Class Notes | 2010s

Mateusz Burgunder now works at Accenture in Switzerland and continues to enjoy making sense of numbers.

Adin Vaewsorn is a sexual health counselor, STI tester, and case manager for HIV-positive clients at Boston Children’s Hospital.

John Pacheco is operating out of Boston Children’s Hospital as a tiny cog in the enormous machine that is NIH-funded clinical research, hoping against hope that wasting two years of his life in this farm system will actually pay off and allow him to entry to medical school in 2017.

Kate Weiner is living in Boulder, Colo., and working with Nicole Stanton, on Loam, an environmental arts organization that publishes a biannual magazine as well as coordinates workshops on arts, activism, and outdoor adventuring. With Lily Myers, she is the co-founder of The Shapes We Make, a site for exploring holistic feminism. Lily and Kate are at work on their first book.

Sara Guernsey left CBS in June to attend UCLA to get her MFA as a part of the UCLA Television and Film Producer’s Program.

Shortly after graduation, Ibironke Otusile headed to Lagos, Nigeria, to conduct a water sanitation service project. She interned with the Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency and Lagos State Water Corporation, working in their microbiology lab and traveling to different water sites to learn about the water purification process. Ibironke also taught a class of about 100 students at Opebi Senior Grammar School, in Ikeja, Lagos, about the current water in crisis in Lagos and how to prevent further damage to Lagos’s water source. Currently, Ibironke is in Queens, N.Y., working for New York City Health and Hospitals on Rikers Island, a jail complex. Here, she works in the medical records department serving the underprivileged jail population of New York.

Scarlett Perry has been in Beijing at Elite Scholars of China as a college counselor. This past application season, she helped guide eight Chinese high school students through every step of the process. Her role varied from teacher, to mentor, to friend. A couple weeks ago her students decided on which U.S. university/college they’ll be attending this fall, and she’s very excited for what they’ll accomplish in their four years abroad. While there have been many highlights to the job (and also to living in Beijing), what she values most from the experience is the opportunity to have been a part of this important period in her students’ lives.

Matthew Lynch has been completing a one-year MS healthcare management program at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School. He is the committee leader for the most active organization at Carey (Healthcare Business Associate), he is heavily involved in administrative school marketing and branding efforts, and he participates in national business case competitions. He recently received the “Carey Brand Ambassador Award” for advancing and promoting the brand of the business school in an outstanding way. After graduation this August, Matt will be moving to Pittsburgh to start as a healthcare consultant for Highmark Inc. in the data analytics and informatics department.

Jessica Seidman will be attending the University of Connecticut School of Law this fall. She hopes to pursue a career in sports and entertainment law.

Andrew Yin will attend Weill Cornell Medical School this fall and is very excited to be moving to NYC. He’ll be sad to give up coaching baseball, working at Sibley Hospital, and spending time at home in DC, but he is ready for this next adventure!

Since graduation, Dylan Niehoff has been an account executive in the digital client services department, at Epsilon, a marketing agency. He recently began a second job as the digital marketing director for a start-up, Way of Life Athletic Co. (Wola-Co) out of a WeWork lab in downtown NYC

Alissa Myer writes: “I will be attending the USC School of Social Work to concentrate in military social work with a focus on PTSD and reintegration for veterans and their families. During my time off from school, I’ve been occupied with a collection of volunteer and paid positions. I’ve been volunteering at a therapeutic preschool and the Veterans Administration, I was hired at a mental health and addiction recovery center, and I am a piano and homework tutor as well as part-time hostess.”

Katherine Lu continues to teeter between the illusion of being a recent post-grad and the wonders of adult life. Currently working as an office manager at an IT consulting company in San Francisco, you can often find her at the newly opened SFMOMA or reading in Erik Islo’s living room. She welcomes new friends and new adventures.

Jenna Starr | jstarr@wesleyan.edu

Newly equipped with Wesleyan diplomas, the Class of 2016 continues to venture into post-grad life. We’re traveling to new cities, signing our first leases, and getting used to no longer wondering how many meal points we’ve got left.

Miranda Haymon is enjoying time with her family at home in Boston before moving to Berlin, Germany, for the summer. She will be taking on this adventure with Lynn Ma and Russell Thomas ’17. Miranda also plans on meeting up with a lot of other alums while there. Afterwards, she’ll head to D.C., to be the directing fellow at Arena Stage.

Matthew Siegelman, doing cognitive neuroscience research at MIT, has moved into a house with a cat.

Celia Joyce is traveling around Europe for the summer, visiting 10 countries and 19 cities throughout her adventures.

Melissa Leung is prepping to take her driving exam, and also au pairing in Barcelona and Istanbul this summer. In the fall, Melissa will be traveling to Southeast Asia before moving from New York to D.C., where she will be joining IBM as a consultant in the public sector.

Bulelani Jili will be a member of the 2016 class this fall at the Yenching Academy, an elite interdisciplinary graduate leadership program at Peking University in China. The academy hosts a program designed to cultivate global leaders with broad critical thinking skills and a cultural understanding of China. Bulelani is excited for this opportunity, and believes that this experience will greatly add to his understanding of politics and its ills, and also to his passion for crafting concrete public policy solutions, especially for a geopolitical landscape that continues to shift increasingly towards China.

Madeleine Junkins is a research associate in the neuroscience department at NYU Langone Medical Center. She’ll be moving to Brooklyn with Nina Stender and Alyssa Glanzer, and is excited to meet up with Wes alums in NYC!

Ellen Paik moved to Manhattan and started work in the investment banking division of Goldman Sachs. Ellen is still getting used to the bustle of New York City, but enjoys the abundance of delicious pizza, New York bagels, and fellow Wes alums. Ellen also continues to listen to the Hamilton soundtrack on repeat.

Thank you to those who wrote in! Hope to see many of us during Homecoming Weekend later this fall!

Ellen Paik | epaik@wesleyan.edu

Hey, gang! Just a few updates for this edition:

Seth Rosen moved to San Francisco in July and is now working at console game studio, Hangar 13, on its open-world action-adventure game, Mafia III. Seth’s job is to make the game’s setting of 1968 New Orleans feel alive.

In January of 2017, Max Rodriguez will be serving as a law clerk for a fellow Wes alum, the Honorable Denise Jefferson Casper ’90. It’s always good to see Wesleyan paths overlapping in the working world!

Rebecca Lee is taking a short break from medical school to live in Quito, Ecuador, for three months learning Spanish. Becky reports, “The food here is not the greatest. but the weather definitely beats the frigid winter of the Northeast!”

Hallie Coffin-Gould is in Pittsburgh at Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business, where she is pursuing her MBA. Hallie added, “Hooray for going back to school!”

Enjoying a new job in admissions and “weaving dreams for the youth of the world” at Boston’s Bentley University is Jorge Delgago, who has this to report: “Bo Jung ’11 misses late nights in SciLi, but is making do. Matt Tannenbaum graduated from law school (UMich) in December (Go, Blue!) and Mike Cifuentes, Bo, and I surprised him at his graduation.”

Micah Weiss responds to the call for notes with this: “I got engaged to Nomi Teutsch ’11. That’s a cool thing to report, perhaps.” Congratulations. Micah and Nomi! Cool, indeed!

Aaron Freedman submits the following: “Christina Boyd just joined me in the master’s program in somatic psychology in SF, so if you need a therapist for the late 20s existential crisis, give us a call and we’ll help you find your body. I got to perform a durational movement piece called ‘Gender x Technology’ with Nathalie Brillant recently, so keep your eyes on her to be the next Le1f ’11 of the art world. Ari B. King ’09 and Maren Ellingboe have a lovely home in Oakland and we’ve been taking some awesome hikes and mountain bike rides if you’re in the area. Every time I go back to Mecca (Aka Crown/Prospect Heights, Brooklyn) I get to have triple dates with Josh Wood, Kaitlin Kall ’09, Sarice Greenstein, David Schumeister (’09 honorary), Erica Rome, Scott Sasso (’09 honorary) and it’s amazing. Who’s ready for wedding season?”

Finally, Ram Sivalingam, a VP at Deutsche Bank, is back in the news. From a pool of over 15,000 of America’s best and brightest young people in sports, entrepreneurship, technology, finance, and entertainment, Ram was named one of the “30 under 30” in the finance sector. [See Newmakers.] Congratulations from the Class of 2010!

As always, feel free to send me an e-mail:

David Layne | dlayne@wesleyan.edu

Hi, Class of 2011! Looking forward to seeing everyone at the five-year Reunion, May 20–22, 2016! Hard to believe it’s already here!!

Natalie Unger reports: “I’m loving becoming an SLP (speech-language pathologist) in Northwestern University’s Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders. Getting my M.S. in August and moving to the mountains. Hoping to make it to Reunion!”

Jeremy Bazinet finished a scientifically fruitful research assistantship in the lab of Michael Greenberg ’76 at Harvard Medical School in 2015. Since then he has moved to Seattle, where he has begun his PhD in pharmacology at the University of Washington.

Laura Geronimo writes, “I arrived in Puerto Rico three years ago and got involved in grassroots groups fighting to improve conditions for cyclists in the car-dominated city of San Juan. From there I was recruited into a bike-share startup, and then a reputable planning agency, where I now work on transportation planning and climate change adaptation strategies, among other projects. Meanwhile, the bike share start-up is gaining momentum. Though nothing is on paper yet, we recently learned that the project has been approved by the Municipality of San Juan. We are tying up the financing of the project and in negotiations with potential investors, and if all goes well, we hope to launch this summer or early fall. It is a very exciting project, and I feel lucky to be working in a team of young Puerto Ricans passionate about alternative transportation options that could have far-reaching social, economic, and environmental benefits for the island.”

From Ian Coss: “I am in my second year of grad school and just finished an audio oral history project on Boston radio; it’s up now at radiocontact.org. Also, Kelsey Tyssowski and I finally got married!”

Camila Rodriguez, a 2L at Columbia Law School, will be a summer associate at Paul Hastings in New York City. Donovan Arthen is touring Eastern and Western Europe, singing with the world music ensemble, Northern Harmony.

Kim Prosise’s alter ego, Ember Flynne, is a full-time circus artist with Boston Circus Guild, performing aerial acrobatics and fantastic feats of flaming daredevilry (Thanks, Prometheus!) for events and original productions. Kim also works as a freelance travel and lifestyle writer and recently adopted a fluffy tabby cat named Merlin.

Elizabeth Gauvey-Kern writes, “I was recently on NY Star of the Day of Fox 5 NY, youtube.com/watch?v=Ergd12Jv3e4. I’m also releasing six singles with accompanying music videos. You can find them on Spotify and iTunes. Looking forward to Reunion and seeing what everyone else is up to.”

Emily Brackman informs us, “I am in my third year of my PhD in clinical psychology at Fordham University in New York and just completed my master’s thesis and received my MA. I’m researching the associations between interpersonal experiences (for example, bullying) and non-suicidal self-injury and suicide. As a psychology extern, I’m conducting psychotherapy at Harlem Hospital Center and am moving into the dissertation stage of my doctoral program.”

From Susie Howe: “I bounced around after graduation from the corporate world to a spice shop to working at a horse farm, but I think I finally found my calling. After completing my master’s degree in secondary education during the summer of 2015, I am finishing out my first year as a high school Latin teacher at Loyola Academy near Chicago. I also ran a local horseback riding summer camp the last three years and I look forward to another summer at the barn!”

Jess Rebekah Friedman writes, “I got married in October to Nick Church. We’re living in Atlanta, Ga., and I’m continuing to teach middle school English at a expeditionary learning STEM school called Amana Academy.

Yael Chanoff reports, “I just went to Sundance with a film I worked on as a researcher. It’s called Audrey and Daisy. Otherwise, I am still a freelance writer in the San Francisco Bay Area.”

Joella Jones is the program coordinator at the Columbia University Maison Française—maisonfrancaise.org/events—in charge of special events.

And finally from Joe Giamo and Brittany Richard in University Relations: “We look forward to Reunion. If you haven’t done so please get your gift in to contribute to our Fifth Reunion Class Gift. The fiscal year ends June 30, 2016! Thank you for your generous support to continue to make the difference for students receiving a Wesleyan education!”

See everyone May 20–22, 2016. Happy Fifth Reunion, Class of 2011!

Allie Southam | asoutham@wesleyan.edu

Happy 2016! It is hard to believe that this May will mark our fourth anniversary away from the Hilltop. I am proud to highlight some of our classmates who have been pioneers of social change by dedicating their life to improving the lives of others.

Noah Heau is living in Queens and works as a community health specialist at the Lower East Side Harm Reduction Center. The majority of his clientele are current and former injection drug users, many living with hepatitis C, HIV, and other unaddressed healthcare needs. Noah coordinates rapid testing and vaccination services, patient navigation services, and establishes linkages with community health clinics that are sensitive to the needs of marginalized populations.

Lena Solow and Katherine Wolf reconnected as members of Resource Generation. RG organizes young people with wealth and class privilege to work towards the equitable distribution of land, wealth, and power. Together they helped organize the NYC chapter’s fundraising efforts for It Starts Today Campaign to move resources to black-led black liberation community organizing efforts, which raised more than $1.3 million. Lena and Katherine continue to work together as chapter coordinators in NYC, and would love to talk to any interested Wes alums about RG!

Nathan Mackenzie is doing tremendous work with the El Pomar Foundation in Colorado Springs.

Emily Brown is an MFA candidate at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and is working on her thesis, a collection of poems. At the University of Iowa, Emily teaches an undergraduate literature course called Hybrid Forms, which incorporates works that defy genre boundaries. Emily also works as a projectionist at FilmScene, Iowa City’s only independent cinema.

Marjorie Romeyn-Sanabria started working for Audible, one of Amazon’s child companies that creates audio content. She says, “I never imagined I’d be working in tech, much less enjoying it!” Additionally, Marjorie met a wonderful man last winter and they are planning a small wedding for the spring of 2016. Lilah Sloane ’11 agreed to be one of her bridesmaids. Congratulations on two new beginnings, best wishes to you, Marjorie!

Many alumni, including myself, have followed Kennedy Odede’s journey since his days at 200 Church. This fall, Kennedy and Jessica Posner ’09 released their book, Find Me Unafraid. I was able to join the many Wesleyan alumni who turned up for the book launch on Oct. 13th in New York City. Kennedy and Jessica have unfolded the story of SHOFCO and their joint mission to improve education for girls and build infrastructure in one of the world’s poorest neighborhoods in Kenya. If you have not already, go onto Amazon and order this extraordinary and powerful book!

As for me, I am still working towards education equity in New York City and recently celebrated Teach For Americas 25th Anniversary.

Wishing the entire Class of 2012 all the best!

Daisey Perez | deperez@wesleyan.edu

Having returned to California after graduation, Thomas Cho is living it up as a fifth- and sixth-grade science teacher, all the while discerning whether he wants to stay in education or not. Considering the rent prices in the Bay Area, he seriously is missing the days when rent was “free” at the senior houses, and all this talk of the drought in California makes him nostalgic for the winters in Connecticut (but not really). Anna Swartz is still living in Brooklyn but has started a new position as a staff writer at Mic along with several other Wesleyan alums. In October, she had the pleasure of spending the night with a theater full of Wes alums seeing Hamilton on Broadway. It was great. #Ham4Wes.

Martin Kafina is a lab manager and researcher at Harvard Medical School. His lab operates within the Hematology & Oncology Division of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and his research team focuses on hemoglobin synthesis in the mitochondria. Martin is working on a project that examines iron transporters and enzymes residing in the mitochondria that support healthy hemoglobin production. Defective activities of these proteins lead to blood disorders characterized by anemia and mitochondriopathy. He has learned important techniques to study molecular biological processes including flow cytometry, DNA electrophoresis, Western Blot, PCR, cloning, and microinjection. Aside from the research, he is responsible for managing grants and ordering lab equipment. He is very impressed with the performances of Wesleyan swimming and diving, at the 2016 NESCAC Championship, led by head coach Peter Solomon.

Melody Oliphant can’t seem to stray too far from Middletown, as she now finds herself living in New Haven, after two years in Brooklyn. Melody is halfway through her first year in a two-year postgraduate fellowship at Yale’s Child Study Center working in a genetics research lab. Michael Robinson and Lia Monti are celebrating their recent engagement, while Buddy ’13 continues to mourn the loss of his childhood home, Beta Theta Pi.

William Tyner is working on an independent research project, where he is creating an oral history of working life in the digital economy. The purpose of his research is to investigate the meaning of work for technologists and non-technologists in the field. Why do you build what you build? What does it feel like every day to do what you do? What do you feel you are or aren’t contributing? How does your career shape your identity? How does race and social class influence your career? What frustrates you? What gives you joy? Throughout the next few months, he will be speaking with technologists of all types to answer these questions. If you’re interested in participating, please e-mail him at williamttyner@gmail.com.

As always, thanks to my classmates for writing in!

Laura Yim | Lyim@wesleyan.edu

Jenna Starr will be serving as the secretary for the class of 2015 notes in the magazine. She writes: “I’m so impressed with everything our fellow classmates have been up to since graduation. If any 2015ers wants to be in the future compilation of notes, please feel free to e-mail me at jstarr@wesleyan.edu.”

Oren Finard went biking around Europe for two months with a Wesleyan friend (from Edinburgh to London, Amsterdam to Brussels, the Loire Valley in France, and up the Rhine in Germany). Then in September, he moved to California to start his job at Google. And accidentally ran into another Wesleyan 2015er at a random party! Crazy!

Samuel Elias and Mackenzie McPike are research associates in the securities group at NERA Economic Consulting in NYC: “Our main contribution to NERA is starring on the company softball and soccer teams.” Additionally, Mackenzie volunteers as hockey coach for kids with special needs.

Max Shafer-Landau spent three months as a backpacking guide in Guatemala for a volunteer run organization called Quetzaltrekkers. They’re able to run a school and orphanage for over two hundred kids by leading treks to the highest point in Central America, Tajumulco, and through the highland cloud forests. Now that he’s back stateside, he moved as far from Middletown as he could, New Haven, where he’s now a graduate student in European and Russian studies at Yale.

Nora Thompson has been working in Manhattan at a healthcare tech startup that enrolls people into Medicaid, called BeneStream.

Since graduating, Andrew Yin has begun interning at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C., and coaching youth baseball. Simultaneously, he is working on medical school applications with the hope of getting in and starting medical school in 2016.

Alyssa Brady spent the summer studying Arabic in Jordan with the Department of States’s Critical Language Scholarship and researching for the Arab Renaissance for Democracy & Development (ARDD) Legal Aid. She recently started her position as a research associate for the Environmental Law Institute in Washington, D.C., where she is writing for the Environmental Law Reporter, researching for a project with the Department of Agriculture, and assisting with the Environmental Law and Policy Review course at Vanderbilt Law School.

Six days after graduation, Hannah Rimm picked up and moved to the big bad New York City. Two days later she started working as the marketing coordinator at GKIDS, an independent film distributor that focuses on animated films. Now she’s a full-blown, nine-to-five-working New Yorker, pretending that real life is as great as soaking in the sun on Foss. She spends her days creating social media copy and writing e-blasts and marketing plans.

Kimora Brock’s first month living in Los Angeles has been a dream. Her experiences have ranged from getting her car broken into and robbed, to performing on stage at the Hollywood Bowl with Kanye West as a dancer and model! When not going to auditions or farmers markets, she is taking self-improvement and acting classes, but also practicing her viola and dance skills, too. She would love to get in contact with fellow alums in the area and/or industry. Her number is 301/717-6864

On Sept. 25th, Andrew McCloskey departed for Mozambique, where he will spend the next 27 months teaching 8th–12th grade biology as a volunteer for the US Peace Corps. Feel free to contact him at amccloskey@wesleyan.edu, as it is part of the mission of the Peace Corps for volunteers to share their experiences with people in the United States.

Chloe Jeng is working as a consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton in DC. She has enjoyed working with and meeting other Wes alums, in particular Nicole Gerszberg and Robert Chang ’07.

Veronica Birdsall is at Columbia pursuing her PhD in neurobiology and behavior!

Steven Susaña-Castillo moved to New Haven at the end of August to work for Yale-New Haven Hospital as a public health researcher at Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluations (CORE).

Julia Sufrin has been interning at Aragi Inc., a renowned literary agency in Manhattan that represents authors including Jonathan Safran Foer, Junot Díaz, Claudia Rankine, Colson Whitehead, and Edwidge Danticat, to name a few. It’s a huge deal, she loves it there, and is honored to work for such an incredible agency responsible for finding some of the literary world’s greatest new voices.

Rebecca Wyzan lives in New York, working two jobs in the film industry. She is the assistant to filmmaker Sam Fleischner ’05 and the festival coordinator of the Video Art & Experimental Film Festival, which will take place Nov. 12–14 at the Tribeca Film Center.

Brett Keating, Zach Dravis, and Aaron Kalischer-Coggins live in Silver Lake and are learning to be Californians together. They are all “employed.”

This summer, Katherine Lu taught English for a month in Campinas Brazil under US-Brazil Connect as a Global Fellow. It is a Denver-based nonprofit that sends American college students and recent graduates to build intercultural ties between the two countries. It was a lot of fun, and a great way to gain experience in ESL teaching.

As part of Venture for America, Sam Rispaud joined a healthcare startup in Baltimore called Avhana Health. They are a small healthcare software company of nine people working to help doctors better use their electronic medical records. He’s doing a mix of software engineering and business development and learning a lot about the healthcare space. If there are any doctors out there who deal with prior authorization on a frequent basis or struggle to effectively implement clinical guidelines in their practice, please don’t hesitate to reach out (sam@avhana.com). They are looking for doctors to help pilot our software.

Since graduation Danielle Pruitt dedicated most of her time to eating her way through New York City. It can be pretty expensive, though, so in order to help fund this habit, she works at a media agency called Zenith Optimedia as an assistant on the digital/print activation team for Coty (a big fashion/beauty parent company). Yeah, sorry about those annoying ads where you can’t find the X… she also became an honorary member of the Producer’s Guild of America, which has been an awesome way for her to keep up with the film world while she immerses herself in the world of advertising.

This year, Zheyan Ni is on a Princeton in Asia (PiA) fellowship, working at a law firm in Hong Kong. PiA is a small, personal organization based in Princeton, N.J., that offers year-long fellowships in Asia that start after graduation. At this law firm, she is responsible for drafting sections of IPO prospectus and performing due diligence work, which she has never done before. During her free time, she is exploring local culture in HK, especially the food and the hiking trails. Apply to PiA!

Zachary Mintz moved to NYC and is an analyst at Citigroup in the global structured debt group.

Melissa Luning has been working on the residential team of Gould Farm since June 2015. Gould Farm is the first American therapeutic community for people diagnosed with mental illnesses, and it is located in the Berkshires of Massachusetts. Her role on the farm is to support guests in their off-work time by organizing activities, driving trips off-farm, assisting with activities of daily living, administering medication, and most important, forming relationships with the people the farm serves. She is grateful to be part of such a progressive mental health recovery program that values community living and holistic healing. Her position provides valuable experience that she says will give her a context for future studies in this field.

Jenna Starr | jstarr@wesleyan.edu