Alumnae Lives

Jenn Yang '12 stands among plants in the Global Flora greenhouse.
Spring 2023
“When you start to recognize plants, I think you really start to feel like there’s family around,” says Jenn Yang ’12, associate director of the Wellesley College Botanic Gardens and Friends of Botanic Gardens. “You start to feel like a place is home.”More
Wellesley seniors scrub the library steps during a May Day celebration after the College Hall fire, date unknown.
Spring 2023
If you’ve heard of the old May Day festivities, it’s probably because Hooprolling and, later, Stepsinging, took place as part of the celebrations. But over the decades, May Day fell away, along with one of its quirkier traditions: scrubbing campus statues and steps.More
A photo portrait of Nina McKee '16
Spring 2023
Perhaps Nina McKee ’16 was fated to be involved with the Madeleine Korbel Albright Institute for Global Affairs. “Madeleine Albright was always this figure in my life because I was a young redhead who liked negotiating and wanted to be a diplomat,” says McKee, who became the Albright Institute’s program director in December 2022.More
The cover of Alzheimer’s Fantasy in the Key of G by Kirsten Critz Levy ’74 shows a hazy photo of the backs of  four children who are looking into the distance.
Spring 2023
Alzheimer’s Fantasy in the Key of G by Kirsten Critz Levy ’74 is no traditional medical memoir. Levy embraces past, present, and future, mixing reality and imagination, to explore the confusing nature of her mother’s illness.More
A photo of the amphitheater behind Diana Chapman Walsh '66 Alumnae Hall
Spring 2023
The slate of officers to be elected will be presented at the annual meeting of the Wellesley College Alumnae Association in May.More
A group of the alums and Rachel Stanley, associate professor of chemistry and the Frost Associate Professor in Environmental Science at Wellesley, took advantage of the spectacular view above during an excursion to capture the moment with the Wellesley banner. Pictured are: Zehra Fazal ’05, Olivia Lillich Hilton ’83, Rachel Stanley, Rose Baghdady Ganim ’90, Aliya Khalidi ’07, Joanne Van Cor ’76, Kristina Szilagyi ’09, Erzsi Szilagyi ’04, WCAA Executive Director Kathryn Harvey Mackintosh ’03, Elizabeth Gibbs
Spring 2023
In January, 22 Wellesley alumnae and their guests attended what were most likely the southernmost faculty lectures ever, in Antarctica.More
 Kathryn Harvey Mackintosh ’03
Spring 2023
“The best thing you can bring on this trip is your flexibility,” our tour manager announced on our first day together. I sat on a bus in Buenos Aires with 21 Wellesley alumnae, their guests, and Rachel Stanley, associate professor of chemistry and the Frost Associate Professor in Environmental Science at Wellesley.More
A photo shows Nancy Stearns '61 in her New York City apartment.
Spring 2023
After Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, “I basically just didn’t sleep,” says Nancy Stearns ’61. She vividly remembers what she has called “the bad old days” before Roe, when she was on the front lines of the fight to make abortion legal.More
Illustration of a reflection of a parent and child standing by the edge of some water, with herons in flight visible in the reflection
Spring 2023
We have been walking through the Mississippi swamp for hours when someone, a child, I think, finally spots the first heron, its silhouette unmistakable: an inky S-shaped brushstroke set against an ombre sky. “There!” A…More
Photograph of a large gold trophy
Spring 2023
The Wellesley community is full of nationally recognized changemakers and people who are just trying to get by, taking care of themselves and their loved ones as best they can under challenging circumstances. Often, those alums are one and the same.More