Tag: 2008

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Class of ’08—write to us and let us know how you’re doing!

Lynn Favin was accepted into eight different acting MFA programs all over America and the UK (including two full scholarships and stipend offers). She is currently in England, completing her MFA in professional acting with the Bristol Old Vic in England. She has renewed her contract with William Morris Endeavor and recently played Queen Margaret in Henry VI Part II on YouTube’s Shakespeare live stream The Show Must Go Online. For more acting credits and upcoming projects, visit lynnfavin.com.

Lyz Nardo writes, “Greetings from Long Island City…for now! We welcomed our second daughter, Sofia, as the COVID-19 pandemic hit New York. After social distancing for eight weeks in New York with my husband, my mother, a 1-year-old, a newborn, a cat, and a half-dozen Alexa devices, we are starting to pack up and countdown to our move to Livingston, N.J. Sadly, I will be far less likely to run into any Wes alumni on the streets of Livingston, but look forward to visits once social distancing relaxes a bit!”

Emily Palmer started a new job as a clinical director of palliative care at Hebrew SeniorLife in Boston last month and is fully deployed on COVID response. She postponed a planned summer wedding to 2021, but will still be getting legally married to her love, Daniel Schultz, in a tiny backyard wedding in July. She enjoys growing food in her community garden in Jamaica Plain and sending love and strength to the whole WesFam.

Benjamin Rowland writes, “In January I joined a startup, Hio, as head of partnerships. We provide virtual event solutions to small meetups and large conferences. Since COVID, all event organizers are transitioning to virtual, so it’s been fascinating to watch this new digital world evolve so fast.”

Brighid Gannon recently opened an online mental health service called Lavender to help increase New Yorkers’ access to psychiatric services remotely during the COVID-19 crisis. She is a psychiatric nurse practitioner, and in addition to having recently launched Lavender, she owns a business providing mental health services to dozens of NY nursing homes, employing 12 other psychiatric nurse practitioners. Go to joinlavender.com for more information.

Alicia Collen Zeidan | acollen@wesleyan.edu

Since graduating from Wesleyan, Kyra Beckmann has been living in Los Angeles, amassing marketing expertise and enjoying the sunshine. She joined Sephora a year ago as the director of content production and is active in the evolving content landscape.

Lyz Nardo Levy writes, “We are counting down in the Levy household—we will welcome baby girl #2 in early March. My daughter Mila (13 months) will be promoted to the role of Big Sister and my husband, who always dreamed of being surrounded by women, will get his wish (just maybe not the way he intended).”

Kate Krems graduated from George Washington Law in May, gave birth to her second child, Adela, in June, and somehow managed to pass the Bar in July. She works for Zuckerman Law, a small firm specializing in employment and whistleblower law in the D.C.-metro area and takes time to practice and teach yoga when she can.

Emma Komlos-Hrobsky writes, “2019 was a year of wild and weird pleasures in writing for me. In June, with support from the Elizabeth George Foundation, I made a trip to CERN, the international particle research center outside Geneva, to research a novel. It was nothing short of life-changing to see such wonders as the Compact Muon Solenoid that detected the Higgs boson and to interview women particle physicists about their work. In September, The Colony—a performance piece about sisterhood and the eusocial behavior of army ants—premiered at UConn; it was a treat to co-write it with my friend Anna Lindemann and to imagine what an ant aria might sound like. Otherwise, I am living in New York City with my longtime boyfriend Matt and hoping for more particle physics and bugs in 2020.”

Amanda Sim is happy to announce the launch of a new design studio, Working Hard. Working Hard is a design consultancy that creates visual experiences and design solutions with a special focus on taking on projects for social good. In tandem, Working Hard has also created a line of desk organization products—the first product set just went live in January. Check it out at work-work-work.com.

Alicia Collen Zeidan | acollen@wesleyan.edu

Maya Bass ’08, MA’10 is a family physician and was featured in The Guardian for her work providing abortions in Oklahoma. She works full-time as family medicine faculty at Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia in addition to flying back to Oklahoma part-time to provide reproductive health services.

Jeremy Brown and Kara Schnoes ’07 completed their family this past year with a second child who was adopted in Florida. They are enjoying living in Eugene, Ore., and hope the Wes community here continues to grow.

Steve Maroti writes, “I am finishing a master’s in international affairs at Columbia University, focusing on international security policy and finance, and recently got engaged. I remain eternally game to meet at Miller’s.”

Sam Barcelo graduated in May with an MBA from the Questrom School of Business.

Please keep the updates coming! Your classmates love hearing about you. E-mail me anytime.

Alicia Collen Zeidan | acollen@wesleyan.edu

Ruby Corbyn-Ross writes, “I’m working full-time teaching English reading remediation at a Spanish-immersion public charter school and part-time as a musician in New Orleans. Annalisa Kelly and I are making lots of Balkan music together! Our choir, Trendafilka, just released our first studio album and our band, Blato Zlato, is going on tour this summer to the West Coast and Bulgaria in advance of our sophomore album to be released in the fall. We’re working with a class of ’12 alumna to make a music video! I see a number of Wes folks regularly in NOLA and look forward to seeing more this summer at a wedding in Massachusetts.”

After a grueling year of applications, auditions, and acceptances into eight different MFA programs around the world, Lynn Favin will be attending Bristol Old Vic in England! She is one of 14 international actors selected to train at the same school as Olivia Coleman, Patrick Stewart, Daniel Day-Lewis, and more. She also starred in her second film with the AFI this year, playing Jane Everyman in the sci-fi comedy, Deuterstomes. Represented by William Morris Endeavors in the world of VO, Lynn has many cartoon characters releasing later this year and recorded a national commercial for a major laptop brand. lynnfavin.com

Marina Kastan Hays writes, “I’m moving to Denver next month for a job in the textile conservation lab at the Denver Art Museum. I don’t really know anyone there so would be glad to hear from any Wes grads in the area!”

Sam Barcelo graduated from Questrom School of Business with an MBA, concentrating in marketing, entrepreneurship, and social impact.

Alicia Collen Zeidan | acollen@wesleyan.edu

Class of 2008 Scholarship
Celia Hurvitt ’22, Blue Hill, ME

The Class of 2008 has been taking the world by storm a mere 10 years after graduation! Jeffrey Stein is working as a public defender in D.C. While at Wes, he swam and, until this year, held two school records in the 200- and 400-freestyle relays. He has since replaced swimming with distance running. In November, he won the Marine Corps Marathon and was featured in NBC News and the Washington Post!

Kat Cho is publishing her first young adult novel, Wicked Fox, this year with Penguin Random House. It is based on her Korean heritage and draws from the myth of the gumiho, a nine-tailed fox who can become a woman to lure in men and eat their livers in order to live forever.

Bex Allen writes, “After 10 years in sweet home Chicago, I picked up and moved to Seattle, where I now work in corporate and foundation relations for UW Medicine.”

Lauren Goldman spent New Year’s Day in London with Caroline Janin and her dog, Josephine.

Jinny Jang married her partner, Scot Knickerbocker, in a small Washington, D.C., courthouse ceremony in October. Kate Letourneau and Andy Lubershane ’06 welcomed daughter Eve Shayna Letourneau in December. Eve has fat cheeks and a good attitude.

Sam and Sage Ruth decided to throw away their carefree DINK [double income, no kids] life, and welcomed their son Maxwell “Max” Alexander in November. Learning the fight song is next on his list of major developmental milestones.

Elissa Kozlov writes, “I accepted a faculty position at Rutgers University (jointly appointed to the School of Public Health and the Institute for Health, Health Policy and Aging Research). My family and I are planning to move to northern New Jersey in May. Any Wesleyan folk living in the Jersey ’burbs?”

Lyz Nardo Levy’s daughter, Mila, arrived on Dec. 5, weighing in at a whopping eight pounds, 12 ounces! Lyz and her husband, Dor, are very tired, but over the moon! Lyz writes, “She really is a laid-back baby. Tipsy Scoop continues to grow and we plan to open our second liquor-infused ice cream ‘barlour’ in Brooklyn this spring!”

Alicia Collen Zeidan | acollen@wesleyan.edu

Summer was full of weddings and babies for ’08!

Fourteen years after meeting as freshman at Wesleyan, Constance Smith and Alexander Rosen were married in the Anderson Valley region of Mendocino County, Calif. The ceremony was officiated by Matthew Ball. Daniel Meyer, Ilona Kramer, Eric Lach, Halley Chambers, Rachel Finkelstein, Hans Hsu, Rumman Hossain, James Rosenthal, Jake Levine, Rebecca Rabison, Stephanie O’Brien, Micki Baron, Jamie Hiteshew, Kate Zyskowski, Adam Gomolin ’06, Susannah Ragab ’06, Kyle Gardner ’06, Cara Bayles ’07, AJ Chan ’11, Hilary Burke ’10, and Constance’s sister Clare Smith ’10 were in attendance. Highlights of the evening included singing the Wesleyan fight song and dancing to Mgmt’s “Kids.”

Emily Einhorn and Jeff Wong had a baby this summer, Justin Edward Einhorn-Wong, born on June 11.

Silverio J. Vasquez and Jennifer Veloz ’10 got married this summer as well. Silverio writes, “If not for Wes, we would’ve never met!”

Rachel Bedick wasn’t able to make it to the Rreunion “because I gave birth to my son Tobias on May 6. In addition to being a mom, I started a new job as a clinical social worker embedded in a pediatrician’s office in Beverly, Mass., where I provide therapy to young people.”

Nathan Strand and his wife relocated to Colombia, where he will be working at the U.S. Agency for International Development Mission in Bogota for the next two years. They are already enjoying the great food, mild climate, warm local culture, and abundant adventures that Colombia has to offer.

Liat Olenick canvassed so hard to elect progressive candidates who are also decent human beings.

Lynn Favin has had an incredibly busy year in Los Angeles. She signed with William Morris Endeavors for voice acting and recorded another set of characters for the Emmy award-winning animated show Robot Chicken. After performing with the Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles in Macbeth, she joined the Actor’s Equity Association and was invited to be the inaugural equity guest artist for LMU’s new outdoor company Shakespeare on the Bluff, starring as Desdemona in Othello and Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. She will be performing with them in Pericles next summer.

Alicia Collen Zeidan | acollen@wesleyan.edu

Hello, ’08! It was so great to see so many of you at Reunion and meet some of your families. Here are some notes from those of us who couldn’t make it back and from those of us who made good on promises to submit.

Nick Benacerraf is working towards a PhD in theatre and performance at the Graduate Center, CUNY. His directorial debut, Seagullmachine, premiered at La MaMa in April and May. The show was created by The Assembly, including alumni from the Class of 2010). His set-designing practice (nickbenacerraf.com) had shows at Brooklyn Academy of Music and Lincoln Center. He was sad to miss Reunion, because “finals suck,” but sends love to friends.

Peter Hill writes, “After eight years fighting the good fight in the nonprofit sector and NYC government, I returned to grad school to get an MBA and explore ways to make cities work better using technology. I graduated from Harvard Business School the day before our 10th Reunion, and I’m moving out to Ann Arbor this summer with my husband. He’ll be teaching there, and I’ll be consulting at McKinsey in Detroit. I’m new to Michigan so would love to connect with any Wes people in the area. First, though, I’m enjoying a rare summer off to travel the country and reconnect with old friends.”

Adam Tinkle has been appointed director of the John B. Moore Documentary Studies Collaborative at Skidmore College, where he has been teaching since 2014. He writes, “One of the great joys of working here has been in working with visiting fellows for our annual Documentary Storytellers’ Institute, which I’ve helped to steer since its 2015 inception. Among these fellows are Jake Nussbaum ’10, Asa Horvitz ’10, Gedney Barclay ’09, and Sylvia Ryerson ’09. Anyone with any connection to nonfiction media and the documentary arts should look me up in Saratoga—it’s an incomparably lovely place to spend a summer.”

Last summer, after almost a decade of grad school/post-doc in Ann Arbor, Leah Weinberg and Scott Horowitz ’07, MA ’09 finally packed the cat into the car and drove west to start the next chapter in Colorado at the University of Denver. Both are loving the Front Range life, and cordially invite any Wes folks passing through Denver to drop them a line. 

Alpay Koralturk couldn’t make it to Reunion due to an urgent business trip in Turkey, but wrote, “My first company, Gram Games, just got sold to Zynga.” Grace Overbeke is pursuing a PhD in theater and drama at Northwestern University, and this July, will be marrying Mr. Matthew McMunn! Evan Barton just joined a new gym and is writing an essay about rereading the Harry Potter series.

Lyz Nardo, COO of Tipsy Scoop, celebrated the first anniversary of the Tipsy Scoop Barlour in Kips Bay. She writes, “In addition to 15 year-round flavors of boozy ice cream and sorbet, we are serving up lots of seasonal offerings including an entire summer of rosé wine-based flavors and collaborating with many restaurants like American Cut.” In May she was married outside of Florence, Italy, and is expecting her first child on Nov. 30.

Lucy Bickerton finally closed the books on the classroom portion of her medical education at SUNY Downstate and took the first step of her licensing exam two days before her baby boy, Calvin Vara, showed up one month early! Ilona Kramer, Elena Feroz, Stephanie Calvert, and Stephanie Fungsang celebrated at the baby shower just a few hours before she went into labor. She is loving motherhood and is excited to start clinical clerkships in July.

Another applicant to the class of 2040 arrived in April—George Fredric Jones Cruickshanks was born on April 4 to Francie Jones and Lauchlin Cruickshanks. Proud grandparents include Karen ’77 and Don Cruickshanks ’75.

Nick Weiss-Richmond and three collaborators, have created My Astronaut, an eight-episode mockumentary web series that answers the question of what one dim-witted boyfriend does to keep his girlfriend and his life from changing forever. Episode one was released on May 3. Season one starts with two bewildered filmmakers arriving to profile Maggie Placek, an underdog candidate for a civilian mission to Mars, but they soon find that her boyfriend, Micah Pevsner, might hold the key to a story far more compelling than a simple 30-second candidate bio. Episodes will be released on YouTube and Vimeo every Thursday, and the series has already received positive press from Staten Island Advance and The Daily Fandom.

Alicia Collen Zeidan | acollen@wesleyan.edu

Stephanie Pfeiffer and Michael Stinetorf had so much fun celebrating their marriage vows with multigenerational Wes friends and family in Montana in July 2017, including Steve Pfeiffer ’69, Vic Pfeiffer ’71, Jil Zilligen ’90 and Chris Schedler ’90, Victoria Metz ’99, Emily Pfeiffer-Russell ’05, Alex Pfeiffer Reynolds ’06, Reinhardt Schuhmann ’06 and Sage Norman, Katie Fabac, Rosina Belcourt, Kate Zyskowski, Rachel Firestone, Jessica Jones, Liat Olenick, Jordyn Lexton, Sarah Meier-Zimbler, Sophie Reagan ’09, Kaya Ceci ’13, and Andrew Pfeiffer ’13!

Caroline Raclin writes, “2017 was a crazy year! I’ve been managing emergency health programs in Yemen, Iraq, and South Sudan with the International Rescue Committee. I also moved my ’home base’ to Stuttgart, Germany, so if anyone is ever traveling around southern Germany, let me know!”

Louis Langlois and Peter Mitchell James went fishing on the San Joaquin delta outside of San Francisco four days before Christmas. They didn’t catch anything. Lucas Carrico ’09, Michael Walker, Daisy Holman ’07, Ramona Holman-Walker (future class of ’25), Josh Ente and Eddie Klein attended Louis Langlois’ Annual Hanukah Latke Party in San Francisco. Mike started a grease fire, and Eddie took part in his first music jam session accompanied by Lucas on the tenor sax.

Karla Hargrave is working with soundscape ecologist Bernie Krause to expand the worldwide network of soundscape ecologists who contribute hard data to wilderness conservation efforts and to strengthen society’s awareness of the importance of the sounds of the natural world. She completed solo pilot expeditions in Chile’s Patagonia and Colombia’s Amazon Rainforest to establish sites for ongoing studies.

Alicia Collen Zeidan | acollen@wesleyan.edu

It seems that the Class of ’08 is largely waiting for our 10th Reunion to catch up, but there are a few notes to share nonetheless.

Rachel Schulman is loving life in Minneapolis, but has yet to run into any Wes alumni. If you’re in the area, get in touch!

Adrienne Shea and Ryan McLaren got married on May 28 in Newport, R.I. There was laughing, there was crying, and there was much Wesleyan reuniting. The wedding party alone included eight alumni: Cory Savereid Satow, Marcia Whitehead, Stephanie Savas Landerholm, Danielle Crystal ’07, Hannah Jackson ’09, Ashley McLaren ’13, Dustin Shea ’05, and Jeff McLaren ’06. Adrienne and Ryan live in Burlington, Vt., with the (objectively) cutest dog in the world, Zoro.

Cory Savereid Satow and Gary Satow MALS’12 had a daughter, Mara, last December.

For her last class notes entry, Janie Stolar was thrilled to report that her rash was clearing up. She regrets to inform you, it came back.

Katie Poor got married in Prospect Park in Brooklyn on a beautiful day in September, with Zoe Holder, Sage Trombulak Ruth, and Alicia Collen Zeidan as bridesmaids. Sam Ruth and Laura Silver attended as well. “Kids” was played and the rest of the wedding guests gawked as the Wes graduates danced like they were at a party on Fountain.

Alicia Collen Zeidan | acollen@wesleyan.edu