ALUMNI MENTOR DIRECTORY

Kim Boller

Title: Senior Research Psychologist, Mathematica Policy Research, Princeton, NJ
Phone: 609-275-2341
Email

I evaluate programs for children and families here and abroad, including Head Start, Early Head Start, child care programs and most recently, home visiting programs to prevent child maltreatment. The company I work for, Mathematica Policy Research, has successfully hired a number of people from Villanova, including a few from Honors!

Amy Davies

Title: Director of MPA Programs, Harvard Kennedy School
Phone: 617-496-1100
Email

Areas of Expertise/Interest:  higher education administration, non-profit management, crisis and conflict management.

Amy Davies is the Director of MPA programs at the Harvard Kennedy School, managing the 2 year and 1 year Masters in Public Administration Programs. Prior to joining HKS, Amy worked for just under 10 years in national and regional roles for the U.S. Office of Habitat for Humanity International. At HFHI, she led the organization’s U.S. Policy Committee and the effort to create its first national policy standards and quality assurance process. She also helped create the organization’s internal crisis and conflict management department. Earlier in her career Amy worked with Accenture. She graduated with an MPA from Harvard in 2010 and with a BA in Honors from Villanova University in 1998.

Amanda Epting

Title: Program Coordinator-Livelihoods, Program Advancement, Pact
Email

Areas of expertise/ interest: international development, economic empowerment, SE Asia

After graduating with a BA in History from Villanova in 2008, Amanda worked in fundraising and communications for the American Red Cross and the Rotary Foundation before transitioning to direct programmatic work overseas. She has lived in Peru and Cambodia, working first for an education focused nonprofit supporting the organization's micro-finance and sustainable livelihoods enterprise for women and then for Pact in Cambodia supporting their women's empowerment and savings program, WORTH. Amanda is an international development professional currently working for Pact in Washington, DC focused on Livelihoods programming.

Cayce Farina

Title: Outpatient Therapist, Progressions Behavioral Health Services, Inc., Pottstown, Pennsylvania
Email

Areas of Expertise/Interest: Higher Education, Outpatient Counseling, Family Counseling, Motivational Interviewing, Pastoral Counseling

After graduating from Villanova in 2010 with a BA in English, Cayce worked for the Honors Program as their Program Assistant while she pursued her Master's Degree at Villanova in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. She completed internships in counseling through Campus Ministry at Villanova and in Rosemont College's Counseling Center. Cayce graduated with her MS in 2015 and first worked at Eagleville Hospital as a therapist for inpatient populations with co-occurring mental illness and substance use disorders. She now works as an outpatient therapist for Progressions Behavioral Health, counseling populations of all ages on a variety of clinical issues. She is happy to speak with undergraduates/post-graduates interested in the counseling field or with questions about applying to graduate school.

 

Terry Filicko (Theresa M)

Title: Associate Professor at Clark State College in Ohio. 

Email 

Phone: 614-571-8193

Interests: PoliticalScience and College Success

 

Ryan Flynn

Title: Consultant, Education, The World Bank, Mid-Atlantic/Washington DC
Email

Interests: international development, education policy, skills and jobs, global governance, multilateral institutions, East Asia, China

Ryan graduated from Villanova in 2008 with a BA in Honors, using the flexibility of the Honors program to craft a multidisciplinary degree focused on international economics, social and political theory, and languages. His Honors dissertation focused on the political economy of ethnicity in China, where he studied abroad. Ryan has earned a Masters in International Development from the London School of Economics. Upon graduation from LSE he lived in Taiwan and China to continue studies in Chinese funded by a Fulbright-Hays grant and a scholarship from the Taiwanese government. Ryan's work experience includes placements with a NGO working on fair trade issues in London, a magazine in Beijing and as a substitute teacher.  He currently works with the World Bank in Washington DC.

Katrine Herrick

Title: Project Coordinator, Safe Babies Court Teams, ZERO TO THREE (non-profit that works for the healthy development of infants and toddlers
Phone: 908-675-7602
Email

Areas of expertise/interest: Child Development, Policy, Planning

After graduation I worked as a lobby associate for 11 months at NETWORK, a National Catholic Social Justice Lobby.  In this position I worked in Washington, D.C. for Comprehensive Immigration Reform and housing rights in Iraq. After NETWORK I went to Tufts for a dual Masters in Child Development and Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning. It was a two year degree that resulted in a focus on child and family policy. During my time at Tufts we were required to do an internship. I interned with ZERO TO THREE in D.C. and was hired during my second year of graduate school. I work on the Safe Babies Court Teams Project at ZERO TO THREE. The project aims to help judges and professionals working with maltreated infants and toddlers in jurisdictions nationwide use brain science to make better decisions about placements, visitation orders and service needs. In this capacity I do grant writing, write progress reports, run data reports,and provide technical assistance and training on issues like Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders.

Jeanne Marie Hoffman

Title: Deputy Director of Academic Programs at Institute for Humane Studies
Phone: 703-993-4880
Email

I work in Non-Profit Management. I'm the Deputy Director of my department and I do personnel management, grand writing, and project management at an educational non-profit. 

I direct the new academic networking website, Kosmos Online, and our Career Development Programs. I also work with legal academics, as well as lawyers involved in public interest law.

Brittany Parisi

Title: Manager, National Foundation Partnerships at Teach For America
Email

At Teach For America, I manage a portfolio of national foundations who give national and multi-regional grants to the organization. This includes a degree of program development knowledge, non-profit finance and budgeting, grant writing, and relationship-building skills. Before this role, I worked as the Special Education Manager at Success Academy Charter Network, coaching special education teachers and coordinating org-wide professional development. I was a 2010 Teach For America corps members in Philadelphia immediately after graduating from Villanova. I taught middle school special education for two years in a low-income school and obtained my Masters in Urban Education from the University of Pennsylvania.  

I'm more than happy to connect with anyone interested in education reform and/or non-profit development.

Morgan Perry

Title: Cabrini Missioner (Year of Service)
Phone: 203-228-1628
Email

Areas of Expertise/Interest: Bachelor of Arts, Honors Program and Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. I also followed the pre-med track and can answer questions about the process.

I am a 2015 graduate that majored in Psychology and also completed the Honors Oral Exam Capstone. In addition, I followed the pre-medical track and hope to attend medical school in the next few years. For the next year I will be completing a year of service at Cabrini College in the role of a Cabrini Missioner. My primary work will be with campus ministry and social justice. I am more than happy to meet with or speak with anyone.

Jenna Troup, MSc

Title: Public Health Analyst, RTI International
Email

I am a 2011 graduate of CLAS, where I studied Global Interdisciplinary Studies and French. After a brief stint in Research and Development at Pfizer, I earned a Master of Science degree from the Harvard School of Public Health. While in grad school, I pursued internships and coursework focused on healthcare policy and finance, information technology and innovation, chronic disease, and social determinants of health, with a strong focus on strategy and program development. I am now a Public Health Analyst at RTI International, a research and consulting organization which works largely on Federal Government contracts. I am currently part of a team working to implement parts of the Affordable Care Act focused on hospital finance and healthcare quality.

Chelsea Woods

Title: Reference Library Associate, Paterson Public Library
Email

Areas of Expertise/Interest: Community development, youth services, literacy, and education                              

Chelsea Woods is a librarian who earned her MLIS in Library Science from Rutgers University. She decided on librarianship after an undergrad degree in English at Villanova University and a brief stint abroad at Oxford University, where she worked on her senior Honors thesis. She also enjoys aggressively reading, sewing, knitting and cooking.

Conor Adam Logan

Title: Creative Artists Agency (Los Angeles, CA) and Booyah Consulting
Phone: 818-415-1918
Email

Areas of Expertise: Identity Management Consulting, Information Technology, Oriental Medicine, New Media Relations, Professional Drummer

Conor Logan graduated from Villanova University in 2001 with a job already secured with PricewaterhouseCoopers, in Los Angeles. After time with PwC, Conor chose to re-invigorate his musical life, joining the rock group SHELTER and travelling the world as a drummer. After gaining contacts in the music world he continued playing and touring, all the while keeping up his IT career. He continued to move up in the Information Technology world, eventually reaching the architect level within Identity Management practices at iRise, Kaiser Permanente, Southern California Edison and, now, Creative Artists Agency.  Logan has been married for seven years to actress Zena Leigh Logan, continues to play professionally around Los Angeles and has gone back to medical school for a focus in Oriental Medicine. He plans to graduate in 2013 and start his own clinic in the Silverlake area.

Alyssa Nazar

Title: User Experience Specialist, Technical Operations Analyst
Phone: 908-377-8985
Email

Areas of Expertise: User Experience, Human-Computer Interaction, Interface Optimization, Interface Development, Business-Technology

I developed the Honorable Mention web application for the Villanova Honors Department. This truly sparked my interest in technology. I interned over the summer of 2014 with a local technology-startup, called roundCorner, and was their user experience specialist and software product management intern. In the summer of 2015, I am starting work with Bloomberg LP in Princeton, NJ, at their Global Data headquarters. My position is new and I will be innovating their processes for interface optimization and providing them with user experience analyses for internal company products.

Colleen Curry

Title: Digital Report and Field Producer, ABC News, NY
Email

I'm a Digital Report and Field Producer for ABC News and based in New York. I'm a general assignment reporter, which means I cover all sorts of national news stories on a daily basis, contribute reporting to our news programs and write stories for ABCNews.com. Before this I was a beat reporter for a print newspaper in New Jersey, and worked in the digital space as a founding editor of a hyperlocal news website.

Austen Farrell

Title: Chief Marketing Officer at the University of Rhode Island Foundation
Email

Expertise/interest: Austen started as an editor in the publishing industry before making a transition to higher ed. He held a variety of writing, editorial and communications management roles at Bryant University, Harvard University, and Tufts University before his current position at the URI Foundation. Types of work include creating copy for websites and catalogs, reviewing books, planning website content and information architecture, writing nonprofit funding proposals, profiling scholars and their research and developing print and digital messaging strategy. He has also published short fiction, and has a master's degree in classics with a focus on Greek comedy.

Nick Martorelli

Title: Manager, RHPS eBook Production and Distribution, Random House Publishers, New York, NY
Email | Work Email

Expertise/Interests: Publishing, digital publishing, comic books, acting/production, Sherlock Holmes

Nick came to Villanova to study English and theatre. After graduating as an English major in 2003, he worked as a professional actor in both theatre and film. After getting more interested in theatre production and management, he decided to retire from a life onstage and pursue a new career in the world of book publishing. He attended the 2011 Summer Publishing Institute at NYU, and from there found a job in digital production at HarperCollins Publishers in New York. He left Harper after two years to take a position with the Random House Publisher Services group, where he manages the production and distribution of eBooks for a large group of client publishers that work with Random House.

Lauren Piro

Title: Assistant Editor, Ladies' Home Journal (Meredith Corporation), New York
Email

Areas of Expertise: Magazine Editing, Journalism, Digital Media, Social Media, Book Publishing 

Lauren Piro '09, is an assistant editor at Ladies' Home Journal, where she writes, edits, blogs, tweets and opens an obscene amount of mail (the life of a book reviewer and holiday gift guide editor does come with perks...and paper cuts.) Before she landed her position at LHJ (her first full-time gig in magazines), she was a freelancer at Martha Stewart Living, This Old House and Good Housekeeping. And prior to that, she spent her years at Nova toiling away on Tuesday nights in The Villanovan office, and eating way too many Connelly cheese fries. She loves hearing from Villanova students looking for someone to chat with about magazines, publishing and digital media.

 Lisa Tomaszewski, PhD

Title: Director of Medical Communications at HMP Communications
Email

Areas of expertise/interest: Medical publishing, marketing, project management, editing, writing, travel writing

Although I began my career pursuing a professorship in Brit Lit, my winding path has led me to some interesting places. As I was working on my PhD dissertation I took a job at a medical publishing company and really enjoyed the work. I switched my dissertation topic from a theatrical bent to a medical humanities focus to match my career path. (It became Shakespeare's Doctors.) I have progressed from editing and writing to developing marketing projects. Along the way I have had the opportunity to work on topics beyond clinical medicine including personal finance and travel. I have gathered enough travel writing experience to gain membership in the Society of American Travel Writers and I work on Convention City Guides in my current position (in addition to clinical projects).

 

Samantha Bromberg

Title: Environmental Planner
Phone: (973) 223-3222
Email

Area(s) of expertise/interest:  Urban Planning, Environmental Review, Sustainability

After graduating from the Villanova University Honors Program in 2019 with a major in Environmental Science, I’ve been working at STV Incorporated as a Planner in New York City. Over the past four years, I’ve served as a consultant for numerous city and state agencies (e.g., MTA, NYC Department of City Planning, PANYNJ, etc.), working on environmental reviews for transit, housing, and climate adaptation projects. My interest in the field really came into focus after a summer doing research on Philadelphia neighborhoods’ air and noise pollution with a Villanova professor. Outside of work, I’m currently focusing on my tennis game (severely lacking!) and volunteering at an urban farm in Brooklyn. I would love to connect with current students interested in similar fields!

 

Eli Roberts

Title: Edible Landscape Designer, Mobile Design Lab, Northampton, MA
Phone: 860-689-4435
Email

I design landscapes that are productive, self-maintaining and carbon-sequestering.

I graduated in 2008 with a Psychology degree and a Business minor, joined Teach for America and taught first- and third grades in New Orleans. The more I learned about neoliberal/corporate education reform, the less I felt like I could make a difference with the level of expertise I had. So two friends and I took a year to design an independent study curriculum for ourselves, and we learned a lot more about education policy, culturally-relevant pedagogy and examples of authentic community-driven school improvement and movement-building. We created a group to support new teachers' critical discussions of race, class and their place in the post-Katrina educational landscape. Around this time, I discovered permaculture design, which mimics relationships found in nature to design useful human ecosystems. I was attracted to its holistic approach and hard-nosed accounting of inputs and outputs, which led me to a sustainable ag fellowship in Virginia, which led to my current work with Mobile Design Lab. So, now I'm interested in how land management/design can be implemented on a large scale to join other movements in addressing food sovereignty, systemic race/class/gender oppression, corporate domination, and getting atmospheric carbon below 350 ppm!

Dena Vallano

Title: AAAS Science and Technology and Policy Fellow at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Email

Areas of Expertise: Ecology, Conservation Biology, Air Quality, Biodiversity, Environmental Policy, Science Communication

Dena Vallano is an ecologist whose work focuses on air quality, climate change, biodiversity and plant physiology. She completed her BS in Biology from Villanova University (2003) and PhD (2009) in ecology and evolutionary biology at Cornell University. Her dissertation was partially funded by an NSF IGERT Graduate Fellowship in Biogeochemistry and Environmental Complexity. She then spent two years as a postdoctoral scholar in the Environmental Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she conducted research on the environmental and policy impacts of atmospheric nitrogen and ozone pollution on California serpentine grasslands. She is currently a AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow on the Innovation Team at the Environmental Protection Agency, where she enjoys working at the intersection of science and policy and developing innovative solutions for complex environmental problems.

Lisa Winter, PhD

Title: Staff Scientist, Atmospheric and Environmental Research
Email

Areas of Expertise/Interest: I can advise about careers in scientific research and graduate studies in the sciences (particularly astronomy/physics). I have experience working in academia, government and industry.

While at VU, I was awarded a 2002 Goldwater scholarship for research and departmental awards for research and academic excellence in astronomy.  Following graduation from VU in 2003, with a BS in Astronomy/Astrophysics and BS in Honors (minor physics), I attended the University of Maryland, College Park.  At UMD, I conducted research at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, receiving a departmental award for academic excellence and obtained my PhD in 2008. I continued research on black hole astrophysics as a post-doc at the University of Colorado at Boulder with the Hubble Space Telescope Cosmic Origins Spectrograph team and subsequently was awarded a Hubble Fellowship for astronomical research. Over this time, I published dozens of scientific articles, presented dozens of seminars/colloquia and traveled extensively to both present my research results and obtain astronomical observations. I am a staff scientist with Atmospheric and Environmental Research working in the field of space weather.

Isabel Tinker

Title: Associate-Brokerage Services, CBRE Global Research and Consulting, Saddle Brook, NJ

Phone: 201-712-5839; 973-432-7026
Email

I started at CBRE in the research department soon after graduating from Villanova. As a liberal arts major, my experience in research has been invaluable in learning the basic tools of real estate, such as Costar and Realquest and the principles of market analysis. I look forward to incorporating my writing skills and market knowledge into what I hope will be a successful sales career.