Class Notes 2011

Please welcome a guest column by Matt Oh.

Vox clamantis in deserto: Challenges test your faith and develop your perseverance and endurance. The modern world imposes the idea that following your passion and growing an empire on a screen, alone, is more valuable than compassion. But to me, “compassion” means community with passion—a core value of mine. It takes me back to where I was when my career paths took off, as I write to you from the Twin Cities, where I lived exactly 10 years ago.

After graduating from a fifth-year football season, I bounced around professional football teams in pursuit of my dream to play at the highest level: the NFL, which really stands for “not for long” a.k.a. “really never happened.” Roger Erickson, former Super Bowl champion coach, helped me learn how to become flexible. I always prided myself on being strong on my own and only recently realized what true strength really means: healthy together for the longevity of the greater team.

My first wakeup call was when I was cut from my first professional football team, the CFL’s Hamilton Tiger Cats. Coach Buddy Teevens ’79 phoned in a favor to Brendan Mahoney ’91, and I was hired at the Capital Croup Cos. in Irvine, California. At the time my good friend P.J. Nestler worked nearby as the head of performance at Velocity Sports. He saw me change from my suit and tie into my athletic clothes at 5:15 p.m. Monday through Friday and attempt to deadlift the house with a white-knuckle grip on my dream of becoming the first Korean American linebacker in the NFL. I received a call to play for the Montreal Alouettes with coach Dan Hawkins. While working in the corporate sphere I saved up my vacation time to ensure that if any teams called, I had enough paid time off to give them my best. I am so blessed to have iron-strong coaches, brothers, and mentors who sharpen me.

I turned 35 on October 15, a birthday I share with my Minnesotan second mom, and recalled Buddy Teevens’ mantras: “Next play” and “Count on me.” I feel like I finally understand what it means to be a “wearer of the green.” As mentioned, I recognize with immense gratitude that my mentors played a crucial role in my cross-career success. Coach Dan Hawkins of the CFL Montreal Alouettes called me when I was in Japan playing football for the Panasonic Impulse to share the news that I had been invited to play for Team USA. We won the gold medal, qualifying me to be inducted into the Dartmouth Hall of Fame. My family and I had the joy of traveling back to Dartmouth last Homecoming for this award and recognition. It served as another reminder to see past the fame, money, and other motivating factors this world preaches; to focus on what is in the garden we stand on, to ask what seeds we are planting for the next generation rather than chasing a single carrot. As my mentor Anthony Acheson said, “Don’t gain the world and lose your soul.”

My spidey senses are tingling: Now is the time to step up, be a champion, and pay it forward to the role models who have shaped me. It is time to “find a way!” (Shoutout to Dartmouth football’s new head coach, Sammy McCorkle.) We must put down our devices, remember to embrace the waves, and marvel at the vastness of the ocean, because our true north will never mislead. Champions, thank you, let’s pay it forward.

—Hillary S. Cheng, 26611 La Roda, Mission Viejo, CA 92691; (603) 546-8452; hillary.s.cheng@dartmouth.edu

A few updates from this spring: Emily Duke finished her three-year term as our class’ Alumni Council representative and Isaiah Berg will replace her in that role for the next three years. Thank you, Emily, and congratulations, Isaiah!

As I read in a Women of Dartmouth Los Angeles email, Katie Lindsay directed and produced the world premiere of Miranda Rose Hall’s Menstruation: A Period Piece at the Los Angeles LGBT Center from March 24 through April 16. The event was captioned, “This boundary-breaking new musical will immerse you—inside the uterus.”

In June a photograph of Allie Levy, owner of Still North Books & Bar in Hanover, was featured in the Dartmouth News Weekly email, as hers was “one of eight alumni businesses that took over ’53 Commons [in May] to share their products and recipes.”

As always, please send in your updates, and please know we are also happy to host guest columnists in this space!

—Hillary S. Cheng, 26611 La Roda, Mission Viejo, CA 92691; (603) 546-8452; hillary.s.cheng@dartmouth.edu

Laura Calvo wrote with an update for the first time since graduation: “After graduation I returned to my home country Bolivia for medical school, got married, adopted my terrier mix Chela, and returned to the United States to have my son, Lucas Julian (now 4!). Last year I completed my pediatrics residency in Corpus Christi, Texas, during which time I had my daughter, Zoe Luna (now 2!). I am currently in my first year of neonatal-perinatal medicine fellowship at Duke University and would love to connect with any other alum in the Triangle area.”

Additionally, James Cart ’10—who is the newly elected president for the class of 2010—wrote to let me know of Reid Duke’s first individual win in a Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour event on February 19. Congratulations, Reid! I was also alerted by a fellow classmate to Reid’s participation in the event while it was happening, as Reid’s winning gameplay was livestreamed on Twitch! But Thomas Lane and I happened to be roaming a park in Las Vegas for a Pokémon Go Tour: Hoenn event and were preoccupied with catching Pokémon and taking photos with giant Pokémon balloons (of Torchic, Mudkip, and Treecko) and a costumed Pikachu mascot. I cannot recommend Las Vegas winter weather, but the food was great as usual!

In other news I have gleaned from Instagram and Facebook recently, Genevieve O’Mara has started a new product platform for mothers called Mamieli (@be_mamieli on Instagram, www.mamieli.com). Kaleigh Wood (@kaleighw2011) and Korey McCants (@ikrossfinishlines) seem to be doing great running marathons! Thomas Tao and Julie Fiveash ’13 successfully visited Yan Fan in Tokyo, and it appeared to be a charming reunion.

Please write in with your updates, big or small! No news is too inconsequential for this space. Adam Reed’s fluffy ragdoll cat Mortimer agrees, after having recently survived a visit to the veterinarian following his allergy-induced hunger strike! Also, if you would like to pen a longer piece (word count limit of 600!), we very much welcome guest columnists on any topic you deem interesting to your classmates or the broader alumni community readership.

—Hillary S. Cheng, 26611 La Roda, Mission Viejo, CA 92691; (603) 546-8452; hillary.s.cheng@dartmouth.edu

The obituary for John McInerney “Mac” Morris has been published at dartmouthalumnimagazine.com/class-obituaries/2011. One update from Lane Bracken: As of mid-October Mac’s family postponed the memorial service, initially scheduled for November 5 in N.Y.C., to April 29. Please contact Lane at lane.bracken@gmail.com if you are interested in attending Mac’s memorial service.

We would like to compile a memorial Class Notes column dedicated to Mac’s memory. Lane, Marshall Bartlett, Trevor G. King, and I (in my capacity as secretary) will be helping to organize and collect memories from classmates and friends. Please reach out to any of them or me, but please copy me on correspondence so I can be sure to include your contribution and ensure nothing gets lost in anyone’s inboxes. My email and contact information are listed at the bottom of this (and every) Class Notes column.

In other news, Bryan Alston postponed the guest column planned for this issue, but we hope to see him back soon!

Genevieve Adams wrote in with an update: She wrote, directed, produced, and stars in indie feature Simchas and Sorrows, which has received critical acclaim at the Bentonville Film Festival, the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, and the Cinequest Film & Creativity Festival. Simchas and Sorrows ran in Los Angeles at the Laemmle NoHo 7 theater in mid-September 2022 and Gravitas Ventures digitally released the film on September 20, 2022. Genevieve and her husband, Ben Groveman, also welcomed the birth of their first child, Leonardo Nathaniel Groveman, on April 17, 2022!

Claire Scott recently moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to start a job as senior lecturer in German language at Vanderbilt University. Her first book, Murderous Mothers: Late Twentieth-Century Medea Figures and Feminism, came out in September 2022 with Peter Lang Press. 

Lauren Glover wrote in for the first time with news for Class Notes! Lauren’s lovely update: “After graduation I moved to the Bay Area and bounced around many industries—from nonprofits to women’s health and reproductive justice to consulting and, finally, tech. I’ve been focused on employee-executive strategy and communications at Dolby Laboratories Inc. since 2016.

“In 2017 I met my now-husband, Colin Poindexter, a 2013 graduate of Franklin and Marshall College. We got engaged in March 2021 on Big Sur’s Pfeiffer Beach, where we first said that we love each other in 2018; moved across the country to Brooklyn together; adopted a lilac British shorthair (a ridiculously adorable and lovable goblin—as most cats are); and got married on Saturday, October 8, 2022, at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan. After the ceremony the reception was held aboard a private yacht that sailed the Hudson at sunset. A few Dartmouth folks were in attendance: Shayla Mars and Angelo Carino. Shawn Hawk ’13 celebrated with us in spirit as he was unable to make it but wished us well!”

In the same vein of delightful events, Sam Lloyd got married to Nina Deoras in Madison, New Hampshire, on August 27, 2022. I saw Nina post wedding photos to Instagram in mid-October and thought to myself, “Wow, Sam looks like royalty. Why is that? Oh my God, he looks like Prince Harry!” I found Sam on Facebook Messenger to tell him of his royal resemblance, and Sam responded, “Yea. One time on a bus in N.Y.C. someone flagged the bus down just to poke his head in and yell at me that I looked like him (Prince Harry).” So there you have it, we have our very own Prince Harry doppelgänger.

As always, please write in with updates; we truly love hearing from you!

—Hillary S. Cheng, 26611 La Roda, Mission Viejo, CA 92691; (603) 546-8452; hillary.s.cheng@dartmouth.edu

Excitingly, Rebecca Wall wrote with an update in early June! I was curious as to her full postgraduation journey, and in response, Rebecca summarized, “In the 11 years since graduation I have not sent in a single update, so there is a lot to catch up on. After two years working for the Mahindra Group in Mumbai, India, I spent the next seven years in the Bay Area completing a Ph.D. in history at Stanford University alongside dissertation research in Mali, Senegal, and France, as well as becoming convinced California was the best state. More recently, I’ve been working as a history professor at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, and regretting shedding my Dartmouth winter wardrobe in the intervening decade. After two years in upstate New York, I’m moving to Los Angeles to start a job as an assistant professor of history at Loyola Marymount University. Looking forward to reconnecting with all the other Dartmouth folks in the area and trading in endless winter for sunshine—reach out if you’re in SoCal or passing through!”

As volunteered updates have been sparse, I was on alert for classmates on Instagram in late May after submitting the last Class Notes column. (Feel free to DM @hillbearie with updates!) On May 21 Uthman Olagoke, Korey McCants, and Sarah Seng ran in the Brooklyn Half Marathon in N.Y.C., and Matt Raskind was in attendance to support Sarah’s run. They look overjoyed in their post-run photos; it was a beautiful day to be outside!

The same day I saw Ahra Cho post to Instagram stories a photo of our classmates celebrating a wedding. Today, dear class president Katie Paxton “pinged” (hehe) Erin (Jaeger) Gunaratna for details, and Erin wrote, “I married Mahen Gunaratna (Georgetown ’08) in September 2020. We met through Andrea Imhof and Katie Gandy in 2014! He was roommates with them in a five-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn, and I had just moved to N.Y.C. We started dating in 2015, got engaged at the end of 2018, planned a May 2020 wedding, and postponed it four times due to you-know-what. Not wanting to put our lives on hold indefinitely, we officially tied the knot with our families on September 12, 2020. That was pre-vaccines, so we couldn’t do any sort of big celebration.

“Fast forward to September 17, 2021, and we welcomed son Ian Tishan Gunaratna and then just finally had our big wedding celebration on May 20 at the Omni Mount Washington Resort in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire! We were incredibly lucky to have lots of ’11s in attendance: Shanel Balloo and Katie Gandy were bridesmaids, and Grace Taveras, Ahra Cho, Katie Paxton, Isaiah Berg, Calvin and Tess (Korndorf) Woodring, Masha Barsky, Lars Osterberg, Andrea Imhof, Jenii Shin, Anna Pudimat, Emily Baxter, Sophie Novack, Marielle (Battistoni) Fortune, and Dennis Zeveloff ’12 all joined us to celebrate. It was the best—we can’t believe it finally happened, and we are now very much enjoying the summer as boring married people and parents to a rambunctious and adorable almost-10-month-old!”

Thanks to Katie, Shanel also wrote in with a big update! “Isaiah and I had a baby last year: Elijah Berg, born July 2021. He’s been a pretty great baby overall, and at almost a year in, we’re still adjusting to being parents.”

On May 31 I saw that Allison Lure posted photos of Jen Fownes, Nozomi Hitomi, Kate Arion, and Stephanie Han at Amanda Devine’s wedding. I asked for more details from Allison and Amanda, but no responses as of press time, so stay tuned! (Getting Class Notes updates can be like herding cats!)

—Hillary S. Cheng, 26611 La Roda, Mission Viejo, CA 92691; (603) 546-8452; hillary.s.cheng@dartmouth.edu

Brandon Aiono wrote the following overheard-style update toward the end of December. Have fun guessing the secret ’11s! Note: While some attributions reflect our classmates’ true initials, some have been further anonymized! We asked y’all to send in coincidental encounters with other ’11s you had throughout 2021—a year that saw us leaving (and, in some cases, fleeing) our homes and intermingling once again. Here are some (curated) highlights.

“What a trip! I saw L.V. in a jazz venue on Frenchmen Street in New Orleans when I was passing through during the summer. Turns out she was only around for the weekend too. We cheers-ed to that,” says A.S.

“I matched with B.B. on Hinge during lockdown. We hung out a few times in Los Angeles and we’re still hanging out,” says R.S.

“Does watching the Sex Lives of College Girls and being accosted with Dartmouth references count as a coincidental encounter?” asks M.C.

“I ran into C.C. and her fiancé taking engagement photos in front of the Bellagio. At first I was like, ‘Who is blocking the whole sidewalk off during the fountain show?’ Of course only a Dartmouth ’11 would be so bold,” says A.V.

“I saw M.K. drive by me in Park City, Utah, and waved. Then she stole my parking spot,” says A.V.

“I saw J.C. at the N.Y.C. Marathon. We smiled and nodded at one another, then continued on our way. That’s generally my desired form of interaction when I run into alumni out in the world,” says B.M.

“A friend invited me to a movie premiere showing in Denver, and the director was K.K.!” says T.K.

“K.A. and L.B. sat a row behind me at the Spider-Man: No Way Home premiere,” says S.R.

“I was walking through Alamo Square when I heard a shout and saw a figure slip down a sloped muddy hill on my left. I grabbed the person, who turned out to be S.M. Behind her walking a massive dog was B.H., who she was visiting in San Francisco. Party on, ladies,” says B.A.

“For the entire year I fortunately have avoided any unanticipated Dartmouth encounters (or have blocked them from memory). I hope this streak will continue in 2022,” says J.K.

—Hillary S. Cheng, 26611 La Roda, Mission Viejo, CA 92691; (603) 546-8452; hillary.s.cheng@dartmouth.edu

Two of our classmates have completed some notable literary works lately! I list them in the order that these updates came to me.

First, a secret admirer wrote in regarding a fellow classmate. While the rest of us were spending the pandemic watching Tiger King and Bridgerton, our own Drew Joseph was working on critical journalism. Drew was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his breaking news reporting on Covid, published in Stat News in Boston. The Pulitzer Prize board described his work as “prescient, expert, and accessible coverage of the emergence of Covid-19.” Go, Drew!

Second, Nicole Yunger Halpern is publishing a book about the intersection of quantum physics, information, and energy. Quantum Steampunk: The Physics of Yesterday’s Tomorrow introduces the general public to a field emerging at the cutting edge of technology and theory. In addition to delving into the discoveries, the book relates anecdotes, history, and a woman’s journey into science. The book is now available for preordering through the usual sources (bookshop.org, Amazon, etc.).

Congratulations to both! As always, please write in with your updates. We love hearing from you, and we welcome all notes from and about classmates.

—Hillary S. Cheng, 26611 La Roda, Mission Viejo, CA 92691; (603) 546-8452; hillary.s.cheng@dartmouth.edu

The following is a message from our class executive committee.

The votes have been tallied, and it is with a hearty hail that we greet Katie Paxton in her newly elected position as president and James Khun in his new position as treasurer. The two will join a “core” team with incumbents Brandon Aiono as vice president and Hillary S. Cheng as secretary. These officers will serve until our next reunion in 2025, which will again be a clustered reunion with the classes of 2009 and 2010.

We applaud and praise the time and effort that Christine Souffrant Ntim and Shelley Han invested in their respective roles as president and treasurer. During the past six years, our country and our world have been through so much since the five-year reunion, and our class is lucky to have had such a fine core at its helm.

Please still feel free to contact us to indicate your interest in participating in class activities and serving in an appointed role on the class executive committee. We can be reached via our class email address, dartmouth.class.of.2011@dartmouth.edu. We welcome all levels of involvement, and we truly enjoy forging and strengthening classmate relationships. To those who have already expressed interest in supporting class-related activities: We will be in touch in the coming months and look forward to working together.

As always, we hope you are well and staying safe. Please send in updates to let us know how you are doing. We love hearing from you!

—Hillary S. Cheng, 26611 La Roda, Mission Viejo, CA 92691; (603) 546-8452; hillary.s.cheng@ dartmouth.edu

Please welcome a guest column from Kalina Newmark.

Hello from snowy Calgary! I am excited to be your guest columnist and share with you all my recent appointment to Dartmouth’s Association of Alumni (AOA) executive committee in addition to other personal highlights for the year. As for many of you, 2020 has been a year of lows and highs, including the passing of my grandfather and great uncle, both Air Force veterans, the birth of niece Lily Jane, and the purchase of a new home in Seattle. Although 2021 cannot come soon enough, I am grateful for the time that I have spent with my family and loved ones.

In that spirit of gratitude, I will talk about Dartmouth. Almost 14 years ago (can you believe it?!) we embarked on our journey to Hanover—a place we would call home for the next four years. We went on DOC trips, ran around the bonfire during Homecoming, and participated in Winter Carnival. Although Dartmouth is not a perfect place, I have tried my best to make Dartmouth a better place than when we left it. Since graduation I have served on Alumni Council, the Native American visiting committee and the Native American Alumni at Dartmouth board, interviewed students as part of the admissions ambassador program, and presented my linguistics research on Native American English on-campus. Most recently I have been nominated and appointed as the second vice president of the AOA executive committee. As part of my appointment I also sit on the professional development and alumni liaison committees on Alumni Council.

The AOA was organized in 1854 to represent all Dartmouth alumni. AOA membership includes “every person who has ever matriculated as a fulltime student in pursuit of a Dartmouth degree.” I am excited to contribute to this longstanding institution at Dartmouth and share my perspective not only as a young alumnus but as a Native American alumnus as well. Through all of my volunteer activities at the College, there is only one thing that I am constantly amazed by—the love our alumni have for Dartmouth and for our students.

It is an honor to serve as your second vice president on the AOA. If you have any concerns or feedback about the College, please feel free to reach out at kalina.newmark@gmail.com. Mahsi cho (thank you) for the opportunity to be your guest columnist. Wishing you and your families a safe, healthy, and abundant year.

—Hillary S. Cheng, 26611 La Roda, Mission Viejo, CA 92691; (603) 546-8452; hillary.s.cheng@dartmouth.edu

Please welcome a guest column by Nikki Del Principe.

Hello, fellow ’11s! I’m writing this from my husband’s and my new home in Memphis, Tennessee (you may have known me as Nikki Brown, but after getting married last August to Kevin Del Principe, I changed my last name). For me, these challenging times have shed light on the value of adaptability—a quality that my time at Dartmouth helped foster.

I had a career plan when I started my freshman year, but, probably like many of you, my path ultimately diverged quite a bit from my initial conception. I arrived in the fall of 2007 with the aim of studying biology to become a naturalist. In fact, my dream since third grade had been to become a sort of Jane Goodall for wild cats. As fantastical and perhaps naive as this ambition was, I was on track to realize my goal. While at Dartmouth I did an internship modeling the population dynamics of wildebeest, went on the biology study abroad program in Costa Rica and the Cayman Islands, and then did another study abroad program for aspiring animal behavioralists in Kenya through Michigan State University. Throughout this time I was also taking film classes and feeding a hunger for storytelling that I’ve had since I was a child. As much as I loved learning about the natural world, by the time spring of 2011 rolled around I realized that storytelling was my real calling.

I started the M.F.A. writing for screen and television program at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles that fall. Film school was challenging in a very different way than my biology studies had been. It took me a few years to learn that writing wasn’t about getting the right answer and more about a process of discovery that never really ends. Perhaps the best part of USC was that I met my eventual husband and creative partner, Kevin Del Principe, there.

We became a couple and creative team after graduation and made two short films before embarking on our first feature, Up on the Glass (watch the trailer here: https://vimeo.com/369844065).

The story is about a wanderer named Jack DiMercurio who secretly desires the life and wife of his more affluent friend, Andy Shelton. One heinous act allows Jack to draw closer to Andy’s wife, Liz, but Jack finds living Andy’s life is a dangerous lie. Fun movie fact: The three main characters met at Dartmouth. It’s been quite the journey to work on one project for six years and finally arrive at the point where we can share it with audiences. (It’s currently available across streaming platforms and on Blu-ray and DVD in North American via our distributor, Gravitas Ventures.)

Though I did not end up researching animal behavior as I had planned, the ability to adapt to changing circumstances and interests that I originally fostered at Dartmouth has been immensely helpful in independent filmmaking. It is this ability to evolve in the face of new challenges that has allowed me to continue to grow as an artist. Kevin and I created our production company, Save Them Wild Dogs, to tell the stories of the misunderstood, misrepresented, and too-often overlooked, with a focus on the Midwest and mid-South. To find out more about the film, visit upontheglass.com and our production company at savethemwilddogs.com. Feel free to reach out to me via my website, nikkidelprincipe.com. I’d love to hear from you!

—Hillary S. Cheng, 26611 La Roda, Mission Viejo, CA 92691; (603) 546-8452; hillary.s.cheng@dartmouth.edu

We’re happy to announce that Emily Duke will be taking over the Alumni Council representative position as we say goodbye to Delfina Gonzalez, who just finished her three-year term as our representative! Thank you again, Delfina, for a wonderful three years of service!

Another bit of class notes—while we won’t be seeing each other this summer due to the quarantine, planning is underway for a delayed reunion, so stay tuned. Your class officers—Christine Souffrant (president), Brandon Aiono (vice president), Shelley Han (treasurer), and me, Hillary S. Cheng (secretary)—and the 10-year reunion chairs Michael Brown, Marguerite V. Imbert, and Shayla Mars—will remain in their positions through 2021, when we hope to celebrate our rescheduled reunion.

Cynthia Akagbosu wrote in with an update: “Hello, fellow ’11s. I had the pleasure of marrying fellow ’11 Nathan Swire last summer in May. It was a three-day Jewish, Nigerian, and Catholic wedding bonanza. The bridal party had a great showing from the ’11 class, with Alex Gonazalez, Adriene McCance, Sarah Seng, and Caroline Ward as well as Nathan’s mother, Anne Scott-Putney ’81. I graduated from Tufts University School of Medicine in 2017 and am finishing up my last year at Boston Children’s Hospital in its pediatrics residency program. I am starting a pediatric gastroenterology fellowship at Children’s National Medical Center this summer. Nathan graduated from Harvard Law School shortly after the wedding, has been clerking in the federal district court in Boston under Judge William Young during the past year, and will be joining me in Washington, D.C., to start as an associate lawyer at White & Case.”

How have you been spending the quarantine? Write in and let us know!

—Hillary S. Cheng, 26611 La Roda, Mission Viejo, CA 92691; (603) 546-8452; hillary.s.cheng@dartmouth.edu

Please welcome a guest column by Jennifer Robinson.

Hello fellow ‘11s! I currently live in North Carolina, where I’ve been working for the past 4 years as an attorney with Legal Aid of North Carolina (LANC) Battered Immigrant Project. (This is written in my personal capacity and does not reflect the opinion of LANC.) I represent survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking in applying for legal immigration status so they can remain in the United States—where their support network is, where they are protected by our law enforcement, and where they are receiving social services and therapy related to their victimization.

I can’t imagine doing anything else, but it is emotionally challenging work. Handing someone their first-ever work permit or green card is a meaningful and humbling experience. However, we are constantly facing new challenges. You can imagine for yourself the traumas my clients experience before meeting me, so I want to share with you the policy change that has impacted my daily work the most. At my organization, we provide free legal services to low-income people, who often cannot afford to pay immigration application fees, which range from $400 to more than $2,000 for a single case. For a family of five, you do the math. It’s possible to request a fee waiver if the applicant demonstrates an inability to pay. For survivors of violence, this used to be a simple process of explaining their income or lack thereof.

In the summer of 2018, humanitarian fee waiver requests were being denied with no warning of a policy change. Now, the government is drastically stricter on the evidence required to obtain a fee waiver. Many of my clients win a fee waiver by submitting their tax returns, but sometimes even these are denied in a manner that can only be described as random. Unfortunately, I just received a second denial for one client. For our second attempt, we again submitted her taxes and added more proof of her struggling business. It still wasn’t enough. She is a single mother recovering from her abusive ex-husband both emotionally and financially, and she doesn’t have an extra $2,000 for her application, so we’ll try a third time.

Undocumented people can file taxes, and millions of them do every year. However, many people experiencing domestic violence or human trafficking are not permitted by their abusers to file taxes or are too afraid to do so. What if someone is a stay-at-home mother, recently escaped from her abusive husband and staying with a friend? She has no income, no rent payment, and no evidence to show that she cannot afford the immigration fee. I have seen families go into debt to come up with $4,000 that could have been spent on food and clothes for their children. For the survivors of violence I work with, these fee waiver denials stand in the way of applying for legal status, preventing deportation, staying here with their U.S. citizen children, and continuing their healing journeys in the United States.

We persevere, and we often win. I just received an email with Christmas greetings from a former client whom I helped win her green card: “We remember you with immense gratitude for all the good you did for us.” It’s the best feeling in the world to read that. Please feel free to reach out to me if you have questions about immigration. My husband, Dan Mott ’12, and I live in the Raleigh, North Carolina, area with our dog Maya. Let us know if you are ever in North Carolina!

—Hillary S. Cheng, 16013 Legacy Road, Unit 304, Tustin CA 92782; (603) 546-8452; hillary.s.cheng@dartmouth.edu

We are sad to announce that one of our classmates remains with us only in spirit. We mourn the passing of Aisling Galligan in early August. More details are available in the obituary published on the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine’s website.

Reunion planning is also underway, led by our reunion chairs Marguerite V. Imbert, Michael Brown, and Shayla Mars as well as our class vice president Brandon Aiono and class president Christine Souffrant. Please get in touch with me (hillary.s.cheng@gmail.com) or shoot us a message at dartmouthclassof2011@gmail.com (also primarily checked by me!) if you’re interested in volunteering or have any ideas for our upcoming reunion in 2020.

—Hillary S. Cheng, 16013 Legacy Road, Unit 304, Tustin CA 92782; (603) 546-8452; hillary.s.cheng@dartmouth.edu

Class VP Brandon Aiono here, filling in for this issue. I was on campus in March for the Granite Challenge, reaching out to several of you alongside seven other ’11s who made the trek up to Hanover for the weekend. Also in attendance were the following.

Caroline Ward is currently working at a startup based out of Providence, Rhode Island, where she manages support and security operations.

Evan Lambert is writing fulltime for the Buzzfeed-lite site Topix.com and performing in a monthly show in N.Y.C. called the Improvised Real Housewives Episode (a metro New York critics’ pick)!

Ryan Speers lives in Washington, D.C., and is focusing on running his security consulting business (River Loop Security) along with Ricky Melgares, while working on a product startup focused on firmware security (Pilot Security).

James Khun also lives in D.C. and works as a quantitative analyst for an applied research firm. When not running regression models, he’s embracing entering his 30s by curating his newfound obsession with houseplants.

Tina Alexander is living it up in Austin, Texas, and just closed out her first year of graduate school, earning a master’s in social work at the University of Texas. She occasionally meets up with Chris Alexander, her twin brother, who feeds her now that she’s a broke student again.

Zach Blatt is living out his dream this summer, driving all the way from his home in New Hampshire to Lake Tahoe, California, and, he hopes, down the coastline in July. The trip will roughly follow I-80 and should include plenty of baseball games and national parks (Zach has only been to two).

Delfina Gonzalez is starting her eighth year living in the Boston area. When she’s not busy torturing her boyfriend with Dartmouth stories, the two enjoy salsa dancing, eating out, and playing board games with friends. In addition to currently working in clinical operations managing clinical studies, Delfina continues to serve as our class representative to the Alumni Council, so be sure to send her any comments, questions, and concerns that you have about the College before the next session meets in October!

Thanks to everyone who answered our calls during the Camp Granite weekend, and be aware that there’s a new Dartmouth College Fund challenge that’s just begun. Each class that reaches 45-percent participation this year will have a $100,000 financial aid endowment created in its name (one that lasts forever)! For current standings, check here: www.dartgo.org/d11challenge.

Two additional updates through the mailbag.

First, William Aubin saved up all his major post-graduation life accomplishments thus far into the past year. Not only was he married to Hayley Tran in June 2018—celebrating with Mateusz Grudzien, Brandon Floch, Nick and Priya (Rajgopal) Rolfes, John Roland, John Underwood, David Friedman, Ryan Murphy ’09, Brendan Mahoney ’12, and Ryan Tincher ’12—he also just completed his M.B.A. at University of Chicago in June and started a job at AveXis, a biotech company, in May. But the highlight of the year is welcoming his first child, Calvin Tran Aubin, into the world at the end of August. He’d love to have more Dartmouth alums come visit, so if you’re ever swinging through Chicago, let him know!

Finally, Thomas Tao moved to L.A. with his girlfriend, Julie Fiveash ’13, for a new position as a senior producer at Marvel, where he’ll be handling its Asia partnerships for video games. He hopes to acquire a lot of Marvel swag, and I hope he can tell me what’s next for the Avengers.

—Hillary S. Cheng, 16013 Legacy Road, Unit 304, Tustin CA 92782; (603) 546-8452; hillary.s.cheng@dartmouth.edu

Please join me in welcoming Katie Dowty to our class! Our dear classmate Melanie Pastuck recommended that we adopt Katie into our class earlier this year, and the adoption process has finally finished! Katie is currently the varsity head coach of the Dartmouth women’s rugby program. In nominating Katie, Melanie Pastuck wrote, “Katie Dowty became the first varsity head coach of the Dartmouth women’s rugby program when she was hired in June 2015. Since that time, she has brought the team (with a club sports history) to the very top of the rankings for U.S. collegiate rugby, with multiple Ivy League titles under her belt and Dartmouth currently ranked No. 2 in the country. Her commitment to the program and the way that she is inspiring Dartmouth undergrads is truly incredible. Attracting top national and international talent to Hanover as assistant and guest coaches, Coach Dowty has given the student-athletes an amazing and unparalleled rugby experience. Coach Dowty has also often said that she feels so much more connected to the passion and the spirit of Dartmouth than she ever did to her own alma mater (Harvard), and loves our community so much that she has recently purchased a home in Hanover. With regard to connection with our class, the class of 2011 formally applied for the women’s rugby team to become varsity at the end of my senior year. Four years later the proposal was finally approved by the athletics department (budget and recommendations virtually unchanged!)—and Coach Dowty has become the living embodiment of the vision we had for the future NCAA program. I would love to extend an invitation for her adoption into our class, as she helped make the dream for the players in our class year a reality.” In a recent email, Melanie also noted this exciting update: “Coach Dowty and the team also just won the first-ever national championship in the program’s history in a huge win over Harvard two weeks ago!”

In other news, two of our classmates made the Forbes’ “30 Under 30” list this year. Congratulations to Daniel Hochman and Jana Landon for their incredible work. To quote from the Dartmouth alumni website feature, Daniel “heads research into environmental, social, and governance factors in investing at Bridgewater Associates,” and Jana “manages Google’s outreach efforts with historically black colleges and universities, matching engineers with computer science classes at the schools.” Keep doing amazing things! (And drop me an email so we can include your amazing deeds in our Class Notes!)

—Hillary S. Cheng, 16013 Legacy Road, Unit 304, Tustin, CA 92782; (603) 546-8452; hillary.s.cheng@dartmouth.edu

Just a few updates this time. Jane Kang wrote in to say, “I wanted to pass on an update on behalf of several alumni who graduated together from the Kellogg School of Management on June 22. Fellow ’11s included Sonia Rao, Ted Schroeder, Jaimie Berger, and myself. Ritu Moondra ’09, Lily Eom ’10, Kathleen Woods ’10, Joe Kubert ’10, and Rob Marwanga ’12 also graduated.”

Katherine (Roddy) Lavine also sent me a note: “I just got the latest alumni mag in the mail today, which reminded me to send in my own update. My husband, Noah (Haverford ’11), and I welcomed our second son, Simon Prentice Lavine, on August 12 at 8 pounds, 6 ounces, just two days after our fifth wedding anniversary. Simon joins big brother Henry (now 3 years old) here in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where I’m still teaching high schoolers math (AP calculus these days) part-time when I’m not chasing my boys!”

—Hillary S. Cheng, 16013 Legacy Road, #304, Tustin, CA 92782; (603) 546-8452; hillary.s.cheng@dartmouth.edu

It’s April now, and the class of 2011’s executive committee will be hopping on a conference call in May for a planning session headed up by our class president, Christine Souffrant. Would you like to see a mini-reunion in your area? Drop us a note at dartmouth classof2011@gmail.com so we can pass it on to our regional chairs!

Sydney Thomashow sent me an update to say that she and Chris Barth ’08 met and collaborated on a panel at SXSW, where they discussed “design thinking” and how it can be applied to branding, marketing, and other creative endeavors.

Ida Sargent and Rosie Brennan were mentioned in the Valley News for Ida’s third-place and Rosie’s fifth-place finishes in the six-athlete final of the women’s sprint of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard SuperTour at the Craftsbury (Vermont) Outdoor Center on March 23.

Alice Bradley also sent a note to say that she’ll be starting a faculty position as an assistant professor at Williams College this summer. Alice writes, “I’ll be in the geoscience department, where I’ll teach classes related to climate and continue my research in how to measure changing Arctic sea ice environments.”

Brandon Aiono is stateside for a few months while transitioning between jobs in China. Say hi to him if you’re in the Bay Area! He’ll be here until August, so hurry up before you miss him. After August you can find him in Shanghai. Adam Reed has also recently relocated to the Bay Area to work at an accounting firm. He just successfully completed the firm’s usual probationary internship and received a fulltime offer! Now you know who to contact for your taxes.

Raj Majumder is currently in an M.B.A. program at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and will be in Thousand Oaks, near L.A., for his summer internship at Amgen. He and Tom Lane will be doing a week-long road trip from Nashville out to the West Coast!

Speaking of L.A., Marco Chu just completed another stair-climb and fundraising effort for the American Lung Association’s Fight for Air Climb here, involving 1,391 stairs and 63 floors.

Whenasked for an update, Gabriel Lopez, who is now an attorney, said, “I left my beloved Connecticut and took my talents down to South Beach to work at White & Case’s bank finance practice.”

Conrad Whitaker has had an exciting 11 years out of college in places quite far from Hanover. He writes, “Since graduating, I’ve spent most of my time abroad (except for a brief stint in San Francisco). I studied Arabic in Egypt, lived in a tent on the Nile in South Sudan while working for a research company, and in 2014, I moved to Nairobi initially to work as a consultant supporting renewable energy companies in East Africa. For the past three years I’ve been managing operations and distribution for a PayGo solar company, Azuri Technologies, where we distribute integrated solar home systems (solar panels, batteries, lights, etc.), coupled with new mobile money-enabled financing solutions to allow some of the 600M Sub-Saharan Africans who are not connected to the grid to affordably adopt solar technology as an improved way to access energy. (If you are interested in this topic, you can learn more on the ‘The East Africa Business Podcast,’ where I discuss the distributed economy as a development thesis.) For anyone making their way through East Africa, give me a shout; I am always looking to catch up!”

—Hillary S. Cheng, 16013 Legacy Road, #304, Tustin, CA 92782; (603) 546-8452; hillary.s.cheng@dartmouth.edu

Jennifer Robinson got married to Dan Mott ’12 in October, and Jenny Zhao was one of her bridesmaids!

Mike Lewis recently published a book, When to Jump, and he writes in: “I sketched a book cover five years ago after reading an alumni update in the winter 2013 DAM issue of a banker who turned into an Olympic cyclist. It’s been a Dartmouth-heavy project with tons of help from alums and many fellow ’11s—Tom Mandel helped edit the first story, Emily Hirshey helped me start the publishing process and Kyle Battle and Abigail Holden are featured in the book, sharing their own jumps. If anyone has a jump they want to share, send me a note at mike@whentojump.com!”

Daryl Concha competed in the 2017 Women’s Flat Track Derby Association International Championships in Philadelphia on November 3-5, 2017. She is a member of the Gotham Girls Roller Derby All-Stars, based out of New York City. The Gotham All-Stars finished its season third in the world. Daryl will also compete in the Roller Derby World Cup on February 1-4, in Manchester, United Kingdom, as part of Team Indigenous. Reid Duke also wrote in: “I play Magic: The Gathering for a living and—at the time of writing—I’m the No. 2 ranked player in the world. Magic is a collectible, strategy card game that I’ve played since I was 5 years old. The professional circuit has me traveling nearly every weekend and competing against players from all across the world. In December I’ll be representing the United States at the World Magic Cup in Nice, France, as captain of the national team. Wish me luck!”

We also had a fun mini-reunion here in L.A. with the classes of 2008 to 2013 in December. Quite a few ’11s showed up—it was great to see you all!

—Hillary S. Cheng, 16013 Legacy Road, #304, Tustin, CA 92782; (603) 546-8452; hillary.s.cheng@dartmouth.edu

A couple of updates this time! Courtney Gerwin and Brandon Parks got married on September 3 on campus at St. Thomas Church with the reception at the DOC House. They met on campus their senior year at the Daniel Webster reception and were both elated to head back to campus to tie the knot.

In May Claire Scott received her Ph.D. from the Carolina-Duke graduate program in German studies, also completing a certificate in feminist studies at Duke University. This fall she begins a position as a lecturer in the department of Germanic and Slavic languages and literatures at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

From Justin Varilek: “Hey from across the pond! So I just did a slight jaunt throughout the United States and saw some amazing Dartmouth people whom I hadn’t seen for about two to three years. Shout out to Anise Vance, Suz Parker, Vera Bergengruen, Myra Altman, Antonio Brown, Elizabeth Shribman ’10, Jake Sotak ’13 and Jason Klein ’82! Apologies to everyone else I didn’t get to see. Time is not on my side.

“But the trip made me realize how long I’ve been out of it. I even missed the whole Trump-a-thon. So when our class secretary reached out, I figured I should make sure people hadn’t forgotten about my existence.

“After about five years in Russia I’m hoping to call Berlin home for the next two years. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I got my fill in Russia of running from a few riot police with a journalist or cozying up to an oligarch or two while helping MIT found a university there. It’s really just that my startup, HackPack.press, makes the decisions in my life and has banished me to a rave- and history-filled Berlin. To be honest, the startup is worse than twins as it gives me no rest and hasn’t let me stay in one country for more than a month for the entire past year.

“But the good news is that the child is growing into the toddler stage and I’m getting a better grip on the reins. Essentially my team and I are building a global network for the media industry that helps publications and marketers find and hire journalists to tell the stories that matter from around the world. Basically, think of Uber, but hiring photographers, videographers and journalists instead of drivers. After launching in Moscow, then Berlin, we’ve grown to more than 10,000 members in 150 countries, and we are planning to focus on the United States after presenting the startup at a yearly journalism conference this October in D.C.

“Otherwise, if you happen to be traveling through Berlin and looking for a place to stay or someone to grab a bier und currywurst with, then hit me up. Best option is via Facebook—I should be the Justin right above Bieber in the search.”

—Hillary S. Cheng, 16013 Legacy Road #304, Tustin, CA 92782; (603) 546-8452; hillary.s.cheng@dartmouth.edu

We almost had a whole column about Mortimer, a beautiful, gray ragdoll cat keeping house with Adam J. Reed in family-oriented Salt Lake City, Utah, but Adam didn’t want to hog the spotlight. In April Mortimer will be 3, which means he shares a birth month with my own feline, PJ. Her name is short for Patty Jr., named after my dear friend, Patrick, who acquired one cat per year in his childhood because each perished by automobile mere months after adoption, until a one-eyed cat, whose one eye works better than most cats’ two eyes, followed him home. PJ lives at home with my parents in New Hampshire. Mortimer, a pure ragdoll (the “puppy cat”), came from a breeder; PJ came from the Humane Society of Greater Nashua after she was surrendered there by a family with quite a few pets.

Yan Fan, who is currently working as a software engineer, also has a furry roommate, Meow Zedong, in her place in the Bay Area. Meow loves wearing cute little costumes reminiscent of her namesake, Fearless Leader, and she’s just a little under a year old! (Yan will soon be moving to Tokyo and taking Meow with her!) Also in the Bay Area is Milo, who is related to us by way of Angelo Carino, who, although not his official owner, is Milo’s second father. The sweet orange tabby loves to cuddle and lodge himself into random items of clothing.

Also in the Bay Area is Serra, Yiwei Wang’s former feline housemate. Warm and cuddly, the gray tabby and Yiwei parted ways when Yiwei moved into another apartment a few years ago, leaving behind Serra and her owner, Adam Dohner ’10.

Lacey resides in the same state as Meow, Milo and Serra, with Allison Parsley, who is currently living in downtown Los Angeles. She is a lovely longhair cat with a docile, sweet personality. I had the wonderful opportunity to meet her once, and she is a dear! Mariana Estevez, Annora Ng and Ji Lin also got to meet Lacey during their visits to L.A., and after her visit to L.A. and to Leo Anzagira in San Jose, Ji went home to her darling orange feline fatso (weighing in at 14 pounds!) named Autumn. She can shake hands and high-five! (Also, Annora visited quite a few ’11s while in the United States, including Jin Yan in Austin and Lei Qi in San Francisco.)

A mention of Angelo Carino cannot go without speaking of Ariana Almas, who is currently in an M.B.A. program at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She has two cats at home in New Jersey and she misses both dearly.

As I write this during a chilly February in West L.A., I envy Qianqian Zhao for the warm weather she must be having in Gainesville, Florida, with her kitty, Kimmie, who is a ripe old 15 years old! Kimmie came home with Qianqian from the shelter when she was just a few months old, and like many older cats, she sleeps a lot, but she can still jump to countertops and tabletops!

The next edition of Class Notes for ’11s will be puppies and doggies! Send me stories about your furry pals and I’ll try to include them!

—Hillary S. Cheng, 10930 Gray Place, Tustin, CA 92782; (603) 546-8452; hillary.s.cheng@dartmouth.edu

Howdy, ’11s. Well, this is it, my last column after five years as your secretary. It’s been a blast having an excuse to badger you about all the incredible things you’re doing. Many thanks for responding to my emails, Facebook messages and texts, and special kudos to those of you who actually sent in updates about your lives without me pestering you. Seriously, never be shy about that. I can tell you from experience that you can never have too many updates when it’s time to compile a column. Hillary Cheng is taking over as secretary for me and I’m sure she’s going to do an incredible job. Be sure to hit her up at hillary.s.cheng@gmail.com.

Now, for the last time from me, let’s get to the updates.

Kasia Vincunas got married in May and has left her job at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She is now off to London to get her master’s in Byzantine art at the Courtauld Institute of Art. Kasia writes, “We’d love to connect with Dartmouth alums in our new home!”

More news on the engagement front: Sydney Thomashow and Ben Gifford ’10 got engaged in May. Ben is entering his last year at Harvard Law School, Sydney is a product marketing manager at Google and they live in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with their corgi puppy Louie (which you can apparently follow on Instagram @louiecinnamon). Also, Elizabeth Howland and Adrian Doran got engaged in April. Big congrats to all!

Chris Silberman, who had been in D.C. and is making his way to San Francisco, first spent some time in South America. He traveled through Argentina, Uruguay, Chile and Peru, living on couches, Airbnbs and, of course, a camper van.

Ki Suh Jung has been a Navy officer stationed in Japan since 2013. Because of his service, he couldn’t make it to reunion, and we of course missed him there. The highlight of his service, Ki Suh writes, has been providing humanitarian assistance to the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan hit the region. “My ship was in Hong Kong at the time for a port visit and we were ordered to leave a day early and make best speed for Ormoc,” he wrote. “We used our helicopters to deliver food to remote villages that were cut off from the city and we sent sailors to shore to clean up debris and rebuild at an Army base so that they could take charge of the situation after we left. Other Navy ships relieved us after about five days and we continued with our deployment.”

And lastly, some news on the grad school front. Jonathan Panzl graduated from Columbia Law School in May. Andrew Citrin, who spent the last few years leading research strategy at MediaLink, a boutique advisory firm, has headed to L.A. to pursue an M.B.A. at USC. He plans to concentrate on strategy management in the media and entertainment landscape.

That’s it for now and from me. Be sure to send Hillary your updates, and thanks for taking the time to read the column after the last five years. As Miley Cyrus famously said in that song that was popular freshman year, I can’t wait to see you again. Joseph out.

—Drew Joseph, 49 Grove St., Somerville, MA 02144; (510) 418-2244; aqjoseph@gmail.com

Hello, ’11s. It is my duty, responsibility and honor to give you one last reminder (in case you somehow didn’t know already, as if that were possible) that our reunion is coming up this summer. So make sure you block off the weekend, and see you then.

Now, onto the updates. Jean Mason, who had been working in New York in digital brand strategy, is now getting her M.F.A. at the Savannah College of Art and Design, where she’s studying textile design. “It’s a great program—good mix of fine arts and industry-oriented design work,” Jean writes. She’s specializing in print and pattern design, so is doing lots of screenprinting and digital pattern design. Right now Jean is creating a line of saris.

Emily Duke and Matt Scott, who you may remember once had a column in The D about being the “drunkest girls at the party,” are taking their antics to the big screen. Well, not quite the big screen, but still. They have started their own web series with the help of Emma Fidel ’12 called Garbage People. Here’s how they describe the new comedy series: “As far as the idea—Garbage People is basically ‘Drunkest Girls at the Party’ in the real world. Original idea probably came in the midst of drunken Will & Grace binge (on brand) and is highly inspired by Absolutely Fabulous (as we are in real life).” Glad to know Matt and Emily haven’t changed since college. You can catch up here: www.facebook.com/GarbagePeopleSeries/?fref=ts.

And of course we have lots of wedding news to report. Owen Jennings and Kelly McHenry got engaged last summer in Sonoma, California, and are planning to get married in nearby Calistoga next spring. Owen and Kelly live in San Francisco, where Owen is the head of business operations at Square and Kelly manages a global sales team at Google. They spend their time enjoying the beautiful outdoors in the Bay Area, hanging out with fellow Dartmouth alumni and dreaming about the day they will finally get a dog. Leonard Chang and Stephenie Lee, another ’11-’11 couple living in the Bay Area, got married at the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans in November and, as Stephenie says, “Dartmouth alums were rolling deep!” Stephenie is working at an educational company committed to transforming the delivery of education globally called Axiom Learning. Leonard is working at a fintech firm called NerdWallet, which gives out credit card recommendations. Stephenie writes, “The Bay Area continues to be super chill and every year more and more people move out here!” Emily Hirshey also recently got engaged, to Joe Tracy ’12. Emily is in L.A., where she’s a staff writer on a new Netflix sitcom starring Ashton Kutcher called The Ranch. “And I’m really happy to see that coloring books have become more socially accepted among the grownup community,” Emily writes. But despite the wedding news and big job, it sounds like the most exciting thing in Emily’s life is that she just got a dog named Rosie. That’s it for now! Please send me any updates, and see you in June!

—Drew Joseph, 49 Grove St., Somerville, MA 02144; (510) 418-2244; aqjoseph@gmail.com

Hey there, ’11s. As I write this, I’m eagerly awaiting the Dartmouth-Harvard football game here in the Boston area in just a few days. Of course, when you read this, that game will be many weeks in the past, but whatever the outcome it sounds as though we have quite the Dartmouth fan base that will be bringing the noise (and weather permitting, the funk) to the stadium this Friday.

Now onto the updates. Ron Chavarria, an artist who goes by Logan De La Cruz, is based in New York City and working as a studio assistant at Jeff Koons Studio while he builds his own career. A painting from his “Long Live McQueen” series, which debuted in the Jaffe-Friede Gallery in a 2012 show, is now featured in an exhibition called “Power of Ruins” at the Palazzo Altemps in Rome. The show opened in October and runs through January. So get to Rome already and check out the painting! (Seriously, though, big congrats to Logan on his success!)

Speaking of art, Abigail Holden opened a new gallery in October in Boston featuring rotating monthly exhibitions. “Abigail Ogilvy Gallery is a contemporary art gallery showing early-career, emerging artists,” Abigail writes. “The artwork will include painting, sculpture and mixed-media pieces in a variety of styles and techniques.” Added bonus: Another classmate, Natalia Wrobel, is showing her work at the gallery in April. Learn more about Abigail’s gallery at www.abigailogilvy.com and Natalia’s work at nataliaswrobel.com. Triple bonus: The chair of Dartmouth’s studio art department, Soo “Sunny” Young Park, will have a solo exhibition in the gallery in June. Way to go, Ab and Natalia!

Some exciting news from Jennifer Shin: After living in New York since graduation, she’s off to Paris. She most recently worked in business development at MakerBot, a 3-D printing company, and will be working at an augmented reality startup in Paris. She says she’s looking forward to catching up with other alums in the area.

Finally, thanks to a group text thread, I’m catching up right now with Lia Grigg and Eric Durell, who both started business school this fall. Lia is at Yale School of Management, Eric is at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and both are off to great starts.

That’s it for this round of updates. Please be sure to send updates big and small my way, and cheers to the new year!

—Drew Joseph, 49 Grove St., Somerville, MA 02144; (510) 418-2244; aqjoseph@gmail.com

Hey there again, ’11s! I recently got sucked into looking at all the photos from the ’10s’ fifth reunion on Facebook and it made me so excited about getting to be back in Hanover with you all in a year.

In the meantime, though, lots of exciting things going on with our classmates. Many of those who went straight to medical school after graduation are now real-live doctors and starting their residencies—a big congratulations to all of them! Hayley Jansson is one of them, and she writes that after finishing med school at University of Southern California, she is staying in L.A. for an orthopedic surgery residency. Good luck, Hayley!

Speaking of L.A., Scott McKnight is moving there after spending a few years in Dallas. Scott, who is making the road trip there with his puppy Scout, will be a private equity associate at Odyssey Investment Partners.

And I’m a bit late on this news, but Georgiana Smyser and Carl Zehner got engaged in England during the holidays and plan to be married next year on Nantucket, Massachusetts. Georgie is in Austin, Texas, pursuing her J.D. and M.B.A. at University of Texas and Carl is in medical school at Emory. Congrats to them!

Another person on the move is Anna Levine, who is heading from Boston to New York, where she will continue to work as an elementary school teacher. And finally, a bit of news from me. After two great years in San Antonio, Texas, I recently moved to Boston. It’s great to be back in New England and in just a few days here I have seen lots of familiar Dartmouth faces. Hope to see many more of you all soon!

As always, please send along any updates big and small my way. Look forward to hearing from you!

—Drew Joseph, 109 West French Place, Apt. D105, San Antonio, TX 78212; (510) 418-2244; aqjoseph@gmail.com

Hello there, ’11s. Hope that you all made it through the winter okay and that things have warmed up for you!


There seems to be a growing contingent of ’11s building in London. Two classmates who moved over there fairly recently are Cyrus Akrami and Chris Fletcher. Cyrus, who has been working for Dropbox since 2013, headed there at the beginning of this year as part of a team that opened the company’s new U.K. offices. He says that the focus of the job is bringing Dropbox for Business to workplaces around the United Kingdom and Ireland, and adds that you should drop him a line if you’re ever in London. 


Chris, who had been living in New York, also moved to London in January for his job at BuzzFeed. He works on the branded content team and is helping to grow that business in the United Kingdom and throughout Europe. He writes that he’s getting to travel a lot and is starting to get into improv. 


Another classmate who has made some moves is Martha Gillon. She was working in finance at Mitchell International in San Diego but headed out to Washington, D.C., in January to work in the civil service at the U.S. State Department. Very cool. 


Elizabeth Howland, meanwhile, is leaving the Pacific Northwest for Tennessee. She’s been working as a neonatal research coordinator at the University of Washington and writes that she’s “bidding beautiful Seattle a bittersweet farewell” to head to Nashville. There, she’ll pursue her master’s of science in nursing at Vanderbilt University on her way to becoming a family nurse practitioner. She invites any alumni in the Music City to get in touch with her. 


That’s it for this round—be sure to get in touch with updates both big and small!


—Drew Joseph, 109 West French Place, Apt. D105, San Antonio, TX 78212; (510) 418-2244; aqjoseph@gmail.com


Hey there again, ’11s. Some great updates this time around, including some big life changes.


Laura Zapata recently moved out to San Francisco after spending the years since graduation in Washington, D.C. There she worked for Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada and as the communications director for Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas. But she and her husband both found new jobs in the Bay Area (in addition to that, they just celebrated their second anniversary) so now Laura is working in communications for Uber in San Francisco. 


Katie Paxton is one of our most recently engaged classmates—a big congrats to her! Her fiancé is Ethan Christ, Columbia ’06, who works in IT security. And since graduation Katie has been working in architecture and is now the marketing manager for VOA Associates. Katie told me she is currently living and breathing hockey season and “wedding Pinterest-ing.” 


Molly Grear writes from Seattle, where she has been working researching marine renewable energy and has plans to start a doctorate program in engineering at the University of Washington. She was also recently married to Ben Hughey ’12—congratulations to them!


And last but not least, Daryl Concha is working as a paralegal at Schindler Cohen and Hochman, a law firm in New York. But when she’s not working she’s a member of the Gotham Girls Roller Derby and plays with the team Manhattan Mayhem. Daryl discovered roller derby during a visit to Coney Island, and now even plays on the league’s traveling team, the Wall Street Traitors. Daryl is living in Queens with some fellow Native Americans at Dartmouth alums. 


So in addition to keeping us updated on all the major changes in your life, be sure to pass along any fun stories of ’11s getting together, wherever that may be. I got to hang out with Alex Maceda, Lia Grigg, Georgie Smyser, Emily Hirshey, Lyman Missimer, Austin Bowers and Preet Gurusamy in October for a night in Austin, Texas, and it was great to be around some ’11s I hadn’t seen in a while. So whether you’re taking a ski trip this winter or escaping to some tropical island, definitely let me know. 


—Drew Joseph, 109 West French Place, Apt. D105, San Antonio, TX 78212; (510) 418-2244; aqjoseph@gmail.com


First up, some exciting news from Adrienne Hoarfrost. She and Nick Brown ’09 were married during Memorial Day in a beautiful ceremony in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. It was an amazing event and a great time getting to catch up with other ’11s and plenty of ’09s as well. The couple went to Mexico on their honeymoon. Beyond that, Adrienne is there at the University of North Carolina pursuing her doctorate in marine sciences, studying the microbial impact on the carbon cycle in deep subsurface sediments. I admittedly have no idea what that actually means, but very impressive, Adrienne! Congratulations to you and Nick.


Speaking of marriages, Bennett Siegel and Amanda Fuchs got engaged in April in Chicago. Congratulations to them!


Any other ’11 weddings or engagements I should know about? Be sure to pass that information along so it can be included in a future column.


Plenty of our classmates are also starting graduate school this fall. Two are Danielle O’Bannon and Ben Gettinger. Danielle, who has been doing public sector strategy consulting and sales and business development for M Powered Strategies in Washington, D.C., is off to Columbia Business School. And Ben, who has been living in New York and working in Connecticut for the past few years, is heading to Harvard Business School. 


And after three years in the Bay Area Addie Gorlin is moving to Minneapolis, Minnesota, to continue her work in theater. She has grants from the Dartmouth general fellowship and the National New Play Network producer-in-residence to fund an artistic directing apprenticeship at Mixed Blood Theatre in Minneapolis. As she says, she’ll basically be working alongside the artistic director at the theater learning how to run a nonprofit theater. 


That’s it for this round of updates. Please be sure to keep me updated on what’s new or going on with you all.


—Drew Joseph, 109 West French Place, Apt. D105, San Antonio, TX 78212; (510) 418-2244; aqjoseph@gmail.com


Hey there, ’11s. The good news is that a number of you are starting to shoot updates my way, but we could always use more. Be sure to let me know what’s going on with you and, in the meantime, here’s what’s going on with a couple of our classmates. 
Casey Gardiner moved to Boulder, Colorado, during the summer to pursue a doctorate in social psychology and neuroscience. She passes along this note: “Heading back to school has caused the Collis and third-floor Berry withdrawal to return with full force, and missing Homecoming for the first time since fall 2007 is sure to prove traumatic. However, Boulder is an awesome place to live—great mountain views from all over town, excellent food (and happy hour, which Boston sorely lacked) and a solid population of crunchy and techy types. Plus, ski season is almost upon us! While the ’17s (!) are running around the bonfire I’ll be out here doing a snow dance in hopes of some pre-Thanksgiving powder days.”
Hillary Cheng writes that she’s about to wrap up law school at Suffolk Law in Boston and has been working on unemployment and immigration cases. She also passed along some updates on Angelo Carino and Ariana Almas, who are both out in San Francisco after some time in Boston. Ariana, who was working as a program manager at New Sector in Boston, is now working with the Year Up nonprofit, Hillary says. And Angelo is working at Google, splitting time between San Francisco and Michigan and, in the words of Hillary, “winning mad awards for his diversity work.”
And some exciting news from Eric Tanner. After more than a year of work, the travel buff has launched a new site to help people plan their ideal trips called Tripwing. “Tripwing has partnered with the leading tour companies from around the world to provide a modern web experience that helps you find the perfect vacation,” Eric wrote in the announcement email. “With a Kayak-like search interface, you can choose the locations, activities, dates and prices that work for you, and Tripwing shows you the ideal tours that match your preferences. After that you’re just one click away from your dream vacation. After you book a tour we even help with the flights, so you only need to make one stop online to book your entire vacation.” Be sure to check it out next time you’re planning a trip with your fellow ’11s.
So from grad school to new jobs to new companies, that’s a quick roundup of what some of our classmates are up to. Have something to share about what’s going on with you or another ’11? Don’t hesitate to get in touch.
—Drew Joseph, 109 West French Place, D105, San Antonio, TX 78212; (510) 418-2244; aqjoseph@gmail.com 



Hey there again, ’11s. We’ll get straight to the updates this round, but just as a reminder, we’re always looking for news to feature in the column. As I write this we’re just a few days away from 2014, so let me know if the new year is bringing any changes for you. Or just let me know how things are going even if there aren’t big changes in store.


Joe Coleman wrote in from Ethiopia, where he was hiking in the Simien Mountains before heading back to San Diego for Christmas. Joe’s working with McKinsey on a project in South Africa at a construction site north of Johannesburg. “Every week I fly up on a 12-person plane near the border of Botswana,” Joe writes. “Highlights have definitely been the travel outside of work. I’ve been taking a bunch of random weekend trips to Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, Victoria Falls, Kruger National Park and up to Munich for Oktoberfest. For Thanksgiving I met up with some friends from work to camp in the Serengeti and then hang out in Zanzibar.” All right, Joe, thanks for making the rest of us insanely jealous. Joe was also in South Africa when Nelson Mandela died. “It’s been incredible to witness one man’s influence and the reaction of the local community,” he writes. “The morning after he passed away I went to his residence in Johannesburg and was overwhelmed by the chanting and dancing in the streets.”


Back stateside, Katherine Roddy, now Katherine Lavine, writes: “I’m in North Carolina, in the triangle (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area) where after some soul-searching I left the mathematics Ph.D. program at UNC Chapel Hill with a master’s of science in math in May. I got married this summer to Noah Lavine, Haverford ’11, with quite the Dartmouth contingent in attendance: Ali Tercek, Matt Gallira ’12, Emily Dreissigacker, Courtney Chapel, Emily Garvin, Anna Harty ’14, Molly Davis ’10, Nick Foukal ’10, Molly Schloss, Casey Gardiner and Jessi (Merry) Samuels ’12. Now I’m teaching high school math in Durham.”


I know from stalking your Facebook pages that there have been a number of other ’11s getting married. Any dispatches from those? Definitely send them my way.


And in case you missed it, Elle Anderson was profiled back in October by CyclingNews.com. The article (which you can find at www.cyclingnews.com/news/rising-cyclo-cross-star-anderson-aiming-for-europe) highlights how Elle took up cycling at Dartmouth. Now it looks like Elle has written a dispatch for the site from Belgium, where she’s taking on her first races in Europe. “Here in Belgium I am surrounded by a different kind of cyclo-cross fan, not fellow participants and their families but crowds that are so passionate that they undoubtedly know as much or more about the sport than I do,” she writes. “Where the U.S. fans yell encouragement and cheer for their fellow racers, the Europeans quietly regard the racing with a respectful intensity.” You can read the rest of her piece here: www.cyclingnews.com/blogs/euro-cross-camp-xi/feeling-at-home-away-from-home.


That’s it for this round, ’11s. Hope you are having a great start to the new year, and please let me know what’s going on with you. 


—Drew Joseph, 109 West French Place, #D105, San Antonio, TX 78212; (510) 418-2244; aqjoseph@gmail.com


I got a horrible text message today from a friend who had just realized Sophomore Summer was four years ago. I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure where those four years went, let alone the two years since graduation.


But what I do know is that many of you have been doing things in those past two years that the rest of the class would love to hear about. So send me your updates! Grad school, new jobs, moves, marriages—whatever. Just send it my way.


In this edition we have an awesome update from the one and only Korey McCants: “Hey, ’11s! So this spring was truly a busy one. All in about five months I took the all-star cheerleading team that I’ve been coaching for the past two years to Philly, Atlanta and Orlando, Florida, to compete at several national competitions; competed myself at the Cheerleading Worlds on an international coed team (check my Facebook pics and ESPN); left my job as a high school algebra 1 and pre-calculus teacher in New Jersey at a private therapeutic school for children with emotional disturbances; and recently relocated to Brooklyn, where I’ll be teaching eighth-grade science with the Achievement First charter school network while attending Relay Graduate School of Education to get my master’s in middle school biology education this coming fall. Out of breath, catch you on a Citibike in the city sometime soon!”


Okay, so you may not have competed at a national cheerleading competition, but I know you have something to share. Please do.


Also, because apparently I can’t stay in one place for very long, I am now living in my fourth city since graduation. Any other ’11s in San Antonio, Texas?


—Drew Joseph, 109 W. French Place, #D105, San Antonio, TX 78212; (510) 418-2244; aqjoseph@gmail.com


Hello, ’11s. I hope you enjoyed the premiere edition of our Class Notes in the last Dartmouth Alumni Magazine. Please, please, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me about what you’re doing (whether you’re jetting off to some far-off land or living in your parents’ basement), what other ’11s are doing or what you think I should be writing about.


All right, let’s get to the updates.


Proving that old dogs can indeed learn new tricks, Manhattanite Emily Hirshey is taking driving lessons! (Okay, I know we’re not that old, but as of this writing, it’s been exactly two weeks since we graduated and I’m already anticipating my first joint replacement.) But seriously, that’s one small step for Emily and one giant risk for New York City. (Kidding, Hirsh, I’m sure you’re doing great.)


Emily Unger and Andrew Purpura, the Dartmouth Outing Club first-year trips director and assistant director, are busy in Hanover trying to get ready for the arrival of the ’15s. Purps informed me in June that 82 percent of the incoming class had already signed up for trips, so it sounds like he and Emily are doing a great job. I know come September I’ll certainly be longing for a good ol’ “Salty Dog” on Robo lawn.


Big Green defensive end Charles Bay has been continuing his football career, playing in the International Federation of American Football Senior World Championships in July in Austria. Also going international is Isaiah Berg, who is setting off in August with his brothers on a bike trip that will take them all the way from Alaska to Argentina. Yes, that’s right, they’re riding their bikes from Alaska to Argentina. Isaiah told me that he should have a blog set up soon, and I’ll be eagerly reading each post. Best of luck to the Berg brothers on what sounds like quite an adventure.


Also taking a road trip this summer (albeit a slightly less intense one) were Dan Hochman and Reid Hartman. The two flew into Los Angeles, got themselves an RV and headed up through California en route to Oregon, Washington, Montana, Wyoming and Utah.


Mayuka Kowaguchi spent a month over the summer in her native Japan helping people displaced by the March earthquake and tsunami return to their homes. Check out Mayuka’s blog at http://mayukainjapan.tumblr.com. After her work in Japan, Mayuka headed back to Hanover to start as a presidential fellow in the advancement office.


A fleet of ’11s is headed to graduate school this fall. Kimberly Waters is off to get her master’s in world history at the University of Pennsylvania. Another ’11 who is really standing out to me (considering I made it two days in Math 8 before switching into a history class) is Katherine Roddy. She started her Ph.D. pursuit in August at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She told me she’s in the pure math program, as opposed to the applied math program, so congratulations to those of you who know what that means!


As for me, I’ve been in Portland, Oregon, for the summer and am heading to Washington, D.C., in the fall, trying to make it in journalism (I swear it’s not dead!). There I’ll be living with fellow ’11s Bill Mergner and Dan Van Deusen. Be sure to drop us a line whenever you’re in town. And please keep the updates flowing.


—Drew Joseph; aqjoseph@gmail.com


It’s about the end of the summer as I write this, so I think that means a lot of you are launching into grad school or new jobs. It’ll also be just after Homecoming when you read this, so I hope I’ll have gotten to see many of you at the Year 0 reunion in Hanover that weekend. Anyway, please be sure to keep in touch with me about the new things in your lives. Don’t hesitate to write about anything.


Let’s get to the updates:


Kanika Searvance is on her way to get her master’s in biomedical science at Tufts Medical School. After that she is thinking of working for a year or pursuing a master’s in public health and eventually going to medical school.


I know there are numerous groups of ’11s who are living together, and from what I hear Anna Dobbin and Kelly O’Brien just moved in to an apartment in the Clinton Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. Kelly is working as a production assistant for Fox Report and Studio B for Fox News Channel, cutting clips and making sure things run smoothly over there. And the hard-working Anna is navigating two jobs. She is the assistant to the vice president of Clarion Books, a children’s book imprint of Houghton Miller Harcourt, and working for Lois Sharzer Associates, an educational sales company.


Also in the New York area is Kathleen Wallace. She’s taking on an assistant coaching position for Hartwick College’s lacrosse team in Oneonta, New York. She’s running the offense up there for the Division 3 program.


Lia Grigg spent a couple weeks this summer trying her hand at archaeology. She was at the Tel Dor site, which is one of the largest active sites in Israel right now. Here’s what she has to say about the city: “It’s a port city that was intermittently inhabited from the late Bronze Age through the Crusades—in short, more than 2,000 years. A number of civilizations occupied Dor over its history, such as the Canaanites, Israelites, Greeks, Romans and Persians, so we can discover much about the way these different groups of people lived.”


I asked Jared Bookman, who is just starting medical school at New York University, to explain to us non-future doctors what the beginning of med school is actually like. He said the first few months are all about the “core foundations of medicine,” meaning he is taking lots of hard science classes. In a few weeks Jared and his classmates will start learning about the “practice of medicine,” focusing on bedside manner, ethics and patient histories. Potential job tip for those of you still looking for some work: The med students get their feet wet working with patient actors in a simulation center.


That’s just a brief recap of what a few members of our class are up to. Again, be sure to keep me updated with what is going on with you guys and our classmates. Also be sure to check out the class of 2011 Facebook group and Twitter accounts for up-to-date info about what’s going on with the youngest alumni of the College on the Hill.


—Drew Joseph, 2727 29th St. NW, Apt. #233, Washington, DC 20008; aqjoseph@gmail.com


Hello, fellow ’11s. Now after spending the past four years in Hanover with you all, I know you’re not a shy bunch. So why are you being so timid with the updates? Please send any and all news my way, and if you really don’t want to let me know what’s going on with you, let me know all the cool things that our classmates are up to.


To the updates!


Susan Matthews is in her second semester of journalism school at NYU and is also currently interning at OnEarth, a magazine run by the Natural Resource Defense Council. Among other things her time at NYU has taught her that semesters are unnervingly long in comparison to terms.


Martha Gillon is one of several ’11s participating in Teach for America. She’s in Nashville, Tennessee, and told me that she took her students to the National Civil Rights Museum in nearby Memphis for Black History Month.


Chase Raines, Alex Taylor, Sam Snow and Dallis Fox are traveling around New Zealand together for several months. Check out their blog at http://thereisnorealworldnz.blogspot.com to read about their adventures farming, buying a car, getting haircuts and more.


Two ’11s—Mostafa Heddaya and Jamie Berk (my freshman year roommate!)—have started a new magazine called American Circus. It features fiction, essays, political coverage and pieces of long-form journalism, some of which are written by our classmates. “The project started because we knew a bunch of great young writers who didn’t really have anywhere to publish,” Jamie writes. “They’ve all written for cool places, but all of them longed for a place to write more freely and experiment with form and take on some bigger projects. Since our launch we’ve accumulated a dedicated group of about 20—many of them connected to Dartmouth in one way or another.” Other ’11s who have gotten involved include Anise Vance, Charlie Dameron, Marguerite Imbert and Rahul Malik. You can take a look at all their work here: www.amcircus.com.


Finally, Kim Waters is keeping busy in the academic world. She’s participating in a dual-degree program through Columbia and the London School of Economics and is taking classes this semester at Columbia while also learning Portuguese. She’s off to Brazil this summer for her thesis research, and also presented her Dartmouth thesis research at a graduate conference at Boston University in March.


Those are all the updates for now. While I have your attention, don’t forget to donate to the College Fund! Hope to hear from you all soon. Send any life updates, book or movie recommendations (what’d you guys think of The Hunger Games?) and funny anecdotes my way.


—Drew Joseph, 2727 29th St., NW, Apt. 233, Washington, DC 20008; (510) 418-2244; aqjoseph@gmail.com


Hello, ’11s, and happy holidays! (Yes, I realize you will be reading this in February but I’m currently staring at a Christmas tree, so forgive the time warp.) Yet again the unsolicited updates have been a bit slow to come my way, so please, stop being modest and tell me about all the amazing things you’re doing. Or the not-so-amazing things—those are great too.


To the updates, which in this edition are mostly international: Kyung Ho Paik is back in South Korea fulfilling his military service. He started boot camp late last year and tells me he hopes to return to the United States for further studies after he completes his service. And Nathan Potter is in India until May. He’s been working in a hospital and traveling around the country. 


Eve Ahearn is spending the year in Panama teaching U.S. and world history and also working as an SAT and ACT tutor to Panamanian teenagers. She is living with another ’11, Amanda Pechman, who is doing similar work. Proving just how small the world is, they live in the same building as an ’01. Eve writes about Panama: “On the plus side there is a lot of great tropical fruit, and on the negative side there is no postal service.”


Justin Varilek is working as a business reporter in Russia for the English-language Moscow Times (check it out at themoscowtimes. com). He writes: “Some days are truly amazing. On Veteran’s Day I was taking shots with the U.S. ambassador and a group of 60-year-old Russian veterans to ‘build ties’ between our two nations. I even had the opportunity to travel to Siberia and speak with a grizzled zookeeper about his liger (yes lion-plus-tiger). Other days just suck. Dealing with Russian bureaucracy, I spend hours being tossed around from official to official—angry because I’m making them actually do their jobs—just to discover that none of them actually knows anything. And nothing starts off a day better than the Moscow rush-hour metro. You think you need a bubble for personal space? Forget it. Cars are stuffed so tightly that people literally take running starts to claim a spot in what is more similar to a cattle car than a convenient form of public transportation.”


Spenser Mestel is spending the year in Cairo learning Arabic. He’s also working as a tutor for fourth- and fifth-graders. Those of you who want to hear more from him about the cultural differences, dealing with a stubborn landlady and what it’s like to be in a country undergoing a revolution should get in touch with Spenser and ask to be put on his blitz list (can we still call them that?).


Of course, not everyone headed abroad after Dartmouth. Brandon Cohen is in southern California, for example, recently joining a startup called CapLinked in Manhattan Beach. He says it’s a free online platform for private companies, investors and advisors to network, manage a capital raise or asset sale and exchange updates. He’s living in Beverly Hills and he said a highlight has been skiing at Mammoth with Matt Schenker ’09.


That’s it for now, but keep the updates coming. 


—Drew Joseph, 2727 29th St., NW, Apt. #233, Washington, DC 20008; (510) 418-2244; aqjoseph @gmail.com


Well hello again, class of 2011. I have some great news to report in this column—for the first time I have received a few updates I didn’t solicit (although most of these updates I still had to ask for). Don’t be shy and keep ’em coming!


Hannah Payne is at Stanford studying for her doctorate in neuroscience—talk about brains! In April she was awarded a fellowship from the National Science Foundation graduate research fellowship program and has been enjoying running, skiing, concerts and California’s warm weather. 


Now we’re going international. Ron Chavarria, who now goes by Logan De La Cruz, is pursuing his art career in Munich, Germany. He participated in a group show in October with Young Munich Creatives and had a benefit solo show at Café Regenbogen der Münchner Aids-Hilfe in February—100 percent of the proceeds raised by his paintings went directly to Munich’s AIDS organization. His next show will be in Hanover in June for the “Perspectives on Design” exhibition with fellow ’11, Max Van Pelt. If you’re interested in seeing his work, check out his website: logandelacruz.blogspot.com.


Kashay Sanders has been living in Hyderabad, India, since graduation. She did an IDEX Fellowship in Social Enterprise and is now working fulltime for an organization there called Voice4girls, which was started in part by Averil Spencer ’10. “The organization’s flagship program is a summer camp for low-income girls that focuses on both English-speaking immersion and life skills (goal-setting, confidence, hygiene),” Kashay writes. “Right now we are in the throes of training counselors (who are usually Indian college women) for the camp. Aside from a few trips home I will be spending year two of alum life here in India with Voice4girls!”


Emily Baxter is in London working on a master’s of science in gender at the gender institute at the London School of Economics (LSE). “My program has been flexible in that it has allowed me to continue studying the intersection of politics, gender studies and religion, which was my focus at Dartmouth,” she writes. “That said, I’ve taken classes ranging from gender and development to sexuality in a global perspective. I am writing a dissertation, due in September, on masculinity and patriarchy within the Catholic church.” She told me that she’s also interning with the international state crime initiative at King’s College, which, in association with Harvard, researches crimes committed by states against their own people. She even managed to find time to perform in The Vagina Monologues in February at LSE. She’s looking to be in either New York or London next year working on issues of women’s rights and is guessing more school—perhaps even a doctorate—is in her future.


Kashay and Emily, who lived together at Dartmouth, also traveled in April around northern India together. They visited Pushkar, Udaipur and the Taj Mahal.


Also pursuing academics in England in Neil Basu. He’s getting his master’s in social science of the Internet at Oxford and is writing his thesis about how people cultivate their personalities on Facebook and whether their public image is threatened more by themselves or their friends. He’s been spending his free time traveling through Europe, but is also working hard—when he wrote me he had just finished writing 10,000 words in four days. He’ll be returning stateside at the end of the summer.


That’s all for now folks. Remember, don’t hesitate to send updates big or small my way.


—Drew Joseph, 2727 29th St., NW, Apt. 233, Washington, DC 20008; aqjoseph@gmail.com


As I write this at the end of October, I know many of you are gearing up for this upcoming weekend as it’s Homecoming, our sixth one. I couldn’t make the trip, but I’m sure there were some great ’11 hangouts—maybe fill me in on some of the magazine-appropriate ones so I can include them in an upcoming Class Notes column? 


For now though, it’s on to the updates from the past few months.


A big congratulations to Rebecca Glover, who was recently engaged to her high school sweetheart Mark Higgins. Rebecca spent the first year after graduation in London earning her master’s in medieval studies at King’s College London and is now enrolled in a doctorate program in Romance languages and literatures at the University of Chicago. She’s not quite sure what she wants to do when she finished with school, but would love to teach.


Janna Fennell is working with AmeriCorps as a Minnesota Reading Corps literacy tutor for a year in North Saint Paul, Minnesota. She’s working with kindergarten through third-grade students one-on-one on their reading skills and said she is starting to see improvement in their reading scores a few months into her year there.


Nick Devonshire has partnered up with Joe Indvik ’10 on a startup focused on clean-tech finance.


After a year in Washington, D.C., Katie Paxton is working in marketing for the architecture firm Perkins Eastman in New York. She’s working on urban design and large-scale developments and is getting away from some education projects she’s worked on in the past.


And Maya Granit is, in her words, “Livin’ the dream,” and I think most of us would agree: She’s working at a chocolate factory in San Francisco. She’s in charge of order fulfillment and logistics at Dandelion Chocolate, which was started about a year ago and has fewer than 10 employees. She helps make sure all the orders get to the right places and that the chocolate makers have enough sugar and beans, which come from the Dominican Republic, Madagascar and Venezuela. A heads-up to the Dartmouth alumni in the Bay Area: Dandelion Chocolate is moving its factory to the Mission District and is planning on opening a store and café. My favorite part of Maya working at a chocolate factory is she’s quite generous with the samples—and I can tell you firsthand the chocolate is delicious.


That’s it for now. Please be sure to send any updates about Year Two in the real world my way. I know there have even been some ’11s getting married, and I’m sure our classmates would love to hear updates from the weddings in our next column.


—Drew Joseph, 108 Hillside Ave., Piedmont, CA 94611; (510)-418-2244; aqjoseph@gmail.com