Tag: 2013

With the arrival of fall comes the realization that it’s already been three years since the Class of 2013 graduated from Wesleyan. During this time, we’ve traveled the world, earned an additional degree (or two), and settled into an exciting new chapter of our lives. Keep reading for a snippet of our adventures!

Jim Curley is the director of state relations at Boston University. He is also working towards an MBA at BU. He sees his fellow classmates Derek Lukin and Carmen Boscia in Boston. Amanda Simmons relocated to Philadelphia from NYC to study at Penn Law. She is joined by her partner, Adam Jaskol, who works as a management consultant and engages in casual sax(ophone). Amanda and Adam are hoping to reconnect with Wes friends, so reach out if you’re in Philly. Sarah Cassel finished her master’s in criminology at the University of Cambridge this summer. She wrote her dissertation on higher education in prison, and is working at the NYC Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice. Anna Swartz is still living in Brooklyn and is a staff writer at Mic, where a few coworkers are also Wes grads. From her office in One World Trade she can almost see all the way to Connecticut! Happy to say that she still sees Wesleyan friends at least once a week, if not more.

Kristen Salustro missed LA by a couple of thousand miles and wound up in Chicago, which is just fine by her. She is a writer for bswift, an Aetna company, and is working on her third novel. Her first two books, published under the name K.N. Salustro, were nominated for the Chanticleer Book Reviews Cygnus Awards for science fiction and speculative fiction. Sydney Lowe is also living in LA. After working as an associate producer at HBO in New York for three years, she joins the staff of HBO’s upcoming fall comedy, Insecure, as producer’s assistant to show creator, Issa Rae. Sydney continues to work as a photographer and creative producer on several video projects, documentaries, and branded content campaigns.

Despite tenacious efforts to avoid gainful employment in 2016, Evan Carmi ended up with a new job, joining Airbnb’s Portland engineering team. After failing to muster the courage to take Drawing 1 at Wes, he signed up for a local drawing class this fall. Zach Schonfeld delivered a Drunk Ted Talk on the subject of Nicolas Cage appreciation. He still works for Newsweek, and he hasn’t gotten stuck in an elevator since 2014. Julian Azaret moved to Melbourne, Australia, where he’s run into a few Wes alumni. He has been racing bikes, climbing mountains, and consulting in the SaaS industry all over Asia-Pacific. Things haven’t changed much in the last three years. Anyone passing through that part of the world should give him a holler!

After finishing her master’s in sustainable engineering from Rochester Institute of Technology, Alissa Santucci has been working at Xerox Corporation in the environmental, health, safety, and sustainability department. Alissa was promoted to environmental technology program manager and is excited for all of her new responsibilities which can help shape the environmental sustainability future of the company. Katie Havlovic writes in from D.C., where she transitioned from working for Congressman Beto O’Rourke to the Opportunity Finance Network, where she advocates for the interests of community development financial institutions throughout the United States. While she continues to explore the D.C. food truck scene, nothing can beat the falafel and grilled cheese trucks back at Wes.

Brooklyn is full of entrepreneurs! Noah Masur ’15 has started a humane pesticide business (very popular in Williamsburg), and William T. Davis has taken his experience in the coffee industry and now runs an online exotic coffee bean store on the deep net. Sora Akiyoshi ’14 and Chloe Rinehart ’14 began a volunteer outreach program that offers ultimate Frisbee classes for those in senior housing, and Peter Horton and Croy Salinas are still making sweet music together as they enjoy the start of their fourth year of happily living together. Mark Popinchalk enjoys keeping tabs on his friends, both in Brooklyn and afar, including Ethan Grund, who is starting his second year working on his comprehensive lake survey of Minnesota.

Matt Lichtash, much like Andrew Perlmutter is wont to do, is also working away, doing all things BKE. Aside from pursuing all forms of football except for the actual thing (fantasy, flag), Matt has also embarked on a new creative venture: a website dedicated to presenting information about climate change in concise posts containing three bullet points or fewer. The site, thecarboncapital.org, is easily digestible, shareable, and nonpartisan, and posts info to motivate anyone to take climate action.

Evan Okun (aka E. Oks) performed a solo show at the NYC’s Nuyorican Poets Cafe alongside Sam Friedman and other members of his Chicago collective. The show celebrated the release of his new single (soundcloud.com/eoks). The next morning, he flew back to Chicago to continue his work with Circles & Ciphers, a hip-hop infused restorative justice organization led by young people who are court-, gang-, and DCFS- involved.

As for myself, I wrapped up three years at Apple and transitioned to Fitbit to work in advanced product development. When I’m not searching for the latest and greatest technologies to apply to future Fitbit products, you’ll find me traveling, watercolor painting, and (still) eating my way through the wonderful city of San Francisco. Would love to reconnect with any Wes alums living in or traveling through this area!

Laura Yim | Lyim@wesleyan.edu 

Having returned to California after graduation, Thomas Cho is living it up as a fifth- and sixth-grade science teacher, all the while discerning whether he wants to stay in education or not. Considering the rent prices in the Bay Area, he seriously is missing the days when rent was “free” at the senior houses, and all this talk of the drought in California makes him nostalgic for the winters in Connecticut (but not really). Anna Swartz is still living in Brooklyn but has started a new position as a staff writer at Mic along with several other Wesleyan alums. In October, she had the pleasure of spending the night with a theater full of Wes alums seeing Hamilton on Broadway. It was great. #Ham4Wes.

Martin Kafina is a lab manager and researcher at Harvard Medical School. His lab operates within the Hematology & Oncology Division of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and his research team focuses on hemoglobin synthesis in the mitochondria. Martin is working on a project that examines iron transporters and enzymes residing in the mitochondria that support healthy hemoglobin production. Defective activities of these proteins lead to blood disorders characterized by anemia and mitochondriopathy. He has learned important techniques to study molecular biological processes including flow cytometry, DNA electrophoresis, Western Blot, PCR, cloning, and microinjection. Aside from the research, he is responsible for managing grants and ordering lab equipment. He is very impressed with the performances of Wesleyan swimming and diving, at the 2016 NESCAC Championship, led by head coach Peter Solomon.

Melody Oliphant can’t seem to stray too far from Middletown, as she now finds herself living in New Haven, after two years in Brooklyn. Melody is halfway through her first year in a two-year postgraduate fellowship at Yale’s Child Study Center working in a genetics research lab. Michael Robinson and Lia Monti are celebrating their recent engagement, while Buddy ’13 continues to mourn the loss of his childhood home, Beta Theta Pi.

William Tyner is working on an independent research project, where he is creating an oral history of working life in the digital economy. The purpose of his research is to investigate the meaning of work for technologists and non-technologists in the field. Why do you build what you build? What does it feel like every day to do what you do? What do you feel you are or aren’t contributing? How does your career shape your identity? How does race and social class influence your career? What frustrates you? What gives you joy? Throughout the next few months, he will be speaking with technologists of all types to answer these questions. If you’re interested in participating, please e-mail him at williamttyner@gmail.com.

As always, thanks to my classmates for writing in!

Laura Yim | Lyim@wesleyan.edu

Thanks to all my fellow classmates for their submissions. Here we go!

Ben Smith writes in from Chicago, where he is developing a science fiction radio comedy and looking for brilliant Wesleyan voices to audition. Contact him if you’d like to participate! Bennett Kirschner is engaged in a round-the-clock method acting exercise to play the role of Rick Freehold in “i dreamed i was decent,” a semi-autobiographical tale by John Locke Schmidt. If anyone visits New Orleans, watch for him on Canal Street—he is easily spotted in his distinctive sleeping mask. Chris McNabbwas the editor for an interactive documentary (theand.us), and the project won an Emmy award in the category of New Approaches: Documentaries. The documentary has received a lot of success since launching last June; it was awarded Best Interactive Documentary by World Press Photo earlier this year, and a short film cut from it went to Sundance in January. But the Emmy has kind of taken the cake!

Since her last update, Kristen Salustro has written and started up a Kickstarter for her second novel, and the book will be officially released on Nov. 18. It’s titled Unbroken Light and is the sequel to her first novel, Chasing Shadows. She’s slowly but surely building up an audience for both her science fiction series and her Etsy shop. While she’s still living and working in New Jersey, there’s a strong chance that she’ll be moving to L.A. next spring and is looking forward to that interesting turn.

Shemuel Garber just moved to Vienna to start an MA in philosophy at the University of Vienna and works as a genital autonomy activist in collaboration with the German organization intactive.V. Adam Burt graduated from UConn this spring with a bachelor of science in nursing and is now employed at Backus Hospital in Norwich, Conn., as an emergency department RN. Melody Oliphant just moved to New Haven to begin a two-year fellowship in a genetics research lab at Yale’s Child Study Center. Robert Vance is in his second year of law school at Berkeley. He is also being published in the upcoming role-playing game Exalted, Third Edition. Sandy Durosier started working full time at Yale School of Medicine in the Department of OB/GYN and Reproductive Services as a post-graduate associate. She studies the association of an inflammatory chemokine and preterm labor. Kevin Curtin recently moved up to Boston and would love to reconnect with other Wes folks there. He’s working for Summit Partners, a global growth equity firm that invests in rapidly growing companies in technology. Randy Linder is entering his second year of the associate’s program at Capital Group, an investment management firm based in LA. He’s heading over to San Antonio for a short rotation with their service analytics team. Randy is also still playing chess and doing Brazilian jiu jitsu during his free time. If any Wes alums are in the area, contact him to re-connect over coffee/drinks!

Nick Devane is taking his company, Homemade, through the Techstars NYC program. He’s living with Augustin Vita and Nate Howell ’14 in the Big Apple. He spent a lot of last year finding himself, briefly stopping to begin work on a quasi-biographical creative short fiction piece, and truly believes that he’s most of the way there. Nick is looking forward to mentoring Matt Gross ’15, as he moves in with the crew and begins his pursuit of a musical odyssey across NYC. As always, Nick is taking care of Zulu and making sure to spend lots of time with techies and former Wes celebs.

Kelsey Muller, on track to graduate with her master’s in biomedical engineering from USC in December, is working at SynTouch, LLC, a prosthetics and robotics company that specializes in bio­mimetic sensors. In her non-existent free time, she has taken up rock climbing and trains city squirrels to help the LA recreational department clean up local parks. After working at AquaJust and serving as a New Sector RISE Fellow, AmeriCorps affiliate, and content designer for the National Corporate Engagement team at Year Up, Evan Hazelett started work in the Bay Area this September at social enterprise Imperfect Produce, America’s first ugly produce brand that seeks to turn food waste into food access while “redefining beauty in produce.” About 20 percent of produce grown on American farms ends up in landfills because it doesn’t meet the strict cosmetic standards of our supermarkets. Imperfect buys this ugly produce directly from California farmers, boxes it up, and provides a delivery service and pick-up locations for consumers at up to 50 percent off grocery store prices.

Kevin Brisco wrote that he and his housemates contemplated adopting kittens at their home in NOLA. However, they decided three kittens were unbecoming of young professionals. So they settled for a cactus and several succulents instead.

Laura Yim | Lyim@wesleyan.edu

Hello, All! It has been two years since the Class of 2013 left Wesleyan. We’ve embarked on journeys near and far, collected master’s degrees or are enroute to becoming PhDs, changed jobs/lives/cities a few times, and we’ve stuck by each other through it all.

Chantal Ferguson, Suzanne Gallo, and Emily Wolcott are just about to move out of the Jolly Rogers house they have shared for the last two years. Emily and Suzanne are getting their master’s in social work and Chantal is starting her MD/PhD at UMass. They are frequently visited by local classmates including Thomas Kassel and Andrew Perlmutter. Current pastimes include competitive knitting, basket weaving, and soup-making competitions. Weekends are often concluded with team bowling and all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet. If anyone is visiting Boston, the Jolly Rogers crew would love to have you at their new digs close by.

Trevor Michelson will be representing the United States in the lightweight single sculls at the 2015 World University Games in Gwangju, South Korea in July. Randy Linder is working at Capital Group in Los Angeles. Bennett Kirschner started a small theatre ensemble/Vietnamese pop-up in New Orleans called the Cobbleslop Group. Their first production, titled Feast & Crime, went up this past March and was a resounding success. Their next production, titled John Locke Schmidt: The Unforgiven Betrayal of a Close Friend will be in mid-August at a small art gallery, and he would love it if any and all Wesleyan grads could make it!

Joseph O’Donnell is over half way done with a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail, which spans 2,189 miles from Georgia to Maine. He is fundraising along the way for Hike for Mental Health, an organization devoted to promoting mental health research and hiking as a therapeutic activity. To follow or donate for mental health, visit psychhikes.com. Chloe Lalonde and Ceili Brennan are hiking the Pacific Crest Trail the summer. As of this message, they are on top of Mount Whitney! 766 miles out of 2660 down. They are also wearing their Wesleyan Cross Country T-shirts and repping our alma mater.

Ross Gormley is starting an MFA program this fall in creative nonfiction at UNC Wilmington. Before he enrolls, he is traveling out West on a trip made entirely possible by Wesleyan friends—many thanks to them. Sarah Cassel will be beginning a master’s degree in criminology at the University of Cambridge, U.K., in Oct. Ever since participating as a writing tutor in Wesleyan’s Center for Prison Education, she has become passionate about working in the intersecting field of prison reform, rehabilitation, and racial justice.
Last year, Lia Monti moved into a historic home in Brooklyn Heights built in 1834 by Walt Whitman’s father (with help from young Walt). She graduated this May from Columbia University with a master’s in postwar Japanese art history. Janet Cushey moved from Seoul to NYC in August of 2014 to begin a position as an investor relations associate with a small firm that works with oncology and drug development companies. Anna Swartz is living in Bed-Stuy, writing for The Dodo and looking forward to some scenic drives through good ol’ Connecticut this summer. Walter Rodriguez started a new role this year in global procurement at Pfizer, where he’s been since graduating from Wesleyan. His daughter, Adriana, just graduated from kindergarten this June. He is looking forward to many summer weekends in NYC with her at parks, zoos, aquariums, and gardens. She loves taking the train from New Jersey.

Taran Catania has spent the last year in Washington D.C., working for an international bird conservation organization. Previously, she spent a few seasons in the field catching migratory shorebirds in Delaware Bay. She loves D.C., but does not love the Red Line metro. Evan Okun is now a central leader of Circles & Ciphers, a restorative justice organization or young people of color who are court and gang involved. This coming August, the organization will hire Cherkira Lashley ’15 to start a branch of the program for young women. This past May, Cherkira and Evan brought Circles & Ciphers to Wesleyan to facilitate conflict resolution circles with various groups on campus. One such circle focused on rebuilding community between residents of fraternities, Women of Color House, and Open House. Evan Okun has also brought with colleagues and Wesleyan alumni together to release an album, Well Lit LP. The debut music video can be found on YouTube: E. Oks—Beez (ft. Ash Frost). More music, articles, and poetry can be found at E-Oks.com

Chelsea Goldsmith has an update from the 410: “Cassie Liu came and visited me. The rest of you are still in trouble.”

As for myself, I’m continuing to enjoy the spoils of the Bay Area and am about to hit my two-year mark at Apple. Still making my way through SF gastronomy and exploring the world whenever time permits. Thanks to everyone for writing in and best wishes to all my classmates!

Let’s get right to it!

Syed Ali is at the national offices of FoodCorps in NYC, helping get the word out about a nationwide team of AmeriCorps leaders who connect kids to real food and help them to grow up healthy. If you’re interested, they’re recruiting!

Corey Guilmette is halfway through his second year at Yale Law School, well on his way to becoming a public defender.

Hannah Bailenson was promoted at the National Dance Institute (NDI), where she’s been working on school-based arts education programming. Her Home Ave. housemate Joel Hochman is on the forefront of recent changes around immigration, working with relevant populations as a paralegal at the New York Legal Assistance Group (NYLAG).

After stints in Boston and New York working for Analysis Group, Saumya Chatrath has settled in between in New Haven. She’s now a research associate for a Yale University health economist.

After 1.5 years pursuing being an “employed professional” at a tech startup, Evan Carmi quit his job to go backpacking in South America. He’ll be in Mexico, Argentina and Chile from February to May. He is simultaneously excited and terrified.

Marisa Stotter directed and produced She Makes Comics, a documentary celebrating the history of women in comic books, released in Dec. 2013 to great acclaim. Now based in LA, she’s begun working in TV and film development at Valhalla Entertainment, the legendary producer of Aliens, the Terminator trilogy, and The Walking Dead. Marisa is happy to report that she is not yet a zombie.

Laura Machlin is in DC, doing research on anxiety as part of the Post-Bac IRTA program at the National Institutes of Health.

Estée Rubien-Thomas is going strong as an associate researcher in neurology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Her roommate, Leah Koenig, has been working at a reproductive health advocacy nonprofit in NYC. This fall, she’ll begin pursuing an MPH. Their other roommate, Lisa Lee, is a strategy consultant at Deloitte. She’s making migrations to New Jersey every week as part of her current project posting.

Ryu Hirahata moved to Williamsburg after graduation and has been living there while working for an architecture firm based in NYC’s financial district. Zack Sulsky also made the move from Wes to Williamsburg with Ryu to work at Carnegie Hall, but has since moved to Colorado to work full-time on his start-up, Edify Technologies, Inc. Their mobile app, Sketch-a-Song, makes music composition accessible to beginners.

Janet Cushey moved from Seoul to New York in September and began working for a boutique investor relations firm called Argot Partners. Her clients are pharmaceutical companies, with a majority working in the oncology sphere.

Miriam Kwietniewska left the 9-5 race to freelance and pursue her passion. She’s happy to announce the creation of Four Ingredients, a healthy frozen dessert company serving the vegan, paleo, and health-minded communities with delicious desserts made from the best stuff on earth. Check it out at fouringredients.com

David Shimomura is actually back at Wesleyan after having spent a year back home in Chicago. He is the new program coordinator for the Center for the Arts, otherwise affectionately known as the CFA. His New Year’s resolution is to have more Twitter followers than Gabriel Urbina.

Samantha Melvin is a lab manager at Columbia University’s Neurocognition, Early Experience, and Development Lab. Meaning she gets to hang out with adorable preschoolers and do science. She’s moved in with boyfriend Andy Ribner ’14.

Christina Ermilio has been working for nonprofit executive search firm Isaacson Miller and is living in Somerville, Mass., with Lydia Rex ’14, Sarah Kalish ’14, and Yara Kass-Gergi ’12.

Chelsea Goldsmith has been living, working, and enjoying life in Baltimore, where she’s worked at six different museums and is the volunteer coordinator at the Baltimore Urban Debate League, an educational nonprofit. When not organizing debate tournaments, Chelsea is out and about exploring the city, learning how to use her new sewing machine, and waiting for NYC Wes friends to come and visit. (“Yeah, I’m looking at you, Cassie Liu.”) If life ever brings you to The Greatest City in America, don’t hesitate to get in touch!

Anna Swartz is a staff writer for The Dodo, an animal news site. She writes a lot of cat listicles, and is very happy to live within walking distance of so much of the Class of 2013 in Brooklyn.

Since last writing in, James Gardner has taken on an Afro-German mentee and is tutoring him in German and American history. He also helps out at workshops for the parents of Afro-German children. The mothers have reacted positively to the presence of a brown-bodied male figure in their children’s lives. Additionally, James has taken on more responsibility at his job and is showing more entrepreneurial initiative (one of his New Year’s resolutions!). He is working on becoming an even more valuable member of his company’s executive committee. As always, he hopes to convene more frequently with WesBerlin-ers and WesAffiliants passing through the area.

Kateryn Nuñez is getting a second degree at the NYU College of Nursing. She works closely with a midwife as part of her aspirations to join that field.

Jaewon Chung lives on the edge of Queens, NY, working as a clinical research coordinator for the North Shore-LIJ Health System

Bill Beluch is in Tübingen, Germany, working as a research assistant at The Friedrich Miescher Laboratory of the Max Planck Society.

Aria Danaparamita was invited to take part in a documentary series on Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles (founder of Singapore; subject of her thesis). After finding her thesis online, the filmmakers asked her to share her insights as one of their experts. The “Raffles Revealed” episodes aired this January on Channel NewsAsia, a Singapore-based news channel broadcast in more than a dozen countries around Asia and the Pacific. It was a great opportunity to share her research on Raffles and the history of British colonization in Java.

Alex Kuwada is in his second year working at Saint James School in Maryland. He teaches upper school math, coaches basketball and soccer, and lives in a dorm with 8th grade boys at the boarding school. He takes pride in being the self-proclaimed best FIFA player on campus and convincing the student body that his nonsensical nicknames are funny, especially “BKE.” Overall, he would describe his journey as an educator and mentor as “flippant,” “circuitous,” and “hardo.”

Michael Steves is still in LA directing and writing. In December, he was hired to write and direct his second feature film The Cold Descent, a horror-western set on a midnight train headed for Atlanta in the 1870s. The movie stars Tony Todd (Candyman), Michael Eklund (Bates Motel), and Lance Henrkison (the Alien series). More recently, Michael directed a horror-comedy feature film, Clinger (made by many Wes students and ’13 alums), that was an official selection of the 2015 Slamdance Film Festival. It premiered January 24,  in the narrative feature competition, as one of 11 selected out of 3,000 feature submissions, and one of three American films in competition. The movie sold out both of its Park City screenings, and has received multiple distribution offers. In between features, Michael writes and directs commercials.

Wishing all my classmates the best! Cheers,

Laura Yim | Lyim@wesleyan.edu

It’s been a year since the Class of 2013 bid Wesleyan adieu. A year full of spontaneous adventures, not-so-spontaneous work/school schedules, old and new friends, and the promise of constant transition.

Kristen Raddatz moved to Chicago last September for an assistant position in the publicity department at the University of Chicago Press, and was promoted in August. Now a promotions manager at UCP, she handles their Asian studies, anthropology, cartography, and literary criticism titles, as well as publicity for their clients, Unicorn Press and Zed Books. Ally Bernstein and Audrey Kiely also write in from Chicago, where they are questioning their life decisions. They’re finding solace in comedic television programs and bubble tea, but unfortunately the restaurant forgot to add the bubbles. Way to go, Chicago.

Andrew Perlmutter is a management and technology consultant for McGladrey. He has been traveling around the country, helping businesses select software and refine processes to support their cloud computing strategies. He lives in Sherborn, Mass., where he walks his neighbors’ dogs and also works in his garden with his parents. He is training his dog to compete in the 2015 National Dog Show. Andrew Lieberman has been coaching football at Rutgers University as a player development/offensive assistant since January. Julia Bond lives in Boston with Jessica Jordan and Matt Adelman, and works in academic journals publishing at John Wiley & Sons. Julian Applebaum is a software engineer on Squarespace’s e-commerce team. He plays bass in Sirs&Madams, and stays actively involved with WesHack. William T. Davis has successfully started his own gardening business based out of his Brooklyn apartment. Peter Horton and Croy Salinas have officially signed a domestic partnership agreement, which Mark Popinchalk was extremely proud and happy to serve as the primary witness. Ethan Grund left Wesleyan without a specific career path in mind, but has finally decided to follow up his general academic accomplishments by applying for an equally broad second degree as a MD/PHD in neuroscience. All five of them are based in Brooklyn, N.Y.

On the West Coast, Claire Dougherty is living life big out in Californ-i-a! When she isn’t working as a professional off-leash dog walker and trainer in the beautiful Oakland hills, she dedicates herself to producing content for the East Bay Car Project, a digital homage to rectangles and rims. Claire moved in with her best friend, John Schmidt, and enjoys spending her time watching MTV and searching for NY pizza in all the wrong places. Find her on LinkedIn!

Max Ward just finished up a one-year masters program in TV, radio, and film at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications in Syracuse, N.Y. He has since moved to Los Angeles and started an unpaid internship at a production company called Pantheon Entertainment. His goal is to become a screenwriter; he has a feature written and submitted to several film festivals. Lindsay Kosasa writes in from the Aloha state, where she is currently a TFA corps member teaching special education, world history, and creative dance at Waipahu High School in Oahu. She established the dance program at Waipahu, turning the dance club into a for-credit class. Lindsay plans on teaching past her two-year TFA commitment.

Jess Seward is in her second year as a college counselor in China. She spent three months in Southeast Asia this spring and is planning to return next spring to SE Asia for six to nine months to volunteer/work following China. Peter Myers has spent much of the past year in Valparaíso, Chile, as an English teacher. Highlights include: having lots of barbecues, navigating the labyrinthine, slang-filled universe of Chilean Spanish, feeling several 6.0+ earthquakes, and being bitten by a stray dog.He also had some poetry published in the Berkeley Poetry Review. James Gardner has been meeting up with many Wes travelers in the Berlin region since his last post. He is in the process of assuming the chief operations officer (COO) position at his company, and plans to put his career aside in a year or so to study for his master’s in Berlin. After spending a year teaching high-school English in the Austrian Alps, Adam Rashkoff has returned to Austria for a second and final year in the same fellowship program. He will be working at a school in the capital city of Vienna and also studying towards an MA in comparative literature at the University of Vienna. Any Wes classmates who find themselves in the area are more than welcome to give him a shout if they are looking for a place to crash or simply for suggestions of which cafés and bars to hit!

Prince Emenalo writes in about starting a graduate program at Georgia State University. He is pursuing a master’s degree in public health with a concentration in management and policy. Amanda Morrow just started physical therapy school in Denver at Regis University. After spending a year working at the Pancreas Center at Columbia University Medical Center in NYC, Taryn Murray has moved back to Ohio to attend medical school at Northeast Ohio Medical University. Matt Motta is beginning his second year of PhD work at the University of Minnesota, studying American politics and political psychology. This past spring, Matt won a three-year graduate research fellowship (GRFP) from the National Science Foundation. While on fellowship, he will conduct research focused on better understanding how Americans’ implicit racial attitudes shape public opinion, and work on developing empirical tests designed to improve the quality of data collected from online survey research.

Vivianne and Benjamin (Abravanel) Swerdlow graduated. “Married. Moved. Worked. Quit. Got degus: Fred V and George V. Watched Buffy. Spent time with family. Worked. Quit. Spent time with family. Repeat last three as necessary for the next 40 years, then expect a reevaluation.”

As for me, I’ve finished up my first year at Apple as an engineering program manager. I spend my free time perusing farmers markets, eating my way through the Bay Area, and traveling whenever possible. Thanks to my classmates for all the contributions, and best wishes to everyone!

Laura Yim | Lyim@wesleyan.edu

With the arrival of spring (after what seemed like a perpetual winter) comes the epiphany that it has been almost a year since my fellow classmates and I graduated from Wesleyan. It’s hard to believe how quickly time has flown by! While some of us are settling into the daily routines of corporate life, others are embracing the return to graduate school, transitioning jobs from one field to another, or simply embarking on new adventures around the world.

Ex-Wesleying editor Zach Schonfeld recently left his fellowship at The Wire to take a job at Newsweek, where he reports on many topics, some of which include Wesleyan. In March, one of his tweets was linked in a post on Gawker. He is enjoying Brooklyn, but occasionally misses Olin 3A. Danielle Craig writes in from Manhattan, where she is working as a paralegal at the U.S. Attorney’s Office. She lives with fellow Wes ’13er, Lily Kaplan, in an apartment that is only moderately decked out in red and black. She is learning an enormous amount about the criminal justice system and federal prosecution, and law school or a master’s in public policy is (somewhere) on the horizon. In her free time she plays squash in an adult league with college teammate Grace Zimmerman and has started to volunteer at an animal shelter in Chinatown. She still hasn’t eaten at every restaurant in New York City, but she’s certainly trying. Also in NYC is Miriam Kwietniewska who works in child welfare crisis management at a foster care agency in Queens called Forestdale Inc. While it is mentally and emotionally challenging, the life and work experience has been invaluable. When she is not working, Miriam is combining her passion for dance and social change. She started movement workshops at the agency for birth parents and their children in order to help them through the trauma of being in the foster care system. They are partnering with the Gibney Dance Company to start the workshops this July.

Singing sensation Emma Daniels writes in from the nation’s capital, and is currently working in the Latin American and Caribbean division of an NGO that promotes democracy and international governance. She also moonlights as a wedding singer—those hoping to crash a wedding in the DC area, please contact her! Roomies Evan Baum, Barbaralynn Moseman, and Hannah Reuman are living together happily in New Haven. Barbaralynn is doing clinical research in Alzheimer’s disease, Hannah is doing clinical research in autism spectrum disorders, and Evan is working for a private material sciences company. After work, they make sure to cuddle and reminisce about Wesleyan memories. Kelsey Muller moved to Bozeman, Mont., last summer to enjoy a year off from school. There, she works in a lab, skis as much as possible, and loves training her new border collie puppy. She is deciding which grad school to attend next year to get her master’s in biomedical engineering—possibly USC where she could hang out with her good friend and fellow ’13 grad Becca Koppel. Suat Kilic writes in with big news of tying the knot with Sarah Moustafa ’11! He is in his first year at Rutgers-New Jersey Medical School and Sarah will be starting at the same school in the fall.

In January, Evan Okun performed a solo show at the NYC Bowery Poetry Club alongside other Wesleyan students and alumni (Lily Myers ’15, Mel Hsu ’13, Sam Friedman, Nate Mondschein ’12, and more). The event was such a success that the venue offered him a follow-up show in June. These performances build on his work with Circles & Ciphers, a restorative justice organization in Chicago that uses hip-hop to engage young men (court-and-gang- involved) in critical discourse. Budding author Kristen Salustro just published her sci-fi novel, Chasing Shadows, on amazon.com in February. This has been a huge project for her for several years now, and it is both terrifying and exhilarating to finally have made the book live. She is already working on the sequel to Chasing Shadows, which was the first installment of a trilogy. In her spare time, Kelsey participates as a writer in a project called Story Shift, where readers get to vote on a choice presented at the end of each story’s installment and then the writer develops the next chapter from there. Evan Carmi also just published a new e-book on internships. Since graduating, he has moved to Portland, Ore., where he works remotely as a software engineer for Brewster, a NYC tech startup.

On the other side of the world, Alex Lough is teaching English and music in Thailand. One of his pieces was selected by the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States to be featured on the album SEAMUS Electro-Acoustic Miniatures 2013: Negative Space. The title of the piece is “What’s Left Behind” and the album is available on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, etc. Alex plans to move to Miami in August to begin his master’s in music technology at Florida International University. Janet Cushey moved to Seoul, South Korea, after graduation, where she teaches ESL at an after-school academy called Chungdahm Institute. She has also been volunteering with Liberty in North Korea’s English tutor and culture exchange program, working with a North Korean refugee in one-on-one sessions on a weekly basis. Tom Lee is leaving his job in London and moving back across the pond to oversee the mid-season harvest of both organic wildflower honey and of course artisanal-grade beeswax at Wakefield Apiaries in Deer River, N.Y. By the sound of things it should be a big year, as forecasts show that harvests should be up by about 3 to 5 percent.

Anwar Batte notes that postgrad life has been filled with viral content aggregation, streamlined integrated deliverables, and maximizing shareable content. Here’s to synergistic, agile disruptions and Total Information Awareness in 2014!

As always, thanks for writing and best wishes to all my fellow 2013ers! Anyone who is around the San Francisco area, please get in touch!

Laura Yim | Lyim@wesleyan.edu

It’s been a few months since graduation, and the Class of 2013 is already busy taking the world by storm. We’ve been off working, teaching, studying, traveling, and embracing everything that life has to offer. Although there is the bittersweet realization (often accompanied by poignant nostalgia) that we are no longer in college, we’re also excited to dive right into the next chapter of our lives.

Many 2013ers can be found residing in New York. Catherine Taibi is an associate media editor at The Huffington Post. Her job includes managing the media page, writing and editing stories, creating viral content, managing the Facebook and Twitter accounts for HuffPost Media, creating photo posts and slideshows, and tracking site traffic. Kevin Curtin is living on the Upper East Side and working for JP Morgan’s investment bank. Isabella Cucchi is living in West Harlem and working in the South Bronx as a site coordinator for Reading Partners, NYC. She also works with children on their reading skills at the Metropolitan Lighthouse Charter School. Isabella loves hanging out with other Wesleyan folks in her free time. Sarah Cassel is a corps member at Avodah, a Jewish social justice group. She also works at The Bronx Defenders and spends her free time volunteering at the Homebound Leadership Institute in Harlem, where she works with young men of color on professional development and leadership through identity-based education. Senior speaker Anna Swartz is rooming with Paul Silverman in Brooklyn. She is writing and looking for full-time work, while he works as a kindergarten teacher. Joining Anna and Paul in Brooklyn is Julian Applebaum, who is a software engineer at Squarespace, where he researches, designs, and codes new tools and workflows for e-commerce merchants. In his spare time, he plays bass in the Sirs & Madams, a five-piece folk/singer-songwriter group.

In other parts of the country, 2013ers are also settling into their new jobs and embarking on new adventures. Chris Pao writes in from Boston, where he is working as a remote services consultant at ServiceNow, a growing IT enterprise cloud management software company. He helps clients with their software platform post-implementation with fixing anything that’s broken, not functioning properly, or even adding new functionality per the client’s request. He hopes to become a technical consultant after graduating from the two-year program. When he is not working, Chris enjoys playing in an adult hockey league, an indoor soccer league, and also exploring what the city has to offer. Robert Vance is living in his hometown of Birmingham, Ala., working for Impact Alabama, a community service nonprofit, and writing for Onyx Path Publishing. He’s planning to attend law school next year, focusing on public interest and civil rights law. Ashleigh Corvi writes in from Wesleyan, where she is working as an assistant dean of admission. She lives nearby with her girlfriend (and fellow ’13er) Tori Redding, who also works at Wesleyan as an assistant field hockey coach. They both love staying in touch with friends and professors while being a part of the community in a different capacity. Lisa Sy writes in from the Bay Area, where she is a full-time designer at a Web and mobile application consultancy in San Francisco called Thoughtbot. She works with clients that include start-ups and technology companies to build profitable products and services for their customers. Her day-to-day tasks include interfacing with clients, creating mock-ups and wireframes, leading product design sprints, collaborating with other Web developers, and coding/designing the websites. She is excited by the amount of learning she gains everyday, and is always open-minded to collaborating with other Wesleyan people on interesting projects. Also in California is film aficionado, Michael Steves, who is in post-production on his first feature film, Clinger, a low-budget horror-comedy he directed and co-wrote starring Vincent Martella (Phineas and Ferb, The Walking Dead, Everybody Hates Chris). The cast and crew included about 20 Wes students, including ’13ers Stefan Skripak, Leah Rosen, Paulie Lowther, Becca Kitsis, Sam Barth, Scott Kan, Chris McNabb, Sam Korda, and Ben Smith. Now living in L.A., Michael is co-producing another horror feature with director/producer Jon Hess (American History X) and second-unit directing a horror feature starring Terrance Howard. He also opened a production house specializing in music videos and commercials with two of his high school friends.

On the other side of the world, James Gardner is working as a project assistant for an Afro-German organization that focuses on integration, education, and social work for the Afro-German and African immigrant communities in Berlin. He has been given the opportunity to give presentations on Afro-German history and has also created a “WesGermany” Facebook group for Wesleyan alums and current students in Germany. They had a small event in October and are looking for more friendly faces to join. Shoot him an e-mail (jgarder@wes) if you are in the area! Nearby, Adam Rashkoff is serving as an English language teaching assistant at two different high schools in western Austria on a fellowship funded by the Austrian government and administered by the U.S. Fulbright Commission. He is enjoying teaching and working with high school students, as well as adjusting to the Alpine lifestyle. Any Wes peers who find themselves traveling in Europe and have a desire to go skiing and snowshoeing, eat tasty food and drink superb beer and mulled wine, and explore Roman ruins and medieval cities are welcome to come visit and stay on his pullout couch.

As for me, I’ve settled back at home in the Bay Area and am working for Apple as an engineering program manager. Thanks to everyone for the contributions and wishing all the best to my classmates!

Laura Yim
Lyim@wesleyan.edu