Alumni Profile

PGAV Destinations, led by alumnus Mike Konzen, has created an enthralling and educational indoor attraction with the new St. Louis Aquarium.

Directly seeing the workings of our world at nano- and molecular scale has largely remained an impossible task, left to theory and working assumptions. WashU alumna Jennifer Dionne, BS ’03, has made it possible and won one of science’s most prestigious award.

Gregg Walker’s career has led him from the halls of Yale Law to Goldman Sachs, Viacom and Sony. His latest adventure takes him under the big top as CEO of Big Apple Circus in New York.

James McCarter, MD/PhD ’98, whose entrepreneurial spirit was nurtured while a grad student, has built his career on translational research.

Xiaohua Fei, MArch ’00, founded X-urban Associates, an architecture firm in China, after earning his master’s in architecture from Washington University.

In Chicago, Steven Collens, AB ’93, was instrumental in starting 1871 and MATTER, co-working spaces for tech and health-care startups, respectively.

Paul Pariser, AB ’76, is reshaping Manhattan with his real estate development and investment firm, Taconic Investment Partners.

Stephanie Beamer, Crystal Ellis and Hillary Petrie, all 2006 architecture graduates, became friends and collaborators while students at Washington University. Now, they run the award-winning furniture design company Egg Collective in New York City.

When Sam Coster, AB ’12, was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer at age 23, he knew his life had to change. A game developer who made irreverent endless runners for mobile, Coster and his brothers, who run the game development studio Butterscotch Shenanigans, decided to create their most imaginative and ambitious game to date, Crashlands.

As a survivor of sex trafficking, Katie Rhoades, MSW ’11, is passionate about helping women in the commercial sex industry. After graduating from the Brown School, she founded Healing Action, a nonprofit that helps women move on from their trauma.