Alumni Notes

Jan Hyde and Judy Hines are twin graduates from Falk’s Class of 1953. “At age 84," Jan says, "we still share memories of our classmates and moments at Falk.”

“Mimi Kirkell taught music,” Judy adds. “We wrote ‘The Enchanted Peacock,’ and I was the peacock. I clearly remember that song I sang, words and tune. Because of Mimi Kirkell, music has been a big part of my life."

Kerri Ullucci was a student teacher at Falk during the 1997–1998 school year and later completed the circle by becoming a teacher herself. Her focus for almost 20 years has been teaching future teachers about diversity and equity. She remembers her time at Falk as both formative and filled with childlike goofiness.

Greg Sherman, an alumnus from the ’70s, says Falk was a great experience made special by the school’s focus on individualized learning.

“My favorite teacher was Timothy Rusnak, my fifth-grade teacher. He was very patient with me and always encouraged me to do my best.” Greg also has fond memories of Falk’s outdoor education trips to the McKeever Environmental Learning Center and is impressed by the school’s extensive music program.

Today, Greg is retired and looking to reconnect. “I recently moved back to Pittsburgh and would love to find classmates from my era.”

Ellis Simmons, Class of 2018, is enrolled at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University after earning an associate’s degree in engineering technology from the Community College of Allegheny County.

David Michael Slater, who attended Falk from 1975 through 1984, is the author of nearly 40 books of fiction and nonfiction for children, teens, and adults. His most recent novel, “The Vanishing,” has been optioned by Chris Columbus’ 26th Street Pictures. His next novel, “Ugly,” will be released in October 2025.

Slater has only the fondest memories of both his friends and teachers at Falk. He and his wife, Heidi, and son, Max, live in Reno, Nevada, where he teaches gifted and talented English language arts in a middle school. You can learn more about Slater and his work at davidmichaelslater.com.

Greg Herschlag, Class of 1999, is an associate research professor of mathematics at Duke University. After attending Pittsburgh Allderdice High School, Herschlag graduated from the University of Chicago with a degree in mathematics and then earned a PhD in mathematics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Some of his fondest memories of Falk were of his first- and second-grade experience with Dr. Marian Vollmer and some of his classmates. He also recalls the teaching of Dr. David Kramer, who read to the class from Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States,” and his eighth-grade English class with Greg Wittig.

After earning his doctorate, Herschlag completed postdoctoral fellowships at Duke in fluid dynamics and mathematical biology and in high-performance computing analysis of arterial blood flow.

While mentoring Duke students on a project involving fairness in voter redistricting, he became interested in the topic and began researching it in his own time.

“I started picking it up on nights and weekends,” Herschlag says. “It replaced all my hobbies, and I really just fell in love with this project.”

Herschlag transitioned from his postdoctoral fellowship to an assistant research professorship, allowing him to stay at Duke and continue his work. Since 2016, he has published papers using mathematics to prove that states’ redrawn maps were unfairly partisan and has been involved as an expert in multiple court cases on gerrymandering.

“For a long time, I worked on projects that I was interested in, but when I started working on the gerrymandering project, it was the first experience I had where I wasn’t working on it purely because it was interesting but because it felt important to me,” Herschlag says. “This was a transition between working to serve myself and working to serve something else, and that was a really important perspective shift that I didn’t know I could or should have been looking for before. But having experienced it, I now look for things that I can be of service to.”

Taylor Rose Cole spent her time at Falk Laboratory School in Kevin Goodwin’s first- and second-grade classroom and with Danya Lang and Katie Spence in learning support. After graduating from the University of Pittsburgh School of Education with a Bachelor of Science in 2020 and a Master of Education in 2021, she began working at Pressley Ridge, a school for children with emotional and behavioral disorders. She serves as a special education teacher in a classroom of first- and second-grade students.

One of Cole’s favorite memories from Falk is teaching a photography unit, during which she led students around Pitt’s campus and later printed and hung the students’ work.

“The thing I liked the most about Falk was how kind and supportive everyone was,” she says. “I didn’t have to fit a role or hide any parts of me when I came to school. I got to go there and be who I truly am.”

Cole credits Falk with setting the groundwork for her creativity as a teacher.

“I learned that it’s possible that the things I love about life, I could bring into my career,” she says. “That’s what I really learned when I was at Falk, and I took that with me.”

Ann Waldman served as an assistant teacher during the 1970-71 school year. She recalls, “I spent a wonderful year teaching very bright middle schoolers at Falk. The year was a formative teaching experience at a very special school. We later sent our children to a very similar school, Catlin Gabel School in Portland, [Oregon].”

Ted Preisser graduated from Falk in 1962 and returned to Pittsburgh a decade later to pursue graduate school. After beginning his PhD studies at the University of Pittsburgh, Preisser decided to travel abroad.

“I was at Pitt's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs in the spring of 1974 when I realized that I had never worked abroad but needed to have that experience to make sense of some of my courses. So, my wife and I packed a bag and left for India, where we had friends. There wasn't any work, though, so we pushed on through Pakistan, Afghanistan, and into Iran. In Teheran, we found a chamber of commerce office that pointed us to jobs as ESL teachers at a copper mine. Great students, terrific local people, and a good promotion encouraged us to stay for 18 months before returning to Pittsburgh.”

Back in Pittsburgh, Preisser transferred to the International Development Education Program (IDEP) in Pitt’s School of Education, where he worked with doctoral advisor Don Adams until accepting a job offer from Bechtel in 1980. Preisser became a technical training officer for the largest civil engineering program in history, the Jubail Industrial City program, and spent three years working in Saudi Arabia. “I never did finish my [graduate] program, regretfully,” he says.

During his time in Riyadh, Preisser found inspiration for his 2014 novel, The Strength of Stones. “That’s where I took the cover photo and learned a bit about the jobs my Saudi characters have,” Preisser says, adding that “the best thing about the book is a four-page glossary of useful Arabic terms."

“While I was certainly not a model student during my eight years at Falk, what I learned in those eight years got me through college at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and grad school at Pitt." Since retiring from adult education training in 2013, Preisser spends his time reading and writing essays and being with his wife, two children, and granddaughter. Looking back on his childhood, he shares, “I loved Falk.”

Betsy Hills Bush, Class of 1974, writes: “I was so glad to receive the first issue of En Avant and to see Rob, Kathleen, and [their] father Bob Marshall on the cover. I was a classmate of Rob’s from first through eighth grade [and] a good friend of all the Marshalls—Rob, Maura, and Kathleen—through high school and our college years, and I still keep in touch with their parents today.

“The Falk experience just gets better and more amazing in hindsight. We were encouraged to think creatively, to be interested in the world, and to explore many different avenues. We were all nerdy in some way, and that was totally cool.

“Other aspects that I have come to appreciate: We had very diverse classrooms. I always had Black friends. We were not only friends in school, but we went to each other’s houses for birthday parties, etc.—NOT a typical experience in Pittsburgh. I remember when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, I was in Mrs. Mary Jo Reisinger’s class in first grade, and they brought in the television and we watched the news, and we talked about it in class, particularly about the riots unfolding in Pittsburgh and other cities, which we all watched on the news in the evenings.

“And as it pertains to theater, Falk’s musical productions were examples of color-blind and diverse casting. I well remember Earl Child’s Tevye in ‘Fiddler on the Roof.’ He was only in ninth grade but fully embodied Tevye’s humor and pathos. I once asked Bob and Anne Marshall if Earl was as good in the role as I remembered, and they assured me he was. Kudos as well to Donald Mushalko, the music teacher, for his amazing job directing the productions each year. He was better than we knew or really appreciated at the time.

“[I have] so many memories. Thanks for bringing it all back.”

Cecilia (Ford) Klein attended Falk as a junior nursery student through the fourth grade in the early 1940s. She earned a BA and an MA at Oberlin College and a PhD at Columbia University. In 1976, she moved to Los Angeles to take a teaching position at the University of California, Los Angeles, in the field of pre-Columbian art history, which covers precontact Middle and South America. Her specialty is Aztec art. She retired from teaching in 2011 but continues to research and write.

“I think my interest in non-Western (or what in the 1960s was called ‘primitive’) art probably dates back to my years at Falk,” she writes. “I loved the school and have only fond memories of it.”

Alec Karakatsanis, Class of 1997, received the 2023 New Frontier Award from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. In its citation of Karakatsanis, the Presidential Library and Museum noted “his work advancing pretrial justice across the nation, which has led local and state jurisdictions to shift their approach to incarceration and end wealth-based detention policies.”

Casey Edwards Webb (EDUC ’21G) was a student teacher under middle school science teacher Alex Dragon during the 2020-21 school year. Since January 2022, she has been at Highlands High School in Natrona Heights, Pennsylvania, where she teaches 10th-grade biology.

“I could not have asked for a better student teaching experience,” says Webb. “I always tell people that when I was asked my preferences for student teaching, I asked to be placed in a suburban public high school and [instead] got placed at an urban private middle school. While this was the total opposite of what I thought I wanted, getting forced out of my comfort zone worked out tremendously for me.”

Webb sees the challenges of teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to form meaningful relationships with her students.

“On the last day of school,” she says, “they gifted me a hand-knitted blanket that they all took part in making as well as a small scrapbook of the memories we made that year.”

She adds, “I am so grateful for all that I learned at Falk but especially the importance of fostering strong and supportive relationships with my students.”

Jake Lord (A&S ’20, EDUC ’21G) interned with Yalch during the 2020-21 school year. “I got the ‘Falk at Rodef’ experience,” he says, referring to the fact that Falk relocated some of its classes to the nearby Rodef Shalom Congregation to allow for greater social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic.

After graduating from Pitt Education with a Master of Arts in Teaching in secondary mathematics, Lord stayed in Pittsburgh and now teaches high school math at the University School in Shadyside, where he relishes forming strong relationships with his students.

Lord spends time working through logic puzzles and playing math games with students and facilitates discussions about essential concepts, which he tries to connect to things students already know.

“I really owe a lot to Mr. Yalch,” says Lord. “I try to challenge traditional ways of teaching and to get creative with my classroom structure. I also consistently ask myself ‘Why am I really doing this? What good do I think will come from this idea?’ when I’m planning a lesson.”

His best memories from Falk revolve around connecting with students.

“Those kids made the best out of such a weird, scary, and uncertain time,” he says. “Watching ‘Survivor’ with my eighth-grade pod at lunch, playing outside with them on warmer days, and Friday trips with the students to Carnegie Mellon [University] or Schenley Park are a few of my favorite memories of Falk.”

Erin Kalbach (EDUC ’20, ’21G) completed her student teaching under O’Sullivan during the 2020-21 school year. After graduating from Pitt Education with a Master of Education in instruction and learning, Kalbach moved to Virginia, where she taught kindergarten in the Chesapeake Public Schools. She’s entering her third year as a pre-K teacher at Nansemond-Suffolk Academy in Suffolk, Virginia.

“Falk has a very special place in my heart,” Kalbach says. “To me, it represents an ideal learning space. I am continually inspired by the teachers I learned from there, the education and exploration I witnessed, and the overall values that Falk holds dear.”

She recalls working with teachers like Jill Sarada and Cheryl Capezzuti along with the energy and positivity of O’Sullivan, her mentor.

“She was so supportive and optimistic during a very chaotic time to teach—classes split into pods, mask mandates, distancing requirements, and teaching every lesson twice!—and I learned a lot from her,” she says. “I’m eternally grateful to her for her love, encouragement, and flexibility, and I hope to carry many of those characteristics with me throughout my teaching career.”

James W. Durkin Jr. (EDUC ’19, ’20G) first came to Falk in 2017 as a Pitt undergraduate student worker in the extended day program, and he later worked at the front desk. He completed his student teaching in 2020 in Diana Dimitrovski and Christa Cooke’s kindergarten classroom.

After leaving Pittsburgh, Durkin worked as a kindergarten special education teacher at a Philadelphia charter school. He’s now in his third year teaching kindergarten in the Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia.

“I valued my time at Falk so much,” says Durkin. “Falk taught me how to teach the whole child: academically, socially, and emotionally. Falk truly showed me how to celebrate each student for their different ideas and experiences. And, of course, I was shown just how fun and engaging teaching can be!”

Christine Wagner (EDUC ’17G) completed her student teaching under Yalch. She is teaching Algebra I at Highlands High School, outside Pittsburgh, after spending the past three years teaching eighth-grade prealgebra and advanced Algebra I at Highlands Middle School.

Just weeks after earning her Master of Arts in Teaching at Pitt Education, Wagner accepted her first teaching job in London, England, where she taught secondary mathematics. After returning to Pittsburgh, Wagner worked as a long-term substitute and began her current position in March 2020.

“My memories of interning at Falk are some of the most special memories of my teaching career,” she says, recalling experiences like the McKeever Environmental Learning Center experiential learning trip and creating math projects with Yalch and Tim Kirchner, including a unit that tasked seventh graders with using algebra and modular arithmetic to solve a “murder mystery” scavenger hunt around the school.

“Falk helped me develop a love and excitement for teaching in a way that no other place could have done,” Wagner says. “Falk instilled in me the importance of getting to know my students not only as learners but as people outside the classroom in order to make learning more engaging and fun for them.

“One of the biggest takeaways that continues to impact my approach to teaching today is the importance of students learning through inquiry, discovery, and real-world hands-on learning,” she adds. “The faculty and culture at Falk provided a safe space to experiment with exciting new ideas, approaches, and opportunities that allowed me to be creative and take risks in order to hone my skills in these areas, for which I am beyond grateful.”

Jennifer Fisher-Clark worked as a student teacher in Lindsay O’Sullivan’s third-grade class in 2016. After completing the Combined Accelerated Studies in Education program at Pitt Education, she began working with seventh- and eighth-grade students as a special education teacher at a Cambridge, Massachusetts, charter school. Last summer, she moved to York, England, where she is a teaching assistant at an alternative provision school for kids with special education needs.

“My strongest memories of Falk are the times we spent outside,” Fisher-Clark says. “I loved seeing students exploring, socializing, discovering, and otherwise enjoying being outside, whether that be in Falk Woods or just on the playground. I also have wonderful memories of doing a project-based unit on ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ that incorporated reading, writing, math, design, and other elements. It was the first time I led a unit, and it wasn’t perfect, but I learned a lot and the kids had fun!”

Fisher-Clark says that Falk has left her with an understanding of how important play, exploration, and real-world experiences are for children.

“I also remember Falk as such a warm and welcoming place,” she adds, “which helped me recognize that educators must prioritize fostering a sense of belonging and acceptance in our classrooms.”

Anthony Pinto (ENGR ’10, EDUC ’15) student taught under Middle School math teacher Michael Yalch. “I loved my experience at Falk,” he says. “I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, wherever I teach, I need to be in a place like this.’”

Pinto earned a master’s in teaching with a focus in secondary mathematics. After graduating, he taught at the Chicago Academy for the Arts for five years. He’s now teaching at Rowland Hall, an independent pre-K-12 school in Salt Lake City, Utah.

“It’s a phenomenal independent school,” Pinto says. “Falk set the trajectory of my career of loving the indie school model. I’m super lucky that that was my student teaching experience.”

He also credits his time at Falk with forming his view of math education.

“What Michael Yalch instilled in me was enjoying math and the beauty of math for itself—and getting excited about it and encouraging students to explore math—to come to their own conclusions and make math a conversation,” Pinto says.

Luke Leiden (A&S ’07, EDUC ’13G) interned at Falk in the 2012-13 school year. After graduating with a Master of Arts in Teaching degree from Pitt’s School of Education, Leiden taught Spanish for six years in the Beaver Area School District. He is currently a Spanish teacher at Shaler Area High School.

He recalls shadowing Falk’s Spanish teachers at the time, Ashley Hellman and Lacey Davis.

“My time at Falk gave me experience with project-based learning and experiential learning, and I took that with me,” Leiden says. “Falk was really into inductive learning and having kids figure out the rules. My mentor teachers were so patient with me, allowing me to take three days reading a story so kids could figure out ‘me gusta’ versus ‘me gustan.’ They gave me the space and time to experiment with teaching, allowing kids to be active learners. It was a beautiful experience.”

Leiden also learned from other teachers, like Ross, Greg Wittig, Eileen Coughlin, and Joanna Newlin.

“I felt like I had about five or six mentor teachers instead of just one,” he says. “It was awesome to see different teaching styles. I benefited from each person’s perspective and sought it out, and they were happy to share.”

Jennifer McGaffin (A&S ’91, EDUC ’92G) student taught in David Ross’ third- and fourth-grade class in the 1991-92 school year. She now teaches fifth grade in the Wallingford-Swarthmore School District outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

“I remember a feeling of belonging,” McGaffin says. “I loved the ‘laboratory-ness’ of it, the fact that as student teachers we were able to be a part of it. You didn’t feel like you were sitting there watching. I was involved in planning and doing and bringing ideas to the classroom.”

She recalls Ross letting her try out an idea during a lesson on the senses. From Pitt’s vision studies program, she borrowed special glasses that simulate blindness and had Falk students try them out.

“I never had the experience of someone telling me, ‘No, that’s not a good idea,’” McGaffin says. “I felt like student teaching at Falk solidified the sense that this is what I’m here to do.”

Gahl Tsvetkov, now attending high school in Seattle, returned to Pittsburgh in April while his sister, Eden Tsvetkov (Class of 2019), visited Carnegie Mellon University, where she will be attending college in the fall.

“I have a lot of memories dating back to third grade,” says Gahl, recalling the “little family” of his pod during his class’s time at Rodef Shalom Congregation. “It was really cool being with that group of people.”

Yvette Loch-Temzelides’ family left Pittsburgh after her seventh-grade year, but on a quick trip to Pittsburgh from New York, where she works as a vice president in banking at Citi, she made a point of stopping by her old school with her father and got a tour from Jill Sarada.

“We particularly enjoyed the art and learning projects throughout the building,” writes Loch-Temzelides. “I remember how exciting this was as a student to be on display and a great way for visitors to see the creativity of the students!”

Jessica “Momo” Hunt, Class of 2020, was part of the Avonworth High School girls’ soccer team that won a second-consecutive Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League championship in 2023.

Aveeka Vats, a recent graduate of the Tulane University School of Law, had a case note cited and quoted in a petition submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court. The case note appeared in a 2022 issue of the Tulane Law Review, for which Vats served as diversity and articles editor.

Tadao Tomokiyo, Class of 2020, was honored for his talents as a musician, earning the opportunity to conduct the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony Orchestra as the winner of its Conducting Competition. He also was named the Ragtime Kid of 2022 by the Scott Joplin Foundation for his talent as a pianist and was invited to perform at the West Coast Ragtime Festival.

Deniz Finkel, Class of 2020, now attending Pittsburgh Allderdice High School, became the first Allderdice tennis player to win the Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League Section 3 Singles Tennis Tournament Championship.

Mark Rubenstein, Class of 1946, went on to attend Pittsburgh Allderdice High School and earned both his bachelor’s and medical degrees at the University of Pittsburgh. He completed his pediatric internship at the University of California, San Francisco; his residency at San Francisco General Hospital (now Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center); and a pediatric fellowship at the Mayo Clinic. He served three years as a U.S. Navy pediatrician in Yokosuka, Japan, and spent most of his career as a pediatrician at a practice in Concord and Antioch, California. He continues to see patients as a locum tenens physician, filling in for other pediatricians when needed.

Music has played an important part in Rubenstein’s life, and he remembers Falk’s musical instruction fondly: “Mrs. Hutchinson was the music teacher; the curriculum included the concept that it was as important for the students to learn how to read music as it was for them to learn English,” he writes. “When I entered public school, I was astonished to learn that my fellow students did not know how to read music, a skill which has held me in excellent stead all these many years playing violin, viola, piano, harpsichord (of which I have built two), mandolin, mandola, and singing (at times professionally).”

Victor M. Granquist, Class of 1969, worked in oil field chemicals in Houston, Texas, and Lafayette, Louisiana, then spent 20 years with a synthetic chemical manufacturer in Beaufort, South Carolina, before finishing his career in 2019 as president of a small specialty chemical company in Jupiter, Florida. He is married with two daughters. Along with doing some consulting work, Granquist writes, “I’m an amateur musician (guitar) and an avid kayaker and yoga practitioner and study Hindu philosophy.

“Attending Falk was one of the best things that happened in my life,” he adds, “and I’m forever grateful for the opportunity.”

Rachel Richman, Class of 1969, lives with her longtime partner in Oakland, California, and recently started a position as director of special projects for a new California assemblywoman from the San Francisco Bay Area. She graduated from Chatham University, which recently honored her with its Cornerstone Alumni Award in Public Policy, and has lived in California for many years. She has worked as a chief of staff and special assistant to several progressive and innovative state and local elected officials, with much of her policy work focusing on health, healthy food access, and the social safety net.

“Falk was a very important experience for me,” she writes, “and the mentorship I received from one of my teachers, Dr. Fred Gage, made a real difference.”

Liz Johnson Barnes, Class of 1977, graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and worked as an information technology management consultant for most of her career. Before retirement, she taught high school math to be able to spend time with her three children. Now retired, she and her husband live in Henderson, Nevada.

Katie Dealy is a Falk graduate from the Class of 1992. After attending college at Cornell University, she joined Teach For America and taught elementary students with severe special needs in Oakland, California, before attending graduate school at Columbia University.

“Falk was magical for me,” she writes. “Learning was fun. The teachers respected the students and had high expectations for us all.”

She has spent her career working to improve education and health opportunities for children from birth through college and currently leads public engagement for U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy.

“I think I have spent my career working to ensure as many kids as possible could access opportunities like I had at Falk,” she says. “Regardless of income or neighborhood, every child should have every opportunity to thrive. They should be surrounded by people who push them to be their best and want to see their success. I feel really grateful I had that experience at Falk.”

John T.K. Scherch, Class of 2003, hosts the morning show on WRTI, a classical and jazz radio station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he also sings with the choruses of Opera Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Orchestra and performs as a soloist. He remembers Pittsburgh Opera singers coming to Falk to demonstrate music from “Madama Butterfly.” Falk’s middle school musicals “really cemented my love of performing,” he says, “which would combine with my love of music and pretty much fuel what I do.”

Sarah Barnes Cahill, Class of 2004, graduated from Duke University and then taught for two years with Teach For America in Houston, Texas. She then worked for both Goldman Sachs and Major League Baseball in New York City before moving with her husband, Barry, to Dublin, Ireland. They welcomed their first child, Gabriel James Cahill, in June 2023.

Jerome Barnes, Class of 2006, graduated from Washington University in St. Louis. He works for Commonwealth (formerly Doorways to Dreams), a nonprofit building financial security and opportunity for financially vulnerable people through innovation and partnerships.

Justin Barnes, Class of 2009, graduated from DePauw University and worked for both Toast and BBot, two tech companies helping to automate and streamline the restaurant industry.

Jerome and Justin Barnes now work together as songwriters, producers, musicians, and singers living in Los Angeles, California, and record and perform under the name The Keymakers.

Cora Myers, Class of 2020, is entering her senior year at Pittsburgh Obama 6-12, where she is active as a class officer and is on the soccer, swim, and softball teams. She recently received a Freddie Fu Sports Medicine Scholarship, which allowed her to intern for six weeks over the summer at a UPMC sports medicine facility, observing and taking part in patient evaluations and treatment. Myers relished the opportunity to return to Falk for the school’s Ask a High Schooler Night to discuss attending Pittsburgh Obama and the transition from a private middle school to a public high school.

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