Class Notes, Fall 2018


January 30, 2020

Earlene Baumunk, BA ’56, is employed by the New Jersey State Human Resources and Department of Environmental Protection as contract administrator. Earlene is now docent at Princeton University Art Museum.

Chris Blick, BA ’04, is putting his economic degree to good use while working on his master’s in public administration at Harvard Kennedy School.

Brooks Boron, BA ’14, is currently practicing labor and employment law in Cleveland, Ohio. In addition to his legal practice, Brooks is currently involved with various Democratic political campaigns around the state of Ohio.

Richard Brown, PhD ’94, is on a one-year detail from the FDIC to serve as senior economist at the Council of Economic Advisers.

Victor Buehrle, BA ’18, is a transfer pricing associate at PwC in the Washington metro area.

Sara Castro, BA ’01, is now a programme expert with the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs working on public governance for the Sustainable Development Goals. She is based in Asia and thinks fondly of her days at GW studying development economics!

Beth Cate, BA ’88, is associate clinical professor of law and public affairs at Indiana University's School of Public and Environmental Affairs.

Richard Church, MA ’73, worked for the United Nations in economic development in developing/least developed countries, for 25 years after graduation. He returned to the USA and joined a Habitat for Humanity affiliate in South Carolina as executive director for 20 years. He is retired now!

Noel Clapp, BA ’15, is a senior consultant at Navigant Consulting in New York, N.Y.

Christopher Dey, BA ‘07, is an assistant district attorney at the New York County District Attorney's Office.

Shawn dos Santos, BA ’06, is working at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill as an accountant at the School of Dentistry.

Sadiq Elamin, BA ’17, is currently working at Vanguard as a fund financial associate. Sadiq is a level 2 CFA candidate after passing the level 1 exam in June 2018.

Sarhana Fernandes, BA ’18, works for Gartner with their Business Services team as a client engagement specialist for the legal, compliance and data privacy product.

Alexander Gallo, BS ’09, is a senior consultant with Deloitte's federal analytics practice. He currently resides in Washington, D.C., with hobbies including tennis, real estate and the ever-improving local restaurant scene.

Alicia García Herrero, PhD ’03, is still living in Hong Kong and working as chief economist for a French investment Bank, Natixis. She is also an adjunct professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and senior research fellow for Brussels-based think tank, Bruegel.

Lowell Glenn, PhD ’00, is the department chair of finance and economics at Woodbury School of Business, Utah Valley University. UVU is the largest university (designated in 2008) in Utah with 40,000 students. There are eight graduate programs including MBA & MAcc.

James Hacker, BA’ 09, is currently principal consultant to the California Senate Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review. He lives in Sacramento.

Austin Hansen, BA ’17, is a business analyst working with Deloitte Consulting's Government and Public Services (GPS) practice. He currently supports Deloitte's GPS CEO as the firm integrates its federal, state, local, and higher education practices.

Jessica Horewitz, BA ’90, (PhD), is a senior vice president in Nathan Associates Litigation and Expert Services practice specializing in product liability and mass tort matters. She is often retained by counsel to both consult and testify.

Monica Huddleston, BA ’75, was the former two-term mayor of Greendale, Mo. She is happily retired and serving as volunteer on Boards of Great Rivers Greenway, Incarnate Word Academy, and more in the STL area. She is married 20 years to Lamarr Huddleston.

Peter Joyce, BA ’14, currently serves as a transportation planner in the D.C. Region focusing on public transit.

Alex Khalil, BA ’18, has recently taken a position as a real estate development analyst at the Neighborhood Housing Services of Los Angeles County. His responsibilities include underwriting prospective real estate development investments for company consideration.

Grant LaFarge, BS ’09, is based in Scandinavia and working in the mobile game industry as a project manager for new games in development.

Scott Laughery, BA ’07, completed his PhD in economics at the University of Virginia in 2016 and is currently working on health care issues at the Congressional Budget Office.

Aidan Lawson, BS ’18, is analyzing financial crises at the Yale Program on Financial Stability for the New Bagehot Project.

Marcelle Little Dawes, BA ’14, is currently a 1L at Brooklyn Law School.

Kaitlyn Long, BA ’07, advises decision-makers on economic and market conditions for the trucking industry at the Teamsters Union. She is also consulted on union contract negotiations.

T. Manson, BA ’75, say that the professors in the Economics Department taught him how to think critically and analytically. Throughout his legal career, he has applied economic analysis to legal problems, as taught by the economics department.

Kevin Marshack, BA ’15, is finishing his final year of law school at UC Berkeley and will then join the law firm Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy in New York, N.Y., working on a mix of complex financial transactions. He previously interned at the N.Y. Fed.

Matt McGauley, BA ’02, is currently developing more than 145,000 square feet of new mixed-use commercial real estate in Chattanooga and was recently appointed to the board of directors of First Volunteer Bank.

Leslie Megyeri, BA ’63, went on to earn a law degree and MBA from GW and he retired from the House Judiciary Committee of the U.S. Congress. He met his wife at GW and on their first date, they walked to the National Mall to hear MLK's "I Have a Dream” speech.

Denis Miller, BA ’84, other wise known as "The Floodman," is the owner of Denis A Miller Insurance Agency Inc in Long Beach, N.Y. He had Professor Pelznman and Vincy Fon as professors at GW.

Sidney Needelman, BA ’04, reached his one-year anniversary as a partner and the chair of the Insurance Defense Department of a Miami based multiple discipline law firm, marking over a decade as an attorney in South Florida.

Dara Nikolova, BS ’16, is a consultant at the Boston Consulting Group!

Kirt Nilsson, BA ’92, is chief operating officer of Charter School Capital, a Portland-based niche finance company empowering charter schools nationwide with working capital and facilities financing.

Paul Organ, BS ’14, is in the second year of the joint PhD program in economics and business at the University of Michigan, focusing on public finance and taxation.

Rhona Pavis, BA ’64, is now doing research, analysis and writing for a government contractor.

Fernando Petrassi, MA ’97, works at an international police cooperation service within the Italian Ministry of Interior and lives in Rome, Italy.

Solomon Polachek, BA ’67, Distinguished SUNY-Binghamton University professor, had his volume Transitions Through the Labor Market: Work, Occupation, Earnings and Retirement edited with Kostas Tatsiramos  published by Emerald Press.  

Anne Richards, BA ’76, MA ’79, PhD ’84, will always be grateful to the wonderful professors in the Economics Department. She lives in Connecticut.

Virginia Robano, PhD ’12, is now managing director of an innovative postgraduate program in DataScience, blending remote and presential courses from international and Uruguayan universities. The new diploma is going to start in May 2019 in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Joel Schechter, BA ’76, is focusing on cultured pearls from China. He built up his company HONORA into a major importer, and sold the company to a Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary in 2013. He still travels to China to buy, and is the on air guest for HONORA on QVC.

Pooja Shah, BA ’14, is an associate at Covington & Burling, LLP.

Charles Silverston, BA ’92, is a serial entrepreneur, principal of Unlimited Sotheby's International Realty where he is recognized as one of the top real estate agents in the United States by real trends. He owns Paris Creperie Cafe, Paris Seaport Bar/Cafe in Boston.

Matthew Smith, BA ’13, graduated from UCLA School of Law in May 2018. He then joined the law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP in Los Angeles, Calif., as part of the Global Project Finance practice group.

Tatyana Smolyansky, BA ’18, is working as a marketing specialist for the LexisNexis Risk Solutions Government division.

Bob Sugarman, BA ’69, continues to practice employee benefits and union-side labor law in South Florida. He is currently working with his firm's municipal pension plan clients on using pension fund assets to promote local infrastructure investments.

Daniel Uslander, BA ’77, has been involved in derivatives and foreign exchange trading for over 30 years. He is currently an industrial metals specialist in the New York City office of High Ridge Futures LLC.

Nicholas Vanden Heuvel, BA  ’16, is currently enrolled at the University of St. Thomas Law School in Minneapolis, Minn. He is working for private attorneys and the Public Defenders Office.

Bena Varughese, BA ’03, is a lawyer practicing in New York, N.Y. She resides in New Rochelle, N.Y., with her husband and daughter.

Jaime Velazquez, PhD ’02, with the help of the U.S. Council for Economic Education, formed the Mexican Council for Economic and Financial Education (CMEEF). CMEEF is an extensive network of trainers and university based centers developed.

Maria Mercedes White, BA, MA ’95, worked as transportation planner for the Virginia Department of Transportation and the City of Alexandria.

Greg Zarelli, BA ’77, went on to the University of Wisconsin, Madison, for his master’s and had a successful career as an airline economist for three different airlines. In 1992, he decided to go back to medical school at Baylor in Houston and is now a practicing neurologist.