Columbia Love Stories 2026

That was the first time we met—back in 2023, in a Columbia University ERM class. Before that, we had never seen each other. During the lecture, she tapped me on the shoulder and asked, “Are you Chinese too?” I smiled and said yes. The conversation didn’t end there, and we soon added each other on WeChat.

Later, we met for a drink at a small bar near the campus and quickly realized how well we clicked. I learned that she grew up in Beijing and that it was her first time studying abroad. I, on the other hand, grew up in a small town in southern China, and spent my university years in Heilongjiang—the northernmost province of China. Yet in the end, we met at Columbia University.

During our time in New York, we stayed by each other’s side and supported one another—helping with coursework, guiding each other academically, and supporting each other through the job search. We spent two unforgettable years in the city. On weekends and during holidays, I would rent a car and take her on road trips to nearby cities.

Now we’ve moved from New York to London, and we’re still together. She is continuing her second master’s degree at Imperial College London, while I’m beginning my PhD journey at Bayes Business School. London has its own unique charm, but we both still miss the energy and hustle and bustle of New York City. For us, Columbia University is where our story began—and where our dreams began too. We miss our time at Columbia deeply. 

—Zhongjie Y. ’25SPS and Jiaqi H. ’25SPS

Rob and I went to different graduate schools and at different times, Rob MBA ’85 and me MPH ’96. But when we met years later, it felt like kismet how we bonded over going to Columbia. We loved our experiences there and agreed that it opened a new world for us. Being Columbia alumni tethers us together. 

—Mary D. ’96PH and Rob M. ’85BUS

Tamar and I met roughly seven years ago, and I remember that brisk Friday evening in March quite vividly. My future roommates were hosting a social gathering at their Ruggles apartment. At the time, I was the new kid on the block, just beginning to integrate into the Orthodox Jewish community on campus. I walked in that evening eager yet slightly apprehensive — excited by the prospect of meeting new people, but keenly aware of how conspicuous my jeans and shoulder-length hair looked in a room full of yeshiva-leaguers on Shabbat.

Not long after I arrived, I was approached by a girl dressed in what could only be described as an unusual outfit: a unicorn onesie. I was intrigued — both by the outfit and by her rather direct opening line: “I don’t know you. Who are you?”

My first conversation with Tamar lasted the entire evening. In that conversation, the differences in our backgrounds and upbringings quickly came to light. She told me about her years in yeshiva and seminary, while I spoke about my experience in public school, not so subtly mentioning that I had been captain of both the football and baseball teams, and that most of my past Friday nights had been spent under stadium lights facing rival schools. What girl doesn’t love a football player? I remember thinking. I was puzzled, though, by the flash of surprise that crossed Tamar’s face when I described how I used to spend my Friday nights.

We uncovered even more differences when we turned to literature. My praise of Hemingway was met with an audible gasp. Tamar’s entire demeanor shifted as she began expressing her love for Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë. Her face lit up; the noise and chaos around us seemed to fade away, and suddenly it felt as though we were alone in the corner of the room. As the conversation continued and I looked into her blue eyes, a realization slowly washed over me: by the grace of G-d, I had somehow stumbled upon the most wholesome, intelligent, and beautiful girl I had ever met.

What was not gradual, however, was the moment I fell in love with Tamar.

It happened exactly one week later. I had spent that week riding the high of our first conversation, but reality eventually set back in. The stress of school weighed on me as I began walking toward the guys’ Ruggles apartment that next Friday evening. Even more heavily, my father’s deteriorating health overshadowed any joy I might have felt. I began convincing myself that the differences between Tamar and me were too great to overcome. Disheartened, I turned around and started walking toward Butler Library, resigned to a long night of studying.

Then I heard the warmth of a familiar voice call out: “Sam?”

I turned around and saw Tamar standing there in the middle of West 114th Street. In that instant, I fell in love. Her smile felt like a promise of better days ahead, and the thought of sharing a future with her lightened the weight of the uncertainty surrounding my father’s illness. I have loved Tamar Hoodle Liberman ever since that moment.

On July 3, 2022, we were married. And on July 29, 2025, we welcomed a baby boy into the world—Donald Abraham, named for my father, of blessed memory, ’78CC.

—Samuel S. ’20CC and Tamar S. ’19BC

My wife, Barbara, and I had just gotten married and arrived in New York City with $500 in the bank, no vehicle, and her $5,000 a year teaching job at the Brick Church School across town. Needless to say, we were on a strict budget, including rationing our transit tokens. My full tuition scholarship and married student housing allowed us to survive. Barb was even able to get her MA at Teacher's College at night. We made lots of friends, bought bicycles, spent much time in Riverside and Central Parks, and found every discounted form of entertainment available. We both subsequently made careers out of teaching, and we recently celebrated our 53rd wedding anniversary. Thank you, Columbia! 

—Marcus P. ’76GSAS and Barbara P. ’76TC

During our graduate studies at the School of International Affairs (SIPA) we were assigned to a debate team together in the first semester cornerstone class, Conceptual Foundations for International Affairs. After multiple classes and study groups together over the following semesters, our relationship grew. After graduation in 2005, we moved to Washington, DC together, married in 2007 and pursed careers overseas in the diplomatic corps with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Serendipitously, during our first overseas assignment to Bogota, Colombia, three other couples that also met at SIPA and married after graduation lived in Bogota with us. It felt like moving abroad with our Columbia family to Colombia!  Upon returning for our 20-year reunion in 2025, we brought our high school sophomore daughter with us to tour the campus and explore launching her career at Columbia. 

—Kira M. and Mario M ’05SIPA

Shantanu and Louisa met at the International House pub in March 2022—the very day masks finally came off after a two-year pandemic closure. Louisa was in the home stretch of her Master’s in Bilingual Special Education at Teachers College, while Shantanu was finishing his degree in Management Science at the Fu Foundation School of Engineering.

That evening, Louisa approached a mutual friend, Carlos, who happened to be sitting next to Shantanu. As Louisa and Carlos chatted in Spanish, Shantanu—who had been practicing Portuguese with friends—decided to shoot his shot. Fluent in Hindi and Marathi but new to Romance languages, he figured they all sounded similar enough and confidently told Louisa, “Você é muito linda.” The gamble paid off. After a first date at the salsa club Gonzalez y Gonzalez, they were married less than four years later in Nagpur, India, surrounded by family from both Vermont and India. 

— Louisa J. ’22TC and Shantanu K. ’22SEAS

Marina and I got together in the context of time-speed-distance rallying in the Sports Car Club of America, utilizing skills learned in the context of higher education at Columbia. 

—John B. ’71CC and ’73SIPA

Alex and I met in the summer of 1972 when she was earning extra credits so she could graduate in 1973.  She did, then we married in 1973, and she worked to put me through law school and pay our rent.  

After my graduation, we went on a two-month honeymoon, mostly hiking in national parks.  We had 4 children, and we never stopped hiking and camping.  We skied and climbed in the Colorado Rockies every year and hiked the Appalachian Trail together until her too-early death in 2015.  The picture is the two of us at the Summit of Grey's Peak, a 14,000 footer in the Rockies. 

—Cornelius M. ’74LAW and Alexandra O. ’73NRS

We met at Plimpton happy hour in 1982. I was a senior and my friends said “why are you going out with a junior?“ I graduated from Barnard a few months later and started working. When he graduated from Columbia College, he moved uptown to start medical school at P&S and I followed a few years later. We got married and had two children who also graduated from Barnard and Columbia. We never left Columbia. He worked as a full-time academic physician and, although I was in private practice, I always maintained my affiliation.

He died in 2011. Forty two years (to the day!) after our first date our first grandchild was born. 

—Amy S. ’82BC, ’89VPS and Peter S. ’83CC, ’87VPS

Some love stories are about timing—and Alexandra and Sebastian’s began just as the world found its rhythm again. They met at Columbia Business School in early 2021, among the first students returning to campus after the pandemic, when the atmosphere was hopeful and charged with possibility. It was love at first sight, a moment Alexandra describes. From the start, they shared a desire to explore the world and make an impact, balancing demanding careers with simple rituals like Friday night pizza with friends and family. That spirit carried into their work: Alexandra founded Pelican, a financial empowerment platform behind the #1 best-selling Penny the Pelican Plans Ahead, while Sebastian launched Rockhopper, a CFO planning tool serving Fortune enterprises—ventures that mirrored their shared values of purpose, creativity, and ambition.

In February 2024, Sebastian proposed on a scenic hike in Patagonia during a visit with his father, and their plans soon evolved to an intimate destination wedding in Tuscany. They chose a historic estate outside Florence, sealing the decision when they discovered the venue’s planner hailed from the same Patagonian town where they’d gotten engaged. Drawing on her background at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Alexandra designed the celebration from afar, weaving art, architecture, and personal traditions into every detail. On September 20, 2025, surrounded by rolling Tuscan hills, the couple exchanged vows before their closest loved ones—a poetic meeting of art, finance and family. From New York to Tuscany, their journey reflects a partnership rooted in purpose and a love that continues to inspire.

—Alexandra B. and Sebastian L.’22BUS

Isabella and I met on a dating app in February 2018, several years into our PhD programs in art history and school psychology, respectively. Though our coursework had taken place only a few blocks apart, we had never [knowingly] crossed paths. There was an immediate spark during our first date at the beloved Max Caffe. Isabella had just found out she would be leaving to spend a year in Europe on a fellowship from the Met, but the distance didn’t get in our way: that November, we met up in Paris, and it was just as romantic as that sounds.

Several rounds of long-distance dating later, including a year riding out the pandemic in our studio apartment in Harlem, Isabella and I got married at Riverside Church in 2022. Our wedding doubled as a send-off: we left New York for San Francisco for Isabella to start a job as a curator at an art museum. We’ve found great happiness in the Bay Area and are now expecting our first child, due in April! Even though we met online, being graduate students at Columbia was a key factor in bringing us together, and the university will always be a cherished part of our story. 

—Joe T. ’19TC and Isabella L. ’22GSAS

Harlan and I (Laura) fell in love many years ago at Columbia. We were introduced by mutual friends Julie Yufe (’98CC) and Joshua Schank (’97CC) to be each others’ dates for the AXO and AEPi formals in the Spring of 1996. Funny enough, they wanted Harlan to have options so they fixed him up with some other girls, but we just clicked. On our first date we had pasta at Cafe Pertuti and then he came back to my dorm  on the sixth floor of Sulzberger and watched “Clueless.” He was a perfect gentleman. We went to those formals and started going to lots of museums, dinners all over the city, and doing everything we could together. I stayed at Columbia and went to Teachers College for my masters while Harlan went down south to Vanderbilt for Law School. We were married in March 2002 and were blessed with twins, Emma and Jack, in July 2003. The twins are now seniors in college! It all has gone in the blink of an eye and we cherish our years together at Columbia! 
 

—Laura S. ’99BC, ’01TC and Harlan S. ’97GS

We met because of Columbia. He’s at the Journalism School, I had applied to the Law School for the LL.M., and someone we both know introduced us because I was going to be at the same university as him—cue the rest of the story! He was very cheeky: helping me find a place to live (before we were even dating) all while secretly plotting to ask me to marry him…and move in with me. Smooth. 

Jugnoo K. ’25LAW and Ali R. 

As fate would have it, I met my wife in Dwijen Bhattacharjya’s Bengali class. The course itself was a small miracle—brought into existence because there were enough students who shared a genuine desire to learn and explore the language. At the time, I was a Columbia College sophomore and she was a Barnard College freshman. We quickly realized how much we had in common: we were both born and raised in Bangladesh, had immigrated to the United States with our families, and were eager to stay connected to our mother tongue and culture.

For me, it was love at first sight, though it took time to find the courage to express it. That opportunity came on the final day of the semester, when our professor hosted a small gathering at his home. A simple conversation that evening marked the beginning of what would become a lasting connection. She soon became my best friend. We went on to take additional classes together, including Advanced Bengali. The rest as they say is history. I pursued medical school, she began her career on Wall Street. We got married in 2009. Today, we live in Upstate New York and are blessed with two daughters, Amani and Aneesa.

When friends and family ask how we met, we always recall this story fondly and credit Columbia for bringing us together.

—Mohammad A. and Umme H. ’06CC

In Fall 2023, at the end of a tumultuous and yet extraordinary first week of grad school, I was itching to mingle with peers. Eager to make new connections, I sought out a friend who had taken me under his wing, and got introduced to a bunch of new people. My friend mentioned one boy who was equally as crazy and fun as our newfound friendship foundations. I said okay why not? When said boy showed up in a bucket hat with his easy wit and playfulness, and raced off to chat with a pretty girl from his cohort, I paid no heed to even the possibility of real friendship. Few weeks in, we were already fast friends, and potential future roommates. Little did I know that I had not only met my best friend, but also the love of my life. 

We had no classes in common, but found ways to be around each other through our mutual friends, or just to hang out by ourselves. Neither one of us saw the other as anything beyond platonic until our last semester when we finally became roommates. From day one of living in the same apartment, the tension was palpable, and almost tangible. A few weeks in, we both confessed our feelings, and the rest is history. I have never known love to the point of curiosity, self-assurance, and internal fortitude the way I know with him, and I will forever remain grateful to Columbia for not only being my dream university, but also allowing me to cross paths with my soulmate.

—Ashita U. ’25GSAS and Sai N. SEAS, BUS

A SIPA Love Story: From Washington Trek to a Shared Journey

I met Rosa Wang during the SIPA Washington Trek, at a Columbia alumni reception filled with handshakes, name tags, and the usual small talk. But that night unfolded differently for us. We found a quiet corner and talked for nearly four hours—about why we came to Columbia, the cities that raised us, and the futures we were still learning to imagine. By the time the room emptied and the lights dimmed, it felt less like meeting someone new and more like finding a missing chapter of my own story.

After Washington, life kept bringing us together. We took the same economics course, turning problem sets into excuses for coffee and conversations that wandered far beyond supply curves. We later interned side by side at a wealth management firm in New York, learning about markets by day and discovering the city by night—Flushing dumplings, Hudson sunsets, subway rides that somehow never felt long enough.

That winter, our worlds grew even closer. I visited her hometown and saw the streets that shaped her laughter; she came to mine and met the family who shaped my dreams. Two different maps slowly became one shared route.

Columbia gave us many things—mentors, challenges, late nights in Lehman Library—but the greatest gift was each other. And whenever I think back to how it all began,I return to that Columbia alumni reception in Washington—the soft glow of the room, the hum of conversations fading, and two people who didn’t yet know they were standing at the doorway of their future.
 

—Yifeng H. and Rosa W. ’26SIPA

Dennis and I met in 1994 during our junior year at Columbia at a mutual friend’s birthday party at East Campus. He was a polite aspiring engineer and I was a semi-introverted political science major. All these years later, he’s still my best friend. We built a life together in Southern California, and just celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary!

Columbia is a magnet for us, continually drawing us…and our kids… back to NYC. Our daughter is a Barnard graduate, and our son is currently a sophomore playing for the CU men’s soccer team. Columbia will always have a special place in our hearts! 

—Andrea B. ’96CC and Dennis C. ’96SEAS

I met my husband at Columbia in 1965. I graduated from the School of Nursing and he graduated from the Medical School in the same year. 

- Susan E. ’65NRS and Philip H. ’65VPS

I met my wife in October 1994 at a college mixer...our second date was  on Dec 8 at the Columbia Field house at a Dental school party. I asked her to marry me and she said yes.

I was a sophomore. ,in the Dental School and we waited until two weeks after my graduation in June 1967. We will have been married 59 years in June.

I taught in the dental school for 32 years and was "Teacher of the year in 1999.

—John D. ’97DM and Loretta D. TC

It was, I think, 1974. I was a graduate student, living with two roommates in a professor's sublet at 29 Claremont Avenue, and reading The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann, late into one October night. The book had totally entranced me and I was devoting my nights to it. I had been a literature major in college and, as had always been true for me, I looked to these novels—by Russian, English, German, French authors, for clues to the secrets of my own heart. So. As I said. Late, late one night—I was coming up on the penultimate scene, where Hans is about to declare his love for Claudia—when I hit the skids at pages of French. Untranslated French. In the edition I was reading. And I do not read or speak French. After a few stunned minutes (no Google translate back in the day, thank God, actually) I got on the landline and called my friend Frank. A lovely young man who was getting his PhD in Comp Lit. I BEGGED him to meet me at sunrise on campus, outside Butler Library. He agreed. And sunrise found us, sitting side by side on the steps, while he read to me those pages of French in translation. Probably one of the most intensely romantic moments of my young life. We did not ride off into any sunset together; we might have. But we did remain very good friends—bound by our love of literature, and New York City, and Columbia. 

—Catherine C. ’76SW, ’84JRN and Frank P.