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CLASS NOTES
COLUMBIA COLLEGE TODAY
COLUMBIA COLLEGE TODAY
CLASS NOTES
Clayton Broyles ’09 and Katie Paddock were married on June 25, 2012, at Lake Mývatn, Husavík,
Iceland. They hosted a post-wedding celebration in Breaux Bridge, La., on November 24. Among the
guests at the celebration were (left to right) Austen Bakker ’08, Vik Ashok ’08E, the groom, the bride,
Casey Russell and Eric Pogue ’10.
PHOTO: KADY DUNLAP PHOTOGRAPHY
The Varsity Show honored Kate
McKinnon with its annual I.A.L.
Diamond [’41] Award for Achievement
in the Arts on May 5. Kate
(who was Kate Berthold during
her time at the College) has been on
Saturday Night Live since last April.
Thanks, everyone, for sharing.
We’re happy to celebrate your
successes!
07
David D. Chait
1255 New Hampshire
Ave. N.W., Apt. 815
Washington, DC 20036
ddc2106@columbia.edu
I hope that everyone is having a
great spring! We have a number
of exciting updates from our
classmates.
On March 6, many came out
to celebrate the College’s annual
John Jay Awards for distinguished
professional achievement. CC ’07
attendees included Anna German,
Allison Bajger, Dan Bajger and
David Chait, among others.
After six months in Chicago
working on the Obama campaign’s
digital team and four months of
travel (and recovery time), Leah
Sandals has returned to New York
and joined Global Health Strategies,
a consulting firm serving
international health organizations.
Whitney Wilson joined The
Corcoran Group and is focusing on
residential sales in South Brooklyn.
She teaches weekly yoga classes at
YogaWorks and enjoys spending
time with Igor Zelenberg ’07E and
their dog, Bean, in and around
Cobble Hill.
Simeon Siegel shares, “Little
Liam Siegel celebrated his first
birthday on February 21!”
Very exciting!
Dan Wang reports, “This year
looks to be a busy one for Marisa
Sires and me. We will get married
this summer with many of our
Columbia friends in attendance.
Jonathan Wegener and Ali Rohrs
will even serve as officiants. After
that, we’ll move back to New York
City (it’s been six years in the Bay
Area). I am finishing my Ph.D. in
sociology at Stanford this spring
and, in the fall, I’ll start as an assistant
professor of management at the
Business School. Marisa will continue
to be the director of product
strategy for Gigya, a Silicon Valleybased
social media company.”
Kasia Nikhamina writes, “My
husband, Ilya (aka Redbeard) and
I invite everyone to visit Redbeard
Bikes at 165 Front St. in DUMBO,
Brooklyn, for bicycles and accessories.
We launched the shop last
November and are enjoying the
challenges and joys of being a momand-pop.
We carry, among other
brands, Brompton folding bikes and
Lynskey titanium road bikes. Like
us on Facebook at facebook.com/
redbeardbikes.”
Olivia Roszkowski is the executive
chef of La Nuit Restaurant &
Tapas Lounge in NYC. Check out
her blog: oliviathechef.com.
Kelvin Jiang ’07E, Tanya Lindsay
and Earnest Sweat will have
to say “so long” to the case study
discussions and ’80s theme parties
as they get ready to graduate from
Kellogg School of Management in
late June.
By the time you read this, we
will have held the Young Alumni
Fund Spring Benefit (scheduled for
May 10). The benefit host committee
was full of classmates including
Allison Bajger, Dan Bajger, David
Chait, Samantha Feingold, Arvind
Kadaba, Geo Karapetyan, Ethan
Marcovici, Andrew O’Connor and
Dan Shapiro.
Finally, the new Vampire Weekend
album, Modern Vampires of the
City, was released on May 14. The
band features our own Chris Baio
as well as Ezra Koenig ’06, Rostam
Batmanglij ’06 and Chris Tomson
’06. [Editor’s note: See Alumni in
the News.]
08
Neda Navab
7 Soldiers Field Park,
Apt. 7C
Boston, MA 02163
nn2126@columbia.edu
For those who made it to our
five-year reunion, how amazing
was it! I hope you had a chance
to reconnect with friends, meet a
few new faces and catch up on life!
Milestones like these are phenomenal
reminders of the common
history we share as well as the
remarkably different paths we are
embarking on. Please send me
notes about your reunion experiences
for the Fall issue of CCT!
The class photo, however, may be
found on the CCT website (college.
columbia.edu/cct) as part of this
issue’s reunion follow-up article.
And now, the notes …
On back-to-back weekends
in February, roommates Rachel
Cooper Schilowitz and Lindsay
Sohacheski shared huge life moments.
Rachel gave birth to a son,
David Theodore, and Lindsay married
Steven Turk of West Orange,
N.J., in California.
J.D. Stettin is making some
exciting professional moves: “After
four years of business development
with green tech startups here in
New York (including the vertical
farm and ecologic solutions),
I have joined the country’s No. 1
FHA finance team at Greystone &
Co. I am responsible for debt and
equity packages for multi-family
and healthcare properties, from
development to acquisition and everything
in between. Though I am
based out of company headquarters
in Manhattan, many of my clients
are in the Southwest and I spend
much of my time in California and
Texas.”
Mark Clemente moved to Singapore
in the spring. He is director
of marketing/operations and director
of tennis for Savitar Group.
He also hopes to represent the
Philippines in the Southeast Asian
Games for tennis in December.
Chenni Xu is a consultant for
Emerging Asia Group, which is
headquartered in Shanghai. “I
wish I could have attended the
reunion and I hope everyone had
a good time. If anyone is visiting
Shanghai, please email me: chenni.
xu@gmail.com.”
Clayton Broyles and Katie Paddock
were married June 25, 2012,
at Lake Mývatn, Húsavik, Iceland.
They hosted a post-wedding celebration
in Breaux Bridge, La., on
November 24. Among Columbians
attending were Austen Bakker,
Vik Ashok ’08E and Eric Pogue ’09.
Robert William Shaw III married
Shannon Marie Kelley on April
6 in Miami Shores, Fla. Robert is
a legal intern at the Miami-Dade
state attorney’s office in Miami; he
earned his J.D. from Pepperdine.
REUNION WEEKEND
MAY 29–JUNE 1, 2014
ALUMNI OFFICE CONTACTS
ALUMNI AFFAIRS Vanessa Scott
vs2470@columbia.edu
212-851-9148
DEVELOPMENT Esfir Shamilova
es3233@columbia.edu
212-851-7833
Alidad Damooei
c/o CCT
Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
damooei@gmail.com
09
Jacob Weaver and Annie Ma were
married in May 2012 at St. Paul’s
Chapel on Columbia’s beautiful
campus. They were fortunate to
have Allison Halff, Greg Legorreta,
Lucy Chen, Nick Camp and
Janna Weaver ’13 TC in their wedding
party; Sam Ashworth ’10 GS
and David Mazzuca ’07 as readers;
Nicolas Alvear and Ben Katz ’06 as
ushers; Maryam Parhizkar and her
ensemble for ceremony music; and
many members of the Columbia
community in attendance. They
thank all of them for making the
start of the Weaver-Ma union so
wonderful!
Jacob recently started a job as
an investment analyst for Amici
Capital, a hedge fund based in
New York. Annie works for Google,
where she is an enterprise partner
manager. They enjoy the West Coast
lifestyle and would love to see you
if you’re ever in San Francisco!
Last September, Lauren Accor–
dino (née Shearer) and Michael
Accordino ’07 walked down the
aisle. They traveled to the Maldives
and Dubai thereafter. They recently
added a new member to the family,
a Goldendoodle puppy, and live in
Los Angeles. In addition to her day
job in finance, Lauren co-founded
The Green Leaf Academy, an
education enrichment company for
elementary students.
Anastasia Pastan (née McLetchie)
and Nick Pastan were married
last summer. Many Columbia and
Barnard classmates traveled to
Washington, D.C., to help them
celebrate, including Ben Reininga,
Caitlin Hodge ’08, Liz Gordon ’08,
Lan Wu ’10E, Caitlin Martin ’09
Barnard, Stephanie Dumanian ’07
Barnard, Nicklas Volbi ’07E and
Greg Pupo. More recently, Anastasia
left teaching and New York City,
and moved to Cambridge, Mass.,
where she studies at Harvard Law
School.
Maxie Harnick (née Glass) and
Evan Harnick were married on
July 7, 2012, at the Harvard Club of
New York City.
Alidad Damooei graduated
from Yale Law in May. He enjoyed
his three years of law school but is
excited to start the next chapter of
his life. This summer he will move
back to New York City and will
start his legal career at Sullivan &
Cromwell, where he will gain
experience across different areas of
corporate law.
David Cooper graduated from
St. John’s School of Law this spring.
He has accepted a job offer from
the New York City Law Department.
David will start work in the
fall in the Special Federal Litigation
Division as an assistant corporation
counsel.
Giselle Gastell is working on her
first EP, which is in Spanish, with
producer Alejandro Jaen. In March
she performed on America Tevé’s
“El Happy Hour.” You can check
it out on YouTube: youtube.com/
watchv=BoDfU1OENys. She also
Lindsey Cleary ’09 (née Frost, center) married Jonathan Cleary on October 6 in Chattanooga. Friends
in attendance from the Class of ’09 were, left to right: Eva Fortes, Holly Chung, Cyrus Ebnesajjad and
Soo Han.
PHOTO: SOLI PHOTOGRAPHY
performed at the Calle Ocho-Miami
Carnival on the stages of Telemundo
and Cubana de Television.
Giselle hopes her classmates will
support her by liking her artist page
on Facebook or following her on
Instagram or Twitter @gisellegastell.
She will let you know when she
officially releases her first single,
“Mienteme.”
Daniel Duzdevich earned an
M.Phil. in biology from Churchill
College, Cambridge, studying the
gross structure of DNA sequences
that cause Huntington’s Disease.
He has returned to Columbia in
pursuit of a Ph.D. from the Department
of Biological Sciences. In
2011 he received the departmental
teaching award and in 2012 he received
an award from the Paul and
Daisy Soros Fellowships for New
Americans, which is funding two
years of his graduate research. His
first book, Darwin’s On the Origin of
Species: A Modern Rendition, will appear
in early 2014. Excitingly, it will
feature a foreword by evolutionary
biologist and journalist Olivia
Judson!
Joanna Sloame left her job as a
multimedia editor at the New York
Daily News last May to move to Los
Angeles to pursue comedy writing.
That summer she started working
at Jimmy Kimmel Live! as the digital
media coordinator. She maintains
the show’s social media presence,
website and YouTube page. On the
side, she has been learning improvisation
at Second City though its
Conservatory program. Her sketch
comedy group, The Living Room,
recently wrapped filming on its first
short and soon will be launching a
YouTube channel. Joanna also has
started doing stand-up comedy.
Stephanie Lindquist left New
York in September to live for a year
as a visiting artist at the American
Academy in Rome with her partner
and Rome Prize winner, Glendalys
Medina. Stephanie’s work can be
viewed at stephaniealindquist.com.
She also recently co-founded
MasterDabblers (masterdabblers.
com), which shares tips on how to
expand your creative practice and
develops mailings with successful
contemporary artists to give people
materials and instructions to push
their creative boundaries.
After graduation, Mark Holden
was a research associate in international
economics at the Council
on Foreign Relations in NYC for a
year. On leaving CFR, he applied
to law school and then for most of
a season was a ski lift operator at
Vail Resorts in Colorado. He started
at Harvard Law in fall 2011 and
expects to work in Houston after he
graduates.
Rebecca Feinberg has begun a
Ph.D. in anthropology at UC Santa
Cruz, where she will learn all there
is to know about Italy, EU immigration
and foodways while living
in a tree house by the sea cliffs.
Eliav Bitan recently completed
his first year at Virginia’s Darden
School of Business in Charlottesville.
He is excited about working
in the private sector this summer
after three years in the nonprofit
world.
10
Julia Feldberg
4 E. 8th St., Apt. 4F
New York, NY 10003
juliafeldberg@gmail.com
I hope all of you are well as we
reach our three-years-out-of-college
milestone. For the first time since
graduation, I have some news of
my own to share. After working
in corporate strategy and development
at Time Inc. for 2½ years,
I joined the marketing team at
1stdibs, an online marketplace
for high-end luxury goods. I am
enjoying the challenge of learning
SEO marketing, an entirely new
field for me. I live in the West Village
with my boyfriend, Gregg (a
non-Columbia grad, I’m ashamed
to admit).
After seven amazing years on
the Morningside campus, Matt
Amsterdam ’13L is done with
Columbia (at least for now). He
looks forward to joining most of the
rest of his College classmates in the
“real world” for the first time.
Mary Ann Bonet shares, “For
the past year, I’ve been teaching
gallery and studio-based programs
for school, youth and family audiences
at several museums, including
the Brooklyn Museum, MoMA,
the Museum of the City of New
York and El Museo del Barrio. I’m
excited to head back to Morningside
Heights this summer to start
the Art & Art Education Program
Ed.M. at Teachers College. I look
forward to juggling work and
school in the months to come!”
Earlier this year, Joseph Johnson
SUMMER 2013
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SUMMER 2013
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