\Noteworthy\
Alumni Notes
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Alumni Bookshelf
denotes alumni authors whose latest book is featured below.
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Penn Affiliations
At Penn, all alumni have an affiliation—a series of letters and numbers following their name to indicate their degree, school, and year of graduation. A master’s degree from Penn GSE is represented as GED and an education doctorate as GRD. A philosophy doctorate from any school at Penn is represented as GR. An undergraduate degree offered by the School of Education until 1961 is represented as ED. The two numbers following the letters represent the year in which that degree was completed.
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1970s
- Myrna Skobel Agris, CW’63, GED’73, GRD’79,
was promoted to vice president at Morgan Stanley. - Craig E. Burgess, GED’71, was recently elected president of the Premier Cadbury Continuing Care Retirement Community Residents’ Association in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. His latest book, A Fleeting Glimpse of Paradise, features Hawaiian culture, history, music, art and lifestyles.
- Miriam Camitta, CGS’71, GED’72, GR’87, earned an MFA in fiction from Bennington Writing Seminars after retirement. Her personal essays appear in The Masters Review and Fourth Genre literary magazines. Her essay “Necessary for Life” was selected as notable in The Best American Essays 2023.
- Alice Korngold, CW’74, GED’77, published her third book, A Better World, Inc.: Corporate Governance for an Inclusive, Sustainable, and Prosperous Future (Palgrave Macmillan).
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1990s
- Courtney Allison, GED’96, currently serves as a curriculum expert at EdReports.org, where she builds tools to evaluate materials and works with teachers across the country to produce informative reports. She is also doing research on AI and its implications for future classroom materials.
- Athena Anthopoulos, C’86, GED’93, is the founder and principal of Main Line School Match in Pennsylvania. With an extensive background in early childhood and elementary education, she has taught and guided children and families on the Main Line for over 25 years.
- Anna Beresin, GRD’93, is an incoming Fulbright scholar at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom. Her free new book, Play in a Covid Frame: Everyday Pandemic Creativity in a Time of Isolation, is available via Open Book Publishers.
- Jennifer Cressman, GED’92, GR’05, has joined Penn State Abington as chair of the Early Childhood and Elementary Education program and director of Teacher Education.
- George Steinhoff, GED’97, has been reappointed as superintendent for the Penn-Delco School District in Delaware County, Pennsylvania—a position he has held since 2008.
- Vincent Travaglione, GED’98, recently founded Agile Enrollment Solutions (AES), a consulting firm that mixes best practices from the project management and enrollment management fields. AES is focused on supporting enrollment management teams in creating foundational, sustainable operations and comprehensive documentation.
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2000s
- Jake Becker, GED’02, currently serves as the managing director for specialized health services for Public Health Management Corporation in Philadelphia. He was previously the head of school at The City School and CFO at Esperanza Health Center, both also in Philadelphia.
- DeAngela Burns-Wallace, GRD’09, began her role as the new president and CEO of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in August. Located in Kansas City, Missouri, the Kauffman Foundation provides access to opportunities that help people achieve financial stability, upward mobility, and economic prosperity regardless of race, gender, or geography.
- Sandra Every Dean, W’59, GRD’06, has published a new book, Beyond Civics: The Education Democracy Needs. She writes, “Failure to teach civics is often blamed for the problems facing democracy. But civics alone is not enough to prepare young people for the hard work of sustaining a democratic society. It is not enough to learn how a bill becomes law. Rather, a school should itself be a democratic ecosystem where young people have the opportunity to observe and practice those skills and dispositions required to be an engaged and informed citizen.” Every Dean was head of the Philadelphia School from 1983 to 2006.
- Dean Donaher, GRD’09, was appointed principal of Bethlehem Catholic High School (Pennsylvania) on July 17, 2023, by the Most Reverend Bishop Alfred Schlert.
- Pamela Felder-Small, GRD’05, facilitated an official side event panel on reparatory justice for the United Nations Permanent Forum on People of African Descent on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
- Monique Robinson, GED’08, did humanitarian work this summer with Action Against Hunger in Nairobi, Kenya, educating mothers about malnutrition prevention and horticulture.
- Allison Rodman, GED’05, GED’09, released her second book, Still Learning: Strengthening Professional and Organizational Capacity, with the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD). This thoughtful guide offers a framework for creating and sustaining learning organizations where both students and educators can truly thrive.
- Mimi Romeo, GED’ 01, spent 22 years as a classroom teacher and is now an ESOL teacher, working with students in kindergarten through fourth grade. Her primary role includes supporting English language learners with their grade-level content, while using scaffolds so they can access the curriculum.
- Hanadi Shatara, GED’09, taught in Philadelphia until 2014. She received her doctorate at Teachers College, Columbia University in 2020 and then became an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.
- Michiko Uryu, GED’02, is an assistant professor at San José State University in California. She has been teaching Japanese language and culture for five years. She has also been conducting and presenting her research on intercultural communication in the global age and ideological issues relevant to Japanese heritage speakers in the U.S.
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2010s
- Rohan Arjun, GED’15, served as an interim co-director of community and equity and interim director of financial aid at St. Mark’s School in Southborough, Massachusetts. Then, he became the director of admissions at his alma mater, George School, in Newtown, Pennsylvania, before transitioning to director of enrollment management and financial aid at Friends Select School in Philadelphia in 2021. He writes, “Beyond my primary roles, I have been honored to found and chair the My Brothers’ Keeper: Retreat for Men of Color in Education, a platform dedicated to fostering support and camaraderie among male educators of color navigating predominately white spaces that were not originally established with them in mind.” He also recently started the leadership and learning in organizations doctoral program at Vanderbilt University.
- Beverly Brooks, GED’16, received the College of Wooster’s Outstanding Young Alumni Award, which recognizes an alum with notable early-career achievements and service to the college. Brooks is the director of college counseling at St. Mary’s Episcopal School in Memphis, Tennessee.
- Carlo Cinaglia, GED’16, is a doctoral candidate in the Second Language Studies program at Michigan State University, where he co-edits the graduate student journal, Working Papers in Second Language Studies, and coordinates a peer-mentoring program for applied linguistics graduate students focused on academic socialization and wellbeing. He also works as an editorial assistant for the journal TESOL Quarterly. Although no longer in Philadelphia, he continues to mentor graduate students in the TESOL M.S.Ed. program at Penn GSE during their teaching practicum.
- Amanda Haber, GED’18, is an applied developmental psychologist and assistant professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Fairfield University in Connecticut. Her research examines children’s social-cognitive development and early learning experiences across sociocultural contexts. She studies how children’s school-readiness skills and learning are shaped by conversations and social interactions with caregivers, teachers, and technological devices in informal and formal learning environments. Her work has been published in Journal of Cognition and Development, Early Childhood Research Quarterly, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, and Mind, Brain, and Education.
- Kalyn Higgins, GED’14, writes, “Many of my career opportunities have originated from my studies and time spent at Penn GSE. Prior to writing proposals for the education technology company GoGuardian, I was employed as a full-time teacher and learning specialist. At GSE, I worked as a graduate assistant for Penn Literacy Network, where I had my first opportunity responding to a request for proposal from the NYC Department of Education, which we were granted. My time at Penn GSE was valuable and transformative, and I hope the School continues to inspire students as much as it has inspired me.”
- Mandisa John, C’09, GED’14, completed the Surge Academy as a member of the inaugural Philadelphia cohort. The Surge Academy develops emerging education leaders of color in select cities so that they, as a coalition, can go on to build movements that transform the education space in their own communities. John was also selected for the DiverseForce on Boards program in partnership with ImpactED at the University of Pennsylvania. The program provides nonprofit board training, certification, and matching to facilitate the placement of qualified professionals of color in governance roles.
- Susan Klusmeier, GRD’17, was named chief of staff at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City, Missouri, in September 2023.
- Chris LaTempa, GED’16, is now director of college counseling at Moorestown Friends School in New Jersey.
- Ben Maddox, GRD’16, has been named chief information officer for Cornell’s Ithaca campus and Cornell Tech. He was previously the chief academic technology officer at New York University.
- Adam Morrow, GED’13, recently moved to Seattle and joined Treehouse, a nonprofit that serves children in the foster system, to help expand the impact of its donor community. After a decade of fundraising at Harvard University, he’s excited about Treehouse’s mission, which envisions future leaders, innovators, and dreamers in the children it serves, and creates infrastructure and support to launch those ambitions.
- Edward and Christie Pietrzak, both GED’19, met during their Education Entrepreneurship graduate program in 2019, and tied the knot in July in San Diego, California.
- Victor Shin, GRD’16, was appointed head of high school prep at Holy Trinity: An Episcopal School in Glenn Dale, Maryland.
- Daphne Valcin, GED’10, recently attained a Korn Ferry Leadership Architect (KFLA) training in June, becoming certified to utilize 38 KFLA competencies to align an organization’s business strategy with its talent acquisition, onboarding, and development strategy.
- Yohana Wijaya, GED’19, currently serves as a kindergarten teacher in Jakarta, Indonesia. Her role includes promoting literacy through a rich environment and a curriculum that encourages students to read, write, and develop their literacy skills across multiple subjects. She is also a member of the curriculum team at her school, working to develop a specific and targeted literacy program for K–12 students.
- Cory Zoblin, GED’13, has been teaching in Philadelphia for over a decade. He also helped launch a growing education-based nonprofit, We Love Philly, which helps bring the classroom to the community.
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2020s
- Daniel Blake, GR’20, recently started a tenure-track assistant professor position at Georgia State University. He also recently published in The Journal of Higher Education.
- Sarah Budlow, GED’23, recently started teaching at Muñoz-Marín Elementary School in the Fairhill neighborhood of Philadelphia.
- Kimberlin Butler, GRD’23, recently delivered a convocation address to graduates at the Maxwell School of Public Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.
- Tom Chiang Jr., GED’20, was elected, in November, to the Board of Education in Mountain Lakes, located in Morris County, New Jersey.
- Lucia Cucinotta, GED’23, leads research-based trauma therapy and educational workshops for community members who have been directly impacted by gun violence as part of the Center for Families and Relationships’ Together Through Trauma program.
- Juan Espinoza, GED’22, writes, “I’ve found that your Penn education provides you with boundless possibilities to learn, grow, and develop as a professional and as a human being. Penn allowed me to exercise my creative academic dexterity in ways I didn’t know [were] possible, and it gave me a priceless network of trusted friends, colleagues, and experts that I can always count on. Thank you for the most transformative time of my life!”
- R. Marc Johnson, GRD’21, was promoted to senior associate dean for student engagement and chief strategy and innovation officer at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business. In this role, he leads strategic planning, strategy execution, and innovation initiatives. He is responsible for ensuring exceptional student engagement through the complete experience for its globally diverse student body across all Darden degree programs.
- Kamaljit Kaur, GED’23, continues her Penn journey working at Wharton. She does career counseling for students interested in management consulting, an industry in which she worked prior to her MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
- Neil Larocque, GED’23, recently signed a publishing deal for three books that will be published and marketed in China. The books are about how to effectively teach Shakespeare and feature personal anecdotes from his 20-year teaching career. He is currently working on a novel based on a play he wrote for his students five years ago.
- Leo Lo, GRD’20, currently serves as the dean of the College of University Libraries and Learning Sciences at the University of New Mexico and has been elected as the vice president/president-elect of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). Established in 1940, ACRL serves as the largest division of the American Library Association, representing nearly 9,000 members across various academic and research libraries. This leadership role marks another step in his commitment to advancing the field of library science and underscores his dedication to fostering excellence in academia.
- Jessica Shapiro, GED’22, is now in her second year teaching at Abraham Lincoln High School—the Philadelphia institution where she first learned to teach through Penn GSE’s Urban Teaching Apprenticeship program.
- Huimin Tang, GED’21, is starting a new position as an English language learners (ELL) teacher for students in grades K–9 at Basis International and Bilingual School in Wuhan, China. She is also teaching the English literacy course for sixth and seventh graders.
- Mark Ziegler-Thayer, GED’20, GED’21, was accepted into the U.S. Office of Personnel Management’s Presidential Management Fellows Program. At the U.S. Department of Education, Ziegler-Thayer works as an educational specialist focused on three areas: collaborating with state and local education agencies to support the educational stability of students in the foster care system, managing and analyzing the effectiveness of grants to state and local education agencies, and collaborating with schools to improve the academic and life outcomes for at-risk or marginalized students.
- Submissions have been edited due to space constraints and magazine style guidelines.
Penn GSE partnered with the Center for Professional Learning and student-led affinity group We Support Diversity of Mind (WSDM) to offer pre- and post- engagement opportunities during Homecoming. From left, WSDM Founder Ufuoma Abiola, GED’12, GRD’17, poses with current WSDM President Meghan Shah.Photo credit: HKB Photo
