CLASS OF 2003 | 2023 | FALL ISSUE

After 20-plus years in educational theater, Andrea (Wilson) McCoy recently joined the mass exodus of public school teachers to take on a new position as head of children’s services for a town library. Although it’s an adjustment not having summers off, she’s enjoying a better work-life balance with her spouse, two kids, and two dogs.

Leslie Spencer, née Burns, and her family of four—Izaac, Reid (11), and Cole (8)—had an amazing July in Costa Rica! They met every monkey and swam in every waterfall.

Matt Kushner just marked his two-year anniversary at Illuminarium Experiences, where he was recently promoted to director of software. In addition to Atlanta and Las Vegas venues, a new Illuminarium opened in Toronto at the end of the summer, a joint venture with Secret Location. More venues are on the horizon, both nationally and internationally, at the end of 2023 and into 2024. Meanwhile, Lauren Kushner (Brown ’04) continues to enhance the American Museum of Natural History’s museum experience with her animations, most recently in the brand-new Gilder Center where the insect interactives she collaborated on are featured. Kids, Mimi and Tessa, are thriving, enjoying summer camp, and ready to enter third and first grade respectively in the fall.

Ryan Garbalosa was recently honored with the Hilton P. Terrell Teacher of the Year Award by the McLeod Residency Program for his dedication to medical education. In May he teamed up with Greg Ferrucci and Carmen Carrillo to make the trek back to Wes for the 20th Reunion, making sure to visit their old rooms at La Casa and reminisce on the hill with fellow ’03ers. Along for the ride was wife, Lucy Garbalosa, and soon-to-be-born Rafael R. Garbalosa, making his first of many trips to Wesleyan!

George Obulutsa is still going strong as a journalist at Reuters News based in Nairobi.

CLASS OF 2003 | 2023 | SUMMER ISSUE

After 15 years in Boston, Samantha (Gillombardo) Larson and her family relocated to her hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, in July 2021. Samantha started a home organizing business in Holliston in 2018 and has recently reopened in Shaker Heights! In March 2021, she, Emily Teitsworth, and their families reunited in southern Arizona for a visit punctuated by hiking, swimming, admiring Saguaro cacti, and consuming record-breaking amounts of guacamole. It was perfect.

Left to right: Ruby, Brian, and Myles Larson, Jai Sheoran, Emily Teitsworth, and Samantha Larson in Saguaro National Park.

John Graham lives with his family in Tbilisi. They welcomed a third child, Ilian Diasamidze-Graham, into the family. John is running a tourism company featuring hiking and cultural tours in Georgia, Armenia, Turkey, and Ethiopia; www.JohnGrahamTours.com.

While she still tries to think of herself as a New Yorker, Coe Will Hoeksema is back in her hometown of Hartford after living in Brooklyn for 17 years. She left her NYC architectural marketing job and joined a tech firm based out of San Francisco that focuses on knowledge management for architecture firms. She and her husband Craig work remotely and spend their limited free time fixing up their 115-year-old house and chasing after their three sons, Owen Calder (7), Luca Sinclair (5), and Eliot Wilder (2). She welcomes Wes friends to reach out if you’re ever passing through Hartford, there’s plenty of room for guests!

After two-and-a-half years of training, Ariana Mufson recently earned her AASECT certification (American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists) as a sex therapist and is proud to add CST (certified sex therapist) to her credentials. She works as a psychotherapist in private practice out of Newton and Brookline, Massachusetts.

CLASS OF 2003 | 2023 | SPRING ISSUE

George Obulutsa is still going strong at Reuters news in Nairobi, where he works as a breaking news correspondent for Sub-Saharan Africa.

Tejas Desai’s latest novel The Dance Towards Death has won 12 literary honors. Despite being hit by an inattentive driver while on his “Road Trip across America” in May 2022, he has continued work on his latest book, Bad Americans (The Human Tragedy, Volume 2). During his research, he has received valuable assistance from many Wes alumni from across the world. Among others, Rachel Luria gave him a tour of the Hamptons; Bianca Sultana called him from Brazil to provide the inside dope on the NYC modeling world; and Vanessa Levine-Smith ’04 has advised him from Michigan on the rigors of social work. He’s deeply appreciative of this feedback and knows more Wes buddies will aid him in developing a great fifth book!

I’m looking forward to our 20th Reunion this spring and hope to see many of you there!

CLASS OF 2003 | 2022 | FALL ISSUE

Kate Reder Sheikh lives in San Francisco with her husband and two kids (future Wesleyan grads?). She is a partner at Major, Lindsey & Africa and a member of Chief.

Kate Standish just moved with her family back to Managua, Nicaragua. She continues working for Boston University in the Family Medicine Department (mostly remotely), doing clinical and health services research on breastfeeding among high-risk and underserved populations, as well as clinical breastfeeding medicine. Her son Noah is seven years old.

Anna Seastrand will be spending the academic year (2022–23) as a fellow in garden and landscape studies at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., working on her second book, Trees and the Ecologies of Sacred Art in Southern India. She’d love to catch up with anyone in the area.

Ryan Garbalosa has been elected to the Board of Trustees of the South Carolina Medical Association representing his district. He still currently serves as the chief of medicine at Prisma Health Tuomey hospital in Sumter, South Carolina, and was named “Best Cardiologist” in Sumter County for 2022 in the annual “Best of Sumter” awards hosted by the Sumter Item recognizing professionals in the area.

Ami Boghani has been living and writing in Los Angeles since 2018. She’s currently working on a to-be-announced DreamWorks show that will air on Apple TV next year.

Matt Kushner has been working as the head of VFX Technology for the past year at Illuminarium Experiences, an immersive entertainment company based in Atlanta. Matt has worked on Wild (an African safari show) that premiered in summer 2021, Space (an outer-space show) that premiered in summer 2022, and has helped integrate a Georgia O’Keeffe retrospective and Waking Wonderland, a narrative Alice in Wonderland sequel. Illuminarium also opened a second location in Las Vegas’s Area 15 in spring 2022, which is a haven for immersive content. Matt still lives in Jersey City and works mostly remotely for Illuminarium. Lauren Kushner (Brown ’04) is still working at the American Museum of Natural History and is in the process of building interactive AR content for an insectarium that will be part of a brand-new wing to the museum. Kids Mimi (seven) and Tessa (four and a half) will be entering second grade and kindergarten respectively in the fall.

CLASS OF 2003 | 2022 | SPRING ISSUE

Joey Wender left Capitol Hill after working there for nearly 13 years and started as director of the Capital Projects Fund at the Department of Treasury, working to ensure all communities have access to high-quality, affordable broadband. Joey also continues to enjoy his frequent conversations with Adam Lachman, who, as a longtime staffer for Senator Angus King, helped create this connectivity program.

Emily Teitsworth recently became the executive director of the Honnold Foundation, supporting community-based solar energy access around the world. She lives in Oakland, California, with her partner, two stepkids, and son Jai, who turned one in January. She’d love for any Wes alums working in renewable energy to reach out!

Bayard Templeton and his wife Alex welcomed their second child, Jamie, to their family on February 4th. Issie (8) is excited to be a big sister.

Alexander Yellen and his wife Kelli McNeil-Yellen have had a busy year, buying their first home in LA and recently wrapping their first feature together, an indie road trip movie called Daruma, starring two lead actors with disabilities in a story that is not about disability.

Tejas Desai reconnected with a few old Wes friends, including Jessica Stewart, who recently moved to NYC from San Francisco, and went to a Mets game with Bayard Templeton. He performed a musical version of his novel, The Run and Hide, in the New York City subway system with Blues Hall of Famer/Tampa Bay Lightning Fiddler Greg Holt, aided by a City Artist Corp grant in partnership with MTA’s Musical under New York Program; the virtual version was broadcast on the Queens Public Library’s Facebook Live platform. His latest book, The Dance Towards Death, won a Pencraft Award for Literary Excellence and was a bronze medalist in the Readers’ Favorite International Book Contest. He completed the first draft of his new book, Bad Americans, fulfilling his New Year’s resolution, at a whopping 300,000 words in length. He’s currently revising it.

I am very sorry to be sharing the sad news that Daniel Moger passed on March 13, 2022, due to complications from COVID-19 and an underlying blood condition. He is survived by his wife Julie and daughter Georgina. Daniel was a former U.S. Treasury Department official and most recently Asia Pacific Sanctions director for Citibank. In Dan’s memory, his family asks to consider gifts to OutRight Action International in support of human rights and dignity of LGBTIQ people everywhere, and Phillips Academy where donations will be directed to supporting disadvantaged students. I extend my sincerest condolences to Daniel’s family and friends.

(Editor’s note: Daniel’s mother, Angela Moger, was the first woman employed in the professional Wesleyan administration (1969) as the University entered co-education. Ms. Moger was also an adjunct professor of French during the several years she was at Wesleyan.)  

CLASS OF 2003 | 2021–2022 | WINTER ISSUE

Michael Lewis and his husband, David Scott, adopted a baby boy, George Scott Lewis, earlier this year. They have enjoyed bonding with him by taking long walks around their neighborhood in Berkeley and a few road trips around California.

     Matt Kushner has been slowly emerging from the cocoon of isolation with Lauren Kushner (Brown ’04) and kids Mimi (6) and Tessa (3.5). Matt has been freelancing at Radical Media as the head of pipeline/CG supervisor on a new immersive theater experience called Illuminarium (www.illuminarium.com) whose first show, Wild, premieres on the Atlanta Beltline in July. He’s also excited to have been a small part of Lin-Manuel Miranda‘s ’02 In the Heights, getting to do some visual effects on the film adaptation, now in theaters. Lauren is a staff CG artist at the Museum of Natural History in NYC, where she created 3D and 2D screen content for the renovation of the Gems and Minerals exhibit, which opened in June. Mimi is completing a year of virtual kindergarten, while Tessa is finishing home preschool, and both are excited to attend in-person summer programs and first grade and pre-K in the fall. Matt and family are looking forward to re-engaging in the world, and attending some mini-Wes reunions this summer.

CLASS OF 2003 | 2021 | ISSUE 1

Dr. Merissa Blais lives in Old Greenwich, Connecticut with her husband and two kids. She has an orthodontic practice  in Scarsdale, New York, seeing both children and adults.

      Amy and Tom Hodgman are living their best 2020–2021 life stuck inside their home in Evanston, Illinois with their two kids (Quinn, 7 and Sam, 9) and two dogs (Nesta and Frank). Lately Tom has taken to snowblowing not only his own driveway and front walk but also the entire alley and half of the street. He offsets his fossil fuel usage by working at The Nature Conservancy. Amy runs a bustling tutoring business while also monitoring the kids while they remote school and cooking delicious dinners that her children refuse to eat. Both Amy and Tom feel like most of their time is spent either walking their dogs or telling their children to turn their iPads off. On a positive note, there has been a lot of forced family fun time camping, hiking, swimming and skiing in Michigan. Go Cardinals!

     Tim, Jessica, Lius (9), and Josie (7) Harrington are moving from the Bay Area to Ann Arbor, Michigan to be closer to Jessica’s family. Tim continues to practice corporate law at Google and Jessica remains in marketing. Hit them up if you’re in the area!

     Jessica Ely and her husband Will Carter moved to Arlington, Massachusetts last year, and they welcomed their new baby, Carly, on November 7. Back in Boston she’s been running into lots of Wes alums in the area, including Megan Crowe-Rothstein at daycare pickups.

     Jules Jones has been living and writing movies in Poland for the past three years. She’s embarking on her directorial debut, a self-authored psychological horror flick, in winter of 2021 if Pandemia allows. She still plays rock music, although she hasn’t seen her band Pop-up Books in person since March of 2020.

CLASS OF 2003 | 2020 | ISSUE 3

Matt Sienkiewicz is an associate professor and chair of the Communication Department at Boston College. He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts, with his wife, Carrie Benedon, his son Leon (four), his daughter Dottie (one), and his mother Faye.

James Burke and his partner Hilary welcomed their third son, Charlie, in May of this year. Older brothers Monroe and George appear to have accepted the newcomer. James runs the Client Success team of a (former) fintech start-up, acquired by Nasdaq earlier this year shortly before the world fell to pieces.

Ben Rhatigan still lives in Barcelona and is heading up a brand strategy agency, and finally got married to his Spanish husband.

Cara Herbitter recently completed a PhD in clinical psychology at the University of Massachusetts Boston. They started a postdoctoral research/clinical fellowship at VA Boston Healthcare System focused on the intersection of sexual and gender minority stress, trauma, and substance use. Cara lives in Jamaica Plain with their wife, Xiomara Lorenzo ’05, who is a director on the digital strategy team at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts. Cara and Xiomara remain grateful for connections to other Wes alum near and far—since everyone is just a Zoom call away.

The third volume of Tejas Desai’s international crime trilogy The Brotherhood Chronicle: The Dance Towards Death, was published on September 16, 2020 and became a #1 Amazon Bestseller on its 

opening day. His short story collection Good Americans (2013) was an Award Finalist in the 2020 Readers’ Favorite International Book Awards Content in the Fiction-Urban category and has experienced revived interest due to the political situation. During the toughest months of the pandemic in NYC, he was privy to many of its harsh realities since his mother is an essential worker at Elmhurst Hospital Center, the worst hit hospital in Queens. He hopes to use this and other experiences, observations and anecdotes while writing the anthology sequel to Good Americans (The Human Tragedy, Vol. 1), tentatively titled Bad Americans.

Mayuran Tiruchelvam was appointed the George and Judy Marcus Endowed Chair in Social Justice Fiction Filmmaking at San Francisco State University. He made the cross-country move in August. In addition to teaching, he supports grassroots social justice movements, with an emphasis on stopping the growth of armed white supremacist groups.

Amy Tannenbaum Gottlieb | atannenbaum@wesleyan.edu

CLASS OF 2003 | 2020 | ISSUE 2

Jacob A. Bennett recently earned his PhD in higher education leadership and policy studies from the University of New Hampshire. The next steps are unclear given the uncertainty at most colleges and universities these days, but Jacob and his wife, Charlotte, are happily awaiting the arrival of their third daughter due to join big sisters Eloise (4) and Ruby (2) in September.

George Obulutsa is still going strong in Nairobi, Kenya, where he is working as a journalist for Thomson Reuters News.

Larisa Buck is a hospitalist in San Antonio at UT Health. Her husband, Shannon, is a dermatologist and Mohs surgeon in the U.S. Air Force. Last fall, Larisa finally took Shannon to see Wesleyan, which was fun to see after all these years and was a little different than his alma mater—the United States Air Force Academy! The best part of the trip was catching up with great friends and fellow Wesleyan alumni Christopher and Austin Walsh, Rob Mitchell ’06, and Katy and Robbie Botta ’05.

Christopher Walsh and Austin Horne Walsh welcomed a baby girl, Cora Belle Walsh, on May Day! Cora was born on her late grandfather’s birthday, bringing lots of happiness to everyone amidst the pandemic.

Bayard Templeton is finishing his 17th year of teaching, having spent the last 13 years teaching middle school history and health and wellness, as well as coaching at Germantown Academy in the Philadelphia suburbs. He has served as the head advisor for three different classes as they cycle through the middle school. He was featured as part of the cover story in the spring 2020 issue of Teaching Tolerance magazine about utilizing young adult versions of history texts in middle school classrooms.

John Graham and family are weathering pandemic times in Tbilisi, Georgia. The cultural-tourism sector has collapsed in the short term, so John is focused on promoting unique private tour opportunities in the Caucasus and Ethiopia regions beginning in 2021. Meanwhile, he spends more time with two growing kids and with his academic publishing projects.

Ryan Garbalosa was elected as the chief of medicine for Tuomey Hospital in Sumter, S.C.  He was also named the Best Cardiologist in Sumter County for 2020 in the annual Best of Sumter awards hosted by the Sumter Item, recognizing professionals in the area. He continues to serve as the medical director of the cardiac rehabilitation and echocardiography departments at McLeod Clarendon Hospital.

Amy Tannenbaum Gottlieb | atannenbaum@wesleyan.edu