Author: Randi Alexandra Plake

Minona Heaviland is living in Santa Rosa, Calif., with her husband and two kids. She’s working part-time in planning and ecological restoration, loving being a mom in the North Bay, and is happy to connect with any Wes alumni around the Bay Area.

Lily Cook has a fellowship to study biomedical informatics at Oregon Health & Science University from the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. She is a first-year predoctoral student.

From Zack Becker: “Amy Martin is the Democratic Party’s nominee for judge of the 263rd Criminal District Court, in Harris County, Texas. Amy has been a licensed attorney in Texas since 2003 and has spent the majority of her career representing indigent defendants charged with capital murder.”

Shannon (Kelly) and Jeff Tam ’98 have been living in Brooklyn for the last six years. She has been a midwife for 14 years and recently joined a great local practice (Park Slope Midwives). “I occasionally catch a Wes baby.” They have a son (11) and daughter (9). Jeff teaches chemistry at Trevor Day School.

Jeffrey Blumenthal has been getting back to his E&ES roots. “It rocks when a geographer and a geologist cross paths.” (in reference to his bae, Amelia Letvin).

Dan Jamieson and Jennie Rabinowitz welcomed baby Jonah River on May 14. Siblings Elijah (10) and Naomi (7) are over the moon about their new brother. Dan is a pulmonary and critical care doctor at Medstar Georgetown University Hospital, and Jennie is busy raising up the wee ones. They live in Chevy Chase, Md.

Mike Hakim has been living happily in Malibu and Beverly Hills with the lovely Sophia for approximately nine years, raising Skyler (8), Lexington (7), and newborn Charleston. “All of us are Gemini and celebrate birthdays within a week.” Real estate investment and development support Michael’s writing, travel documentaries, and entrepreneurial endeavors. Instagram: @beverlyhillsmayor.

Seth Dellinger, a Feldenkrais practitioner, just released his 12-part audio program and e-book, ¡Reimagining Yourself!, a comprehensive program for life transformation through the vehicle of experimental and improvisational movement exploration. More info at sethdellinger.com or sethbdellinger@gmail.com.

From Nina Kontos: “Jake Kheel had a beautiful wedding in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, and a number of us got to enjoy a few days there to celebrate (no kids!). Great crew, great times—a magical mini-reunion and we got to visit the beautiful ecological reserve in which Jake oversees. The crew included Dan Lawren, Danny Forster, Davis Thompson-Moss, Kabir Sen, Dan Shotz, Chris Coyle, Josh Harris, Billy Kheel ’96, Ben Selkow ’96, and Katharine Bailey ’97.

Ellen Sluder Cohen is a VP of marketing for RingBoost, the nation’s largest provider of vanity phone numbers. “It’s a fascinating business and I’ll be happy to talk anyone’s ear off about it at the 20th Reunion! My daughters are 7 and 4, and we’re living the full suburban NYC experience. In my time between jobs, I helped my husband build a professional-grade treehouse that will outlast us all. If anyone wants a sweet getaway, all are welcome!”

Sean Huse met up with several teammates at the Annual Wesleyan Men’s Basketball Golf Outing. It was a great day for the groups of Matt Hochstein ’00, Sean O’Brien ’00, Joe Griffin ’00, Josh Janelli ’01, Bryan McBeth ’02, and Brandon McBeth ’02. “Sadly, this group could hit more layups than greens in regulation so there was no winning prize. Coach Joe Reilly is doing a great job with the team, hosting this tournament, and with alumni relations . . . 10 years in a row for this group!” Sean, Pete Czerepak, Tim Syrett, and Geoff Dailey all work on State Street but have yet to have dinner in two years (of trying). “I’m sure many can relate to how busy work, travel, and family commitments can be at our age. We remain confident that a sit down can occur before 2019.”

Mark Zubko moved back to Westchester from London. He has three kids: Nico, Oliver, and Pia, who attend three different schools, which make the logistics somewhat complicated. His wife (Alex) remains way cooler than him.

You may have heard that the Notorious B-JW (Barbara-Jan Wilson) is retiring at the end of 2018. She welcomed in our class for our frosh dinner at the Freeman Center Ice Rink. It seems only fitting that her very large shoes will be filled by one of our own —Frantz Williams Jr. Congrats, Frantz!

As for your secretaries: Darryl and Bob bought a house and moved to Freeport, Maine. Kevin and his wife enjoyed a Saturday Wes ’99 double-header—brunch at Dave Feit’s new restaurant (the Stone & Rail) in Glen Rock, N.J., and getting to see the product of Tommy Kail’s directing brilliance, Hamilton. During brunch, Dave, his wife, and two kids were at the next table over celebrating their 11th anniversary!

C. Darryl Uy | darryl.uy@gmail.com

Kevin Kumler | kevinkumler@gmail.com

Leah Grabelsky is an assistant principal at a NYC public high school and recruiting math, science, and visual/digital art teachers for 2018-2019. E-mail LGrabelsky@hsartstech.org to set up a visit.

Lily Oglesby completed her MFA in choreography from Wilson College in May (and on her graduation day got a job offer to teach at Dickinson College). The San Francisco native relocated to Pennsylvania five years ago for her husband’s tenure-track position in philosophy (though they still spend several weeks each year back in SF Bay). She has enjoyed her time back on the East Coast, choreographing, teaching, performing, seeing old Wes buddies, and raising her 5-year-old son, Benjamin, who starts kindergarten this fall. She adds, “I am writing this from Smith College, where I am at a conference, serendipitously, with recently retired Wes professor of dance, Susan Lourie.”

Suhi Koizumi was honored by the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association as one of 17 recipients for the prestigious Best Lawyers Under 40 Award (BU40 Award). The BU40 Award recognizes talented individuals in the Asian Pacific American legal community who are under the age of 40 and have achieved prominence and distinction in their respective fields—be it the practice of law, academia, business, civic and charitable affairs, the judiciary, or politics—and who have demonstrated a strong commitment to Asian Pacific American civic or community affairs. Suhi practices immigration law at Minami Tamaki LLP in San Francisco.

Melanie Grubman purchased 93 acres of land with friends in the beautiful Mad River Valley of Vermont. Located on trails, rivers, and connected to the local school, Living Tree Alliance is a multigenerational, ecologically-oriented initiative, dedicated to redefining community, regenerating land, and revitalizing culture. She writes, “We are building a residential community, a regenerative working lands cooperative, and offering place-based transformative, education programs that nourish the mind, body, and spirit of all participants. We have four more plots available for people to build their homes on our pedestrian village and share in our dream of creating a vibrant space for collaborative land-based businesses, community, and festival life. Check it out at livingtreealliance.com or come camp on the land during one of our regional family festivals.”

Tim Howard writes, “My wife and I are moving to Berlin in May. I will continue to edit the podcast Reply All (replyall.limo), and will be reporting stories from Europe for the show. I’m very excited to meet journalists from anywhere in Europe, and also to get a drink with anyone in Berlin. Please contact me on Twitter: @newtimhoward. Also, I just released my eighth Soltero album, Western Medicine Blues.”

Jordyn Bonds says, “I’m coming up on my 15th year living in Boston, which is just crazy to think about. The big news for me right now is that I started my own company to finally focus full-time on my side project. It’s a data diary app called TallyLab and everyone is welcome to try it out: tallylab.com. Boston-area alumni who I get to see with some regularity (though never often enough!) are Rhiannon Luyster and Lenore Tsikitas Maniaci.”

Dana Hale writes, “I am the sales director for Island Creek Oysters in Duxbury, Mass. We are an oyster farm who sells our own farm-raised products like wild razor clams, mussels, and a handful of other shellfish grown locally in Cape Cod. We have five sister restaurants and have just purchased a large property that will house our farm, hatchery, events, and some alfresco oceanside dining. My partner, Rafael, is attending MGH, studying to become a physician assistant, and my son, Santiago, works on climbing upstairs when I’m not looking and eating cheese. I’m still in touch with so many Wesleyan classmates. I am most closely located to Chloe Garcia-Roberts and Mara Voukydis ’01. I see them and their lovely families as much as I can. Other dear friends are more far flung, when they read this they’ll know who they are and how much I miss them.”

Ify Chuke-Nwobi writes, “I am the founder of a leading moringa brand, Miracle in the Green. We also have a line of all-natural baby skincare, Mummy’s Miracle. Running this baby and enjoying life with my husband and four kids in sunny Orlando, Fla. Will love to meet up with any Wes alumni in central Florida.”

Avery Esdaile | wesleyan2000@gmail.com

As per usual, our 2001 crew is as overachieving as ever. We enjoyed hearing from all the fearless entrepreneurs among us. Let’s get right to it.

Thank you to Michael Shelley who wrote in about his wild adventures in Austin, Texas. Since 2010, Michael has been the owner-operator of a wildlife removal service that uses safe and humane methods to remove uninvited guests from homes and return them to their natural habitats. When he isn’t rescuing raccoons, snakes, and bats, oh my, Michael stays busy chasing after his two young daughters, Sadie and Mabel.

Comedian-actor Woody Fu’s one-man show was presented at the Magnet Theater in New York and featured in the New York Times. Asian Gracefully takes on topics like immigrant hoarders, Chinglish, what video game characters think about, and how the straight Asian male is the most marginalized group on Pornhub. We’ll take your word for it, Mr. Fu.

Juliana Ansari serves on the board of the Entrepreneurship Foundation in Connecticut, an organization that provides resources and education for entrepreneurs in the area. She works for the women’s health startup, DotLab, developing the first non-invasive test for endometriosis. Based on microRNA technology from Yale research, Juliana helps facilitate the transition of this new test from lab to clinic through her scientific writing and grant development.

Gwendolyn Guarino is a massage therapist with a sweet office in Troy, N.Y. Gwendolyn would be thrilled to see any local or visiting Wesleyan grads for a session (she also teaches a popular couples massage workshop), so get in touch at massageatlux.com. Gwendolyn has a 1-year-old son, Evander Gray Hurd, with her significant other, Jay Hurd.

Paul DePalo is running for Massachusetts Governor’s Council in District 7 (covering 65 municipalities across central Massachusetts). He will be facing Tea Party incumbent, Jen Caissie, in the November elections. Governor’s Council approves or rejects the Governor’s judicial nominations, and Paul’s platform centers on criminal justice reform and ending the school-to-prison pipeline. Find out more at pauldepalo.com. Good luck, Paul!

November 2017’s issue of Washington Lawyer featured the work of Open City Advocates, the juvenile law organization cofounded by Whitney Trevelyan Louchheim. Open City Advocates works with law students to fill a critical gap in youth legal representation in D.C.’s juvenile justice system. Mara Voukydis pipes in to say that she and Whitney have happily crossed paths in their work and were delighted to realize the Wes connection. Mara can attest firsthand to the incredible and inspiring work that Whitney does. Learn more at opencityadvocates.org.

Finally, in the 11th hour, Ben Hurwitz wrote in to share that he, Maneesh Sharma, Josh Cook, and Dave Bihldorff left their daily lives and families to reunite at Joshua Tree in honor of their 20th friendaversary. While not entrepreneurial in the traditional sense, we do admire their commitment to prioritizing what’s important and working hard to get what they want. (There it is. We knew we’d find the entrepreneurial connection if we tried).

Entrepreneurship is not easy, and we are so impressed with our classmates’ willingness to take risks in order to be able to do what they love.

Mara Voukydis | maravee@gmail.com

Aryn Sperando | arynsperandio@yahoo.com

Lauren Kirchner and Evan Simko-Bednarski ’07 welcomed a son, Emmett Beatty Kirchner-Bednarski, in January. Lauren and Evan are both reporters in New York.

Jesse Soursourian is in post-production for a film about women in Nagorno Karabakh who clear land mines. He is codirecting the short film which will go out to festivals next year.

Tim Harrington is a corporate counsel at Google and begins the Great Divide Mountain Bike Ride in August. His wife, Jessica, has a new position at Gigamon. They have two children, Lius, 6, and Josie, 4.

Kate Reder Sheikh and her husband, Nadeem, welcomed baby Dominic on Oct. 18, 2017. He has already enjoyed hanging out with Ari Wolfe and hopes to meet more of his mom’s Wesleyan friends soon.

2018 marks nine years since Dan Jones left the East Coast for sunny Colorado. He wishes he could’ve made it to the Reunion but feels fortunate that he got to hang out and catch up with Ranae Desouza when she was in Denver last year.

Ryan Garbalosa is settling into his cardiology practice in South Carolina and has served as the president of the county medical society for 2018. He was elected as the chair of the Young Physicians Section of the South Carolina Medical Association. A special trip back to Wes was made with Greg Ferrucci for Reunion and some time was made for a nostalgic drink at Eli Cannon’s downtown with Arnab Bhattasali, Glen Lindeke, and Ayalur Krishnan PhD’05.

After teaching in the music department at Yale for one year, John Graham is back living in Tbilisi, Georgia, and running an academic-cultural travel company that was recently written up in the New York Times travel section. He says, “Please come visit Georgia, Armenia, and Turkey with johngrahamtours.com!”

In personal news, I married David Gottlieb on Dec. 16 at one of our favorite Manhattan restaurants, Lafayette. The Class of ’03 was well-represented by: Margaret Haglund, Leslie Burns, Annie Shaw, and Pauline Wyrembak.

Amy Tannenbaum Gottlieb | atannenbaum@wesleyan.edu

Hi, Class of ’04! As usual, you’re making big moves and celebrating amazing things!

We have two classmates releasing books soon. First, we hear from Joe Fischel that his next book will be coming out this December, titled Screw Consent: A Better Politics of Sexual Justice.

Amy Meyerson is an assistant professor in the writing program and the director of the Undergraduate Writers Conference at the University of Southern California. Her debut novel, The Bookshop of Yesterdays, was published on June 12 by Park Row Books, an imprint at HarperCollins.

Overseas, C.S. Hsia tells that after a year toiling in the commodities trading sector, he’s decided to give entrepreneurship one more go by joining Alchemist Brewing in Taiwan, growing ingredients locally for beer and other delicious beverages.

We hear that Noah Nattell started new jobs in the past year. He tells us: “I’m the medical director for Planned Parenthood Pasadena and San Gabriel Valley, which provides reproductive and sexual healthcare for 22 communities in Los Angeles county. I serve as the director of women’s health for the LA County Correctional Health Services, overseeing and providing prenatal and gynecological care in the largest women’s jail in the U.S.”

Bernadette Doykos is “living in Portland, Maine, and working and teaching a bit at the University of Southern Maine. Martina McPherson and I started working with Sonya Behnke Page ’03 and her nonprofit consulting group, Page Consulting, LLC. Let us know if you need any help with grant writing, evaluation, or any other nonprofit needs. I’m also looking forward to Chris Mele’s wedding in July!”

We also learned that Michelle Paul and Dael Norwood are moving to Delaware. After successfully radicalizing their neighbors in upstate New York, they’re on their way to the very carefully pronounced Newark (say “New Ark”), where Dael is taking a position as a historian of capitalism at the University of Delaware. Michelle will continue in her new-ish role as managing director of PatronManager, the technology company she’s been helping to grow since 2005. They look forward to adding to their supply of fun facts about the First State, because so far that’s literally all they know. Give a shout if you’re in the neighborhood doing some tax-free shopping!

Meanwhile, Mark Schindler is the head of BI and analytics for a San Francisco-based startup called Fountain. He says it’s really interesting and detailed work, and his only wish is that he had known at Wes how much he would enjoy engineering/code work. He says he still wouldn’t have given up majoring in psych, but definitely would have pursued computer science as well.

Abraham Lateiner says: “I am feeling firmly rooted here in the greater Boston area. My wife, Erika, and I are watching our two girls grow up (Estella is 8, Lulu is 4) and enjoying a sense of settling down. Meanwhile, my professional life is where things feel wild . . . I’m focusing on creating ‘containers’ for people in a position of privilege and domination to learn the art of powerful surrender of their dominating power in solidarity with movements led by marginalized people. In particular, I’m working to support white men and rich people to commit to a lifelong process of learning to be ‘fully human,’ which to me means living in deep and joyful interdependence with the rest of the world. It is deeply challenging and rewarding work.”

Jennifer Brown writes: “After over a decade living and working in China and Southeast Asia, I finally moved back to the U.S. and finished up an executive MBA program through UNC Chapel Hill’s Kenan-Flagler business school. I decided to make the Bay Area my new home, where I’ve been thrilled to regularly catch up with Becca Gelenberg, Liza Harrison Ashbrook, and Leah Pransky (shoutout to Leah for housing me when I first arrived!). I’ve been doing some small consulting projects in global nonprofit and social impact work and encourage any Wes classmates working in that space to reach out!”

Carl Cervone writes, “I’m just over a year into my startup, Enveritas, where I’m COO. We verify sustainability levels in coffee supply chains, combining machine learning with on-the-ground data collection and using the insights to help coffee companies improve their buying practices. We just got accepted into the startup accelerator Y Combinator. I split my summer between Silicon Valley and New York.”

Jenina Nuñez | jenina.nunez@outlook.com

Meeghan Whooley Ward | meeghan.w.ward@gmail.com

Misa Dayson received her doctorate last year in anthropology from UCLA after submitting her dissertation. A chapter from her work was edited into an essay and published in The Black Diaspora and Germany: Deutschland und die Schwarze Diaspora. She is working for screenwriter Michael Arndt. She got married to Jules Hollander in Troyes, France, with Wes friends Ada Pinkston; Andrea Cortes-Juarbe; Xiomara Lorenzo and her wife, Cara Herbitter ’03; Julie Ren; and Tacuma Bradley ’04, his wife Leah Cohen, and their son, Kai, and Tavi Fields ’02 and Lisa Hoff.

Ada Pinkston received a $30,000 grant from Light City Baltimore to create a light-based public art work. Ada was also awarded $10,000 from the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance Rubys Artist Project Grant in support of her performative intervention and arts installation, LandMarked. This fall, supported by a fellowship, Ada will temporarily move to D.C. to create the second iteration of LandMarked.

Andrea Cortes-Juarbe is completing training in body work and healing at the movement-based creative art therapy program, Tamalpa Institute. This summer she will be in Big Sur at Esalen Institute assisting at the Tamalpa Institute Expressive Body, Life/Art workshop.

Xiomara Lorenzo is the associate vice-president and director of Society of Grownups, a digital financial wellness initiative developed by MassMutual. She leads the organization in its efforts to position financial wellness as a way to empower clients as they articulate and take action towards their personal and professional goals.

Julie Ren received her doctorate in geography in 2015 from Humboldt University Berlin, graduating summa cum laude. She received two post-doctoral fellowships (City University of Hong Kong and the London School of Economics). Julie published her co-edited anthology, Art and the City: Worlding the Discussion through a Critical Artscape (Routledge). Julie is now research faculty in urban studies at the Humboldt University Berlin.

Niv Elis is covering Congress as a reporter for The Hill in D.C.

Tony Alleyne was honored with the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education Recent Alumni of Merit Award.

Becky Goldstein Albertalli writes young adult books, one of which was adapted into the film, Love, Simon (Katie Walsh actually wrote one of her all-time favorite Love, Simon reviews). Her next book, What If It’s Us, includes a scene that takes place at Wesleyan. She lives in Atlanta with her husband Brian and their two young sons.

Capt. Jesse Sommer has been selected to serve in the U.S. Army Special Operations Command’s 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) as the 3d Battalion Judge Advocate. He returned from a 10-month deployment to Iraq as part of the mission to defeat ISIS. He received the Bronze Star for his service. He donates twice per year to the WESU-FM semi-annual pledge drive.

Doro Globus is managing director of David Zwirner Books, working with artists such as William Eggleston, Yayoi Kusama, Kerry James-Marshall, and the estates of artists such as Anni Albers, Donald Judd, and Felix Gonzalez-Torres. Still based in London, her job brings her to New York three or four times a year.

Max Goldblatt, in Los Angeles, will marry Vanessa Riegel next year. He completed work on In A Relationship, starring Emma Roberts, which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival—Kellen Quinn and Dan Janvey ’06 joined him at the premiere. The film was picked up for distribution, so you can catch it later this year and enjoy a delightful Goldblatt cameo to boot. Max also cut the music video for MGMT’s  Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden recent song “When You Die” (co-directed by Hallie Cooper-Novack ’07, produced and visual effects supervised by Jamie Dutcher, produced by Lucia Pier ’08). Learn more at maxgoldblatt.com.

Kate Mitchell is teaching ninth grade world history at The School for Creative Studies in Durham, N.C., and organizing with others to rebuild public schools in the South (#red4ed). Her beloved cat is 11.

David Delcourt lives in Boulder, Colo., with his wife and two boys. He started Seed Ranch Flavor Co., a natural food company focused on making sophisticated hot sauces that focus on flavor over heat. On the weekends he hits up mountain biking trails with Tom Facelle.

Leland Smith lives with his wife on a horse farm in Maryland, managing IT for international development projects. He spends weekends raising sheep and chickens, growing vegetables, and tending to endless farm work. His son, Augustus, turns 1 this summer.

David Rood-Ojalvo is director of field operations at Catholic Charities of Brooklyn and Queens. He completed his first short film, Flight School, with the actors Ari Brand ’06, Diego Ortiz ’06, and Jon Leland. He lives in Rockaway Beach.

Kristin Juarez ’08 and Rafael Tapias, MD, moved from Atlanta to NYC. Kris is finishing her PhD, Raf is doing a fellowship in child and adolescent psychiatry, and both are nesting with their newborn, Rafael PJ Tapias.

Sarah Weigle is living in Seattle and had two kids—Maya and Joy. She will be teaching science at Garfield High School this fall.

Marcella Winearls | marcellawinearls@gmail.com

Happy summer, Class of 2007. Here are few updates from our class: Jocelyn Bonadio-de Freitas graduated from the Harvard Graduate School of Education with a master’s degree in the arts in education. By a vote of her peers and faculty, Jocelyn won the Intellectual Contribution Award for her 2017-2018 cohort. Scout James graduated from Juilliard with an MFA in drama. While there, inspired by the Argus and Wesleying.org, he founded Juilliard’s only student newspaper.

We have a number of successful artists in our midst. Rachel Kiel lives and works in North Carolina as a songwriter and musician. Her third album, Shot from a Cannon, was released in October.

Patrick Dyer Wolf contributed vocals and guitar to Rachel’s record and flew down to join her band for the release show.

Chris Krovatin lives in Washington Heights, NYC, where he works as a writer and journalist. Last year, he published a coffee table book on the history of heavy metal music named Hellraisers: A Complete Visual History of Heavy Metal Mayhem. He is planning his wedding to Azara Golston ’09 which is set to take place in October.

Brian Dilks-Brotman lives in Collingswood, N.J., with his wife and two of the jerkiest cats you could ever meet. His house is basically a jerk farm. He’s working as a staff representative and organizer for a public-sector union in New Jersey. He still hasn’t seen Hamilton yet.

Megan Harrington | wesleyan007@gmail.com

Victoria Belyavsky Pinsky | victoriapinsky@gmail.com

Hello, ’08! It was so great to see so many of you at Reunion and meet some of your families. Here are some notes from those of us who couldn’t make it back and from those of us who made good on promises to submit.

Nick Benacerraf is working towards a PhD in theatre and performance at the Graduate Center, CUNY. His directorial debut, Seagullmachine, premiered at La MaMa in April and May. The show was created by The Assembly, including alumni from the Class of 2010). His set-designing practice (nickbenacerraf.com) had shows at Brooklyn Academy of Music and Lincoln Center. He was sad to miss Reunion, because “finals suck,” but sends love to friends.

Peter Hill writes, “After eight years fighting the good fight in the nonprofit sector and NYC government, I returned to grad school to get an MBA and explore ways to make cities work better using technology. I graduated from Harvard Business School the day before our 10th Reunion, and I’m moving out to Ann Arbor this summer with my husband. He’ll be teaching there, and I’ll be consulting at McKinsey in Detroit. I’m new to Michigan so would love to connect with any Wes people in the area. First, though, I’m enjoying a rare summer off to travel the country and reconnect with old friends.”

Adam Tinkle has been appointed director of the John B. Moore Documentary Studies Collaborative at Skidmore College, where he has been teaching since 2014. He writes, “One of the great joys of working here has been in working with visiting fellows for our annual Documentary Storytellers’ Institute, which I’ve helped to steer since its 2015 inception. Among these fellows are Jake Nussbaum ’10, Asa Horvitz ’10, Gedney Barclay ’09, and Sylvia Ryerson ’09. Anyone with any connection to nonfiction media and the documentary arts should look me up in Saratoga—it’s an incomparably lovely place to spend a summer.”

Last summer, after almost a decade of grad school/post-doc in Ann Arbor, Leah Weinberg and Scott Horowitz ’07, MA ’09 finally packed the cat into the car and drove west to start the next chapter in Colorado at the University of Denver. Both are loving the Front Range life, and cordially invite any Wes folks passing through Denver to drop them a line. 

Alpay Koralturk couldn’t make it to Reunion due to an urgent business trip in Turkey, but wrote, “My first company, Gram Games, just got sold to Zynga.” Grace Overbeke is pursuing a PhD in theater and drama at Northwestern University, and this July, will be marrying Mr. Matthew McMunn! Evan Barton just joined a new gym and is writing an essay about rereading the Harry Potter series.

Lyz Nardo, COO of Tipsy Scoop, celebrated the first anniversary of the Tipsy Scoop Barlour in Kips Bay. She writes, “In addition to 15 year-round flavors of boozy ice cream and sorbet, we are serving up lots of seasonal offerings including an entire summer of rosé wine-based flavors and collaborating with many restaurants like American Cut.” In May she was married outside of Florence, Italy, and is expecting her first child on Nov. 30.

Lucy Bickerton finally closed the books on the classroom portion of her medical education at SUNY Downstate and took the first step of her licensing exam two days before her baby boy, Calvin Vara, showed up one month early! Ilona Kramer, Elena Feroz, Stephanie Calvert, and Stephanie Fungsang celebrated at the baby shower just a few hours before she went into labor. She is loving motherhood and is excited to start clinical clerkships in July.

Another applicant to the class of 2040 arrived in April—George Fredric Jones Cruickshanks was born on April 4 to Francie Jones and Lauchlin Cruickshanks. Proud grandparents include Karen ’77 and Don Cruickshanks ’75.

Nick Weiss-Richmond and three collaborators, have created My Astronaut, an eight-episode mockumentary web series that answers the question of what one dim-witted boyfriend does to keep his girlfriend and his life from changing forever. Episode one was released on May 3. Season one starts with two bewildered filmmakers arriving to profile Maggie Placek, an underdog candidate for a civilian mission to Mars, but they soon find that her boyfriend, Micah Pevsner, might hold the key to a story far more compelling than a simple 30-second candidate bio. Episodes will be released on YouTube and Vimeo every Thursday, and the series has already received positive press from Staten Island Advance and The Daily Fandom.

Alicia Collen Zeidan | acollen@wesleyan.edu

Hi, fellow 2009s. Here are a couple of updates on our classmates. Ray Ward and Lucas Hoeffel both launched new media ventures, Opalite Media and Lucas Hoeffel Photography, each focused on digital media production. They’ve kickstarted several photography/film collaborations while Ray lives in Boston and Lucas in NYC.

Mike Repplier writes, “I tell the stories of people in extraordinary circumstances as a producer for the primetime newsmagazine 20/20 on ABC News. As a booking producer, I manage the people whose stories we tell and am often the first line of reporting. I won my first Emmy Award for my work on a town hall special with President Obama on race and law enforcement. Most recently I helped produce an exclusive interview with Tammie Jo Shults, the hero Southwest pilot who landed her plane after an engine explosion and saved 148 people on board.”

Thanks for your submissions and please keep them coming!

Alejandro Alvarado | ale.alvarado12@gmail.com

Greetings, Class of 2010! I hope you enjoy these updates from our classmates around the world. Sam Schilit got engaged to Jeremy Rosenweig and former 48 Home housemates Emily Hoffman and Franni Paley said “I do” to being bridesmaids. Sam is the 2019 laboratory genetics and genomics fellow for Harvard Medical School’s American Board of Medical Genetics and Genomics training program.

Lauren Valentino married Amol Yadav in Mumbai, India, in a multi-day ceremony that included lots of Bollywood dancing, delicious Indian food, and traditional rituals. Lauren and Amol met while in graduate school at Duke University, where Lauren is finishing her doctorate. They tied the knot in front of 500 of their closest friends and family, with strong representation from the Wesleyan contingent: Isabel Huston, Alice Maggio, Becky (Weiss) Roberts, Nistha Shrestha, and Tony Zosherafatain were all in attendance. And yes, the fight song was sung!

Katie (Zackin) Roose and Rob Roose ’04 have lived in Portland, Ore., for two years now. Katie is a pediatric nurse practitioner at a busy primary care clinic. They are expecting their first child in December.

Yun Wang now calls the Lone Star state his home. He completed his MBA in Austin from Texas McCombs and is moving to Dallas as a management consultant for Deloitte. He will use his newly-learned business jargon and over-hyped data science to help companies signal that they are winning at the game of capitalism.

After completing her MBA last year, Hallie Coffin-Gould joined the general management track of Thermo Fisher Scientific’s Graduate Leadership Development Program. She has just started her second rotation working in digital marketing and sales management. Hallie and her fiancé bought a house together in Pittsburgh and look forward to getting married this fall.

Colin Campbell married Carly Robinson in a beautiful ceremony in Bristol, R.I. The surf and turf dinner was positively decadent and the ceremony was well attended by the Class of 2010 with the likes of Woody Redpath and Eliza Newman, Lonny Blumenthal and Cate Haring, Gavin Brennan, Zac Rosensohn, Mark Murphy, Sam Robinson, Ram Sivalingam, Jon Killeen, and Sam Campbell-Decock. These Cardinals did a great job of showing a similarly large contingent of Williams College grads how to party, how to eat macarons, and how to dance.

Gina Yeomans and Nate “Shakedown” Green ’09 welcomed their son, Auggie, to the world on March 8. He’s been growing like crazy and is almost ready to wear the Wesleyan onesie given to him by grandparents Alison Zaeder ’83 and John Green ’81.

Jonna Humphries is leading marketing at Moog Music, Inc. and is on the path toward a MBA through Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.

Alice Maggio has moved to Brooklyn to work an internship with Phil Thompson, deputy mayor of strategic policy initiatives.

After completing her MFA in art writing at the School of Visual Arts in New York, Emma Drew moved back home to San Francisco where she is coediting a book on public art and strategizing for life as a freelance writer.

Kait Halibozek got engaged! She and her fiancé both work in the film industry in Los Angeles and are planning a fall 2019 wedding.

Casey Simchik married Robbie Shaw in Napa, Calif., in June on National Rosé Day. The ceremony was spectacular with beautiful (albeit windy) weather and picturesque examples of the Napa Valley’s legendary viticulture scene. The dance floor barely survived the moves of Woody Redpath, Eliza Newman, Jon Killeen, Meredith Holmes, Anika Fischer, Sarah Hoefle, Matt Ward, Erin Fitzsimmons, Ellika Healy, Kyle MacDonald, Ingrid Parl, Mark Murphy, and Jeremy Kaminer.

Finally, a big congratulation is in order from the Class of 2010 to the coaching staff and players of the Cardinal Men’s Lacrosse team, which won the 2018 Division III National Championship in Foxborough, Mass., this past spring. The atmosphere was “lit” at Gillette Stadium and the Class of 2010 was well represented in a crowd of well over 1,000 alumni, friends, and family who cheered the Cardinals to victory.

That’s all for this issue! Here’s hoping everyone is well and as always, feel free to pass along your life updates anytime.

David Layne | dlayne@wesleyan.edu