Class Notes | 2000s

Please write to your class secretary.

Ruby Corbyn-Ross just moved to Charlottesville to attend UVA for grad school for a career shift to speech language pathology. She tells us, “I’ll miss New Orleans, but I’m excited to be back on the East Coast for the next two years. I’d love to see any WesFolk passing through!”

Uly Cubeta (they/she) writes, “My spouse, Jez Cubeta ’10 (them/they), and I are proud of our oldest child, Alina, graduating high school and starting college this fall. It’s been a roller coaster, but we are so happy the judge granted our adoption petition all those years ago.”

I’m thrilled to announce that Amanda Krentzman has agreed to step in as co-secretary to assist me in compiling class notes in the future. Amanda writes:

“Hi Wes ’08! Hope all of you have been great! A little about me . . . I was an econ major at Wes. Outside of that, one of my favorite classes I took was Hazardous Earth, which was all about the natural disasters that could take place at any time. I also loved dance, and I studied abroad in Madrid. After school, I moved out to LA to pursue a career in TV. I have met and continue to meet so many incredible Wesleyan alumni through the entertainment business. I am a TV producer and have worked on shows including Jane the Virgin, Dark, The Rain, Club de Cuervos, and many more. I have been one of the Wesleyan West Coast Alumni chairs for many years and would love to catch up with any of you to hear how you are!”

Please feel free to reach out to either of us with any updates!

Greeting classmates! We have a few updates from the Class of ’07.

Victoria Mair has an exciting professional update. She says, “I launched my own law firm in May, Santoro & Gray, with two of my longtime law partners, Jessica Gray and Brad Henry. We are located on Dartmouth Street in Boston, Massachusetts.”

Scout James would like classmates to know that they are currently writing and performing sketch comedy in Los Angeles at The Groundlings in their Sunday Company every weekend.

Frani Geiger Rollins shared that she is the new co-chair of the Communications Studies and Theatre Department and program director for Mercer Theatre at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. She adds, “I received tenure and promotion to associate professor in 2022, the day after the birth of my second kid.”

Greeting classmates! We have a few updates from the Class of ’07.

Victoria Mair has an exciting professional update. She says, “I launched my own law firm in May, Santoro & Gray, with two of my longtime law partners, Jessica Gray and Brad Henry. We are located on Dartmouth Street in Boston, Massachusetts.”

Scout James would like classmates to know that they are currently writing and performing sketch comedy in Los Angeles at The Groundlings in their Sunday Company every weekend.

Frani Geiger Rollins shared that she is the new co-chair of the Communications Studies and Theatre Department and program director for Mercer Theatre at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. She adds, “I received tenure and promotion to associate professor in 2022, the day after the birth of my second kid.”

Nina Eichacker and Johann Patlak (and their two kids and cat) are living happily in East Greenwich, Rhode Island. Nina just received tenure at the University of Rhode Island, and Johann is still working at Rhode Island Hospital and training med students and residents that go through the program there. They periodically get to see nearby Wes alums, including John Wesley, Adina Bricklin Kieft, and Tracy Honhart, and would love to see more WesKids. If you find yourself in the Ocean State, please reach out!

Daniel Dykes spent much of the winter and spring of 2024 in Peru, where he took advanced Spanish classes and visited many ancient archaeological sites. He also took Portuguese classes in São Paulo and spent a month in Wales this summer taking an intensive third-year Welsh course at Aberystwyth University. He continues to be co-chair of the Alumni Council of the Williams-Mystic Coastal and Ocean Studies Program and historian of the Harvard Law School Parody and Drama Society Alumni Network. He is enjoying hiking in New England and catching up on his extensive reading list.

Keitaro Nakamoto shares, “I am currently working as an acute care surgeon and assistant professor of surgery for Medstar Health/Georgetown University School of Medicine. They gave me teacher of the year this year! I am moving back home to Japan at the end of the year and going to be working as vice chief for surgery at Tokyo Bay Medical Center.” 

Sarah Gillooly writes, “After 15 years in the classroom and coaching softball here in Florida, I made the transition, and I am the assistant principal and athletic director at Jensen Beach High School. I spent my 40th coaching my team to a district championship after a weekend celebrating at Disney with friends!”

Zach Strassburger does Americans with Disabilities Act compliance for the City of Philadelphia and would love to connect with other municipal attorneys or disability rights folks. Zach received the 2024 DEI award from the International Municipal Lawyers Association for their work, including creating a guide to inclusive legal writing. The guide can be accessed at https://www.phila.gov/documents/inclusive-language-guide/.

In March, Brian Lewis and Samantha DuPont celebrated their “birthweekiversary”—40th birthdays and their 18-year anniversary—in Bend, Oregon, along with Owen (Wes ’37) and Will (Wes ’43). They are excited to announce that they are card-carrying members of the last Blockbuster on the planet. They moved to PDX in 2020 and have enjoyed reconnecting with Thomas “Mr. T” Phillips, and they are eager to meet up with other Wes folk in the area! 

Saad Handoo shares, “Things are lovely in the Handoo household. We celebrated our summer going to London and seeing Kevin McDonald when out there. We also ate loads of delicious food at Burrough Market and visited the Cotswolds in the countryside.”

John Wesley writes, “An all-Wesleyan UK premier league football adventure was planned last fall to celebrate incoming 40th birthdays with old friends Kevin Lohela, Patrick Garrity, Willie Gould, and me. Highlights included a stop at historic Goodison Park in Liverpool to see Everton F.C. (miraculously) win a match, 3–0. A few Beatles songs were sung post-match and also the Wes fight song. Best to all!” 

Mel McCrea is an associate marriage and family therapist with Blue Oak Therapy Center, offering in-person services in Berkeley and telehealth throughout California. Her website is: https://www.mel-mccrea-therapy.com/.

Hayley Stokar had an eventful summer—after being granted tenure in June for her position on the social work faculty at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., she and her husband welcomed their second daughter, Honora, in August. Parents and big sister, Clarissa, are quite smitten. 

Sarah (Perry) Wilson is in her seventh year of leading fundraising for Workers Center for Racial Justice, a Black-led organization focused on community organizing, leadership development, policy advocacy, and voter engagement. Right now she’s busy raising funds for WCRJ’s program of voter mobilization work in Wisconsin and Illinois— the largest of its kind in the Midwest—to ensure strong Black voter turnout in the November elections. You can learn more about WCRJ online.  

Jane (Maxson) Hendrickson, Erin (Reding) Glaser,and Kate McCrery have enjoyed TWO birthday hangouts this calendar year! Erin lives outside of Philadelphia and has been asked to serve as a board member on her daughter Ivy’s wheelchair basketball team, which she has accepted! Kate moved from New Orleans to Brooklyn in 2021 and works as the director of marketing at Right to Start and is the founder of Rhinebeck Ventures. Jane lives in northeast Connecticut and welcomed her fourth (!) child, Rose, this May.

That’s all folks!! Please send updates anytime and we will make sure to include them in future issues! 

Marcus Bach Armas remains in Miami but has transitioned into public service after more than a decade as a senior executive with the Miami Dolphins and Hard Rock Stadium. After a successful election in 2022, Marcus now serves as a Miami-Dade County Court judge and is currently assigned to the criminal division. Despite this career change, Marcus continues to serve as founding board member of the Dolphins Cancer Challenge, which has raised more than $76 million for cancer research in South Florida since its inception in 2010 and is now the largest charitable fundraiser in the NFL. 

Kate Greathead says, “I dream I’m back at Wesleyan maybe once every two weeks, and I’m always a little sad when I wake up. My second novel, The Book of George, [published] on October 8. It’s about a guy who goes to a fictional Wesleyan and his life afterward. Maybe you’ll recognize yourself in it? Just kidding, it’s (almost) all made up.”

After spending a decade and a half in the South (New Orleans and North Carolina), Bay Love now lives back home in Maine with his partner, Chloe, and a half-time, shared-custody Chihuahua. Bay has been heavily invested in building an organization called The Groundwater Institute, devoted to combining the traditions of social and racial justice movements with power business and strategy consulting. Generally worried of the state of the larger world, but content with his immediate one, he’s loved (re)connecting with more and more amazing Wes colleagues through work and life—and is looking forward to more of it.

Jeremy May writes, “I’ve been living in Oakland, California, for the past seven years and am raising two boys, Magnus (nine) and Solomon (six). When I’m not working as an oral surgeon, I enjoy gardening, skateboarding, and spending time with family!”

Laura McMillan lives in New Haven, Connecticut, in walking distance of several alum friends and directs the communications and marketing team at an environmental nonprofit. She spends time on three small nieces, one grouchy cat, four dozen houseplants, and her podcast, $2 Creature Feature, in its third season of collaborative storytelling. She’s still riding the high of last year’s 40th-birthday trip to Arizona with Karen Courtheoux, Hillary Rubesin, Caitlin Swain-McSurely, and Cory Simon-Nobes, and seeing the eclipse with Matthew Montesano, plus Lauren Kirchner ’03, John Cusick, Adam Read-Brown, Daniella Schmidt, and Evan Simko-Bednarski!

Jeremy Paul and Faye Hargate (Bowdoin ’04) welcomed their first son, Elwyn Archimedes Hargate Paul, into the world in November 2023. The whole family is doing great in Cleveland. Professionally, Jeremy recently became the resident technical director with Dobama Theatre, in addition to still being the executive artistic director of Maelstrom Collaborative Arts and part-time faculty at the Cleveland Institute of Music, which is a long way to say he doesn’t have employer-provided health care. 

Adam “Smiley” Poswolsky recently caught up with Rich Gibbons ’87, president of SpeakInc, when Rich booked Smiley to keynote the Greater Public’s Public Media Development and Marketing Conference in San Diego. Adam is the author of Friendship in the Age of Loneliness and a top keynote speaker on workplace culture, belonging, and the future of work. Rich has been a speaking agent for over three decades and is the past president of the International Association of Speakers Bureaus (IASB). Despite graduating from Wesleyan just a few years apart, Rich and Smiley loved chatting about all things public speaking, NPR, and Foss Hill.  

Jesse Phillippi is now living in London, where she recently finished directing, dramaturging, and co-producing the musical comedy cabaret A Stan Is Born! The show previewed at Soho Theatre before a run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August and then to Camden People’s Theatre at the end of September 2024.

Leland Smith pandemic-moved to Denton, Texas, to be closer to in-laws. He has a 10-acre farm with horses, chickens, and sheep, and two boys to (eventually) help mow it. He is still working on USAID programs and moved to a new firm where he now gets to work with Nora Connor ’07.

Brian Hennessey wrote: “I’m still alumni coordinator in South Florida and am feeling very good about my decision to attend our reunion. It was wonderful to connect with old friends and see how everyone was doing. We went to a wonderful university with some incredible people. I’m looking forward to the next reunion already.”

As always, if you’ve got class notes, please share them with me at wes04classnotes@gmail.com.

John Graham is living in Tbilisi, running cultural and hiking tours in the Caucasus Mountains. He visited the States in July and was thrilled to reconnect with Ari Wolfe, Josh Dankoff ’02, Nate Rich ’02, Tim Keiper ’02, Katie Takayanagi ’02, and Dan Firger ’01, and hopes to see even more friends next year. In May, John helped introduce Aaron Peisner ’12 to a number of folk ensembles, while he was visiting Tbilisi on a three-week research grant. Wesleyan alums are welcome to be in touch if they come through Tbilisi!

Paul Feder recently released Echoes, a synthpop EP and music video trilogy that explores his uneasiness about being replaced by AI, and it incorporates AI technology as a collaborator in the creative process.  

I’m sorry to share the news that Rachel Sirota has passed. My thoughts are with her friends and family. 

Please write to your class secretary.

Lara Perez-Felkner (Perez-Longobardo) writes from Tallahassee, Florida: “I’m still at Florida State University and helped recruit three new Wes folks down here this year, two of whom are new department colleagues and are incredible, as you would expect. Twelve years later, I’m now a full/senior professor and on fellowships allowing opportunities for impactful institutional and community change around important things we can still do in Florida, like inclusive excellence initiatives, research-practice partnerships with community organizations, and creative interdisciplinary collaborations. I have a new book—Latin* Students in Engineering: An Intentional Focus on a Growing Population (Rutgers University Press)—and am trying to get ready to write another. I’ve occasionally gotten to catch-up with some folks on conference trips around the country, internationally, and beach reunions, but we’re definitely off the beaten track. Feel free to drop a line, and go Wes.”

From Eli Carroll: “After moving out to San Diego last year, [I got] married on October 5 in La Jolla, California, to my fiancé, Jennifer Li. Steve Munno, Tristan Gutner ’02, Oliver Platts-Mills, and Josh Berkowitz ’02 [were] all in attendance!”

About a year ago, Joanna Weaver (formerly Richman), invited me to join a book club she was putting together. It’s been great to see her regularly and get to know her friends. We just finished James by Percival Everett, which I cannot recommend enough. Between talking about books with Joanna, meeting up with other cherished Wes friends, and listening to Hamilton lyrics in my house nonstop thanks to my obsessed eight-year-old—ok, I’m obsessed too—I love how much Wesleyan we have coursing through our world these days. More please.

Jill Rappoport shares: “I’ve been a professor of 19th-century British literature at the University of Kentucky since 2011. I remarried in 2022, and we have three sons (14, 12, and 9). Life is busy but a lot of fun! Looking forward to hearing other classmates’ news.—Jill”

Alexis Hyder writes: “I’ve been living in Los Angeles for six years, primarily working remotely for WBUR in Boston as a chief of staff and director of special projects. I recently launched my own business, Telescope Advising, to help mission-driven leaders answer strategic questions, evaluate emerging opportunities, and plan for future sustainability—without disrupting operations or letting go of other critical priorities. I’m learning a lot on this new journey! I’m in close touch with Nomi Maeyama and Jessie (Polin) Moseley, a Trinity grad who did a semester at Wes with the Twelve-College Exchange Program. I see Wes folks in LA and enjoyed catching up with Camille McGadney ’93 (alum and career center staffer) when she was in town moderating an alumni panel that featured classmate Josh Goldin!”

Bakley Smith: “My family and I moved to Decatur, Georgia, in the Atlanta area, in spring 2021. This was just after the arrival of our second child, our little pandemic baby, LOL. That has us with an eight-year-old and a three-year-old (no pets). Living in a city that is both old (I grew up here) and new (I lived away for 20-plus years) has had its challenges and adjustments, but I’ve been very happy with the change. I continue to work in the financial field focused on consumer products and food technology. One thing I want to shout-out to Wesleyan: one of the things the school emphasizes is a lifelong love of learning, and people around me have over and over noted that I seem to have a knack for wanting to inquire, learn about, and get to know things in an ongoing way. I think it is a cool compliment and I learned to develop it on our campus. Hope to see you in May!”

Melanie Grubman is the co-founder of a cohousing village and regenerative agriculture education center in central Vermont. She is living in a house that she designed with her 10- and 12-year-old sons. She runs an all-women’s masonry business, which focuses on traditional dry-stack walling methods, and teaches middle school at the Orchard Valley Waldorf School. “Come visit!” www.livingtreealliance.com

Paul Edlefsen and Liz Darlington are still in Seattle and raising their two fantastic kids, Eleanor and Arthur. Their relationship has shifted to co-parenting rather than remaining a couple, and they are making it work! They both work at Fred Hutch Cancer Center—Liz as a social worker and Paul as a biostatistician. They just had a reunion of their old band, Sweetness, with Anil Seth ’98, and they look forward to bringing the kids to our 25th Reunion!

Claudia Cruz was recently elected to serve as the Nevada chapter president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. She also attended the 2024 Paris Olympic Games with 16 of her students, and several colleagues, from the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno. Claudia has plans to be in the Boston area in September and hopes to meet with Jennifer Tomasello and other Kappa Alpha Theta (Xi Chapter) sisters for brunch.

Jonah Dickstein shares, “I live in St. Petersburg, Florida, running my own criminal defense and appellate law firm [and] raising my son, Steven (age seven), and daughter, Kaia (age 2), with my wife, Margarita.”

Liz Alleva, née Doctors, lives in the serene woods of Wilton, Connecticut, with her husband, Neill, their 9-year-old son, Mason, and their tiny but spirited 3.5-pound dog, Kylie. As the founder of HypnoBirthing Mommy, Liz is dedicated to helping expectant parents experience a safe and gentle birth by guiding them to unlearn fear and embrace the natural birthing process. Mason is her best helper and sidekick in the business!

Tim Howard wrote in, “I’m enjoying summer in Berlin. This year I’ve been working as a story editor on a German podcast and playing shows with my band, Soltero. We’re also finishing up a new album, which will be out this fall.”

Hirut Johnson shares: “I’m still a mom in Maryland to a 5-year-old. I work for the World Bank if anyone wants to meet up in Kensington or K Street. I was covering Europe but now cover west/central Francophone and Lusophone, Africa, if people want to meet up in the field. This last fiscal year I was in Georgia, Serbia, and Montenegro. All beautiful places with fascinating history. Since my sector is governance, I worked on projects that improved digital services to citizens and modernized the tax administrations. If you are a wine lover or nature lover these are great places to visit.”

Scott Mayerowitz just celebrated the first anniversary of his own travel, loyalty, and media consultancy business: GlobeTrotScott Strategies. After 23 years in media, including jobs at ABC News, the Associated Press, and The Points Guy, Scott started his business to ease many of the friction points in travel that he personally experienced as a frequent traveler and complaints that he often heard from everyday travelers. His clients include JetBlue Airways, a leading ski company, and WeatherPromise, a start-up protecting travelers against rain on their vacations.