ALUMNX NOTES

2009 As of February 2021, ELENA PIEKUT is back in the COA area after six years in the New Hampshire seacoast/lakes/mountains. She has accepted the position of Ellsworth city planner. For the past five years, she’s been the City of Dover, New Hampshire assistant city planner and zoning administrator. This will be the third time she’s moved to downeast Maine during the month of January… always in January. She writes, “I’m looking forward to reconnecting with the COA community and hopefully partnering with current students in my professional life. It seems like I’m part of a small wave of people moving back or working on finding a way to move back, so that’s exciting!”

2010 NOAH HODGETTS and wife

Sannie welcomed Evelyn “Evie” Robin Hodgetts on June 8, 2020.

Even though 2020 was a tough year for everyone, NAFISA MOHAMMADI and her family took some time and explored parts of the Canadian Rockies, Banff, Lake Louise, and Jasper. A means to escape the realities of the pandemic for a short while and reflect and reconnect.

BECKY WARTELL married Seven Siegel on October 29, 2020 in an exceedingly small legal ceremony in the barn of their new home in Gorham, Maine, which they bought in September. ARWYN SHERMAN ’13 was among the six people present in person (masked and distanced), many others tuned in over Facebook live. The couple plans to have a giant party and do the Jewish ritual wedding stuff once large gatherings become safe again.

2011 ALLI (HICKS) WHEELOCK and her wife Adrianna Wheelock welcomed their first child, Raven James Wheelock, on October 13, 2020. Raven and his three feline siblings are getting along purrfectly.

2012 VIVIAN LAMBERT offers holistic care through energetic alignment, holistic massage, Ayurvedic health consults, homemade herbal products, and workshops through her business, Vivian Rae Wellness. She writes that, “Reopening has gone well in these strange times. Has been lovely to see some COA family again!” Please check out her latest blog post on Ayurveda, at vivianraewellness. org/post/what-is-ayurveda

JOSE MERLO writes to say that since graduating from COA he has been living back in Quito, Ecuador. Jose notes, “I will be moving to the coastal city of Guayaquil, Ecuador to manage Republica del Cacao (BCorp) collection center, to convert it into a regenerative agricultural experimental center while planting a tropical forest & producing small batches of craft chocolate. If possible, I’m looking forward to working closely with COA 0n exchange programs, and always missing the good old days in Bar Harbor.”

JILL PIEKUT writes, “I graduated from Simmons University with an MS in library and information science in May 2020. As of my graduation, I have a new job as the Patten Free Library archivist & special collections librarian in Bath, Maine. I also got married to Chris Roy in September 2019, so my name has three more letters: Jill Piekut Roy. MATT SHAW ’11 was my best man. We live in Richmond, Maine with our dog, Josie.

2013

MARISSA (ALTMANN) BALFOUR wrote in to say that she “moved full time to Key West in February, 2020, got married in March, and is still working as assistant to the executive director at the Wildlife Friendly Enterprise Network.” She also started a position as biodiversity specialist with Textile Exchange in October.

ANNIE COHEN will be taking on the role of interim director for the small nature camp she used to work at, Burgundy Center for Wildlife Studies, in Capon Bridge, West Virginia. Annie notes she has found out that many COA alums also worked there in the eighties and nineties, so that has been a fun, small-world thing to discover.

MADDY MAGNUSON is one of the three authors of the newly published 2020 edition of Best Practices in STI/HIV and Pregnancy Prevention, the high school sexual health curriculum that is funded by the Maine CDC and Maine DOE. This new edition includes LGBTQ+ inclusive content and activities on affirmative consent. They are also one of the creators of its virtual classroom companion tools for distance and hybrid learning. The curriculum and virtual classroom can be accessed for free at the Maine Family Planning website: mainefamilyplanning.org/for-educators/teaching-materials

From top to bottom: Noah Hodgetts ’10 & wife Sannie welcomed Evelyn “Evie” Robin Hodgetts; Nafisa Mohammadi ’10 ; Becky Wartell ’10 ; Alli Wheelock ’11 & wife Adrianna Wheelock welcomed Raven James Wheelock; Marissa Balfour ’13 in the Keys.

2016

MARINA CUCUZZA graduated from the University of Maine with dual master’s degrees in marine biology and marine policy. She has been selected as a John A. Knauss Marine Policy Fellow at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, working with the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research as a climate and fisheries specialist.

GALEN HECHT writes to say that he now lives in Soldotna, Alaska, and works as stream watch coordinator with Kenai Watershed Forum.

After successfully defending her MFA thesis in poetry at Oregon State University, ELOISE SCHULTZ moved back to MDI to join Mount Desert 365, a nonprofit that supports the long-term economic vitality of the Town of Mount Desert.

ing the business, and promoting and creating workshops, classes, and trainings in the yoga world. He notes, “We are beginning an online Ayurveda training that COA alumnx might be interested in! Check it out here: yogacenteramherst.com/wellness-ambassador-program. ”

In the fall of 2020, KIERA O’BRIEN began her MFA in creative writing at the University of Pittsburgh, where she is a graduate fellow in poetry.

2019

VITORIA BITENCOURT was hired to work with JOHN JACOB ’81 as a curatorial assistant at the Smithsonian after having completed an internship with him. She writes, “For the past year we’ve been working on an exhibition that opens in July. I am including the museum release so you can read about it if you’d like. It has both my name and John’s.” americanart. si.edu/exhibitions/east-baltimore-photographs

HANA KEEGAN has been living and working in London since graduation, and recently wrote this article for The Stage: bit.ly/3iQXlXw

2017

SHLOMIT AUCIELLO has returned to writing the opinion column, “Letter From Away,” which has appeared online and in print since 1992. The essays are published on a bi-weekly basis at knox.villagesoup.com/p/letterfrom-away/1864300. Weekly columns can be found at shlomitauciello.medium.com

2018

RIANNA BROOKS is now a research specialist at the Access to Justice Lab at Harvard Law School. In this role, she manages randomized control trials focused in civil and criminal justice reform.

JENNA FARINEAU moved to Washington, DC in 2019 to start an internship. That move led to a fellowship which, in turn, led to being offered a permanent staff position as digital communications officer at ActionAid USA. She writes, “Here is our statement on the attempted coup—very proud to be working with these folks: actionaidusa.org/news/actionaid-usa-condemnsattempted-coup-at-the-u-s-capitol. (For context: [COA professor] Doreen Stabinsky connected me with ActionAid Senegal while I was a student! I did my second internship with them, so this feels very full circle!)”

HAKIM NOAH has been continuing to run his massage practice and also started a new job as the online studio manager for Yoga Center Amherst. He is in charge of marketing and grow -

Amsel Verlag of Zürich, Switzerland will publish ANĐELA RONČEVIĆ'S artist book that is also her master’s thesis for the MFA in art in public spheres at the Lucerne School of Art and Design, Switzerland. I Will Swim, and My Daughter Will Swim Too , is an illustrated artist book that explores gender equality through swimming. The book comprises 20 oral histories by storytellers from different countries and contexts who tell their experiences with not knowing how to swim. Many of the storytellers are sisters, mothers, and aunts of fellow COA alumnx! The book opens debates on feminism, sociology, politics, ecology, translation, philosophy, and ethics. The book will be available for purchase online in March 2021. Find more information at andelaroncevic.net

2020 REBEKAH HEIKKILA and LIO COOK ’21 became first-time homeowners this past summer when an unanticipated opportunity arose to purchase a beautiful, 120-year-old house on the quietside of MDI. Since becoming quarantine companions at the beginning of the pandemic in the spring of 2020, the two became collaborators on an intentional community project that focuses on shared resources, simple living, and a commitment to lifelong learning. They will be seeking year-round residents for their “homestead-in-progress” starting in June 2021. ■

In March, just before the COVID-19 pandemic closed the country, William H. Drury Professor of Ecology and Natural History JOHN ANDERSON traveled to Saint Vincent College at the invitation of Jim Kellam ’96 to give a talk on conservation as part of their bioethics series. In June, a scratch team consisting of Anderson, Ivy Enoch ’18, Hale Morrell ’12, Franklin Jacoby ’12, and David Anderson counted and mapped Great Duck Island’s gull colony to maintain the longterm dataset. In autumn, Anderson served on the Waterbird Society Conference Organizing Committee along with Kate Shlepr ’13 & Jenna Schlener ’19 for the first-ever international Virtual Waterbird Society Meeting. Shlepr and Anderson both presented aspects of their research at the meeting, as did Aya Kumagai ’21 and Hallie Arno ’22. The meeting also featured workshops hosted by Anna Stunkel ’13 and Lindsey Nielsen ’12. Stunkel demonstrated how to draw an eider duck, and Nielsen taught the art of drawing feathers on scratchboard. The workshops were such a success that the Waterbird Council has asked that they be repeated live in Texas next year. In January 2021, Anderson presented a talk on the history of Great Duck to the Harpswell Heritage Land Trust at the invitation of Julia McLeod ’03.

A new short film by NANCY ANDREWS , T.A.Cox Chair in Studio Arts, and Jennifer Reeder called I Like Tomorrow premieres during opening night of The Portland International Film Festival (Portland, Oregon and online), March 5–March 14, 2021. In the film, Captain Regina Lamb, (Michole Briana White) confronts an awkward love triangle with her past, present, and future selves in a lonely space station (live-action, animation, musical).

In the spring of 2020, Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman Chair in Performing Arts JODI BAKER , along with Aimée Miranda ’21 and

Leelou Gordon-Fox ’21, created COArt, an informal online space for sharing COA student art, art processes, and art-related livestream events. Initially the space was simply an effort to help art-focused students complete and show their senior projects (given the temporary closure of the Ethel H. Blum Gallery and our studios). It quickly became clear that COArt could also be of use as a platform for housing and developing all sorts of other creative work. Over fall and winter break, senior staff redesigned and migrated COArt to a new, more practical platform and doubled our work study staff. The site will host a new exhibit as part of its grand reopening in spring 2021 ( COArt2020. org ). In January of 2021, Baker participated in a two-week-long online physical training intensive (Suzuki and Viewpoints) with members of SITI Co. (NYC). The experience was tremendously valuable as a way to investigate and strategize methods for teaching physical theatre practices over Zoom. It was made possible by professional development funds from a Davis Educational Foundation grant.

Like many Americans who are fortunate enough to live near public lands, David Rockefeller Family Chair in Ecosystem Management and Protection KEN CLINE turned to the outdoors to weather the COVID19 storm. “Acadia kept me sane over the past year,” notes Cline, “as I went into the park multiple times every week since March.” This spring and fall, going into the park was also part of Cline’s job as he taught his American Public Lands and Acadia National Park courses with weekly field trips into Acadia. Cline also did research on the National Park Service’s legal response to the pandemic during this time. Finally, it appears that the Trump administration never got around to replacing Cline as the Secretary of the Interior’s appointee to the Acadia National Park Commission. “I had been expecting to lose that appointment since January 2017, but they apparently had bigger fish to fry (or they never read my resume),” Cline says.

KOURTNEY COLLUM , Partridge Chair in Food and Sustainable Agriculture Systems, worked with former grant writer Kristina Swanson to secure a $50k grant from the Stephen & Tabitha King Foundation to fund the MDI Food Access Project, a partnership between COA, COA Beech Hill Farm, Open Table MDI, and the Bar Harbor Food Pantry. This partnership works to deliver fresh produce, dry goods, and prepared foods to areas of Mount Desert Island underserved by local food-security organizations. Kerri Sands ’02 joined Collum as the program manager for the Sustainable Food Systems Research Collaborative, a partnership with UMaine. For the third year, they trained undergraduates in knowledge-to-action research. This summer they supported one UMO fellow and two COA fellows—Sarah Somes ’21 and Lily Gehrenbeck ’21. Somes researched cooperative behavior among maple syrup producers. Gehrenbeck conducted an oral history of Maine beekeepers.

Professor GRAY COX has been quite enjoying the opportunity to not only experiment with teaching online, but to also both organize and present at Zoom workshops with international participation. He has done a series of presentations connected with the Quaker Institute for the Future this year, such as “Community Based Security”(cosponsored with Sequoia Samanvaya), “Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, and Spirituality” (as part of the QIF Summer Research Seminar), “The Pandemic as Portal to the Future” (with Friends Association for Higher Education), and an interview with climate activist Ania Wright ’20 as part of a series on Gandhian approaches to social change through constructive programs and swaraj (sponsored by an NGO in Chennai, India). This work is all part of an effort to further what Cox calls the Slow Zoom movement, modeling mindful ways of producing and digesting digital experiences on the mindful ways of nourishing our bodies developed by the Slow Food movement. He continues to work on a variety of languages, including clarinet. This summer he was able to gain considerable perspective on the COVID-19 crisis and life by looking at MDI from the point of view of his Zodiac out in Frenchman Bay while stocking up on a winter’s supply of mackerel.

Writing lecturer MARTHA ANDREWS DONOVAN was invited this past fall to serve as a virtual guest speaker for an advanced creative nonfiction course at New England College, where she previously taught as a professor of writing. Donovan’s reading and presentation centered on the intersections of memory, image, and narrative in her hybrid essays, “Dangerous Archaeology: A Daughter’s Search for her Mother (and Others) ~ a memoir in fragments” (with photographer Autumn E. Monsees, Hayden’s Ferry Review, 2012) and “The Changing Light, The Changing Days ~ a memoir in fragments” (The Mud Chronicles, 2018).

Professor DAVE FELDMAN’S book Chaos and Dynamical Systems (Princeton University Press, 2019) has received very positive reviews from the Mathematical Association of America and the American Journal of Physics . He is making slow but steady progress on a textbook on sustainable energy. Feldman is an active member of two community organizations: MDI Racial Justice Collective and MDI Racial Equity Working Group, and he is on the steering committee of Indivisible MDI. He volunteered for State Senator Louis Luchini (D-Hancock) in the 2020 election and served as an election observer for the Maine Democratic Party in Calais and Ellsworth.

In the spring of 2020, JAY FRIEDLANDER, Sharpe-McNally Chair of Green and Socially Responsible Business, presented to senior leaders from colleges and universities around the world at the AshokaU

Sending out heartfelt shouts of gratitude and kudos to the entire COA community for persevering with grace and strength through a year like no other.

Living, working, and studying during the COVID-19 pandemic has been challenging in so many ways; we are grateful to all those who've helped create a safe, successful, productive learning environment.

THANK YO U!