York Distinguished Alumni Program

Click to expand the 2020 Program 

Jillian Arnold is an Emmy award-winning video recording engineer for live events, award shows, and special events.  She is one of the few experts in a lucrative, emerging field of television. Jillian’s career in the TV industry started at York High School, under the tutelage of several influential teachers. From there, she went on to receive her undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her masters from Chapman University.  

Jillian’s career started at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory [JPL], where she oversaw high-speed, high-resolution camerawork for space flight hardware engineering analysis as part of the Mars Program. She also participated in JPL’s Juno orbital insertion, Cassini's farewell, and Mars Curiosity Landing, along with twelve other planetary missions. This early foundation taught Jillian the critical thinking and analysis skills one needs in order to be successful in a technological career.

Currently, Jillian manages the recording and file management for many of TV’s largest live events including the red carpet shows for the Oscars, Grammys, Golden Globes, and Emmys.  She currently oversees recording on all major Viacom shows including the MTV Video Music Awards.  Jillian works for NFL Films, Netflix, Apple TV plus, Viacom, NBC Universal, and Fox. Her first Emmy was granted for her work on Fox’s Grease: Live. 

Jillian is a member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, and the first woman Vice President for Local 695, the Sound, Video and Projection Union.

Manu Edakara is the Program Director for the award-winning iVenture Startup Accelerator at the University of Illinois Gies College of Business. iVenture supports the top student startups in all fields. Over the past five years, iVenture has incubated over 70 companies built by 240 entrepreneurs, who have raised over $22M for their work. iVenture entrepreneurs have gone onto selective programs like Y-Combinator, won the Thiel Fellowship, and even introduced President Barack Obama.

During his undergraduate studies (also at the University of Illinois), Manu focused on healthcare and worked as an EMT, personal trainer, and competitive bodybuilder. For his work on the program, Manu was named to the Forbes 30 under 30 list in Education.

Prior to his role with Illinois, Manu co-founded three tech startups in the on-demand, social media, and design spaces, and a non-profit to empower youth from underprivileged youth. He currently serves on the boards of various startups and is involved in leadership efforts at the college surrounding the two pressing issues of COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter, and their collective effects on the student population.

Larry Larkin worked professionally in engineering and education for over 60 years. During that time, he also devoted himself to numerous civic, cultural, and conservation organizations thereby making a significant contribution to the quality of life, both intellectual and environmental, for many people.

After graduating from York Community High School, he attended Northwestern University, graduating with a degree in Electrical Engineering. He subsequently worked on Project Mercury, America’s first human space flight program. After the completion of the Mercury program, Larkin worked on the instrumentation and data telemetry for the upper atmosphere atomic bomb tests over Johnston Island in the Pacific Ocean. 

In the 1970s, Larkin became interested in community service and youth development as a way of reinvesting in the community. He was involved in teaching and scouting, as well as supporting organizations that were involved in conservation and environmental issues, receiving awards for Protection of Land Resources, and Land Stewardship.

In 1985, he joined Filtertek, Inc. and became involved in developing the company’s European Operations. He was awarded four patents for inventions relating to automotive transmissions and an award for solving a performance problem with aggressively driven vehicles. He also became a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), writing technical standards for automotive products.

In 2013, Larkin founded the Lake Geneva Heritage Center and has continued to work on preservation projects. In 2016, received the Wisconsin Historical Society’s Director’s Award for Historic Preservation, the first time the award has been presented to an individual.

Judge Kenneth Moy became the first Asian-American elected to county government in the state of Illinois when he won a seat on the DuPage County Board in 1984. He won re-election to the Board in 1988 and 1994. During that time, he also served as a DuPage Forest Preserve Commissioner. He then served as a member of the 18th Circuit Court for eleven years from 1996 to his retirement in 2007. 

In May 2016, Judge Moy announced he was making a $2 million gift to the DuPage County Convalescent Center, prompted by his “deep desire to help seniors and disabled adults.” The facility was re-named in his honor as the Kenneth Moy DuPage Care Center. Additionally, Judge Moy established a scholarship fund with the DuPage Community Foundation and awards a $1,000 scholarship each year to a York High School senior who plans to pursue a career in a science-related field. 

Judge Moy is kind, thoughtful, and self-deprecating. Due to his tenacity, perseverance, and determination, Judge Moy found great success in his career which has allowed him to give back a great deal to the Elmhurst community.

Matha Garman VanGeem was one of the first twenty-five women to graduate with a Bachelor of Science in civil engineering from the University of Illinois, where she graduated with high honors in 1976. She is a licensed engineer (IL) with more than 40 years of consulting experience and has had her own consulting firm for the last nine years. She serves as a specialized technical consultant in the areas of building science, building materials, green/sustainable/resilient buildings and infrastructure, energy use in buildings, and building codes. She is a national expert on concrete energy-efficiency and sustainability-related properties.

She represents the U.S. on several international ISO standards committees and holds leadership roles on many energy-efficiency and green-building standard-writing committees including those within ASHRAE and ASTM. She strives to find consensus in creating codes and standards that are technically-based and impactful, yet realistic and usable so that they will be adopted by countries, states, and cities. She has authored more than 120 articles and published reports.

Among her awards are the 2013 ASHRAE Standards Achievement Award and the 2018 Concrete Sustainability Award from the American Concrete Institute (ACI). She is a fellow of ACI as well as a life member of the Society of Women Engineers and ASHRAE. She has an MBA from the University of Chicago.

She has balanced her career with family: currently, with three adult children - two daughters who are teachers and a son who works for the Department of Defense - as well as five grandchildren.