Columbia Love Stories 2022

Anthony and I crossed paths throughout our college years due to shared courses and training at Dodge - we were Football and Fencing student-athletes, respectively. But, we didn't formally meet until a classmate introduced us at a local bar in our sophomore and junior years.

We became fast friends, began dating a year later, and married in October of 2021. Despite the challenges of the pandemic, we were fortunate to have so many fellow alumni travel from near and far to celebrate our special day, including Best Men: Joshua Martin (CC'13) and Kalasi Huggins (CC'12) and Bridesmaids: Anne Faber-Inkpen (BC'13), Nzingha Prescod (CC'15), Essane Diedro (CC'13), and Loweye Diedro (CC'13).

We now live on the Upper West Side, just a few blocks from campus, which is perfect for enjoying weekend strolls on College Walk after brunch.

Elisheva and I first on Columbia’s campus during a Jewish student orientation event. At the time, I was a junior at Columbia College, and I signed up as a Jewish student orientation leader. We became friends immediately through some of the programming, and both of were heavily involved in Yavneh, Columbia’s Orthodox Jewish group. Our friendship really blossomed when the two of us enrolled in Professor Carnes’ US History: 1940-1975. Being the studious student that I was (or at least pretended to be), I always preferred to sit in the first few rows. Elisheva, having somewhat poor vision and a general aversion to wearing her glasses, decided to come sit next to me, and that’s when our friendship really took off. From that point on, we sat next to each other every class.

Fast forward two years to October 2019: Elisheva and I got engaged on Columbia’s campus! In planning the engagement, I received tremendous help from Columbia/Barnard professors and Faculty. Elisheva studied psychology at Barnard, and her Professor, Koleen McCrink, helped me plan a “student dinner party” at the Italian Academy, which was of course a ruse. Elisheva is super hard to trick, and I wanted our engagement to be a surprise. Elisheva and I got married on September 6, 2020. Many of our close friends from Columbia attended the wedding, which made us feel so lucky as we experienced pandemic-related challenges with planning a COVID wedding. We were so fortunate to start our journey together at Columbia, an institution that will always feel near and dear to our hearts.

I met my now husband Garrett at Columbia. We both played sports (lacrosse and football) and knew each other though athletics. We started dating sophomore year and are now married as of March 2021! We also had tons of CU alumni in abs at our special day.

Andie Cortes-Comerer and Paul Burkey ('05CC) fell in love over their other love, music. Both music lovers and music majors (Andie’s a little bit classical and Paul’s a little bit jazz) paired in several music classes together we met while living on the same floor in McBain during sophomore year where Andie was friends with Paul’s blind double roommate. We took full advantage of New York’s music scene and our first date was a jazz show at downtown’s Village Vangaurd. In 2018 we welcomed daughter Penelope into the world and are preparing for the birth of our second (due any day!) Our Columbia romance was enhanced by our wedding day location at St. Paul’s chapel on campus (pictured) with a reception at famed Terrace in the Sky.

She was a writer for the Spectator, and I was a photographer assigned to the story. We attended and put together a story on a professor that won an award (neither of us remember the professor nor the award!).

We met the next night randomly at a party, I asked her out, and we have been together since.

We are celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary this year (taking the whole family to Greece), bringing our three children...including CC '22 Emma and CC '24 Campbell (our youngest is still in high school).

We both did the 3-2 engineering program and met one day at the gym. We then bonded over the engineering program and our love story began! I surprised Lindsay with a proposal on campus on 1/29/2022.

Mariah, Jasmine and I met our freshman year. Mariah and Jas were roommates on Furnald 1 and I lived on Furnald 7. I’m so grateful to God’s universe for bringing us together. I have endless memories of us grabbing dinner at Ferris (the Thanksgiving feast was a favorite), chilling at the high top tables at JJs Place, grabbing dinner at Vine Sushi right across the street from campus — just to name a few.

Mariah and Jasmine are two incredibly important pieces of my heart. These incredible women have become my sisters throughout this journey called life. I’m endlessly grateful to have them by my side. Here’s to Columbia from paving this way for our wonderful sisterhood!

We met during NSOP in 2011. We connected right from the get-go, discovering just how much we had in common—growing up in Massachusetts, passion for tech, love of Asian food and culture, and much more.

In March 2020, 8 years and 6 months to the day since we first met, Aftab brought us back to the place where it all started, Columbia University (under the pretense of a company recruiting trip), and proposed in front of the sundial at the center of campus. While we couldn't have as many people present as we'd have liked (due to the pandemic), we were fortunate to be joined by some of our best friends to celebrate our engagement with a surprise brunch at our favorite restaurant (Cafe Du Soleil) from our college days.

We're getting married this year on September 4th, approximately the same day we met 11 years ago on the 5th floor of Furnald Hall.

Our Columbia Love Story began on Commencement Day 1995, though we did not know it at the time. I graduated medical school from Columbia's College of Physicians and Surgeons and it was a very proud day for my entire family. My brother in law climbed behind Alma Mater and managed to take a panoramic photograph of the Columbia graduates on the Quad. Standing approximately 40 feet to my left, graduating from Columbia College on the very same day, was my future wife, Fay Kastrinos.

We did not meet until three years later on a blind date. Both being children of Greek immigrants who emigrated to New York City, our social circles were not that far apart and our Columbia pride was also a mutual bond. It soon became apparent that we shared the same Columbia Commencement day. We dug up my old 1995 Commencement Day picture and, sure enough, we could identify each other in our graduation cap and gowns. We were married in 2000 and spent the first 10 years of our marriage in Boston. But New York was home and we are now both physicians and proud Columbia faculty in the Gastroenterology Division at the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. We are happy to say that ours is a true Columbia Love Story. Happy Valentine’s Day!

Those gardens are where my children learned to walk and ride a bicycle, hearing the voices of students of all shapes and colors, learning that the world is a better place when people are together. Seasons passed, snow, rain, sun, hail, winds. Falling and standing up again, with us encouraging parents by their side, playing with friends of a lifetime, crying and smiling.

My family has fond memories of those atmospheres that will last a lifetime. It's been the hardest times of my life professionally but we went through it together, from the excitement of the very first days through the monotony of the later years and the unknowns of a global pandemic, through the ups and downs of a family growing up, a scientist, a teacher and two loving, bright souls in the making.

Not only did Columbia University give me an excellent education, but New York City and a Wife to boot!

The reason I came to Columbia University in the city of NY is to follow my curiosity and immerse myself in a vibrant community. In the middle of such a journey, my wife, Sayaka, and I were blessed with a treasure, Kei Iris Aihara, our daughter. One day, at an Art lecture, I learned about an American painter and then happened to encounter one of his paintings at Met, which depicted beautiful purple irises as a symbol of Japan, my country. Later, at that very moment when I suggested “iris” as our child’s middle, my wife's water suddenly broke. We immediately headed to the Columbia Presbyterian hospital, and the next morning, she was born. Two weeks earlier than expected and it was also our first-year wedding anniversary. The first birth in a foreign country under the pandemic.

Our family have been helped by incredible connections with people at campus, my neighborhood community, and health care workers. With heartfelt gratitude, we are determined to continue our enjoyable endeavors and make a contribution in return to a better world for everyone.

Very grateful of what bring us together

My wife and I are both Columbia graduates from Master in Real Estate Development Program

We met and fell in love at Columbia. Spoiler - now we are married for 10 years and has 2 kids.

We met for the first first time in Avery Hall’s Basement. We share the same interest in Real estate and the love of learning. This upcoming 2nd Nov will be our 10th wedding Anniversary.

Happy Valentine to whoever is reading this. Hope you can find a true partner where you can chart and navigate your life with. There are ups and downs in life, and it’s lonely to go through it alone. Especially if that person is a better part of you. I am one of the very lucky person who happen to find my true soulmate. I am very grateful of that. Grateful for what bring us together. Thank you Columbia. I miss New York very much. Wishing to go celebrate there soon.

PS: We live in Phuket. It’s an island paradise towards Southern part of Thailand. Visit us sometimes. We build several properties there - some of which are hotel!

On a rainy day back in fall semester of 2000, Shapiro piano practice floor witnessed a heartbeat when two SIPA students met.

The love grew deeper as we scrolled through the campus, Lerner Hall, Columbia library and of course the steps. We brought back home the Columbia spirit and our love flourished into a wedding in December 2004.

Johane Clermont, GSAPP ‘22 and Daphne Rubin-Vega, CC ‘07, first met in 2005 at Prentis Hall through friends when Daphne was a sophomore and Johane in the New York-Paris program at GSAPP. But it wasn’t until 2016 that the couple pursued romance: the now-engaged couple serendipitously reacquainted at a public hearing at the National Museum of the American Indian for affordable housing — Johane as an urban planner representing the city, and Daphne as a private land use attorney. Nearly twenty years after meeting at Columbia, the couple is back on campus! Johane is in her final year at GSAPP, and both can be spotted at the Whispering Bench on any given evening.

I saw her on my first day at Columbia, but then I didn’t know how much of a part she is going to be in my life. Maybe we were all just caught up with orientation in the Fall of 2019, and overwhelmed by moving to a new country and starting school.

I walked up to her to ask her if she was headed to the same orientation at Casa Italiana, and then we moved on to the next thing. 6 Months later, I saw her at SPS’s Career Design Lab (CDL) in Times Square, but I wasn’t sure if it was her, so I said her name out loud to see if she responds. She looked around, it was her, and we were both starting our internships at CDL in spring 2020. We used to hang out during lunch, or take walks around Times Square for breaks and talk about what an amazing opportunity we had found here. Turned out we were also neighbors living across from each other on West 109th street. She and her roommates were throwing a party for Valentines Day and she invited me to it. I remember us sitting on the floor at 2am talking about our most used emojis, many of their friends had already left by then and in that moment I knew our frequencies matched.

Then the pandemic happened, but we stayed in touch through video calls and text. My lease was ending and I needed to find an apartment and conveniently her roommates were leaving, so it kind of just fell in to place, I moved across the street and now we were roommates. We supported each other and got through School’s final semester. Our friendship grew slow and very organically through late night conversations on our rooftop and enjoying each other’s company. We then decided to move out of our student life apartment and find an adult apartment and ended up moving to Brooklyn. Many days of apartment hunting and we finally found one we liked that we didn’t even need words to describe it, we just looked at each other and knew this was it.

Living with her this last year has been the best time I’ve had in New York, we explored the city, went on trips, biked around Brooklyn, but most of all we just got along. We always joked about being each other’s plus one at events, dinner parties or shows and also fighting like a couple. Today she is one of my best friends. New York can be tough on you, but when you find a friend it makes life a lot easier there, and it’s quite the journey.

Although Jonathan had trouble remembering my name in our early days as first-year planning students, he enlisted me to accompany him to Health Services for his MMR vaccination. I guess that made me a little more memorable to him. After that, we were friends for many months. In the spring, during a department program in Latvia, we declared our love for each other. Our professor Sigurd Grava, who was not one for grand displays of emotion, took the eventual news of our engagement with, "Yes, yes, this happens from time to time."

Max and I met our senior year at Columbia months before graduating. We fell in love very unexpectedly and crazily– he was off to Oxford for his masters, and I was off to Los Angeles to pursue a film career after graduation. We decided to do a month long Euro trip before starting long distance, which ended up being a magical solid foundation that kept us going. I then moved to London to get my masters and be closer to him; and when we both graduated, we moved back to New York and got married! Thank you Columbia for not only giving me life long friends but also my soulmate!!