Class Notes | 2000s

Ally writes for this issue.

Mr. Jermaine Lewis says he is “in eastern Pennsylvania. Just graduated with [a] master’s in management. Do recommend Harvard Extension. Working in fintech/blockchain. Mr. Baby [had] his first birthday [at] the end of August. Pro and conning on-campus housing for the 15-year reunion.” Your class secretary (Ally) responds, “Wherever you decide to stay, Jermaine, I can’t wait to see you there because I am beyond excited. If you receive an email or text from me, it is because I’ve committed to get as many of our classmates as I can to celebrate how old we are under the tent!!”

Big news for Erik Underwood and Derek Silverman. They started, Basis Climate. It is focused on expanding liquidity in clean energy projects by helping corporations invest in these projects while also reducing their tax liability. Check them out at buildwithbasis.com.

Emily Reisner writes, “I’m a birth doula serving families in Connecticut and I’m also a director at MeshEd, an education start-up, founded by a Wesleyan grad, which engages Wesleyan juniors and seniors as teachers in local middle schools and high school programs, such as coding, podcasting, screenwriting, sustainable fashion, and more.”

Fifteen years after graduation, Shivani Kumar lives in Los Feliz with her partner and two pups. She drives a Honda Accord, uses an electric toothbrush twice a day, has a gynecologist, and pays someone to do her taxes. She changes her air filters once a quarter. She has labeled boxes of “winter clothes” and “spare cosmetics” and her vegetables and fruits are stored separately. Her prescriptions are on autorefill, and all her socks are in pairs. And somehow, with zero intention, she has found herself working in commercial real estate (and even more surprisingly, she is loving it). Basically, Shivani is crushing adulthood. She’s even made a friend or two. If you’re in the LA area, she would love to see you, her fellow Wes alumni, and catch up. You can call or text: 914.649.6575, but please tell her your full name as she almost certainly will not remember you. There’s a 97% chance that you are lost in a blur of college memories that have been twisted and diluted by the Wesleyan lore in HIMYM. Please don’t be offended. But definitely include your full name.

Ben Crane writes, “This year I had two books published: a queer heist thriller, A Man of Lies, and an all-ages graphic novel adventure, Cosmic Cadets: Contact!, which I created with my partner, Mimi Alves (they/them).” 

Kate Krems started as an assistant attorney general in the Antitrust Division of the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office in July. She’s enjoying working to promote economic competition in her new role and being out of the billable-hour grind is a plus, too!

Hello, Class of 2007!

Lydia Bell is now set up as a psychotherapist! She is working in a group practice in Manhattan called Intuitive Healing. She specializes in relational trauma, early parenthood, and work with creative people.

Scout James has been invited to join the Groundlings Sunday Company in Los Angeles.

Mariel Piña and her wife, Eva, welcomed future Wesleyan graduate (without any legacy privileges, of course), baby Rafael into their family. Mariel works as the deputy commissioner for her county’s department of mental health in New York, working to ensure equal and appropriate access to all. Mariel and her family have spent a lot of time with Wes grads recently, including at the wedding of Molly Gaebe and Leila Bozorg ’04. Ali Green was also there to help celebrate along with many others! In a recent trip to Philly, Mariel, Erich Klothen ’08, and Kim Davies caught up, and they always have time for a trip to New Hampshire to see Jon King!  Hew X forever!

Nyasha Foy shares, “I recently celebrated one year at Sotheby’s, as vice president and assistant general counsel, supporting NFTs/digital art and luxury. Outside of work, I have been re-engaging with my passion for art and music, both by joining the Save the Music Foundation Board, while also pursuing creative projects like writing a children’s book and TV shows. Professionally, I am in my second year as board member for the Black Entertainment and Sports Lawyers Association (BESLA), while participating in speaking panels across London, NYC, and Rome. As I start my final year as an alumni-elected trustee, I am enthusiastic about continuing to serve our alma mater.”

Erin Reding Glaser enjoyed getting together with Kate McCrery and Jane Maxson Hendrickson in February for a very fun girls’ weekend. Jane and Erin brought along their daughters, Grace and Ivy, which made for an even more memorable experience. Lots of fun was had by all and they are also looking forward to attending Homecoming Weekend at Wesleyan this year and hope to see other alumni there too! Finally, if anyone lives in the Philadelphia area and is interested in learning more about wheelchair basketball, please contact Erin Reding Glaser. Her daughter plays on a team and they are always looking for more players. It is very fun and inclusive. They even have program chairs that people can borrow if needed.

Dana Wollman writes, “I am living in my hometown of Brooklyn, where my partner and I welcomed our first child, a daughter, earlier this year. I’ve been working at the tech news site Engadget since 2011, where I’ve been editor in chief since 2018.”

Steven Wengrovitz, along with his husband, Dan Freeman, welcomed their second baby girl this August. They’re all enjoying life in Beacon, New York.

Zach Strassburger received the Champions of Diversity Award from the City of Philadelphia Law Department for their work, including creating an inclusive language guide to make legal writing more inclusive and approachable for diverse populations. It can be found at https://www.phila.gov/media/20230530134433/Inclusive-Language-FINAL.pdf. Zach is a deputy city solicitor in the Appellate Litigation unit for the City of Philadelphia Law Department, doing election law, First Amendment law, and more.

Mark Liew is living in China with his wife and three young children, ages eight, six, and four.

Juan Sebastian Moreno completed his third year as a virtual English language educator with English Language Programs, an education exchange program of the U.S. Department of State. The project, sponsored by EducationUSA Panama, helped students in Panama prepare for exams required by universities in the USA. Juan has also accepted the role of ESL/Bilingual Department coordinator at Torrington High School in Connecticut, where he is a teacher of ESL and bilingual STEM. This summer he went with his family and five-year-old son, Hai-Nam, to the three-day 160th Gettysburg Battle Reenactment in which his father participated as Union infantry.

Vivian Lew Hsiung lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and two boys. When she’s not working on her counseling practice, she’s outdoors fighting to save her vegetables from slugs.

Arielle Edelman McHenry writes, “I continue to live in Minneapolis with my husband, one-and-a-half-year-old, and six-year-old. I love my work in public health, drug policy, and harm reduction—and talking with Wesleyan students who are interested in the same. Meeting up with Steve Rubenstein and his family for pizza picnics at the lake is a new favorite summertime tradition.”

Nate Baumgart and his wife took a year to travel around the world and blog about it, and now own a food tour company in Denver called Delicious Denver. They had a daughter during COVID who is almost four and he runs the Alumni Association here for Colorado. Any Wes graduates headed out West are welcome to contact him for recommendations about food and dining in Colorado!

Keitaro Nakamoto works as an acute care surgeon in Baltimore, Maryland. He sees Serkan Parlak and his family regularly and hopes to get an opportunity to catch up with everyone IRL sometime soon!

Jane Maxson Hendrickson abandoned any hopes of studying medicine immediately after college in pursuit of a career in the nonprofit sector, which recently resulted in being promoted to her first executive director job. She has three kids and chickens, lives in the Quiet Corner of Connecticut, and is happy to serve as the class secretary so that she can keep in touch with all of you! Please send in notes to keep everyone updated!

It has been an eventful couple of years for Liz Andrews. She moved to Atlanta, Georgia, in the summer of 2021 to become the director of the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art. This fall, two exhibitions that she co-curated are on national tours: Black American Portraits, at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, and Silver Linings: Celebrating the Spelman Art Collection, beginning at the Vassar College Loeb Art Center. She also edited and wrote for Black American Portraits: https://delmonicobooks.com/book/black-american-portraits/.  In the fall of 2022, she eloped with her honey, Brian J. Brown, and they welcomed baby Polaris in March 2023.

Katie Walsh lives in Highland Park, Los Angeles, where she works as a film critic for the Tribune News Service and LA Times, hosts a podcast about Miami Vice, and moderates Q&As around town.

Wesleyan lacrosse repressed in the 35-plus division at the Lake Placid Summit Classic with Matt Wheeler, Chris Mele ’04, Brian Adams ’04, Glenn Adams ’06, Dan Ackil ’04, Connor Wilson ’04, Gabe Kelly ’11, Chris Jasinski ’08, Trevor Adams ’09, Jeff McLaren ’06, Zach Stanton ’98, and Mike Vitulano ’06 in attendance.

Jake Orlowitz is living happily in the Santa Cruz Mountains with his 13-year-old, unschooled botanist-daughter and 3-year-old maniac toddler. He runs WikiBlueprint, a Wikipedia open knowledge consulting company working with nonprofits, publishers, and museums on public education and outreach strategy. He Kickstarted his mental health book, Welcome to the Circle, and is slowly working on a sequel.

Lodro Rinzler and his wife, Adreanna, welcomed baby Ruby Alex Rinzler on June 8 of this year. The middle name is in memory of our classmate and beloved friend Alex Okrent who passed in 2012.

This year Delilah Lora became the head of Upper School at The Cathedral School of St. John the Divine in New York City. Additionally, she and her partner, Luis, got engaged this summer in Curaçao on her 40th birthday.

Natalia Ortiz accepted a new position at the NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development in the Teaching and Learning Department as a clinical assistant professor and the director of the Office of School and Community Partnership. She will be working side by side with Heather Homonoff Woodley ’02.

Heather Olins is starting her seventh year as faculty in the Biology Department at Boston College. She dedicates much of her energy to finding ways to teach about climate change that are empowering and hopeful for her students. She also co-leads her seven-year-old’s Girl Scout troop, and has been doing a lot of art when not teaching or parenting.

Miriam Gottfried and her husband, Trevor Williams, welcomed their first child, a daughter, on July 22. They named the baby Emily after Miriam’s mom who died 10 years ago. Miriam, Trevor, and Emily live in South Slope, Brooklyn, around the corner from fellow 2005er Blake Maybeck, who they often run into on the street.

This year, in recognition of Tony Alleyne’s work with his college-access nonprofit, Delaware College Scholars, he was selected as a 2023 Doritos/PepsiCo Foundation Black Changemaker. The program officially expanded to Charlotte, North Carolina, as well, and now has served over 500 scholars. His family is also growing and they will be welcoming their fifth child in September. Also he had a great time reunited with Fabrice Coles and Quincy Francis ’06 in D.C. this past spring.

Hey Class of 2004:

I continue to appreciate all the great updates you’re sharing! That said, see what your classmates are up to:

At a recent meetup in New York City, Nick Malinowski was finally able to extract a Netflix password from David Fine, who had brushed off previous entreaties with his typical affability. Both received a terse email from Gabe Spitzer ’05 who had noticed the exchange on the back end.

Abraham Lateiner is living in the Boston area where he’s been since graduation. His kids, Estella and Lulu, are 13 and 9, respectively, and he is learning the beauty and challenges of parenting a teenager!

During his 20s and early 30s, he taught middle school, got married, and had kids. He tells us: “Then I left teaching and began to learn about community organizing through Resource Generation, which works with young progressive people with wealth toward redistribution of land, wealth, and power. That led me to racial justice work with white people, and then anti-patriarchy work with men, and today, I primarily work with wealthy white men toward personal transformation in service of collective liberation. Lately, after going through a (mostly amicable) divorce, I’ve been rediscovering who I am. I’ve been hard at work promoting a book by my colleague, Garrett Neiman, entitled Rich White Men: What It Takes to Uproot the Old Boys’ Club and Transform America. But I’m most excited about developing a noncoercive debate space for men, called The Arena. When not doing that kind of work, I’m learning how to baton twirl and love taking myself out to the movies. I’m looking forward to seeing folks at reunion next year!”

Christopher Kaminstein tells us: “Living in New Orleans (I’ve been here since 2008) with my wife, Laura Stein ’03, and our three-year-old daughter, Lia. I run a theater company called Goat in the Road Productions that makes original plays and offers educational programming in schools.”

After six years at Fountain, Mark Schindler left the company in June and is starting his own venture. Mark is working with venture capital–backed start-ups in a fractional capacity to advance their organizational development and internal operations. The new business keeps him on the road to NYC and Chicago, and he enjoys playing the Leo McGarry-like role for founders and leaders of companies that are looking to grow or improve their internal organization. Mark recently reconnected with classmate Chris Mele and fellow lacrosse teammate Pete Salisbury ’03 about his new venture, and he and his daughter spent an afternoon in Middletown in August. (Her first college visit!) It was great being back, seeing the old and new buildings, and running into Coach Raba as well.

Kieran Meadows tells us: “Happy to announce that an independent feature documentary I helped produce (and do some music supervision for), Bad Like Brooklyn Dancehall, was an official selection of the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival. At its world premiere in June, our executive producer, Shaggy, gave an exhilarating performance afterward, alongside dancehall star Ding Dong and dancehall legends Screechy Dan and Red Fox. The doc was also the recipient of the 2023 Better Angels Lavine Fellowship (a component of The Library of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns Prize for Film) and was the winner of the 2022 Gotham Documentary Award from Decentralized Pictures Foundation. As of this writing, we’re looking to get the film on a streaming platform so a wider audience can enjoy it. Fingers crossed that will happen soon.

Meanwhile, I can’t believe I’ve been working at Forbes for over a decade now. You can listen to me host the Forbes Daily Briefing seven days a week, which highlights some of the best reporting and stories from Forbes. Go subscribe to it on any podcast platform feed where it’s available. And as always, I continue to plot out the next steps on my ever-evolving journey that is my music/DJ/sound providing career. (Speaking of which, I’m happy to have connected with a whole next generation of Wes alums in Brooklyn via fellow DJ Everton Laidley ’14.)”

I’d like to close this round of notes with a brief recognition of unexpected loss of a fellow Wes ’04 grad, Amy Posocco. She died on a lake in New Hampshire in July. Meeghan Ward shares some words below about her best friend:

“We very sadly and unexpectedly loss a fellow Wes ‘04 grad, Amy Posocco, last weekend. She died in an accident on a lake in New Hampshire, Friday, [July 7, 2023].

Amy was my best friend at Wesleyan—we captained the basketball team together, were roommates three years, and stayed lifelong friends when we lived in Boston, and as both of us moved abroad over the years. I’m heartbroken, as is the vibrant and diverse community of friends and family she built over the years. She was a proud Wes graduate, and her learning there helped her begin a very impactful career in education, setting up programs in the U.S. and abroad in Abu Dhabi.”

Here’s to keeping Amy in mind.

Thank you for all your updates. Please send any upcoming updates to wes04classnotes@gmail.com.

All best,

Jenina

After 20-plus years in educational theater, Andrea (Wilson) McCoy recently joined the mass exodus of public school teachers to take on a new position as head of children’s services for a town library. Although it’s an adjustment not having summers off, she’s enjoying a better work-life balance with her spouse, two kids, and two dogs.

Leslie Spencer, née Burns, and her family of four—Izaac, Reid (11), and Cole (8)—had an amazing July in Costa Rica! They met every monkey and swam in every waterfall.

Matt Kushner just marked his two-year anniversary at Illuminarium Experiences, where he was recently promoted to director of software. In addition to Atlanta and Las Vegas venues, a new Illuminarium opened in Toronto at the end of the summer, a joint venture with Secret Location. More venues are on the horizon, both nationally and internationally, at the end of 2023 and into 2024. Meanwhile, Lauren Kushner (Brown ’04) continues to enhance the American Museum of Natural History’s museum experience with her animations, most recently in the brand-new Gilder Center where the insect interactives she collaborated on are featured. Kids, Mimi and Tessa, are thriving, enjoying summer camp, and ready to enter third and first grade respectively in the fall.

Ryan Garbalosa was recently honored with the Hilton P. Terrell Teacher of the Year Award by the McLeod Residency Program for his dedication to medical education. In May he teamed up with Greg Ferrucci and Carmen Carrillo to make the trek back to Wes for the 20th Reunion, making sure to visit their old rooms at La Casa and reminisce on the hill with fellow ’03ers. Along for the ride was wife, Lucy Garbalosa, and soon-to-be-born Rafael R. Garbalosa, making his first of many trips to Wesleyan!

George Obulutsa is still going strong as a journalist at Reuters News based in Nairobi.

Here’s this edition’s notes from our classmates!

Paul Smaldino, who lives in Sacramento, wrote: “In my academic career, I published a book—a graduate-level textbook on modeling social behavior, out this fall. I also have a band, The Small Dinosaurs, and we just put out an album called Dad Songs [released in August]—a garage/art rock album about the milieu of fatherhood. I have two kids and a wife.”

Jenny He sent along this news: “The exhibition John Waters: Pope of Trash, curated by Jenny He and Dara Jaffe ’09, MA ’12, is on view at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles from September 17, 2023, through August 4, 2024. It is accompanied by a 256-page catalog edited with text by Jenny and Dara. The book includes an essay by Jeanine Basinger and the exhibition features loans from the John Waters Archive housed in the Ogden and Mary Louise Reid Cinema Archives at the Jeanine Basinger Center for Film Studies.”

No Accident, a film Michelle Rabinowitz Carney produced for HBO Documentary Films, premiered on MAX October 10. It follows the civil suit against the organizers of 2017’s deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and features fellow Wes alum Michael Bloch ’00, who represented the plaintiffs.

Jed Rosenbaum and his wife, Jillian, welcomed baby Zachary to the family in March. They live in Lexington, Massachusetts. Four-year-old Wesley keeps asking when he will get to see the tennis team play again—he attended last fall’s Alumni Pro-Am and a match at Tufts and very much enjoys the “Go Wes” cheers.

Steve Scribner is still living in Denver, co-principal of Shape Architecture Studio. His partner in crime, Morgan Law, is married to Kathleen Jones ’03. Morgan and Kathleen live in Leadville, the highest elevation town in the country, and have two kids and a husky and several bikes, as you do in a mountain town.

Steve wrote, “We’re heading to the East Coast tomorrow, and on the way to see my folks in Maine, will visit Dina Levi in Northampton, Massachusetts, where she is a diversity and inclusion director at Amherst College. She has an awesome wife and two amazing kids, one of whom can play the violin better than you, dear reader. If we’re lucky we may also see Josh Blumenstock and Annie Youngerman ’03 AND Marcel Paret ’00 and Jessie Mandle, who all may just happen to also be visiting Massachusetts. Josh and Annie are living the dream in Berkeley—he’s a professor and she’s a landscape architect. Marcel and Jessie are living the dream in Salt Lake City—he’s also a professor and she’s program director for the Healthy School’s campaign. They have two kids and a sweet old house and a really organized woodshop.”

Steve continued with more updates: “Ryan Huggins is still living in Durango, Colorado, and being a badass—we recently saw her in Denver after she completed yet another half Ironman (yes, she’s also finished a couple of full Ironman’s). She has a house and a huge garden and chickens and a business doing green energy consulting and makes time to enjoy the mountains. And in an incredible alignment of the stars, both Bajir Cannon and John Gordon were sighted (not by me) at the same time and in the same place in North Carolina! Bajir lives outside Kyoto and John is still living in Shanghai. They both have their own companies: if you want to learn bridge talk to Bajir, if you want to learn Chinese, talk to John. Has anyone seen Erik Dawe? He’s still living in D.C., working way too much on really interesting engineering projects.”

As for me (your class secretary), I recently earned a News and Documentary Emmy nomination for a short film I produced called The Sentence of Michael Thompson, which was co-distributed by MSNBC Films and the AVOD/FAST that I co-founded, Documentary+. Another film I produced, The Territory (Nat Geo/ Disney+), was nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards and won the entire film team a Peabody Award this year, including me and our esteemed editor Carlos Rojas. Also, Gasoline Rainbow, a hybrid scripted/documentary film I produced, premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September, and will come out on MUBI later this year. Lastly, another film I produced, Periodical, about menstrual justice, the stigma surrounding periods, and two incredible young women fighting to repeal the tampon tax state by state, premieres theatrically in October in LA, NY, Canada, Miami, and the UK, and will premiere on MSNBC and Peacock in mid-November. It’s a great film, please support!

Keep sending notes my way!

Our 2001 class is as busy as ever.

Emily Barth Isler and husband Jim Isler just celebrated 19 years of marriage and four years of living in Los Angeles with their two children. Jim created a kids’ series for PBS about the origin of animal idioms, which is premiering this fall. Emily, author of AfterMath, an award-winning book for middle school–aged kids and adults, has written two more books that were recently announced. The Color of Sound is a middle-grade novel that will be published by Lerner Book Group in March 2024, and Emily’s first picture book, Always Enough Love, will be out from Penguin/Nancy Paulsen Books in 2026.

Will Engel is writing a novella! Will tells us that it’s a comedic story about Santa Monica neighbors during the quarantine. The working title is, I Live in Sweatpants: the Life and Times of Jamie Jordan. Will is putting the finishing touches on his novella and hopes the story can translate well into television.

After a series of adventures, Somachi (Chikwe) Kachikwu is back in Maryland working as a curriculum director for a training agency while pursuing her doctorate in education. Life has taken Somachi to Nigeria and England since graduation, but now she’s back home. Somachi looks forward to reconnecting with many of our fellow classmates soon.

Lisa Weinert’s recently published book, Narrative Healing, offers a new paradigm for personal growth, self-care, and community action through an embodied writing practice. Her six-step process of healing through storytelling—awaken, listen, express, inspire, connect, and grow— incorporates somatic practices, creative prompts, and mindfulness exercises to guide readers in releasing stories held within their bodies.

Thanks so much to everyone who shared their news. We love hearing from you.

Best,

Aryn and Mara

From Chinelo Dike-Minor: “Still very much in touch with my Wes girls, Shakira Adams and Karen Alvarez ’02. Living in Birmingham, Alabama, with my husband and two boys, and teaching law. My PSA: I have recently learned that roasted broccoli is truly quite delicious. Who knew?”

Claudia Cruz visited Miami, Florida, in July for the National Association of Hispanic Journalists Convention where she moderated a panel on the need for more Latino business reporters to help close the wealth gap in the U.S. A past-president of the NAHJ San Francisco Bay Area Chapter, she now teaches journalism courses at the University of Nevada, Reno. While in South Florida, Claudia met up with Anne Janet “A. J.” Hernandez Anderson (formerly De Ases). A. J.’s daughter Sienna’s 10th birthday brought the two former Hi Rise roommates together after more than a decade. A. J. is a senior supervising attorney at Southern Poverty Law Center where she helps develop and litigate individual and federal class action cases.

From Lauren Anderson: “I’m sending an update on behalf of the husband and mutual friends of a Wes friend who recently passed. . . . Yi-wen Huang  passed away on June 16, 2023. Her Wesleyan achievements included earning a Freeman Scholarship, Phi Beta Kappa, and University Honors in Chemistry. She is missed dearly by her loving husband, Bor-rong Chen, her boys, Aiden and Brandon, and the many friends she made at Wesleyan and beyond. A full obituary can be found here.”

Serena Jones is “working as a book editor at Holt and living in Rye, New York, with my three boys.” She attended a gathering of Eagle’s Nest Camp alums in Asheville, North Carolina, and had the pleasure of reuniting with former staffers AND Wes alums: Ami Student ’00, Katie Barge Paris ’01, Erin Malone ’03, and Margot Wallston ’98.

From Leora Wien, reporting from Los Angeles: “I met with Tony Ducret one dark and stormy night at a bar in North Hollywood. We both felt good about the outdoor air circulation and had a lot to catch up on. In June, happily gave Jessica Sanders ’99 a fabulous in-person hug. This August, I had long overdue quality time with Laura Plageman ’99 et famille in the Bay Area. As an educational therapist, I’ve had the pleasure of collaborating with language arts and social studies teacher Sarah Chaskes ’91.

As the Class Notes were going to press, we were saddened to learn about the passing of our classmate Andrew Silverman. Please read more about him here.