Alumni Updates

Have an update you'd like to share with FIUTS? Send it to Alicia van der Veen at alicia@fiuts.org.

October 2008

Melissa Andrada (USA) began graduate school in Edinburgh and connected with Heather Cameron (UK). Check out Melissa's blog for Idealist.org the Moleskine.

August 2008

Alumni Kendra Staley (USA), Tiina Paivila-Kari & Mika Kari (Finland) and Martina Soderlund (Sweden) attended the wedding of Lisa Forlin (Sweden) in Skane, Sweden. Congratulations to Lisa!

Alumni Caren and Jerry Feldman visited Seattle and the FIUTS office with their daughter, Stefanie. The Feldmans currently live in Fairfax, Virginia.

May 2008

Frank Bilstein writes in from Koln, Germany, that he got married in 2006 and welcomed a baby girl, Claire, in 2007. Congratulations Frank!

Alum Mai Hosoi, who works at the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), will be working for the next month in disaster relief in Myanmar.

Former Student Board member Genevieve Opraseuth came to Seattle for a visit and meet up with alumni Susan Chan, Peter Laiger and Matt Bailey. Genevieve currenlty lives in France.

Former Student Board members Adi Salehuddin and Kunihiko (Koko) Kosuge visited Seattle from Colorado and Japan, respectively, in early May.

April 2008

Tim Lee, Maria Guldbrandsson, Clara Good, Emily Williams, Johanna Meidell and Alex Jones had a reunion in Stockholm on April 17.

March 2008

Eric Lai Ong Teung, who currently lives in Paris, is spending time in Moscow for work and is visiting past staff member Carolyn Ho.

FIUTS staff member Alicia van der Veen met alumni Johann Lutjeharms and Tracey Bourne in South Africa. Johann earned his PhD at the UW in the 1970s and is now a professor in the Dept. Of Oceanography at the University of Cape Town. Tracey was at the UW on an MBA exchange in 2004 and lives in Johanessburg working in call center management.

February 2008

Mathieu Fregeau began working as a Structure Analyst and CFD Consultant for a contractor that works for Boeing. He will mainly work on developing training material for structural design and aerodynamics simulation for the Boeing engineers and the Product Development department. Congratulations Mathieu!

FIUTS staff member India Fitting met up with alumni Krysta Walia, Lori Cook, Nallakkan Arvindan (Arvind), Anoshua Chaudhuri, Chiradeep Sengupta and Anood Taqui in San Francisco, California.

January 2008

Pierre-Luc Chambion and his wife Rebecca sent in Happy New Year wishes, along with an adorable photo of their son Ryan!

Past Homestay Coordinator Alicia Benish, currently serving Peace Corps in Costa Rica, sent photos from a trip she took to Panama over the winter holidays.

Past FIUTS summer staff member Krysta Walia joined the staff of Western Washington University as the Multicultural Recruitment Counselor for the Office of University Residences. Congratulations Krysta!

Matthias Schindler (Germany, 2001) stopped by the FIUTS office and attended the New Student Welcome Reception. Matthias is currently a post-doc at Ohio University.

Clementine Condemine (France, 2006) graduated from university and will begin work in Malaysia as a advertisement seller for English and US newpapers.

Stefan Bach (Germany, 2007) and Ozlem Yanar (Turkey, 2006) sent a postcard from Prague: "Greetings and a Merry Christmas!"

December 2007

Longtime FIUTS hosts Martha and Kenji Onishi celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. Congratulations!

Emil Cherrington (Belize, 2004) visited Seattle in December and saw current UW FIUTS graduate students Olivia Perwitasari and Aimi Ahmad Shukri. Emil now resides in Panama while serving the Water Center for the Humid Tropics of Latin America and the Caribbean (CATHALAC) as a Senior Scientist.

Kazuo (Japan 1964) and Tomiko (Japan, 1962) Tatewaki, write from Japan: "Still with happy memories spent on UW campus with you, FIUTS members!"

Joseph Ackland (Australia, 2000) writes: Thank you for your Christmas wishes. Here in Melbourne, Australia, we'll be enjoying christmas lunch by the beach on a hot summer's day with bangers and prawns on the bbq- far from the cold winter I had in Seattle in 1999. It's been great having a few people from then visit here the past few years.

Past Board member and Wednesday Lunch volunteer Dorothy (Dottie) Petrich sent a packet of archived news articles of FIUTS (that will be onthe web soon!). "This package of memories from the days I was an active participant in FIUTS, on the Board as well as the most enjoyable activity of working on the free lunches. Tender love to everyone, Dottie"

FIUTS host family Steve, Carolyn, Zach and Seth Hale sent in holiday recipes and Carolyn writes: Steve and I have been sending recipes for holiday greetings for about 25 years. We've had lots of fun and have used many that reflect the international students and friends that we have made over the years. We still communicate with foreign students who now are often leaders of their countries. One of my sons is an international traveler and speaks and writes Chinese. We know that the wonderful experiences that we have had with FIUTS has made a real difference in all our lives.  May we find PEACE this year."

Peter and Kathy Chan, their daughter Elaine Harng (2001) and new grandson Cayden Chan visited a FIUTS Wednesday Lunch in December.

Emily Williams (USA, 2007) writes from France, where she is teaching English: "Happy holidays to my beloved friends at FIUTS! I hope you're having a fabulous year full of new friendships, new foods ro eat at Wednesday Lunch, and all the joy that comes from being a part of this amazing organization."

Heather Cameron (UK, 2007) writes from the UK, where she is finishing her final year of university and interviewing for the police force! "Nothing lives up to the experiences you all helped foster last year, but luckily many of us remail in contact, which is wonderful. One day I will return to Seattle... it holds such great memories."

Kunihiko (Koko) Kosuge (Japan, 2007) writes from Yokohama where he is working for Toshiba Corporation: "Happy holidays! Hope you guys had another successfull autumn quarter and are getting excited for 2008!"

Past BCC student and FIUTS summer intern Yuko Ogura (Japan, 2007) stopped by the FIUTS office on a trip to Seattle and Vanocuver.

Past work study student Laura Katirayi (USA, 2007) stopped by the FIUTS office. She is home between studying French at the Sorbonne in Paris, and moving to Bangkok for an internship with UNESCO.

November 2007

Melissa Andrada (USA, 2007) and Suk Joon Ko (Korea, 2007) write from Seoul.

FIUTS Reuion in Norway: Minna Kovanen, Knut Arne Birkedal, Tim Lee, Andreas Eiderhed, Kristian Ytre-Hague, Marie Vanderbilt, Emily Williams, Vegard Willumsen and Heather Cameron got together in Oslo from November 2-4.

FIUTS Reunion in Austria: former staff member Carolyn Ho meet up with alumni Astrid Gall (Austia, 2002), Victor Costa Cabrera (Spain, 2005) Christoph Kohlhauser (Austria 2003) Sigrid Katz (Austria, 2003) and Aleksi Vuorinen (Finland 2007) got together for an evening of beer and sausages in Vienna.

FIUTS enjoyed a visit this month from past FIUTS students and staff member Ian Morgan (USA, 1999) and Joanna Bush (Australia, 1999). They have been living in the D.C. area, but are moving to Australia. They stopped by FIUTS on their way to spend time travelling in Korea by bicycle!

October 2007

FIUTS Staff Alicia van der Veen visited Pilar Morales (Mexico, 2007) and Samuel Kobelkowsky (Mexico, 2000) in Mexico City in late October. Pilar currently works for MexFam, a public health service provider in Mexico, and Samuel in new technologies for TelCel.

September 2007

In early September, FIUTS enjoyed a visit from Professor Akiko Kumagai (Japan, 1965) from Japan. Professor Kumagai is a noted authority on Latin American literature in Japan, and studied Spanish at the University of Washington in the early 60's. FIUTS staff, Student Board Member Sid Sinha, and FIUTS Board President Bryan Jarr shared a wonderful dinner with Akiko, and enjoyed stories of her experiences after she left the UW and FIUTS.

Eric Lai (Reunion/France, 2006) sent a postcard to FIUTS from Valparaiso, Chile, where he was traveling on holiday from Paris.

August 2007

FIUTS Reunion in Germany: Philipp Khuc-Trong , Richard Thöt, Thomas Sander, Markus Heinemann and Stephan Jank (all Germnay, 2007) and Kyla Linnenkohl (USA), visiting from Seattle, got together in Frankfurt in late August.