Tag: 1998

As I (Marcus) write this edition of our class notes, I await a visit by Michael Roth ’78 to San Francisco where he will discuss Wesleyan’s “Beyond 2020” vision and plan. Wesleyan has built generations of leaders who are able to work across disciplines and sectors, apply critical thought to the world around us, and compel others to action through articulation of a clear, inspiring vision. It’s clear to me that now, more than ever, these qualities are important to build a more just world—and it’s heartening to see our classmates work so hard to make a positive difference in a variety of ways.

In November, Brooks Berndt and Romarico “Chief” Nieto were part of a delegation that met with leaders from both the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the demonstrators opposing the Dakota access pipeline. Based in Cleveland, Brooks is the minister for environmental justice for the United Church of Christ. Together with Chief, owner and operator of Apache Stoneworks in Denver, he sought to spread a message of peace, prayer, and justice.

Jack & Louisa: Act 3, by Andrew Keenan-Bolger and Kate Wetherhead ’98, is the third in the popular middle school series about two musical theater nerd best friends from Penguin Young Readers.

I enjoyed a fancy breakfast with Kate Haviland, her husband, Edo, and their new son, Elan, while Kate visited San Francisco for a conference. Based in Boston, Kate is chief business officer for Blueprint Medicines, a biotechnology company focused on an innovative approach to treating diseases driven by the abnormal activation of kinases, like cancer.

Over the past few months I’ve had the chance to see Lindsey Fitzgibbons and her family. Lindsey and her husband, Mike, are raising two beautiful boys while she continues to work in the health and wellness field in San Francisco. She is a practicing depth hypnotherapist who helps her clients heal traumas, work through current and past relationship issues, and recognize and address destructive patterns.

Thanks to my work with Wesleyan’s Patricelli Center for Social Entrepreneurship, I am lucky to be in near-constant contact with Makaela Kingsley, whose leadership and mentorship continue to amaze me. If you haven’t had the chance to meet some of the Wesleyan students and recent alumni who have learned from Makaela and her network of social entrepreneurs, I highly encourage you to do so. You’ll undoubtedly feel the same sense of hope and optimism I feel after my meetings and conversations with these inspiring students.

It’s a short and sweet edition of class notes this round. Please send your news to me and Jason!

Marcus Chung | marcusbchung@gmail.com 

Jason Becton | jcxbecton@yahoo.com

Jason writes for this issue: Most of us are celebrating our 40th birthdays this year. Who would have believed time would go by so fast? At Ian Tamayo’s 40th birthday party in New York City, I got to see my great friend, Maier Negugogor, who is living in Connecticut and has started a private practice in immigration law. I also got to see Chotsani Sackey who is living in New York City and working for a technology company.

Here’s what’s going on with some other fellow classmates:

Amy Barnes writes, “I’ve been happily living in the great Pacific Northwest (Redmond, Wash.) for the last couple of years with my fiancé, Noel Anderson, and our beautiful baby girl, Sarah (born last year). I’m enjoying my new role at AKT Wealth Advisors while nourishing my liberal arts spirit with writing workshops and volunteer work. Our Seattle Wes community lost a great friend and leader with the passing of Nick Waltner ’86.”

Dorothy Warner writes, “I live in Belmont, Mass., with my son, Alexander, who regularly and excitedly declares that he loves kindergarten (and Minecraft). We love biking to his school. I work with kids and adults as a clinical psychologist in Newton. I often see Becca Gerner and Hans Schroder ’99. In addition to world peace and an end to poverty, my hopes for the future include another Clinton presidency with Sanders in the Cabinet and getting to see Hamilton.”

Sarah Miller Lipton is living in LA with her husband, Glenn, and their two boys, Emmett (3 years old) and Ezra (22 months). Sarah works part-time as a physical medicine and rehabilitation doctor, aka “physiatrist,” in Santa Monica, focusing primarily in electrodiagnostic medicine.

Nancy Shane writes, “I just completed my PhD in aerospace sciences at the University of North Dakota. My research focused on the background, experience, and qualifications of pilots entering the regional airline industry. I also made a big move to the Midwest, where I am now the director of pilot sourcing and industry outreach at Endeavor Air, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Delta Air Lines. So far Minneapolis has been fantastic, although winter hasn’t hit yet. I know I have a fantastic new parka in my future.”

Patrick Butler writes, “I got married in April (featured in The New York Times), and Michael Van Nimwegen got ordained to officiate the wedding. He broke his arm at my bachelor party in Alaska in February, and still managed to look good in a tux just six weeks later.”

Brodie Welch celebrated the 13th anniversary of her Chinese medicine and acupuncture clinic in Corvallis, Ore. Her new podcast, A Healthy Curiosity, which explores what it takes to be well in a busy world, will help your commute fly by. (You can find it on iTunes.) She’s also enjoying helping her full-time step-kids navigate eighth and 12th grade. Marrying a widower four years ago, she managed to skip over the sticky toddler years.

Justin Pidot spends most of his time in Denver, where he received tenure at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law. This fall, he is on a leave of absence from academia and has joined the Obama administration, where he serves as the deputy solicitor for land resources at the Department of the Interior. It’s quite a change in pace, and he’s having a great time in D.C.

Abe Forman-Greenwald traveled to Liberia to film a short documentary focused on First Lady Michelle Obama’s visit to promote her Let Girls Learn initiative. Letgirlslearn.gov is dedicated to improving education opportunities for the 62 million girls around the world who are not in school.

Margaret Salazar has exciting news: “I am honored that Oregon Governor Kate Brown has asked me to serve as director of Oregon Housing and Community Services, our state housing agency. I look forward to leading the agency to expand housing opportunities for Oregonians in need.”

In March, Rebecca Alson-Milkman and Craig Thomas ’97 welcomed their second baby, nine years after her brother, Elliot. Celia Genevieve Thomas is named in memory of Rebecca’s mother, Sheila, and for the patron saint of Paris.

Marcus Chung | marcusbchung@gmail.com 

Jason Becton | jcxbecton@yahoo.com

Marcus writes: We begin this edition of Class Notes with a heartfelt apology. Alan Schlechter sent in a note in December 2015, but we forgot to include it in the last column, so huge apologies and thanks for writing in! Alan met up with Tim Whyte, deputy director of Save the Children in Bangladesh, and the two went camping in Kempton, Pa. The pair “freezed their tuchis off, hiked and cooked veggie dogs over an open fire and drank horrible beer.” It made for a memorable experience and a “wonderful time.”

Those following March Madness this year might have noticed Matt Kingsley, associate head coach of Yale’s men’s basketball, helping to lead the Bulldogs to their first NCAA tournament appearance in 54 years. The team also celebrated their first tournament win (vs. Baylor) in history.

Anya Fernald continues to build her Belcampo empire with the release of her beautiful cookbook featuring a wide range of recipes (including some for cocktails!). Home Cooked: Essential Recipes for a New Way to Cook is available through amazon.com and in major bookstores.

Welcoming America founder and executive director David Lubell gave a TEDxBerlin Talk called “Migration: Why We Need to Talk to Strangers.” He argues that we need to rethink the lessons from our childhood about “stranger danger” if we want to have a better, more welcoming world.

Director of Wesleyan’s Patricelli Center for Social Entrepreneurship Makaela Kingsley recently connected with Tali Shmulovich, who left her position as vice president of operations for Global Health Corps and is now HR consultant and executive coach for Partners In Health.

I found myself in Copenhagen participating in a variety of meetings focused on sustainability in the apparel industry. Sustainability Director for Mountain Hard Wear Laura Schaffer ’00 and I took the opportunity to catch up over several large beers. In addition to talking apparel supply chains, we reminisced about the Wesleyan swimming and diving team and commiserated over the increasingly high cost of living in the Bay Area.

Sophie Middlebrook Hayward celebrated her 40th birthday in San Francisco in May. It was fun catching up with Danielle Woodrow and Mary Lisio, who drove up from Los Angeles and took a break from the world of film and entertainment to celebrate. Sarah Margon, the head of Human Rights Watch’s Washington, D.C., office, also made the trip to San Francisco. Rounding out the Wes crew was Mark Karvosky ’97, who recently relocated to San Francisco from New York.

We know our talented classmates are up to incredible things, so please do send in your notes! We promise to be better custodians of news (apologies again to Alan Schlechter!).

Marcus Chung | marcuschung98@gmail.com

Jason Becton | jcxbecton@yahoo.com

Jason writes: Greetings fellow ’98ers. As I write, I am just coming off a much needed vacation from Puerto Rico with my husband, Patrick, and our two daughters Marian and Betty. We are settled for the long, long haul here in Charlottesville, Va., keeping our restaurant, MarieBette Cafe & Bakery, going steady and strong. If you are in the area, please come visit us.

But enough about me. Here’s what’s going on with some other folks from our class.

John Speck: “I’m writing from our new place in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Still ‘living the dream’, playing trombone and traveling (toured to Sydney Australia last October). I’m also spending a lot of quality time with our 1-year-old daughter, C.C. I saw Jason Gonzalez and his adorable son, Samson, at C.C’s first birthday party last month.”

Amy Davenport had twin boys in November—Avery River and Elias Birch. Their big brother, Lucas, is thrilled. She and her husband still live in Carrboro N.C. Amy graduated from Frontier Nursing University in July and will be starting as a midwife at UNC Chapel Hill in March.

Brad Hoffman writes: “After more than a decade as an institutional equity salesperson at Lazard Capital Markets and Oppenheimer & Co., Inc., I decided to try my hand at a startup and joined Claravant Analytics as the head of business development. Claravant analyzes medical products to determine their likelihood of obtaining regulatory approval, commercial success, and strength of their IP protection. We base our reports on confidential reviews of all available research information, regulatory correspondence, and intellectual property provided by the sponsor company. That said, we take things a step further than any of our consulting competitors insofar as we allow our clients to use our findings, if they so choose, to engage investors and potential partners. I’d welcome the opportunity to speak with alumni who are in the drug or medical device research, commercialization, or investment fields (bhoffman@claravant.com)”

Stacey Garfield Fox is a pediatrician, living in Rehoboth Beach, Del., with her husband and 5-year-old daughter. She left academic medicine in Philadelphia for small-town private practice at the beach. She’s on the board of the Delaware AAP and a member of the Delaware Breastfeeding Coalition.

Lauren Berliner and her partner, Minda Martin, welcomed their child, Lucien, last April 3rd. The family lives in Seattle, where Lauren and Minda both work as professors at the University of Washington Bothell. Lauren recently co-organized a symposium with Nora Kenworthy at the Simpson Center for the Humanities at the University of Washington called “Crowdsourcing Care: Health, Debility, and Dying in a Digital Age” that included speakers Kalindi Vora and Christoph Hanssmann ’99, and participants Chris Wade ’00 and Johanna Crane ’93. When they realized how many of them went to Wesleyan, they had to take a moment to revisit the fight song. Go, Wes!

Amy Barnes welcomed a baby girl, Sarah, into the world last May and is enjoying life in the beautiful Pacific Northwest outside Seattle.

Sara Brenneis writes: “My husband, Eric Danton, and I are enjoying the radical life shifts our 1-year-old son, Charlie, brings to the mix. We’re still in Northampton, Mass., and I’m now an associate professor in the Spanish department at Amherst College. Would love to catch up with any Wesleyan ’98ers who are in the Pioneer Valley!”

Lena Maun DeSantis started the first annual Out Run Rett 5K Run which took place in New Suffolk, N.Y., on May 7. A beautiful run along the water on Long Island’s North Fork, it will raise money for the Rett Syndrome Research Trust.

David Lubell was named to the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s first-ever 40 Under 40. If you’re not familiar with the Chronicle, it’s a 25-year-old independent news organization covering the nonprofit world. The 40 Under 40 is a list of extraordinary young nonprofit leaders, fundraisers, foundation officials, donors, and social entrepreneurs from across the country.

Guillermo Brown writes: “Greetings, everyone from sunny Los Angeles! I’m currently playing drums on CBS on the Late Late Show with James Corden, releasing new music from my band Pegasus Warning, and just won grants from Creative Capital and MIT for my new theater work Bee Boy. Had breakfast with Ian Edelman the other day, dope things coming…”

After several years leading affordable housing policy inside the beltway for HUD, Margaret Solle Salazar moved from Washington, D.C., to her hometown of Portland, Ore., in late 2014 and welcomed twins Gabriel and Veronica into the world. Margaret is now serving as field office director for the HUD Oregon State Office where she is tackling homelessness, distressed housing and gentrification in Portland’s overheated housing market and attempting to remove peanut butter daily from two feisty toddlers.

Tarmla Small writes: “I recently (July 2015) joined the Oliver Scholars Program and serve as the recruitment manager (and Kimberly King ’97 is on the board.) I absolutely love my job!”

Keep those updates coming!

Marcus Chung | marcuschung98@gmail.com

Jason Becton | jcxbecton@yahoo.com

Marcus writes: Cassie Colletti is happy to report that she married Sean Mecsery in November 2014 and is now stepmom to his 5-year-old daughter, Abigail. The family is thrilled to welcome Calista Kedron Rose Mecsery, who was born a few months ago.

In Pennsylvania, Scott McCracken was recently promoted to assistant medical director for York Hospital Community Health Center. He obviously misses the Wesleyan swim team and Freeman Athletic Center, since he swims three mornings a week at the York YMCA.

Kate Wetherhead is excited to share that her second book, Jack & Louisa: Act 2, will be available in February 2016. In the meantime, she is filling her spare time performing off Broadway in Clever Little Lies with Marlo Thomas.

Through her role as director of the Patricelli Center for Social Entrepreneurship at Wes, Makaela Kingsley keeps in touch with alumni around the world. She has recently been in touch with our classmates David Lubell of Welcoming America, Sarah Margon of Human Rights Watch, Amir Hasson (who is a new father! Congratulations!) of Oxigen USA, and Marcus Chung of The Children’s Place.

MARCUS CHUNG | marcuschung98@gmail.com

Jason Becton | jcxbecton@yahoo.com

Jason writes: Greetings from Charlottesville, Va. My husband and I finally made the jump and left the NYC area. We’ve been in Virginia for a year now and opened a restaurant called MarieBette Café & Bakery, named after our two daughters, Marian & Betty. It has been an incredible experience for us and, thankfully, we’ve thus far been successful. One of the best things about the restaurant is that we have been visited by many Wes alums.

Our friends Emily Lieberman and Jules Cohen came in with their three wonderful daughters while on their way to visit Jules’ parents in the D.C. area. Jules and Emily are living in Seattle where Jules works for Microsoft. Emily left life as a lawyer to be a full-time mom and, as you might expect, is truly one of the most fun moms I’ve ever met.

Dena Rosenberg also visited us at the restaurant with her daughter, Odessa, while visiting her in-laws. I hadn’t seen her in more than 10 years and it was nice to catch up. Dena writes: “Heather Marciniec, Maria Stasavage and I went to see Catie Lazarus’s ’99 amazing Employee of the Month show at Joe’s Pub! Maya Seiden and her husband brought their two sons (prospective classes of ’32 and ’34, respectively) to Wes for the first time last weekend! Jehan Manekshaw visited the States this spring and had a mini reunion with Claire Hruby, Polly Fiveash, Aongus Burke and Anand Nayak ’96. Jehan also met up with Nitin Kochhar and Omar Rahim ’96 in NYC, and caught up with Sean Dague in Poughkeepsie! Jehan married Shaizia Jifri and they have a lovely baby boy, Aden. Jehan runs two theatre organisations in Mumbai: The Young People’s Theatre Programme and The Drama School, Mumbai.”

Anthony Veneziale writes: “I started a new company called Speechless and we are taking Silicon Valley by storm, helping people to make presentations that matter, one improvised PowerPoint at a time! It’s www.speechlesslive.com. I am still performing with Lin-Manuel Miranda ’02 (now Dr. Miranda thanks to Wesleyan) and Bill Sherman ’02 in Freestyle Love Supreme. I basically still get to make up stuff as an improviser for a living.”
Stevie Caldwell bought a condo last year with her wife, Jill Clark ’99, in Somerville, Mass. They have a 4-year-old daughter and Jill is still working for the Family Planning program under the Department of Public Health in Massachusetts. Stevie works in the tech sector and is also pursuing music with her band, Six Times Seven, and a side project called “And Then There Was One.”

Nicole Macotsis Hefny is working hard to finish her MA in cultural sustainability from Goucher College, while teaching dance, doing cultural programming, and raising her son between Brooklyn and Egypt, as her husband has joined the Egyptian National Boxing Team after a several year hiatus.

That’s it for now. Please be sure to send any updates to Marcus and me.

Embarrassed by my paltry previous edition of class notes, I turned to the handy mass-email strategy of soliciting information—and boy, did you all respond! We have an abundance of news to share, so please make sure to go online to view those notes that didn’t fit in the printed magazine.

Sadly, I begin this edition with tragic news. Our classmate Michelle L. Salisbury passed away on Sunday, Nov. 9, 2014. Michelle worked at the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority as a senior project manager. She is survived by her husband, Jon D. Orris; mother, Judy Salisbury; grandfather, Edward M. Salisbury; brother, Brian E. (Cristen) Salisbury; and nieces, Elliote and Reilly.

In 2014 Sara Brenneis, published her book Genre Fusion: A New Approach to History, Fiction, and Memory in Contemporary Spain, welcomed her son Charlie in October, and achieved tenure in the Spanish department at Amherst College.

Nadia Khan also welcomed a son in October 2014: Iago Khan Martell. She and her husband, Hector, left the Bay Area for Austin, Texas. Hector works at Mell Lawrence Architects and Nadia is “‘working from home’ as I scheme up where to put my modern, sustainable architecture stamp moving forward.”

Anthony Veneziale and his partner welcomed their second child, Ociela, in 2014. Anthony partnered with Thomas Kail ’99, Lin-Manuel Miranda ’02, and Bill Sherman ’02) on a live improv rap show, Freestyle Love Supreme, that aired on Pivot. He also started a new show/company, Speechless, which gives improvised PowerPoint presentations and helps companies make better presentations on stage and on camera.

President Obama recognized Dave Lubell, executive director of Welcoming America, for their immigration integration efforts. In a Dec. 2014 event in Nashville, President Obama said, “David’s initiative is expanding across the country… This is what makes America exceptional. That we welcome strivers. We welcome dreamers from all around the world.”

Nadine Forrester Mills and husband Gregory welcomed daughter Angelique. Nadine was also inducted into the Middletown, Conn., Hall of Fame for her accomplishments in track and field.

In Paris, Becky Cohen is enjoying the semester abroad she never experienced. She, husband Jake and two daughters moved there from Boston last summer. Becky teaches at the Lycée International: “Jake is taking care of the homestead and finding more time for biking and art; the girls are immersed in French schools! It is a fantastic adventure, and we are trying to see as much as we can before heading home, either this summer or next!”

Dahlia Schweitzer is pursuing a PhD in cinema and media studies at UCLA. She published Cindy Sherman’s Office Killer: Another Kind of Monster, a book examining artist Cindy Sherman’s only film.

Also in LA, Guillermo Brown is working on his next music releases with his bands Pegasus Warming and Thiefs, with whom he’s touring.

Jessica Cortes hosted a Wesleyan Lawyers Association (WLA) cocktail event in New York at her firm, Davis & Gilbert, LLP. The event attracted approximately 40 alumni; see the group’s LinkedIn page for more information.

Lia Salza Goldstein encourages those in D.C. to visit the neighborhood art space for children that she calls Little Loft in Capitol Hill. A second location is about to open in Takoma Park, where Lia lives with her husband and three children.

Michael Sternhell and his wife expanded their family in Dec. 2014 with baby girl Iris Sternhell.

Georgia Silveria Seamans also welcomed a daughter, Colette, in March 2014. She encourages all in NYC to check out the projects she’s planning for Washington Square Park Ecology.

For the past 12 years, Amanda Green has taught film studies and English at Berkeley High School. When she’s not teaching or spending time with her husband and two children, Amanda finds time to teach jujitsu and aikido in nearby Oakland.

The faux bois furniture that Mike Christie-Fogg makes was recently featured in Architectural Digest and Traditional Home magazine. His furniture is distributed through David Sutherland.

Abe Forman-Greenwald is filling our FaceBook feeds with content as a video producer at BuzzFeed Video. His short videos have racked up more than 150 million views in total. Recently he’s been focusing on documentary shorts about subjects of identity and social justice. He tweets about his projects at @filmingdocs.

As founding VP of Operations, Tali Schmulovich is working to build Global Health Corps, a nonprofit developing a pipeline of leaders focused on global health. While she is based in New York, Tali has worked in Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi.

Laura Polania, a psychiatrist focusing on women’s mental health, has expanded her private practice to Brooklyn, where she lives. She keeps up with Christine Rizkalla, an emergency pediatric doctor, Rebecca Preiser, who’s finishing up her doctorate in clinical psychology, and Sarah Kless Seigel, who is practicing pediatrics.

Thanks to Instagram, I learned Penelope Linge and her family were vacationing on Maui at the same time I was. I loved having an unplanned Hawaiian get-together with my former Wes swimming teammate who’s now the CFO at HelloGiggles, an online community covering pop culture, love, friendship, style, and news.

Sourav Guha is back at Wes: a visiting instructor of government, teaching contemporary Indian politics. This follows earlier stints back on campus as assistant dean of admissions, institutional research associate, and assistant provost.

In Cairo, Jaime Nelson El-Helw opened FLOW Wellness Center, which offers activities for mothers to develop positive bonds with their children. She, her husband, Sherif El-Helw, and their three children return to New England every summer to visit Jaime’s family, including her grandfather, Ted Nelson ’41, who lives in Rhode Island.

Arshad Chowdhury and his wife, Anika, welcomed a baby boy to their family in Brooklyn. Arshad is CEO of an exercise app company, Power 20, and co-founder of Crowd Interactive, a Web development company.

As Director of Wesleyan’s Patricelli Center for Social Entrepreneurship, Makaela Kingsley inspires current Wes students to create projects and organizations that change the world for the better. She also gets to connect with classmates focused on social impact, including Amir Hasson, CEO of Oxigen USA and a serial social entrepreneur, and Rebecca Knight, who writes about business and will be presenting a business plan and pitch workshop for social entrepreneurs at Wesleyan during the spring semester. Of course, Makaela also spends time with husband Matt Kingsley, associate head coach of men’s basketball at Yale, and their children, Amelia and Eli.

Nathan Eddy, his wife Clare, and their two children, Mahalia and Elise, landed in Marylebone, London, in Aug, 2014. Nathan is pursuing a PhD in Hebrew Bible and Clare is serving as a minister in the Church of England.

Jessica Browning and her husband, Jerad, are busy with two daughters who arrived within the last year-and-a-half! Although sleep deprived, Jessica is hanging in there and is a college counselor at a K–12 school in Asheville, N.C.

David Schleifer is working with Chloe Rinehart ’14 at Public Agenda, where they conduct research on domestic policy issues including healthcare, education, and democratic participation.

In Brighton, England, Erica Nelson is an independent consultant on global public health projects, having completed a post-doc research fellowship in anthropology with the University of Amsterdam. She and husband Dylan Howitt have been in England since 2008. Their daughter Sylvie, 4, just started school in Sept, 2014.

Aimee Miles co-founded FOGG Theatre, a musical theatre company in San Francisco that commissions, develops, and produces musicals with a Bay Area focus. The company’s first musical, The Cable Car Nymphomaniac, enjoyed rave reviews and sold-out shows every night. Aimee also leads the education wing of the company, which offers performing arts programming and summer camps for kids. Aimee adds, “Thank you, Oddfellows Playhouse in Middletown, for all you taught me!”

Scott McCracken received a fellowship in the Academy of Wilderness Medicine. He will be teaching a course at UPenn in March.

In Cambridge, Mass., Nella Young runs a fellowship program that places architects with community development organizations through Enterprise Community Partners. She regularly bumps into Kirsten Von Trapp in Davis Square, where Nella lives with her husband and son.

David Greengrass and wife have a son, Ben, born June 2014. They live in D.C.; David works as a counsel on the House Judiciary Committee.

Joshua Steadman’s company, Videoo, is the technology behind a new campaign aiming to connect people through acts of love. The #Share1Love campaign will donate $1 to “charity: water” for every “random act of kindness or love” video uploaded.

Angela Pellegrino-Grant welcomed twins Lena and Silas Pellegrino-Grant in June 2014.

MARCUS CHUNG | marcuschung98@gmail.com

Jason Becton | jcxbecton@yahoo.com

Hello, Class of ’98! We have just a few updates this round, so please send me or Jason your news if you’d like to be included in the next installment.

In February 2015, Kate Wetherhead will be releasing a book she co-wrote with her collaborator Andrew Keenan-Bolger. The book is titled Jack & Louisa: Act 1 and is the first in a three-book series for Penguin Young Readers Group.

In June, Meredith Hoffa and husband Nick ’97 expanded their family with the addition of Bo Hoffa. Meredith writes, “I am really, really into him.”

I had the chance to catch up with Sarah Margon while in Washington, D.C., for a meeting with the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety. While Sarah caught me up on her great work with Human Rights Watch, we ran into Amanda Bowker, who was a few tables away! Amanda had just moved into a new home and was enjoying the summer with her husband, Dave, and two daughters.

That’s it for this round … short and sweet!

MARCUS CHUNG | marcuschung98@gmail.com 

Jason Becton | jcxbecton@yahoo.com