2024 RosenWeld Year-end Letter

Dear Family and Friends:

Given the crazy changes on the political and world scenes, we shift gears to some personal (and much happier) news, sharing some highlights from 2024.

Dan, Margaret, and Kiva with morning coffee on Mt. Baker’s Ptarmigan Ridge (photo by Galen)

The big news… Galen and Becca are engaged with a wedding set for this summer! Recall that Becca moved to Seattle for a postdoc after completing her Ph.D. in Material Science, joining Galen after 5+ years of a long-distance relationship. They rented a house together and Becca proposed at the airy summit of a multi-pitch rock climb here in the Cascade mountains. Besides work, they seem to be enjoying the outdoors immensely, with frequent biking, backcountry skiing, paragliding, and climbing trips. We are so excited for them!

Adam continues to enjoy work at Valve, but his deeper passion seems to lie with friends, side projects (e.g., building out his camper van, designing and constructing a custom e-bike), and the outdoors. It’s fun to see him and Galen adventuring together, as shown in the next two photos…

Adam backcountry skiing in the Cascades (photo by Galen)

Adam biking through autumn larches in the eastern Cascades (photo by Galen)

Mica and Ani got officially married last May, but they have held off on a big wedding celebration (hopefully not for too much longer!). They continue to live near Boston with Ani working at Akamai and Mica now getting their MS in Conservation Biology at Northeastern University. It’s sad having them so far away, but they’re able to come and visit relatively frequently, which is nice.

Mica, Adam, and Galen during a Seattle visit.

Margaret continues her work at Seattle Children’s Hospital/Research Institute, which she finds rewarding and fulfilling but also like a fire hose. She is cutting down to 75% starting this summer and looking forward to more trips and hiking! She unfortunately required her third specialized cornea transplant in October in Indianapolis. Dan was, as always, an unbelievably stalwart support. This wake up call about not being able to take vision (or other healthy systems) for granted is part of her accelerated timeline to make sure she gets out and enjoys her favorite activities now, instead of putting them off for the future.

Margaret and Kiva on a high section of the PCT in Washington’s Goat Rocks Wilderness. Hiking down into these clouds, as they poured over the mountain crest, was completely surreal.

Dan is enjoying his work at Ai2, developing an AI collaborator for scientists. Much of this is still under wraps, but we’ve released the first part of the system, which answers questions about the research literature, at qa.allen.ai – feedback appreciated! Outside work, the year saw some fun trips and some medical challenges. On the challenge side: a herniated disk caused a few days of excruciating pain and motivated Dan to ramp up physical therapy and not take health for granted. Parts of the fun side are described in photo captions below: