Valdez and her husband, Edgar ’04, MA’05, welcomed their new daughter, Ilsa Adela Valdez, to the family on April 17. All are a bit sleep deprived but doing well and enjoying life together! • Melissa Koski Carney was promoted to account director at Fahlgren Mortine, an integrated marketing, PR, and advertising agency. • May Li graduated from Indiana University’s McKinney School of Law last May and took both the New York and the New Jersey Bar exams; she was waiting for the results. She plans to join Shaub, Ahmuty, Citrin & Spratt as an associate, pending admission.
Correspondent: Lauren Faherty Bagnell lauren.faherty@gmail.com
2008 Melissa Owumi was promoted to manager of government affairs for the Madison Square Garden Company. • Dave Brace works for a Chicago-based start-up that recently launched its website, charlieapp.com. “Charlie,” Dave explains, “helps you make a great impression for a meeting, pitch, or interview by compiling one-pagers on the people you’re about to meet, before you see them.” • Robert White earned his JD from the University of Denver Law School in 2011 and is now deputy DA in the Adams County District Attorney’s Office. Robert resides in Parker, CO. • Daniel Meenan married Caitlin Leutwiler on August 2, 2014, in Lake Forest, IL. Classmates in attendance included Meagan Coyle, Caitlin Gregory Crowshaw, Jennifer Eng, Emily Waetjen, Catherine Annibell Connolly, Madeline Kelty, Abby Uzupis, Kevin Boland, Duncan Bourgoin, Bryan Sun MBA’13, Tim Galvin, Greg Lisman, Eric Anderson, Christopher Sanz, Serafino Bueti, Will Pulito, and Dave Pulito. Daniel and Caitlin currently live in New York City. • On September 17, Lauren Sommer, MSW’09, and Anthony DeMarco ’07 officially tied the knot at Trinity Chapel. Jack Butler, SJ, STL’06, married the couple; a few days later, Catherine Brunell ’99, MA’05, presided over a gathering of the couple’s family and friends at Harrington Farm in Princeton, MA. The bridal party included Cara Caponi, Maureen Cummins, Melanie Houlihan MEd’09, Tim Connolly ’07, Prince Kyereme ’07, and Eric Pierce ’07, and there were many other Eagles in attendance. From all reports, it was a beautiful day filled with fun, joy, and love. The couple reside in Dorchester. • Katie Kudzma reported two more autumn weddings: Craig Noyes, MA’13, married Elizabeth Borge ’02 on November 15, 2014, in Portsmouth, NH. The wedding party included matron of honor Katie Kelley Metevier ’09, MA’10, and best man Seth Dolan among several BC classmates. Also, Nathan Ball and Amanda Hudome were married on October 25, 2014 in Paoli, PA, with a reception following at Spring Hollow Golf Club in Spring City. Best man and “best woman,” Nathan’s brother Joshua and Amanda’s sister Kelsey, respectively, were joined by a number of BC classmates in the wedding party. • Brendan and Kaitlin (Dunn) Lang spent their second wedding anniversary traveling in India and Thailand. Kaitlin’s cousin, Jennifer McNamara, MS’04, married Alok Dhanda in New Delhi in October, and Kaitlin and Brendan headed across the world to partake in the celebrations. After an exciting two-day Indian wedding, they traveled to Agra to visit Agra Fort and the Taj Mahal, and then to Thailand to celebrate their anniversary. Bangkok, Chiang Mai, and 72
Krabi all offered incredible sights and cultural adventures, including becoming elephant owners for the day and playing with tigers. “It was a trip of a lifetime!” they write.
Correspondent: Maura Tierney mauraktierney@gmail.com
2009 Thanks to all who shared news and adventures for this column! • David Brites wrote from Tonga, where he was about to embark on the last leg of an incredible journey to fulfill a childhood dream: to help out if his favorite book, The Hobbit, was ever made into a film. It was—in New Zealand. This past February, David set out from his Rhode Island home and traveled via Mexico, Panama, and Chile to Easter Island, where the ship he was on lost her mast and drifted to Pitcairn before sailing on to Tahiti. There he boarded a ship bound for New Zealand. During the voyage, David, who is a songwriter, completed writing his first album; he plans to record it with a group of sailing gypsy musicians he met in Tahiti and take it along to New Zealand. He was expecting to arrive in mid-November. • This past fall, Cailin Brodel became the first female firefighter in the Bayonne (NJ) Fire Department’s 108-year history! • Matt Porter has accepted a new job at WCIA CBS 3 as capitol bureau chief in Springfield, IL. • Alexandra Saieh is working as a policy officer on the Syria crisis for Oxfam in Jordan and is based in Amman. • In September Stephanie Howe and Zainul Hasanali were married in Houston and in Minneapolis. They celebrated according to both Indian and American traditions with family and friends, many of whom were BC alumni. • On October 4, Samantha Steverman married Michael Flaherty (Villanova ’09) in Washington DC. Samantha is a reading curriculum manager for Center City Public Charter Schools in DC. The couple live in Arlington, VA. • In May Sara Stromer received her MA in social enterprise from American University’s School of International Service. • Vanessa Vacante recently graduated from the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law and passed the Ohio Bar exam. She is currently clerking for U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Goodwin and will start as an associate at Jones Day in Cleveland in October 2015. • Hannah Ames recently resigned from her job of four years with GE’s energy business, moved to a new city, and began a new job: running Glorious (beGlorious. org), the nonprofit she had started in 2010. Hannah had accepted the job with GE while a senior at BC, but after graduating, she deferred starting and spent a few months volunteering in Tanzania at an “orphanage school.” She went on to help build the school’s first classroom and put in plumbing and a water tower. When she returned home to begin working at GE, she simultaneously started the nonprofit in order to continue supporting the children in Tanzania. Glorious Tanzania has since evolved into a community development project, working to build sustainable communities through childhood education. It has established a microfinance network to help women start small businesses and a water project to provide clean water. Construction of a second campus is under way, and Hannah hopes the organization will eventually become a self-sustaining entity and expand into other countries.
Correspondent: Timothy Bates tbates86@gmail.com
2010 5TH REUNION May 29–31, 2015 Last year, Laura Colt Bedward, MS’11, celebrated her first wedding anniversary and earned her CPA license. She is now a consultant for CFGI in Boston. • Lauren Tuccelli is in her final year of the physician assistant program at Duke University. • Alison Salmon and husband Trevor Lair welcomed a baby girl in May. • Rachel Delia is working for Citi in New York City. • Katherine Marr, MEd’14, joined the Marr Companies in a fulltime capacity in the marketing department as communications coordinator. She is the fourth member of the sixth generation of Marr family members to work for the company, which was founded in 1898. • Brandon Barela married Elise Waters on October 25, 2014, at St. Michael’s in Chicago. • Meghan Gavin has accepted a clerkship in the U.S. District Court, Western District of Washington, which will commence this September. • Tristiaña Hinton is currently traveling the world, working as a missionary. She is in South America now but will be heading to Africa and Asia as part of the interdenominational Christian mission trip called the World Race. • Stephanie De Los Angeles just started a new position with Liberty Mutual in Andover while also finishing her MBA at Assumption College in Worcester. • George Zhao recently completed a three-week China excursion with Andrew Ni ’11, MS’12. They traveled from Beijing to Macau and everywhere in between, experiencing everything from the Great Wall of China to the famous Portuguese egg tarts. “It was an extraordinary trip,” says George. • Ryan Murphy married Julie Gilbody, MEd’11, on campus at St. Ignatius in July 2014. Their wedding party included many members of the Class of 2010, who celebrated at the State Room with countless other Eagles, old and young alike. • Ben Kimmerle moved to Brooklyn a year ago to pursue a fellowship with Education Pioneers. Since then, he has been working at the Newark (NJ) Charter School Fund to support the charter community in the city. • Joshua Pavano recently celebrated the one-year anniversary of Jonas Umbrellas, the company he started, which funds clean water wells at schools in Uganda through the sale of limited-edition umbrellas. He planned to travel to Uganda to film the drilling of the first well in February 2015. • In addition to his day job as an accountant, earlier last year Ralph Liberatoscioli started a travel consulting business, PointsCentric, that helps clients acquire frequent-flyer miles and other loyalty program points at little to no cost (e.g., by opening a credit card, bank account, etc.) and then use those miles and points for free travel. Using these techniques, he has helped clients earn millions of miles and then use them to book first-class trips to Bora-Bora, Bali, Europe, and more for free! For his efforts, he was featured in Long Island Business News. • Meghan Flanagan married Xiangnan Wang in 2013 and is currently working in the corporate finance department at Genzyme. • Don’t forget to save the date for our upcoming Reunion Weekend, May 29–31. For more information, visit bc.edu/alumni/events/reunion.html.
Correspondent: Bridget K. Sweeney bridget.k.sweeney@gmail.com