ACTIONS 1999INTERACTIONS 1999
Alumni News
Frank C. Alexander, Jr. (B.S. 1942) graduated in the smallest class in Physics Department history, consisting of himself and Norman Painter. He worked as an industrial physicist for American Viscose Corp. He has been a "gadgeteer" and holds patents ranging from sapphire crystal rod production to pipeline impurity detection. Frank recently celebrated his 56th wedding anniversary and 80th birthday. After reading about the Brashear Telescope (Inter-Actions, 1998), Frank wrote to tell us that Brashear also donated telescopes to several Pittsburgh area elementary schools. John Brashear’s wife, Phoebe Brashear, was so important to women in education that Phoebe Societies sprang up in the early part of this century. Frank is familiar with this information (and much more) because his grandparents were friends of Brashear.
Djamal Bouzida (Ph.D. 1991) is a senior scientist in the software development group of Agouron Pharmaceuticals. His work focuses on molecular structure and binding affinity prediction.
Zoa Conner (B.S. 1991) returned to Carnegie Mellon to give a Physics Department undergraduate colloquium about her work on the Super-Kamiokande experiment that discovered neutrino oscillations.
Njema Frazier (B.S. 1992) Received a Ph.D. in nuclear physics at Michigan State University. She is now a congressional aid in Washington, D.C. working on the Science Committee.
Emil Zola Heitner (B.S. 1968) lives in Marin County, Calif., with his wife (Elizabeth) and two children (Daniel, 22 and Julia, 15). Emil works in investments.
Philip James (B.S. 1961) is chair-man of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Toledo. He is deputy principal investigator for the Mars Color Imager camera on the Mars Climate Orbiter Spacecraft and is a member of the Mars Orbiter Camera team on the Mars Global Surveyor Spacecraft.
Frank Lederman (M.S. 1971), vice president for research development and engineering at ALCOA, received an Alumni Merit Award.
Roger Mohrlang (B.S. 1963): Received a D.Phil. degree from Oxford University. After spending several years as a linguist-translator with the Wycliffe Bible Translators in Nigeria, he has spent the last 20 years teaching biblical studies at Whitworth College (Spokane, Wash.). He has recently completed work on the revision of the Kamwe (a Nigerian language) New Testament.
Fong Lui Ng (B.S. 1996) received an M.S. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois and now works as an RF/Microwave engineer with Qualcomm, Inc. in California.
Leslie G. Polgar (M.S. 1967, Ph.D. 1971) has been named president of BioGenex, a San Ramon, Calif., manufacturer of automated diagnos-tic systems and test kits for the detection of cancer, genetic disorders and infectious diseases. He was formerly vice president and general manager of Air Liquide Electronics in Walnut Creek, Calif.
Dennis Prokop (B.S. 1976) works as a programmer/analyst at Continental Pharmacy in Cleveland.
Ronald E. Santina (B.S. 1962) develops new businesses in the areas of international commercial space, aerospace and defense systems. He has worked in space radiation physics, space weapon effects analyses, aerospace business development and high-technology proposal management.
