Networking & Career Exploration CONNECT Alumni Career Day
The information listed below is being updated for CONNECT 2020. Please check back later for final details.
CONNECT Alumni Career Day is the largest career-related event of the year and is intended to help Schreyer Scholars think about their career interests, formulate career objectives and think about next steps for achieving those goals. This event also gives Scholars the unique opportunity to network with and learn from Scholar alumni.
Event Schedule
1:00 - 1:30 PM Welcoming Remarks Room 112, Auditorium
1:40 - 2:25 PM Session 1
Careers in Government Room 104
From business to health to policy to education, the government impacts every sector of society. Come see how your career goals can align with the variety of opportunities provided by the government.
It's Going Tibia Okay: The Ins and Outs of Med School Admissions Room 105
Come to this panel for everything medical school related. Get advice on how to study for the MCAT, navigate through the medical school application process, and build a strong foundation that will prepare you for a career in medicine.
Non-Traditional Career Paths Room 106
Hear from alumni who are pursuing careers in fields that may be considered nontraditional given their major. For those of you saying, “I’m not sure what’s next.” – This panel is for you!
Start-Up Your Career: Innovation and Entrepreneurship Room 107
Alumni will share their experiences and trends they have seen in the start-up industry. From tech transfer, to start-ups, to social entrepreneurship, learn about career paths and skills necessary to work in innovative fields.
Have Your Cake & Eat it Too: Work Life Balance Room 112, Auditorium
This panel is for Scholars to learn how to help navigate busy work schedules with their personal lives, mental health, and side activities. How to balance hobbies with building a career and doing so while still having time for themselves.
2:45 - 3:30 PM Session 2
Adulting 101 Room 104
This session offers Scholars the opportunity to speak with alumni about making a smooth transition from being a student to becoming a professional whether that is in a work environment or furthering their education.
Sustaining A Legal Career Room 105
Learn about the ins and outs of the legal profession and gain an understanding of what to expect working in law. This panel will also expose you to the application process and the experience of attending law school.
Alternative Careers Room 106
Come out to explore different options after you graduate. This panel will introduce you to alternative starting points like non-profit organizations, TFA, and fellowships. It will also debunk certain myths associated with non-traditional career routes.
Consulting Room 107
This panel is for Scholars from any academic discipline interested in learning more about careers in consulting. Additionally, you will learn about different types of consulting and the work associated with each.
STEMing Out Into New Fields Room 112, Auditorium
Come see how a STEM degree can propel you into less obvious industries like consulting, finance, and law, as well as traditional careers in engineering, science, and technology.
3:50 - 4:35 PM Session 3
So, You Want to Go to Grad School? Room 104
Are you thinking about continuing your education? Attend this panel to learn more about deciding to attend graduate school, applying to programs and finding success once you are there.
Career in Politics Room 105
This panel is for Scholars interested in pursuing a career in politics, and how they can begin to build the experience and knowledge needed to be successful in this career path.
Healthcare Without an MD Room 106
Not considering medical school, but still interested a career in healthcare? Don’t worry, your options are endless! Come learn how Scholar alumni have branched out into different health-related fields and found alternate ways of fulfilling this career goal.
Make That Bread: Careers in Business Room 107
Leave this session with a firm understanding of different job options in finance, marketing, supply chain, and more. Learn how to make yourself stand out in the recruiting process and how to pursue a career in business regardless of major.
Do It For Your Brand: Personal Branding Room 112, Auditorium
Scholar Alumni will explain key tips and tricks for portraying the “best you” to employers. Come learn about interviews, your own image, and how to best market yourself.
4:15 - 5:00 PM Networking Session Atrium
Successful Scholar Alumni Alumni Bios
Learn more about the Scholar alumni attending this year's event.
Alayna Auerbach Student,
Alayna is a student in the process of transitioning careers to Psychology. From 2015 to 2019, she worked at PwC in Mergers & Acquisitions Management Consulting in NYC. She earned a BS in Finance (minors: Economics, Spanish) with Honors from Penn State in 2015. Please feel free to connect with her on LinkedIn.
Todd Bacastow Sr. Director, Strategic Growth, Maxar Technologies
During my time as a Schreyer scholar, I greatly benefited from interaction with alums and appreciated the mentoring. This is an excellent way to give back to the SHC community and stay connected to students. Todd Bacastow is a 2005 graduate of Penn State and the Schreyer Honors College with a B.S. in Information Sciences and Technology (IST). Todd is currently Sr. Director of Strategic Growth at Maxar Technology, a leading provider of earth intelligence and space systems. Previously, led Strategy and Corporate Development for Radiant Solutions, a Maxar Company. He served as Manager of Strategic Initiatives for SPADAC, a growing geospatial technology company that specialized in predictive analytics, which merged with GeoEye in December 2010. Prior to is role at SPADAC, Todd was an Associate for at FirstMark Capital, a New York-based venture capital firm. Todd started his career at Merrill Lynch as an Investment Banking Analyst in the Media & Telecom group in New York. While attending Penn State, he completed internships with organizations including CSIS and Merrill Lynch and was a member of Lion Ambassadors, the Distinguished Speaker Series Committee, the Penn State Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and Rotaract.
Samuel Bonsall Associate Professor of Accounting, Penn State University-Smeal College of Business
Sam Bonsall is the Reeves Family Early Career Professor in Accounting at the Smeal College of Business at Penn State University in University Park, PA where he conducts research on the use of information by debt and equity investors and teaches advanced financial reporting in Smeal's Integrated Master of Accounting program. Before joining Penn State in 2017, he previously worked as a faculty member at the Fisher College of Business at the Ohio State University and a senior consultant at the economic consulting firm Bates White, LLC in Washington, DC. He earned a BS in Economics with Honors from Penn State in 2004 and a MS in Accounting through the Schreyer IUG program at Penn State in 2004. He also earned a PhD in Accounting from Penn State in 2012. Please feel free to connect with him by email (sbb151@psu.edu) or on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-bonsall-a7a50936/).
Nathaniel DeRose In-house Counsel, Equitrans Midstream Corportation
Nathaniel DeRose serves as Assistant General Counsel for Equitrans Midstream Corporation, a premier natural gas midstream services provider based in the Pittsburgh area, and is responsible for corporate transactional work, including mergers and acquisitions, capital markets transactions and governance. Before joining Equitrans in 2018, Mr. DeRose practiced at White & Case LLP in New York City, representing investment banks in transactions, and at another large law firm in Washington, DC, representing corporate clients in M&A and securities transactions. Mr. DeRose graduated from the Schreyer Honors College at Penn State in 2004 with a BS in Finance and has a law degree and MBA from the University of Pittsburgh. Please feel free to connect with him via LinkedIn or email.
Eric Dice Senior Budget Analyst, House Committee on Appropriations, Pennsylvania House of Representatives
Eric Dice is a senior budget analyst for the Committee on Appropriations in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in Harrisburg, PA, where he is responsible for analyzing legislation, state agency budgets and policy proposals under consideration by the General Assembly. He joined the Appropriations Committee staff after earning a BS in Economics with Honors from Penn State in 2008.
Brian Ellis Attorney / Counsel / Litigator, Bressler Amery & Ross PC
Brian is Counsel with Bressler, Amery & Ross, P.C., a multidisciplinary medium-sized law firm with offices in New York, New Jersey, Florida, Alabama, and Washington, D.C. He represents and counsels clients ranging from Fortune 500 companies to individuals, and specializes in financial services litigation, commercial arbitration, business consulting, and is also a member of the firm’s Cannabis practice group. In addition, Brian is the Chairperson of the Morris County Bar Association‘s Financial Services Committee and serves as a member of the New Jersey Supreme Court District Ethics Committee (District XA).
Brian graduated from Penn State in 2002 With Honors and High Distinction, majoring in Crime, Law & Justice and Sociology. Brian graduated from Rutgers Law School in 2008. More information is available at: https://www.bressler.com/people-brian-ellis.
Dulce-Marie Flecha Assistant Director of Learning Centers, Cayuga Centers
Dulce-Marie Flecha is an Assistant Director of Learning Centers at Cayuga Center's Unaccompanied Children's Program. She is responsible for developing language and literacy curriculum for 900 unaccompanied and separated migrant children aged 0-17, as well as designing and facilitating a professional development programming for 120+ educators. Dulce-Marie earned her Bachelor of Arts in English with Honors from Penn State in 2013, then earned her Master of Arts in Literacy Specialization from the Teachers College at Columbia University in 2018. Please feel free to connect with Dulce-Marie on Twitter (@DulceFlecha) or by email (dulcemarie.flecha@gmail.com).
Kevin Frick Professor and Vice Dean for Education, Johns Hopkins Carey Business School
Kevin Frick is a professor and the vice dean for education at the Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School in Baltimore, MD, where he helps to lead an office of over 80 staff in providing the highest quality business education possible to masters students from around the world. Before joining the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School in 2013, he previously worked at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health where he had advanced from assistant professor to full professor as well as holding the position of associate chair of his department and president of the faculty senate. He earned his BS in health policy and administration with Honors from Penn State in 1991. He also earned an MA in Economics and a PhD in Economics and Health Services Organization and Policy in 1997 at the University of Michigan. Please feel free to connect with him at https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-frick-9570898/.
Rebecca Lee Funk Founder & CEO, The Outrage
Rebecca Lee Funk is the founder and CEO of The Outrage. She was recently named by Washingtonian as one of DC's Most Powerful Women and by Marie Claire as one of 50 women visionaries changing the world we live in. Her experiences in senior positions at both start-ups (LivingSocial) and mission-driven non-profits (National Geographic), as well as a prior career as an economist (United Nations and IFPRI) have convinced her that leveraging the power of business and behavioral economics is the most effective way to mobilize a new generation of activists. She holds two master's degrees from Yale University and three bachelor's from Pennsylvania State University.
Keith Graham Senior Instructor, University of Colorado
In 1985, I earned my BS in Electrical Engineering at Pennsylvania State University at State College, Pennsylvania specializing in Computer Architecture and ASIC design. Upon graduation, I moved to Fort Collins, Colorado to join Hewlett Packard's Workstation Division where I developed HP's first floating point accelerator card for their series 300 computers. A group of Motorola and HP engineers started Solbourne Computers and shortly afterwards asked me to join them in the development of the first multi-processor server based on a virtual cache architecture and physical memory. After the server development, I became the technical team lead in developing an engineering workstation with a custom CPU and 4 ASICs. In 1991, I went to a new startup, Quest Computer, to develop the first PC notebook with an integrated trackball and cellular modem.
After Quest Computer, I entered sales at Thorson Rocky Mountain and later became a managing partner. Thorson is an electronic manufacturer's representative selling both active semiconductors, passives, and electro-mechicanical devices. My experiences at Thorson expanded my techinical experience into DSPs, micro controllers, memory, power, and radios. Appplications have ranged from Servers/Workstations to Mass Storage Systems, to Solar Micro-converters, to Enterprise Wifi phones, and to Internet of Things.
Throughout my career, I have had many different positions and responsibilities. Currently, I am the Associate Chair of Undergraduate Education for the Electrical Computer & Energy Engineering (ECEE) Department at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The one consistent theme that ties together all of my jobs and experiences is my BS in Electrical Engineering from Penn State. I am now working on developing a leading curriculum in Embedded Systems at CU to address a growing need in industry and academia that is interdisciplinary with other engineering departments include Mechanical, Aerospace, Chemical, Architectural, and Civil Engineering as well as Computer Science.
Asia Grant Consultant, Capco
Asia is a User Experience Researcher at Capco from 9-5 and a Freelance Creative every time else. She currently lives in New York, NY where she conducts user interviews, builds products people want (but more importantly need), and runs a side hustle with a fellow Schreyer Alum. She earned her BS in Marketing with honors in 2017. Please feel free to connect with her through LinkedIn or Instagram (@shmasia).
Andrew Gutberlet Manager of Engineering Services, Penn State Office of Physical Plant
Andrew Gutberlet ('gut' = stomach; 'ber' like in November; 'let' like 'let it go') is the Manager of Engineering Services for Penn State's Office of Physical Plant where he manages the team of engineers that support planning, design, construction, operations and maintenance of all 30 million square feet of space at the University. Before joining Penn State in 2014, he previously worked as a civilian for the Navy at the Naval Facilities Engineering Command and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. He earned a BS in Engineering Science with Honors from Penn State in 1998; he also holds a Master's Degree in Environmental Engineering from Johns Hopkins University and a Master of Arts in National Security and Strategic Studies from the United States War College - which sounds cool, but is otherwise totally useless.
Paul Haidet Distinguished Professor of Medicine, Humanities and Public Health Sciences, Penn State College of Medicine
Paul Haidet is a general internist and the Director of Medical Education Research at the Penn State College of Medicine. He has worked in medical education since the late 1990s, having served at three medical schools (Harvard, Baylor, and Penn State). He earned his BS in Biochemistry with Honors from Penn State in 1987, his MD degree from Penn State in 1991, and his Masters in Public Health from Harvard University in 1997. His professional interest is in patient-physician communication, and he is a life long student of jazz music, which he brings into his professional work on the improvisational aspects of medical communication.
John Hemmer Partner, Morgan Lewis
John is a patent attorney who counsels clients on patent protection and challenges, patent portfolio management, product clearance, technology and merger and acquisition agreements, and IP due diligence. He has a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Penn State (2003) and a law degree from Temple University (2006). In addition to being a board member of the Penn State Scholar Alumni Society, John is an advisory board member for the Philadelphia chapter of Back on My Feet, and a volunteer for Neighborhood Bike Works.
Soma Kedia Assistant Attorney General, Maryland Office of the Attorney General
Soma is an Assistant Attorney General at the Maryland Office of the Attorney General in Baltimore, MD, where she serves as legal counsel to the Maryland Higher Education Commission. Prior to joining the Attorney General's Office in 2018, she was a Staff Attorney at Maryland Legal Aid for 8 years, where she focused on custody and domestic violence litigation as well as housing and homelessness issues. She also spent 2 years at a boutique family law firm in the DC metro area and held a year-long post-law school fellowship at George Washington University's Office of General Counsel. She earned a BA in English, with Honors, and a BS in Psychology from Penn State in 2002, where she was a Scholar Assistant, a teaching assistant, and a writing tutor. She earned her law degree from the George Washington University Law School in 2006, where she was an Assistant Director at the University Writing Center.
Natalie Keller Associate Scientist II, Mondelez International
Natalie is an Associate Scientist at Mondelez International in northern New Jersey. She works on the North America Cookies team in product development innovation, working on belVita products utilizing new ingredients and manufacturing technology. In her two and a half years and two internships at Mondelez, she has worked on Nutter Butter, Oreo, Stride gum, and other snack brands. She earned a BS in Food Science with Honors in 2017 and was involved in Schreyer Student Council, THON, and Food Science Club while at Penn State. Feel free to connect with her on LinkedIn or at nataliekeller@alumni.psu.edu.
Hannah Kendig Research Analyst, Accenture
Hannah Kendig is a Research Analyst at Accenture in New York City where she provides reports to executive leadership before meetings with clients and supervises the high school apprenticeship program on our team. Prior to working at Accenture, Hannah worked as an economic research assistant working on projects related to Obamacare and the Department of Transportation. She also worked as a cyber intelligence analyst at Battelle. Hannah received a BA in economics and political science and a minor in French from Penn State in 2013 and received a master's degree in economics and business from Institut d'Études Politiques in Paris in 2018. Please contact Hannah at her email: hannahj.kendig@gmail.com.
Ryan Koch Director of Strategy - Financial Services, Intapp
Ryan is a Director at Intapp (a Silicon Valley tech company). Based in New York City, Ryan leads the US Strategic Consulting team where they help professional and financial services firms to modernize and operationalize their business strategy. Before joining Intapp, Ryan spent 15 years in management and technology consulting at a number of firms including PwC and Point B focused primarily on the financial services industry. Coming out of PSU, he worked at Procter & Gamble for 5 years where he led the installation and start-up of new manufacturing production lines. Ryan earned his BS in Chemical Engineering with Honors from Penn State in 1997 and his MBA in Finance from Wharton (University of Pennsylvania) in 2004. Please feel free to connect with him via email or LinkedIn.
Emily Kowey Roth Attorney, Duane Morris LLC
Emily Kowey Roth is an attorney at Duane Morris LLP, an international law firm, in its Philadelphia office. Emily is an associate in the Trial Department where she represents clients nationally in complex commercial disputes in a variety of matters, including contract disputes, consumer class actions, and business torts, with an emphasis on non-compete and trade secret litigation.
Emily earned a BA in International Politics (with Honors) and Spanish, with a minor in History from Penn State in 2012. Emily earned her law degree from Temple University Beasley School of Law in 2015.
Please feel free to connect with her on Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily-kowey-roth-19475543) or by email at ekroth@duanemorris.com.
Caleb Kwok Business Analyst, McKinsey & Company
Caleb is currently a Business Analyst with McKinsey & Company based out of their New York office. He has served a variety of clients spanning technology, telecom, software, insurance, and others. Caleb graduated from Penn State and SHC in 2018 with a degree in Finance. Prior to graduating Caleb interned with Goldman Sachs.
Joshua Laikin Middle East Foreign Affairs Analyst, US Department of State
Kristin Lambert MD/PhD Dual Degree Candidate, Penn State College of Medicine
Kristin Lambert is a dual degree MD/PHD student at the Penn State College of Medicine in Hershey, PA, where she is completing her final year of medical school. She earned a BS in Immunology & Infectious Disease with Honors in Biology from Penn State in 2014. She also earned her PhD in Biomedical Sciences from the Penn State College of Medicine in 2019 for work studying how inflammation is regulated in severe asthma.
Valerie Lehman Senior Manager, Anne Arundel Medical Center
Valerie Lehman is Senior Manager, Institute for Healthy Aging at Anne Arundel Medical Center. In this role, she is responsible for the operations of this new Institute, which focuses on spreading and supporting age-friendly best practices across the health system. She is also responsible for AAMC's government relations work. Prior to this role, Val was AAMC's Manager for Palliative Care and Government Affairs for almost two years. She started at AAMC as the FY 2016 Administrative Fellow. Her project work included a business plan for expanding palliative care and a Certificate of Need application for a new mental health hospital at AAMC.
Her prior professional experience includes serving as Health Policy Fellow in the Washington, DC office of Congressman John P. Sarbanes (MD-03) and in various program support positions at the Institute of Medicine (now the National Academy of Medicine) for more than three years. Val first developed her interest in health care by interning for Congressman Patrick J. Murphy (former PA-08) in 2010 while the Affordable Care Act was being crafted and voted on. She graduated from The George Washington University with a Master of Health Administration degree in 2016 and The Pennsylvania State University's Schreyer Honors College with a BA in International Politics in 2009.
Melissa Marshall Chief Compliance & Risk Officer, Westinghouse Electric Company
Melissa Marshall graduated from Penn State in 2000 with a degree in Materials Science and Engineering. She went straight into the consulting world with Deloitte after Penn State where she worked on large scale custom IT implementations. After 4 years, she went back to school to get her MBA from Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business in finance, accounting, and strategy. She also has a graduate certificate in Strategic Decision & Risk Management from Stanford University. Since business school, Melissa has worked for Alcoa and Westinghouse.
Melissa is the Vice President of Global Internal Audit for Westinghouse. Previously, Melissa was Vice President and Chief Compliance & Risk Officer and oversaw the Global Ethics & Compliance, Global Trade Compliance, and Enterprise Risk Management functions. Prior to that, Melissa managed the new plant commercial offer process as the Director of Commercial Planning. Her team was responsible for developing the pricing and financing strategies and cost estimates to support Westinghouse’s integrated proposals and marketing deliverables for new nuclear power plants. Melissa’s first role was the head of Westinghouse's Enterprise Risk Management program where she developed the program and processes to identify and mitigate large, enterprise-wide risks.
Ed Marx Director, Enterprise Analytics, Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Ed Marx is the Director of Enterprise Analytics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where he has worked since 2011. His team works with leaders across the Medical Center to help them frame their opportunities and questions, design the analytics that will most effectively address their needs, and present the results of their analysis.
Ed spent seven years with McKinsey & Company before accepting his role at Vanderbilt. During his time there, he helped create the McKinsey Hospital Institute (renamed Objective Health), an offering focused towards community providers that enabled them to capture bottom line impact and build capabilities through proprietary analytics, web-based performance tools, and benchmarking/expertise. He led the development of client solutions including a cost allocation model, physician utilization analyses, and lean training/implementation. Prior to McKinsey, Ed spent four years with Procter & Gamble where he led teams in the installation and equipment setup of new diaper production lines.
Ed graduated summa cum laude and with honors from Penn State with a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering and earned his Masters of Business Administration from Harvard Business School.
Jackie McGirr Senior Manager/Director, State Government Relations, Verizon
Jackie McGirr graduated in 1983 from the College of Liberal Arts and Health and Human Development majoring in Administration of Justice. She began her career with the United States Customs Department as a Customs Agent working in New York City.
She later joined Verizon’s Executive Management Program and has since had various assignments leading both management and non-management teams within Verizon’s many business units. While working full time at Verizon, she received an MBA from Pace University in New York City. Currently, her role in State and Local Government Affairs is to facilitate communications between Verizon’s business units and State Regulatory Teams in order to reduce regulatory barriers that impeded Verizon’s freedom to market its products and services. Jackie also directs a team of regulatory professionals charged with ensuring Verizon's compliance with Federal and State Government tariff obligations.
Matt Mignogna Academic Adviser, Smeal College of Business
Matt Mignogna is an Academic Adviser in Penn State's Smeal College of Business. He works with and advises students regarding all manner of academic questions or hurdles. Before working as an Academic Adviser at Smeal, Matt was a science teacher through Teach For America in 2018. He earned a BA in Psychology and an M.Ed. in Learning, Design & Technology both from Penn State in 2018.
Mani Nathan Nair Neurosurgery Residency Director and Associate Professor, Georgetown University School of Medicine
Nathan Nair is an Associate Professor of Neurosurgery at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital in Washington DC where he is an active clinician and director of both resident and medical student education. Before joining Georgetown University, he completed his residency and fellowship at the University of Washington in Seattle. He obtained a BS in Premedicine with honors from Penn State in 1997. He earned his MD and MPH from Columbia University in 2002. In 2019, he earned his MBA from the University of Virginia.
Lauren Navitsky Resident Physician, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
Lauren Grunenwald Navitsky is a resident physician at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center where she is completing her clinical training in internal medicine. Prior to pursuing a career in medicine, Lauren worked as a quality auditor in the pharmaceutical industry - first at a start-up company and then at Teva Pharmaceuticals. She earned her BS in Bioengineering with honors as well as her MS in Bioengineering from Penn State in 2013. In 2019, she earned her MD from Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University. Please feel free to connect with her on Twitter at @laurnavitsky or by email at lgrunenwald@gmail.com.
Michael O'Connor Litigation Counsel,
Michael O’Connor is the head of litigation for a major financial technology company, advising senior executives and supervising litigation both for and against the company around the world. Before that, he spent a year teaching at Penn State Law and nine years at major D.C. firms. Mike is a proud Penn Stater and 2005 Honors College graduate. At Penn State, he worked for Prof. Webb Miller, doing bioinformatics research that was published in Nature and other scientific journals. Among other activities, Mike devoted significant time to THON, dancing for Springfield House and spending three years as a THON Captain. After earning dual degrees with Interdisciplinary Honors in Computer Science and Biology, he attended law school at the University of Pennsylvania. He graduated in 2009 and has been admitted to the bars of Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C.
Carol Packard Associate Dean, Alumni Affairs and Development, Cornell University
Carol Packard is the Associate Dean for Alumni Affairs and Development at the Cornell University College of Education where she leads a team of 15 professional staff members with responsibilities including alumni affairs, stewardship, donor relations, development, and corporate and foundation relations, raising $40 million on average per year. She previously worked at Penn State and other non-profits in the State College area in development roles. She earned a BA in English Literature with Honors from Penn State in 1999. She also earned a MEd in Higher Education Administration from Penn State in 2018.
Aleks Radovic-Moreno Entrepreneur in Residence, Longwood Fund
Aleks is an Entrepreneur in Residence at Longwood Fund in Boston, MA where he builds & funds new biotech companies that seek to develop therapies for patients in need. Before joining Longwood in 2019, he worked at PureTech Health, where he built Vor Biopharma and Alivio Therapeutics. He earned a BS in Chemical Engineering with Honors from Penn State in 2005. He also earned a PhD from MIT and the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences & Technology in 2013. Feel free to connect with him at aradovicm@gmail.com
Benjamin Rowles Foreign Service Officer, U.S. Department of State
Benjamin Rowles is a Foreign Service officer, or diplomat, at the U.S. Department of State, where he works on technology, science, economic, trade, energy, and environmental issues both domestically and overseas. Before joining the State Department in 2020, he previously worked on peacebuilding policy at the Friends Committee on National Legislation. He earned a BA in English with Honors from Penn State in 2018. Please feel free to connect with him at https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamin-rowles/.
Nikhil Shekher Vice President of Sales, DBC, Inc.
Nik Shekher is the Vice President of Sales for DBC, Inc., a branding company in New York City, New York, where he sources and manages enterprise client accounts. Previously, Nik worked in the Investment Banking Division of the Bank of America Merrill Lynch. He earned his BS in Finance with Honors from Penn State in 2016. Please feel free to connect with him at NJShekher@gmail.com.
Lauren Waltz Senior Engineer, Medical Device and Combination Product Technical Operations, Merck
I graduated from Penn State and the Schreyer Honors College with a bachelor's degree in Biomedical Engineering in 2012, and went on to complete a master's degree in Biomedical Engineering and Engineering Management from Drexel University in 2015. I currently work in the pharmaceutical industry at Merck, specializing in the commercialization and lifecycle management of drug/device combination products.
Emily Weiland Real Estate Banking Associate, PNC Financial Services
Emily works as a commercial real estate underwriter for PNC in Boca Raton, FL. She supports PNC's southeast teams and clients (South Florida, Charlotte, and Atlanta) and underwrites a variety of real estate classes, including multifamily, office, industrial, retail, hotel, etc. She recently completed an 18-month development program with PNC in Pittsburgh, PA and previously completed internships in PNC's Charlotte, NC office and with First National Bank of PA in State College. Emily graduated in 2018 with majors in Finance and Spanish, a minor in International Business, and a certificate in Real Estate Analysis and Development. Please feel free to connect with her on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilyweiland/
Jack Yoskowitz Litigation Law Firm Partner, Seward & Kissel LLP
Jack is a Litigation Partner at Seward & Kissel LLP which is a law firm of about 150 attorneys. I work on civil litigation and regulatory issues for clients in the financial services industry - hedge funds, investment banks, etc. So both private litigation and where the SEC or FINRA bring an investigation or a claim.
