Tag: 2005

Stephen Becker finished a year at IBM Research in New York and moved to Boulder, Colo., to start a job as assistant professor in applied math at CU. His wife, Kimberly, is still teaching high school physics, and his daughter Sophie just turned two and enjoyed herself dancing at the wedding of Tushar Kansal and Tanya Sehgal in Washington, D.C. Other class members at the wedding were John Logan Durland, Theodore Booth Haley, Max Greene, Henry and Sam White, Amar Shibli and Meng Li, Julia Simpson ’06, and Lena ’04 and Matthew Roe.

Niv Elis has been living the good life in Tel Aviv, where aside from occasional rocket-dodging, he has been focusing on reporting on business and economics for the Jerusalem Post. He has also launched an original podcast with the JPost, the first ever for an Israeli paper, and is hosting a weekly show called The Cost of Doing Business on the TLV1 radio station.

Julia Silbergeld is getting her MBA at UC Berkeley, along with Will Leuchter-Mindel ’07, Lexi Sturdy ’10, and Grace Lesser ’08. Julia is focusing on social entrepreneurship and sustainable food and working at startup Farmigo.

On June 25th Nicole Peterson Pritchard and her husband Stephen Pritchard welcomed their second daughter, Risa Déise, who joins her now 4-year-old sister, Ivy Syona. Risa’s first friend was baby Sebastian, son of Maggie White and Eli Brown ’04. Among her first visitors in the hospital were her Wesleyan Aunties Michelle Grier, Katherine Ambia, Justine Almada, and Rashida Abuwala. She has been a beautiful and cheerful new addition to the family!

Jason Carey ’99 and Beverly Baker Carey welcomed a son, Allister James, on Aug. 19, 2014. He weighed 6 lbs. 11 oz. and was 19.5 inches long.

Kevin Egolf is working on starting the Local Farms Fund, a socially responsible venture providing land access to early stage farmers in the New York foodshed.

In October, Shannon McIntyre Hooper and her husband relocated to Nashville. Shannon has taken a role as senior vice president with ReviveHealth, a leading healthcare strategic communications firm, where she’ll be overseeing all health IT accounts.

In May 2014, Dennis Chan started his new job at District Management Council, a consulting and software solutions firm that works with public school districts to improve operational efficiency and raise students’ performance. In his spare time, Dennis picked up board game design, and his first game BioQuest was showcased in Boston Festival of Indie Games.

Colin Casey graduated from Fordham Law School in May, was married to Jonathan Vaughn in August and began working at a large international law firm in New York in October.

Williamsport, Pa., saw a mini ’05 reunion to celebrate the union of Rob Judson and Andrea Torres. Among the illustrious guests on Rob’s farm were, Sarah Connell, Matthew Cron, Jemma Braun, and Anay Shah. Shout outs also to Roslyn Ross ’04,Mike Campbell ’06, Sippy Siperstein ’06, Matthew Donne ’07, and Sam Coe ’06. It was a spectacular event full of Wesleyan love, laughter, and camaraderie. Congrats Sir Robert!

Jayson Whitehorn is continuing to make healthcare better by assisting clinicians in their ability to treat their patients by developing medical software for Mount Sinai hospital. He spends his free time playing in Union Square with various Wesleyan alumni of class years spanning the past two decades (primarily other members of Alpha Delta Phi).

Karen Courtheoux: “Dearest classmates: I know it’s hard to believe, but we are mere months away from our 10th Reunion! Save the date: May 21–24, 2015. Can’t wait to see you there! If you’re interested in having input into our Reunion events, please e-mail ktedford@wesleyan.edu. Many thanks to those already participating. The more the merrier! We’ll be in touch with all of you soon via postcard.”

MARCELLA MARTINEZ | momartinez@wesleyan.edu

Anna Zayaruzny moved to New Haven in August to join the faculty of the Department of Music at Yale as an assistant professor. Her husband, Yarrow Dunham, is joining the Yale psychology department. They are delighted to be within a stone’s throw of Wesleyan and of Anna’s family in Cheshire. They’re also thrilled to be seeing a lot of Michelle Atwood, in nearby NYC.

Last February, Eliza Vitri Handayani published her novel Mulai Saat Ini Segalanya Akan Berubah (“From Now on Everything Will Be Different”) about two best friends coming of age in a newly democratic Indonesia, pursuing artistic ambitions, exploring their sexuality, and trying to break free from a pattern of repeated disappointments. The novel was published by Obor Publishing in Jakarta, Indonesia. Sandy Yudhistira ’12 and Melina Natalie ’10 came to the launching.

Many Wes alums continue to populate NYC in varied capacities. Jon Leland moved to Brooklyn and is the director of community engagement at Kickstarter. Chris Lake joined VHX, a USV-backed startup in Dumbo, as a developer. He now lives and works within a one-mile span and hasn’t left Brooklyn in two months. Ez Cukor is living in NYC and working as a staff attorney at New York Legal Assistance Group’s LGBT Law Project. This past winter she crossed cross-country skiing in the city off her bucket list (a few times). But hopefully there will be better weather fit for biking and beaches by the time these notes come out.

Amy Crawford spent a good portion of 2013 on tour with Os Mutantes as their keyboardist/vocalist and then joined Man Made Music as a producer in December. She then went on to produce Anthony Braxton’s opera, Trillium J (The Non-Unconfessionables), in April in New York. Now that she is off the road, she would love to reconnect with other NYC-based ’05-ers, especially those in music, media, and the arts. Dave Ruder continues to be a jack of all musical trades in Brooklyn. Dave was a featured performer in the premiere of Robert Ashley’s final composition, Crash, at the Whitney Biennial in April. As part of the group thingNY he’s taking a new evening length multimedia opera he co-wrote around the U.S. and Canada this year. His pop duo with Aliza Simons ’09, Why Lie?, released their second album this June on Gold Bolus Recordings, a label Dave started last year. Gold Bolus Recordings also features music from Woody Leslie ’08 and many of Brooklyn’s finest.

Che Landon finished 2013 strong with a critically acclaimed performance in the Lily Tomlin Center’s 16-week run of The Laramie Project: 10 years later, in Los Angeles. She plays the lead, Madeline, in the feature film Good Mourning Lucille, due out this summer. She and her business partner have opened a lauded artists’ collaborative in L.A., “The Creative Artists Lab, whose mission is to bridge the socio-economic gap between working class artists and career building resources, specifically providing education, crafting materials, film equipment and community.”

Sivan Cotel left WhistlePig Whiskey to found Stonecutter Spirits with his wife, in Middlebury, Vt.

Julia Silbergeld is attending UC Berkeley’s, Haas School of Business (with Will Leuchter-Mindel ’07!), focusing on sustainable and healthy food.

Niv Elis is living in sunny Tel Aviv, where he is covering business and economic news as a reporter for The Jerusalem Post.

Anna Talman Rapp recently joined the Gates Foundation, where she works on global vaccine delivery. She’s thrilled to be back in Seattle after two years in Idaho. She married Ryan Rapp in September. Ruth Chaffee, Brielle Madej Rey, Sam Schwartz White, Henry White, Andrew Breck, and Kim Nelson ’02 came to Boise to celebrate.

In April, Ali Gomer took a weekend break from her job as attorney in L.A. to visit Hillary Rubesin, an expressive arts therapist, in Durham, N.C. While driving up to Philadelphia to celebrate Passover, they had a failed attempt at a rendezvous with fellow former housemate, Dan Fox, who could not change his MegaBus reservation to New York so close to his scheduled departure time. Thank goodness they had a chance to catch up the previous summer, when they rented a cabin in Vermont with Danielle Dixon and Jana Luft!

Capt. Jesse Sommer is a paratrooper and judge advocate with the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C. He serves as the Division’s first special victim counsel, providing legal representation to victims of sexual assault in military courts-martial. He will attend jumpmaster school in July and, if successful, will head to air assault school in August. Capt. Sommer is ecstatic to undergo life-changing corrective laser eye surgery in May, and thus extends his deepest thanks to the American taxpayer for footing the bill.

Dave Ahl writes: “I am delighted to share that I married Molly Catchen on Sept. 21st, 2013. We are happily living in Washington D.C.: She is a lawyer clerking for judges in the district and I’m graduating in May with my MBA from Georgetown University. In June, I start a position with The Washington Post as a manager in digital advertising.” (See a gorgeous photo of the couple on their wedding day in the online notes: classnotes.blogs.wesleyan.edu/.)

Sam Fleischner ’06 writes: “My new film, Stand Clear of the Closing Doors, (distributed by Oscilloscope) comes out May 23rd. The film won prizes at festivals around the world including Tribeca last year.”

MARCELLA MARTINEZ
momartinez@wesleyan.edu

Heather Olins is still in grad school, studying microbes that live in underwater volcanoes. Recently she met up with Emily Kachergis, Kathryn Flynn ’03, and a bunch of other Wes E&ES alumni, current students, and faculty at the Geological Society of America meeting in Denver, Colo., and had a great time catching up, nerding out over geology, and remembering how awesome Wesleyan was!

A year ago, Adam Poswolsky left Washington, D.C., to follow his dream since Wes graduation to move to San Francisco. He recently ran The Bold Academy, an entrepreneurial leadership development program for 20-somethings in career transition. He is currently writing his first book, The Quarter-Life Breakthrough, a guide for millennials looking for meaningful work. After a successful Indiegogo campaign to raise funds for the book, it is due to be released in March 2014.

About a year ago, Dan Bobkoff moved back to New York after spending five years in public radio in Ohio. He is now reporting on business for NPR and living in Brooklyn.

Since leaving Wesleyan, Wil Renderos has continued to pursue his passion for music. He studied audio production in a program at Boston University, and has recorded and produced records for artists and bands throughout the Boston area. In early 2013, Wil opened a music studio in a renovated warehouse located in Everett, Mass., where he continues to engineer and mix records, produce audiobooks, and direct audio post-production efforts for video projects. In addition, he has established the Audio Chemists Institute, a music technology and audio production training program that aims at making music more accessible to everyone, and promoting long-term engagement in the arts.

Best-selling author and visiting professor at Wesleyan Sam Wasson ’03 has written Fosse, a biography about the entertainment icon. This book is ushered into the world with a riveting book trailer, directed by Max Goldblatt, and shot by Dan Adlerstein ’03, on how Sam becomes Fosse.

Artist Evan Bissell collaborated with Erik Loyer on the creation of Freedom’s Ring, a multimedia experience of Martin Luther King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech. Evan was invited to create the animation by Stanford University’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute.

Postdoctoral Associate Intan Suci Nurhati ’05 and others from the Center for Environmental Sensing and Modeling at the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) are the first team to drill for coral samples in Singapore waters. Nurhati is a climate scientist but she works alongside a marine biologist and a professor of ocean geochemistry, creating “an interesting synergy where [they] work on different topics” but use the same material—corals.

MARCELLA MARTINEZ
momartinez@wesleyan.edu