Tag: 2008

You may have noticed that after more than five years of service, Caitlin O’Shaughnessy has retired from her position as Class Notes Secretary. I’m happy to be taking over for her. I recently relocated from NYC to Connecticut, buying a house with my husband, finishing grad school, and finally settling into my dream job as a nurse practitioner at a community health center. The health center caters to those who would not otherwise have access to primary care, and I have the privilege of treating newborns to seniors and everyone in between. Stop on by if you need affordable care!

Karla Hargrave received her MFA from San Francisco State University in theatre design in 2013 and works full time at the Brava Theater Center in SF. She has been in the Bay Area for five years now and spends her free time seeing as much of the bay on her bike as possible, occasionally going on adventures with Fiona Lundy.

Since graduation, Stephanie Fungsang has been living in Brooklyn, working as a dance artist and yoga instructor. She is now navigating a transition in career and life, including a move to Cambridge, Mass., in spring 2014 with Jeremy Finch ’09. She is thankful for all the experiences and people in NY, including roommates past and present: Lucy Bickerton and Stephanie Calvert in their first NYC home, a treehouse loft; Sarah Meier-Zimbler and Rosina Belcourt; Jess Jones, Shamiso Mtangi, Stephanie Roer, Mimi Bai ’09, and Briana Deutsch ’09, who helped create their beautiful home of the past four years in Ditmas Park. She has much gratitude and excitement for what may come ahead!

Sophia Kim is going back to school for nursing. She’s decided to go to Johns Hopkin’s accelerated BSN program that starts in May and will be moving to Baltimore soon.

Chayanee Ubol Chinthrajah writes: “2014 has been an exciting year so far… coming up on my two year-marriage anniversary, graduating with my Master’s in HR and starting a new job! Celebrated these milestones with a ring from my favorite Wes grad, Andrea Lipsky Karasz’s new jewelry line, Tilda Biehn. Check out her amazing line!!”

Max Schenkein is having a blast living in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, with his roommate Alex Trepp, eagerly awaiting the arrival of Josh Atwood, who is staying the weekend to celebrate Alex’s birthday, along with Natasha Nussberg.

Lauren Goldman moved from New York to the Bay Area in January to work with Organizing for Action. Since being on this coast, she’s seen Tara Moore, Amanda Gordon ’07, and Penelope Essoyan ’07. She was glad to miss the frigid NYC winter.

Joanna Kenty writes: “As of May, it’s Dr. Joanna Kenty! I’m receiving my doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania in Classics, after writing my dissertation on Cicero and Roman political rhetoric. Next year I’ll be back in New England, teaching at the University of New Hampshire.”

Marie Brophy spent the winter visiting family in Colorado, Boston, DC, and St. Louis, and ice climbing all around Colorado. She’s a rock climbing guide in Moab, Utah and had a Wes alum as a client last fall. When she’s not working, she can be found stuck to the side of a rock somewhere, putting her E&ES degree to good use, in a way!

Graham Douds passed the Calif. State Bar Exam. He is living and working as an attorney in San Francisco among friends and family.

Sandra Manzanares writes: “After spending the last year and a half dabbling editorially in different industries (from a flash sale site to a sneaker museum start-up), I recently started as marketing manager at Boston-based start-up, Placester, Inc., where I’m diving into the growing content marketing industry. I’m still volunteering, bringing tutoring and workshops to urban youth whenever possible at 826 Boston. Lashawn Springer, Melanie Nelson ’09, Caroline White, and Corrina Wainwright ’11 keep me company in Boston with our wonderful nights out (or in) that involve lots of laughter and wine! When not in Boston, I’m being housed in Rashida Richardson’s beautiful Brooklyn pad, eating ramen, and running into a million Wes people wherever I go.”

Brieze Keeley graduates from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai this May, after which she will begin her residency training in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in June. She’d love to connect with any Wes friends in Boston when she arrives!

Aaron Larner writes: “Last year I started working on a project to help healthcare organizations do a better job of communicating within their organization. With the new healthcare reform there are strong incentives for hospitals and ambulatory clinics to start using electronic medical records (which is awesome!), but most organizations are still figuring out how this change is going to help them. In the short term it’s a lot of work to get all of their physicians, nurses and IT staff up to speed with completely new technology, especially when they are used to scribbling everything down on paper. Having worked for a large electronic medical record software company I knew firsthand the frustrations that new users of electronic medical records were feeling. Along with two other friends in the healthcare IT industry, I put together BreadcrumbsQA, a platform for healthcare professionals to ask and answer questions about the best ways to use their electronic medical record software. Our vision is to help speed up adoption of electronic medical records so that the ecosystem can realize all of the benefits that this change will bring. It’s kind of like Quora but specifically aimed at healthcare professionals. In January we (finally) signed on our first customer, a healthcare IT consulting firm, and are now working to launch another pilot at large healthcare organization.”

Alicia collen Zeidan | acollen@wesleyan.edu

Lauren Goldman writes: “I just finished working my third campaign cycle as a field organizer. The last campaign I worked on was called Garden State Forward—a campaign to elect progressive politicians to New Jersey’s highest offices. Although Christie won the governor’s seat, the state senate and assembly were carried by Democrats. I got to work alongside Michael Berger and we shared many laughs and good times. Looking forward to seeing the whole of Wesdom/NYC in the coming weeks.”

Emily Hauck writes: “I’m working for the city of Beauvais (about an hour outside Paris) in charge of various sustainable development action plans. Being a French public servant has its perks, notably nearly seven weeks of paid vacation. Julien and I took full advantage and came back to the U.S. for a month this summer. While home, we stayed with Izaak Orlansky in his Brooklyn apartment, ate burgers in Harlem with a bar-exam-wearied Emma Rosenberg, visited Becca Feiden ’09 on Martha’s Vineyard, and hung out with Maura Scully and Emily Malkin in D.C. Stephanie Schwartz used her frequent flier miles to come visit us in Paris last spring and we’re looking forward to hosting Mark Purser for Thanksgiving!”

Chaz Ganster writes: “I’m in Tokyo, visiting family and Wes friends. I’m the first person in my family to go to Japan after my grandmother left in 1956. But I live in L.A., animating and character designing for an all-Wesleyan educational software company called Pup’s Quest for Phonics. The software is being used in many elementary schools in L.A. (pupsquest.com)

Liat Olenick is recovering from liverfest.

Nick Benacerraf writes: “The Assembly, my performance collective (with Edward Bauer, Jess Chayes ’07, Stephen Aubrey ’06, and Ariela Rotenberg ’10), has been invited to perform at the CFA Theater in January! It’s really exciting for us to come home to where it all began. We will be presenting HOME/SICK, our collectively-written show about the Weather Underground, which recently ran for three sold-out runs in New York and was a critics’ pick in the NY Times. We make smart, visceral theater and if you live in New York, you should hang out with us. I am also one of the leaders of an initiative called The Brooklyn Commune Project (brooklyncommune.org) that is writing a position paper about the economics of the performing arts, which will be published online in January. I’m making lots of theater and visual art, while still managing to eat food. (Yes!) People at LA Weekly gave me an award for set design. And… I went to India for six weeks this summer! All thanks to Wes.”

Steph Calvert writes: “Some recent news of mine is that I was the youngest alumni artist to show work in the Alumni Show II that was recently up in Zilkha Gallery. I went for Homecoming & Family Weekend for gallery talks, and interview, and to participate in a panel discussion on art and science, along with two other artists from the show and a couple of scientists from Wesleyan. I stood out there as well, as the youngest and only female on the panel.”

Grace Overbeke is in her first year of the interdisciplinary PhD in theatre and drama at Northwestern University.

Anthony Albrecht writes: “Although I have lived in Middletown my whole life, I just bought a house in town (as opposed to living with parents and then in an apartment) with my wife, Kelly. After my first teaching job last year at New Britain High School, I currently teach (and happily am doing so) at Woodrow Wilson Middle School, also in Middletown, as a language arts teacher.”

Maggie Siddiqi began studying at Hartford Seminary, pursuing a master’s in Islam and Christian-Muslim relations, as well as a graduate certificate in Islamic chaplaincy.

Zachary Davis and Travis Fitzgerald ’09 are closing Appendix Project Space, their art residency and gallery space in Portland, Ore., after a successful five-year run. They are moving to NYC, where they plan to collaborate with Joshua Pavlacky on another curatorial project, American Medium.

Alpay Koralturk writes: “After four years in the investment banking and startup scenes in New York, I moved back to Istanbul to start a mobile gaming company. We have raised venture capital funds from Europe and the US and will be expanding our team over the next year. You can check out Gram Games on the iOS AppStore.”

Devon Golaszewski began a PhD program in history at Columbia, focusing on African history this fall, after several years in Mali.

Phoebe Jones is in the second year of her master’s degree in public health at Drexel University in Philadelphia, where she has been falling hard for the City of Brotherly Love. She is concentrating in health management and policy and her work focuses on autism, aging, and ethics. She traveled to Israel this past summer to do research with her professors and she is excited to get back to the workforce after graduation this year. She is also loving being an aunt to two adorable nephews (sons of Serena Jones ’00!) and living with her boyfriend, a seasoned Philly native.

Sam Grover has moved to Madison, Wis., to start a career as a staff attorney for the nonprofit organization Freedom from Religion Foundation. He will work to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church while learning to eat cheese curds and enjoy ice fishing. Go Badgers!

Before starting grad school in May, Leslie Prado did a road trip in March and saw the Grand Canyon. Now she is in D.C., doing a dual master’s degree in physician assistant and public health at George Washington University where she will be for the next three years.

Ruby Ross writes: “My only big news is that I released my first CD, an EP called Solid Ground, back in October. I recorded it in Jess Myhre’s ’09 basement when she lived in Baltimore last year and she and her friends laid down a bunch of tracks on it so it turned into much more than I’d originally envisioned. I’m excited to finally have the finished product. I also have a track on a new compilation CD of New Orleans songwriters, recorded and released by Buffa’s Back Room Bar. Other than that, life’s still pretty much the same: waitressing at JIMS cafe, teaching adult ESL, and making music as Ruby Ross & The Precious Gems and as Pyeya with other NOLA Wesfolk.”

Caitlin O’Shaughnessy
caitlin.oshaughnessy@gmail.com