Class Acts

David Wagner ’11: A Humble Hero

LCC also taught me the importance of working for the benefit of others.

BY DANA KOBERNICK, COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER

David Wagner ’11 exemplifies the US Air Force Academy’s principle that the basis of true strength is character. His professional pursuits were driven by a deep sense of duty to serve others, and reflect his integrity and commitment to the greater good. Humble as he is, David is quick to laud the achievements of his twin sisters, LCC alumnae Caroline ’07 and Julia ’07, noting that he is the only one in his family to not earn a doctoral degree. But he, too, has scaled impressive academic and professional heights.

A dual citizen, David enrolled in the Academy after completing his DEC in 2013 in Honours Pure and Applied Sciences at Marianopolis College. It was a rigorous application process that included garnering a nomination from then Vice President, Joe Biden. He pursued a four-year program in applied mathematics with a concentration in aeronautical engineering, and conducted research on automated collision avoidance systems. In 2016, he received the prestigious Marshall Scholarship from the British government, an honour awarded to exceptional young Americans to pursue advanced studies in the United Kingdom.

David completed a Master of Science in artificial intelligence (AI) at the University of Edinburgh and then moved on to King’s College in London where he worked on a Master of Arts in Science and International Security, focusing on autonomous weapons. A departure from his original plan, this proved to be a fortuitous twist of fate, as it was there that he met his future wife.

“Earning the Marshall Scholarship is probably one of my most significant achievements,” he says. “I am also extremely proud of my work at the University of Edinburgh, where I developed a novel approach to explain the behaviours of black box AI models.”

David takes great satisfaction in his career to date, which has seen him go through the rigours of pilot training and learning to fly the F-16 fighter jet. He was deployed with his squadron for several months to Okinawa, Japan, where he flew operational missions over the South China Sea and the Strait of Taiwan, as well as to Poland and Romania, where he maintained a ready alert status, prepared to take off and intercept any unidentified aircraft approaching NATO’s eastern borders. He continued to train and serve as a fighter pilot at his home station in Germany before being deployed to the Middle East in late October, in support of US-led coalition efforts defending shipping traffic and ensuring freedom of navigation in the Red Sea and Arabian Gulf.

As one might expect, military training proved to be challenging, but it became particularly difficult when David’s father took ill. “I took leave at that time as well as when he passed the following year, which is not something that is generally done during training,” he says. “But I needed to be with my family and, when I returned, I was driven to work even harder because that is what my dad — a commercial pilot — would have expected from me.”

David says that his time at LCC was influential in defining his academic and career paths. When he was at the school, he won the Beaverbrook Vimy Prize, which allowed him to travel abroad and study the history of Canada, France and Great Britain during the First and Second World Wars. He says that this experience shaped much of his worldview and directed him to what he is doing now. He was also a debater, which he believes transformed him from a shy person to one who was comfortable speaking in front of audiences. And, not surprisingly, he gravitated toward robotics simply because working with machines was fun.

He has returned to campus several times to visit the grade 8 math class, regaling them with anecdotes about serving with the US Air Force as a pilot. His lesson focused on the calculations involved in a project they were working on — constructing miniature glider planes with the mission of carrying a “passenger” egg safely, from liftoff to landing.

David says that one of the most impactful teachers he had was John Vlahogiannis, former LCC social science department head, who taught him how to think critically in the realms of history, geopolitics and philosophy. “LCC gave me the foundation I needed to succeed at both school and work,” he says. “The rigour and discipline prepared me well for the workload and challenges that I faced throughout my post-secondary education and in my professional life. LCC also taught me the importance of working for the benefit of others and that led me to where I am today.”

Christine Di Lullo ’98: A Lane of Her Own

... you might fail from time to time, but you can take chances, and they can really work out.

BY MARK BOGHEN, WRITER

Emergency and family medicine physician Christine Di Lullo ’98 has always sought to do things her own way. Leaving the French Catholic girls’ school that her siblings attended to enter grade 10 during one of the first years of LCC’s coeducational era was just the start of a series of unexpected choices.

“None of us at home had made a big move like that,” she recalls. “I’m from a tight-knit Italian/ French-Canadian family, but for some reason I was determined to seek out an adventure, something new and unexpected, and that’s what LCC represented to me.” She knew no one at the school, and there were some nerves before the first day, but she remembers that LCC put a lot of effort into welcoming the girls and making them feel at home. With only about ten girls in the class, they all had to play every sport they could in order to create full teams, which in Christine’s case included soccer, rugby, track and field, and a not-very-successful stab at hockey. More than 25 years later, she is still in touch with many of her classmates, meeting several of them in person at their last reunion, including six of the girls, and noting that all were doing very well.

Christine’s route to becoming a doctor was unconventional as well. Instead of the usual undergraduate degree, after CEGEP she did one year of pre-med and then went straight into her McGill medical studies. Eventually, she chose to do a fellowship in emergency medicine. “It suited me,” she says. “I guess I’m not easily overwhelmed.” Her early working life saw her splitting time between two hospitals in Montreal and working a week at a time in Chisasibi, a Cree village in Northern Quebec near James Bay. “It was definitely a formative experience,” she remembers. “You had to fly in a little plane that did the milk run all the way up north. It sure wasn’t glamorous. Groceries would come in on Tuesdays, and that’s it, though occasionally there might be a stand serving moose stew, or an invitation to a private home. I knew just about everyone in the small welcoming community and treated virtually any health-related issue that came my way.”

After a couple of years, Christine began to do stints in Bermuda. She had come to know the island as a teenager when she and her sister had summer jobs teaching sailing there. Eventually she got a permanent position in 2009, working as an ER doctor at the only local hospital. She spent a decade on the island, met her husband and had many adventures, including working with the Swedish America’s Cup team and volunteering for triathlons and at the annual Bermuda Rugby Classic, which features veterans of many of the world’s great rugby teams.

After having a daughter and spending a few years in her husband’s native England, Christine settled in Bermuda permanently. She’s primarily a GP now, though she also works in telemedicine, treating patients around the world via Teladoc, the world’s largest virtual healthcare provider. She has always maintained her Canadian license, thinking that eventually she and her family might move back home.

Christine often thinks back to her grade 11 English teacher, Mr. (Dave) Morton, who would randomly pick a student and give them only five minutes to prepare a speech about some arbitrary topic or idea. She found the exercise anxiety-producing at the time, but has come to realize that it prepared her for the many times in her career where she had to speak about something important, like a difficult prognosis, with very little preparation. Unsurprisingly, she counsels students who might like to follow in her footsteps that one should never be afraid to go off the beaten path. “I feel like I’ve had a fantastic life so far. At 43 years old, as a parent and a professional with a career in multiple countries and living in an unexpected land, I’m so glad I didn’t just follow the typical route. It’s OK to take a side-step here and there. It might be scary, you might fail from time to time, but you can take chances, and they can really work out.”