Dozens of Class of ’17 grads bound for grad school

Maureen Welch/May 27, 2017

Dozens of U.S. Air Force Academy Class of 2017 graduates are slated to return to the classroom now that they’ve graduated.

Ninety-three graduates are scheduled for grad school after receiving bachelor degrees and commissions as second lieutenants at the May 24 graduation ceremony in Falcon Stadium.

Dr. Helen Meisenhelder, director of graduate studies at the Academy, said grads bound for grad school attend the Air Force Institute of Technology, or civilian universities to include MIT, Oxford, Cambridge, Stanford, Georgetown and Harvard.

Twenty-seven Class of 2017 grads received full-scholarships and eight grads received partially funded scholarships to top-tier universities. Thirteen grads received health-profession scholarships to the Mayo Clinic, Wake Forest School of Medicine, John Hopkins School of Medicine and other universities.

Operations research, aeronauticial and astronautical, and biology are the academic majors that produced the most grad students.

Class of 2017 cadet scholars

— David Wagner, Marshall scholar

— Ben Hightower, Fulbright scholar

— Jeremy Jacobellis, Bart Holaday scholar

National Competitive Scholarship Program recipients

— Eric Anderson

— Juan Orozco

— Ciarra McCarthy

— Russell Williams

— Alyssa Sedgwick

— Mason Thatcher

— Jonathan Earp-Pitkins

— John Deaton

— Casey Evans

— Daniel Reynolds

— Young Wu

— Alekos Michael

— Clayton Davis

— Malik Washington

— Jesse Lubove

— Dylan Dempster.

 Grad School Programs recipients

— Ryan Nicholson

— Leah Young

— Sarah Falvey

— Victoria Bittleston

— Samantha Cabusora

— Robert Breen

— Lucas Vowell

— Brady Gartman

— Jennifer Luong

— Kathryn Richards

— Joshua Valenciano

— Leslie Perez

— Rachel Eaton

— Matthew Shisler

— Paul Michaud.

 Air Force Career Field Programs selects

— Nathanael Beveridge

— Lauren Bramblett

— Michael Hughes

— Dylan Hyder

— Zachary Kane

— William McEntee

— Brendon Sands

— Dominick Speranza III

— Troy St Peter

— Michael Cumming

— Hayley Weir

— Emeline Lochmaier

— Anthony Ciccarello

— Kenneth Ehrenberg

— Matthew Grimm

— Megan Maikell

— Jonathan Schiller

— Kyra Schmidt

— David Shald

— Mitchell Thomas

— Landon Tomcho

— Zane Willburn

— Nathaniel Woodford

— Dominic Celiano

— Alex Fulton

— Vincente Tellez

— Christian Arnold

— Zachary Blanks

— Matthew Krott

— Andrew LaValley

— Eric Nagamine

— Talon Townley

— Parker Hines

— Christil Pasion.

 Medical, dental, nursing, biomedical science corps grad students

— Whitney Briggs

— Samuel Burton

— Jesse Chasteen

— Anthony Esparza

— Chloe Forlini

— Zachary Hodges

— Jacob Holland

— Caleb Kiesow

— Evan Locke

— Kelly Lujan

— Nicholas Moll

— Robert Pahissa

— Meghan Plunkett

— Samuel Rouleau

— Jordan Shields

— Ryan Tetla

— John White

— Karen Wolf

— Thomas Hardison III

— Hannah Wilken

— ShuJie Yan

— McKenna Elise Fox

— Chase Cannon

— Cindy Yie

— Abby Specht