[ search ]
[ how do i? ]
[ e-mail forwarding ]
[ alumni directory ]

Alumni Achievement Award: Recipients: 2001-2010
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

2006 Recipients:

• John Amaechi ’94 Lib
• Bruce L. Booth ’96 Sci
• George H. Bryan ’96, ’98g, ’03g EMS
• Sanjay Chandran ’97g IDF (Graduate School*)
• Carla J. Hargrove ’97g A&A
• Kristen Eisenbraun Houser ’93 H&HD
• Bryan S. Koontz ’95 Eng
• Jarred L. Romesburg ’98 Com
• Robert Scopinich ’93 Bus (Abgt*)
• Menassie M. Taddese ’97g Bus

* Nominating College, if different from graduating college or campus.

John Amaechi ’94 Lib

John Amaechi is a professional athlete, philanthropist, and motivational speaker.

Amaechi was raised by his single mother in Manchester, England, with his two younger sisters. At 17, he moved to Ohio to attend high school with the hope of a basketball scholarship. At Penn State, he was twice named First Team Academic All-American. Amaechi played for various NBA teams for eight seasons, is the first British player to start an NBA game, and is the only Englishman in the NBA Hall of Fame (inducted in 2000).

Since his retirement from basketball, Amaechi has continued to pursue his PhD in psychology. He donates much of his time to charitable endeavors and has a special interest in youth. Since 1993, he has been the ambassador to Big Brothers/Big Sisters UK, and to the Reading Is Fundamental campaign of the UK National Literacy Trust. He financed the construction of the Amaechi Basketball Centre in Manchester, where local youth receive professional basketball coaching. Amaechi also has his own charity, The ABC Foundation, with a number of philanthropic goals including the creation of a national network of six ABC Centres in the next few years to facilitate community sport as well as re-construct British basketball.

Amaechi is an accomplished motivational speaker with experience addressing corporations, charities, and educational institutions. A regular sport and current affairs pundit for the BBC, ITV, and SKY, he has met on several occasions with the leaders of all three major political parties in the United Kingdom. Amaechi is the face of Sport England's "Everyday Sport" campaign, as well as an ambassador for the London 2012 Olympic Bid.

Bruce L. Booth ’96 Sci

Bruce L. Booth ’96 Sci is currently a principal with Caxton Health Holdings L.L.C., a healthcare-focused investment firm. He focuses on the firm’s private equity activities, ranging from seed stage venture capital through late stage buyouts, across the key life science sectors: biopharmaceuticals, medical devices and technologies, diagnostics, and research tools. Prior to joining Caxton Health he was an associate principal at McKinsey & Company, a global strategic management consulting firm. While at McKinsey, he co-led the firm’s global recruiting of international scholars and advanced professional degree candidates. He earned a doctorate in molecular immunology from the University of Oxford as a British Marshall Scholar. During his graduate studies at Oxford, he also received the Overseas Research Fellowship and served as junior dean of Trinity College.

Booth has authored numerous scientific papers and reviews, including several in Nature Reviews Drug Discovery. He also worked on President Clinton’s Domestic Policy Council in the National Office of AIDS Policy. He is currently an active member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the New York Academy of Sciences, and the New York Biotechnology Association. While at Penn State, Booth earned highest honors in the University Scholars Program, was an Evan Pugh Scholar, and was awarded the Eric A. Walker Award for his contributions to the University community. He currently volunteers his time as a member of the Eberly College of Science’s alumni advisory board and has been actively involved in coaching and recruiting students into the consulting profession. He is married to Anna Booth, whom he met at Oxford, and they have a 1-year old daughter, Evelyn. They reside in Montclair, N.J.

George H. Bryan ’96, ’98g, ’03g EMS

George H. Bryan is a scientist with the Mesoscale and Microscale Meteorology division of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo. Bryan is among the tiny fraction of post-doctoral fellows invited to move into the center's coveted scientist employment track.

A highly sought expert in his field, Bryan has already made fundamental contributions to the field of meteorology. Bryan designed and constructed the Bryan-Fitsch Model, a cutting edge computer model of the atmosphere—an especially daunting task since other models have taken hundreds of man-years to develop. Developed with Penn State Distinguished Professor Emeritus J. Michael Fritsch, the Bryan-Fritsch Model helps scientists understand how thunderstorms form and why some thunderstorm systems are composed of tornado-bearing storms while others produce less destructive thunderstorms. This research has been a catalyst for several new fields of investigation, and Bryan's ideas are already being taught at major universities.

Bryan is a member of the American Meteorological Society's Committee on Mesoscale Processes and acts as a research mentor, teacher, and consultant for several universities and government organizations. At Colorado State University, he teaches cloud dynamics and mesoscale dynamics. He has been a contributor to the Weather Research and Forecasting model, has published numerous papers, serves as a reviewer for the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, and is an associate editor for Monthly Weather Review.

As a student at Penn State, Bryan was a University Scholar and a recipient of numerous awards from the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, the National Weather Service, the Department of Meteorology, and the American Meteorological Society. Bryan also held leadership roles in the Meteorology Honor Society, the Graduate Academic Committee, and the University chapter of the American Meteorological Society.

Bryan lives in Longmont, Colo.

Sanjay Chandran ’97g IDF (Graduate School*)

Sanjay Chandran is the chief executive officer of InnoMed Technologies, Inc., a fast growing, privately held medical devices company in Boca Raton, Fla., and an administrator of Mergenet Medical, a technology incubator that seeks to develop cutting edge health care technologies. The inventor or co-inventor of six issued and 10 pending patents including patents for unique fabrication methods and designs for ultrasonic transducers used in medical imaging, Chandran has developed commercially successful real-time 3D ultrasound and multi-layer piezoelectric transducers. Both of these technologies have a worldwide market currently exceeding $500 million.

Prior to his working at InnoMed, Chandran was a senior executive with GE Healthcare, where he grew the company's global ultrasound probes business from $11 million in annual revenues to more than $40 million in annual revenues in just three years. In 2003, GE Healthcare recognized Chandran with the fastest growing business award.

Chandran began his career as an acoustic engineer for Parallel Design, Inc. (which was acquired by GE Healthcare in 2000) in Tempe, Ariz. In 1999, he was promoted to manage the firm's R&D division comprised of 12 engineers. He has authored or co-authored more than 15 publications on novel sensors and actuator technologies, piezoelectric materials, etc., in leading scientific journals such as Applied Physics Letters and presented at symposia organized by IEEE and SPIE.

At Penn State, Chandran was actively involved in the International Student Council and Indian Student Association. He plays the violin and regularly performs in concerts and with his contemporary world music band "Global Rhythms." He and his wife, Sapna, live in Boca Raton, Fla., with their 3-year-old daughter, Sanjana.

Carla J. Hargrove ’97g A&A

Carla J. Hargrove is living out the dream of many aspiring actresses—she's performing on Broadway in the hit production of Hairspray. Since 2004, Hargrove has played one of Hairspray's Dynamites and from 2003 to 2004, she played street urchin Ronnette in the Broadway production of Little Shop of Horrors.

A native of Harrisburg, Pa., Hargrove earned her bachelor's degree at Howard University where she had the opportunity to tour Hong Kong in the theatre department's production of Dreamgirls. While a student at Penn State, Hargrove appeared in a production of Raisin in the Sun, performing with the late Frances Foster, an Obie-winning actress who appeared in dozens of films and plays and was a founding member of the Negro Ensemble Company.

Following her graduation from Penn State in 1997, Hargrove moved to New York. She made her New York debut in My Brother's Keeper, an off-Broadway show written and directed by Charles Dumas, a Penn State theatre faculty member and Hollywood actor and producer. She then toured with playwright Oliver Goldstick's Dinah Was, a musical about blues singer Dinah Washington. In Dinah Was, Hargrove played multiple roles as Washington's mother, personal assistant, and a kitchen maid.

Hargrove was recognized with the John Barrymore Award for Outstanding Performance by a Supporting Actress in a Musical (2000) and the Black Theatre Alliance Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical (2000), both for her role in Dinah Was.

In addition to acting, Hargrove has also performed with cabaret group LaBro and with New York's Broadway Inspirational Voices, a choir comprised of dozens of Broadway vocalists.

Since graduating from Penn State, Hargrove has maintained her ties to the University, returning to mentor students and to star in the Pennsylvania Centre Stage production of Beehive in June of 2001. Hargrove lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Kristen Eisenbraun Houser ’93 H&HD

Kristen Eisenbraun Houser, as the owner of Moxie Resources, LLC, in Omaha, Neb., provides consulting, training, and public speaking on issues related to sexual violence and prostitution. With 14 years of experience as an educator, victim advocate, program administrator, policy specialist, community activist, and writer, Houser has become a nationally recognized expert in the field of sexual violence.

In 2005, Houser worked to redraft and reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act of 2000 as a member of the National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence. The redrafted act of 2005 was signed into law by President George W. Bush on Jan. 5, 2006.

She has also served as president of the board of directors of the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence, an organization that promotes effective public policy and education programs; was an appointed member of the Nebraska Attorney General's Sexual Assault Task Force; and was a member of the Nebraska Governor's Working Group on the Management of Sex Offenders. Houser has been recognized for her work to end sexual violence by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with the Melba Cope Community Associate Award.

Today, Houser is working with the Iowa Coalition Against Sexual Assault, a service agency for sexual assault victims and those who serve them; is a member of the Violence Against Women Network's Sexual Violence Applied Research Forum; and co-chairs the Dignity Cooperative, a group working to end prostitution in Omaha, Neb.

Houser earned her bachelor's degree in human development and family studies from Penn State in 1993 and a master's degree in public administration from the University of Nebraska-Omaha in 2005. She resides in Omaha, Neb., with her husband, Kevin '93, '97g.

Bryan S. Koontz ’95 Eng

Bryan Koontz is senior vice president and general manager of Discovery Informatics, a division of Tripos, Inc. As a provider of information technology tools for the pharmaceutical drug discovery industry, Discovery Informatics provides software designed to speed and enhance the drug discovery process.

Koontz joined Tripos in January 2005 as vice president of marketing and corporate development. In that position, he was responsible for overseeing worldwide marketing and corporate development activities with a focus on Tripos' Discovery Informatics software business. Tripos' global client base consists of more than 1,000 customers spanning more than 48 countries.

Prior to joining Tripos, Koontz was chief executive officer of Optive Research, Inc., a molecular discovery software company he co-founded in 2002 as a spin-off from research conducted at the University of Texas-Austin. Optive's software for computer-assisted modeling was used in the majority of pharmaceutical companies worldwide, making the process of finding new drugs and agrochemicals faster and more efficient. In 2005, the company agreed to be acquired by Tripos. Before that, Koontz served in a variety of executive roles, including vice president of marketing and business development at Contextual, Inc., an enterprise software company he co-founded. Koontz also held several management positions, including director of business development and director of product management at Trilogy Software, Inc. from 1997 to 1999.

A University Scholar, Koontz earned his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Penn State and his master's degree in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he graduated summa cum laude. A member of the Penn State Alumni Association, Koontz resides in Austin, Texas, with his wife, Susan, and two daughters, Amorelle and Adelaide.

Jarred L. Romesburg ’98 Com

Jarred Romesburg is the president and owner of Romesburg Media, a digital media production company headquartered in Somerset, Pa. Romesburg began his television career in 1989 as a combat cameraman in the United States Marine Corps. He led combat camera teams during operations in the Persian Gulf, Somalia, Kenya, Australia, and the Philippines. Romesburg and his teams received numerous awards for their performance during assignments around the world.

In his 17-year career in electronic media, Romesburg has worked with national cable television, local television, and radio stations. He has also provided expertise to advertising agencies, marketing firms, and production companies throughout western Pennsylvania. Since forming Romesburg Media on June 2000, Romesburg and his crew have been awarded nearly a dozen national and international awards for their video, audio, and television productions including the Telly, Aegis, Axiem, and Communicator Awards for television production excellence. The company's most recent focus has been on the development and distribution of real estate marketing television programming for realty agencies across North America.

Romesburg Media has also entered the motor sports television production arena, providing coverage of racing for regional station FSN Pittsburgh. Romesburg was honored with the Emerging Professional Award from Penn State's College of Communications Alumni Society in 2002 and was named one of the "Top 100 Producers" in the production industry by AV Video Multimedia Producer Magazine.

Romesburg is a member of the National Academy of the Television Arts and Sciences, the Penn State Alumni Association, and the Pittsburgh Radio and Television Club. He and his wife, Sarah, live in Somerset, Pa.

Robert J. Scopinich ’93 Bus (Abgt*)

Robert Scopinich is chief financial officer of the privately owned Goddard Systems, Inc., franchisor of The Goddard School®, a nationwide group of private childcare centers. In this position, Scopinich has financial responsibility for the successful, rapidly growing, and nationally recognized franchisor.

Goddard Systems has more than 200 franchised schools in 28 states. In 2006, for the fifth consecutive year, Entrepreneur magazine recognized The Goddard School as "#1 in Category" for childcare franchises. The company has also been recognized as one of the top 50 worldwide franchise "Up and Comers" by Franchise Times. Over 100 prospective Goddard School franchisees have been qualified and are working to select sites to open schools.

Scopinich began his career with Deloitte & Touche, working with clients in the media, telecommunication, and manufacturing industries. He then took a position as a financial analyst and associate at Wind River Holdings, a privately owned investment company in King of Prussia, Pa. At Wind River, Scopinich analyzed portfolio companies owned by the company and investigated potential acquisitions, including the company's acquisition of Goddard Systems, Inc. Once this acquisition closed, Scopinich accepted the position of CFO with Goddard Systems.

Scopinich is a member of the Pennsylvania Institute for Certified Public Accountants and the American Institute for Certified Public Accountants. He is an active volunteer, having served as a coach for the rowing team at the Roman Catholic High School of Philadelphia and a mentor and career counselor for students at Penn State Abington. A life member of the Penn State Alumni Association, Scopinich lives in Wayne, Pa.

Menassie M. Taddese ’97g Bus

Menassie Taddese is director of finance for the Africa & Middle East (AfME) Pharmaceutical Business at Pfizer Inc. As such, Taddese has financial responsibility for a business that spans more than 10 major markets in these areas generating annual sales of more than $1 billion. As the lead finance support for the AfME area president, Taddese is responsible for analytical review of AfME's financial and business performance.

Taddese began his career as a member of the Pfizer Corporate Finance Rotational Development program in which he completed four international and domestic assignments, including a six-month rotation in PGP Europe Finance. Following the rotational program, Taddese held a series of roles with increasing responsibility in the Treasury and Corporate Finance Divisions of Pfizer. In 2002, Taddese was asked to play a lead role in the corporate finance integration efforts for Pfizer's $60 billion acquisition of Pharmacia.

Taddese holds a bachelor's degree in economics and accounting from Virginia Tech and an MBA from Penn State's Smeal College of Business. While at Smeal, Taddese became a leader among his classmates and graduated from the MBA program with distinction.

Taddese has remained connected to Penn State by serving on the board of the Smeal College of Business Alumni Society. Taddese has also served on the board of the Minority MBA Affiliate Program Group, the alumni group responsible for promoting the personal and professional welfare of Smeal's minority MBA students. Today, Taddese mentors current Smeal students and Smeal alumni who are newcomers to Pfizer. Taddese lives with his wife of two years in Hoboken, N.J.