WINTER 2020-2021 Adapt and Lead Shady Side Poised to Show the Path Forward in a Changing World ALUMNI PANDEMIC PERSPECTIVES • NEW MASCOT ANNOUNCED Editor Lindsay Kovach Associate Editor Jennifer Roupe Contributors Christa Burneff Bart Griffi th ’93 Cristina Rouvalis Photography James Knox Additional photos provided by SSA faculty, staff, alumni, students and parents. Class notes photos are submitted by alumni and class correspondents. Design Kara Reid Printing Broudy Printing Shady Side Academy Magazine is published twice a year for Shady Side Academy alumni, parents and friends. Letters to the editor should be sent to Lindsay Kovach, Shady Side Academy, 423 Fox Chapel Rd., Pittsburgh, PA 15238. Address corrections should be sent to the Alumni & Development Offi ce, Shady Side Academy, 423 Fox Chapel Rd., Pittsburgh, PA 15238. Junior School, 400 S. Braddock Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15221, 412-473-4400 Country Day School, 620 Squaw Run Road East, Pittsburgh, PA 15238, 412-963-8644 Middle School, 500 Squaw Run Road East, Pittsburgh, PA 15238, 412-968-3100 Senior School, 423 Fox Chapel Rd., Pittsburgh, PA 15238, 412-968-3000 www.shadysideacademy.org facebook.com/shadysideacademy twitter.com/shady_side youtube.com/shadysideacademy instagram.com/shadysideacademy FSC to be placed by printer FEATURES ALSO IN THIS ISSUE 9 We Are ... The Bulldogs! Shady Side Academy 2 President’s Message Announces New Mascot 3 Around the Academy 10 Class of 2020 Commencement Exercises 28 Sports Briefs & Fireworks Show 32 Alumni Events 12 Adapt and Lead: Shady Side Poised to 33 Hillman Performing Arts Series Show the Path Forward in a Changing World 34 Class Notes 18 Alumni Pandemic Perspectives 42 In Memoriam 45 From the Archives SHADY SIDE ACADEMY / WINTER 2020-2021 / 1 DEAR SHADY SIDE ACADEMY COMMUNITY: Last summer, I had the Like Shackleton and his men, we have opportunity to read Alfred helped to inspire one another’s resolve: Lansing’s Endurance: Shackleton’s students supporting teachers, teachers Incredible Voyage. This classic holding up students, and parents, families work of nonfiction tells the and alumni taking every opportunity to incredible story of polar explorer express gratitude for the extra lift this Edward Shackleton and his endeavor requires at the moment. crew, who in 1914 embarked Our faculty members deserve special together with one shared appreciation. They have masked up, purpose: to discover the wonders hunkered down and learned new skills. of the Antarctic by being the They have taken on previously unfamiliar first humans in history to cross platforms, systems and schedules. They the entire continent. have worked weekends and late into the But they quickly found night to get it all done. They’ve sacrificed themselves facing a new and travel, kept a distance from family and desperate set of circumstances, friends, avoided large gatherings and including their ship being stayed out of restaurants – all with locked in an island of ice and students top of mind. They are endlessly eventually sinking. The expedition was a gradual crisis that would rallying to adapt to a changing crisis with unfold over more than two years of astonishing peril. And yet no end in sight. the crew of the Endurance managed the impossible – all 27 men We will undoubtedly emerge from this survived, withstanding some of the most physically and mentally crisis stronger, and much of the credit will grueling conditions imaginable. go to our remarkable faculty for the miracles How did they do it? First and perhaps most importantly, they they have been working with our children. realized their quest had changed entirely – from exploration to Thanks to everyone at Shady Side for survival – and altered their behaviors and focus accordingly. They keeping our proud community healthy also took care of one another and attended daily to crew morale, and well, as we endure this extraordinary keeping tabs on their collective sentiment and shifting direction moment in history together. appropriately in response. They recognized the most important survival mechanism at their disposal was being as psychologically Best, fit as possible. With the COVID-19 pandemic’s continuing impact on Shady Side and schools everywhere, many of us who work at the Academy have these past few months on occasion felt something akin to the crew of the Endurance. Though we are teaching children amidst a once-in-a-century national health crisis rather Bart Griffith ’93 than surviving a shipwreck, our vision, will and stamina are President nonetheless being tested. Much of the fall at SSA was rightly marked with excitement about the creative, innovative solutions we had developed to open school under challenging conditions. But with the winter months upon us and increasingly widespread concern about the surging virus, our focus has shifted from new discoveries to resilience. 2 / WINTER 2020-2021 / SHADY SIDE ACADEMY Seniors Present Summer Science Research Work In 2019-2020, 14 juniors participated in the Senior School’s Science Research Seminar course, taught by Dr. Kelly VandenBosche. The course focuses on advancing research skills and preparing students for summer research internships in university or medical labs. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the students’ internship mentors created alternate research projects the students could complete virtually. The students, now seniors, presented their research and answered questions virtually via Zoom at the third annual Summer Research Seminar Presentations on Oct. 21. • Seniors Ishika Arora and Alexander Biglan worked with Dr. Wei Xiong at the Physical Metallurgy & Materials Design Lab at the University of Pittsburgh, where she researched metal additive manufacturing. • Senior Sara Burr worked with Dr. Keith Crandall at the Computational Biology Institute at George Washington University, where she analyzed the phylogeny of the aegla species. • Senior Stephanie Chen worked with Dr. Qihan Liu at the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering, where • Senior Hannah Romoff worked with Dr. Lisa Rosen at the Magee she analyzed double layer electroadhesion between charged Women’s Research Institute on the development of an ex vivo gel particles. model for evaluating pharmaceutical fi lm mucoadhesion. • Senior Tyler Hart worked with Dr. Ethan Rossi in the Department • Senior Jasminder Sarkaria worked with Dr. Umamaheswar of Ophthalmology Rossi Laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh Duvvuri at the UPMC Department of Otolaryngology on the School of Medicine. He studied the development of optical classifi cation of biopsy samples based on clinical attributes for pathways and mechanical mounts to implement fi ber bundles in subsequent genomic profi ling. adaptive optics imaging. • Senior Stefan Stratimirovic worked with Dr. Jelena Janjic at the • Senior Andrew Liu worked with Dr. Mayank Goal at the Human Duquesne University School of Pharmacy Chronic Pain Research Computer Intersection Lab at Carnegie Mellon University. Consortium and participated in PFC data mining. His research focused on expanding the user interface of • Senior Jason Vasko worked with Dr. Ethan Rossi in the smartwatches using mixed reality and hand tracking. Department of Ophthalmology Rossi Laboratory at the • Senior Renee Long worked with Dr. Raja Mazumder at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, where he High-Performance Integrated Virtual Environment Lab at developed a process to simulate optical aberration George Washington University, where she participated in in images and a method to validate the accuracy of the COVID-19 Biomarkers Knowledgebase Project. synthetic photoreceptor mosaic images. • Senior Eve Mango worked with Dr. Andrew • Senior Nancy Wang worked with Dr. Christopher VanDemark at the University of Pittsburgh Langmead at the Carnegie Mellon University Department of Biological Sciences, where she Computational Biology Department to develop an worked to determine the methods by which empirical model based on the clinical spectrum Bacteriophage Adephagia-73 effi ciently to predict a COVID-19 diagnosis. counteracts mycobacterium tuberculosis. • Senior Nora Navid worked with Dr. Karen Arndt at the University of Pittsburgh Department of Biological Sciences Lab to examine various conditions in the yeast cell to determine which genes play a signifi cant role in transcript buffering. SHADY SIDE ACADEMY / WINTER 2020-2021 / 3 AWARDS & ACHIEVEMENTS Niche Ranks Shady Side the Best Private K-12 School in the Pittsburgh Area Niche, the leading platform for K-12 and college school search, Junior Named to released its 2021 Best Schools rankings, and Shady Side Academy ranked No. 1 on its list of the Best Private K-12 Schools in the Beckwith Institute Board Pittsburgh Area. Junior Karen Linares Mendoza was named Niche also ranked Shady Side No. 1 in the Pittsburgh Area in the to a two-year term as a student member Best Private High Schools, Best College Prep Private High Schools, Best Boarding High of the board of the Beckwith Institute, a Schools, and Best High Schools for STEM categories, and No. 2 in the Most Diverse Private health care institute dedicated to improving High Schools category. And, Shady Side is the top-rated independent school in the Best High patient care. She joins senior Nora Navid Schools for Athletes in the Pittsburgh Area category, coming in at No. 4 overall behind North on the board. Each year, two Senior School Allegheny, Central Catholic and Pine-Richland. students hold seats on the board alongside In the state of Pennsylvania, Shady Side ranked in the top four in the Best Private K-12 President Bart Schools, Best College Prep Private High Schools, Best Boarding High Schools and Best High Griffi th ’93. SSA Schools for STEM categories. alumnus and With updated data for 94,710 public schools, 24,099 private schools and 11,822 school trustee emeritus districts nationwide, Niche’s K-12 school rankings provide an in-depth analysis of a given G. Nicholas school. Unlike traditional rankings, which rely on metrics like test scores and academic Beckwith III ’63 performance, Niche’s rankings combine user input – comments from current students, and his wife, alumni and parents – with quantitative data points.