CLASS OF 1992 | 2020 | ISSUE 2

Hopefully, by the time you read this, the lockdown that has been in effect since mid-March will be over. But who knows! I’ve hobbled around with a broken foot for most of the year, so for me, the lockdown has been well-timed. I hope you all have fared well during these difficult times.

In any case, the lockdown doesn’t stop news, so here we go!

Eric Leach-Rodriguez and his husband are among the many New Yorkers who stayed in the city to shelter in place. As Eric notes, it was some comfort to have 20 years as a nurse practitioner in HIV/AIDS before facing the current pandemic. Also in the city, Grant Brenner hunkered down in lower Manhattan, continuing as a psychiatrist running a large practice and doing nonprofit disaster mental health.

Darcy Dennett spent some time down in New York City for 60 Minutes Australia on the front lines in the fight against COVID-19 but then retreated two hours north in Connecticut, editing in the country. She and her husband, Paul, a lawyer for the MTA, are preparing to return to New York as soon as they can.

Lisa Turner Laing released her third novel, Love Me Not, under the pen name Lisa McLuckie. Rick Barot’s fourth book of poems, The Galleons, was published by Milkweed Editions. He won the Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America. He directs the MFA program in creative writing at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Wash.

Kevin Prufer is writing books and teaching in the graduate creative writing program at the University of Houston. For the last 10 years, he has also been directing a literary-archaeological project called The Unsung Masters Series, a book series that discovers, considers, and reprints the work of great lost writers of the past (unsungmasters.org).

Ruthbea Yesner lives in Brookline and is the VP of Government, Education and Smart Cities research and consulting. Also in the greater Boston area, Zoe Singer Fishman is practicing primary care pediatrics with Charles River Pediatrics in Natick, Mass., living in Newton with her husband, Craig Fishman, and their two sons Sam (13) and Jacob (17). Jacob will head to D.C. in the fall to be a freshman at American University.

Also on the college track, Karen Cacase Flynn and Mike Flynn ’93 are planning to send their daughter, Sophia, to start at Wesleyan in the fall.

Stefanie Trice Gill runs IntWork, a diversity recruitment agency she founded that provides engineering, tech, and executive search. She’s in Portland, Maine, sheltering in place with her husband, Mark, their 10-year-old son, and her 80-year-old-mother.

On the front lines of the current crisis, Jacky Jennings is an infectious disease epidemiologist in the throes of COVID-19 research, including launching a seroprevalence study in Baltimore City, Md., to measure the true burden of disease as well as the social and economic impacts of the crisis.

Abigail Saguy is sheltering at home in West Los Angeles with her husband, Dotan, and their kids Claire, 18, and Jonah, 15. During the pandemic, she has become a Zoom pro: teaching via Zoom, giving Zoom seminars, Zoom writing sessions, Zoom faculty meetings, Zoom cooking classes, and Zoom cocktail hours. Just before we all went into lockdown, she published a new book, Come Out, Come Out, Whoever You Are (Oxford, 2020).

In the last notes, there was mention of a book Richard Deitrich co-edited. In early February, an accompanying exhibit opened at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, called A Collector’s Vision: Highlights from the Dietrich American Foundation.

For those of you looking for entertainment, our classmates are happy to help! Tim Ellis is doing a comedy and music show, Rock Soft with Tim Ellis, every other Friday at 8 a.m. live on Facebook Live. And Susan Kleinman’s improv group, Brownies for Everyone, is doing a free show every Saturday (see improvmarin.com). When not doing shows, she is busy helping her nonprofit clients raise money and distribute cash assistance and food to individuals and families in crisis.

And though it seems like a lifetime ago, some of our classmates had exciting travels to report. In December 2019, William Kim attended the Nobel Prize Ceremony (Stockholm, Sweden) in honor of his post-doc mentor, Dr. William Kaelin, who shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology. A small part of Bill’s post-doctoral research contributed to this finding, so he was especially excited. And he got to wear “white tie” (I can vouch for it—I’ve seen photo evidence).

Finally, on a sad note, I am sorry to report that our classmate Kristian Dahl passed away on Feb. 10.

That’s all the notes for now. Please keep Paul and me updated with your news!

Adam Berinsky | berinsky@mit.edu 

Paul Coviello | coviellop01@alum.darden.edu

CLASS OF 1992 | 2020 | ISSUE 1

Paul writes for this issue. Greetings and salutations from Washington, D.C., and happy 50th birthday to many of you who have recently celebrated, or are looking forward to a fun party, and/or fear that big number looming around the corner. I did it last year and survived. It was great to hear from so many people including some first-timers. So, without further ado . . .

Richard Dietrich co-edited In Pursuit of History: A Lifetime Collecting Colonial American Art and Artifacts. This book showcases highlights from the Dietrich American Foundation and tells the story of the collector and the foundation. The foundation was established in 1963 by H. Richard Dietrich Jr. with a focus on 18th-century American fine and decorative arts. The book was published in association with the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Abby Saguy published her third book Come Out, Come Out, Whoever You Are. Through scores of interviews with LGBTQ+ people, undocumented immigrant youth, fat-acceptance activists, Mormon fundamentalist polygamists, and sexual harassment lawyers, the book shows how coming out has moved beyond gay and lesbian rights groups and how different groups wrestle with the politics of coming out in their efforts to resist stigma and enact social change.

Noele Nelson enjoys living in Atlanta with her spouse and working at the CDC. She’s now a branch chief in the Division of Viral Hepatitis, overseeing all of the prevention activities, including vaccine research and policy. Noele had a great time visiting Martin Reames ’94 and his family in Guadalajara, Mexico, where they were living for a year.

Jonathan Liebson enjoys seeing Benno Schmidt ’93 in Brooklyn Heights, along with his adorable son, Charlie. Jonathan’s most recent writing can be found online at The Atlantic and Tablet.

Natacha Vacroux and her philosophy professor husband, Chris Meyers, quit their jobs in Washington, D.C., last year to move to Hawaii. Natacha loves being the FEMA lead co-located in state’s emergency management agency during the day, and editing Chris’s third book, The Straight Dope on Drugs: A Philosophical Examination of Drugs and Drug Policy, at night. They have a killer Mai Tai recipe and look forward to hosting old college friends.

Natacha Vacroux and her husband Chris Meyers

Mary Newton Lima is living in Cape Cod and commuting daily to Cambridge, Mass., where she works as the research program coordinator of the MIT Sea Grant Program, which is part of the National Sea Grant program, the research arm of NOAA. Her role is a jack-of-all-trades, primarily focusing on coordinating proposals, fellowships, and staff scientists. Her husband works with the Ocean Twilight Zone project at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Their eldest daughter, Julia, is a freshman at Union College, and their youngest, Cecilia, is a sophomore in high school.

Speaking of new jobs, Chris Chesak started a new job as executive director of the 92-year-old Outdoor Writers Association of America.

After 16 years as a communication and video production professor at Franklin Pierce University, Heather Weibel Tullio decided to go back to high school. She is loving her new job as a college counselor at St. Bernard’s High School in Fitchburg, Mass., where she graduated from. Her son Oliver just applied to colleges so she, along with husband Tom Tullio ’90, is planning a trip to visit Carleton College in early February. They are looking forward to staying with Martin Reames ’94 and his family.

Darcy Dennett is working on a new, original Netflix series called Well that premieres in the spring. She writes, “I hope those who are inspired check it out. It’s been quite a journey.”

Amy Smith parted ways with Headlong, the nonprofit she co-founded with Andrew Simonet and David Brick ’91, and is doing freelance work as a dance and theater artist, educator, and co-facilitator of anti-racism and anti-oppression trainings. She’s also teaching financial well-being to artists and giving financial management advice to organizations and individuals. Visit amyelainesmith.com if you want to be in touch.

Johanna Stoberock’s novel, Pigs, was published in October. She has been traveling a lot to promote the book where she reports seeing Wesleyan friends at readings around the country. Johanna was selected as the 2019 Artist Trust/Gar LaSalle Storyteller award recipient, which recognizes “an outstanding literary artist working in fiction.”

Michelle Specht, a surgeon at MGH practicing breast surgical oncology, reports that her daughter, Emma ’23, is now at Wesleyan and is loving it! She is happy to report sightings of Susan Stevens and Denise Casper ’90 at Soul Cycle at 5:30 a.m.

Kenko Sone, who was a Japanese government foreign service trainee at Wesleyan, is now a senior official and ambassador in charge of economic diplomacy in the Economic Affairs Bureau at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).

Finally, Amy Andrews Alznauer hits the book trifecta in 2020. Candlewick Press will be publishing The Boy Who Dreamed of Infinity, a picture book biography of the Indian mathematician Ramanujanm and Flying Paintings: The Zhou Brothers, A Story of Revolution and Art, a collaboration with the world-renowned artists about their early years. Also, Enchanted Lion Books is publishing The Strange Birds of Flannery O’Conner.

Adam Berinsky | berinsky@mit.edu 

Paul Coviello | coviellop01@alum.darden.edu

CLASS OF 1992 | 2019 | ISSUE 3

Hi, all, and welcome back to the Wesleyan 1992 class notes. You may have noticed that we skipped an issue of notes. I completely missed it, so no blame to Paul, but we are back on track!

Joan Matelli started law school at Northeastern this fall and quickly learned that Elizabeth Bloom ’95 was one of her professors.

Rick Barot’s fourth book of poems, The Galleons, will be published in early 2020.

Jean DiMaria lives in Berkeley, Calif. After 20 years in the hotel industry, she joined RCD Housing, an affordable housing owner and developer, where she works with Alicia Klein ’88. Jean’s son formed a band with his middle school classmates, one of whom is the son of Henry Rawitscher ’91. Also in the Bay Area, Sasha M. Cummings was honored with the 2019 Hon. Ira A. Brown, Jr. Distinguished Adjunct Professor Award by USF School of Law.

Maria Rosa Truglio was promoted to full professor on the faculty in Italian at Penn State. Her son, Tom (27), is in his third year at medical school in Philadelphia, and her other son, Anthony (28), is exploring career options in linguistics and coding. Maria also got engaged to her partner Greg. In other promotion news, Andrew Springman was promoted to web application development manager at the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

Lucy Hutner just launched a startup that she co-founded. The site, Phoebe, provides a personalized road map for pregnancy and postpartum—check it out at phoebe.nyc.

Teresa Van Hoy ’92, MA’91 premiered a documentary film at the Arizona International Film. The film followed her students’ quixotic quest to repatriate the leg of Santa Anna seized by Illinois soldiers 175 years ago during the Mexican-American War. The students’ 2,000-mile weekend road trip made the front page of the Wall Street Journal two days before Donald Trump was elected. You can learn more at newday.com/film/25-texans-land-lincoln.

Dan Fortmann is the export manager for SCX design, an importer of promotional merchandise across Europe, Russia, Lebanon, Dubai, and Pakistan. He is in his second year singing with the volunteer Chœur de l’Orchestre de Paris, and spent the summer on tour.

Nancy McLoughlin is associate professor of medieval European history at UCI, is still rowing, and reports that she “has the best dog in the world.”

And in closing, Laura Hill and Marc Kunney ’91 dropped their daughter off at Wesleyan in August to start her first year in Clark Hall.

That’s the new for now. Hope to hear from you all soon!

Adam Berinsky | berinsky@mit.edu 

Paul Coviello | coviellop01@alum.darden.edu

Newsmaker: Christine Bolzan ’92

Christine Bolzan '92Christine Bolzan ’92 was recently appointed chief operating officer of the Gloucester Marine Genomics Institute (GMGI). A nonprofit enterprise, GMGI conducts cutting-edge marine biotechnology research and hosts an annual international forum, with the additional goal of expanding the regional economy. In her role, Bolzan will expand the institute’s biotech academy and commercialize the institute’s research. Previously, Bolzan served as director of career education at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, as well as a leadership coach at Harvard Business School. She began her career at JP Morgan, eventually leading her own startup company and taking on board roles with both academic institutions and entrepreneurial ventures. At Wesleyan, Bolzan majored in government.

CLASS OF 1992 | 2019 | ISSUE 1

Greetings and salutations from D.C. It’s day 28 of the shut down. Hopefully the counter will have stopped counting by the time you read this, we’re still part of NATO, Adam Berinsky has recreated political discourse on Facebook, and the Phillies signed Bryce Harper. There’s my short wish list and here’s what I know about our class.

Grant Brenner coauthored Relationship Sanity: Creating and Maintaining Healthy Relationships, released in October. The book is a sequel to his earlier book IRRELATIONSHIP: How We Use Dysfunctional Relationships to Hide from Intimacy that came out in 2015.

Jonathan Soros supports diversity at Wesleyan: Col. Bob Cassidy (U.S. Army) has been shaking things up on campus with the Retiring Military Office Teaching Fellowship that Jonathan created.

Carola McGiffert joined Whittle School & Studios as vice president for government stakeholder engagement, joining Sidra Smith, Nick Dirks ’72, Betsey Schmidt ’89, Alan Smith ’90, and Nila Ravi ’18. Whittle is creating the first global modern school serving pre-K through 12th graders and will ultimately have 30 campuses around the world. The first two campuses in D.C. and Shenzhen open in September with New York, London, Shanghai, Paris, and Mumbai not far behind.

James Wilton made a long-overdue return to Wesleyan in November during a business trip. James lives in Waxhaw, N.C., with Tracy, his wife of 20 years, and their three children, Jack, 18, Carley, 15, and Lola, 13. He is closing in on his four-year anniversary as a national account manager with Collabera.

Laura Ruderman was named CEO of the Technology Alliance, a statewide, nonprofit organization of leaders from Washington state’s technology-based businesses and research institutions. Technology Alliance is focused on the creation of high-wage jobs and economic prosperity. She writes, “Going into an office every day is a huge change after being a consultant of various types for the last 14 years, but I am loving it.”

Darcy Dennett finished a fun and quirky episode of This is Life with Lisa Ling on identical twins that will air in the fall. She worked with David Shadrack Smith’s company Part2Pictures on the project. She is trying to get her second independent feature called WILD: Of Wolves and Wildness off the ground.

Tembi Locke has a book being published by Simon and Schuster in May entitled From Scratch, A Memoir of Love, Sicily and Finding Home.

Susan Kleinman lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her two awesome kids, ages 14 and 9. In January, she celebrated the eighth anniversary as CEO of her consulting firm, Wallis Consulting LLC (skwallis.com). Her company provides fundraising guidance, coaching, and grant writing services to a wide array of nonprofits.

Last but not least, Simon Fulford was named executive director of Parrott Creek Child and Family Services, a nonprofit with 50 years of serving youth and families involved in the justice and welfare systems.

Adam Berinsky | berinsky@mit.edu 

Paul Coviello | coviellop01@alum.darden.edu

CLASS OF 1992 | 2018 | ISSUE 3

Greeting and salutations, Class of 1992. I begin these notes with some very sad news. Jim Kamm died suddenly on June 21. Many of our classmates wrote in to say how much they miss Jim, and we all do.

It’s just entering the fall months in Cambridge as I write this. Hope everyone had a great summer. I spent my summer vacation working at Facebook in Menlo Park, Calif., as a consultant on the newsfeed integrity team, working on undisclosable project, and eating lots of snacks. I spent a couple weeks of my time there staying with my undergrad advisors, Martha Crenshaw (who teaches at Stanford now) and Richard Boyd (who mainly golfs but takes time out to make a mean chili). It was great to see them.

While out west, I also saw Laura Hill and Marc Kuney ’91, as well as Sarah Tunik and her husband, Dan Oppenheimer ’89, who happened to be my frosh year biology TA. It was great catching up with everyone.

Also, on the West Coast is my old housemate, Simon Fulford. After a year of being employed by the State of Oregon, Simon realized that 26 years in the nonprofit sector was hard to shake. He was appointed executive director of Parrott Creek Child and Family Services in Oregon City, Ore., on Oct. 1.

Simon, Jonathan Pratt, and I had a fun weekend in Napa, Calif., in late June during my West Coast swing. Simon wrote, “The less said about that, the better!” Speaking of Jonathan, he’s back stateside after stints in Pakistan and China, working as the chief of staff to Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale.

Maurice Harris is living in Glenside, Pa., near Philly, working as associate director of affiliate support at Reconstructing Judaism, along with his wife Melissa Crabbe, and their children, Clarice (18) and Hunter (17). He is finishing up his third book, about a rabbi who lived close to 1,900 years ago named Joshua ben Hananiah and the ways in which he influenced Judaism.

Tamara O’Neil has entered a new phase of life, retiring from the Navy! Having moved in 2012 to Cabin John, Md., she took some time off to attend a women’s yoga and surf camp in Bali before accepting a job with the U.S. Postal Service as an ethics lawyer.

Teresa Van Hoy is now a professor of history at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas. This past March, she launched at St. Mary’s University and Crystal City, Texas, a “Year of Remembrance,” focusing press and public attention on German-American internment during WWII. You can learn more about it here at tpr.org.

Jonathan Liebson was excited to see Joe Romano on a recent visit to Chicago. Jonathan lives in Brooklyn and regularly sees John Melnick (and kids), Rich Benjamin ’93, and Matt Solomon ’94, who lives in D.C. His writing has recently appeared in The Washington Post Book World, the Texas Observer, and Chicago Review of Books.

Cati Coe has a new book coming out in 2019 with NYU press, The New American Servitude: Political Belonging Among African Immigrant Home Care Workers.

Chris Chesak consults in the travel industry and is a travel writer.

And in closing, Byron King has issued a declaration, “I challenge our classmates on the East Coast (everywhere, actually) to do better with updates and with reaching out between Reunions. Get to it!”

Hear, hear! Paul and I would love to get your news!

Adam Berinsky | berinsky@mit.edu 

Paul Coviello | coviellop01@alum.darden.edu

James C. Kamm ’92

James C. Kamm ’92 passed away on June 20, 2018. At Wesleyan, Kamm majored in theater and was a member for Alpha Delta Phi. He earned an MFA in acting from DePaul University. Most recently, he worked as a desktop support specialist at Wesleyan for 10 years. “Jim was well liked and respected by the faculty and staff that he served, and was highly regarded by his ITS colleagues for his deep knowledge of all things Apple and his attention to detail when it came to writing and editing documentation for ITS services,” said Dave Baird, vice president and chief information officer at Wesleyan said. “He will be missed by one and all.”

CLASS OF 1992 | 2018 | ISSUE 1

Welcome to the latest edition of class notes. We are always happy to hear from you!

First, big news about lots of life changes for my old housemate Simon Fulford. Simon is living in Portland, Ore., with his wife Clare and two of his three sons, Max, 10, and Alec, 6. His eldest son, Kieran, 15, is in the U.K. In September Simon joined the Oregon Youth Authority, the state’s juvenile justice agency, in a program and policy adviser role that covers organizational and leadership development along with the thorny issues of equity and employee engagement. Simon was appointed to the Restorative Justice Coalition of Oregon’s Coordinating Committee.

Another former housemate of mine, Darcy Dennett, was in the Sahara where she was filming a piece on meteorite hunters for National Geographic Explorer. She is next moving to a segment on the Future of Farming in the Netherlands.

In November, my family visited Ann Arbor and stayed with Alison Miller and her husband, Scott Roberts (my wife and I met through them in grad school over 20 years ago). They are both professors at our alma mater, the University of Michigan, and it was great to catch up with them and daughter Ella (just started high school) and son Wes (now in fourth grade and a basketball fanatic like his father).

Chadwick Canedy and his wife, Bona, welcomed their second son, Easton Haechan Canedy, on May 4, 2017. He was born in D.C., much to the enjoyment of his very jealous 2-year-old brother, Declan.

Andrew Draper remains in Prospect Heights and is working in Midtown East. In 2017, his son started middle school in Vermont and his daughter started high school near Albany, so between keeping up with them and with his parents on Cape Cod, he expects to be up and down the whole Northeast throughout 2018 and is on the lookout for Wesleyan meetups.

After 19 years in London, Claire (Weldin) McConnell moved back home to Seattle in August with her husband, Craig. She was sad to leave the job she loved at Arup but is working at McMillen Jacobs Associates doing almost exactly the same thing: managing the design for train stations. She finds Seattle’s light rail “dainty and petite” in comparison with London’s Crossrail, but is happy to be back stateside.

Also in Seattle, Liz Broussard is working at Pacific Medical Center in gastroenterology and specializes in fecal microbiota transplants (transferring poop from healthy donors into diseased colons of sick people) for clostridium difficile infection, and train fellows and medical residents from the University of Washington. Her husband, Kevin Hakimi, is a physical medicine and rehabilitation physician at the Seattle VA and they have twin daughters, Vivian and Chloe. They are 11, just got their junior black belts and are loving fifth grade. She sees Corey Casper for breakfast regularly and saw Scott Shapiro at a performance of Here Lies Love.

Johanna Stoberock lives in Walla Walla, writing and teaching at Whitman College. Her novel, Pigs, is forthcoming from Red Hen Press in 2019. Chris Chesak has a new job as managing director of Tracks & Trails, a tour operator offering self-drive RV tours in western national parks.

Kate Edwards is in the R&D department at Datacolor, where she makes instruments to measure the colors of paints and textiles. While she says it’s been fun learning about color science, she now takes longer to pick paint colors for her house in Pennington, N.J., where she lives with her husband, Nathan, and kids, Iris and Nicholas.

That’s all for now. Paul and I would to hear from you so please send your news!

Adam Berinsky | berinsky@mit.edu 

Paul Coviello | coviellop01@alum.darden.edu

CLASS OF 1992 | 2017 | ISSUE 3

Greetings and salutations from Washington, D.C., where nothing (and I mean nothing) is normal. I wrote that last January. Still true.

This is a short update—I’ll call it the post-Reunion issues blues. If you’re jonesing for more, send updates to Adam Berinsky for the next issue. Speaking of said Adam, he stopped doing push-ups during alumni events to appear on Full Frontal with Samantha Bee to once and for all address the controversy of whether he is a virgin. Hear his side of the story by searching Samantha Bee fake news or find it here.

Jennifer Blaine’s new solo show, The Vicissitudes of Travel, premiered in September in Philadelphia as part of FringeArts Festival. Jennifer plays 10 characters as they travel through a loved one’s brain surgery. She writes, “My brother survived brain surgery nine years ago and ever since I have wanted to pay tribute to this journey.”

Kevin Prufer has two new books out this year. The first is about the art of literary translation: Into English: Poems, Translations, Commentaries (from Graywolf Press). The second is a collection of his poetry called How He Loved Them (from Four Way Books). Kevin is the editor-at-large of Pleiades: A Journal of New Writing, co-curator of the Unsung Masters Series, and professor in the creative writing program at the University of Houston and the low-residency MFA at Lesley University.

After 13 years living and working as a rabbi in Eugene, Ore., Maurice Harris and his family moved to the Philadelphia area, where he’s begun work as associate director of affiliate support, Jewish Reconstructionist Communities. His third book, The (Book) of Joshua (Wipf & Stock), is expected in 2018. The book tells of the impact on the shape of Judaism of a rabbi, Joshua ben Hananiah, who lived about 1,900 years ago.

Andrew Springman moved to the Charlotte, N.C., area and works as a Web applications developer for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. His youngest son, Benjamin, was married in Sterling, Mass.

Karl Mergenthaler is active in Wesleyan events, including a summer sendoff for incoming students. He’s looking to connect with alumni passing through Southern Connecticut.

You’re now caught up. Hope to hear from you next issue.

Adam Berinsky | berinsky@mit.edu 

Paul Coviello | coviellop01@alum.darden.edu