CLASS OF 2017 | 2024 | SPRING ISSUE
Erica Arensmand passed the bar exam and is now a full-blown lawyer! She started working at the Public Defender Service (PDS) for the District of Columbia in November and is loving it. She interned at PDS while she was a student at Wesleyan, which is what made her decide to go to law school in the first place. In her limited free time, she has taken up running and is thinking of doing a half marathon next fall. In D.C. she has been staying with Molly Muoio, who also graduated law school and passed the bar this year! Molly is now a litigator at one of the best and most prestigious law firms in the country. The two of them got a (real) Christmas tree for the apartment, which was particularly exciting because Molly’s wonderful boyfriend, Abe, who is also in law school—can you imagine an apartment full of lawyers?—has never decorated a real tree before! He was worried about fires, but Molly and Erica assured him that they would let him escape the apartment first if things went wrong.
The big news, no pun intended, is that Mark Otdelnov got a job at an auditing firm. So, he’s in a good spot with this. Their brother he told us about last time is doing everything he can to secure him an internship at a bank in the meantime. Things are good overall. Papa is happy he’s finally cutting on spending. “It wasn’t easy I must admit.” At the moment they are focused on studying for CFA Level 2. They took Level 1 this month and is waiting for results.
Kai Blatt married Tyler Harden ’18 at NYC City Hall. They tied the knot on the 10th anniversary of the night they met by Mamoun’s falafel truck. Tyler is now working as a software engineer at Google in NYC and making videos @tyler_the_snob on Instagram and TikTok. Kai is in their third year of a dual master’s in architecture and master’s in landscape architecture at Harvard Graduate School of Design.
Sara Swaminathan is finishing up their PhD at the University of Florida this year, focusing on community ecology of coral reefs. After they defend, they hope to continue conducting research with a government agency or nonprofit organization.
Carolyn Dundes finished their PhD in stem cell biology and regenerative medicine at Stanford this year and couldn’t have done it without their Wes family!
Abby Cunniff has been calling for Wesleyan to divest from companies that are complicit in human rights abuses in Palestine, as part of the long tradition of Wesleyan alumni and students advocating for divestment from South African apartheid, weapons manufacturers for the Iraq War, and fossil fuel companies. She hopes that all other interested alumni will sign on to the petition as well.
Tess Altman has been advocating for a ceasefire in Gaza, and recently signed the alumni petition demanding that Wesleyan divest from companies profiting off Israeli occupation and apartheid.