Class Notes | 1990s

Rachel Quinn lives with her partner, Eesha Pandit, in Houston. Earlier this year, they joined 10 of Rachel’s 12 siblings and hundreds of family members in laying her father Dr. Bernard Kwesi Glover to rest in his home village of Akutukope in the Volta Region of Ghana. This fall Rachel will start a tenure-track position in women’s, gender and sexuality studies and comparative cultural studies at the University of Houston. She is working on several articles as well as her first book manuscript, which focus on Dominican women’s lives in Santo Domingo, mixed race identities, and gender and sexuality in contemporary transnational Caribbean culture.

Aaron Shield accepted a tenure-track job as assistant professor of speech pathology and audiology at Miami University of Ohio, where he continues his research on autism and deafness, and teaches undergraduate and graduate students about language development and language disorders. He and his husband, Reginald Harris, moved to Cincinnati this summer.

Gabe Paquette is a professor of history at Johns Hopkins, where he directs the university’s Latin American studies program. Gabe and wife Johanna Bard Richlin ’08 welcomed their baby daughter, Antonia Bard Paquette, into the world on June 5.

Dani Snyder-Young earned tenure at Illinois Wesleyan University last year. Her daughter, Parker, was born in March.

Elsie Kagan and Carl Robichaud welcomed a daughter, Willa Tilden, into their family on May 27. Her brothers, Jasper and Alexan, are delighted by the addition. Elsie continues to teach and make art in Brooklyn, where she started a parent artist network, and this year received a grant from the Sustainable Arts Foundation. Carl continues his job at Carnegie Corporation of New York, where he makes grants to organizations working to reduce nuclear risks. Elsie and Carl recently visited the Bay Area to spend some time with Dan Engler and Sahra Halpern.

Liz Shulman and her husband, Andrew, welcomed a baby boy—Isaac Emmett Mastronarde—on Oct. 7, 2014. He has blazing red hair and dual Canadian-American citizenship.

Sarah Maine lives in New York, working as director of product development for California-based company Independent Means, and doing creative projects in her spare time. On Aug. 1, she married Scott Sherratt, with Jenessa Joffe ’00, Anders Peterson, Rob Finn ’98, Karen Correa, Allison Radecki ’98, and Neal Wilkinson ’98 in attendance. A wonderful time was had by all!

After 11 years of schooling, Jennifer Karlin graduated from the University of Chicago with an MD in June. During her time at UChicago, she also earned a PhD in the conceptual and historical studies of science, an MA in anthropology, and a fellowship in clinical medical ethics from the MacLean Center. Since so many people were coming into town for the MD hooding and graduation, Jen and Andrew Mullen decided three weeks before the celebration to include a marriage ceremony in the weekend festivities. The ceremony was officiated by Amelia Borofsky at the Ivy Room in Chicago on May 30, 2015. In attendance were the following revelers: professor of psychology and the science in society program Jill Morawski and her family, Jessie Torrisi ’98 (sang and played guitar), Abigail Levine (choreographed a solo dance which turned into a choreographed flash mob!), Laura Zaks (spoke in ceremony and her boys, Luka and Tiago, were flower boys), Diana Glanternik (sang “Moon River” and spoke in ceremony), Shira Gans ’01 (spoke in ceremony), Laura Plageman (spoke in ceremony), Margo Simon (whose husband, Josh Millis, sketched the ceremony in real time) and Martin Lijtmaer (played guitar at the ceremony and reception). See online version for full list of Wes alums in attendance. After returning from a week-long honeymoon in Fiji, Jen left Chicago and moved to San Francisco for her residency in family medicine at UCSF.

When Amelia Borofsky is not officiating weddings, she is a character and researcher in Gemma Cubero del Barrio’s Homecoming, a documentary on climate change and two women who return to Pukapuka, the remote coral atoll in the Cook Islands where they grew up.

Dukagjin Blakaj joined the faculty at the Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital at the Ohio State University in Columbus.

Ryan Boutin never expected to be back in Middletown, but he is a physician (hospitalist) at Middlesex Hospital, where he occasionally treats Wes students.

Lauren Tobias lives in D.C., where her son just finished kindergarten. She left the Institute of Medicine two years ago to start her own consulting shop. This spring, she caught up with Jill Clark and Monisha Nariani, and saw Lina Kee and Ookie Ma ’98 when they were stateside this summer to have a second kid. Lauren sees Alison MacAdam occasionally, now that she is back in D.C. after a year in Boston. After 11 years, Alison left All Things Considered, but not NPR. She is now an editorial coach and trainer working to create more opportunities for public radio producers, editors, and reporters to talk about and improve their craft. She shares storytelling techniques from the best NPR content at nprstorytelling.tumblr.com.

After living in New York for almost 16 years, Jayanthi Raja Segaran and her husband, Tirtha Das PhD ’01, moved to the suburbs of Westchester, with two little boys in tow (Rohin, 7 and Eishaan, 3). She has a shorter commute to her job at PepsiCo in White Plains, and a garden to call her own.

Michelle Kawka runs her own portrait and corporate photography and video business in New York City, specializing in character driven portraiture. While her studio is located in Chelsea, she recently moved uptown to Washington Heights. Check out her work at www.michellekawka.com.

Sung An and Suryo Soekarno met up for lunch in Jakarta in May to talk about old times and old friends. Both work in Southeast Asia after stints in the U.S. and elsewhere in Asia earlier in their careers. Sung is a managing director with Falcon Partners, a private equity firm. Suryo is an account director with Millward Brown, a market research and consulting firm.

Thanks for sharing! Keep ’em coming! Hope you all had a relaxing summer!

Jason writes: Greetings from Charlottesville, Va. My husband and I finally made the jump and left the NYC area. We’ve been in Virginia for a year now and opened a restaurant called MarieBette Café & Bakery, named after our two daughters, Marian & Betty. It has been an incredible experience for us and, thankfully, we’ve thus far been successful. One of the best things about the restaurant is that we have been visited by many Wes alums.

Our friends Emily Lieberman and Jules Cohen came in with their three wonderful daughters while on their way to visit Jules’ parents in the D.C. area. Jules and Emily are living in Seattle where Jules works for Microsoft. Emily left life as a lawyer to be a full-time mom and, as you might expect, is truly one of the most fun moms I’ve ever met.

Dena Rosenberg also visited us at the restaurant with her daughter, Odessa, while visiting her in-laws. I hadn’t seen her in more than 10 years and it was nice to catch up. Dena writes: “Heather Marciniec, Maria Stasavage and I went to see Catie Lazarus’s ’99 amazing Employee of the Month show at Joe’s Pub! Maya Seiden and her husband brought their two sons (prospective classes of ’32 and ’34, respectively) to Wes for the first time last weekend! Jehan Manekshaw visited the States this spring and had a mini reunion with Claire Hruby, Polly Fiveash, Aongus Burke and Anand Nayak ’96. Jehan also met up with Nitin Kochhar and Omar Rahim ’96 in NYC, and caught up with Sean Dague in Poughkeepsie! Jehan married Shaizia Jifri and they have a lovely baby boy, Aden. Jehan runs two theatre organisations in Mumbai: The Young People’s Theatre Programme and The Drama School, Mumbai.”

Anthony Veneziale writes: “I started a new company called Speechless and we are taking Silicon Valley by storm, helping people to make presentations that matter, one improvised PowerPoint at a time! It’s www.speechlesslive.com. I am still performing with Lin-Manuel Miranda ’02 (now Dr. Miranda thanks to Wesleyan) and Bill Sherman ’02 in Freestyle Love Supreme. I basically still get to make up stuff as an improviser for a living.”
Stevie Caldwell bought a condo last year with her wife, Jill Clark ’99, in Somerville, Mass. They have a 4-year-old daughter and Jill is still working for the Family Planning program under the Department of Public Health in Massachusetts. Stevie works in the tech sector and is also pursuing music with her band, Six Times Seven, and a side project called “And Then There Was One.”

Nicole Macotsis Hefny is working hard to finish her MA in cultural sustainability from Goucher College, while teaching dance, doing cultural programming, and raising her son between Brooklyn and Egypt, as her husband has joined the Egyptian National Boxing Team after a several year hiatus.

That’s it for now. Please be sure to send any updates to Marcus and me.

Greetings, fellow ’96ers! Can you believe our 20th Reunion is coming up in May? Hope to see many of you there!

Let’s start with the Olatoye-Stroziers. Shola writes: “Matthew, big brothers Alexander and Rowan, and I were pleased to welcome Isabel to our family in May. We are managing the fun and chaos while I run the NYC housing authority and Matthew is the editor of a new Dow Jones site called Mansion Global. We see Tracey Gardner, Randy Slaughter, and their beautiful daughter. I was so excited to celebrate the success of Sarah Wildman’s new book, Paper Love, during her many NYC book tour events this year. At my 40th birthday party, Aisha Cook, Donna Temple ’95, Joy Connolly ’97, Ian Halpern, Saeyun Lee ’93, and others were in the house. Thrilled to get to talk to Tanya Schneider Robinson ’94 and her husband, Earl Robinson ’94, who are in New Orleans. Love that you can still run into people on the street and not just on Facebook. Loved seeing Jason Rosado on lower Broadway.”

When Laura Dine Million wrote in, she also mentioned Sarah Wildman’s book: “I’m still in Los Angeles with my husband, Mike, and two kids, Chloe (7) and Nathan (3.5). I am the producer of the NPR political discussion show Left, Right & Center. I loved seeing Sarah Wildman out here this spring for her book tour!”

Speaking of books, Mary Pagones has published her second one. It’s a novel titled Fortune’s Fool, and you can find it on Amazon.

Benjamin Meyer’s first feature film, Fools, had its world premiere at Dances With Films, in Los Angeles, where it won the Audience Award for Best Competition Feature. He wrote and directed the film and put the final touches on it at Bill Macomber’s Fancy Post.

Aruna Chandran and husband, Kelly Miller, welcomed twins, Lucas Nihal and Nicole Anjali, in May of 2014. Syryna, the family cat, is still waiting for the new “house guests” to leave!

Leigh Needleman and Andrew Frishman ‘97 moved within Cambridge, Mass., to the Central Square area. Leigh works in a neuroscience laboratory at Harvard University. Andrew is co-directing Big Picture Learning. They have two kids (2.5 and 5.5 years old) and try to spend most weekends at Lake Wequaquet on the Cape.

Barrett Feldman relocated to NYC four years ago. After practicing architecture for 13 years, she recently founded an architecture firm—PSF PROJECTS—with two other partners, based in Brooklyn. She writes, “I would happily welcome the chance to work with anyone from the Wesleyan community, as it is a place I continue to hold close to my heart!”

Pascal Pinck also sent an update: “I joined a Seattle-based software company called Socrata, focused on helping government organizations make public data accessible to citizens, researchers, and app developers. If there are any civic hackers or open data nerds out there in Wes-land, I’d love to get in touch!”

Mark Davis continues to work at Wesleyan as the director of planned giving. His daughter, Minerva (or Minnie, 5), is starting kindergarten, and son, Ollie (3), is starting preschool. He hopes that both his children are able to meet other ’96 kids at our 20th Reunion in May.

Thanks to everyone who sent in updates! Please continue to send in news.

Though I am still not ready to accept that it has been 20 years since we have graduated from our beloved Wesleyan University, I am happy to say happy 20th Reunion to you all. It was absolutely fantastic and mind-blowing to see so many ’95ers in the house enjoying all the festivities, food and fun. And you all looked marvelous! It was also a joy to see the li’l ’95ers, the future Wesleyanites, having fun and meeting their parents’ classmates and families. I won’t begin to name all the folks who I ran into but I will say “thank you all for coming!” You made the 20th Reunion a huge success. And to those who could not make, well … sorry, and we hope you make it to our 25th. On to the notes…

Jason Wiser has an animation going up at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC this summer. He is doing facial animation and skin texturing for The Return, a wild piece of interactive theater to celebrate the successful re-assembly of Tulio Lombardi’s marble “Adam” statue which fell and smashed into 28 pieces in 2002. The performances run all July 2015. Official announcement: on.wsj.com/1P8GqZ3

Gabriella Klien recently published a book of poems. It is called Land Sparing and was published by Nightboat Books. It was the winner of the Nightboat Poetry Prize.

Katy McNeill has been living in the Boston area for approximately 13 years “(probably with many of you close by but we just haven’t run into each other…), still working in the MIT libraries (same place but evolving role). I’ll look forward to seeing everyone at the Reunion; I’ll be bringing my family (wife, Sharie, and our two daughters (ages 9 and 5 now).”

Thanks to those of you for writing in with news to share. We hope to hear from many more of you for future issues. Please be in touch.

Keri Cascio writes, “I moved to Chicago in January to take a job as the executive director of the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services, a division of the American Library Association. I’m proud to be working for the ‘library mothership,’ and I’m enjoying everything Chicago has to offer.”

Aram Sinnreich writes, “I’ll be moving to Washington, D.C., this summer to start a new job as an associate professor with tenure at American University’s School of Communication.”

Tonya Ward Singer writes from Santa Rosa, Calif., “I’m having a great time raising my boys (7 and 10), and running a business that helps K–12 schools innovate for equity. My book, Opening Doors to Equity, was published this year (and is a Corwin Press bestseller).”

Brenda Frink is living in Portland, Ore., She is working as coordinating editor of Pacific Historical Review.

Hi, everyone! Here’s the latest news from some of your classmates:

Jessica Gutow Viner has been named associate director of admission and financial aid at The Harpeth Hall School in Nashville.

Karen Powell will be teaching a variety of tax law courses at Ohio Northern University School of Law starting in the fall. While she’ll still be in Montana for the summers, she’ll be looking to connect with Wes alums in the Ohio area or who are also teaching at law schools around the country.

Lori Vaughan writes, “On April 10th, my husband (John Ferguson) and I welcomed our third child, Lucas. (He joins big brothers Ethan, 9, and Noah, 11.)”

Julie Hanauer was recently promoted to full professor.

Dan Crane continues freelancing for The New York Times, and has turned his 2013 Times article about his home renovation and divorce into a screenplay, currently in development. He’s also writing a story for California Sunday magazine about Hopscotch, a new “mobile opera” by Yuval Sharon which will be performed in and out of 24 cars driving around Los Angeles, premiering in October. His latest band, Ray & Remora, just recorded their first full-length album, which will be out soon. The video for their cover of Pavement’s Gold Sounds features cameos by Kim Gordon, Jeff Goldblum, and Stephen Malkmus. It’s from their 1994 EP, which came out last year, and has covers of six songs that all came out in…1994. He’ll head to Oulu, Finland, once again in August to emcee the 20th annual World Air Guitar Championships.

Dina Kaplan writes, “I just launched a new company called The Path that teaches meditation to people. Come join us if you’re in NYC: thepath.com/nyc—and I’d love to see fellow classmates in the city in general!”

Jessica Sternfeld became tenured associate professor of music at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., where she teaches classical music history and musical theater. She and her husband also became parents, in the summer of 2014, to Zola (now 5) and Harper (4), their two little girls adopted from Taiwan.

Aaron Barr writes, “My wife, Anner, and I are currently in month seven of a round-the-world trip! We’re hoping to make it a full year or more…we’ll have to see how we’re doing after our late August horse trek in Mongolia! Amazing just to write those words… Anyway, we’re blogging at nomaprequired.com and updating facebook at facebook.com/nomaprequired.”

Ghassan G. Medawar and his wife delivered their newborn son, George G. Medawar, in March 2015. He was born at The Lindo Wing, St Mary’s Hospital in London and was named after his paternal grandfather.

Keith Hay writes, “My wife, Fran, and I live in Denver with our three kids, Sonya (10), Anna (7), and Isaac (7). While Colorado’s mountains are still full of snow, we are preparing for a summer of camping, hiking, and climbing. We climbed our first 14er (14,000 foot summit) last summer (Mt. Democrat) and are hoping to do another one this summer. When I am not in the mountains I serve as a senior policy adviser to the Colorado Public Utilities Commission.”

Liza Kleinman lives in Portland, Maine, with her husband and their 10-year-old daughter. Her novel for young readers, Azalea, Unschooled, was just released by Islandport Press.
Jason Gellman writes, “I recently joined Snell & Wilmer, LLP (www.swlaw.com), practicing public utility, energy and natural resources law out of the Phoenix office. I also am the incoming co-chair of the ABA Section on energy, environment, and natural resources—energy and infrastructure: siting and reliability committee, and I am to take over the reins as president of the Phoenix Union Foundation for Education, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that provides scholarships and funding for student programs for students in the Phoenix Union high school district—the seventh largest in the country. I recently completed my second Tough Mudder in March and will complete the Spartan Trifecta with the 12-plus mile Beast in October in Lake Tahoe. Nothing like climbing up ropes, jumping off platforms, carrying buckets of gravel, sliding into 34-degree ice water and crawling under barbed wire through nasty-smelling mud in your 40s. Good times. Still here in the desert Southwest with my wife and three kids (10, 9, and 6). The kids keep me pretty occupied with grand performances and detailed explanations of upcoming events—on top of the other various activities. Busy times.”

Adam writes: Hi, all: It’s time for the next round of updates from the class of 1992!
First up is my frosh year roommate, James Wilton, who lives in Charlotte, N.C. He was recently named head football coach for sixth grade at Sun Valley Middle School. He is working for Collabera as an account manager, interfacing with Bank of America. James’s wife, Tracy, is enjoying being at home with their three children—Jack (soon a high schooler), Carley, and Lola.

Also on the former roommate front (the now gone A-1 LoRise 10-person unit), Darcy Dennett got married and just returned from a mini-honeymoon, which involved a few days of challenging hiking in Canyonlands, Utah.

In another blast from the A-1 past, Sarah Guernsey reports that she had a “college day” at her middle school. Teachers made signs completing the sentence, “when you go to college…” and shared pictures of themselves from college (she reports that it was really hard to find ones that could be shared with middle schoolers!). The whole experience got her excited for the fall when she will take her son Jake to Wes for “Sons and Daughters of Alumni” weekend for high school juniors.

Juan Luque and his wife, Marie, welcomed Eva Maria Luque, who was born on April 2, weighing 7 lbs., 11 oz. Juan is also leaving his tenured position at Georgia Southern University and starting a new position as an associate professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences and Hollings Cancer Center at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, beginning in August 2015.

Also welcoming a new addition, Stephanie Ivy Sanford and her husband, Junius Sanford, were expecting a baby in July.

Michele Eisenberg was host to a mini Wesleyan reunion at her daughter Elana’s bat mitzvah in April. Lara Small Laurence ’90, Jennifer Hammer ’91, Sarah Leavitt, and Jenny Simon Tabak ’93 were all there to sing “Havdalah” and dance the hora.

In February 2015, Shelly Gray was crowned Ms. Wheelchair Texas 2015. During her tenure she will make dozens of appearances and speeches, and compete for Ms. Wheelchair America in Des Moines in July. She is still practicing employment law with a State agency, and living with her 8-year-old son in Austin, Texas.

Vida Towne lives in Seattle with her husband, Andrew Chiodi, and their 9-year-old son, Dominic. Her days of Ultimate ended when her son was born in 2005, but she played high level Club Ultimate for many years, winning the World Championship with teammate Cory Pike ’89 in 1997 and 2002, and the National Championship in 2004. From time to time she runs into former Rugby teammate Corinne Drumheller, who has two young children and also lives in Seattle.

Shura Pollatsek is associate professor of costume design and technology at Western Kentucky University. She just had a sabbatical, during which time she began writing her first book, with the working title of Behind the Costume: The Art and Artists of Costume Design. The book is a collaboration with her husband, award-winning photographer (and DGA director and cinematographer) Mitch Wilson. She also did additional research and interviews in Paris (putting that French BA from Wesleyan to good use!). Shura also still does professional costume design, most recently for Christopher K. Morgan & Artists in the D.C. area.

Tamara O’Neil met up with Laurel Korholz and Greg Vinton in Princeton, N.J. for a terrific afternoon. Tamara is finishing her next-to-last tour in the Navy JAG Corps this September as senior counsel at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., and then she’ll be moving to the field of disability policy and law through the Secretary of the Navy’s Council of Review Boards at the Washington Navy Yard. Her husband, Cameron, is retiring from the Army in the next year, so they are both getting excited to join the civilian workforce.

Andrew Draper’s job in database implementation has a new home after his company was bought out. He still lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Chris Foster works at Harmonix, and is having fun working on Rock Band 4 with Greg LoPiccolo ’83 and Nicole Lewis ’96. In his spare time, he is also working on a videogame at home with his 6-year-old son.

Kevin Prufer’s new book, Churches, was cited in The New York Times Book Review as one of their “Ten Favorite Poetry Books of 2014.”

Abigail Smith Saguy was promoted to full professor of sociology at UCLA, effective July 1, 2015.

Finally, even given our advanced age, we have some adventurous folks making big changes in their life. Alfred Culliford went back to school and earned an MBA last year from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. Currently he is director of plastic, reconstructive, and hand surgery at Staten Island University Hospital and site-director for the North Shore/Long Island Jewish Plastic Surgery Residency Program. Turning to the Northwest, Linda Perlstein is leaving the world of education and will be working for Amazon.

That’s all the news for now. But please send Paul and me your updates. We’d love to hear from you!

Dear Classmates, this summer issue of class notes laments the news of the passing of another star in our small constellation. Dr. Katharine Kellond Roth, known as Katy, died on Dec. 15, 2014, after a long struggle with seizure disorder and Behçet’s Syndrome (an auto-immune disease). A resident of Washington, D.C., since 1997, Katy was a determined and devoted hospice and palliative care physician.

Originally from Delaware, Katy was the daughter of the late Senator William V. Roth, Jr. (R-DE) and Jane Richards Roth, a federal judge. She is survived by her husband of 16 years, Chris Weston ’92, and her sons, Nicholas and William.

My apologies to family and friends for the delay in this posting. Please send memories and stories for posting in a later issue, or other news of note.

Hi, all. We start with a Reunion mini-summary from committee co-chair Nick Meyer, who writes: “Our 25th Reunion was held on a glorious May weekend in Middletown and it was great to see so many faces make it to campus. There were more than 155 of us there and it really helped our Reunion co-chairs Jen Wasserstein Daniels and Tom Tullio that our friend and classmate Chuck Fedolfi works at Wes! Thanks, Chuck, for all the work that made the weekend such a success. Some highlights included: a Friday night cocktail party in Olin, Saturday afternoon picnic and hanging out on Foss Hill—awesome!, and hearing my freshman hallmate professor Larry Jackson of Emory, give a lecture in Fisk, the Saturday evening shindig in Beckham Hall of Fayerweather (formerly known as the small gym). There was a really special vibe of people reconnecting and catching up on the quarter century that has passed since we left the cocoon of our collegiate experience. And being there graduation weekend was just a reminder of how special that place and time was for so many of us. For me, another really great highlight was seeing so many of us who spent the fall of ’88 in Madrid! Many more people we were all happy to see and hang with…but don’t think I would stay in the dorms again…nice idea in theory…and nothing makes you more convinced that you are resoundingly middle-aged than to run into an old friend like Sam Paik hanging out with his daughter, who is in the class of ’17. Wow. Thanks, again, to everyone who made it and those who didn’t or couldn’t spend Memorial Day Weekend on campus but were there in spirit. Was really fun.”

Also sharing what a great time he had at Reunion is Andy Siff, who attended with baby Pauline (two months), son Zeke (4), and his wife Dawn. “We enjoyed catching up with Nikki Boyle and her husband, Tim Boyle ’89, and their son Mitch, (16), who did a great job watching Zeke during family swim at Freeman. Also had a terrific brunch at O’Rourkes, where we caught up with Brad Whitford ’81. Enjoyed the Zak Penn/Owen Renfroe/Matt Greenfield panel on cinema and TV. Also spent time swapping stories with Gerry Grosz, Eric Greene, Brian Gottesman, Bill Sherman and of course, Reunion guru Tom Tullio.” Andy is still working in news (at WNBC) as a general assignment reporter with focus on mass transit issues.

Ruben (“Bengy”) Ballesteros, Ben Robertson and Zak Penn also each wrote to describe great Reunion weekends at Wes. Bengy remains a staff attorney at Legal Aid near Baltimore, specializing in juvenile law. Ben noted that “our classmates are doing amazing things” and that he “was surprised to learn that Denise J. Casper was the presiding judge in the recent case of Whitey Bulger in Boston.” Zak’s notes were (once again) unprintable but I can say that he and his wife, Michele Weiss, were happy to be at Wes with Jana Brainard Augsberger and Annie Shapiro Tirschwell.

Bummed to have had to miss Reunion (as I was as well) was Jonah Pesner, who, as many of you know, has moved with his family to D.C. for his big, new job as the director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (RAC), the Washington, D.C., advocacy and social justice arm of North America’s largest Jewish movement. As described on the Union for Reform Judaism’s website, Jonah is an “accomplished advocate with broad experience leading social justice campaigns” who “comes to the RAC with a mandate to deepen its advocacy work while mobilizing the Reform Jewish community and its allies.” Jonah noted how moved he was by all of the Reunion pictures on Facebook (which really were wonderful to see) and hopes that “2020 is a big year we all commit to!”

In other news, received before Reunion weekend, it was great to hear from Peter Brastow, who after “successfully giving birth to his nonprofit, Nature in the City,” took a job with the City of San Francisco’s Department of Environment as the senior biodiversity coordinator, “a job for which we have yet to find an equivalent in the U.S. Peter is responsible for convening agency, nonprofit, and community partners to pursue a vision of comprehensive ecological restoration and stewardship of San Francisco’s natural heritage. Carolyn Gencarella (AKA Peter’s better half), continues to teach elementary science at Alvarado School in San Francisco. Peter and Carolyn live in San Anselmo in Marin County, where they are raising two teenage rugrats who will be joining them for the 25th! Peter’s Foss 6 next door neighbor, Arieh Rosenbaum, is a hotshot doctor in San Francisco, who doesn’t actually practice. Instead he presides over the digitalization of medical records and other information for the entire Sutter Health Medical Corporation in northern California, and just keeps climbing the ladder of success. His wife, Barbara, is a terrific architect who designed their home set among some oak trees a hop, skip, and a jump from Peter and Carolyn. Andy Eig from NYC and his wife Dawn recently visited “the Brastows” in the Bay Area. Andy continues to be an accomplished Ph.D. adolescent psychologist. Peter and Carolyn get together sometimes with Maria Poveromo and Julia Erwin-Weiner—especially when Sue Rodrigue is in town—who live a bit south of San Francisco. The San Francisco crowd, Peter, Carolyn, Arieh, and Gerald Richards (CEO of 826 National), among others, continue to cherish the memory of Betsy Burton, fellow post-WES San Franciscan, whose passing was in December 2006.”

I hope you all have been enjoying the summer. That’s all for now.

Kevin writes: Limited submissions this time, so please take a few minutes and send in your updates for the next Wes Mag so we can hear what you’re up to! For example, I recently heard from Mark Zubko, but he quickly went to ground again after the Seahawks lost in the Super Bowl. He may have been hiding from Pete Czerepak’s celebrations of the New England victory.

From Greg Brodsky: “Scott Cavanaugh and Ashley Grant ’00 just gave birth to a bouncing baby boy in Easthampton, Mass., in December. Word on the street: baby Ezra was locally sourced, and 100% free range.” Greg is still living in Somerville, and is with a tech start-up, OrderWithMe, which helps groups of independent stores to buy together. He works out of Workbar in Cambridge, and occasionally sees Matt Goldstein there. Suzanne Bouffard also just joined.

Speaking of free range—Eve Fox has been busy writing about the hopeful world of sustainable agriculture with a focus on all the cool things happening where she lives in New York’s Hudson Valley. Eve also writes about plain old delicious food on her blog: http://www.thegardenofeating.org. She and her family also had a chance to meet up with Makaela Kingsley ’98 and Jonah Sachs ’97 at the tail end of 2014 for a reunion.

Jon Stewart made news with his Daily Show retirement this year. Our own Catie Lazarus was there to get his first reaction on her show, “Employee of the Month.” The New Yorker wrote a nice piece on her repartee with Stewart that is worth a read (and, of course, you should watch Catie’s show!).

Nina Kontos just had a son, Nicholas Kontos Busquet, born in Dec. 2014. Forever a New Yorker (and married to one), Nina still lives in the city and considers herself lucky to see lots of fabulous Wes friends here on a regular basis. She has been working at Google in communications for five years…work takes her to the Bay Area fairly often and so she gets to see Allegra Jones and Caitlin Lang. Fun fact: freshman year Maya Mitchell predicted Nina would have a career in the field of public relations/communications and she was right.

In January, Ellen Sluder started a new position: head of marketing for MedForce Technologies, a software company focused on productivity applications in health care. “It’s only been two months, but I’m really excited about the change, even if I look solely at the elimination of two hours of my previous daily commute. It’s also just been really fun as I’m digging in to rebuild the brand from the ground up and pioneer a proactive marketing program where there previously had been very little.” Ellen’s husband, Stephen, flies for the Conair Corporation (“think hair dryers, not convicts”). “We’ve got a good rhythm down with our two daughters (4 and 1), not that it makes it any easier on me mentally when he gets to leave behind this below-zero NYC weather to spend a long ‘work’ weekend in the Turks and Caicos. I hope he brings back some warmer temperatures for us!”

The Bay Area continues to be a beacon for our classmates. In Oakland, Tara Cohen and Jessica Flintoft welcomed their child, Oscar Rose Cohen-Flintoft, into the world on Dec. 20th, 2014. They could not be more in love with their sweet little one, sleepless nights and all. Danielle Lazier is living in Bernal Heights, San Francisco. “In my 13th year of selling SF real estate and blogging for SFhotlist.com. Recently connected with some old Wes friends in NYC.”

Chris Chambers completed post-production on Aram, Aram—his first feature as writer-director. Jim Gilbane contributed his talents as editor. “Pic is an indie drama set within the Armenian community of Los Angeles. Coming to a film fest near you…or, worst-case scenario, YouTube.”

Laura Zaks writes, “I just completed a two-year contract working for the Inter‑American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture, based in Costa Rica, as an international specialist in food and nutritional security for Latin American and the Caribbean. Primarily, I provided technical assistance and advised on policies to increase the availability and quality of food produced through small and medium-scale agriculture in the region. My family also welcomed a baby girl, Sabine Antonia, born in Dec. 2014, who joins her two older brothers, Tiago and Luka.”

Finally, we close with some solemn news. Wesleyan recently learned of the death of our classmate, Marc James Augustine, on Oct. 26, 2014. The full obituary notice is available online.

C. DARRYL UY | darryl.uy@gmail.com

KEVIN KUMLER | kevinkumler@gmail.com