Class Notes

Sara Cohen Schmidt and Justin Schmidt write, “In June, we celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary. Weeks later, we embarked upon a yearlong family sabbatical and are currently traveling around the world with our three children (12, 9, and 5). While this decision surprised even us, we are enjoying immersing ourselves in different cultures as we prioritize finding educational experiences, pushing outside our comfort zones, and eating copious amounts of delicious food. We will return home to Kirkland, Washington, in July 2025, where in our ‘regular lives’ Sara works as a clinical psychologist in private practice, and Justin is a music publicist. We hope to see many of our Wes friends at our 20th (ack) Reunion next spring!”

Christopher Rodriguez shares, “So, this year was big for me and the family. I completed my MSN in nursing (AGACNP, adult gerontology acute care nurse practitioner), received my APN license, and I am just starting as an infectious disease nurse practitioner. I’ve caught up to my amazing wife, who is also a nurse practitioner, and we are raising four awesome boys!”

Mike Butterfield completed a 200-hour, trauma-informed, yoga instructor course, just got back from Nepal, and is “certifiably stoked!”

Mara Baldwin and her family continue to balance time between Ithaca, New York, and Red Hook, New York, where she and her partner teach at Bard College. Mara has upcoming exhibitions of work on view at SUNY Cortland’s Dowd Gallery (spring), Albany International Airport (summer), and Ithaca College’s Handwerker Gallery (fall). She will be in Charlotte, North Carolina, from June to August as an artist in residence at the McColl Center. She was able to reconnect with Wesleyan friends, Maggie Starr and Sarah Gunther, and to meet newest members of each of their respective families earlier this year. Mara is looking forward to connecting with many more at reunion in 2026!

Nate Baumgart continues to run his food-tour business in Denver, Colorado, and he and his wife welcomed their second daughter, Lena, in April 2024, after more than two years of fertility treatments. He no longer runs the Wes alumni group in Colorado but always has a discount code for Wes grads interested in experiencing Denver’s great food scene. 

Gabe Tabak recently became assistant general counsel at the American Clean Power Association, where he represents the renewable energy industry before agencies and courts. He and his family (wife, Ruth, and their third- and first-grade daughters) live in Eugene, Oregon, down the street from official WesSiblings-in-law, Jeremy Brown ’08 and Kara Schnoes ’07. Aaron Tabak ’08 visits his nieces regularly as well.

Awilda Rivera just released a second edition of her book, Success Math: A Millennial’s Qualitative Approach. Artemis World Travel, her full-service travel company, just celebrated two years of making people’s travel dreams come true. 

After moving out of NYC during COVID, Dan Lee is now in El Dorado Hills, California, and recently traveled to Japan and Korea with his family. He was able to catch up with Dr. Keitaro Nakamoto in Tokyo, and Sunho Hwang ’05 and Jaesung Ryu in Seoul.

Risa (Dubin) Cyr writes, “I’m entering my ninth year as a doctor at Cornell University’s student health center, in my hometown of Ithaca, New York. My most recent hobbies include quilting, raising backyard chickens, and being the number one fan for my 12-year-old son, Atticus, who has gotten into musical theater and recently played Uncle Fester in The Addams Family.”

Nicole Bowen writes, “Hello, fellow classmates: The big 40 can definitely be an intimidating milestone. I know I’m certainly feeling my age and progression to obsolescence. As for what I’ve been up to . . . I’ve been working as a freelance medical writer in oncology, creating content in continuing medical education. The transition to self-employment has definitely, significantly improved my overall health and work-life balance. Have any of y’all made this transition as well? I’d be happy to connect with anyone interested in the field of medical writing or just to catch up. Just hit me up on LinkedIn.”

Kate Thorpe recently completed her PhD in English from Princeton and is currently launching a venture, GradTLC: Graduate Thriving and Learning Connection, to help graduate students learn and thrive. She is currently living in Seattle with her husband, Andre, and three “little-ish” ones, ages 1, 3, and 12. 

Joel Bhuiyan recently started a new job as director of project management at Hunger Solutions New York (HSNY), based in Albany, New York. He now lives in Clifton Park, New York, with his wife, two daughters, and son. If you find yourself in the Capital Region, give him a shout!

Dana Taussig is living in the Adirondacks. She and Lydia Blanchard meet up to cold plunge in Lake Champlain when Lydia isn’t traveling with her family or other women with wanderlust (you can join Lydia, too, at myadventuregang.com!)

Hello, ’05ers! Some news from classmates:

Andréas Ibrahim is part of a collective of artists and curators from Palestine and Gaza that have organized the Gaza Biennale. It is an exceptional event, reinventing the rules of art exhibition and production. It is also a challenge to art institutions worldwide to partner with the Biennale, to present work that engages with the forefront of our collective experience. The project has already received attention all over the world and was reported on by The Guardian, Hyperallergic, Artnet, and many more news outlets. For more information, please email info@gazabiennale.org.

Rachel Schreiber and her husband welcomed their first son, Bailey, into the world in June 2024. He is giggly and curious and has his parents wrapped around his tiny finger. The family lives in Washington, D.C., where Rachel is a fundraiser for the local Planned Parenthood.

Ben Shestakofsky’s book, Behind the Startup: How Venture Capital Shapes Work, Innovation, and Inequality,has been published by the University of California Press. The book has been reviewed in The New York Times and Los Angeles Review of Books.

Finally, Marcella Winearls has retired as your class secretary. Many thanks to Marcella for her work keeping you connected to each other and to Wesleyan. If you would like to volunteer to be your new class secretary, please send an email to classnotes@wesleyan.edu.

Hi ’04!  Hoping 2025 is off to a strong start! I’ve gotten some fun updates from you, so keep reading to find out what your classmates are up to:

Mosah Fernandez Goodman is doing great and living in Omaha, Nebraska, with his family. He keeps in touch with a number of friends and former colleagues from Wes. He is an attorney and leads two businesses, www.TopTalentAdvocates.com and a start-up, www.JobLasso.com—both of which help executives and attorneys secure new professional opportunities. If you find yourself in Omaha, shoot him a line.

Emily Gupta tells us she’s “hoping to complete a GAO report on how to help Native American tribes in this country have access to drinking water and flushing toilets. Also just signed up for a tri-semester in Kuchipudi, a form of classical Indian dance. And, also, a mom of a now five-year-old. Still living in the DMV area.”

From Jacko Tsang: “After 20 years working for the Hong Kong government, the last four of which I spent in San Francisco, it’s time for me to move on. I have moved to Barcelona with my family. I don’t know what the future holds, but please say ‘hi’ if you’re around!”

Raven Maldonado also shares some life updates: “I’m excited to be able to contribute to our class notes with some new developments on my end! Although it was a gradual lead-up process, I finally made the leap to full-time self-employment in November of this year and have been building my private therapy practice and coaching practice, Weséla Wellness! Our plan is to expand in 2025 to offer mediation services (divorce mediation and general conflict mediation) and to strengthen the professional wellness side to offer organizational consulting services. This is a joint venture with my husband, Charlie, and I’m really excited to see where it goes and, most importantly, to support our communities through therapy, coaching, and mediation. I look forward to hearing about how things are going on your end!”

Dorian-Jamal Campbell Cool: “I’ve had a momentous year. I’ve reconnected with many ’04 Wes people and others too. We have a strong contingent in San Francisco and the Bay Area. Tiffany, my partner, and I spent a month touring Namibia. We weren’t eaten by lions, though we came close once when we got a flat tire and had to change it in the bush. A fun highlight was blasting Africa by Toto while in a desert in Africa. Otherwise, we’ve been pursuing our social justice careers and using the law and private equity to help people. We have a little panther (black cat), Charlie, who lives with us and steals our seafood. She is very cute and very naughty, but she is cuddly when it is cold, so she earns her keep.”

As always, if you’ve got class notes, please share them with me at wes04classnotes@gmail.com.

I am sorry to share the news that Amber Cook passed away on October 25, 2024. She was a talented marketing professional in the gaming industry and a devoted mother to her six-year-old son, James. (A link to her obituary can be found at classnotes.blogs.wesleyan.edu.)

Matt Kushner decided to take a leap into tech this December as a 3D design technologist in Visual Innovation Services at Amazon, after a four-year stint in immersive entertainment at Illuminarium Experiences. Lauren Kushner (Brown ’04) enters her ninth year as a staff 3D animator at the American Museum of Natural History. Kids, Mimi and Tessa, are thriving in fourth and second grade respectively. 

National Geographic has released a feature film on Alison Criscitiello, For Winter: “In the frozen heights of Mount Logan, Canada’s tallest peak, a team of scientists launches a daring expedition to unearth thousands of years of climate data in one record-breaking ice core. The sample is an invaluable piece of the global climate puzzle. And the seven experts, with their scientific genius, physical strength, and high-alpine survival skills, are some of the only people in the world who can complete this monthlong mission.” For Winter is a one-hour documentary featuring the leader of this brutal quest—ice core scientist and National Geographic explorer Alison Criscitiello. The film aims to inspire support for climate research and diversity in science and exploration ( http://natgeo.org/forwinterfilm).

Ben Rhatigan just passed the 20-year mark living in Spain, recently moving from Barcelona to the Canary Islands. He also bit the bullet and launched Arrival Projects, a brand strategy agency focused on travel, destinations, and hospitality companies. 

Earlier this fall, Oz Hazel started his term as chair of the Wesleyan Fund. He is spending more time on campus brainstorming how to drive alumni engagement and ensure current and future students have the opportunity to enjoy Wes as much as we did. Shoot him a note with your ideas or just say “hi.”

Hurricane Helene dealt some difficulties to Caroline Knox and her family and neighbors in Asheville, North Carolina, displacing them for more than a month. The community rallied together, and they were grateful for all the support from around the country. Running water is a resource they no longer take for granted! They enjoyed a reunion with Professor Gayle Pemberton on a New England swing this July. Asheville is welcoming visitors again, so please let her know if you are in the neighborhood!

Julie Stankiewicz has started her own nonprofit advocacy organization entitled CARE for People with Chronic and Invisible Illnesses. CARE has an innovative and comprehensive approach, providing patients educational health resources, addressing prejudice and discrimination against people with chronic illness, and addressing larger environmental and cultural issues that contribute to chronic illness. Julie’s former thesis advisor from Wesleyan, Francine Rosselli, serves as secretary on CARE’s board of directors. As the organization grows, Julie would love help from Wesleyan alumni, particularly those with an interest in holistic and/or functional medicine, social advocacy for underserved groups, and nonprofit development. If you are interested in being involved, contact Julie at info@careaboutinvisibleillness.org.

Kate Standish is living binationally in Nicaragua with her 10-year-old son and husband, Tony, and doing clinical and research work out of Boston at Boston Medical Center, having completed fellowship training in breastfeeding medicine.

Stu Sherman is starting 2025 by launching a new business in Brooklyn, All Things Grow. The business offers classes on home growing cannabis and mushrooms as well as gardening supplies. 

Tejas Desai is planning to release his latest book, Bad Americans (The Human Tragedy, Volume 2), this year in an ambitious publishing campaign involving 18 distinct publications. The full schedule and more information about the Great American Pandemic Novel are on his website: http://tejas-desai.com. He ran into Michelle Burgos and her husband, Dave Weintraub, on Election Day in Astoria, Queens—they had just voted early and Tejas was running his monthly literary salon, The New Wei. He also got together with Bayard Templeton, Ted Quinn, and Laurie Shaner Quinn in Philadelphia.

Tricia Homer coaches executives and leads team-building retreats. She helps individuals and groups navigate conflict and articulate their vision and values. Her clients have included Comcast Global, Mozilla, Harvard Business School, the DNC, National Domestic Workers Alliance, and Clean Water Action/Fund. She does speaker coaching for conferences and conventions like the Clean Energy Buyers Association Summit and the New York State Employees Public Federation Convention. She’s also a keynote speaker and emcee. Credits include the closing keynote for the 2023 Big Ten Development Conference. After more than 10 years at the University of Maryland and two years as a senior program officer at the U.S. Institute of Peace, she’s left the DMV and returned home to the U.S. Virgin Islands, where she’s always happy to host! “Let’s do some good work together. Or COME VISIT!” 

John Graham has expanded his company’s cultural tour offerings with trips to Sicily and Ethiopia. He is also offering high-end boat charters in the Galapagos and Turkiye, with accompanying specialist guides. See www.johngrahamtours.com for all tours.

Please write to your class secretary.

Hello and happy 2025 to the Class of 2001. Here are the latest and greatest updates from your fellow classmates.

Chietigj Bajpaee writes that at the end of 2023, he returned to his roots in the public policy field after spending over a decade in the private sector. Chietigj joined Chatham House, an international relations think tank as their senior fellow for South Asia, and he is currently working on his second book on the India–U.S. relationship. Chietigj welcomes any publishing advice!

After planning to be in Japan for two, maybe three years tops, Roger Smith recently celebrated 10 years in Japan! The first five years he contributed to the recovery of the northeastern Tohoku area post-tsunami. After that he had planned to return to the U.S. to restart his environmental career but transitioned to international work pressuring Japanese companies to do better on climate change and forest protection. Recently, Roger produced a feature documentary film about youth climate activists in Japan with director Yu Iwasaki called Michinoku Denki. It tells an intimate story of students working to help communities suffering from Japan’s energy policy as part of grassroots initiatives fighting for a cleaner and fairer future. Look for it at film festivals, and Roger welcomes any ideas for showings globally.

A little over a year ago, Rebecca Hume closed up her freelance design practice for nonprofits to take an in-house role leading design for Protect Democracy (co-founded and led by Ian Bassin ’98). It’s been—and continues to be—challenging work but also feels like the most meaningful thing she can be doing at this moment.

Mandy Sayle Rinzel is still living in Brooklyn (this is her 22nd year living on Eastern Parkway!) and teaching English language arts and English as a new language—but this school year she left the Bronx middle school where she had worked for the past seven years for a high school that is a block and a half from her house. But she doesn’t even get to “miss” being around middle schoolers, because she has two of them in her house. Stanley is in sixth grade and Julius, Mandy’s eighth grader, is about to make his off-Broadway debut in The Antiquities by Jordan Harrison at Playwrights Horizons. Mandy says it’s been pretty amazing to watch her kid fall in love with acting at the incredible NYC public school he attends (PPAS)—and for Mandy personally it’s gratifying that his first gig is in the kind of play she would have wanted to direct scenes from in Tim Raphael’s class at Wesleyan. Jay Golon and Bex Schwartz ’00 are coming to see it. If any other Wes folks go see the show, Mandy would love to hear from you!

Jenny Selgrath is living in Santa Barbara, where she has been for four and a half years. She works as a social-ecological scientist with the NOAA Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary and the California Marine Sanctuary Foundation (and bonus, Jenny gets to work with Jai Ranganathan ’97!) Jenny works across California on ocean access and environmental justice, on deep-sea corals, and climate change. She is still dancing and spends a lot of time trying to wrangle her fixer-upper house and her dog into submission.

Jim Isler writes in to tell us he is so proud of his wife, Emily Barth Isler, as she continues to write and publish books for young adults and children. Jim and Emily will celebrate their 21st wedding anniversary this spring. Last year, Jim created and produced an award- winning series for PBS called Say What?! that explores the origins of animal idioms. Currently he is producing another series he created for PBS called Comedians vs. Animals where participants pretend to be experts on weird-but-true animals. Jim is always looking for great leads on comedians if people have ideas!

Aryn Sperandio recently began a new project management contract with SNDL, one of Canada’s leading public cannabis companies. After AI started affecting her writing consultancy, Aryn founded Doer Agency in 2024—a people-first project management company focused on getting things done. Although it feels unusual to step away from marketing, Aryn is learning a lot about manufacturing and operations at SNDL. Working in the controlled substances industry comes with challenges, but the unique challenges also keep things interesting.

Be well,

Aryn and Mara

Please write to your class secretaries.

Marnie Craycroft shares that her boys are now 15, 14, and 10—”how time flies!” The big news is her family’s move to Steamboat Springs, Colorado, over the summer. Marnie says they’re loving the mountain life and all it has to offer.

Julenne Mounts reflects on the events of the past year, sharing her gratitude for President Roth’s poignant letter to the Wesleyan community. His statement, “We must reject the cultivated ignorance that fans the flames of hatred,” has inspired her family’s new mission statement—and bumper sticker! Julenne is rediscovering her dream of creating immersive outdoor education programs as a way to counterbalance the growing dependency on technology.  

Julenne also shares exciting news about her daughter, who, inspired by President Roth’s words, recently submitted her application to Wesleyan. “Fingers crossed for a future Wes alum!” Though the timing of reunions and homecomings is tricky with her kids still in school in Hawaii, Julenne hopes to visit campus more often if her daughter ends up on the East Coast.

This fall, Julenne enjoyed reconnecting with Alissa Farber and Arthur Baraf during a beautiful day in Boston. She sends a warm invitation to any ’99ers visiting Maui to stop by. Though the island is still recovering from the wildfires, Julenne assures us there’s no shortage of natural beauty and powerful landscapes to explore. “A hui hou!”

Kevin (writing this time) wishes he had more content to share in these notes . . . hope you all will take a moment to send in updates for the next set of notes, so we all have more to read next time around!

Hello fellow classmates,

Alan Schlechter wrote in to say that he and Tim Whyte went on a tour of Wesleyan this summer with Tim’s older daughter, Selma. The tour guide was an amazing example of what Wes can produce and very inspiring! Go Wes! 

Abe Forman-Greenwald’s feature documentary, Brother Orange, was acquired by Gravitas Ventures and is available for streaming. It’s a buddy comedy about an unlikely cross-cultural friendship that all began back in the halcyon days of 2015 with the mystery of a stolen iPhone. Congrats, Abe!

Peter Isbister continues to live in Decatur, Georgia, with his wife, Robyn Painter, and his three kids, Mira, Ezra and Eliot. Peter is currently the interim managing attorney for the Detained Team at the Atlanta office of Kids In Need of Defense, an immigration nonprofit representing unaccompanied minors. He took this position after the Southern Poverty Law Center, his prior employer, surprisingly eliminated their entire immigration division. Peter’s daughter and Dave Lubell’s daughter are both student teachers at the same Hebrew school, so Peter and Dave and their families see each other all the time. Peter is also still in touch with Amanda Jackson Miller ’98, his high school buddy. Amanda and her family continue to live in Santa Cruz, California. 

Finally, Kate (Dunton) Middleton’s father, John, wrote to thank everyone for so much support after losing her far too soon. He said that the wake was over four hours of a continuous line of people that went around the building, and I know there were many of our class at her memorial service mourning this loss. John said that the entire family is stunned not only by her death but by the way she affected so many people in so many different ways. She is deeply missed, and our thoughts are with Pat and the rest of her family.

Wishing all of you the best,

Abby

Great to hear from our classmates near and far! Let’s start with our faraway friends…

Saskia Herz Mower is working at a Girls’ Day School Trust school in London, as head of philanthropy and alumnae engagement. In this role she reconnected with fellow Wesleyan program in Paris alum, Mark Davis ’96, who isthe senior philanthropic officer and director of gift planning at Wesleyan. “En route to a conference I ran into fellow–UK resident, Monica White, associate professor of Russian and Slavonic studies at Nottingham University. Over the summer my daughter and I enjoyed reuniting in London with Jessica (Shea) Lehmann and her delightful family.”

Becky (Seamans) Egea also wrote from London: “Our children wear their school uniform every day, which certainly makes choosing their outfit easy! Our eldest and youngest (both boys) are each at different all-boys schools in central London. Meanwhile, our daughter is at an all-girls school in the countryside. Our children have all gotten used to walking on the left-hand side of the road as well as taking the Tube (subway) to school.”

From Laura Roberts in Red Hook (Hudson Valley, not Brooklyn): “I continue to work with students one-on-one, drive my 15-year-old around to soccer stuff, and travel when I can—but sometimes only as far as Connecticut. In fact, last night I stayed with Robin McClellan Woodworth in Connecticut. We went to see Taylor Tomlinson perform in Hartford. It was, as always, a treat to connect with my former ice hockey co-captain! I hosted Thanksgiving in Red Hook. I had the pleasure of having not one, but two Wes alums at my table: William Abbott ’99 and his husband, David Paige, and their two children; and Bo Bell ’95 and his two children. I cooked the turkey, my very first(!), according to a recipe sent from Kiersten Miller ’95, who is still in Rome. And, of course, I have the daily delight of having Mia Lobel right next door for walks and more. I am so grateful that Wesleyan is still a huge part of my life!”

Tony Schloss is in NYC. He wrote, “Juno Shaye ’98 and I live and work with three children and together are launching a fairly innovative family comedy act.”

Andrew Frishman wrote: “My wife/partner, Leigh Needleman ’96, and I are still loving living in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where our kids are in sixth and ninth grade; it was lovely to run into Christian Housh and his wife/partner, Tassia, at back-to-school night at Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School, where all of our kids are thriving. Our family gets together regularly with Laura Warren ’98 and her husband/partner, Alan, and their kids who live just a few blocks from us—our kids are similar ages and love hanging out and they’ve started playing squash together!

“Leigh, now in her fourth year as executive director of the Rowland Institute, recently coordinated the move of the Rowland Institute to the main Harvard Campus. I was out in the San Francisco Bay Area in the fall and got to have a delightful lunch and ‘walk ’n’ talk’ with Alex Jermyn; his architecture firm, Alexander Jermyn Architecture, is doing great (https://www.aj-a.co/). I was at a conference in Baltimore in the fall and serendipitously ran into Jenny Schmidt ’98. We wound up on the same flight to Denver—sounds like she and her family are doing great in Boulder! And she’s doing powerful work as a co-founder of Ravenyard Group (https://ravenyard.com/). The conference that Jenny and I [re]connected at was The Well, put on by New Profit. One of the senior leaders (managing partner) there is Shawn Dove ’84, whom I got to catch up with briefly. Another recent professional connection: I met Cat Lum ’12 last year through a youth-driven social capital community of practice that we’re a part of. She’s doing very cool work as senior director of partnerships and strategy at NxU  (https://www.nxueducation.org/). My most frequent Wesleyan social media connection is probably Rob Mathews ’96, who I ‘see’ running with admirable frequency and distance on Strava. Jamie Pagliaro ’98 is doing very cool work as executive vice president and chief learning officer at RethinkFirst (https://www.rethinkfirst.com/team-experts/jamie-pagliaro/), and also making beautiful music with The BARD Band, which recently released an album https://www.thebardband.com/about.”

Dr. Leah Ayanna (Brown) Johnson is still living in the New York/New Jersey area. She wrote, “I completed my PhD in organizational leadership in 2023. I work as a leader in the higher education sector. I am finally releasing my fourth book that deals with faith and intersectionality this spring.” Her new book is called Faith and Transformation Friday: A Faith Workbook.

Jess had the pleasure of reconnecting with her former ice hockey teammate, Kira (Markiewicz) Fabrizio, her husband, Dan Fabrizio ’96, and their two children in September at Middlebury College Family Weekend in Middlebury, Vermont. Kira and Jess were delighted to catch up after not having seen each other since 1997—now their sons are living in the same freshman dorm!

Thanks for your updates, everyone!

Sasha and Jess