Justin Stege

With a 1 month old baby at home, I won’t be able to make the reunion.  Its been a lot of fun reading all your bios.  Even though I can’t make it to the reunion, I thought I would participate by way of a brief bio.

After graduating from LAHS, I signed up for another 10 years in school.  I went to Harvey Mudd College in California to study engineering, then switched to Physics.  After graduation from college, I still didn’t know what I wanted to do when I grew up, so I went to graduate school at University of California at San Diego.  This time in a biology program.  6 years later I had a Ph.D., but still no idea what I wanted to do.  I spent another year at the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego before landing my first real job at a small biotechnology company called Diversa.  Just one month before I turned 30!  8 years later, I’m still with the same company under a new name – Verenium.  I’m now the Associate Director of Biofuels Research.  I am developing new enzymes to make ethanol from cellulosic material to meet our ever-important need for renewable fuels.  It’s a pretty exciting field to be in now, but I still don’t know what I will do when I grow up!

I’ve found paradise in San Diego and after living here for 16 years, I’m not sure anything could drag me away.  I met my wife Allyson at UC San Diego when she came to work in my lab.  After dating for 6 years, we were married in September, 2002.  Our first son Jared was born in June, 2005.  And most recently, our son Adam was born in May, 2008. 

Between work and family, I don’t have much time for recreation. I started playing floor hockey in college, and then at UC San Diego.  I then learned to play rollerhockey and now ice hockey.  I still play floor hockey and ice hockey every chance I get.  I also took up surfing, a more typical San Diego sport.  That pastime has taken a serious dive since the boy arrived, but I hope as they get older they will come join me. 

The only classmate I really keep up with is Mark Wachter.  We always used to get together for troublemaking when I was back for the summer or holidays.  Since my mother moved away from Los Alamos, I haven’t been back in quite some time.  Shirlee Tan ’89 was in the same graduate program at UCSD and we used to play floor hockey together.  Toby Bhatia also was at UCSD at the same time. After bumping into someone who looked very familiar a number of times, we finally figured out that we were LAHS classmates.

Again, I wish I could make it to the reunion to catch up with you all.  Hopefully the next one!  Feel free to drop me a line if you want to catch up:  Justin@stege.org