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CLASS NOTES
Ana S. Salper So. At long last we have come to the year 2001. It's not quite the disturbing space age future envisioned by Stanley Kubrick over 30 years ago, but I must admit I was quite worried about the future of our nation during all of the election chaos. Oh, to have the journalistic freedom to say more on this topic...but alas, I'll restrain myself and just get on to your news. Barbara Antonucci provided many of us '96ers with an opportunity to reunite and celebrate at her magnificent wedding to Nicholas Mercer at the Waldorf Astoria this past October. Joining me in the festivities were Mirella Cheeseman, Julie Satow, Matt Lasner, Geremy Kawaller, Ben Donner, Brandon Kessler, Lara Bazelon, Amanda Cox, Jill Szuchmacher, Leila Kazemi, Melissa Gajarsa, Dalina Sumner, Charlie Gaul, Mike Kadish, and Barnard '96 graduates Vivien Labaton, Chloe Court, Christine Jeanerette, and Bernadette Cruz. All of the '96 graduates are, as per usual, doing fabulous things with their lives. Melissa is a graphic designer at etown.com, Jill started her own software company in New York that integrates theater and the Internet, Amanda is in her third year at Albert Einstein Medical School here in New York, Lara is clerking for a federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Los Angeles, and Dalina is finishing her master's degree in art history at Columbia. As for Barbara, after returning reluctantly from her exotic honeymoon in Fiji, Singapore and Hong Kong, she has settled into work at Brobeck, Phleger and Harrison in San Francisco in the labor and employment group. Stanley Leung and Robert David, both students in the medical scholars program at the University of Illinois, recently won the title of "Beef Eaters" at Alexander's Steak House in Champaign. Apparently, in order to attain this prestigious award, Stanley and Robert were each required to finish three pounds of very rare sirloin steak, including toast and a baked potato. What can I say, guys...congratulations on your impressive feat. Also in Illinois is Jennifer Chan, who is finishing her third year at Northwestern Medical School in Chicago. Scott Sinawi is in his last year at Harvard Law and will spend the remaining months practicing his tennis strokes. After spending this upcoming summer traveling in France and Italy, Scott will join Morgan Stanley Dean Witter's investment banking division as a full-time associate. Scott also writes that Steve Lim, who until recently was working with Digital-Compaq, just took a position at Oracle and moved up to Nashua, N.H. to settle into his new life there. After three years of working at the Columbia Astrophysics Laboratory on the Morningside campus and a year of working at the Biosphere 2 Observatory in Arizona, Jonathan Kemp has relocated to the Big Island of Hawaii. He has taken on the duties of telescope system specialist at the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, a 15-meter telescope operating at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths. It is located on Mauna Kea, headquartered in Hilo, and operated by the British-Dutch-Canadian Joint Astronomy Center. If anyone is interested in contacting Jonathan, he can be reached at j.kemp@jach.hawaii.edu. I wish you all a safe and happy new year. Send in more news, don't forget about our fifth-year reunion June 1-3, and take these wise words to heart: "I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy-but that could change." President George W. Bush, Jr. (from speech made May 22, 1998). Gen Connors writes that she is back from a wonderful year in Colombo, Sri Lanka, where she worked for a government agency called the Urban Development Authority that involved regional planning. Gen is now at MIT in Boston, getting a Ph.D. in urban & regional planning. She writes that Alisa Tang is back in Illinois working as a journalist, and that Biella Coleman just finished her qualifying exams in anthropology at the University of Chicago and is off to start her dissertation on the free software movement in Silicon Valley.
Sarah Katz Class notes are a little sparse this month. Please e-mail me with any news about you and your friends. Also, if you would like to have your e-mail address added to our class e-mail list, please e-mail me and you will receive a friendly reminder about class notes updates. Congrats to Hans Chen and Sandra Angulo '98 who are engaged! Also congrats to Kellie Durham, who was married to Chris Lewis on October 28, 2000 in Chapel Hill, N.C., and to Jonathan Jacobs and Eric Lee, who were married this fall. Kudos to those that have new jobs: Syreeta McFadden has been promoted to deputy director at the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development for the ANCHOR and Cornerstone Program. She is also doing freelance photography work on the side. Darrell Cohn recently became an information architect at an Internet development company called Fusebox in NYC and is very happy there. Roxanna Nazari graduated from Cornell Law School earlier this year with a JD and LLM in international and comparative law. She's now happily back in Manhattan and working for the law firm Carter, Ledyard & Milburn as an unassigned associate leaning towards litigation work. And the creative among us: John Fletcher is currently completing post-production on his first film, The Accident. The low-budget digital feature will be hitting the festival circuit and seeking distribution this spring. Michelle Caswell is associate producer of AsiaSource at the Asia Society. AsiaSource is pleased to announce a new online exhibition, I to Eye: Portraits of Female Empowerment in Bangladesh by Fariba Alam (www.asiasource.org/arts/alam/intro.html). The stunning black and white portraits in this virtual gallery challenge popular stereotypes of Bangladesh by documenting the lives of active, independent women. Access the online exhibition, an interview with the photographer, and helpful links. Tracey Hammond has left Goldman Sachs after more than four years there to go full-time for her Ph.D. in computer science at MIT. She finished her MS in computer science last December at Columbia. She is living in Cambridge and writes, "It feels like the country compared to New York, but at least I can park my car!" Nick Rynearson is in a Ph.D. program in classics at Princeton. Maggie Osdoby Katz definitely wins an award for most adventurous. She just returned to the states after 2 1/2 years in Georgia - the one by the Black Sea, not the Peach State. Thanks to Columbia, she got there for a three-month fellowship in Parliament and ended up spending two more years at the American Embassy, first trying to keep up with the embassy's explosive growth and then trying to make sense of Georgia's craziness as a political/economic/commercial officer. After enduring winters without heat or electricity, she has returned to NYC to get a job in international trade/finance. Matt Morningstar visited Maggie when she was still in Georgia after his summer at the law firm Mayerbrown in NYC, where he will be working after he graduates from Cornell Law this spring. Maggie reports, "He survived a whirlwind tour of my little third world country, including falling stairs and my murder of a calf in my Russian 4x4." Jamie Rifkin is living in San Francisco and working with United Airlines. Jessica Burlingame is working at Details magazine, living on the Upper East Side and applying to business school. Avani Patel is the youngest sports reporter at the Chicago Tribune. Go Avani! Rachel Goldenberg is in her third year of Hebrew Union College Rabbinical School and is engaged. Jonathan Schwartz was recently in London on business, but while there he visited with Rickie Sonpal, who's studying at Cambridge. Luca Casparis came over and hung out with them as well. As for me, I can fairly say that I survived the first semester of Penn Law School. Although I miss NYC, I am definitely enjoying Penn. I'm looking forward to hearing from many more of you soon.
Sandra P. Angulo Hi Class of '98. Here we are nearing our third year out, and the number of engagements keeps growing. Best wishes are in order to Vanessa Marcol, who's engaged to Scott Sherman '97. According to E.J. Weppler, the two have been dating since our sophomore year. E.J. didn't add too much information about himself, except that he ran the NYC Marathon last November. Way to go, E.J.! Adam Long wrote in for the first time recently. Adam is in his second year of law school at Duke University. The award for most news of the season goes to (drumroll, please): Veronica Lei, who left her job at the U.S. Department of Justice in January, after working in the criminal division's office of overseas prosecutorial development. While at Justice, she was able to travel overseas and coordinate international workshops in Budapest, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Right about now she should be studying Mandarin in Beijing. When Veronica returns from China at the end of the summer, she hopes to be off to law school. If anyone wants to get in touch with Vernoica, you can reach her at vml4@columbia.edu. According to Veronica, my Schapiro 2 floormate Natasha Gouey has moved to Connecticut for some fresh air but still works in Manhattan. She has a new job as an investment advisor for an Internet company called Netfolio. Elliot Lum is a research manager at the Corporate Strategy Board in Washington D.C. He's also on the D.C. Columbia alumni association and organized an all-Ivy League happy hour at the end of October that drew about 200 people. Another FOV (Friend of Veronica), Brian Smith, abandoned the D.C. crew and moved to San Francisco last fall. He works at an Internet start-up called Project Napa (the website is http://peek.projectnapa.com). He's in charge of marketing and business development. On the Brooklyn front, I ran into fellow Spec alum Aaron Unger on the streets of Fort Greene, where he lives and runs a catering service. On my end, I'm happy to announce that there will be yet another Spec wedding this year - Hans Chen '97 and I are getting married June 2 in his hometown of Harrisburg, Pa. That's it for this edition. Keep the updates coming!
Charles S.
Leykum I hope that everyone had a great holiday season and a fantastic New Year's. Before the end of 2000, a number of alumni ran the New York City marathon in November. The group included classmates such as Elizabeth Robilotti and yes, if you can believe it, yours truly. I guess I can't really say that I ran the entire marathon, I think the appropriate word is ambulate; I ambulated through the 26.2 miles. Congratulations again to all those who braved the elements and made it through the race. After finishing at the Journalism School last May, Jennifer Maxfield moved to Binghamton, N.Y., where she is now working for WIVT and WBGH, the ABC and NBC affiliates. She is anchoring the 5:30 and 11p.m. newscasts and reporting investigative stories as well. In fact, during Hillary's senate race and the broader presidential battle last November, she had the opportunity to deliver the politically heated news stories to some of the battleground Upstate communities. Last August, Sara Steindel was married to Andrew Dauber in Pittsburgh. Sara's father, Stephen Steindel '69, was the officiating rabbi at their ceremony. She left the Upper West Side apartment she had shared with Shira Miller Jacobs to relocate to Boston. Her husband is in his first year at Harvard Medical School and Sara is working in equity research at Putnam Investments. Following her work with Davis Polk & Wardwell, Ronja Bandyopadhyay is planning to travel with Will Crenshaw throughout Europe, starting in Prague during the spring. Ronja will then be heading up to Cambridge in the fall to start Harvard Law School. Traveling around South America, Kevin Holbert is collecting butterflies for his world-renowned collection which, when completed, will be on display at a museum in Greenwich Village. In New York City, Dan Gati is working as an analyst within the investment banking division of Credit Suisse First Boston. Before I sign off, I wanted to remind everyone that a group from our class is going to the New York City Opera on Friday, March 30, to see Tosca. We still have a few tickets, so if you or your friends are interested, please let me know. In addition, the next morning (Saturday, March 31) Columbia students are holding the fourth annual Columbia Community Outreach volunteer day. If you're interested in participating, drop me an e-mail. Happy New Year's again, and as always, please e-mail me with updates. We'd love to hear from you.
Prisca Bae Greetings fellow classmates! Happy New Year!!! I trust that everyone is recovering from the holiday madness. Since my last column, the weather has gotten a bit colder and life more hectic, although amidst all the mayhem I've been lucky enough to touch base with many of you in person and via e-mail. On New Year's Eve, I was with a group of friends at John-Mychel Bowman '99's in Manhattan. In attendance were Jason Yang, Jim Murphy '00E, Heidi Yeung, Rashmi Menon, Dana Maiden, Sam Mills, Nathan Hale, Charlie Nightingale, Alicia Dooley, and many others. John-Mychel is a personal trainer in Manhattan, Jason is a paralegal, and Jim is rowing with the U.S. National Team in Princeton. Heidi is in medical school in Vancouver, Dana is working for Elle Decor magazine in the city, Nathan is at the Journalism school and Charlie is in his first year at Duke Law (and apparently becoming a faithful Blue Devils fan). Alicia has been busy promoting music over the Internet; her latest project was the Beatles One album. Also present at the party was Adina Teitel, who is working for a film and book production agency, and it seems to be quite a glamorous gig. While in New York, I also met up with Shannon Lazzarini, Barnard '00, Vered Samari and Rana Yates. Shannon is a paralegal at Skadden Arps, Vered is at Lehman Brothers, and Rana is getting her master's in linguistics at Cambridge University. Rana reports that she is "'chillin' with the Aussies and teaching the Brits at Cambridge how to have a good time." She informs me that June Chang, who spent her New Year's in Miami, is a paralegal in Manhattan. On a prior trip to New York I saw Adrienne Brown, who has started a fabulous new job in the publishing industry. That same trip, I was able to meet up with Amanda Johnson for lunch. Amanda is currently working at the School of Architecture. Also in New York is former SEAS Class President Vikas Mittal '00E. Vikas is living in midtown and working at Accenture (formerly known as Anderson Consulting). He is doing well, but he says he's really doing nothing at all. He does inform me, however, of the status of some other classmates. Kim Worly, former Carman RA, is in Teach for America in D.C. Also teaching, but in Manhattan, is Laura Pietropinto, former Class VP and Wien RA. Back in D.C., I am slowly but surely tracking down classmates and discovering Columbia alums can be found everywhere. I ran into Jane Garrido on the metro. Jane is working in D.C. and living in Virginia. I also ran into a group of Columbia alums at an Ivy League happy hour on Capitol Hill, including Rafaella Coelho, who is at Georgetown Law, and Sarika Doshi, who I believe has moved back to Connecticut. Working at the NIH with my roommate Rashmi is Dave Hong '95. Dave will be going into his last year at the Medical College of Ohio and he's currently on fellowship at the National Institutes of Health as part of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute research program. Finally, on a flight from Chicago to D.C., I had the pleasure of meeting a '74 grad, Frank Palmeri, who is currently a professor of English at the University of Miami. In addition to the random run-ins, e-mails are still coming in (albeit not as fast and furious as they did for our first columns). Gregory Schill '02 writes in that Dan Vogel is at Harvard Law, as is Nugi Jakobishvili. Lindi Gerber reports that she is in medical school at the University of Pennsylvania. She loves school, but admits that Philadelphia doesn't compare to New York. Apparently, another '00 alum is there as well - Jonathan Galler is at the law school at Penn. Jason O'Reilly is working and taking classes at Teachers College. In his mail, he describes an interesting summer project: He and his girlfriend, Meredith Cass (originally '00 but now '01), are participating in the Montana Pallotta TeamWorks AIDS Vaccine Ride (www.vaccineride.org) next summer. It's a week-long, 600-mile bike ride. Meredith will be riding and Jason will be on the support crew. The purpose of this ride is to unite and raise money for vaccine research and development. Each rider is responsible for raising a minimum of $3,400. Anyone who wishes to support Meredith in the ride, which would be greatly appreciated (even $5 or $10), can e-mail either Meredith at meredithcass@hotmail.com or Jason at misteroreilly@hotmail.com. And last but not least, another classmate has gotten married! Katherine Rein was married on December 21 to David Muhlenkamp at the Church of Notre Dame on West 114th Street. David is a 1999 graduate of West Point. Helen Kim was her maid of honor. Katherine and David will be living in Georgia, as he is stationed at Fort Stewart. Good luck to Katherine and David and to the rest of you!
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