Brandeis Magazine

Michelle Barras, who lives in Port Washington, New York, started MB Compliance Services, a regulatory consulting business that focuses on private equity fund compliance.

Geoffrey Cohen and Ludovic Lusseau were married in May 2024 in Montpellier, France, where they live.

Anya Kagan and her sister Ira have created a family-friendly board game, Gifts Galore, with versions specifically geared toward New Year’s and Christmas. They plan to create a Hanukkah version next.

Garrett Nada and Lital Shair Nada celebrated the birth of son Lior in November 2023.

Linnea Sage hosts “The Jewish Dating Game,” a live monthly game show in New York City. If you’d like to be a contestant, email jewishdatinggame@gmail.com.

Philip Lu, a wildlife policy biologist, has been inducted into the Next Generation Leaders program, the youth wing of the Committee of 100. The committee is an organization of prominent Chinese Americans who hope to foster a productive U.S.- China relationship and promote the full inclusion of Chinese Americans in U.S. society.

Jared Ruocco is a founding partner at Elsberg Baker & Maruri, a trial law firm in New York City. Jared specializes in mergers and acquisitions, and corporate governance disputes.

Rachel Salston is the rabbi of Temple Beth-El in Richmond, Virginia.

Jeremy Weinberg and Sarah Gurvis Weinberg, GSAS MAT’15, welcomed their second child, Adam, on July 24, 2024.

Sarah Pace is a clinical supervising attorney at the Northern California Innocence Project, in Santa Clara, California. In November 2023, she helped exonerate a client who spent 25 years in California State Prison after being wrongfully convicted of murder. The previous July, Sarah married her law school/grad school sweetheart. The wedding, held in Marin, was attended by many Brandeis alumni, officiated by a Brandeisian rabbi, and featured an impromptu reunion performance by the Brandeis a cappella group Company B.

Hanna Switlekowski is deputy director of the MBTA Advisory Board, in Boston.

Rose Del Vecchio’s small pop-culture business, FanMail, has operated online since 2015. Now a brick-and-mortar pop-up experience is running until February in downtown Lowell, Massachusetts.

Margo Kolenda-Mason is an assistant professor of English at the University of Central Arkansas.

Zoe Oppenheimer married Jeremy Baskin on Aug. 20, 2023, in White Plains, New York, surrounded by many Brandeis friends, including Zoe’s maids of honor, Heather Friedman and Ilana Mittleman.

Kimmie Warmflash has written and self-published “People We Miss,” a book that offers children useful ways to cope with the loss of loved ones and keep their memory alive.

Natan Odenheimer is one of a cohort of New York Times reporters who won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting for their coverage of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel; Israel’s intelligence failures; and the Israeli military’s response in Gaza. Natan co-wrote an article titled “The Day Hamas Came,” which offered an hour-by-hour account of the events of Oct. 7.

Cecile Afable, who lives in North Vancouver, British Columbia, teaches private French lessons to adults and K-12 students, both online and in person. She also works in sustainable floristry, doing cut-flower production and floral design for weddings and events.

Ariel Hopes has a private psychotherapy practice, Hopes and Healing Counseling, serving children and adults in Massachusetts.

For her marketing work with transportation and warehousing solutions company Hermann Services, Danielle Novotny won two awards in 2024: Emerging Leader of the Year, from New Jersey’s Middlesex County Regional Chamber of Commerce, and Rising Star, from the Women in Supply Chain Awards. Danielle married Tim McMillan on June 30, 2024, two years to the day after their first date.

Emily Scharf tied the knot with Aaron Rist in Groton, Massachusetts, on March 24, 2024.

No Class Notes submissions this issue.

Deniz Amado and Brian Rauch ’19, who met through the a cappella group Brandeis Starving Artists, were married on July 14, 2024, in Cesme, Turkey. The 40 Brandeis friends and family who attended the wedding included Deniz’s cousins Seli Kaya ’02 and Rita Gomel ’04; the rabbi who led the ceremony, Evan Schultz ’01; and Evan’s wife, Jenny Goldstein ’01.

Tova Perlman enjoyed a trip to Argentina in March 2024.

In 2024, Ilana Bauman moved to Jerusalem and married Noam, her lifelong friend from Jewish summer camp. She also earned an MSW degree, and now works as a therapist and science teacher at a middle school in Israel. She writes, “Moving countries is definitely a life adjustment, but the Brandeis alumni and professors who live in Israel make me feel more at home here.”

Steven Tarr and Charlee Gordon ’21 celebrated their wedding on May 25, 2024, in Roswell, Georgia. They say they owe their meeting and courtship to Brandeis’ student- and professor-led music ensembles.