NEWS FROM THE COMMUNITY

 

JOHN KAY, ’38, attended the September 2004 gathering at Pembroke as part of a visit to the UK filled with reunions. He lives in Washington, D.C., where he is president of the local chapter of a car club and vice-president of the county garden club.  He is preparing a biography of his uncle, a pioneer aviator.

 

BRIAN J. DENDLE, ’55, writes that he is retiring in December from the University of Kentucky, where he has been a professor of Spanish since 1971.  In retirement, he plans to divide his time between Lexington, Kentucky, and his second home in the French Pyrenees.  He is in contact with Martin Diamond, ’55, who lives in Barcelona, and Tongnoi Tongyai, ’55, who lives in Bangkok.

 

BILL HAMER, ’57, writes, “My wife, Dorothy, and I enjoyed a week-long reunion with my Pembroke classmate Gerald Moore and his wife, Kim, at our villa in Barberino val D’Elsa, south of Florence.  We toured many of the hill towns and cities of Tuscany and caught up on the news of the college, especially the rowing and boat club events.”

 

ANTHONY ELMAN, ’60, writes that after graduating Pembroke with a PPE degree, he pursued careers as a solicitor, co-founding a partnership in London in which he specialized in property and entertainment law; as a social worker, both as a field worker and as a manager in residential child care; and as a psychotherapist in Bristol.  In 2001, at the age of 60, he left this behind to emigrate to Israel, where he devoted himself to Torah study in Jerusalem. There he met Miriyam early in 2003 and followed her to southern California several months later, where they were married in September that year (not the first marriage for either of them).  Soon after the wedding he launched himself into rabbinical training.  Between his marriage and his training, he claims to be as happy and fulfilled as he has been at any time in his life.

 

TOM HART, ’70, recently left the State Department after 27 years, largely in Africa, and is now executive Director of the Historic Fredericksburg Foundation in Virginia.  “Fredericksburg is a cute old town, site of the cherry tree George Washington is said to have chopped down, and of several American Civil War battles, “he writes.  Tom’s wife, Beatrice, is from Rwanda.  Their daughter, Sandra, is studying at Princeton and son Andrew is  a serious skateboarder.

 

DAVID WASSERSTEIN, ’70, writes that after 14 years as a professor of Middle Eastern history at Tel Aviv University, he has taken a position as a professor of history and Jewish studies at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.

 

PETER HARROLD, ’71, writes: “I am still with the World Bank after (remarkably!) 23 years.  I am now Country Director for Sri Lanka, based in Colombo.  I came here after five years in Ghana, where I was Country Director for Ghana and Sierra Leone.   Early this I was married (for the second time) to Janet Leno of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who works for UNAIDS.”

 

JOHN B. HATTENDORF, ’73, a Professor at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, reports several visits to Pembroke in 2004.  Speaking at the Royal Geographical Society in July, he gave the Hakluyt Society’s Annual Lecture, “Sailing on a Sea of Ink: Books, Reading, and Maritime History, 1450-1840.” John returned in October when he presented a lecture in Beveridge Hall, Senate House, University of London in the “Rediscovering Nelson” series for the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.  He also gave a lecture at The Institute of Historical Research entitled: “Nelson’s Legacy: A hero among the world’s navies.”  The lectures will be published in 2005.

 

JOCK SPIVY, ’73, reports that he and wife Alexandra are moving to Portland, Maine.  “Alexandra and I visited Pembroke this past May and had a great visit with the Master, who showed us both the improvements underway at Pembroke and also what Pembroke plans to do with the ongoing program of capital improvements,” he writes. “It really is wonderful how warmly the College greets Old Members.”

 

DANA BRAND, ’74, writes: “I teach American Literature at Hofstra University, on Long Island.  I’ve written a book, The Spectator and the City in Nineteenth-Century American Literature, and I am completing another book on F. Scott Fitzgerald and Modernity, as well as a book of personal essays.  I’ve returned to England a number of times since I studied at Pembroke, and I taught American literature for a semester on an exchange at Southampton University.  I’m enjoying my life.  I am fine about turning 50, and not so fine about the recent American election.”

 

DAVID G. STERN, ’76, writes that has been teaching at the University of Iowa’s Philosophy Department since 1988.  Earlier this year, He was promoted to full rofessor. His most recent publications are Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations: An Introduction and an edited anthology, Wittgenstein Reads Weininger: A Reassessment.  Both books were published in 2004 by the Cambridge University Press.

 

MARK BLUNDELL, ’77, was recently appointed chairman of Scanvec Amiable Ltd., a public software company based in Philadelphia with offices around the world.  His wife, Anita, recently gave birth to a little girl, Aimee Catherine Joy, who joins their two boys, aged 17 and 15.

 

EDWARD FURGOL, ‘77, writes from Silver Spring, Maryland, that he has worked at the U.S. Navy Museum in Washington, D.C., as curator since 1987, and as intern coordinator of the Naval Historical Center since 1995. Over the past year he has additionally begun to serve as building manager and purchasing officer for the museum.

 

The latest edition of The Dictionary of National Biography, published by Oxford University Press, contains 32 entries Ed wrote about soldiers, politicians, and ministers from the 16th through 18th centuries, including those of George, the tenth Earl Marischal (the Scot who became a Prussian), Alistair Macdonnell of Glengarry, and Lauchlan MacLachlan.

 

“I gained a great deal of personal amusement (as the descendant of Scottish Whigs and inclined in the Jacobite direction) in being allowed to produce the biographies of such significant Jacobites as Simon, Lord Lovat, and Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel (who slew an English officer by biting out his neck and who reputedly killed the last wolf in Scotland 50 years before the final one expired).”

 

“The strangest entry,” Ed writes, “is that for David Leech, a minister and Latin poet.  OUP sent him to me because he served as a chaplain in the armies I studied. He made the original DNB for his poetry, which earned him a degree of notoriety during his life, but he languished in obscurity until I received the assignment. Unfortunately, his greatest work—a translation of the Psalms—never saw completion.”

 

WILLIAM ALTMAN, ’80, writes that he has just finished his most recent assignment as President & CEO of Kardia Therapeutics, a biotech company developing an adult-derived stem cell technology as a treatment for heart failure.  William is embarking on a search for another opportunity to manage an emerging growth company.  He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Trader Classified Media, NV, a global leader in classified advertising, based in Amsterdam.  He has followed his interest in international affairs by serving as volunteer Chairman of the Board of the US-Baltic Foundation, a not-for-profit promoting democracy, free markets, and cultural exchange with Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.  He has also recently been appointed Honorary Consul for the Republic of Lithuania.  With four children at home, twins Ilona and Isabella, 5, daughter Indre, 8, and son, Darius, 11, William reports that life is very busy!

 

JOHN CHRYSSAVGIS, ’83, lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

 

DAVID SCHMID, ’83, writes that he and his wife Carrie recently became parents for the second time.  “ Liliana Angelica was born on September 7, 2004. She  was adopted from Guatemala, and is the adored sister of 4-year-old Lucia,” he proudly writes.  David was recently promoted to the rank of Associate Professor of English at the University at Buffalo, New York.  His book, Natural Born Celebrities: Serial Killers in American Culture, will be published by the University of Chicago Press in the summer of 2005.

RANDY, ’84, and RACHEL BERHOLTZ, ’84, are Pembroke graduates who matriculated in the same year: he for a D.Phil. in politics and she for PGCE. Randy writes that he is currently serving as Vice President and General Counsel of Acon Laboratories, Inc., a San Diego diagnostics developer with operations in China, and a venture partner with a local venture capital firm.  Rachel teaches German and French.  For the moment, she spends most of her time at home with their two daughters, Harriet (12) and Emma (9), as well as with their English sprinter spaniel, Molly.

 

PETER WOODS, ’87, writes that he has recently moved back to the US with his wife Kristina and 2-year-old son Nicholas.  They are now living near New York in
Connecticut. Peter heads up strategy and business development in North America for Diageo, a multinational drinks company.  “It’s great to be in the U.S. where we previously lived in Boston for many years,” he writes.

 

KATYA REIMANN GARDNER, ’88, announces the birth of a son, Soren Reimann Gardner, on May 7, 2004, and the publication of The Wanderer (Tor Books 2004), a novel written with Cherry Wilder.  “It has been,” she writes, “a busy year!”

 

DAVID CAVALIER, ’91, writes that he is currently serving as the Chairman of the Board of Aeolus Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a public biotechnology company based in North Carolina.  He is also the Principal and Chief Operating Officer of the Xmark Funds, a New York-based investment fund specializing in biotechnology investments.  “”Over the past few years,” he writes, “I have had the distinct pleasure of playing classical guitar at the weddings of several Pembrokians, including Hamish Hume, ‘90, Will Price, ‘90, Nicky Lumb, ’92, and Sian Keal, ‘90.

 

JEREMY D. JOHNSON, ’92, writes that he has just moved from Boston to Philadelphia, where he runs the mid-Atlantic region of AIG. He read law at Pembroke and emigrated to America shortly after graduating to marry his American fiancée.  Since then he has lived up and down the east coast and therefore has three children born in three separate states, but he hopes to stay in Pennsylvania for a few years. He regularly visits Oxford and has stayed in close contact with many fellow alumni.

 

MICHELLE PELUSO, ’93, has been appointed President and CEO of Travelocity, the online travel agency.

 

JOSEPH G. MICHELS, ’95, is the director for research initiatives at the Princeton Institute for the Science and Technology of Materials (PRISM), a multidisciplinary center of faculty and students from across the sciences and engineering, at Princeton University.  He is also the faculty athletic adviser for the rowing team and a faculty fellow at Rockefeller College, one of Princeton’s six residential colleges.  Most years he teaches a freshman seminar on science, policy, and politics.

DOMINIC JOHNSON, ’96, writes that he is a new member of the Princeton Society of Fellows and also a visiting fellow at the Global Fellows program of the UCLA International Institute. His book, Overconfidence and War: The Havoc and Glory of  Positive Illusions, has recently been published by Harvard University Press.  He is working on a new book, Victory and Defeat in International Relations, with Dominic Tierney, a fellow at Harvard’s Olin Institute for Strategic Studies.

KATIE GREENLAND, ’97, writes that she is living in Stamford, Connecticut, and working as a senior business analyst at General Reinsurance Corporation. Before that, she worked at Pricewaterhousecoopers in London.
CHARLES E. KIAMIE, ’98, writes that he received an MA in Arab studies from Georgetown University in May and has been granted all-but-dissertation status toward his Ph.D. in comparative government.  He is conducting research in Amman, Jordan, through a U.S. State Department Fulbright scholarship.  (The Editors are always especially proud to report when a Pembrokian has been awarded a Fulbright grant!  See the Master’s note in this Newsletter regarding the celebration at Pembroke next April of the 100^th anniversary of the birth of our own Sen. J. W. Fulbright – Ed.)
ELLEN BEHRSTOCK, ’99, has returned to Oxford to read for a D. Phil. on the Economics of Education.  Under the supervision of Pembroke Fellow Ken Mayhew, she is conducting a comparative study of the relationship between teacher salaries and teacher recruitment, retention, and motivation in England and the U.S.

 

In addition to her studies, Ellen writes that she is serving as an Executive Committee member of an exciting new Oxford student organization, OxWiP (Oxford Women in Politics), whose mission is to rectify the gender disparity in the government, academia, and business worlds.  She writes that she is “helping to arrange visits to local schools to teach young people how they can become involved in policy-making, and to encourage young women to consider studies or careers in politics.”  She still is very much in touch with her undergraduate friends from Pembroke, whom she sees very regularly in Oxford and their new hometowns.

 

JENNIFER DAVIS ’99, AND NICK HARRIS, ’99, are delighted to announce the birth of their son, Benjamin Davis Harris.  Benjamin was born on May 15, 2004, in Washington, D.C.  Benjamin’s parents write that, “he of course, hopes to attend Pembroke!”  Jennifer, Nick and Benjamin are moving to Mexico City in March 2005.  Jennifer will be working in the U.S. Embassy as a vice-consul, and Nick will be working in the private sector.

 

SAM ARORA, ’02, writes from Washington, D.C., that until the November presidential election he had spent 15 months (and many a 17-hour day) working on the John Kerry campaign.  In the final weeks before the election, he was sent to western Wisconsin to organize the student vote.  At Pembroke, Sam read PPE as a visiting student (he earned his bachelor’s degree from Columbia).

 

MARGARET GORACY, ’02, is a consultant at MMG Partners, a global financial services firm based in New York.

 

HEIDI L. WILLIAMS, ’04, writes that she has recently moved to Boston, where she is working as a researcher at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).  She plans toll begin a Ph.D. in economics at Harvard next fall.  At Pembroke she earned a master’s degree in economics for development after having earned her bachelor’s degree in mathematics at Dartmouth College in 2003.