Class Notes, Spring 2019


January 30, 2020

Haitham Alaini, BA ’91, is living in the United Arab Emirates working in construction, mostly in energy.

Niels-Hugo Blunch, PhD ’06, was promoted to professor of economics at Washington and Lee University last year. He is currently working on a consulting assignment with the World Bank on the Ghana Case Study related to the bank's Human Capital Project.

Bryan Burcat, BA ’16, is attending law school at the Georgetown University Law Center.

Arnold Croddy, Jr., MA ’83, is a retired minister-counselor from the Department of State's Foreign Service. He served as acting deputy assistant secretary of state for science and health, director of the office of development finance and in various other economic positions.

W. Thomas Curtis, BA ’81, was recently asked to chair the Economics Department Alumni Organization. He is hopeful that we can involve alumni in at least three lectures over the year as well as have other exciting events for alumni.

Philip De Turk, BA ’54, is currently in Rio en route to completing an around the world (So. America) trip on the Prisendam. His degree has helped him compute whether he had sufficient resources for such a jaunt. He did.

Thomas Fales, BA ’07, joined the Army National Guard JAG Corps and is attending the Judge Advocate General's Legal Center and School at Charlottesville, Va., in 2019. He is an associate counsel at the Board of Veterans' Appeals in D.C.

Lane Farrell, BS ’15, launched a retail commercial insurance brokerage called The Farrell Group.

MAJ Jeffrey Feser, BA ’06, currently just returned from Iraq where he deployed in support of Inherent Resolve to help rebuild Mosul and return businesses following its liberation. He just restationed to Kansas City where the army sent him to advanced military studies program.

Aya Fisher, BA ’06, has launched a wellness business which provides curated retreats, workshops and corporate programs to help people level up in their lives.

James Hacker, BA ’09, is currently principal consultant to the California Senate Committee on budget and fiscal review. He lives in Sacramento.

Monica Huddleston, BA ’75, is a retired mayor, of the city of Greendale, Mo. She served two four-year terms and is still active in the local community, volunteering, serving.

Denis Jacques, BA ’61, liked economics, but ended up with law. He is a retired IRS Estate Tax Attorney in San Francisco, Calif.

Nianci Lyu, BA ’17, went to work for Deloitte Consulting after graduation. In 2018, she came back to D.C. and started working for the Mayor's Office of Budget and Finance.

Leslie Megyeri, BA ’63, is now retired. He travels and is active in the National Ski Patrol, and actively manages his assets. His GW education greatly assisted him in obtaining a comfortable financial portfolio. Professor Kendrick's emphasis on financial responsibility impacted his life.

Dionne Middlebrooks, BA ’15, says the Department of Economics did a phenomenal job in building the groundwork for a wonderful entry level career.

Bradford Muir, BA ’11, and his wife, Nicole Muir (Alcamo), BA ’10, welcomed their first child, Anthony, into the world in March 2018. Brad and Nicole met while working at the Colonial Connection as undergrads and now live and work in Maryland.

Jung Hyun Nam, BA ’19, is in South Korea, working at the Korea Institute of Finance and is waiting for his graduate admission results.

John Northington, BS ’15, left the Private Funds Group at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP in October 2018 to join PJT Partners' New York office as an analyst in their secondary advisory group.

Dara Novini, BS ’14, began his master's this past fall at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business to obtain his MBA after spending four years in risk management at Fannie Mae.

Virginia Robano, PhD ’12, is the director of the CoLAB, an innovation lab whose first alliance is with MIT and Harvard Law School to offer the program in data science in Uruguay, a postgraduate degree. https://datascience.edu.uy/

George Santopietro, BA ’78, is now serving as assistant provost for academic operations and interim associate dean of the College of Graduate Studies and Research at Radford University, Radford, Va.

Matt Schrader, BA ’07, recently joined the Alliance for Securing Democracy at the German Marshall Fund as a china analyst. In this role, he researches how PRC authoritarian influence endangers democratic societies around the world, and how policymakers should respond.

Virat Singh, BS ’17, got a MS in economics from DePaul on a full scholarship. Virat worked with the World Bank and JPal and is now going in for a PhD in the fall of 2019.

Paige Spangler, BA ’14, completed her master's in special education. She is working as a special education mathematics teacher at KIPP DC College Preparatory where she earned Teacher of the Year.

Daniel Uslander, BA ’77, was just made an associate director of Currency Transfer Limited, an innovative software company that enables fast and efficient foreign exchange transactions for individuals and corporations.

Zach Vosburg, BA ’10, works for FMI Capital Advisors in Denver, Colo., doing middle market investment banking in the building products and construction industry.

Alex Wang, MA ’18, is currently working for CBRE, a commercial real estate company, in Washington D.C.

Nicolas Zaia, BA ’18, graduated with a BA in economics after four very exciting years in D.C. He now works as an analyst at a wealth management firm in Miami, Fla.

Jiahao Zhu, BA ’17, is now pursuing a career in investment. He looks forward to connecting with GW alumni.

Mu Zuo, MA ’13, was very glad to receive this email. Since graduating, she came back to Beijing working at one of the biggest assets management company. Mu got married to a guy from GW as well and shares, “Life goes pretty well. Loving u, GW!!!”