GDS Magazine | 71 the goal to not only create more transparency in the venture marketplace but also educate companies and novice investors on how to get involved. Their unique platform uses machine learning matching to eliminate gatekeepers and organically connect individuals and groups based on interests and engagement. Reggie Dillard was selected to participate in the inaugural 3x3 national championships in March. Each conference selected 4 players to represent their conference at the tournament with cash prizes available. Reggie will continue his playing career professionally. Reggie Dillard ’13 Ronata Rogers was selected to participate in the 2018 NCAA Career in Sports Forum in Indianapolis Indiana. Ronata was one of 240 student-athletes invited to the NCAA National Office. The NCAA selects student-athletes who are viewed as leaders on their campus, after a nomination by athletics administrators at their respective schools. Participants learn best practices for gaining employment and gathering a better understanding of what future expectations will be once they get a job in sports Ronata Rogers ’13 2014 GDS Classsmates, Amina Khan and Zac Schner, reconnected this spring when they were both assigned to cover the UNC-Chapel Hill vs. High Point University Women’s Lacrosse game as athletic trainers. Zac is a senior at HPU and Amina is a senior at UNC and both are studying Athletic Training and Sports Medicine. Amina Khan ’14 and Zac Schner ’14 2015 Shan Wang, a junior at Carnegie Mellon, alongside class mates Zhuoying Lin, were the winners of the 8th annual Student Design Charrette hosted by BLT Architects. Hosted for the first time as an in-person event, teams traveled from nine colleges to compete for internships with the firm and $1,000 each. The students were tasked with designing a mixed-use development adjacent to phase one of the new Rail Park in Philadelphia. The winning project, “The Bend”, proposed a solution which impressed the firm’s principals with elements like its gradual slope from street level and a “floating” residential and gallery space that appeared suspended in midair. 2016 & 2017 On April 28, 2018, Donnie Proper ’16 (VMI) and Spenser Clapp ’17 (Jacksonville University) squared away on the collegiate lacrosse field. Spenser Clapp ’17 (Jacksonville) and Donnie Proper ’16 (VMI) I was a surly sophomore when I trudged into Liz Lloyd’s Biology class during her first year at GDS. I can’t say that I remember much from that first class but over the following months I found a seat closer to the front of the room to better absorb the passionate, humorous performances of this woman who was clearly in love with her fields of expertise. She would draw diagrams of cells on the board and as she explained the inner workings of our own bodies, she would relevé, hands gesturing, eyes shining with enthusiasm. It was her compelling eagerness, more than the material itself that threw the door open wide to a better understanding of life and of ourselves. Identifying the patterns and functions of biology and chemistry were the touchstones Liz relied on to make sense of reality. She found it thrilling to unlock the mysteries of the world, to participate in advancing the limits of human knowledge. Liz possessed the remarkable courage to look at reality with a direct and unflinching gaze. Her relentless pursuit of knowledge was driven by an unquenchable sense of awe, appreciation of beauty and ever-present humor. She wanted to enlist us all to join her in relentlessly following our curiosity to better understanding and deeper appreciation. The patterns she understood and treasured in science and nature fed and validated her love of music, art, food, wine, comedy, literature, and the cosmos. She knew where to look for beauty and she led the way for me and many others to find it too. We laughed. We laughed so damn hard. We laughed at ourselves. We laughed at humans and at the idea that anyone could possibly think humans are better than dogs. Nothing made her laugh more than the hilarious, cruel absurdity of this life. Over the years, Liz shifted from teacher, to mentor, to best friend. We were never quite peers. Liz’s parents say that I am the closest thing she had to a daughter. She offered me the incredible gift of looking right at me, in the glaring light of day, with my humiliating mountain of flaws, failures, bad habits, and totally avoidable mistakes and insisted that my existence was somehow worthy, valuable even. There is no greater gift we can offer one another. Many years after our first meeting, Liz sat in my kitchen with a roll of paper and colored pencils, drawing the very same diagrams for my children that she once drew for me and my classmates. My daughter, Violet, asserts that, “Liz knows everything about the human body”. I tell her, no, not really and that Liz would be the first person to deny omniscience, to chuckle at the very idea of it. As I watched her with my children, I discovered something I hadn’t realized when I was a disgruntled teenager. She was not just their teacher, she was their student. She sat poised and eager to absorb insight from them just as eagerly as they learned from her. For Liz, the force behind the awe that drove her relentless curiosity was the inspiration she gleaned from accepting that there is so much we don’t know but that knowing is possible and the journey to get there is what makes our lives worthwhile. Knowledge can come from almost anywhere, if we are open and waiting for it, like children. There is so much we don’t know, so much more for us to find out. What I do know is that there is real, actual good in this world. I know that there are individuals among us who are capable of greatness, of real courage, of true love. I know these things with certainty, my unassailable evidence for that is: Liz. Liz Lloyd A memorial tribute to By Lynlee (Thorne) Wastie ’99 February 16, 1966 - April 11, 2018