Careers, Life, and Yale Thursday Show: Humanities in Action

Brian H. Kim ’04 is a composer for film and television. Since his move to Los Angeles in 2007, Brian’s work has ranged from experimental electronic beats, to old-fashioned Broadway musicals, to classic Hollywood orchestral scores. Brian most recently finished scoring the upcoming drama Panic for Amazon, which will premiere in spring 2021. He also recently scored the shows Star vs. the Forces of Evil (Disney), BH90210 (Fox), and Abby’s (NBC). He has produced and directed musical numbers for the shows How I Met Your Mother (CBS) and Bones (Fox). Brian’s feature film credits include Hello, My Name Is Doris; Adam; and GBF. As a multi-instrumentalist and singer, Brian has recorded with artists such as Adele, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Neil Patrick Harris, Patrick Stump, and Boyz II Men. As director of the 2004 Yale Whiffenpoofs, Brian performed in more than two dozen countries around the world. Brian graduated from Yale with a BA in music (having spent more time in a cappella and theater rehearsals than in class) and completed graduate studies at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music in 2008.

Sophia Lear ’08 is a television writer living in Los Angeles.  She currently writes for The Unicorn, a CBS sitcom starring Walton Goggins and Michaela Watkins. She has written for several other comedies, including the sitcom New Girl, where she worked for six years, first as a writers’ assistant and then as a writer. Before this, Sophia was assistant literary editor of the New Republic magazine and contributed book reviews to that magazine and the New York Times. Sophia also worked as a personal assistant to Doug Ellin, the creator of HBO’s Entourage. At Yale, Sophia majored in English, writing her senior thesis on the shifting boundaries between play and audience in Love’s Labor’s Lost, Twelfth Night, and King Lear. She also wrote for the New Journal magazine.  The summer after her sophomore year, Sophia was a leader of the Habitat Bicycle Challenge, a cross-country bicycle trip to raise money for Habitat for Humanity. Sophia likes to cook, especially pesto spaghetti and risotto.  

Rev. Jeania Ree Moore ’12 is a writer, clergyperson, and first-year doctoral student in religious studies (theology) and African American studies at Yale. Writing her Humanities undergraduate senior essay confirmed her desires to pursue a PhD, and to explore academia and the world before doing so. Seminary was her next step. At Emory University, Jeania Ree found a disciplinary home (theology), discerned a ministerial calling, and worked in and later protested Georgia’s carceral system. After receiving her MDiv (2015), Jeania Ree was a Gates Scholar at the University of Cambridge, where she received an MPhil in theology (2016). She then worked for four years as director of civil and human rights at the United Methodist Church’s social justice agency in Washington, DC, leading legislative advocacy on immigration, gun violence prevention, and more. Jeania Ree returned to Yale in 2020 to study race, nonhuman animals, and theologies of creation. She writes a column, “Under the Sun,” for Sojourners magazine.

Peter Norman ’00 is an attorney at Clean Energy Counsel, LLP. A philosophy major at Yale, he served as president of the Yale Political Union and wrote for several campus publications. His first job after college involved developing social services for low-income housing residents. He then attended law school at NYU. After a brief stint at a law firm in New York, he joined the Singapore office of Milbank LLP. As part of the firm’s Global Project Finance Group, he represented banks, governments, and private companies in the development of large-scale infrastructure projects in Southeast Asia. In 2012, Peter took a job with SunEdison and moved to Beijing. Peter helped develop several first-of-their-kind solar energy projects in Asia, including the world’s largest airport-based solar installation at Kuala Lumpur International Airport and the only American-owned utility-scale solar installation in China. He returned to the US in 2015 to cofound a legal technology startup called Winnieware LLC (named after his dog), which created ReplyToSome, an award-winning software application designed to prevent users from accidentally emailing the wrong people. Most recently, he has returned to law and renewable energy and with his colleagues at Clean Energy Counsel helps develop solar, biogas, microgrid, and battery storage projects throughout the US. Peter lives in Brooklyn with his wife and dog (the aforementioned Winnie).

Zelda Roland ’08, PhD ’16 is the founding director of the Yale Prison Education Initiative at Dwight Hall, which brings access to Yale classes and other campus programming to incarcerated students in Connecticut. Zelda conceived of and created this program after working with incarcerated students enrolled in the Wesleyan Center for Prison Education at Cheshire Correctional Institution while completing her doctorate in history of art and film and media studies. Over the last five years, she has worked to gain support for, organize, staff, and fund the program, which, with its inaugural courses in 2018, marked the first time any incarcerated student had ever earned Yale College credit for completed coursework. Zelda coordinates YPEI’s partnership with the Connecticut Department of Corrections and its facilities; relationships with other national and statewide prison education programs and criminal justice organizations; and a passionate and broad assembly of Yale faculty, administrators, staff, and students who believe that this program represents the best of Yale’s values and visions for the future. She is also an affiliated faculty member of the Arthur Liman Center for Public Interest Law at Yale Law School.

Ben Stango ’11, an attorney at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP in Philadelphia, double-majored in political science and Humanities. Ben counsels clients ranging from emerging and high-growth businesses to Fortune 500 companies in a broad array of business law matters, including mergers and acquisitions, startup guidance, joint ventures, financings, restructurings, and compliance with securities laws. Currently, Ben serves as the lead associate on the Morgan Lewis COVID-19 Loan Program Task Force, working with this cross-practice team to advise clients and colleagues on all aspects of COVID-19 related federal loan programs, especially the Paycheck Protection Program. With a JD from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and an MBA from the Wharton School, Ben brings a unique perspective on business, law, management, and government to serve his clients’ needs. A proud Philadelphian and South Philly resident, Ben remains heavily engaged in the city’s civic community. Currently, he serves on the board of directors for the Support Center for Child Advocates, where he also volunteers as a child advocate pro bono attorney.