Archive

Fully committed to her family, her career and her education, LaVerne spent 11 years gradually moving toward graduation day. Her impressive career with the FAA later led her from coast to coast and even to the White House, but her passion throughout has been the rights of working women. “There are doors that were closed, but that’s ok. I didn’t worry about those. Mostly I moved around them.”

Katie found her passion on campus in an elective American Sign Language class. She fell in love with the university's Deaf community and served as president of ASL Club her senior year. For her achievements, Katie will earn Leadership Honors at UAA's commencement ceremony next week.

UAA psychology student and UAF alumnus Matthew Myers is Ph.D.-bound, headed for Northwestern University this fall. His paper “Does This Title Make Me Look Sexy? Gender Differences in Attraction” was selected for UAA's Student Showcase 2014.

UAA senior Ellen Dore has a work ethic to be admired. The University Honors College student paid her way through college and decided to become a doctor after working as a medical scribe in a local hospital emergency room. Next up? Medical school. She's certainly one to watch.

Is she a Superwoman, or just addicted to productivity websites? None of that. Senior Nita Mauigoa figured out how to get the big stuff done on time, thanks to triplet boys who arrived when she was 27. After that, college was cake.

A small side project among freshmen friends at UAA has grown over the past few years into a thriving business. Frontier Tutoring now hires a team of Seawolves as tutoring specialists, providing a boost for Anchorage's college-bound students. Founder Brian Franklin is Harvard-bound for his M.B.A. next year.

Aviation grad Richie Diehl flew down the icy Iditarod Trail just a few weeks ago to grab a top-15 finish and the year's most-improved musher award. "It's the craziest race I've ever been part of," said Richie, who has been racing competitively since graduating from UAA's aviation program in 2008.

JoAnn’s seafood operation is the truest family business—five employees (four of them related), all splitting time between regular jobs and their newly-founded award-winning company. Just months after setting up shop, the Tilgner’s Scotch-style cold-smoked sockeye salmon is already representing Alaska from sea to shining sea.

Georgia DeKeyser first came to UAA as a one-class-at-a-time student, balancing a young family with nursing school and a medical internship at UAA’s Student Health and Counseling Center. Fast-forward 15 years and DeKeyser is still on campus. Now, instead of interning at the student health center as a student, she’s the director of the whole operation.

When she was just nine, Dao moved from a Hmong refugee camp in Thailand to the U.S. with her family. They've found opportunity and community in Anchorage. Dao is now a freshman at UAA pursuing a career as a dental hygienist and is among the first generation in her family to earn a college degree.