May/Jun 2001

Spring has finally returned, ushering in those chock-full-o'-weddings months, May and June. What better way to kick off this column? Helen Moon (hmwoo@msn.com) married Daniel Woo in August in Woodbury, NY. Classmates attending the wedding included Yi-Nei Chen, Yumika Hirashima, Sun Joo Kim, Rose Lum, John Wang, Viet Vo '01, Peter Chiu, Tae Park '98, Rich Yuen, MHA HE '99, Steve Long, John Bae, Angela Cho, Jenny Yun, and Jackson Eng. Helen is teaching second grade in the Bronx; her husband is an anesthesiologist at Cornell Medical Center. Erica Levinger married Jason Ban in May 2000. Carrie Fader and Brian Kintz married in August 2000. The couple lives in San Diego, CA; Brian is an attorney and Carrie is a social worker. Dave Witkowski married Jennifer Kyle in July 2000; Cornellians in attendance included Mel Weiss and Heather Danboise '95, DVM '99. Dave graduated from the U. of Virginia with a master's in microbiology; he and Jennifer now live in the Washington, DC, area, where Dave works at an internet start-up, Avendra, as a systems administrator. He saw Kari Frontera '98, Gayle D'Alessandro '98, Michelle Johnson '95, and Matt Stanton '96, ME C '97, at Zinck's Night in October. Rafael Perez and Nicole Cuda tied the knot on Sept. 15, '00, on Long Island. The couple lives in West Hempstead, NY; Nicole works as an attorney at Hughes Hubbard and Reed, while Rafael is a human resources manager for Perrier Group of America. James Pronti married Kelly Bechakas in October 2000 and lives in Rochester, NY. Both James and Kelly are attorneys, he at Woods, Oviatt, Gilman, and she at Harter, Secrest, Emerey.

In September, Christine Leung married Brian Harmon, whom she met in San Francisco after graduation, in Santa Rosa, CA. Cornellians in attendance included Michael Schwartz '96, Aaron "Rusty" Lloyd '92 (a groomsman), Dominique Lazanski '96, Lhney Lewis-Steiner '96 and Joshua Steiner, MS I '98, Anne Savage '98, ME C '99, Soo Youn Yi '98, Ali Tromble '98, and Dan Adinolfi '96. Samantha Youngman checked in from New York City, where she works for Glamour magazine as a staff writer. She reported that Julie Leffler and Andrew Schultz got married in October. Celebrants included Beth Rothenstein, Ellen Goodman, Marc Stiefel, Cathy Courtney, Jill Del Grosso, Yvette Nick, Gretchen Goldfarb, Larry Feinblum, and Jana Schulman, as well as Scott Fintzy, Matt Middleman, Jon Rapkin, Alec Kimmelman, Gabe Jacobson, Rachel Rosen, Matt Allen, Jeremy Gans, Dave Nanus, and Dave Goodman, all '96; and Julie's sister, Carrie Leffler '94.

Heather Adivari, JD '00 (hsa2@cornell.edu) is an attorney at Paul, Hastings, Janofsky and Walker LLP in NYC. She's seen fellow Law grad Dan Boglioli, JD '00, who is working at Kay Scholer, Leda Anastasiades who is working in NYC at Goldman Sachs's legal systems department, and Betsy Leis who is in Chicago. Katherine Baynes (kbaynes@nixonpeabody.com) graduated in June 2000 from Harvard law school and is now working for Nixon Peabody LLP in Rochester, NY. In November, Joseph Barreto (jbarreto@exchange.cml.com) was living in Brooklyn and working as a NASDAQ trader for Merrill Lynch. Last fall, Jennifer Mattucci (jmattucci@mc.rochester.edu) was applying for residencies in psychiatry and preparing to graduate this spring from the U. of Rochester school of medicine. She caught up with Marcy Rosenberg, who married Gregg Benson in August 2000. Jennifer has also seen Robin Yates and Caren Barbara, and she caught up with many fellow AOPis at Tanya Axenson's wedding to Scott Macallair.

In November, Kirsten Harhay (harhayk@hotmail.com) and Thatcher Bell reported they are enjoying life in Boston. Kirsten is an elementary school social worker in the city of Malden, and Thatcher joined a pre-IPO software company as manager of business development. Though busy studying for the GMAT and applying to grad schools, Kirsten Knipp (kirsten.knipp@ritzcarlton.com) managed to find time to attend a dinner in NYC at Windows on the World in honor of Cornell Hotel school dean David Dittman. Kirsten sees lots of Cornellians, among them Viktoria Sveinsdottir '98, Natalie Francoeur '98, Jess Loesch '98, Jorge Boon '98, Terry Hess '00, Brett Schmulian '00, Tom Van Gessel '98, Elif Bali '95, Eleni Espania '98, and Jen Hines '98. In March 2000, Kim L. Mashak (née Messeri) (kimmesseri@hotmail.com) started working as a manager of technical writing and training for Vectris Communications, a data exchange carrier located in Austin, TX.

Lynne Wolf (wolf0304@tc.um.edu) is attending law school at the U. of Minnesota, Twin Cities. After spending two years in her hometown of Minneapolis, MN, Elaine Liu moved to Sunnyvale, CA, where she landed a job at Fujitsu in San Jose. Jennifer Moldoch (jmoldoch@ammplan.com) left Citibank last year to work for AM&M Planners, also in Rochester, NY. She's also working on an MBA at the Simon School at the U. of Rochester. Jennifer and Rachel Sprague attended Valerie Waye's wedding to Kristoff Cortez in San Diego. Karen DeGroat Whisler and Laura Baressi were bridesmaids and both teach. Jennifer reports that Rachel is in pharmaceutical sales and Valerie works for the San Diego Air and Space Museum. Finally, Barbara Lee (bslee@ups.com) is an analyst at the United Parcel Service's corporate headquarters in Atlanta, GA. Barbara confirms that she does indeed have her own brown uniform.

With our first reunion about a year away, I encourage all classmates to pay their dues and start reaching out to those former roommates that you just don't seem to talk to often enough. It would be great to see as many classmates on campus as possible! Please send your news to--Erica Broennle, 425 N. First Street #1, Charlottesville, VA 22902; e-mail, ejb4@cornell.edu; Class website: www.class of97.cornell.edu.