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One Day. One KUA

April 27, 2023

Join us on campus, online, and at special regional events for KUA’s annual Day of Giving and help support the KUA Fund.

Grandparents Day

April 29, 2023

Grandparents are invited to join their student for a special day on campus. Attend classes and games, meet KUA faculty, and learn more about your grandchild’s experience.

Reunion 2023

June 9-11, 2023

Reconnect with classmates, friends, and faculty. All are welcome, with special celebrations for classes ending in 3 and 8.

Top: Ellie Copeland-Clarke ’22, Julia Walton ’22, and Lily Wennik ’22 connect at Frozen Fenway.

Middle Left: Former Boys Varsity Hockey players Arlo Merritt ’19, Ben Tardiff ’19, and Ben Caron, with Head Coach Tim Whitehead P’18, ’20 at Frozen Fenway.

Middle Right: Jono Newton ’02 and his children at the Upper Valley Holiday Party.

Bottom Left: Peter Mans ’98, Katie Mans ’98, Brandi Chilton ’98, Abby Harrington ’99, Anna Hood ’01, Erin Klocek ’98 at the Upper Valley Holiday Party.

Bottom Right: Amy Munro ’11, Amanda Greenlee, Jonathan Munro ’13, Marc Maggiore ’14 at the Boston Holiday Party.

New Star in the Sky

Mack McElroy ’01 aims to make space accessible and sustainable.

addresses which kinds of things are most important for us to do and what we should prioritize in space,” he says. “It takes a philosophical look at value, what kinds of things are important to people, and what kinds of things space may be able to help with the most. Governments, charities, and nonprofits do a lot of important work, but if you have a choice between all that work happening or all of it happening and then some because the work is motivated by profit, then it’s better to have more than to have less.”

The commercial space industry is one of the newer stars in the sky. An increase in venture capital investment and an uptick in the number of startups working in space have resulted in a wealth of opportunity for engineers such as Mark “Mack” McElroy ’01.

McElroy served as an assistant chief engineer at NASA for nine years and earned its Exceptional Engineering Achievement Medal in 2021 for his innovative leadership in developing solutions for Artemis moon missions. He recently took on the role of technical program manager with Benchmark Space Systems, a Burlington, Vermont-based company working to make space more accessible with sustainable propulsion products.

This fall he released a book on the rapidly expanding field—The Space Industry of the Future: Capitalism and Sustainability in Outer Space. “Given the incredible potential of the commercial space industry, my book

Through the book, McElroy weaves themes of sustainability, a high priority within his most recent designs for nontoxic satellite propulsion systems. Compared to the fuels that powered satellites and rockets in the past, his solutions aim to achieve similar levels of performance while increasing safety and decreasing expense. He’s currently working on a satellite propulsion project for a spacecraft that can drop off other satellites at various locations.

While he suspects the excitement and potential around space exploration are what attract people to the field, he has also found individual success in the industry often comes down to the decision to specialize.

“You don’t necessarily need to be a mathematician or genius scientist to do well in the space industry, but you do have to apply yourself,” says McElroy, who after KUA earned a B.S. and an M.S. in civil engineering from Lehigh University and a Ph.D. in aerospace, aeronautical, and astronautical engineering at North Carolina State. “Although STEM is a huge part of this field, there are all kinds of roles in project management, business, and logistics. There are many different career paths in space that all share a need for persistence—and the most direct way to go down that road is to start with good grades.” K

Rx Redux

Eliza Sternlicht ’18 cofounds a drug redistribution company to connect patients with prescriptions.

Treatment plans for cancer are so frequently adjusted that more than 40 percent of patients will have unfinished prescriptions during or following treatment, creating nearly $5.9 billion in wasted medication. Eliza Sternlicht ’18 learned about the volume of waste occurring in cancer care and knew she had to address the issue.

As a student at Brown University, Sternlicht and classmate Jack Schaeffer founded MediCircle, a drug redistribution company that connects cancer patients with unused medications. Today she serves as the company’s chief operating officer.

“We collect medications directly from patients whose treatment plans were adjusted due to things such as adverse reactions or disease progression, then recertify those medications using our three-step patented process,” she explains. “We then redistribute the medications to patients who wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford it for a flat dispensing fee of $20.”

This is hardly Sternlicht’s first effort to create equity in medicine. As a student at Kimball Union, she used the school’s 3-D printers to produce prosthetic hands for children.

“Prosthetics can cost thousands, and because children grow quickly that means they often are forced to go without limbs because they would have to replace them so frequently,” Sternlicht recalls. “It baffled me how something as indispensable as a limb could be something people can’t access. KUA was a huge supporter in helping me have the resources and funding to pursue that project, and that’s how I became interested in biomedical engineering.

MediCircle took shape during Sternlicht’s sophomore year as a biomedical engineering student at Brown; she surveyed numerous healthcare facilities about their practices and found that wasted medication is a pervasive problem. She began drafting and patenting a medication-recertification process.

Recertification has been legalized in 41 states, including Texas, where MediCircle is based and where Sternlicht was involved in amending regulations through the Texas State Board of Pharmacy to allow the process. Additionally, Texas has the highest rates of uninsured people in the nation, according to U.S. census data. “By starting in Texas, we’re able to maximize how many people we can help within a single state before we start expanding,” she says.

“About 63 percent of cancer patients I spoke with reported cost as a barrier to care,” Sternlicht adds. “Some of the medications we distribute have an average retail price of $10,000 to $15,000. The patients we help are able to focus on getting better rather than on the expense of treatment, and when I hear their stories, it inspires me to put in long hours and make it happen.” K