CLASS OF 1997 | 2025 | SPRING ISSUE

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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

JESSICA SHEA LEHMANN | jessica.lehmann@gmail.com

ALEXANDRA (SASHA) LEWIS-REISEN | alewisreisen@gmail.com