Staff Directory

Victoire Mandonnaud is a French artist born and raised between Paris and the countryside. She works with different mediums, including photography, writing, filmmaking, music and painting. Her work mainly deals with social norms, constraints and structures, making arguments for the freedom of thought and action. Currently a Junior studying Anthropology and Economics, Victoire would like to pursue a Phd in political philosophy to be able to create models for systems (i.e, governments, infrastructures, manifestations), in order to have a stronger platform from which to advance those matters.With the K=1 Project, Victoire’s main project will be to make a documentary film regarding the phycological dilemmas and historical contractions inherent to such project. Focusing on the experiences of the students and those interacting with them, she would like to depict a vision of humanity existing beyond history and conflicts, a vision of humanity in which the process of doing (with the questions that come from it) is at the core of meaningful interactions.

Website: http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/user/sdyhrman

Website: https://sipa.columbia.edu/faculty-research/faculty-directory/sharyn-ohalloran

New York based photographer Sabine Ostinvil weaves her love for storytelling and photography through the intimate images she makes of her two younger brothers and friends. She and her mother emigrated from Haïti to the United States in 2005 and made their home in Philadelphia, PA. Now a young adult, Sabine lives in New York City where she studies Visual Arts at Columbia University.

Ostinvil spent her high school years honing her craft in the Philadelphia Photo Arts Center’s Teen Photo program, which lent cameras to the students for the entire academic year. She discovered her love for portrait photography during those formative years. Ostinvil was the 2019 Firecracker Photographic Grant Winner. Her work is also part of the MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora presents, In Conversation: Visual Meditations on Black Masculinity, which is a two-gallery exhibition of photographic work which explores the construct of Black masculinity through the eye of 55 women and non-binary photographers of African Descent. 

Redd Coltrane, Class of 2021 at Columbia College studied Music and Sociology and was also at The Juilliard School in Timothy Cobb’s double bass studio. Originally from Columbus, Ohio, Coltrane has spent much of his life exploring storytelling through various art forms, the latest of which being filmmaking. In his music career, he has been invited on various orchestral tours throughout North America, South America, and Europe and has been honored with numerous local, state, and national awards. 

As a member of the K=1 Project, Redd pushes his filmmaking skills to a new level and is driven by a profound sense of duty to tell the story of the Marshallese people. 

Pierre is an astrophysicist, currently working as a postdoctoral fellow at the Irene-Joliot Curie Laboratory in Paris-Saclay University. 

Pierre obtained his PhD from the Université de Paris (2013), and was a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University (2016-2018),  the Gran Sasso Science Institute (2018-2020), and the Observatoire de Paris (2020-2022). 

His current research is centered on the origin of cosmic particles and the role played by supernovae in this problem. Pierre dedicates as much time as possible to teaching, mostly at the undergraduate and non-specialist level. He joined the K1 project in 2022. 

Mina Barać was born and raised in Serbia, Eastern Europe and moved with her family to the United States 4 years ago. Currently, Mina is a senior in high school in Pennsylvania and plans to study science in college next fall. She is the president of the Ft. Macintosh chapter of National Honor Society. Mina enjoys reading, listening to music, painting, singing in the church choir, and volunteering to help her community. Mina is very excited to be a part of the K1 Project team. Through the K1 Project she hopes to educate others and learn more about the scientific and political impacts of nuclear technology on Eastern Europe and the world. 

Maveric Abella aspires to innovate healthcare that is impactful to Native Hawaiians by studying Bioengineering at Columbia University. She has conducted independent projects dealing with cancer types relevant to her Native Hawaiian community at the University of Hawai‘i Cancer Center, and she is excited to participate in research that will further benefit Pacific Islanders in the Marshall Islands. As a bioengineer, she has developed two biological experiments to be implemented on the International Space Station. She has also become involved with the Columbia Space Initiative as the CubeSat Mission Co-Director and is also the Vice President of the Columbia Mālama Hawai‘i Club. She plans on meshing her love of engineering and cultural background to improve the well-being of underrepresented communities. Her overall interest in space, adventure, and improving the lives of Pacific Islanders inspires her work and dedication to the K1 project.

Matt, a rising sophomore at Columbia College, intends to major in computer science. On campus, he is a member of Columbia’s Debate Team, a leader for Columbia’s Outdoor Orientation Program in the biking division, and a tour guide for Columbia’s Undergraduate Recruitment Committee.

Matt is excited to work at the K=1 Project because it combines his interests in science and politics.

Kerem Tuncer, class of 2022, is majoring in Political Science and Economics. Kerem hails to Columbia from Turkey, but he spent most of his life in Russia, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan. Kerem is the Career Coordinator at the PSSA and is leading a research project in the Data Science Institute on ideological congruence among the US political elites. His area of interest is Middle East and Central Asian politics, specifically conflict resolution. In the K=1 Project, Kerem is working to an understanding of the global nuclear non-proliferation climate. 

Website

Katherine Malus, Columbia College class of 2021, intends to major in Slavic Studies and concentrate in Economics. Around campus, Katherine facilitates discussions regarding intercultural issues for the Global Ambassador Program, dances for Columbia’s largest student dance group, Orchesis, edits for the Birch, the first national undergraduate Slavic, East European and Eurasian cultural publication, and acts as a student ambassador for the Columbia College Alumni Association.

Katherine is very happy to be part of the K=1 Project team. She looks forward to continuing to pursue her passion for understanding global issues and communities and plans to develop a career in international relations.

Kateryna Pavlova works for the State Agency of Ukraine on Exclusion Zone Management as the Head of the Department for International Cooperation and Public Relations and as Acting Head of the State Agency for Exclusion Zone Management.  She was also appointed chief of staff for the elimination of the Chernobyl fire in April 2020.

Jennifer Hill is a rising senior at Columbia High School in Maplewood, New Jersey. Jenni traveled to the Marshall Islands in 2016 with the K=1 Project as part of a film expedition, with the goal of making a documentary to showcase the culture of the Marshallese community as viewed by the eyes of their children. Jenni's main interests as she thinks of college are in chemistry and physics.

Jenni is excited to be a part of the K=1 project and to embark in the development of new projects pertaining to the Marshall Islands.

Hart Rapaport, Columbia College '22, plans to major in Political Science and Computer Science. Outside of the K=1 Project, he competes with the Columbia Debate Society and hosts a weekend-long congressional simulation for high school students with Columbia Model Congress.  

His work with the K=1 Project highlights his passion for the intersection of science and policy and seeks to educate the Columbia community and wider public about pressing issues in nuclear science.

Etienne Cipriani graduated at the University of Westminster in London, UK, in 2014 with a Bachelor of Honors in Animation. After a year working for an animation company in Rome, his hometown, he decided to pursue his film career in New York City.

The opportunity came under a first collaboration with the K=1 Project’s film team, when he made K=1 Project’s first stop motion animation short: Amalia. Since then, Etienne has continued his collaboration with the K=1 Project in the making of different animations, documentaries, and illustrated art-work. His most noticeable work is the K=1 Project short animated movie: The Little Puppy, a Nuclear Fairytale, based on the popular short story The Little Puppy that could by Martin Amis. The movie will be posted on the website in the next couple of months. 

Etienne hope is to continue to bring to screen and other media platforms more of his films and art-work focused on different social issues that still linger in society, such as the issue of nuclear proliferation and its consequences. 

Emlyn Hughes is a Professor of Physics at Columbia University. He holds an undergraduate degree from Stanford University and a PhD from Columbia, which he earned working at CERN with Nobel Laureate Jack Steinberger. Prior to returning to Columbia as a Professor in 2006, Hughes was a Professor of Physics at Caltech for 11 years.

Over the years, Professor Hughes’ research interests have spanned areas of atomic, nuclear and particle physics. He was a member of the ATLAS experiment at the LHC in Geneva, Switzerland, where his group was involved in both hardware (pixel detector) and data analysis (studies of jets, photons and the Higgs). Prof. Hughes’ group was also involved in R&D activities on ultra-thin silicon detectors for future colliders, in collaboration with the Brookhaven National Laboratory and IPHC in Strasbourg, France. Additionally, Prof. Hughes leads a small effort in medical imaging, using polarized noble gases, in collaboration with the Columbia Medical School.

Professor Hughes is the winner of the Feynman Teaching Award (Caltech, 1999) and the ASCIT Teaching Award (Caltech, 1997). He was a recipient of the Panofsky Fellowship and the Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, and is a Fellow of the American Physical Society.

Christina Hill is a current Princeton in Asia fellow studying and working in Almaty, Kazakhstan. She graduated from Columbia College in 2019 with a degree in History and Slavic Studies. Growing up in Hawaii, she spent every weekend doing different water sports, including swimming, kayaking, and scuba diving. Christina plans on continuing her education and eventually working in the field of international affairs and international security law. She continues to be involved in K=1 Project efforts. 

Carlisle Topping is an undergraduate from at Columbia College, class of 2019. She is from McMinnville, Oregon and attended the Sheridan Japanese School, Stanford Online High School, and John Hopkins CTY. She was valedictorian of McMinnville High School as well as an AP Scholar involved with National Honor Society. She is a member of the varsity women’s soccer team at Columbia and is considering a major in biology or biochem with a premedical concentration. She is interested in medical research as well as business and international relations. She is a member of SAAC, a student-athlete leadership group, as well as the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority.

Carlisle is excited to combine her passion for traveling, outdoor adventures, and scientific research while working on the K1 project.

Beverly Newoj Johnson is from the Republic of the Marshall Islands. She is a sophomore, studying Environmental Studies at Bennington College in Vermont, Class of 2021. She is eager to learn more about nuclear power production and nuclear weapons. Her main goal at K=1 is to shine a light on the social and environmental injustices the Marshall Islands’ faced during and post Nuclear Weapons Testing in Bikini and Enewetak beginning in 1946. She’s looking forward to finding innovative ways to get information out to the general public through the help of her peers. She has high hopes that this horrifying part of history will be incorporated in Marshall Islands school curricula, as well as to promote individual research on this topic. This, she believes, will be a helpful tool that increases local engagement.

In her spare time, Beverly enjoys strumming her ukulele and singing old Marshallese classics. She also loves both playing and watching basketball.

Raised in Mā’ohi Nui, Anaïs Maurer is Assistant Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Rutgers University. Her research foregrounds how Pacific artists and activists have resisted environmental racism in Oceania, from the genocidal epidemics of earlier centuries to our contemporary period of nuclear colonialism and carbon imperialism. She strives to facilitate decolonial dialogue across cultures and languages and is involved in various translation projects to bring the Indigenous literature of the French-occupied Pacific to an Anglophone audience.

The unique aspect of the K=1 Project is its focus on undergraduate students with different backgrounds. After participating in the center students have pursued a variety of interests including law, medicine, business, journalism, and research at top institutions. 

Name, Class, Career after K=1

• Ari Berg, Columbia College class of 2014, Columbia Medical School class of 2018
• Autumn Bordner, Columbia College class of 2014, Stanford Law School class of 2019
• Daphne Chen, Columbia College class of 2014, Journalist
• Mingming Feng, Columbia College class of 2014, Harvard Law School class of 2020
• Andrew Pinelli, Columbia College class of 2014, Consulting and Business
• Alana Warhit, Columbia College class of 2014, Albert Einstein Medical School class of 2018
• Etienne Cipriani, University of Westminster class of 2014, Animator and Illustrator
• Lauren Chadwick, Columbia College class of 2015, CNBC
• Daniel Listwa, Columbia College class of 2015, Yale Law School class of 2019
• Ana Helene De Oliviera Lobo, Columbia College class of 2015, Caltech Earth Science PhD program
• Giovanni Scuri, Columbia College class of 2015, Harvard Physics PhD program
• Ankeet Ball, Columbia College class of 2016. UCLA School of Law class of 2022
• David Harrison, NYU class of 2016, Film writer/video producer (Entertainment Industry)
• Jason Kempner, Columbia College class of 2016, Script analyst (Entertainment Industry)
• Rachel Shafran, Columbia College class of 2016, Non-Profit
• Bingcong Zhu, Columbia College class of 2016, SIPA MPA
• Asha Banerjee, Columbia College class of 2016, Columbia Business School Research Assistant
• Danielle Crosswell, Columbia College class of 2017, Management Consulting
• Elizabeth Faith, Columbia College class of 2018
• Jennifer Fan, Columbia College class of 2018
• Ainsley Katz, Columbia College class of 2018
• Simone Kramer, Columbia College class of 2018
• Jill Shah, Columbia College class of 2018
• Sebastian Startz, Columbia College class of 2018
• Angela Xia, Columbia College class of 2018
• Catherine Zhang, Columbia College class of 2018
• Aliza Mara Silverstein, Columbia College class of 2018
• Michelle Vancura, Columbia College class of 2019
• Christina Hill, Columbia College class of 2019
• Emelia Suljic, Columbia College class of 2019
• Cassandra Fernandez, Columbia College class of 2019
• Maveric Abella, Columbia College class of 2019
• Carlisle Topping, Columbia College class of 2019
• Gemma Sahwell, Barnard College class of 2019

Ainsley Katz is an recent alumna of Columbia College (CC ’18), where she graduated magna cum laude with a major in Russian and a concentration in Earth Science. She spent her junior year abroad as an Oxbridge Scholar to St. Edmund Hall at Oxford University and interned last summer with the U.S. Department at the U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi, Georgia. At Columbia, Ainsley worked as a research assistant at Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, and as Secretary, Treasurer, and Editor at The Birch (Columbia’s Undergraduate Slavic, Eurasian, and Eastern European Journal). She is also a member of the National Slavic Honor Society.

A New York native, Ainsley has long been interested in working with diverse groups and has a passion for diplomacy, conflict resolution, and languages. She speaks French, Spanish, Ukrainian, Mandarin, and Korean, and is a two-time recipient of the State Department’s National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y) scholarship to study Russian. She has also enjoyed interning on the New Hampshire Executive (Governor’s) Council.

Ainsley first worked with the K=1 Project as a Summer Fellow following her first year at Columbia. At the K=1 Project she participated in the first research mission to the Marshall Islands, examining current background gamma radiation levels from U.S. nuclear weapons testing, results which were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. She also spearheaded the incorporation of Russian-language media in K=1 website articles. Ainsley returned to the K=1 Project in 2018 to lead a research project in Ukraine where she will investigate nuclear issues as bargaining chips in post-Soviet geopolitics. This fall Ainsley intends to pursue an MPhil in International Relations and Politics at St. John’s College, Cambridge University.

Bassel El-Rewini is from Grand Forks, ND. He is a member of the School of Engineering and Applied Science, class of 2021. Around campus, he is a member of Barnard-Columbia Design for America and is the Political Chair of the MSA. He also co-hosts The Laymen Podcast, which aims to draw listeners out of their individual “echo-chambers” by talking to guests with a wide range of political opinions about a variety of socio-political issues.

Bassel spends his free time reading, writing, playing music, and both watching and playing soccer. He is very excited to bring together his interests in STEM, humanitarian, and political topics through his work with the K1 project.