Author: klynch02

Please write to your class secretary.

Mary Diaz | mcdiaz@wesleyan.edu 

After a postdoctoral fellowship at Mount Holyoke College, Stephanie Huezo joins the Department of History as an assistant professor at Fordham University. She is happy to be teaching Latin American and Latinx history in NYC where she grew up. 

Evan Carmi is now a puppy papa, spending his days reparenting himself via his Brittany, named Pluto. Cute puppy photos can be found on Instagram @plutzthepup.

 Krysten Thomas was elected to be a 2020 Democratic National Convention Delegate in D.C. She is excited about the upcoming general election.

Michael Steves and Lucas San Juan have been making commercials and documentaries through their production company, Rule of 3. Their work, for clients including Amazon, Ring, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Bloomberg, and others, has been featured in CNN Business, The New York Times, and at Michael Moore’s film festival. They are also in production on their first documentary feature film, following a community of Rohingya refugees living in Chicago. They’ve loved working with fellow Wes alums on their productions, so reach out if you want to collaborate!

Vivianne Swerdlow has been working for over a year as a mental health coach at Joyable (acquired by AbleTo, Inc.) where she supports people in completing and getting the most out of eight-week digital cognitive behavioral therapy programs to reduce depression, generalized anxiety, or social anxiety. She recently started her own coaching practice, specializing in behavioral coaching, life coaching, and career coaching. As someone with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, she often works with chronic pain clients in particular to develop more fulfilling lives.

Benjamin Swerdlow (nee Abravanel) is in his last year of a clinical psychology PhD at UC Berkeley, where he has been studying interpersonal emotion regulation and emotion-related impulsivity. 

Zach Schonfeld recently survived a near-death encounter with an exploding can of shaving cream. His first book, chronicling the strange story of the widely sampled funk band 24-Carat Black, was published on November 12. It’s called Ghetto: Misfortune’s Wealth and it’s part of the 33 1/3 series of books about individual albums. 

Thank you to my classmates who contributed to this column! Hope everyone continues to stay safe during this time.

Laura Yim | Lyim@wesleyan.edu 

Please write to your class secretary.

Daisey Perez | deperez@wesleyan.edu

Hi Class of 2011, hope this finds you healthy and well in a year that has proven to be full of challenges. See our class updates below. 

Lots of new additions to the Wes Family! Ilaria O’Keefe informs us “I gave birth to baby #4 in February, we bought our first home in August, and I continue to work as a birth doula, homeschool our kids, study herbal medicine, and direct and sing music in upstate SC.” Katie (Colasaccco) Rowan writes, “On July 24th, Allie Rowan and I welcomed our son, Nico, into the world! We’ve been settling into the whole parenting-during-a-pandemic thing as best as we can, and Nico’s been a real joy to watch change and grow over the past two months.” Last but not least, Julian Sonnenfeld and his wife Gia had their first baby on July 20, 2020. Grant Jonas Sonnenfeld was born at a heavyweight 9 lbs 13 oz in Charlotte, North Carolina. Julian writes “Grant and Gia are doing great, hopefully a future Cardinal!”

In more exciting news, Alexandra Furnas writes, “I got married to Amy Cesal, just completed a PhD in American politics from University of Michigan, and started as a postdoctoral scholar at the Center for Science of Science and Innovation at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.” Laura Heath Stout is also continuing her education as a new postdoctoral fellow in the writing program at Emory University. She is excited to report she just got a book contract with Routledge for her first book, provisionally titled Identity, Oppression, and Diversity in Archaeology: Career Arcs. Congrats Laura!

Charlotte Cerf writes “my fiance and I are moving to the Burlington, Vermont area as both of our jobs in tech can be done fully remotely.”

As always, thanks for the updates and look forward to continuing to hear from all of you. Stay healthy Class of 2011!

Allie Southam | asoutham@wesleyan.edu

Greetings Class of 2010! Please enjoy the following notes from our classmates around the world:

Gina Yeomans and Nate Green (’09) welcomed their second son, Milo, on June 5. Milo is “a sweet, happy boy despite being born amidst a global pandemic and historic national protests.” 

Kiran Sheffrin and husband Sam also welcomed a child into the world, a little boy, Kamran, this past May!

Danielle Mor recently accepted a position as assistant professor in the Department of Neuroscience & Regenerative Medicine at the Medical College of Georgia, which is part of Augusta University in Augusta, Georgia. As a native New Yorker, Danielle is excited to experience southern living for the first time.

Melina Aguilar has adapted to the pandemic and is now offering virtual tours of Puerto Rico with her local startup Isla Caribe Tours based in Ponce, Puerto Rico. Melina is staying creative and the 

business is growing in the virtual experience world. You can find her tours at islacaribetours.com. 

Hannah Barber Doucet continues her fellowship in pediatric emergency medicine at Hasbro Children’s Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island. Her newest project is launching the curriculum DARE-EM: Discussing Anti-Racism and Equity in Emergency Medicine for all frontline emergency medicine providers in her hospital system. Hannah is also enjoying the additional task of keeping two young kids entertained through quarantine with her wife, Samantha Doucet ’09!

Thanks to those who contributed this time around and, as always, feel free to pass along notes anytime! 

David Layne | dlayne@wesleyan.edu

 

Those with class notes, please contact: 

Class Notes Editor
classnotes@wesleyan.edu

Those with class notes, please contact: 

Class Notes Editor
classnotes@wesleyan.edu

 Hello classmates, Megan here to give you some updates. I hope you are all hanging in there and staying healthy. Although 2020 has been a weird and somber year, several classmates have shared reasons to celebrate.

Ian MacLeod announces the birth of his son, River MacLeod. The little guy was born on January 22, 2020 and Ian says, “He now has two teeth, loves to laugh at peek-a-boo, and is lots of fun!”

Jocelyn Bonadio recently found a silver lining to this otherwise awful year. She writes, “My first child, my son Arjun Amar Kondabolu, was born on August 28, 2020.”

Nasim Khoshkhou reports, “I continue to work remotely in data analytics for Synchrony. I’m living in Westchester County in New York and welcome video catch-ups or actual visitors when travel is considered safe again! I miss my Wes peeps and I continue to engage with the University by recruiting there for work and meeting with current students through the career center.” She adds that her son Cameron, age four, recently returned to preschool. Perhaps a Wesleyan alum in the making?

Jane Charles-Voltaire is a senior program officer with the International Association of Women Judges. She and her partner are currently living in Madrid, Spain. 

Finally, Alex Magnin wants to let classmates know that he has moved to Los Angeles!

Wishing you a happy fall and winter. Here’s hoping for a brighter 2021!

Megan Harrington | megan.kretz@gmail.com

Victoria Belyavsky Pinsky | victoriapinsky@gmail.com

 For this edition, I’m changing it up by placing births first! Steven Wengrovitz and his husband Dan welcomed their daughter, Elise Lucca Wengrovitz-Freeman, to the world on July 20, 2020. They can’t wait to show her around campus someday soon! 

Please be sure to pick up Drew Berkowitz’s first book Framing School Violence and Bullying in Young Adult Manga: Fictional Perspectives on a Pedagogical Problem, released in November 2020 via Palgrave Macmillan. This title analyzes the ways in which young adult Japanese manga has influenced patterns of violence and 

bullying in K–12 schools.

Kyle Gardner finished his PhD in South Asian history at the University of Chicago in 2018 and moved to D.C. to work for a consulting firm. Keep an eye out for his forthcoming book, The Frontier Complex: Geopolitics and the Making of the India–China Border, 1846–1962, which will be available in January 2021 via Cambridge University Press.

Amanda Thieroff is single and childless but she does not live with her parents (writer’s note: huge congratulations on that end)! Her small vegan ice cream company Fiddlehead Creamery, based out of Port Townsend, Washington, is weathering the COVID-19 storm and she is happy to be providing a small amount of joy in these wild times. She also adopted the most wonderful puppy in the world: Finlay. When she and Finlay are not hiking in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, they enjoy growing and cooking food, and trying to stay positive through the power of human connection.

Be sure to add the letters “M.D.” after Stephanie Diana Garcia’s name. Diana is happily thriving in Los Angeles and works as a family medicine resident at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. She recently had her research published in a prestigious journal. 

Also on the West Coast is Alix Sleight, who just survived a wild pandemic cross-country move with her family. She started a new job as an associate professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where she’ll be developing a new health behavior counseling program for underserved cancer survivors. She’s living in Malibu now and looking forward to reconnecting with all her old Wesleyan friends in SoCal.

Natalie Finegood Goldberg is a licensed marriage and family therapist with a private practice in Beverly Hills, California. While she has been an AASECT certified sex therapist since 2015, she’s now also an AASECT certified sex therapy supervisor. Although the move to online counseling was daunting, her practice has been running smoothly.

The U.S. Department of State announced the selection of Juan Sebastian Moreno for a virtual fellowship engaging with English language learners online in Panama at Education USA. Moreno is among the first to be selected for the Virtual English Language Fellow Program, a new program created for the 2020–2021 academic year. 

Hayley Stokar relocated to Washington, D.C. with her husband and two-year-old daughter to join the Social Work Department faculty at Gallaudet University.

Maggie Elliott Martin moved to Nashville this summer with her husband for his job at Vanderbilt. Post-pandemic, they’re looking forward to exploring the city and spending some time with Jessie Morris, Brian Adams ’04, and Brent Taylor ’07.

Pia Silva has launched her podcast Show Your Business Who’s Boss. The podcast seeks to educate service business owners and consultants about what it really takes to be the boss of their businesses, instead of at the mercy of clients. She also recently did a TEDx talk titled “Taking Leaps Is The Only Way To Bank True Confidence.”

And here’s a quick mention of a Wesleyan alum abroad. Smith Louis moved to Berlin, Germany in February 2020, where he works as a product manager at a tech company in the content management space.

And now I’ll be stepping into the third person role. Calvin Cato has remained in high spirits by keeping in touch with friends Sophie Karp, Mariana Brewer, Gabrielle Tynes-Labonte, and Alana Liskov (who recently completed her counseling psychology doctoral program at the University of Denver). Beginning in September 2020, he is currently co-hosting and producing an outdoor, socially-distant comedy and music variety show in the northwest end of Prospect Park called Disco Tree Variety Show. If you live in NYC and can travel safely and own a picnic blanket, feel free to come by! The show accepts donations where proceeds have gone to support mental health charities as well as BIPOC and LGBTQ organizations. 

Finally, Fazal Yameen is currently the vice president of Product at Stash, a financial technology and financial services start-up in NYC. He sends his best regards and hopes that everyone is all well, healthy, safe, and staying close to their loved ones, whether in person or virtually.

Calvin Cato | catocals@gmail.com