Tag: 1992

Dear Classmates: As I write this, we are going into the second year of the COVID pandemic. Things have slowed down for sure, but there is a surprising amount of news from the class of 1992 to share!

     One of the most exciting things I did this last year (low bar, I know, but trust me, this event would be exciting in any year) was joining my senior year housemate Simon Fulford online to witness the swearing in of another housemate Jon Pratt to be the new U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Djibouti, on January 6, 2021. Given the other news from D.C. that day, it was heartening to see that good men like Jon remain dedicated to government service.

    Simon is still living in Portland, Oregon where, since last year, life has been quite an adventure­—local forest fires in September giving way to ice storms and power loss in February. All that, and his family just got a kitten!

     Sarah Tunik and Dan Oppenheimer ’89 are thrilled to report that their third and final child is headed to Wesleyan, class of ’25. Their oldest son graduates from Wes this fall (it’s like they’re the House of Windsor!), while their daughter continues at the University of Vermont. Sarah and Dan are hoping the empty nest will lead to travels once COVID conditions permit! They should have plenty of time for that: Sarah is retiring after 20 years of teaching and Dan has been doing remote rare disease biotech consulting.

     Jonathan Soros reports that in the midst of a pandemic he launched a new network of professional sports leagues. Athletes Unlimited had an extremely successful inaugural softball season in August 2020, and will add volleyball and lacrosse in 2021. 

     The New York Times ran a great piece on Edoardo Ballerini’s thriving career as an audiobook narrator.

     Matt and Soo Schortman’s older daughter, Sophia, is a sophomore at Boston College and their younger daughter, Liv, is a senior in high school.

     Amy (Andrews) Alznauer published three children’s books in 2020, one of which ended up on The New York Times Best 25 Children’s Books of 2020 list (see amyalz.com for more).

     In other publishing news, Shura Pollatsek has a new book, Costume in Motion: A Guide to Collaboration for Costume Design and Choreography. It explores the interaction between costume designers and choreographers. The book has strong Wesleyan connections: it features photo essays documenting dance pieces, including one essay on our classmate Jody Sperling and her company Time Lapse Dance as well as an interview with current Wesleyan Professor of Dance Iddrisu Saaka, about West African dance.

     Heather Nash is practicing psychology and publishing poetry (under her middle name Claudine). Her latest collection Beginner’s Guide to Loss in the Multiverse won the 2020 Blue Light Press Book Award.

     Jonathan Bell and Sarah Zurier report from Providence, where Sarah works as a historian for the Rhode Island Historical Preservation and Heritage Commission, and Jonathan has an architecture practice and teaches in the Interior Architecture Department at RISD. Their son is 11 (and shout out to their dog, who turned four). Next year, Jonathan will be in France for six months on a research fellowship and they look forward to a change of scenery!

     Chris Chezak is in Cincinnati, with his wife and two teen daughters. He continues to run the Outdoor Writers Association of America and freelance-write on the side.

     Francesca Harewood was featured in Uptown Magazine in a story about her promotion to senior vice president of business affairs for NBC series, specials, and syndication. Congratulations, Fran!

     David Shadrack Smith is in Brooklyn with his two boys Leo (12) and Lucas (10). His TV/film production company, Part2 Pictures, came out with a well-received series on Hulu, Taste the Nation with Padma Lakshmi, and continued production on their long-running series, This Is Life with Lisa Ling on CNN. Also on the TV production front, Darcy Dennet was in Alaska last Summer directing Yukon Vet for National Geographic Wild. The new season premieres on March 13.

     After retiring from the Navy in 2017, Tamara O’Neil moved into the world of civilian employment at the USPS HQ in DC as an ethics lawyer. But now she’s hung up her Swingline stapler for good and joined the ranks of the faux-retired. 

     Amy Palatnick has written her first book, Can I Be Honest With You?, a romantic comedy dating memoir, that includes some stories from Wesleyan. The paperback, audiobook, and e-book will all be available on May 31.

     And wrapping this thing up, we have news from a first-time notes giver—Jen Crittenden, who is a TV writer and created a new animated show that will air in May. The show, Housebroken, stars Lisa Kudrow, Nat Faxon, Tony Hale and Will Forte.

     Let Jen be an example for everyone out there. We love to hear from everyone, especially folks we haven’t heard from in a while. So keep sending your news!

Greetings and salutations from D.C. It’s Election Day minus 35 and I am just recovering from watching the first presidential debate. I’ve showered, taken a stiff drink and can now share with you some news of our classmates. Let’s hope this goes more smoothly.

I start with medical news, specifically infectious disease and specifically COVID-19. You thought you were going to escape? The good news is we have a classmate on the inside. Corey Casper, interim president and chief executive officer, Infectious Disease Research Institute, University of Washington, is principal investigator for a study of Celularity’s COVID-19 treatment using human placental hematopoietic stem cell derived cells. He was also recently named to the Scientific Advisory Board of Why We Vaccinate, Inc. to promote the use of vaccines and “dissemination of clear and factual information on the value of vaccines and immunization for our communities’ health and welfare” according to the organization’s website. He probably needs to catch up on his sleep. Just not yet.

On a perhaps related subject, Dan Partland’s documentary Unfit: The Psychology of Donald Trump was released August 28. It features on the record, for the record interviews with prominent doctors and mental health professionals on the psychology of the president as part of their ethical “duty to warn” the public of imminent danger.

Jonathan Soros launched Athletes Unlimited, a totally new sports league that totally reinvents how you view sports, creates balance in the force and re-invents how to build teams and how you score points—even how you pick the MVP. The summer softball season was a hit and the league is gearing up to add women’s volleyball next year. It’s a lot more fun than watching a Mets game. Or Phillies for that matter.

An excerpt of Jonathan Liebson’s essay on teaching during the pandemic ran in the fall alumni magazine. The full piece (“Teaching Moments in a Time of Diaspora”) can be found at magazine

.wesleyan.edu (in the Letters section). Jonathan currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, and teaches writing, literature, and culture at Eugene Lang College of The New School and at NYU’s School of Professional Studies. A list of other articles and recordings can be found on his website jonathanliebson.com.

It was nice to hear from Abigail Saguy who reports all is well from the left coast. She describes her recent promotion to department chair of the UCLA Sociology Department “an exciting new challenge” and sends news of a recent book release, Come Out, Come Out, Whoever You Are, published earlier this year. Her eldest daughter Claire is now a first-year student at UCLA, son Jonah is in eleventh grade (at least virtually), and husband Dotan has taken advantage of quarantine to create an online photography class.

Lee Schlesinger has departed from Boston after five years and returned to Chicago in June of 2019 to take a new role as vice president of portfolio management and education for Winesellers, Ltd., a national wine import company. 

Elizabeth (Lisa) Liang’s film of her one-woman show, Alien Citizen: An Earth Odyssey, is being “taught” on college campuses in the United States, Mexico, and Canada. It’s now streamable at gumroad.com. Lisa also leads workshops that help people to tell their own hard-to-label stories: interculturalstorytelling.com. She and her husband Dan live in Los Angeles.

Lisa Laing (who writes under the pen name Lisa McLuckie) published her third novel, Love Me Not, in May.

Grant Brenner, CEO of Neighborhood Psychiatry, is focused on the recent pivot to telemedicine and has also launched a podcast called Doorknob Comments, about living well, hosted by two psychiatrists. He is working on a fourth book, Making Your Crazy Work for You, all the while raising a family in New York’s increasingly grungy East Village . . . while occasionally sleeping. 

And last but certainly not least, my lovely and talented wife, Michele Greenstein, took a new position at the State Department as a senior advisor for peace and security. She is working on a congressionally mandated effort to establish the interagency Global Fragility strategy to stabilize conflict-affected areas and prevent violence globally. How do you like them apples?

Hope you are all safe and doing well.

Adam Berinsky | berinsky@mit.edu 

Paul Coviello | coviellop01@alum.darden.edu

Hopefully, by the time you read this, the lockdown that has been in effect since mid-March will be over. But who knows! I’ve hobbled around with a broken foot for most of the year, so for me, the lockdown has been well-timed. I hope you all have fared well during these difficult times.

In any case, the lockdown doesn’t stop news, so here we go!

Eric Leach-Rodriguez and his husband are among the many New Yorkers who stayed in the city to shelter in place. As Eric notes, it was some comfort to have 20 years as a nurse practitioner in HIV/AIDS before facing the current pandemic. Also in the city, Grant Brenner hunkered down in lower Manhattan, continuing as a psychiatrist running a large practice and doing nonprofit disaster mental health.

Darcy Dennett spent some time down in New York City for 60 Minutes Australia on the front lines in the fight against COVID-19 but then retreated two hours north in Connecticut, editing in the country. She and her husband, Paul, a lawyer for the MTA, are preparing to return to New York as soon as they can.

Lisa Turner Laing released her third novel, Love Me Not, under the pen name Lisa McLuckie. Rick Barot’s fourth book of poems, The Galleons, was published by Milkweed Editions. He won the Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America. He directs the MFA program in creative writing at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Wash.

Kevin Prufer is writing books and teaching in the graduate creative writing program at the University of Houston. For the last 10 years, he has also been directing a literary-archaeological project called The Unsung Masters Series, a book series that discovers, considers, and reprints the work of great lost writers of the past (unsungmasters.org).

Ruthbea Yesner lives in Brookline and is the VP of Government, Education and Smart Cities research and consulting. Also in the greater Boston area, Zoe Singer Fishman is practicing primary care pediatrics with Charles River Pediatrics in Natick, Mass., living in Newton with her husband, Craig Fishman, and their two sons Sam (13) and Jacob (17). Jacob will head to D.C. in the fall to be a freshman at American University.

Also on the college track, Karen Cacase Flynn and Mike Flynn ’93 are planning to send their daughter, Sophia, to start at Wesleyan in the fall.

Stefanie Trice Gill runs IntWork, a diversity recruitment agency she founded that provides engineering, tech, and executive search. She’s in Portland, Maine, sheltering in place with her husband, Mark, their 10-year-old son, and her 80-year-old-mother.

On the front lines of the current crisis, Jacky Jennings is an infectious disease epidemiologist in the throes of COVID-19 research, including launching a seroprevalence study in Baltimore City, Md., to measure the true burden of disease as well as the social and economic impacts of the crisis.

Abigail Saguy is sheltering at home in West Los Angeles with her husband, Dotan, and their kids Claire, 18, and Jonah, 15. During the pandemic, she has become a Zoom pro: teaching via Zoom, giving Zoom seminars, Zoom writing sessions, Zoom faculty meetings, Zoom cooking classes, and Zoom cocktail hours. Just before we all went into lockdown, she published a new book, Come Out, Come Out, Whoever You Are (Oxford, 2020).

In the last notes, there was mention of a book Richard Deitrich co-edited. In early February, an accompanying exhibit opened at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, called A Collector’s Vision: Highlights from the Dietrich American Foundation.

For those of you looking for entertainment, our classmates are happy to help! Tim Ellis is doing a comedy and music show, Rock Soft with Tim Ellis, every other Friday at 8 a.m. live on Facebook Live. And Susan Kleinman’s improv group, Brownies for Everyone, is doing a free show every Saturday (see improvmarin.com). When not doing shows, she is busy helping her nonprofit clients raise money and distribute cash assistance and food to individuals and families in crisis.

And though it seems like a lifetime ago, some of our classmates had exciting travels to report. In December 2019, William Kim attended the Nobel Prize Ceremony (Stockholm, Sweden) in honor of his post-doc mentor, Dr. William Kaelin, who shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology. A small part of Bill’s post-doctoral research contributed to this finding, so he was especially excited. And he got to wear “white tie” (I can vouch for it—I’ve seen photo evidence).

Finally, on a sad note, I am sorry to report that our classmate Kristian Dahl passed away on Feb. 10.

That’s all the notes for now. Please keep Paul and me updated with your news!

Adam Berinsky | berinsky@mit.edu 

Paul Coviello | coviellop01@alum.darden.edu

Paul writes for this issue. Greetings and salutations from Washington, D.C., and happy 50th birthday to many of you who have recently celebrated, or are looking forward to a fun party, and/or fear that big number looming around the corner. I did it last year and survived. It was great to hear from so many people including some first-timers. So, without further ado . . .

Richard Dietrich co-edited In Pursuit of History: A Lifetime Collecting Colonial American Art and Artifacts. This book showcases highlights from the Dietrich American Foundation and tells the story of the collector and the foundation. The foundation was established in 1963 by H. Richard Dietrich Jr. with a focus on 18th-century American fine and decorative arts. The book was published in association with the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Abby Saguy published her third book Come Out, Come Out, Whoever You Are. Through scores of interviews with LGBTQ+ people, undocumented immigrant youth, fat-acceptance activists, Mormon fundamentalist polygamists, and sexual harassment lawyers, the book shows how coming out has moved beyond gay and lesbian rights groups and how different groups wrestle with the politics of coming out in their efforts to resist stigma and enact social change.

Noele Nelson enjoys living in Atlanta with her spouse and working at the CDC. She’s now a branch chief in the Division of Viral Hepatitis, overseeing all of the prevention activities, including vaccine research and policy. Noele had a great time visiting Martin Reames ’94 and his family in Guadalajara, Mexico, where they were living for a year.

Jonathan Liebson enjoys seeing Benno Schmidt ’93 in Brooklyn Heights, along with his adorable son, Charlie. Jonathan’s most recent writing can be found online at The Atlantic and Tablet.

Natacha Vacroux and her philosophy professor husband, Chris Meyers, quit their jobs in Washington, D.C., last year to move to Hawaii. Natacha loves being the FEMA lead co-located in state’s emergency management agency during the day, and editing Chris’s third book, The Straight Dope on Drugs: A Philosophical Examination of Drugs and Drug Policy, at night. They have a killer Mai Tai recipe and look forward to hosting old college friends.

Mary Newton Lima is living in Cape Cod and commuting daily to Cambridge, Mass., where she works as the research program coordinator of the MIT Sea Grant Program, which is part of the National Sea Grant program, the research arm of NOAA. Her role is a jack-of-all-trades, primarily focusing on coordinating proposals, fellowships, and staff scientists. Her husband works with the Ocean Twilight Zone project at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Their eldest daughter, Julia, is a freshman at Union College, and their youngest, Cecilia, is a sophomore in high school.

Speaking of new jobs, Chris Chesak started a new job as executive director of the 92-year-old Outdoor Writers Association of America.

After 16 years as a communication and video production professor at Franklin Pierce University, Heather Weibel Tullio decided to go back to high school. She is loving her new job as a college counselor at St. Bernard’s High School in Fitchburg, Mass., where she graduated from. Her son Oliver just applied to colleges so she, along with husband Tom Tullio ’90, is planning a trip to visit Carleton College in early February. They are looking forward to staying with Martin Reames ’94 and his family.

Darcy Dennett is working on a new, original Netflix series called Well that premieres in the spring. She writes, “I hope those who are inspired check it out. It’s been quite a journey.”

Amy Smith parted ways with Headlong, the nonprofit she co-founded with Andrew Simonet and David Brick ’91, and is doing freelance work as a dance and theater artist, educator, and co-facilitator of anti-racism and anti-oppression trainings. She’s also teaching financial well-being to artists and giving financial management advice to organizations and individuals. Visit amyelainesmith.com if you want to be in touch.

Johanna Stoberock’s novel, Pigs, was published in October. She has been traveling a lot to promote the book where she reports seeing Wesleyan friends at readings around the country. Johanna was selected as the 2019 Artist Trust/Gar LaSalle Storyteller award recipient, which recognizes “an outstanding literary artist working in fiction.”

Michelle Specht, a surgeon at MGH practicing breast surgical oncology, reports that her daughter, Emma ’23, is now at Wesleyan and is loving it! She is happy to report sightings of Susan Stevens and Denise Casper ’90 at Soul Cycle at 5:30 a.m.

Kenko Sone, who was a Japanese government foreign service trainee at Wesleyan, is now a senior official and ambassador in charge of economic diplomacy in the Economic Affairs Bureau at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).

Finally, Amy Andrews Alznauer hits the book trifecta in 2020. Candlewick Press will be publishing The Boy Who Dreamed of Infinity, a picture book biography of the Indian mathematician Ramanujanm and Flying Paintings: The Zhou Brothers, A Story of Revolution and Art, a collaboration with the world-renowned artists about their early years. Also, Enchanted Lion Books is publishing The Strange Birds of Flannery O’Conner.

Adam Berinsky | berinsky@mit.edu 

Paul Coviello | coviellop01@alum.darden.edu

Hi, all, and welcome back to the Wesleyan 1992 class notes. You may have noticed that we skipped an issue of notes. I completely missed it, so no blame to Paul, but we are back on track!

Joan Matelli started law school at Northeastern this fall and quickly learned that Elizabeth Bloom ’95 was one of her professors.

Rick Barot’s fourth book of poems, The Galleons, will be published in early 2020.

Jean DiMaria lives in Berkeley, Calif. After 20 years in the hotel industry, she joined RCD Housing, an affordable housing owner and developer, where she works with Alicia Klein ’88. Jean’s son formed a band with his middle school classmates, one of whom is the son of Henry Rawitscher ’91. Also in the Bay Area, Sasha M. Cummings was honored with the 2019 Hon. Ira A. Brown, Jr. Distinguished Adjunct Professor Award by USF School of Law.

Maria Rosa Truglio was promoted to full professor on the faculty in Italian at Penn State. Her son, Tom (27), is in his third year at medical school in Philadelphia, and her other son, Anthony (28), is exploring career options in linguistics and coding. Maria also got engaged to her partner Greg. In other promotion news, Andrew Springman was promoted to web application development manager at the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

Lucy Hutner just launched a startup that she co-founded. The site, Phoebe, provides a personalized road map for pregnancy and postpartum—check it out at phoebe.nyc.

Teresa Van Hoy ’92, MA’91 premiered a documentary film at the Arizona International Film. The film followed her students’ quixotic quest to repatriate the leg of Santa Anna seized by Illinois soldiers 175 years ago during the Mexican-American War. The students’ 2,000-mile weekend road trip made the front page of the Wall Street Journal two days before Donald Trump was elected. You can learn more at newday.com/film/25-texans-land-lincoln.

Dan Fortmann is the export manager for SCX design, an importer of promotional merchandise across Europe, Russia, Lebanon, Dubai, and Pakistan. He is in his second year singing with the volunteer Chœur de l’Orchestre de Paris, and spent the summer on tour.

Nancy McLoughlin is associate professor of medieval European history at UCI, is still rowing, and reports that she “has the best dog in the world.”

And in closing, Laura Hill and Marc Kunney ’91 dropped their daughter off at Wesleyan in August to start her first year in Clark Hall.

That’s the new for now. Hope to hear from you all soon!

Adam Berinsky | berinsky@mit.edu 

Paul Coviello | coviellop01@alum.darden.edu

Greetings and salutations from D.C. It’s day 28 of the shut down. Hopefully the counter will have stopped counting by the time you read this, we’re still part of NATO, Adam Berinsky has recreated political discourse on Facebook, and the Phillies signed Bryce Harper. There’s my short wish list and here’s what I know about our class.

Grant Brenner coauthored Relationship Sanity: Creating and Maintaining Healthy Relationships, released in October. The book is a sequel to his earlier book IRRELATIONSHIP: How We Use Dysfunctional Relationships to Hide from Intimacy that came out in 2015.

Jonathan Soros supports diversity at Wesleyan: Col. Bob Cassidy (U.S. Army) has been shaking things up on campus with the Retiring Military Office Teaching Fellowship that Jonathan created.

Carola McGiffert joined Whittle School & Studios as vice president for government stakeholder engagement, joining Sidra Smith, Nick Dirks ’72, Betsey Schmidt ’89, Alan Smith ’90, and Nila Ravi ’18. Whittle is creating the first global modern school serving pre-K through 12th graders and will ultimately have 30 campuses around the world. The first two campuses in D.C. and Shenzhen open in September with New York, London, Shanghai, Paris, and Mumbai not far behind.

James Wilton made a long-overdue return to Wesleyan in November during a business trip. James lives in Waxhaw, N.C., with Tracy, his wife of 20 years, and their three children, Jack, 18, Carley, 15, and Lola, 13. He is closing in on his four-year anniversary as a national account manager with Collabera.

Laura Ruderman was named CEO of the Technology Alliance, a statewide, nonprofit organization of leaders from Washington state’s technology-based businesses and research institutions. Technology Alliance is focused on the creation of high-wage jobs and economic prosperity. She writes, “Going into an office every day is a huge change after being a consultant of various types for the last 14 years, but I am loving it.”

Darcy Dennett finished a fun and quirky episode of This is Life with Lisa Ling on identical twins that will air in the fall. She worked with David Shadrack Smith’s company Part2Pictures on the project. She is trying to get her second independent feature called WILD: Of Wolves and Wildness off the ground.

Tembi Locke has a book being published by Simon and Schuster in May entitled From Scratch, A Memoir of Love, Sicily and Finding Home.

Susan Kleinman lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her two awesome kids, ages 14 and 9. In January, she celebrated the eighth anniversary as CEO of her consulting firm, Wallis Consulting LLC (skwallis.com). Her company provides fundraising guidance, coaching, and grant writing services to a wide array of nonprofits.

Last but not least, Simon Fulford was named executive director of Parrott Creek Child and Family Services, a nonprofit with 50 years of serving youth and families involved in the justice and welfare systems.

Adam Berinsky | berinsky@mit.edu 

Paul Coviello | coviellop01@alum.darden.edu

Greeting and salutations, Class of 1992. I begin these notes with some very sad news. Jim Kamm died suddenly on June 21. Many of our classmates wrote in to say how much they miss Jim, and we all do.

It’s just entering the fall months in Cambridge as I write this. Hope everyone had a great summer. I spent my summer vacation working at Facebook in Menlo Park, Calif., as a consultant on the newsfeed integrity team, working on undisclosable project, and eating lots of snacks. I spent a couple weeks of my time there staying with my undergrad advisors, Martha Crenshaw (who teaches at Stanford now) and Richard Boyd (who mainly golfs but takes time out to make a mean chili). It was great to see them.

While out west, I also saw Laura Hill and Marc Kuney ’91, as well as Sarah Tunik and her husband, Dan Oppenheimer ’89, who happened to be my frosh year biology TA. It was great catching up with everyone.

Also, on the West Coast is my old housemate, Simon Fulford. After a year of being employed by the State of Oregon, Simon realized that 26 years in the nonprofit sector was hard to shake. He was appointed executive director of Parrott Creek Child and Family Services in Oregon City, Ore., on Oct. 1.

Simon, Jonathan Pratt, and I had a fun weekend in Napa, Calif., in late June during my West Coast swing. Simon wrote, “The less said about that, the better!” Speaking of Jonathan, he’s back stateside after stints in Pakistan and China, working as the chief of staff to Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale.

Maurice Harris is living in Glenside, Pa., near Philly, working as associate director of affiliate support at Reconstructing Judaism, along with his wife Melissa Crabbe, and their children, Clarice (18) and Hunter (17). He is finishing up his third book, about a rabbi who lived close to 1,900 years ago named Joshua ben Hananiah and the ways in which he influenced Judaism.

Tamara O’Neil has entered a new phase of life, retiring from the Navy! Having moved in 2012 to Cabin John, Md., she took some time off to attend a women’s yoga and surf camp in Bali before accepting a job with the U.S. Postal Service as an ethics lawyer.

Teresa Van Hoy is now a professor of history at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas. This past March, she launched at St. Mary’s University and Crystal City, Texas, a “Year of Remembrance,” focusing press and public attention on German-American internment during WWII. You can learn more about it here at tpr.org.

Jonathan Liebson was excited to see Joe Romano on a recent visit to Chicago. Jonathan lives in Brooklyn and regularly sees John Melnick (and kids), Rich Benjamin ’93, and Matt Solomon ’94, who lives in D.C. His writing has recently appeared in The Washington Post Book World, the Texas Observer, and Chicago Review of Books.

Cati Coe has a new book coming out in 2019 with NYU press, The New American Servitude: Political Belonging Among African Immigrant Home Care Workers.

Chris Chesak consults in the travel industry and is a travel writer.

And in closing, Byron King has issued a declaration, “I challenge our classmates on the East Coast (everywhere, actually) to do better with updates and with reaching out between Reunions. Get to it!”

Hear, hear! Paul and I would love to get your news!

Adam Berinsky | berinsky@mit.edu 

Paul Coviello | coviellop01@alum.darden.edu