Class Notes | 2000s

Hi, Class of 2004! As usual, you’re keeping busy and have some wonderful milestones to celebrate!

Liana Heitin is living in D.C. and working as a reporter for Education Week newspaper. In September, she married her best friend and running buddy, Jonathan Loewus-Deitch, in an outdoor wedding in the mountains of West Virginia. The two honeymooned in Thailand this winter.

Nick Blondin tells us: “I’ve been quite busy in my practice as a neuro-oncologist in Fairfield, Conn., at Associated Neurologists of Southern Connecticut (ANSC). I’ve recently opened two clinical trials for patients with glioblastoma, the most aggressive form of brain cancer. I have also started a clinical research project with medical marijuana for patients with brain cancer. I’m on twitter @NeuroOncNews if you want to follow!”

Plus, he was up at Wes on Jan. 31 for the swim team meet against Coast Guard Academy, visiting with Tom Cleveland ’05. “I think Coach Solomon is doing an awesome job!” We agree!

Brian Hennessey graduated from his MBA program and got a spot in a rotational program with a telecom company that works in Latin America and Africa. “I spent some of the fall in Miami at our Latam Headquarters and I’m spending the first half of 2015 in Paraguay working on a few fun projects. I haven’t seen many other Wesers but am planning to be in NYC for Will Kendall’s wedding, so I hope to reconnect with a few folks then.”

Laurel Kemper tells us she had a baby, Leonhard Kemper Kennedy, on July 13, 2014. Plus, she’s in Vienna, Austria, through 2018 with her family and would love to have Wesleyan visitors.

Kristin Small got married Aug. 9, 2014, to Jonathan Holz and lives happily in Rochester, N.Y. She’s also enjoying her job as a civil rights lawyer at Empire Justice Center.

Hannah Tennant-Moore is newly, happily married to Wyatt Mason. Her first novel will be published by Hogarth/Random House next year.

Nick Vincent got married last May at the Winterthur Museum in Delaware, where he met his wife, Eliza, in grad school. Wes alums at the wedding included soccer teammates Chris Feige, Rick Ferri, Nick Katzenbach, and Rich Valentino ’03. On the professional front, Nick was promoted to a senior management position in the director’s office at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Stephanie Mandell got married in October in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Josh Kaye, Megan Ridley Kaye ’05, Nora Hanagan, Jon Lashley, Becca Solow, and Camille Zahniser attended. She’s lived in LA for three years now, and is a managing consultant at IBM, focusing on energy and utilities.

Tatiana McDougall, (officially Dr. Tatiana McDougall) writes: “I received my PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, in Dec, 2014. My dissertation research examined the influence of stress and attachment on intimacy, using dyadic data-analyses to model complex interdependent processes. I am continuing to work with individuals and couples as I complete my post-doctoral fellowship at the Long Beach VA Hospital, where I am also involved in research examining the influence of attachment style on therapeutic processes in veterans with PTSD. I live with my husband, Masai, and our dog, Melody, in Long Beach. It’s been great to be closer to West Coast family and friends; we even get to see Chet Devaskar and Shivani Siroya, when we are not all busy with our crazy lives.”

In more Wes alum marriage news, Bonnie Oliva and Tim Porter said “I do” on campus in January over Martin Luther King Day weekend. Wes was in full effect, with many alums in attendance, such as Bernadette Doykos, Biz Ghormely, Dawn Papacena ’02, Anthony Rosario ’02, Andres Villalon, Ahkai Franklin, Tivon Sidorsky, Josh Goldstein, Brian McKenna, Melissa DeCew, Rebecca Kirchheimer, wedding coordinator Delilah Lora ’05 and Bonnie’s 9 Vine roommates—Judivelly Torres, Monica Gonzalez, Cassandra (James) Dixon and Jenina Nuñez.

And that’s it for now. Until next time!

Jenina NuÑez | meeghan.w.ward@gmail.com

Meeghan Whooley Ward | jenina.nunez@gmail.com

Joseph Gindi moved back to Boston in June, and is happy to be reunited with lots of Wesleyan friends in that city.

Vida Long teaches English and German at the American International School in Salzburg. She welcomes contact from Wes alum teachers (especially English or math) who’d like to join her next year, or recent grads who’d like to work as an RAs.

Jesse Soursourian co-wrote a short film that was accepted by the Sundance Film Festival, and screened this January in Park City, Utah. He will be finishing his final semester of his MFA in film at Columbia University at the end of May.

Sandy Glassman White (who now goes by her Hebrew name, Samara) and her husband, Troy White, are excited to announce the release of their first children’s book, Maya & Friends Visit the Acupuncturist (acupuncturekidsbook.com), written by Samara and illustrated by Troy. Samara graduated from the Seattle Institute of Oriental Medicine. She’s a licensed acupuncturist and craniosacral therapist, specializing in infant craniosacral work. Samara and Troy were married last May.

Josh Daniels was reelected to the Berkeley School Board and was co-chair of the successful Yes on Measure D campaign, which was the first approved soda tax in the US.

Ben Rhatigan continues a very pleasant life in Barcelona, working as a management consultant for a firm specializing in organizations in emerging economies, and is currently on a project in Nigeria and Kenya. If any ’03ers are around that area, he’d love to be in touch.

Claire Lutgendorf McPhee and husband Christopher continue to love life in beautiful Bellingham, Wash., where she is a veterinarian. In May, they welcomed son Henry Alpin McPhee, into the world. They have since been seeking adventures, one scenic diaper change at a time.

Jason Pinter married Dana Lauren Klinek on Nov. 29th at Shadowbrook, an event space in Shrewsbury, N.J.

Alison Criscitiello is headed to the Pamir Mountains to complete a first, all-women’s winter ski traverse of the Tajikistan border with Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, and China (borderski.com). She and her teammates will explore the impact of fences on migratory wildlife, and hope to inspire people to think about borders in different ways.

Jeremy Cluchey is director of creative design at Bates College. He and wife Sally welcomed their second child, a boy named Fred, in late 2014.

Kirsten Yamaguchi is working in film previsualization. As a CG shot creator, Kirsten helps plan the action, cameras, and framing for film sequences in 3D visualization software.

Katrina Nordine and husband Dave Heltibrand, welcomed their second child, Vallely Nordine, on March 4, 2014. Their son, Nils Heltibrand, is petitioning hard for additional siblings, with little success to date. Katie has also launched Nordine Events, an event planning outfit.

Amy and Tom Hodgman are living in Evanston, Ill. They just enjoyed a vacation to North Captiva Island with their, son Sam, 3-1/2, and daughter, Aquinnah (Quinn), born April 2014. Tom works at The Nature Conservancy, doing large scale land conservation in North America.

Mayuran Tiruchelvam received a creative producing fellowship from the Sundance Institute, where he met four inspiring Sundance and Wes alums Matthew Greenfield ’90, Jonas Carpignano  ’06, Dan Janvey ’06, and Michael Gottwald ’06. His production of Across the Sea, a Turkish-American romantic drama, received the Audience Award at the 2015 Slamdance Film Festival. He wrote a crime thriller, The Girl is in Trouble, to be released April 2015 across North America by eOne Films.

AMY TANNENBAUM | atannenbaum@wesleyan.edu

Oh, how I miss spring at Wesleyan, when the crisp air warmed up just enough to welcome all students to Foss Hill for the afternoon. But wherever we are in the world, we will always have these wonderful memories to remind us of our youth. Which brings me to my little bundle of great news—on Jan. 4, my wife Melanie gave birth to our baby daughter, Scarlett Lucy Lacob. Mom and baby are doing great!

Congratulations also to Dina Levi. Her wife gave birth to their daughter, Ezra Robbins Levi, in January. The couple resides in Chicago and Dina is the director of diversity, equity, and inclusion at an independent school.

Lots of moving for our classmates… After three years living abroad, Josh Dankoff moved to Boston with his wife, 3-year-old daughter, and 3-month-old son. He welcomes connections with Wesleyan folk living in the city. Jesse Lava moved back to his hometown of Chicago after three years in Los Angeles. He is now director of legislative affairs at the Chicago Department of Public Health, where he works to pass laws to make residents healthier. Sara Miller, her husband, and 11-month-old son have moved to Bucks County, Pa. And Dani Rotstein moved to Palma, Mallorca, in Spain—where he used to live when he spent his junior year abroad and first fell in love with the country. He moved there to take a full-time line producer position for Palma Pictures, a production services company.

Out on the East Coast, Jody Avirgan left WNYC radio (the NPR station in New York City) after seven years and is now at ESPN’s FiveThirtyEight where he will be hosting and developing podcasts—talking sports, politics, culture, and more. He also hosts a live comedy/storytelling show called Ask Roulette and welcomes anyone to attend his regular gigs in NYC and beyond. Sarabeth Broder-Fingert started a new job as an assistant professor in the division of general pediatrics at Boston Medical Center. Katherine Gajewski lives in Philadelphia, where she serves as the city’s director of sustainability. She married Benjamin Warrington last summer in a Quaker wedding ceremony. Sallome Hralima says that “the last six months have been a blast!” She was on the 2014 CUSP Conference stage sharing about the design of the Dream Director, the Creative Mornings’ stage, talking about the Audacity of Purpose, and was featured on Travel Noire, sharing about her first time abroad and the impact it had on her. This summer, she will be hitched to Ibrahim Greenidge, an architect, in Brooklyn, N.Y.

On March 31, Una LaMarche’s comic essay collection, Unabrow, was published by Plume Books. From Penguin Books website: “As a girl, Una LaMarche was as smart as she was awkward. She was blessed with a precocious intellect, a love of all things pop culture, and eyebrows bushier than Frida Kahlo’s. Adversity made her stronger…and funnier. In Unabrow, Una shares the cringe-inducing lessons she’s learned from a life as a late bloomer, including the seven deadly sins of DIY bangs, how not to make your own jorts, and how to handle pregnancy, plucking, and the rites of passage during which your own body is your worst frenemy.”

Jennifer Lauder: “The last year has been full of incredible transitions, both planned and unexpected, for me and my family. I left my job as a teacher after almost a decade in progressive classrooms and started working as a consultant for schools and educational programs, mentoring teachers, designing and developing curriculum, and supporting students and families. At the same time, my husband, Chad Dean, and I launched a digital media company, WRK Group Media; we produce a review and lifestyle site, weekendreviewkit.com, and are shopping a book about the landscape of legal cannabis in the US and the changing public perception of cannabis consumption. We’re also engaged in an evolving homeschooling/unschooling practice with our 7-year-old daughter that we document at thelotusschool.blogspot.com; we hope to move the whole show to the Pacific Northwest in the springtime.”

Tiffany Williamson Kelly lives in Philly with her husband, Shawn, and daughter, Eva, 2. Tiffany is associate admission director at The Agnes Irwin School with Wigs Frank (Prof. Anne Greene’s brother). Shawn is also in education: head of school at St. Peter’s School in Center City. “If you’re an alum of either school, please stay in touch.”

And lastly, Tarsah Dale continues to reside in Austin, Texas, although she’s still not sure about identifying herself as a Texan despite six years of residency. However, she did become the co-owner and managing director of Inspire Behavior Therapy, a small business serving children and adults with developmental disabilities and challenging behaviors, so she’ll probably have several more years to adapt to her adopted state. And Jamie Wong continues to run Vayable, the travel start-up she founded in 2011, which connects travelers to locals for unique experiences. She’s writing a book, playing soccer, and splitting her time between New York, LA, and San Francisco.

Keep those class notes coming!

JUSTIN LACOB | justinlacob@gmail.com

You’re the best. My last plea yielded so many replies that this is the second edition from months ago, with a few updates.

Amanda Sayle Rinzel started working as programming associate at the Sheen Center in Manhattan. Her new role is to “fill the large main stage theater, our beautiful, super-swanky Black Box theater, and our art gallery artists that use their work to highlight the true, the good, and the beautiful. I feel incredibly lucky to be doing this work in some of the most beautiful theaters I’ve had the pleasure to work in since Wes days.” Son Stanley turned 1, and Julius is “full-on 3 years old, which is awesome and spectacularly exhausting”.

Kyoko Miura writes, “I am serving as chief of staff at SNEHA (nehamumbai.org), a nonprofit based in Mumbai, working in four areas of public health (maternal and newborn health, child health and nutrition, sexual and reproductive health, and prevention of violence against women and children) in the most deprived urban slums. On a personal note, I had a chance to catch up with Devyani Srinivasan here in Mumbai and had a Japanese meal together.” Kyoko is always looking for interns and volunteers for research projects, and can be reached at kyoko@snehamumbai.org.

Peter Banks and Sara Shandler have a beautiful 2-1/2-year-old named Hazel. He writes, “We live in Brooklyn, I just (re) started a gig at Atari, and Sara is running the editorial group at Alloy Entertainment (Warner Brothers subsidiary)”.

Wendy Bauman Jeffries and Chris Jeffries welcomed baby Elena Jane Jeffries on Sept. 1, 2014.

Rachel Feinstein Stevens is donating architectural and energy modeling work for a Net Zero duplex for Habitat for Humanity in Easthampton, Mass. She says, “If volunteers can hit Net Zero, anyone can!”

In August, Roger Smith moved to Japan to work for the Town of Matsushima. He is the first foreigner to work in the town hall and his job is to support the recovery from the 2011 tsunami by encouraging tourism to the region. Matsushima is designated as one of the three most scenic spots in Japan and was unaffected by the nuclear disaster, so please visit! In his spare time he is working on a documentary about towns rebuilding as resilient, renewable energy-friendly communities.

Andrew “Roo” Yawitz: “My wife and I welcomed our third child on Aug. 8, a boy named Calvin. I am living in the Central West End of St. Louis, running the music club I opened in 2008, The Gramophone, and also working for a music fan loyalty platform called Tunespeak. Also, if anyone out in Wes world wants to get a true narrative of what went down and of the continued struggles in Ferguson, follow my good friend @TefPoe. (Here’s a hint: It’s not what was on the news.)”

After working for investment banks in Japan, and in various countries in Africa in the humanitarian assistance sector with NGOs and others, Kaori Ura is now moving to Johannesburg to work for World Food Programme (WFP). She married an Eritrean whom she met in Juba, South Sudan, and they’ve lived in Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, Cameroon, Senegal, and Italy in the past six years. They have two daughters, 6 and 3.

Winsor Schmidt writes, “My wife, Sandra, and I welcomed our son, Chase, on Aug. 31. We are looking forward to a beautiful fall in Cleveland walking him around the Metroparks!”

Heather Harelik Tseng was selected from 500-plus associates as The Little Clinic’s winner for excellence in leadership behaviors in 2013. She was honored in a ceremony at Kroger’s (the parent company) headquarters in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Ari Brochin married Sarah Meyer in June. “Sarah’s from Melbourne, Australia, and completed a PhD in international public health from Johns Hopkins earlier this year. We’ve been living in Mae Sot, Thailand, for the last two years, where I’ve been working for the Karen Human Rights Group, a local organization which does advocacy and reporting about Southeast Myanmar. We’ll be moving to Kampala, Uganda, in January, where Sarah will be the director of research for the Center for Excellence in the Study of the African Child at Makarere University. Wesfolks at our wedding included Anthony Clark and Megan Joiner, Tony and Kate McAlpine Guerra, Erika Scott, Cara Herbitter ’03, Xiomara Lorenzo ’06, Joseph Gindi ’03, Joseph Berman ’04, Dana Raviv ’06, and Nancy Kreimer ’74.”

Anthony Clark writes that Kannan Vasudevan married Katie Zaffrann in Sept. 2014. Delicious Indian food was consumed and wild dancing ensued. Rev. Megan Lloyd Joiner officiated the ceremony. A stellar Wes crew was in attendance including Guillermo Barnetche, Tyler Cabot, Professor Ron Ebrecht, Serena Jones ’00, Eleanor Michael and Joey Meyer ’00, Erika Scott, Joel Streeter, and Dave Westman.

Rebecca Hume has been enjoying the freewheeling lifestyle of a freelance graphic designer since leaving her agency job last December. In a slightly less terrifying adventure, she ran the Brooklyn Half Marathon in May with Beth Slepian, now the school programs manager at the Anne Frank Center USA.

Sarah Gollust just kicked off her fifth year on the faculty at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. In April, she and her husband Ezra Golberstein welcomed second son Mattan Benjamin who joined big brother Ilan James. She is finally getting accustomed to the frigid upper Midwest, but still refuses to call soda “pop.”

Will Engel kindly heeded my call to send in anything, even if it is from 2006: “Speaking of 2006, I actually released an album called This Could Be Heaven that year. I am currently writing for Examiner and AXS and live in Los Angeles.”

At this writing (early February) I am snowed in here in Boston. Hopefully I will be dug out by the time you read this. Happy spring, everybody!

MARA VOUKYDIS | maravee@gmail.com

Many people in our class continue to welcome new babies into their families. Chinelo Dike-Minor and her husband, Randall Minor, welcomed a new baby boy, Obi Minor, in Nov. 2014. Everyone is thrilled, including his big brother!

Demian Szyld and Pia Chatterjee welcomed their daughter Lila on Dec. 24th, 2014. “We are enjoying her smiles and our time together in Brooklyn, N.Y.”

Caroline Cho Reed writes, “We welcomed our third child, a son, in Sept, 2014. His two older sisters are thrilled to have a real live “baby doll” in the house! I’m happily managing and maintaining a busy household schedule but finding some time to do some pro bono communications work for an exercise franchise.”

Melanie Kessler and her husband live in Bristol, Vt., with their two wonderful sons, Ezra (2) and Judah (6 months). She writes, “We manage a small school/community farm and I provide Jewish spiritual education and community programming for a synagogue in Burlington along with organizing community harvest festivals. My husband creates functional metal sculpture and takes care of horses’ feet out of the blacksmithing shop in our backyard. What wonderful joy we have bringing ritual, craft, and celebrations to our home and extended community. Visitors welcome!”

Also, in Vermont, Sadie Danforth Brightman, along with the help of husband Nick Brightman has had an exciting year fulfilling a dream to start a music school. Middlebury Community Music Center is an up and running nonprofit with 20 faculty members and more than 100 students. The vision has long been to create a place for collaboration and diverse music classes for all ages. One of the biggest thrills is having both daughters, now 6 and 4, attending as music students!

Gian-Murray Gianino writes that he and his wife, Maggie Thom, are absolutely enjoying the joys and follies of raising their son, Sebastian Thom Gianino, in Brooklyn. Maggie continues to dance, most recently at BAM with Jodi Melnick, as well as teach at Plymouth Church School in Brooklyn Heights. GM continues to teach and perform all over the map with his theater company, SITI Company, most recently at the Getty Villa in LA.

Ali Haider is an interventional cardiologist in western Massachusetts in private practice with Hampden County cardiovascular associates. He is affiliated with Baystate Medical Center and is an assistant professor of medicine at the Tufts University School of Medicine. He is a new member of the heart valve team and performs coronary, structural, and vascular interventions.

Shawn Green is working on his third degree, this time in engineering, at Berkshire Community College.

Josh Lerner published two books last year—Making Democracy Fun: How Game Design Can Empower Citizens and Transform Politics; and Everyone Counts: Could Participatory Budgeting Change Democracy? He lives in Brooklyn, where he directs a nonprofit, the Participatory Budgeting Project, and plays Duplo with his son Miro.

Paul Josephs is still working as a musician and educator with Metrosonics Concepts in Brooklyn, NY. He has a new website: pauljosephs.com, as well as metrosonicsconcepts.com.

Ian Moulton writes, “On July 5, 2014, I married Jillian Johnson in my parents’ backyard in Elkhart Lake, Wisc. Lots of friends and family were in attendance, including my brother Sam Moulton ’98. After the ceremony Jillian and I got into an amphibious car and drove into the lake while our guests followed in a pair of pontoon boats. It was a lot of fun. Jillian is from Klamath Falls, Ore. She is director of HR at the online video company JW Player. I work at TouchTunes as a product manager of digital jukeboxes. We live in the Prospect Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn.”

I (Hilda) continue to live in Brunswick, Maine, where I work as a school psychologist in the elementary school down the road. My husband, Peter Wiley, is working at Bowdoin College in data warehousing and analytics. We just had our third child in December, Naomi Joy, and she has been warmly welcomed by big sister Simone (7) and brother Ian (5). I will be stepping down from doing class notes, so if anyone wants to take over for me, please send me an e-mail at hildawiley@yahoo.com. Avery is great to work with!

Hilda Ives Wiley and Avery Esdaile
wesleyan2000@gmail.com

Let’s welcome the fall/winter season with some new updates from your fellow classmates!

George Bennum is living in Cambridge, Mass. He works for Bjönd, a healthcare start-up co-founded by Dave Blauer ’84 and Ben Flynn ’03. Their first application, called BjöndHealth, invents and automates hyper-personalized workflows that clinicians, social workers, and family members execute collaboratively to intervene with patient’s suffering complex diseases and conditions. George mentions seeing Conor Veeneman and Adam Nikolich around town a lot.

Seth Halpern has been promoted to strategic consultant at The Advisory Board Company in Washington, D.C. In his new role, Seth will deliver actionable insights and advise a large cohort of several hundred of Advisory’s member health systems across the United States. Seth is in his third and final year at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business (evening program) and will earn his MBA in May.

Anthony Marsella is in his sixth year coaching college football. He coached at Wes in the 2009 season, then worked at Mount Ida College for a year. He is now in his fourth year at Middlebury College coaching running backs, tight ends, and coordinating the special teams.

Sophie Regan (formerly Sophie Pollitt-Cohen) is living in Washington, D.C., and pursuing her MBA at Georgetown University. Sophie got married this summer with some help from two wonderful Wesleyan bridesmaids—Emily Dine and Jodie Rubenstein.

Tess Smagorinsky and Tim Horgan-Kobelski got hitched outside of Boulder, Colo., amongst mountains and margaritas in late June. Among the wedding party (moral support, y’all!) were Barry Finder, Robbie Rindlaub, Liz Demakos, and Liana Hernandez, with many other Wes alumni on the attendee list. Tess and Tim continue to live in Oakland, Calif., where Tim is attending law school at UC, Berkeley, Tess works in HR for Zenefits, and their dog, Huck, spends his days pondering existential questions and eating things from under the couch.

Heather Sheriff just started her graduate studies at the University of California, San Francisco School of Nursing, to become a certified nurse midwife/women’s health nurse practitioner.

On Aug. 3, 2014, Samantha Hurley Doucet and Hannah Barber Doucet were married in a ceremony at Dream Away Lodge in the Berkshires of Massachusetts. Attendees included Lesley Chapman, Lily Bushman-Copp ’10, Adrienne Russman ’10, E. Evnen ’10, Katherine Nilson ’11, Mattie Liskow ’11, and Nina Terebessy ’11. Upon returning from their honeymoon in Belize, Hannah began her third year of medical school at SUNY Downstate and Samantha took on a new position with St. Nicks Alliance, a community nonprofit, where she will put to use her graduate degrees in education and social work. The two reside in Brooklyn, with their dog, Olive, and two cats.

Sara Deniz Akant received an MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in May 2012. She won a chapbook contest for her manuscript Parades, which will be out from Omnidawn Publishing on October 7th. Her first full-length book manuscript was selected for Rescue Press’s Black Box Poetry contest, and will be published in fall 2015. She also has a chapbook coming out titled Latronic Strag (Persistent Editions). She just moved back to New York and teaches composition/writing at CUNY Baruch.

Shane E. Heckstall writes, “Whats up? I’m doing well. Please buy a copy of my book titled The Romance of LaLa available on Amazon. Stay tuned for my next book scheduled for a 2014 December release titled Did You Create a Monster?, which looks at African-American identity in higher education… much more dense, intriguing, research-based, and contemplative. Find me on LinkedIn.”

Thom Sisson and Nina Gonzalez were married on Sept. 15th in Brooklyn, where they live. Thom is also a graduate of NYU Law and has been working as an attorney since 2012. Nina is an MIM graduate of Instituto de Empresa in Madrid and works in nonprofit management.

For the New Orleans’ Art Biennial Prospect 3, Wesleyan grads and artists Silvie Deutsch and Kira Akerman ’10 have collaborated to create Intimate Immensity, an immersive, site-specific art installation. Using a cloud tank (a hands-on SFX technique) and the centuries-old process of paper marbling, stop-motion animations are projected onto a ceiling: the small-scale process becomes gigantic. An organic interaction between pure water and spray paint reveals a push-and-pull relationship—two substances making room for each other on a finite surface. The piece opened Oct. 25th.

Arthur Nazarian has started his first year of his two-year MBA program at Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Management alongside Arran Bardige ’10, who joins him in the same class, and Alison Kung, who is a second-year in the program. He is enjoying the unusually pleasant warm weather this autumn as he studies accounting, marketing, and economics—all very exciting fields of study that are unfortunately lacking that intellectual Wesleyan flair.

Jon Short spent three years as a special education teacher, earning a master’s in education, and is now in his third year as an instructional coach, working to bring under-performing K-8 Phoenix, Ariz., schools into high-achieving status. He dedicates most of his free time to working as the vice-chair for the Board of Grand Canyon Performing Arts, Arizona’s oldest and largest LGBTQ arts organization.

Paul Boulat and Michelle Brown are roommates once again, now living in Astoria. Paul is continuing his work with Vermont-based luxury textile company ANICHINI and recently started an MBA at NYU’s Langone program. Michelle completed her master’s degree in art history from NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts in 2012 and currently works in the editorial department at Sotheby’s.

Alicia Garrison writes: “I have been working on mosaic murals in Philadelphia. The first mosaic is for Maplewood Mall, a small area in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia that is undergoing a long-term beautification and revitalization program. It is a 5 x 6-foot mural, due to be installed this fall. I worked with wonderful students at Germantown Friends School and the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf in creating this image. The mural with the two children reading and sitting back to back in the sunset is the first mural I had the pleasure of designing and creating all myself. It was for Belmont Charter School, an elementary/middle school in West Philadelphia. I was given two words for the theme: ‘Youth Empowerment.’ My goal was to create an image that represented a safe haven for youth, education, growth, and knowledge. The design was loosely based on a piece of work I actually made when I was in middle school.” See the photos of Alicia’s work on our Class Notes website.

Thanks to everyone who sent in notes. Please keep them coming!

Alejandro Alvarado | ale.alvarado12@gmail.com

The class of ’08 had a busy year so far! Emily Hauck writes from Paris: “I was lucky to get a Thanksgiving visit from Mark Purser and his girlfriend, Jignasha. I skipped work to spend a day with them exploring Paris and we even managed to whip up a pretty decent Thanksgiving dinner. Otherwise [my boyfriend] Julien and I are looking forward to our annual East Coast extravaganza, which almost always includes a ‘welcome back to America’ meal in a greasy NYC diner with Izaak Orlansky, DC happy hours with Emily Malkin and Maura Scully, Martha’s Vineyard relaxing with Rebecca Feiden and luckily for us this year we’ll even get to see Stephanie Schwartz, who will be back from Burundi just in time for us to have one day together in New York.”

Sage Trombulak and Sam Ruth got married in June, with bridesmaids Katie Poor, Alicia Collen-Zeidan, and Zoe Holder, and groomsmen Mark Kelley and Raffi Stern at their sides. Annalee Pratt, JZ Golden ’09, and “a few other Wes-kids who didn’t get us permission to print their names in Class Notes in time were also there to join us with a spirited dance to Kids while our bemused family and non-Wes friends looked on. We’re also trying to rush through as many other life events as possible, including both finishing our master’s degrees in May, closing on a house in August, and Sage starting a new job. Why we decided to throw a second Tough Mudder into the mix as well is anyone’s guess.”

Leslie Prado is into her second year of a joint master of public health (epidemiology) and physician assistant at George Washington University. She loves what she is learning and is enjoying the DC life. This semester she learned how to do a full physical exam on a patient!

Jessica Sullivan and Adam Tinkle moved from their longtime homestead outside San Diego, having more or less completed graduate school. Now, both are teaching at Skidmore College and are living in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. They’re looking forward to re-connecting with the many friends they missed throughout their West Coast sojourn, and are very happy to the offer their guest room to any upstate vacationers or Adirondack ramblers they may have lost touch with.

Kate Letourneau writes: “My husband, Andy Lubershane ’06, and I are moving to the Portland, Maine, area, where I just got a job as a primary care nurse practitioner. In June we went to the Minnesota wedding of Charlotte Riggs to Mike Wells, and had a great time with Henny Admoni, Meera Dave, Woody Leslie, Izaak Orlansky, Emily Palmer, Liz Wyner, and Lauren Nichols ’07.

Having worked for Ben Silverman at Electus as a manager of development, Amanda Krentzman is now starting a new job as director of development for Gail Berman at her new company The Jackal Group.

Stephanie Pfeiffer moved to Cambridge, England, for her job with the U.S. Defense Department. She is loving her Aga oven and encourages visitors come see her in the Old World.

Mark Leonida writes in from his holiday in Malaysia visiting fellow ’08 grad Cristabel Tan. “We just spent the past two days climbing Mt. Kinabalu, the tallest mountain in Malaysia at 13,435 feet. It was our first and probably last time ever doing something like this, as right now we feel more like Wesleyan class of 1908. (Not to be ageist, but, yeah, neither of us can walk like we used to.)”

Andrés Orejuela is back in New York City, where he lives, works, and studies for a PhD in comparative literature with André Aciman (Visiting Distinguished Writer ’09) at CUNY’s Graduate Center, after a summer teaching at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass. He worked there with, among other Wessies, LaShawn Springer and Geoffrey Tanner ’04 MALS ’06. Russell House remains, to him, the center of the most beautiful campus in all of New England.

Alicia collen Zeidan | acollen@wesleyan.edu

Iris Jacob is living in Washington, D.C., with her partner Mike Bolds ’08 (an English and history teacher, as well as the coach of a high school spoken word team), their incredible 2-year-old daughter Ifetayo and their soon to be born baby girl (congratulations!). Iris is an adjunct faculty member in the Women’s Studies Department at Trinity Washington University where she teaches classes on Black feminism and women’s leadership. Iris also works as an organizer and trainer with Teaching for Change, a local organization that works to combat gentrification, school closures and the charter school take over. After graduating last year with an MFA in poetry and literary translation from Queens College, Zakia Henderson-Brown has been working joyously at the nonprofit publisher The New Press, where she serves as the outreach coordinator for The New Jim Crow as well as an associate editor. Zakia spends her “free” time working with the group No Disrespect, which works to prevent gendered and sexualized street harassment. She occasionally visits Iris and Mike in Washington, D.C., and sorely misses Tia Clinton, who is living the dream in Ann Arbor pursuing a doctorate. Otherwise, she gets into regular shenanigans with stalwart Harlem-dweller Nyasha Foy, who works as the counsel of business and legal affairs for Above Average Productions. Teddy O’Connor resides in Los Angeles and he has learned that L.A. boasts an abundance of the following: hot yoga classes, kale, power crystals, gay men who are obsessed with Disneyland, and scarves. Teddy worked on animation for Jeff and Some Aliens which is part of Comedy Central’s series Triptank. Teddy also worked with Victor Vazquez and Jordan Fish on an animated music video for Victor’s album Word. Alex Weber registered his first business here in Beijing, Goldenspan Business Consulting, and is very proud of his little limited liability baby. Please visit goldenspan.com for more information. Christina Marenson has moved to London, where she is working at work at an international communications firm. She lives with Rebecca Appel, who works at The New York Times and moved to London after many years in The Paris Bureau. Jenevive Nykolak has advanced to PhD candidacy in visual cultural studies at the University of Rochester in May 2014, and will be spending the 2014-2015 academic year doing dissertation research in Paris as the proud recipient of a Chateaubriand Fellowship. Nina Eichacker defended her dissertation and completed her PhD in economics after seven years of hard work. She and Johann Patlak are living in Jamaica Plain, Mass., and would love to run into more Wes alums! After earning her PhD in English from UCLA, Tara Fickle moved from Los Angeles back to Oregon, where she works as an assistant professor of English. Her specialties are Asian American literature and digital humanities, although she is also affiliated with ethnic studies and she teaches in the English department’s new comics and cartoon studies minor (I guess our late night Justice League Unlimited viewings paid off!). Congratulations to Zach Shemtob, who is the editor-in-chief of the Georgetown Law Review as of January 2014. He is located in Washington, D.C., and enjoying it. Speaking of law school, Rebecca Lipman is in her third year at Harvard Law School. Daniel Dykes graduated from Harvard Law School in May and spent the summer taking the New York bar exam, giving tours of the Harvard campus, and hiking out west in several national parks—a trip that included a close encounter with a mother grizzly and two cubs! Daniel moved in the fall of 2014 to Queens and works at the international law firm of Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle. Celia Reddick has spent the last few years working with INGO Partners In Health in Rwanda and Boston, and is now pursuing a master’s degree in the International Education Policy program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She’s also planning her wedding for the summer of 2015. Ali Osborn works at Bowne Printers, the custom printing office of South Street Seaport Museum’s historic letterpress shop in New York City. She works with fellow alum Gideon Finck ‘11. Bowne Printers teaches workshops, creates merchandise, and prints custom work such as wedding invitations for Jess Smith and Willy Friedman. Adam Rose lives in San Francisco and is engaged to a cappuccino-sipping Seattleite, although he maintains loyalty to the Philadelphia Eagles. He works as an innovation consultant and is considering launching an Eagles-themed bar in the Mission neighborhood of San Francisco. Congratulations to Thapana Pipe Chairoj whose family gained a new addition by the name of Prynn Chairoj. Prynn was born March 2014 and Pipe and his wife couldn’t be happier! Additional congrats to Kristy Elliot, who will celebrate the birth of her fourth child in January 2015. She and her husband live in Bridgeport, Conn., and Kristy will be completing graduate school soon. And an additional congratulations to Hanako Moondance and Alex Salazar, who had a beautiful baby boy Thelonious Guandique-Moondance in October 2013. Hanako is enrolled in in a master’s program for library and information science through the University of North Texas online program in Los Angeles Christie Roberts is engaged to Brendan Lovelette (her high school beau). They plan to marry in Middleburg, Va., in March 2015. Christie works at The Hill School (also in Middleburg), where she teaches Latin and works as an administrator. Congratulations to Brian Heiss and Sarah Myksin who wed in an outdoor ceremony at the Star Spangled Banner Flag House in Baltimore, Md., in May 2014. Wesleyan alum in attendance include James Charney, Francisco Carreno, Alec Zebrowski (who gave a wonderful best man toast), and myself. Congratulations toKate Longley who married in the summer of 2014 to Steve Wood (who is not a Wesleyan alum but is an all-around wonderful guy). They wed in Provinceton, Mass. Congrats to Steven Wengrovitz who married Dan Freeman in October 2014 in upstate New York. They live in the Bay Area of California, where Steven works as a researcher at Facebook and Dan is a lawyer at a firm nearby in Palo Alto. Ten years after their first official meeting in front of WesWings, Caitlin Petre and Ari Brand got married in September 2014 at a summer camp on Shelter Island. Ari proposed last year by taking Caitlin on a surprise trip back to Wesleyan, where they revisited the landmarks of their early courtship: from the Butterfield C lounge to the lawns between Fountain and Pine. Wesleyan was well represented at the wedding; alums in attendance include Tal Beery, Daniel Rubin, Annie Mathews, Kate Fletcher, Shayla Silver-Balbus, Missy Ablin, Aisha Twells, Cassandre Pallas and David Stein, Kevin Sattin ’05, David Rood-Ojalvo ’05, Andrew Vernon-Jones ’05, Naomi Ekperigin ’05, Matt Kertman ’05, Lauren Stossel ’07, and Hallie Cooper-Novack ’07, as well as Ari’s brother and sister-in-law, Jesse Brand ’02 and Anna Johnson ’02. Jesse and Anna’s daughter Willa was the flower girl.

Calvin Cato | catocals@gmail.com

Stephen Becker finished a year at IBM Research in New York and moved to Boulder, Colo., to start a job as assistant professor in applied math at CU. His wife, Kimberly, is still teaching high school physics, and his daughter Sophie just turned two and enjoyed herself dancing at the wedding of Tushar Kansal and Tanya Sehgal in Washington, D.C. Other class members at the wedding were John Logan Durland, Theodore Booth Haley, Max Greene, Henry and Sam White, Amar Shibli and Meng Li, Julia Simpson ’06, and Lena ’04 and Matthew Roe.

Niv Elis has been living the good life in Tel Aviv, where aside from occasional rocket-dodging, he has been focusing on reporting on business and economics for the Jerusalem Post. He has also launched an original podcast with the JPost, the first ever for an Israeli paper, and is hosting a weekly show called The Cost of Doing Business on the TLV1 radio station.

Julia Silbergeld is getting her MBA at UC Berkeley, along with Will Leuchter-Mindel ’07, Lexi Sturdy ’10, and Grace Lesser ’08. Julia is focusing on social entrepreneurship and sustainable food and working at startup Farmigo.

On June 25th Nicole Peterson Pritchard and her husband Stephen Pritchard welcomed their second daughter, Risa Déise, who joins her now 4-year-old sister, Ivy Syona. Risa’s first friend was baby Sebastian, son of Maggie White and Eli Brown ’04. Among her first visitors in the hospital were her Wesleyan Aunties Michelle Grier, Katherine Ambia, Justine Almada, and Rashida Abuwala. She has been a beautiful and cheerful new addition to the family!

Jason Carey ’99 and Beverly Baker Carey welcomed a son, Allister James, on Aug. 19, 2014. He weighed 6 lbs. 11 oz. and was 19.5 inches long.

Kevin Egolf is working on starting the Local Farms Fund, a socially responsible venture providing land access to early stage farmers in the New York foodshed.

In October, Shannon McIntyre Hooper and her husband relocated to Nashville. Shannon has taken a role as senior vice president with ReviveHealth, a leading healthcare strategic communications firm, where she’ll be overseeing all health IT accounts.

In May 2014, Dennis Chan started his new job at District Management Council, a consulting and software solutions firm that works with public school districts to improve operational efficiency and raise students’ performance. In his spare time, Dennis picked up board game design, and his first game BioQuest was showcased in Boston Festival of Indie Games.

Colin Casey graduated from Fordham Law School in May, was married to Jonathan Vaughn in August and began working at a large international law firm in New York in October.

Williamsport, Pa., saw a mini ’05 reunion to celebrate the union of Rob Judson and Andrea Torres. Among the illustrious guests on Rob’s farm were, Sarah Connell, Matthew Cron, Jemma Braun, and Anay Shah. Shout outs also to Roslyn Ross ’04,Mike Campbell ’06, Sippy Siperstein ’06, Matthew Donne ’07, and Sam Coe ’06. It was a spectacular event full of Wesleyan love, laughter, and camaraderie. Congrats Sir Robert!

Jayson Whitehorn is continuing to make healthcare better by assisting clinicians in their ability to treat their patients by developing medical software for Mount Sinai hospital. He spends his free time playing in Union Square with various Wesleyan alumni of class years spanning the past two decades (primarily other members of Alpha Delta Phi).

Karen Courtheoux: “Dearest classmates: I know it’s hard to believe, but we are mere months away from our 10th Reunion! Save the date: May 21–24, 2015. Can’t wait to see you there! If you’re interested in having input into our Reunion events, please e-mail ktedford@wesleyan.edu. Many thanks to those already participating. The more the merrier! We’ll be in touch with all of you soon via postcard.”

MARCELLA MARTINEZ | momartinez@wesleyan.edu

Adam Barton spent much of 2014 working on a new science/comedy series for National Geographic called Going Deep with David Rees. It’s a “how-to show for things you think you already know how to do.” For example, one segment is called how to light a match. Media from Vice.com to Rolling Stone have been raving about the series, but ultimately real people need to watch this show, not just magazine editors, so please check out Adam’s show on cable or hulu.com. His production company also partners with Tantra World Wide on a music and travel series called Music Voyager which airs on PBS. Incredible work by our classmate!

Sara Sadownik moved to Boston over the summer and is loving her new job with the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission, working for the state on issues of sustainable health care cost growth. She hangs out with Rebecca Brigham ’05 and other fine Wes alums. She also bummed around Santa Fe with Tantri Wija ’03 for two weeks before the big move!

Greg Heller got married in May to Diana Lind. Celebrating the wedding with them were Mike Gilles, Kate Patterson Gilles, Liz King ’03, and Annika Brink ’05. In September Greg was named CEO of American Communities Trust, a national community development organization, dedicated to “building social impact” in urban and low-income communities across the U.S.

Raven Maldonado-Brown and Rasheed Brown had their baby boy on Aug. 8, 2014, and he’s just the cutest thing ever! His name is Wesley Alexander Brown and contrary to what most may think, he is not named after Wesleyan. It is pretty cool that his nickname will be Wes, and whenever Raven says his name, a little memory of her alma mater shines through!

Lauren Pearlman received her doctorate in American Studies and African American Studies from Yale University and is now a visiting assistant professor at the United States Military Academy, which is a lot like Wesleyan (but with more guns). When she’s not teaching up there, she spends time with her husband, Fletcher Durant ’03, son Felix who is now 2.5 year old, and all the other Wes parents in Brooklyn.

Jenina NuÑez | meeghan.w.ward@gmail.com

Meeghan Whooley Ward | jenina.nunez@gmail.com