CLASS OF 2002 | 2024 | SUMMER ISSUE
Happy summer 2024 everyone! Onto the notes!
Congratulations to Sarabeth Broder-Fingert for her recent marriage to Melissa Courtemanche ’03. Sarabeth is the vice chair for clinical research in pediatrics and the associate director for research at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center at the UMass Chan Medical School.
Ben Goldstein was promoted to professor of biostatistics and bioinformatics at Duke University. He also serves as the director of data science for Duke AI Health and the associate chief data scientist for the Duke University Health System. He’s enjoying his 10th year in Durham with his wife, Cheng, and sons, Malcolm (10) and Noah (6). He gets excited when he sees the stray Wesleyan bumper sticker or baseball hat!
Miles Gerson relocated to Boston with his wife, Claire, at the height of COVID in August 2020 for his new role with Takeda Ventures, the strategic investment arm of Takeda Pharmaceuticals. This March he was promoted to global head and president of Takeda Ventures, managing the investment team and advising on strategic transactions.
Miles and Claire are loving Boston life, particularly because they get to spend more time with their many East Coast friends, including Wes alums Camden Fisher ’01, Jon Gates, and Kelly Knee PhD ’07, who all attended their COVID-delayed wedding celebrations in Colorado in 2022—both Camden and Jon graciously stood as groomsmen in the wedding party.
After graduating in 2002, Sallome Hralima moved to NYC for grad school and never left. She writes, “Miraculously (no really it was a lot of hard work, inheritance, and prayer), after 21 years in New York, my husband and I were able to purchase a home in Brooklyn. I had 15-plus years in youth development and social entrepreneurship before taking the leap into filmmaking. Since 2018 I have been producing events and short films with my freshman X-House roommate, Krysten Hayes. I have been working on a number of film/television projects with Umi NiiLampti ’99 and Markell Parker ’98. A documentary I co-produced, It Was All a Dream, premiered in the Tribeca Film Festival June 2024 in New York City. Here’s to career changes in your 40s!”
And Paul Smaldino wrote a book—Modeling Social Behavior: Mathematical and Agent-Based Models of Social Dynamics and Cultural Evolution—which is a comprehensive introduction to mathematical and agent-based modeling of social behavior. You can order a copy from Princeton University Press.
As for myself, I was recently an executive producer of Ninety-Five Senses, an animated short film directed by the Napoleon Dynamite duo Jared and Jerusha Hess, which was nominated for an Oscar for Best Animated Short. I also produced a series with the Olympics—Playing Fields—which not only won a Webby Award but also has been nominated for a Sports Emmy. Additionally, another film I produced about the tragic death of Indy car driver Dan Wheldon and the legacy he left for his sons—The Lionheart—recently premiered on HBO. I also have two films at festivals currently: Diane Warren: Relentless,about the Oscar-nominated songwriter that premiered at SXSW, and Bad Actor, a true-con doc about a $650 million Hollywood Ponzi scheme that premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in June. Lastly, I executive produced a true- crime series—Sasha Reid and the Midnight Order—coming to Hulu this summer, about a group of extraordinary women who use data to solve serial predation patterns amongst missing and murdered women.
We were light on notes, so please keep the updates coming!