Alumni Awards

Robert Abel Jr MD ’65, Professor of Ophthalmology at Thomas Jefferson University, practiced ophthalmology and researched the extensive ramifications of our visual apparatus. While a student, he changed the curriculum at Jefferson; later he introduced integrative medicine and taught students ‘The Healers Art’, a program designed to promote acute listening, empathy and understanding grief. 

Rob Abel is a fellow of the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO), American Academy of Pharmacology, American College of Surgeons and the Royal College of Medicine. He received the senior honor award from the AAO where he taught corneal surgery and founded its Committee of International Ophthalmology to invite international participation. Volunteering in three continents he shared ocular surgical skills and established numerous self-sustaining eye banks in Africa. 

His Wesleyan education was fundamental in expanding established borders. This is exemplified in the emblematic medical caduceus which gives equal credence to linear and intuitive thought. His clinical and educational pursuits expanded the paradigm of traditional ophthalmology beyond the eyes. Rob’s The Eye Care Revolution features eastern and western therapies for common ophthalmic conditions. Is Death Really a Mystery? recants ordinary peoples’ recalled experiences of vision and consciousness beyond the physical plane, from dreams to near-death experiences. 

Dr Abel introduced sudoku as edutainment to middle schools and the Vision to Learn mobile eye clinic to Delaware which has provided 22,000 free eye exams and glasses to underserved children. As a board member of the local peace and justice organization he created the Children's Peace Art Program with submissions from all Delaware schools. 

Rob Abel’s mantra has been “to be rather than to seem” derived from his EQV fraternity’s name, Esse Quam Videri. He is truly humbled to be recognized as a Wesleyan distinguished alumnus and will continue to work sharing Wesleyan’s enduring values.  

Dr. Judith Absalon is an Adult Infectious Diseases physician, seasoned clinical researcher, and pharmaceutical executive with more than 20 years of experience. She has spent her career developing strategies to address global infectious diseases in children and adults including pregnant women. Dr. Absalon has contributed to the clinical development and licensure of numerous drugs and vaccines related to HIV, meningitis, Group B streptococcal infection and COVID-19. She currently serves as the Clinical Research Head for Infectious Diseases at Glaxo Smith Kline LLC where she is responsible for end-to-end clinical development of novel infectious diseases therapies.     

Dr. Absalon, a proud graduate of Wesleyan’s Class of 1990, earned her medical degree from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, School of Medicine. She completed her Internal Medicine residency, adult Infectious Diseases fellowship and an MPH in Epidemiology at Columbia University. Dr. Absalon is a member of the National Medical Association, a Fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America and a lecturer at the New Medical College of Medicine. 

Both outside and at work, Dr. Absalon spends time mentoring young people who are interested in STEM careers and medicine. She enjoys volunteering in her community and regularly volunteers at food pantries in the Bronx, Northern Manhattan, and Harlem. She has been an active member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. for more than 30 years. 

After graduating magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Wesleyan, Roberto Powers earned his Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School. He then went on to work for seven years as an attorney with the ICC Court of Arbitration based in Paris, prior to commencing a long and distinguished career as a U.S. diplomat. His more than 30 years of service with the U.S. Department of State included assignments in South America, the Middle East, North Africa, Europe and Asia. His overseas postings reflect an outstanding record of leadership and an extraordinary command of the foreign policy process.

Roberto possesses a wealth of experience as a manager and a leader of large teams responsible for vigorously pursuing U.S. strategic goals and implementing policies, programs and procedures that have advanced U.S. interests in an often troubled and strained context. He is the recipient of numerous Meritorious and Superior Honor Awards, including the Barbara Watson Award for Consular Excellence in 2003 and a Presidential Meritorious Service Award in 2013 in recognition of extraordinary accomplishments for a period of three or more years in the Senior Foreign Service. On July 4, 2013, he was decorated in the Congress of the Republic of Colombia, along with thirteen other individuals and organizations, with the Francisco de Paula Santander Order of Law and Democracy for his significant contribution to the development and improvement of Colombia.

In October 2019, Roberto was the recipient of Deerfield Academy’s Heritage Award in recognition of his achievements and contribution to the betterment of society. As a Deerfield student, he was admired for his “generous spirit, intelligence, and optimism.” His deep consideration of the needs and feelings of others, coupled with a willingness to give of himself and his time to the general good, are qualities that characterized his spirit throughout his professional life. His fluency in French, Arabic, Italian and Spanish is a testament to his passion for global affairs, public service, and a commitment to cross-cultural understanding.

Since retirement in 2017, Roberto resides in Biarritz, France, where he is an active participant in the town’s cultural events and exchanges.

Nadja Webb ’90 is Executive Vice President, Programming Business Operations for BET Networks. In this role she handles strategic operations for the programing groups for all the BET platforms including linear, digital, BET’s direct-to-consumer OTT platform, BET+, and the newly formed BET Studios. Additionally, Nadja has a creative role leading BET’s Scripted Programming functions, including Development, Casting and Current for those platforms. She also manages Physical Production, Business and Legal Affairs for BETN and oversees the global Music Strategy team and music businesses across the Paramount Global cable channels.

Immediately preceding this role, Nadja was Executive Vice President & Deputy General Counsel, Programming Operations and Business and Legal Affairs for BET where she oversaw all Programming Operations functions in support of the Scripted, Unscripted and Music & Specials Programming business units, and all Business and Legal Affairs for BET.

Nadja has extensive transactional experience across multiple media platforms including, television, music, and digital. Her expertise is in structuring and negotiating complex deals, analyzing risks and developing creative solutions to business challenges. She was named one of The Hollywood Reporter’s Top 20 Dealmakers of 2019 for her work with BET.

Nadja previously held various roles within legacy Viacom Media Networks, most recently as Senior Vice President & Deputy General Counsel overseeing the BALA team that supported MTV, MTV2, mtvU, VH1, Logo, CMT and BET.

Prior to joining Paramount Global, Nadja was Senior Counsel at Atlantic Recording Corporation, Counsel at Sony Music Entertainment Inc. and an Associate at the law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges. She received a law degree from Harvard Law School and a Bachelor of Arts from Wesleyan University.

Steve Levin ’75 arrived at Wesleyan in the Fall of 1971 and went on to earn his BA (cum laude), co-captain the men’s soccer team, join Psi Upsilon and get elected to the Skull and Serpent Society. Following his time at Wesleyan, he earned his JD (summa cum laude) from New York Law School where he was Topics Editor of the Law Review. He began his legal career at Proskauer Rose in New York City specializing in commercial real estate transactions.

After a few years, Steve left New York for Washington, DC where he joined one of the city’s most prominent commercial real estate firms as a principal, spending 15 years developing over 3 million square feet of first-class office space downtown as well as numerous retail centers in the United Kingdom and Europe. After a stint as a Managing Director at Jones Lang LaSalle, Steve started his own real estate investment and development company with a partner in 2009, growing the company’s US/DC office to ten people with over 80 properties in the US and Puerto Rico. Semi-retired for the last two years, Steve has remained active serving as a Trustee for several high-net worth families where he enjoys helping parents and children navigate their familial, business, and philanthropic goals.

During all this time, he has been an active participant in all things “Wesleyan”. To name just a few, he has been a Class of 1975 Class Agent since 1988, past Chair of the Wesleyan Annual Fund, recipient of a Wesleyan University Service Award, a member of several Committees of the Board of Trustees, a member of the Trustee Nominating Committee, an active Reunion Committee member and currently serves as a member of the Board of Advisors to the Wesleyan men’s soccer team.

Steve spends most of his summers in New Hampshire at his house on the lake with his wife of 44 years, Rondi. Together, they have two great kids, Jake and Matthew, and consider themselves very lucky to have recently added Matthew’s wife, Sydney, to the family. All three are busy making it big in Montreal and Los Angeles in spite of going to schools other than Wesleyan.

Dave Rosenblum ’75, P’09 grew up in Portland, Oregon and had been east of Idaho once before heading to Wesleyan, which he knew of only through reading and his alumni interview. Absent financial aid from Wesleyan, Dave would have gone to the University of Oregon. 

Although he went to a good public high school, Dave found Wesleyan daunting. He worked hard, knowing the financial burden on his parents and the importance of maintaining his financial aid. Dave majored in economics, while taking many classes in history, literature and the arts. Outside the classroom, he threw the javelin for one year on the track team, earning a varsity letter while managing not to impale any bystanders; wrote articles for the Argus; served as an economics tutor, and went to lectures that he did not understand at Russell House. Dave was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and won the Clee Scholarship, the White Prize in economics and the Clark Fellowship for graduate study. 

After graduation from Wesleyan, Dave went directly to b-school at Wharton, which led to two years at Ford Motor. He then headed into management consulting, joining what is now Deloitte Consulting in Los Angeles in 1979, where he spent 34 years, serving clients and helping to lead the firm. Over the last 20 years, Dave has served on numerous boards, both corporate and non-profit, while also working with private equity firms over the last decade.  He has supported Wesleyan as an alumni volunteer in admissions, fundraising, career counseling, and reunion planning, and served as an alumni-elected trustee. 

Dave and his wife Sue met at a Club Med in Mexico (yes, that actually happens) and were married in 1985. They have two children and two grandchildren.  Primarily resident in Los Angeles, they also maintain an apartment in Manhattan and split time between Los Angeles and New York, while traveling extensively and spending lots of time at Dodger Stadium. 

Cynthia Ulman ’75, known as “Cindy” in her Wesleyan days, came to Middletown with a love of learning, a spirit of adventure, an electric typewriter, and no idea what she was going to do with her life.   

She joined the College of Social Studies but graduated as a Government major, worked in the Wesleyan Archives and as an RA, sang in the Concert Choir and musical theater, and avoided anything we now call STEM. She spent the fall of 1974 “time traveling” via the Twelve-College Exchange to be one of 13 “co-eds” at then all-male Amherst College.  There, she completed her thesis and became the first woman to ever sing in the Amherst Glee Club. 

After Wesleyan, Cynthia worked in Washington, DC, for a nonprofit that prepared women to run for public office. In 1979, she decided on her career goal— to apply the discipline of business management to strengthen the nonprofit sector. She moved to California to complete her MBA at Stanford University. Despite her determination to return to her native New England, Cynthia has lived in the Bay Area ever since.   

Cynthia loves enabling mission-driven organizations to realize their potential and deepen their impact. By age 32, she was leading two diversified corporations in health care services she had helped to build. A few years later, she began consulting and providing interim management services in higher education, community services, cultural and faith-based organizations. Cynthia currently chairs the Board of Trustees at Hidden Villa, a 1600-acre wilderness, regenerative farm, camp and environmental education center. She is known as an expert facilitator, senior executive, consultant, board member, and volunteer in the nonprofit world.   

Her Wesleyan voluntarism has included admissions interviewing, reunion planning, class book editing, and fundraising. Cynthia’s longest volunteer “gig” by far has been as Class Secretary for this year’s 50th Reunion Class, a position she has held for more than 40 years. 

Amy Bloom ’75 is the author of four novels: White Houses, Lucky Us, Away, and Love Invents Us; and three collections of short stories: Where the God Of Love Hangs Out, Come to Me (finalist for the National Book Award), and A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You (finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award). Her most recent book is the widely acclaimed New York Times bestselling memoir, In Love. She has written for magazines such as The New Yorker, New York Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, Vogue, O Magazine, Elle, The Atlantic, Slate, and Salon, among many other publications, and has won a National Magazine Award for Fiction. Her first book of nonfiction, Normal: Transsexual CEOs, Crossdressing Cops and Hermaphrodites with Attitudes, is a staple of university sociology and biology courses. 

Amy Bloom’s short stories have appeared in Best American Short Stories, Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards, and numerous anthologies here and abroad. Her work has been translated into seventeen languages. She has written many pilot scripts, for cable and network, and she created, wrote and ran the excellent, short-lived series State of Mind, starring Lili Taylor. 

Amy resides in Connecticut and recently retired as Wesleyan University’s Shapiro-Silverberg Professor of Creative Writing. She continues herwork as a psychotherapist and a novelist.