Magazine Stories

Travis Talmadge ’09 has a hot idea — bringing sauna and bathhouse culture, which has long existed in Scandinavia and Japan, to America. He co-founded Bathhouse, “a home for people to look, feel, and perform their very best.”

Connie Halporn K’78 fights both on the mat as a 6th degree judo black belt and in the nonprofit sphere as chair of the National Women’s Martial Arts Federation. Halporn’s judo journey began in high school and continued to blossom at Kirkland College, where she first started leading judo classes.

Victor Maldonado ’86 has no plans to retire from practicing immigration law anytime soon. In fact, he’s pushing himself harder than ever. Last summer, Maldonado swam the English Channel, a course considered the “Mt. Everest of Open Water Swimming” — and he’s not stopping there.

To get a better sense of the work of Career Community alumni volunteers, Hamilton Magazine recently asked a few of them to share their insights on what it’s been like working with today’s students, what it takes to be successful in today’s workplace, and what students can do to best prepare for their futures. Here’s a snapshot of that conversation, edited for length.

As a research hydrogeologist for the U.S. Geological Survey, Michelle Walvoord ’93 is forging new frontiers in studying the impact of changes and instability on groundwater.

Hamilton’s last major curricular review came in 2000. As the campus community begins envisioning “Open Curriculum 2.0,” here’s a look at how the College’s academic program has developed over the past 200+ years.

Omar Reid ’80 gets around. As a school psychologist and president of the Black Mental Health Alliance of Massachusetts, he has visited schools across the state and worked with children for 40 years.

Why does Hamilton have a big pot of money and only spend such a small percentage? Who decides how funds are invested? How have recent federal tax and policy changes affected the College’s financial picture? Senior Vice President for Administration and Finance Karen Leach shares an Endowment 101 primer.

Artificial intelligence, big data, predictive analytics, and machine learning are reshaping how we work, learn, and live. See how Hamilton students and faculty are drawing on a mix of technology and authentic intelligence to advance new ideas.

Consider the endangered dusky gopher frog. When threatened, the best this three-inch amphibian can do is cover its eyes with its hands. By 2002, its habitat had shrunk to only one or two ponds in Mississippi. It likely would have become extinct had Joe Pechmann ’76, a population ecologist at Western Carolina University, not come to the rescue.