Long Island's 2014 high school valedictorians: 10 years later

Life is unpredictable — but it can teach you valuable lessons if you let it.

For several of Long Island's 2014 high school valedictorians, this was the overarching theme that emerged 10 years after their graduation. Some endured the illness and even death of loved ones, while others found themselves on unexpected career paths. 

Through life's twists and turns, many said they have a newfound appreciation for their families and friends. Some said they have learned the importance of believing in themselves and staying true to their values.

Another valuable life lesson for these overachievers? Find time to relax.

“Just enjoy the moment," advised Anmol Gupta, Sachem High School East's 2014 valedictorian. "My high school days were awesome, but I don’t think I realized that then.”

Here are the stories of nine of Long Island's high school valedictorians, 10 years later:

Nia Pollard

High school: Malverne High School

College: Howard University and George Mason University

Today: Research chemist, National Institute of Standards and Technology

Lives in: Alexandria, Virginia

Growing up, Nia Pollard never imagined she’d be a glass ceiling breaker in the chemistry field.

Pollard, 27, said she’d always gone along with her parents’ dream of her attending medical school. That began to change at Malverne High, where a science teacher “not only showed me a love of chemistry, but she also inspired me that someone who looks like me can be successful in science,” Pollard said.

Pollard majored in chemistry at Howard University, an experience that she said “definitely shaped me into the type of person I am today.”

Known as the Harvard of the HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities), she said, “I had so many opportunities there. I was able to travel and do research internationally. It was definitely some of the best years of my life.”

At Howard, Pollard said she explored her African-American heritage through classes and a 2017 study abroad trip to Senegal. There, she visited Goree Island, where many enslaved Africans saw the last of their homeland. “Being a Black woman, it was a valuable experience,” she said.

Ultimately, in senior year, Pollard chose the microscope over the stethoscope. She said she was influenced by her research adviser to pursue a doctorate in chemistry.

Even though she decided against medicine, her parents finally earned the right to say, “My daughter, the doctor,” in December 2023, when Pollard was awarded her diploma. She was told by her department chair that she was the first U.S.-born Black woman to receive a PhD in physical chemistry from George Mason University.

Pollard wants today’s students to know that they don't necessarily need to be rich to get an advanced degree — her doctorate was almost completely paid for through grants and research and teaching assistant jobs, she said: “It was basically a free PhD."

“There are a lot of opportunities for money out there,” she said. “You just have to look for it.”

Pollard said she’s changed a great deal in the past 10 years: “I was way harder on myself in high school.” Nowadays, she said, “I’m a lot easier-going and take it a moment at a time.”

Leisure hours are spent painting in oils and acrylics, building with LEGOs (flowers are a favorite) and cooking new recipes like a recent scallop pasta.

She’s learned to “be a little bit more kind to myself and be patient with myself” instead of “beating myself up if I’m not the best.”

And she is working on building her confidence in her chosen career: “As a minority in my field, I can sometimes feel very discouraged,” Pollard said. “But I know that I deserve to be here.” — Jim Merritt

Nathan Siegelaub

High School: East Meadow High School

College: Harvard University

Today: Freelance writer and filmmaker

Lives in: East Meadow

Less than 24 hours after Nathan Siegelaub, an English major at Harvard, had finished his final exam for his bachelor's degree, he got a call that would change his life.

It was his father, Marc, who told Siegelaub that an MRI had revealed a tumor on his mother's pancreas. Days later, they got the news: His mother, Betsy, had been disagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer and given 12 months to live.

“At once, my dad and I became full-time caregivers,” Siegelaub, 28, said.

Siegelaub moved home, where he remained for the next three years, until his mother died in January 2021, he said.

“Never did I expect to return home and confront my mother’s mortality so soon into adulthood, but I am eternally grateful that my dad and I could spend every day together with her," Siegelaub said. "It was like a group hug held until the very end."

At Harvard, Siegelaub said he worked "exceptionally hard" only to produce “decidedly mediocre essays." However, when he returned home to help his mother with everything from cooking to accompanying her to appointments, he would retreat to his room at night and "read voraciously," he said.

“The only way I could ease out of the stranglehold stage IV pancreatic cancer had on our family was to escape through literature,” Siegelaub said. “I crafted my own syllabus, read at my own pace, tuned my ears to the poetic possibilities of the language, found my muses and meticulously kept a vocabulary list. I developed a desire — if not a need in those dark days — to compose satire and include irony in my prose.

"Simply put, I matured as a writer," he said.

After his mother died, Siegelaub said he decided that he wanted to focus on filmmaking and went back to school to get a master's of science degree in journalism, with a documentary specialization, from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He graduated in August 2023 and now works as a freelance writer and filmmaker whose most recent project involved co-directing a film called “Sparni,” which tells the story of a pivotal year in the life of a 21-year-old jazz vibraphonist struggling with bipolar disorder.

Siegelaub is in the process of submitting “Sparni” to film festivals and streaming services, he said.

“With ‘Sparni’ ready for the screen, I am beginning new projects: for instance, a few feature articles I have wanted to write,” he said. “On the side, I am tutoring high schoolers in everything from AP calculus to the SAT.”

Siegelaub credited his parents for being his "best teachers." His mother’s toughness throughout her final years showed him the value of fighting for yourself and what you believe in, while his father’s perpetual encouragement gives him an injection of confidence when needed, he said.

"For 1,000 days, my mom defied her prognosis and fought with her usual dignity and unusual strength," Siegelaub said. "She had the mental fortitude to push the inevitable out of her thoughts, to smile and laugh and participate in daily life. Never once did she complain — and she had every right to." — Michael R. Ebert

Grace Cimaszewski

High School: St. Anthony’s High School, South Huntington

College: Cornell University

Today: Graduate student researcher

Lives in: Princeton, NJ

Grace Cimaszewski’s life after high school has mostly focused on two things: science and visits to Japan. 

Cimaszewski, 27, majored in electrical and computer engineering at upstate Cornell University, from which she graduated a semester early in 2017. She then spent two years working as a software engineer at Goldman Sachs and Reservoir Labs in Manhattan before realizing that she wanted a more "self-directed, research-focused" career.

In August 2020, the Babylon native started graduate studies at Princeton University, where she is focusing on Internet and networking security. She earned a master's degree in 2022 and is pursuing her PhD. Her goal, she said, is to become a university professor or work in the research division of a large tech company.

“I knew that I loved science and learning as much as I could, but I didn’t have a clear idea of the specific field I wanted to go into,” Cimaszewski said. “It took some exploring ... before I found my niche.”

But Cimaszewski’s explorations have not been limited to just her career. She has also become an avid traveler who has visited Japan 15 times over the past 10 years.

"I had always wanted to visit Japan since a very young age," she said. "My obsession was first sparked by 'Hello Kitty.' I then started studying the language ... in middle school and was captivated by its level of nuance and just how different it was from English."

Cimaszewski said she soon began to seek out all resources she could to learn the language, spending her weekends attending Stony Brook University's Pre-College Japanese Program and her summers with Concordia Language Villages, a nonprofit sponsored by Concordia College in Minnesota that operates language and cultural immersion programs.

She eventually took her first trip to Japan with her mother during her senior year of high school, she said, and since then has created memories ranging from scuba diving in the Kerama Islands in Okinawa to viewing cherry blossoms in Kyoto.

"One of the aspects of Japan that I admire most is the culture's respect for tradition and history," Cimaszewski said. "Compared to the U.S. culture's perpetual pursuit of the next big thing, Japanese culture feels very grounded and a bit more wise in this respect."

With a decade of experiences both near and far under her belt, Cimaszewski had the following advice for the next generation of high schoolers preparing for the real world: “Try not to be scared of failure, and be brave enough to persist at things which are hard at first."

One experience that helped her to adopt that mindset was overcoming the fear that she had started too late in pursuing her field.

"I took a class in my current specialization in my first semester of graduate school and was intrigued, but worried that I was too behind and would have a hard time succeeding in something newer to me," Cimaszewski said. "I'm glad I persisted through those doubts." — Michael R. Ebert

Anmol Gupta

High school: Sachem High School East

College: Harvard University

Today: Founder and chief executive of Peech, a process mining consulting company

Lives in: Brooklyn

Throughout high school, Anmol Gupta said he excelled in classes, competed in sports and participated in academic extracurriculars — he co-founded the school’s Model United Nations Club — and regularly stayed up past midnight studying. Pressure was always on.

“It’s always been self-inflicted,” said Gupta, 28. “I’m naturally a very competitive person.”

He said his father had a line meant to help him laugh and relax.

“He’d say, ‘I dare you to get a zero on your next test. … Just try it,’ ” he recalled. “I’d be like, ‘No way!’ ”

Gupta's drive earned him an early acceptance to Harvard, where he majored in statistics and minored in computer science.

Between junior year and graduation, he said he juggled his course load with work at a venture capital firm. He also launched a short-lived business that connected students with internship opportunities at local startups across Cambridge and Boston.

Degree in hand, in 2018 Gupta joined the North American consulting team of Celonis, a German company that provides SaaS (software as a service) to help maximize business performance for major enterprise clients — from L’Oreal to Uber.

He said he worked to build a name for himself as a go-to expert in Celonis' process mining software, a tool used to track inefficiencies within a company and provide solutions to fixing them.

His knowledge and skill set led to encouragement from Celonus to establish his own “niche consulting practice” around this tool and service, he said.

But while in the process of starting it up in December 2022, a close family member was diagnosed with cancer.

It made him stop for the first time, he said.

“It was a lot,” he said. “I was starting the company while taking care of them and keeping up with doctor appointments. …When they were having their worst days, so was I. It takes you on an emotional roller-coaster that can feel uncomfortable.”

Now, his relative is cancer-free and Peech — which he named after the street he grew up on, Peachtree Court in Holtsville — has been in operation since March 2023.

From this experience, Gupta said he has taken to heart that “work will always be there, but people won’t. … Cherish family and friends while you have them.”

Looking back on the last 10 years, he realizes how important it is to work hard, but not stress.

“Take care of yourself because you can only help others when you’re OK: eat, sleep and exercise well,” he said. “And a big one is to just enjoy the moment. My high school days were awesome, but I don’t think I realized that then.” — Kevin J. Redding

Miriam Friedman

High school: Hebrew Academy of Five Towns & Rockaway, Cedarhurst

College: Princeton University

Today: Innovation strategy consultant, Accenture

Lives in: Long Beach

When Miriam Friedman’s father died at the end of her senior year of high school, it changed her perspective.

“I realized that life is short,” said Friedman, 27, whose father died of cancer.

Friedman said the experience taught her to embrace unpredictability and to balance work with the things she values, like friends and family and pursuing new experiences and opportunities.

"Where life takes you might open your eyes to the world," she said. " ‘Follow the passion’ is something I tried to focus on."

Friedman has channeled her passion for education and storytelling into projects near and dear to her.

As part of her work as an innovation strategy consultant for Accenture, Friedman said she helps coordinate volunteers for the program Every Name Counts at the Arolsen Archives in Germany, which uses artificial intelligence to digitize names and information on Nazi concentration camp documents.

“Our team is able to connect families and tell the stories of those who no longer can [speak for themselves],” Friedman said.

The work is especially meaningful for her, she said, because her paternal grandfather was a Holocaust survivor and her maternal grandfather was a U.S. World War II pilot shot down over Germany. It also lets her apply novel technologies to social issues in an attempt to make an impact, she said.

During college, Friedman said she also incorporated her family history into one of her internships, when she received a grant to write about her grandfathers’ “parallel storylines.” As part of that experience, she said she learned to fly a plane to help her understand her maternal grandfather's time as a U.S. Army Air Corps pilot. She even was able to take her then 93-year-old grandfather (he turns 100 this summer) on a plane ride, she said.

Friedman studied politics in college, with a concentration in Jewish studies. She said she took advantage of Princeton’s study abroad opportunities, visiting six continents while in school. She then pushed off the start of her post-college career a few months to live in a rural Nepalese village, where she said she helped villagers establish a commerce system.

In the future, she said she wants to continue to work in technological innovation, learning what artificial intelligence can do and its limits, both ethically and practically speaking. "What is the new challenge, how do we adapt, how do we continue to learn and grow? What's safe and not safe? It's fun to consider those things," she said.

Friedman said she found her husband in the “boy next door” when both were home during the pandemic. As a couple, she said they enjoy traveling, hiking, writing and cooking. She also makes frequent trips to the beach, even in the winter.

“I try to live life to the fullest," she said. — Kay Blough

Sachit Singal

High School: Herricks High School, New Hyde Park

College: Brown University

Today: Resident physician in internal medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital

Lives in: Boston, Massachusetts

Sachit Singal’s decision to pursue a cardiology fellowship later this year isn’t just a career choice. What he learns in the three-year program could potentially save a family member’s life.

“In South Asian populations, the rates of heart disease are severalfold higher compared to the average,” said Singal, whose family comes from Punjab, India.

Singal, who is in the second of his three years as an internal medicine resident at the Harvard University-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, said he was partly motivated to become a doctor because he had family members affected by heart disease.

“For as far back as I can recall, I wanted to be a physician,” Singal, 28, said. He was accepted into Brown’s eight-year Liberal Medical Education program, which allows a select group of freshmen to combine their undergraduate education with professional studies in medicine.

The Ivy League school, known for its open curriculum, offered “a pretty enriched and diverse repertoire of classes,” he said. As an undergraduate, for example, he said he studied economics, health and human biology.

Brown also sponsored an extracurricular that draws on his cultural heritage. In freshman year Singal said he successfully auditioned for Brown Badmaash, a team that performs competitive South Asian fusion dance.

“When you are growing up in the U.S. with a cultural heritage from South Asia, a lot of the music you listen to is born out of two worlds,” Singal said. The team combines Bhangra, which he said originated in his home state of Punjab, with “Western dance styles such as hip hop, ballet and ballroom dancing equally blended with Bollywood.”

Traveling with the team, he said, “I got to meet a really vibrant community on the dance circuit across the U.S.” He continues to dance Bhangra non-competitively, but only with close family and friends.

In 2017, while still a Brown undergraduate, Singal said he met his future wife, Tanvee Varma. Both were visiting other friends in Cambridge. A long-distance relationship ensued when Varma, who was attending Wellesley College in Massachusetts, traveled to India on a Fulbright fellowship while Singal was studying at Brown’s Warren Alpert Medical School. They married in June 2023 in a multiday wedding celebration and now live and work in Boston, where Varma is also a Brigham resident physician.

As a cardiology specialist, Singal hopes to explore why heart disease is prevalent in South Asia. “Right now, I can contribute to a growing academic understanding of why that is,” he said.

He advises graduates with their own career aspirations to “lean on those around you. … The unwavering support I’ve received from my family and friends has uplifted me during challenging times, and I would not be where I am today without it.”

He added, “By the same token, make a concerted effort to express gratitude to those who help you on your path. We are all products of the communities that raised us.” — Jim Merritt

Lauren Perry

High school: The Wheatley School, Old Westbury

College: University of Pennsylvania, the Roy and Diana Vagelos Program in Life Sciences and Management

Today: Commercial strategy realization lead/chief of staff for Asia Pacific Human Health at MSD 

Lives in: Singapore

Lauren Perry has always been drawn to science, and to figuring out how it can be used to help people.

"I'm passionate about the opportunity to improve people's lives,” she said. “It's the driver in everything I do — how do we better understand science to treat and cure and prevent illness."

Growing up in Roslyn Heights, Perry, 27, said she always thought she’d be involved in medicine, as she comes from a family of doctors and other health care and medical professionals.

In college, she became interested in the pharmaceutical industry and the “discovery and development of products that can have life-saving impacts on people,” she said.

After working as a life sciences consultant in Boston following graduation, Perry said she joined Merck's research and development group during the pandemic, with a focus on vaccine development. (Outside the United States and Canada, Merck is known as MSD.)

This past fall, Perry moved to Singapore for a one-year leadership rotation, where she is exploring the commercial side of the business, learning about market access and strategic priorities for the company’s 12-country Asia Pacific region.

This is her first time in Asia and she said she loves living abroad. "It is truly a life-altering experience. Everyone should have the chance to do it."

One of the benefits, she said, is its proximity to Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Perry earned her scuba certification in Singapore, "where I didn't see more than three feet in front of me,” she recalled. “Then I got to the reef and it's like a whole new world that I discovered … It was just magical, really.”

Perry is now planning to get her advanced certification. And she may not be done with her academic learning, either: Perry said that when her rotation in Singapore ends, she is considering going to school to focus more on the science side rather than the business side when she assumes her next role with the company.

In the past 10 years, lessons she’s learned include believing in herself "more than I did in high school.” It helps, she said, to surround yourself with people who support you. And to have faith: "Things work out the way they're meant to even if you can't quite see that at the time,” she said.

Don’t be afraid to take risks, she advised. "Every success I've had is because I've done something that made me uncomfortable."

She urged students to learn to enjoy the present moment and not worry so much about the future. "You can't predict what the future will bring," she said. — Kay Blough

Joseph Palumbo

High School: Locust Valley High School

College: Boston College

Today: Data scientist

Lives in: Long Island City, Queens

Joseph Palumbo’s philosophy of taking life “base by base” has taken him from Meta to the Mets — and beyond.

When Palumbo, 27, graduated from high school, he said he had no idea what a data scientist was. He pursued a double major in math and economics at Boston College, from which he graduated in 2018, and his first job after school was as an economic consultant for the professional services network EY.

After three years at EY, he said he returned to school to pursue a master's degree in analytics from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He then got a job as a data scientist for Meta, formerly Facebook, in 2022.

But the following year, Palumbo said he was laid off as a result of Meta’s restructuring.

“Most of my colleagues on the East Coast, irrespective of performance or level, were heavily impacted,” Palumbo said.

While that time was nerve-wracking, he said his support network, especially his father, helped him through.

“My dad’s laid-back trust that things would work out and his encouragement to not sell myself short were instrumental in boosting my confidence and easing self-imposed pressure," he said.

Three and a half months after he was laid off, Palumbo landed a job this past October with the Mets, where until recently he was part of a small team that created statistical models that drove decision-making across various departments. His projects aimed to improve the fan experience, including at Citi Field's "bustling retail stores," he said.

In March of this year, Palumbo said his team was laid off, so he's looking for his next job.. He is now considering new job opportunities in his chosen field.

"I like data science because of its versatility," he said. "Every few months I encounter new projects, new problems to solve and new people to collaborate with."

Looking back, Palumbo credits his relationships for helping to guide him in his career and in his life. While he didn't used to feel comfortable imposing himself on others for simple tasks such as picking him up at the airport, he said he has learned to welcome the help of his family and friends.

“Embracing the assistance of my network — for advice, feedback or just for general support — has led to a notable improvement in my life," Palumbo said. "Just like in baseball, what’s proven effective for me is taking it base by base and relying on my teammates to drive me home.” — Michael R. Ebert

Asia Stewart

High School: Bay Shore High School

College: Harvard University

Today: Performance artist and artistic director at PerformVu

Lives in: Brooklyn

Asia Stewart’s life is nothing like she thought it would be when she graduated from high school.

Stewart, 28, said she had considered becoming a lawyer and studied asylum and immigration law at Harvard University, where she earned her undergraduate degree in government and studies of women, gender and sexuality in 2018. She then pursued a master's degree in sociology through a fully funded fellowship to attend the University of Cambridge in England.

However, she soon realized that she didn’t want to continue on that path. Instead, at the end of 2019, she said she changed course and decided to pursue performance full-time in New York City.

“I have been performing on various stages for most of my childhood and adult life. However, I never felt like I was in a position to focus on art and performance full-time until I completed my masters' program,” said Stewart, who acted in numerous musicals during high school. “Theater teaches you to take risks, embrace quirks and revel in the grandiosity of life. It was on stage where I learned about spectacle and how to manipulate my body and voice to hold an audience's gaze."

Stewart, who is also a photographer, has since exhibited her work across the country, including at the A.I.R. Gallery in Brooklyn and the Mint Museum in Charlotte. She is also the founding artistic director of PerformVu, a streaming platform for video and performance art.

Her next project will be the Off-Broadway premiere of her interdisciplinary performance "Fabric Softener," which will be staged this summer at The Shed in Hudson Yards. The performance combines song, movement and painting to meditate on intergenerational trauma, she said.

“I am so happy that I made that decision, and I feel so incredibly fulfilled by the work that I do,” Stewart said of her career change. "Through visual art and performance, I can reach and interact with people in a much more tangible way."

Stewart’s other life-changing decision was something that she said might surprise her high school peers: She got married. She met her partner, Indy, while living in London and they got married in Brooklyn in late 2022.

The couple celebrated their commitment by throwing a 10-hour disco last May. The party was designed to combine two things they both enjoy: rave culture and the disco era, she said.

“Anyone who has known me since high school recognizes that I do not put much stock in heteronormative ideals like marriage or the notion that marriage represents a type of personal achievement,” Stewart said. “Being able to redefine what a marriage looks like with my incredible partner has been immensely rewarding."

Stewart has the following advice for today’s youth: Never take life or time with loved ones for granted. Also, she said, “Be weirder.”

“Don’t care what others will say about you or think of you,” she said. “No one else gets to live your life but you, so you need to be able to live with the choices you are making.” — Michael R. Ebert