Where Are They Now?

By Carol Olechowski

lection to membership in the National Academy of Sciences last spring was the latest honor for Frances Allen, B.A.’54 (Spring 2007 UAlbany, “Allen Makes History as 2006 Turing Award Recipient”). During her 45 years with IBM, the former mathematics teacher used her skills to optimize computer programs and high-performance computing systems. For her leadership at the firm and in the computing field, Allen became the first woman named an IBM Fellow. In 2006, she was the first female recipient of the Association for Computing Machinery’s Turing Award, computer science’s most prestigious honor. The National Academy of Sciences, a private organization of scientists and engineers dedicated to the furtherance of science and its use for the general welfare, was established in 1863.

(Photo Richard Mosse)

he American Academy of Arts and Sciences welcomed Yale University Milton Harris ’29 Ph.D. Professor of Chemistry Alanna Schepartz, Ph.D., B.S.’82, to its ranks in April. Schepartz, who majored in organic chemistry at UAlbany and received a President’s Award for Undergraduate Research in 1982, earned a Ph.D. at Columbia University and completed a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellowship at the California Institute of Technology. She has received numerous honors, including a 1991 National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award and Harvard University’s 2008 Frank H. Westheimer Medal for scientific excellence, for her work. Schepartz joined the Yale faculty in 1988.

(Photo John T. Consoli)

ohn Laub, M.A.’76, Ph.D.’80 (Spring 2004 UAlbany, Understanding the Lives of Troubled Boys”), once aspired to a career as a police officer in his native Chicago. Instead, he earned graduate degrees from UAlbany’s School of Criminal Justice; taught at Northeastern University and the University of Maryland; and conducted research in such areas as crime and deviance over the life course, juvenile delinquency and juvenile justice, and the history of criminology. Last June, Laub’s career took him to Washington, D.C., where he now directs the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), the U.S. Department of Justice’s research, development and evaluation agency. He is the first criminologist in 40 years to serve in that post.

Photo: John Laub, right, is the new director of the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) in Washington, D.C. In 2008, Laub was honored by the University of Maryland as a Distinguished Scholar- Teacher; pictured with him is Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost Nariman Farvardin.

ongratulations to self-described “social entrepreneur” Dan Bocanegra, B.S.’08 (Fall 2009 UAlbany, “Creating a Buzz”). In 2009, the M.B.A. student sold T-shirts, raising more than $10,000 to purchase mosquito nets that were later distributed to villagers in Kenya and Ethiopia through the BUZZKILL Initiative. Now, Bocanegra has expanded on the “clothing-with-a-social-conscience” theme, establishing Selfless Tee, which will earmark a portion of the proceeds from each sale for worthy causes. With a $50,000 grant from The Pepsi Refresh Project, Bocanegra will complete Selfless Tee’s Web site and maximize the firm’s impact.

(Photo Carlos Ortiz)

s an undergraduate Russian language and literature major, LinguaLinx founder David Smith, B.A.’90, M.A.’94, C.A.S.’95 (Winter 2008 UAlbany, “Saying Thanks by Supporting Students”) didn’t have the means to study abroad. Now, with offices in Beijing; London; San Francisco; Houston; and the Fort Myers, Fla., area, he often travels for business. LinguaLinx, a Cohoes, N.Y.,-based translation firm, offers interpretation, Web site localization and other services for corporations, non-profits and government agencies. In addition, Smith says, “we have started another division, GlobalScript, dedicated to technical writing and controlled language, essentially allowing us to play a greater role in an organization’s overall content-development life cycle.” Inc. magazine, he notes, named LinguaLinx the 311th fastest-growing private company in America in 2008; “last year, we were No. 893 on the Inc. 5000.”