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Graduate School Alumni Society

The Graduate School Alumni Society is a constituent society of the Penn State Alumni Association. Penn State has more than 125,000 living graduate alumni globally. The society's mission is to foster relationships between graduate students and alumni; enhance the overall graduate student experience; advance graduate education and research; and increase graduate alumni membership in the Penn State Alumni Association.

Graduate School Alumni Society Board of Directors

President: Kathleen Hume, MMgt., Healthcare Administration; Healthcare Consultant

President-Elect: Bimal Balakrishnan, Ph.D., Mass Communications, M.S., Architecture; Associate Dean of Research and Professor, Mississippi State University

Immediate Past PresidentJoseph (Jay) Kovacs, III, MMgt., Business Administration;  Chief Innovation Officer, Axient Corporation


At Large Members

James Caltagirone, M.S., Exercise Science
Sports Columnist and Freelance Writer

Joseph (Jay) Kovacs, III, MMgt., Business Administration
Chief Innovation Officer, Axient Corporation

Matthew Krott, Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering
Mechanical Engineer, Aurora Flight Sciences – A Boeing Company

Ken Graham, Ph.D. Business
Senior Advisor, Rowhill Consulting, Inc.

Sharon Melzer, Master of Public Administration
Foreign Affairs Officer, U.S. Department of State, and Adjunct Professor at the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University

Cathy Rusinko, Ph.D., Business Administration; M.A., Economics; B.A., English; B.S., Economics
Professor of Management and Coordinator for Sustainability, Thomas Jefferson University


Campus and College Representatives

College of Agricultural Sciences
Merrilee G. Anderson, Ph.D., Plant Pathology
Professor, Science and Mathematics, Mount Aloysius College

College of Arts and Architecture
Bimal Balakrishnan, Ph.D., Mass Communications, M.S., Architecture
Associate Dean of Research and Professor, Mississippi State University 

Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications
Harriet Huell Lampkin, Master of Arts
Executive Vice President of Legal, INLIVIAN

Commonwealth Colleges
Kathleen G. Hume, MMgt., Healthcare Administration
Healthcare Consultant

College of Earth and Mineral Sciences
Vacant

College of Education
Amy Thul-Sigler, D.Ed., Adult Education
Assistant Teaching Professor, Department of Health Policy and Administration, College of Health and Human Development, Penn State

College of Engineering
Jonathan U. Dougherty, Ph.D. Architectural Engineering
Vice President, Strategic Initiatives, Providence Engineering

College of Health and Human Development
David M. Kiser, Ph.D., Physiology; M.S., HPER Exercise Physiology
former Vice President of Eastman Kodak Company and Vice President of International Paper, Consultant in the areas of environment, health, safety, and sustainability

College of Information Sciences and Technology
Joslenne Peña, M.S.; Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Computer Science, Macalester College. 

College of The Liberal Arts
Hannah Furnas, M.A.; Ph.D.
Senior Research Science Manager, Meta

College of Medicine
Lawrence M. Mylin, Ph.D., Biological Chemistry
Professor of Biology, Messiah University

Ross and Carol Nese College of Nursing
Kimberly Fenstermacher, M.S.; Ph.D.
Assistant Dean of Nursing, Messiah University

Eberly College of Science
Alex Zhao, Ph.D., Statistics
Senior Data Scientist, BCG X, Boston Consulting Group

School of International Affairs
Paige Castellanos, Ph.D., Rural Sociology and International Agriculture and Development, Master of International Affairs
Senior Manager for Gender Justice and Inclusion, Oxfam America

Smeal College of Business
Jeffrey M. Middleton, MBA, B.S., Economics
Senior Director of Finance, Global Construction Brands Controller, Case New Holland Industrial, Inc.


Graduate Student Representatives

Graduate and Professional Student Association (GPSA) Representative
Lawrence Miller, GPSA President
Kristen Reish, GPSA Vice President for External Affairs

Office of Graduate Educational Equity Programs (OGEEP) Representative
Keisha Oliver


Ex Officio Members

Jennifer Theiss
Director of Alumni and External Relations

*Degrees shown are those from Penn State

Board Committees

This page was generated on March 19, 2024 at 2:39 AM local time. This may not be the most recent version of this page. Check the Penn State Graduate School website for updates.