Wedding bells ring at UCMP
If there was a work slow down at UCMP this summer, it was probably due to romance. Our congratulations to the following couples on their recent weddings:
— Graduate Student Rob Guralnick to Leigh Anne McConnaughey;
— Graduate Student Martha Lopez-Forment to Jochem Halfar (see below);
— Graphics Assistant David K. Smith to Colleen Whitney;
— Teacher Mark Stefanski to Johanna Brandriff.

The Berkeley-Stanford connection
Graduate students Martha Lopez-Forment of UCMP and Jochem Halfar of Stanford wed in a lovely ceremony among the redwoods at Portola State Park on June 17. An Aztec ceremony took place the following week in Martha’s homeland of Mexico.
Martha, from Mexico, and Jochem, from Germany, met in Baja California del Sur while each was doing research. Due to a collision with a burro, Jochem’s field work was delayed two weeks, just long enough to meet Martha, who was finishing work on corals near La Paz. Romance bloomed, but the two ended up at rival campuses for their Ph.D.s.
Two other people figure into the story: Jim Ingle, Jochem’s major professor, and

  Martha and Jochem
Grad students Martha Lopez-Forment of UCMP and Jochem Halfar of Stanford University tied the knot in June. They are flanked by their respective major professors, Jim Ingle (left) and Jere Lipps (right).

Jere Lipps, Martha’s major professor. Here the “rivalry” continues, so to speak. As graduate students, Jim worked under Orville Bandy at USC and Jere worked under Helen Tappan at UCLA. Both studied Miocene foraminifera from Newport Bay. Today, Jim is on the faculty in Geology at Stanford, while Jere is on the faculty in Integrative Biology at Berkeley. In spite of all that, Jim and Jere have remained fast friends and colleagues the entire time. They are especially delighted to now strengthen the connection by sharing Mr. and Mrs. Lopez-Forment-Halfar as their students.

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September, 1999