Class Notes

Stuart J. Hendel ’80, passed away  on October 20, 2018 at the age of 60, after waging a courageous battle against Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).  Diagnosed in 2016, Stu, in typical form, turned his  considerable intellect and business savvy, toward raising funds to help find a cure for this horrible disease.  For example, since 2017, Stu hosted two fundraisers in New York City that raised almost $3 million for Project ALS, with the funds going toward ALS drug testing studies being conducted at Columbia University and at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard University. Scott Philllips ’80 and Richard Cohen ’81 attended the 2018 fundraiser this past January, and, while speaking was difficult for Stu at that point, they both reported a large smile instantly spreading across his face upon seeing them.  It took Scott back to his days with Stu in 1976 in Clark Hall freshman year when they met for the first time and coined nicknames for each other that they used for more than 40 years.

Richard in 1981 followed Stu to Cornell Law School, where Stu once again distinguished  himself academically without taking himself too seriously, winning traits of his that stayed with him throughout his life.

After Cornell, and following a short stint with a large NYC law firm, Stu embarked on a very successful career in the “prime brokerage” business in the NYC area, spending time at firms such as Morgan Stanley, UBS, Bank of America , Eton Park Capital Management and most recently, with Lightkeeper LLC.

Stu will  be missed by all of us who had the good fortune to have known him, but especially by his family, including his spouse Leslie of 28 years,  and their three children, Michael, Evan and Lauren.

Thank you to Scott Philllips ’80 and Richard Cohen ’81 for this heartfelt tribute.

Steven C. Hiscox ’81, who passed away on Nov. 20 2018, was the prototypical Wesleyan student—academically smart in the usual ways, but with wide-ranging and unexpected interests.  Steve was a music major who composed and played classical music for course credit, but then listened to rap music for pleasure, well before it was hip to do so.  He made college look effortless—he was at once scholarly and down to earth, serious and affable.  I well remember the time when he pulled an all-nighter to read Gone with the Windin one sitting!  His passions included pick-up basketball (he was a beast) and cars. He devoured Hot Rod magazine the minute it hit the newsstand, and spent countless hours under the hood of his car acquiring the skills and knowledge that eventually led to his life’s work as the owner of an automotive training school.  I regret that I did not stay in close touch with Steve after Wes, but I will always cherish our friendship during that formative time in our lives.

Thank you to Tom Miceli ’81, P’12, P’17 for this heartfelt tribute.

Herbert D. Kelleher ’53 passed away on Jan. 3, 2019. A full obituary can be found here.

Hey, Class of 2018, hope you are all doing great! Here are some updates: Adriana Phillips is getting her master’s in dance/movement therapy at Sarah Lawrence College. Jason Mitchner is working at Paradigm Talent as a music assistant to continue his passion for music and to stay competitive.

Joanna Paul is working for a nonprofit college access program in Chicago as a reading coach. She is helping first-generation, low-income students from underrepresented backgrounds get the support they need to get into college. She is taking her students to see Hamilton next month and is super excited. She misses y’all.

John Henry Vansant and Sarah Regan are serving as the campaign manager and field organizer for a Democratic campaign for the Colorado House of Representatives.

Diana Dominguez is an intern at the Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center. Among other projects, she is doing health education on HPV and recruiting patients for a study on HPV prevalence and persistence in inner city youth. She is very excited to start her position as a care coordinator at Mount Sinai next month. She will be working with high school youth in school based health clinics, navigating them through barriers and advocating between staff for their needs.

Brandon Sides is living in New York. He begins an intensive coding boot camp in January and will work as a web developer upon completion of the course. Out of the 52 New York-based alumni in tech that Brandon reached out to, more than half responded to his cold e-mails! Brandon would like to thank Peter Frank ’12, Nathan Shane ’13, Sam Wheeler ’15, and Tim Devane ’09, who offered their advice or provided career support of some kind.

Jamie Shi, Ray Miao, and Phoebe Chen worked on a Wes alumni art showcase in New York that opened in September. See the poster at magazine.wesleyan.edu.

Thank you to everyone who reached out and be on the lookout for future e-mails to let us know what you are up to!

Najwa Anasse | nanasse@wesleyan.edu
Garett Larivee | glarivee@wesleyan.edu

Brett Keating is in L.A. writing for The Infatuation, which reviews restaurants. He often brings Andrew Hove and Sara Guernsey out to eat with him for an unreliable second or third opinion.

After teaching in the Boston area for three years, Paulina Jones-Torregrosa moved to Chicago to start her PhD in English at Northwestern University. She’d love to see any Wesfolk in the area!

Peter Cornillie was planning a beer dinner with a Detroit restaurant for late October.

Silvia Diaz-Roa has moved back to Connecticut. She just started her master’s in biostatistics at Yale.

Emmett McConnell is finishing up his graduate degree at Medill with a residency at the Johannesburg Citizen covering soccer.

Jaxie Friedman is a zero-waste coordinator for the NYC Department of Education’s Office of Sustainability, implementing recycling/composting programs and working on diverse sustainability initiatives in over 1,800 NYC public schools. Outside of work, she is getting crafty with waste and transforming “trash” into treasures, edible and otherwise.

Steven Susaña-Castillo has started his MPH at Yale in epidemiology of microbial diseases.

LaDarius Drew became the director of student activities at the Gunnery. He has been working on getting the students to involve themselves more outside of campus and in the community.

Earl Lin is still living in Washington, D.C.—though now living in the District proper, as opposed to Arlington, Va., and is still living with Josh Atchley. In June, Earl started working as a paralegal with the Roderick & Solange MacArthur Justice Center, a nonprofit civil rights litigation and advocacy law firm that works mainly on issues of criminal justice reform, including police misconduct, prisoner rights, wrongful convictions, and the death penalty. Specifically, as a member of the MacArthur Justice Center’s Appellate Project, Earl gets to work on litigation before higher courts around the country, up to and including the U.S. Supreme Court. In his free time, he’s been trying to take advantage of all D.C. has to offer, including regularly hanging out with fellow Wes alumni in the area and trying to find opportunities to get back into sailing.

Lina Mamut is a product owner at Ahold Delhaize designing tech for brands like Stop and Shop, Hannaford, and Giant.

The weekend of Sept. 14, Kaito Abe played poker with Miranda Linsky ’14, Yohei Okada ’16, and Dan de Rienzo ’11 over locally-produced sake in Kyoto.

Next time let’s go camping!

Jenna Starr | jstarr@wesleyan.edu

Peter Horton, having never really left Middletown, welcomed his friends back for Reunion. Alex Pogosky, Amanda Morrow, and Ashley Swan removed items from the bucket list, with Simoneil Sarbh getting them up in the morning and making the most of each day. Croy Salinas, Will Davis, Allie Carey, and Laura Ligon recounted updates over discounted plates. Ethan Grund and Evan Carmi were fryed to see each other again. Chelsea Lassiter PhD’16 talked house music with Louise Brown (class dean of 2013) and her band, especially the importance of being on time to the rhythm section. Leah Temes and Jenna Bluestein were excited to meet Susanna Banks’ fresh-faced friend in their freshman-year dorm. Lu Corporan was sorely missed at Reunion, his attention needed on the West Coast with a Sinatra event.

Caitlin Aylward and Corey Guilmette celebrated their marriage in August at a crabbing “resort” on Guemes Island, Wash. Syed Ali, Bill Beluch, Chris Ceccolini ’11, Saumya Chatrath, Jaewon Chung, Gabriela De Golia, Marjorie Dodson, Will Durney ’14, Ryu Hirahata, Jessica Jordan, Melanie Koren, Laura Machlin, Anthony Mascolo ’12, Missy McCabe, Kateryn Nunez, Zack Sulsky, Estee Rubien-Thomas, and Lizzie Williams attended.

After earning their master’s degrees at Boston University, Max Kaplan and Kara Wernick ’14 are headed west, as Max pursues his PhD in linguistics at UC Santa Cruz. They are getting married next year.

Sarah Cassel lives in NYC and works at the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, where she focuses on diversion, reentry, and bail reform initiatives. Sarah congratulates the incarcerated students who graduated with associate degrees through Wesleyan’s Center for Prison Education.

Zach Schonfeld returned to Wesleyan for Reunion. He visited the Clark room where he published his first Wesleying post in 2009 and was startled to find it occupied by Bobby Burvant and Jake Blumenthal. After five years in Brooklyn, he moved to Morningside Heights with Rebecca Vaadia. In lieu of a housewarming party, they had a Kate Bush 60th birthday party.

Bryce Hollingsworth is a stone worker in Northampton, Mass. He’s been certified by the Dry Stone Walling Association of Great Britain and is starting his own business. He will be apprenticing with a certified master craftsman in Australia. Check out his Instagram @stonebearmason and website stonebearhardscapes.com.

Taryn Murray graduated from medical school and is doing a preliminary medicine year at Cleveland Clinic Akron General followed by a dermatology residency at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Marjorie Dodson traveled through Kazakhstan last October with Erin Newport. Marjorie worked remotely while scuba diving around the Pacific, primarily in Bali where she participated in a divemaster training and marine conservation volunteer program. She was lucky enough to make it back stateside in time for Reunion. Marjorie moved to D.C. to pursue a master’s in international affairs at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Emma Daniels joined the LA office of Abernathy MacGregor Group, a leading strategic communications firm. Emma will specialize in crisis management and corporate reputation building.

Anna Swartz got married in August in the Berkshires. There were a few of her classmates in attendance. She and her now wife, Netta Bob, are still enjoying the post-wedding glow.

Evan Hazelett traveled with his partner to New Zealand, Japan, Berlin, Amsterdam, Spain, and Iceland. They ate, hiked, hosteled, trained, and drove across these countries, WWOOFing with five different families. They became good friends with an old Japanese couple and middle-aged Catalonian

man who is rehabilitating a 1,000-year-old farm house and making goat cheese. Now Evan is studying urban planning at Harvard.

Janet Cushey rejoined Argot Partners as the firm’s event manager and app development project lead. She moved to Queens and oversees Patch English, a review service for Korean corporations she founded in 2017.

Kevin Curtin rejoined J.P. Morgan this year as an advisor in the private bank. He provides J.P. Morgan’s banking, credit, and investment advice to wealthy families, institutions, endowments and foundations. He’s been encouraging Wesleyan grads in Boston to meet each other—you should reach out to him and join!

Catherine Doren finished her PhD in sociology at the University of Wisconsin—Madison and is doing a postdoc with the Office of Population Research and Center for Research on Child Wellbeing at Princeton.

Barbaralynn Moseman resides in East Harlem with her partner and graduated with her master’s in social work from Hunter College. She is a home-based family therapist at New York Foundling.

Prince Emenalo earned his master of public health degree with a concentration in public health management and policy. He is a member of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity of the Kappa Alpha Sigma Chapter in Stone Mountain, Ga., and also an assistant coach for his little sister’s softball team.

After liquidating all assets associated with his entrepreneurial endeavors, Bennett Kirschner has transitioned into naturalist writing. His new book of essays will be published next February by a small New Orleans press.

Laura Yim | Lyim@wesleyan.edu