Tag: 2015

Katherine Lu has hit all the quarantine milestones, including, but not limited to, panic-buying eggs, making focaccia, baking banana bread, cutting her own hair, celebrating her birthday over HouseParty, buying Animal Crossing, and redecorating the house. In between these activities, she dreams of one day being able to congregate in groups of more than three and make breakfast for her friends.

Eric Lopez and Andrew Kang send warm wishes and positivity to all the frontline workers. They’ll be playing Call of Duty: Warzone and cooking food to make their moms proud for the foreseeable future.

Amy Zhang is a segment producer at Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj, gearing up for the quarantine version of their show. She also helped start a fundraiser for NYC Chinatown businesses called “Dumplings Against Hate”—check it out, share, and donate if you can!

Caitlin Bray ’15, MA’16 married James Tracht on April 26 in a quarantine wedding. They had to cancel their original wedding plans so decided to get married and throw a party later. They had a friend from high school take pictures, and another friend as the officiant. They all met up in Caitlin’s parents’ backyard and Zoomed the wedding to their family. It was a great day even if everyone couldn’t be there. They are happy to have each other and look forward to being able to celebrate whenever they can.

Dana Louie and Jonathan Coombs are passing the time in lockdown in Cambridge, Mass., with their two Siberian kittens, Biscuit and Bun. Jonathan is working remotely at Liberty Mutual, and Dana is finishing up her first year at Harvard Business School via Zoom. They are thankful for the grocery store two blocks away that has allowed them to try their luck at cooking creative meals. They cannot wait to simply go to a restaurant again.

Marianna Illgan has been spending quarantine advising Wesleyan undergrads via Cardinal Connections (a really fun way to help out—ask Jim Kubat for info!), and developing an unhealthy obsession with the K-drama, Crash Landing on You (CLOY). She and Xian Hui Ang send each other CLOY memes daily.

I know the Class of 2015 laments the loss of our fifth Reunion weekend, but this gives us more time to plan for next year! If anyone is interested in being part of that planning, reach out to Steph Velarde, Wesleyan liaison, at svelarde@wesleyan.edu. The Reunion Committee looks forward to when we can celebrate together. For now, make sure to share some throwbacks on Instagram and use #wes2015.

Jenna Starr | jstarr@wesleyan.edu

Ryan Gardner moved from Los Angeles to San Francisco and started working in video games and interactive tech.

Peter Cornillie wrote in to say that he has been working way too much and not drinking nearly enough.

Jessica Seidman recently passed the Connecticut Bar Exam and was sworn in as a licensed attorney. She is now working at an asbestos litigation law firm in New Haven, Conn.

As a passion project, Julia Chanin, Andrew Hove, and Zia Grossman-Vendrillo have formed an experimental dance company inspired by the lives of primordial beings. Their first installation explores themes of sentience and godliness. They can be spotted in urban centers across the upper-middle West Coast over the summer.

Katherine Lu spent the holidays in South Africa and Madagascar with Maurice Lee, where she saw lemurs and whale sharks and realized she much prefers the great indoors. She also started a new role at Taco Bell to redesign its website. She still hasn’t been to a Taco Bell.

Jenna Starr | jstarr@wesleyan.edu

Zaki Iqbal began his medical school journey at Quinnipiac University’s Frank H. Netter School of Medicine along with Joie Akerson ’17 and Derek Groskreutz ’13.

Jasmine Masand moved to North Carolina in August to pursue her master’s at Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy. As a Duke-Margolis Scholar, Jasmine is focusing on health care policy and is exploring exciting new models for value-based care in Medicare.

Emily Garvin is happy to be returning to New England to start a new position teaching and coaching at Loomis Chaffee, just up the road from Wes.

Catherine Chase has moved to Seattle and is starting her PhD program in classics at the University of Washington.

Gabe Frankel married Aliya Yule on Sept. 3 in Chicago. They met in 2013 when Gabe studied abroad at Oxford where Aliya was a student. (Big shout out to year-long study abroad programs!) He’ll be moving to London in early 2020 and looking forward to connecting with Wes alumni there; reach out at gabefrankel@gmail.com.

Gordon Petty and Camille Casareno are engaged! He proposed in June, about seven years after they met at Wesleyan. And though they are Cardinals through and through, they are both pursuing post-grad studies at Columbia University. Gordon is entering the third year of his neuroscience PhD and Camille will be starting her MPH this fall.

After more than three years in San Francisco, Hannah Jenkins finally escaped the marine layer, moving across the bridge to Oakland, Calif. She co-founded a holistic healing and wellness center with some other badass women and feels alive and in her purpose more often than not. If you are in the Bay Area, check out The Heartbeat Collective!

Jenna Starr | jstarr@wesleyan.edu

On May 28 John Pacheco and Tawni Stoop got married . . . and they’re both knee-deep in grad programs. John finished his first year of medical school at Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine and Tawni finished her second year of her child clinical psychology PhD program at Penn State University.

Ting Zhang moved from New York to Hong Kong as part of a global rotational program at Citigroup. Since moving, she has had the opportunity to reconnect with a few Wes friends whom she has not seen since graduation including Maurice Lee, Xian Hui Ang, and Suet Ning Wong ’16. If anyone is in Hong Kong, please reach out to tzhang@wesleyan.edu.

Olivia Mason is graduating from Stanford University with a master’s in East Asian studies this summer. Before moving, she’s excited to spend some time visiting her family, friends, and dog on the East Coast.

Katherine Lu has discovered the world of design, and is now a UX/UI designer in southern California. She returned to the States after a dreamy and inspiring month-and-a-half in Shanghai. She was delighted to be able to see Maurice Lee during her trip abroad.

Kate Gilpin completed her post-baccalaureate through the Harvard Extension Premedical Program this May. She wrapped up four years at Mass General (where Remy Johnson ’16 kept her sane). Her Wes group chat is still fully active.

Miranda Katz is excited to be starting at NYU Law in the fall, further reducing her odds of ever leaving New York. She lives in Brooklyn with Ariane Turley and Eliza Loomis.

Nina Feng has just finished her master’s study last week at Duke University in digital art history and will be joining Poly Auction Hong Kong.

Elaine Maskus has finally fulfilled her lifelong dream of becoming a dog mom. She and Ernie are living happily in Denver where they look forward to a lifetime of fetch and belly rubs.

Brent Packer, Amelia Mettler, and Sara Warnock are doing yoga and learning to kitesurf in Zanzibar, Tanzania.

Nita Mukand was awarded the first Pfizer fellowship through the University of Illinois Cancer Center for her work on the incidence of second primary gynecologic malignancies in Asian women who have experienced ovarian cancer. The $25,000 fellowship will support her further development as a cancer researcher.

Marissa Castrigno is pursuing an MFA in creative writing at University of North Carolina Wilmington. After four years, she’s leaving Brooklyn, where she’s been living with Sarah Hirschey and a number of thriving house plants.

Jessica Seidman received her JD degree from the University of Connecticut School of Law. She looks forward to starting her legal career at a law firm in New Haven, Conn.

Mateusz Burgunder is working at Accenture until July, after which he will start his MBA at INSEAD.

Jill Tan is working at a death literacy foundation housed under a funeral company in Singapore, where she is creating a card game to foster intimate conversations about life, death, and the beyond. Michael Leung, Gavin Swee ’13, and Aditi Shivaramakrishnan ’12 have been user testers in its development phase. Jill will be heading back to Connecticut to start her PhD in anthropology at Yale, where she will be working on a project about the public consciousness of death in Singapore. She is excited to reunite with David Mai and many of her Wesleyan professors, especially Alice Hadler and Justine Quijada.

Kimora Brock is working as a yoga teacher and health and wellness coach and celebrating her first year at Equinox. Graduating in December with an MBA, Kimora looks forward to merging her passions for entrepreneurship and wellness, along with bicoastal living between D.C. and LA. She had an awesome time with Crystal Rogers ’16 and Paulie Lowther ’13 at Mardi Gras this year, and can’t wait to spend quality time with Mike Conrad ’13, Shane Bernard ’14, and Haley Keyko ’16 this summer! Follow her adventures on Instagram: @kimorabee @malibutrailmix and @bbgrlwellness.

Miranda Orbach is a third grade head teacher at The Chapin School in NYC. She graduated from Columbia University with a master’s in narrative medicine. In April, she got engaged to Sara Ben-Ezra ’16. In her free time, she loves to travel, eat delicious food, and arrange charcuterie boards.

Jenna Starr | jstarr@wesleyan.edu

Peter George has been living in Sydney, Australia, for the past two years and can confirm people do not ride kangaroos to work.

Jimmy Nguyen and Marianna Ilagan moved back to San Francisco last August. They are happy to have finally escaped the snow. Marianna regularly grabs lunch with Marie Valdez and coffee with Erik Islo.

Last summer, Scarlett Perry made a career switch and attended Flatiron School’s software engineering immersive program. She will be starting her first role as a software engineer at an NYC AdTech company in January. She looks forward to connecting with other Wes grads in the field!

Sarah Gerton’s second young adult novel under the pen name Sara Holland, Evermore (the sequel to last year’s Everless), was released on Dec. 31 and appeared at number eight on the New York Times bestsellers list.

Andrew Hove has been in Los Angeles working in music as an artist manager and with a music/tech company. On his down time, he’s either seeing local music or helping Brett Keating get a date with Demi Lovato.

Eva Frieden is enjoying life in San Francisco where she works at Airbnb and trains for triathlons in her spare time; outside of that she keeps busy either getting together with local Wes alumni or convincing far away Wes friends to come visit!

Jon Coombs and Dana Louie live together in Boston. They plan to move across the Charles River to Cambridge when Dana starts at Harvard Business School later this year.

John Pacheco and Tawni Stoop will be getting married this May! She’s on her second year of a clinical psychology PhD program at Penn State University in State College, Pa., and he’s in his first year of medical school at Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine in Scranton, Pa. They’re working hard, living apart when they have to, and still missing their classmates and fun times at Wes every day.

Rebecca Wyzan lives in Brooklyn. She works in talent management at Untitled Entertainment, which represents actors, writers, musicians, artists, and directors. She also produces film and VR projects on the side.

Ming Zhu has been working at San Mateo, Calif.-based Crop One Holdings, Inc.—one of the world’s largest vertical farming companies in the world—and will be moving to Dubai. He’ll be there representing his U.S. parent company as their regional development manager, working with Emirates Airlines with whom they are building the world’s largest vertical farm. Ming would love to connect with any alumni there. If anyone knows any interesting endeavors (both companies and investors) in areas such as sustainability, indoor farming, vertical farming, digital agriculture, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and big data and sensor application in food/ag, please let him know and he’d love to learn more about them and explore together.

Scattered all over the world since graduation, the 146 Cross Street crew, Adin Vaewsorn, Dylan Awalt-Conley, Matt Burgunder, Dat Tien Vu, Erin Chase, Pierre Gerard ’16, and Michael Leung managed to navigate through time zone differences and reunited over video during Christmas.

Jenna Starr | jstarr@wesleyan.edu

Brett Keating is in L.A. writing for The Infatuation, which reviews restaurants. He often brings Andrew Hove and Sara Guernsey out to eat with him for an unreliable second or third opinion.

After teaching in the Boston area for three years, Paulina Jones-Torregrosa moved to Chicago to start her PhD in English at Northwestern University. She’d love to see any Wesfolk in the area!

Peter Cornillie was planning a beer dinner with a Detroit restaurant for late October.

Silvia Diaz-Roa has moved back to Connecticut. She just started her master’s in biostatistics at Yale.

Emmett McConnell is finishing up his graduate degree at Medill with a residency at the Johannesburg Citizen covering soccer.

Jaxie Friedman is a zero-waste coordinator for the NYC Department of Education’s Office of Sustainability, implementing recycling/composting programs and working on diverse sustainability initiatives in over 1,800 NYC public schools. Outside of work, she is getting crafty with waste and transforming “trash” into treasures, edible and otherwise.

Steven Susaña-Castillo has started his MPH at Yale in epidemiology of microbial diseases.

LaDarius Drew became the director of student activities at the Gunnery. He has been working on getting the students to involve themselves more outside of campus and in the community.

Earl Lin is still living in Washington, D.C.—though now living in the District proper, as opposed to Arlington, Va., and is still living with Josh Atchley. In June, Earl started working as a paralegal with the Roderick & Solange MacArthur Justice Center, a nonprofit civil rights litigation and advocacy law firm that works mainly on issues of criminal justice reform, including police misconduct, prisoner rights, wrongful convictions, and the death penalty. Specifically, as a member of the MacArthur Justice Center’s Appellate Project, Earl gets to work on litigation before higher courts around the country, up to and including the U.S. Supreme Court. In his free time, he’s been trying to take advantage of all D.C. has to offer, including regularly hanging out with fellow Wes alumni in the area and trying to find opportunities to get back into sailing.

Lina Mamut is a product owner at Ahold Delhaize designing tech for brands like Stop and Shop, Hannaford, and Giant.

The weekend of Sept. 14, Kaito Abe played poker with Miranda Linsky ’14, Yohei Okada ’16, and Dan de Rienzo ’11 over locally-produced sake in Kyoto.

Next time let’s go camping!

Jenna Starr | jstarr@wesleyan.edu

Sara Guernsey graduated with her MFA from the producer’s program at UCLA in June and works at ABC Studios in the comedy development department.

Kate Gibbel graduated from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in May. She will be teaching poetry and traveling in New Zealand in January. Will you be there? Want to meet up? Or give some recommendations?

LaDarius Drew is teaching history, coaching football, is the director of Black Student Union (BSU), and the director of student activities at The Gunnery in Washington, Conn. In May, he took the BSU kids to the Ebony Singers concert and they had a great time. Meanwhile, he planned and hosted his first event as student activities director, and it went well.

Peter Cornillie was commissioned to do a beer and food pairing for a restaurant in Detroit.

While not at her day job as an administrator for multiple dance organizations and artists, Nora Thompson is working as a choreographer and movement consultant for two Wesleyan-related projects: If Sand Were Stone, a new musical created by Carly Feinman ’16 and Cassie Willson ’17 and produced by Cynthia Tong ’14, which is making its off Broadway premiere at the New York Musical Festival in July; and Reflux, a new play written by Carly Feinman ’16 and directed by Miranda Haymon ’16, which is premiering at the Broadway Bound Theatre Festival in August.

Tim Gallivan is teaching math and DJing on the side.

Rebecca Caspar-Johnson finished her first year at Columbia Law School and will be spending the summer in Harare, Zimbabwe, interning in environmental law.

Silvia Diaz-Roa is a project manager for a tech startup-type law firm. It’s pretty cool because they are working on how law will change with technology. This fall she starts grad school at Yale, so she will be back in Connecticut.

Adin Vaewsorn will be attending the Master’s Entry Program at the University of California San Francisco School of Nursing to become a psychiatric/mental health nurse practitioner.

Grace Nix is petting pit bulls in New Orleans on the set of Pit Bulls and Parolees and making clown-y intramural theater with a bunch of sweet clowns. #wrestlemania

Steve Susaña-Castillo will be attending the Yale School of Public Health under the department of epidemiology of microbial diseases this fall.

Orelia Jonathan will be moving to Boston next year and starting a PhD in education at Harvard University.

Jenna Starr | jstarr@wesleyan.edu

Ariel Lesnick received her master’s in educational leadership and policy studies from Boston University. She is looking forward to not having schoolwork and spending time with her newly-adopted beagle.

Lina Mamut combined her loves of technology and food with her latest startup, Cheffer. Cheffer is an online kitchen gadget rental service, and combines customized top chef-developed recipes with hand-picked appliances. Lina has a crowdfunding campaign running to bring Cheffer to everyone. More info at cheffer.io.

Christopher Tugman is going to London to open the UK office of the company he works for, Hubdoc. If any Wesleyan grads are around, he’d love to connect.

Chazelle Rhoden has been creating I’Luja Collective, a community organization that facilitates community organizing by using art and the principles of liberatory education, direct democracy, and co-op economics.

Andrew Hove, Julia Chanin, and Zia Grossman-Vendrillo wrote in to say hi.

Katherine Lu is back in Orange County, Calif., learning about medical devices and manufacturing at Applied Medical. When she is not in a bunny suit—and it is definitely as cute as it sounds—she is learning how to safely change lanes and heed traffic signals. She goes up to San Francisco once a month to see familiar faces.

Rebecca Sokol, in 4 4law school at the University of Colorado in Boulder, is pursuing environmental law, public lands, and American Indian law. She’ll be interning in Portland, Ore., this summer and would love to connect with Wes folks there.

Ismael Coleman’s family moved to the UAE in 2017. He spent the beginning of the year in Dubai, learning about the culture. Last year he started a technology and marketing company VIBESPLUS that builds apps and digital marketing campaigns (vibes.plus). This year he launched Easy Orders NYC that provides custom ordering apps for restaurant and retail businesses (easyorders.nyc). He would love to connect with other entrepreneurs and travel enthusiasts.

Hannah Yasin took two years off to gain meaningful clinical and life experiences and to prepare for the MCAT. She first worked as a medical scribe at Mercy Hospital’s Emergency Department, then as a waitress at Texas Roadhouse, and finally as a patient care assistant in the Cardiology Unit of Sparks Hospital. She entered medical school at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. She is very hopeful and excited for what the future holds!

Cherkira Lashley is a 12th-grade English teacher at Advanced Math and Science III. She’s an official Jesus freak, and still has enough juice in her knees to school her students in basketball. And, Tim Gallivan is DJing and teaching Math, too!

In between working at MTV in NYC and working on a virtual reality docu-series called We The People with Glenn Cantave ’16 and Rebecca Wyzan, Danielle Pruitt has put her film and environmental studies degrees (lol) to work by starting an e-commerce company called Buy The Way. Buy The Way, LLC has its very own online Amazon store featuring offbeat yet extremely useful products with a socially-driven mission. A percentage of their profits will go to a rotating portfolio of nonprofit organizations. She writes, “If your mug doesn’t collapse, you need a new mug—trust #ad. Check us out on Instagram @ohbuytheway!”

Jenna Starr | jstarr@wesleyan.edu

Mateusz Burgunder wanted to be more adventurous, so he decided to visit Kaito Abe in Osaka, Japan, where they tasted a variety of foods and drinks throughout the day. Kaito received a Facebook message from Mateusz saying that he would visit Osaka next week, and Kaito said “Cool!” They toured around Osaka starting from Kamagasaki (socioeconomically the most challenged area in Japan) to the roof-top garden on Osaka Station building. They wrapped up their tour with sake, plum wine, takoyaki, yakitori, sanma sashimi, oden, and all kinds of great food.

Li Zhong is moving from NYC to Singapore and would love to meet up with Wes alumni there.

Miranda Orbach lives in NYC, where she is a third grade teacher at The Chapin School. She is pursuing a master’s degree in narrative medicine at Columbia University. In her spare time, she volunteers with the Parole Preparation Project doing parole advocacy work on behalf of incarcerated individuals across New York State.

Mary DePascale started a PhD program at the University of Maryland. She is studying human development and quantitative methodology with a specialization in developmental science.

Caitlin Bray joined the Rhode Island Army National Guard. She is in an aviation unit that deployed in October. Caitlin is excited for the opportunity to use all that she has learned and spend a year working with her hands.

Life definitely taught her some hard lessons, but Kimora Brock is now doing amazingly and just finished the Sacred Energy Arts 200-hour yoga teacher training program at the Malibu Healing Center. This is her second 200-hour course, and training in the healing arts and yogic sciences is her passion. Her health foods company, Malibu Trail Mix, is doing well and is in almost every tourist location in Malibu. Check out kimorabrock.com for more information.

Peter George moved to Sydney in March!

Zia Grossman-Vendrillo, Julia Chanin, and Andrew Hove maintain their relationships over MySpace, speaking only in soft accents and scruffy whispers, but always sweet nothings. Despite digitization and the ongoing fascist agenda, their relationships remain stronger than ever. They are planning a vacation to Carbonia, in which they will tour the famous butterfly farms of the South in search of the perfect chrysalis.

Lilly Holman began her graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she is working towards both her master’s and PhD in film. She is excited to be back in the classroom once again both teaching and learning.

Zoe Feingold left her job at the VA hospital in Boston to start a doctoral program in clinical-forensic psychology at Fordham University in New York. She’ll be working on research related to the effects of trauma on youth in the juvenile justice system.

Virgil Taylor and Lauryn Siegel ’00 are winding their way down the intermixed, overlapping, and colliding street grids of Brooklyn. Over their shoulder they can see another forgetting, another melting, and a new past. Taylor, as of July, lives around the corner from Siegel’s gym, Absolute Power.

Jenna Starr | jstarr@wesleyan.edu