It's always a treat for the College to be able to, not only reconnect, but to recognize the achievements of its alumni. This year's spotlight alumni is Dr. Laurie Vitt. Laurie's fascination with lizards began in childhood and has blossomed into a career as a professor of zoology.

Laurie graduated from Western Washington University in 1971. During his undergraduate career at Western, he played electric guitar in various bands, including Kathi and the Unusuals, thus managing to finance his education with proceeds from the music.

After graduating Western with his Master's Degree, Laurie was accepted into a Ph.D. program at Arizona State University and received his first of a series of post-docs to work in a remote area of northeastern Brazil. He later went on to take a faculty position at UCLA. In 1990 he was offered a position for the Department of Zoology at the University of Oklahoma.

Laurie has coauthored several books, including Herpetology: An Introductory Biology of Amphibians and Reptiles and Lizard Ecology: Historical and Experimental Perspectives. He also co-authored, with Erica Pianka, the 2005 Hamilton Book Award winner: "Lizards: Windows to the Evolution of Diversity."

He is currently a George Lynn Cross Research Professor and Curator of Reptiles at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History and Professor of Zoology in the Zoology Department at the University of Oklahoma.

Recent Graduates in Computer Science Excel at Microsoft

Heidi Young (B.S. 2004; M.S. 2005). Heidi graduated from Western in 2004 with a double major in mathematics and computer science and in 2005 with a Master's degree in Computer Science.  While at Western Heidi was involved in a variety of activities, including a major leadership role in the departmental Association for Women in Computing student group.

After working for a brief period of time at a hedge fund in Kirkland, the call of Microsoft brought her over to the huge corporation, where she began working in MSN Search to join in the battle against Google.  Now called Live Search (http://www.live.com/), Microsoft's search engine has continued to grow and become a fierce competitor with Google.  Heidi works on the relevance team where she combines her skills in mathematics with her passion for technology.  Recently she has been promoted to a Lead position within her group.  Heidi works with some of the brightest minds in the industry, collaborating with researchers from Cambridge, Asia, and Redmond.  The decisions she makes every day affect people all over the world, and she absolutely loves her job.
 
Heidi is very active in initiatives at Microsoft by participating on Women @ Microsoft committees and events.  She is dedicated to increasing the presence of women in technology by mentoring middle school and high school girls struggling in math and science.  Besides being involved in her church and community, she also just built a house in Sammamish where she lives with her husband and adorable cat Addie.

Angelika Herbold (B.S., 2005).  Angelika graduated from Western in Fall 2005 with a major in computer science and a minor in mathematics.  While at Western she was involved in a variety of activities both within and outside the Computer Science Department, and played a key role in the departmental Association for Women in Computing student group.

Since graduation, Angelika has been working in the Microsoft Consumer Media Technology group, where she develops cryptography and binary license components for Microsoft’s Digital Rights Management (DRM) porting kit for mobile devices.  In February she will transition to her new role as a developer on an Xbox client platform team. 

Outside of work, Angelika still manages to get in plenty of video games, snowboarding, yoga, and belly dancing.  She was married in the summer of 2007, and she and her husband Sean recently purchased their first house.  They now live in Sammamish with their three cats.