Class Notes | 2020s

Greetings, Class of 2021!

Langston Morrison recently graduated from Fordham Law School with a concentration in international, foreign, and comparative law. Langston is also the vice president of a nonprofit called Abóbë Cultural Institute and Learning Center; is a certified human rights consultant with the U.S. Institute of Diplomacy and Human Rights; and is the author of a book on language learning called The Economics of Language Learning. Since graduating from law school, he has been studying for the bar exam and will go onto practicing law at Shook, Hardy & Bacon LLP in Kansas City, Missouri. 

Andrei Pinkus writes, “In 2024–2025, I traveled to Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Peru, and New Zealand. I earned my PADI Divemaster certification in Koh Tao, Thailand, and made unforgettable friends and memories along the way. Now, I’m settled back into the D.C. area working in the environmental field, so reach out to me at andrei.pinkus@gmail.com if you want to connect or grab a bite!” 

Kaya Gayon Yang decided to move to Ulanbaatar, Mongolia, where she will be a grade four homeroom teacher at English School Mongolia. If anyone visits Mongolia, please let Kaya know! Kaya can be reached by gyang01@wesleyan.edu.

As for me, I graduated from University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School in May. I will be moving to New York City to start a career in litigation. Please let me know if you are around. I am always happy to catch up with Wes alumni.   

Thank you for reading! May you stay well and enjoy the rest of 2025. 

Saam Niami currently lives in New York and works as an arts and culture writer for publications such as The New York Times,New York Magazine, and Interview Magazine. Last year he founded Ward Gallery, a curatorial project dedicated to young New York artists, from emerging to museum represented, across all mediums.

From Luke Forsthoefel: “After five great years in Boston, I’m moving out to the Bay Area with my partner, Ava, and our cat, Aflie! I will be starting business school at Stanford GSB in September 2025 as a member of the Class of 2027, while Ava will continue her data science job in tech. We are both very excited about moving to California and this new chapter ahead. I’m always excited to connect with Wes alums, so let me know if you’re in the area!”

Emmy Hughes received her PhD in planetary geology in June from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. She’ll stay on at Georgia Tech for the next year or so, working on Mars analogue science! Congrats, Emmy!

From Huiqin Hu: “Five years after graduating, I’ve lived in New York City, San Francisco, Nairobi, [and] Bali. And I’m currently studying Taiji and Qigong in Wudang Mountain, China.”

Sawyer Tennant just graduated from Boston University with an MFA in creative writing (fiction), where he was awarded a Leslie D. Epstein Global Fellowship to write abroad in Istanbul this fall. Congrats, Sawyer!

Lars Babbott-Ward is now the proud dad to a bearded dragon named Banjo and an axolotl named Silly. Teaching elementary music, hosting open mics, and coaching high school rowing has been filling most of their days with laughter and community. “Sending love to all and show up where you can for each other.” <3

Happy five-years postgrad to all, and thank you to those who submitted updates! I am still chugging along in Chicago, enjoying all the Midwest has to offer. Roll cards and let me know if you’re ever in town!

Hello, Class of 2024! Please enjoy these postgrad updates from our classmates!

Sam Anderson has been working as a project assistant for a lab at USC, using novel machine-learning models to identify risk factors for Alzheimer’s via a combination of neuroimaging (MRI and CT) and genetic data. 

Rachel Wachman is working as a journalist at the Concord Monitor in Concord, New Hampshire, where she moved in August. Rachel says, “Missing my Wes friends but enjoying the mountains!”

After graduation, Luka Netzel began working in professional theater. Luka says, “A few weeks after graduation, I got a last-minute company management gig at a small theater in Lincoln, New Hampshire, for their summer stock season. After this, I headed south to Sarasota, Florida, where I am currently working as the company management apprentice at the Asolo Repertory Theater.”

In other professional news, Lucas Hughes got a job as a clinical research coordinator at MHM research in the Hudson Valley, Rebecca Drucker moved to Bethesda, Maryland, to begin a teaching fellowship, and Savannah Ryan got a job as a biochemist at a biopharmaceutical company and a new car! 

Naomi Whitlock spent her summer after graduation working in Yellowstone National Park and recently moved to Colorado to work as a dogsled musher and guide. Naomi says, “In other news, the manuscript I wrote about my genomic research in Barry Chernoff’s lab was published in Scientific Reports in December!”

Other Cardinals continued their education postgrad. In the spring, Emma Dhanda will be graduating with an MA in psychology through Wesleyan’s BA/MA Program. Sara Beth Bouchard is in the PhD program in chemistry at UConn, in a lab that studies proteins as polymers. Sara Beth says, “I never saw myself joining a synthetic polymer lab . . . so I will have plenty to learn! I am hoping to kick-start my research project this spring. Missing the Wesleyan sailing team and looking forward to the Parent Alumni Regatta!”

As for travel, Max Fan, Chris Noh,and Oliver Wang took a road trip across the U.S., while Naya Jorgensen moved overseas. Naya says, “Hello, fellow Wes alumni! Thanks to the support of the Wesleyan French department, I’m currently living in Paris and teaching English at a university, which gives me a new appreciation for what our professors went through with us! I hope to cross paths with some continental Cardinals as time goes on. Hope everyone is having a great start to 2025!”

Happy New Year, everyone!

Please send news and updates to your class secretary.

Last summer, Amy Guaman-Dumancela was a summer associate for the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) in Alexandria, Virginia. She worked in the Operational Evaluation Division of IDA’s Systems and Analyses Center. Amy graduated with a psychology degree from Wes and is currently working toward her master’s in clinical psychology at Columbia.

Happy New Year. I hope you had a warm holiday season. Here are some updates from Class of 2021:

Gayon Yang is working as a grade 5 homeroom teacher in Chiang Rai, Thailand. The international school is going through expansion at the moment; please let Gayon know if you are interested in learning more about their employment opportunities. Gayon can be reached by gyang01@wesleyan.edu.

Leah Seldin co-founded The Girls NYC, an exclusive social group for NYC women in their 20s looking to make meaningful friendships. In the past two years, The Girls NYC have amassed 1,400 active members and hosted over 150 events, including private movie screenings, brunches, dinners, book clubs, and more. The events offer a safe, friendly environment where all women attend alone with bravery, vulnerability, and a desire to meet new people.

The Girls NYC have partnered with multiple brands and grown a social media presence of more than 3,400 and consistently receive over 400 applications a month. Through The Girls NYC, lifetime friendships have been created from best friends to roommates.

On November 2, 2024, The Girls NYC was featured on ABC News Nightline. In addition, The Girls NYC was featured in a Bon Appétit magazine article, which can be read here. Congratulations to Leah and the group for their achievements!

You can learn more about The Girls NYC on Instagram and their website: www.thegirlsnyc.comwebsite.

Garrett Kaufmann is happy to organize a Wesleyan meet-up for the greater Detroit/Michigan area and keep a greater network connected. If you are in Detroit (or the rest of Michigan) and would like to join, you can contact Garrett at gkaufmann@wesleyan.edu.

Thank you for reading! Please feel free to send me updates throughout the year and look out for new submission requests.

Congratulations to Gabrielle Bennett who was awarded the Obama Foundation fellowship for the 2024–2025 academic year, as a master’s of social work candidate at the University of Chicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy and Practice!

Nick Ticali is finishing up the final semester of his physician assistant master’s program. He will be looking to practice family medicine in a medically underserved area. He asks that you reach out if you have any contacts in the Brooklyn, Queens, or Manhattan areas. Nick would also like to give a quick shout-out to Sam Petersen and Shana Laski ’19 who just announced their engagement. He sends love to both!

From Jiayao Chen: “I recently got certified as a mental health coach by Headspace. Simultaneously, I am completing my last semester of [a] psychology and virtual reality master’s based in Paris and Barcelona.”

Thank you to all who submitted updates! As always, I love hearing from y’all. Though my mom did not win her race for Georgia State House District 53, I do appreciate the continued support I’ve received from the Wesleyan community. As for my life updates, I am defrosting from Chicago winter and staying busy trying to bring good energy with me and others into the future!

Hello, lovely Class of 2024!

My name is Miles Allen, and I’m reaching out as your Wesleyan class secretary. Though our time on campus was temporary, the memories are forever . . . and for me, the position of class secretary is also forever. Essentially, three times a year—coinciding with each issue of Wesleyan University Magazine—I will be reaching out to solicit personal and professional updates to be shared in the Class Notes section of the magazine: https://classnotes.blogs.wesleyan.edu/. This is a wonderful space for memories, family news, travel experiences, mini-reunions, and more—a way to stay connected throughout the next chapters of our lives.

As recent graduates, our news isn’t included in this Fall 2024 Issue, but I will be reaching out soon about how you can share for the next, Spring 2025 Issue. Until then, I hope everyone is happy, healthy, and enjoying our postgrad fall!

Warmly,
Miles

Hi Cardinals. This is your new class secretary, Arthur Chen. Here are some exciting updates from your dear classmates:

Aldrean Alogon writes: “I want to say ‘hi’ to everybody in our class. Ashley Tuen and I are rooming together in the big city, and we miss the Class of 2023 so much. It’s nice that Wes built very strong connections, and we still hang out very frequently with our college besties. Can’t wait to see everybody sometime soon!”

From Aidan Jones: “I recently joined my thesis lab, as I started my second year as a Columbia University PhD student.”

From Elizabeth Rowe: “I spent the last year teaching English in Madrid, Spain. Now I am starting law school back in my hometown at UT Austin. Hook ’em!”

From Kelly Fenton-Samuels: “After graduating with BA degrees in chemistry and earth and environmental sciences, I stayed at Wesleyan for an additional year to complete an MA degree in earth and environmental sciences. My master’s thesis focused on ice, ocean, and climate interactions in Antarctica during the Plio-Pleistocene Transition, approximately 2.6 million years ago. This period marked the transformation from a world warmer than today to one with continental-scale ice sheets in both hemispheres. I am continuing this research within a PhD program at Columbia University and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, furthering my passion for exploring Earth’s natural laboratory and enhancing scientific understanding of climate change.” So exciting to learn about Kelly’s research; not going to lie, that sounds pretty cool (pun unintended!).

And from the very first friend that I made at Wesleyan, Quentin Rollet writes: “I just spent one year in Los Angeles working on several film sets and at a production company called Iconoclast. I even got to make my own short film. In the process, I realized that my Wesleyan film thesis was a piece of cake compared to the ruthless Hollywood money machine. Although I didn’t like the city that much, I met a lot of cool people there. 
            “I also got to travel a lot recently—finally put my three years of Japanese to practice in Japan—and followed the filmmaker Wong Kar Wai’s footsteps in Hong Kong, where I met other Wes alumni. Now I’ll settle back in Paris and probably make more movies. Let me know if you’re visiting!” Visiting Quentin in Paris last summer, I can vouch that he will feed you a lot and different kinds of cheese every day!

Lastly, from me (Arthur): I am currently on a working holiday in Australia. Originally, I planned to find work in farming or hospitality to experience different jobs and meet new people, but I ended up as a research assistant at the University of Melbourne, which was quite unexpected—just like how unpredictable life can be after graduating! But I become more comfortable with embracing precarity now. Being on a college campus again reminds me of my time at Wesleyan, so whenever I work on student film sets, I wear my Wesleyan “Dad” hat to show my Cardinal pride. Haha!

Thank you “heaps” for reading our class notes! Please send me updates throughout the year to share with our classmates. I can be reached at achen03@wesleyan.edu. Topics can range from personal and professional updates, memories, family news, traveling, mini-reunions, and more! It doesn’t have to be long, even a sentence or two will do. Feel free to provide photos too. Cheers! (I realized Australians don’t really say this….)

Please write to your class secretary.