CLASS OF 2003 | 2014 | ISSUE 2
Julie Stankiewicz and Ben Teaford live together in their Manchester, Conn., home with their two cats, Vespurr and Lovebug. Julie has enjoyed working with Our Companions Animal Rescue as a cat adoption specialist and recently became a member of their magazine editorial staff. Ben has been working at ESPN for the past eight years in their digital media department. Julie and Ben are happy to announce that they are engaged and are planning to get married at the Wesleyan Chapel this coming fall.
Gabriela Herman is engaged to Tyson Evans, an editor at the New York Times, and will be getting married this June on Martha’s Vineyard. She continues to work as a freelance photographer in NYC shooting for publications such as Travel & Leisure, Martha Stewart Living, and Cosmopolitan.
Alison Plenge and Colin Aitken are the proud parents of Nora Brian Aitken, who unexpectedly made her arrival 10 weeks early on Feb. 23, 2014. After almost six weeks in the NICU, Nora is doing beautifully and came home in early April. They can’t wait to put her in her first Wes onesie!
M. Bob Kao is a visiting professor at Henan University Law School in Kaifeng, China, where he teaches American law. He is starting his PhD research on marine insurance law at Queen Mary, University of London in the fall.
Sandy Batista and Gabby Carson are married and live in NYC where Gabby works as a clinical psychologist at Bellevue Hospital and Sandy as deputy chief investigator at the Manhattan district attorney’s office. They are the proud parents of Ayla and Callen.
Tom Rabstenek and Sara Bremen Rabstenek ’05 welcomed their daughter, Dorothy, on Nov. 29. The whole family is doing great in sunny L.A.
Mayuran Tiruchelvam’s documentary film, To Be Takei, made its world premiere at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. A portrait of Star Trek actor and civil rights activist George Takei’s journey from WWII Japanese American internment camps to the daily Facebook feeds of over six million fans, To Be Takei will be released theatrically by Starz in August. Over the course of a busy year, Mayuran co-produced The Mend, co-starring twins Todd Stone ’05 and Adam Stone ’05, which premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival in March. The Village Voice recently called Girl is in Trouble, a film Mayuran co-wrote with director Julius Onah ’04 a “a standout” of BAM’s New Voices in Black Cinema series.
At the end of 2013, Matt Meyersohn left the Celtics after eight years of running the community relations department. Starting in the new year, Matt joined the U.S. Fund for UNICEF as senior director of sports partnerships. He’s in charge of working with American sports leagues, teams and athletes to raise awareness and funds for UNICEF’s international work. Matt is married to Nina, who is a radiology resident at Mass General Hospital. He’s addicted to golf and lives in Cambridge.
Matt Lerner and his wife, Chelsea, are thrilled to announce the birth of their son, Everett Finn-Lerner, on Dec. 22nd. Everett has already met (and charmed) many of his parents’ Wesleyan friends and is excited to meet many more!
Alison Criscitiello has finished her PhD at MIT, and moved to Canmore, Canada, for epic backyard skiing and climbing—and a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Calgary.
Johanna Russ and Rebecca Cohen moved with their daughter, Iris, from Detroit to Chicago. Jo is working for the Chicago Public Library’s Special Collections Division, and Rebecca is working for a consumer protection law firm.
George Obulutsa is still in Nairobi, working as a correspondent for Reuters News.
Divya Gupta has moved back to Southern California with her expanded family. She welcomed her second daughter, Niyati, in November, who joins big sister, Jahnavi, who will be starting kindergarten in the fall.
AMY TANNENBAUM |atannenbaum@wesleyan.edu