Author: Caroline Liu '18

Congrats, class of 2014!!! I still cannot believe how fast these amazing four years flew by. Do not be afraid, though! This space will serve as a place where you will find your class notes in upcoming issues and you will thus be updated on what the class of 2014 is up to. I will be in touch when it is time to request your submissions. Until then, have a rocking summer and GO WES!

Love,

Mary diaz | mdiaz@wesleyan.edu

With the arrival of spring (after what seemed like a perpetual winter) comes the epiphany that it has been almost a year since my fellow classmates and I graduated from Wesleyan. It’s hard to believe how quickly time has flown by! While some of us are settling into the daily routines of corporate life, others are embracing the return to graduate school, transitioning jobs from one field to another, or simply embarking on new adventures around the world.

Ex-Wesleying editor Zach Schonfeld recently left his fellowship at The Wire to take a job at Newsweek, where he reports on many topics, some of which include Wesleyan. In March, one of his tweets was linked in a post on Gawker. He is enjoying Brooklyn, but occasionally misses Olin 3A. Danielle Craig writes in from Manhattan, where she is working as a paralegal at the U.S. Attorney’s Office. She lives with fellow Wes ’13er, Lily Kaplan, in an apartment that is only moderately decked out in red and black. She is learning an enormous amount about the criminal justice system and federal prosecution, and law school or a master’s in public policy is (somewhere) on the horizon. In her free time she plays squash in an adult league with college teammate Grace Zimmerman and has started to volunteer at an animal shelter in Chinatown. She still hasn’t eaten at every restaurant in New York City, but she’s certainly trying. Also in NYC is Miriam Kwietniewska who works in child welfare crisis management at a foster care agency in Queens called Forestdale Inc. While it is mentally and emotionally challenging, the life and work experience has been invaluable. When she is not working, Miriam is combining her passion for dance and social change. She started movement workshops at the agency for birth parents and their children in order to help them through the trauma of being in the foster care system. They are partnering with the Gibney Dance Company to start the workshops this July.

Singing sensation Emma Daniels writes in from the nation’s capital, and is currently working in the Latin American and Caribbean division of an NGO that promotes democracy and international governance. She also moonlights as a wedding singer—those hoping to crash a wedding in the DC area, please contact her! Roomies Evan Baum, Barbaralynn Moseman, and Hannah Reuman are living together happily in New Haven. Barbaralynn is doing clinical research in Alzheimer’s disease, Hannah is doing clinical research in autism spectrum disorders, and Evan is working for a private material sciences company. After work, they make sure to cuddle and reminisce about Wesleyan memories. Kelsey Muller moved to Bozeman, Mont., last summer to enjoy a year off from school. There, she works in a lab, skis as much as possible, and loves training her new border collie puppy. She is deciding which grad school to attend next year to get her master’s in biomedical engineering—possibly USC where she could hang out with her good friend and fellow ’13 grad Becca Koppel. Suat Kilic writes in with big news of tying the knot with Sarah Moustafa ’11! He is in his first year at Rutgers-New Jersey Medical School and Sarah will be starting at the same school in the fall.

In January, Evan Okun performed a solo show at the NYC Bowery Poetry Club alongside other Wesleyan students and alumni (Lily Myers ’15, Mel Hsu ’13, Sam Friedman, Nate Mondschein ’12, and more). The event was such a success that the venue offered him a follow-up show in June. These performances build on his work with Circles & Ciphers, a restorative justice organization in Chicago that uses hip-hop to engage young men (court-and-gang- involved) in critical discourse. Budding author Kristen Salustro just published her sci-fi novel, Chasing Shadows, on amazon.com in February. This has been a huge project for her for several years now, and it is both terrifying and exhilarating to finally have made the book live. She is already working on the sequel to Chasing Shadows, which was the first installment of a trilogy. In her spare time, Kelsey participates as a writer in a project called Story Shift, where readers get to vote on a choice presented at the end of each story’s installment and then the writer develops the next chapter from there. Evan Carmi also just published a new e-book on internships. Since graduating, he has moved to Portland, Ore., where he works remotely as a software engineer for Brewster, a NYC tech startup.

On the other side of the world, Alex Lough is teaching English and music in Thailand. One of his pieces was selected by the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States to be featured on the album SEAMUS Electro-Acoustic Miniatures 2013: Negative Space. The title of the piece is “What’s Left Behind” and the album is available on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, etc. Alex plans to move to Miami in August to begin his master’s in music technology at Florida International University. Janet Cushey moved to Seoul, South Korea, after graduation, where she teaches ESL at an after-school academy called Chungdahm Institute. She has also been volunteering with Liberty in North Korea’s English tutor and culture exchange program, working with a North Korean refugee in one-on-one sessions on a weekly basis. Tom Lee is leaving his job in London and moving back across the pond to oversee the mid-season harvest of both organic wildflower honey and of course artisanal-grade beeswax at Wakefield Apiaries in Deer River, N.Y. By the sound of things it should be a big year, as forecasts show that harvests should be up by about 3 to 5 percent.

Anwar Batte notes that postgrad life has been filled with viral content aggregation, streamlined integrated deliverables, and maximizing shareable content. Here’s to synergistic, agile disruptions and Total Information Awareness in 2014!

As always, thanks for writing and best wishes to all my fellow 2013ers! Anyone who is around the San Francisco area, please get in touch!

Laura Yim | Lyim@wesleyan.edu

I have been fortunate to run into many of you over the past year and always can count on Facebook and Instagram (thanks, Zuckerberg) for even more updates. After connecting with a few folks, I can happily report it is certainly an exciting time! For many of you, your careers are taking off and you are thriving with new responsibilities. Moving up in your respective companies, you are destined to succeed in your positions. Others have taken the time to finally figure out what they want to do (I throw myself into this category). While it may have been a bumpy road, it has been an incredible adventure. I hope you also feel this way.

Continuing on their adventure, Alexa Narzikul and Raghu Appasani will begin medical school this fall. Raghu has been working full-time on The MINDS Foundation both in Boston and in India. Alexa has been doing research and is excited to stay in Philadelphia at Jefferson Medical College.

Cella Jones has moved her adventure back to the East Coast. She has just completed her two years in Mumbai and will be continuing to improve the lives of others by working with an alternative energy company in Troy, N.Y.

Rebecca Snelling left her job in Hartford last November and moved to Boston to continue her work in environmental consulting with a new Boston-based company. She hopes to jumpstart G&T (EES slang for Gin & Tectonics) Nights. Rebecca wants to let all Beantown natives, other EES alums, local rock-lovers, or beer-loving individuals from near or far know that they are cordially welcomed to join in the festivities!

Marjorie Romeyn-Sanabria is in DC interning at The American Conservative. She just covered CPAC alongside Mytheos Holt ’10. Marjorie said, “I really love it here; it’s full of great Wes peeps but is also a wonderful way to meet new people.” In June Marjorie is starting a master’s program in international studies at Concordia University in Irvine. After a summer semester, she is hoping to go to Kunming, China, where she’ll be teaching college-level English and working on a thesis. Marjorie sends love to all her Wes classmates!

As for me, I have just completed my second, and final, year in Teach for America. In June I will have completed my master’s and I plan on continuing my adventure in New York, for now.

Wishing all the class of 2012 the very best in all their adventures this year and always.

Daisey Perez | deperez@wesleyan.edu

Thanks for the updates this round. Take a look at what our class is up to!

Terrance Agbi, who is pursuing a master’s degree at the NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering, just got featured in NYU’s student spotlight. Check out the article at engineering.nyu.edu/news/2014/02/06/student-spotlight.

Also in New York is Josh Smith. Josh is living in Brooklyn and making a massive amount of music with an all-star team of friends and collaborators. For the past two years, he has also been secretly posing as Michael Rosen in order to write silly updates on his own behavior for the Wesleyan magazine. He has been having a great time doing this and he sincerely hopes no one finds out.

Alex Bean recently relocated from working in the advancement office at the Windward School in Los Angeles to the Dublin School, a small private school deep in the boonies of New Hampshire near the Keene area. She is serving as the director of annual giving, an advisor, and a dorm parent! Alex is hoping to make it to campus this spring at some point while in the Conn. area.

Both currently abroad are Jared Gimbel and Benjamin Petrie LaFirst. Jared recently authored his master’s thesis: “From Helsinki to Hania: Jewish Media Narratives About Europe, and Why They Matter Today,” and will spend fall 2014 and the subsequent academic year in JTS’s Modern Jewish Studies graduate program. Benjamin reports, “I am living and working abroad in Austria as an English teacher, and will be moving to Frankfurt am Main this summer to live with my fiancé, Christopher Ulrich Jürgensen, who I met in Regensburg while studying abroad from Wesleyan! We will be getting married in New York this summer, if all goes as planned.”

Kim Prosise adds, “I’m working as a traveling freelance writer and circus performer based out of Boston, Mass. I’m delighted to have the opportunity to visit Wesleyan family around the country and spent two weeks celebrating the New Year with Joey Heller and Gabriel Urbina ’13 in L.A.

Last but not least is Danielle St. Pierre, who has been working as an associate editor at AOL/The Huffington Post Media Company. She has been there since November 2013 and is working on the MarloThomas.com women’s lifestyle vertical.

Thanks for the updates!

Allie Southam | asoutham@wesleyan.edu

Dear friends: Doug Larson said “spring is when you feel like whistling even with a shoe full of slush.” I’m not sure I agree, but spring is definitely prime time for some awesome updates from the Class of 2010:

Tess Parker manages an organic vegetable farm in Hudson, N.Y.: “We have a growing CSA locally and in Brooklyn of over 150 members. Eric Sherman, our field manager, has been with us for three years now, and we have employed other Wesleyan alums as longer term seasonal employees as well as shorter term work-trade volunteers.”

Dan Bloom shares that he is about to complete the Venture for America fellowship program. He’s working at a new startup in Cincinnati—Dónde. Of course, Dan also co-founded a separate company since graduation, TernPro. He adds, “We [TernPro] were accepted into a startup accelerator in Detroit called Bizdom. If anyone wants to use GoPros to remember a trip, or create video content for their company, we should talk.”

Some fresh news from Pennan Chinnasamy, Ph.D: “I joined as a hydrology and remote sensing researcher at the International Water Management Institute, and will be working on climate change impacts on water resources in the Himalayan regions. I will also be working on the Ganges Basin to identify physical processes to better aid farmer livelihoods.” More information on Pennan and his work with IWMI can be found here: iwmi.cgiar.org/about/staff-list/pennan-chinnasamy/.

Dave Wolovsky adds that he has quit his most recent job at an orthodox yeshiva, and is now focusing on “tutoring and working on a new math curriculum that integrates principles of neuroscience and cognitive psychology, as well as mind-body coordination.” Dave has begun sharing videos of his curriculum on youtube, and encourages any who are interested to have a look! youtube.com/watch?v=nBoL5v_XeJw.

A frigid winter in North Bennington, Vt., gave Angus McCullough plenty of time to make art. Angus shares: “I’ve got two solo shows on the horizon, at the Bennington Museum in May–July and then at the Buoy Gallery (Kittery, Maine) in September. They’re going to be fun. The architecture project I’ve been leading has won two state grants and there’s really a lot of momentum growing. If you’d like to see what my latest ‘work’ is ‘like’ you can ‘check out’ my site at angusm.cc.”

Stephen Schwarz will be attending graduate school at Colorado School of Mines this fall as a research assistant in the Chevron Center of Research Excellence (CoRE).

Mark Fajans is happy to report that he, too, will be pursuing a graduate degree this fall. Mark will be attending the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University to get an MPH in Global Epidemiology.

David Layne will graduate this spring from Temple University’s Beasley School of Law. Assuming he manages to pass the bar exam, he’ll be an active duty officer in the U.S. Navy, globe­trotting with the JAG Corps come August! Dave hopes to connect with fellow Cardinals along the way.

Finally, I am thrilled to conclude with news that Dominic Gibson and Lauren Feld ’11 are engaged and are planning their wedding for the end of May 2015. Dom and Lauren met at Wes while doing research in Prof. Anna Shusterman’s psychology lab in 2008. Congratulations to you both from the Class of 2010!

Thanks again for everyone’s contributions, and as always if you have an update to share, feel free to post anytime on WesConnect, or send me a blurb directly at dlayne@wesleyan.edu.

David Layne | dlayne@wesleyan.edu

Your fellow ’09ers have been staying busy—below is a glimpse into some of the exciting things your peers have been up to…

Jake Abrahamson writes and edits stories for Sierra magazine. He recently covered Trevor Thomas, a blind long-distance backpacker, and a group of unlikely environmentalists in Missouri’s Ozarks.

Alex Segal is living in Los Angeles, where he and business partner Riley Rea opened furniture company, Croft House. It is now in its 3rd year! Croft House furniture is handmade in LA primarily with reclaimed and sustainable materials.

After living for a year in Kabul, Alex Footman opted to move to Berlin, which offers more public transportation options and slightly less kebab. Alex has connected with some Wes alumni but would be glad to see more of you!

This May, Eric Weiskott graduated from Yale with a PhD in English Language and Literature and moved to Brookline, Mass. In September, he will take up a position as assistant professor of English at Boston College.

Hollie Matlin is a current third year medical student at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. She is engaged to Ross Littauer, a Swattie she met at the post baccalaureate premedical program at Bryn Mawr College. Their wedding date is the ultimate Pi Day, 3.14.15!

Saul Carlin is joining Medium, a new online publishing platform created by Twitter co-founder Ev Williams, after receiving his MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business. As one of the first members of Medium’s business team, he’ll be working to help people and organizations share stories and ideas that inspire change.

Justin LaSelva has been doing IT work at UT Austin for about three years now and co-hosts a radio show called This Great White North, which airs every Friday on KOOP, America’s only radio cooperative. In December, he and his girlfriend, Katie, made the trek from Austin back to his native Massachusetts and also spent a night in Middletown exploring the campus, the river, Wadsworth Falls, and (of course) enjoying Klekolo and O’Rourke’s. When he’s not working or in the studio, he’s partaking in Austin’s incredible live music scene and eating large amounts of food.

Elana Baurer graduated from Georgetown University Law Center in May 2013. She passed both the Pennsylvania and New Jersey bars and is working at Duane Morris LLP in Philadelphia as an immigration and employment attorney. Elana is also in the process of launching a juvenile justice focused nonprofit organization that will serve system-involved youth in facilitating their reenrollment back into school when they return home from juvenile detention facility placements.

Sophie Pollitt-Cohen is living in Washington, D.C., where she stays cultured by going to book club with Jodie Rubenstein. Sophie is getting married this summer and then starting Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business this fall.

Still in north Idaho, Oriana Korol is writing for Sandpoint Magazine and guiding nature connection trips through Rewild Institute, a nonprofit that she and her partner, Mike Kopf, began. Visits from Maggie Starr ’06 and Jey Ehrenhalt have been great!

Laurenellen McCann recently organized D.C.’s first ever Dino Co-op, which collaboratively purchased and stewards the use of a Kickstarter-custom-made, 13-ft-tall velociraptor costume. (Look for pictures this fall.) The #DCDino Co-op is sort of connected to Laurenellen’s new gig as a civic innovation fellow at the Open Technology Institute (part of the New America Foundation), but not really. In other news: Laurenellen and her partner, Karl Grindal, proposed to each other in March and plan to get married in 2015. (Yes, the dinosaur will be part of the wedding party.)

Brittany Delany is moving to Santa Fe in early summer 2014. She looks forward to dance collaborations with Sarah Ashkin ’11 and to continuing work in fundraising and development for nonprofit organizations.

Keiko Hamano is now a certified massage therapist in California. She will graduate from the National Holistic Institute in early July. In addition to building her private practice, she has also been hired at a local spa. Keiko volunteers her services at a homeless youth clinic and at various sporting events throughout the Bay Area. She is also progressing through the post-bac program at UC, Berkeley, Extension in preparation for graduate school in physical therapy.

After five great years in D.C., Abby Rosenstein is moving to Philadelphia to study at Penn to become a nurse and family nurse practitioner.

Laura D’Iorio, Becca Freed, Tyler Snell, Jade Scott, and Tanya Moss united to recreate happy Foss Hill memories at San Francisco’s Dolores Park in March. The afternoon rekindled Wesleyan friendships and featured a visit by Tyler’s adorable Labradoodle, Scooter.

Additionally, Laura D’Iorio, Becca Freed, and J.Z. Golden ’08 took the city of Philadelphia by storm in December. The trio took in a victorious Eagles win and tailgate, noshed on Philly’s finest cheese steaks ’wit, and stole the show at a renowned karaoke bar.

Please see photos on the Class Notes website.

Thanks again for all your updates!

Alejandro Alvarado | ale.alvarado12@gmail.com

You may have noticed that after more than five years of service, Caitlin O’Shaughnessy has retired from her position as Class Notes Secretary. I’m happy to be taking over for her. I recently relocated from NYC to Connecticut, buying a house with my husband, finishing grad school, and finally settling into my dream job as a nurse practitioner at a community health center. The health center caters to those who would not otherwise have access to primary care, and I have the privilege of treating newborns to seniors and everyone in between. Stop on by if you need affordable care!

Karla Hargrave received her MFA from San Francisco State University in theatre design in 2013 and works full time at the Brava Theater Center in SF. She has been in the Bay Area for five years now and spends her free time seeing as much of the bay on her bike as possible, occasionally going on adventures with Fiona Lundy.

Since graduation, Stephanie Fungsang has been living in Brooklyn, working as a dance artist and yoga instructor. She is now navigating a transition in career and life, including a move to Cambridge, Mass., in spring 2014 with Jeremy Finch ’09. She is thankful for all the experiences and people in NY, including roommates past and present: Lucy Bickerton and Stephanie Calvert in their first NYC home, a treehouse loft; Sarah Meier-Zimbler and Rosina Belcourt; Jess Jones, Shamiso Mtangi, Stephanie Roer, Mimi Bai ’09, and Briana Deutsch ’09, who helped create their beautiful home of the past four years in Ditmas Park. She has much gratitude and excitement for what may come ahead!

Sophia Kim is going back to school for nursing. She’s decided to go to Johns Hopkin’s accelerated BSN program that starts in May and will be moving to Baltimore soon.

Chayanee Ubol Chinthrajah writes: “2014 has been an exciting year so far… coming up on my two year-marriage anniversary, graduating with my Master’s in HR and starting a new job! Celebrated these milestones with a ring from my favorite Wes grad, Andrea Lipsky Karasz’s new jewelry line, Tilda Biehn. Check out her amazing line!!”

Max Schenkein is having a blast living in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, with his roommate Alex Trepp, eagerly awaiting the arrival of Josh Atwood, who is staying the weekend to celebrate Alex’s birthday, along with Natasha Nussberg.

Lauren Goldman moved from New York to the Bay Area in January to work with Organizing for Action. Since being on this coast, she’s seen Tara Moore, Amanda Gordon ’07, and Penelope Essoyan ’07. She was glad to miss the frigid NYC winter.

Joanna Kenty writes: “As of May, it’s Dr. Joanna Kenty! I’m receiving my doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania in Classics, after writing my dissertation on Cicero and Roman political rhetoric. Next year I’ll be back in New England, teaching at the University of New Hampshire.”

Marie Brophy spent the winter visiting family in Colorado, Boston, DC, and St. Louis, and ice climbing all around Colorado. She’s a rock climbing guide in Moab, Utah and had a Wes alum as a client last fall. When she’s not working, she can be found stuck to the side of a rock somewhere, putting her E&ES degree to good use, in a way!

Graham Douds passed the Calif. State Bar Exam. He is living and working as an attorney in San Francisco among friends and family.

Sandra Manzanares writes: “After spending the last year and a half dabbling editorially in different industries (from a flash sale site to a sneaker museum start-up), I recently started as marketing manager at Boston-based start-up, Placester, Inc., where I’m diving into the growing content marketing industry. I’m still volunteering, bringing tutoring and workshops to urban youth whenever possible at 826 Boston. Lashawn Springer, Melanie Nelson ’09, Caroline White, and Corrina Wainwright ’11 keep me company in Boston with our wonderful nights out (or in) that involve lots of laughter and wine! When not in Boston, I’m being housed in Rashida Richardson’s beautiful Brooklyn pad, eating ramen, and running into a million Wes people wherever I go.”

Brieze Keeley graduates from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai this May, after which she will begin her residency training in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in June. She’d love to connect with any Wes friends in Boston when she arrives!

Aaron Larner writes: “Last year I started working on a project to help healthcare organizations do a better job of communicating within their organization. With the new healthcare reform there are strong incentives for hospitals and ambulatory clinics to start using electronic medical records (which is awesome!), but most organizations are still figuring out how this change is going to help them. In the short term it’s a lot of work to get all of their physicians, nurses and IT staff up to speed with completely new technology, especially when they are used to scribbling everything down on paper. Having worked for a large electronic medical record software company I knew firsthand the frustrations that new users of electronic medical records were feeling. Along with two other friends in the healthcare IT industry, I put together BreadcrumbsQA, a platform for healthcare professionals to ask and answer questions about the best ways to use their electronic medical record software. Our vision is to help speed up adoption of electronic medical records so that the ecosystem can realize all of the benefits that this change will bring. It’s kind of like Quora but specifically aimed at healthcare professionals. In January we (finally) signed on our first customer, a healthcare IT consulting firm, and are now working to launch another pilot at large healthcare organization.”

Alicia collen Zeidan | acollen@wesleyan.edu