Brian Hennessey wrote: “I’m still alumni coordinator in South Florida and am feeling very good about my decision to attend our reunion. It was wonderful to connect with old friends and see how everyone was doing. We went to a wonderful university with some incredible people. I’m looking forward to the next reunion already.”
As always, if you’ve got class notes, please share them with me at wes04classnotes@gmail.com.
John Graham is living in Tbilisi, running cultural and hiking tours in the Caucasus Mountains. He visited the States in July and was thrilled to reconnect with Ari Wolfe, Josh Dankoff ’02, Nate Rich ’02, Tim Keiper ’02, Katie Takayanagi ’02, and Dan Firger ’01, and hopes to see even more friends next year. In May, John helped introduce Aaron Peisner ’12 to a number of folk ensembles, while he was visiting Tbilisi on a three-week research grant. Wesleyan alums are welcome to be in touch if they come through Tbilisi!
Paul Feder recently released Echoes, a synthpop EP and music video trilogy that explores his uneasiness about being replaced by AI, and it incorporates AI technology as a collaborator in the creative process.
I’m sorry to share the news that Rachel Sirota has passed. My thoughts are with her friends and family.
Please write to your class secretary.
Lara Perez-Felkner (Perez-Longobardo) writes from Tallahassee, Florida: “I’m still at Florida State University and helped recruit three new Wes folks down here this year, two of whom are new department colleagues and are incredible, as you would expect. Twelve years later, I’m now a full/senior professor and on fellowships allowing opportunities for impactful institutional and community change around important things we can still do in Florida, like inclusive excellence initiatives, research-practice partnerships with community organizations, and creative interdisciplinary collaborations. I have a new book—Latin* Students in Engineering: An Intentional Focus on a Growing Population (Rutgers University Press)—and am trying to get ready to write another. I’ve occasionally gotten to catch-up with some folks on conference trips around the country, internationally, and beach reunions, but we’re definitely off the beaten track. Feel free to drop a line, and go Wes.”
From Eli Carroll: “After moving out to San Diego last year, [I got] married on October 5 in La Jolla, California, to my fiancé, Jennifer Li. Steve Munno, Tristan Gutner ’02, Oliver Platts-Mills, and Josh Berkowitz ’02 [were] all in attendance!”
About a year ago, Joanna Weaver (formerly Richman), invited me to join a book club she was putting together. It’s been great to see her regularly and get to know her friends. We just finished James by Percival Everett, which I cannot recommend enough. Between talking about books with Joanna, meeting up with other cherished Wes friends, and listening to Hamilton lyrics in my house nonstop thanks to my obsessed eight-year-old—ok, I’m obsessed too—I love how much Wesleyan we have coursing through our world these days. More please.
Jill Rappoport shares: “I’ve been a professor of 19th-century British literature at the University of Kentucky since 2011. I remarried in 2022, and we have three sons (14, 12, and 9). Life is busy but a lot of fun! Looking forward to hearing other classmates’ news.—Jill”
Alexis Hyder writes: “I’ve been living in Los Angeles for six years, primarily working remotely for WBUR in Boston as a chief of staff and director of special projects. I recently launched my own business, Telescope Advising, to help mission-driven leaders answer strategic questions, evaluate emerging opportunities, and plan for future sustainability—without disrupting operations or letting go of other critical priorities. I’m learning a lot on this new journey! I’m in close touch with Nomi Maeyama and Jessie (Polin) Moseley, a Trinity grad who did a semester at Wes with the Twelve-College Exchange Program. I see Wes folks in LA and enjoyed catching up with Camille McGadney ’93 (alum and career center staffer) when she was in town moderating an alumni panel that featured classmate Josh Goldin!”
Bakley Smith: “My family and I moved to Decatur, Georgia, in the Atlanta area, in spring 2021. This was just after the arrival of our second child, our little pandemic baby, LOL. That has us with an eight-year-old and a three-year-old (no pets). Living in a city that is both old (I grew up here) and new (I lived away for 20-plus years) has had its challenges and adjustments, but I’ve been very happy with the change. I continue to work in the financial field focused on consumer products and food technology. One thing I want to shout-out to Wesleyan: one of the things the school emphasizes is a lifelong love of learning, and people around me have over and over noted that I seem to have a knack for wanting to inquire, learn about, and get to know things in an ongoing way. I think it is a cool compliment and I learned to develop it on our campus. Hope to see you in May!”
Melanie Grubman is the co-founder of a cohousing village and regenerative agriculture education center in central Vermont. She is living in a house that she designed with her 10- and 12-year-old sons. She runs an all-women’s masonry business, which focuses on traditional dry-stack walling methods, and teaches middle school at the Orchard Valley Waldorf School. “Come visit!” www.livingtreealliance.com
Paul Edlefsen and Liz Darlington are still in Seattle and raising their two fantastic kids, Eleanor and Arthur. Their relationship has shifted to co-parenting rather than remaining a couple, and they are making it work! They both work at Fred Hutch Cancer Center—Liz as a social worker and Paul as a biostatistician. They just had a reunion of their old band, Sweetness, with Anil Seth ’98, and they look forward to bringing the kids to our 25th Reunion!
Claudia Cruz was recently elected to serve as the Nevada chapter president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. She also attended the 2024 Paris Olympic Games with 16 of her students, and several colleagues, from the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno. Claudia has plans to be in the Boston area in September and hopes to meet with Jennifer Tomasello and other Kappa Alpha Theta (Xi Chapter) sisters for brunch.
Jonah Dickstein shares, “I live in St. Petersburg, Florida, running my own criminal defense and appellate law firm [and] raising my son, Steven (age seven), and daughter, Kaia (age 2), with my wife, Margarita.”
Liz Alleva, née Doctors, lives in the serene woods of Wilton, Connecticut, with her husband, Neill, their 9-year-old son, Mason, and their tiny but spirited 3.5-pound dog, Kylie. As the founder of HypnoBirthing Mommy, Liz is dedicated to helping expectant parents experience a safe and gentle birth by guiding them to unlearn fear and embrace the natural birthing process. Mason is her best helper and sidekick in the business!
Tim Howard wrote in, “I’m enjoying summer in Berlin. This year I’ve been working as a story editor on a German podcast and playing shows with my band, Soltero. We’re also finishing up a new album, which will be out this fall.”
Hirut Johnson shares: “I’m still a mom in Maryland to a 5-year-old. I work for the World Bank if anyone wants to meet up in Kensington or K Street. I was covering Europe but now cover west/central Francophone and Lusophone, Africa, if people want to meet up in the field. This last fiscal year I was in Georgia, Serbia, and Montenegro. All beautiful places with fascinating history. Since my sector is governance, I worked on projects that improved digital services to citizens and modernized the tax administrations. If you are a wine lover or nature lover these are great places to visit.”
Scott Mayerowitz just celebrated the first anniversary of his own travel, loyalty, and media consultancy business: GlobeTrotScott Strategies. After 23 years in media, including jobs at ABC News, the Associated Press, and The Points Guy, Scott started his business to ease many of the friction points in travel that he personally experienced as a frequent traveler and complaints that he often heard from everyday travelers. His clients include JetBlue Airways, a leading ski company, and WeatherPromise, a start-up protecting travelers against rain on their vacations.
It has been a year of new beginnings for several classmates. Michael Estrin started a new job as senior editor at Prof G Media, working on Scott Galloway’s No Mercy / No Malice newsletter. He lives in Los Angeles and would love to connect with any Wes folks. Jeffrey Blumenthal and his spouse are now “resource parents” to a 15-year-old foster youth who moved in with them in May. It is hard but good! After 18 years in Denver, Colorado, Elizabeth Buckius and her husband made their dreams of living abroad come true. They are now living and working in Japan. They are just outside of Tokyo, so if anyone is ever in the area, please let Elizabeth know.
Kabir Sen enjoyed catching up with folks at our 25th Reunion. He is still teaching and playing music in the Boston area. He has been a music teacher at Shady Hill School for 25 years now and really enjoys that work. He has two monthly residencies in Cambridge on the first and third Saturday of every month, and he still releases music regularly. He lives in Belmont with his wife, Rebecca, and their three kids. “Eva is 14, Julia is 12 and Ethan is almost 9. Time flies! Sending love to our classmates.”
Musa Abdul-Basser lives in Ohio with his wife, Maren, and their 14- and 15-year-old daughters. Musa works as an attorney and general counsel focusing on fintech, capital markets, private equity, and ethical investing.
Ross Stafford is still happily living in Springfield, New Jersey. He works as an AP Research teacher at Washington Park High School, which is a high-performing charter school in Newark and part of the Uncommon Schools network. His daughters, Grace and Maya, are five and eight.
Be good, be kind, and be in touch.
Hello classmates,
For those who hadn’t heard, in June 2024 we lost Kate (Dunton) Middleton, wife of Pat Middleton, when she died unexpectedly of heart failure and COVID. It was a huge loss to her family. She is survived by Pat and their children, Sophie and Joe, as well as her parents and siblings. After Wesleyan, she went on to a master’s of education from BU, and was the lead writing specialist at the OWL (online writing lab) in the College of Professional Studies at Northeastern University; helped run Milton Porchfest, an annual gathering of local musicians; was active in local political campaigns and issues; and was an avid nature lover. Her enormous circle of friends will miss her big smile and willing-to-help attitude, and her wake had a line around the block that went on for four hours. Her dad, John, reports that her entire family has been stunned not only by her death but by the way she affected so many people in so many different ways. You can read the lovely obituary written by her brothers David ’88 and Brian (UMass) at https://www.dolanfuneral.com/obituaries/kathryn-l-middleton/.
For myself, this summer I was lucky enough to spend time with Elise Gould ’93 playing at the Great Grand Masters Women’s ultimate in Denver and have surprise catch-up sessions with Susannah Goodman ’87, Farrah Darbouze ’99, and Alison MacAdam ’99 in the Washington, D.C. area. And I get to have regular contact with Eric Glatt ’91 as he not only lives in the same apartment complex as I do, but we serve together on the Board of the Anchorage Curling Club! (Where we are definitely the strange East Coast liberal arts folks in a sea of mostly upper Midwesterners and others with a less . . . structured? [perhaps they’d say uptight . . . ] way of being.)
All my Wes interactions are reminders of how lucky I was to go to Wesleyan and be surrounded by such smart, thoughtful, interesting people. It always feels easy and natural (and almost always fascinating) to chat with a fellow alum, in a way that feels especially rare up here in the cold last frontier!
I hope all of you are well, and please stay in touch.
We are sorry to have to share the sad news that we lost two classmates.
Sid Nayak passed away in February (https://branchfh.com/obits/siddhartha-nayak/), and David Potocki passed away in April (https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/name/david-potocki-obituary?id=54906214). We send our deepest condolences to the friends and families of Sid and David. May their memories be a blessing.
Our Wes professor classmate Sadia Shepard wrote: “I am entering my fourth year as an assistant professor of Film Studies at Wesleyan, and I love teaching at Wes and being part of such a dynamic community of colleagues and students. My husband, Andreas Burgess ’01, and I live nearby in New Haven, Connecticut, with our two kids, Noor Jehan (12) and Idrees (8). In the last year, visiting with Wes alums has been great fun as folks return to campus for guest lectures, Reunion weekend, and college visits! Recently, I’ve had the great pleasure of hosting Abe Forman-Greenwald ’98, Par Parekh ’01, and Libertad Gills ’06, who spoke and presented their work in my documentary and film adaptation courses. Please drop by the new Jeanine Basinger Center for Film Studies and say hello if you’re on campus! I’m there Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, and you can reach me at sshepard@wesleyan.edu. I am excited to be taking my first sabbatical in the spring of 2025, during which I will work on film and writing projects.” We hope you have a fun and productive sabbatical!
Alejandro and Min Santandrea still live in Weston, Connecticut, with their two kids, four chickens, and Wally the dog. Alejandro took a road trip with Christian Housh to visit James Forren in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he is chair of the architecture department at Dalhousie University. Alejandro and Min were also able to see Tyler Moriguchi ’95 and Thy Pham as they toured colleges for their eldest son. And recently “had dinner with Professor John Paoletti and his lovely wife, Leslie, in the home he designed in Durham, Connecticut. Finally, Min’s shoe company, SantM, is celebrating its sixth anniversary.” Alejandro said, “She has been such an inspiration; I have been exploring my own entrepreneur endeavors, launching a creative network event series, ThereWillBeSnacks, with one of our first guest speakers being Mia Lobel.” We cannot wait to listen! And we always love Min’s shoes!
Brion Winston and Melanie Schoen are 10 years into raising organic grass-fed beef in upstate New York. Their kids help a “little.” Melanie is a nurse at a large hospital. Brion is a cardiologist specializing in valve implants and repairs and makes time to release songs and produce theater under the name “Ray Conte.”
Josh Borenstein wrote: “The last year has been very exciting for us. My wife, Katherine Hagmann-Borenstein ’98, became a Connecticut assistant attorney general in the Consumer Protection Division. She is particularly focused on firearms and marijuana regulation (or maybe that’s what she tells me to explain her Google search history). Our older daughter graduated from high school in June, and she will start her first year at Mount Holyoke College in the fall. Our younger daughter is entering fifth grade, and she has a lot of enthusiasm for the flute and is great at taking care of our dog. We still live outside of New Haven, where I teach arts administration graduate students as well as consult with arts organizations around the country. We had a blast visiting Sacha (Shapiro) Emerson over the summer at her home in Martha’s Vineyard.” Wonderful news!
After 15 years of service, Brent Spodek recently became the rabbi emeritus of his synagogue in order to focus full time on helping couples develop emotionally intelligent communication skills in preparation for marriage. Alison just finished her term as chair of the Chemistry Department at Vassar College where she has been a professor since 2009. They recently lived in Wellington, New Zealand, for six months with their kids Abe (13) and Jax (17) and are back at home now in Beacon, New York.
We were also very happy to hear from Sasha Harris-Cronin. “After graduation, I did technical theater in New York and got my master’s at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program. I moved to San Francisco in 2002 and have been there ever since. I’ve been working for BBI Engineering for 22 years first as a programmer, then project manager, and then took over co-ownership in 2019. We do audio and video installation, specializing in complex and high-end systems and interactive museum exhibits. We work all over the country and highlights include the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in D.C., the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Museum in Colorado Springs, the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, and several Yellowstone National Park visitor centers. We are currently doing all the audio and video for the Obama Presidential Center Museum in Chicago. I have a fantastic partner and a 12-year-old kiddo and feel pretty darn lucky.” Amazing!
David Vine wrote: “After living in Oakland, California, for most of the past four years, I’m excited to have moved officially, officially, officially to the Bay Area. Among other activities, I’m continuing to work on scholarship, writing, and organizing related to U.S. wars, dismantling the military-industrial complex, the exiled Chagossians from Diego Garcia, and Palestine/Israel/Gaza. If you’re in the Bay Area, I’m always excited to see Wes folks!”
Sam (Samantha) Wilt wrote: “My eldest kid, Paul, is starting at Wes next week; here’s hoping Clark is less fun than our first year.” We always get so excited for ’97 kids going to Wes! Congratulations and have a great time (which will likely include fun in Clark).
In June, Jess and her family caught up with Saskia Herz Mower and her daughter in London over dinner, and they saw Guys and Dolls together.
And here’s something to look forward to in early 2025: Josh Suniewick writes, “I hope you all can join The Solids at Bowery Ballroom in NYC on Saturday, January 11, as they play hits written by classmates Carter Bays and Craig Thomas featured on the show they also wrote, How I Met Your Mother. The Solids are almost 100% Wes alumni and also feature Pat Butler ’98, Becky Lichtenfeld ’97, and Gaby Moss ’98. . . . This is a great night of music if you are a die-hard HIMYM fan and also tons of fun if you wanna catch up with other Wes folk.” Josh said that “this is a charity event in support of pediatric cardiac research (a cause very near and dear to the band).
Wishing everyone a peaceful fall 2024 and looking forward to seeing you all again soon!
Take care,
Alexandra (Sasha) Lewis-Reisen and Jess (Shea) Lehmann
Congratulations to Mara Kailin and Dan Cohen, who dropped their son, Eli, at Wes for his first year!
Congratulations also to John Crockett, who received the Wang Family Excellence Award! The honor is the highest award in the California State University system. John, associate vice president for research advancement at San Diego State University, was presented with the award for his support for early-career faculty and their research funding. He was appointed to his current position in the Division of Research and Innovation in April 2020. He joined SDSU in February 2006 after seven years as a researcher at the University of Washington. To see more about his work and the award, check out:
https://www.sdsu.edu/news/2024/01/scholar-research-administrator-receive-highest
https://www.calstate.edu/csu-system/faculty-staff/wang-award
Rallie Snowden is starting her 11th year at a university counseling center in the Shenandoah Valley. Her two daughters are in first and eighth grade this year.
Elena Pavloff has returned to NYC, where she is leading marketing for a nonprofit health care company. She is looking forward to the next in-person Wesleyan event.
Speaking of in-person events, Mark Davis is already planning for our 30th Reunion! He works at Wesleyan and says that Wes is “hoping to encourage a big, record-breaking group of ’96ers to come back for our 30th in 2026, since the pandemic prevented us from celebrating our 25th in person.” His wife, Megan Fennessy, is a Middletown native, and their daughter Minerva (14) and son Oliver (12) are the fourth generation on their mother’s side to attend the Middletown Public Schools.
Danny Atwood writes: “Things have been progressing well with my new career as a professional Santa Claus. I’ve become president of my local IBRBS (International Brotherhood of Real Bearded Santas) chapter, S.C. Santas & Co. I got to be Santa with the Tipsy Elves (makers of ugly Christmas sweaters) in the San Diego Pride Parade, which was an absolute blast. I’m finally getting around to editing and rewriting the first draft of my middle grade fantasy novel, and that process is progressing smoothly.”
Tracie Broom was elected 2024–25 president of an invite only, national network of boutique communications and marketing agencies called PRConsultants Group, and the agency she co-founded in 2010, Flock and Rally, recently earned two “Best in Show” awards from AAF Midlands chapter and from South Carolina PRSA.
Jonathan Metcalf continues to run the martial arts school in Enfield, Connecticut, that he started the week after our Wesleyan graduation. His oldest child is in college, studying immunology, and his younger child, now 18, is continuing with transition services to help him find employment. He has a new home and recently got married. He is traveling to Nepal for his honeymoon soon, so he has been reaching out to people there that he met during his junior year abroad.
Arika Lisanne Mittman shares, “I created a series for NBC called The Irrational and have been spending most of my time working on that and developing other projects for Universal Television. My twins are 14 now, and I have five cats running around. All is well!”
Dacque Tirado writes that he enjoyed a wonderful summer down on the Chesapeake Bay, enjoying life at one of the best beach towns on the Eastern Shore of Virginia (town of Cape Charles)—“a hidden gem on the East Coast.” He also mentioned he met up with Dan Mirsky ’97 in nearby Silver Spring, Maryland, for a nice summer evening of drinks, dessert, and fellowship and sharing memories from the Wes days.
Hilary Hoeber, Darrah Carr, Cora (Stubbs-Dame) Jeyadame, Nina Erlich-Williams, and I (Dara Federman) flew from California, New York, Massachusetts, and Oregon to gather in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, to jointly celebrate our 50th birthdays. We started planning months in advance and managed to find six whole days in July when we were all able to escape our daily lives. We had a great time sitting poolside, eating, laughing, and marveling at the fact that it has been 32 years since we met and 28 since we lived together at 8 Warren Street, across from Freeman Athletic Center.
Hello fellow ’95ers!
Bo Bell writing this time with class notes ahead of REUNION 2025! I’m excited to see many of you next May, as are some of our other classmates, as you’ll see here in their notes! Personally, I’m still in the idyllic town of Cold Spring in the Hudson Valley of New York, working for a digital product shop called StudioLabs and raising a teen and a tween, hiking the mountains, playing lots of soccer, and drumming for several local acts. Now, on to the notes!
Andrew Dickson is still living in and loving Portland, Oregon: hosting storytelling shows for The Moth, auctioneering events for nonprofits, rolling out a new performance art piece—AC Dickson: Life Coach—and recently published a book of stories. He’s happily married with a 16-year-old and soon-to-be 14-year-old and recently hung out with fellow Portlander, Ryan Myers—they’ll both be making the trip east for reunion!
Ed Lee wrote, “I’m ecstatic to write that I got married to an amazing woman, Nina Moe, on August 3 in Falmouth, Massachusetts. The small ceremony was beautifully officiated by Jenny Gotwals. I was also thrilled that Ethan de Seife, David Goodman, and Bill Wolkoff made the trek from California to celebrate.” They live in Arlington, Massachusetts, where Ed is in his eighth year of “professoring” at Emerson College.
Sarah Kirkland Snider is a freelance composer and co-artistic director of Brooklyn-based New Amsterdam Records, living in Princeton, New Jersey, with her husband and two kids, Jasper (15) and Dyo (13). Sarah is currently writing an opera on 12th-century theologian/composer, Hildegard von Bingen, as well as orchestral, chamber, and choral music.
I heard from old friend “Meanne” Jeanne Bonner, who writes: “I am happy to say I am planning to attend the reunion and also happy to say I’ve been reminiscing a lot about our times on Foss Hill because I am teaching a GLSP course on memoir this fall. If you haven’t been back to campus, I can tell you it looks amazing! I will publish my first full-length translation next year with Paul Dry Books (Paul Dry, the publisher, has a daughter who attended Wesleyan)—it’s called This Darkness Will Never End, and it’s a short story collection by a Holocaust survivor who settled in Italy after World War II. Finally, I’m eager for my 12-year-old son, Leo, to experience the Wesleyan campus when it’s full of ‘my’ Wesleyan people.”
David Biello is living in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn, with two teen kids. “Beatrice is 17 and thinks Wesleyan’s brutalist performing arts buildings are scary, while Desmond is 15 and couldn’t care less about college, yet. I work at TED Talks, leading the charge for TED Countdown (their only issue-specific event series and talks), which is focused on climate change and aims to amplify solutions, accelerate progress, and maybe give us a little inspiring hope amidst the doom and gloom. We had an amazing summit in Detroit in 2023 and next year, just after reunion, we’ll be holding our next one in Nairobi.”
Curtis Nelson writes: “I’m looking forward to the reunion and I hope to be able to attend. I recently visited Connecticut in May as my oldest daughter, Carter, graduated from Trinity College. My wife, Krystal, and I had a great time visiting family and friends and celebrated with a trip down to the Brushmill, which was just as nice as I remember it from my days at Wesleyan. I hope to be back on the East Coast a couple of times this year as my youngest daughter, Nicole, is playing hockey for RIT and will be graduating in the spring. Attached is a picture of Krystal, myself, Carter, and Nicole at the waterfall outside the Brushmill for graduation dinner.”
Finally, Eric Meyerson recently started a new job running marketing for a computer vision company called Mashgin. He reports: “During my unemployment period, I got to see Wes people all over, including Morgan Fahey and Mo Ouyang ’96 in LA, and Mark Ladov ’94 in NYC. My daughter just started school at Smith College, and she is loving it. And my old Foss 7 homie, Eitan Mendelowitz, lives just a few minutes from campus—it was a delight to grab dinner with him there. I’m really looking forward to our 30th Reunion. I’m not usually THAT GUY but I already booked a hotel. Hope to see y’all there!”
