Class Notes

First off, I was so happy to see so many folks at the 10 year reunion!

In 2016, Nyasha Foy was appointed to the 2016–2018 Wesleyan Alumni Association Executive Committee as vice chair (along with Joseph B. McElligott IV). She is continuing her role as the chair of the Black Alumni Council. She also joined Vice Media as the associate director of legal affairs in January 2016.

Gabriel Knight lives in West Hartford, Conn., with his wife, Patrice, and 2-year-old daughter, Juliette (who attended her first Wes homecoming game this past November). He is a senior environmental scientist at AECOM. He also brews his own beer and plans to enter some competitions very soon.

Lily Whitsitt, a Princess Grace Foundation-USA Works-in-Progress Resident Artist, and her Door 10 collaborators are developing a new theater performance through a residency at the Baryshnikov Arts Center. This Is the Color Described by the Time, adapted from an early Gertrude Stein play, is inspired by the language and experience of radio plays. The audience wears wireless headphones throughout the performance as live sound and pre-recorded tracks are mixed in real time. Sign up for Door 10’s mailing list to stay in the loop about future iterations of the project: door10.org.

After several years in the nonprofit space and receiving her MBA from the Kellogg School of Management in 2012, Hannah Gay recently launched out as an independent consultant with her company malinaSI Social Impact Consulting. She focuses on helping mission-driven organizations with metrics and evaluation.

Smith Louis lives in Cambridge, Mass. and works at Spotify testing and figure out ways to help artists better understand their audience and acquire more revenue. He is also going to graduate school at Tufts to purse a Master’s degree in engineering management.

Sarah Gunther is the director of programs at the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, which makes grants to LGBTQI activists and artists around the world. After 10 years in NYC, she and her wife, Amy Krosch, moved to Ithaca for Amy’s new assistant professor post at Cornell.

Jennifer Low and her husband Sean opened their very own cake shop called The Frosted Fox Cake Shop in Northwest Philadelphia. They created the wedding cake for Anna Moench’s wedding! Please look them up at frostedfoxcakeshop.com for more information! Also in the culinary sphere, congratulations to Josh Saffer who is the banquet chef at Del Posto Restaurant in New York City.

Stephen Siperstein received his PhD in English from the University of Oregon and teaches at Choate in Wallingford, Conn. He and his wife, Jemma Braun ’05, are excited to be so close to Wesleyan! His edited collection, Teaching Climate Change in the Humanities, is now out, so pick it up!

Jesse Young had a blast reuniting with Nat Webb and Russell Barlow as their college-era garage rock band The Stanky Panthers for a Friday night show at Eclectic during reunion! Ingrid Aravena is working at the Girl Scouts as the Manager of Urban Day Camps. She is also continuing to work on her side project CinemaKidz, where she teaches movie-making and STEAM activities to young kids.

Burke Giordano has been living in Taipei, Taiwan for the past year. He is developing his magic show, teaching English and learning Chinese. Adam Bernier got engaged to Virginia Aloi at a My Morning Jacket concert in May 2015. Adam lives in Westchester County, N.Y., and works as a producer, educator, and small business owner.

In May 2016, David Bartlett Bates completed a residency in radiology at Boston University Medical Center and is now at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston for a one year fellowship. Melanie McCrea lives with her roommate Tracy Honhart in Oakland, Calif. Melanie is a proposal writer for the Sierra Club, a college mentor with ScholarMatch, and a member of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights.

Julie Mathis has spent the past five years moving around the United States. She now lives in the Greater Seattle area. Since 2011, she has worked for Kaplan Medical, where she was promoted to associate director of advising and sales. In the summer of 2016, she wed her long time love Sean Monts.

Congratulations to Lucy Harper O’Connell, who wed Michael Iain McPherson Robertson in October 2015! The couple met four years in San Francisco, where they still live.

Sarah Montgomery wed Tao Wang in May 2015! Wes alum in attendance include Anna Pinkert, Liz Fortune, Julia Kleinman Horowitz, Allison Hughes, Amy Rosen ’07, Victoria Pinsky ’07, and Brendan Dolan-Gavitt, who referred to himself as the “bride’s servant.”

In October, Kingston Wong married his partner of five years in Copenhagen. Kingston lives in London and works in a strategy role at British Telecom.

Jonathan Harbison married his longtime boyfriend Thomas Senn in a ceremony in Maui. Wes alums in attendance were Jesse Greenspan, Alexandra Loh, Natasha McLeod, Rebecca Morse, Charlotte Page, and Matthew Gregory ’07.

Gabe Tabak and Ruth Brown welcomed baby Liora (who will hopefully be part of the class of 2038) to the world in January 2016! They’re enjoying life with a newborn, and WesUncles Aaron Tabak ’08 and Jeremy Brown ’08 and WesAunt Kara Schnoes ’07 are thrilled to have a niece to spoil. When not changing diapers, Gabe practices energy and environmental law on weekdays and brews halfway-decent beer on weekends.

Nick Bullard and Emily Frost welcomed Henry Frost Bullard into the world May 9, 2016. Baby Henry is doing great and has already memorized the Wesleyan fight song. Dan Lee and Soo Jung Kim welcomed their first child, Madeline Lee, into the world on Nov. 24, 2015. Congratulations!

I am working as a freelance editor and performing stand-up all around the city. I co-host a monthly comedy and music show at The LGBT Center in New York where the proceeds go towards helping LGBT youth of color.

Calvin Cato | catocals@gmail.com

Victoria writes: One more year until our 10th Reunion and a lot of excitement already brewing for the class of 2007! The careers of ’07ers are filled with excitement:

After finally receiving her dual Italian-American citizenship, Tess Amodeo-Vickery has been taking advantage of her open borders by touring her first studio album, Soul Whisperer, across Europe and North America, “collaborating with local artists to rediscover my music and my image as part of her Soul Voyager concept tour (soulvoyagertour.com).” For Wes alumni in the Boston area, she played Club Passim’s Campfire Festival on May 27 before continuing on to Montreal!

After spending his 20s on Capitol Hill advising members of Congress, like Rep. John Lewis (Ga.) (and becoming a 2015 defending Jeopardy! Champion), Will Anderson is headed back home to Atlanta. After a brief stint in corporate relations, Will returned to public service as communications director for the City of Atlanta’s Office of Sustainability. He’s focused on making his hometown a greener, stronger, and more sustainable place for everyone to live, work, and play. He encourages fellow civic-minded folk to reach out!

Jeffrey Petrusek graduated from Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine in May and will be starting an otolaryngology residency at Loyola Medical Center in July.

Vlad Gutkovich is living in Oakland, Calif., with wife Nicole Tirado-Strayer, who is finishing up a PhD in education. Vlad works at an education technology startup (Schoolzilla, PBC), and at a recent show in Oakland personally handed a copy of his Wesleyan thesis on Parliament Funkadelic to George Clinton.

Christopher Dieck will be starting his PhD in astrophysics at the Catholic University of America while continuing in his job monitoring the wobble of the earth at the US Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. Also, he and his wife, Jacqueline Chapman ’08, will be celebrating their second wedding anniversary this September.

There have also been a number of mini Wesleyan reunions among friends happening across the country: Part of Hew X ’07 enjoyed a great dinner in Boston in April. Mariel Pina and her partner, Eva, were in from New York, along with Jon King to see Danny Silva, Julia Perciasepe, and Tory Masterson. We missed the little Masterson, Miles, but hope to see him and all our ’07 classmates at our 10th Reunion next May!”

In October 2015, Nicholaus Norvell married Adam Renteria in San Diego. Wes friends attending the nuptials included Victoria Santoro, Rob Mitchell ’06, Ellen Werble, and Andrew Bleeker.

We also have another new baby to welcome: Shelby Thurston Marscher and her husband recently welcomed baby girl Inara to their family. Shelby is also working on her thesis for her doctorate in school psychology.

Megan Harrington | megan.kretz@gmail.com

Victoria Pinsky | victoriapinsky@gmail.com

Lots to report for the international Class of ’08. Chenelle Tanglao writes, “After spending the last eight years in New York after graduation, I just moved to the other side of the world to Sydney, Australia! I’m all set up in Bondi Beach—really can’t complain, the relentless sunshine and Pacific Ocean views are a huge change from New York winters! If anyone is ever in the Southern Hemisphere, give me a holler—need more Wes folks around here!”

Karla Hargrave worked as a trekking guide in Torres del Paine National Park in Chile for six months, collecting research material for her next theatrical creation: a world traveling multimedia experience about climate change, the things that we don’t want to change, and how to push for the solutions that we need. She is seeking a team of artists, scientists, lawyers, engineers, administrators and, of course, funders: karla.hargrave@gmail.com. Home base: Oakland, Calif.

Amanda Krentzman, meanwhile, is now working at Netflix in TV development on the International Originals team. She is working on making TV programs in countries all around the world, in the native language of that country, with storytellers from there, and then releasing worldwide on Netflix. Her first show was Club De Cuervos (A Mexican Original) and her second one was Marseille (French Original). A lot more shows to come soon!

Meanwhile, stateside, Lynn Favin booked her first national theater tour and will be performing the role of Ophelia in Hamlet all over the country. She also recently voice-acted in multiple episodes of Robot Chicken (created by Matt Senreich ‘96) and had the honor of working directly with Baz Luhrmann as a back-up singer for his upcoming Netflix series The Get Down.

Jeremy Brown and Kara Schnoes ’07 are moving to Eugene, Ore., this summer, where Jeremy will begin practicing emergency medicine after completing his residency. They are expecting their first child in August and have purchased land with long-term plans for goats, chickens, farming, and building a home. He writes, “Come visit if you are driving through the area on I-5!”

Annalisa Kelly and Hunter King were hallmates freshman year in Clark. On April 16th they got married in Hunter’s hometown of New Orleans.

Maggie Mitchell Siddiqi is graduating in May from Hartford Seminary with a master of arts in Islam and Christian-Muslim relations and a graduate certificate in Islamic chaplaincy.

Betty Kolod finished medical school at SUNY Downstate in Brooklyn and is starting a residency at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, studying primary care and social internal medicine.

Janie Stolar is thrilled to announce that her Facebook posts finally seem to be receiving the number of likes they deserve.

Finally, in inspiring fashion, Jonno Boyer-Dry writes, “Three weeks after I got engaged to Allison Towle (Tufts ’08—keepin’ it all in the NESCAC) in September 2014 I was diagnosed with stage 2B or 4A Hodgkin’s lymphoma. My treatment involved six months of AVBD outpatient chemo, starting in September 2014, that killed most but not all of the disease, followed by four months of IGEV in-patient salvage chemo (April–July 2015), leading up to an autologous stem cell transplant (three-week hospitalization with very powerful chemo for six days in a row) in August and now I’m halfway through 16 cycles of “just in case” antibody therapy that I receive via infusion every three weeks, called brentuximab vendotin. But now my scans are clean, which is a miracle! I’m now feeling great and life is largely back to normal. Most important, our wedding is finally happening at the end of May in Park City, Utah! It’s been a long, grueling ride but it was worth every bit of pain. Life is such a gift. Hope you’re all well and happy!”!

Alicia Collen Zeidan | acollen@wesleyan.edu

Greetings class of 2009! We have some exciting updates from our classmates!

Brian Studwell graduated with a master of human-computer interaction and design from the University of Washington and jumped down the coast to work at Ravel Law, a Bay Area startup building tools for legal research. Having spent several years in the Pacific Northwest and originally hailing from New York, he has yet to come to grips with Californians’ general cheerfulness.

Aviva Tevah just graduated with an MPA from the Fels Institute of Government at the University of Pennsylvania, and is working for the City of Philadelphia, coordinating the Philadelphia Reentry Coalition, which brings stakeholders together to share information and resources and develop city-wide systems solutions to reduce recidivism. Aviva is hoping to see a lot more of Elana Baurer now that she is done with school!

Katie Shelly and Jean Willoughby ’08 write in with exciting news of their forthcoming book from Chronicle Books, due out in bookstores later this year (but is already available for pre-order online). Titled Nature’s Remedies: An Illustrated Guide to Healing Herbs, the book was written by Jean, who has studied and grown medicinal plants for several years, and illustrated by Katie, whose previous book, Picture Cook, is an eclectic cookbook whose recipes are explained with pictures instead of words.

In the meantime, Katie will complete her MA in experience design at Hyper Island in the UK this summer. She’s planning her next career adventure in design thinking and innovation consulting. Jean has worked for the past four years at the Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI) as a project director and was recently promoted to communications manager. She looks forward to finishing up an advanced herbal medicine program at the Herbal Academy of New England, premiering a new documentary film that she is co-producing called Under Contract, and growing lots of medicinal and culinary herbs in her garden this year.

Seth Halpern recently founded 1healthy.world, an angel-backed HealthTech venture developing mHealth solutions like chatbots for medicine.

Brittany Delany is enjoying desert life in Greater Palm Springs, and working in the arts and culture sector: “Excited to be continuing dance collaborations this summer and fall with Sarah Ashkin ’11, Samantha Sherman, Aaron Freedman ’10, Khalia Frazier ’07, Chelsea Smith ’07, and Allison Hurd ’11.”

Alejandro Alvarado | ale.alvarado12@gmail.com

Happy summer, Class of 2010! See below for our classmates’ most recent happenings, but first, a few notes that failed to make it into the last issue:

Rachel Shopper “teaches nature connection and primitive skills in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina. When not building friction fire or foraging for native medicinals, she’s associate poetry editor for Orison Press, which publishes spiritual literature from a variety of perspectives.”

Tara Kelton updated us that the last year has been rather exciting. In August 2015, Tara was promoted to supervising producer at Brave New Films to run the shorts department. In November, BNF asked the shorts department to help finish the feature film they’ve been working on, and Tara co-produced said film, which was released this year and is called Making a Killing: Guns, Greed, and the NRA.

Katherine Kitfield Bascom has a (relatively) new position as the marketing director at Solace New York, a CrossFit and gymnastics training facility in Manhattan. “She’s flying high as an aerial performer, managing other business ventures including a B&B, and volunteering with the IRC.”

As for our more recent updates, Julie Huang graduated from NYIT College of Osteopathic Medicine this May, and she’ll start a residency in internal medicine at Winthrop University Hospital. Before that, however, Julie is taking a trip to Havana.

Chloé Bolton, a first-time class note provider, has this to share: “For the last two years I’ve been working with an ayahuasca shaman and Umbanda priestess in Brazil, healing myself, developing my mediumship, and opening to the incredible wisdom and light of ayahuasca. Now I am becoming a therapist within the group, helping people from Brazil and all over the world. We will soon be starting the construction of our eco-village and healing center!” Chloé invites all to pay her a visit soon!

Chiara Di Lello recently completed her master’s in childhood general and special education at Bank Street College of Education in NYC. In the fall, Chiara will be teaching third grade at Compass Charter School in Brooklyn.

Craig Ewer adds that he “moved to Brooklyn last year to be with every other Wesleyan graduate.” He still works at Uber.

Greg Hurd earned his PhD in geology at the University of Texas at Austin with a focus on sedimentology and stratigraphy. Greg also got married to the love of his life, Marlo Gawey!

Hilary Burke also has marriage news: “On a sunny day in June, Hilary Burke married AJ Chan ’11 at Wesleyan. The newlyweds enjoyed their big day with a very Wesleyan wedding party including Matt Burke ’07, Steve Cooper, Allie Southam ’11, Tim Morley ’11, and many other Wes attendees. They plan to send their firstborn to Wes, Class of 2041.”

Lonny Blumenthal and Cate Haring took their special day in May to the West Coast, where a beautiful California sunset in Santa Ynez Valley saw them married in front of a diversity of Wes alums including Nick Ajello, Bo Pratt, Colin Campbell, Ram Sivalingam, Gavin Brennan, Gina Yeomans, Nate Green ’09, John Harding, Jon Killeen, Dan O’Brien, and many more (whom I’m sure will let me hear it when they see I left them out of this note). Cate graduated from medical school at George Washington University and will be starting her residency at University of Michigan in otolaryngology—head and neck surgery.

In the beautiful Green Mountains of Vermont, the Cardinal marriage tradition continued, where Matt Ward and Erin Fitzsimmons were married in a beautiful ceremony in Stowe. Fellow Cardinals sharing in the festivities included yours truly, pretty much everyone in attendance at Lonny and Cate’s wedding, Woody Redpath, Eliza Newman, Sarah Hoefle, Anika Fischer, Russ Follansbee ’09, Field Yates ’09, Nick Hayes ’09, Meredith Holmes and Casey Simchik and more.

Jeffrey Beck married his beautiful wife, Caroline Trottier, in a rambunctious ceremony in Montreal. Toasting to the newlyweds, in full black tie garb, were myself, Tim Archibald, Sam Robinson, Tony Christiano, and Beth Kenworthy. Jeff used the exact same dance moves with Caroline on his wedding day that he tried to teach me in Clark Hall freshman year. I guess you just don’t mess with what works!

As always, I hope everyone is doing well. Chime in any time via e-mail or on WesConnect!

David Layne | dlayne@wesleyan.edu

So great to see so many of you at our 5th Reunion. It was a huge success, with more than 300 members of our class making an appearance! Thanks for those who contributed this cycle; the class is really up to some great things!

Margaret Aldredge writes, “I just graduated from the Institute of Fine Arts at NYU with a master’s degree in art history. I will also be getting married this summer and look forward to seeing several Wes alum at the wedding.”

Allie Lynch and Ross Shenker both finished their first years of graduate school this past May. Allie is getting her MBA at University of Virginia Darden School of Business and will be working for Microsoft in Seattle and exploring the West Coast this summer. Ross reports, “I just completed my first year at the University of Louisville for my master of fine arts in acting. I was fortunate enough to work with the casting director at the Actor’s Theatre of Louisville this past semester. This summer I will be the education director at Timberlake Playhouse in Northern Illinois.”

Maddy Harrington writes, “I was sorry to miss Reunion; it looked like a ton of fun. I stayed in D.C. that weekend for my law school graduation. This summer I’m prepping for the bar and if all goes well I will be working in NYC in the fall”

Christopher Ceccolini is thrilled to announce that he and his partner, Jordan Gratch ’13, are moving to Boston this fall to pursue their graduate careers. Chris just completed his master’s degree in psychology at Columbia University, and is starting his PhD in counseling psychology at Boston College. There, he will be working with Dr. Paul Poteat, researching the effects of gay-straight alliances on LGBT youth mental health and resilience, in Massachusetts schools. Jordan will be starting his law degree at Boston University, and the couple will be living in Brookline, right off of Beacon Street!

AJ Chan married Hilary Burke ’10 at Wesleyan in the Memorial Chapel with a beautiful reception on Andrus Field on June 11, 2016. Lots of Wes alums were in attendance to help them celebrate the special occasion.

Lauren Mandell was selected by the Millenial Trains Project to join their 2016 journey in August from LA to Detroit. She will be implementing her project, Deal Her In, in the five cities where the train stops: igg.me/at/deal-her-in-2. You can also follow her journey @deal_her_in.

After spending the last three years at Facebook working across product, analytics, and partnerships, Alison Cies recently co-founded Decovo, an online destination for art and design, with her husband, Henry Mori. Alison writes, “If you’re an artist, designer, or maker and are interested in having your work featured on Decovo, please reach out to us. We’d love to hear from you.

Thanks again to everyone for making our first Reunion such a success and keep the contributions to class notes coming! Go Wes!

Allie Southam | asoutham@wesleyan.edu

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