Prior Sent Forth Recipients
2019 Sent Forth Award
Dr. Matthew Culloton '98
Matthew Culloton, founding artistic director of The Singers – Minnesota Choral Artists, is a 1998 Concordia graduate and earned a master's and a doctorate from the University of Minnesota. He is choirmaster at The House of Hope Presbyterian Church in St. Paul, Minn., and an adjunct faculty member at the University of St. Thomas. He received the VocalEssence/ACDA of Minnesota Creative Programming Award (2003) and MN ACDA Outstanding Young Choral Conductor of the Year Award (2004). As a composer, he has been commissioned to compose works for The Singers and the Dale Warland Singers, among several others. He is co-editor of the "Matthew and Michael Culloton Choral Series" and editor of the "Christmas with The Singers Choral Series."
Betsy (Strebel) Grams '98
Betsy Grams, co-founder and executive director of CycleHealth, is a 1998 Concordia graduate. CycleHealth was founded in 2014 to equip kids to power their own wellness. CycleHealth's programs are based on adventure and self-directed goal attainment and are prescribed by pediatricians in more than 50 Twin Cities clinics through an innovative platform called Sweat Rx. Prior to co-founding CycleHealth, she was a high school English teacher and director of an alternative school for students at risk for graduation.
2018 Sent Forth Award
Arday Ardayfio '02
Arday Ardayfio ’02 is the founder, president and CEO of Blueprint IT Solutions, which provides networking and information technology service to small to mid-sized businesses. A computer science and business major, Ardayfio came to Concordia from Ghana. He worked in college admissions, banking and other entrepreneurial enterprises before starting his Fargo-based business in 2011. He is a member of the Fargo Kiwanis Club and served as its president when the organization set a Guinness World record for the number of pancakes served in 8 hours – 35,000 pancakes. He was named to Prairie Business Magazine’s “40 Under 40” list for top business professionals and has served on the board of Charism. Ardayfio and his wife, Kara, live in Fargo and have three children.
Dr. Tammy Frisby '99
Dr. Tammy Frisby ’99 graduated from Concordia summa cum laude and went on to earn a master’s and doctorate both in political science. Her area of study has been national politics and public policymaking. She was a research fellow at the Hoover Institution from 2009 to 2017. Her research has been published in Policy Review, Legislative Studies Quarterly, California Journal of Politics and Policy, and Environmental Science and Technology. She has written for Forbes.com where she provides analysis and commentary of current U.S. politics and policymaking. She is a frequent guest on radio and television as a political analyst. For the past five years, Frisby has publicly advocated for equal employment opportunities and specifically gender equality while speaking against sexual harassment in the workplace. She has also worked leading survey design and directing data analysis for the Golden State Poll, a social science survey of public opinion in California on politics, government, and public policy. After losing both of her parents to cancer in 2016, Frisby has refocused her work to bioinformatics law and policy with the intent to support cancer research and treatment. She plans to attend law school in the fall at the University of Utah for biomedical law. Frisby and her husband, Graham Mather, live in Salt Lake City, Utah, with their son, Jack and daughter, Stella.
2017 Sent Forth Award
Dr. Meelad Dawlaty '04
Dr. Meelad Dawlaty ’04 is the youngest faculty member in the department of genetics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York where he teaches graduate school curriculum and mentors doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows. He leads a research program concentrated on understanding the epigenetics of stem cells and cancer with a focus on enzymes that modify DNA and regulate gene expression to define cell fate during development. His work has been published in multiple scholarly journals.
Dr. Susan Webb Yackee '97
Dr. Susan Webb Yackee ’97 is a tenured professor of public affairs and political science and the director of the La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In 2015, the university named Yackee a Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor in honor of her exceptional research contributions. An award-winning expert on policymaking, regulation and bureaucratic politics, Yackee’s work is published in many academic journals.
2016 Sent Forth Award
Miquette (Denie) McMahon '06
Miquette (Denie) McMahon ’06 worked at a nursing home and a hospital in Detroit Lakes, Minn., for a year after graduation before returning to Haiti to work as a school nurse and teacher. She founded TeacHaiti, a nonprofit organization that raises funds to send children to school in Haiti. Currently, TeacHaiti educates more than 350 students through student scholarships.
Amy (Schroeder) Kircher '97
Amy (Schroeder) Kircher ’97 is director of the Food Protection and Defense Institute, a Homeland Security Center of Excellence, where she coordinates a research consortium of experts dedicated to protecting the food system. She is also an assistant professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Minnesota. Kircher received graduate degrees in public health from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.