Summer 2024 Class Notes Preview: 2000s

2000

Kavita Shah Bafana
ks286@caa.columbia.edu

Hello, my dear Class of 2000 friends! It’s always heartwarming to hear about the fantastic journeys and accomplishments of classmates. Let me share with you some of the inspiring updates and achievements from our incredible class:

In the vibrant world of literature, classmates have been busy weaving words into stories that captivate and enlighten. Sylvia Chen is over the moon about her debut picture book, Tricky Chopsticks, which hit the shelves on March 19. The book follows the imaginative Jenny Chow, a young Chinese-American girl, as she navigates challenges with her STEAM-powered problem-solving skills.

Sylvia’s transition from a statistics major at Columbia to authoring a children’s book is nothing short of inspiring. For more about this delightful story, check out trickychopsticks.com and sylviaichen.com.

Abigail Krauser Shrier has published her second book, Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up, which has already gained international acclaim.

Congratulations, Abigail, on this fantastic accomplishment!

Charles Ayres celebrated a significant milestone by marrying his partner, George (Jorge) Escobar Toruño. Additionally, Charles released a book, Meet Me in Miami.

Wishing you a lifetime of happiness, Charles and George!

Phoebe Mikhail (née Farag) has some exciting updates. She signed a contract for her second book, Hunger for Righteousness: A Lenten Guide to Intimacy with God and Love for Our Neighbor, which will be released in January. Phoebe also received the Louisville Institute’s 2024 Pastoral Study Project Grant for her research and translation work on her third book, To Live is Christ: A Life and Letters of the Late Bishop Samuel.

Congratulations, Phoebe, on the book and the grant!

Kevin Woodson has recently published his first book, The Black Ceiling: How Race Still Matters in the Elite Workplace. Based on more than 100 qualitative interviews conducted while completing his Ph.D. in sociology at Princeton, Kevin’s book introduces important hidden challenges that many Black professionals experience at law firms, investment banks and other elite workplaces. Kevin is a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law.

Congratulations, Kevin, on this important and timely work!

Shifting gears from the literary realm, Evan Hutchison is making a splash in politics. He was gearing up to be on the ballot for the Democratic Primary for New York’s 10th Congressional District on June 25.

We’re cheering you on, Evan, and wishing you success in your political journey!

In the academic sphere, Adriana Villavicencio TC’02 has some wonderful news to share. After a fruitful five years in California, she’s returning to the Big Apple with her family to embark on a tenure-track position at NYU Steinhardt.

We’re thrilled for you, Adriana, and can’t wait to see the impact you’ll make in your new role!

It’s truly a joy to see our class continue to shine and make a difference in so many areas. If you have updates or news to share, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Let’s keep the spirit of the Class of 2000 alive and strong!

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2001

Jonathan Gordin
jrg53@columbia.edu

Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg writes, “After 12 years at the Legal Aid Justice Center in Virginia, most recently as its litigation director, I’ve moved into private practice. I’m now a partner and head of litigation at Murray Osorio, a full-service immigration law firm with offices in Virginia, Maryland and New Jersey.”

Congratulations, Simon!

Classmates, please share your news, too.

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2002

Sonia Hirdaramani
soniahird@gmail.com

Dr. Jane Rosen Ph.D. and Anthony Parisi Ph.D. got married on Dec. 21, 2022, “after eight years of procrastination!” They have plans for more celebration in 2024.

Sara Rubenstein writes: “I currently manage Henning Larsen’s North American business, a job I started when we had a fledgling office in New York five years ago. We have hit the ground running and will soon have seven buildings out of the ground in North America. I would love to connect with anyone in the real estate and higher education fields. I married William West, a classmate from the Yale School of Architecture, and we have two children, Miriam (7) and Samuel (4).”

Elizabeth Matory, who holds a J.D. and an M.B.A., writes, “I finally found my vocation after two decades of searching now that I am the main instructor for the Second Chance Pell program, taught through my small university, Glenville State University, here in the heart of ‘Wild and Wonderful’ West Virginia. To help incarcerated citizens earn their college degrees and reclaim their futures very much feeds my soul. Though I probably won’t be coming back to NYC any time soon, I wish everyone the very best. And if ever you’re out yonder, holler. Much love!”

Kim Van Orden Ph.D. recently became co-director of the Center for the Study and Prevention of Suicide at the University of Rochester Medical Center. After studying psychology at Columbia, she earned a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Florida State University and then completed a fellowship at URMC. She now leads a research lab on clinical geropsychology focused on treating social isolation and loneliness to reduce suicide risk.

Jillian White’s career has been marked by a passionate commitment to addressing discrimination in real estate appraising. Her efforts have gained significant attention, notably through her being featured in the Jan. 10, 2023, New York Times article “How Three Black Women Hope to Change the Home Appraisal Industry.” This topic garnered scrutiny following Abena Horton (née Sanders) being featured in the Aug. 20, 2020, New York Times article “Black Homeowners Face Discrimination in Appraisals.” Jillian’s advocacy and expertise were further showcased in the Hulu documentary Our America: Lowballed. She has two government contracts with HUD and the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council to address and mitigate appraisal bias cases, and she recently testified at an Office of the Comptroller of the Currency hearing. In 2023, she founded her own consultancy, Appraisal Insights, which recently launched BIASCAPE, an appraisal bias certification program for lenders. Next they will release a consumer tool that allows homeowners to check the accuracy of their appraisals.

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2003

Michael J. Novielli
mjn29@columbia.edu

To those living in the Northern Hemisphere, I hope you had an enjoyable spring and a good start to the summer. Please spare some time to share a Class Notes update with me so that I can have a more robust column for you.

Adam Kushner has been named deputy editor for The Morning at The New York Times. Interested classmates can sign up for this daily newsletter: nytimes.com/newsletters/morning-briefing.

Jessica Macari has been named general counsel to the State of North Carolina Office of the State Controller.

Adam Libove writes, “I am at the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office as the deputy chief of public integrity. Next semester I’m teaching a class on international financial crimes in Fordham Law’s Program on Corporate Ethics and Compliance. I would love to hear from alums who work in BSA/AML (Bank Secrecy Act/Anti-Money Laundering) or OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control) compliance, fellow prosecutors or white-collar defense attorneys.”

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2004

Jaydip Mahida
jmahida@gmail.com

Julianna Dudas writes, “After spending 15 years working in the entertainment industry, I pivoted and left Los Angeles in 2018 to pursue a second career in medicine. My love of botany and exploring the mind-body connection led me to get my doctorate at Bastyr University. Now a licensed naturopathic medical doctor under the California Board, I enjoy treating patients with complex chronic illness at Restor Medicine, a private clinic in Mission Hills, San Diego. I take a functional, integrative approach, and help patients from all around the world via telemedicine. It is challenging but rewarding! My focus is primarily in tickborne illness, environmental disease including mold and mycotoxin illness, mast cell activation and histamine intolerance, as well as autoimmune disease.”

Marina Severinovsky BUS’09 is in her 14th year working for Schroders Asset Management and in her third year as the head of sustainability, North America. She and her husband, Michael, were looking forward to celebrating the joy of their oldest son Mason’s bar mitzvah in May.

That’s all for this issue! Please continue to send updates, as we want to hear from as many folks as possible. Career and family updates are always great, but please share fun anecdotes, memories or any updates!

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2005

Sallie Touma
sallie@sallietutor.com

Hi, Class of 2005! Would you be interested in a supper club where we host one another at a different house each month? I’m happy to organize the program for the Tri-State area and to host one of the first ones!

In professional news, I rebranded to Sallie Tutor. I expanded to tutor the verbal section of the new digital SAT. I still tutor math and physics. I am also an adjunct college math professor.

And now on to our classmates’ news.

In 40th birthday bash news, Elizabeth Greene (née Levine) shares, “I’ve been living in Washington, D.C., since graduation. I completed medical school and residency in psychiatry at The George Washington University and have been a psychiatrist at the Washington, D.C., veterans hospital since 2015. My husband, Cary, and I have two sons, Henry (12) and Sam (10).

“Last Memorial Day weekend I met up with Sety Britton SEAS ’05 (née Siadat), Carah Santos Lunn SEAS ’05 and Michelle Bumgarner (née Ko) at the Lake Austin Spa Resort in Austin, Texas, to celebrate our 40th birthdays. Sety lives in Florida, Carah lives in California and Michelle lives in New York, so Texas was a perfect midway point. We had a great time hiking, relaxing and catching up. I feel so fortunate that we’ve managed to stay close through the years. It’s been amazing seeing everyone transition into adulthood and parenthood. We hope to continue to get together in the years to come.”

Go to this column online on July 11 at college.columbia.edu/cct to see a photo of the group!

In interior design news, Jenny Madden (née Korecky) shares, “My husband, Greg Madden, and I have settled into Westfield, N.J., with our two young boys. I’ve relocated my interior design firm, Jenny Madden Design, from Hoboken to Westfield, as well. The firm was recently featured in New Jersey Monthly magazine for our design of NBC sports broadcaster Kathryn Tappen’s new home.”

We also have author Katya Apekina. She shares, “My novel Mother Doll came out on March 12. [As I write this in March, I am] about to leave for a book tour. I held an event in Los Angeles at Skylight Books, where I was in conversation with Ottessa Moshfegh BC’02.” See the nearby photo of Katya and Juliet Grames!

Francesca Hoffman has a new venture. She is “hard at work opening Unicorn Bar, a queer-forward performance venue, bar and eatery in Kingston, N.Y. [As I write this, it was scheduled to open in] April, and will provide a safe, sex-positive and inclusive party space for the LGBTQ+ community within Kingston and the greater Hudson Valley region, as well as host a range of musical and performance events, community gatherings and more (unicornkingston.com).”

Juliet Grames writes, “My second novel, The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia, comes out on July 23. It’s set in 1960 in a remote village in southern Italy, where a Barnard grad (Class of 1952) is working for a charity organization to open a nursery school and ends up falling afoul of the entrenched Calabrian mafia. To create the character, I had a lot of fun collecting stories about 1950s student life. (I’m especially grateful to the fascinating alumna and fellow writer Camilla Trinchieri BC’63 — who knew about posture training requirements?) My publisher has put together a generous tour for me, and I hope I will have the chance to reconnect with other Columbia alums on the road this summer. The full itinerary is on julietgrames.com.”

If I missed any of your entries, please contact me at 516-368-6001 or sallie@sallietutor.com (note my new email address!). And if you attended Class Day and/or Columbia Reunion 2024, please send along your news and pictures!

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2006

Andrew Stinger
andrew.stinger@gmail.com

Warm summer greetings to the Class of 2006! It’s lovely to get so many great updates from our peers, and I’m privileged to share the latest news.

In addition to his work in event planning and production in New York City, Justin Ifill is gearing up for another season of yoga retreats. He’d love to hear from any alumni who might be interested in joining him in Panama or Bali in 2025.

Emily Lo Gibson sends her best from the Boston area, where she has made a career shift from architecture to editing and publication design. Emily and her husband welcomed their first child, Nicolas, in August. Emily’s growing family enjoyed a visit from Emily Gromoll, and they hope their son will get to know more of the Columbia community soon!

Following publication of his second book, The Decisive Decade: American Grand Strategy for Triumph Over China, Dr. Jonathan D.T. Ward joined Hudson Institute, a national security think tank in Washington, D.C. Jonathan’s work continues to be read by audiences in U.S. and allied militaries and governments, financial institutions and Fortune 500 businesses. Jonathan also maintains his own strategy consulting business, Atlas Organization. In his own words: “It’s been a great journey since first studying Russian and Chinese language as an undergraduate at Columbia.”

Isabel Estrada-Jamison continues to teach Afro-Cuban dance and rumba on the Lower East Side of New York City. She’d love to welcome fellow alumni in class soon.

Dr. Mohammad F. Ali has been promoted to chief of gastroenterology and hepatology at Oswego Health as well as being medical director of its Center for Gastroenterology & Metabolic Diseases.

Finally, Jennifer Broxmeyer is proud to have defeated Matthew Rascoff ’01 in the “Coke and Pepsi” challenge at the Silicon Valley event known as “The Lovey Party.” Out of a highly competitive field of entrants, Jennifer was the only competitor to achieve a perfect score.

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2007

David Donner Chait
david.donner.chait@gmail.com

I hope everyone is doing well, and thank you to everyone who shared updates with our class.

Josie Raymond (née Swindler) writes, “I’m wrapping up my third term in the Kentucky House of Representatives and am looking forward next year to serving on Louisville’s Metro Council, where I’m running unopposed. I’m hopeful we can be more nimble and proactive at the local level. Plus, I’ll be going from the superminority to the majority!”

Michele Scott, tribal councilor for the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, was appointed in February to the U.S. Health and Human Services’ Advisory Committee on Minority Health. In addition, she was appointed to the National Institutes of Health’s Tribal Advisory Committee as the Nashville Regional Delegate.

After three years of service, Luke McGowan left the Biden White House, where he had served as a senior adviser for economic recovery. Luke now works at Bloomberg Philanthropies, leading federal initiatives and supporting mayors around the world. He’s happy he’ll be back in New York frequently, and will be able to see
fellow Columbia alumni more often.

Elyse Oleksak (née Pultz) published A Shark Ate My Bagel: How We Built Bantam Bagels, a Memoir (howwebuiltbantambagels.com) in March on Amazon and audiobooks on Audible, iPhone and Spotify.

Sohan Dasgupta addressed world leaders, including U.S. senators, U.S. members of Congress and foreign leaders at the Congress of the United States. Several senators, members of Congress, foreign heads of state and members of Parliament also spoke. Sohan’s lecture, “Adversarial Foreign Investments and the Free World,” concerned significant questions of national security, international trade and the rule of law.

Tao Tan BUS’11 writes, “My wife, Sarah Gitlin ’13, and I have found ourselves inadvertently doing a ‘Lit Hum tour.’ Right now, we’re in La Mancha, Spain, so we promptly attacked a windmill.”

Kasia Nikhamina (née Kozanecka) writes Divinity School, weekly letters about city life, at kasianikhamina.substack.com.

In 2022, Kasia published two essays about losing her mother to Covid-19: “What else can I give you?” on Roxane Gay’s The Audacity, and “COVID: Theme and Escalations,” on Intima: A journal of narrative medicine. In April, Kasia was a resident at the Virginia Center for Creative Arts; she is working on her first novel.

Andy Wolfe writes, “I spent more than three months on retreat during the last year and rebranded to Sati Leadership Coaching, where I practice balancing healthy masculine thinking and strength with feminine feeling and ease.

“Sati is a Pali word that the colonial English translated as mindfulness. Pali is the original language of the ancient Buddhist texts that teach us what’s now known as mindfulness meditation. More accurately, sati means remembering.

“With mindfulness meditation, we’re not looking for anything new or different, like peace or happiness. Nor are we controlling the mind or removing anger, sadness or fear. We’re practicing sati — remembering our innate purity, remembering our bodies — by noticing and allowing things as they are, even when they feel unpleasant, as an inherent part of life. This gives uncomfortable body sensations space to release, bypassing otherwise subconscious attempts to find relief through unskillful reaction.

“By resting the attention on the breath and kindly returning to it each time the mind naturally gets distracted, compassion builds from the inside, out. This leads to acceptance and equanimity that gradually extend from ourselves and the beings that bring us smiles to include those we find most difficult.

“Our awareness slowly expands to illuminate what was previously too difficult to see. Previously subconscious grasping and aversion soften, and the body-heart-mind orients away from suffering and toward peace and connection. We learn to relax into the ever-changing present moment and develop the wisdom to know when and how to respond skillfully, now using the mind to gently guide attention. With clear seeing, we wake up to the many joys that already surround us. This generates lasting contentment.”

I’m sad to share the passing of Tim Walker in February 2024, after a hard-fought battle with cancer. Tim played football and rugby at CU and was a beloved teacher at Chapel Hill Academy in Lincoln Park, N.J. Classmates have shared this GoFundMe to support his wife and 18-month-old son: . [Editor’s note: See “Obituaries,” online July 11, at college.columbia.edu/cct.]

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2008

Bradley Blackburn
blb2104@columbia.edu

Hope you’re enjoying the summer months, CC’08!

The beautiful Avery Library was always a favorite place to study on campus, and I recently had a nice reason to visit again. My wife, Gilma Avalos, and I live with our daughters in an apartment building designed in the 1920s by Emery Roth. I had read that Avery maintains Roth’s archives, and the gracious librarians were able to pull the original hand-drawn blueprints for our building to see in person. It was a thrill to connect with history, and a welcome reminder that the alumni reading card comes with all kinds of resources.

Thanks to all classmates who shared their updates:

Ryan MacCarrigan began teaching within the innovation management and startup immersion programs at UC Berkeley in fall 2023. He also founded Cinema for Good, which produces the Merylthon, a three-day film fundraiser featuring Meryl Streep in eight iconic film roles. All proceeds from the Merylthon benefit the nonprofit counseling agency Queer LifeSpace.

Betsy Purves (née Remes) started a job in February as director of institutional advancement at the Meridian International Center. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband, Jon; children, Robbie (6) and Claire (3); and elderly black Lab.

Carmen Jo “CJ” Rejda-Ponce is a litigation partner in Houston, specializing in employment and civil rights defense litigation. She recently earned her certification in Labor and Employment Law from the Texas Board of Legal Specialization, an honor held by only 650 lawyers in the state.

Misha Shklyar has been working on an app, “I Aced Calculus,” for two years, which is finally on the App Store and Google Play! He’s really proud of the thorough work he and his team did. Misha can now spend more time with his lovely wife and his toddler, who speaks Russian, English and Mandarin.

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2009

Shira Burton
shira.burton@gmail.com

Hello, classmates! Thanks for sending so many great updates this time. Before I get into them, I want to make a pitch to you — I swear Columbia didn’t put me up to this. During the last few years, I have been volunteering as a mentor through the Odyssey Mentoring Program (OMP; odyssey.college.columbia.edu). Typically, I sign up to receive a mentee each semester, and sometimes there is a program in the summer. My mentees have been first- through fourth-year students, and I’ve also communicated with young alumni through the program. OMP does not ask for much of your time; you’re only required to have a one-hour conversation with your mentee, although the mentorship can go beyond that one meeting. As an alumna living outside of NYC, I enjoy the opportunity to connect with current students, hear about what is happening on campus and reminisce about how things were almost 20 years ago (yikes). It feels good to know I’m supporting students and sharing a perspective they might not otherwise hear. I would really recommend giving OMP a try!

Yareni “Yari” Sanchez, a real estate attorney at Goulston & Storrs in Boston, has been named a 2024 “Up & Coming Lawyer” by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly. Yari focuses her practice on development, permitting and zoning, as well as transactional matters such as acquisitions, dispositions, financing and related matters.

C. Zachary Rosenberg GSAS’09 was recently promoted to member at Rottenberg Lipman Rich, where he has practiced law for the last eight years.

Phil Rabovsky reports that after living in Hungary and Chile for a few years, he has returned to NYC and joined the faculty of the School of Visual Arts, leading seminars for second- and third-year candidates at the MFA Art Practice program.

Annie Ma-Weaver and Jacob Ma-Weaver GSAS’09 write that they finally moved into their (they hope forever) home in San Francisco after five-plus years of gut renovation. They would love to see you and show you their labor of love, so please reach out if you’re in or visiting the Bay.

Arita Thatte GS’15 writes, “I finished my chief residency at the University of Washington in internal medicine and will move to California for an endocrinology fellowship at Stanford in July!”

Joanna Smolenski completed a two-year clinical ethics fellowship at UCLA Health, after which she accepted a faculty position as an assistant professor at the Baylor College of Medicine Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy in Houston, beginning in July 2023. In addition to continuing her research and teaching medical students, she is a clinical ethicist at Houston Methodist Hospital, and is excited to meet any and all Columbians in the greater Houston area.

Daniella Zalcman writes, “I moved to New Orleans a few years back and joined the faculty of Tulane University last fall. I teach community engagement journalism and visual media ethics, and am really enjoying spending more time in the classroom. I continue to run my nonprofit, Women Photograph, and am a photojournalist as well — my latest National Geographic story on the history of coercive assimilation education for Indigenous youth in America won a National Magazine Award.”

That’s all for now! If you have contributions for next time, you can email me or use the Class Notes webform, college.columbia.edu/cct/submit_class_note. CCT also welcomes photos that feature at least two CC alumni for Class Notes, or one CC alum — if a member of the couple — for the “Just Married!” section: college.columbia.edu/cct/submit_class_note_photo.