Brandeis Magazine

Elissa Abrams and her husband, Alex, had their third child, Hannah Yael, in July 2015. Sheeri Kritzer Cabral, MA’01, and her husband, Tony, had their first son, Rúben Emmanuel, on Dec. 9, 2015. Everyone is healthy and happy in their home in Hyde Park, Massachusetts. Rafi Cohen is the Jewish life coordinator for Hillel at City College of New York. He relocated to New York with his family in summer 2014 when his wife, Michele, became program director in the clinical trials office at Mount Sinai Hospital. Rafi and Michele have two boys, Benjamin and Tal. Elisabeth Ioannides and Nikolas Chatzifotis welcomed daughter Ariadne to the family on July 20, 2015. The family, which includes a dog and two cats, lives in Voula, Greece. Elisabeth is assistant curator at the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens. She has written about art therapy in museums and galleries in a variety of publications. Noa Lisa Padowitz planned to marry Elena Grossman in April. Noa serves as a dean of students for Chicago Public Schools. This year will mark the fifth anniversary of the Chicago Gay-Straight Alliance Prom, an event Noa founded for Chicago’s LGBTQ high-school students, their friends and allies. She is delighted to live down the street from Colleen Johnston, her best Brandeis friend. Stephen Rabin is a senior adviser at NASA’s Office of Communications, where he writes speeches for NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and Deputy Administrator Dava Newman. Prior to joining NASA, he served as director of speechwriting at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Joel Roberts married Margaret “Molly” Wilson-Murphy on June 20, 2015, in Mattapoisett, Massachusetts. An MBA graduate from Boston University, Joel is the chief operating officer at J.P. Marvel Investment Advisors. Molly is a pediatric neurologist in residency at Boston Children’s Hospital. The newlyweds reside in Boston. Rabbi Dalia Samansky and her husband celebrated their 10th anniversary with a weekend in Napa. Kaukab Jhumra Smith has lived in the Democratic Republic of the Congo with her husband, Patrick Smith, and their two sons since February 2014. Koki and Patrick both work in Kinshasa for the United States Agency for International Development, she as a communications specialist and he as deputy director of the economic growth office.