The Who’s Who Young Alumni awards honor graduates from the last 10 years who are under the age of 40. These individuals have distinguished themselves through a high level of professional accomplishments early in their careers and have demonstrated a commitment to CMU through volunteering, leadership or contributions.
Jack Bryan, ’15
After earning a degree in chemistry from CMU, Jack went on to earn a master’s degree in aerospace engineering at the University of Sheffield in England. Throughout his education, he knew he wanted to build spaceships and help more people get into space. In his early career, he has worked for some of the most notable aerospace companies such as Sent Into Space, and Masten Space Systems and is now working for Space X where he is a Build Engineer on the Starship.
Derek Irick, ’19
Derek is a rising-star real estate agent in Grand Junction. He has received the Best of the West Residential Real Estate Agent award three years in a row and is consistently among Bray Real Estate’s top performers. Derek’s path is quite remarkable. He was born in China and was orphaned at a very young age. In the orphanage he set a goal to learn English in hopes of being adopted by an American family. At age 12 his wish came true and his new family eventually settled in Grand Junction. While attending CMU, Derek earned four degrees and was involved with many clubs in the business department. Today he stays just as busy by serving on the Young Professionals Network, the Grand Valley Young Alumni Chapter and many other local organizations. He supports several local non-profits, but he's most passionate about his work with the Western Slope Center for Children, where he has helped over 130 families in the last three years.
Bryn Loftness, ’20
As a student, Bryn was recruited to work for the Harvard Sabeti Lab assisting digital epidemiology research on CMU-related datasets where she served as the resident expert on CMU data and policies throughout computational efforts. Now she is a PhD candidate in the Complex Systems and Data Science program at the University of Vermont and a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. She is collaborating with a research group to develop digital phenotyping algorithms by leveraging wearable sensor signals. Based on this group’s research findings, she has developed an online website for sharing resources, assisted in the development of a mobile phone application to collect digital biomarkers and is working on an annual point-of-care mental health assessment for young children.