Tag: 2005

Please write to your class secretary.

Ben Shestakofsky and Isheh Beck welcomed baby Milo into their family in January. They will be moving to Philadelphia this summer. Ben teaches sociology at Penn, and Isheh will be opening a private practice in clinical psychology.

Cathy Pyenson and Jonathan McKinney ’04 gave birth to Hudson Avery McKinney in April! He has been sporting his Wesleyan onesie thanks to Molly Greenberg, and his first (distanced) visitors included Molly and Ellie Terry.

A week after local shelter-in-place orders went into effect, Alexander Rich became a partner at Carter Momsen PC, a five-attorney law firm located in Mendocino County, Calif. His practice focuses on estate planning and administration, as well as general civil litigation. Alexander has also been mentoring two boys in a program for students who will be the first in their families to go to college. After five years in the program, his boys are now on the verge of graduating from high school, though given the current state of the world, it is hard to say what their experience will be like this fall.

In May, Nathan Victoria became the inaugural executive director and CEO for the Society for Personality Assessment, a nonprofit focused on advancing the theory, research, and applied practice of personality assessment. Many thanks to his Wes colleagues Alexis May, and Amy ’07 and Kevin Egolf for their insight into making this leap outside of higher ed and student affairs!

Maggie and Eli Brown ’04 had their third baby, a boy, in June. They have a 6-year-old son, Sebastian, and a 3-year-old daughter, Simone, already. They live in Nyack, N.Y. Eli is an ER doctor in the local hospital, Nyack Montefiore. Maggie is an assistant principal at a K-2 elementary school in a nearby district. They send their love to all.

Katie Walsh is living and working in Highland Park, Los Angeles, where she is a film critic for the Tribune News Service and LA Times. She contributes to Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone, as well as other publications, and can be heard on KCRW’s Press Play, and on the Maximum Fun podcast, Switchblade Sisters. She also teaches a class, Practices of Writing About Film, at Chapman University in Orange County.

During the hand sanitizer shortage in the early days of the coronavirus outbreak, Sivan Cotel ’05, MA ’06 coordinated a coalition of three distilleries, a kombucha company, and the University of Vermont Health Network (of which he is a board trustee) to produce thousands of gallons of hand sanitizer. Working with Vermont Governor Phil Scott’s office, the Health Network was able to distribute sanitizer to hospitals and first responders all around Vermont, New Hampshire, and Northern New York.

Todd and Adam Stone are excited to share that their web series Going Both Ways has received laurels from five different festivals and competitions! They are very proud of them and could not have created Going Both Ways without the support of their network (GoingBothWaysShow.com).

I have to share the sad news that one of our classmates, Andrew Stuerzel, passed away suddenly in April. Andrew worked at Wesleyan for 10 years in various positions in admission, the advancement office, and University Relations. It’s always heartbreaking to hear of a classmate who passed away too soon. Give your loved ones an extra hug today and let us support one another in whatever ways we can.

Marcella Winearls | marcellawinearls@gmail.com

Captain Jesse Sommer is deployed to Afghanistan with the U.S. Army’s 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne).

Stephanie Marcus and Jon Shestakofsky welcomed their own Wes baby, Theo, in November 2018. Last August they celebrated their five-year wedding anniversary. They have been living in Cooperstown, N.Y., for four years. Steph is an elementary art teacher and Jon is VP of communications and education at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

Marcella Winearls | marcellawinearls@gmail.com

Nick Myers has spectacularly exited the corporate consulting world to work on opening an experiential, immersive gallery and bar space in Seattle devoted to his travels to off the beaten path locations around the world. He has the undying love and support from his besties Katie Walsh, Jackie Noh, and Anna Brown, who all continue to be spectacularly accomplished and fabulous women.

Kevin Egolf is continuing his impact investing career journey with a new company, The Capital Good Fund, while concurrently developing his own impact finance consulting firm, Trellis Capital L3C. The Good Fund is a Providence, R.I., based community development financial institution and Kevin now has a handful of social enterprise clients with Trellis. He has found a wonderful niche industry combining his finance career with businesses and organizations that are making positive social and environmental changes. He likes to remind folks that you can vote with your wallet and your investment account.

Bonnie Loshbaugh lives in Seattle with her husband and their 3-year-old. She says, “I’ve been training in martial arts for over a decade (in close company with Tyler LePard ’00), got my brown belt in kajukenbo last December, and am teaching regularly as well as mentoring new students in the art. Black belt is on the horizon!

“I published my first historical sports romance this spring under the pen name Irene Davis—I’m doing a series called The Whitford Crew, following eight heroes who rowed together at a small college on the Connecticut River in the 1880s (see if you can guess where I got that idea from). Book one, Anyone But the Earl, involves a sibling’s best friend, insurance fraud, and Victorian flower language. The next book, Head Over Wheels, will be out next spring and includes bicycle polo, Emily Dickinson, and lemon cake. Research is a blast—I’ve been learning about women’s bicycle costumes, Victorian medical procedure for concussions, marriage manuals (i.e. Victorian sex ed), incident reports from the NYFD, the night lunchwagons that were the precursors to O’Rourke’s and Athenian . . .”

Nora Bowman ’05, MALS ’08 married Paul Bomer on Oct. 13, 2018, at The Owenego in Branford, Conn. Her sisters Shaleen Bowman Thody ’03, MALS’05 and Kelly Bowman Allen ’07 served as bridesmaids, as did her Wes roommate of all four years, Susan Frost ’05. Also in attendance were her former basketball teammates, Kamica Lewis ’03, Amy Posocco ’04, Meeghan Ward Creeden ’04, Liz Walsh MacMillan ’04, Ashley Elia Weller ’04, and their coach Kate Mullen. Nora and Paul live in Boston, where she is a senior vice president at eSecLending.

Marcella Winearls | marcellawinearls@gmail.com

Natalia Ortiz has successfully defended her PhD in urban education from the CUNY Graduate Center. She is thrilled to have that seven-year chapter closed and is excited to continue her work as the training director at the Center for Racial Justice in Education. She is the proud mother of a 7-year-old girl and a 4-year-old boy. Natalia sees her twin brother Nicholas Ortiz regularly. Not only is he a pretty cool uncle, he is training to run the NYC Marathon for the third time and is the director of HR at i-Mentor, where he has been for the last 12 years. That is all from the Ortiz twins.

Dylan Meconis wrote, “My debut middle grade graphic novel, Queen of the Sea, is being published by Candlewick/Walker. I both wrote and illustrated, and the Tudor historical setting is heavily influenced by my classwork in the College of Letters. It’s gotten starred reviews from Kirkus Reviews, School Library Journal, Publisher’s Weekly, and Booklist, which is pretty dang exciting for my first time publishing in the children’s book industry. I also co-wrote The Long Con, a two-volume graphic novel from Oni Press. The first half debuted this spring and the second half is out this summer. It’s a sci-fi comedy set in the world of comic book conventions; since I started working professionally in the comics industry while still at Wes, I have lots of material to draw on!”

Che Landon, an actor and producer in LA, shot a pilot for Fox directed by two-time Emmy nominee, Jon Massey, entitled Frank James, where she plays Coroner Casey McGrath. She is also on the Hulu series Work in Progress. She’s producing two projects, a feature film, Girl Clown, and Inside, being directed by Sundance Award-winning female filmmaker, Elise Salomon.

Katie Walsh is a film critic in Los Angeles writing primarily for the Tribune News Service and the LA Times. This spring she taught a class about the practice of writing about film at Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, and moved to the Highland Park neighborhood of LA, where Che Landon is her new neighbor.

Miriam Gottfried married Trevor Williams on Aug. 4 in New York City. Sarah Hexter was a bridesmaid and Miriam’s cousin Annie Shepard ’08 held the chuppah. Also in attendance were Carolyn Wachnicki, who did the engagement photo shoot, Jonathan Hecht ’04, Catie Lazarus ’99, and Dan Goldstein ’96.

David Rood-Ojalvo lives in Rockaway Beach, Queens, and works for Catholic Charities of Brooklyn and Queens. The short film he made, which stars Ari Brand ’06, Jon Leland, and Diego Ortiz ’06, premiered at the New York Shorts International Film Festival in June.

Jessica Phillippi will be performing her latest play, Illegal, at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August ahead of a U.K. tour. Illegal is a drama that intertwines two immigration stories: one inspired by Jessica’s struggle to remain in the U.K. and the other by a Guatemalan woman’s attempt to cross the U.S.-Mexico border.

Stephen Lazer published State Formation in Early Modern Alsace, 1648-1789, a richly documented study of early modern state formation, sovereignty, legitimacy, and comparative political culture in Alsace between the Peace of Westphalia and the French Revolution.

Marcella Winearls | marcellawinearls@gmail.com

On a recent trip to Rome, Maria Nankova met the smart and lovely current students, Anik Bernstein ’20 and Daniel Osofsky ’20. They were accompanied by Daniel’s mother, Mariam Osofsky. They participated in a walking tour in the center of the eternal city, enjoying unbelievable sunshine and blue skies for the month of January, and later ended with lunch at Piazza Navona. They discussed everything from history, film, and psychology to cultural identities and life abroad but forgot to talk about politics. Well, that was for the better! One can easily forget such an important topic for a moment under the spell of fresh Italian pasta and sun.

Maria said that it was great to hear from current Wes students that they are able to thrive, enjoy, and appreciate Wesleyan as much as she did in the early 2000s. Wesleyan seems to change but stay the same—managing to preserve its unique character while evolving.

Tom Facelle lives in Golden, Colo., with his wife, Jenn, and their two rambunctious boys, Ryan, 6, and Wesley, 2. He spends most of his time practicing urology and shredding the mountains of the front range on skis and mountain bike with David Delcourt.

Sivan Cotel presented at the SiX State Legislator Conference, demonstrating how to utilize small-business owners to advocate for progressive policy and counter the conservative voices of big businesses and chambers of commerce. He is chairman of the board of Porter Medical Center.

Jeremy May moved back to the Bay Area, settling with his wife, Anna, and two boys, Magnus, 3, and Solomon, 3 months, in Oakland, Calif. Jeremy is practicing as an oral and maxillofacial surgeon in the area. He will began teaching residents part-time at Highland Hospital and performing cosmetic facial surgery and transgender facial surgery in the coming months. In his spare time, you can find him enjoying backside slappies and poorly executed flat ground skate tricks at the Rockridge BART station. He reconnected with David Wilson, Hannah Barr-DiChiara, and Chris Lake.

Eric Herman is celebrating the 15-year anniversary of Modiba Productions LLC, the music production and management company he cofounded at Wesleyan in 2004 with Jesse Brenner, Dave Ahl, and Adam Tuck. The album Deran that he produced with the guitarist Bombino has been nominated for a Grammy, the first-ever Grammy nomination for an artist from Niger.

Eliza Vitri Handayani initiated and directed a huge, collaborative art event called House of the Unsilenced. More than 20 artists, writers, and performers (including Molly Crabapple) worked with a diverse group of sexual abuse survivors to create artworks, installations, writings, performances, songs, and discussions that speak up against rape culture. Follow the art project on Instagram: @unsilenced_. Eliza was selected into the Australia Arts Council’s Arts Leaders program.

Marcella Winearls | marcellawinearls@gmail.com

Kwei Chang and Bensen Gillespie ’04 are working within the architecture and construction industry in NYC and are collaborating on high-end new buildings and the restoration of pre-war buildings. While starting in the same place—studio classes with their beloved professor, Martha Anez—they then went their separate ways for grad school, and it was not until years later that they reconnected in NYC and are now collaborating on big projects.

Kwei is the design director of the development company China Overseas America (cohl.com) and Benson is a partner of the façade design and consulting firm Surface Design Group (surfacedg.com).

Jane Morley celebrated seven years at Quirk Books, a book publisher in Philadelphia. She completed her first triathlon in July, racing as a member of Team Humane League, an athletic advocacy group that raises money to improve the lives of factory-farmed animals.

Lodro Rinzler co-founded MNDFL Meditation, a network of meditation studios based in NYC. Three years later MNDFL has had over 150,000 cushions booked, offers meditation in over 100 companies around the city, and has developed a nonprofit arm that brings meditation into underserved communities. He is also the author of six books, the first of which (The Buddha Walks into a Bar . . .) has now sold over 100,000 copies.

Ben Shestakofsky married Isheh Beck in Inverness, Calif., last March. Wedding attendees included Adam Freelander, Maxwell Greene, Caitlin Henningsen ’06, Stephanie Marcus, Seth Samuels ’06, Danya Sherman ’06, Jon Shestakofsky, Andrew Wachtenheim, and Kingston Wong ’06. After receiving his doctorate in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley in July, Ben began a position as assistant professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. Ben and Isheh live in Newark, N.J.

Alexis May, Clara Moskowitz, and Sarah Woodbury traveled to Scotland to visit Jessica Phillippi and Gwyneth Harrison-Shermoen, who are both living in the U.K. The five of them, plus Sarah and Clara’s daughter, Esther, traveled through Edinburgh, Glasgow, and the highlands, saw bagpipers and puffins, ate plentiful shortbread, and had a ball.

Chris Gateman, and his wife, Kim, are pleased to announce the birth of their second child, James Hunter Gateman, born Aug. 29. In keeping with family tradition, James Hunter will be called by his middle name, just like his big brother, John Colton (2.5 years old).

Anna Zayaruznaya lives in New Haven with her husband, Yarrow, and daughter Aeliz. She was promoted to associate professor in the department of music at Yale. Her first book, The Monstrous New Art: Divided Forms in the Late Medieval Motet (Cambridge, 2015), was just rereleased in paperback. Her second book, Upper-Voice Structures and Compositional Process in the Ars Nova Motet, was published this summer by Routledge; see more at annaz.blog.

Sara Bremen Rabstenek is a product director at the New York Times, where she’s been working on digital story forms and tools since moving back to New York four years ago. She and her husband, Tom Rabstenek ’03, are on the Upper West Side with their two girls: Abigail, who turns 2 in December, and Dorothy, who started kindergarten this fall.

Marcella Winearls | marcellawinearls@gmail.com