Tag: 2003

Alison Criscitiello, director of the Canadian Ice Core Lab, is leading several multi-disciplinary, multi-national ice coring initiatives, including an upcoming expedition to drill an ice core high on Mount Logan’s summit plateau (loganice.ca). Her daughter, Winter, just turned 1!

In August, Mark Forscher joined Bison Trails, the leading blockchain infrastructure provider, as head of brand and design. The company announced its $25.5 million Series A financing round and is one of the founding members of the Libra Association.

Ryan Garbalosa was named the Best Cardiologist for 2019 in the first annual Best of Clarendon Awards hosted by the county newspaper. The Sumter Item recognizes professionals in Clarendon county. Also, he was selected as one of the Top 20 under 40 young professionals in the Sumter-Clarendon-Lee tri-county area. He serves on the medical executive committee for Tuomey Hospital and as the medical director of the cardiac rehabilitation and echocardiography departments at McLeod Clarendon Hospital.

John Graham has expanded his high-end cultural tourism business to include Ethiopia! While completing his PhD, John has been leading tours in Georgia, Armenia, and Turkey since 2006. Details listed at johngrahamtours.com. He would love to have Wes alumni on the tours!

In September, Joey Wender, his wife, Lauren, and their 3-year-old son, Sam, welcomed Abby Wender into the world.

Tejas Desai befriended Zaheed Essack ’05 and Rashida Abuwala ’05 after meeting them at a mutual friend’s wedding in Brooklyn! He also hung out with Brett Carty ’04 for the first time in many years when he helped set up a play date with Ted and Laurie Quinn, Bayard Templeton, and their wonderful children on a trip to Philly! As for his books, in December 2019 The Brotherhood became a #1 bestseller on Amazon in two separate categories and briefly surpassed Crazy Rich Asians and Pachinko on the Asian-American bestseller list. The Brotherhood also won the Pencraft Award in the Fiction-General category and both it and its sequel, The Run and Hide, have continued to garner great reviews. He is going on another Southeast Asia trip in February and working on the final edits for his next book, The Dance Towards Death, scheduled to be released in the fall.

Tim Schwartz’s first book, A Public Service: Whistleblowing, Disclosure and Anonymity, was released by OR Books in January. Thomas Drake, a former NSA executive and whistleblower, described the book as providing “a practical roadmap when making that often life-altering choice of standing up and exposing abuse and misuse of power across all sectors of society.” The goal of this book is to help individuals expose unethical and illegal acts while limiting retaliation.

Stu Sherman was awarded a two-year grant to support his ongoing legal aid work for low-income seniors with diminished capacity. In March he announced his candidacy for the New York City Council in 2021. His district (33) covers north Brooklyn, downtown Brooklyn, Boerum Hill, and the East River waterfront.

Nezia Azmi formalized a “side hustle” and became executive director of Arts Focus Southeast Asia (artsfocus.org), a Honolulu-based nonprofit entity that promotes and fosters an appreciation of the arts of Southeast Asia through education, performance, preservation, collaboration, and innovation. She completed her first documentary film showcasing the unique Asian Theatre Program at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa; the film walks through the four-month process of rehearsals and training to produce a professional award-winning theatre production with a primarily student cast and crew and a core team of Balinese guest artists. Her “main hustle” remains as the lead for global engagement at the College of Education on the same campus. She and husband Paul Rausch never get tired of waking up to views Diamond Head and going in to work in beautiful Mānoa Valley every day.

Last October, after four years of development, Jamie Antonisse and his team at Sirvo Studios released their debut mobile game Guildlings on Apple Arcade. Jamie and his family are basking in the warm glow of positive reviews and bathing in a sea of customer support emails. They dream of taking a real vacation someday soon.

On a personal note, on Oct. 26, my husband and I welcomed our daughter, Zoe Madeline Gottlieb, to the world. My daughter and I share a birthday!

Amy Tannenbaum Gottlieb | atannenbaum@wesleyan.edu

After nearly a decade running an independent design practice, Mark Forscher joined Bison Trails—a leading blockchain infrastructure provider—as head of design in NYC.

Rachel Morris Bruce and her husband, Samuel Bruce, welcomed their second child in January, Aviva Miriam. Everyone is doing well.

Kirsten Yamaguchi is happily engaged to Jahna Berry and living in the San Francisco Bay area. Kirsten is animating at Pixar Animation Studios.

Alexander Yellen married Kelli McNeil, an LA-based writer with whom he has been sharing adventures for the better part of four years, in a ceremony at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 7. Among his groomsmen was fellow PsiU alumnus Matt Pierce. Also celebrating with them were Alex Brown, Jason Sax, Matt Gottlieb ’05, and Chris Connor ’04. Alex and his new bride are hard at work fundraising for their feature film collaboration, Daruma, a dark comedy starring a pair of lead actors with disabilities.

Tejas Desai’s new novel, The Run and Hide, was released on Sept. 16. An article in the Queens Courier praised The Brotherhood Chronicle trilogy as “timely and exciting” and a “must-read” that “will keep you guessing.” He will be on local TV and headlining various reading series in NYC to promote the book. He is also attempting to create a multicultural stories program at the Queens Public Library where he works as a supervising librarian. The third book of the trilogy, The Dance Towards Death, is tentatively scheduled to be released on Sept. 16, 2020.

The Elizabeth Dole Foundation has recently named Jonathan Selter as senior vice president of strategy and impact. In his role, he will work with the foundation to expand its reach of empowering military and veteran caregivers.

Amy Tannenbaum Gottlieb | atannenbaum@wesleyan.edu

Jamie Weiss-Yagoda is living with her family in Tarrytown, N.Y. Her little girls are 6 and nearly 3, and she’s working as a senior policy advisor for the International Rescue Committee.

Jason Pinter and his wife, Dana, welcomed their second daughter, Lyla Sage Pinter, on Nov. 14. Jason signed with literary agent, Amy Tannenbaum, who sold his new novel, The Broken Woman, to Thomas & Mercer/Amazon Publishing, for a January 2020 publication.

Newly minted entrepreneur Raquel Davis launched a weekly newsletter, Interstitial, which focuses on her life as a new business owner and black woman in America. The newsletter offers its readers a curated list of artists, creatives, businesses, and events from/by marginalized individuals and aims to reshape the media landscape for talent that is, at best, overlooked and at worst, completely ignored. Subscribe to the newsletter at linktr.ee/weareinterstitial and follow her on Instagram @weareinterstitial.

Heather Wieler Harrison lives in Montpelier, Vt., with her partner, Noah, and their 2-year-old son, Luca. She is a sixth-grade teacher and is on a mission to fill her classroom library with equity- and social justice-themed fiction, so please send her titles if you have suggestions.

Sophie Woolston is enjoying life in Seattle. She is busy as an infectious-disease doctor at Virginia Mason Medical Center and raising her 3-year-old twin daughters with her wife, Cait. They love living up the street from Regan Pro and family!

Morgan Stecher and Paul Feder welcomed their daughter, Corinna, in June. Corinna joins big brother Sebastian, 3.

Rikkia Hunter Ben Yehudah of New Haven, Conn., spent a lovely Thanksgiving with Dr. Sherry-Ann Brown while Sherry was taking a break from looking for new doctoring opportunities. Rikkia lives in New Haven with her three children. She’s setting up her private practice as an expressive arts therapist she will have two locations; one in New Haven and one in Waterbury. She works full-time at Turnbridge as a primary therapist for young adults in recovery from mental health and addiction disorders.

John Adler is living in Brooklyn with his wife, Katie, and they are expecting their third child in March. After 14 years in restaurants, John moved to Blue Apron, where he is the vice president of culinary.

John Behlmann still lives in NYC and will be performing on Broadway this spring in the new musical, Tootsie. He attended the wedding of Corina Tennant alongside Will Cushing, Betsy Fippinger, and Andrew Fippinger.

Tejas Desai visited Ted Quinn, Laurie Shaner, and Bayard Templeton last summer near Philadelphia and enjoyed getting to know their wonderful children, Elsie, Issie, and Henry! In September, after a successful GoFundMe campaign, he was able to release the second edition of his first novel, The Brotherhood. He is gearing up to publish The Run and Hide, the second book of The Brotherhood Chronicle Crime Trilogy, in September, and is headed to Thailand to revisit some of its settings in January.

Alexander Yellen completed a five-season run on the Syfy zombie series, Z Nation, by directing the series finale. He is working on a passion project about a dysfunctional family road-trip featuring actors with disabilities, alongside his partner, Kelli McNeil, to whom he recently became engaged.

Aaron Gilary lives in Alexandria and works for the Census Bureau, providing methodological guidance for several surveys related to education. In July, he and his wife, Jennifer Styles, and older daughter, Nora, welcomed a baby girl, Tess Elly Gilary.

Coe Will, hubby Craig, and big brother Owen welcomed Luca Sinclair Hoeksema to the family on May 10. Coe shifted to digital media consulting for Dattner Architects and various related clients in order to also manage the absurd logistics of raising kids in Brooklyn. She maintains perspective and her sense of humor by following other NYC Wes parents on Instagram.

Chris Watters and Jill Green ’02 had a baby! They welcomed little Hyla into the world last May, and now all she wants to do is walk and crawl even though she can’t do either. Jill runs the prop shop at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre and Chris is working in communications at Ubisoft. They are enjoying life in South Berkeley and spending time with the increasing number of Wes friends living nearby.

Amy Tannenbaum Gottlieb | atannenbaum@wesleyan.edu

Lauren Kirchner and Evan Simko-Bednarski ’07 welcomed a son, Emmett Beatty Kirchner-Bednarski, in January. Lauren and Evan are both reporters in New York.

Jesse Soursourian is in post-production for a film about women in Nagorno Karabakh who clear land mines. He is codirecting the short film which will go out to festivals next year.

Tim Harrington is a corporate counsel at Google and begins the Great Divide Mountain Bike Ride in August. His wife, Jessica, has a new position at Gigamon. They have two children, Lius, 6, and Josie, 4.

Kate Reder Sheikh and her husband, Nadeem, welcomed baby Dominic on Oct. 18, 2017. He has already enjoyed hanging out with Ari Wolfe and hopes to meet more of his mom’s Wesleyan friends soon.

2018 marks nine years since Dan Jones left the East Coast for sunny Colorado. He wishes he could’ve made it to the Reunion but feels fortunate that he got to hang out and catch up with Ranae Desouza when she was in Denver last year.

Ryan Garbalosa is settling into his cardiology practice in South Carolina and has served as the president of the county medical society for 2018. He was elected as the chair of the Young Physicians Section of the South Carolina Medical Association. A special trip back to Wes was made with Greg Ferrucci for Reunion and some time was made for a nostalgic drink at Eli Cannon’s downtown with Arnab Bhattasali, Glen Lindeke, and Ayalur Krishnan PhD’05.

After teaching in the music department at Yale for one year, John Graham is back living in Tbilisi, Georgia, and running an academic-cultural travel company that was recently written up in the New York Times travel section. He says, “Please come visit Georgia, Armenia, and Turkey with johngrahamtours.com!”

In personal news, I married David Gottlieb on Dec. 16 at one of our favorite Manhattan restaurants, Lafayette. The Class of ’03 was well-represented by: Margaret Haglund, Leslie Burns, Annie Shaw, and Pauline Wyrembak.

Amy Tannenbaum Gottlieb | atannenbaum@wesleyan.edu

Asher Brown created High Cuisine, a cooking competition show for Verizon/go90 where professional chefs get stoned and then compete to create amazing plant-based dishes. Season One began airing in November and runs through the end of February. Free to watch at go90.com.

In April, Erin Malone and partner Brian Guy, welcomed Josephine Marie into the world. As a new mom, Erin continues to build her business, Momo’s Market, in the Old North End neighborhood of Burlington. Visitors are always welcomed!

Anna Seastrand started as assistant professor of art history at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities in the fall. She’d love to meet other Wes alumni in the area!

Kate Reder Sheikh and her husband, Nadeem, welcomed their son Dominic in October. They returned to San Francisco after living in Singapore and London.

Noah and Julia Bruckner Newman are happy to announce the arrival of their second daughter, Chloe Sofia, in December, joining big sister Hannah. Noah is still working at Pixar and Julia is an ob-gyn at Kaiser.

Michael Lewis married David Scott in Lewes, Del., on Sept. 30. Kate Nattrass, Robert Zeliger, Zoe Levy, Shana Simmons, Matt Fox, and Jilian Vallade were in attendance. Michael and David met almost 10 years ago in Miami, where both were on extended business trips, and they started dating in 2015.

Tejas Desai is preparing to release his international crime trilogy The Brotherhood Chronicle. You can visit his website tejas-desai.com for up-to-date information.

George Obulutsa is at Reuters News in Nairobi. During 2017, he managed to meet with Ben Schelling ’04 and Devyani Srinivasan ’01 during the year.

On Oct. 5, Matt Kushner and Lauren Edgar Kushner (Brown ’04) welcomed their second child, Theresa Eve. At three months, Tessa is thriving, smiling, and just starting to laugh. “Big sister Marian is as in love with her as we are.” In the working world, Matt is still at Method Studios in Chelsea, where he just finished working on the visual effects for Justin Timberlake’s newest music video, “Filthy.” Lauren is still at the American Museum of Natural History, modernizing their permanent exhibits with the use of visual effects and AR/VR technology.

Gabriela Herman’s seven-year photo project, The Kids: The Children of LGBTQ Parents in the USA, was released last fall. For the book she photographed and interviewed 100 subjects about their experiences having an LGBTQ parent.

Last summer, Matt Lerner and his wife, Chelsea Finn, welcomed their second child, Sawyer, into the world. His older brother, Everett, is 4-years-old, and loves singing “Rock-a-bye Baby” to his little brother when he cries; Sawyer seems to like this, too. Matt is an assistant professor of psychology, psychiatry, and pediatrics in the clinical psychology program at Stony Brook University, where he runs an autism research program studying treatments for kids and teens with social challenges.

Arcelie Reyes and Evan Newell ’02 started 2018 with a transatlantic crossing in early January, boarding the Queen Mary 2 during the Northeast “bomb cyclone.” Arcelie is impressed at how quickly all three of their children got their sea legs.

Ted Quinn and Laurie Shaner Quinn welcomed their second child, Henry Kieran Quinn, on Dec. 25. Elsie, Henry’s 3-year-old sister, now believes that Santa Claus is capable of bringing her anything since she got the baby brother that she started asking him for it this past spring.

Sarah Erlinder still lives in Flagstaff, Ariz., where she continues to work as a public defender. Sarah and her husband, Charlie, welcomed baby Zeke to the family this fall. He and big brother Caleb, age 3, keep their parents on their toes.

On Feb. 22, Jesse Pearlman Karlsberg and his wife, Lauren, welcomed their daughter, Lucey Rose. They bought a house in Decatur and Jesse works as senior digital scholarship strategist at the Emory University Center for Digital Scholarship.

Amy Tannenbaum | atannenbaum@wesleyan.edu

Mayuran Tiruchelvam produced the documentary The Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin—following the San Francisco author’s journey from a conservative son of the Old South to gay rights’ pioneer. Winner of the Audience Award at the SXSW Film Festival, Untold Tales premiered theatrically in New York and San Francisco in September, and will broadcast nationally on PBS Independent Lens on January 1.

Alison Plenge and Colin Aitken have made the happy relocation from D.C. to Poughkeepsie, N.Y., where Colin is an assistant professor in the biology department at Vassar. Alison works remotely as an attorney in the international corporate group of Norton Rose Fulbright. They are happy to be closer to more Wes friends in the New York region and to have escaped the craziness of D.C. life with their two kids, Nora (3.5) and Lucas (15 months).

Caitlin Snow Clark is a program director for the Worthington Scholars program in Rockland, Maine. The program supports local students with scholarships, mentoring, and professional development opportunities as they pursue two- and four-year degrees in Maine.

Coe Will Hoeksema ended her 10-year stint at FXFOWLE Architects (where she briefly shared many high fives with Steve Scribner ’02) to become the marketing manager for WE Design, a small, woman-owned landscape architecture firm in Brooklyn with a focus on green infrastructure design. She lives south of Prospect Park with her husband and exceptionally charming 2-year-old son, Owen Calder.

In April, Arturo Vidich and wife Julia welcomed their second child, Juniper Auberon. Their son, Ryder Metteya, is almost 4 and is a great big brother. For the last three years, Arturo has been at work on his first novel, a Soviet-era sci-fi fantasy story which was awarded a project grant by Creative Capital. Last year he and his family took a road trip to northern New Mexico for a six-week artist residency. They now reside in BedStuy, Brooklyn.

Katie Nordine is the executive assistant to Leonard C. Goodman, an attorney and philanthropist in Chicago focused on issues related to social justice, reforming the criminal justice system, and supporting workers’ rights. She is enjoying living in Evanston with her two crazy kids, Nils and Valley, her husband, Dave, and their fluffy dog, Kashyyyk. She is thrilled that her longtime Wes buddy, Jacob Goldsmith and wife Rachel, son Ben, and pup Penny, are now just a few blocks away.

Three of the five former residents of 66 Home reunited over brunch in Boston with their families—Andrea Wilson McCoy, Julia Marcus, and Cara Herbitter. Cara completed her master’s in clinical psychology en route to pursuing her doctorate at UMass Boston. This fall, Andrea started a new position as the director of the theater program at Medfield High School.

Ricardo Watson and his family are expecting their second child, another boy, at the end of November. The Watson family spent a week in L.A. with Bobby Joe Clinkscales and his family.

Glen Lindeke was married to Jinwen Guo on February 7, and their daughter, Lotus, was born on June 6. They live in Medford, Mass., and both work as chemists in the pharmaceutical industry. They have enjoyed visits from friends and family including godfather Justin Conroy, Arnab Bhattasali, and Ku Yoo ’00.

Amy Tannenbaum | atannenbaum@wesleyan.edu

Jill Benson Gustafson graduated with her master’s degree in nursing and is a certified nurse midwife. She also has a 2-year-old son and lives with her husband, Brett, in Asheville, N.C.

On February 22, Jesse P. Karlsberg and his wife, Lauren Bock, welcomed their first child, Lucey Rose Karlsberg, into the world. The family is living in Atlanta, where Jesse accepted a full-time position back in September as senior digital scholarship strategist at the Emory Center for Digital Scholarship. Jesse edits Sounding Spirit, a series of digital critical editions of vernacular sacred American music published by the University of North Carolina Press, and is managing editor of Atlanta Studies, a digital journal on the Atlanta metropolitan region.

Joanne Alcantara is the executive director for API Chaya, a nonprofit organization working to end violence. They provide direct services to Asian, South Asian, and Pacific Islander survivors of domestic and sexual violence, and human trafficking survivors from all communities.

Leanne Crowley is living in Los Angeles with her husband, Josh, and 2-¹/₂ -year-old daughter, Finley. She is a post-production supervisor, most recently on The History of Comedy, a documentary series for CNN, airing this summer.

Rachel Wallis has spent the last two years organizing Gone But Not Forgotten, a community memorial quilt for individuals killed by the Chicago Police. Three panels of the quilt are on exhibit this summer at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum in conjunction with the exhibition, State of Incarceration.

After teaching last year in the Yale Music Department as a lecturer in ethnomusicology, John A. Graham is back in Tbilisi with his wife and two kids, working on turning his dissertation on Georgian traditional polyphony into a book. He is running a niche cultural tours business called johngrahamtours.com and welcomes all Wes alumni to come explore the Caucasus region!

After over four years as an assistant clerk magistrate, Samantha Gillombardo Larson is an attorney at a law firm that specializes in elder care and financial planning for people with special needs. Her husband, Brian, is a Doctor of Physical Therapy student at Massachusetts General Hospital, and her son, Myles, starts kindergarten in the fall. Her daughter, Ruby, age 2-¹/₂, is crushed that she can’t ride the school bus, too. In January, Sam and Emily Teitsworth traveled to Barbados, and their families will reunite in Aspen, Colo., for Emily’s sister’s wedding in September.

Jesse Soursourian is in production for a documentary about a team of women in Nagorno-Karabakh who work to clear the country of land mines left over from their war of independence.

Julia Marcus moved to the Boston area to be closer to her husband Benny’s family. She’s doing infectious disease research as an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, navigating the wonderful chaos of a new baby (Lucy) and a toddler (Asa), and reconnecting with freshman-year roommate Cara Herbitter.

Caroline Knox shared that 8 Warren ladies are expanding their brood. Sarah Snyder welcomed Hannah Autumn Snyder in 2016 and Jensen Knox Lindow arrived in 2017.

Matt Kushner and Lauren Kushner (Brown ’04) are expecting their second child, a girl, in October. Their first, Marian, is almost 2 and is keeping them very busy. Matt is coming up on three years working at Method Studios in Chelsea as a VFX technical director, and Lauren is working as a 3D generalist at AMNH.

Rachel (Morris) Bruce and her husband, Sam, welcomed their daughter, Leah Sivan Bruce to the world on March 6.

Emily Teitsworth has been living in the Bay Area on and off since 2004, working to advance girls’ rights globally. She is the executive director of GirlVentures, and invites Wes alumni to drop by the Women’s Building in San Francisco to connect.

Amy Tannenbaum | atannenbaum@wesleyan.edu

Alison Criscitiello, back from the Indian Himalaya, is now director of Canada’s national ice core lab, based at University of Alberta.

After completing his M.F.A. in filmmaking from Columbia University, Jesse Soursourian will travel to Nagorno-Karabakh this spring to direct a documentary about an all-women team of land-mine-removal specialists.

Katie Nordine has taken on new challenges working in communications for Baker Demonstration School in Wilmette, Ill. She also runs her own small event planning business, Nordine Events, and dabbles in teaching yoga, having received her 200-Hour Yoga Alliance Teaching Certificate last year. She enjoys binge-watching and binge-reading (which with her two children, Nils Heltibrand and Vallely Nordine, around really means reading a page or two of a book and, at most, one whole episode of a show). She and her husband, Dave Heltibrand, live in Evanston and look forward to longer stretches of uninterrupted silence.

Matt Sienkiewic ’03 explores America’s efforts to employ “soft-psy” media to generate pro-American sentiment in the Middle East in The Other Air Force: U.S. Efforts to Reshape Middle Eastern Media since 9/11 (Rutgers University Press).

Jeremy Cluchey was elected to the Select Board in his town of Bowdoinham, Maine, where he lives with his wife, Sally, and kids, Rose and Fred. He works as communications director at Maine Audubon, a wildlife conservation group.

Rikkia Ben Yehudah, a long time resident of New Haven, Conn., is the founder of Xpressive Arts Creative Solutions for Everyday Living. She is an expressive arts therapist and consultant, as well as a wife and mommy. She keeps in contact with longtime Wesleyan friend Sherry-Ann Brown, a cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic, and Chaya Braxton ’02, a branding and marketing consultant who helps her with the business. Connect with Rikkia if you are in New Haven.

Alison Plenge, Colin Aitken, and their daughter, Nora, were excited to welcome Lucas into their family on June 2. Nora is a great big sister, and Alison and Colin are happy to be the parents of two wonderful little kids, despite being completely exhausted. In July, the family will pack up and move from D.C. to Poughkeepsie, N.Y., where Colin is joining the faculty of the biology department at Vassar. Needless to say, the timing of getting out of D.C. couldn’t be better, and everyone is looking forward to being closer to friends in the NYC region!

George Obulutsa is still going strong and growing grey knee hairs working for Reuters News in Nairobi. He had the pleasure of meeting with Sunho Hwang ’05 when he visited Kenya in July.

Jesse P. Karlsberg and his wife, Lauren Bock, are living in Atlanta and expecting their first child in February. After a year as a postdoctoral fellow, Jesse accepted a new job as senior digital scholarship strategist at the Emory University Center for Digital Scholarship where he oversees the center’s project process and edits Sounding Spirit (soundingspirit.org), a series of digital critical editions of the American southern sacred music diaspora using a new platform developed at the center. Jesse also manages Atlanta Studies (atlantastudies.org), a multi-modal scholarly magazine on the Atlanta metropolitan region.

Pete Harvey is taking a sabbatical in 2017 to travel and would love to meet any Wes grads living in Nepal, Vietnam, Laos, Uzbekistan, Jordan, Israel, Egypt, Norway, Sweden, or Iceland. Say hi at peteharvey@gmail.com. Advice and tips very welcome.

Arcelie Reyes and Evan Newell ’02 recently moved to Evan’s hometown in Vermont. Sledding and snowboarding down the driveway with the kids (Kingston, 7, Phoenix, 5, and Cassius, 1) is their current favorite pastime.

Roberta Pereira is currently the producing director of The Playwrights Realm, an off-Broadway theater company dedicated to early-career playwrights. Their production of Sarah DeLappe’s The Wolves recently completed two sold-out runs and was lauded by Forbes as “a milestone for women in entertainment.” and made it on The New York Times list of the Best Theater of 2016.

Amra Turalic and her husband, Jimmy Maynard, had a little girl in July. Her name is Marilyn Zada, and she is a happy little baby who likes to explore NYC, listen to songs and stories, communicate, and smile. She brings her family so much joy.

Meredith Barrett and Aaron Stoertz have an 18-month-old daughter, Winslow Elizabeth Stoertz (Wes ’37). She enjoys chalking with offspring from Wes alums in the Bay Area.

Amy Tannenbaum | atannenbaum@wesleyan.edu

Congratulations to Michael Lewis, who recently got engaged to David Scott.

In March, Jacob A. Bennett and his wife, Charlotte, welcomed baby Eloise into the world, just a couple of months before Charlotte completed studies in a speech-language pathology master’s program. They then moved from Philadelphia to the University of New Hampshire’s education PhD program, where Jacob accepted a role as a graduate assistant, concentrating on higher education policy. Charlotte is now a speech pathologist; Jacob is completing the transition from English professor to education student; and Eloise is cutting teeth and starting to crawl.

Alison Criscitiello, who was awarded the Mugs Stump Award for alpinism this year, is headed this fall to the Garhwal region of the Indian Himalaya to attempt a first ascent on Brahmasar II.

Joey Wender and his wife, Lauren, welcomed their first child, Sam, into the world on Aug 11.

Anna Christensen and husband Gabe welcomed their first child, Maya, in April.

Gabriela Herman and her husband, Tyson Evans, welcomed their first child, Emilia, on June 30 at the Martha’s Vineyard hospital. All enjoyed a memorable summer on-island before heading back home to Brooklyn.

Juliet Werner directed her first feature documentary, The Laughter Life. The film looks at a group of young Mormon comedians with their own sketch comedy TV show. It premiered at the Middlebury New Filmmakers Film Festival, co-founded by Lloyd Komesar ’74, P’07.

Amy Tannenbaum | atannenbaum@wesleyan.edu

Noah and Julia Bruckner Newman welcomed their daughter, Hannah Adele Newman, into the world on May 23rd. She couldn’t have arrived at a better time—Julia just finished her OB/GYN residency program and Noah just wrapped up four years working on Pixar’s summer release, Finding Dory.

Anna Christensen and her husband, Gabe, welcomed their first baby, Maya Judith, on April 10.

John A. Graham defended his dissertation at Princeton University and is graduating in May, 2016. This year, he taught his first graduate course at Yale University, and next year will be back in Tbilisi, Georgia, working on his book and leading wine, music, and culture tours (georgianchant.org/tours). The family welcomed another child, Sebastian, in February.

AMY TANNENBAUM | atannenbaum@wesleyan.edu