Kyle Smith Takes the Helm in Levien Gym - Columbia College ...

CLAss NOTEs Columbia CollEgE Today
Nine years after their first date as seniors, Abena Boakye ’01 and Omar
slowe ’01 were married in November 2009 on the island of Maui. Soaking
up the rays with them were (left to right) the bride’s father, Kwadwo
Boakye; Kwabina Appiah ’78 Business; Kofi Boakye ’10; David Simpson
’01E; Franklin Amoo ’02; Selom Gasinu ’04E; Alexander Gumbs ’01, ’07
Business; Raefer Gabriel ’07 Business; the bride’s mother, Cynthia Boakye
’94 PH; the groom; the bride; Chris Motley ’03; Reginald Cash ’04; Adrienne
Bowman ’01; Vanessa Hs-Doyle ’01 (née Hutchinson-Szekely); Jon-Mychal
Bowman ’99; Avrielle Gallagher ’01; Guambi Makoso ’01E; Akua Boakye ’11
Business; Damali slowe ’10; Dionne Wilson Gumbs ’07 Business; Jacqueline
Corona ’02; and Danae Mullings-Makoso ’01E, ’08 CE.
dennis paul recently left UBS
and moved his entire team, the
Rosenau/Paul Group, off of the
“big box” banking platforms to
HighTower, where he is a registered
investment adviser. Dennis
is co-managing approximately
$725 million for 110 investors in
long-only U.S. equities and fixed
income. On the stock side, Dennis’
group has outperformed the S&P
500 index for the past 10 years. He
can be reached at dpaul@hightow
eradvisors.com.
noah cornman lives in NYC
and is a music producer and record
label executive with Sh-K-Boom/
Ghostlight Records, which specializes
in original cast recordings and
solo albums with Broadway stars
and composers. He continues to
work with his Pulitzer Prize winning
friends tom Kitt and Brian
Yorkey ’93. The three worked on the
Varsity Show together at Columbia,
and more recently they recorded
Next to Normal. Noah has worked
with Tom on numerous recordings
and live concerts, and last year,
Noah was nominated for a Grammy
for his recording of Hair.
Jeff gale and his wife, Dana,
have a daughter, Julia (3), and
welcomed a new child to the family
this past summer. TicketBiscuit,
the online ticketing company Jeff
founded in 2001, continues to grow.
deganit ruben (née Stein) lives in
Savannah, Ga., with her husband,
Jesse, and daughters, Jordan (5) and
Elana (2). Deganit planned to get
back to teaching English and writing
at the college level this fall. Elie
levine and his wife, Jody alpertlevine,
have been in their joint
medical practice on the Upper East
Side for more than two years. Jody
is an adult and pediatric dermatologist,
and Elie is a plastic surgeon.
They take care of everyone from
newborns to adults and have an operating
room on the premises. Their
children are Skyler (13), Jasmine
(10), Caitlin (7) and William (2). Elie
writes that they are looking forward
to our 15th reunion.
Jen sarnovsky guagenti earned
an M.Ed. in early and middle childhood
education from Ohio State in
2000, married Joe Guagenti, whom
Jen knew from her hometown in
Ohio, taught second grade for several
years, stayed home with her
kids for six years and went back
to teach fourth grade this fall. Jen
has five kids: Allison (born 2001),
Joseph (born 2002), Margaret (born
2004), Ethan (born 2008) and Elizabeth
(born 2009). Jen and her family
live just north of Columbus, Ohio,
and they are having fun with all of
the kids’ sports and activities. She
writes: “Life is good.”
Jeremiah crowell and his wife,
Heather McGeory ’97 Barnard,
welcomed their second son, Beau,
on Cinco de Mayo. Beau’s brother
is Callum (2). Jeremiah and his
family recently bought a home in
Park Slope, and Jeremiah owns a
small production company in Soho
that is developing a feature film.
A short film of Jeremiah’s, Small
Collection, played at the Sundance
Film Festival in 2009 and many
other festivals in the following
months, winning eight “best of
fest” awards along the way.
After living in Los Angeles for
eight years, seven of them as a trial
attorney with the federal public
defender’s office, lara bazelon
moved to San Francisco to begin a
two-year clinical teaching fellowship
at the UC Hastings College of the
Law. She lives in Cole Valley with
her husband, Matt, an associate at
Coblentz, Patch, Duffy & Bass. Lara
and Matt have a son, Carter, born
in April 2009. caleb weinstein and
his wife, Debbie, moved to London
with their daughter, Charlotte (2),
in October 2008. Caleb runs the Discovery
Channel across the emerging
markets of EMEA (Eastern Europe
from Russia and the CIS running
south through the Balkans, Turkey
and Middle East to South Africa).
Caleb travels extensively for work
and has been everywhere from
Qatar to Dubai, Turkey, Slovenia,
Serbia, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan and
Russia (where he is about once a
month) to ensure that everyone who
has cable or satellite TV can satisfy
their curiosity through Discovery
Channel, Animal Planet and TLC.
navid Mootabar lives in Bedford,
N.Y., with his wife, Nava (a dentist),
and daughters, Kimia (6) and Lila
(2). Navid is the associate chairman
of the department of ob/gyn and
the director of gynecologic surgery
at Northern Westchester Hospital in
Mount Kisco, N.Y. He has a special
interest in laparoscopic and robotic
surgery and stays involved with Columbia
through alumni committees.
Julie satow gave birth to a girl,
Sophie Emmilene Elliott, on July 8.
Eric creizman and his wife, Michelle
Weber, live in Westchester, N.Y. They
have two boys, Judah (5) and Caleb
(2). Eric is a litigator in the New York
office of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher
and focuses on white collar criminal
defense and securities litigation matters.
Elizabeth (tanenbaum) baron
and her husband, Michael, have two
children (8 and 6), and live in south
Florida. Elizabeth’s daughter started
school at the Donna Klein Jewish
Academy of Boca Raton this fall.
Elizabeth is working in commercial
real estate for a privately owned
company in western Florida. In her
spare time, she jogs, swims and does
Pilates. sala patterson is married to
an Italian artist, has a son, Teo Freeman
(1), and lives and works in Paris
for the Africa and Middle East desk
of the OECD Development Centre
in a dual policy analyst/outreach
coordinator role. Sala and her family
have been there for a little more
than two years. Before that, Sala was
in Tunis, Tunisia, with the African
Development Bank, and before that,
with the UN in Rome.
More news to report next time ...
I will leave you with this:
“The poets down here don’t
write nothing at all, they just stand
back and let it all be.”
—Bruce Springsteen, “Jungleland”
97
NOvEMBER/DECEMBER 2010
64
sarah Katz
1935 Parrish St.
Philadelphia, PA 19130
srk12@columbia.edu
nomi victor was named associate
publishing director of the trade
department at W.W. Norton.
claire (fenton) simmonds
writes that life is good in Austin,
Texas. She and hubby david simmonds
are happily working and
raising their children, Patrick (6)
and Hannah (4). “Any Columbia
folks visiting the area should be
sure to look us up!” she says.
amrit nagpal writes that things
are going well in San Francisco.
“Reyna (5) started kindergarten,
which was a milestone (and will
hopefully be the start of her journey
to Columbia!).” Her brother, Jay (3),
started preschool.
carrie sturts dossick was
awarded promotion with tenure at
the University of Washington. As
of September 15, she is an associate
professor in the Department of Construction
Management in the College
of Built Environments. She also is
the executive director of the Pacific
Northwest Center for Construction
Research and Education. Carrie and
her husband, stephen dossick,
welcomed twins on July 23, 2009:
Charles Ellis and Sara Verdie.
In April, ruth Mason and her
husband, James Wetterau ’05 GS,
had their first child, Felix.
Suzanne Park and her husband,
Trevor Foucher ’98 UC Berkeley,
are proud parents to Coralie Jae,
born June 9. Suzanne also recently
launched a line of eco-friendly
laptop bags and accessories, available
at plaiddoctrine.com.
98
sandie angulo chen
10209 Day Ave.
Silver Spring, MD 20910
sandie.chen@gmail.com
Hello, classmates. Unfortunately I
don’t have too many updates for
you this column, so I’ll once again
invite all of you to send me news,
even if you haven’t recently gotten
married, changed jobs or had
a baby. Don’t make me resort to
stalking you on Facebook!
There is one piece of fabulous
news: Kapil desai wrote with baby
news. His wife, Stefanie, gave birth
to their first child, Julia Ann, in
July. She delivered at Mount Sinai,
where Kapil is an assistant professor
in musculoskeletal radiology. The
happy family lives on the Upper
East Side with their English bulldog,
Bella (1).
Congratulations, Kapil and
Stefanie!
99
lauren becker
19 Devalan St., Apt. 3N
Brooklyn, NY 11231
laurenbecker@gmail.com
Unfortunately, I haven’t heard from
most of you in years, if ever. But
luckily, I’ve been driving around
the country unearthing some select
morsels of information, and a couple