Richards celebrates alumni for WHM

To celebrate Women’s History Month, District 218 has recognized graduates from Eisenhower, Richards, and Shepard high schools who have achieved noteworthy success academically, professionally, artistically, in public service, or in some other field of endeavor.

Richards celebrated the following alumni among many others:

Kinga Wrobel (Class of 2018) – Currently pursuing a bachelor's degree in Systems Engineering and Design at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Kinga earned an internship in systems engineering at NASA. She recently earned the Brooke Owens Fellowship, which includes serving as an intern at Lockheed Martin Advanced Programs.

She also has worked as a mechanical and applications engineering intern at Sunlight-Tech and as an undergraduate researcher at the Engineering Design Lab at the university.

Sofia Gomez-Ramos (Class of 2018) - Sofia will graduate from the University of Illinois at Chicago in December 2021 with a bachelor’s degree in Public Policy. She serves as an intern with the Latino Policy Forum in Chicago developing research and projects on what’s happening in Chicago politics relating to the undocumented community and housing.

Last year, she worked on analysis of the Chicago Housing Authority to see where they need to improve in better serving black and brown communities in the city. She recently joined a project to help publish an immigrant tenant housing booklet to let the undocumented community know what rights they have when it comes to renting in Chicago.

“In the future I want to become an educator as well as work in the nonprofit world to help bring better education policy to the city of Chicago. After graduation I plan to get my master’s in Education Policy Studies at UIC,” she said.

Claire Smith (Class of 2009) - Claire earned a bachelor’s degree, graduating summa cum laude, from Eastern Illinois University in 2013 and a master’s degree in Social Service Administration (MSW equivalent) from the University of Chicago in 2020.

After volunteering with AmeriCorps in Los Angeles she returned to Chicago to work for the University of Chicago Health Lab as the Implementation Project Manager “where I am a part of the Critical Time Intervention Multisite Evaluation (CTIME) team.”

“We are studying the success of Critical Time Intervention (CTI)—a time limited, intensive case management strategy for people living with serious mental illness—with people transitioning out of homelessness and out of mental health facilities,” she added.

Justine Harris (Class of 2011) - Justine earned her associate’s degree from Lincoln College in 2013 and earned a bachelor’s degree in Psychology with a minor in Education from Western Illinois University in 2015.

Today she works as a preschool teacher at The Gardner School.

Yvita Bustos (Class of 2013) - Yvita earned a bachelor’s degree from DePaul University and a master’s degree from Loyola University Chicago. She currently pursues her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology, focusing on children and families at Loyola.

She has worked at several universities, including DePaul, Northwestern, University of Chicago, and UCLA conducting research. She is currently a professor at Loyola University and conducts research as part of the Children Adapting to Stress and Adversity Lab.

Her research centers on immigrant and refugee populations and increasing access to mental health services through community and school-based interventions. In addition to research, she provides therapy services to children and families from low-income, minority backgrounds on the south side of Chicago.

As a first-generation college student, Yvita was a McNair scholar at DePaul University, which she attributes to her success as a graduate student. As such, she has dedicated the past four years to mentoring undergraduate students at Loyola from underrepresented backgrounds in research and the graduate school application process.

Michelle Quinn (Class of 2018) - Currently a student at Augustana College, Michelle serves as an internal event planner, historian of her sorority, and an active member in the community who volunteers at the local Animal Aid Humane Society.

Vanessa Kalinowska (Class of 2015)- Vanessa earned a bachelor’s degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology, graduating magna cum laude, from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has started pursuit of her medical degree at Columbia Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York.

“In terms of my current works in academia, I have been involved in research with the Department of Pediatric Surgery at Columbia. One of my most recent projects involved the design of assistive surgical devices in hopes of increasing the safety of minimally invasive fetal surgery and was completed in partnership with funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH),” she said.