News from first decade of the 21st Century The Classes of the 2000s

The Class of 2000

Tristan Bennett - poet, musician, and teacher - is currently living in Portland, Oregon.

Ashley Billman graduated this past May from the University of Virginia with an MA Degree in English and American Literature. In August she will begin teaching 11th grade English at the Norfolk Collegiate School in Norfolk, VA.

Nick Waggoner currently lives in Nelson, British Columbia, Canada Directing ski and action sports films for Sweetgrass Productions. He also films freelance for National Geographic, NBC, and Patagonia.

Suzanne Brancaccio recently obtained her MFA in Art Criticism from the School of Visual Arts. She currently lives in NYC where she is currently working on freelance writing and illustration projects.

Ali Cardia is working in publishing in Manhattan and living in Carroll Gardens.

Adrian Croke recently returned to the after spending a few years in the Gambia, West Africa as an environment and natural resource management volunteer. She is planning to move to California in the fall, but will first spend the summer in Montana leading kayaking trips on Yellowstone Lake.

Xiomara Maldonado still lives in City with her 19 month old son, Xandre. She is currently working on her own web site at www.xiomaramaldonado.weebly.com, which includes a popular Mom Blog.

Spencer Sahim currently lives in New England, where he has his own technology based company, fixing computers and developing websites. He has plans to move to Los Angeles this fall to expand the company.

Olivia Salzano has been happily living in and is currently teaching theater classes for grades 7-12 at Columbia Prep. Some of her classes include costume design, stage makeup, and an introduction to improv. She also costumes the after-school shows. This September will be her 5th year teaching at Columbia Prep!

Daisy Mason and her fiancé, Al-Noor Mughal are proud to announce the birth of their baby boy, Siraj Al-Noor Mughal, who was born on April 21st during an easy home birth. The family lives in Bushwick. Before becoming a mother, Daisy had been working at her mother’s gallery and workshop, focused on managing her QVC debut and some new video/multi-media projects. Daisy still sings and is looking forward to getting back into the competitive opera world. The Class of 2001

Christina Theodoro - Elisabeth Irwin High School ’05 and the University of the Arts ’09. After Graduating from The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, with a BFA in Theatre Arts and Acting, Christina continued to do Theatre and independent film in the Philly performing arts community. In fall of 2010 she moved back to and has continued to work professionally in the theatre world. She is an ensemble actor and playwright with the Rep Theatre company ‘The Complete Theatre Company’ (thecompletetheatre.com) and ‘The Simon Studio Company’ (simonstudio.com). Fall of 2012 will be the start of her second official school year at St Luke’s as a substitute and After School Program teacher! She is currently living in Brooklyn with her boyfriend and two cats!

Sara Bailin - High School ’05 and Lehigh University ’09, School of Visual arts ’11. After graduating from Lehigh University in 2009 Sara moved to Lyon, France for a year to teach English. Upon her return she enrolled in a Masters program in Live Action Short film at the School of Visual Arts where she wrote and directed her first short film. Sara has since continued to produce and direct independent short film. She also works as a freelance production coordinator on commercials in New York City. She lives in Chelsea with her sister, Emily ’99.

Alec Raggio - Columbia Grammar and Prep High School’05 and Gettysburg College’09 Alec is currently working for Property Group Partners, a Real Estate Development/Private Equity company in Midtown. He lives very close to St, Luke's on West 10th between Washington and Greenwich and says he often walk through the SLS garden on nice weekend days. His cousin, Nicole Whitman, took Mr. Snyder's job when he retired as the 5th Grade teacher!

Peyton Lester - The ’05 and the University of Tampa’09. After being employed at Radical Media for about 3 years, supervising the commercial production division, Peyton is now moving forward with a career in advertising as a Senior Associate at Digitas. She lives in Chelsea with her cat Riley.

Kyle Bailey - Poly Prep High School ’05 and Cornell University ’09. After graduating from school at Cornell University, Kyle moved out to Wisconsin to work as a community organizer and lobbyist for the Wisconsin Public Interest Research Group (WISPIRG), which is part of the national federation called U.S. PIRG. He has spent the last 2 years working on several campaigns, including fighting for a better transportation policy in Wisconsin, health care reform, and improving our countries food system. This he is currently in Milwaukee running a campaign office for Wisconsin Environment and WISPIRG and working to protect Wisconsin's lakes and end taxpayer subsidies for junk foods. Kyle says: “I feel like the St. Luke's community should know that I mention my 4th grade teacher, Ms. Brann, almost every time I tell my personal story for why I do this work. Thanks for the great memories St. Luke’s!!!”

Katherine “Cat” Lapham - Poly Prep High School 05’ and Goucher College. After Graduating from Goucher College, Cat Lapham is living in Baltimore and working with local non-profit Progress Unlimited as a CMT/home aide, supporting people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. She plans to return to school for graduate studies in social work. She enjoys volunteering with Maryland's Muscular Dystrophy Association, doing open mics and continues to give music, friendship and family a big place in her life.

Sophia Pellicoro - The Millbrook School 05’ and Emerson College ’09. After graduating from St. Luke's, Sophia went to a boarding school two hours north of the city called The Millbrook School. She had an amazing experience there and made some lifelong friends. From there she went on to Emerson College in Boston where she received a degree in TV/Video Production. Sophia is currently living in New York City and working for GREY Advertising Company as an assistant producer.

Maritza Castro-Rendon - Elisabeth Irwin High School ’05 California State University Long Beach ’09. After Graduating from CSULB with a BA in Medical Sociology and living in California, Maritza spent some time traveling through The UK and Southeast Asia and has now moved back to New York City to explore the next stage of her life.

After graduating from St. Luke's, Samantha Kleinfield went on to Trinity High School on the Upper West Side followed by Northwestern University. Where she majored in French Literature and Philosophy. She studied abroad in Paris during her junior year for about 6 months. After graduating from Northwestern, she returned to New York and worked as a paralegal at an international law firm, Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP, for about 2 years. Then, decided to return to school and moved to Paris where she is currently pursuing a master's degree at Sciences Po Paris and doing a summer research internship at the think tank/research center connected with Sciences Po, CERI. After that, she will return to NY for 6 months to pursue an internship at the UN in the NGO Relations Department of the UN in NY. Once that is finished she will return to Sciences Po for the last semester. She has future plans to either pursue a PhD in Philosophy or Political Science or work for UN, ( in the Foreign Service, an NGO, or a think tank).

The Class of 2003

Alyssa Arnold - Alyssa graduated from Colgate in 2011 and is currently working at an investment firm in Manhattan.

Daniella Cardia - After graduating from St. Luke's in 2003, Dani went to Fieldston for high school. The summer prior to senior year, she lived on a southern-Oregon farm, shaved her head and decided I'd be a farmer. That lasted about six months, and she eventually ended up at Reed College in Portland, OR (with Brianna Patton!). She managed three semesters as a biology major before switching to studio art, which she received her BA in. After graduating from Reed in 2011, She moved to Marfa, TX as a "General Museum Intern" with the Chinati Foundation. She describes it as an absurdly amazing experience, living on the museum grounds, in the anomalous town of Marfa. Now she is back in New York, working at a restaurant, and trying to figure out what she wants to do.

Maud Doyle - Maud is currently writing and editing for Departures magazine. She graduated from Brown University, where she concentrated in the liberal arts department of Modern Culture and Media. Maud has had the chance to intern at seven amazing places in the last 5 years, mostly in the art world (Guggenheim Venice, the Met) and in editorial (The New Yorker, New York Magazine). She has lived in Venice and Paris where she decided to be a writer, learned some more French, and was introduced to Spaghetti Westerns. She has traveled a great deal--most recently to Egypt for a revolutionary new year, a dream she has dreamed since the annual and renowned 5th grade project with Mr. Snyder. She hopes, in the next few years, to leave New York for a little while.

Jeremy Gleason - Jeremy graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 2007 and went on to study at Hamilton College where he majored in Chinese language and studied abroad in Beijing. In 2011 he graduated from Hamilton and took up the position of "Program Associate" at the Asian Cultural Council.

Odetta Hartman - After graduating from St. Luke's, Odetta made her way through high school at Dalton, where she learned some hard truths about her athletic capabilities, what it was like to be a "new kid," and what life was like on the upper east side of Manhattan. Though it was tough to transition out of such a safe haven as St. Luke's, she emerged from Dalton as a song-writer, a peer leader, an academic, and... a confident weirdo. All of which fashioned me to be a prime student joining the ranks of other strange and brilliant thinkers and artists at Bard College, in the heart of the Hudson Valley. Amidst nature at its most sublime, she explored photography and anthropology, creative non- fiction and religious studies, classical chamber music and electro-acoustic improvisation, all of which led her to major in American Studies, with a music and literature double concentration. Her senior thesis consisted of three parts: a concert featuring a wide range of American music focused around the years 1929-1939; a research paper delving into the field recording work of Alan Lomax and Zora Neale Hurston in the summer of 1935; and a lecture-performance dedicated to presenting a multi-media version of my discoveries and to preserving the Lomax legacy. Emboldened by the American stories she had absorbed in her last year of schooling, she set out with a musical partner to see with our own eyes what the country had to offer. At the end of the journey, she settled in Los Angeles for a few months and got a taste for the green grass on the other side: she learned the joy of devouring a fish taco after a day of surfing; how to grow organic food on an urban hillside and provide enough vegetables to feed an entire public high school during their nutrition break; how to use a little red bicycle to navigate an enormous highway-of-a-city; and mostly, she learned how deep the impulses of strangers for compassion and hospitality are. A quick train ride through the heart of the country brought her back home, where she immediately began work on her first solo EP. The past few months she has spent recording and arranging songs, organizing other promotional materials, and participating in all manners of performance opportunities throughout the city. She plans to keep following a career in music, “wherever it might take me.”

Mark Kanelba - After graduating St. Luke's, Mark went to Professional Children's School and continued dancing at the School of American Ballet. He continued dancing until then end of junior year, but found himself loosing intrest in dance and began focusing his creative energy in another field, including: photography, film making, acting and writing. Although he got accepted to Pratt, Mark went to the Miami City Ballet summer intensive, as a last big ballet hoorah, but found himself falling back in love with dance and joined the school year round. There he was in such productions as Allegro Brilliante, Sleeping Beauty, Carnival of the Animals, The Nutcracker, Valse Fantasie, Western Symphony, Napoli, and many more. In 2009 Mark came back to New York and began interning for for Alexander McQueen and has promoted to a full time job in the boutique as Stock Manager.

Carrie Crowell - After graduating from a ten-year run at St. Luke's (along with Maud, Mark, Gil, and Dani), Carrie attended Rudolph Steiner for a year, but moved to Nashville, Tennessee for the remainder of high school. In 2007, she began her first year of college at O'More, a fashion design school in Tennessee, but moved back to New York to finish at The New School. In 2009, Carrie began working in the after- school program at St. Luke's School as a cooking teacher. Carrie graduated in May with a concentration in Gender Studies, and is currently living in Brooklyn. Along with some friends, she filmed a cooking show called Big City Grits in her home kitchen. Since then she has appeared as a guest on the Food Network and is currently in the processing of creating her own cooking show for the network. She hopes to move back to Nashville soon.

The Class of 2004 (Many of these former students are graduating from college this year. In the future, look for word from them about how it’s going.)

The Class of 2005

Danielle Short is presently studying at Dartmouth College, majoring in history with women and gender studies. She studied in Paris last year which she says was, “one of the best experiences of my life.” Danielle plans to graduate in the spring of 2013.

Xian Lee is a junior at Middlebury College, majoring in Spanish, with minors in sociology and psychology. She was on Middlebury’s step team and was in a spring dance concert. Currently she is doing a big/little sister program.

Eliza Fish is looks forward to graduating from Colorado College in 2013 where she is majoring in cultural anthropology, with an English minor. When not studying, she works as a digital media intern for a start-up company, MyDrobe.

August Doyle is at Brown University in civil engineering, focusing on structures. He coordinates a program called Providence Science Outreach in which student volunteers go to schools in high poverty-rate districts and lead after-school science clubs. He’s excited about interning at a structural engineering firm downtown in New York, and thinks grad school is inevitable.

Andrew White is studying human developmental and regenerative Biology at Harvard. He writes for the magazine portion of the newspaper called Fifteen Minutes (FM) and is helping train the next group of writers as a “comp director”. He also leads canoeing and hiking trips in New England for incoming freshmen through the First-Year Outdoors Program (FOP). Andrew went to Juiz de For a, Brazil for five months to study history, Portuguese, sociology, anthropology, and dance. Already a certified EMT, Andrew is looking toward med school after college.

Philip Kraus is studying math and music at Washington University in St. Louis, MO. When not going to class or studying, he has a show on the school’s radio station, is in a jazz combo, and works as a calculus tutor for incoming freshmen. Philip took a class on electronic sound synthesis in which he learned how to operate the first synthesizers from the 60s (moog, buchla, arp, etc.) which he found to easily be one of the best learning experiences of his life. This summer he will be working at the California State Department of Finance and Economics in Sacramento.

Ada Santiago is a psychology major at Middlebury College, minoring in Portugese. Vice president of the American Sign Language Club at Middlebury, Ada works at a daycare center off campus. She lives in the Queer Studies House on campus, which basically means she helps organize events intended to educate people about bring awareness to queer issues in life and on campus. This summer, Ada is going to volunteer with GallopNYC which provides horse riding therapy for people with disabilities.

A media studies and studio art major at Pitzer College in Claremont, CA, Charlotte Pradie coordinated the school’s Art Collective and music festival. This summer, she will be interning in the art department at an artist management company in New York. Last year, she studied photography and film in Paris.

Lulu David is studying journalism and communication at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA. She will also be interning this summer in New York, working for a production company. During the spring semester, she was in Copenhagen, Denmark, studying communication.

J.D. Butler is majoring in Italian and history at American University in Washington, DC where he is on the rugby team. Having spent the spring semester at John Cabot University in Rome, J.D. will be traveling to Edinburgh, Scotland this summer to learn more about its annual fringe comedy festival.

Having studied at Wesleyan and Inshalla, Celest Drubner looks forward to graduating in the spring of 2013. Majoring in philosophy and physics, she has been studying abroad in London and Cairo for most of this past academic year.

Travis Allen has been studying anatomy and cell biology at McGill. A pick-up basketball reserve all star, he will be working in a neuroscience lab in Montreal this summer.

Ariel Martinez is at Bryn Mawr studying psychology and biology. She volunteers as a mentor/tutor at a school in Philadelphia. This summer, Ariel will be doing research for SUNY.

A Sociology major at Hamilton College, Ren Stern has also done a lot of work for Operation Smile. This summer, he will be working at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, right across the street from St. Luke’s, as a production assistant for Theatreworks USA’s free summer theatre program.

The Class of 2008

Our graduates from the Class of 2008 will be entering college this fall. Here is a list of where they are going. We look forward to hearing about their college experiences. Congratulations, one and all.

Bard College Bowdoin College College Lafayette College McGill Tufts University University of Brandeis University Brown University New York University Redlands Villanova University University Cornell University (3) Occidental College Pitzer Yale University Georgetown University Georgia College (2) Providence College State University Gettysburg Rice University Trinity College