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CLASS NOTES
Ana S. Salper Welcome to summer, classmates! Thanks to all of you who have taken the time to send me news of you and your friends. Michael Goldstrom writes that upon graduation, he spent a year in London studying classical acting at The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. In May 2001, he graduated from the Drama Division of the Juilliard School, and that same month he went to Luxembourg to film The Lost Battalion for A&E, a war film starring Rick Schroder, which premiered in December. Michael is performing off-Broadway in The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), which Shakespeare fans should check out (Michael highly recommends it). Congratulations on your success, Michael! Hilary Mathews is heading to Brussels for a year with her husband, and when she returns, she will be getting an M.P.A. at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School. Alisa Tang was a reporter at a small paper in Belleville, Ill., until May, at which point she moved to Thailand to start work with the Associated Press in Bangkok. Alisa writes that Lisa Lauck is finishing her first year studying photojournalism in Ohio. Lisa had spent four years in the Air Force as a photographer, which took her on assignment to Turkey last year, and she is interning this summer at a daily paper in Topeka, Kan. Maurice Toueg is still in the headhunting business at Foster McKay. He writes that Maureen Smith practices tax law at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton in New York, and Nina Dubin is in California pursuing her doctorate in art history. Nina just got a Fulbright Fellowship and is moving to Paris for a few years. Miriam Peled is at Emory University doing her residency. I ran into Jeremiah Crowell and Mike Kadish in a Chelsea art gallery a couple of months ago. Jeremiah is back in New York from his time in Thailand working in film, and Mike works for a city councilman in Brooklyn after graduating from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government last spring. Congratulations to my friend Scott Sartiano '97 on opening Butter, his new restaurant/lounge in New York. Butter already has received positive reviews and is a beautifully designed space on Lafayette Street. Nice work, Scott! That's it for now, everyone. Please continue sending in news of
your lives. Until next time: "Summer afternoon - summer afternoon;
to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the
English language." - Henry James.
Sarah Katz Thanks for writing in, everyone! Lauren Grodstein left Columbia in May after finishing her M.F.A. in fiction at the School of the Arts. While in grad school, she taught Logic and Rhetoric (surreal to be on the other side of the desk) and also sold a collection of short stories, which came out in June. The Best of Animals will be in a bookstore near you, but is available online if you prefer. Almost every character in it attends or once attended Columbia, so we should all check it out! Angeline Koo is at Virginia Law School. James Brust is finishing his residency at Columbia Presbyterian. Rebekah Gee is graduating from Cornell Med and moving to Boston to start residency at Massachusetts General/Brigham and Women's in Ob/Gyn. Vanitha Janakiraman '98 will be in the same resident class. Cristina Bonaldes graduated from Michigan Business School in April. She is spending the summer doing an independent study on the changing economics of Europe. She plans to meet up with Catrell Brown and Mauricio Mena in London and Germany, respectively. After Europe, it's off to Venezuela and Trinidad to visit relatives. At the beginning of August, she'll start work at Pfizer in the consumer health products division. Matt Wang left UBS Warburg and joined Evercore Partners, a boutique investment bank, in November 2000 as an associate in its advisory practice. Benjamin Rand recently started his new job with Babcock & Brown in its Merchant Banking division in N.Y. Michael Pignatello passed the final round of the Foreign Service examination and plans to attend business school at The George Washington University in the fall. Andy Selsor received an M.F.A. in screenwriting from Southern Cal on May 10. John O'Neill married Jessica Ross '98 Barnard on October 7 at St. Paul's Chapel. The ceremony was performed by Evelyn Langlieb Greer '70 Barnard '73L, a longtime friend of Jessica's family. Will Forster '97E and Lloyd Allen '98 served as groomsmen, Stephanie Shestakow '98 Barnard and Shradha Agarwal '98 Barnard as bridesmaids. Other alumni in attendance: David Johnson, Ellie Rivkin, Carter Turrell, Constantino Tobio '95, Martin Mraz '99 and Hilary Gerson '00. John has been working as a management consultant since graduation, first with the now-defunct Mitchell Madison Group and more recently with a small boutique firm, The Ironwood Consulting Group. Elbert Garcia and Grissel Seijo '93 married on June 22. Athena Bendo will be married in December. Dina Spiegel married Alisha Andron, a teacher, in May and is completing her Ph.D. in psychology at NYU. Erica Landes and Timothy Benton were married last September. They live in Chicago, where Erica is completing her Ph.D. in economics at the University of Chicago and Tim is an options trader at Wolverine. Purvi Shah is engaged to Daniel J. Goor, a writer at NBC. She graduated from the University of Chicago Law School in June and works at Debevoise & Plimpton in New York. Beth Packman got engaged and is finishing up her 2L year at NYU. Jennifer Geetter graduated from Harvard Law School last year and is a first-year associate at McDermott, Will & Emery in Boston. She specializes in health care related matters and loves her job. John Enright is a 1L at Fordham. Mia Carpiniello graduated from Georgetown Law School last year and clerks for a federal judge in Miami. Rana Zincir is completing a fellowship at the Ford Foundation and moved to Turkey in June. Timothy Hogan is a legislative aide for Senator Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) Jon Grandon and his wife, Sea Ann, welcomed a daughter, Charlotte Maren Grandon, on March 8. Charlotte weighed 7 lbs., 8 oz. She looks forward to attending the reunion. Erin Mendelson works on the North Shore of Oahu at a private youth camp, Camp Mokuleia. For enjoyment, she watches surf contests, reads about the ocean and catches waves. "Oahu has sunshine year-round," she writes. "I love it. There is nowhere else I would rather live. I spend half the day with my best friend and my cousins. Hawaii functions on the kindness of the large families. Rather than work, work, work, we prefer to enjoy the afternoon with our brothers and sisters." Jennifer Duran was admitted to the National Urban Fellowship, where she will pursue a masters in public administration. Vivian Santiago '98 has been admitted to a Ph.D. program in epidemiology at the School of Public Health. After working in Ramallah (West Bank) teaching violin at a music conservatory in 1998-99, Jeanne Roningen moved to Mexico (Toluca, then Mexico City), married Patrick Kennelly, taught high school physics and math and now has a daughter, Maria Christina, born in October 2001. Cristina Rumbaitis-del Rio is finishing a Ph.D. in ecology at the University of Colorado. Life in Boulder is pretty much idyllic, but she still misses New York. Her research is in forest ecology, particularly disturbance ecology, logging and forest management. This fall, she's taking a break from schoolwork and research to do an American Association for the Advancement of Science Mass Media Fellowship. She'll work as a science journalist for WOSU, an NPR station in Columbus, Ohio. After that, she'll finish her thesis, graduate and rejoin the working world. Rohit Modak married Prema Thirumlai, a 1998 graduate of the Stevens Institute of Technology, on March 30 at the Wayne Manor in Wayne, N.J. Both graduated from New Jersey Medical School in May. They are moving to Washington, D.C., where Rohit will start residency in internal medicine at George Washington University. The following Columbia alumni were at the wedding: Kevin McDonald, who recently quit his job in investment banking; Will Eisner; Tex Miller, who just moved from N.Y. to Texas and is planning to follow his girlfriend to L.A., where he'll continue his job as a day trader; Paul Chiu, who works for Merrill Lynch and is engaged to Julie Lee, a nurse in the Pediatric ICU at Cornell Medical Center; Jebin Chacko, who began residency at New Jersey Medical School in internal medicine in June; Tarun Mathur '97E, who will begin residency at Brown in internal medicine; Andy Scott '97E, who will start at Columbia B-school in the fall; Mike DeBennidittis '97E, who moved to Chicago from N.Y. for a job; Ernest Yakob '97E, who's a Law School graduate; Arby Engelman '97E, who's working for an accounting company in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; and Tom Pinit '97E, who's living in Oregon and is engaged to Kirstin, whom he met there. Amrit Nagpal received his M.B.A from the Anderson School at UCLA in June. His wife, Ritu, also attended the program and graduated in June. They are moving back to San Francisco this summer. Jyoti Khullar reports that while traveling for work in
London, she came across a very familiar face on the television -
her freshman year suitemate from Carman 10, Kate Noble, a
reporter for the BBC.
Sandra P. Angulo Chen In summer-job news, Julie Yufe will be in cookie heaven working for Pepperidge Farm in brand management. This fall, she returns to Yale Business School for her M.B.A. program's final year. Now for some wedding updates: Cathy Chang and Chas Sisk were married in May 2001. They live in Boston, where Cathy studies at Harvard's Divinity School. She hopes to be ordained in a few years as a Unitarian Universalist minister. "Divinity School is great, and I love it, although I still prefer Columbia to Harvard," she says. Chas works as a business reporter for a start-up paper, The Daily Deal. This fall, he returns to Morningside Heights to attend the Journalism School. Jackie Vo and Jeff Tse were married on June 1 in Dallas. The couple, who dated throughout their years at Columbia, will have a second reception in New York later in the summer. Jeff will be an emergency medicine resident at Dallas' Southwestern Medical School. Stephen Wan served as Jeff's best man. Stephen works in NYC for Medtronic and is doing very well. Owen Tran '98E and Andrea Chow were among the guests at the Dallas wedding. Andrea is finishing up med school at Penn. Quynh Tran and Rick Bhasin are going to the NYC reception. Quynh was married last September to Hau Cai '95. She works for Citibank. Rick is a neurology resident in Orlando. Best wishes to all the happily married alums! And once again,
please send in your updates, especially if I haven't heard from you
in the past.
Charles S. Leykum Thanks to those classmates who sent in updates. First, congratulations to those classmates who finished up law, business, medical and other graduate programs this past May. We are in the process of assembling a complete list of recent graduates, so please send us any updates, information and announcements so that we can include them in the next issue of CCT. Robin Chan spent four months traveling abroad, spending some time in Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia and various places in between. Upon his return to the United States, Robin spent a few months with the Red Cross at Ground Zero. Most recently, he moved to Washington, D.C., where he works for a boutique management consulting company that has offices in Washington and Lisbon. Sarah Holst works in London for Salomon Smith Barney in a year-long rotation in the high yield group. After she finishes, she will move to Chicago in the fall to start at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, where she will receive the Merton H. Miller fellowship in finance. Also on the international front, Slaten Bickford will be moving to London for a year, where he will attend the London Business School. Prior to the move, Slaten worked for Clarion Partners, a portfolio management company in New York, and taught English in the Canary Islands for three months. Congratulations again to graduating classmates. As always,
please e-mail us and let us know about your whereabouts, and we
will include them. We look forward to staying in touch with
you.
Prisca Bae Hi, again. Listen. I tried to ask you nicely for updates, but now I fear I may need to resort to petty threats. No real news may mean having to spread salacious gossip through the pages of CCT. And I know that all of you read this, though you don't like to admit it. You know who you are. Anyhow, people have gone back to school and among this year's group are Charlotte Sanders (Harvard Law), James Alexander (urban studies and planning at MIT) and Sarika Doshi (Georgetown Law). Desiree Santos has been at the School of Social Work and expects to graduate in 2003. I know there are many others, but since I don't know exactly where you're going at press time, you'll need to e-mail me now with the news. On a recent trip to New York, I called Lystra Batchoo only to have her answer from a U-Haul on the Long Island Expressway with Joel Daniels and Seth Kammerman. Apparently, they were on their way to IKEA to purchase new trinkets for some lucky apartment in the city. And in D.C., when hanging out with Ramsey Chamie '01, I ran into Rhonda Henderson. She was preparing to run a marathon for charity and while she will have already completed this amazing feat by the time this goes to print, I'm sure she'll still accept donations. Please e-mail her at henderson_rhonda@hotmail.com for details. I've been traveling a lot lately for work, and one spot that I return to with some frequency is Los Angeles. On my last trip to the West Coast, I spent some quality time at a bar in Korea Town with Rashmi Menon, Erica Easley, Josh Krefetz and Mira Lew (who is still the avid Toronto Maple Leafs fan). Erica had a great story to tell about a bar brawl with Bob Sagat (you know, the Full House dad). Also in Los Angeles is Christine Martinez. Genna Weinstein '01 reports that Charles Saliba is alive and well in New York doing something incredibly exciting (Charles, please e-mail!). Genna moved back to New York City from Washington D.C., and her longtime roommate, Mariel Martinez '01, is at law school at Penn. Mason Bates is in a Ph.D. program in composition at UC Berkeley. He recently was awarded a Charles Ives Fellowship, which is given to composers mid-career. Staci R. Covin has been campaign manager at O'Neil & Associates, a fund raising consulting firm in Atlanta. She manages capital and endowment campaigns, conducts campaign planning studies, coordinates campaign leadership activities and researches prospective donors. Some of her projects were working with the Girl Scouts of South Central Alabama and the Atlanta Bar Foundation. And finally, congrats to Gideon Yago, who I've been told has made Teen People's "Hottest Stars Under 25" list! Take care and please write, or call (202) 210-7747.
Jonathan Gordin Hello, everybody! If you haven't written in, I'd love to hear from you. I know many of you are off to graduate school this coming year; let me know what you're up to! Davina Cohen lives in Adams Morgan (D.C.) where she works as a reporter-researcher for The New Republic. "I'm still on the board of directors of the New York Abortion Access Fund, which I started with Lauren Porsch '01 Barnard and Irene Xanthoudakis '01 Barnard. I'm in New York at least once a month. I busy myself by studying acting at the Studio Theatre Conservatory, organizing parties and dinners, milking the D.C. performance scene for all it's worth, putting together wacky costumes, riding my bike and scheming to move to bigger and busier urban centers. I'm likely to be in Bangkok, London or the San Francisco Bay Area next year." Davina also reported that Kaya Tretjak and Ben Dubin-Thaler '00 are living together in Washington Heights, preparing to move to Berkeley in the fall, where Kaya will begin law school. John Balonze is a legal assistant for Orans, Elsen & Lupert and this summer will teach English in Beijing. Miles Berger wrote in from the Bay Area. "I'm still in med school here in San Francisco ... probably doing research on memory this summer, moving over to 'the dark side,' that is, neuroscience, as is my friend, David Tsay." David is an M.D./Ph.D. student at Columbia. Lorin Scher is doing well in medical school in D.C. Dave Dobkin '01E works hard at a demanding investment banking job and is living in Murray Hill; Joe Speiser '01GS lives in the same building. Ari Shrage finished his first year at the Business School and Yael Lerman is in law school at Berkeley. Liz Griffith has made yet another job change; she hopes it's the the last for a while. In mid-February, she quit her job in publishing for a position with Dyncorp, one of the nation's largest federal contractors. She's working with the criminal division of the U.S. Attorney's Office in a role focused strictly on terrorism. She reports that the work is very rewarding and the people are great, too (including Assistant U.S. Attorney Dani James '90 and Paralegal Richard Stephan '98). The only drawback is long hours, roughly comparable to those of her investment banking friends, including boyfriend Brian Bedner, who is at Salomon Smith Barney. In late March, I attended a casual party for Alex Eule's birthday at his apartment in Murray Hill. Also attending were Ronen Landa, Scott Hefler, Jamie Rubin '01 Barnard, Michelle Barone '01E, Dave Beatus, Pat Rausch '01E and Michelle Kann '01 Barnard. It turns out that Reema Kapadia and Rabia Saeed live in the same building! Vaughn Glover went to Los Angeles after graduation and got a job reviewing and selecting films for the Pan-African Film and Arts Festival. He is on his way to Brazil to consult for various festivals there. Jesse Costello-Good is a software developer for SparkNotes in Chelsea and lives in the West Village. Jesse is "possibly gearing up for a move abroad, don't ask me where, but I'm being held in NYC for now by the love of my life." Jesse visited Cuba in the spring and reports that "you're really better off vacationing in Mexico." Billy Kingsland will attend University College in London for an M.A. in English Literature this fall. His flatmate, Sarah Rosenbaum, will attend Harvard to pursue a Ph.D. in art history. Since returning from Scandiano, Italy, last summer, Max Dickstein has returned home to Sacramento and found work as a waiter and freelance writer/editor in "various circumstances," one of which is a correspondent for Slam, a New York-based basketball magazine. "That means I get to fulfill a dream by going to all the games with a press pass and chill with players and coaches. Then I write down what they tell me, put it in a punchy note form, and send it off to be posted online. It's a very good time, and I don't think I could have made this year back home worth the while without that job." Max intends to return to New York by September, if not earlier. He's not sure what he'll be doing once he gets here, but his options might include acting, waitering, freelancing or working in publishing. Max's girlfriend, Alexandra Alter, is studying languages and writing for an English newspaper in Katmandu, Nepal. She intends to enroll in grad school in New York this fall. Seth Kotch, girlfriend Anne Olivar, Luc Greicius and Jon Fox have moved to the Bay Area. Chris Brady lives with Andrea Villanti in New York. Chris works in a dermatology lab at Mount Sinai hospital and attends frequent improv classes at Upright Citizens Brigade theater downtown. Tom Hughes teaches English and social studies to 7th graders in the Oakland, Calif., school district. He plans to continue teaching next year and enjoys living in the Bay Area. It was great to see him in N.Y. during his recent visit. Alisa Amarosa works at Deutsche Bank in the Private Equity Group. "Even though I was born and raised in Manhattan, I decided I that wanted to remain here after graduation to begin my career in investment banking. I am a member of the Columbia Club, where I run into our classmates constantly. I stay in touch with the Columbia community through alumni interviewing for undergraduate admissions. When I am not at work, I commute to Washington, D.C., to see my boyfriend, Alastair Wood, who attends law school at George Washington University." Laurance Guido '00 is in Paris studying at the Cordon Bleu. Aaron Cohen attends graduate school for real estate development at the University of Pennsylvania. Allison Abell lives in Manhattan and works at Bloomberg. Donnie Opici travels and plays tennis, but rather than being a Lion, he plays professionally. Tom Nelson moved to Las Vegas and works for Whiting Turner as a project manager for the construction of a new-age mall. Rachel Miller attends law school in Chicago at Northwestern. Christine Miola and Elinor Adams entered the religious life and are completing their novitiate year in a convent outside D.C., the Institute of the Incarnate Word. The ceremony of Investiture (taking of the habit) took place on October 21 amid many friends and family. Among the guests were Douglas Dunlap, Elisa Melendez, Elaine Shen and Laura Lattman, while Father Thomas Valenti, campus minister and football chaplain, co-celebrated the Mass. Christine and Elinor received their religious names: Sister Maria del Fiat (for Chrissy) and Sister Maria Theotokos (for Elinor). That's it for now - keep in touch.
Ishwara Glassman Can you believe it? We're now officially Columbia College alumni. Isn't that scary? I hope that you had a wonderful senior week filled with plenty of partying and friends, followed by a memorable, family-filled graduation. Please, please send me your updates so that I can share them with our class. The best way to reach me is via e-mail: ikg3@columbia.edu. That said, let's get to our updates. Our ever-crazy senior class president, Mike Mellia, "will be eating beans out of a can as a starving jazz musician." It looks as if we have some budding lawyers in our class. Jason Ross will be a litigation legal assistant for Cravath, Swaine & Moore in NYC and will live with his buddies Alex Perez, Spencer Schulz, Edwin Kim and Andy Boli. David Chubak plans to "continue my efforts to conquer the world ... by studying law and politics in a reputable American institution of law." Kyla Pavlina will attend law school in the fall at Cleveland State after traveling around Europe this summer. Staying in New York to attend law school is Hissan Bajwa, who plans to attend NYU. Joe Case plans to play basketball in Europe next year before attending film school. Chad Bonner will spend the summer on a grand tour of Europe with Nathan Kielbasa, Max Saffian and Rob Hoffman. After a tour of Italy, France, Spain, Switzerland and Germany, Chad probably will head off to West Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer doing public health work there, mainly HIV/AIDS education. Charles Donohoe will spend the summer studying Mandarin at UC Berkeley's program in Beijing before relocating to Shanghai in the fall. He encourages fellow CC'02 alumni to contact him if they're passing through China. We also have some people pursuing master's degrees. Liz Viriya '02E will continue her studies of biomedical engineering at Columbia. Sarah Palestrant will travel in China this summer, potentially meeting up with Charles Donohoe, before completing her M.Phil. from Cambridge in the history and philosophy of science. Sarah plans to attend med school. Yaacob Dweck also will be at Cambridge, pursuing an M.Phil. in Jewish history. Yael Sadan will work at a summer day camp while taking a year off before applying to med schools. Other future doctors are Andrew Greene, who will attend med school at P&S in the fall. He plans an American road trip this summer. Tiffany Rounsville will study for the MCAT this summer and apply to med schools in the fall. Janna Kohout will study for the DAT this summer before pursuing her love of teeth in dental school. We have some young economists in our class. Scott Imberman will pursue a Ph.D. in economics at the University of Maryland while Ting (Will) Wu gets his at Columbia. Matt Kondratowicz will work at the New York Federal Reserve Bank and then hopes to one day attend graduate school in my home state, California. Evan Zeisel is one of our actors who plans to "bum around New York City trying the route of the impoverished, but well-educated, young actor. So, mostly taking classes and auditioning up the wazoo." Lara Stoby-Joffre also will be in NYC while auditioning for drama schools in London. Charlie Katz-Leavy will live in NYC and work for Jim
Grant of Grant's Investor, Inc., dividing time between Grant's
Interest Rate Observer and Grant's project on John Adams.
Michelle Bertagna will travel in Europe with Charlie for the
summer before starting work at Beecher Investors in NYC as a
marketing analyst. Also working in finance is Sonia Dandona,
an analyst at Morgan Stanley.
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