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

Columbia CollEgE Today CLAss NOTEs
graduate school this fall.
Jessica Zen (née Wong) and her
husband moved to Cambridge,
Mass., where Jessica started business
school at MIT Sloan.
becca hartog shares, “I completed
my Peace Corps service in
Cameroon in November 2009 and
traveled to Tanzania with alison
o’neill ’07E afterward. More recently,
I’ve begun medical school at
the University of Pittsburgh School
of Medicine. Go Steelers!”
Mark Keller writes, “I’m in the
United Kingdom this fall to pursue
my M.Sc. in Latin American
studies at St. Antony’s College,
University of Oxford.”
aaron berman moved to Vail,
Colo. He writes, “I’ve been enjoying
the outdoors and also started a personal
chef and catering company,
Double Diamond Chefs. Hoping for
a lot of snow this winter!”
John shekitka notes, “After
earning a master’s or two, I relocated
to the Central Valley of California to
teach at a charter school operated by
Bard College. Aside from teaching
at the Paramount Bard Academy,
my days are spent eating In-N-Out
burgers, listening to Katy Perry and
sweltering in the oppressive heat.”
tarik bolat shares, “dave schor
participated in the King of Prussia
Cheese Rolling Competition, working
with a wheel of young Gouda
and finishing a respectable 12th
place.”
Mike groopman embarked this
summer on a two-week trip in Switzerland,
where he hiked in the Alps,
stayed in rustic cabins and made
his own muesli at each stop. (This
evidently is the point of the trip.)
lukas Mcgowan is touring Buffalo,
N.Y., performing his critically
acclaimed one-man show, Pots,
Pans, and Glass. Inspired by the hit
musical Stomp, Lukas has created
what he calls a “special cat-suit”
that comprises household kitchen
items including whisks, wooden
ladles, a Cuisinart blade and electric
skillets, which he uses to play an
entire catalogue of Philip Glass compositions.
The Buffalo News quoted
him: “In college, I was inspired by a
course called Music Hum[anities]. I
thought, hey, I like cookware and I
love the Minimalist compositions of
Philip Glass — it just seemed like a
natural marriage. You really haven’t
experienced Mr. Glass’ compositions
until you’ve heard them through the
timbre of a Macy’s crock pot.”
Lukas is in negotiations with
several Off-Broadway theaters and
hopes to bring his show to Manhattan
in the fall. Keep an eye out!
In August, Meghan Mccain published
the book Dirty Sexy Politics.
Publisher Hyperion Books describes
it: “In this witty, candid and boisterous
book, Meghan takes us deep
behind the scenes of the campaign
trail. She steals campaign signs in
New Hampshire, tastes the nightlife
in Nashville, and has a strange
encounter with Laura and Jenna
Bush at the White House. Along the
way, she falls in love with America
while seeing how far the Republican
Party has veered from its core values
of freedom, honesty and individuality.
In Dirty Sexy Politics, Meghan
McCain gives us a true insider’s
account of life on a campaign trail.”
08
neda navab
53 Saratoga Dr.
Jericho, NY 11753
nn2126@columbia.edu
Hello CC ’08! Lots of exciting news
to report from the last few months,
my favorite of which may be the
WSJ article, “Where Columbia
Beats Harvard: On the Battlefield
of Curricula.” (Look for the piece if
you haven’t already seen it!)
thommen ollapally recently
moved back to Bangalore, India,
after a two-year stint with Morgan
Stanley in New York. He kicked
things off with a backpacking trip
around India up to the Himalayas
and is excited about all the opportunities
that await in the motherland.
He strongly encourages
Columbians to visit.
neda navab is taking time off
from McKinsey to work in Kigali,
Rwanda, with TechnoServe, an
NGO that focuses on finding business
solutions to rural poverty.
She is supervising a pilot business
training program for 200 socially
and economically excluded women
throughout rural Rwanda. “So
far, it’s been wild, and bizarre, and
just what I needed: a great shakeup
after six years in New York.”
rachel trager recently launched
Pink Pangea (pinkpangea.com), an
online community for women travelers.
Pink Pangea is a site where
women travelers share their experiences
abroad, connect to fellow
travelers and inspire other women
to explore the world. Pink Pangea’s
goal is to make travel easier, safer
and more fulfilling for women of
all ages. “I invite all CC women to
check it out and share their travel
experiences,” says Rachel.
david gerson’s short documentary
film, Ultra Violet for Sixteen
Minutes, about Dali’s mistress and
Warhol’s muse, the born-again
Mormon Ultra Violet, has been successfully
playing festivals around the
United States. “Totally engaging,”
writes Albert Maysles. “A gem of a
little film,” says HuffPo. “Because of
this film the industry newsletter Film
News Briefs named me one of May’s
‘top four filmmakers to watch.’ I also
recently acted in several New York
theatrical runs as well as a national
ad campaign for NBC’s new local
nightlife blog.” More info can be
found at davidhenrygerson.com.
stanimir rachev has moved to
Shanghai. “I started a science teaching
job in a high school. I am looking
forward to meeting any Columbia
grads in China!”
caroline Mcnamara recently
returned from a weeklong trip in
Germany and the Czech Republic
with two friends from high school.
“We traveled to Berlin and Prague
and had a great time,” she said.
riaz Zaidi returned from Iraq
in February and after visiting alma
mater while on leave in July deployed
to Afghanistan in October
with the 1st Squadron–113th Cavalry
Regiment.
rachel weidenbaum (now
rachel claire) and noam harary
starred in the independent film
Heaven is Waiting, directed by Shlomi
Ben Yair and produced by Pegah
Easton. The film has been screened
at the following international festivals:
the Cannes Short Corner, Milan,
Montreal and Rhode Island.
09
NOvEMBER/DECEMBER 2010
69
alidad damooei
c/o CCT
Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
damooei@gmail.com
As the leaves have fallen and we
start piling on the layers of clothing
to keep us warm, the Class of
2009 continues to pursue exciting
endeavors everywhere from Hollywood
to Mongolia.
Keli leong took time off before
graduate school to film part of the
James L. Brooks movie How Do You
Know in October 2009. Reese Witherspoon
stars in the film in which
her character is a professional
softball player. Keli represented her
sport by portraying one of Witherspoon’s
teammates on the U.S.
National Team. The movie opens
in theaters on December 17. It was
a fantastic networking opportunity
that led Keli to a volunteer
assistant coaching position at Iona
College. During her time there, the
team won the softball program’s
first Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference
Championship in 25 years
and made its inaugural NCAA
Division I Regional appearance.
liz berger returned last summer
from Mongolia, where she volunteered
on the Mongol-American
Khovd Archaeology Project. Volunteers
worked on an excavation of a
2,000-year-old cemetery in the Altai
Mountains and had the chance to
experience contemporary life in the
Mongolian countryside (including
much off-road driving and even
some barbecued marmot).
After graduation, Marissa smith
took to bartending to save for a
three-month volunteer project in
Guanajuato, Mexico. There, working
at a shelter for abused women
and girls, she took up multiple
projects including education of the
girls in math, science and English.
Her group also developed a
computer lab with eight computers
for the girls to learn to type and
use computer programs. After the
project, Marissa decided to do a
cross-country bike tour with the
American Lung Association, raising
more than $6,000 for lung disease
research. It took 48 days, more than
3,300 miles and many ice cream
breaks to get from Seattle to Washington,
D.C. Marissa has learned
to speak to cows, developed zebralike
tan lines and learned how to
pitch a tent and find cover during
ridiculous hailstorms. She started
massage school in New York City in
September and is searching for a job
that unfortunately does not involve
making drinks.
After a year in the United Kingdom,
Eric lukas spent the summer
working in Washington, D.C., and
at home in northern Virginia as an
assistant editor at Foreign Policy
magazine. From June–September,
he was a regular contributor to
ForeignPolicy.com’s Oil and Glory
blog, where he provided news and
commentary on the latest developments
in the business, politics and
economics of energy. Among some
of his favorite pieces were posts on
the future of the oil industry after
the BP oil spill and on clean energy
initiatives in the Middle East. He
writes, “It’s not often that you’re
in a position to write about exactly
what interests you, and I felt very
fortunate to have this opportunity.”
When he was not blogging, Eric
hiked and biked through Virginia’s
Blue Ridge Mountains and visited
New York and New England. He
also caught up with friends over
dinner and drinks in Washington,
including spencer silverstein and
Kunaal Sharma ’10. Eric returned
to Oxford in October for the second
year of his master’s program in
international relations, where he is
studying the problems of international
cooperation in energy.
10
Julia feldberg
4 E. 8th St., Apt. 4F
New York, NY 10003
juliafeldberg@gmail.com
Hello, 2010. I am writing this in early
September from my new apartment
in Greenwich Village, shared with
Charlotte Furet ’10 Barnard and sandra
cariglio. As I watch the NYU
freshmen move into their dorms and
try not to wince when cashiers ask
if I have my NYU student ID, I am
struck not only by the fact that we
are not returning to school but also