Camden Riley ’18 (Engineering Management) recently signed with the San Diego Loyal of the USL Championship League. After a stellar career as a student athlete at Pacific, Camden has now played professional soccer for several seasons. He graduated from Pacific as the leading goal scorer in the history of the men’s soccer program.
Benjamin Alldritt ’10 (Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Management) successfully defended his PhD dissertation at Aalto University in Finland (January 2022). His research dissertation is entitled “Characterization and reconstruction of single molecules utilizing atomic force microscopy and machine learning.”
Ashley Abraham ’18 (Bioengineering) graduated from UC Davis Medical School in spring 2022. Ashley will be serving as a resident physician in combined family medicine/obstetrics at UC Davis Health.
Rachel Owens ’20 (Electrical Engineering) is currently a PhD student in the MIT Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department. Previously, she worked in the Boston area as an electrical engineer at Raytheon Missiles and Defense.
Alumnus’ Endowment Supports DEI Initiatives
Alumnus’ Endowment Supports DEI Rodney Amen ’82, a graduate of the electrical engineering program, recently established the Rodney Amen Endowment for Initiatives in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. This new endowment will support an array of programs designed to advance leadership and diversity at SOECS.
“We are deeply grateful to Rodney for making this very generous investment in our students.”
Dean Elizabeth Orwin
“The financial resources from the Amen Endowment will ultimately support DEI-related programs and student support services. This gift will no doubt have a lasting impact on future generations of students.”
After graduating from Pacific, Amen embarked on what became a 36-year career in engineering and management, serving with several major consumer electronics companies including Apple (Macintosh), Microsoft (Xbox) and Amazon Lab126 (Kindle). His roles included product design and development, people management, manufacturing and test engineering.
Since his retirement in 2018, Amen has dedicated his time to “investing, philanthropy and just having fun,” he said. Amen is an avid cyclist and hiker, and frequently embarks on adventures across the country. He lives with his wife in Morgan Hill, California.
To learn more about ways to follow Amen’s leadership and make a similar impact through philanthropy, contact Dan Mackeben, assistant dean of development, at 209.946.2643, or dmackeben@pacific.edu.
Former Pacific Regent and NASA astronaut Jose Hernandez ’84 (Electrical Engineering) joined the commencement podium to hood his daughter, Marisol Hernandez, who received her master’s degree from the Data Science program in May 2022.
Cristian Rodriguez, ’19 (Mechanical Engineering) spent several past months working with undergraduate students on an exciting project. Bronco Ember is a small satellite built to autonomously detect, track and log nascent wildfires or similar phenomena. Rodriquez serves as principal investigator for the project, which received a NASA TechLeap Prize during the Autonomous Observation Challenge No. 1 in 2021. Rodriguez received his master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Cal Poly Pomona in May 2022, and is currently employed as a R&D Mechanical Engineer at University of California Observatories in Santa Cruz, California.
Congratulations to Makana Anicas ’05 (Computer Engineering/Engineering Management) on receiving the prestigious Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA) 40 under 40 Award for 2022. The award is given to 40 individuals ages 40 or under for their significant contributions in a technical science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) field by providing innovation, thought leadership and support to their clients or organizations using information technology. Anicas received the award for his exemplary work as a senior account executive with Government Acquisitions, Inc. (GAI).