This month’s newsletter is available for download in PDF format.
Events Calendar
- All Fall – WDCSA Stanford Football Game Watches
- September 8 – SBAA Frosh Send-Off
- September 10 – Baltimore Book Club Discussion
- October 3 – End of Summer & Welcome to DC Happy Hour
- October 10 – 11th Annual WDCSA Potomac River Cruise
- October 13 – Washington DC Book Club Discussion
- October 25 – Ghosts of Capitol Hill Walking Tour
Upcoming Events
WDCSA Stanford Football Game Watches
Fall 2019
Stoney’s, 1433 P St. NW, Washington, DC
Come join the Washington DC Stanford Association and fellow alumni to cheer on the Cardinal this season at our official bar, Stoney’s, in the Logan Circle area. Food and drink specials – including California beers! – available. Upon arrival, head up the stairs to the second floor to join the Stanford group.
See below for upcoming schedule:
- Stanford vs. USC: Saturday, Sept 7th, 10:30 pm
- Stanford vs. UCF: Saturday, Sept 14th, 3:30 pm
- Stanford vs. Oregon: Saturday, Sept 21st, TBD
- Stanford vs. Oregon State: Saturday, Sept 28th, TBD
- Stanford vs. Washington: Saturday, Oct 5th TBD
- Stanford vs. UCLA: Thursday, Oct 17th, 9 pm
- Stanford vs. Arizona: Saturday, Oct 26th, TBD
- Stanford vs. Colorado: Saturday, Nov 9th, TBD
- Stanford vs. Washington State: Saturday, Nov 16th, TBD
- Stanford vs. Cal: Saturday, Nov 23, TBD (Note: Special Location for Joint Party with Cal TBD)
- Stanford vs. Notre Dame: Saturday, Nov 30 TBD
If you have any questions, please contact James Barton at jamesbarton09@gmail.com.
Stanford Black Alumni Association Frosh Send-Off
Sunday, September 8, 2-4 pm
Capitol Hill, Washington, DC
Join SBAA for an afternoon of fun and memories as we welcome the incoming freshmen of the Class of 2023.
All incoming freshman, alumni, and friends are welcome. Wear your Cardinal red attire!
Refreshments will be provided.
Location will be provided upon receipt of RSVP. Respond no later than September 5th to DeLise Bernard, ’98, MA ’99 and Cecil Talbott, ’91, at delise@beyondexcell.com.
End of Summer & Welcome to DC Happy Hour
Thursday, October 3, 5:30- 7:30pm
Duke’s Grocery, 1513 17th St NW, Washington, DC
Join the Stanford Cardinal Young Alumni & Stanford Alumni for our annual end-of-summer bash, an extended happy hour at Duke’s Grocery! Celebrate the end of summer with fellow Stanford grads and welcome Stanford alumni to the DC area.
We have reserved the second floor at Duke’s! Food and drinks will be provided. Bring fellow alumni.
Link to register: https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/events/details?event_id=30859
11th Annual WDCSA Potomac River Cruise
Thursday, October 10, 7:15 -9:30pm
Washington Harbour, Georgetown, Washington, DC (31st and K streets NW)
Join us for a sunset cruise past the monuments! We’ve rented a beautiful boat for the exclusive use of DC Stanford alumni. Mix and mingle with your fellow alumni, enjoying happy hour food and a premium open bar. WDCSA subsidizes this special event as a “thank you” to our members (to join WDCSA, please visit our chapter at the Stanford Alumni Association website).
- Early-bird registration for WDCSA members and guests: $39 (before September 20)
- Regular registration for WDCSA members and guests: $49
- Regular registration for Non-Members and guests: $79
Washington Harbour is located across from the Riverside Grille on the dock. Please arrive no later than 7:15, as the boat will sail shortly thereafter with or without ticket holders. Refunds will not be granted to those who arrive late, no shows or cancelations. In the event of postponement for bad weather, we will notify ticket holders and attempt to reschedule for a later date. If you have any questions, please contact Kevin Coyne, MS ’02 at kevin.coyne@stanfordalumni.org.
Boomers to Busters Ghosts of Capitol Hill Walking Tour
Friday, October 25, 6 -7:30 pm OR 7:45 to 9:15pm
Capitol Hill, Washington, DC
If you think Capitol Hill is scary during the day – imagine what it is like at night when the ghosts come out!
After a successful ghost tour last year, the group is heading back to Capitol Hill! Come hear about the ghosts that continue to haunt the Capitol building, Supreme Court, and Library of Congress, among others.
Meeting location TBA. Cost is $20 – minimum age is 15. Because they sold out last year, there are two scheduled tours this year – one at 6pm and the other at 7:45pm. Be sure to select the ticket for the tour you want.
Tours takes place rain or shine, so dress for the weather. Tickets are refundable (minus Eventbrite fees) until one week before tour: they are always transferable.
To sign up, visit: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ghosts-of-capitol-hill-tour-2019-tickets-68817409725.
If you have questions about the tour contact us at BoomerstoBusters@gmail.com.
For more information about BtoB go to: https://dc.uchicagoalumni.org/boomerstobusters.
Get Involved
Stanford OVAL
Shape Stanford’s future! Speak with local undergraduate applicants as part of the OVAL interview program—an easy and rewarding way to support Stanford! OVAL interview training will be at Stanford in Washington (SIW) on Monday October 6,2019. Contact Maggie New at margaret@middleburggroup.com for more information.
CAN Basketball
The CAN coed alumni basketball season is upon us! If you are interested in playing on the WDCSA team and taking on rivals from schools like UC Berkeley, Arizona or UCLA, join our team! Contact Greg Billings ’88, at billings.g@gmail.com, for more information.
Stanford In the News
- Linguistic anthropologist James A. Fox, who taught at Stanford for over 40 years, died on August 7th at his home in Palo Alto from complications of kidney failure. He was 75. Fox, an associate professor of anthropology at Stanford in the School of Humanities and Sciences, specialized in historical linguistics and the languages of Native Americans. He was known for his curiosity, generosity and engaging teaching methods, according to friends and colleagues.
WDCSA Member Spotlight: Graham Gilmer
Graham Gilmer ’05 MS&E (Management Science and Engineering) grew up in Lynchburg, VA. Graham first visited Stanford’s campus as a high school student, with his father (Graham, Stanford ’64) at his Homecoming Reunion Weekend. Graham remembers being sold on Stanford as soon as he set foot on campus.
As a freshman, Graham lived in Junipero and then subsequently joined the Sigma Chi fraternity. His best memory of Stanford is meeting his wife (Kelli, ’05), who is from Hawaii. They met during Fall Quarter of their freshman year, but didn’t start dating until their senior year. For him, Stanford represented a place where “people from Virginia and Hawaii go to meet.”
After graduation from, Graham headed down south to San Diego for a couple of years working for SAIC but then returned to DC to start his career at Booz Allen Hamilton where he is currently a Principal. During his tenure at Booz, his focused has evolved from Modeling & Simulation to Data Science and now to Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications. It’s never a dull moment for him!
Graham and his wife now live in DC with their two young children. Graham is an active member of the WDCSA. During softball season, he is on the field, along with other Stanford alumni, playing in the Capital Alumni Network (CAN) softball league. In the fall, you will see him at the Potomac River Cruise, which he describes as a “can’t miss” event and hopes to see you there!
If you have suggestions for other alumni in the DMV area to profile in upcoming newsletters, please send them to Jasmaine McClain (jasmaine.mcclain@gmail.com) or Stephanie Tan (stephanie.tan@stanfordalumni.org).
WDCSA Book Club Corner
Washington DC Book Club Discussion
Sunday, October 13, 5-7:45 pm
Washington, DC
The book group will discuss Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Start-up by John Carreyrou.
In 2014, Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes was widely seen as the female Steve Jobs: a brilliant Stanford dropout whose startup “unicorn” promised to revolutionize the medical industry with a machine that would make blood tests significantly faster and easier.
Backed by investors such as Larry Ellison and Tim Draper, Theranos sold shares in a fundraising round that valued the company at $9 billion, putting Holmes’s worth at an estimated $4.7 billion. There was just one problem: The technology didn’t work. The biggest corporate fraud since Enron is a cautionary tale set amid the bold promises and gold-rush frenzy of Silicon Valley.
For more information, contact Suzanne Harris at szharris56@gmail.com.
Baltimore Book Club Discussion
Tuesday, September 10, 7:30 pm
Mother’s Federal Hill Grille
1113 S. Charles St, Baltimore, MD
The September selection is My Dear Hamilton: A Novel of Eliza Schuyler Hamilton by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie. This historical fiction is rated 4.8 out of 5.0 stars by over a thousand Amazon readers. Through the lens of Alexander Hamilton’s wife, intimately get to know many of the founding fathers and their wives, and the issues and struggles during the formative years of this United States of America. The November selection is Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou.
Questions/RSVP: Helene Myers, Ph.D., P’14, at cedarhouse@comcast.net
Event Spotlight: Washington Spirit Soccer Game
WDCSA friends and family gathered at Maureen Hendricks Field on August 10th to watch the Washington Spirit take on the Chicago Red Stars at a sold out National Women’s Soccer League game.
There were four Stanford alumnae playing:
- Washington Spirit: Andi Sullivan ’18, Jordan DiBiasi ’19, Tegan McGrady ’19
- Chicago Red Stars: Tierna Davidson, ’20 (left Stanford early to go pro, playing for U.S. National Women’s Team at World Cup in France).