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CLASS NOTES
Ana S. Salper Greetings! Only a few brief notes this time: Sameer Ahuja married Sima Saran, '96 Barnard, in August, and many classmates attended the wedding, including Parag Gandhi, Neil Kothari, Chris Glaros, Dino Capasso, Poorni Bid and William Norman. Sima just graduated from Cardozo Law, and Sameer is a second-year M.B.A. student at Harvard. They plan to move back to New York from their home in Boston when Sameer graduates. He writes that there are several other '96ers in his class, including Jeff Li, Henry Tam and Sonny Hong. I hope this winter finds you well, and I leave you with this thought: "Art washes from the soul the dust of everyday life" (Pablo Picasso). Until next time ...
Sarah Katz Happy New Year! Believe it or not, 2002 is our class's five-year reunion. A number of classmates are working hard to plan a variety of activities for May 30–June 2, so save the date. The reunion committee can't tell people about the exciting activities planned if it can't contact them. Please update your address with Columbia, and encourage your friends to do so (www.college.columbia.edu/alumni/address.html). If you are interested in helping to plan reunion activities, please e-mail Preeti Davidson in the Alumni Office at pd102@columbia.edu. Paul Feuer started NYU's graduate computer science program this semester. And The Freight Elevator Quartet (Luke DuBois, Stephen Krieger, Rachael Finn, '99 Barnard, and Paul) will try to finish its sixth album this spring as Stephen comes back to NYC with an M.D. from Yale. The group saw Jon Dakss in Boston when he opened for Kool Keith and Ice-T on Halloween. Matt Luban has started a small strategy consulting firm. It's the same type of work that he did at Mitchell Madison, but he has been working with mid-size growth companies that are underserved by large firms such as McKinsey. He reports that things are going well, and he has been incredibly busy. After graduating from Columbia, Jon "Tito" Dakss went to the MIT Media Lab for a master's degree. While there, he developed technology for tracking things (actors, props, etc.) in a television program. He and his professor then founded a company in Boston based on this technology, "WatchPoint Media," which is in business after two rounds of funding. So far, they've worked with several shows such as The Tonight Show, The Drew Carey Show, Baywatch and As the World Turns. Jon also was excited to have had an article written about him in Rolling Stone based on his hobby while he was at Columbia, working on a Web site for Sly Stone. Manish Parikh graduated from medical school in May and is in the first year of general surgery residency at NYU Medical Center/Bellevue Hospital. Ryan Leaf, '97E, is an assistant groundskeeper at the Richland, Wash., site of the Office of Housing and Urban Development for the government. Post-Columbia, he received a one-year graduate degree from Texas A&M in agriculture. He is the proud father of Sharon (1). His wife, Esther (Texas Tech '98), couldn't be more proud of her. Notes are rather brief this time round — please keep those e-mails coming! I look forward to seeing all of you at the reunion.
Sandra P. Angulo Chen More wedding news: Mazel Tov to Dahlia Jacobs and Benjamin Prager, who were married February 24 at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C. They dated throughout their undergraduate years at Columbia and finally took the plunge. Dahlia is a second-year at Columbia Law, and Ben works in feature films. My first-year floormate, Dan Petrov, passed the Ohio bar in July and practices labor and employment law at Calfee, Halter & Griswold in Cleveland. Dan, who represents management in union negotiations and employment-related disputes, is engaged to a fellow lawyer, Amy McGann. Their wedding is scheduled for April 6. At one of the last CCYA events, a fellow '98er told me that Lauren Giglio is engaged to Andrew Brust. They plan a May wedding at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. Best wishes to all! Eric Welsch is supporting the Columbia chapter of Sigma Phi Epsilon as vice president of the alumni board. While at Columbia, Eric was the founding president of the chapter. He spent two years working in San Francisco and is now back in New York, hoping to get in touch with more classmates. Josh Ratner updated me on a few pals: Anand Gandhi left his job at Morgan Stanley and is now working for Fox TV in Los Angeles. Gabrey Milner also is living in L.A. and working for Fox Sports. Natalie Edwards is in her first year at the New York law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore, while Alejandra Montenegro is a first-year associate at the D.C. law firm of Arnold and Porter. In academic news, Rachel Dannen Hammel was named to the dean's list for special projects at Ben Gurion University of the Negev's M.D. program in international health and medicine. Rachel is part of a program that is a collaboration between Columbia's P&S and Ben Gurion University. A third-year student, Rachel was recognized for her study of thrombophilia, a dangerous blood-clotting condition, as well as for her work on a study analyzing the relationship between breastfeeding and recovery from cesarean section. Chris Hall married Rebecca Powals '98E in 1999. They live in Maplewood, N.J., where Chris teaches. Rebecca works in midtown NYC. Finally, my husband Hans ('97) and I are expecting our honeymoon baby March 2. Thanks to everyone who e-mailed me for this edition. Those of you who've never been mentioned, send your updates!
Charles S. Leykum We hope everyone has been able to settle into their jobs and studies in the new year. We have a number of updates for the class, including exciting matrimonial news from M'Balia Rubie that Alicia Smith married Rory Wilfork '97, former captain of the Columbia football team, on June 9. The wedding took place in Alicia's hometown of Carmel, Ind., and was a true Columbia event. All five of the bridesmaids were members of the Class of '99: Rochelle Cameron, Mazda Figaro, Marice Mendoza, M'Balia Rubie and Courtney Washington. M'Balia says that Marcellus Wiley '97 was one of five groomsmen. Congratulations to Alicia and Rory! In October, Jennifer Maxfield moved to Syracuse, N.Y., to work for the ABC affiliate, WIXT, where she is a reporter from Monday to Friday on the 5 and 6 o'clock news. Before that, she was anchoring and reporting in Binghamton for the ABC affiliate. She reports that Farzad Sarmast also is in Syracuse attending medical school at SUNY Upstate Medical University. Hung Tran sends his report from Baltimore, where he is a second-year medical student at Johns Hopkins. Hung deferred a year before med school and spent his time teaching mathematics in east Los Angeles at his former high school. Christopher Dye is working on a master's in acupuncture in New York City. Thanks to classmates who sent updates. We look forward to receiving more over the next few months.
Prisca Bae Hi, everyone! For this class update, I introduce the first column written by a guest writer, Erica Easley. Enjoy! (P.S. If you have any interest being a guest writer, let me know. I'd love to share this column with you!) By November, California was sounding pretty good to members of '00 who reside in colder climates. So they used their brains and bought some plane tickets. Heidi Yeung and Jim Murphy ('00E) came in from Vancouver, Anna Dimond, '00 Barnard, and I flew from Boston and Washington D.C., respectively, and Omosede Idehen, Alicia Dooley and Ning Chao made it from New York to join classmates and L.A. residents Jen Park (UCLA architecture), Rashmi Menon (UCLA medicine) and Erica Easley (writer) in their allegedly sunny city. Despite the bizarre weather (it rained for four days straight!), it was a "juicy" reunion, full of fun and foolishness and lots of catching up. Best story of the past year goes to Anna, who recounted being chased out of the surf by a great white while living in Australia. Most glamorous job goes to Ning, who followed her sense of style to Glamour. Most sane award goes to Heidi, who is in her second year of med school at the University of British Columbia and is as pretty and nice as ever (truly an accomplishment). Of the numerous celebrity sightings in L.A. (Amanda Peet '95 for brunch, Jack Black making some serious eye contact with Omosede in Rite Aid), we couldn't decide which was better: exchanging business cards with the legendary Archbishop Don "the Magic" Juan at a gas station in Hollywood or running into Gideon Yago strolling in Venice Beach with school chums Evan Hutchison and Purvi Mehta. That is, until New Year's Eve, which blew them all out of the water. It was fated: randomly ending up at a pre-party in the home of Henry "the Fonz" Winkler, then moving on to a true Hollywood rock n' roll show at the Viper Room. From the Viper Room, we went to one of those fabled parties in the Hollywood Hills and continued to celebrate into the wee hours with David Lee Roth and members of Faster Pussycat — we couldn't have planned it better if we tried! And Omosede and Erica will certainly never forget trading hair-care tips with Diamond Dave. We don't know where most of you are, but we hope you are happy, healthy, wealthy and wise, and we wish you all the best for 2002.
Jonathan Gordin I'm a bit disappointed that this update is quite a bit shorter than the last time around. I have used every resource in my power (namely, a long e-mail list) to contact quite a few of you, and have heard back from, well, some of you. Please keep the responses coming. I'd like to make sure that every one of our classmates is featured in these pages. I know each of you has something meaningful to contribute. I discovered a few months ago — on a ride in a Midtown elevator — that Ashran Jen is a fellow member of the Marsh & McLennan empire. Whereas I work for William M. Mercer, Ashran works for National Economic Research Associates as an analyst in its New York City offices. He lives in Park Slope with Brian Gum, who is working at Deloitte Consulting. Ashran had much to report on his friends: William Tsu is working for Accenture, Yosi Gelfand is in the astronomy Ph.D. program at Harvard, Ben Wheeler will be teaching in Korea and then traveling to Morocco, and Van Debergh works for Teach for America on a reservation in New Mexico. Edmond Cha is hanging out in Brooklyn, Emily Yen is teaching English in Taiwan, Yong Moon is a teacher in New York City and Peggy Chan works at PwC/Unifi. Peggy recently became engaged to Eric Pessagno '97. Finally, Erik Tollefson is in a political studies Ph.D. program at Beijing University. Michelle Grzan is pursuing investment banking at Lehman Brothers. She lives with Emily Georgitis '01E, who works in equity research at Goldman Sachs. Rebecca Nathan works for UBS PaineWebber and lives in the West Village. Also at UBS is Peter Lewin, who works in the Global Industrial Group in the Corporate Finance Division, and who lives on the Upper West Side. Peter's UBS colleague, Dave Matteini, reports that Graham Lawrence is working for Salomon Smith Barney in its real estate group. Dave worked on a deal with Graham recently. Also at Salomon Smith Barney is Brian Bedner, who works long hours in the technology group of its equity capital markets team. Brian's girlfriend, Liz Griffith, barely sees him at the apartment they share in Park Slope because of his grueling schedule. At least she gets to enjoy the neighborhood, which seems to her "like a displaced cross-section of Columbia alumni ... I always see people wearing Columbia/Columbia Law/Business or Barnard shirts here." Liz, formerly with an accounting firm in Midtown, has joined Leadership Directors, Inc., a publisher of personnel directories. She is the assistant editor for the Government Affairs Yellow Book. She enjoys staying current on the American political scene and loves her office's location in Union Square. Don Blydenburgh is working as a legal assistant in the litigation department of Davis Polk and Wardwell. It has been a rewarding experience for Don, who worked on a case where the firm provided pro bono work for battered women, specifically, aiding them in filing for divorce in Queens County. Don also is a mentor for a high school student in Brooklyn and is applying to law schools, mainly in the New York City metro area. When not at work, Don can sometimes be found at the Columbia Club, whose facilities he raves about. He urges fellow Columbians to take advantage of this Midtown asset! Don works with classmates Evangelos Michailidis, Daniel Fazio, Sanetta Ponton, Hannah Waldron, '01 Barnard, and Leslie Bark, '01 Barnard. All are doing well. Nicole Bode lives uptown, not far from Columbia, and interns at the Daily News (with Jon Lemire). She has been there since May and has had the internship extended several times. She does general reporting; everything from "Rudy press conferences to WTC victims' funerals." Although she describes the experience as "intense," she said it's "probably the best experience I could have hoped for." Nicole reports that Meghan Ashford-Grooms is working at the Tennessean in Nashville as a copy editor. Jennifer Garcia lives on the Upper West Side and is working at a Midtown law office while she applies to law school. Tanya Dantus lives in Mexico City, and is back in school at the Ibero (a university there), studying law and student teaching. Jaeson Kim works at a small, independent film company in Manhattan and shoots his own film during his free time. Laura Merz is enrolled at George Washington University where she's working toward her master's degree in forensic science and is working for the Arlington (Va.) police in its cold case division. Her roommate (and my former Schapiro 7 RA), Elisa Melendez, is doing well in her fellowship with the National Puerto Rican Coalition. Elisa also teaches ESL classes at night. Laura and Elisa would love to hear from other Columbians in the D.C. area, so get in touch! Kevin Reed did a great job of coaxing some fellow D.C./CC friends into writing to CCT. Kevin works at the U.S. Attorney's Office in D.C. (transnational/ major crimes section), and yes, his office is handling a lot of terrorism issues these days. Kevin has applied to law schools and should be hearing soon. Genna Weinstein lives with Mariel Martinez in D.C. Genna reports that Amy Kimpel is teaching middle school English in Harlem and Jon Vogel is at Princeton studying economics. Mariel works for the National Council of La Raza, and will be attending law school at Penn in the fall. Mariel reports that Teresa Genao lives in New York City and teaches in Washington Heights through the Columbia Urban Teaching program. Rob Cortes attends Fordham Law School and lives with Steve Song in New York City. Ramsey Chamie also is living in D.C. and is doing well. He enjoyed a great New Year's celebration in New York City with Seth Morris, Shreya Kangovi, Dan Fazio and some others. He reports that Charles Yackulic recently got a cell phone, which is "impressive for a kid who went through all of college using a donated Apple II-C ... OK, maybe it was a 386, but still..." Ramsey wishes Rabia Saeed a happy 23rd birthday! Samantha Earl has been up to many exciting things, traveling every step of the way. She worked on a film in Vancouver for a few weeks, then came to San Francisco with Sarah Lightdale and Josh Schwartz. In SF, she had an assortment of "random jobs" before she headed to Paris to take an 11-week photography class. Sam had various reports on her friends: Sarah is going to NYU Law School in the fall, but not before a springtime jaunt around Europe with Josh. Marisa DeSaracho works for a beauty PR firm in New York City; Abena Boakye works for Ann Taylor in New York City; Adrienne Sadeghi-Nejad works for a rare book store, but is going to begin Columbia Teaching Fellows in the spring/summer; Sterling Mah works for Tiffany's in New York City; and Avrielle Gallagher works for CBS in Los Angeles. Also in Los Angeles is my pal Israel Gordan, who recently relocated there to work as an assistant director at the camp he has attended/worked at for at least the past 10 summers. He had a relaxing couple of months at home in Longmeadow, Mass., where he worked part-time as a substitute teacher, before making the coastal shift. He is excited about being on the West Coast. Tashweka Anderson is doing well, teaching math, biology and learning strategies to help emotionally handicapped ninth graders at a high school in Florida. Noah Lichtman works at a sports TV production company producing documentaries for ESPN Classic. Lauren Abraham traveled for a few months in Asia after graduation before settling into an apartment in Boston. She now works as a strategy/marketing consultant at Simon-Kucher and Partners, a German consulting firm mainly specializing in the healthcare industry. To ring in the New Year, Lauren and Michael Mahoney danced and sang with George Clinton and the P-Funk All-Stars in Atlanta. Patrick Durkan works for Madison Financial Concepts (an executive, corporate and personal benefits firm). He lives with Lauren Alexander '01 Barnard, and Artie Harris, and has been throwing "large house parties" at his new apartment in Murray Hill. Patrick recently worked on voter fraud and ballot watching for Michael Bloomberg's mayoral campaign, and organized about 100 Columbians to help on Election Day. Patrick also has committed to make another run for the Olympics in sabre fencing; keep your fingers crossed as Patrick shoots for Athens in 2004. Lydia Grunstra, whom I ran into at a party at Dave Matteini's apartment near Columbia, works at Random House (for the Knopf imprint) as an editorial assistant and lives on the Upper East Side. Lydia lives with Amy Weiss, who works as a research assistant at National Health Promotion Associates, a substance abuse prevention program in Westchester. Lydia reports that Kelly Oberle and Jenny Moussa also are living in New York City.
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