Linda Delaney Milam (IAC 79-82, IAC st 85-86)
Planning the future of space exploration at NASA

Linda Delaney Milam earned her degree in computer science and mathematics. For the past sixteen years she has been a computer programmer for NASA and now works at the Mission Control Center at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. She is currently part of the team that is developing the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle, which will become the shuttle’s replacement to carry astronauts back to the moon and eventually to Mars.

"At NASA a sense of wonder comes with the territory. If you don’t wonder what’s out there and have the curiosity to go find it, you might as well not even come in to work. It is also a team effort, much like playing in an orchestra. When building a new spacecraft no one person can do it all. You make sure you do your part to the best of your ability, and trust that everybody else will do the same."

Chris Klimecky (IAA 88-91)
On the forefront of digital entertainment

For the past 14 years, Chris Klimecky has immersed himself in the rapidly evolving video game industry. He is a senior producer at Surreal Software, a video game developer in Seattle. He drives the creative production of a 100-person team including visual artists in painting, storyboard sketching, sculpting, 3D modelers, 2D texture artists, sound effects designers, composers, creative writers and actors.

"I feel very privileged to be able to combine my love of the arts and technology in a leadership role. I cannot overstate the importance of Interlochen in my development. My experience there continues to inspire me and have meaning in my work."

Jessica Sklar (IAA 88-89)
Finding beauty in words and numbers

Jessica Sklar was a creative writing major at the Arts Academy. It was during college that she fell in love with mathematics. She earned degrees in both math and English and faced a difficult decision when she started looking at graduate schools. Should she work toward a degree in fine arts or mathematics? Jessica is now an associate professor of mathematics at Pacific Lutheran University.

"Mathematics is a much more creative endeavor than some might think. Doing mathematics research is, to me, similar to writing. You start with an idea, an intuition. You then search for the right way to manifest that idea in words. Both mathematics and poetry involve elegance and precision. What is just the right word to use? What is just the right direction in which to head? My training in writing gave me a model by which to do mathematics: read a lot of other people’s work; follow my instincts; show, don’t tell; value clarity, beauty and depth over quantity of words; persevere; and don’t get too depressed when something you thought was meaningful didn’t mean anything to anyone else. On a more concrete note, many brilliant mathematicians are unable to communicate clearly what they have proven: my training in writing has proved invaluable for me as a writer and speaker of mathematics."

Nancy Halliday, Ph.D. (IAC 72-74, IAA 73-75, IAC st 75-77)
Inspired to teach about the natural world

Nancy Halliday, a professor of biology, teaches at the College of Medicine at Southern Nazarene University. She also plays horn with the Oklahoma City Philharmonic. After graduating from the Arts Academy she attended and graduated from Eastman School of Music. Nancy’s love for science, however, was realized while attending Interlochen.

"One of the most intense and gratifying exams that I ever took was when Michael Chamberlin, the biology and ecology teacher, took us to a meadow and sat each of us down in the tall prairie grass so we could not see nor hear anyone else. We had to write about every detail we observed in the limited ecosystem of which we were a part for that moment in time. I was captured by the sense of being such a tiny nothing in context of the rest of creation."

Holly Gilbert (IAA 86-88)
Studying the mysteries in our cosmic backyard

From an early age Holly Gilbert had two passions in life: music and science. While attending the Arts Academy she was a cello major but she went on to earn a bachelor of science degree in physics from the University of Colorado and a Ph.D. in theoretical astrophysics from the University of Oslo in Norway. Currently, she is a solar physicist at Rice University where she teaches and conducts research focused on solar prominences, large features extending outward from the sun’s surface. This summer, she will move to Washington D.C. to take a position at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, where she will be the associate director of science for the heliophysics division. Her research will still be focused on the sun and "space weather" and her findings may help ensure the safety of satellites and astronauts on long-term missions.

"I started an internship at the high altitude observatory in Boulder. As soon as I saw the images of the sun and the scientists there explained how much we don’t know about how it works and how it affects the earth, it just became clear to me that this is what I wanted to do.

Anything challenging has always been appealing to me. Sure there are other fields that are also challenging but there was something about the fact that we can study the sun easier than other astronomic objects because we actually do get close up images.

The creativity I gained as a musician and was exposed to at Interlochen allows me to think outside the box in the world of physics, something that gives me an edge in my pursuit to understand the physical world in space. Both astronomy and music are never-ending challenges that we can never complete or solve."

Heather Dion (IAA 90-92)
Safeguarding our present and future

Heather Dion travels the world working with partner countries in the effort to contain and control the equipment and technology needed to produce nuclear, missile, chemical, and biological weapons. She is the program manager for Global Security Engagement and Cooperation in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Division at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

"What I love about my current job is getting to meet my technical counterparts all over the world, knowing that we are working side-by-side to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. I feel my background in the arts at Interlochen gave me my confidence and determination to do anything."

Dawn Banghart (IAC 73, 75, IAA 74-78)
Finding truth in poetry... and physics

After three years of creative writing at the Arts Academy, Dawn Banghart majored in English at Michigan State University. By chance, she enrolled in an astronomy class and soon fell in love with the subject. She transferred to the University of California Santa Barbara to complete a degree in physics. She is now the senior health physicist at Stanford University and she also holds a master’s in poetry.

"Poetry was something that I had always done from the moment I could spell but it was an internal process that somehow never felt 100 percent satisfying. I still remember looking at the sky one night when I realized that physics was my "unified field theory." I could feel the beauty of the natural world and yet share the expression of it in the precise language of mathematics. We were working on the same poem together. I realized that so much of what I wanted to express in poetry was found in the language of physics and calculus. It was both an internal and external exploration. I knew at that exact moment I would become a physicist.

My first position out of college was as a medical physics technician. I learned how to test machine output parameters for the oncology department linear accelerator therapy units and assisted in whole body irradiation treatments for children with leukemia. A couple highlights from my career include assisting researchers in safe plutonium work practices at the national laboratories in the Bay Area and traveling to Libya as part of the State Department’s Sister Laboratory program to assist in transitioning a nuclear power reactor from weapons research to peaceful applications.

My experience in the arts has provided a foundation of discipline, curiosity, and a love of abstract rewards - like finishing a poem. Certainly music and poetry are very similar to mathematics. They are symbolic representations for a piece of truth. I also strongly believe that while Interlochen creates successful artists, it first creates successful leaders."

Jonathan Kennell, Software programmer (IAC 95-96, IAC st 99-00)
Writing with unseen elegance

After receiving his master’s in computer science and electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Jonathan Kennell took a job with search engine giant, Google.

"My arts background taught me the importance of revising and polishing my work. In the world of music performance, that comes through practicing. In the world of composition or writing, it comes through editing your rough drafts. Since computer programs are "read" primarily by the computer, many engineers stop revising their code as soon as it runs successfully. However, I’ve found that there’s tremendous value in cleaning up my code, revising it, and in some cases re-writing it until it’s clean, compact, and elegant."

Shenandoah Robinson (IAC 79-80, IAA 79-83)
Mending body and mind

After graduating from the Arts Academy Shenandoah Robinson attended Northwestern University and majored in the integrated science program. She continued her education at Northwestern for medical school followed by a residency at Case Western Reserve. Seven years later she would do her fellowship in pediatric neurosurgery at St. Louis Children’s Hospital/ Washington University. Today she is proud to have built a clinical practice at an excellent children’s hospital and a research program with the support of an exceptional department of neurosciences.

"Although I entered medical school expecting to become a family practice doctor, as I considered the various fields of medicine, neurosurgery was by far the most fascinating to me. There’s something about helping someone regain consciousness or the ability to move or communicate - to me that is really what is at the core of what it means to be human.

All through college I worked in immunology research and I enjoyed it. Once I found neurosurgery, my passion for research developed into a full-scale addiction that continues to this day. When I was looking for a job as a pediatric neurosurgeon, I was lucky to find one at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital where I built a practice and research program.

As artists at Interlochen, we were encouraged to embrace our passions and set amazing goals and many of my talented classmates achieved their goals at the Academy and later as professional artists. This extra bolster was essential as I decided to pursue medicine and the long training afterward.

A lot has been written about the similarities between art and surgery, medicine or science. In all areas one has to develop a specific skill set through a combination of individual study and practice and through apprenticeship from others. The skills are integrated with creativity and interpretation to produce novel work to stimulate and entertain, heal someone or discover."

Michael Good, Software programmer (AS 70-72, IAC 73-74)
Creating new technology for musicians

Michael Good is the founder and CEO of Recordare: internet music publishing and software. He invented the MusicXML format that allows musicians to share scores between Finale, Sibelius, Cubase and more than 85 other music programs. It is his goal to make MusicXML the equivalent of MP3s for digital sheet music.

"My undergraduate thesis involved representing musical scores on the computer. However, this was back before the days of the IBM PC, much less the Mac, so there was a lot to do. I joined the Software Usability Engineering group at Digital Equipment Corporation, where we pioneered many of the techniques for building usable software today. I remember that Jay Keyser, MIT Professor Emeritus and trombonist was asked about skills that transfer from music to engineering and he answered that both music and engineering required a high tolerance for going through a lot of drudge work in order to get better (scales and etudes for musicians, problem sets for engineers). Certainly I find that both music and software engineering require being able to concentrate on many levels of detail simultaneously when you are learning, and then being able to subconsciously handle many levels of detail simultaneously when you are performing."

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