Tag Archive for Class of 2013

Wesleyan Jeopardy! Contestants Remember Longtime Host Alex Trebek

by Lauren Rubenstein • November 9, 2020

Many Wesleyans have competed on Jeopardy! over the years. J.R. Mannetta ’13, right, is pictured on the Jeopardy! set in January 2020 with host Alex Trebek, who died on Nov. 8. Read more about Mannetta’s experience.

Jeopardy! fans around the world are mourning the passing of longtime host Alex Trebek, who died on Nov. 8 at age 80. According to The New York Times, Trebek had hosted the show consistently since 1984, missing only one episode during that time—on April Fools’ Day in 1997, when he swapped places with the host of Wheel of Fortune as a gag.

Many Wesleyans had the opportunity to compete on Jeopardy! over the years. Below, some reflect on their experiences and share remembrances of Trebek.

J.R. Mannetta ’13 competed on Jeopardy! in January 2020.

When you go on Jeopardy! you don’t actually speak with Alex until the episode is recording and they do your interview segment. Which is my way of saying beyond that conversation I didn’t interact with Alex much. He does do Q&A during commercial breaks and despite obviously not being at 100 percent physically he was still very much with it mentally. He still had a very quick wit and is bitingly funny.

I watched Jeopardy! religiously from high school to now and I can’t fathom what the show will look like without him.

Erhard Konerding MALS ’82

Erhard Konerding MALS ’82 retired as a documents librarian in Wesleyan’s Olin Library in 2015. He joined the University staff in 1972 and earned an MALS from Wesleyan in 1982. He was on the show in May 1994.

Contestants now take an online test to qualify, but back in the 1990s you would go to one of Merv Griffin’s casinos in Atlantic City and take a 10-question test. If you got enough questions right—I think it was seven or eight—they’d ask you back for a 50-question test and then for an audition. I went down to Atlantic City several times to take those tests. One day, I was sitting in the Star and Crescent at Alpha Delt and the phone rang. They asked me to come out to Hollywood and record the show.

When you film Jeopardy!, you show up at the studio in the morning with two changes of clothes. I was able to sit in the audience and watch until it was my turn. That first night, I was in second place going into the final question, and was able to bet strategically to end the night in first place. The second night, I was in second place but the third-place person was close behind me. I was doing the math frantically, and they finally said, “Erhard, we need a number from you.” My Jeopardy! career ended that night, but I won a trip to Hawaii.

by Olivia Drake • June 1, 2020

Three Wesleyan alumnae are the producers of podcasts that recently received 2020 Webby Award honors. The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet.

Julie Magruder ’17 was one of the co-producers and David Shadrack Smith ’92 is the executive producer of Daily Breath with Deepak Chopra, which won a Webby Award in the Health and Wellness category.

In Daily Breath, listeners expand their minds by exploring impactful ideas and themes. According to the show’s description, “Together we will delve into topics such as happiness, gratitude, love, sex, the true self, physical well-being, death and more. This is a space to build mindfulness into your daily routine and to end your week peacefully with a complete 10-minute meditation every Friday. Join us and BREATHE . . .”

Magruder also produced Deepak Chopra’s Infinite Potential (2019). In the 17-episode podcast, Chopra speaks with Jane Goodall, Russell Brand, Christopher Wylie, Jean Houston, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and others who have paved new paths for understanding our present and future.

She’s currently producer of HISTORY This Week (2020). This Week “turns back the clock to meet the people, visit the places, and witness the moments that led us to where we are today. Every week, the show magnifies something that happened that very week in history, that we should all know about,” Magruder explained.

A podcast hosted and produced by Avery Trufelman ’13 was named a 2020 Webby Award Nominee in the Arts and Culture category.

Nice Try! (2019) is a nine-episode podcast that explores stories of people who tried to design a better world—and what happens when those designs don’t go according to plan. Season one, Utopian, is about the quest for the perfect place.

Trufelman is also the producer of two other podcasts: 99% Invisible (2020) and Articles of Interest (2019).

Read more about Trufleman in this Wesleyan Magazine article.

Established in 1996 during the web’s infancy, the Webby Awards are presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (IADAS)—a judging body of more than 2,000. The Academy is comprised of executive members—leading internet experts, business figures, luminaries, visionaries, and creative celebrities—and associate members who are former Webby winners, nominees, and other internet professionals.

Gowns4Good, Co-Founded by Catania ’13, Connects Health Care Workers with Alternative PPE

by Katie Aberbach • April 20, 2020

Gowns4Good, co-founded by Taran Catania ’13 and Nathaniel “Than” Moore, above, coordinates the donation of graduation gowns to health care workers on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic, where the gowns may be used as alternative personal protective equipment. Moore is an emergency medicine physician assistant in the University of Vermont Medical Center.

Scores of commencement ceremonies around the United States have been canceled or postponed this spring due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That means scores of graduation gowns could sit unused in closets.

Instead, Taran Catania ’13, an MBA student at the University of Vermont, wants students past and present to put those gowns to a different use. Together with her classmate Nathaniel “Than” Moore, who works as an emergency medicine physician assistant in the UVM Medical Center, Catania earlier this month launched Gowns4Good, which coordinates the donation of gowns to health care providers on the front lines of the pandemic. The gowns will function as alternative personal protective equipment (PPE), to add an extra barrier of protection between medical staff and patients.

by Himeka Curiel • April 20, 2020

Appearing on Jeopardy! was a whirlwind experience for J.R. Mannetta ’13 (pictured here with host Alex Trebek). “They film five episodes a day, with 15 contestants. You don’t know what episode you’re on until minutes before it airs. You pretty much get picked, get an additional layer of makeup, and you’re on!” (Photo courtesy J.R. Mannetta ’13)

J.R. Mannetta ’13 is not a super genius. Nor is he the kind of guy who goes around flaunting his broad grasp of esoteric facts. In fact, he’s pretty much a regular guy. A regular guy with impressive knowledge of wide-ranging arts, sports, and pop culture, who, with a healthy dose of perseverance, patience, and practice, made it to the big stage to compete on that bastion of television trivia, Jeopardy!

The Boston native’s interest in trivia—and Jeopardy! in particular—began when he was in high school and continued through his college years at Wesleyan, where he competed in trivia contests at La Boca Restaurant with friends.

Although he watched Jeopardy! religiously and kept up his trivia skills, he started taking the online screening tests mostly as a whim. For a few years, he didn’t hear anything. Then in early 2019 he took the test again and felt he did pretty well. A few months later he received an email inviting him to come in for an in-person audition.

by Olivia Drake • March 3, 2020

On Feb. 27, the Gordon Career Center hosted a Google Career Virtual Panel featuring Wesleyan alumni who offered insight on their roles in sales, business, product management, marketing, legal issues, and other roles at Google.

The panel was assembled by Sherry Liang ’20, who completed a WEShadow at Google last winter, and Peer Career Advisor Esmye Lytle ’21.

Speakers included:

Aaron Stoertz ’03

Aaron Stoertz ’03: Stoertz graduated with a BA in English. Since then he worked in conservation biology, public health, and international health policy at the World Health Organization before landing in tech, where he’s worked his way into a position as a product manager at Google Health.

Terry Wei ’07: Wei has 13 years of experience in public relations and communications. She currently leads communications for Waze, the world’s leading crowdsourced navigation app. Previously, Wei was head of public relations at Squarespace and managed product communications at Mercedes-Benz. Originally from California, Wei studied English at Wesleyan and graduated in 2007.

by Lauren Rubenstein • November 11, 2019

Professor of Psychology Hilary Barth, right, and Kerry Brew ’18, MA ’19, left, were among a large group of Wesleyan faculty, students, and alumni who recently presented research at the 2019 Cognitive Development Society biennial meeting.

Numerous students, alumni, and faculty from Wesleyan’s Cognitive Development Labs recently presented their research at the 2019 Cognitive Development Society biennial meeting, held Oct. 17–19 in Louisville, Ky. The labs are led by Professor of Psychology Hilary Barth and Associate Professor of Psychology Anna Shusterman.

Barth and Kerry Brew ’18, MA ’19 presented their poster, “Do Demand Characteristics Contribute to Minimal Ingroup Bias?” The work was done in collaboration with lab alumni Taylar Clark ’19 and Jordan Feingold-Link ’18.

Sophie Charles ’20, former lab coordinator Alexandra Zax, and lab coordinator Katherine Williams presented their poster on “The Role of Digit Identity in 5- to 8-year-olds’ numerical estimates.”

Sophie Charles ’20, lab coordinator Katherine Williams, and former lab coordinator Alexandra Zax presented their poster, “The Role of Digit Identity in 5- to 8-year-olds’ numerical estimates.” Barth also contributed to this work.

In addition, many alumni of the Cognitive Development Labs presented at the conference, including Vivian Liu ’18 (now at New York University); Dominic Gibson ’10 (now at University of Chicago); Rebecca Peretz-Lange ’13 (now at Tufts University); Andrew Ribner ’14 (now at University of Pittsburgh); Julia Leonard ’11 (now at University of Pennsylvania); and Ariel Starr ’07 (now at University of Washington). Former lab coordinators Jessica Taggart, Talia Berkowitz, Ilona Bass, and Sona Kumar, and former postdoc Emily Slusser also presented work.

4 Alumni Work to End Gun Violence Through Everytown

by Olivia Drake • September 11, 2019

Four Wesleyan alumni are helping drive policy and political efforts for the organization Everytown for Gun Safety. The alumni are, from left, Rob Wilcox ’01, deputy director of policy and strategy; Sam Levy ’04, counsel; John Feinblatt ’73, president; Nick Suplina ’00, managing director of law and policy.

Every day, 100 Americans are shot and killed and hundreds more are wounded as a result of gun violence.

Through an organization called Everytown for Gun Safety, four Wesleyan alumni are working with lawmakers to pass common-sense laws and policies that build safer communities and save lives while still respecting the Second Amendment.

Everytown members research a range of vital issues surrounding gun violence and develop data-driven solutions. To date, Everytown has supported nearly six million mayors, mothers, police, teachers, survivors, gun owners, students, and everyday Americans to make their own communities safer.

by Olivia Drake • June 7, 2019

Kate Miller PhD ’13

Although dam removal is an increasingly common stream restoration tool, it may also represent a major disturbance to rivers that can have varied impacts on environmental conditions and aquatic biota.

In a paper titled “Dam Removal Effects on Benthic Macroinvertebrate Dynamics: A New England Stream Case Study, five researchers from Wesleyan examined the effects of dam removal on the structure, function, and composition of benthic macroinvertebrate (BMI) communities in a temperate New England stream. The benthic—or “bottom-dwelling”—macroinvertebrates are small aquatic animals that are commonly used to study biological conditions of water bodies.

The paper is published in the May 21 edition of Sustainability, an international, cross-disciplinary, scholarly, peer-reviewed and open-access journal of environmental, cultural, economic, and social sustainability of human beings.

Ross Heinemann ’09, MA ’13

The paper’s coauthors include Helen Poulos, adjunct assistant professor of environmental studies; Barry Chernoff, the Robert Schumann Professor of Environmental Studies; Kate Miller PhD ’13; Ross Heinemann ’09, MA ’13; Michelle Kraczkowski PhD ’13; and Adam Whelchel from the Nature Conservancy in New Haven, Conn.

The results of their study indicated that the dam removal stimulated major shifts in BMI community structure and composition above and below the dam.

“Our research shows that the effects of dam removal on the river were not predictable. During the fours years of the study after dam removal, the river did not return to its original state in the areas where the dam was removed,” Chernoff explained.

Cultural Experiences Discussed at Power of Language Conference

by Olivia Drake • May 9, 2019

More than 110 Wesleyan students, faculty, alumni, and local guests participated in the second annual Power of Language Conference, April 26-27 at the Fries Center for Global Studies. The event was open to the entire Wesleyan community.

The two-day event featured six panels that focused on: Creative Language Learning, Crossing Time and Border through Translation, Language and Society, Language in Curriculum, Arabic in the U.S., and Polyphony through Literature.

“The presentations ranged from class final projects (such as a comic version of Dante’s Inferno, reimagined at Wesleyan) to senior theses (such as the challenges of translating early modern Spanish into accessible contemporary English),” said Steve Angle, Mansfield Freeman Professor of East Asian Studies and director of the Fries Center for Global Studies. “Taken as a whole, the presentations captured the challenges and rewards of working with the world’s languages.”

by Cynthia Rockwell • July 30, 2018

William Tyner ’13 is headed to Romania on a year-long Fulbright National Geographic Fellowship. He will create an immersive film documenting the civic-tech group, Code for Romania.

William Tyner ’13 was awarded a Fulbright National Geographic Storytelling Fellowship —one of only five of such grants awarded each year.

The fellowship is made possible through a partnership between the U.S. Department of State and the National Geographic Society and is a component of the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. It provides opportunities for U.S. citizens to participate in an academic year of overseas travel and storytelling on a globally significant theme.

Tyner, who majored in anthropology at Wesleyan and enjoyed courses in the College of Film and the Moving Image, will be working with Code for Romania. He’ll be creating a documentary series that will explore Romania’s civic technology community.

“’Civic tech’ is a nascent field in which local ‘hacktivists’ use technology to deepen democracy and increase civic engagement,” he explained in his application.

Tyner notes that he has been affiliated with Codes for America, an organization that focuses on technology as a pathway to modernize government, make it more accessible—but he wanted “to observe civic tech as a social movement, from a sociological perspective.”

Romania, he says, will be the perfect place for his lens: “Their civic tech community is emerging within a historically unique anti-corruption movement. I’m going to chronicle a story of people taking action and control in their community.”

by Cynthia Rockwell • June 8, 2018

On June 7, seventh graders from Alma del Mar Charter School in New Bedford, Mass., visited Wesleyan to get a glimpse of college life. The field trip was arranged by Will Gardner ’02, executive director of the school.

Alma del Mar employees and Wesleyan alumnae Amelia Tatarian ’13, a seventh grade teacher, and Taylor DeLoach ’13, dean of culture, led the Wesleyan tour. “I enjoy giving scholars a love of math, as well as connecting with them on a personal level. As a teacher, you are influencing them; every day you are watching them become the people they will grow to become,” Tatarian said.
As an undergrad, DeLoach was active with Wes Reads, Wes Writes and worked with Associate Professor of Psychology Anna Shusterman and other Wesleyan students to found Kindergarten Kickstart, a preschool program at Macdonough School. (Photos by Olivia Drake)

Hayat ’13 Discusses High-End Shoe Line, Liudmila Footwear

by Randi Alexandra Plake • April 4, 2017

Najeeba Hayat ’13 is the founder, designer, and CEO of Liudmila Footwear.

Najeeba Hayat ’13, entrepreneur and designer, is gaining attention in the fashion industry for her designer shoe company, Liudmila Footwear, most recently in Vogue, which hailed her shoes as “stunning” and “fantastical.”

Produced in Italy, Liudmila shoes are designed with Victorian influences in mind. Hayat’s shoes are also praised for being comfortable to walk in, disregarding the cultural norm that women should suffer for fashion.

Hayat, who is originally from Kuwait, was a government major at Wesleyan, but found herself dreaming of designing shoes. In an interview with the Wesleyan Connection, Hayat said, “The Russian literature classes I took at Wesleyan were actually the biggest influence on my decision to follow my passion for design instead of pursuing a career related to my major.”

She credits the classes she took with Susanne Fusso, professor of Russian language and literature, for cultivating her love for the “unique, bizarre, striking characters of Gogol, Dostoyevsky, Chekov, and Sologub.”

Liudmila shoe from the new spring line

“One day, about a month or so before I graduated, we were discussing a speech given by a character in The Petty Demon that struck me by its passion, simplicity and its exact mirroring of my own sentiments,” she explained. “It was an exasperated paean to life and pleasure that in an instant turned me away from the career in consulting that I was actively pursuing at the time. I immediately decided to jump ship and move to Milan to study footwear.”

The Petty Demon is where Hayat found the inspiration to name her new company. Liudmila is one of the central sisters in the book. “As I was naming my brand, I went through many names, but was unsatisfied with all of them,” she said. “Liudmila’s speech kept coming back to me as my primary inspiration and so I decided to name the brand Liudmila in homage.”

Though her career took a different turn from the degree she earned, Hayat believes her liberal arts education prepared her for her role as founder, designer, and CEO. She said, “Even though the field I pursued had nothing to do with what I studied, all of the skills in analysis, problem-solving, and out of the box thinking that I developed at Wesleyan were crucial to my early success.”