KRCS alumni

Spotlight

Spotlight on Heather Allen ‘12

After graduating from King’s Ridge in 2012, I attended Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. While at Wofford, I studied abroad in Germany and Austria and completed a dual degree in 2016 - a BS in Biology and a BA in Literature. In 2016, I moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to begin graduate school in Biological Sciences at Duquesne University.

During my graduate training, I studied brain lateralization in the context of chronic visceral pain. I was awarded a prestigious predoctoral grant from the National Institutes of Health to conduct my graduate research and aspects of my thesis have been published in three different scientific journals.

In 2021, I received my Ph.D. in Neurobiology before starting a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. I worked in the Pittsburgh Center for Pain Research, where I received another National Institutes of Health fellowship to study the role of the brain in neuropathic pain.

I recently moved to New York City and am currently a postdoctoral research associate in the Department for Molecular Pathobiology at New York University in Manhattan. I work in the NYU Pain Research Center, continuing my study of the brain’s role in neuropathic pain.

My neurobiologist husband and I have two cats and two dogs, and we have been all over the world. Our dogs are probably more well-traveled than most Americans!

Spotlight on Meredith Hawk ‘17

Growing up in the Methodist church, I went through the confirmation process instead of baptism. I then switched to North Point Community Church and never really felt the “need” to be baptized since I had already processed my faith in my own way.

Flash forward to today. I’m 23 and running the kid’s ministry at Local Church Canton. My fiancé and I are very involved; he teaches in the Elementary room every week. I have been so inspired by the Lord’s influence on some of our students’ lives, and watching them get baptized and being involved in baptizing them has been truly incredible. I wanted to be baptized in front of many of them to show how supportive I am of their decision and how much of an impact Christ has had on my life. The icing on the cake is that my fiancé, Luke, was the one to baptize me! Our wedding is planned for April 15, 2023.

Births

Jason McCoy ‘12 and his wife, Chelsea, welcomed Jace McCoy on October 15, 2022. (1)

Will Reagan ‘13 and his wife, Reagan, welcomed Martha Lee on July 22, 2022.

Madisyn Olson-Harris ‘15 and her husband, Kaleb, welcomed Kathryn Makayla on September 16, 2022. (2)