Dances with Waves
Allyse Ishino, '10, danced circles around 14 other finalists to claim the champion's Mirror Ball Trophy in Holland America cruise line's first ever "Dancing with the Stars: At Sea" guest competition. A former Stanford gymnast and 2004 Olympic alternate, Ishino competed in three elimination performances before making it to the final round of the contest, held aboard the M.S. Nieuw Amsterdam in January. To clinch the title, she executed a perfect tango before a panel of judges that included professional dancers Tristan MacManus, Kym Johnson and Sharna Burgess from ABC's Dancing with the Stars.
30 Rocks
Forbes magazine this year expanded its annual "30 Under 30" list to include 30 rising stars in each of 15 fields. Stanford was well represented, particularly in Science & Healthcare (Genevera Allen, PhD '10; Adam de la Zerda, MS '07, PhD '11; Divya Nag, '13; Daniela Witten, '05, MS '06, PhD '10), Technology (Tracy Chou, '09, MS '10; Lisa Falzone, '07; Robert Murphy, '10, and Evan Spiegel, '12), Energy & Industry (Darren Hau, '15, Daniel Maren, '16, and Andrew Ponec, '15; master's student Adam Kell; Lee Redden, MS '11) and Law & Policy (Jake Heller, JD '10; Nate Levine, '13). Honorees in other fields included Lucas Duplan, '13 (Finance), Garrett Neiman, '10 (Education), Tony Wan, MA '09 (Education) and Shiza Shahid, '11 (Social Entrepreneur).
Good Fellows
Venture capitalist Scott Hartley, '05, and tech entrepreneur Jason Shen, '08, MS '09, are among the current class of Presidential Innovation Fellows completing "tours of duty" in Washington, D.C. The program, launched by the Obama administration in 2012, taps innovators from public, nonprofit and academic sectors to help make the federal government run more like a "lean startup." Hartley, a partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures, is working on Development Innovation Ventures at USAID. Shen, who co-founded the ridesharing company Ridejoy, is working on Open Data Initiatives at the Smithsonian Institution.
