Class Notes | 1990s

Kabir Sen is living in Belmont, Massachusetts, with his wife, Rebecca, and three children—Eva (13), Julia (11), and Ethan (7). They are doing well and playing lots of basketball! He is in his 24th year teaching music at the Shady Hill School, and he plays live music residencies in Cambridge at the Lizard Lounge and the Plough and Stars (first and third Saturday of each month). He still makes beats and records lots of music, too, and has been releasing new songs each month. Give him a listen at https://linktr.ee/kabirsen!

Danielle Lazier is thrilled to announce that she is celebrating her 21st year in business as a Realtor in the San Francisco Bay Area with her own company, Vivre Real Estate. It’s always interesting, and she is grateful for all the clients, including many Wes alums who have trusted her to help them. On the home front, Danielle and her family are excited to celebrate their twins’ seventh birthday this summer. It’s hard to believe how fast time flies! They’ve been enjoying the NorCal lifestyle but are also looking forward to a trip to NYC to catch up with their Wesleyan friends and fellow alumni.

In March another Cardinal became a Bobcat. Leana Amaez ’02 joined Bates College as the vice president of equity and inclusion. Prior to Bates, Leana spent eight years at Bowdoin College as associate dean of students for diversity, equity, and inclusion. She has also led diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts at an international insurance company and at the Maine Department of Health and Human Services. Leana began her career as a public defender in the Bronx, and later directed pro bono services for Maine’s civil legal service provider, Pine Tree Legal Assistance. I look forward to working with Leana to ensure that the college’s commitment to equity and inclusion is reflected authentically in campus culture, policies, and practices. Besides Leana, Matt Coyne ’12 (head football coach) and Stephen Engel ’98 (professor of politics and associate dean of the faculty) are at Bates too. Anyone else want to join us?

In the last issue, Kevin reported that the daughter of Avi Spivack and Nataly Kogan ’98 is at Wesleyan in the Class of 2026.  For those of you who have children in high school, let me know if you have any questions about the college application process or if you are planning a visit to Bates College. Happy to help in any way I can!

Earlier this year, Kevin had the chance to grab a drink with Alister Adams ’00 while he was in NYC on business. It had been a long time, and one of the blessings of travel picking back up is the opportunity to see more long-lost Wes friends.

Kevin and I would love to hear from more of you for the next issue. So, send us any updates or stories to share. In the meantime, we hope you are enjoying the summer!—Darryl

Hi fellow classmates,

Hopefully by the time you’re reading this, everyone who went to our 25th (what?!?) Reunion will have had a fabulous time reliving the glory days on Foss Hill and kvetching about what’s changed since our time. . . .

In individual news, your previous Class Notes collector, Jason Becton, and his family (husband Patrick, daughters Marian and Betty) recently moved about 20 minutes south of Charlottesville to North Garden, Virginia, for an even quieter life in the country. Jason and Patrick still own MarieBette Café & Bakery, and their second location Petite MarieBette, in the “city” of Charlottesville. Jason is looking forward to catching up with everyone at Reunion this year!

Nicole Macotsis lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, New York, with her two kids and pandemic dog.  She was happy to get paid a trick-or-treat visit by Laura Polonia and her son, who also live in the hood, last Halloween. She sees Annie Ackley as much as she can and aspires to see long-lost Luiselle Rivera by the time this is in print. Nicole got a second MA at Goucher in cultural sustainability but has been transitioning out of public folk arts work (due to her full-time single parenting gig) and is now a movement teacher, offering sessions to women for pelvic floor and core health at macotsismovement.com.

Last summer Georgia Silvera Seamans met up with Nadia Wynter and her family—yay! She is excited to be seeing more of Carrie Seabury. She is happy to be teaching a course about the environmental and cultural history of urban parks and using two public parks in NYC as her muse, and is the creator and host of the Your Bird Story podcast, now in its third season. If you’ve got a bird story based in a city, she wants to know about it!

In April Lynn Chen screened her directorial debut I Will Make You Mine (that her husband Abe Forman-Greenwald edited) on the Wesleyan campus with a Q&A. The movie also features John Newman and is currently streaming on Paramount+ and VOD.

Cassie Mecsery wrote in with a bit of heartache. After a two-year battle with glioblastoma (the most deadly form of brain cancer), her husband Sean passed away in May 2022, leaving her to run his family business started in 1945, Cos Cob TV & Audio in Greenwich, Connecticut. Cassie has children from her marriage to Sean: Calista (7) and Westley Stephen (4). The GoFundMe which was used for Sean’s medical treatments and caregiving, has transitioned to help pay for future expenses for their children in the coming years. Cassie writes, “Sean’s diagnosis in 2019 with stage 4 brain cancer, glioblastoma, rocked our world. One day I was at home with our two kids, and the next I was being told my husband had months and, if lucky, a couple years to live. We got two years, but not without a lot of grit and challenge. We are still struggling to come to terms with his death, but are learning to live life with gratitude for the time we had. I see life a bit differently now, and am working on how best to live out his legacy.”

That’s it for now. Be well all and be kind to yourselves and others.

Best,

Abby

Here are the latest updates. . . .

Alek Lev is directing the opera Orpheus & Erica (an adaptation of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice), with a mixed cast of hearing opera singers and deaf actors with Victory Hall Opera in Charlottesville, Virginia. Alek notes that considering that he was a theater major at school with a focus on directing and began his acquisition of American Sign Language in ASL 1, it seems as though he is actually working in a job that leverages precisely what he studied at Wesleyan. As he says, “it’s a liberal arts miracle.” The performance will be available to stream after the end of the run on VictoryHallOpera.org. We saw the video trailer, and it looks phenomenal! We are looking forward to watching the performance online.

Madeleine Perez writes from LA, where she has been with her husband and son for 12 years now. She is a Realtor at Compass and was named as one of their top 25 agents in 2021 and 2022. Congratulations, Madeleine! She would love to hear from other Wes people out here so please reach out! And she says it really did snow in LA in February.

Sasha’s family got a puppy, who is very cute but wakes up sooooo early. But again, so cute, so all is forgiven.

We wish everyone here and all your people (and puppies and friends and nonhumans) the absolute best. And please email us your updates.

Best,

Jessica and Sasha

Please write to your class secretaries.

Please write to your class secretaries.

Greetings from Chicago! My law firm merged with Atlanta-based Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP and I continue to practice employment and commercial litigation with a little bit of immigration law too. My daughters, Sarah and Norah, who recently turned 14, are graduating 8th grade in June.

On to other news. I had reported in a prior note that Aram Sinnreich and Jesse Gilbert were collaborating on a nonfiction book. They recently completed and submitted the manuscript for The Secret Life of Data, which will be released by MIT Press in spring 2024. Congratulations to them! Aram and his sister Rachel Hope Cleves also have a forthcoming science fiction novel entitled A Second Chance for Yesterday. It will be released by Solaris Books in August 2023 under the pen name R. A. Sinn.

Joe Pickard reports that his family has relocated (again) to the Bay Area in order to be closer to his daughter who started her collegiate career at University of California-Davis. Joe recently started a new position at Sandia National Laboratories as an ES&H coordinator for Sandia’s Livermore, California, facility.

Raya Salter started her own organization, the Energy Justice Law & Policy Center. She also is an appointed member of the New York State Climate Council and finalized the state’s climate plan. She also went viral after testifying before Congress about big oil and earned an attempted takedown by Tucker Carlson. Raya mentions that she saw Ingrid Lunden, Melinda Lombard, and Hayley Buchbinder in NYC in September 2022, along with David Buchbinder ’90.

I last reported that Dave Campbell extended his stay in Japan to continue to work at Dell Technologies in Tokyo for a fifth year. Dave and his family are leaving Japan later this summer.  He and his wife Brenna ran into Wes alums Grace Rubin ’18 and Lucy Rubin ’17 at a Harry Styles concert at Ariake Stadium.

Josh Protas sent a pretty hilarious update about a prank he pulled on John Lewis. In Josh’s own words: “April 1, 2023, will mark the second anniversary of the proclamation by Mayor Ruthann Fuller of John MacDougall Lewis Day in the City of Newton, Massachusetts. What on earth could John Lewis have done to warrant such recognition? The answer leads back to Wesleyan and several friends from the class of ’94 —Jon Bender, Gabe Meil, Tomer Rothschild, and me. John is one of the most caring and compassionate people you will come across. He is also one of the most gullible. And our group of friends has regularly exploited this to our great delight and amusement through a number of pranks, often executed on April Fools’ Day. Fortunately, John also tends to be a bit forgetful, and he regularly fails to remember how devious his friends truly are and he continues to fall for our pranks. In 2021 I reached out to the office of the mayor in Newton (where John lives with his family) about the idea of a proclamation to recognize John’s graciousness and good humor in being on the receiving end of pranks by declaring April Fools’ Day as John MacDougall Lewis Day. As it turns out, two of the mayor’s brothers (and many of her constituents) went to Wesleyan, and she was game.

“Below is the text that I submitted, which was pretty closely incorporated into the official proclamation issued by Newton mayor Ruthann Fuller. She even went to John’s house to personally deliver the written proclamation so that he would know it was for real.”

Recognition by the City of Newton, Massachusetts of John MacDougall Lewis, city resident, husband, father, and mensch

John MacDougall Lewis deserves public recognition, not for his contributions in healthcare management, not for being a caring and compassionate husband and father, not for being an upstanding citizen of Newton, not for being a kind and loyal friend, but rather for his exceptional ability to be on the receiving end of April Fools’ Day pranks.

For many years, John’s friends from Wesleyan University secretly conspired ongoing and escalating pranks to unleash on John, many, but not all of which, occurred on April Fools’ Day. As April 1st approached each year, John either completely forgot about the repeating pattern of history or let his airs of suspicion inexplicably drop. In stunning displays of gullibility and/or a misplaced faith that his friends had reformed their ways, John fell for pranks over and over again (the bag of rocks hike, the airport extra cargo fiasco, the cancelled wedding venue hijinks, the fictitious Golden Shovel award, and the office laptop imbroglio stand out as favorites). What is remarkable about John MacDougall Lewis is how he accepts being pranked with grace, laughter, and respect for the effort put in to fooling him.

We can all use a little more laughter, especially during these challenging times. John MacDougall Lewis can take a joke like a champ and has an infectious laugh that brings joy to those around him.

John’s friends hope that by declaring April 1st John MacDougall Lewis Day in Newton, Massachusetts that John will forget all about the pranks we have pulled on him over the years and will not seek revenge.

And finally, Josh updates that he is “very excited by a career change and a deep dive into the world of vermiculture. With my wife Abby Foss and our children Eli, Noah, and Cory, we have launched District Vermiculture (DV) in Takoma Park, Maryland.” Abby also continues to teach AP Literature at a public high school in Silver Spring.

Operating out of a decommissioned air force hangar, DV has a large footprint and has rapidly expanded the scale of its composting operations. DV was recently recognized by the Vermiculture Association of Mid-Atlantic Producers (VAMP) at the National Vermiculture Expo as Emerging Vermiculturist of the Year and won gold ribbons for worm casting quality and soil complexity. Most exciting, DV has landed Sesame Street’s Slimey as DV’s official “spokesworm.”

That’s all for now.  If you are passing through Chicago—or are in Chicago—look me up!

—Samera

Julie Hanauer writes, “I’m still working as a full-time psychology professor at a community college, but also started ‘adjuncting’ classes at Stony Brook University. It’s been a nice transition and provides me with a great balance of students to keep me on my toes! I’m also getting married in June to an amazing man who keeps me constantly laughing and has become a wonderful soon-to-be stepfather to my two kids who are 12 and 15. I consider myself to be an extremely lucky person in a multitude of ways.”

Jacob Bricca’s second book was published in January by Oxford University Press. Titled How Documentaries Work, it is a behind-the-scenes, under-the-hood view into how meaning is created in nonfiction films and television shows. He also recently made a trip to Washington, D.C., with his wife and collaborator Lisa Molomot, to meet with congressional staffers about their film, Missing in Brooks County, which chronicles the migrant death crisis in south Texas. They brought two subjects from the film on the trip and lobbied for increased resources for identification and recovery efforts, and for a demilitarized approach to border security.

Bill Capuzzi writes, “Had a chance to hang out with the one, the only, Sean Cronin in November. We met in Delaware to see his daughter play in a hockey tournament. So great to hang for a night with Sean. Not surprising, we closed down the bar! Love him!”

Leigh (Gutsch) Lehman moved from San Francisco to Bend, Oregon, a couple years ago with her husband and two teens and is loving the slower pace and plentiful outdoor air. Please look her up if you ever pass through central Oregon!

Abigail Lorber Clarkson writes, “When I graduated from Wes, I took one month off and then started my master’s in education program. Two career changes later I am now happily working in a public library and recently earned my master’s of library and information science degree. For anyone contemplating a career change in middle age, I’m here to tell you, you can do it!”

Diego von Vacano has been advising Bolivia’s former president Evo Morales, head of the MAS Socialist Party, and his team in terms of lithium policy and anticorruption.

Tim Olevsky writes, “I was excited to get a chance to sing at Carnegie Hall back in October (not as a soloist, just as a chorister, but it was still pretty exciting!).”

Michelle Gagnon writes, “My first adult novel in over a decade is coming out on May 16. Killing Me is a humorous, feminist, neo-noir thriller about a former con artist who escapes one serial killer, only to end up in the crosshairs of another. And coincidentally, my editor at Putnam is fellow Wes alum Danielle (Springer) Dieterich ’13! I’m also finishing up a master’s degree in clinical psychology at Antioch University, while doing my therapy hours at the LA LGBT Center, working primarily with homeless teens and young adults. I’ve got one kid headed off to Princeton in the fall as a soccer recruit, and another entering senior year, so empty nesting is on the horizon. Hoping I can combine my book tour with a stop by Reunion in May, but that time of year will be unusually hectic with graduations.”

Cain Dimon writes, “All is well here in North Carolina. Trying to make it to the class reunion. After introducing my son to Wes this past summer during college tours, he has decided to attend Wes next year and is now in the class of 2027! Crazy to think about but looking forward to being back at Wes more often.”

Andy Nordvall’s older daughter, Athena Ngov-Nordvall, will graduate from high school this May. She’s a West Coast girl, though, so he couldn’t nudge her to Wesleyan despite her fervent interest in acting and costume design.

Dan Crane writes, “This June I’ll be at the Tribeca Film Fest with a documentary I wrote about legendary newsman Dan Rather, directed by Frank Marshall—if you’re at the festival, let me know! More docs are in the works.”

Thanks, as always, to everyone who wrote in with their news. Please keep it coming and we hope you had a great time at Reunion!

Please write to your class secretary.

Ann Goebel-Fabbri learned that not all too-good-to-be-true invitations are spam. After daring to hit “reply,” it turned out to really be an invitation to join a team of international experts informing an Inquiry from the UK Parliament, including former prime minister Theresa May. The Inquiry sought information on treatment recommendations for eating disorders in Type 1 Diabetes, Ann’s area of expertise.

Ann and Bill Fabbri’s daughter Kate “is enjoying her first year at Oberlin along with so many Wesleyan alumni kids that we’re no longer sure if Oberlin is the Wesleyan of Ohio or if Wesleyan is the Oberlin of Connecticut.”

Three of Ann and Bill’s Intown 21 housemates have kids at Wesleyan: Debbie (Skolnik) Rosenberg’s son Evan ’26; Achilles (Kiley) Papavasiliou’s two daughters, Phoebe ’26 and Alexis ’24; and Marni (Beck) Pedorella’s son Charlie ’24. Marni’s daughter Ava attends Northeastern and Ava hangs out with Bill and Ann to help their adjustment to empty-nest life.

Carrie Mosher Gadaleta’s daughter Shelby ’24, a junior at Wesleyan, lives in Low Rise and plays for Vicious Circles. Carrie tailgated at Homecoming 2022 and reports the students are incredibly impressive and experienced “a proud moment at alma mater.” Also at the tailgate: Joe Dalton and Cecilia Pohorille McCall.

Carrie works in commercial real estate for JLL in the New York tristate and greater Philadelphia regions. Carrie is Wesleyan’s regional representative for Westchester County, New York, and plans to host a summer event for incoming frosh.

Speaking of Cecilia, as director of Alumni and Parent Engagement at Wesleyan, she provides guidance to a group of alum including Scott Moore, Lexy Funk, Kiff Gallagher, and Pradeep Khurana on a project called WeSpark!, shining light on innovation and entrepreneurship and connecting the Wesleyan community.

Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky produced and directed a docuseries for ESPN+ called Bananaland, which follows the Savannah Bananas minor league stunt baseball team on their 2022 seven-city “World Tour.” The Bananas look like a cross between regular baseball, pro wrestling, and a circus. The New York Times said, “This five-part series . . .  is a ton of fun; the show moves between tryouts and front-office goings on, and everything has a festive, behind-the-scenes-at-the-circus air.”

Look for Laura Belgray’s first book, Tough Titties, on bookshelves in mid-June. Published by Hachette, it’s a true late bloomer, coming-of-age story set in NYC, complete with social humiliations, dating disasters, and work and adulting fails. Or, as her husband calls it, “Loser Sex and the City.” She promises “there’s a little Wes in it.”

Dan Mackta has been the managing director of Qobuz, the French high-quality music service, for five years. Dan, along with Jerry Reid and Dan Krainin, celebrated at Henry Turner’s wedding in western Massachusetts in autumn 2022.

After 30 years in D.C., Jamie Treworgy returned to Maine life, moving to Harpswell in 2021. Maria Snyder got the Maine memo, too, relocating to Portland after leaving a tenured academic position in the Midwest. She works as a freelance editor and translator and is also the member of an immigration legal services team, helping refugees and new immigrants. Maria ran into her former Russian House housemate Stefanie Trice Gill ’92 at a dance party, “where else?”

James Marohn lives in West Roxbury, Massachusetts, and is in his 30th year teaching elementary school kids in an after-school program in Newton. James hosts trivia events in the Boston area, and you can see him in person at the Corrib in West Roxbury. James used to see Michael “the Quizmaster” Lourie frequently, until Michael’s move to Florida. It was awesome to see Caroline Perez when she came to Boston for the Laver Cup in 2021!

Have you seen the international tour of West Side Story? Kate Huston Lambert’s son Ashton Lambert is part of the company through spring 2024, traveling throughout Europe and to several cities in Asia.

Tasos Theodorou writes from Dallas about an online reunion with the cast, crew, and musicians of Working, the musical put on by his frosh RA David Milch ’89. It was a great catch up and the first time they all got to watch the performance together!

Risa (Lasher) May celebrates 25 years of marriage to Brad and the 20th anniversary of their childcare center business in the D.C. area. As one of our dedicated class agents, Risa loves making and maintaining connections with classmates, to which I can certainly relate!

Alys Campaigne now leads climate initiatives for the Southern Environmental Law Center. The change finds her reconnecting with fellow SISP classmate Kevin Greiner. Alys finds herself on the Wesleyan campus to visit her daughter, Livesey ’24 (as well as visits to Haverford to see her son). While in Middletown she’s seen Silvia (Maleville) Molina and Tony Maxwell ’90.

To close, I’ll take this line from Alys’s message to me: “Every year that goes by reaffirms for me what we all know—Wesleyan’s best attribute is its exceptional and loyal alum.”

Ted Bardacke just completed his fifth year as CEO of Clean Power Alliance, the nation’s largest provider of 100% renewable energy, with over 1 million customers in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties. Ted recently “spent an evening in LA with my thrice-Wes roommate Robert Featherstone ’89, who is shooting a documentary on the history of Ultimate. And still always find time to visit a few times a year with fellow SoCal Wes grads David Igler ’88 and Cynthia Willard ’88, with whom we are currently commiserating about the (hellish, for the parents) college application process for our four boys around the same age.”

Speaking of the college application process, I loved being back on campus last September with my youngest child, high school junior Camryn. Camryn and I toured campus and attended the information session, but the highlight of our visit was meeting up with Sarah Ellenzweig’s oldest son Charlie ’25, who is currently loving his sophomore year at Wes.

Finally, we were saddened to learn of the passing of our classmate Laurie Harrison. As written by Marc McKayle ’88, Laurie was “brilliant, charismatic, funny and authentic.” We extend sincere condolences to Laurie’s friends and family.

Wishing all of you health and happiness this summer.