Class Correspondent

10th Reunion
June 3-5, 2016

In June, Shayna Skelley Coburn celebrated her fifth wedding anniversary with Avi Coburn ’04. She completed her doctorate in clinical psychology this year and is a postdoctoral fellow at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Shayna writes, “I have been inspired by the academic lives of our professors back at Brandeis, and with some luck may one day follow in their footsteps by working with insightful, ambitious students at a prestigious liberal arts university.” Lisa Friedman is one of 24 educators who received a 2015 Teacher Excellence Award from New York City’s Success Academy Charter Schools. A graduate of Success Academy’s Teaching Fellows Program, Lisa is a third-grade lead teacher at a Success Academy in Harlem. The award winners, nominated by their principals, were selected from nearly 1,000 teachers across the network’s 32 schools. Josh Goldfischer started an MBA program at New York University’s Stern School of Business. Jessica Goldings married Jonathan Panikoff. She works at Wells Fargo’s Global Financial Crimes Intelligence Unit in the Washington, D.C., area. Sam Greenblatt, MA’06, moved back to Boston and now works at Compass Lexecon, an economic consulting firm. Kathryn Harris teaches sixth-grade English and social studies in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is engaged to Jeff Kao. Kathryn received an MFA in musical-theater writing from NYU and an MS in museum education from Bank Street College of Education. Aaron Hoffmann reports that he and Jessica (Dillon) Hoffmann, his best friend since freshman year in Gordon Hall and now his wife, welcomed Asher Thomas into the world on April 4. Aaron builds supportive housing in NYC, and Jessica is a psychology researcher at Yale. Amanda Hordes and her husband welcomed a son, Tatum Asher, on March 6. Big sister Idina is very much in love. Kai Kadoich married Yuriko Kasai in October. He has lived in Japan for more than nine years and works at Medtronic on a team launching a new minimally invasive heart-valve therapy in Japan. Robin Katz moved to Los Angeles to start a new job as outreach/public-services librarian in Special Collections and University Archives at the University of California, Riverside. Amanda Koppelman-Milstein, Heller MPP’10, and her husband, Charles, welcomed their second son, Joshua Raphael, on March 6. He joins the world’s best big brother, William Lev, born Oct. 9, 2012. Jeremy and Talia (Sturgis) Manning moved to Hanover, N.H., this summer. Jeremy is an assistant professor of psychology at Dartmouth. Talia continues to serve as chief creative officer at Chameleon Studios, a marketing and graphic design firm she founded in 2013. Debra (Eichenbaum) Perlin and her husband, Jonah, welcomed a daughter, Miriam Shira, on June 17. After a short maternity leave, Debra entered the world of working mothers by beginning a one-year fellowship at the U.S. Supreme Court. She oversees the court’s international work and engages in some of her own academic research. Rachel Present Schreter and her husband, Dan, had a son, Avner Sinai, in September 2014. Rachel works for Pareto Pulse, a financial technology firm focused on emerging markets. She encourages visitors to Israel to be in touch at rpresent@gmail.com. After two years as chair of the copyright and social-media committee, Joshua Simmons was appointed vice chair of the American Bar Association’s intellectual-property law section’s copyright division. He was engaged to David Harris on Memorial Day weekend. Ilana Snapstailer, MA’07, finally married Avner Fink ’04. Loretta Stein finished her residency in ophthalmology at Naval Medical Center San Diego and now practices at U.S. Naval Hospital Yokosuka outside Tokyo. Troy Trejo and his fiancée, Sarah Benge, are restoring a historic 19th-century home in Portland, Maine, and planning their fall 2016 wedding.

Gibson wedding photo

ORIENTED TOWARD ROMANCE: Catherine Heffernan Gibson ’06 married Micah Gibson on Dec. 13, 2014, in Pittsburgh, where they were first introduced by Lauren (Apfelbaum) Miller ’06 in 2005. Brandeisians in attendance brought along Orientation Leader T-shirts to show their school spirit.

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