Author: etaylor

The class of ’07 has stayed busy!  Jose Chapa got married on Labor Day weekend to Adam Martin (not a Wes alum) in sunny South Padre Island, Texas!  The wedding was co-officiated by Emily Wilson-Barnard and served as a mini-Wes reunion since it was attended by Jennifer Ayala, Rosa Cohen-Cruz, Anaka Hennings ’09, Rae Kaplan ’24, Reuben Kosup-Katz, Megan Lollie, Elsa Meany, Christine Mehr, Erin Moore, Mariel Piña, and Shar-de Ricketts.  We danced the night away to Beyonce, as it was her 40th birthday!

Grace Nowakoski and her husband Jeff Diteman and their 3-year-old daughter welcomed a baby brother this summer. It’s a circus. Complete with a trapeze.  Simon Au ’07 and his ever-patient wife have managed to keep their son healthily alive for a full revolution of the Earth around the sun.

Hyung-Jin Choi moved to Hong Kong!  On the other hand, Lydia Bell is still living in Brooklyn, with her husband and their 1-year-old daughter. She recently switched career paths and enrolled in a master’s program in mental health counseling. She’d be excited to connect with other mental health professionals in New York and elsewhere!

In other career news, Frank Giantomasi was elevated to partner at Chiesa Shahinian & Giantomasi PC, New Jersey’s third-largest law firm.  Jon Pierowicz recently took the position of general counsel with Viridi Parente, a distributed renewable energy company in Buffalo, New York.

Molly Gaebe has started her own comedy theater in NYC called Rubbish Comedy Collective, and she continues to fight for abortion rights with Abortion Access Front. Molly said she would never marry a fellow Cardinal, but the Goddesses had other plans. She and Leila Bozorg ’04 are set to marry in June of next year.

Kathleen Day is deep into the working-mom lifestyle, thankfully supported by her partner, Karl Otto, who is a full-time dad to their two kids (5 years and 17 months old). She still works for nonprofit developer Preservation of Affordable Housing (POAH). Following a grueling return to work 6 weeks after the birth of her son in 2020, she successfully lobbied for a dramatic change to POAH’s parental leave program. As of 2022, POAH’s 12-week-paid parental leave is among the most generous of their peer organizations. She and her husband hung out with Ben Sax and Janine Criscuolo and their family over the summer. Occasionally they connect with Rebecca Parrish ’06 and her family in Chicago.

Those with class notes, please contact: 

Class Notes Editor

classnotes@wesleyan.edu

After serving as the country director of Ashoka, Philippines, for the past seven years, Terri Jayme-Mora tells us “I’ve moved my little family of four from Manila to Vancouver, British Columbia.  I am enjoying my new role as special projects lead for Firetree Philanthropy and have also cofounded the Democratic Insights Group focused on voter centeredness and electoral competitiveness in the Philippines.”

Meanwhile, Mark Schindler is a senior director at Fountain, where he leads the team responsible for helping their customers source high-volume hourly workers. Fountain recently closed their Series C funding, led by SoftBank and B Capital, and have grown the team to 175 people worldwide (from just 15 people when Mark started!). Mark has enjoyed the, albeit very slow, renewal of travel and finally meeting colleagues who he has only ever met on Zoom.

Nick Blondin shares that he’s just started his fourth year as a neuro-oncologist at Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale, and loves caring for my patients. This May will be his 12th wedding anniversary with Rebecca Gordon ’06. His kids, Alice (4th grade) and Danny (kindergarten), are both vaccinated and in school. “I enjoy spending my free time biking on Zwift!”

Elaina Dellacava reports: “My husband Adam and I welcomed a baby boy (William Joseph) in August of this year, one day before our daughter Sienna turned two. I continue to work as a psychiatrist at New York Presbyterian/Cornell, and am switching roles to focus on the geriatric population with an interest in addressing loneliness in that group of patients. Hoping everyone is healthy and happy as we start 2022.”

Dael Norwood has also  just published his first book, Trading Freedom: How Trade with China Defined Early America (University of Chicago Press). An academic monograph, it investigates the politics of the first century of commerce between China and the United States. Wesleyan’s campus has an “old China trade” connection too: Russell House, the Greek Revival mansion on the corner of Washington and High Streets, is the former home of Samuel Russell—the founder of the largest American opium smuggling firm operating in China during the 19th century.

Greg Heller left his public-sector role as executive director of the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority in the fall to join management consulting firm Guidehouse as a director and housing subject-matter expert. Greg is building on his Philly work to help partners around the country develop equitable, resilient communities where everyone can have a quality, affordable home. Governing recently published Greg’s article about how we can draw from lessons in disaster recovery to more urgently address America’s housing stability crisis.

Over in Florida, Brian Hennessey tells us: “I’m living on Miami Beach and am still the Wes alumni regional representative for south Florida and trying hard to not become a “Florida Man.”  I’m happy to meet up with any Wes alums among the droves of folks moving to Miami to work remotely under a palm tree. I can provide expert guidance on how to avoid being hit by falling iguanas or coconuts, among other useful tips.”

Joey Wender left Capitol Hill after working there for nearly 13 years and started as director of the Capital Projects Fund at the Department of Treasury, working to ensure all communities have access to high-quality, affordable broadband. Joey also continues to enjoy his frequent conversations with Adam Lachman, who, as a longtime staffer for Senator Angus King, helped create this connectivity program.

Emily Teitsworth recently became the executive director of the Honnold Foundation, supporting community-based solar energy access around the world. She lives in Oakland, California, with her partner, two stepkids, and son Jai, who turned one in January. She’d love for any Wes alums working in renewable energy to reach out!

Bayard Templeton and his wife Alex welcomed their second child, Jamie, to their family on February 4th. Issie (8) is excited to be a big sister.

Alexander Yellen and his wife Kelli McNeil-Yellen have had a busy year, buying their first home in LA and recently wrapping their first feature together, an indie road trip movie called Daruma, starring two lead actors with disabilities in a story that is not about disability.

Tejas Desai reconnected with a few old Wes friends, including Jessica Stewart, who recently moved to NYC from San Francisco, and went to a Mets game with Bayard Templeton. He performed a musical version of his novel, The Run and Hide, in the New York City subway system with Blues Hall of Famer/Tampa Bay Lightning Fiddler Greg Holt, aided by a City Artist Corp grant in partnership with MTA’s Musical under New York Program; the virtual version was broadcast on the Queens Public Library’s Facebook Live platform. His latest book, The Dance Towards Death, won a Pencraft Award for Literary Excellence and was a bronze medalist in the Readers’ Favorite International Book Contest. He completed the first draft of his new book, Bad Americans, fulfilling his New Year’s resolution, at a whopping 300,000 words in length. He’s currently revising it.

I am very sorry to be sharing the sad news that Daniel Moger passed on March 13, 2022, due to complications from COVID-19 and an underlying blood condition. He is survived by his wife Julie and daughter Georgina. Daniel was a former U.S. Treasury Department official and most recently Asia Pacific Sanctions director for Citibank. In Dan’s memory, his family asks to consider gifts to OutRight Action International in support of human rights and dignity of LGBTIQ people everywhere, and Phillips Academy where donations will be directed to supporting disadvantaged students. I extend my sincerest condolences to Daniel’s family and friends.

(Editor’s note: Daniel’s mother, Angela Moger, was the first woman employed in the professional Wesleyan administration (1969) as the University entered co-education. Ms. Moger was also an adjunct professor of French during the several years she was at Wesleyan.)  

It’s reunion time! Can’t believe it’s been 20 years since we graduated. Just like college was a blink of an eye, so was the last 20 years (well . . . maybe not the last two during COVID). Looking forward to seeing you all in May on campus! Onto the notes:

Felicity Kohn was elevated to counsel at the law firm of Pryor Cashman in New York. She is in the firm’s Intellectual Property and Media + Entertainment practice group, where she handles a wide range of intellectual property and complex commercial matters. Felicity was named “One to Watch” in Intellectual Property Law by Best Lawyers in America (2021–22) and “Women in the Law: One to Watch” by Best Lawyers in America (2021).

Sallomé Hralima is partner in a New York–based archiving and media company. With Umi NiiLampti ’99, she cowrote Through the Wire, a short film about a young West African college student on the verge of making it in the music industry. In 2017, Sallomé returned to WesU to teach a course at the Patricelli Center for Social Entrepreneurship and received the Edgar Beckham Alumni Achievement Award. In 2018, she delivered a TEDxWesleyan talk, “Workplaces Suffocate Human Potential” in which she referenced Bozoma Saint John ’99. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and two daughters, Dream and Legacy.

Angie Schiavoni recently started Montessori Public Works, an organization dedicated to bringing the first Montessori classrooms to public schools across New Jersey. This proud Wisconsinite (who drove her minivan to Wes full of Wisconsin beer, bratwurst, and cheese one year) still can’t believe she settled on the Jersey Shore, and thinks it must be because of the subconscious brainwashing of college roommates Alena Fiorentino (née Weller) and Cara Summit (née Smith).

Oscar-nominated filmmaker Debra Granik is set to direct a feature adaptation of Una LaMarche’s YA novel Like No Other. She and Anne Rosellini of Still Rolling Productions optioned the book, in partnership with Mad Dog Film’s Alix Madigan. Published in 2015 by Razorbill, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers, Like No Other is billed as a contemporary take on West Side Story. It watches as the unlikely paths of a Hasidic girl and a secular boy meet on Eastern Parkway and blossom into a forbidden romance.

Ryan Akers is a stay-at-home dad. His daughter, Isadora Eleanor Akers, was born last June.

Jenny He is the exhibitions curator for the new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles.

Ben Allen has completed five years now as technical advisor for Microfinance Research and Learning at Catholic Relief Services in Baltimore, Maryland. Since 2020, Ben has coordinated surveys in Africa and Latin America to learn how the informal savings and lending groups trained there have fared during the pandemic. Ben has also been moonlighting as an economics instructor at Loyola University–Maryland in 2020–21 and Catholic University of America (Washington, DC) this spring. His eldest daughter, Livia, is two and started preschool in December; and his youngest daughter, Norah, turned one in February.

After spending two years in Seoul, Korea, building the global security function for Coupang Inc., Eric Donelan moved back to the U.S. to be closer to family. He recently joined eBay as the senior director for Global Security and Resiliency based in the San Jose area.

Ernest Hartner is living in Miami with wife Raquel and three kids. He plans to stay in a dorm room with Nick Bazos at reunion.

Rachael Slivka and husband Joel had a baby boy, Dov, in August. Big brother Ori is excited to have a new friend.

As for myself (Justin Lacob), after spending a year during the pandemic in Vancouver with my wife Melanie and two daughters (Scarlett, now 7 and Juliette, now 4), we returned to Los Angeles in July 2021. Still working at documentary studio XTR, I recently produced the Oscar-nominated feature documentary Ascension; They Call Me Magic, a four-part documentary series on AppleTV+ about Magic Johnson; Butterfly in the Sky, a documentary about the impact of Reading Rainbow and LeVar Burton; The Territory, a Nat Geo film that premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival about an indigenous-led land defense against illegal loggers and nonnative farmers in the Amazon rainforest (edited by Carlos Rojas); art-heist documentary The Thief Collector (which premiered at SXSW); The Hobby, a documentary about the recent trading card boom; and about 15 other documentary features and series. I also am the cofounder and head of Documentary+, an ad-supported streaming platform (www.docplus.com) for passionate nonfiction fans.

See everyone on campus soon!

Hi 2001,

So much has changed, but what remains the same is how happy I always feel to hear from our classmates about the things they are up to around the globe. Keep sending in those notes!

Myra Sessions shares that she had so much fun watching Katie (Barge) Paris Zoom interview the U.S. surgeon general, Dr. Murthy, in a panel arranged by the White House. Topics included COVID-19 and keeping kids safe, as well as political activism.

Ben Hurwitz, Aryn (Kalson) Sperandio, Scott Kushner, and Aaron Rosenberg left behind parental and professional duties for a weekend together in the California desert to celebrate the wedding of Jess Goldfarb to James Winston on March 5.

Ben Spatz has been promoted to reader at the University of Huddersfield and continues to explore connections between artistic research and theories of identity. View Ben’s work at urbanresearchtheater.com/, including videos and publications. Visitors to Northern England are always welcome!

Ashley (Crossan) Morse lives with her husband and two sons in Chicago, where she occasionally has the pleasure of hanging out with Loren Berlin ’00. This past summer, Ashley and her kids traveled to Los Angeles to spend cherished in-person time with the ladies of 54 Home (and their partners and sweet kiddos): Julie Ames, Sarah Kozinn, and Liz Weiner—an “annual-ish” visit that usually includes Kate Purdy too (she was quarantining this time). Ashley also shares that after nine years as an organizational effectiveness consultant at Allstate, she has brought her career back full circle to the not-for-profit sector and is now doing social impact consulting and loving it. Last, but definitely not least, she has also found time to take a painting class—in Ashley’s words, “a delightful, albeit sometimes bewildering, challenge!”

Andrea Donnelly writes in with news that her work as a sound and energy healer, spiritual mentor, and coach took off last year. She was featured on Yahoo, Bustle, Hello Giggles, Re-Spin, and several incredible podcasts including, Chakra Girl Radio and Raising a Powerful Girl. Andrea is particularly proud of an interview with Thrive Global on finding happiness and joy during turbulent times, which seems to be a continued theme as we move into 2022. If you’re interested in learning more about Andrea’s work, find her at wearehere2remember.com or reach out at andrea@wearehere2remember.com.

Until next time, 2001.

Trace Peterson is currently the 2021–2022 NEH postdoctoral fellow in poetics at the Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry, Emory University. A trans woman scholar and poet, this year she also co-organized, with two other trans scholars, the first-ever Working Group in Trans Studies at the MLA Conference, which featured nine participants. Her new publications this year include a chapter for the SAGE Encyclopedia of Trans Studies, a chapter in the forthcoming Wiley Blackwell Companion to American Poetry, and new poems in Michigan Quarterly Review.

Gloria (Weber) Plaks kicks us off with great energy: “Hi Wes fam. I like to think of you to lift my mood during these crazy times . . . Nicole, Nana, Janine, Novi, Kinshasa, Kandi, Jaime, Freddy, Jason, Mel, Carole, Ale, Caliente Peeps & La Casa Crew (sorry I can’t list you all, I would be here all day). . . . The memories of our times at Wes together still make me smile today.  My hubby and I are holding down the fort with four kids in a pandemic school year.  We are both still school teachers . . .  me in high school with big kids and him in elementary school with 3- to 7-year-olds. . . .  Through all (the pandemic madness), we are happy that we are there for the students. Then we come home to four kids, ranging from 2 years old to 15 years old, and a new lovely madness begins . . . dinner, homework, playtime, dishes, organizing, showtime, and maybe a little yelling (but VERY LITTLE).  I couldn’t do it without the support of my husband, Eric Plaks, who always steps up without me needing to say a word and my mother who we call on CONSTANTLY to pick up sick kids from school, to give us date nights, to drive kids to doctor appointments.  I am blessed, happy, and my heart is full.  Hope you are all doing well.  If you are out there struggling, I wish you strength.  Take care!”

Movin’ on up: In Biz Journal, Bozoma Saint John shared the story of her career path that led her to being the chief marketing officer of Netflix. Saint John “reconsidered her medical-career goal after being inspired by an African American Studies class during her freshman year at Wesleyan.” Kate Whitman Annis was appointed as the executive director of the NJ Devils Youth Foundation. More on that move here. Zack Becker was recently promoted to the rank of commander with the Houston Police Department, taking charge of their Midwest patrol division. “I’ve been with HPD for over 21 years now—time has absolutely flown by.”

Adam Birnbaum and wife Alem bought a 117-year-old house in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, where they live with daughter Sonya, who’s going to be two in May. “We’re in the middle of renovations, which we hope will be done before Sonya reaches retirement age.”

Sahra Halpern and Dan Engler are marking 12 years in Oakland, California, where they live with kids Hanna (12), Adam (almost 10), a poodle named Pepper, and two cats. “After 15 years at Schwab, I left in the early days of the pandemic for a large community development financial institution (CDFI), a nonprofit lender that provides financing for affordable housing and small businesses in underserved communities. Dan continues to grow his practice at Cox, Castle & Nicholson, providing legal services in real estate. We are looking forward to resuming travel this year, with trips to Montana and Maine and hoping to cross international boundaries as soon as possible!”

The world seems to be bringing Wes alums together of late. From Eve Fox: “The smallness of the world was confirmed again for me when former class of ’99er, Megan Wolff, joined the staff of Beyond Plastics, the nonprofit led by former U.S. EPA regional administrator Judith Enck, where I’ve been the digital director for the past few years. Megan’s our new policy director and it’s been great to reconnect with her.”

Alison MacAdam left NPR several years ago and is working as a freelance story editor for documentary podcasts and radio. Some recent projects include 544 Days and a series for NPR’s Embedded. “I also have the pleasure of working with Eve Abrams ’93 on an upcoming podcast series called Hot Farm (it’s not porn, I swear) from the Food and Environment Reporting Network. Still living in DC and enjoying time with Wes friends, old and new.”

This “small world” trend hit your class secretaries, too. Darryl sends greetings from cold Maine, where he shared that Bates just hired Matthew Coyne ’12 as their new head football coach.  “Another Cardinal becomes a Bobcat!” I (Kevin) had a similar experience at my last company, where we hired the supremely talented Jiun Kimm ’10 as our head of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. I’ve been fortunate to have a couple of run-ins with other classmates too. In late December I joined a group of graduate school classmates for dinner, which included Mark Zubko and his wife Alex Charters Zubko. My most random run-in was Marnie (Randall) Craycroft, who spent time on the same tiny island in Maine that we did last summer. It’s a small world, but Wesleyan is all over it!

Amy Davenport is still in Carrboro, North Carolina, where she lives with her spouse and their three children (6, 6, and 8). She’s entering her seventh year as a nurse-midwife at UNC Chapel Hill. She recently stepped down from her role as postpartum medical director, because, well, “pandemic and that whole work-life balance thing.” She plans to spend that extra time reading, knitting, baking, and riding her Peloton.

Kate Wetherhead still lives in New York, splitting her time between NYC and Putnam Valley with her husband Jeff Croiter (who, coincidentally, was the lighting designer of Broadway’s Freestyle Love Supreme, co-conceived by and starring Wes alum Anthony Veneziale!) This summer, Kate will be in Chicago, Illinois, premiering the Broadway-bound musical The Devil Wears Prada as part of the writing team, along with Sir Elton John and Shaina Taub. Directed by Anna D. Shapiro, Prada begins performances at the Nederlander Theater July 21, 2022. If you’re in Chicago this summer, come check it out!

Peter Isbister lives in Decatur, Georgia, with his wife Robyn Painter and their three kids, Mira (12), Eliot (8), and Ezra (8). He is an attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center in the Southeast Immigrant Freedom Initiative, representing immigrants detained in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He is still in touch with his good friend David Lubell, who now lives with his family in Berlin, Germany, after spending a few years also in Decatur, Georgia, and with Rachel Wellborn who has long lived in Atlanta.

Sara Brenneis and her family were in Madrid in the spring of 2020, just hitting their stride during a year-long sabbatical when . . .  well, we all know how that worked out. After Spain’s strict six-week lockdown when their two young boys were not allowed outside, they were grateful to return to the wide-open expanses of Northampton, Massachusetts. Sara has her hands full as professor and chair of the Spanish Department at Amherst College and full-time childcare juggler. She caught up with a very bearded Nick Coleman on a recent trip to Wisconsin and has enjoyed some Zoom happy hours with Margaret (Solle) Salazar and Rebecca Alson-Milkman. Sara wants to know: Anyone else up for a swing through Middletown for our 25th?

Speaking of Margaret Salazar, she was just appointed to a post in the Biden Administration.  She will be serving as HUD regional administrator, advancing the administration’s efforts in the Pacific Northwest (Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Alaska), starting this past February.

Marianne Benet lives in Rye, New York, with her three sons. After her divorce, she started rowing crew again, and competed at the Head of the Charles last October, for glory and to raise money for the Angelman Syndrome Foundation, an organization that is close to her heart because her middle son was born with this rare genetic disorder. This May, she and Heather Marciniec celebrated their combined 90th birthday (45 + 45) in Key Biscayne, Florida, with Erin (Fieler) Collins, and Miki Kawashima, whose daughter, Elia Matrician (’26) will be attending Wes next fall! While there, they partied and reminisced with Ken Anderson, who lives in Key Biscayne and works in finance. Finally, she has a new love (and Wesleyan connection), Mario Manna ’00, also divorced, and a wonderful father to three extraordinary children. This year, they traveled with their six kiddos to Disney, Key Biscayne, and skiing in Vermont. Of note, she sent her notes in from Cartagena, Colombia, where she had just spent a day visiting the historic walled city with her dear friend, Isabel Vega, who is now living in Colombia and working on her independent film projects. Isabel is happy, healthy, and always involved in creative endeavors: She produced and directed a documentary called La Corona (The Crown) that was nominated for an Oscar and now, many years later, is at Sundance for the second time. The film is about a beauty pageant at a Colombian prison for women.

Abe Forman-Greenwald was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award last year as a producer on the Netflix series Big Mouth and was looking forward to the debut of their spinoff series Human Resources, which came out on March 18 of this year. Also, now that live music is back, he’s been enjoying going to concerts with fellow ’98er Sascha Paladino here in Los Angeles.

John Speck is excited to be in the midst of his third year as a software engineer, and still finding time to make music with exceptional New Yorkers. He has two daughters, ages 3 and 7, who are thriving in the quality public schools of South Brooklyn. They explore nature as much as possible these days: Prospect Park, Jersey, and Miami(!). He had the good fortune of seeing Harrison Owen and his son, Russell, recently, and recommends Harrison’s book Niji Umi (“for children ages 0–100”).  He also had a fun hiking adventure on the Appalachian Trail with Jason Gonzalez and Dave Montgomery ’97 last summer. Jason has recently completed an MBA and continues his impressive tenure as an attorney at the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission, and has four adorable children with his lovely wife Ayisha.

In harder news, Cassie Colletti Mecsery shared that her husband Sean Mecsery has been fighting glioblastoma for the past two years while she manages their family and their family business in Cos Cob, Connecticut. Unfortunately, there are no approved treatments and she asked people to look for their GoFundMe to help as they work to pay for his experimental treatments and support their two children, ages six and two.

Finally, we sadly lost Angie (Montgomery) Arnold in December 2021.  At Wes, she was a triple major in English, film study, and African American history, and afterward got an MFA at Columbia, and an MBA at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. She published her first book, Rivers Under Water, in 2018, a story of a woman who searches for love and spiritual liberation over the course of three generations in the Deep South; and she wrote and produced an off-Broadway play, The Standard Upgrade. She also won the Miss Black Connecticut Pageant.  She leaves behind her beloved husband, Artis Arnold III, and many family and friends.

We also sadly lost Christopher Lawrence Rosaschi in February.  He will be missed by his children, his family, and so many who knew him.