Alumni - Profiles

The Sycamore School, Roncalli High School, and University of Miami, Florida graduate did not always aspire to own his own business. “​It was a serendipitous situation, and I didn't seek it out; it really came to me. A dear family friend owned the Union Jack and offered us the opportunity to purchase it. When we ultimately made the decision to take the leap, it was about creating our own destiny more than anything,”

Looking back, Sycamore has been probably the most powerful influence on my life. Many people get anxiety when they see a problem, but I see an opportunity for simplification. I have Sycamore to thank for this.”
                                                                                                      – Daniel Jones

Jonathan Schwartz (’13) is one of the founders and leaders of Every Vote Counts, and in the fall of 2019, he was invited to sit on a panel entitled “Cast Your Vote: How Students are Shaping American Democracy” at the #SpeechMatters event at the University of California. A junior at Yale, Schwartz is pursuing a double major in Economics and Statistics and Data Science as well as an Advanced Language Certificate in Spanish. Yet his education in the classroom is only part of his story.  And he credits his experience at Sycamore as a driver in his ability to juggle his classroom education, his extracurricular work, and his desire to push himself to become a leader.

“Tina was unique. She was her own person,” longtime Sycamore teacher, Mary O’Malley, says. “She was comfortable being herself no matter the circumstances.  She was memorable because of her unique creative mind and keen sense of humor.”

While the school day gave Kevin Karimi his circle of friends, it was the late afternoon options after the classroom teaching was complete, that he relished. “The kids you’d hang out with were ones you don't usually hang out with during the day. There's an immersion of different people that you get to know,” he says. “Sycamore School is not a very large school. There are 40 kids in each grade, and you tend to stick with your friends. Everyone knows everyone, but you have four or five friends or maybe another little circle of friends. But when you go to after-school activities, you meet new people and by the end, everyone knows everyone in a different way and for different reasons. I enjoyed that a lot.”

Jay Maturi’s (’14) passions have led him to the unlikely connection between medicine and environmental science. As he heads to Stanford University in the fall of 2018, he wants to continue learning how we can be healthier through understanding how the environment affects our day-to-day lives.

An interview with Sycamore grad Joey Mervis, who is now senior at North Central High School. Mervis spearheaded the recent lip dub at the school and was the key player in the process - he directed and produced the video. They made it a fundraiser for the Caroline Symmes Endowment for Pediatric Cancer Research at Riley Hospital for Children.  We interviewed him about the process, and this is an excerpt of that interview.  A longer version will be published in the upcoming Sycamore Magazine.

Sycamore alumnus Alex Sventekis (‘04) has built a strong core of knowledge and skills early in his career, and it has led him to earning as position as a Development Officer at The Indianapolis Public Library Foundation.

Dr. Andy Wilson, one of the members of Sycamore’s very first class of graduates, came back to the school to give graduates a final push to their next destination, with advice and lessons he learned at Sycamore

Sycamore School ‘96 alum Daniel Sledge and his fellow alum George Mohler combined forces to write a submission to the esteemed American Journal of Public Health (AJPH). The paper explores how malaria was eradicated in the American South in the 1930s and seeks to reconsider how that data may help us eradicate malaria in the global south today.

When he graduated from Park Tudorin 2013, Sycamore School alum Kevin Rex was Harvard-bound .  His hard work in the classroom and on the baseball field has earned him the opportunity to both study and pitch for Harvard.

Mytili Bala has always been interested in social justice.  When asked about what she aspires to as her career grows, Bala reaches back to lessons of patience and about following her heart; ideas that were planted while at Sycamore.

In the midst of travels that have taken Greg Curtin to dozens of countries, he came home this spring  to see a former teacher.

Justin Brown never thought his degrees in electrical technology and computer engineering technology would lead him to a career in…beer.

It was the Sycamore sixth-grade class production of “Fiddler on the Roof” that sparked a fire in the mind of then-second-grader Briana Hansen.

When Dan-Dan Wlasuk headed to Uganda in May 2013 to spend eight weeks working in a health center, the young nursing student didn’t anticipate having the opportunity to help deliver babies.