CLASS OF 2019 | 2021–2022 | WINTER ISSUE
Hey everyone! Hope you all are continuing to stay safe and healthy. Here are some updates from our classmates:
Samantha Schreiber will be starting a school-clinical PsyD program at Pace University in the fall.
Josh Signore will begin a PhD program in chemistry in fall 2021 at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
Nikolas Ortega will be relocating to San Francisco in August 2021. He’s looking forward to experiencing the Bay Area and the rest of the American West Coast. Niko cannot wait to connect with other Wes folks out in SF! If you’re out there, don’t hesitate to reach out.
He also recently completed the Colorwave Fellowship, a program designed to help close the racial wealth gap in venture capital and the startup ecosystem—making the innovation economy more accessible to BIPOC.
Katie Tyner moved to D.C. in July for her new job as a fellow at the Cohen Group, a government relations advisory firm. She looks forward to reconnecting with fellow Cardinals who are in the area!
Zachary Obstfeld finished his first year of his master’s at the University of Chicago. He’s enjoyed working with faculty here, including Michael Kremer and Brian Williams. This past summer he worked for the World Bank and is planning a trip to Joshua Tree.
Amy Breitfeller and her pal Cara Bendich ‘19 stayed in Middletown after graduating. She stayed to work in the Wes Office of Admission as an assistant dean, and Cara worked with both Upward Bound Math-Science and GEARUP, two programs that provide extra academic and mentorship resources to high-poverty school districts and primarily serve low-income students throughout their time in middle and high school. Cara worked in both Middletown and Meriden.
Throughout their two years living in their home on Home Avenue, they have had an incredible array of truly authentic, warm, and caring roommates (including Meghan Jain, Breanna Cavanaugh, Mackenzie Mitchell ’20, Michelle Nivar ’20, Emily Moon ’21, and Clare Glickman ’21). The two years following graduation spent in this beautiful home had been filled with such incredible love, heartfelt laughter, and life-long friendships. Their time there has been unforgettable.
Cara and Amy are both heading off to NYC to become full-time educators, a dream they’ve had since working with Kindergarten Kickstart, a project that is part of the Cognitive Development Lab at Wes (Cara worked with Kickstart for three years, and Amy for a year during undergrad). This upcoming year, Cara will be a teacher of mathematics for 4th and 5th graders at the East Harlem School, and Amy will be a teacher of PE and Fitness for 4th-8th graders and the head coach of the girl’s lacrosse program at Trinity School.
And as for me, I am starting graduate school in the fall at the New York University Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service. There I will be studying public policy with a focus on inequality, race, and poverty.
Special thanks to everyone who reached out with their life updates. Keep an eye out for my next email about the next edition of the alumni magazine soon.