Tag: 2007

 Hello classmates, Megan here to give you some updates. I hope you are all hanging in there and staying healthy. Although 2020 has been a weird and somber year, several classmates have shared reasons to celebrate.

Ian MacLeod announces the birth of his son, River MacLeod. The little guy was born on January 22, 2020 and Ian says, “He now has two teeth, loves to laugh at peek-a-boo, and is lots of fun!”

Jocelyn Bonadio recently found a silver lining to this otherwise awful year. She writes, “My first child, my son Arjun Amar Kondabolu, was born on August 28, 2020.”

Nasim Khoshkhou reports, “I continue to work remotely in data analytics for Synchrony. I’m living in Westchester County in New York and welcome video catch-ups or actual visitors when travel is considered safe again! I miss my Wes peeps and I continue to engage with the University by recruiting there for work and meeting with current students through the career center.” She adds that her son Cameron, age four, recently returned to preschool. Perhaps a Wesleyan alum in the making?

Jane Charles-Voltaire is a senior program officer with the International Association of Women Judges. She and her partner are currently living in Madrid, Spain. 

Finally, Alex Magnin wants to let classmates know that he has moved to Los Angeles!

Wishing you a happy fall and winter. Here’s hoping for a brighter 2021!

Megan Harrington | megan.kretz@gmail.com

Victoria Belyavsky Pinsky | victoriapinsky@gmail.com

I hope that all my fellow Wesleyaners and ’07ers are staying safe and healthy during this trying time. That said, we have a few updates from our class:

Doug Rubenstein is living in New Jersey with his wife and 5-year-old son, and he is expecting a daughter in August! He is working as a recruiter at PayPal and working nights with the NBA in the Replay Center. He also co-founded a business in April called CHIP Professionals, which is a service matching people with financial professionals of color. Finally, he is also a panelist on The Grapevine on YouTube (175k subscribers). He also tries to sleep sometimes, but that comes far and few between.

Karen Oelschlaeger has accepted a position as the dedicated prosecutor for the Windsor County Unit for Special Investigations in Vermont. She has worked in the Windsor County State’s Attorney’s Office since 2016, and this role is a great opportunity to put her Master of Social Work (MSW) to use while collaborating with a multi-disciplinary team to investigate and hold people accountable for crimes against children, sexual assault, and other serious crimes such as human trafficking.

After three great years getting to know the Wesleyan Club in London, Johanna Goetzel is returning stateside in January 2021 with a baby in tow! She looks forward to getting to know the Philly-area alums and other new parents.

Tess Amodeo-Vickery is living in Rome, Italy, and had the strange experience of living the COVID-19 crisis two weeks ahead of her friends back in the U.S. She’s putting her classical civilization major to good work, running  the boutique travel company Clam Tours (clamtours.com), which offers private, educational tours of Rome, Naples, and Florence for curious travelers looking to go off the beaten path and experience Italy like a true local (Tess leads many of these tours herself, along with her Italian husband, Giovanni). She is working on a new album of original music, which is slotted for release in 2021.

Brian Dilks-Brotman finally saw Hamilton! It toured in Philly, and he caught it there back in September. That was, of course, before the pandemic. He and his wife, Jacqueline, are hanging in there, working from home, and going on the occasional walk. He still works as a staff representative for Communications Workers of America, Local 1036, where they represent about 7,000 employees of the state of New Jersey.

Abby Huber is happily working as a freelance translator (German-English, Spanish-English) based out of Providence, R.I., specializing in public health and environment.

Megan Harrington | megan.kretz@gmail.com

Victoria Belyavsky Pinsky | victoriapinsky@gmail.com

Happy New Year, Class of 2007! Megan here to keep you posted on what’s new. Exciting news: Maude Bass-Krueger curated an exhibition in NYC with an accompanying book published by Yale University Press. Maude adds that the book was “designed by the fab Irma Boom to boot!” The expo got rave reviews from Roberta Smith at the New York Times.

Wedding bells continue to ring: Eric Altneau reports that Ben Byers was married to Loretta Douglas on Sept. 1, 2019.

David Scardella and Jaime Wendel are living in Pembroke, Mass., with their two sons Tyler (17-months) and Andrew (3). David owns a dental practice in Duxbury, Mass., and Jaime is a manager of donor relations and events at Crossroads for Kids, a Duxbury nonprofit.

Finally, Jane Charles-Voltaire is a lawyer working with the International Association of Women Judges. She and her husband Paul currently live in Santiago, Chile, and will be moving to Madrid, Spain, this summer.

As always, please keep sending us any and all updates!

Megan Harrington | megan.kretz@gmail.com

Victoria Belyavsky Pinsky | victoriapinsky@gmail.com

Wedding bells are ringing for the class of 2007! Amy Lee Rosen married Dr. Nicholas Marinkovich, at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia on Aug. 31. Four years ago, Amy met Nick at the National Gallery of Art and they have explored the world together ever since. The Honorable Bradley Moss ’80 officiated the ceremony. Amy met Brad in Philadelphia one week before she started law school because she was wearing a Wesleyan t-shirt and they happened to be neighbors. Others in attendance were Amanda Brown ’05, Lynn Cartwright-Punnett, Samuel Duncan ’05, Sarah Montgomery ’06, Phu Nguyen ’09, Victoria Pinsky, and Psychology Professor Emeritus Karl Scheibe, who taught Brad, Sam, and Amy while they were at Wesleyan. It was a happy day for Nick and Amy and their wedding dance included a waltz followed by a robot dance, which they are very proud of.

Also, in Philadelphia, Beth Herz and her partner, Neeta Sonalkar, celebrated their marriage, with their mutual friend Molly Hartman basking in the glow of her successful matchmaking. Rabbi Leora Abelson co-officiated the Hindu-Jewish wedding and Nicole Grijnsztein and Kimberly Greenberg led the hora, as Philly-based Compas 48, including Cara Tratner ’12 on sax, got everyone on the dance floor with their signature jarocho-cumbia-klezmer tunes.

Across the pond, Simon Au got married and is marking himself safe in Hong Kong.

On the job front, Erica Pasciullo Cahill officially became a clinical assistant professor at Stanford Medical School in obstetrics and gynecology. In addition to doctoring and research, she started a podcast called The V Word with one of her colleagues all about women’s and reproductive health.

Jocelyn Bonadio-de Freitas is in the midst of an artist residency at The Loisaida Center, Inc., in Manhattan and is starting a new job as program associate, community engagement and social justice projects with the Lower East Side Girls Club.

For the last three years, Jose Chapaled a campaign to pass legislation in New York State that would provide farmworkers across the state with equal labor rights, including the right to organize and a day of rest. The bill finally passed this last legislative session and Governor Cuomo signed it into law. Jose lives in Brooklyn with his boyfriend, Adam Martin, and they are seriously contemplating adopting a cat.   

Rachel Salowitz Vaughan is living in Des Moines with her husband, Brian, and their 2-year-old daughter. She is working as the director of sales and private events for a prestigious 1920s house museum/manor home, running a home organization business, and pursuing a certification as a birth/labor and postpartum doula. She still does commercial work and acting projects when she can; most recently she wrapped a supporting role in the indie film, East of Middle West, due out next year.

In family news, Daphne Clyburn and her husband, Michael MacEwen, just welcomed their first child this summer. His name is Benjamin Arlo MacEwen and he was born on June 29. They were grateful to get together with folks from 88 Home—Meredith Katz, Kara Brodgesell, Thomas Coen, Sally Smyth, and their families this summer, too.

Grace Nowakoski and her husband, Jeff Diteman, are enjoying raising their daughter who was born in June 2018. His first translation of a novel, The Anarchist Who Shared My Name by Pablo Martín Sánchez, also came out last year. Grace works with pregnant folks as a doula and facilitates group prenatal care at the local hospital. They are happy to have neighbors again after living out in the country for two years, and to be able to stroll with their kid to the library, park, and restaurants in the “big city” of Northampton, Mass.

Megan Harrington | wesleyan007@gmail.com

Victoria Belyavsky Pinsky | victoriapinsky@gmail.com

Hello, ’07! Megan here to keep you updated on what our class has been up to. Many of us have been building on our Wesleyan education by pursuing advanced degrees.

Jessica Mack finished her PhD in history at Princeton after defending her dissertation about the construction of UNAM’s monumental campus in Mexico City. She’ll be a postdoc at Rutgers University teaching history of Mexico and collaborating on a program called the University and its Public Worlds, which considers different higher education models and their relationships to broader publics.

Eric Altneu reports, “I’m graduating from my internal medicine residency at The Ohio State University and starting GI/hepatology fellowship at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School.” He continues, “It’s a small world: Jess and I were co-RAs in Hewitt 8 and will both be moving to Rutgers for work at the same time!”

William Santiago graduated from UConn School of Medicine and will begin his residency in internal medicine at Yale New Haven Hospital. There he will focus on care systems for the underserved populations located in urban centers. William says that his two daughters, Lisette, 8, and Natalia, 4, are the loves of his life and have adjusted well to life in Connecticut. His wife, Vladrose ’05, fights the good fight in the social services field and inspires William on a daily basis.

Jocelyn Bonadio-de Freitas finished her MA in education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She is an artist-in-residence at The Loisaida Center in NYC, and the lead organizer of the campaign to divest Harvard’s endowment from the Puerto Rican debt.

We’ve also been busy adding to our families—through marriage and birth!

Norah Emara says, “I work at Boston Children’s Hospital as a complex care pediatric hospitalist. I got married in Boston to Matt Rader. Brittany Speisman Kugler, Alicia Dodds Sharma, and Liam McAlpine were all in attendance. We took almost a month off work and island hopped throughout Hawaii, which was pretty incredible. We are now eagerly awaiting the arrival of a little one this year.”

Nishita “Nya” Roy-Pope and her husband welcomed their second child Darius on Jan. 24. Nya says she loves the craziness of chasing around two little ones and living in her home state of Rhode Island while having an impact on global programs and talent diversity through her job at Dell Technologies. She is leading programs to expose and empower girls and underrepresented groups in STEM fields.

Ian MacLeod reports, “I am enjoying life in Sacramento, Calif., with my wife, dog, and cat! I just started a new job at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. I regularly see Alex Early, who lives in Oakland.”

As always, please keep sending us any and all updates!

Megan Harrington | wesleyan007@gmail.com

Victoria Belyavsky Pinsky | victoriapinsky@gmail.com

With 2019 already upon us, we have a few updates from our fellow classmates. A number of ’07ers are continuing their career journeys in exciting new ways. Himanshu “Heems” Suri is taking a break from making rap music and settling in to a new role as Spotify’s senior editor of Indian culture. He lives in Jackson Heights, Queens, where he eats all of the food.

Chris Krovatin had a crazy October. He published his third YA novel, Frequency; became U.S. editorial manager for the new Brooklyn office of Kerrang! Magazine; and married Azara Golston ’09. Chris and Azara live in Washington Heights in NYC. Ian MacLeod works as a restoration ecologist regulating the mining industry at the California Department of Conservation. He bought his first house and lives in Sacramento with his wife, dog, and cat. In his free time, he tries to ski, surf, climb, and raft all over California.

Virginia Hermann is living just a stone’s throw from NYC in Spring Valley, N.Y. After completing her eurythmy training back in 2011, she joined the Eurythmy Spring Valley Ensemble, mostly dedicating herself to artistic development and performing. In 2017 she completed an MA in performance eurythmy through a satellite program of Alanus University (Bonn, Germany), and joined the faculty of the Eurythmy Spring Valley professional eurythmy training. Some exciting projects included a Mozart string quartet performance with A Far Cry in the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum, a large-scale tour for Waldorf schools in Taiwan and China, and dramatic collaborations with actors, both as Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and as Lucifer in Rudolf Steiner’s Four Mystery Dramas.

We also have some updates on the future Wesleyan generation. Kara Schnoes and Jeremy Brown ’08 were surprised and delighted by their newly adopted kiddo, Asher, who arrived on Thanksgiving Day. They are enjoying life in Eugene, Ore. Sarah Sluis welcomed a son, Arthur Howard Gross, last February. His first year has gone by faster than the freshman year of Wes. The Sluis family moved from Prospect Heights to Park Slope, where Sarah occasionally runs into other Wesleyan grads, including her tennis partner, Rashida Richardson ’08. Sarah works as a journalist, writing about digital media and ad tech for AdExchanger.

Megan Harrington | wesleyan007@gmail.com

Victoria Belyavsky Pinsky | victoriapinsky@gmail.com

Hello, classmates! Can you believe it’s been 15 years since we entered Wesleyan as freshman? Since our last class update, we’ve been busy! Megan Kretz Harrington here to share the ’07 news. I’m currently knee deep in baby days—my husband (Brian), 2-year-old son (Teddy), and I recently welcomed a baby girl to our family. Evelyn Nancy Harrington was born on Aug. 20. Several other classmates have been growing their families.

Ben Levinger and his wife, Alicia, recently bought a house in Severna Park, Md. They have two young children—Desmond and Oren.

In November 2017, all members of 88 Home reunited in Milwaukee for the marriage of Chris Keeler and Asma Kadri. This included Thomas Coen, Sally Smyth, her wife, Susannah Hook-Rodgers; Meredith Katz, her husband Dave Korkoian, Mer and Dave’s daughter, Addison; Kara Brodgesell, her husband, Noah Christman; and Daphne Clyburn and her husband Michael MacEwen. The 88 Home ties remain strong! In other news, Michael and Daphne relocated to the D.C. area in June 2017 and love it. Daphne is teaching Spanish at St. Andrew’s Episcopal School (Potomac, Md.) and stepped into the role of department head. She says, “Teaching continues to be a beautiful and messy mix of joy and rigor!”

Victor Scavera married Dorothy Sliva on Mother’s Day. He adds, “Although it was not, strictly speaking, a present, we figured that it couldn’t hurt.” Newman Hoffman ’09, Daniel Glyck, Andrew Smith ’08, Ben Roberts ’09, Michael DeFranco ’10, and Professor Westmoreland attended.

Eric Altneu says, “I got married in August! My husband is Brookes Hammock.” The happy couple had plenty of alumni in attendance including: Tory Molnar Masterson, Julia Perciasepe, Ellen Werble, Andrew Bleeker, Samantha Kantor, Erich Klothen ’08, John Haley, Matt Donne, Ben Byers, Andrew Inchiosa, Josh Tanz ’06, Dan Devine ’06. Others in attendance were Eric’s mom and stepdad, Carol Murphy ’79 and Robert Murphy ’79, and family friend Seta Nazarian ’79.

As a class, we’ve also had a number of professional and personal adventures . . . Deanne Dworski-Riggs has been keeping it wild in Mongolia with Kimberly Greenberg—living in gers, riding horses on the Mongolian steppe, and climbing turtle rocks!

Cortney A. Duncan started a new job as the director of athletics at Kent School. She is also the school’s varsity field hockey and lacrosse coach.

Youkyung Lee joined Bloomberg as a government reporter covering Korea, including the unpredictable leader on the North and the U.S. foreign policy toward Korea.

She is based in Seoul, South Korea, with her two cats. You can follow her stories and behind-the-scene notes on her Twitter @YKreports. She welcomes any story suggestions or any questions you might have about Korean politics or Kim Jong Un. You are also welcome to say hello to her on the Bloomberg Terminal.

Lina Makdisi recently sat a three-month silent meditation retreat at Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Mass.

Keep the updates coming!

Megan Harrington | wesleyan007@gmail.com

Victoria Belyavsky Pinsky | victoriapinsky@gmail.com

Happy summer, Class of 2007. Here are few updates from our class: Jocelyn Bonadio-de Freitas graduated from the Harvard Graduate School of Education with a master’s degree in the arts in education. By a vote of her peers and faculty, Jocelyn won the Intellectual Contribution Award for her 2017-2018 cohort. Scout James graduated from Juilliard with an MFA in drama. While there, inspired by the Argus and Wesleying.org, he founded Juilliard’s only student newspaper.

We have a number of successful artists in our midst. Rachel Kiel lives and works in North Carolina as a songwriter and musician. Her third album, Shot from a Cannon, was released in October.

Patrick Dyer Wolf contributed vocals and guitar to Rachel’s record and flew down to join her band for the release show.

Chris Krovatin lives in Washington Heights, NYC, where he works as a writer and journalist. Last year, he published a coffee table book on the history of heavy metal music named Hellraisers: A Complete Visual History of Heavy Metal Mayhem. He is planning his wedding to Azara Golston ’09 which is set to take place in October.

Brian Dilks-Brotman lives in Collingswood, N.J., with his wife and two of the jerkiest cats you could ever meet. His house is basically a jerk farm. He’s working as a staff representative and organizer for a public-sector union in New Jersey. He still hasn’t seen Hamilton yet.

Megan Harrington | wesleyan007@gmail.com

Victoria Belyavsky Pinsky | victoriapinsky@gmail.com

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Hello classmates! Megan (Kretz) Harrington here to give you the latest news. From career advancements to new family additions, we’ve been busy.

Kara Schnoes writes, “Kim Davies recently married a great guy named Jesse Blitzstein. The wedding was held in Philadelphia last September. And Julia Mergendoller had her first little one, Aviv Gilbyrd, in November.”

Cortney (Tetrault) Duncan welcomed a baby boy, Blake Alexander Duncan, on Nov. 27. She is still working at the Kent School.

Kathleen Day shares news of more potential alumni. She had a daughter, Natalie, born in 2016. She is a project manager for Preservation of Affordable Housing, Inc., a nonprofit affordable housing developer based. She writes, “I am enormously fortunate that my partner takes care of our daughter full-time.”

Kathleen adds, “We caught up with Janine (Criscuolo) and Ben Sax and their adorable daughter Zoë over the summer during their visit from Los Angeles. Liam McAlpine and his husband, Sam Gulino, also visited from Philadelphia.”

Matthew Brownstein writes, “I live in NYC with my wife, Hillary, and my 1¹/₂ year old son, Felix. I taught for eight years in middle and high school levels and now I am in the world of administration. I am an assistant principal at an elementary school in Queens. Yvonne Berkel ’90 is a wonderful teacher at my school.”

Laura Catana lives in Havana, Cuba, and is the label manager at Havana’s first independent urban music label, Guampara Music. She is also opening an Afrocuban house of music and culture, a space to help connect foreign travelers with the local music and arts scene in Havana. Look out for Guampara 165, opening in summer 2018! She also works in tourism in Havana, so feel free to find her and ask for some travel help if you’re planning to head to the island soon!

Matthew Gregory and wife Lena moved to Boston after living in the Bay Area. They are expecting their first child, a boy, in April.

Victoria (Santoro) Mair married William Mair on Oct. 28 in Somerville, Mass. A strong Wesleyan contingent was present for the nuptials! Additionally, Victoria was recently voted a shareholder at her law firm.

Jesse Nasta has some exciting career news to report, saying, “I completed my PhD in history at Northwestern University last summer. This year, I am a visiting assistant professor of African American Studies at Wesleyan. I would always be very happy to see any classmates who are passing through campus.”

Meanwhile, Ian MacLeod organized his own mini-reunion over this summer. He reports, “I married Jennifer Brownfield on July 15 in the Humboldt Redwoods State Park in California. Tim Radcliff, Piotr Brzezinski, and Alex Early were in attendance. We all had a great time!”

And finally, Scout James reports that he will be performing in his final show at Juilliard—Waiting for Godot—before he graduates with an MFA in May.

Please keep sending your updates, career news, and life events to us.

Megan Harrington | wesleyan007@gmail.com

Victoria Belyavsky Pinsky | victoriapinsky@gmail.com