Alumni Day and Reunion

*Please note, any attendees who opted-out of being listed on the website will not be included below.

1963
David B Ottaway IF '63

1968
Raymond Burghardt MIA '68 

1971
Ronald Lorton MIA '71, IF '71

1972
James Boyd Black MIA '72

1976
David Johnson IF '75, MIA '76

1978
Jeffrey Delaurentis MIA '78
Matthew Stevenson MIA '78, IF ‘78

1977
Jeanette Gioia MIA '77

1979
Mozelle Thompson IF '79

1980
Lucy Tamlyn MIA '80

1982
Reed Auerbach IF '81, MIA '82
Daria Fane MIA '82

1983
Simon Salas MPA '83
Charles Santangelo MPA '83
Charlie Seelig MPA '83

1984
Eric Tucker MIA '84

1985
Roger Baumann IF '84, MIA '85
Alexander Georgiadis MIA '85
John Charles Jove MIA '85
Erik Jacobs MIA '85, IF ‘85

1986
John Evans MIA '86
Barbara Reguero MIA '86
Marie Tyrrell MIA '86
Tracy Wilson MIA '86

1987
John Solecki MIA '87

1989
Nancy Degnan MPA '88

1989
Michael Mcadoo MIA '89

1991
Habib Enayetullah MPA '91
Susan Chaffin MIA '91
Cynthia Cummis MPA '91
Margaret Forgione MPA '91
Navid Hanif MIA '91
Stephanie Hom MPA '91
John Lewis MPA '91
Aurora Noguera-Ramkissoon MPA '91
George Patras MIA '91
Krista Riddley MIA '91
Elaine Sapiro MIA '91
Susan Soehawen MPA '91
Amir Sternhell MIA '91

1993
Vikram Kapur MIA '93
Stephen Pirozzi MPA '93

1995
Sara Borden MPA '95
Michael Broudo MIA '95
Leoš Rousek MIA '95

1996
Azeb Gessesse MIA '96
Pronita Gupta MPA '96
Mahvash Hassan MPA '96
Cem Pensoy MIA '96
Dorena Rodriguez MPA '96
Raymond Lawrence Sullivan MIA '96

1997
Ashish Badjatia MIA '97
Jennifer Chang MIA '97
Michael Hillmeyer MIA '97, IF '97

2000
Darko Bosnjak MIA '00

2001
Jennifer Amigone MPA '01
Gaurav Bansal MIA '01
Juan Manuel Benitez MIA '01
Elizabeth Cashen MIA '01
Kelly Cleland MPA '01
Jim Coats MIA '01
Marybeth Connolly MIA '01
Sussan Corson MIA '01
Daniel Costello MPA '01
Laura Caruso MPA '01
Erin Doyle Orekhov MIA '01
Christoph Evard MIA '01
Alejandro Garcia MIA '01
Rachel Heller-Scott MPA '01
Patty Hsieh MPA '01
Kyra Kaszynski MIA '01
Marla Klinger MPA '01
Jacqueline Kozin MIA '01
Sharmila B. Kurukulasuriya MPA '01
Deborah Lee MIA '01
Kristin Matthews MPA '01
Melissa Mcnamara MPA '01
Walter Miller MIA '01
Ekaterina Nadirova MIA '01
Christine Nollen MPA '01
Sally Oerth MPA '01
Nirmala Patni MPA '01
Catherine Addona Peña MIA '01
Sarah Peterson MIA '01
Maggy Huson Powell MIA '01
Danielle Garbe Reser MPA '01
Molly Rogers MPA '01
Narric Rome MPA '01
Manabu Sasaki MIA '01
Ivan Small MIA '01
Katherine Stephan MIA '01
Shuhrat Sulaymanov MIA '01
Alice Tan MPA '01
Page Tomblin MPA '01
Christopher Walker MIA '01
Candace Winkler MPA '01
 

2002
Laurence Berg MIA '02
Charles Stucke MIA '02
Luke Taliercio MPA-EPM '02

2003
Shehriyar Antia MIA '03
Kirsten Imohiosen EMPA '03
Laura Limonic MIA '03
Jennifer Mueller MIA '03
Sonal Patney EMPA '03

2004
Irina Shaorshadze MIA '04

2005
Martin Berg MPA '05
William Zhao MPA '05

2006
Moran Banai MIA '06
Rasta Behrang MIA '06
Don Blakeney MPA '06
Stephanie Martinez-Ruckman MPA '06
Michael Daniels EMPA '06
Daniel Defossey MPA '06
Sarah Dobsevage MIA '06
Amelia Erwitt MPA '06
Anna Fewell MPA '06
Kari Frame MPA '06
Thuy Fritsch MIA '06
Steven Fulop EMPA '06
Julia Gouny MIA '06
Rekha Grennan MPA '06
Tomas Grigera MIA '06
Laura Gunther MPA '06
Cynthia Hull MIA '06
Christina Hwang MIA '06
Maria Jonsdottir MIA '06
Kamil Kaluza MPA '06
Ann Kane MPA '06
Flora Kelmendi MPA '06
Sindhu Knotz MPA '06
Tessa Kratz MPA '06
Stephanie Martinez-Ruckman MPA '06
Chris Mayo MIA '06
Lesley Mireya Reith MIA '06
Sham Mustafa MPA '06
Ryan Newton MIA '06
Shawn Pearce MIA '06
Ana Luisa Pinto MIA '06
Tomas Potmesil MIA '06
Piotr Rejmer MIA '06
Oriol Rius-Sabate EMPA '06
Esteban Rodarte MPA '06
Yigit Sipahi MIA '06
Agustin Torres-Ibarrola MPA '06
Jaume Tutusaus MIA '06
Kate Weber MIA '06
Leonie Zhao-V. Kluechtzner MIA '06

2007
Lauren Kesner O'Brien MIA '07
Oksana Solovei MIA '07

2008
Leonardo Bullaro MPA '08
Beatriz Fritschler EMPA '08
Sagal Bashir Haji Musa MIA '08

2011
Ana Maria Aristizabal MPA '11
Ethan Arrow MIA '11
Thomas Chen MIA '11
Kristofer Clark MPA '11
Eric Couper MPA-DP '11
Kim Danh MIA '11
Jennifer Fong MIA '11
Beatriz Guillen MIA '11
Allison Greenburg MPA-DP '11
Nery Gracia MIA '11
Nicholas Hamilton MIA '11
Ayelet Haran MPA '11
David Leslie EMPA '11
Rebecca May MPA '11
Glenn Mccartan EMPA '11
Megan Rapp MIA '11
Carlos Salazar MIA '11

2012
Sebastian Borchmeyer MIA '12, IF'12
Carlos Cuevas MPA '12
Brian Greer MIA '12

2013
Benjamin Luehrs MIA '13

2014
James Profestas MPA '14

2015
Abhisheik Dhawan MPA-EPM '15

2016
Nick Albanese MIA '16
Valerie Amor MPA-ESP '16
Edgar Avalos MPA '16
Alvaro González MIA '16
Mario Gonzalez MPA '16
Andrey Gordiyenko EMPA '16
Kristen Grennan MPA '16
Amanda Grossi MPA-DP '16
William Harsh MPA '16
Mitsushiro Hirai MIA '16
Amy Huang MIA '16
Tiffany Qiu MPA '16
Chris Parks MIA '16
Alexander Pharmakis MPA-ESP '16
Erin Quetell MPA-ESP '16
Kiara Reed MPA '16
Lauren Sevigny MPA-ESP '16
Christina Soto MIA '16
Alexander Tourre MPA '16
Lucas Valente Da Costa MIA '16
Bartek Walentynski MPA '16
Lauren Wolahan MPA-ESP '16
Cleo Zhang MIA '16

2017
Natasha Avanessians MPA '17

2019
Anca Agachi MIA '19, IF '19
Jessica Burke MIA '19

2020
Daniel J Gorman MIA '20
Daniella Simari MPA-ESP '20
Daniel White MPA '20

2021
Elizabeth Anderson MIA '21
Han Bao EMPA '21
Lucylla Baynes EMPA '21
Mackenzie Crow MIA '21
Harry Crimi MPA '21
Pankti Dalal MPA-DP '21
Allison Day MPA-ESP '21
Elle Ding EMPA '21
Krishna Gall MIA '21
Sergey Gogin EMPA '21
Lydia Grek MIA '21
Sawami Hayashi MPA-DP '21
Jessica Kenny MPA-ESP '21
Paul Lindberg EMPA '21
Maria Losada EMPA '21
Luis Martinez EMPA '21
Kaoru Nagasawa MPA '21
Makoto Noda EMPA '21
Sarah Jane Noujeim MPA '21
Javier Pardinas MPA-DP '21
Jackeline Paulino EMPA '21
Irina Preotescu MIA '21
Pranav Ramkumar MPA '21
Hasmik Sahakyan MPA-DP '21
Syeda Zahra Shah MPA '21
John Severini MPA '21
Griffin Smith MPA-ESP '21
Marjorie Tolsdorf MPA-DP '21
Paige Williams MIA '21
Yuchen Wu MPA '21
Zishen (Norman) Ye MIA '21

2022
Xi Chen MPA '22
Maria Imbett EMPA '22

2023
Diana Bunge MPA-ESP '23
Hua Li MIA '23
Tobi Kasali MIA '23
Daniella Raposo EMPA '23

2024
Joshua Hanlee MIA '24
Vella Leonor Salazar MPA-EPM '24
Christoph Lhotka MPA '24
Xiaocheng Li MPA-EPM '24
Ambar Pagan MIA '24
Laura Setrakian-Adanalian EMPA '24

2025
Fabrice Albizzati EMPA '25
Michelle Zarifis EMPA '25
Cassandra Ziegler EMPA '25 

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Scott Barrett, Lenfest-Earth Institute Professor of Natural Resource Economics

Scott Barrett is a leading scholar on transnational and global challenges, ranging from climate change to disease eradication. His research focuses on how institutions like customary law and treaties can be used to promote international cooperation.

He has advised a number of international organizations, including the United Nations, the World Bank, the OECD, the European Commission, and the International Task Force on Global Public Goods. He was previously a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and a member of the Academic Panel to the Department of Environment in the UK.

Barrett previously taught at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C., where he also directed the International Policy program. Before that, he was on the faculty of the London Business School. He has also held visiting positions at Yale, Princeton, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin, and École Polytechnique.

Barrett is a research fellow with the Beijer Institute (Stockholm), CESifo (Munich), and the Kiel Institute of World Economics.

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Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, Herbert Lehman Professor of Government in the Faculty of International and Public Affairs

Alexander Hertel-Fernandez is the Herbert Lehman Professor of Government in the Faculty of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. His teaching and research focus on understanding the intersection between politics and markets in the United States, the politics of policy design, and labor policy. He is co-director of Columbia's Labor Lab, which uses social science tools in partnership with labor organizations to build worker power.

Hertel-Fernandez recently returned to Columbia after serving in the Biden-Harris Administration in the U.S. Department of Labor and the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. While at the Department of Labor, he led the Department's research and evaluation activities, including launching initiatives to study and address disparities in access to unemployment insurance and to better measure job quality. He also led the Department's implementation of President Biden's historic executive order on racial equity. At the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, he led efforts to expand public participation and community engagement in the regulatory process, reduce burdens in access to government benefits, and served as the lead handling White House review of regulations and forms related to nutrition and food assistance, support for underserved farmers, and rural development.

Hertel-Fernandez is the author or co-author of three books, including most recently The American Political Economy: Politics, Markets, and Power (Cambridge, 2021, with Jacob Hacker, Paul Pierson, and Kathleen Thelen), which lays out a new framework for assessing the evolution of distinctive political and economic institutions in the United States in comparative perspective. His previous book, State Capture (Oxford, 2019), examined how wealthy donors, businesses and trade associations, and political entrepreneurs built cross-state organizations to reshape policy across the United States—with implications for democracy, accountability, inequality, and political representation. His first book, Politics at Work (Oxford, 2018), examined changing patterns of political mobilization in the workplace.

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Tamar Mitts, Associate Professor of International and Public Affairs

Tamar Mitts is an Associate Professor of International and Public Affairs and a member of the Data Science Institute, the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies and the Political Science Department at Columbia University. Her research addresses emerging challenges at the intersection of technology and conflict.

Professor Mitts’s work focuses on several broad questions: (a) What role does social media play during conflict and civil war? (b) How do violent and nonviolent movements use the internet to advance their cause? and (c) In what ways can media be manipulated to shape public opinion? Mitts’s research draws on innovative data collection techniques and creative research designs that leverage the wealth of information available in digital media platforms. Her articles have been published in leading journals, including the American Political Science Review, International Organization, the Journal of Politics, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and the Journal of Economic Perspectives, among other outlets. Her research has been cited in the Washington Post, Boston Globe, Fortune Magazine, Vox, War on the Rocks, and Foreign Policy.

Her new book, Safe Havens for Hate: The Challenge of Moderating Online Extremism (Princeton University Press, published in 2025), offers a novel account of how content moderation shapes the activity of harmful content producers, by providing a deep dive into networks of extremist organizations on a wide range of social media platforms. Drawing on rich data on the activity of over a hundred militant and hate organizations, the book shows that different moderation standards across platforms create “safe havens” that allow these actors to organize, launch campaigns, and mobilize supporters.

Mitt holds an MA, M.Phil., and PhD in political science from Columbia University and a BA in politics from New York University.

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Rumela Sen (moderator), Lecturer in the Discipline of International and Public Affairs; Director of the Master of International Affairs Program

Rumela Sen’s research focuses on civil conflict, rebel governance, political development and state building, primarily in South Asia. Her first book Farewell to Arms: How Rebels Retire without Getting Killed (Oxford University Press, 2021 ) examines how Maoist rebels in India quit armed groups and return to the same political process that they had once tried to overthrow. The book draws on her extensive fieldwork (funded primarily by the American Institute of Indian Studies) in conflict zones in India, where she interviewed current and former Maoist rebels and other stakeholders in the conflict. The book has received multiple endorsements and has been reviewed in detail by Isabelle Duijvesteijn as part of the Critical Dialogue series in Perspective on Politics. 

She is working on her second book on rebel governance and postconflict state-building in Nepal. With support from a SIPA Dean faculty grant, she has done extensive fieldwork in Rolpa and Rukum districts in Nepal and has interviewed Maoist military and political leaders all the way from local to the highest levels. She has earlier published her work on Nepal in Jacobin, and she writes opinion pieces on contemporary Nepali politics in East Asia Forum. Building on her expertise, she is currently collaborating with colleagues in the UK and Australia on a project on comparative rebel governance in South Asia. 

She has also published on Hate in the Times of Covid  and her recent research is on the evolving landscape of digital transnational repression, pre and post-generative AI (under review). Her work has received media coverage in major outlets in South Asia, including the India in Transition (CASI), Hindu Business Line, and Ratopati (Nepal). In addition to book chapters and articles, you can find her speaking or writing in diverse outlets, including IAPS Dialogue, Mainstream Weekly, CountercurrentsInkstick Media, Alarmist podcast, and so on. 

Sen received her PhD in Government from Cornell University. She also holds an MA from Villanova University and another MA in IR from Jadavpur University (India). 

Sen is currently the MIA faculty director at SIPA. She teaches the MPA core course as well as another course on political development. She has advised multiple student capstone projects on building peace in conflict zones with the UNDPO as client. She is also affiliated with the South Asia Institute and the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace at Columbia.

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Anca Agachi MIA ’19, IF ’19, Co-Lead, Alliances Portfolio and (Defense) Policy Analyst, RAND Corporation        

Anca Agachi is co-Lead of the Alliances Portfolio in the National Security Research Division and a defense policy analyst at RAND. She is also a Nonresident Fellow with the Atlantic Council and a Junior Associate Fellow with the NATO Defense College.

Prior to joining the RAND Corporation, Agachi served as associate director and resident fellow with the Atlantic Council's Transatlantic Security Initiative, in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, where she spearheaded projects focusing on future threats to NATO and transatlantic security. Previously, she worked for the European Union’s European Defence Agency on defense capability development projects in the information security and space domains and served as a United Nations youth representative for Romania, focusing extensively on the UN 2030 Agenda and sustainable development goals.

As an MIA student at Columbia SIPA, Agachi concentrated in international security policy with a double specialization in conflict resolution and Africa. Originally from Romania, she holds a BA in international relations and European studies from the University of Bucharest, as well as a BA in international business and economics from the Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies.

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Juan Manuel Benítez MIA ’01, Journalist and Philip S. Balboni Professor of Professional Practice of Local Journalism, Columbia Journalism School

Juan Manuel Benítez is a New York City–based bilingual journalist with more than two decades of experience covering politics, climate change, and the Latino community. In 2003, he joined NY1 News as a reporter and helped launch its Spanish-language sister station, NY1 Noticias, where he created and anchored the current affairs show Pura Política and the weekly podcast Off Topic/On Politics. 

Benítez has covered the administrations of mayors Michael Bloomberg, Bill de Blasio, and Eric Adams, as well as numerous political campaigns, including Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s 2008 Democratic presidential primary and the 2016 presidential election. He has served as a moderator and panelist in electoral debates; guest-hosted WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show; written for El Diario La Prensa; appeared as a political commentator on MSNBC, NTN24, and other outlets; served as a jury member for the Gabo Awards; and began his journalism career as a reporter for Hispanic Market Weekly. For more than a decade, he was an adjunct professor at CUNY’s Craig Newmark School of Journalism, where he designed the school’s bilingual program.

His climate change reporting has taken him to locations including the Netherlands and has earned a New York Emmy Award, as well as the HOLA Excellence in TV Award, the New York Press Club Award, and the New York State Associated Press Association Award. A La Caixa fellow, he co-founded The New York Editorial Board Substack with other veteran reporters in spring 2025. In addition to his MIA from Columbia SIPA, Benítez holds a BA in Anglo-German Language and Literature from the University of Extremadura. He has also studied at the University of Heidelberg, the University of Lisbon, and Kalamazoo College. He is currently the Philip S. Balboni Professor of Professional Practice of Local Journalism at the Columbia Journalism School.

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Martin Berg MPA ’05, Chief Executive Officer, Climate Asset Management 

Martin Berg has more than 20 years of experience in climate and environmental investment, with a focus on natural capital and carbon finance. He is Chief Executive Officer of Climate Asset Management, a joint venture between HSBC Global Asset Management and Pollination, a specialist climate change advisory and investment firm.

Climate Asset Management provides scalable investment opportunities in natural capital, supporting activities that preserve, protect, and enhance nature, reduce carbon emissions, and address climate change. Its Natural Capital Strategy enables institutional investors to pursue financial returns and environmental impact through real-asset investments in developed markets, while the Nature Based Carbon Fund allows corporates to invest directly in nature-based carbon projects in emerging markets. Under Martin’s leadership, the firm has raised more than $650 million across two investment strategies as of the end of 2022.

Previously, Martin was a Partner at Pollination, where he helped finalize the partnership with HSBC in 2020. He has also held leadership roles at the European Investment Bank and Bank of America Merrill Lynch and worked with the OECD and the UNFCCC. He is committed to leveraging his expertise and network to accelerate the transition to a net-zero, climate-resilient future. 

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Thomas Christensen, James T. Shotwell Professor of International Relations, Columbia SIPA

Thomas J. Christensen is a Professor of Public and International Affairs and Director of the China and the World Program at Columbia University. Before joining Columbia in 2018, he spent 14 years at Princeton University, where he served as the William P. Boswell Professor of World Politics of Peace and War, Director of the Princeton-Harvard China and the World Program, and Faculty Director of both the Master in Public Policy and the Truman Scholars programs.

From 2006 to 2008, Professor Christensen served as US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, overseeing relations with China, Taiwan, and Mongolia. His research and teaching centers on China’s foreign policy, East Asian international relations, and international security.

He is the author of Lost in the Cold War: The Story of Jack Downey, America’s Longest-Held POW (Columbia University Press, 2022) and The China Challenge: Shaping the Choices of a Rising Power (W.W. Norton), which received wide acclaim, including recognition from The New York Times Book Review, CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS, and the Council on Foreign Relations’ Arthur Ross Book Award.

Christensen has also taught at MIT and Cornell University. He has served on the Board and Executive Committee of the National Committee on US-China Relations; co-edited Princeton University Press’s International History and Politics series; and served on the Academic Advisory Committee for the Schwarzman Scholars Program. He currently chairs the Editorial Board of the Nancy B. Tucker and Warren I. Cohen Book Series on the United States in Asia at Columbia University Press. A life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Non-Resident Senior Scholar at the Brookings Institution, he has also been recognized with the US State Department’s Distinguished Public Service Award. He holds a BA with honors in History from Haverford College, an MA in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania, and a PhD in Political Science from Columbia University.

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Ambassador Jeffrey DeLaurentis MIA ’78, Adjunct Professor, Fordham University and Senior Non-Resident Fellow in International Affairs, John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding, Dartmouth College

During his 28-year career in the U.S. Foreign Service, Jeffrey DeLaurentis worked almost exclusively on Western Hemisphere issues and as a multilateral diplomat at the United Nations. He served as the first Charge d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Havana following the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba. Prior to taking up his Cuba post in August 2014, he was the Ambassador for Special Political Affairs at the US Mission to the United Nations. Previously, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, and as Minister Counselor for Political Affairs and Security Council Coordinator at the US Mission to the United Nations. 

Ambassador DeLaurentis began his State Department career in 1991 as a consular officer in Havana and returned to Cuba as Political-Economic Section Chief in 1999-2002. In Washington, he served as the Chief of Staff to the Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs, Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, and Director of Inter-American Affairs at the National Security Council. His last assignment in the Foreign Service was at the Harvard Kennedy School as a Senior Diplomatic Fellow with the Belfer Center Future of Diplomacy Project.

Subsequently, DeLaurentis was appointed a Centennial Fellow at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, Distinguished Resident Fellow in Latin American and Multilateral Diplomacy Studies at the Georgetown University Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, George S. McGovern Visiting Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, Resident Fellow at the Harvard University David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies’ Cuba Studies Program, and a Senior Advisor with the Albright Stonebridge Group.  

In addition to his degree from Columbia SIPA, DeLaurentis is a graduate of the Georgetown University Walsh School of Foreign Service. A recipient of multiple State Department awards, he is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Academy of Diplomacy and the Cuba Study Group. He recently joined the Stimson Center as a Distinguished Fellow and is a member of Stimson’s Latin American Program Advisory Council, and continues as an associate with the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard.

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Abhisheik Dhawan MPA-EPM ’15, Sustainable Finance and Partnerships Specialist, UN Capital Development Fund (UN CDF)

Abhisheik Dhawan is a Sustainable Finance and Partnerships Specialist at the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), where he creates innovative blended finance vehicles and leads corporate-level partnership efforts. As part of this work, he has led the development of the Climate Insurance Linked Resilient Infrastructure Finance (CILRIF) multistakeholder working group over the past 36 months. Prior to joining UNCDF, he served as Director of the Cleantech Practice at the Business Development Bank of Canada.

With more than 23 years of experience in international markets and financial services, Dhawan has worked with banks and technology companies, including start-ups, across India and the United States. Over the past eight years, he has focused on sustainable development. He began his banking career with IDBI Bank in Bangalore, India’s technology capital, focusing on the IT industry, and later served as Director at Standard Chartered Bank, covering middle-market and large corporate clients. In addition to an MPA  with a concentration in Economic and Energy Policy and Finance from Columbia SIPA, Dhawan holds an MBA in Finance from the Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode, and a B.Tech. in Mining Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (ISM Dhanbad). He has also completed the Certificate in ESG Investing from CFA Institute and holds certifications in Climate and Renewable Energy Finance, Sustainable Finance, and Climate Adaptation Finance from Frankfurt School.

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Amelia Erwitt MPA ’06, Chief Operating Officer, Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund

Amelia Erwitt is the Chief Operating Officer of the Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund (CFE Fund), where she provides strategic leadership across program development, technical assistance, research, policy, and communications, and oversees the organization’s operations, fundraising, and institutional growth. The CFE Fund supports local governments nationwide in advancing policies and programs that improve the financial stability of low- and moderate-income households.

Previously, Erwitt served as Associate Commissioner and Executive Director of the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs’ Office of Financial Empowerment (OFE) — the first municipal Office of Financial Empowerment in the country. In this role, she led pioneering efforts to integrate financial empowerment strategies into city government, working closely with public agencies, community organizations, and private-sector partners. Her leadership helped establish a new model for local government action that laid the foundation for the financial empowerment movement, which has since grown into a national field encompassing dozens of cities and counties across the United States.

Earlier in her career, Erwitt worked in public service and international development roles at the United Nations, USAID, and the White House, contributing to initiatives focused on economic opportunity and public health. In addition to an MPA from Columbia SIPA, Erwitt holds a BA from The George Washington University.

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Caroline Flammer, A. Barton Hepburn Professor of Economics, Columbia University and Director of the Sustainable Investing Research Initiative (SIRI), Columbia SIPA

Caroline Flammer is the A. Barton Hepburn Professor of Economics at Columbia University with joint appointments at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) and the Climate School, and a secondary appointment at Columbia Business School. Flammer is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a Research Fellow at the Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), and a Research Member at the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI). She is an expert in sustainable investing and the recipient of numerous prestigious awards.

The Web of Science ranked her among the top-100 Highly Cited Researchers in the economics and business profession in terms of impact over the past 10 years. At Columbia, she serves as the Director of SIPA’s Sustainable Investing Research Initiative (SIRI) which aims to foster scholarship, education, and dialogue on system-level investing. Among other roles, Flammer serves as the President of the Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability (ARCS), a global multi-disciplinary network of scholars fostering rigorous academic research on corporate sustainability, as a Council Member of the World Economic Forum (WEF)’s Global Future Council on the future of responsible investing, and as a Trustee at Domini Impact Investments. She holds a PhD in Economics from the University of St. Gallen.

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Steven Fulop EMPA ’06, President and Chief Executive Officer, Partnership for New York City and former Mayor of Jersey City, NJ

Steven Fulop joined the Partnership for New York City as President and Chief Executive Officer in January 2026, after serving twelve years as Mayor of Jersey City.  A Marine veteran, public servant, and civic innovator, Fulop spent three terms leading one of the most significant urban revitalization stories in the country. Elected in 2013 in a landmark upset, he guided Jersey City for more than a decade with record private investment, population growth, and job creation—transforming it into an economic powerhouse for New Jersey. A first-generation American and descendant of Holocaust survivors, Fulop’s life has been shaped by service. After the September 11th attacks, he left his job at Goldman Sachs in Lower Manhattan to enlist in the U.S. Marine Corps, deploying to Iraq in 2003. That same commitment to service and accountability defined his leadership in Jersey City and continues to guide his work today.  In addition to an MPA from Columbia SIPA, Fulop holds a BA from Binghamton University and an MBA from New York University.

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Allison Greenberg MPA-DP ’11, Director, Reimagining Humanitarian Nutrition Security, The Rockefeller Foundation

Allison Greenberg is the Director of the Rockefeller Foundation’s Reimagining Humanitarian Nutrition Security (RHNS) program. RHNS is building opportunities for data-driven, anticipatory crisis response in fragile states that will strengthen the resilience of food systems. The program is part of the Rockefeller Foundation's Build the Shared Future Initiative, which seeks to rebuild pathways to global collaboration fit for the 21st century.

Greenberg is also a founding partner of The Development Practice LLC, a consulting firm and network of international development practitioners providing technical, strategy, and management expertise to humanitarian and development sector partners. As the lead of TDP's Food Security Practice for eight years, she managed consulting projects focused on the sustainable transformation of agriculture and food systems, as well as the development of decision-support tools for food and nutrition program planning.  Greenberg teaches the DP-Lab II course on Organizational Management for the Master of Development Practice program at SIPA.  

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Jason Healey, Senior Research Scholar and Adjunct Professor, Columbia SIPA

Jason Healey is a Senior Research Scholar at Columbia University’s School for International and Public Affairs, specializing in cyber risk and conflict.  Prior to Columbia, he was the founding director of the Cyber Statecraft Initiative of the Atlantic Council, where he created the global Cyber 9/12 student cyber-policy competition. He is the editor of the first history of conflict in cyberspace, A Fierce Domain: Cyber Conflict, 1986 to 2012.

Jason was a founding member of both the Office of the National Cyber Director at the White House (2022) and the first cyber command in the world, the Joint Task Force for Computer Network Defense in 1998, where he was one of the early pioneers of cyber threat intelligence.  He created Goldman Sachs’ first cyber incident response capability and later oversaw the bank’s crisis management and business continuity in Asia. He served as the vice chair of the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC). He is on the review board of the DEF CON and Black Hat hacker conferences, served on the Defense Science Board task force on cyber deterrence, and is past president and founding board member of the Cyber Conflict Studies Association. He started his career as a US Air Force intelligence officer with jobs at the Pentagon and National Security Agency and is a certified board director (NACD.DC) and information systems security professional (CISSP).

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Dan Madden GSAS ’05, Principal, National Security, Squadra Ventures

Dan Madden is a Principal at Squadra, where he leads the firm’s National Security practice, sourcing and evaluating companies for investment and supporting post-investment federal go-to-market strategy.

He previously served as Mid-Atlantic Regional Director at the National Security Innovation Network, the US Department of Defense’s national security technology accelerator, and as a senior policy analyst at the RAND Corporation, where he conducted capability development and campaign assessment studies to inform Department of Defense modernization and planning efforts. Earlier in his career, he served as an artillery officer in the United States Marine Corps, worked as military legislative assistant to the Oversight and Investigations Chair on the House Armed Services Committee, and was special assistant to an Under Secretary of Defense.

Madden is a visiting scholar in Columbia University’s Entrepreneurship Program and an adjunct associate professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. He holds a BA in English Literature from the United States Naval Academy, an MA in Political Science from Columbia University, and an MA in Comparative Politics from the University of California, Davis.

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Colonel Glenn McCartan EMPA ’11, Military Engagement Embed, Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), US European Command

Glenn McCartan is the Defense Innovation Unit’s (DIU) embed to the US European Command in Stuttgart, Germany, a position he has held since September 2023. From 2021 to 2023, he served as DIU’s primary engagement lead to the U.S. Marine Corps in the Washington, DC National Capitol Region, where he developed over $100 million in prototypes for the Marine Corps innovation and acquisition communities, coordinating efforts across the Joint community and the Department of Defense innovation ecosystem, including DARPA.  A combat engineer officer by training, McCartan has held leadership positions in both the Active and Reserve Components of the US Marine Corps. 

In his civilian career, McCartan held leadership and staff roles within the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) and the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), focusing on Security Cooperation and Foreign Military Sales across all Geographic Combatant Commands. He has led delegations and briefed Congressional defense and appropriations committees, with assignments spanning Eastern Europe to Western Africa. His military education includes the USMC Amphibious Warfare School (DEP), USMC Command & Staff College (resident), and the USAF Air War College (DEP). In addition to his MPA from Columbia SIPA, he holds a BA in Government from St. John’s University.

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Ambassador Victoria Nuland, Shelby Cullom Davis Professor in the Practice of International Diplomacy and Director of the International Fellows Program, Columbia SIPA

Ambassador Victoria Nuland is the Shelby Cullom Davis Professor in the Practice of International Diplomacy and Director of the International Fellows Program at SIPA. She is also affiliated with SIPA's Institute for Global Politics and serves as a Board Member of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). With 35 years of service as a US diplomat, Nuland has worked under six U.S. Presidents and ten Secretaries of State across both political parties, achieving the rank of Career Ambassador. She was Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs from 2021 to 2024, and served concurrently as Acting Deputy Secretary from 2023 to 2024.

Before her return to government service, Ambassador Nuland was a Senior Counselor at the Albright Stonebridge Group, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and Distinguished Practitioner in Grand Strategy at Yale University. Ambassador Nuland's previous diplomatic posts include: Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, U.S. Ambassador to NATO, State Department Spokesperson, and Deputy National Security Advisor to the Vice President. She served overseas at NATO in Brussels twice and in Russia, China, and Mongolia. Ambassador Nuland holds a BA in history from Brown University.

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Michael Nutter, David N. Dinkins Professor of Professional Practice in Urban and Public Affairs, Columbia SIPA, and former Mayor of Philadelphia, PA

Michael A. Nutter was elected the 98th Mayor of Philadelphia in November 2007 and took office in January 2008, pledging to reduce crime, improve educational attainment, make Philadelphia the greenest city in America, attract businesses and residents, and lead an ethical, transparent government delivering high-quality, efficient service. His administration achieved measurable progress across these goals: homicides fell to an almost 50-year low; high school graduation and college attainment rates rose; hundreds of miles of bike lanes and trails were added and Indego—the nation’s first low-income-friendly bike share system—was launched; and the city’s population grew annually after 2008, including the largest percentage increase in millennial residents nationwide. Through tax reform, improved business services, and international trade missions, Philadelphia attracted domestic and global investment and, despite the Great Recession, realized significant economic growth, including more than $11.5 billion in development projects completed, underway, or announced after January 2014. His administration also secured Philadelphia’s first “A” credit ratings from all three major agencies since the 1970s, implemented the 2013 Actual Value Initiative property-assessment overhaul, co-launched Cities United with New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, served on President Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper Advisory Council, and concluded national and statewide leadership roles as President of the United States Conference of Mayors (2013) and the Pennsylvania Municipal League (2015). His tenure earned national recognition, including Esquire’s Americans of the Year (2011) and Governing’s Public Official of the Year (2014), while Philadelphia city government received more than 150 awards for innovation and good governance.

Since leaving office in January 2016, Mayor Nutter has remained active in public policy, government, and civic leadership, including appointments to the Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Security Advisory Council; Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs as Professor of Professional Practice; CNN as a political commentator; and Bloomberg Philanthropies’ What Works Cities initiative as Senior Fellow and national spokesperson. He continues to engage broadly across political, corporate, and academic institutions nationwide.

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Alexandre Tourre MPA ’16, Chief Executive Officer, and Cofounder, Easy Solar

Alexandre Tourre is the Chief Executive Officer and Cofounder of Easy Solar, an innovative asset financing company unlocking access to solar power and other transformative products for millions of homes and businesses in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and other untapped West African markets. He cofounded Easy Solar with SIPA classmates in SIPA’s Annual Global Policy Challenge, a grant competition they won in 2016. Over the last ten years, the company and its cofounders have received global recognition for their work and impact. Beyond Easy Solar, Tourre cofounded the Rural Energy Access Lab in 2024, a not-for-profit helping governments and funders fast-track scalable solar-as-a-service models across rural Sub-Saharan Africa. He also introduced the Levelized Cost of Access (LCOA), a new metric for evaluating off-grid energy costs that has since been adopted by the International Energy Agency. Prior to Easy Solar, Tourre worked in the fields of mobile money and financial inclusion in Kenya and Afghanistan and as an M&A consultant at PwC. Before attending Columbia SIPA, he earned an MSc in Advanced Computing from Imperial College London and an MS in Energy & Telecommunications from CentraleSupélec. Tourre is passionate about access to energy, financial inclusion, venture capital, entrepreneurship, and building a more just and sustainable future.

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Christopher Walker MIA ’01, Vice President, Center for European Policy Analysis

Christopher Walker serves as the Vice President at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), a nonprofit, nonpartisan, public policy institution headquartered in Washington, DC, with hubs in London and Brussels, focused on strengthening the transatlantic alliance through cutting-edge research, analysis, and programs.

 Prior to joining CEPA, he was Vice President for Studies and Analysis at the National Endowment for Democracy.  He has been at the forefront of thought leadership on modern authoritarian influence, including through the exertion of sharp power, a concept he and his colleagues developed. He holds a BA degree from Binghamton University and an MIA from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. His writing has appeared in numerous publications, including the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Die Welt, El Pais, Politico, Foreign Policy, and the Journal of Democracy. He is co-editor (with Larry Diamond and Marc Plattner) of Authoritarianism Goes Global: The Challenge to Democracy (2016); and co-editor with William J. Dobson and Tarek Masoud of the book Defending Democracy in an Age of Sharp Power (2023).

Juan Manuel Benitez MIA ’01 (moderator), Journalist and Philip S. Balboni Professor of Professional Practice of Local Journalism, Columbia Journalism School

Amelia Erwitt MPA ’06, Chief Operating Officer, Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund

Steven Fulop EMPA ’06, Chief Executive Officer, Partnership for New York City and former Mayor of Jersey City, NJ

Mayor Michael Nutter, David N. Dinkins Professor of Professional Practice in Urban and Public Affairs, Columbia SIPA
 

Thomas Christensen, James T. Shotwell Professor of International Relations, Columbia SIPA

Ambassador Jeffrey DeLaurentis MIA ’78, Adjunct Professor, Fordham University and Senior Non-Resident Fellow in International Affairs, John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding, Dartmouth College

Ambassador Victoria Nuland (moderator), Shelby Cullom Davis Professor in the Practice of International Diplomacy and Director of the International Fellows Program, Columbia SIPA

Christopher Walker MIA ’01, Vice President at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) 

Anca Agachi MIA ’19, IF ’19, Co-Lead, Alliances Portfolio and (Defense) Policy Analyst, RAND Corporation

Jason Healey (moderator), Senior Research Scholar in the Faculty of International and Public Affairs; Adjunct Professor of International and Public Affairs

Dan Madden GSAS ’05, Principal, National Security, Squadra Ventures

Colonel Glenn McCartan EMPA ’11, Military Engagement Embed, Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), US European Command

Martin Berg MPA ’05, Chief Executive Officer, Climate Asset Management

Abhisheik Dhawan MPA-EPM ’15, Sustainable Finance and Partnerships Specialist, United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF)

Caroline Flammer (moderator), A. Barton Hepburn Professor of Economics and director of the Sustainable Investing Research Initiative (SIRI), Columbia SIPA

Allison Greenberg MPA-DP ’11, Director, Reimagining Humanitarian Nutrition Security, The Rockefeller Foundation

Alexandre Tourre MPA ’16, Chief Executive Officer and Cofounder, Easy Solar

Class of 2001 Social

Date: Friday, March 27, 2026
Time: 6:30–8:30 PM (EDT)
Location: The Craftsman NYC

Register to attend the Class of 2001 Social.

Class of 2006 Social

Date: Friday, March 27, 2026
Time: 6:00–8:00 PM (EDT)
Location: Amity Hall

Register to attend the Class of 2006 Social.

Class of 2011 Social

Date: Friday, March 27, 2026
Time: 6:00–8:00 PM (EDT)
Location: Amity Hall

Register to attend the Class of 2011 Social.

Class of 2016 Social

Date: Friday, March 27, 2026
Time: 5:30–7:00 PM (EDT)
Location: FUMO

Register to attend the Class of 2016 Social.

Class of 2021 Social

Date: Friday, March 27, 2026
Time: 6:30–8:30 PM (EDT)
Location: Tara Rose

Register to attend the Class of 2021 Social.

As part of the 2026 SIPA Alumni Day and Reunion, we are pleased to offer alumni and their guests access to historical campus tours on March 27.

Sign up here

Tours will begin and end at the Alma Statue in front of Low Library promptly at the time of the tour. Please arrive fifteen minutes early. There will be three tours offered on Friday, March 27:

• 10:30–11:30 a.m.
• 12:30–1:30 p.m.
• 2:00–3:00 p.m.

Please fill out this form for each tour attendee. The deadline to register for a campus tour is Tuesday, March 24, 2026 and space is limited on each tour. Confirmed details about your tour will be sent prior to the event to the email address you have listed. 

Campus Access Instructions: All tour attendees will receive a QR code to access campus on March 27, and should be prepared to show photo ID to access campus. Please note, due to campus access restrictions, we cannot accommodate any additional guests after March 24.

Please reach out to [email protected] with any questions.

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SIPA Alumni returning to campus for Alumni Day and Reunion have special access to attend the afternoon sessions of the 4th Annual Robert Jervis Conference on Friday, March 27, 2026! 

Alumni can register for morning, afternoon, or full-day tickets. Seats are limited, and the deadline to register is Friday, March 14, at 11:59 p.m. ET. For questions, please contact Ingrid E. Gerstmann - [email protected].

Alumni Registration Link

About this event:

4th Annual Robert Jervis Conference

“Liberalism and the Future of International Order” - A Conference Honoring the Work of Jack Snyder

Friday, March 27, 2026

1501 International Affairs

420 West 118th Street, 15th Floor

Sponsored by The Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies; the Department of Political Science; The Harriman Institute of Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies; The Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy; and the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University

Liberalism is at a crossroads. At home and abroad, liberal values, practices, and institutions are under assault. The Fourth Annual Robert Jervis Conference will focus on the diverse sources, processes, and mechanisms underpinning the decline of liberal politics, both domestically and internationally, and explore the prospects for the renewal of liberal politics and international cooperation. Professor Jack Snyder, the Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Relations in the Department of Political Science, has long been both an admirer of liberalism’s virtues and a critic of liberal ideology untempered by pragmatic considerations. The Conference celebrates the contributions of Professor Snyder as a scholar, a mentor, and a longtime leader in the Columbia community.

MPA-DP alumni are invited to a program social to reconnect with fellow alumni and staff.

MPA-DP Alumni Social
Friday, March 27, 2026
5:00–7:00 p.m.
Arte Cafe
To register, please email Amanda Huson- [email protected].

Stop by to shop exclusive SIPA merchandise hosted by the SIPA Alumni Student Association (SIPASA). Merchandise will be available at the following times and locations:

• Breakfast at IAB – 15th Floor Lobby | 9:30–10:30 a.m.
• Coffee Break at Faculty House | 3:30–4:15 p.m.
• Farewell Champagne Reception at Faculty House | 5:30–6:30 p.m.

SIPASA will be selling multiple colors and sizes of SIPA-branded quarterzips and crewnecks, as well as SIPA Alumni-branded quarterzips and hats! 

Payment options include: Venmo and cash
Don’t miss the opportunity to take home limited-edition SIPA gear while supporting SIPASA.

Please visit the Columbia website for resources and information on preferred accommodations. Columbia Accommodations

Hotel Blocks - SIPA has organized a limited block of rooms at a discounted rate at nearby hotels for March 27-29.

Lucerne Hotel- Please book your room by using this booking link.
Belleclaire Hotel- Please book your room by using this booking link.

On March 29, graduates from classes spanning six decades gathered on Columbia’s campus for the annual SIPA Alumni Day and Reunion Dinner. The number of SIPA alumni gathered for the occasion was the largest and most global in the school’s history, with over 300 graduates present, including 50 alumni representing 20 countries from across six continents.

Read the recap >>

2025 SIPA Alumni Day and Reunion Photo Gallery

Reunion Dinner Photobooth Gallery

SIPA's Alumni Day is an annual event that brings alumni from around the world together for a day of speakers, panel discussions, and networking. Alumni Day 2024 kicked off with a luncheon featuring a distinguished keynote speaker and the presentation of the Alumni Awards. Panels in the afternoon highlighted the expertise of alumni and faculty and SIPA's impact on critical global policy challenges. In the evening, alumni and guests joined the Class Reunion where milestone years celebrated their Reunions. Hundreds of alumni gathered on campus for the 2024 event.

Read the recap >>

Graduates from classes spanning four decades flocked to campus for SIPA Alumni Day and Reunion Dinner on March 25. Former Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James MIA ’81 made keynote remarks while Jingdong Hua MPA ’03 and Radha Kulkarni MPA ’17 received the 2023 alumni awards. The day concluded with a sold-out dinner that drew 300 to Low Library’s rotunda.

Read the recap >>

2022 Alumni Day offered virtual and in-person programming on Saturday, April 30, 2022. More than 90 alumni returned to campus for a program featuring the new Alumni Awards recipients and a networking lunch.

Read the recap >>