Class Notes
The Lee Family
Young and Curie Lee (fourth and fifth from left) have sent more children to SESP than any other family. Of their six children, five are SESP grads. Here’s where the family stands today.
(From left to right, at Josephine’s wedding)
Curie (BS12) is a national and international education policy adviser at the University of Cologne and lectures at the Humboldt University of Berlin.
Moses (BS20) leads regulatory and monetized product policy at Google. He previously worked on child safety policy at YouTube and was an intelligence analyst for the FBI.
Mary, who graduated from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, with her husband and daughter.
Josephine (BS14), pictured with husband Andrew Palmer, is a sales director at Sierra, which helps businesses build more-human customer experiences with AI.
Sarah (BS17, PhD26) recently completed her doctorate in learning sciences.
Joanne (BS22) is a compliance trainer at Interactive Brokers.
Marriage brought two more Wildcats into the fold (not pictured): Jonathan Ng (WCAS PhD21), who married Sarah in 2024, and Isaac Jang (McCormick16; Kellogg MS17, MBA26), who wed Joanne in 2025.
60s
Dagny Bloland (BS69) has taught in the Master of Science in Education program since 2002 and has worked in preschool through high school education since 1981. She is an English teacher at Chicago’s Whitney Young High School.
70s
Dorothy J. Harrell (BS71) spent her career in education, teaching for 20 years before graduating from the University of Wisconsin Law School. She spent the next 20 working for the world’s largest union, the National Education Association, from which she retired as director of constituent relations.
After 55 years of teaching people to cook, tend bar, wait tables, and provide hospitality, Dave Conant (BS72) has retired to St. Louis. “The value of my time at Northwestern is inestimable,” he says. “What I learned more than anything else was to question things I didn’t understand, respect people who could express opinions different from mine, and learn from the people I was working with.”
Cheryl Thomas Strickland (BS77) is principal and senior managing director for Citihomes Consulting, a firm working in social-impact investment and fund management, community redevelopment, and affordable housing.
Patricia Jones Blessman (BS78) is a retired licensed clinical psychologist who worked for more than three decades as a clinician, consultant, and administrator of mental health programs. An active philanthropist, she is also a member of the Social Venture Network and a sustaining member of the Environmental Law and Policy Center.
80s
Elizabeth Oppen Eshoo (BS85) of San Diego was selected by the Epilepsy Foundation of America as an advocacy champion for the 2026 Public Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. She has been a vocal advocate for the San Diego chapter for more than 14 years and was recently named to its board of directors.
90s
Julie Flapan (MS95) is a researcher and director of the Computer Science Equity Project at Center X in the School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. She was recently awarded a Fulbright Specialist Program award as a visiting scholar at Mahidol University in Bangkok.
00s
Trey Morgan (BS00) joined the Fuqua School of Business board of visitors at Duke University, where he earned his MBA.
Amy Gale (BS05) is chief executive officer of the Menorah Heritage Foundation.
Andrew Krantz (BS08) is president of IMA Financial Group.
10s
Luke Dauch (BS15, Kellogg MBA16) is a principal on the business development team for Transom Capital Group, an operations-focused private equity firm.
Lya Ferreyra (BS16) is an attorney with the Immigrant Defenders Law Center in Los Angeles.
Bridget O’Connell (MS17) is associate dean of engineering at City Colleges of Chicago.
Sienna Parker (BS18) earned a doctorate in technology management from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and is headed to the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge as a tenure-track assistant professor in organization theory and information systems.
Catherine Ettinger (BS19) is a volunteer coordinator at RefugeeOne. A Fulbright Scholar and AmeriCorps alumna, she’s passionate about welcoming refugees, building the capacity of antipoverty nonprofits, and equipping volunteers to serve their communities.
20s
Emily Velazquez (BS20) was named teacher of the year at Chicago’s Victoria Soto High, where she teaches English in the Acero Schools network. Velazquez, who also has master’s degrees in education and principal leadership as well as an ESL endorsement, says her teaching philosophy is “rooted in the gentle reminder that I teach students, not reading and writing.”
Sugat Dabholkar (PhD22) is an assistant professor in the department of science education at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research in Pune, India.
Tamara Kissoon (BS22) is pursuing a law degree at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, where she is editor in chief of the Northwestern Journal of Human Rights.
Ezra Sergent-Leventhal (MS23) was elected legislative chair of the Truman chapter of the Cook County College Teachers Union.
Julia Honoroff (PhD25) is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. She’s working on a rental assistance project spearheaded by the Philadelphia Housing Development Corporation and the City of Philadelphia in collaboration with the university.
Christopher Kaufman (MS25) was appointed to the Eastern Michigan University Board of Regents.
Jacob Kelter (PhD25) is executive director of the new NetLogo Center at SESP, created to ensure popular scientific-modeling software developed by SESP professor Uri Wilensky remains free and accessible for all (see page 5).
Jack Lausch (BS25) was selected by the Cincinnati Reds in the 17th round of the 2026 Major League Baseball draft. Lausch, who played both baseball and football for the Wildcats, received the 2025–26 Big Ten Outstanding Sportsmanship Award and the Paul Stevens Life Teammate Award.
Anusha Kumar (BS26) received a US Student Fulbright Award to teach English in Linz, Austria. Fluent in English, German, and Tamil, Kumar decided to apply for the program after working as a tutor for Northwestern’s Books & Breakfast program.
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