Class Correspondent

Akiva Newborn finished his first semester at Cornell Law School. Arielle Schwartz works at Microsoft. She teaches workshops on Windows 8 and is very excited about Surface sales. She is enjoying her job and lives in the Boston area. David Perlow, MA’12, moved to New York to start a new job at Citi Community Capital, where he works on financing low-income housing developments for the community development wing of Citigroup’s investment bank. Seth Merker lives in New York and works as a personal trainer at an athletics club. He plans to travel before enrolling at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee in August. Liza Behrendt lives in Boston and works at Jewish Voice for Peace, an organization that hopes to compel the pension fund TIAA-CREF to divest from companies that benefit from the Israeli occupation. She is proud to be working with other Jewish activists, including Brandeis alumni. Aaron Louison was promoted to assistant director of annual giving at Brandeis. While working full time, he is pursuing an MBA in nonprofit management from the Heller School for Social Policy and Management. Alex Dainis was one of 10 filmmakers across the country honored by YouTube and the Khan Academy as up-and-comers in the field of educational video. The 23-year-old Mansfield, Mass., native received a $1,000 prize and attended a YouTube education summit with top industry talents. Last year, she began posting videos running four minutes or less under the title “Bite Sci-zed,” which illustrate how common phenomena are related to scientific concepts. Subjects have ranged from why red blood cells are shaped like doughnuts to why people sneeze. “The ideas are things that come up in conversation with my friends,” Alex told a Sun Chronicle (Mass.) reporter. “And when you think about it, they have some real cool science behind them.” Chiara Bercu is an American Jewish World Service World Partners Fellow in Mumbai, India. She works for Mumbai Mobile Creches, a grassroots nonprofit that provides education, health care and safety to children of migrant workers. Devika Mahadevan ’00 serves as CEO of Mumbai Mobile Creches. Jesse Begelfer, MAT’12, is a third-grade teacher at an international school in Incheon, South Korea. She is happy to finally have her own classroom and be free to travel the world (at least on school vacations). Jamie Fleishman moved to Beijing, where he works to help the best students in China gain admission to the best universities in America (like Brandeis!). He’s happily settled into a traditional hutong (alleyway) home, living like an “old Beijinger.” He welcomes any of his classmates to visit and see the old Beijing neighborhoods before they all disappear. Sofya Bronshvayg and Benjy Cooper are engaged and planning a September wedding. Sofya is working as a benefits consultant and taking actuarial exams. Benjy is a second-year chemistry PhD student at Boston University, conducting research on new biomaterials-based osteoarthritis treatments. They currently live in Allston and enjoy attending trivia nights with other ’Deis alums.
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