AitN: April 8, 2019

Roy Altman ’04 was confirmed as a federal judge on April 4. The U.S. Senate cleared the Podhurst Orseck partner's path to the Southern District of Florida bench, voting 66–33 to confirm his nomination. Altman specializes in aviation litigation, often representing the families of plane crash victims from his Miami office. He served six years as assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, winning more than 30 federal cases and arguing before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. As deputy chief of the special prosecutions division, he worked on human trafficking, child exploitation and violent crime cases.

Kristin Simmons ’12 is the 2019 Artist in Residence for a United Nations program celebrating women. According to an April 2 press release, the Artist in Residence program is “for the purpose of creating and promoting popular art that celebrates the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (‘SDG’) #5: ‘achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls.’ … Simmons will create four commissioned pieces in 2019, which will be displayed in prominent public art exhibits, murals, shareables, and in a collection of merchandise to benefit SDG 5-aligned NGO initiatives.”

On March 30, The New York Times published “50 Years of Affirmative Action: What Went Right, and What It Got Wrong.” For the article, the Times tracked down many of the nearly 50 black students in Columbia’s Class of 1973, who arrived on campus as freshmen in 1969. Among those featured in the article are Gregory Peterson ’73, LAW’85; Julius Gonzalez ’73; Gary Friday ’73, PS’84; Eric Coleman ’73; Les Goodson and Darryl T. Downing.

Two alumni made Crain’s New York Business’ “40 Under 40” list for 2019: Carlos Cuevas ’05, PH’12, SIPA’12 (executive VP of Somos) and Hicham Oudghiri ’06 (co-founder and CEO of Enigma). Somos is a network of about 2,500 providers that works with more than 650,000 Medicaid beneficiaries across the city. Cuevas says of the company: “We’re really trying to bring the promise of American health care back with community-based physicians.” Oudghiri co-founded Enigma with Marc DaCosta ’06; the company “taps into the open-data trove released by municipalities across the country” and “utilizes big data to make real-world events less mysterious.”

Ace Patterson ’11’s new album “Airplane Mode” debuted at number three on the iTunes Top 40 US Hip-Hop Album Chart. It also placed at number 50 on the Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop Album Sales Chart for the week of April 6.

Eugene L. Meyer ’64’s narrative nonfiction book, FIVE FOR FREEDOM: The African American Soldiers in John Brown’s Army, won the 2019 award for Outstanding Biography/History book from the American Society of Journalists and Authors. Meyer also won in ASJA’s Outstanding Blog Post category for a post on the Pittsburgh synagogue mass shooting.