Alumni Profiles

After switching majors from neuroscience to computer science, Jason turned a longtime hobby into a job and now works on the popular mobile game "Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes."

The Rowmarker and two-time Olympian on how Rowland Hall shaped her, and how she's turned a traumatizing and widely covered incident into a rallying cry for her community.

Last December, after three years on the job, Connor was promoted to firefighter engineer: a specialist rank given to those who drive the fire trucks and oversee all the equipment on them. Station 117 is a Heavy Rescue station, so in addition to responding to fires, they answer specialized calls related to structural collapses, road rescues, or confined spaces. Along with the tactical skills he's gained, Connor believes the job has made him a better person. "I practice compassion every day," he said.

For Eric Oehlerich, Aspen Sulte, and Terri Kindness, service is a way of life. It's not hard to understand how their intense schedules, along with acute knowledge of the risks they face keep them focused on living each moment to its fullest.

Train daily for a month. Focus on even the smallest details to shave milliseconds off your time. Travel across the country to a race. Crash right out of the gate. Your weekend's over.

It's a seemingly discouraging chain of events for ski racers. But it primed Hank Shipman '13 for perseverance after a near-fatal Rowmark Ski Academy car accident April 9, 2011.

Bonnie Phillips '60 and husband Denis founded the Phillips Gallery in 1965, and now it holds the title of the oldest-running commercial art gallery in the Intermountain West. Mature shade trees form a canopy over their tidy historic storefront that for 50 years has held its own against newer, bigger commercial buildings on the block. Much like its owners, it's comfortably elegant and teeming with fascinating stories.

Mariya Rabovsky-Herrera '06 graduated from the University of San Francisco with a nursing degree. She found her passion in public health and works for the Nurse Home Visiting Program of San Joaquin County, California. The program is crucial to improving maternal and child health outcomes, especially for those living in poverty.

What do biomedical engineering and service have in common? We asked Rowland Hall graduate Joseph (Joe) Illingworth '11, whose warm smile and engaging personality made the connection between his desire to help people and his complex biomedical engineering projects a little easier to grasp.

Katharine Coles, Utah's Poet Laureate from 2006 to 2012, Guggenheim Fellow, and a University of Utah 2017 Distinguished Professor, returned to Rowland Hall for the first time since graduating in 1977 to share her fifth published collection of poems, "The Earth Is Not Flat," written under the auspices of the U.S. National Science Foundation's Antarctic Artists and Writers Program.

Caroline Gleich '03 is a queen of the majestic playground that is the Wasatch Range. She runs it, climbs it, bikes it, skis it—and fights to preserve it. She recently received accolades for being the first woman and fourth person to ski all 90 lines listed in The Chuting Gallery, a backcountry-skiing guide to the Wasatch.

Rowland Hall grads and brothers Ethan Fedor '13 and Chris Fedor '15 were back in Salt Lake recently, but not for a vacation. The two California Polytechnic State University engineering students attended the North American Handmade Bicycle Show (NAHBS), an annual gathering of bicycle-frame builders.

After several years of developing and championing computer science (CS) curriculum at Rowland Hall and serving as a regional leader in CS education, alumnus, faculty member, and self-proclaimed lifelong learner Ben Smith '89 in March won the Utah Coalition for Education Technology's (UCET) Outstanding Teacher of the Year award.

Rowland Hall alumna Claire Wang '15 says she can't recall a time in her life when she wasn't passionate about our Earth and the environment. Researching air quality, clean energy, and other environmental issues for Middle School debate heightened her interest in climate advocacy. Ms. Wang went on to be a nationally ranked debater in high school, and her involvement in clean energy and politics at the local level continued to grow.