Alumni in the News: March 11, 2024

Lion authors are getting great reviews! Brad Gooch ’73’s new biography, Radiant: The Life and Line of Keith Haring, was called “devoted and probably definitive” in a March 3 New York Times review; on February 12, the Times said Kelly Link ’91’s first novel, The Book of Love, was “dreamlike and profoundly beautiful.”

Jenny Slate ’04 appeared on NPR’s “All Things Considered” on February 25; she discussed her stand-up special Seasoned Professional, currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

A February 21 New York Times roundup of upcoming spring performances included the hotly anticipated Alicia Keys autobiographical musical, Hell’s Kitchen, starring Brandon Victor Dixon ’03. The show opens in previews on March 28 at the Schubert Theater.

The first two singles from Vampire Weekend’s upcoming album, Only God Was Above Us, were featured in the February 16 Vulture article “All Aboard the Vampire Weekend Comeback Train.” It’s the newest album from the band — Ezra Koenig ’06, Chris Tomson ’06 and Chris Baio ’07 — since 2019’s Father of the Bride; all 10 tracks will be released on April 5.

Marvel Studios announced on February 14 that Emmy winner Ebon Moss-Bachrach ’99 will play Ben Grimm (The Thing) in the film Fantastic Four; the movie will hit theaters in July 2025. In January, Moss-Bachrach was named Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy for his role on The Bear.

On February 8, Nikolas P. Tsakos ’85, founder, president and CEO of Tsakos Energy Navigation Limited, received the 2024 Capital Link Greek Shipping Leadership Award for his outstanding contribution to Greek and global shipping.

Coleman Hughes ’20 was the subject of the February 1 New York Times article “The Young Black Conservative Who Grew Up With, and Rejects, D.E.I.” Hughes’ book, The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America, was released on February 6.

The Times’ Mini-Vows section on January 26 featured two Columbia grooms: Garth Wingfield ’87 and Peter Manning GS’04. Wingfield and Manning were married on January 13 at The Church of St. Luke in the Fields in Manhattan.

On January 22 it was announced that former Columbia soccer player Ally Clark ’23 inked her first professional deal with Odense Boldklub Q of the Kvinde-DM Liga in Denmark. Her contract will run until summer 2025. “I am very much looking forward to becoming a part of OB Q and our ambitious goals,” Clark said.

Rabbi Sharon Brous ’99, GSAS’01 wrote the January 19 New York Times guest essay “Train Yourself to Always Show Up.” Brous is the founding and senior rabbi of Ikar, a Jewish community based in Los Angeles, and the author of The Amen Effect.

On January 5, it was announced that Michael Gerrard ’72, the Andrew Sabin Professor of Professional Practice at the Law School and the founder and faculty director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, was inducted into the 2024 class of The Lawdragon Hall of Fame.

The papers of journalist Eugene L. Meyer ’59 were donated to the Maryland and Historical Collections at the University of Maryland Libraries, it was announced on December 7. Meyer was a reporter and editor at The Washington Post and contributed to The New York Times, Bethesda Magazine, U.S. News & World Report and Washingtonian, among others