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Six graduates of The Culinary Institute of America were winners of James Beard Foundation Awards for 2019.
Kwame Onwuachi, Class of 2013, of Kith and Kin in Washington, D.C., took home the award for Rising Star Chef of the Year at the Beard Foundation’s Chef and Restaurant Awards ceremony on May 6. He is the author of the bestselling book “Notes from a Young Black Chef.”
Onwuachi’s award marked the second straight year a graduate from the institute won the Rising Star Chef of the Year award. Camille Cogswell, class of 2013, pastry chef at Zahav in Philadelphia, received the award last year. Zahav was named Outstanding Restaurant this year.
Other CIA graduates who were big winners at this year’s James Beard event in Chicago were Lee Hanson, Class of 1987, chef and co-owner of Frenchette in New York City, named Best New Restaurant; Johnny Clark, Class of 2002, Best Chef: Great Lakes; and Michael Cimarusti, Class of 1991, Best Chef: West. Ten days earlier, at the organization’s Media Awards night, JJ Johnson, Class of 2007, won the award for Best Cookbook: American, as coauthor of “Between Harlem and Heaven: Afro-AsianAmerican Cooking for Big Nights, Weeknights, and Every Day”; and the late Fatima Ali, Class of 2011, was honored posthumously with a journalism award in the Personal Essay, Short Form category for her Bon Appétit column, “I’m a Chef with Terminal Cancer. This Is What I’m Doing with the Time I Have Left.”
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Tom Resso of Saugerties, a student in the Capital Region BOCES adult welding and metal fabrication class, received a $1,000 American Welding Society scholarship. Resso left a job near his home last summer to take a position at ShopRite in Slingerlands so he could take the welding class at the Capital Region BOCES Career and Technical School Albany campus.
Resso is one of 13 students enrolled in the current 10-month, 500-hour program that teaches adults the skills necessary to enter the workforce with
the advanced skills sought after by employers. He will graduate in June, having earned the certificates necessary to open doors in the industry where a shortage of workers has, for some businesses, stymied business growth.
••• Margaret Loh, a chemistry teacher at John Jay High School in Hopewell Junction was named the recipient of the Award for Excellence in High School Chemistry Teaching.
The award was presented by the Mid-Hudson Section of the American Chemical Society at its undergraduate research symposium at Vassar College in oughkeepsie on April 24.
Loh has been a chemistry teacher at John Jay, where she has taught all levels of chemistry, including advanced placement, honors, regents and non-Regents level courses, since 2001. She holds a bachelor of
arts and master of science degree in chemistry, as well as secondary science education certification.
Through Loh’s encouragement and dedication, participation by John Jay students in the local American Chemical Society exam for the Chemistry Olympiad started and has continually grown.
She was accepted into the New York State Master Teacher Program in January 2015. She is constantly attending summer workshops to improve her knowledge and teaching skills. She has developed extensive materials for teaching chemistry and willingly shares them with colleagues. This also includes hosting student teachers and teachers-intraining. She utilizes an array of teaching methods, including Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning activities in class, as well as use of Google Classroom.