Tag: 2015

Please write to your class secretary.

Dana Louie and Jon Coombs had a great time in Kentucky this summer at Rachel Unger’s wedding, along with Alanah Hall, Kerry Nix, and Arielle Trager ’14, complete with a meteor shower the night of the wedding. Dana also met up with Rachel Leicher, Julian Compagni Portis, Kirby Neaton ’14, and Julian Basurto in Vermont for a Wesleyan cross-country reunion, during which they ran up an Okemo ski trail and a tab at Long Trail Brewing. Finally, Dana and Jon celebrated Friendsgiving this year with Cameron Rahbar, Zach Larabee ’16, and a 16-pound turkey. 

Caroline Catlin is working on a memoir about living with incurable brain cancer as a young adult. She has been advocating for a ceasefire in Gaza, and recently signed the alumni petition demanding that Wesleyan divest from companies profiting off Israeli occupation and apartheid. Talia Baurer, Gabe Frankel, Sophie (Eugene) Massey, and JJ Mitchell have also been advocating for a ceasefire and signed the petition as well.

Marjahn Finlayson was recently named as a climate change science pioneer by King Charles III in his address to the nation for the 50th Independence of The Bahamas (her home country). She has been working as a climate change specialist for about 10 years. For more information about her work, check out climateedubahamas.com.

Kate Gilpin and Alex Kamisher ’17 got married September 2023 with lots of Wesleyan friends by their side. They are moving from Brooklyn to Long Island (“please still be friends with us!”) so that Kate can start medical school.

Nikki Dodd is helping Lynx Mitchell ’18 raise funds to support her in her fight against ME/CFS (a chronic and debilitating illness), and invites anyone who might want to contribute to reach out to Nikki directly at nikkizdodd@gmail.com.

Camille Casareno and her husband, Gordon Petty, just moved to a new place in Harlem. Gordon had his dissertation defense on August 4, finishing up six years of a PhD in neurobiology at Columbia University.

Evan Bieder is teaching fourth grade and coaching cross country and track at Greens Farms Academy. He and his wife Britney have a one-year-old son named Zen. Evan had a few beers at Foxwoods with Eric Arsenault ’17 over the winter.

Sara Warnock and Brent Packer had their auras cleansed during a Denver sound bath.

Dana Louie and Jonathan Coombs got married this fall in Nahant, Massachusetts. Several classmates came to celebrate with them. They live in Boston with their two cats, Biscuit and Bun.

Iliana Ortega, Davion Hounchell, and Lizzie Jáuregui would like to congratulate Vicky Hill (née Ramos) and her husband Harry Hill on the birth of their daughter, Ivy Amelia Hill, on November 13, 2022.

Alicia Gansley is an engineering manager at crypto analytics firm Chainalysis in New York City.

Chris Tugman is enjoying his time in London, U.K., where he’s spent the last four and half years. Chris enjoys exploring Europe and still manages to play basketball a couple of times a week. He leads strategic partnerships for Xero, a global financial technology company located near King’s Cross. If any alums are visiting London, he’s always up to connect and grab a pint.

Marjorie Hunt shares she “started an MA program in history at Cal State LA this fall, and I also just moved into a co-op house in Northeast LA.”

Mary DePascale graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park in May with a PhD in Human Development and Quantitative Methodology. This summer she was awarded a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellowship grant, and she is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Boston College, conducting research on family math engagement in early childhood.

’15ers had lots to share this round:

Kate Linde wrote in to say that she is “a bicoastal media mogul who works for Wunderkind, loves a California sunset, but can never resist taking a bite out of the Big Apple.” Kate also had updates on other Wes friends:

Alexa Burzinski is now an international art swindler at Marlborough, with ties to Mexico City and Chelsea, Manhattan. . . . Haley Keyko ’16 just got her learner’s permit . . . for the third time! She won’t drive anything but carbon-efficient vehicles. . . . As a doctor at Mount Sinai, Lauren Nelson has been preventing brain injuries by day and learning to drive ambulances at night. (Thanks for the news, Kate!)

Ming Zhu shared: “I first left Shenzhen for Middletown when I was 18, and after having been abroad (Middletown, Boston, San Francisco, Dubai, and back to Boston) for over a decade, now I’m finally back in Asia. I recently graduated from Harvard Business School with my MBA and have since relocated to Singapore to work at Innosight, a global strategy consulting firm founded by an HBS professor, Clay Christensen, focusing on innovation and growth strategy consulting. The four years I spent at Wes was the most formative period of my life so far, where I built the core of network; and that thought got reinforced once again when I moved to Singapore this June and quickly found myself having dinner and drinks with many of my Wes friends who are also based here, as if no time had passed since many of us last met. I appreciate all the friendships and this tight community, and hope we’ll continue to sustain and nourish it together wherever we might be. If you are routing through Singapore, do drop me a note!”

Jessica Seidman recently relocated to New York City, where she joined Condon & Forsyth LLP as an associate attorney in their aviation litigation practice group. She would love to connect with more Wes folk in the area, so feel free to reach out and say “hi!”

Kate Gibbel started a letterpress postcard operation in March 2022 called Send Me Press (https://sendme.press). She publishes one poem every month as a limited-edition letterpress postcard. Earlier this summer, the project was profiled in The Boston Globe! She first got the idea for Send Me Press while chatting with Virgil B. G. Taylor, James Gibbel ’19, and Alex Kelley ’13 in May 2015. Kate looks forward to seeing many of you at the five Wesleyan weddings she is attending this calendar year.

Trevor Dorn-Wallenstein said, “It’s been an incredibly exciting year for me, so it feels like a good time to send in my first class note. After six or seven long years of graduate school, I’ve successfully defended my PhD thesis in astronomy, and will be moving to Los Angeles to start a postdoctoral position at Carnegie Observatories in September. More importantly, I just got married!”

And Steven Susaña-Castillo reports that he moved to San Francisco in July 2022 and is excited for his new adventure.

Angela Slevin and Tim Gallivan met on the last day of classes during the spring of their senior year. They didn’t meet until then because Tim spent a lot of time in Olin and Angela spent a lot of time on Fountain and at the Nest (maybe it was the other way around . . . ?). They will be getting married in Virginia this July surrounded by many beloved Wes friends!

Sara Warnock is preparing for ACL surgery following an accident at Breckenridge and wants to throw out a friendly reminder to stop your ski day when your legs get tired. She’s looking forward to frolicking around Denver and/or San Diego with Amelia Mettler this spring.

This spring, Marissa Castrigno is graduating from UNC Wilmington with an MFA in creative writing. She wrote her first book—narrative nonfiction about riding the New York City subway, among other things. Her goal this year is to get a job she doesn’t hate.

Earl Y. Lin has been busy: “I left my job in DC and moved to Minneapolis to start law school at the University of Minnesota. On the personal front, I also got engaged to my now-fiancée before we moved out here, and we’re excited to be living in the Midwest—a whole new part of the country for both of us—and getting to know the Twin Cities as law school, the cold, and COVID all permit.”

Rebecca Wyzan is “head of development at the Brooklyn-based production company Present Company, co-founded by Dan Janvey ’06 and Paul Mezey. We launched in December of 2021.”

Melissa Luning writes: “I just started my first semester in the Advanced Standing BSN Program at Farmingdale State College. I am interested in pediatric and neonatal care. I am excited to begin the journey to becoming an RN (and to be able to do it all in person)!”

From Jamie Hall: “I’ve been living in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with my partner Kaylen and my cat Seven (not Steven). I completed a successful Dry January, which I’m extending into February, and I’m growing out a winter beard that is mostly brown with some auburn parts. I also started a new job conducting research and analysis for a solar and storage company. Hope the whole Wes fam is staying healthy and doing well!” 

Kehan Zhou says: “I am the CEO of Terrascope, Inc. We are building the first AI real estate agent with deep learning and computer vision technology. My co-founder, Julian Compagni Portis, and I started the company in 2020. Terrascope has been featured in 17-plus publications and podcasts. This year we are hiring more machine learning scientists and raising a seed round. Happy to collaborate with alums working in the Proptech and VC sector.”

 

Editor’s note: We’re looking for a new class secretary! If you are interested, please email: classnotes@wesleyan.edu.