’63
Elizabeth Decolvenaere ’08
Al D’Elia ’67
Robert J. Domanoski ’47*
Murray Dropkin ’62
Jonathan D. Dubin ’74
Jeff Erdel ’63
Charles D. Federico ’47
Richard R. Ferrara ’59*
Victor M. Finmann
Bernard R. Gifford ’61
Jeffrey L. Goldberg ’69
Robert J. Golden ’63
Jacob Goldfield
Arnold Goldman ’73
Domingo Gonzalez ’72
Eugene J. Gottesman ’47
George J. Graf ’70
William H. Henry ’57
K. Steven Horlitz ’64
Michelle Y. JohnsonLewis ’79
Edward H. Kadushin ’57
Charles Kyrie Kallas ’37*
Leslie P. Kalmus ’56
Steve H. Kaplan ’63
Sheldon Katz ’52
Nancy and Mitchell Kaye
Barbara and Richard Kessler ’59
Elizabeth Korevaar
Eliza Kwong ’93
Richard E. LaMotta ’60*
Victor S. Lee ’66
Salvatore Lentini ’79
Michael Levine ’61
Stephen J. Lovell ’57
Joel O. Lubenau ’56
Frank R. Luszcz ’61
John M. Lyons ’66*
James H. M. Malley ’58
Sidney A. Mayer ’46*
Susan J. Mayham ’76*
George W. Moran ’61
John Moy ’58
Alfred J. Mulvey ’67
Shana Mummert
Clyde Munz ’74
John R. Murphy ’61
Garth Naar ’90
Alan S. Natter ’69
Walter C. Ness ’39*
Hau Yee Ng-Lo ’80
Floyd R. Orr ’55
Eugene Picone ’76
Daniel K. Roberts ’43*
Edward Roffman ’68
Charles J. Rose ’70
Robert M. Rosen ’51*
William J. Rouhana Jr. ’69
Edward P. Salzano ’64
Roger E. Schechter ’70
Alfred Schroeder ’46*
Elizabeth A. Sciabarra*
Moshe Siegel
Michael Simpson ’90
Roy B. Simpson ’41*
Barry Sohnen ’70
James Spool ’46*
Robert J. Stalzer ’59
Ronald P. Stanton ’46*
Stuart Subotnick
Joseph N. Sweeney ’48
Michael Tannenbaum ’58
Jacob Tapper
Mark A. Tatum ’87
Daniel Tomai
Wesley E Truesdell ’46*
Armand J. Valenzi ’44*
George L. Van Amson ’70
Patricia Vasbinder* and Victor Montana ’60*
Salvatore J. Vitale ’56
Audrey and Ralph Wagner ’51
Denice C. Ware ’83
Stephen Weinryb ’75
Elizabeth M. Wieckowski ’79
Anre Williams
Steven Wishnia ’66
Douglas Yagilowich ’76
Peter Yan ’88
Randi Zinn
Anonymous
$5,000+
Anthony J. Abbate ’59
Samantha Abeysekera and Daniel Skolnick
Kenneth R. Adamo ’68
Irving M. Adler ’61
Ron S. Adler ’68
Louis G. Adolfsen ’67
Kenneth S. Albano ’68
Michael A. Antino ’60
Joseph F. Azara Jr. ’64
Donald Bady ’48
Rudolph Bahr, Jr. ’41*
Dianne and Randell Barclay
Eric D. Barthell ’75
Harvey L. Beeferman ’59
Kay ’80 and Jim Benjamin ’80
David J. Bershad ’57
Theodore Bier
Syd Blatt
Ronald Blum ’67
Joy and Anthony Borra ‘58*
Mariano Borruso ’71
Thomas R. Breglia ’76
Robert B. Bruns ’55
Charles Cahn Jr.
Dominic N. Castellano ’45
Joseph A. Cavallo ’58
Sylvia* and Herman Cember ’41*
Allan Chong ’72
Robert J. Ciemian ’59
Jose R. Claxton ’82
Deirdre D. Cooke ’80
Brian Cosgrove
Kenneth D’Alessandro ’66
James E. Dalton ’49
Horace H. Davis ’84
Fred M. del Gaudio ’71
Frederick DeMatteis ’40*
Ronald T. Diamond
Robert C. DiChiara ’63
Robert H. Digby ’61
James Dimon
Vincent D’Onofrio ’66
Robert W. Donohue ’60*
Mary-Jean Eastman
Margery and Melvin Elfin ’47*
Barry D. Epstein ’58
Domenick J. Esposito ’65
Samuel Estreicher ’66
Murray Farash ’52
Arthur A. Feder ’45*
Robert Femenella ’72
Clifford H. Fisher ’59
William B. Follit Jr. ’62
J Gary G. Fox ’57
Keith Franklin ’78
Jerry M. Friedman ’67
David L. Fung ’81
Michelle D. Garcia ’78
Norbert F. Giesse ’83
John Glidewell ’63
Adrienne D. Gonzalez ’94
Curtis K. Goss ’62
Herbert A. Granath ’48*
Kenyatta M. Green ’89
Michael Greenstein ’65
Robert Gresl ’46*
Arnold A. Gruber ’59
Mario Guerrero ’86
Ronald D. Haggett ’54
Steven A. Hallem ’72
Konrad E. Hayashi ’73
Carl Erik Heiberg ’92
Robert J. Heilen ’53
Gordon H. Hensley ’47*
Tomas Hernandez ’73
Christopher Hong ’09
Clifford A. Hudsick ’61
John J. Huson ’52
Arlene Isaacs-Lowe ’76
Frederic H. Jacobs ’65
John Jarrard
Allan C. Johnson ’28*
Gary Jurick
Gerard Justvig ’75
Peter Kakoyiannis ’65
Robert F. Kelly ’61
Katherine and Gordon Kessler
Arthur H. Kettenbeil ’67*
Carl H. Kiesewetter ’55
Kiseon Ko
Mary and Peter Konieczny ’62
Eugene V. Kosso ’42
Robert M. Krasny ’69
Costantino Lanza ’72
Lloyd J. Lazarus ’63
Daniel A. Le Donne ’45
Carol Miskiv and Bruce Lederman ’66
Diana and Chester Lee ’66
Danny L. Lee ’91
Joel F. Lehrer ’48
Gerald A. Lessells ’44
Marvin J. Levine ’65
Sidney Levitsky ’53
Nathan Lipke ’92
Carol Loewenson
Jenny L. Low ’82
Luke Mangal ’89
Taahira Maynard ’99
Tatia R. Mays-Russell ’84
Londell L. McMillan ’83
Ira Meislik ’61
Steven D. Menoff ’72
Michele Meyer
Edward D. Miller ’56*
Joe Montalbo ’74
Francis C. Moon ’57
Joseph J. Negreira-Nye ’59
Kaeisha T. O’Neal ’99
Stanley H. Pantowich
Gurpreet S. Pasricha ’86
Robert J. Paterna ’72
Robert J. Pavan ’47
Regina M. Pitaro
Lee H. Pomeroy ’50*
Valentine P. Povinelli ’59
Robert Puccio
Bertram Quelch ’45*
Stephen L. Richter ’60
Felix L. Rodriguez Jr. ’74
Edward M. Rosensteel ’74
Herb Ross ’41
Randi Rossignol
Robert R. Rowe ’45*
Lawrence G. Rubin ’43
Daniel M. Ruesterholz ’56
Richard K. Ruff ’58
Seth Ruzi ’76
Erwin L. Schaub ’46
Charles H Schmidt ’70
Ernest R. Schultz ’25*
Nayeem Mian Siddique ’96
William B. Siegel ’66
Leon C. Silverman ’57
Irwin Smiley ’46*
Jonathan D. Smith ’80
Carol Sorensen
Mitchell E. Stashower ’83
Ivan D. Steen ’54
Robert C. Stewart
Robert Sumanis
Loretta and Peter Taras ’77
Richard S. Taylor ’57
Kathi and John Thonet
Carlton P. Tolsdorf Jr. ’68
Mike Trovini
Richard W. Turnbull ’69
Lance Turner ’70
David W. Wallace ’42*
Laura Warren
Craig A. Westcarr ’88
Kenneth M. White
Grayling G. Williams ’76*
Russell P. Wong ’79
William C. Wurst ’67
George A. Yabroudy ’48
Joni A. Yoswein
Lloyd Zeitman ’69
Barry Zemel ’64
Laurie Zephyrin ’92
Erwin A. Zeuschner ’53
Wei-Jing Zhu ’86
Eric Kaltman ’60
Joseph J. Kaminski ’56
Wilton Cedeno ’82
Amy Wong and Calvin
Phyllis Scroggie
Irwin I. Shapiro ’47
Lucia DeSanti
Edward Diamond ’63
John Liu ’70
Raymond M. Loew ’58
Anonymous *Deceased
Bold = FY24 Donor
Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation
OFFICERS
President
Denice Clarke (DC) Ware ’83
Vice Presidents
David Lee ’78
Bola Oyedijo ’92
Anthony P. Schirripa ’67
Treasurer
Jim DiBenedetto ’71
Secretary
Ned Steele ’68
DIRECTORS
John Albert ’90
Wilton Cedeño ’82
Horace Davis ’84
Tomas Hernandez ’73
Lesleigh Irish-Underwood ’82
Penelope Kokkinides ’87
Amy Kong ’99
Edward T. LaGrassa ’65
Tatia R. Mays-Russell ’84
Daniel D. Miller ’99
Margaret Murphy ’83
Achilles Perry ’58
Valmira Popinara ’18
Deepti Sharma ’04
Michael A. Weiss ’57
Giselle Williams ’92
Honorary Director
Leonard Riggio ’58
Student Representatives
Saranika Chakraborty ’25
Charlie Smith ’25
Teresa Xiao ’24
STAFF
Executive Director
Courtney J. Ulrich ’90
Chief Educational Officer
Mathew M. Mandery, Ed.D ’61
Director of Alumni Engagement Michelle Corley
Administrative Assistant Urani Persaud
Director of Communications Lisa Trollbäck
Director of Data and Analytics
Leticia Villalón-Soler
BROOKLYN TECH
ALUMNI FOUNDATION
PO Box 26608 Brooklyn, NY 11202-6608
718.797.2285
info@bthsalum.org www.bthsalumni.org
BROOKLYN TECHNICAL HIGH SCHOOL
David Newman, Principal
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE
IT’S AN HONOR to share this latest edition of our annual alumni magazine with you, a testament to our enduring Technite spirit and the incredible impact we continue to make.
This year’s stories of our recent graduates are particularly inspiring. These young Technites began high school in the midst of a global pandemic, demonstrating unparalleled resilience and adaptability. Their achievements, both academic and personal, remind us of the strength and potential within our community.
Our alumni family is remarkbly diverse, with Technites excelling in fields far beyond traditional STEM paths. Whether in media, the performing arts, law, or other industries, Technites are making their mark. Their career trajectories showcase the comprehensive education and strong foundation that Brooklyn Tech provides.
Classes in environmental science, forensics, flight simulation, genetics, neon, and infrastructure fundamentals are just some of the innovative courses now available, providing cutting-edge opportunities and equipping our students with essential skills for the future. Embracing a STEAM approach by integrating the arts into our rigorous curriculum fosters creativity and critical thinking.
As we celebrate 40 years of the Alumni Foundation and our shared successes – from providing our research scholars with materials and mentorship to the Jeffrey M. Haitkin ’62 Faculty Grants Program that has infused $2.5 million into the school – I want to extend my deepest gratitude to each of you.
Your unwavering support, whether through mentorship, volunteering, or financial contributions, has a profound impact on our students and our school. Every gift, no matter the size, plays a crucial role in enhancing the educational experience at Brooklyn Tech. Together, we are empowering the next generation of leaders, innovators, and change-makers.
Our Technite identity is more than just a shared experience; it’s a commitment to excellence, curiosity, and community. Thank you for being a part of this extraordinary journey. I look forward to all that we will accomplish together in the years to come.
Courtney J. Ulrich ’90
Empower the Next Generation
Make an investment in Brooklyn Tech and support the innovative education that launched your success. Your tax-deductible donation enriches our students’ academic, extracurricular, and hands-on experiences beyond what public funding provides. Use the enclosed envelope or visit bthsalumni.org/donate. Together, WE shape the future.
