Women on the Verge

THIRTY YEARS AFTER THE ARRIVAL OF COEDUCATION, DARTMOUTH ALUMNAE ENJOY MORE OPPORTUNITIES THAN AT ANY OTHER TIME IN HISTORY. WHILE THE FIRST WOMEN AT THE COLLEGE WERE PIONEERS AND BARRIER-BREAKERS, NO ONE EVER TOLD THE LATEST WAVE OF ALUMNAE THAT THEY COULDN'T BE CEOS OR SCIENTISTS OR ATHLETESOR, FOR THAT MATTER, DARTMOUTH GRADUATES. AS VIOLIST CARMEN FLORES '00 SAYS: "IDEALLY, I'D LIKE TO DO EVERYTHING, AND SO FAR THERE'S NOTHING SAYING I CAN'T." SUCH CONFIDENCE IS TYPICAL OF THE LATEST GENERATION OF DARTMOUTH ACHIEVERS, SOME OF WHOM ARE PROFILED ON THE FOLLOWING PAGES. FOR THEM,THE FUTURE LOOKS BRIGHT INDEED.

[WILDLIFE BIOLOGIST]

FIONA DANKS '96

Cambridge University

Behind every good man is a woman—and most polar explorers left their women far, far behind. But if Baffin or Shackleton walked the ice today, he'd find Danks charting new frontiers in expedition history.

Danks sometimes finds herself the only woman, or one of a handful of women, conducting research in the Arctic. But the men are easy to deal with compared to the grizzlies. On one trip to Alaska, to make herself look bigger and more threatening to a grizzly circling her camp, Danks stood on the tallest things she could find—"hummocks and tussocks, about 30 centimeters off the ground, so it wasn't much," she says.

As a wildlife biologist with Cambridge's Scott Polar Research Institute, Danks, 28, has traversed the Arctic through Alaska, Canada and Greenland determining what exists—the freshwater and marine life, the geology, the vegetation and the wildlife—on proposed construction sites. She then weighs the consequences of development, such as building roads or drilling for oil, with possible climate change, global pollution and the impact on Native cultures.

She currently works with herds of domesticated reindeer in Russia, studying the animals and sustainability issues in the European Arctic. Danks' research will help develop national conservation areas for the future protection of the half million reindeer in regions facing potential oil development.

[GOALKEEPER]

KRISTIN LUCKENBILL '01

Cary, North Carolina

Her friends don't call her "Lucks" for nothing. Luckenbill closed her stellar Dartmouth soccer career just in time to make the draft for the Women's United Soccer Association's inaugural season.

Two years later the Carolina Courage goalie has experienced all the highs and lows professional sports can offer. The Courage, who play just outside of Raleigh, North Carolina, finished last in their first season but one year later won the league championship. To boot, Luckenbill was named the leagues 2002 Goalkeeper of the Year.

Looking ahead to the coming season—training begins in March—Luckenbill, 23, thinks the confidence that carried the Courage from worst to first should continue to grow. "Stepping out on the field, we always thought we were going to win," she says.

"Soccer is probably what I do best, and to do that in front of 10,000 fans...I don't know how to put that into words," she says. "I absolutely love playing."

[ATTORNEY]

LYNN TRUJILLO '94

Santa Fe, New Mexico

Trujillo is the first person from the Sandia Pueblo tribe to become a lawyer.

"I think that creates change in and of itself within my community," she says. "The change that Id like to see happen is people realizing that Indian people exist in contemporary society today, that I'm not a stereotype, that I'm educated and I have a law degree and that I'm practicing law."

Trujillo, 30, works at the State Office of Indian Affairs. Her job revolves around federal Indian law, which is primarily made up of treaties, executive orders, statutes, court decisions and administrative actions that define the relationship between sovereign Indian tribes, federal and state governments and individuals.

For her legal studies, Trujillo didn't need to look much further than her hometown of Albuquerque, New Mexico. She grew up on the adjacent Sandia Pueblo tribal reservation, where a casino is the main source of economic development. Its profits are channeled back into the reservation's infrastructure and toward scholarships for college and vocational training; most of Trujillo's tuition at Dartmouth and the University of New Mexico Law School came from these revenues.

Gambling represents one aspect of the economic development issues she witnessed on the reservation, among other legal disputes over land, energy use and telecommunications. "It's not so much being in court and battling things, but just everyday issues, negotiating contracts and transactions," she says of her work. "Gaming, land and trust issues always seem to be related to business transactions."

[GENDER-RIGHTS ACTIVIST]

MIRANDA JOHNSON' 97

New York City

Members of the class of 1997 who attended their fifth-year reunion last June learned that law school hasn't dampened Johnson's activist spirit. She greeted her classmates by introducing them to her new Dartmouth alumni group, Alumni for Social Change. It's a work in progress, but Johnson hopes to attract alums interested in social justice issues.

Three years spent in Tanzania looking at how patriarchal structures disadvantage certain groups energized Johnson to pursue studies in economics and international law. In September she began a joint degree program with the New York University School of Law and the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton.

Johnson, 27, found that her work organizing voter registrations, candidate training and civic education classes for women in Tanzania opened doors to other human rights issues. "Gender has been an entry point for me to discuss larger issues of equality," namely, the disparity between rich and poor nations, she says. "Within this context, it is vital that gender equality be a goal so that all citizensmen, women and youth—can benefit from any changes made."

For her commitment to advocacy, Dartmouth's Office of Institutional Diversity presented Johnson with the 2002 Martin Luther King Jr. Social Justice Award for Emerging Leadership.

[ART HISTORIAN]

BISSERA PENTCHEVA '95

Columbia University

To Pentcheva, the important thing to remember in art history is that text and images are not mutually exclusive media. "That's the challenge of the art historian, to work with both text and images, to see the fusion of both traditions, visual and textual, and the expression of text through images," she says.

Pentcheva, a lecturer at Columbia, is an expert on Byzantine icons from the 6th through 13 th centuries that depict images of the Virgin Mary. They're found most commonly throughout Greece, Cyprus, Russia and Bulgaria.

Comparing historical documents with the original images, Pentcheva, 30, tries to determine how the religious icons may have been used as political propaganda—how, for example, an icon of the Virgin carried into battle evolved into a symbol of the state and the rulers power. The ensuing cult of devotion became "the perfect vehicle to shape and formulate imperial authority," she says.

Pentcheva, who is from Bulgaria, expects to have her first book, VirginalMotherhood: Icons and Power in Byzantium (Pennsylvania University Press), published later this year.

[DESIGN ENGINEER]

DINSIE WILLIAMS' 97

Waukesha, Wisconsin

Bringing medical equipment to impoverished regions around the world sounds like a doctors dream, but Williams isn't a doctor. She uses engineering to adapt medical equipment for developing countries.

Williams, 27, works with GE Medical Systems' image quality team, fine-tuning CT scanners to work more efficiently and cost less while still delivering clear scans of internal body structures.

Her goal is to adapt medical technology to fit the needs of doctors and patients in developing countries, such as war-torn Sierra Leone, where she grew up. Williams says the integration of technology and medicine in places with few medical resources will help give more people access to basic medical equipment. "Its using technology to enhance access," she says.

[PUBLIC DEFENDER]

ERIN MURPHY '95

Washington, D.C.

While her Harvard law degree could have landed her a job at a high-paying private law firm, Murphy chose the less lucrative position of public defender to "feel like I was making a difference," she says.

"My endless optimism has been a sustaining force," says Murphy, 29, who's been with the Public Defender Service since 2000. "I just like to see people treated fairly and with respect." As a trial lawyer, Murphy sees to it that they are. She handles mostly gun possession or drug-related cases and takes particular pride in those who turn their lives around after appearing in court with her.

Since its inception as an independent federal agency in the 1960s, the Public Defender Service provides criminal legal representation to indigent citizens in Washington, D.C. It employs case investigators, and the office has a small law library with access to legal researching tools, computers and voicemail—amenities not always available for low-paid court-appointed lawyers. Murphy is also learning how to interpret DNA evidence, which continues to have growing courtroom applications.

[HAT DESIGNER]

EUGENIA KIM '96

New York City

Most bad haircuts end in tears. Kim turned her horrible do into a fashion statement and a business opportunity.

After shaving off a bad haircut four years ago, Kim ventured out shopping wearing a red, guinea-feathered cloche hat she made to keep her head warm. Manhattan storeowners immediately took notice, and by the end of the day the unemployed designer had several appointments to show her collection. Since that fateful day in 1998, Kim, 28, has seen her business double everyyear. Her hats can be found in her East Village boutique, the eponymous Eugenia Kim, as well as online and in stores around the world.

All of Kim's hats are individually handmade with three basic materials—felt, leather and fur—in simple, flattering designs. What makes them stand out are their vibrant colors and unusual accessories. A collection of handbags will debut in the spring, and Kim promises equally eclectic designs and prints, including eel skin.

"I use anything out of the ordinary: 1920s Brazilian beetles, tons of feathers, fox heads, animal parts, taxidermy, lizards, snakeskin, antique buttons," she says.

Kim recently achieved the true measure of fashion success, though it's one she bristles at: Knock-offs of her designs have started to appear on the streets of Manhattan.

[ENVIRONMENTALIST]

ANTHA WILLIAMS '98

Boston, Massachusetts

Williams wrote her senior thesis on the history of eco-feminism, examining women's roles on the forefront of the environmental movement, ranging from grassroots organizers who fought toxic dumping in local communities to activists protesting with radical eco-groups.

That Williams, 26, is now doing similar work "is not very coincidental at all," she says. Her research of these women "is a lot of the reason why I ended up doing the work" that I'm doing with Green Corps."

Williams is an organizing director of Green Corps, which trains recent college graduates in grassroots campaigning and activism for environmental and social causes around the country. Larger environmental groups such as the Sierra Club hire Green Corps activists to organize local campaigns where they may not have enough field resources. A campaign usually involves lobbying legislators, building coalitions with other activist groups, working with the media and recruiting.

Last fall Williams successfully led her trainees on a campaign in New Orleans to prevent privatization of the city's water supply. "Since water is a basic human right, it is dangerous to turn the system over to companies who want to run it for profit, not for the public good," she says.

[VIOLIST]

CARMEN FLORES '00

University of Michigan

Flores, a master's candidate in music, is the first violist from Dartmouth to continue graduate studies in music performance since 1984. Last September she began studying viola performance with renowned viola teacher Yizhak Schotten at the University of Michigan School of Music.

Her musical interests run the gamut from performing and conducting to music history. Before graduate school, Flores, 24, spent one year on a Fulbright Fellowship in the Philippines studying the Filipino sarswela, a form of musical theater originally brought by the Spanish who colonized the islands. "I love the thrill of performing and making music," Flores says. "I also love learning about the historical context of pieces, and the people who composed them and performed them. Right now, I'm on the performance track, but as new opportunities open up, I could see myself continuing my research interest. Ideally, I'd like to do everything, and so far there's nothing saying I can't."

[EQUESTRIAN]

MEGAN PHILLIPS '99

New York City

Phillips has taken the little girl's dream of having a pony and turned it into a reality-by riding all the way to elite equestrian competitions on the international circuit.

Phillips, 25, is one of approximately 60 U.S. riders training full-time for a shot to compete in the Olympics. She has competed throughout Europe and North America, including events last fall in Ireland and Sweden. She was also one of three riders representing the United States in the world championships in Belgium in October. When she's not traveling to competitions around the world, Phillips trains younger riders at Sky Blue Farms in Millbrook, New York.

A typical competition takes place over three or four days, and riders compete in both jumping and dressage, a test of a disciplined set of technical movements performed at specific places around the ring. "The horses look like they're dancing," says Phillips, who captained Dartmouth's equestrian team for three years.

[STATE LEGISLATOR]

HOLLY BENSON '93

Tallahassee, Florida

It's easy to forget that Florida voters elected officials other than George W. Bush in 2000 (although even that fact is debatable). Benson, 31, was one of them.

One of her first duties as a state representative was to resolve the disputed presidential election. "It was pretty overwhelming," says Benson, a Republican from Pensacola. "It was a rude awakening to realize the system wasn't perfect."

The bipartisan rivalries were nothing new. To gain her seat, Benson had to overcome a 2-1 Democratic enrollment in her district. She was re-elected to another two year term in November, making her the senior legislator from the Florida Panhandle.

When the legislature reconvened in January, Benson's first project was implementing a state constitutional amendment that would shift the cost of the Florida court systems from the counties to the state.

Benson has also taken strong stands on education. She's encouraged parental involvement in the classroom, started district-wide computer drives and initiated Take Your Mom to School Day in Pensacola.

[COSTUME DESIGNER]

JENNIFER MOELLER'98

New York City

Moeller approaches costume design much the same way she crafted sculptures as a studio art major—abstractly, with a vague root in reality.

"I just like to create dreams," says Moeller, 26. "You know when you have a dream and your shoes are off, and it doesn't make sense, but in your dream it does kind of make sense? That's the kind of thing I like to do."

The nonconformist freedom afforded by small theater companies and operas allows Moeller to experiment with her costumes, usually a mix of contemporary fashions accentuated by vintage accessories. She often spends her weekends perusing thrift stores for hats, shoes and jewelry to add to her own costume stock.

Her most recent creations were costumes in white summer linen for a production of On the Water (an adaptation of Chekhov's The Seagull) at Bard College in October and a Northeastern University production of The Visit in February. She'll travel to France with Dartmouth theater professor Georgi Alexi-Meskhishvili as an assistant set and costume designer for an opera production this spring.

[MUSICIAN]

JEANNIE LEE '99

Brown University

For Lee, a computer is a musical instrument. But while the electro-acoustic music she studies at Brown has hit the mainstream as techno music in clubs, Lee doesn't necessarily want to be the next Moby.

Rejecting traditional musical formsmelody, harmony or regular beats—Lee, 26, creates new sounds and sound combinations through special-purpose hardware and software.

"On the whole, the pieces I have made so far have focused on timbral qualities and evolutions of sounds which are composed into highly detailed textures," says Lee, a master's candidate in computer music and multimedia composition.

A performance of Lee's compositions may include live instruments wired to computers, video installations or simply a CD playing on an auditoriums speakers. "I find myself truly happy when I see some listener experiencing some genuine transformation, some emotional or intellectual reaction or even just pure curiosity, to my work," says Lee, who hopes to earn a Ph.D. in electroacoustic music.

[RESEARCHER AND PROFESSOR]

IRENE GEORGAKOUDI '93

Harvard Medical School

What if doctors could find diseased cells before the patient begins showing symptoms? The light-scattering spectroscopy being developed by Georgakoudi may help doctors do just that—without medication, surgery or other invasive tests that could be harmful to the patient. In her work at Harvard's Wellman Laboratories of Photomedicine, she's developing ways to reveal problems invisible to the eye by exposing cells to white light.

Georgakoudi, 31, looks for changes in a cell by analyzing the intensity of light after it passes through a cell. Light's intensity is a function of color, based on the spectrum that makes up white light; when these colors oscillate, they indicate changes occurring in a cell's biochemistry and physical structure.

"The main idea behind what we're doing is using ordinary light that doesn't harm the tissue, and doesn't have any side effects, to look at the different ways that light interacts with tissues and the components of cells that give it structure," says Georgakoudi, who has patents pending on three spectroscopy techniques that can be used to detect cancer, check blood sugar levels in diabetics and monitor infections caused by tissue transplant rejection.

[COMPANY FOUNDERS]

TRACEY PETTENGILL '93

San Francisco, California

THERESA ELLIS '97

Boston, Massachusetts

As Pettengill and Ellis know, adopting the right technology is crucial to nonprofits because organizations with sophisticated fundraising systems attract more funding. Those who track their results can demonstrate their progress to people who can donate more resources, and those with Web access can accept donations and apply for grants online.

Pettengill, 31, co-founded 4 charity m 1999 to help large nonprofit organizations such as United Way and the Red Cross maximize their online resources. "We inspire giving by making philanthropy more convenient and accessible. We're a technology service provider to help nonprofits use the Internet effectively, sign up volunteers, get donations and use e-mail to reach out to donors and volunteers," says Pettengill, who serves as CEO.

On the opposite coast, Ellis, 28, founded Harbinger Partners in 2000 for the opposite end of the nonprofit sector: small organizations struggling to survive in a competitive, technology-driven marketplace.

Her company provides them with basic tools to update their databases, perform automatic tabulations, develop Web pages and track their achievements. Harbinger's four-person staff evaluates how an organization currently uses technology, prioritizes needs and implements improvements with volunteers from the corporate sector. "We help apply technology to business problems they're facing," she says.

Harbinger will work for just 12 nonprofits in Boston this year, but Ellis, executive director of the firm, says she has a waiting list of 50 more potential clients. "There is nobody in Boston providing technology systems to nonprofits like we are," she says. "We give nonprofits away into these corporate systems, for example, a way into FleetBank. We're changing the way resources flow into the community."

Ellis is planning to expand her services throughout New Hampshire and Vermont, and perhaps nationwide. "My vision of all of this is a day when the for-profit sector is working hand-in-hand with the nonprofit sector to solve the problems their communities are facing," she says, "and I want Harbinger to be providing the technology to make that happen."

[FUEL CELL ENGINEER ]

LAURA IWAN '93, Th'94

Vancouver, Canada

Iwan is helping to speed up the demise of gas-chugging cars. The key? Fuel cells.

Unlike electric vehicles, cars designed with fuel cells need nothing more than the energy produced in reactions between hydrogen and oxygen (elements readily available in the air) to power the motor.

The first vehicles to run on Iwan's fuel cells will be 30 buses set for distribution in 10 European cities in March. Similar pilot programs in Chicago and Vancouver, where she's employed by Ballard Power Systems, are planned within the next two years. "The buses are expected to perform as well if not better [than gasoline-powered commuter buses] and be reliable and have low maintenance," says Iwan,32.

Once the industry can make fuel cells completely consumer-friendly, reliable and ready for the marketplace, Iwan predicts that other applications of fuel cells will follow, such as in cell phones or as a remote power source in developing countries. "I'll breathe a sigh of relief when it's finally out there and working well and starting to help the energy problem," she says.

[DOT-COM CEO]

JENNIFER FLOREN '93

Boston, Massachusetts

It's the great post-graduation paradox: You need a job to get experience, but you need experience to get a job. Floren thinks what you really need is Experience.com.

Her company's enterprise-technology offers career centers the ability to work better and at their customers' convenience. Floren's service helps administrators manage their files and programs, lets recruiters search job applications and schedule interviews and allows students to post their resumes and contact employers.

"Last year3 million students and alums went through our system to find employers. One hundred thousand companies are recruiting through our system, and about 700 schools use our platform to do all of their career services," from scheduling interviews to finding internships and post graduation jobs, says Floren, 31. "We want to be the place where employers come looking for top-tier talent."

Floren, whose title is president and CEO, says her company now includes Dartmouth as a client, and the programs are available to alums.

[COMPUTER SCIENTIST]

APRIL RASALA'99

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

When she started college, Rasala wanted nothing to do with computer science, a subject her father teaches at Northeastern University. "I originally thought that if one of my parents does it, it can't be interesting," she says. Now she's a doctoral candidate in computer science.

Rasala had planned on studying engineering at Dartmouth but needed a computer science course as a prerequisite. It led to her worst grade as an undergraduate and a new major. "I decided, yes, I'm going to major in this," says Rasala, 25. "I had so much fun learning in that class."

By the time she graduated, Rasala had published two papers in computer science journals, received the Outstanding Undergraduate Award from the national Computing Research Association, earned two summer fellowships at Lucent Technologies and presented her work at international conferences.

Even without the accolades, Rasala stands out. She is but one of a handful of women in her doctoral program at MIT. "I go to conferences, and the numbers are even worse, like six women to 100 male faculty," she says. But her father remains excited about her change of major. "He finally has someone else in the family to talk to about what he does," says Rasala.

[COMPUTER ENGINEER]

AYORKOR MILLS-TETTEY '01

Thayer School of Engineering

You need to make a call, but all you have is your laptop. If Mills-Tetteyhas herway, that might not be a problem for long.

In her undergraduate thesis MillsTettey, 23, examined how to support voice connections on a wireless, mobile system such as Dartmouth's, which allows users to stay connected to the Internet across campus without plugging into a phone jack. She wanted to make the system work more like a cell phone, capable of making a call from anywhere in the system. She redesigned the protocols to recognize an address change and update the connection simultaneously. Her project won the Best Student Paper Award at the international Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers conference in Phoenix last April.

Getting different types of information to work together easily is a subject MillsTettey is pursuing as a master s candidate at Thayer. She's developing simulation software that matches one computer users needs with a variety of user-specific information. For example, someone putting together a hurricane-preparedness simulation could use the software to automatically filter and update data from the National Weather Service, population databases and a catalog of relevant maps.

[FOREST RESOURCES PLANNER]

ALISON ARIANS '93

Anchorage, Alaska

Arians works to ensure that the people who live near large tracts of state land have a voice in their management—for example, what to do with debris after timber harvests.

Arians, 32, works at the Alaska Division of Forestry to provide resource information about areas such as the 1.7 8-million acre Tanana Valley State Forest to federal agencies such as the Bureau of Land Management. The most important aspect of Arians' job is gathering community feedback about projects under consideration. Her goal is not only to protect public land, but to make sure local residents are involved in the decision-making process. It's a new approach, compared to when most decisions were made in Washington, D.C., far away from the land in question.

"We're changing the culture of the division of forestry to acknowledge that you have to do a lot of work with the public before going forward with public land," she says,

MEGAN PHILLIPS '99

AYORKOR MILLS-TETTEY '01

BISSERA PENTCHEVA '95

EUGENIA KIM '96

ANTHA WILLIAMS '98

THERESA ELLIS '97

JEANNIE LEE '99

JENNIFER FLOREN '93

IRENE GEORGAKOUDI '93

APRIL RASALA '99

JENNIFER KAY writes for The AssociatedPress. She lives in Philadelphia.