Tag: 2006

Calvin Cato | catocals@gmail.com

Iris Jacob is living in Washington, D.C., with her partner Mike Bolds ’08 (an English and history teacher, as well as the coach of a high school spoken word team), their incredible 2-year-old daughter Ifetayo and their soon to be born baby girl (congratulations!). Iris is an adjunct faculty member in the Women’s Studies Department at Trinity Washington University where she teaches classes on Black feminism and women’s leadership. Iris also works as an organizer and trainer with Teaching for Change, a local organization that works to combat gentrification, school closures and the charter school take over. After graduating last year with an MFA in poetry and literary translation from Queens College, Zakia Henderson-Brown has been working joyously at the nonprofit publisher The New Press, where she serves as the outreach coordinator for The New Jim Crow as well as an associate editor. Zakia spends her “free” time working with the group No Disrespect, which works to prevent gendered and sexualized street harassment. She occasionally visits Iris and Mike in Washington, D.C., and sorely misses Tia Clinton, who is living the dream in Ann Arbor pursuing a doctorate. Otherwise, she gets into regular shenanigans with stalwart Harlem-dweller Nyasha Foy, who works as the counsel of business and legal affairs for Above Average Productions. Teddy O’Connor resides in Los Angeles and he has learned that L.A. boasts an abundance of the following: hot yoga classes, kale, power crystals, gay men who are obsessed with Disneyland, and scarves. Teddy worked on animation for Jeff and Some Aliens which is part of Comedy Central’s series Triptank. Teddy also worked with Victor Vazquez and Jordan Fish on an animated music video for Victor’s album Word. Alex Weber registered his first business here in Beijing, Goldenspan Business Consulting, and is very proud of his little limited liability baby. Please visit goldenspan.com for more information. Christina Marenson has moved to London, where she is working at work at an international communications firm. She lives with Rebecca Appel, who works at The New York Times and moved to London after many years in The Paris Bureau. Jenevive Nykolak has advanced to PhD candidacy in visual cultural studies at the University of Rochester in May 2014, and will be spending the 2014-2015 academic year doing dissertation research in Paris as the proud recipient of a Chateaubriand Fellowship. Nina Eichacker defended her dissertation and completed her PhD in economics after seven years of hard work. She and Johann Patlak are living in Jamaica Plain, Mass., and would love to run into more Wes alums! After earning her PhD in English from UCLA, Tara Fickle moved from Los Angeles back to Oregon, where she works as an assistant professor of English. Her specialties are Asian American literature and digital humanities, although she is also affiliated with ethnic studies and she teaches in the English department’s new comics and cartoon studies minor (I guess our late night Justice League Unlimited viewings paid off!). Congratulations to Zach Shemtob, who is the editor-in-chief of the Georgetown Law Review as of January 2014. He is located in Washington, D.C., and enjoying it. Speaking of law school, Rebecca Lipman is in her third year at Harvard Law School. Daniel Dykes graduated from Harvard Law School in May and spent the summer taking the New York bar exam, giving tours of the Harvard campus, and hiking out west in several national parks—a trip that included a close encounter with a mother grizzly and two cubs! Daniel moved in the fall of 2014 to Queens and works at the international law firm of Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle. Celia Reddick has spent the last few years working with INGO Partners In Health in Rwanda and Boston, and is now pursuing a master’s degree in the International Education Policy program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She’s also planning her wedding for the summer of 2015. Ali Osborn works at Bowne Printers, the custom printing office of South Street Seaport Museum’s historic letterpress shop in New York City. She works with fellow alum Gideon Finck ‘11. Bowne Printers teaches workshops, creates merchandise, and prints custom work such as wedding invitations for Jess Smith and Willy Friedman. Adam Rose lives in San Francisco and is engaged to a cappuccino-sipping Seattleite, although he maintains loyalty to the Philadelphia Eagles. He works as an innovation consultant and is considering launching an Eagles-themed bar in the Mission neighborhood of San Francisco. Congratulations to Thapana Pipe Chairoj whose family gained a new addition by the name of Prynn Chairoj. Prynn was born March 2014 and Pipe and his wife couldn’t be happier! Additional congrats to Kristy Elliot, who will celebrate the birth of her fourth child in January 2015. She and her husband live in Bridgeport, Conn., and Kristy will be completing graduate school soon. And an additional congratulations to Hanako Moondance and Alex Salazar, who had a beautiful baby boy Thelonious Guandique-Moondance in October 2013. Hanako is enrolled in in a master’s program for library and information science through the University of North Texas online program in Los Angeles Christie Roberts is engaged to Brendan Lovelette (her high school beau). They plan to marry in Middleburg, Va., in March 2015. Christie works at The Hill School (also in Middleburg), where she teaches Latin and works as an administrator. Congratulations to Brian Heiss and Sarah Myksin who wed in an outdoor ceremony at the Star Spangled Banner Flag House in Baltimore, Md., in May 2014. Wesleyan alum in attendance include James Charney, Francisco Carreno, Alec Zebrowski (who gave a wonderful best man toast), and myself. Congratulations toKate Longley who married in the summer of 2014 to Steve Wood (who is not a Wesleyan alum but is an all-around wonderful guy). They wed in Provinceton, Mass. Congrats to Steven Wengrovitz who married Dan Freeman in October 2014 in upstate New York. They live in the Bay Area of California, where Steven works as a researcher at Facebook and Dan is a lawyer at a firm nearby in Palo Alto. Ten years after their first official meeting in front of WesWings, Caitlin Petre and Ari Brand got married in September 2014 at a summer camp on Shelter Island. Ari proposed last year by taking Caitlin on a surprise trip back to Wesleyan, where they revisited the landmarks of their early courtship: from the Butterfield C lounge to the lawns between Fountain and Pine. Wesleyan was well represented at the wedding; alums in attendance include Tal Beery, Daniel Rubin, Annie Mathews, Kate Fletcher, Shayla Silver-Balbus, Missy Ablin, Aisha Twells, Cassandre Pallas and David Stein, Kevin Sattin ’05, David Rood-Ojalvo ’05, Andrew Vernon-Jones ’05, Naomi Ekperigin ’05, Matt Kertman ’05, Lauren Stossel ’07, and Hallie Cooper-Novack ’07, as well as Ari’s brother and sister-in-law, Jesse Brand ’02 and Anna Johnson ’02. Jesse and Anna’s daughter Willa was the flower girl.

Calvin Cato | catocals@gmail.com

Calvin Cato | catocals@gmail.com

This is a column full of congratulations (and variations on the word) so I hope you won’t get tired of seeing it!

Congratulations to Stan Parish, whose first novel, Down the Shore, will be published by Viking in June 2014. The novel is about a promising high school student at a boarding school in New Jersey whose path to an Ivy League School and success is preempted when he gets caught selling drugs. Stan guarantees that it is a vastly different version of his Wesleyan honors thesis. The novel has received a great review by former Wesleyan teacher and acclaimed author Alexander Chee.

Speaking of creative congratulations, Anna Moench was awarded a fellowship in playwriting/screenwriting by the New York Foundation of the Arts. Anna’s plays have received rave reviews and have appeared at the Old Vic, 59E59, Ensemble Studio Theatre, and Dance Theater Workshop. She’ll probably buy an island or two with the cash; I’d say go for Turks and Caicos.

In the same writing vein, congratulations are in order to Katey Rich who is now the Hollywood editor at Vanity Fair’s website, working out of New York City. Katey was previously editor-in-chief of the website CinemaBlend for six years. She promises not to give off any Miranda Priestly vibes!

Ronald Lim works in Singapore as an architect and regularly sees Sam Han, who now teaches sociology at Nanyang Technological University. He also goes on regular urban culinary excursions with jetsetting alums who fly in like Tokyo-based Takahiro Haneda, as well as U.S.-based alums Kingston Wong, Elizabeth Khoo, and Wilson Co.

Juan Sebastian Moreno graduated with a M.A. in TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) from the New School University in January 2013. He is engaged to Enie Rosales Ramos; the wedding will take place in the Philippines in 2014. Ben Magarik is still D.C.-based, although he has been traveling a lot for his job at MSCI (ISS) to help companies improve governance practices and sustainability reporting. He had the rare of treat of dinner with Louis Caditz-Peck and Jesse Watson in Berkeley in November.

Daniel Dykes plans to finish his law degree at Harvard in May 2014, after which he’ll be working in corporate law in NYC. This spring, he will direct the Harvard Law School Parody, a musical comedy making fun of law school and life in general.

Congratulations to Becca Seely who got married to the delightful Abby Ferjak at Yale Divinity School in New Haven. Alix Sleight Warner, Sara Covey Ortiz, Aurora Maoz, and Molly Greenberg ’05 were bridesmaids. An amazing Wes crew was in attendance, including Diego Ortiz ’05, Phil Amidon ’05, Bettina Schlegel, Nona Willis Aronowitz, Sarah Gunther, Lizzy Cohen, Matt Ferrisi ’03, Kate Mitchell ’05, Daniel Rubin, and Maggie Starr. Currently, Becca and Abby are living the dream in Venice Beach. Becca is completing the final step in her ordination process to become a Lutheran pastor by serving one year as vicar of a church in Santa Monica.

Belated and huge congrats to Vanessa Meer who married Marc Schreiber at Beach Point Club in Mamaroneck, N.Y., on Oct. 6, 2012. Wesleyan was well-represented by Andrew Beckler ’91, Leslie Shasha ’82, Amelia Geggel, Beck Straley ’07, Jaimie Dougherty, Michelle Atwood ’05, Zach Strassburger, Anna Pinkert, Astrid Hesse ’08, Rachel Schreiber ’05, Alan Witt, Stephen Hartley, Maya Wolf Hartley, Samuel Duncan ’05, Kate Thorpe, Kim Landry, Sharisse Kanet, Leah Stern, and Teague Hopkins, as well as their associated significant others. Vanessa and Mark are living in Jersey City, where she is an environmental consultant at a multidisciplinary engineering firm and Marc is on an interest-rate-products trading desk at Goldman Sachs.

Jessica Pearce married Adam C. Jonas ’04 on July 19, 2013, at a lovely outdoor ceremony at Bryant Park Grill in NYC. Wesleyan alum attendees include Emily Titterton, Kaylea Moore, Jenna Bonczewsk, Douglas Collins ’07, Molly Adams ’07, Jaime Wendel ’07, and Megan Willey ’07. Congrats and best wishes in 2014!

Congratulations to Rachel Berger, who gave birth to a son, Colin Ezra Jankelowitz, on Aug. 14 2012. Rachel lives in Brooklyn with her husband Ari Jankelowitz. Ilana Davis Sharpe and her husband Dan Sharpe welcomed their first child Lorelei Olivia Sharpe born on September 18, 2013. The new family of 3 greatly enjoyed their first holiday season together. Needless to say, congrats! And last but certainly not least, congrats to Tal Beery and his wife, Eugenia, who gave birth to a bouncing baby boy Abraham Manwelyan Berry on August 8, 2013.

I wish you all the best in 2014 and hope to run into you in New York City soon!

Calvin Cato
catocals@gmail.com