Tag: 2005

As one of the founders of Child Care for Connecticut, Izzi (Autumn) Greenberg shared the exciting news that her organization was able to pass transformative, first-in-the-nation, childcare legislation in the Connecticut legislature in its 2025 session.

Ethan Leinwand is working as a blues pianist, performer, and advocate in St. Louis, where he serves on the board of directors for the Scott Joplin International Ragtime Foundation.

Ben Shestakofsky and family have moved from Philadelphia to Ithaca, New York. Ben is now an assistant professor of information science at Cornell. 

Luke Snelling married Kathryn McKinley in Sonoma, California, surrounded by Wesleyan folks, including best man Philip Cortes ’06 and Casey Wilson ’06, who gave a blessing at the wedding. Ben Flynn ’03 and William Shaw were also in attendance. Luke writes, “I also brought Kathryn to Wesleyan for Reunion, where it was fun to row with some members of the crew and celebrate the life of David Wyant by dedicating a shell in his honor. It was also fun to visit WESU and reminisce with Eli Schned about our time on air.”

Lodro Rinzler continues to write books about and teach meditation from his very old home in upstate New York, where he lives with his wife and toddler. The three of them recently met up with David Delcourt for a lovely romp while spending a month in Scotland.

Katie Walsh had a ball with the Class of 2005, dancing the night away in Club Hewitt at our 20-year reunion (still got it!). She is still in Los Angeles, working as film critic for the Tribune News Service, and is the vice president of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. 

David Rood-Ojalvo married Alice Buttrick on June 28, 2025, in Mahopac, New York. Rachel Pecker officiated. Vivian Rood-Ojalvo, one, attended, as well as 22 graduates of Wesleyan.

Liz (Beedy) Wendorf has three kids and lives in Massachusetts, teaching high school math and running her hemp farm and CBD business, Windy Village Wellness, alongside her husband, Matt. Dancing until the wee hours with her fellow ’05ers at Reunion was a highlight of the year so far.

Marcus Bach-Armas also writes that most special moment of the last few years was probably having fun at Reunion with his fellow ’05ers.

Andrés Méndez-Peñate is enjoying life teaching Spanish in the Boston area and hanging with his eight-year-old, Diego.

Doro Globus is the publisher at David Zwirner Books, the publishing arm of one of the world’s leading commercial art galleries. She also writes children’s books celebrating creative careers. Her upcoming series, It Takes a Team, will launch in 2026 with We Made a Song and We Made a Movie, published by Bloomsbury. Doro lives in London with her husband and their two children, Tristan (10) and Thea (six).

Emily Pfeiffer-Russell lives in Bakersfield, California, with her spouse, Ed, who is an agricultural scientist in the citrus industry, and their two sons, Henry (nine-and-a-half) and George (six-and-a-half). Emily helps junior high students in the resource specialist program with their academics. The ’05 Reunion was a definite highlight of the year, including the sad, but beautiful tree dedication memorial service held for Jesse Brenner, aka “The Bizzle.”

Ben Popper recently attended our 20th Reunion and danced his face off. Since then, he started a new role as director of content marketing at Writer and is eager to connect with anyone interested in AI agents.

Jenny Mariaschin-Rudin and Rachel (Morris) Bruce ’03 ran into each other at their synagogue B’nai Jeshurun, on the Upper West Side and realized they were not only Wes alumni, but also were in the Mazeltones together! They have happily reconnected, and their children make mayhem and music together on Shabbat. Jenny has a private psychotherapy and neurodiversity consulting practice, and Rachel is an ER attending. 

David Delcourt writes, “I’m stillrunning my hot sauce company, Seed Ranch Flavor Co. (and sister brand GrownAs Foods), out in Boulder, Colorado. We have a delicious sauce featured on this season of Hot Ones. . . . So far, Owen Wilson, Dakota Johnson, Aaron Paul, and Adam Levine have loved it! The aches and pains of 20 years out of college haven’t kept me from keeping in touch with Ben Brown, Will Conkling, Teek Thaker, Tom Facelle, Rodney Solomon, and Lodro Paul Rinzler.”

Jeremy Paul is now working at Oberlin College—the Wesleyan of the Great Lakes—as their dance production coordinator.

Amy Crawford recently joined the team at global music and sound company MassiveMusic and is still based in NYC with kids (ages three and five) who are loving every minute.

Adam Smiley Poswolsky loved 20th Reunion so much he decided to volunteer to be our class secretary! Reunion highlights were MGMT karaoke in WestCo, dancing in Club Hewitt, and celebrating the life of his best friend Jesse Brenner. Email your class notes to aposwolsky@gmail.com.

Hello, ’05ers! Some news from classmates:

Andréas Ibrahim is part of a collective of artists and curators from Palestine and Gaza that have organized the Gaza Biennale. It is an exceptional event, reinventing the rules of art exhibition and production. It is also a challenge to art institutions worldwide to partner with the Biennale, to present work that engages with the forefront of our collective experience. The project has already received attention all over the world and was reported on by The Guardian, Hyperallergic, Artnet, and many more news outlets. For more information, please email info@gazabiennale.org.

Rachel Schreiber and her husband welcomed their first son, Bailey, into the world in June 2024. He is giggly and curious and has his parents wrapped around his tiny finger. The family lives in Washington, D.C., where Rachel is a fundraiser for the local Planned Parenthood.

Ben Shestakofsky’s book, Behind the Startup: How Venture Capital Shapes Work, Innovation, and Inequality,has been published by the University of California Press. The book has been reviewed in The New York Times and Los Angeles Review of Books.

Finally, Marcella Winearls has retired as your class secretary. Many thanks to Marcella for her work keeping you connected to each other and to Wesleyan. If you would like to volunteer to be your new class secretary, please send an email to classnotes@wesleyan.edu.

Marcus Bach Armas remains in Miami but has transitioned into public service after more than a decade as a senior executive with the Miami Dolphins and Hard Rock Stadium. After a successful election in 2022, Marcus now serves as a Miami-Dade County Court judge and is currently assigned to the criminal division. Despite this career change, Marcus continues to serve as founding board member of the Dolphins Cancer Challenge, which has raised more than $76 million for cancer research in South Florida since its inception in 2010 and is now the largest charitable fundraiser in the NFL. 

Kate Greathead says, “I dream I’m back at Wesleyan maybe once every two weeks, and I’m always a little sad when I wake up. My second novel, The Book of George, [published] on October 8. It’s about a guy who goes to a fictional Wesleyan and his life afterward. Maybe you’ll recognize yourself in it? Just kidding, it’s (almost) all made up.”

After spending a decade and a half in the South (New Orleans and North Carolina), Bay Love now lives back home in Maine with his partner, Chloe, and a half-time, shared-custody Chihuahua. Bay has been heavily invested in building an organization called The Groundwater Institute, devoted to combining the traditions of social and racial justice movements with power business and strategy consulting. Generally worried of the state of the larger world, but content with his immediate one, he’s loved (re)connecting with more and more amazing Wes colleagues through work and life—and is looking forward to more of it.

Jeremy May writes, “I’ve been living in Oakland, California, for the past seven years and am raising two boys, Magnus (nine) and Solomon (six). When I’m not working as an oral surgeon, I enjoy gardening, skateboarding, and spending time with family!”

Laura McMillan lives in New Haven, Connecticut, in walking distance of several alum friends and directs the communications and marketing team at an environmental nonprofit. She spends time on three small nieces, one grouchy cat, four dozen houseplants, and her podcast, $2 Creature Feature, in its third season of collaborative storytelling. She’s still riding the high of last year’s 40th-birthday trip to Arizona with Karen Courtheoux, Hillary Rubesin, Caitlin Swain-McSurely, and Cory Simon-Nobes, and seeing the eclipse with Matthew Montesano, plus Lauren Kirchner ’03, John Cusick, Adam Read-Brown, Daniella Schmidt, and Evan Simko-Bednarski!

Jeremy Paul and Faye Hargate (Bowdoin ’04) welcomed their first son, Elwyn Archimedes Hargate Paul, into the world in November 2023. The whole family is doing great in Cleveland. Professionally, Jeremy recently became the resident technical director with Dobama Theatre, in addition to still being the executive artistic director of Maelstrom Collaborative Arts and part-time faculty at the Cleveland Institute of Music, which is a long way to say he doesn’t have employer-provided health care. 

Adam “Smiley” Poswolsky recently caught up with Rich Gibbons ’87, president of SpeakInc, when Rich booked Smiley to keynote the Greater Public’s Public Media Development and Marketing Conference in San Diego. Adam is the author of Friendship in the Age of Loneliness and a top keynote speaker on workplace culture, belonging, and the future of work. Rich has been a speaking agent for over three decades and is the past president of the International Association of Speakers Bureaus (IASB). Despite graduating from Wesleyan just a few years apart, Rich and Smiley loved chatting about all things public speaking, NPR, and Foss Hill.  

Jesse Phillippi is now living in London, where she recently finished directing, dramaturging, and co-producing the musical comedy cabaret A Stan Is Born! The show previewed at Soho Theatre before a run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August and then to Camden People’s Theatre at the end of September 2024.

Leland Smith pandemic-moved to Denton, Texas, to be closer to in-laws. He has a 10-acre farm with horses, chickens, and sheep, and two boys to (eventually) help mow it. He is still working on USAID programs and moved to a new firm where he now gets to work with Nora Connor ’07.

News from several ’05ers:

Kate Mitchell shared,“I’m now working for Arabella Advisors doing fiscal sponsorship work. Still living in Durham with my three-and-a-half-year-old, Ivy, and our mischievous cat, Rue.” 

Tim Von Hollweg has been working as the director of operations of New York City’s appetizing legend Russ & Daughters alongside Emily Cintron ’04, who is the company’s director of communications. Tim also recently had a mini-Wesleyan reunion with Philip Marmon-Halm, Zach Hall, Jorge T. Torres ’04, Dave Sohn ’04, and Dan Timmeny ’04 in New York City. 

Katie Walsh lives in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, where she works as a film critic, podcast host, and moderator around town. She was recently elected vice president of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. 

Brielle Rey traveled to San Diego to spend a few sunny days with Sam White and Anna Talman. They next plan to get together this summer at Sam’s place in Montana with Ruth Chaffee, where their four eight-year-olds will unite to take over the world. Brielle also had a long-awaited reunion with roommate Katie Hodel in Charlotte—it has been 19 years, but Katie looked exactly the same! 

Anay Shah wrote,“After spending the last decade working in financial inclusion across numerous emerging markets, I have returned to the climate crisis.” He and his co-founder have launched an early-stage venture capital fund called Stepchange, investing in entrepreneurs who aim to make a “step change” impact on the climate. Anay still lives in Los Angeles with his wife and young son.

Doro Globus has just published her second children’s book in the How Art Works series. I Am an Artist is structured around a tour of an artists’ studio complex, the book introduces readers to street artists, ceramicists, conceptual artists, textile artists, photographers, glassblowers, and more! The artists share their working spaces and their techniques while explaining why they make art. Doro’s first publication, Making a Great Exhibition, published in 2021, was acclaimed by The New York Times for “demystifying the art world and making it accessible to budding young artists.” 

Nora Bowman contributed,“My husband, Paul, and I welcomed a baby boy, named James, in October 2023. He made his first trip to Wesleyan in January for the Amy Posocco ’04 memorial/tribute basketball game and brought some joy to a very bittersweet day celebrating Amy’s life with the women’s basketball community.”

Finally, we received the news that Jesse Brenner passed away on April 24, 2024. Sivan Cotel wrote: “We sadly lost Jesse Brenner in April. Jesse had a brilliant mind and touched the lives of many. Eric Herman, Adam “Smiley” Poswolsky, Julia Lerman, Adam Tuck, Jenna St. Martin, Dave Ahl, Raquel Gutierrez, Greg Morril, Gabe Prager, Tacuma Bradley ’04, Andrew Aprile ’06, and I joined Jesse’s family to celebrate his life. A remembrance ceremony will be held during Wesleyan’s 2025 reunion.”

Naomi Goldenson contributed, “I’ve moved to Montreal to start a job as the director of the World Climate Research Program (WCRP) Regional Information for Society (RIFS) International Project Office. Quite a mouthful, so you start to understand why there are so many acronyms. I’ll miss seeing Sarah Weigle and family around Seattle, but excited to explore and try to catalyze research to inform regional decision-making.”

Ché Landon, who lives in Los Angeles with their wife, Kiki, has been working at Amazon MGM Studios for the past two years as the lead DEIA creative executive for Prime Video U.S. Movies and Sports Original Series. Their purview recently expanded to include EU Local Original Series and Movies. They traveled to London on assignment in January to implement country specific diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives across EU content and production slates. 

Delilah Lora wrote, “I was promoted to head of Upper School at New York City independent school The Cathedral School of St. John the Divine.”

Lodro Rinzler and his wife, Adreanna, welcomed their daughter, Ruby, into their lives in June 2023. Lodro continues to write books and teach Buddhism from their home in upstate New York. 

David Rood-Ojalvo lives in Rockaway Beach, Queens, where he and his partner, Alice Buttrick, were expecting the birth of their first child in January 2024.

It has been an eventful couple of years for Liz Andrews. She moved to Atlanta, Georgia, in the summer of 2021 to become the director of the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art. This fall, two exhibitions that she co-curated are on national tours: Black American Portraits, at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, and Silver Linings: Celebrating the Spelman Art Collection, beginning at the Vassar College Loeb Art Center. She also edited and wrote for Black American Portraits: https://delmonicobooks.com/book/black-american-portraits/.  In the fall of 2022, she eloped with her honey, Brian J. Brown, and they welcomed baby Polaris in March 2023.

Katie Walsh lives in Highland Park, Los Angeles, where she works as a film critic for the Tribune News Service and LA Times, hosts a podcast about Miami Vice, and moderates Q&As around town.

Wesleyan lacrosse repressed in the 35-plus division at the Lake Placid Summit Classic with Matt Wheeler, Chris Mele ’04, Brian Adams ’04, Glenn Adams ’06, Dan Ackil ’04, Connor Wilson ’04, Gabe Kelly ’11, Chris Jasinski ’08, Trevor Adams ’09, Jeff McLaren ’06, Zach Stanton ’98, and Mike Vitulano ’06 in attendance.

Jake Orlowitz is living happily in the Santa Cruz Mountains with his 13-year-old, unschooled botanist-daughter and 3-year-old maniac toddler. He runs WikiBlueprint, a Wikipedia open knowledge consulting company working with nonprofits, publishers, and museums on public education and outreach strategy. He Kickstarted his mental health book, Welcome to the Circle, and is slowly working on a sequel.

Lodro Rinzler and his wife, Adreanna, welcomed baby Ruby Alex Rinzler on June 8 of this year. The middle name is in memory of our classmate and beloved friend Alex Okrent who passed in 2012.

This year Delilah Lora became the head of Upper School at The Cathedral School of St. John the Divine in New York City. Additionally, she and her partner, Luis, got engaged this summer in Curaçao on her 40th birthday.

Natalia Ortiz accepted a new position at the NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development in the Teaching and Learning Department as a clinical assistant professor and the director of the Office of School and Community Partnership. She will be working side by side with Heather Homonoff Woodley ’02.

Heather Olins is starting her seventh year as faculty in the Biology Department at Boston College. She dedicates much of her energy to finding ways to teach about climate change that are empowering and hopeful for her students. She also co-leads her seven-year-old’s Girl Scout troop, and has been doing a lot of art when not teaching or parenting.

Miriam Gottfried and her husband, Trevor Williams, welcomed their first child, a daughter, on July 22. They named the baby Emily after Miriam’s mom who died 10 years ago. Miriam, Trevor, and Emily live in South Slope, Brooklyn, around the corner from fellow 2005er Blake Maybeck, who they often run into on the street.

This year, in recognition of Tony Alleyne’s work with his college-access nonprofit, Delaware College Scholars, he was selected as a 2023 Doritos/PepsiCo Foundation Black Changemaker. The program officially expanded to Charlotte, North Carolina, as well, and now has served over 500 scholars. His family is also growing and they will be welcoming their fifth child in September. Also he had a great time reunited with Fabrice Coles and Quincy Francis ’06 in D.C. this past spring.

Please write your class secretary.

Please write your class secretary.