CLASS OF 2003 | 2017 | ISSUE 2
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