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CLASS NOTES
COLUMBIA COLLEGE TODAY
COLUMBIA COLLEGE TODAY
CLASS NOTES
Andrea Dennigan ’01 (née Cherkerzian, center) married Peter
Dennigan on June 17 at the Castle Hill Inn in Newport, R.I. In attendance,
among other CC alumni, were the bride’s sisters Sara
Cherkerzian ’94 (left) and Lisa Cherkerzian Hill ’95 (right).
PHOTO: WHITE LOFT STUDIO
sacrifice allows him to work on
physical measurements of biological
systems in his laboratory. He
teaches an intro science course
geared toward producing mathand
physics-savvy biologists. In
2010, Josh received a Presidential
Early Career Award for Scientists
and Engineers from President
Barack Obama ’83, which was very
exciting; the ceremony took place
at the White House.
Josh and his wife have a daughter,
Maina (7), and a son, Rishi (5).
Josh and his father, Michael, who
teaches in the physics department
at Columbia, attend the Columbia-
Princeton football game every
year; it falls around the same time
as his father’s birthday.
On the author front, Dina
Cheney’s third cookbook, Year-
Round Slow Cooker: 100 Favorite
Recipes for Every Season, was published
in January. The book aims
to debunk myths about the slow
cooker and show how the economical
appliance excels at yearround
cooking. Among the recipes
are brisket with pomegranate, red
wine and caramelized onions (winter
chapter); lamb stew with fava
beans, roasted garlic and chickpeas
(spring chapter); strawberry
rhubarb cobbler (summer chapter);
and beef bourguignon with mushrooms,
turnips, rutabagas and
carrots (fall chapter).
Dina is working on a vegetarian
cookbook slated for publication
in January 2014 and has also been
writing the Taste Test column
for the magazine Every Day with
Rachael Ray for more than three
years. Her husband, Jacob “Koby”
Rosenschein, works at Goldman
Sachs, where he is a v.p. in the
strats group with responsibility for
policies, documentation and communications.
Dina and Jacob have
two sons, Max (5) and Abe (3½),
and live in Connecticut.
Sameer Shamsi reports that
Tom Leggett married Ingrid Chen
on November 3 at the Ronald
Reagan Building and International
Trade Center in Washington, D.C.
Columbia people in attendance
were Sameer, Chris Loncar ’99E,
Crissy Rosenberg and Jayne Tan
’97E. Austin Gelbard ’99E and
Marysol Sanchez unfortunately
could not attend. Tom and his wife
reside in New York and Tom is an
executive director at UBS.
That’s all the news for this
go-around. Please email me if you
want to include any updates as we
approach our reunion year!
00
Prisca Bae
344 W. 17th St., Apt. 3B
New York, NY 10011
pb134@columbia.edu
Daniel Kokhba is happy to announce
that he became a partner
at Kantor, Davidoff, Wolfe,
Mandelker, Twomey & Gallanty.
He represents individuals and
businesses in the areas of commercial
litigation and employment
law. The firm also handles estates
law, real estate, corporate work
and matrimonial matters. Feel free
to reach out to Daniel at kokhba@
kantorlawonline.com and/or visit
kantordavidoff.com.
I’m also happy to report that
John Kim is hitched! John and Sara
Farkas were married in Pittsburgh
on September 22, with many
Columbians in attendance: Mike
Marks, Reza Vahid, Jesse Leff,
Rob Hoffman, Sami Mesrour,
Charles Saliba-Revuelto, Nate
Shafroth, Evan Hutchison, Ejike
Uzoigwe ’01 and Stephen Miller.
(See nearby photo.)
Congrats to the couple!
Please send in news about yourself,
your family, your job, your
travels or anything you wish to
share with classmates! You can use
the above email address or CCT’s
webform: college.columbia.edu/
cct/submit_class_note.
01
Jonathan Gordin
3030 N. Beachwood Dr.
Los Angeles, CA 90068
jrg53@columbia.edu
By the time you read this, we’ll
be three months into 2013. I hope
everyone’s years are off to a great
start!
Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg
and his wife, Paola, welcomed their
daughter, Maia, on September 28.
Maia joins brother Camilo. Simon is
a legal aid lawyer in Northern Virginia,
“enjoying the ample paternity
leave that legal aid gives its staff in
lieu of a living wage.”
Russell Strom and his wife,
Meghan, welcomed Cora Belle
Casillan-Strom on September 19 —
after 40 hours of labor.
Tamer Makary’s wife, Efstathia,
gave birth to son Sebastian on December
6. Mom and brother Alec
are doing well.
Liz Salamy ’02 and her husband,
Philippe Chahine, welcomed their
second daughter, Ava Simone, on
December 6. Ava joins sister Leila.
David Shapiro and Amy Gansell
Barnard ’98 were married July 29 at
Matisse in Washington, D.C. They
reside in Brooklyn, N.Y. Attendees
included Michael Bilsborough,
Susie Helft ’99 Barnard, Sacha Mobarak
’08 Arch., Chandra Pradhuman
’98 Barnard, Althea Viafora-
Kress ’00 GS, Nikki Zeichner ’01
Barnard, Peter Zuspan and David’s
sister, Becca Shapiro, managing editor
of Columbia magazine.
Matthew Rascoff was married
in Durham, N.C., on September
23 to a “beautiful, brilliant woman
named Emily J. Levine. Many
Columbians celebrated with us:
Noam Elcott ’00; Penny Sinanoglou
’00; Chanchal Dadlani ’99; Elaine
Shen; Elissa Curtis; Yaacob Dweck
’02; Richard Mammana ’02 and his
wife, Mary Mammana ’04; Noah
Strote ’02; Lara Fogel ’02 Barnard;
and Anand Venkatesan ’03.
“A few weeks after we got married,
we moved to Berlin for the
academic year. Emily has a sabbatical
from UNC-Greensboro, where
she is a European history professor.
And in Berlin I am launching the
first international office for JSTOR,
the scholarly research platform,
and also have fellowships from
the German Marshall Fund and
the Bertelsmann Foundation (for
whom I am consulting on education
tech in Germany).”
Reema Kapadia’s daughter,
Rhea Samira Parekh, was born on
September 17, Reena’s husband’s,
and Rhea’s father’s, birthday. She
weighed 6 lbs., 9 oz. and was 19
inches long. Reema is in New York
and works in investor relations at
Credit Suisse.
Mark Jackson is now assistant
general counsel with the Brooklyn
Navy Yard Development Corp.,
working on sustainable development
and historical restoration
projects.
Israel Gordan wrote with exciting
news: “As of August 1, I am the
cantor and the director of religious
school innovation and synagogue
programming at the Huntington
(N.Y.) Jewish Center, which involves
family programming and other
responsibilities. On September 8, my
wife, Abby, gave birth to our second
child, a son we named Eli Jonah at
the brit milah ceremony we held on
September 16, right before Rosh Hashanah.
We then closed on our new
house on September 20, and moved
in on September 23, right before Yom
Kippur. Things have been busy but
it was great to start the new Jewish
year with a new child and a new
home!”
Caroline B. Giordano joined the
firm of Miller Canfield in Ann Arbor
as an associate in the Litigation
+ Trial Group. Previously, she was
a judicial intern for The Honorable
Helene N. White, U.S. Court of Appeals
for the Sixth Circuit.
Aaron Cohen was married to
Liana Yoo ’08 Business on September
29. He writes, “I met Liana
through Alastair Wood and his
wife, Alisa Wood ’08 Business (née
Amarosa). Alisa is Liana’s Business
School classmate, and we met when
Alastair and I visited Alisa on her
Business School trip in China in
spring 2008.
“Our wedding was September
29 and the ceremony was at St.
Paul’s Chapel, officiated by University
chaplain Jewelnel Davis.
Like she did on most days
during her junior year,
Rachel Nichols ’03
walked past the ads outside
the Broadway gates on her
way to class. This time, however,
she stopped at an image of a
sun-kissed, blue-eyed blonde
staring from behind a 26"x50"
GUESS poster. “You should buy
this one,” a street vendor said.
“This girl goes here.”
Little did he know that “this
girl” was staring right at him.
Since being spotted by modeling
agents as a sophomore,
the Maine native has starred in
high-profile ad campaigns, television
series and feature films.
You may recognize her from her
role as Rachel Gibson on ABC’s
Alias or her appearances in the
films Alex Cross (which also
featured Matthew Fox ’89), Star
Trek, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
and Conan The Barbarian. Today,
Nichols has reached a place
where fan sites document her
every stilettoed step. Yet unlike
most starlets, the economics
major does her own taxes,
tweets with proper punctuation
(@RachelNichols1) and speaks in
SAT-worthy sound bites.
Despite studying algorithms
instead of acting, Nichols credits
alma mater with fueling her me -
teoric rise. “Coming to New York
and going to Columbia really
helped make me the person
who was able to get into the career
that I have now,” she says.
“It’s funny, but I was really shy in
high school and I know you hear
a lot of actresses say,” — here,
she does a spot-on nerd impression
— “‘Oh, I was dorky,’ but it’s
true. My high school yearbook
prediction would’ve been most
likely to live in a small shell
under a rock. But at Columbia,
for the first time in my life, I was
on a campus with like-minded
people and I felt as though I
belonged.”
Nichols met her best friend,
Albert Lee ’02E, ’07 Business, at
Rachel Nichols ’03: From Math Whiz
to Model and Movie Star
B y Y e l e n a Shuster ’09
Rachel Nichols ’03 met her best friend,
Albert Lee ’02E, ’07 Business, during
orientation.
PHOTO: COURTESY ALBERT LEE ’02E, ’07 BUSINESS
orientation her first day on
campus (she entered with
the Class of ’02). “It was
such a nice first impression,”
Lee, an investment banker at
Barclays, recalls. “Objectively,
she’s stunning, but when
you speak to her, you see
she’s just a down-home
Maine girl who didn’t seem
to be tainted by the apathy
New York is known for.”
In fact, if the math-whizcum-model
hadn’t been
discovered, she likely would
have been a suit-sporting
banker. “When I was a
freshman, all the seniors
were reading Liar’s Poker.
Everyone wanted to get into
banking after that,” Nichols
says, noting her original
motivation for modeling
was to pay for an M.B.A. (at
Columbia, naturally).
But fate had another plan.
While meeting a friend for
lunch, Nichols had a chance
encounter with a Next modeling
agent, who snapped
Polaroids of her on the spot.
From there, she began modeling
in New York during
her sophomore year, then
went on leave to pursue her
career in Paris full-time. She catwalked
in runway shows and
posed in major campaigns for
the likes of Abercrombie & Fitch.
Despite her success, dropping
out of school never was an
option. Nichols returned to Columbia
eight months later and
finished her degree by scheduling
classes for two days a week,
often from 9 a.m.–9 p.m., modeling
the rest of the time and
doing homework during photo
shoot breaks. “Much to the dismay
of my bookers, I was very
strict about not working when
I had school,” she says. “I loved
being here. At the first sight of
spring, when everyone was on
the Steps, I didn’t want to be
anywhere else.”
“She was just another classmate
sitting at Tom’s having
black and white milkshakes,
talking about our upcoming
psych midterm,” says Lee. “She
was a total dork who took
meticulous notes. She always
made sure she understood
concepts and would be the
one person who went to the
TA’s office hours. She was who
you copied class notes from.”
The transition from still camera
to live action was only a
matter of time — and talent.
Nichols had acted only once, by
accident, in an eighth-grade play
where she was a last-minute
substitute for a football player
with stage fright. Despite her
inexperience, she nailed her first
audition — for Sex and the City,
no less — and the rest is IMDb
history.
Nichols has developed
a cult following as a sci-fi
siren who can beat up bad
guys and look good doing it.
Her oft-admired silhouette
can be attributed to celebrity
trainer Valerie Waters,
who was recruited to turn
her model body into a muscled
one on Alias. Nichols
gained 15 pounds of muscle
for G.I. Joe, for which she
also underwent six weeks
of weapons training along
with co-star Sienna Miller.
For Conan, the quick study
mastered swordplay and
horse riding.
The belle of the battle
gets her close-up in her
current lead role. She’s
starring in the second
season of the sci-fi crime
series Continuum, where
she plays a detective from
2077 who’s stranded in
present-day Vancouver,
trying to stop criminals
from the future. The show
was an immediate hit; with
almost one million viewers,
Continuum’s first episode
was the most-watched
premiere for Canadian
channel Showcase. Other
networks caught on and stateside
fans can now watch both
seasons on the Syfy channel.
Despite her success, Nichols
is happy to be one star in a
constellation of many. “I like
to be a working actor,” she
says, “because I can go outside
and take out my trash without
makeup, with dirty hair and
wearing sweatpants, and nobody
is taking my picture.”
To watch an interview with
Nichols discussing Continuum,
go to Web Extras at college.
columbia.edu/cct.
Yelena Shuster ’09 writes for
Cosmopolitan, New York and
Manhattan magazines. Follow
her on Twitter @YelenaShuster.
SPRING 2013
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SPRING 2013
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