2021 Alumni Notes 2001-05

2005

James Carver

As it turns out, 2020 was the year I was wrong about almost everything. About a year ago, when I started reading about the virus, I had several preconceived notions all of which turned out to be erroneous. First, I was fairly sure the WHO and the CDC would be right on top of it. Second, I was fearful that the Cambodian healthcare system would not be sufficient. Third, I thought the whole thing would last a few months and life would normalize. So, I have now concluded that reductive univariate solutions to complicated multivariate problems do not serve any purpose.

Alicia Fry Davis

I currently teach statistics at Sacramento State, so I have to say “Stingers Up” as well as “Go Mustangs!” I generally teach the intro stats class that all non-math majors take and a decelerated version for people who want to learn the material at a slower pace. It has been rewarding. This semester, I am casting a wider net by teaching statistics to engineering students, and I am even teaching Calculus 2. So hello calculus! It has been over 15 years since I took calculus at Cal Poly, and I am taking it in stride because it is not like riding a bike! However, I am happy to be exposed to more high-level teaching, and working hard at being prepared for the students, some of whom can probably do a u-substitution without having to watch a YouTube video and read five pages of text over and over again.

Last I reported, I was teaching at an all-girls Catholic high school. The students were a delight! I really loved being with them. However, their parents tend to send my anxiety through the roof, and I returned full-time to college. I really don’t want to argue with someone about why their kid can’t understand the Pythagorean theorem, mostly because I don’t have the answer. The parents are much more suitable to identifying why.

My daughter is already nine years old, and my son is seven. We are having a great time together with our new kitten, Midnight. My comedy writing was going great before the shut-down occurred. I performed at the Sacramento Punchline twice. Over the last year, I have been working closely with comedy friends on short sketches we put on YouTube and writing for my funny life-blog, Bee Please.

Alex Steiner

A few years back I left Nike in Portland and moved back to So-Cal. I joined a few startups but now am back in the corporate world at IBM. At IBM I’m part of a team called the Data Science Elite Team where we help clients improve their data science capabilities. The team ranges from new grads to Ph.D.s with decades of experience, so it’s a great place to both mentor and learn from others. We take business ideas and create solutions for clients in under six weeks, so it’s a fast-paced environment which gives me the startup feel. I still feel like I use a lot of what I learned at Cal Poly, especially from the 425/426/427 series because it taught me to think “why” instead of just “how.” Outside of work, I’m currently living in Irvine, California with my girlfriend, dog and cat, not doing too many exciting things lately.

2004

Beau Corkins

Now married with one child, Celeste “CeCe” Corkins, born July 24, 2020. Pandemic baby. Mathematics, science, and engineering chair at Gillette College, Wyoming. 
I still teach statistics and love it. There is no better field in all of academia. 

2003

Tierra Stimson

I am currently teaching at University of Arizona in the College of Applied Science and Technology. I am also still in the auction business, consulting clients about selling their personal property. In my free time (really, what is that?) you can find me cooking up a meal from America’s Test Kitchen or Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street episodes, or keeping up with pop culture by watching YouTube. 

2001

Samuel Frame

I started taking Cal Poly and CSU training courses for online course development and building/teaching online courses a few years before March 2020. I completed several Q1-type training courses, took Q2 to be a certified reviewer, and served as an QLT reviewer for the CSU. Between spring and fall 2020, I was fortunate to assist the entire CSU by facilitating ten Q1 training courses, where I got to interact with faculty and staff from all over the CSU. In March 2021, I will be teaching a new Q3 course for the CSU that covers more advanced materials for constructing online courses. I am also a research associate for the CSU SQUAIR program that gathers data to evaluate the effectiveness of these training programs.