Class Notes

Congratulations to the Class of 2017 on your recent graduation! We’ll be reaching out soon for your news, which will appear in the December issue of this magazine.

Congratulations to the Class of 2017 on their recent graduation! We are excited for them to join us as the new additions to the Wesleyan alumni community.

Nikku Chatha completed Wes’s BA/MA in math and is working at Andrew Davidson & Co. in New York. She was glad to see so many ’16ers during R&C weekend!

Celia Joyce has been working at New York County Defender Services, a public defense office, since last fall as a corrections specialist. She makes referrals to charitable bail funds, plans and executes regular trips to Rikers and similar corrections facilities across the boroughs, and serves as a liaison between attorneys and social workers, clients and families, and various DOCCS employees. She is preparing to take the LSAT and GRE in hopes of pursuing a dual degree—a JD/PhD in psychology.

Melissa Leung and Sarah Mi frequently ring in Kellyn Maves and Taran Carr throughout their perpetual hunt for authentic Chinese food in Rockville, Md., because Kellyn and Taran have cars, while Melissa and Sarah do not. The group also visited Wes for Commencement, and is planning camping and winery trips for times ahead.

Melissa has moved onto a supply chain management project with IBM, completed a flag football season with her IBM start class, plays on their softball team, toured Rome with her gospel choir, and works on portrait in her oil painting class.

Matthew Stein is a software engineer at YouTube in Mountain View, Calif. In his free time, he plays violin and viola with the Google orchestra, a klezmer trio, and a string quartet, and designs puzzles and puzzle hunts.

Tim Israel is in Portland, Ore., and says, “come chill.”

Michael King has been building a startup that aims to make language learning efficient, organized, and enjoyable: a dynamic curriculum that adapts to your level and your content, placed on top of personalized music and media, language exchange, and spaced repetition flashcards.

Ellen Paik | epaik@wesleyan.edu

Jenna Starr has switched positions at Wesleyan! She is now part of the alumni and parent relations team. Keep your eyes open for fun event invitations, and, as always, keep sending her your class notes.

Katherine Lu works in human resources at the Mission Neighborhood Health Center in San Francisco. She enjoys hearing more Spanish than English, and is putting her HISP major to the test.

Peter Cornillie earned his certified cicerone, which is the equivalent of a beer sommelier, or someone who knows way too much about beer.

Marissa Castrigno accepted a job writing for the public affairs department of New York-Presbyterian Hospital. She will also be attending the 2017 Wesleyan Writers’ Conference during her time off between positions, and looked forward to a spending few days of early summer back on campus.

Michael Leung gave a presentation on behavioral science at Morningstar Investment Conference—the flagship conference for Morningstar, Inc.—to a crowd of 200 finance professionals! He enjoys his work of incorporating behavioral science methods into software development to help people reach their goals

Since graduating, Catherine Chase works at the San Antonio Museum of Art and is the assistant to the director for a little over a year. She reunited with her former Wes roommate, Katherine Du. They met up at Reunion and Commencement and ate a lot of dumplings at Tibetan Kitchen.

After two years of sharing a wonderful apartment together, Diana Lin, Angela Yoo, and Elaine Tsui are ready to take the next step in their careers. Following her role as a senior consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton, Diana is looking forward to attending Penn State College of Medicine. Likewise, after spending two years at the NIH, Angela will be heading off to medical school this fall. Elaine will miss them dearly, but is excited to return to academia and attend Princeton’s chemistry PhD program. We are glad to have shared so many great memories over the last two years and look forward to our next Reunion!

Virgil Taylor and Gabe Gordon recently took the Staten Island Ferry. In the stormy Friday evening light, they could see for themselves the possibilities offered by a life at sea. Taylor and Gordon live as one in Brooklyn.

Aletta Brady is moving to Jordan in September for a research Fulbright studying the intersection of drought, water scarcity, and the refugee crisis.

Rebecca Caspar-Johnson is starting law school at Columbia in the fall.

Mateusz Burgunder has not changed much since the last issue. He still lives and works in Switzerland. He has met many Wesleyan friends around the U.S., Europe, and on Skype, and he looks forward to more conversations. He is also very impressed by how many of his Wesleyan friends finished marathons.

Orelia Jonathan just graduated from UPenn with her master’s in education. She plans to teach English in China for the summer before heading back to The Lawrenceville School to teach and coach as full-time faculty.

Geneva Jonathan is headed off to Northwestern University in the fall to start a PhD program in clinical psychology in Dr. Evan Goulding and Dr. Cynthia Dopke’s Bipolar Technology Lab.

Hana Elion and JJ Mitchell began singing together at Wesleyan and formed a band called Overcoats. They released their debut album, Young, via Arts & Crafts in April, and performed an NPR Tiny Desk Concert. itunes.apple.com/us/album/young/id1199218160 and youtube.com/watch?v=pXtAhfQhEG4.

Jenna Starr | jstarr@wesleyan.edu

The beloved class of 2014 has taken 2017 by storm. Read below for the latest on what they’ve been doing!

Will Dubbs spent the last two years working for Hillary’s presidential campaign, but has now moved to Prague.

After a few years of doing nonprofit and startup work, Alex Cantrell is happily employed as a UX design consultant in Watertown, Mass. He regularly draws upon his liberal arts background during client calls, using authoritative, fluffy language to justify why the website header should not have a lime green drop shadow. He lives in Brighton with his gecko, running shoes, and beer fridge. He accepts one freelance design gig each quarter—feel free to reach out!

Rob Roth, a third-year ENL/ESL K-12 public school teacher in the NYC Department of Education, as well as a recent NYC teaching fellow and Hunter College MA TESOL program graduate, looks forward to embarking on a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant grant to Bogotá, Colombia, where he will support Universidad Nacional students in acquiring English proficiency.

Grace Smith writes, “I just started law school at the University of Michigan and want to do international environmental law right now, but what, exactly, you want to do changes during the course of school. I was a ski instructor in Colorado for two years before this.”

Ellen Alexander just completed her master’s in geology at UCLA, and is continuing in her PhD program.

Maddy Oswald just finished her first year of a PhD program in developmental psychology at The University of Chicago.

Nick Petrillo, Keegan Duffy, Sky McGilligan, Ben Kafoglis, Remy Lieberman, and Casey Lasda ’13 have “completed a feature length, shot-for-shot, low-budget, high-passion remake of Dirty Dancing, which premiered at Nitehawk Cinema in Brooklyn on May 23. Emily Nussbaum (New Yorker) described it as ‘sexy, funny, and lovable.’ Barstool Sports described it as ‘an outrageous idea.’ Nick’s mom said, ‘Don’t show Dad.’ The New York Times had no comment. You can find the film on Youtube under ‘Boiz Club Fancy Pants Presents Dirty Dancing’.”

Richie Starzec has been traveling around Bhutan for the last few months. He connected with a selective training society, where he is learning the arts of ninjutsu, jujitsu, and mixed kung fu.

Henry Cheung writes, “After three years of teaching high school mathematics through Teach For America, I am transitioning to a management consultant position at Oliver Wyman. I will miss teaching, but am looking forward to the travel and the change of pace. If anyone is interested in pursuing teaching through Teach For America (or not) or consulting, feel free to reach out!”

Jason Shatz is moving to Chicago to earn a master’s in computer science at the University of Chicago. He writes, “Yes, there is a summer ‘immersion’ program for liberal arts students and others without the proper background. In other words, I’m making up for the computer science studying that I should have done at Wesleyan (at least if I wanted a decent job afterwards)! I still plan to write on the side.”

Maggie Feldman-Piltch is getting a master’s from Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service in the security studies program and started her own national security consulting company called Unicorn Strategies. In March, she led a trip of retired U.S. admirals and generals to Havana, Cuba, to meet with members of the Cuban government on issues of security cooperation. She writes, “On a perhaps less serious note, I recently won the mojito-making contest at the Cuban Embassy here in D.C., and have been declared Best Mojito Maker. Anything else I do in my life will pale in comparison.” She adds, “All other things are normal. Still having my life over run by two obnoxious pit bulls. Still seeing too much of Julian Purkiss. Still seeing just the perfect amount of Izzy Rode.”

As for me, I will be putting my love for the show Suits on the side, and will be starting at Fordham Law School in the fall where I will be focusing on litigation. Have a wonderful summer, and keep the notes and all of the wonderful things you are doing, coming.

Your Class Secretary,

Mary Diaz | mcdiaz@wesleyan.edu 

The Class of 2013 is one year away from our Fifth Reunion and we’re feeling the feels. Read on to see what we’ve been up to in 2017!

In March, Evan Weber was recognized by Grist as one of 50 emerging green leaders to watch for his work with U.S. Climate Plan, the organization he and Matt Lichtash started at Wesleyan. In April, U.S. Climate Plan re-branded as Sunrise, and is building a movement of young people to make climate action an urgent political priority, with an eye on a major intervention in the 2018 midterm elections.

Janet Cushey launched a private English review service for Korean corporations called Patch English in January and works as an event manager for Shoptalk.

Ben Smith is script supervising on film and commercial sets and has finished his third original screenplay. He’s now looking to get his sci-fi comedy podcast off the ground floor once he finds some good improv actors. Any Wes composers, sound designers, or funny people should hit this dude up at basmith@wesleyan.edu.

Bennett Kirschner has assumed the role of kennel manager at Pan-American Life Insurance firm in New Orleans. Whether he’s providing dogs for the hunt, or simply intimidating debtors, Bennett takes pride in the quality of his service.

Zach Schonfeld lives in Brooklyn with Ella Dawson ’14 and a 1956 grundig tube radio he inherited from his 99-year old great-grandma. He had a brief cameo in a Real Housewives of New York City episode about a dog wedding.

After meeting on their first day of freshman orientation, JD Dieterich and Danielle Springer were married on May 27. They celebrated the occasion with many Wesleyan friends including Jeff Giocondi, Emma Caccamo, Lex Johnson, and Elizabeth Rudy, who were in the wedding party. JD is now an MD, having graduated from Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, and Danielle is an assistant editor at Penguin Random House. Congrats to both of them!

Aditi Kini just premiered a music video titled “Park Slope” for OHYUNG ’10 with co-director Hanna Edizel ’14, cinematographer Neo Sora ’14, and actor Stephen Acerra ’12. This is on the heels of Inherited Trauma, the exhibit Aditi curated at Local Project for the Long Island City Arts Open Festival featuring Wesleyan artists Hanna Edizel ’14, Hira Jafri, Zain Alam, and Vikrant Sunderlal Chandel ’15. Performers included Rob Rusli ’10, Matt Chilton ’16, Deren Ertas ’16, and Cameron Couch. Get in touch with her if you want to collaborate!

Bryce Hollingsworth quit the oil business. In Europe now!

David Shimomura started a new job with the University of Chicago in alumni relations and development. At the end of May, he put on their largest alumni event, Alumni Weekend, along with the rest of their amazing planning team.

Prince Emenalo earned his MPH from Georgia State University School of Public Health, where he with a concentration in health management and policy.

Melody Oliphant is finishing up a fellowship at Yale School of Medicine in the Child Study Center, and eagerly counting down the days until the Class of 2013 is reunited in Middletown for Reunion.

Gabriel Urbina created a radio drama podcast called Wolf 359 in 2014, which was one of the finalists for this year’s Webby Awards, an award for excellence on the Internet. Their show is nominated in the Digital Audio Drama category. What really makes this a Wes triumph is that the show is a 100 percent Wes production. Wolf 359 is co-produced by Zach Valenti ’12, who is also the lead actor and is co-written by Sarah Shachat ’12. The cast is rounded out by Emma Sherr-Ziarko ’11, Michaela Swee ’12, Cecilia Lynn-Jacobs ’11, Zach Libresco, Noah Masur ’15, and Michelle Agresti ’14. On the technical side, their original music is composed by Alan Rodi ’12, and their audio recording is done by Jared Paul ’11 and James Schoen ’05. They even did an apprenticeship with current student Claire Shaffer ’18!

Danielle Craig says, “Hey, what’s up? Hello,” to all her fellow 2013ers. She saw some of them to celebrate JD and Danielle’s nuptials over Memorial Day weekend. Danielle just returned from two months of solo backpacking through Southeast Asia and will start law school at UC, Berkeley, in August. So long to the NYC-Wesleyan crew, it has been a stellar four years. If you live in the Bay, let her know!

Michael Robinson and Lia Monti were married in Pittsburgh, Pa., on June 3, surrounded by countless members of their Wes family. This marks the second generation of Robinson men finding true love at Wes—Mike’s parents Dennis Robinson ’79 and Anne Robinson ’81 met in 1978. Yes, the Beta sweetheart and Wesleyan fight songs were sung, and yes, Buddy wore a bowtie.

Thank you to all my classmates who wrote in, and best wishes to everyone!

Laura Yim | Lyim@wesleyan.edu